Enhancement Shaman Guide for MoP - Patch 5.4

[jayinjersey]

That may be...but I'll still keep buffing before I drop them as that always results in superior dps than dropping them then buffing.

[Lavindar]

Bloodlust don't affect any pets or guardians, they now will benefit from BL because of they being dynamically affected by the caster's stats. but as the update of their stats probably will not keep happening all the time, it will be something about a second or two, so if you summon them after you cast the buffs, they will have the higher stats from the beginning.

[Embermoon]

I know this is the gospel...and I shouldn't question it......but are we 100% sure on this?

From my own anecdotal evidence, I know that I burst higher by hitting my "EM Macro" [EM/Synapse Springs/Berzerking] before I cast FET than if I hit the FET then hit the macro.

I've seen this many times....and my raid will usually then hear me yell "Shit I screwed up my burst again..."

A few thoughts on this.

1) Question everything. Theorycrafting is fallible.

2) When you see yourself bursting higher, is that just by looking at recount, or is it from looking at a WoL parse in detail? If it's recount or skada, I'd be leery of coming to any conclusions based on those meters, alone.

3) Is it possible, that your muscle-memory is so accustomed to the one method, that you'll inadvertently lose dps if you switch "rotation" on the fly?

[takolin]

I keep seeing people talk about missing a spell in a "critical moment", have any example of those? I can't really think of a very important moment where the 3-4s of SS debuff would be catastrophic. I guess you could miss two in a row, but that's REALLY badlucky.

Previous expansion when I still played my mage: 16.99% Spell hit, heroic halfus and missed my initial combustion which you normally spread to all the whelps+Halfus+1 or 2 drakes (depending on how many tanks you had).
Usually it's on things that needed to be bursted down asap that a miss or a dodge can be horrible but it's rarely an issue. Then again, ToT gear has so much expertise on it, which makes capped an complete non issue, on the contrary.

I know this is the gospel...and I shouldn't question it......but are we 100% sure on this?

From my own anecdotal evidence, I know that I burst higher by hitting my "EM Macro" [EM/Synapse Springs/Berzerking] before I cast FET than if I hit the FET then hit the macro.

I've seen this many times....and my raid will usually then hear me yell "Shit I screwed up my burst again..."

If you pop FET after your burst macro, you lose 1 GCD of buffed damage because your elemental is up longer than any of your other CDs and doesn't need to be snapshotted.
So ideally you pop FET and then a Ascendance+racials+EM+engineering/herbalism perk+stormblast macro.

[Embermoon]

Previous expansion when I still played my mage: 16.99% Spell hit, heroic halfus and missed my initial combustion which you normally spread to all the whelps+Halfus+1 or 2 drakes (depending on how many tanks you had).
Usually it's on things that needed to be bursted down asap that a miss or a dodge can be horrible but it's rarely an issue. Then again, ToT gear has so much expertise on it, which makes capped an complete non issue, on the contrary.

I think it's a safe bet, that when he was asking for examples of critical moments, that he wasn't referring to a completely different class/spec, and xpac. As it pertains to enhancement in 5.3, (hell, even all of MoP, so far) can you think of any critical moments where absolute hit & expertise capping is critical? I can't.

If you pop FET after your burst macro, you lose 1 GCD of buffed damage because your elemental is up longer than any of your other CDs and doesn't need to be snapshotted.
So ideally you pop FET and then a Ascendance+racials+EM+engineering/herbalism perk+stormblast macro.

This, but I'd add wolves into the combo, right after FET, for nit-picky completeness.

[jayinjersey]

The muscle memory is always possible...but it is usually a combination of both Skada and WoL.

While I may lose that GCD if I pop them first...I seem to get better results than when I pop them after.


If I was really concerned about it I would do comparison tests just to see...but right now I'm more concerned with getting my parses as near identical as I can between PTR and Live just to figure out how bad the gutting is/will be

[wordup]

I think it's a safe bet, that when he was asking for examples of critical moments, that he wasn't referring to a completely different class/spec, and xpac. As it pertains to enhancement in 5.3, (hell, even all of MoP, so far) can you think of any critical moments where absolute hit & expertise capping is critical? I can't.

This, but I'd add wolves into the combo, right after FET, for nit-picky completeness.

Right now, not being hit/exp capped can either mean your stormblast not hitting during your opener (which can be anywhere between 500 and 900k damage for me). Having had that happen a few times, it's enough to make sure I don't ever drop below cap, not as if I could this tier even if I tried.

Also, not getting that spread of FS from my lava lash on Tortos is pretty damn frustrating.

[Embermoon]

Agreed that the scenario you described would suck, but I don't know if I'd call it critical. When I think of critical, I'm thinking Halfus interruptions.

But, if you view critical in terms of meter rankings, then I totally see your point; especially if you're trying for raidbots rankings, or the like.

[wordup]

Agreed that the scenario you described would suck, but I don't know if I'd call it critical. When I think of critical, I'm thinking Halfus interruptions.

But, if you view critical in terms of meter rankings, then I totally see your point; especially if you're trying for raidbots rankings, or the like.

Not being capped won't really ever get to the situation where it will ruin your DPS for the rest of the fight, but if you're looking at stat values, missing that stormblast at the start is going to be very hard to pull back from the 0.1% extra mastery or haste you got from taking that over the hit.

But yeah, not being capped isn't going to make the sky fall.

[Lavindar]

Agreed that the scenario you described would suck, but I don't know if I'd call it critical. When I think of critical, I'm thinking Halfus interruptions.

But, if you view critical in terms of meter rankings, then I totally see your point; especially if you're trying for raidbots rankings, or the like.

I think interrupts can't miss anymore.

[sarasun]

I think interrupts can't miss anymore.

Correct.

My problem doesn't exist anymore though because I just upgraded my hit/exp Hscen chest and went slightly over both caps. Was the next logical upgrade anyways.

[Butser]

Hey streetlightout,

I just noticed in your guide that you didn't mention the best major glyph for an enhancement shaman.
Healing storm is 1 of the glyphs I never change since it gives some incredible extra healing for your raid.

[sarasun]

Hey streetlightout,

I just noticed in your guide that you didn't mention the best major glyph for an enhancement shaman.
Healing storm is 1 of the glyphs I never change since it gives some incredible extra healing for your raid.

It's listed in the utility glyphs. I do agree it should have a special mention. It is a must to any fight for me, as it's kinda like a healthstone with no CD for you in spread out situations or just godlike on megaera-style fights.

[Embermoon]

I think interrupts can't miss anymore.

That's true, they can't. I forgot about that change. That was the only scenario that the term "critical moment" conjured up, in my mind. Given your point, I'd have to reshape my concept of "critical moment," in this case, to be something like the scenario Wordup mentioned.

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It's listed in the utility glyphs. I do agree it should have a special mention. It is a must to any fight for me, as it's kinda like a soulstone with no CD for you in spread out situations or just godlike on megaera-style fights.

Agreed. There is no fight that I don't have healing storm glyph, as enhancement. It's the other two slots, that are always the swap-slots for shamanistic rage, chain lightning, fire nova, healing stream, and lightning shield.

[Butser]

Hey,

I just noticed my burst is kinda... odd. Sometimes I can do arround 450k and sometimes its just 290k. Everything procs at the start like trinkets wpn enchant etc. How is it possible it's so good/badish. Is this only because of crits?

[Butser]

bump bump bump

[Embermoon]

Hey,

I just noticed my burst is kinda... odd. Sometimes I can do arround 450k and sometimes its just 290k. Everything procs at the start like trinkets wpn enchant etc. How is it possible it's so good/badish. Is this only because of crits?

On a question like this, I'm not sure how any of us could provide a decent answer. If you had logs of different fights to compare, then maybe. Outside of that, the only thing that comes to my mind, is if you're accidentally putting your primal fire ele on passive.

[Butser]

Well I had it last night on some tortos HC tries. And noticed it a couple of times. Sometimes I pop out 450k and sometimes I'm only on 280k and get 2nd in a few sec on the dps meters.
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...pes&boss=67977 here is a link to it.

Still it's kinda hard to see since it will also show the rest of the fight :P.

The answer I hoped to hear some other people have the same problem. But it seems I'm the only one

[sarasun]

Enhancement burst is extremely consistent because there are only two RNG parts to the class, MW procs and crits. However, our crit% is so high that it's pretty reliable and crits don't actually proc anything else. MW, especially on Hero/TW/BL, will be very consistent too.

I was going to mention maybe you stood in front of the boss and got parried, but it can't be the case on Tortos.

Is your fire elemental glyphed? That would help analyzing.

Edit: I guess it doesn't matter much. Look at your try 2. Primal Fire Elemental has a 33.1s uptime. That means you either put it on passive or removed it by redropping searing/magma. You also do that on multiple other attempts (try 15 is another). That would make your DPS vary, but not the initial (15-20s) variation in your burst damage since it was up for that duration.

How do you open fights? Are you always very consistent in the way you do it? Things like using LB before SS and SB in the opening can be quite huge.

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You should also use a macro when you drop searing to make sure it's not overwriting FET.

/cast [nopet:Primal Fire Elemental] Searing Totem

[Lavindar]

(...) You should also use a macro when you drop searing to make sure it's not overwriting FET.

/cast [nopet:Primal Fire Elemental] Searing Totem

This macro saved me so many times, it's hard to counter muscle memory after years of it being used. It's good to have it with Magma Totem too

/cast [nopet:Primal Fire Elemental] Magma Totem