1. #1

    Why is my DPS so low?

    I've read countless forums, watched numerous videos and researched ways to bring my dps up but still cant compete with other classes. In our raids im on average 6-7 ilvl below everyone else. but regardless of that simple fact, im still about 7k-10k behind everyone else in the raid. Ive reforged and regemmed so many times to test on a training dummie to see if more/less haste/mastery is better for my current gear and cant seem to do a damn thing...am i missing something gear wise or does Elemental just suck pre 5.2?

    us.battle.net/wow/en/character/antonidas/Sparxz/simple

  2. #2
    The Patient
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    From what I see, you are presently 114 rating under the draenei hit cap and don't have flame shock glyphed.
    If you post logs, you will get more accurate feedback, but failure to keep flame shock up and/or too few lava bursts are often the big dps killers.

  3. #3
    Dreadlord Eruionmel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kaikoraimi View Post
    From what I see, you are presently 114 rating under the draenei hit cap and don't have flame shock glyphed.
    If you post logs, you will get more accurate feedback, but failure to keep flame shock up and/or too few lava bursts are often the big dps killers.
    You can always get logs from someone's wow-heroes profile.

    http://www.wow-heroes.com/character/...onidas/Sparxz/

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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by sparxz View Post
    I've read countless forums, watched numerous videos and researched ways to bring my dps up but still cant compete with other classes. In our raids im on average 6-7 ilvl below everyone else. but regardless of that simple fact, im still about 7k-10k behind everyone else in the raid. Ive reforged and regemmed so many times to test on a training dummie to see if more/less haste/mastery is better for my current gear and cant seem to do a damn thing...am i missing something gear wise or does Elemental just suck pre 5.2?

    us.battle.net/wow/en/character/antonidas/Sparxz/simple
    Here is your most recent Feng Heroic Kill
    1/10/13 - http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/d.../?s=921&e=1357

    Here is mine from last night
    1/16/13 - http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/8...?s=3213&e=3640

    Looks like a good place for comparisons. For reference, my iLvl is 488/489.

    1. I failed to squeeze in 8 uses of Synapse springs on my encounter (slightly over 7 minutes. Got 6 in). You had only 5 uses of your Synapse Springs (should have also had 8).

    2. Your flame shock usage was actually better than mine. As above though you should be glyphing it.

    3. You never used Stormlash totem it looks like. This is a good raid wide DPS CD you should be using.

    4. You used Unleash Flame because it appears you do not have Unleashed Lightning Glyphed. I don't believe you should *ever* use Unleash Flame. I would recommend Glyph Unleashed Lightning.

    5. You never used Earth Elemental. It's not a super high priority, but if you have only Lightning Bolt to to cast and can cast Earth Elemental, use it. I actually only got 1 off during my Feng encounter because I missed the timing (Fire Elemental goes down, finish rotation, drop Searing Totem, drop Earth Elemental).

    6. Not sure if you were using Fire Elemental Glyph or not, but your uptime on Fire Elemental was much lower than mine (Mine 115 seconds, yours 90 seconds). Fire Elemental is a *big* dps gain for us. Maximum uptime is important. I think 7 minutes means the Glyph of FET is not optimal (7 minutes means 3 uses with glyph for a max uptime of 108 seconds, vs unglyphed 2 uses of 120 seconds)

    7. 4 Non-Crit Lava Burst. Those are not good. If your Flame Shock has fallen off (or during Feng maybe Epicenter made it miss), I think it's better to skip LvB and continue your rotation until you can re-apply Flame Shock and ensure LvB crits.

    8. Overall less casts of important spells. I had 26 casts of Elemental Blast vs your 19. You should be making sure you are hitting your priority efficiently. Not going to lie, I use a rotation helper (Clcinfo, but Elementarist is also pretty good). Crutch or not, it helps me play well I think.

    Long post, I'm sure there's more to it that others can better identify but those are the things I noticed.

    I think Elemental Shaman is a pretty basic DPS class, but it's the little details that are crucially important to maximizing your DPS.
    Last edited by Kinnetik; 2013-01-17 at 11:29 PM.

  5. #5
    No offense, but it looks like you are being 100% carried through all your kills. When I first saw your gear and your progression, I believed you were complaining about warlocks or arcane mages doing 100k+ dps while you only did 80-90k. This is far from the case and it looks like you are heavily underperforming. The good news is that you can improve! Here is some advice based on your Garalon 10 man normal kill on January 9th.

    1. Use 2 pots. I believe you prepotted, but I didn't catch the 2nd pot on the log.
    2. Cast flame shock before ascendance. Cast Stormlash Totem before ascendance. Macro your ascendance to your spiritwalker's grace. All these are important. Ascendance makes up a Huge chunk of shaman dps, it is important to savor every second of it.
    3. Use the glyph of unleashed elements. Period.
    4. You only used your Fire elemental once. And you had the glyph. My advice is to unglyph your fire elemental and use it twice in a fight.
    5. You cast earthshock a total of 7 times. Should be way more.
    6. Ghost Wolf. Never use Ghost Wolf on Garalon. Well, never say never, but don't use ghost wolf 6 times. I believe this is tied to not using the unleashed Elements glyph. Get it! It is very important.

    I don't believe you are a bad player, but it seems that there is a root cause to all this poor behavior. It seems that you are overlooking alot of the basics in Elemental Shaman play . Could you perhaps upload a screenshot of your UI or maybe a video of a boss kill?
    Last edited by happyzod; 2013-01-17 at 11:39 PM.

  6. #6
    The Patient
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    Looking at the linked logs, a few things not already mentioned became patently clear. The following table is for easy reference for points 1-3 below; "casts" exclude overloads & echoes.
    average interval between casts, in sec
    spell
    Sparxz
    Kinnetik
    Elemental Blast
    21.80
    16.42
    Flame Shock
    16.15
    30.50
    Earth Shock
    39.64
    28.47
    Issue 1) Not casting Elemental Blast as frequently as desirable: Since refreshing Flame shock & Lava Burst are higher priority than Elemental Blast, the average interval between each cast should be somewhere over 12 seconds. 22 seconds, however, is certainly too great an interval. 16.4 seconds is reasonable.
    Issue 2) Excessive Flame Shock casts: While Sparxz cast Flame Shock every 16 seconds, on average, (with a 24 second duration), the uptime was 94%. This means that Sparxz was not only casting it too often, but still managed to let it fall off for a total of 26 seconds (the equivalent of just over one whole unglyphed Flame Shock). Ideally, uptime should be in the the 97-100% range. (Kinnetik had 33 seconds without Flame Shock, also missing the equivalent of one Flame Shock.)
    Issue 3) Failure to Earth Shock: I expect to see more Earth Shocks than Flame Shocks in the course of a fight, and that the interval between them should be less than 30 sec. (My most recent SimCraft results had ~1.25 Earth Shocks per Flame Shock, with an interval of ~22 seconds.)
    Issue 4) Forgetting to drop Searing Totem: Kinnetik had a fire totem active for just over 90% of the fight; Fire Elemental was up for 116 sec, Searing Totem for 270 sec; no fire totem for 41 sec. Sparxz had a fire totem active for just over 62% of the fight; Fire Elemental was up for 90.5 sec, Searing for 180 sec; no fire totem for 165 sec.
    Issue 5) Inefficient Off-healing: Kinnetik used Ancestral Guidance three times for 3.83 million healing. Sparxz used Healing Tide Totem, Healing Rain, and Healing Stream Totem for 1.77 million healing -- less than half Kinnetik's total, with at least twice the number of GCDs. For elemental and enhance shaman, Ancestral Guidance is massively superior to Healing Tide Totem.

    It seems to me that setting up an addon to help guide your rotation would be very helpful in correcting most of the above issues. Personally, I use TellMeWhen; Power Auras / Weak Auras are popular choice. Endus' Shaman Auras is a pre-configured version of Weak Auras that could be helpful.

    A couple of other quick notes regarding Sparxz's Feng fight linked above: If every miss on had been a simple hit (without any procs), that would have been ~1500 more dps. Furthermore, having every Lava Burst be a crit (and not a simple hit) would have been another 1000 dps. Using Earth Shock every 25 seconds or so would have been another 3500+ dps. Having Searing Totem down whenever the Fire Elemental wasn't would be another 1000+ dps. Total, that's over 7000 dps within easy reach.

    One last note: For an elemental shaman, the Telluric Currents glyph is mildly better than a bucket of warm spit: Rolling Thunder (and the very infrequent Thunderstorm) should keep your mana sufficiently full -- if they aren't, you are doing something wrong.

  7. #7
    Titan draykorinee's Avatar
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    This is great advice, I think its why I severly underperformed on my first attempts at elemental last week, been playing healer for nearly 2 years, going back this week to give it another go. Think ill try elementarist on a dummy and see if it helps me.

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