Ele single target dps

[Skylarking]

How bad is it im wondering. If it is that bad, does the aoe damage from ele shaman make up for it?

Clearing trash faster is a plus, right??

[Deleted]

Burst = terrible
Sustain = above average
burst aoe = terrible
sustain aoe = really good
Cleave (3 targets+) = really good

[freddy090909]

Our pure single target (a fight like fel lord) and our target swapping (Gorefiend, archi) are not very good. But, we have extremely good cleave and AoE, as long as the adds will last a reasonable amount of time (Iskar, Xhul, Tyrant). We're certainly not only good for trash, outside of world-first progression.

I'd argue that ele does need help in some areas, but it is worth playing if you enjoy it, and you'll be able to earn your spot on every fight. That said, if you are just picking a spec to play for the time being, you'd be better off rolling any of the pures instead (the current state of balance is likely how things will stay all the way until the pre-patch).

[Deleted]

Wherever we can use CL and EQ together, we excel.

In every other situation we suck. Hard.

[Deleted]

Elemental shaman are pretty decent single target DPS, but by no means at the top of the pack. You are incredibly reliant on certain trinkets and your tier set before you can compete though, as the effects they have on your gameplay and the options they provide are enormous (chain Earth-shock during movement or target swaps, archi trinket allowing triple-multidot on council fights etc)

Any fight where you can either aoe properly or 'fish' for Earthquake proccs from chain lightning, your contribution will rise considerably.

[Omybad]

Elemental shaman are pretty decent single target DPS, but by no means at the top of the pack. You are incredibly reliant on certain trinkets and your tier set before you can compete though, as the effects they have on your gameplay and the options they provide are enormous (chain Earth-shock during movement or target swaps, archi trinket allowing triple-multidot on council fights etc)

Any fight where you can either aoe properly or 'fish' for Earthquake proccs from chain lightning, your contribution will rise considerably.

pretty much what elderahn said, not the top but definately above average. and definately not terrible or 'we suck, hard' as some people suggest

[freddy090909]

pretty much what elderahn said, not the top but definately above average.

In terms of single target, I would not call us above average. Excluding specs that really should simply not be getting played single (combat, surv, glad), the only things we outperform are DKs and enhancement. This is reflected in both simcraft and Fel Lord logs. We're a little under 5% from what I would consider "average" single target.

Yes, we have some fights where we shine (like xhul), but we also have a massive weakness in our poor ability to swap targets. Ele is certainly not "terrible" - we are perfectly capable of being brought to every fight, but for some fights we are simply creating more work for the rest of the group compared to something like a hunter or a warlock.

[finalboss9]

The single target mechanic is a mess. But yes the sustained is okay, but terrible burst damage.

As we all know ascendance is basically there to smooth out the board to cast lava burst as much as possible for ST fights. Notice I said cast and keep that in mind. Why? Here is why.

After several times of testing in battlegrounds(I mainly do PvP until I get my new laptop). Iv come to conclude if you Flame Shock enough targets, you will begin getting a train of Lava Burst procs. So many and so fast that if you actually compared 6 procs outside of ascendance to 6 casted lava burst during ascendance. You actually lose dps trying to cast Lava burst in ascendance as opposed to clicking on procs. In other words ascendance is basically useless in PvP unless you have very few things to apply FS to get procs going. You are far better off trying to kite and rely on FS'n everything you can than trying to sit there and hard cast on an enemy. It's a fun class but this is one of the biggest and most glaring issues blizzard should not ignore.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Single target is ok given certain conditions: mainly if the target has enough life for flameshock to tick to conclusion and we are given the opportunity to maximize our burst with coinciding cooldowns. If you are allowed to ring+ascendance+elemental mastery consistently in a fight and also the concomittant 5-10 seconds of prep time before that in setting up an empowered flameshock, then your ST dps will be competitive if not chart-topping.

[Tharkash]

In terms of single target, I would not call us above average. Excluding specs that really should simply not be getting played single (combat, surv, glad), the only things we outperform are DKs and enhancement. This is reflected in both simcraft and Fel Lord logs. We're a little under 5% from what I would consider "average" single target.

Yes, we have some fights where we shine (like xhul), but we also have a massive weakness in our poor ability to swap targets. Ele is certainly not "terrible" - we are perfectly capable of being brought to every fight, but for some fights we are simply creating more work for the rest of the group compared to something like a hunter or a warlock.

Out dpsing enhancement? GL with that if they have a Spirit Capacitor.

[Deleted]

OT but how are elemental vs enchantment compred in dps singel and aoe?

[jimmyolsen]

Out dpsing enhancement? GL with that if they have a Spirit Capacitor.

Soul Cap is a great trinket, but its not horribly overvalued. It is a 35% damage buff (at mythic) with about 15-20% uptime and typically accounts for about 5-8% of over-all damage. Much of that is skewed towards CD stacking on the pull, and it loses value the longer fights go and the less procs line up. Although it reaches higher ratios of total value than Unblinking Gaze typically does (about 5%), it is comparable to what a Fury warrior gets from the Drinking Horn.

On the pull with full CDs, Soul Cap is very strong, but it also has a horrible tendency to proc at poor times. Kormrok's first leap happense before it explodes, requiring a cancel aura to clip the time. If it procs during Socrethar's dominators or Tyrant P3 with the add up it does 1/2 damage. On Xul'horac if it procs when the imps first spawn, it severely slows controlling the adds. When you get a string of procs with legendary ring procs or right as adds are dying, it's fantastic. But it's not a game-changing trinket the way Rune of Re-origination was.

OT but how are elemental vs enchantment compred in dps singel and aoe?

They are nearly identical at this point. In single target fights (Reaver, Zakuun) the difference is less than 2% at the 90th percentile.

For cleave fights (Xul'horac and Iskar), they are again within 2% each other.

For AoE (Kormrok/Killrogg), Enhancement does better. Elemental is ideal for packs of approximately 5 like Iskar P2 (5-7) and Xul'horac (3-7). The more important aspect of AoE is how it converts into boss damage. Enhancement's AoE -> Boss Damage is largely reliant on things not dying so that fire nova can contribute large amounts of damage. Elemental AoE -> Boss damage just requires an Improved-CL proc for Earthquake (3 mobs).

The only fights with large disparities between Ele and Enhancement are clearly explained by the fight mechanics. Elemental is a much stronger spec for Hellfire Council, because the Class Trinket's buff to Flame Shock allows for effective multidotting. This also explains the slight discrepancy on Tyrant Velhari in favor of Elemental. On Socrethar, Elemental can pad meters by attacking the ghosts from ranged; it is far riskier to do so for Enhancement.

Kormrok parses favor Enhancement, where the hands die too fast to get any substantial amount of Earthquake damage for AoE. On Gorefiend, Enhancement doesn't have to deal with skeletons. On Killrogg, Enhancement shaman are much more effective down below, because fire nova beats CL/EQ for large groups.

The two specs are so similar that the only factor is whether you want a melee or a ranged. EQ *might* have slightly more value because it interrupts imps on Xul'horac, but even that is marginal with the right team otherwise.

[Omybad]

In terms of single target, I would not call us above average. Excluding specs that really should simply not be getting played single (combat, surv, glad), the only things we outperform are DKs and enhancement.

see, this is funny, excluding half the specs elemental is below average. That's like saying between 1 and 10, if you remove half the numbers, 7 is below average.

Elemental might be low dps in mythic for the 0.1% of mythic raiders but for everything else they are very competitive.

Maybe it's operator error

[Deleted]

see, this is funny, excluding half the specs elemental is below average. That's like saying between 1 and 10, if you remove half the numbers, 7 is below average.

Elemental might be low dps in mythic for the 0.1% of mythic raiders but for everything else they are very competitive.

Maybe it's operator error

You realize that some specs (like combat rogues) are specifically designed to be AoE specs, and thus shouldn't be compared to single target specs (like ret paladin) ?
Also, during HC progression, you won't be able to justify having an elemental shaman in your raid if you are currently progressing on fx. gorefiend, fellord, tyrand or socrethar (unless you literally have no other player in your guild to replace him with).

[freddy090909]

see, this is funny, excluding half the specs elemental is below average. That's like saying between 1 and 10, if you remove half the numbers, 7 is below average.

Elemental might be low dps in mythic for the 0.1% of mythic raiders but for everything else they are very competitive.

Maybe it's operator error

So, excluding specs that blizzard simply doesn't want you to play (demonology, survival) and specs that have significantly better alternatives in a single target environment (combat, fire, gladiator) is not reasonable? Why should I include a spec like survival, when the player can and should have played marksmanship on the fight (this is not just mythic raiding, it is all raiding in general at the moment)? Elemental is a spec that does get played and that does not currently have a reason to swap to enhancement on a fight-by-fight basis, so you would look at it as a standalone.

In that context, I consider it to be low terms of single-target damage, and it is certainly not operator error. I outperform plenty of the weaker players in my guild, but it is not because of my class being better than theirs. I can do nearly as much damage (about 90k) as my 728 elemental on my rogue that is 10 ilvls lower on a fight like fel lord.

That said, I don't really have any massive complaints about ele. We are great on a good number of fights, especially on the second floor. We could use some minor buffs to single target and target swapping, but on most encounters we're completely fine.

[Deleted]

So, excluding specs that blizzard simply doesn't want you to play (demonology)

Except for the part where Demonology is amazing on the second hardest/hardest fight in HFC ?

[freddy090909]

Except for the part where Demonology is amazing on the second hardest/hardest fight in HFC ?

For sure, and I'm not discounting that. Demonology fills a very specific niche that is powerful on a few fights. However, this thread is focused on single-target damage, in which situation you would be crazy to play Demonology over Affliction.

Similarly for ele, I mentioned that there's plenty of fights on the second floor that we excel at, making us fine on a majority of encounters, including most of the "roadblocks" besides Gorefiend. The spec is certainly worth playing if you enjoy it, and isn't exceptionally weak at anything outside of snap target swapping.

[Omybad]

So, excluding specs that blizzard simply doesn't want you to play (demonology, survival) and specs that have significantly better alternatives in a single target environment (combat, fire, gladiator) is not reasonable? Why should I include a spec like survival, when the player can and should have played marksmanship on the fight (this is not just mythic raiding, it is all raiding in general at the moment)?

again

why wouldnt blizzard want you to play these spec? did they send out a memo? some people like playing demo or survival

[Socialhealer]

again

why wouldnt blizzard want you to play these spec? did they send out a memo? some people like playing demo or survival

yes there was a podcast? some chat lore did with watcher, where watcher actually admitted they DO NOT want you do play demonology thats why it was nerfed so hard from BRF where demonology was the best warlock spec for just about every fight.