Elemental v. Enhance (4.3)

[Jinto]

It is hard to say until the changes are finalized :S

[Yumisara]

It all comes down to what you want to play. Melee DPS or Caster? My personal opinion, I like melee dps. But that's also my opinion, so you should do some research on what you want to play.

Also for those who say their DPS is worst in the game, you're generalizing it. For an example, lets say there was an elemental shaman doing 28-30k dps without Bloodlust or whatever, would you say he's the worst class ever? No, you wouldn't. That Shaman knows what he or she is doing. (This is an example.) Hate the player, not the class.

[woopytywoop]

Both are great fun. I am enhance in my raid and occasional resto, and also do pvp as resto.

If i knew a way to switch my UI efficiently when respeccing without loosing all the time on readjusting actionbars and poweraura's, i'd be doing it more often.

[Deleted]

ORLY?
Raidbots, all parses, just ranged DPS. Elemental ahead of Hunters, and despite our terrible AoE which is being fixed in 4.3.
Baleroc, just ranged DPS. No AoE component. Gee, we're at the freaking top.

Raidbots, all parses, just melee. Enhance 3rd from the top.

If you don't know why "top 100" is statistically irrelevant if not outright misleading, you should go read the 'how not to use stateofdps.com' post in our sticky compendium, because I go over the exact statistical math which explains why it's completely meaningless as a balance comparison. Hell, the guy who came up with Raidbots posted in that thread, since it started before Raidbots existed, and was in complete agreement that this was part of why he was creating the tool you're citing.

For elemental, it's all dependant on a single set bonus that probably will get nerfed to the ground so you don't need to take it. It's currently a potential 7k DPS pet, can be even more, so it's 5k DPS more while it's up and 3-4k DPS gain, depending on fight length. Without it, elemental will be at the bottom of DPS. Look at those pages and simply reduce it's DPS by 3-4k DPS and you see what it could be like.

Enhancer DPS looks pretty good, so i think, that will work out to be competitive, especially with that AOE buff (according to simulations).

[Endus]

For elemental, it's all dependant on a single set bonus that probably will get nerfed to the ground so you don't need to take it. It's currently a potential 7k DPS pet, can be even more, so it's 5k DPS more while it's up and 3-4k DPS gain, depending on fight length. Without it, elemental will be at the bottom of DPS. Look at those pages and simply reduce it's DPS by 3-4k DPS and you see what it could be like.

You're both exaggerating how big of a boost the FE is over Searing, and insisting that we lose our set bonus but nobody else lose theirs for comparison. And ignoring that 4.3 will be changing things significantly.

[Syronius]

You're both exaggerating how big of a boost the FE is over Searing, and insisting that we lose our set bonus but nobody else lose theirs for comparison. And ignoring that 4.3 will be changing things significantly.

Just an example of this would be the 10% to 20% change on Blessing of Might, and so on.

The gap between Ele and Enh will grow pretty substantially.

[Radux]

Just an example of this would be the 10% to 20% change on Blessing of Might, and so on.

The gap between Ele and Enh will grow pretty substantially.

I think you're ignoring the reason why they had to make the AP buff. They mentioned the amount of movement in T13 and how it would drastically impact melee dps. Also, given the buff to both spec's AoE mechanics, we can be competitive on fights outside of single target. It's true that Elemental will be losing some dps via loss of perma-FE, but I'm not expecting it to be so bad as to make us not competitive.

[Paf]

I think you're ignoring the reason why they had to make the AP buff. They mentioned the amount of movement in T13 and how it would drastically impact melee dps. Also, given the buff to both spec's AoE mechanics, we can be competitive on fights outside of single target.

And having been on the PTR finally, I would like to alter my stance on "melee will be fine!"

There's a lot of running. A lot of target switching. Even on Morchok, a relatively tank+spank where it was looking to be a fair fight for both, you can fire from behind the stone pillars as ranged while still LoS from the ooze. So, as I said, alter my stance. Not reverse it. Melee will be fine with the new 10% buff.

As far as elemental's two-set, I don't think I would want it in T13. It has the potential to do a lot of stupid things on a lot of fights.

[Filthe]

This is actually something i´ve been thinking on alot lately aswell, but it´s mostly because my group run with 4 melee dpsers and only 2 ranged(we are 10-man exclusively). So we´ve run into a few problems here and there which would be easier with more ranged then melee. So atm i´ve been gearing up my ele offspec, and i might change when 4.3 hits. There are a few fights where i will most certainly be elemental, and the hardmodes might change so i´ll go over to ele all together.
But the reasons for me aren´t simply changing to Ele because it does more dps on the bosses, it also largely depends on what spec will make it easier for my raid to tackle the bosses, especially when we start with heroic Dragon Soul. For the bosses where it won´t matter, i´ll most likely be enha since i´ve played that for ages and play it better.

[jadakada]

You're both exaggerating how big of a boost the FE is over Searing, and insisting that we lose our set bonus but nobody else lose theirs for comparison. And ignoring that 4.3 will be changing things significantly.

How is he insisting that no one else is losing their bonuses? We had the best 2 piece bonus this tier, no other set gives close to as much a DPS boost as ours did. So no one will lose as much DPS as we will. They also didn't outright change other classes 2 piece bonus like they did to us so on day one of patch we basically lose our powerful bonus before we even replace the gear unlike other classes. Seems like common sense to me and should not need to be explained to a shaman moderator but apparently I was wrong.


And what significant changes are we ignoring that you are talking about? Other then a slight buff to lavaburst and no CD on chain lighting I don't see what is going to make up for the flame-tongue change and our loss of tier 12 bonus. But hey, anyone who is complaining is just exaggerating, we top meters on one fight in firelands pre nerf so everything will be fine(no exaggeration there!!!)

Edit: I also like how you exclude frost mages from the the list where we supposedly top the meters, considering they are actually the top range dps on the fight. You basically did the exact thing you called out the other poster of doing.

[Protoman]

Seems like common sense to me and should not need to be explained to a shaman moderator but apparently I was wrong.


And what significant changes are we ignoring that you are talking about? Other then a slight buff to lavaburst and no CD on chain lighting I don't see what is going to make up for the flame-tongue change and our loss of tier 12 bonus. But hey, anyone who is complaining is just exaggerating, we top meters on one fight in firelands pre nerf so everything will be fine(no exaggeration there!!!)

Pretty sure you don't have to explain to Endus what Elemental will gain or lose in 4.3...he could prob explain it better then you.

From my understanding, Elemental does pretty good on single target but not as competitive in multi/aoe target scenarios....the new buffs really help ele fill in that gap so they are more well rounded. Ele has casting on the move too which helps boost their dps where other casters may suffer. The T12 FE set bonus was a crutch, bandaid to temp boost Ele dps and now it's just preventing Blizz from getting a good idea of where Ele DPS actually stands. IF Ele is low, Blizz will buff their single target damage....it may be done before 4.3 is released or after but it will happen if there is an obvious problem.

[Aleksej89]

In 4.3 both got good AoE, good buffs, good dps and good rotation.

Just pick what u like more, il be playing both

[madatom]

tl;dr one's a caster one's a melee.

Raid Standings Difference: Nil

Pick.

oh hello paf

[Endus]

How is he insisting that no one else is losing their bonuses? We had the best 2 piece bonus this tier, no other set gives close to as much a DPS boost as ours did. So no one will lose as much DPS as we will. They also didn't outright change other classes 2 piece bonus like they did to us so on day one of patch we basically lose our powerful bonus before we even replace the gear unlike other classes. Seems like common sense to me and should not need to be explained to a shaman moderator but apparently I was wrong.

Our set bonus is something like a 10-15% DPS increase. Other classes, more like 4-5%. If you say "we're losing 15% DPS compared to everyone else", you're just flat-out wrong, since you either need to include our new set bonuses or NOT include other people's set bonuses. It'll be a nerf, but not as big of a one as people claim when they say we'll lose 4-5k DPS.

And what significant changes are we ignoring that you are talking about? Other then a slight buff to lavaburst and no CD on chain lighting I don't see what is going to make up for the flame-tongue change and our loss of tier 12 bonus. But hey, anyone who is complaining is just exaggerating, we top meters on one fight in firelands pre nerf so everything will be fine(no exaggeration there!!!)

The Flametongue change isn't really a nerf. Our DPS on day 1 will be lower, but it scales up to a buff by the time you're in Tier 13 BiS gear, almost certainly; when I ran the math, the amount of additional DPS we'd need was less than how much our DPS improves going from Tier 11 BiS to Tier 12 BiS. Since we'll see a similar upgrade in T13, it won't be a nerf, speaking long-term.

The AoE changes will boost our average DPS in any AoE-based fight. For a fight like Beth'tilac or Rhyolith, we'd probably do more DPS on day 1 of 4.3 than we do now.

And the new Tier 12 bonus isn't THAT big a nerf. It's arguably strong enough still to outweigh getting our T13 4-piece bonus. Pretending it's worth nothing is again not an honest comparison.

Edit: I also like how you exclude frost mages from the the list where we supposedly top the meters, considering they are actually the top range dps on the fight. You basically did the exact thing you called out the other poster of doing.

I excluded them because, if you look, there's a little yellow exclamation mark, which says there isn't enough data for Frost Mages for their information to be statistically certain. I didn't include Destro or BM hunters for the same reason. And really, even if the point is that we're #2 on Baleroc, that doesn't really negate my point when my point was "we're not last by any means".