Elemental Shaman Question(s)

[Dioxy]

Edit: Would like some more evaluation.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-he...ne/?enc=bosses

Anything you see that I'm noticeably doing wrong? I'm currently the worst geared in the guild by far, but I feel I'm doing exceptionally well.. A few fights I have lacked on, for example Nurushen, but if you also look at the logs, I had 50% of my damage to adds in comparison to most people with 1-5%. While I know it's normals, I'm not trying to pad meters, and I want to do the fight as it was intended, because once my guild starts heroics in a week or two, I feel I'll be ahead of the curve.

[Txiv]

Horidon isn't a great fight to judge Dps on. Killing the adds is more important and horidon taking more damage as fight goes skus the numbers. It very well could be his trinkets popped at end during burn while yours did not. Durumu normal is a great metric for testing skill, because you can Dps at pretty much 95 to 99 % max while doing mechanics.

In terms of aoe mastery is king, no glyph on cl if 3 targets and always glyph 4+.

[mmines]

He's gonna keep destroying you on aoe but as far as that fight goes he could have had procs at better times. How fast were adds dying? Was there enough time where flame shock could have been put on them? Were adds being grouped together and aoe'd down?

[diachroniko]

Horridon is a fight you should probably be using Primal Elementalist for. You get almost no use out of elemental blast until the very end, primal fire ele does some really awesome burst/aoe, which is good for both adds and the boss with triple damage, and primal earth ele is a really good tool to take care of your direhorn spirit for a full minute. Glyphing fire elemental is really nice for it too, lets you use it at the start, third door, and burn phase.

As far as rotation goes, I try to keep FS on at least 1 of the big adds and then just spam CL and LvB on procs for 4 piece. Use ascendance between doors for some nice boss damage, not worth the minor aoe increase unless your raid really needs it.

[Dioxy]

Horridon is a fight you should probably be using Primal Elementalist for. You get almost no use out of elemental blast until the very end, primal fire ele does some really awesome burst/aoe, which is good for both adds and the boss with triple damage, and primal earth ele is a really good tool to take care of your direhorn spirit for a full minute. Glyphing fire elemental is really nice for it too, lets you use it at the start, third door, and burn phase.

As far as rotation goes, I try to keep FS on at least 1 of the big adds and then just spam CL and LvB on procs for 4 piece. Use ascendance between doors for some nice boss damage, not worth the minor aoe increase unless your raid really needs it.

Awesome advice. I don't have an ele shaman to theorycraft with (previously raided as enhance in Top 5/10 U.S, and was a healer with this guild before swapping to elemental). And I try asking question(s), but he's just a reserved guy, and doesn't really enjoy (or seems like) talking about the spec. Still trying to find out when I should be using Primal Elementalist over EB. And so for AoE, just flameshock the kill target, and CL off him, and LvB on proc? Makes more sense.

[Kasatushi]

A few things
1.You dont need to use PE for H horridon there isnt eno movement to were EB is completely useless, Horridon is one were EB and PE are both viable there are only 4 fights where PE is a must(Jinrohk,animus,leishen,durumu-even this is debatable since u could EB during maze and its not hard) outside of those 3-4 its really personally preference(i like to use PE on tortos and elders).
2.If u have 4p do not use Fire elemental glyph especially if u are using PE, the glyph is only good when u can sync Ele with ascendance outside of fight like meg where heads dont last long.
3.If u have hydra then yes u should maintain a FS while you are cleaving otherwise it wont proc, depending on the number of adds you have out depends if ur just pure spamming CL if u have 2-5 targets up u want to maintain single target rotation on kill target and sub CL for LB 6+ targets is when u pure spam CL

[diachroniko]

Primal Elementalist is taken on fights with heavy movement or aoe. Horridon (Normal or heroic) has too much aoe for elemental blast to be worth casting consistantly. Also what's your reasoning for using PE on Animus/Lei-shen?

As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to try and sync ascendance with fire elemental outside the first one. They don't benefit from each other in any way and it's not worth delaying either for long unless you know herolust warp will be going out soon.

Hydra makes sense, but if you have 4 piece you may as well keep it on the kill target for procs. The only reason to use single target rotation on aoe the way you said is if your raid is having a horrible time killing the main target, otherwise you should just aoe like crazy to get everything down faster.

[Kasatushi]

Primal Elementalist is taken on fights with heavy movement or aoe. Horridon (Normal or heroic) has too much aoe for elemental blast to be worth casting consistantly. Also what's your reasoning for using PE on Animus/Lei-shen?

As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to try and sync ascendance with fire elemental outside the first one. They don't benefit from each other in any way and it's not worth delaying either for long unless you know herolust warp will be going out soon.

Hydra makes sense, but if you have 4 piece you may as well keep it on the kill target for procs. The only reason to use single target rotation on aoe the way you said is if your raid is having a horrible time killing the main target, otherwise you should just aoe like crazy to get everything down faster.

Idk how far progressed you are or wither you are 10 or 25m things could b different like horridon u get 4 adds from door(assumming) then special add bare in mind im taken all this from a 10m H prospective incase things are vastly different, that being said, PE being used for heavy movement fights yes but it does not beat out EB on aoe the haste/mas/crit (which vastly inc your overall AoE) u get from EB on top of the spam of CL comes out doin more dmg then ele's fire nova overall, horridon mabye AoE heavy but it not rlly heavy movement fights like tortos are what u consider heavy movement when ppl thorycraft horridon falls under light movement the reasoning for Animus is burst on anny its the best choice wither normal or H especially if u are goin for zerg strat u need PE, lei shen to be fair u can argue the effectiveness of EB for it but lei shen falls under heavy(ish) movement because there are brief moments were you are not moving or there is anything you dont have to move out of i.e thunderstuck moving to pillar phase change lightning balls(dependin if u stack on boss for ur kills) whip, winds in p3. on the fire ele glyph yes they dont benefit from each other there reason you sync them is purly for burst reason personally when T16 comes out next week ill go back to using it on under 6 mins fights or when my guild can get longer fights to that point.

goin back to horridon for the last part u mentiond idk how your guild does it but our priority is wastewalkers,venom priest, warlords, shaman die first everything else(minus dinomancer a melee handles that) is cleaved down, its not an issue of having a hard time killing it per say its better for the raid if those adds die asap the longer they stay up the more healing,dispells,and dmg goes out
http://www.totemspot.com/vb/blog.php?u=3 chart that shows which T4 and T6 combo will be best in the given situational

[Nico87]

How are you dealing with the Direhorn Spirit? I know it might seem irrelevant but it can easily fuck up your DPS.

Either way there isn't that much difference between FS and EB on Horridon. You (should) have plenty of time to cast EB whenever it's off cooldown. FS can be really helpful if you're struggling on a specific door though.

200k is fine on Horridon anyway. DPS is hard to measure as someone else wrote above. As long as the boss dies it doesn't matter if the Elemental is ahead of you.

[Kasatushi]

How are you dealing with the Direhorn Spirit? I know it might seem irrelevant but it can easily fuck up your DPS.

Either way there isn't that much difference between FS and EB on Horridon. You (should) have plenty of time to cast EB whenever it's off cooldown. FS can be really helpful if you're struggling on a specific door though.

200k is fine on Horridon anyway. DPS is hard to measure as someone else wrote above. As long as the boss dies it doesn't matter if the Elemental is ahead of you.

/target direhorn spirit
/cast purge
/targetlasttarget
thats how i deal with them and yes if u do get the dreaded pink dino early on it will mess with ur numbers and i agree as long as the boss dies doesnt matter how you go about it

[Nico87]

Yep same here. The question was meant for the OP, but that's definitely the way to go! Took me a while to discover that at the start. I kept using Lightning Bolt

[diachroniko]

Idk how far progressed you are or wither you are 10 or 25m things could b different like horridon u get 4 adds from door(assumming) then special add bare in mind im taken all this from a 10m H prospective incase things are vastly different, that being said, PE being used for heavy movement fights yes but it does not beat out EB on aoe the haste/mas/crit (which vastly inc your overall AoE) u get from EB on top of the spam of CL comes out doin more dmg then ele's fire nova overall, horridon mabye AoE heavy but it not rlly heavy movement fights like tortos are what u consider heavy movement when ppl thorycraft horridon falls under light movement the reasoning for Animus is burst on anny its the best choice wither normal or H especially if u are goin for zerg strat u need PE, lei shen to be fair u can argue the effectiveness of EB for it but lei shen falls under heavy(ish) movement because there are brief moments were you are not moving or there is anything you dont have to move out of i.e thunderstuck moving to pillar phase change lightning balls(dependin if u stack on boss for ur kills) whip, winds in p3. on the fire ele glyph yes they dont benefit from each other there reason you sync them is purly for burst reason personally when T16 comes out next week ill go back to using it on under 6 mins fights or when my guild can get longer fights to that point, goin back to horridon for the last part u mentiond idk how your guild does it but our priority is wastewalkers,venom priest, warlords, shaman die first everything else(minus dinomancer a melee handles that) is cleaved down, its not an issue of having a hard time killing it per say its better for the raid if those adds die asap the longer they stay up the more healing,dispells,and dmg goes out
http://www.totemspot.com/vb/blog.php?u=3 chart that shows which T4 and T6 combo will be best in the given situational

I think I've pretty much said everything I feel the need to. I definitely don't agree on PE vs EB for Horridon, but that's just me. Don't think EB is worth casting in aoe situations. The buff it gives just isn't enough to make up for the damage loss from casting it over CL. Totemspot seems to agree on that aspect.

As for focus fire vs aoe on Horridon, for progression kills it might be worth it to do your single target rotation subing LB for CL. Was never saying that was a bad idea, just unnecessary if you're not struggling otherwise.

And not trying to be rude, but it's hard to take you seriously when your paragraph-long reply is one giant sentence.

[Kasatushi]

I think I've pretty much said everything I feel the need to. I definitely don't agree on PE vs EB for Horridon, but that's just me. Don't think EB is worth casting in aoe situations. The buff it gives just isn't enough to make up for the damage loss from casting it over CL. Totemspot seems to agree on that aspect.

As for focus fire vs aoe on Horridon, for progression kills it might be worth it to do your single target rotation subing LB for CL. Was never saying that was a bad idea, just unnecessary if you're not struggling otherwise.

And not trying to be rude, but it's hard to take you seriously when your paragraph-long reply is one giant sentence.

In no way was i sayin that EB is better then PE on horridon, you dont use it for it, others do thats your preference thats the point i was tryin to make. You made it seem like EB was not viable when it is the number 1 ranked ele shaman on WoL used EB(with 421k on 7-12) the 2nd ranked used PE(with 398 on 9-4) which show how close and viable they both are, not sayin one out does the other. When i first posted i said "Dont use PE" my preference then i said EB and PE are both viable, the OP doesnt know when to use PE vs EB for specific fights but in the long run they both come out close to each other. I kno we got off topic but i wanted the OP to use the talent he/she is most comfortable using because that is the one that they will get the most out of there numbers.

Even if ur struggling the point of a kill target is to kill it asap doing ur single tar rotation while CL is better for the raid group wither its 1st kill or 20th kill. now if ur tryin to rank or pad the meters then by all means CL spam is the way to go, i dont like to inflate my number even if we killed a boss 100 times(not sayin you pat the meters dont want u to reply again sayin i said u did general statement )

To OP: If u see this do not take the 20k difference from the number 1 shaman vs number 2 as EB is better then PE, both these shaman heavyly outgear u and they probably have been playin spec longer then you

[Drogotaar]

/target direhorn spirit
/cast purge
/targetlasttarget
thats how i deal with them and yes if u do get the dreaded pink dino early on it will mess with ur numbers and i agree as long as the boss dies doesnt matter how you go about it

Why not Unleash Elements? Atleast the gcd isn't totally wasted then. And if you have no mana problems whatsoever you can also use CL to proc fulminate stacks.

And while I am at it: If you kite your Direhorn through the ads your CL will jump on the Ads/Direhorn, making it damn effective at dealing with two things at once.

[Deleted]

In terms of aoe mastery is king, no glyph on cl if 3 targets and always glyph 4+.

I don't understand why so many people are saying this, it's completely wrong.

Haste is still better than mastery on AoE heavy fights due to PPM, and infact crit is better than both. Mastery is the weakest stat, presumably your opinion is an assumption that since you GCD cap CL and Crit is "weak" single target, Mastery must therefore be better, which is not true at all.

Totemspot 5.3 guide to stat values in DPS on different styles of fight. Admittedly, next Wednesday this will all be somewhat wrong with the Haste/PPM nerfs, and we WILL be gemming mastery. But for now, Mastery is arguably your weakest stat on Horridon/Durumu, Haste's decrease in value isn't as large as you think, and it's actually Crit that pulls ahead.

Either way there isn't that much difference between FS and EB on Horridon. You (should) have plenty of time to cast EB whenever it's off cooldown. FS can be really helpful if you're struggling on a specific door though.

I don't see what the point of casting FS on any of the adds is, unless they are surviving for the full 30 seconds, which under normal circumstances at this point in the tier, they shouldn't be. Maybe if you're having to single target them down and it's a case of DPS or wipe/raid kick, but if you're that concerned about your DPS, you won't be doing that.

And as far as the Pink Dino is concerned on HC Horridon, as people have already said you should aim to hit it with CL in the middle of an adds pack, failing that use Unleash Elements and Purge in macros to knock it back. When you use UE, try to then cast a Lava Burst followed instantly by a Flame Shock on the boss; I'm fairly certain that both spells benefit from the 30% UF buff (at least I haven't seen anything about a hotfix in the last year on MMO Champ, however I haven't tested it recently). At the end of the fight, unless your healers are struggling and need you stacked, you should just run around the boss and kite the Dino underneath Horridon.


As far as I can see Dioxy, if you're still reading this thread, your two biggest problems is that 1) you're still gemming Intellect (which is LIKELY to be weaker than either 320 Haste or 320 Mastery for you, it requires a personal Sim) and 2) the other shaman has the Legendary Meta gem, and you don't. The 30% haste procs are a pretty huge difference. I don't know why Plausable is gemming Mastery though, unless he's regemmed this week for 5.4's hit on the next reset, it's pretty dumb and he should be gemming/reforging for (nearly) full Haste. See here. Also, the more you do on Horridon himself, the more you do overall. Try and watch the other Elemental more in raids to see what he is doing and when, another factor could be that the other Elemental is whoring the boss more than you. It's difficult to answer your question perfectly without logs of your raid killing the boss, because we can't see what the other shaman is doing differently, only what you *might* be doing wrong.

[Nico87]

I don't see what the point of casting FS on any of the adds is

Sorry, I naturally meant FET! Multi-dotting is a no-go.

Also, I prefer Purge because... yeah, no cooldown.

[Sock]

Why not Unleash Elements? Atleast the gcd isn't totally wasted then.

Unleash Elements is so incredibly worthless for Ele that pretty much anything else will do more damage than it. It's not worth the GCD.

[Azlo]

I don't understand why so many people are saying this, it's completely wrong.

Haste is still better than mastery on AoE heavy fights due to PPM, and infact crit is better than both. Mastery is the weakest stat, presumably your opinion is an assumption that since you GCD cap CL and Crit is "weak" single target, Mastery must therefore be better, which is not true at all.

Totemspot 5.3 guide to stat values in DPS on different styles of fight. Admittedly, next Wednesday this will all be somewhat wrong with the Haste/PPM nerfs, and we WILL be gemming mastery. But for now, Mastery is arguably your weakest stat on Horridon/Durumu, Haste's decrease in value isn't as large as you think, and it's actually Crit that pulls ahead.

Mastery is best for CL, because even though your mastery chance is divided by 3, when glyphed it actually means each point of mastery is worth 1.67x its normal amount. Mastery and Crit are best for pure chain lightning spam. I'm not sure what "hectic add cleave" means, but if it's just 5 targets standing there that you can spam CL, mastery and crit are best. Clearly "hectic add cleave" is not that.

Also, I use pure searing totem to deal with the dino. I think it lets me use the least number of GCD's over purging. Every minute I drop searing totem + 1 flame shock on the dino.

[Slappyjoe]

Unleash Elements is so incredibly worthless for Ele that pretty much anything else will do more damage than it. It's not worth the GCD.

He's talking about using it to knock the direhorn back.

[Deleted]

Mastery is best for CL, because even though your mastery chance is divided by 3, when glyphed it actually means each point of mastery is worth 1.67x its normal amount. Mastery and Crit are best for pure chain lightning spam. I'm not sure what "hectic add cleave" means, but if it's just 5 targets standing there that you can spam CL, mastery and crit are best. Clearly "hectic add cleave" is not that.

HecticAddCleave will set up a fight with regular add spawns and frequent movement. Similar to the Tier15 encounter Horridon (but without the vulnerability on the boss). For a 450second fight it is the same as
raid_events+=/adds,count=5,first=22,cooldown=33,duration=22,last=337
raid_events+=/movement,players_only=1,first=22,cooldown=33,duration=3,last=337
raid_events+=/movement,players_only=1,first=13,cooldown=13,duration=1

Mastery is still behind Haste and Crit on AoE for 5.3. All of the "AoE" fights like Horridon still have single target, there are no fights where you sit in one place and spam Chain Lightning for the entire fight. With the 5.3 PPM model thrown in, Haste will still beat out Mastery over the entire fight. If you want to look at the 20 second burst phases where you spam CL, then sure Mastery is stronger point per point, but going full out for Mastery because of that will be a DPS loss overall. The only time Mastery will be stronger than Haste is on Durumu HC.

On Horridon, the adds aren't always stacked up (3rd gate anyone?) and you will rarely hit 5 targets with CL since they die so fast/spread out, so going full-out Mastery is retarded. Infact, you're probably better off not using the glyph in farm-raid Horridon. These numbers you're dismissing on Totemspot are from *the* respected Elemental theorycrafter who's been doing it since TBC and helps create the Simcraft Shaman profiles, and I'm fairly certain you're not better than him.

Just because Mastery is better purely for CL spam, doesn't mean anyone should automatically reforge or gem for it, which is what people are implying. For Horridon in 5.3, Crit > Haste >= Mastery. The margins are small, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.