Elemental Shaman Guide: 5.4 Edition

[Aleksej89]

With the upcoming buff to Lightning Bolt (no more casting time penalty through the glyph) could the Unleashed Fury talent noticeably gain in value?
I guess that being able to cast LB faster means you can fit more LBs into UF's debuff, so it should make UF talent a bit more worth while in PvE?

Can one of you math wizards crunch some numbers for these upcoming changes?

[Narwhal6]

Is our BiS using -

Thunderforge Helm
Thunderforge Chest - Ra'Den
Thunderforge Pants - (I think this is Horridon?)

And then use 2p Shoulders and Legs.

I'm questioning how strong our 4p actually is. I'm a 10 man raider that has a Warrior to line up Ascendance with Skull Banner. The 4p messes around with this duo of greatness....so the extra stats I'm feeling may be better. Any one have some thoughts?

[draykorinee]

Well, most our Tot fights run around 8-9 minutes at the moment, I think its basically looking at the fight length, something like jin takes at best 5 minutes so its 2 v 2 so a dps gain, to line it up with skull, whereas, say a 7.5 minute fight it could be 4 vs 3 so a dps loss to get rid of 4 pce.
Ive heard some people say they can get ascendence down to 2 minutes, if thats the case then I dont think youll ever want to drop 4pce, it would potentially line up with the 1,3,5 skull banners.

(reminds me of the flire ele glyph, if you know youre going to get more uses then its clearly a dps gain, if not then its a clear dps loss)

[Rhy]

I recently came back after a few months off, and I'm raiding ToT currently trying to catch up. However, I had a few questions.

Are the +320 Haste gems worth using over hybrid orange (+80 Int/160 Haste) gems at lower gear levels[508iLvl] (6710 Haste Rating currently)

And before I quit, I only had the 2pc T14 bonus, so would it be worth it to break it for 2pc T15?

[draykorinee]

Dump the 2pce asap and dont use pure haste gems at all. IF you need haste just reforge all that mastery to haste, our pets benefit more from the haste, my sims show haste > mastery with a similar talent build although my ilvl is only 506, and if youre going PE you should take AS iirc.

The value in the flat 5% is close to the value of EotE on it's own; EotE is a 6% chance to proc, so about a 6% bump. The instant cast makes up a small amount of the difference, but the bulk of that gap is made up by the passive Haste on the enhanced Elementals; the Elementals use melee haste for their attacks, so they're getting the extra 5% that was added for melee haste in 5.2.

It's a very passive combination, to be sure, but the numbers prop it up as viable.

[Aleksej89]

With the upcoming buff to Lightning Bolt (no more casting time penalty through the glyph) could the Unleashed Fury talent noticeably gain in value?
I guess that being able to cast LB faster means you can fit more LBs into UF's debuff, so it should make UF talent a bit more worth while in PvE?

Can one of you math wizards crunch some numbers for these upcoming changes??

[grindholme]

if youre going PE you should take AS iirc.

Running with PE, Echo of the Elements simmed marginally better for me than AS (light movement, otherwise default values). I'm about ilvl 513. Tazjun - Wyrmrest Accord if you want to take a look at my gear.

[draykorinee]

Running with PE, Echo of the Elements simmed marginally better for me than AS (light movement, otherwise default values). I'm about ilvl 513. Tazjun - Wyrmrest Accord if you want to take a look at my gear.

I dont doubt it, the differences are marginal for me too but in favour of AS, its why its always best to sim first.

[Ardourdan]

As a 10 man raider I can't see T15 4 piece being good enough as we lose the banner. I would say in 25 man if you have at least 2 warriors then it might be better to use the 4 piece. Could we get some clarification regarding this from people much much cleverer than me?

[Narwhal6]

As a 10 man raider I can't see T15 4 piece being good enough as we lose the banner. I would say in 25 man if you have at least 2 warriors then it might be better to use the 4 piece. Could we get some clarification regarding this from people much much cleverer than me?

There's a reason I just posted about this and using Thunderforged Gear instead. ><

[Taoforums]

It probably has been asked before but I'm reading through this and... is the Sinister Primal Diamond enough that you want to stack Mastery even with Primal Elementalist when said it doesn't scale with the Fire Elemental? (Taking for account that earlier in the guide you mentionned Primal Elementalist and Ancestral Swiftness is recommended to be together)

And secondly, would it be a smart move to not glyph the Fire Elemental when you take Primal Elementalist?

Thanks!

[Aleksej89]

With the upcoming buff to Lightning Bolt (no more casting time penalty through the glyph) could the Unleashed Fury talent noticeably gain in value?
I guess that being able to cast LB faster means you can fit more LBs into UF's debuff, so it should make UF talent a bit more worth while in PvE?

Can one of you math wizards crunch some numbers for these upcoming changes.

[Endus]

It'll increase the value of UF, but not even close to the amount needed to bring it on par with PE/EB. LB's still going to be the lowest on your priority, even with the UF buff active, meaning the chances of actually squeezing in an additional buffed LB are reasonably low, with that small a chance in the casting time. 5% is significant, but UE triggers a GCD, meaning that every cast hard-locks the amount of time you can squeeze LBs in during the buff; there's no way to cast an LB right after receiving the buff, because of that GCD and the LB's cast time. This means the cast time reduction only provides a benefit if you can get an extra LB off within that buff uptime, which is going to require much more than a 5% chance in cast time.

And there's really no need to spam the exact same question three times.

[Deleted]

I recently got Wushoolay LFR and changed it with relic 2/2.

Now, Wushoolay is one of the new RPPM-based trinkets and you simply cannot tell when it is about to proc (as far as i know).

Most probably, it proccs at the start - not that reliable than relic, but it usually does during the first twenty seconds.

So at the beginning of the fight, aligning Ascendance with it is usually possible but more cumbersome than with relic.

Afterwards, the traditional idea regarding aligning trinket procs and ascendance was afaik:
Look at your timers and how long the boss fight lasts, judge if it would be appropriate to align trinkets and ascendance.

Is there any "new" aspect with RPPM trinkets? Or is it now just "burn them with Ascendance whenever possible!"?

[Wrap]

EDIT: Double Post on accident.

[Wrap]

-The Fire Elemental Glyph has nothing to do with PE. You simply use it when you can gain another use of Fire Elemental from a fight. Which depends on whether it's Normal or Heroic, and your raids DPS.
-With PE you can take either AS or EotE, you have to sim which will be better. However if you have 4 piece T15 you might want to stick to EotE since as far as i know the Echo's on LvB count towards the Ascendance reduction.
-At Narwhal6: I'm pretty sure the BiS off piece is the thunderforged chest from Ra-Den. Making the Helm, Shoulders, Gloves and Legs the pieces you want to keep the 4 set bonus.
-The value of the 4 piece is going to depend on your mastery, and your luck. Personally with my current gear I seem to be able to use Ascendance every 1 Minute 40/45 Seconds, but it will vary each time. While it is annoying to not line up with a Banner, it's pretty much going to be better in almost every situation because you should be able to Ascendance almost twice as much once you get 50%+ Mastery. And it just gets better and better the higher you climb.
-With the 4 piece, your stats should go something like Mastery > Haste > Crit. (Even with PE!)
-UE would need to be off the GCD to be worth using in most situations. Something I think needs to be done!

[Glurp]

You mention that the Fire Elemental Glyph is reccomended, is this just something you leave in all the time or is there a specific length of fight where one is better than the other?

[Endus]

You mention that the Fire Elemental Glyph is reccomended, is this just something you leave in all the time or is there a specific length of fight where one is better than the other?

It's "recommended" because it makes for easier syncing of CDs, more than that it's actually a DPS increase. The actual gaps where you'd make a judgement call on fight length are like 20 seconds apart; unless you know really precisely how long the kill will be, just ignore it as a factor.

[Glurp]

It's "recommended" because it makes for easier syncing of CDs, more than that it's actually a DPS increase. The actual gaps where you'd make a judgement call on fight length are like 20 seconds apart; unless you know really precisely how long the kill will be, just ignore it as a factor.

So on a basic level it's probably worth keeping in to sync it with Ascendance, Skull Banner and Synapse Springs? How does the T15 4set effect this?

[grindholme]

The Fire Elemental glyph is also useful for keeping it out for less than a minute; on some fights, the full duration might not be usable. Good examples are Lei Shi (who might go immune or hide) and Sha of Fear (where you might get whisked off to a platform).