Help me find the last 15% - Ele logs + video

[Zhazi]

Hello shamans.

I switched to Ele Shaman very late in MoP (mythic arrival). I do my best to keep track of what's going on in the forum here and try to improve myself.

I am feeling better and better and I do not believe I am a bad shaman at all. Where I am asking for help is to help me find the last 10-15% (percentile). I seem to be coming in decently stable around 85% ish. If I can ask for some log analysis on the more difficult parts of playing ele?

I have a few things I expect I am failing at.

1) Overwriting flameshock to often while moving. This was one of my first bad habits while moving.
2) Not casting enough because of cancelling casts by moving late in cast timer
3) Bad ES timing. Do I go to to many stacks (4-set) and how bad for DPS is that?
4) Bad CD planning
5) Compared to my RL (fellow ele shaman) my burst is very low even with Elemental Mastery but I am more stable in damage ove rthe course of the fight. is my opener wrong? UF (pre) > LB (pre) > FS > EM > Lvb (x2) > Ascendance > Lvb spam > I think I am bad at remembering to do the 2xEF + UF FS right after Ascendance

Looking at my own logs I don't have the skill to go that deep in and I feel like the optimization is the small thing as this point.

Logs: warcraftlogs. com/rankings/character/8965836/latest/#boss=0 (remove the spacing after .)

Manoroth video: youtube. com/watch?v=4zIuwpoVAUs (remove the spacing after .)

eu. battle. net/wow/en/character/ravencrest/B%c3%b3ndil/advanced (remove the spacing after .)



For my lvl am I doing very good, good or ok and can I take it further?

[freddy090909]

First off, let me say that you're simply not geared enough to compete for tip-top spots. If you are looking into breaking into top-10 parses, you will need a very enabling environment (extremely high EQ damage) or a bit more gear. That said, you do appear to be quite well itemized, and you have your necessary trinkets+tier, as well as a 720 weapon.

Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't look to improve. Let's look at where you think your problems may lie:

1) Overwriting flameshock to often while moving. This was one of my first bad habits while moving.
2) Not casting enough because of cancelling casts by moving late in cast timer
3) Bad ES timing. Do I go to to many stacks (4-set) and how bad for DPS is that?
4) Bad CD planning
5) Compared to my RL (fellow ele shaman) my burst is very low even with Elemental Mastery but I am more stable in damage ove rthe course of the fight. is my opener wrong? UF (pre) > LB (pre) > FS > EM > Lvb (x2) > Ascendance > Lvb spam > I think I am bad at remembering to do the 2xEF + UF FS right after Ascendance

1) Anytime this happens is a massive issue. It breaks the EF2+UF multiplier on your flame shock you are working hard to maintain. I'd suggest trying to use either UF, ES (even with low stacks), or LvB as instants when moving. On a similar topic, do not be afraid to refresh your flame shock early (even in the 50-70 second region), as long as you can refresh it with full buffs up.

2) This is mainly just a comfort issue that a lot of caster players suffer from. A combination of playing the spec more and learning encounter timings through experience (e.g. preparing for allure on Archimonde ahead of time) will be the biggest thing at improving this. Also, learn to love your SWG button. Especially with the spiritwalker's focus glyph, it should be used at any point where movement may interrupt your rotation.

3) ES should be used above lightning bolt at 15 stacks, and above everything else at 20 stacks (it's important to remember that you can't gain any additional lightning shield stacks at 20, diminishing the value of lightning bolt and lava burst). Your set bonuses do not effect the priority list, but you can fish for a reset by using earth shock at 12 stacks in your opener (a reset will put you at 24 stacks - enough to trigger the 4pc).

4) Not much to CD planning anymore. In 99% of cases, you'll just pop ascendance and EM alongside each other and use them whenever your Frodo uses the ring. Fire elemental and lust should be used based on your own best judgement, or according to your guild's decisions. If lust and ring are not lined up together, it is a special circumstance or your Frodo/luster needs to be talked to. Your second pot should be stacked with everything else during an important phase of the fight (e.g. the lust phases on fel lord or xhul). If there's no particularly good time to use it, use it at your own liberty during a low-movement phase with your cooldowns up.

5) Your opener does not include earth shock usage. As mentioned above, ES20 is the highest priority over everything else, and could very easily be the reason your GM is out DPSing you in the opener. Your opener also implies that you are using Echo. Echo should only be used on select fights requiring excessive EQ usage, and allows you to use a slightly different opener: -15 UF > -4 Fire Ele > -3 LvB > -1 LvB > EM+UF > FS > Asc > Normal priority.

I have not spent a large amount of time looking through logs, are there any specific fight you think you might want help with?

Edit: I watched through your Mannoroth video. You do seem to cancel quite a few casts, and your ES usage could use some work (you overcapped on stacks a few times). There was also a point where you let your flame shock fall off of the boss for a pretty long time, which should never happen. Feel free to refresh it early, as long as you will get a full multiplier on it. Your lust could have been saved slightly so that it overlapped the 6 minute CDs (ring+2m+3m cds). You also used your fire elemental during p2 instead of using it on pull and during lust (~7 minute kill timer). Finally, on mannoroth p2 and p3, you can make quite heavy usage out of CL and EQ by chaining through the boss (small add -> boss -> small add). Try to do that as much as possible for the massive EQ damage and extra fulminate stacks.

[Ximaus]

Item level only means so much unfortunately. People need to see your trinkets, main hand, and overall spell power. Linking your armory in addition is more helpful if you are wondering how you are performing for your gear. You are actually very similar in gear to my own Shaman (I have slightly more spell power than you) so I will compare your top log on each fight with how well I know I myself should have done.

Hellfire Assault - 85K - This one is just padding plain and simple. Your DPS is inversely proportional to your raid's AoE DPS and directly proportional to how well they were grouped up. As long as you are over 80K in Heroic and around 70K in Mythic (assuming you split the groups) I wouldn't even worry.

Iron Reaver - 51K - I don't know why you used Prophecy in this fight when you had the class trinket. Keeping up Flame Shock on the boss the entire time helps with lost DPS due to her movement around the room. Prophecy is an RNG boondogle and I prefer not to use it. Given you had Artillery at the end of the phase you probably did okay but you could easily go as high as 57K with your gear even with a bomb phase in Heroic. Don't Flame Shock bombs. I see this all the time. If a target will not live for 15 seconds or 3 Lava Bursts, there is no point in using Flame Shock first. Lava Burst still does damage even without Flame Shock and I feel like some players are too scared to use it on a target without Flame Shock.

Kormrok - 66K - Kormrok is purely based on how much dragging hand damage you can get. Try to line up your 4 pc buff with Earthquake if you can. The hands stay in one place for a second so just CL and drop the EQ in the path the hands will travel. This is entirely based on how much DPS the rest of the raid can do to the hands but you are capable of stealing some of that. Otherwise I don't even really count Kormrok.

HFC - 74K - That's about right. I can see you actually pulled the boss with Flame Shock otherwise you wouldn't have 100% uptime on the DoT. Depending on how fast your group burns down Gurtogg and how many Lava Surge procs you get you should generally have Flame Shock as your top damaging ability. I generally prioritize rebuffing a stronger Flame Shock in the beginning to using Earth Shock. The only way to really do well on this fight is to get the buff and to kill the bosses close together. Otherwise you did fine.

Kilrogg - 116K - You really shouldn't even count Kilrogg. If you lust on pull and get the buff first I would say you should be in the 135K range. If you don't get the buff then I would say at least 62K. If you get the buff second and lust when you come out I would say you could do better. You might have to delay your CD if you know you are going in second but you could do better than 116K if you get the buff; especially if you lust when you come out.

Gorefiend - 81K - Considering you did almost no damage to the constructs outside of the belly (I can only assume your RL told you don't bother or they just die that fast) then 81K is probably about right. Although it doesn't seem like it you can CL when two adds are next to each other and get an EQ proc. As long as they aren't in the back of the room it will hit the boss too which will make for 3 targets. It's not much but it's a little something extra.

Iskar - 85K - Iskar is completely based on how much AoE DPS you have and how often you get the winds. I wouldn't worry about it. Personally I take EM on Iskar and most of my damage is to the boss and the special adds while our Combat Rogue cleaves down the minor adds. Don't take Prophecy for this fight. It seems like a good idea but Iskar actually takes 100% damage when he flies away meaning your 2 x EF buffed Flame Shock will continue ticking away on him while you are AoEing.

Socrethar - 88K - This entirely depends on how much ghost DPS you can get and whether or not you are one of the only DPS on ghosts. Class Trinket and Iskar Trinket are the go to for me on this fight just like you used. Again, this fight is largely a pad-fest and I wouldn't place too much importance on the DPS you deal. If you are on the boss alone you should be in the 60K range given your gear.

Fel Lord - 70K - This largely depends on when you lust, how long the fight lasts, and whether or not you get seed. Given all of those things I would say you did fine. If you lusted on the pull you would probably go up a good 5K. You also did get extra lucky with Warsong procs in this fight. You had 50% uptime on a buff that should only have proc'd 2/3rds as often as it did for you.

Xhul - 93K - This is entirely based on your raid AoE DPS. As I'm sure you found out; don't use Prophecy on this fight when you have the Class Trinket.

Velhari - 92K - This fight depends on how much you get Edict, how often you get Font, and whether you lust in phase 2 or phase 3. You did 89K on a subsequent kill but had Edict. As far as I can tell you did fine. You could probably squeeze out some more DPS but that's perfectly fine given your gear and method of killing the boss.

Mann - 63K - You could probably do 5K more but it really depends on where the imps and infernals spawn and how quickly the rest of the raid burns them down. Unfortunately your CDs also didn't line up with lust so you lost out on some DPS there.

Arch - 61K - Your group sends you down which is actually not as much of a DPS loss as it seems. You also seemed to use EM after Ascendance in that kill. Were you afraid of Haste capping or did you just mess up? I macro EM and the ring together and just push both my EM and Ascendance buttons at the same time. Judging by the staggered buffs I'm guessing you don't. This fight also depends on how fast the raid kills the adds. On the second doomfire if it stays up long enough for the add to also be up you can CL to get an EQ proc.

[Deleted]

I macro EM and the ring together and just push both my EM and Ascendance buttons at the same time.

Why would you macro the ring as a ranged? Doomfire or shackles on pop and you are fucked on ring damage. Unless you got no melee with ring i wouldnt recommend any ranged to have it macro´d in any situation in raids.

[Zhazi]

Freddy thanks so much for the input on the rotation an my playstyle. I will deffinately look in to those things. Especially the cancelling cast was something i had a feeling i was doing. I try to plan for movement but may not be enough. Also the overwiting FS i will try to impove. Its such a stupid mistake that i am aware of not to do but it still happens.

Ximaus thanks for the fight analysis and the very solid advise on how to look for little ways to improve on each fight. For example i did not know about Iskar, but i will definately get a FS going.bout the bad choice of trinkets. I had just gotten the Manoroth trinket and forgot to remove it for reaver. I almost always use class as i love the dot control gameplay.
About the EM before Ascendance i must have messed up. Have a nice Ring-Ring tone when ring is popped so i just use both CD's when that sounds.

Glad to know i am overall doing well. Still many ways to improve and i will ty to learn from ur advises. I dont feel completely comfy on Archi yet but it may be because of the errors that is made as a grp.

I for got to put in armory but it is updated in post now.

[Ximaus]

Why would you macro the ring as a ranged? Doomfire or shackles on pop and you are fucked on ring damage. Unless you got no melee with ring i wouldnt recommend any ranged to have it macro´d in any situation in raids.

If we have someone assigned to use the ring then they use it instead but on most fights there is nothing wrong with a ranged standing close to melee. Some of our melee won't use it reliably on CD due to their own CDs while others have a lower ilvl ring than I do so I macro the ring to my CD. The only fights where I generally let someone else use it is on Arch (I do the first nether banish which happens when the ring is up again so I avoid using my CDs altogether until the banish), Xhul (I only avoid it during Fel phase and the final phase), and Gorefiend (if I get Shadow of Death). On all of the other fights the mechanics either target melee equally or there is no major downside to being within 20 yards of the boss.

[Marani]

while others have a lower ilvl ring than I do

That doesn't really matter anyway, because you always get the percentage buff of the ring you own yourself, I think. But I agree, that usually it's also fine if a ranged uses the ring.
I personally don't have any macros containing the ring, but our assigned melee is rather reliable with the ring anyway.

I just wanted to say thanks for this thread, I took some useful advice for myself away

[Ximaus]

That doesn't really matter anyway, because you always get the percentage buff of the ring you own yourself, I think.

I haven't actually tested this. I had always wondered but haven't yet seen an answer or bothered to test it. I assumed that you would always get your own buff but I was more wondering whether or not the explosion damage percentage would happen based on the initiating player or based on each individual player.

[Deleted]

I haven't actually tested this. I had always wondered but haven't yet seen an answer or bothered to test it. I assumed that you would always get your own buff but I was more wondering whether or not the explosion damage percentage would happen based on the initiating player or based on each individual player.

Its all individual damage, doesnt matter what ilvl ring the person who pop it has.

That being said i was on about you telling this person (and others who might read it) you put the ring into your EM macro, wich is pretty dangerous to say, as its just more reliable for a melee too do it. I can understand if u have unreliable melee that you let a ranged do it instead (tho thats a pretty shitty setting you got there, and any Mythic guild should not have this problem at all), but almost advicing people to just put it in a macro without knowing their situation didn´t strike me as a smart thing to say

[Deleted]

1) Overwriting flameshock to often while moving. This was one of my first bad habits while moving.

Elem is pretty straight forward when you know the crux of it. The problem is that it is completly unintuitive because of Elemental fusion and archimonde trinket and you need to actually look at the cast sequence of the top parses to understand.

The key is to improve the flame shock as much as possible since it is supposed to be your second source of damage single target. Refreshing the debuff without unleash and/or elemental fusion is a loss of about 10% overall dps for the entire course of the debuff while not affected by those ups.

2) Not casting enough because of cancelling casts by moving late in cast timer

You simply need to move as little as possible, not much to say. Learn the encounters, their mechanical requirements, their timers and if you need to glyph your spiritwalking grace to have shorter cd/duration.

3) Bad ES timing. Do I go to to many stacks (4-set) and how bad for DPS is that?

Refresh Flame shock ONLY if both Unleash flames and 2 stacks of elemental fusion are up > Earth shock if 17+ stacks > Lava burst on CD > Lightning bolt. That is the basics of the rotation.

4) Bad CD planning

Use CDs ... on CD. ^^ I can't recommand enough to configure a good TMW / weakauras to help with this. Contact me if you want mine, it gots all the informations you need.

5) Compared to my RL (fellow ele shaman) my burst is very low even with Elemental Mastery but I am more stable in damage ove rthe course of the fight. is my opener wrong? UF (pre) > LB (pre) > FS > EM > Lvb (x2) > Ascendance > Lvb spam > I think I am bad at remembering to do the 2xEF + UF FS right after Ascendance

Yes your opener is wrong.

Perfect opener is:
-14 : Unleash flames
-3 : Fire elemental
-2 : Lava burst
0 : Use CDs (Elemental mastery + ascendance + Racial)
0 : Lava burst
2 : Unleash flames
Then Flame Shock
Then normal rotation. (Refresh Flame shock ONLY if both Unleash flames and 2 stacks of elemental fusion are up and duration under about 30 sec > Earth shock if 17+ stacks > Lava burst on CD > Lightning bolt.)

If your leader does not want to do more than 10 seconds dbm pulls i recommand to change some things. start with :
-10 : Unleash flames
-3 : Fire elemental
-2 : Lightning bolt
0 : Flame shock
2 : Lava burst
2 : Use CDs (Elemental mastery + ascendance + Racial)
Lava burst until Unleash flame CD is up and you have 2 stacks of elemental fusion (should be up by now if you unleashed at the 10 mark)
Unleash flames > Then Flame Shock again
Normal rotation then


Know on fights with multiple targets that last more than 20 seconds (Xhul, Velhari, Council) that the key to increase your dps is to ALWAYS privilege having fully boosted[2Elemental fusion+unleash flames] Flame shocks on the adds. Even if it means not earth shocking to not consume the elemental fusions stacks or the fulmination stacks.

[Zhazi]

The key is to improve the flame shock as much as possible since it is supposed to be your second source of damage single target. Refreshing the debuff without unleash and/or elemental fusion is a loss of about 10% overall dps for the entire course of the debuff while not affected by those ups.

Thank you. This is something i have to worry about and improve on because i know it causes me som issues.

Yes your opener is wrong.

Perfect opener is:
-14 : Unleash flames
-3 : Fire elemental
-2 : Lava burst
0 : Use CDs (Elemental mastery + ascendance + Racial)
0 : Lava burst
2 : Unleash flames
Then Flame Shock
Then normal rotation. (Refresh Flame shock ONLY if both Unleash flames and 2 stacks of elemental fusion are up and duration under about 30 sec > Earth shock if 17+ stacks > Lava burst on CD > Lightning bolt.)

I will learn this. Had though about something similar but saw a post in here discussing the two different methods. Considering the 2nd ES with my opener is very badly times and often "steals" the last two casts in ascendance leading to no EF stacks and thereby a delayed fully buffed FS. This i will work on definitely.

If your leader does not want to do more than 10 seconds dbm pulls i recommand to change some things. start with :

He is an Ele Shaman so i dont see that being a problem

Know on fights with multiple targets that last more than 20 seconds (Xhul, Velhari, Council) that the key to increase your dps is to ALWAYS privilege having fully boosted[2Elemental fusion+unleash flames] Flame shocks on the adds. Even if it means not earth shocking to not consume the elemental fusions stacks or the fulmination stacks.

I do this on Velhari, Council (ofc) but never did it on Xhul. Thanks for the advise Nitrodroki. Also very helpful.

Again thank you all, these are the small pointers i was after. I know they will help me pull some slightly higher numbers. I am battling hunters and mages so i am not doing to bad all though there is still room for improvement.

[Deleted]

Glad I could help :=)

[Deleted]

Hi,

Nitrodoki provided some really good advice but I just want to clarify something.

You don't want to use UF too often, PE is better in most of the instance. I just checked and the only rank one with UF is on Council.

Also if you don't have Archi trinket, you should NEVER precast LvB.
According to Warcraftlogs, on Zakuun for example, there seems to be several good openings, it's just the moment when you put the fully buffed FS wich change. Just check quickly and pick the one you want.

There is probably other things to say but I don't remember it now

Hope I clarified some things.

[Ximaus]

but almost advicing people to just put it in a macro without knowing their situation didn´t strike me as a smart thing to say

I wasn't advising him to macro them; I just noticed he didn't macro anything together because his CDs were staggered.

You don't want to use UF too often, PE is better in most of the instance. I just checked and the only rank one with UF is on Council.

PE is not really better; it's just that there is a lot of the instance in which UF is not all that helpful. Any fight where you can't have at least 50% effective uptime on UF due to using Chain Lightning then PE will be better. The Talents are not all that different (a few % difference depending on the fight) so taking PE also helps in managing Flame Shock since you can delay Unleash.

[Hypasonic]

Yes your opener is wrong.

Perfect opener is:
-14 : Unleash flames
-3 : Fire elemental
-2 : Lava burst
0 : Use CDs (Elemental mastery + ascendance + Racial)
0 : Lava burst
2 : Unleash flames
Then Flame Shock
Then normal rotation. (Refresh Flame shock ONLY if both Unleash flames and 2 stacks of elemental fusion are up and duration under about 30 sec > Earth shock if 17+ stacks > Lava burst on CD > Lightning bolt.)

you'd pop all cds before applying flame shock? Isn't that a waste or?

[Deleted]

you'd pop all cds before applying flame shock? Isn't that a waste or?

In single target fight you have elemental mastery, that means that you only have one charge of lava burst.

Which means that you are going to have to use ascendance to get a fully buffed flame shock on the target so no real way around it.

I should have pointed out you are right that in the occasions of using echo (Assault, Socrethar, Kil'rog (not mandatory at all), iskar, xhul'horac, mannoroth) simply opening with 2 lava bursts, unleash flame and applying flame shock THEN Burst CDs should be the better way.

PE is not really better; it's just that there is a lot of the instance in which UF is not all that helpful. Any fight where you can't have at least 50% effective uptime on UF due to using Chain Lightning then PE will be better. The Talents are not all that different (a few % difference depending on the fight) so taking PE also helps in managing Flame Shock since you can delay Unleash.

It is even worse than that. PE is not better than other options, it is just that Elemental blast is plain bad, like so bad it is not worth mentionning the name of the thing and Unleash fury is actually practically harmful to your overall dps in most cases because it forces you to use unleash flames on CD and prevents you from properly managing your flame shock buffs.

Over the course of a 5-6 minute fight (like most of them in HFC), PE is worth about 150-200k total damage. This is absolutely abysmal, and is still the best option. This line of talents has huge design flaws and it's not the worst of them but we do with what we have while we wait for shinier days with the arrival of sargeras troups on Azeroth. (Who thought shamans would be happy about the legion arriving on our good lands )

You don't want to use UF too often, PE is better in most of the instance. I just checked and the only rank one with UF is on Council.

Yes once again, unleash flame only role should be to improve flame shock, it is a loss to use it otherwise unless both of these conditions are met :

- You are not to refresh flame shock on any target for the next 14 seconds.
- You are moving and don't have spiritthing to cast while moving

[Deleted]

Your dps seems quite good in that video, and looking at warcraftlogs you shouldnt be compareing too much at this moment. The logs are quite heavily inflated. You got 3 shamans to compete about the dmg gained from the imps and infernals in that Mannoroth fight, which harms your dps quite a bit. That is one of the reasons why you don't gain a higher ranking i would think. I would personally had choosen Echo over EM, because those double EQs are so damn nice and those extra LvBs that doesn't overlap helps manage the lucky procs on a fairly heavy movement based fight. The ads were alive long enough for you to generate 2 EQs.

Pretty much everything else said above is good help.

[Zhazi]

Hi again guys.

Thanks so much again for the input from all people. I do think I managed to actually improve a bit. We did a HC run (same ilvl) on Monday with quite a few trials in and I am particularly proud of Gorefiend, Velhari & Manoroth. Also on Kormrok I did manage to find some dps I hadn't had before.

warcraftlogs . com/reports/ACyKvVXag7Grdxzw#fight=35&view=rankings

This gave me exactly what I was hoping for. Now I just hope that we soon get back to a stable 25 man team so we can do mythic again