Elemental Focus is better than Imp SS in my experience, but it's a floating point. I suppose Shamanistic Focus would be a floating point as well, though you'd have to be crazy good at mana management at that point.
shouting out again because it's been a while since I played my shaman.
Started leveling as enhance, recently swapped to elemental. I've had a horrific time sifting through the information regarding specs and glyphs and rotations and all that. Before I get too involved in elemental, is it still the better end game DPS spec?
It's not the kind of difference that is really going to matter in a raid's outcome, though. Spec whichever you enjoy more, or rather whichever provides more buffs to your raid's comp (probably enhancement, but not necessarily if those buffs are already covered).
I cant decide on whether to continue using shard of the Crystal heart, or switch out 6 gems for hit and use Whispering Fang Skull.
I've currently already got 3 hit gems, a few haste gems, then some expertise and AP gems. (all mixed and matched so I can be at the Hit and Expertise cap)
Anyone offer some advice to help out this guy? He has been on trial 3 weeks (trials are 1-2 weeks max) and has shown some improvement but we are considering dropping him due to poor dps. He is raid aware, avoids stuff, switches targets and all that but his dps is lacking and we are at the point we just can't afford it. Here is our log for tonight.
I noticed he didn't have his meta active so i'll get him to fix that (he got a new gear piece tonight). Any other advice would be great.
danx on
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
Tell him to respec Enhancement. That'll solve all his DPS problems.
I can't see the logs at work, so I can only opine on my experience, but here's the biggest things that keep ele's back:
-Ditch Chain Lightning in single-target fights. It's, at best, at 0.03% DPS increase for almost double the mana throughput.
-Plan your movement. Like before the raid. Movement rapes elemental DPS more than anything else. You should know, for example, exactly where and how far you'll move when Bonestorm comes for you, depending on where you are in a rotation, because unless you *will* die, you better be using Lava Burst on cooldown.
-Don't clip your Flame Shock! That's huge. I can't even stress that enough. The *only* time where you can justify clipping FS is when not clipping means waiting a GCD for Lava Burst.
-Are you raiding with a Demo Lock? If yes, drop searing totem: +500-750 dps, YMMV. If no, suck it up, critbitch.
I'm pretty sure you can distill most class leveling in the same manner.
This is probably true, this is my first caster. I have been playing since release.
Holy crap really?
It took me a while to warm up to casters, but shaman and mages are the only two I can really tolerate playing (and even then the shaman is a hybrid). Priests and warlocks just don't do it for me.
Vanilla -> Rogue, Warrior, Hunter
BC -> Hunter, Rogue
WOTLK - Druid, Warrior, Rogue. Druid was my first healer, something I learned to love, hence the shaman.
TheCrumblyCracker on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited April 2010
Healing is the one thing in the game I don't get. The most I've done for healing is dedicated heals for level 20 / 30 stuff and spot healing on my shaman.
Ele doesn't scale terribly well in the tip top of gear.
I'm feeling exactly the same about enhancement.
I press mah buttons as they light up, my rotation is good, but I'm still behind on damage.
ele/enhancement dps isn't anything to write home about, generally. Truly, dps shamans and boomkin are the last bastion of the dreaded hybrid tax. That's not to say that if you put in the research, gear accordingly, and have an understanding guild, you can't put out decent numbers; but other class/specs will tend to perform better dps-wise in similar environments. Currently, that's just the way it is. I suggest all shaman dropping healbitch as their offspec and going elemental pvp to brighten up your day and shit right in the mouth of undergeared pvp-ers
As for your shaman raidy guy who's underperforming, it looks like a combination of things: poorly itemized gear means he's struggling to be hit capped (he has a lot of hit gems in his gear), he's got a lot of spirit/mp5 on his gear that could be spellpower/haste/crit/not-regen, he's also without any kind of tier bonuses.
Tell him to start using his badges towards elemental tier gear so that he can replace the pieces he has. Also, try and guild-run voa10/25 with him along so he can get some charity gloves/pants out of the deal and move towards that sexy 4-piece bonus all the quicker.
Frankly, elemental dps-ers need to take what they can get-- namely decent t10 set bonuses and offpiece items that don't have 20% of their itemization budget kicked in the ass by spirit/mp5. If he's a liability now, just bench him or whatever until he gets the badges/VoA's necessary to have some better gear come his way, then bring him in as you can afford. That said, he should be putting out better numbers-- ask him if he's dropping searing totem and keeping it up near 100% uptime. It looks like you have a demo lock in the raid, so wrath is pretty much worthless outside of the 5-minute glyphed self-buff.
Woo, got my Shamalamading-dong to 80 last night. I was already doing so well pre-80, I slipped right into some heroics immediately, and STILL topped charts
So what's the haste cap/soft cap on Elemental? As much as I've enjoyed Elemental, is enhancement a good competitor for DPS? Seems like multi-target (chain lightning) will beat out single target a bit easier... yeah?
Woo, got my Shamalamading-dong to 80 last night. I was already doing so well pre-80, I slipped right into some heroics immediately, and STILL topped charts
So what's the haste cap/soft cap on Elemental? As much as I've enjoyed Elemental, is enhancement a good competitor for DPS? Seems like multi-target (chain lightning) will beat out single target a bit easier... yeah?
Well, the cap is defined by when your spells are as fast or faster than the GCD, so the soft cap would be whatever haste you have + whatever procs you have to make that happen.
Honestly, the hard cap isn't something you should realistically be running up against as elemental; leave that concern to your healbitch brethren.
As for dps, they're pretty close in all fields, honestly. the lower cooldown on chain lightning doesn't make as big a difference as you may think; magma totem + using fire nova on cooldown is going to be your biggest source of aoe dps, and the difference between the ele chain lightning and enhance chain lightning is a couple seconds, stormstrike, and spell priorities.
Honestly, no shaman should choose ele/enhance based on some theoretical dps cap. Choose based on what you want, and maybe based on what your favorite raid usually needs (TBH enhancement generally provides a more unique buff in improved windfury and beefy SoE...)
There are haste breakpoints in terms of Lightning Bolts per Lava Burst, the cap isn't really reachable.
I think whatever gives your LB a 1.6 cast time...something around 700-800, I think?
ironzerg on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited April 2010
I want to level my Shaman so bad, but I see the Heirloom items sitting there staring at me, and so I force myself to play my 80 DK (which I am very bored with), to grind badges....which I am doing very slowly, because it's boring....because I really want to be playing my Shaman, but then I remember the heirloom items...
There are haste breakpoints in terms of Lightning Bolts per Lava Burst, the cap isn't really reachable.
Isn't the haste cap 1 second? With BL and EM I hit around 0.93 s per lightning bolt. Not that it really hinders dps. It does look awesome to have bolts flying machine gun like with extra ones from overload procs.
I want to level my Shaman so bad, but I see the Heirloom items sitting there staring at me, and so I force myself to play my 80 DK (which I am very bored with), to grind badges....which I am doing very slowly, because it's boring....because I really want to be playing my Shaman, but then I remember the heirloom items...
Heirlooms items are not required for leveling. If you want to play your Shaman, then dammit man play your Shaman!
There are haste breakpoints in terms of Lightning Bolts per Lava Burst, the cap isn't really reachable.
Isn't the haste cap 1 second? With BL and EM I hit around 0.93 s per lightning bolt. Not that it really hinders dps. It does look awesome to have bolts flying machine gun like with extra ones from overload procs.
Once you have that much haste, you shouldn't use EM and BL together
I want to level my Shaman so bad, but I see the Heirloom items sitting there staring at me, and so I force myself to play my 80 DK (which I am very bored with), to grind badges....which I am doing very slowly, because it's boring....because I really want to be playing my Shaman, but then I remember the heirloom items...
Heirlooms items are not required for leveling. If you want to play your Shaman, then dammit man play your Shaman!
I was so glad to rip those heirlooms off the second I hit 80. They were really holding me back... and looked hideous. Now I've got some hot all-black robes going on...
GPIA7R on
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I want to level my Shaman so bad, but I see the Heirloom items sitting there staring at me, and so I force myself to play my 80 DK (which I am very bored with), to grind badges....which I am doing very slowly, because it's boring....because I really want to be playing my Shaman, but then I remember the heirloom items...
Heirlooms items are not required for leveling. If you want to play your Shaman, then dammit man play your Shaman!
But never having to upgrade my weapons (the Masses of McGowan) and +20% XP...it's staring me in the face and I can't look away.
Do you have any Storm Keeper's Shards? If you have 200, just buy the PvP heirloom shoulders. You still get the 10% exp bonus, they're only slightly worse for leveling, and you save 40 emblems.
Posts
Started leveling as enhance, recently swapped to elemental. I've had a horrific time sifting through the information regarding specs and glyphs and rotations and all that. Before I get too involved in elemental, is it still the better end game DPS spec?
Enhancement is kind of a caster/melee hybrid, I wouldn't say it plays too much like Ret. More of an interactive rotation for sure.
Yeah. You can become intimately familiar with the crotches of every boss in the game!
if you play a warrior
I've currently already got 3 hit gems, a few haste gems, then some expertise and AP gems. (all mixed and matched so I can be at the Hit and Expertise cap)
I noticed he didn't have his meta active so i'll get him to fix that (he got a new gear piece tonight). Any other advice would be great.
I'm feeling exactly the same about enhancement.
I press mah buttons as they light up, my rotation is good, but I'm still behind on damage.
This is probably true, this is my first caster. I have been playing since release.
-Ditch Chain Lightning in single-target fights. It's, at best, at 0.03% DPS increase for almost double the mana throughput.
-Plan your movement. Like before the raid. Movement rapes elemental DPS more than anything else. You should know, for example, exactly where and how far you'll move when Bonestorm comes for you, depending on where you are in a rotation, because unless you *will* die, you better be using Lava Burst on cooldown.
-Don't clip your Flame Shock! That's huge. I can't even stress that enough. The *only* time where you can justify clipping FS is when not clipping means waiting a GCD for Lava Burst.
-Are you raiding with a Demo Lock? If yes, drop searing totem: +500-750 dps, YMMV. If no, suck it up, critbitch.
You forgot to add 'drink' after every other 'dead'
Holy crap really?
It took me a while to warm up to casters, but shaman and mages are the only two I can really tolerate playing (and even then the shaman is a hybrid). Priests and warlocks just don't do it for me.
BC -> Hunter, Rogue
WOTLK - Druid, Warrior, Rogue. Druid was my first healer, something I learned to love, hence the shaman.
ele/enhancement dps isn't anything to write home about, generally. Truly, dps shamans and boomkin are the last bastion of the dreaded hybrid tax. That's not to say that if you put in the research, gear accordingly, and have an understanding guild, you can't put out decent numbers; but other class/specs will tend to perform better dps-wise in similar environments. Currently, that's just the way it is. I suggest all shaman dropping healbitch as their offspec and going elemental pvp to brighten up your day and shit right in the mouth of undergeared pvp-ers
As for your shaman raidy guy who's underperforming, it looks like a combination of things: poorly itemized gear means he's struggling to be hit capped (he has a lot of hit gems in his gear), he's got a lot of spirit/mp5 on his gear that could be spellpower/haste/crit/not-regen, he's also without any kind of tier bonuses.
Tell him to start using his badges towards elemental tier gear so that he can replace the pieces he has. Also, try and guild-run voa10/25 with him along so he can get some charity gloves/pants out of the deal and move towards that sexy 4-piece bonus all the quicker.
Frankly, elemental dps-ers need to take what they can get-- namely decent t10 set bonuses and offpiece items that don't have 20% of their itemization budget kicked in the ass by spirit/mp5. If he's a liability now, just bench him or whatever until he gets the badges/VoA's necessary to have some better gear come his way, then bring him in as you can afford. That said, he should be putting out better numbers-- ask him if he's dropping searing totem and keeping it up near 100% uptime. It looks like you have a demo lock in the raid, so wrath is pretty much worthless outside of the 5-minute glyphed self-buff.
tl;dr:
SCREW THAT GUY
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
Exactly. I'm pretty much as skilled at playing as I'll ever get - me still behing way behind on damage is by class design.
Still having fun though.
So what's the haste cap/soft cap on Elemental? As much as I've enjoyed Elemental, is enhancement a good competitor for DPS? Seems like multi-target (chain lightning) will beat out single target a bit easier... yeah?
Well, the cap is defined by when your spells are as fast or faster than the GCD, so the soft cap would be whatever haste you have + whatever procs you have to make that happen.
Honestly, the hard cap isn't something you should realistically be running up against as elemental; leave that concern to your healbitch brethren.
As for dps, they're pretty close in all fields, honestly. the lower cooldown on chain lightning doesn't make as big a difference as you may think; magma totem + using fire nova on cooldown is going to be your biggest source of aoe dps, and the difference between the ele chain lightning and enhance chain lightning is a couple seconds, stormstrike, and spell priorities.
Honestly, no shaman should choose ele/enhance based on some theoretical dps cap. Choose based on what you want, and maybe based on what your favorite raid usually needs (TBH enhancement generally provides a more unique buff in improved windfury and beefy SoE...)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OLcAGbXhWIVcl5IziVpG0eKFJS3xi_Sac9kYMkRFvD8/edit?usp=sharing
I think whatever gives your LB a 1.6 cast time...something around 700-800, I think?
Isn't the haste cap 1 second? With BL and EM I hit around 0.93 s per lightning bolt. Not that it really hinders dps. It does look awesome to have bolts flying machine gun like with extra ones from overload procs.
Heirlooms items are not required for leveling. If you want to play your Shaman, then dammit man play your Shaman!
Once you have that much haste, you shouldn't use EM and BL together
I was so glad to rip those heirlooms off the second I hit 80. They were really holding me back... and looked hideous. Now I've got some hot all-black robes going on...
But never having to upgrade my weapons (the Masses of McGowan) and +20% XP...it's staring me in the face and I can't look away.