Elemental Shaman Guide: 5.4 Edition

[Deleted]

A more powerful Flame Shock doesn't actually buff Ascendance in any way (read: in any way more advantageous than it would normally*). Ascendance doesn't increase the damage of Lava Burst, it just removes the CD, and as such Lava Surge procs if anything mean LESS during Ascendance than outside of it. You should aim to have a full duration Unleash Fury buff up during Ascendance though.

tl;dr Scenario one, but cast UE (with UF) right before you cast Ascendance.

*NB: This is true for just Ascendance. However, you normally combine Ascendance with other buffs (pot, trinkets, Skull Banner ect), and as such it may well be more effective to sync up a more powerful Flame Shock with your Ascendance, but really you are syncing it with these extra external buffs, not with Ascendance itself. As a general tip, I would say its never worth it to cast Flame Shock again unless there is less than ~6 seconds remaining on it (meaning you only 'waste' 1 tick) as most haste buffs only provide an extra 2 ticks. However, if you have 2 or more Haste buffs up at once (Beserking, a Trinket, BL or Meta gem) you are good to refresh flame shock at basically anything below 10 seconds (its not exactly that, but that is a fair guideline to follow).

[Xeonii]

Whole bunch of criticism needed right now.

Ring and Off hand Gear:
(Armory in link)
Rings available: Heroic Extinguished Ember of Galakras, Normal Signet of the Dinomancers, Heroic Laser-slice Signet, Heroic Seal of Eternal Sorrow.
I'm aware that the best HWF off-piece is the gloves, but those aren't available yet. Which rings should I be using given my current gear? I should let you know that Thok has been hiding his tier helm and ring from me for the past 3 weeks or so (10 man guild). The off hand has also been giving me a tough time. I have been using normal Revelations of Y'shaarj, but am looking for Juggernaut's heroic off hand because the stats don't include hit/spirit. Should I be using Nuro's Enigmatic Barrier over Norm Revelations if it drops?

Ascendance:
Making sure to use insta lvb before popping ascendance, using unleash elements before spamming lvb, but when unleash elements comes off CD and I still have a few seconds of ascendance left, is it worth it to use it instead of continuing the chain of lvb? What sort of priority does unleash elements hold?

Also, struggling to get over 2.2m DPS during Heroic Shamans opener. I understand that the boss is farm content, but it's still nice to know I'm doing all I can. Right now my opener is -2 seconds to pull use fire elemental, 0 second Lust, then stormlash (we have 2 shamans, the other is resto, and I use SL first), chain lightning to proc trinkets, meta cloak, etc, and then finally ascendance with lava beam spam. Any comments?

Thanks in advance, and wish us luck in our next few weeks on Siegecrafter

Edit: Anzen, where art thou?

[Anzen]

Whole bunch of criticism needed right now.

Ring and Off hand Gear:
<snip>

Ascendance:
<snip>

Thanks in advance, and wish us luck in our next few weeks on Siegecrafter

Edit: Anzen, where art thou?

I'd definitely use Normal Signet of the Dinomancer & Heroic Laser-Slice Signet, there's really not much competition at this point. Not only are they the best with your current gear setup, they're also both now BiS since item upgrades.

The off-hand queries hard to say, it really depends how much over hit-cap the shield would put you; with your current gear, it's not worth getting Noru's. The off-hand from Juggernaut is defintely worth taking until you get the Garrosh OH though (unless you can drop spirit in the meantime).

Whilst it's good general practice to consume Lava Surge charges before using Ascendance, and trying to have the UF buff up; you're main focus of when to pop Ascendance should be: A) Scenario and/or B) Trinket Procs: for example, I will always use Ascendance just as Kardris does Foul Geyser. If there isn't an obvious moment like this of when to use Ascendance, you'd simply wait for a trinket proc as long as it means you can use Ascendance the same amount of times per fight. Also, it's not worth using UE during Ascendance, you should only use it as a GCD during forced movement (if you don't have SWG).

For the burst on Shamans: You should be pre-casting Chain Lightning before the pull then pop Heroism, otherwise you're sitting around doing nothing. It should go something like Fire Ele (2.5) > Pot > Chain Lightning (1.5) > Heroism (0) > Ascendance > Lava Beam x 1000. It's also worth noting, you should get the Resto Shaman to use his SL totem on the pull since he loses nothing doing it, then you just drop yours when Ascendance runs out, it's a pretty reasonable compromise.

GOOD LUCK ON BLACKFUSE!!

[Deleted]

If you have the UF Talent, then it is always worth to cast UE, as it (behind Flame Shock) has your highest DPS priority, even higher than Lava Burst. However, try to time it so that the use of a GCD wont cost you a lava burst. For example, if you have a 1.5 second cast time on Lava Burst, and 2 seconds left on Ascendance, casting UE will mean that you will only have time for 1 more Lava Burst, but if you cast Lava Burst FIRST, you could then cast UE, your Ascendance would end during that GCD, but you would still be able to cast Lava Burst afterwards, gaining you a free Lava Burst cast.

[Deleted]

Do you think it can be a dps increase not to use earthshock/fulmination during the 10s buff you get after you unleash elements with unleashed fury?

[Deleted]

Do you think it can be a dps increase not to use earthshock/fulmination during the 10s buff you get after you unleash elements with unleashed fury?

The damage buff isn't big enough to warrant the loss of stacks you would get whilst casting Lightning Bolt, all for the sake of saving 1 GCD.

[Post]

Is it worth it to save Unleash Flame for when your lava burst is off CD? Or do you just want to use it on CD?

[Deleted]

Is it worth it to save Unleash Flame for when your lava burst is off CD? Or do you just want to use it on CD?

Unless you cast it immediately after casting Lava Burst, it will always come off cooldown before the buff runs out. The only situation I ever delay it is if I just cast Lava Burst and I need to cast Flame Shock within the next 3-4 seconds, because its not worth it to use the buff on Flame Shock. There is no need to wait the full 8 seconds though, just cast it immediately after casting Flame Shock then cast LvB ASAP.

[Post]

Unless you cast it immediately after casting Lava Burst, it will always come off cooldown before the buff runs out. The only situation I ever delay it is if I just cast Lava Burst and I need to cast Flame Shock within the next 3-4 seconds, because its not worth it to use the buff on Flame Shock. There is no need to wait the full 8 seconds though, just cast it immediately after casting Flame Shock then cast LvB ASAP.

Thank you!

[DrDoomtrain]

Hello,
I'm currently 578 ilvl and am wondering about haste vs mastery builds for H Progression. We are on H Siegecrafter. For Thok i went with a Haste build and got it up to around 15300 with my mastery being around 75%. My question is whether its worth it to increase my mastery to 98-100% and get my haste to around 12400.... my armory is Drdoomtrain horde Kil'jaeden Thanks! We have logs on Warcraftlogs as well our guild is Testament. Cant post links yet >.<

[Deleted]

@DrDoomtrain

Details

Armory Link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...omtrain/simple
SimCraft Link : http://cl.ly/image/0m3V0X0f2Z0k

Couldn't find your guild on WoL. I found a couple of guilds called Testament on Kiljaeden but they were both inactive for months.

Armory Notes

So according to SimCraft Mastery is still ahead of Haste, but you are getting to the point now where basically all stats are almost even now. I will note that the gear you had on when I armory'ed you had you with 16.79% Hit. I know you are reforged out of Spirit everywhere you can, and only have spirit gems where you still want the socket bonus, but it is actually worth while you changing those gems for stam+stat instead of spirit+stat, especially if you are still doing progression. Just a little note.

Considering the only thing you have any leeway on is your gemming/enchanting, and considering the stat weights your gear came out with (purely single target btw, Mastery pulls even further ahead on AoE fights), I'd probably say stick where you are, the much bigger thing for you is finding items without Spirit on them, you are losing out on a lot of stats like that. A little bit more Mastery would be beneficial, but the less Haste you have the better it will be. Maybe try replacing a couple of the Haste gems and re-simming yourself.

[Epistate]

Simcraft is fine and all, but you need to focus on what the fight requires more than what the most theoretical dps would be.

I used to hold top ten ranks on 25 man siegecrafter before I quit a month and a half ago. I'm going to assume you are using the mine strat, where crawler mines are the biggest issue. In this case, I would heavily favor a mastery build as your AOE damage will matter much more than single target. Let the true single target all stars do the boss damage.

Good luck on Siege prog. I would recommend looking at a full haste build for paragons and garrosh, as single target damage is much more important on those fights (I held top ranks on those as well).

-Shox

[Deleted]

Simcraft is fine and all, but you need to focus on what the fight requires more than what the most theoretical dps would be.

I used to hold top ten ranks on 25 man siegecrafter before I quit a month and a half ago. I'm going to assume you are using the mine strat, where crawler mines are the biggest issue. In this case, I would heavily favor a mastery build as your AOE damage will matter much more than single target. Let the true single target all stars do the boss damage.

Good luck on Siege prog. I would recommend looking at a full haste build for paragons and garrosh, as single target damage is much more important on those fights (I held top ranks on those as well).

-Shox

I agree on AOE fights that Mastery is much more important. However, your point about a Haste build for single target is actually kind of an oxymoron, considering the fact that the simulation was *for* single target and it put Mastery pretty ahead of Haste anyway. Thats why I was suggesting he favor slightly more Mastery, as it is (theoretically) better for both situations.

[Epistate]

He is not itemized correctly, and that's why. He doesn't have enough mastery gear passively for Simcraft to allow him to go full haste. Moreover, it's truly because he dumped too much into haste blindly without using a reforge plot.

For paragons he will be using PE for burn phases, giving haste more power implicitly, something not taken into account for Simcraft. Additionally, during his prog process of Garrosh he will likely be able to become itemized correctly and safely go into a full haste build for that. I considered these variables before giving him my recommendation.

I'll say this again from my first post, theoreticals (Simcraft) are fine and all, but you have to adjust based on fight requirements. I speak from experience and rely less on theoreticals.

[Deleted]

He is not itemized correctly, and that's why. He doesn't have enough mastery gear passively for Simcraft to allow him to go full haste. Moreover, it's truly because he dumped too much into haste blindly without using a reforge plot.

For paragons he will be using PE for burn phases, giving haste more power implicitly, something not taken into account for Simcraft. Additionally, during his prog process of Garrosh he will likely be able to become itemized correctly and safely go into a full haste build for that. I considered these variables before giving him my recommendation.

I'll say this again from my first post, theoreticals (Simcraft) are fine and all, but you have to adjust based on fight requirements. I speak from experience and rely less on theoreticals.

Few Points in response to this

1 - If that is the gear he has, that is the gear he has. He isn't in BiS so saying how he should build in BiS items isn't useful, its how he should build with the items he actually has that matters. It's all well and good saying what he should do when he gets better gear, but he has to get tha gear first, and telling him to build that way now without the gear is actually counter productive.

2 - The Simcraft I ran had him actually already using Primal Elementalist in the Sim, so actually yes, that is taken into account. Without Primal Elementalist Mastery becomes even further ahead.

3 - Personal Experience is great, but you can't blindly ignore numbers and say "I'm right because I got high ranks". That has just as much to do with raid composition and items as it does with itemisation. If Mastery is best single target, with Primal Elementalist on, then it is definitely better AoE, and definitely better without PE.

[Epistate]

You're missing many of the fundamental points I'm making. I'll attribute that to your lack of raid tier experience this expansion.

I'm retired and not here to argue (nor care enough to do so).

Drdoom,
You have my recommendations. Good luck on completing the tier.

[Racthoh]

Multitarget
Two to Five Targets

Cleaving:
Single target rotation & substitute Chain Lightning (either glyphed or unglyphed) in place of Lightning Bolt
AoE
Cast Chain Lightning (either glyphed or unglyphed) on the highest target.

ok so if it's 2 targets, single target with chain lightning and if it's 3 just chain lightning all day ignoring charges/flame shock/lava proc?

also if it's just 2 targets and we are doing the single target rotation (and let's assume both flame shock run full duration), it is really not worth trying to get in another flame shock for the extra lava burst? it is pretty high on dmg per execute as well i'm guessing?

sorry for the dumb question. i am not even level 90 on my shaman, just bored and felt like reading the guide.

[Deleted]

ok so if it's 2 targets, single target with chain lightning and if it's 3 just chain lightning all day ignoring charges/flame shock/lava proc?

also if it's just 2 targets and we are doing the single target rotation (and let's assume both flame shock run full duration), it is really not worth trying to get in another flame shock for the extra lava burst? it is pretty high on dmg per execute as well i'm guessing?

sorry for the dumb question. i am not even level 90 on my shaman, just bored and felt like reading the guide.

1 Target - FlS > UE* > LvB > EB* > 7ES > ST > LB

2-3 Targets - FlS** > UE* > LvB > EB* > 7ES > ST > CL

4+ Target - CL

7+ Targets - TS (assuming you don't have to move) > CL

* - Only cast UE if you have UF Talented, obviously only cast EB if you have it talented

** - This is a pretty safe guide to follow. FlS is worth it up too 3 targets, assuming you don't waste ES Stacks because of using it, but you will. As such, its generally best to just maintain it on both targets vs 2, and probably only on 1 vs 3, because you will be gaining so many stacks. You always want to have 1 up though on <=3 targets, for your Lava Burst.

[Anzen]

2-3 Targets - FlS** > UE* > LvB > EB* > 7ES > ST > CL

I can't say using UE on anything more than single target is a good idea since the buff doesn't effect Chain Lightning. I think it's probably better to just spam CL on three targets, currently hold rank 1 on Fallen Protectors with 100% Chain Lightning - hard class!

[Deleted]

I can't say using UE on anything more than single target is a good idea since the buff doesn't effect Chain Lightning. I think it's probably better to just spam CL on three targets, currently hold rank 1 on Fallen Protectors with 100% Chain Lightning - hard class!

You get a lot more LvB procs with multiple Flame Shocks, so that makes up for it. The difference is really minimal though, and if you are only able to sustain 1 Flame Shock then you are right, it isn't worth it. Theres pretty much no loss in doing it either way really. Just spamming Chain Lightning on 3 targets and only using ES at 7 stacks is fine too. Considering the nature of our RNG (if you don't get Master procs from LvB or Lava Surge procs from FlS then you heavily lose out compared to just spamming CL, but if you get loads of procs you win) you can definitely just use the easier rotation and spam CL to be a Sith Lord.