[Elemental] Protectors of the Endless and Chain Lightning

[thebdc]

So our 10 man raid is working on Protectors of the Endless HC and I'm looking how to improve my Elemental DPS. I always assumed that people using Chain Lightning on this fight did it for epeen only, but seeing that it's also used on HC made me rethink.

Since the protectors heal up when one of them dies the cleave damage is pointless. So what's left are more Lightning Shield stacks and additional damage through EotE and Elemental Overload. I guess the latter is the important one, when one of them proccs on a secondary target and jumps back to the focussed target it should do more damage than a Lightning Bolt.
Is this correct, i.e. should Chain Lightning be used because of this in this fight (is it actually viable?), or am I missing something else?

[edlike]

I use Unglyphed CL on this fight as long as I can hit 2 targets. With 4P it allows you to fulminate on CD (pretty much every CL cast instantly 7 stacks you). Since you won't go OOM and CL spam unglyphed is almost equal to LB on single target it measures out to a DPS increase being able to shock off CD.

[Tayeonz]

If im not totaly wrong, your CL proccs mastery of all three targets resulting in higher single target damage even without concidering Fulmintaion.

[Laurean]

I am not so sure about higher single target dps without fulmination, but with 4pc it is definitely a dps boost to use CL instead of LB when all three mobs are alive.

[NPSlow]

I play enhancement so I'm not 100% sure but if using Echo the CL echo will originate off a second enemy not your target kind of like how Fire Nova echos will come out of a non primary target. In my eyes this is extra single target damage, so worth it?

[thebdc]

Elemental Overload can procc on any of the Chain Lightning targets hit. Not with the full chance, though, but only 1/3 of it. From the Elemental Shaman Guide:

Chain Lightning is not a DPS gain over Lightning Bolt. This is because Chain Lightning has a 1/3 modifier on Elemental Overload procs, which reduces both the damage dealt and lowers the number of Rolling Thunder procs.

With 4pc I'm sitting quite often on 7 Lightning Shield stacks, waiting for the shock cooldown to end or not being able to use it because I have to refresh Flame Shock soon. Even without using Chain Lightning, which makes this situation even worse.

So I played around at the Training Dummies a bit:
I cast CL on dummy 1.
Dummy 1: 30731 damage
Dummy 2: 24510 damage
Dummy 3: 19683 damage

Elemental Overload proccs on dummy 2 and jumps back to dummy 1:
Dummy 2: 25347 damage
Dummy 1: 17726

So dummy 1 got 48457 damage in total. This is the best case, it'd be lower if dummy 1 was the 3rd target hit by the Elemental Overload procc.

With Lightning Bolt: does 36327 damage to dummy 1, Elemental Overload proccs and does an additional 27184 damage, totaling to 63511. 15000 more than in the Chain Lightning example.

[edlike]

I find it hard to believe you are hitting 7 stacks every 5 seconds using LB alone, even with the 4p.

[thebdc]

No, of course not. But it's not like I'd need to keep spamming CL all the time to get the 7 stacks. I guess I'll just try out to throw in a single CL if I have less than 7 Stacks and want to Earth Shock.

[Recom]

According to my math (I can link it if needed when I get home) Using CL is a ~10% dps loss on a single target (where you only benefit from 1/3 of your mastery and not accounting for Fulm charges) so when cleaving 2 targets it's definitely a dps increase, how much I don't know but you should be able to sim it using a 2 targets fight.

[Eruionmel]

According to my math (I can link it if needed when I get home) Using CL is a ~10% dps loss on a single target (where you only benefit from 1/3 of your mastery and not accounting for Fulm charges) so when cleaving 2 targets it's definitely a dps increase, how much I don't know but you should be able to sim it using a 2 targets fight.

First, we're talking 3 targets, not 2. Second, the question is not whether it's a DPS increase overall, but a whether it is a DPS increase on your primary target, which means you must take into account the fulmination charges. Third, this isn't something you can easily math out, since it involves the probability of overloads, echoes, overload echoes, which target those will jump to, and how many extra lightning shield charges will be generated, leading to extra fulminations and fewer CLs cast.

I'm guessing the only way to know is to sim it, and I certainly don't know my way around simcraft well enough to set something like that up.

My gut reaction is to say that it will be a slight loss in DPS on your primary target, even with being able to fulminate more often. It's probably slight enough to not be a serious issue, however; and hey! Who doesn't love lying to their raid leader so they can pad the meters?! ;3

(Just make sure he/she isn't smart enough to check WoL for your DPS on the primary target alone.)

[thebdc]

I actually tried to sim it, but SimCraft only shows overall DPS, not DPS for each target (or I'm just to blind to see it between all those numbers).

[Teye]

I did some Simcraft work for you fine Shaman folks.

Going to try and keep this explanation brief, but if you don't care about the details, skip to the TL;DR.

Imported the BiS T14 profile. Deleted the AoE lines removed the Chain Lightning Glyph, and set the options to 3 targets, 10,000 Iterations, fight length of 300 seconds (5 minutes), 0% vary time, elite skill. Added the very important line just above Lightning Bolt:
actions.single+=/chain_lightning,if=buff.lightning_shield.react<3
I attempted the sim with <2, <4, <5, <6, and <7. All of them generated less dps on the main target than <3. This means you shouldn't cast Chain Lightning on 3 targets unless you have less than 3 stacks of Lightning Shield.
If sim the normal T14 BiS profile with the same settings, we get a dps result of 111,681 dps.
The sim I ran generated a damage taken per second for Target One of 111,084.

TL;DR, its a dps loss according to Simcraft. Take it with a grain of salt if you'd like, but as a Raid Leader, I'll be telling my Ele Shamans not to do this.

---------- Post added 2013-01-06 at 08:15 AM ----------

I actually tried to sim it, but SimCraft only shows overall DPS, not DPS for each target (or I'm just to blind to see it between all those numbers).

Scroll down to the first target, go to Statistics and Data Analysis, and click on DTPS. That will show the damage dealt to just that target per second.

[thebdc]

Thanks for the info, Teye! I just simmed it out with your settings and my current gear, and it computed to be an increase of 678 dps (104807 with CL vs 104129 without CL) on the main target. But I guess that is easily negated by margin of error, movement, dispelling and purging.

[Eruionmel]

So, since it's clearly going to be one of those "everybody has to just sim it" things, we have another question at hand: should the general consensus be to use CL or not? There are a lot of people who don't and won't sim, so what do we tell them? Someone sim with and without the 4pc, as I'm sure that makes a big difference. Perhaps we can say CL without 4pc and LB with 4pc?

[edlike]

Well from what Teye has provided it's best to CL when you're <3 stacks of LS, which would equate to probably 1 CL after every fulminate, and then standard single target rotation aside from that.

Obviously there are going to be some discrepancies from character to character but that seems like a pretty safe general rule. Aside from that the DPS margin is not drastic between pure CL/LB at least.

thanks for the sim, teye

[Eruionmel]

Thanks for the info, Teye! I just simmed it out with your settings and my current gear, and it computed to be an increase of 678 dps (104807 with CL vs 104129 without CL) on the main target. But I guess that is easily negated by margin of error, movement, dispelling and purging.

Are you using the 4pc or not?

Just got home, so I'm simming myself at the minute. Will post results shortly.

79363 DPS on the first target completely replacing LB with CL.
91543 DPS on the first target using CL only at <3 stacks of LS.
91714 DPS on the first target using CL only at <4 stacks of LS.
91485 DPS on the first target using CL only at <5 stacks of LS.
90808 DPS on the first target using CL only at <6 stacks of LS.
89828 DPS on the first target using CL only at <7 stacks of LS.
91419 DPS on the first target using normal single target rotation.

So clearly the answer is not filling with nothing but CL, lol. But it does in fact look like filling with CL at <3-4 stacks for me is optimal. Gonna be annoying to try to watch it that closely, though. :\

[orderschvank]

if one sim is saying its better, and one is saying its not, it might be safe to say it doesnt matter which method you choose to play, in which case use CL cuz it makes you look nicer on the meters lol

[edlike]

So clearly the answer is not filling with nothing but CL, lol. But it does in fact look like filling with CL at <3-4 stacks for me is optimal. Gonna be annoying to try to watch it that closely, though. :\

You dont really have to micromanage your stacks. You could just, as I suggest, CL once after every fulminate. This will almost certainly put you above 3-4 stacks with 3 targets up.

[Eruionmel]

You dont really have to micromanage your stacks. You could just, as I suggest, CL once after every fulminate. This will almost certainly put you above 3-4 stacks with 3 targets up.

I don't use the 4 set currently, so it'd be 2. But yeah, that was what I'd decided. CL <5 stacks is a DPS increase over regular single target as well (just not optimal overall), so if I get an extra stack here and there it won't be a big problem.

[Caatraa]

Kind of off topic. but on the top of more dps, what about rolling flame shock on all 3 targets there for getting LvB procs. and before someone says do both i don't think it would work doing 3 shock cds on flame shock and trying to use everyone for fulamation.