[Elemental] Moving from Average Joe to Good DPS

[Deleted]

Hi everyone,

I've started on what will become a series of Elemental Shaman guides, and I would really like some feedback on the two videos I've made so far before I spend countless of hours on the rest of the guides.. Your feedback might mean I need to change some stuff around (like using my blond GF as a voiceover instead of myself), and that's a lot easier to do before the actual video has been made and uploaded.

The idea behind my series, is that it should work as a step-by-step learning curve for Elemental Shamans. Im not trying to teach players how to play at elite level from day one (nor saying I am an elite player), but Im trying to guide them through what I think is needed to go from being an average (or new) Ele Shaman who knows the basic stuff to be a good/excellent Ele Shaman (defined as: Occasionally getting top 200 WoL rankings, or generally being above the 85-95% treshhold according to Epeen bot on raidbots.com). The first two videos are ofcouse the most basic stuff my video will cover, the videos coming from here on will be slightly more advanced for each step..

With that in mind, here are the current plan and videos:

Elemental Shaman Rotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_J1wADt1uA (feedback wanted!)
Elemental Shaman Opening Rotation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdZyrIDKTaI (feedback wanted!)

Elemental Guides to come (in exact order):
- Cooldown management
- Tips to increase your dps (general pointers such as ABC, planning ahead)
- Gearing & spec guide for Elemental
- How to use Simcraft
- Setting up your UI for optimal damage
- How to analyze your performance with WoL (including how to setup WoL)

Other future content on the channel:
- PvP videos (BGs only - random and RBG)
- Boss specific guides with Elemental pov (how to optimize your dps for this specific boss)
- Boss mechanic specific guides (how to dodge attenuation heroic f.x.)

That's the plan so far at least.. If you think I've missed anything please let me know that as well... But first and foremost I could really use some feedback on the first two videos

Best regards,
Zenvon

(About me - short):
Played Elemental Shaman for roughy 5 years. Playing on a RP server (Moonglade) in a PVE/RP guild called Ebon Flame. Bunch of friends raiding 2-3 times a week. We're not clearing content, but we are seing a fair bit of the heroic content while it's current tier. Some tiers we also get to finish the meta before the next patch hits. Reguarly doing top200 WoL entries (in normal modes) without sacrificing my job in the raid (knockback adds, stun adds, etc) and without full herioc gear. I dont consider myself an elite player at all, but I consider my dps to be fairly good given the circumstances.

[Nebria]

nice videos

can you tell me what ui addons you are using?
especially the totem bars and that above the cast bar.

[Sammoura]

Great videos! I applaud you for taking the time and constructing these videos, I'm always interested in seeing how other Ele Shamans are playing.
Although, for your 2nd video, the Opening Rotation. I find it better to use Elemental Blast than pop Ascendance right after. It deals with RNG, hoping you get a Mastery/Haste proc, but when you do, numbers are baller. Just my 2 cents!

[zaneosak]

I can't wait to look at these when I get home. I am an resto shaman who has to elemental very rarely but when I do I am pretty bad at it because I have little experience with the spec. In 5.2 Resto Druids are looking really good so I think our druid will be healing alot of fights compared to now so I will be called on more often to play elemental. I usually destroy the meters in LFR but when I dps with my fellow 10 man raiders I lose miserably. Hopefully this can help! Thanks in advance!

[Deleted]

I like them. They're very well constructed and clear and, as far as I can tell, correct. I'll be looking out for the rest of the series

[Deleted]

Great video and nicely done.

If I could only give 1 suggestion:
I think it's always a shame when a video feels disconnected with the things being told. If you aim at someone trying the class for the first time, I would build up the rotation just like that as well.
Like for elemental, start with casting just chain casting lightning bolts while you explain that's the filler. Then you add the flame shock in the rotation while you explain it's purpose. Then add your lava burst to the rotation, add elemental blast, add totems, and so on. Imo that is much easier to get introduced to every new spell for the class then to wrap your mind around than just starting the full blown rotation on screen while explaining the rotation for the first time, it feels abit overwhelming. I really miss such videos for other classes as well when I search for rotation tips for new specs.
Right now you don't really need to watch the movie, just listen to it (which might be a good thing for others).
This is of course my very own opinion and I could be the only one who feels like this

Otherwise props to you for doing this, I'm very sure many people will find your movies helpful!

[Deleted]

Thanks for the nice words everyone - now let the critisism start if there's anything I should improve on.

@ six
I like your idea about explaining the rotation like that, but then again, I've made the video trying to hit people who are familar with the rotation allready, but just looking for confirmation on exactly how to do it. But good idea, I might do a beginners guide as well using your idea.

@ Nebria
Im using -a lot- of addons.
The totembar is TotemTimers where I've disabled almost everyting except the totems (the addon comes with cooldowns etc as well)
What you see right above my castbar is actually just an actionbar which I've made clickthrough (means I cant interract with it and it's locked). Im using Bartender for my actionbars. I used to use PowerAuras, but last patch broke it for me and I havent had it fixed yet.

[Deleted]

I can't really find anything wrong with your videos, and they would be just fine for someone who just started playing an ele for example. however, i think it would be a good idea to use footage of some bossfights, and the narrate your own play after, to get deeper into the class and maybe start a guide for more expirienced players who's truggling on certain bossfights. Could include explaining glyph choices, specc, etc, some nice tips and tricks for that particular boss, because our single target rotation is really simple, or maybe you should include som addon configs for trackers or something. i dont really feel you really gain anything from seeing you do the rotation when you've already talked about it and put it in writing.

[Deleted]

i think it would be a good idea to use footage of some bossfights, and the narrate your own play after, to get deeper into the class and maybe start a guide for more expirienced players who's truggling on certain bossfights. Could include explaining glyph choices, specc, etc, some nice tips and tricks for that particular boss, because our single target rotation is really simple, or maybe you should include som addon configs for trackers or something. i dont really feel you really gain anything from seeing you do the rotation when you've already talked about it and put it in writing.

That's is the absolutely also the plan to do those videos (boss specific guides for Elemental pov). But they will not come before I've done the rest of the basic stuff.. And I'll only be doing them for the 5.2 raids..

[Kesandri]

Firstly, this is a very good idea what your doing here, and I am sure a number of elemental shamans will use this type of project to help further themselves, especially newer shamans ofc. If you do this correctly I am sure you can make a success of your video's now and in the future.
I hope you stick with the project as it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Now my critisism, and its not about your guides but in the way you describe yourself. Please do not take what I am about to say the wrong way because I really do wish you the best of luck with this however, you are advertising yourself as a shaman with experience, a shaman who obtains rankings and can help others do the same.

Reguarly doing top200 WoL entries without sacrificing my job in the raid (knockback adds, stun adds, etc) and without full herioc gear. I
dont consider myself an elite player at all, but I consider my dps to be fairly good given the circumstances.[/I][/COLOR]

The problem is this line in which you failed to mention that a lot of your rankings are in LFR and recent normal modes, both of which you out gear now quite a lot. You do not have 1 heroic ranking as of yet, and I do feel this could be slightly misleading as your guides become more 'advanced'.
Why does this bother me? I am worried for your sake that people will read your guide, realise where these 'top 200 rankings' are coming from and then fob your guide off. I think you need to be more honest with your personal statement and where you are coming from, and I believe more people will appreciate what is a great idea.

Again please dont take this as an insult, it was something that I wanted to know firstly, and if I wanted to know it being an average ele sham, I am sure that the better shams than me will also check this info out.

I am sorry if this offends, I really am not intending too and wish you the best of luck with your future guides.

[Griffeth]

I for one found the guide rather helpful as a start, but the elemental shaman rotation seems very simple. Are you eventually going to jump into more advanced tactics such as refreshing flame shock with higher int/spellpower procs or different rotations for AoE/Cleave?

[Deleted]

I for one found the guide rather helpful as a start, but the elemental shaman rotation seems very simple. Are you eventually going to jump into more advanced tactics such as refreshing flame shock with higher int/spellpower procs or different rotations for AoE/Cleave?

You should pretty much never refresh a flame shock earlier then 2 ticks left, and only 2 ticks left if you have bloodlust and it will end in ~2 seconds.

OP: Nice videos, nothing major to critize what i could see. I disagree with one step on the opener guide but you might be right, and even if it isn't the dps difference is probably in the 0.01% ^^
Looking forward for more!

[Ryuke]

Videos are fine I suppose from a learning standpoint. From a tech standpoint even watching it at 1080p Full screen on a 1920X1080 screen it looked like I was watching it in 480p. Intro with the lightning could be shortened from 15 sec I felt like it was way to long and not really needed to see your name highlighted in wave motion. There is also 10 seconds of you just moving your mouse around/fixing addons in both videos. I recommend cutting that out and lead into the link for your previous/next video Immediately or a second or 2 after entering that part of the clip. The length you had for the link was acceptable but it hung around for a second or two after your rotation list came up on the screen.

I'm sure you might be limited by your tech for such things as making it look "HD" but otherwise most of these things could easily fixed in editing aside from maybe the intro. I suppose you could just speed the intro up to give it that look of not lingering forever.

NOTE: Most of what i'm talking about comes is from video 2 but is prevalent in both videos in regard to video/audio quality.

[Deleted]

Good guide overall but like some have mentioned some video/technical related reasons to improve. Firstly, your voice is monotone the way you present the information, try sounding a bit more enthusiastic and clear about what you are trying to convey. The intro could also be shortened in length to 5 seconds, anything longer is overkill.

I'll give you an example of a guy who I think is the best wow channel on youtube/twitch right now. His main trait in creating and presenting the video is just enthusiasm, it goes heck of a long way. He's not super knowledgeable of every class but he's performed in top world first guilds, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mikepreachwow/videos?view=0

[Deleted]

Thanks for the comments, praise and critisism. Keep it coming!

@ Kesandri
No insult taken what so ever. I get your point, although what I wrote isnt false, I can see why people could assume I ment top200 WoL ranks for heroic modes. My LFR ranks is worth nothing imo, I've just logged some LFR since we had some applicants with us. Since my guild doesnt farm heroic modes (we usually mess up some stuff in every encounter) we dont see a lot of clean kills.. I'll edit it so it's more clear that I do top 200 ranks in normal mode

@ Destrudo
I dont ever refresh Flame Shock when it has more than 1-2 secs left.. (exception being if it has less than 16secs left and Im about to pop Ascendance). I wont do a cleave video, but I will do boss specific guides which should cover when you should be cleaving and stuff like that.

@ Ryuke
Yah, tech is a b...ch.. I use fraps to capture the raids. Im running 1920 x 1080 resolution, but I can only capture in half size using fraps with 30fps, otherwise I start to lag.. Using a Radeon HD 4800 series graphic card :/ Cant do much about that.
Point taken about the intro - I just really liked the lightning stuff and I have a big ego I'll shorten it down a bit and maybe just keep the name in static text..

@ Kejinx
I'll try to sound more enthuastic in future movies, but ya, thats absolutely one of the hard stuff for me to change.

[Eruionmel]

While he's not ranking on heroic modes, he seems to be a perfectly fine player. And ranking on normals is still ranking. Yes, most of us who rank on heroics would rank above him on normals if we were doing them, but who's to say that's not just a gear difference? If he can rank at all, he's clearly doing the rotation correctly and has a fair amount of skill, so I'm sure if he were doing heroics and had our gear levels, he'd probably be ranking heroic modes.

OP: Very nice videos. In my opinion, you're actually doing well on vocal inflection, but you're staying too low in your vocal register, which gives the impression of monotone even though you're changing your inflection. Try staying out of the "vocal fry" zone, especially towards the end of phrases. Basically, speak higher than you normally would. Sitting very straight in your chair and tightening your core abdominal muscles will help to keep your voice up and out of that low range. Studies have shown that people respond better to higher voices in instructional settings (youtube tutorials and school classrooms, for instance), where they respond better to lower voices in informational and relaxation settings (such as news casts or poetry readings).

Hope that helps. You could probably find some youtube tutorials on voice acting that would give some excellent tips.

[Deleted]

While he's not ranking on heroic modes, he seems to be a perfectly fine player. And ranking on normals is still ranking. Yes, most of us who rank on heroics would rank above him on normals if we were doing them, but who's to say that's not just a gear difference? If he can rank at all, he's clearly doing the rotation correctly and has a fair amount of skill, so I'm sure if he were doing heroics and had our gear levels, he'd probably be ranking heroic modes.

OP: Very nice videos. In my opinion, you're actually doing well on vocal inflection, but you're staying too low in your vocal register, which gives the impression of monotone even though you're changing your inflection. Try staying out of the "vocal fry" zone, especially towards the end of phrases. Basically, speak higher than you normally would. Sitting very straight in your chair and tightening your core abdominal muscles will help to keep your voice up and out of that low range. Studies have shown that people respond better to higher voices in instructional settings (youtube tutorials and school classrooms, for instance), where they respond better to lower voices in informational and relaxation settings (such as news casts or poetry readings).

Hope that helps. You could probably find some youtube tutorials on voice acting that would give some excellent tips.

His opening rotation is not that good though. Normal rotation is very situational so I can judge much on that..

But the way I seem to put out more dps is:

1. Fire Ele
2. Pre pot
3. Flameshock (this makes the ele attack boss faster as well because your elemental does not engage combat until you deal dmg or receive dmg)
4. Lava Burst ( this allows for it to procc during the next cast)
5. Elemental Blast (long cast so very often lava burst proccs up here)
6. Stormlash
7. If Lava burst procced during elemental blast do that first
8. Ascendance
9. SPAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMM Lava Burst.

Placing your fire elemental in combat results in dps loss as you giving up a GCD to do a non dmging cast...if you do any non instant cast after you placed fire ele then he will stand there still for 1-2 sec till your cast hits the target....flameshock makes him engage the boss instantly.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong I'm happy to listen to any explenation of why I would be wrong on this...

[Deleted]

@Eruionmel
I'll look into that voice acting.. Never payed it much attention actually

@ Sarac
Your opening rotation can be used as well. But you loose the possibility of pre-casting a Lightning Bolt/Ele blast that way without having your Fire Elemental standing around doing nothing for a few secs.

I wont judge which is better, I think both of them are viable, and I am indeed using both. But the video still explains the important part of getting a normal lava burst + elemental blast + using fire elemental & stormlash totem before popping ascendance.

[Eruionmel]

His opening rotation is not that good though. Normal rotation is very situational so I can judge much on that..

But the way I seem to put out more dps is:

1. Fire Ele
2. Pre pot
3. Flameshock (this makes the ele attack boss faster as well because your elemental does not engage combat until you deal dmg or receive dmg)
4. Lava Burst ( this allows for it to procc during the next cast)
5. Elemental Blast (long cast so very often lava burst proccs up here)
6. Stormlash
7. If Lava burst procced during elemental blast do that first
8. Ascendance
9. SPAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMM Lava Burst.

Placing your fire elemental in combat results in dps loss as you giving up a GCD to do a non dmging cast...if you do any non instant cast after you placed fire ele then he will stand there still for 1-2 sec till your cast hits the target....flameshock makes him engage the boss instantly.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong I'm happy to listen to any explenation of why I would be wrong on this...

Actually, I do think you're quite wrong. Fire ele first is a DPS loss because he stands there the entire time until you hit flameshock. Not only that, you could be precasting a lightning bolt with your pot.

Imo:
1. Pot + LB (Pot is off GCD) 1.5 seconds before pull.
2. FlS
3. Ele
4. SL
5. LvB
6. Ascend (+Lust if you're on lust duty, it's off GCD)
7. LvB Spam

I use PE, so I can't comment on EB placement. The middle part of yours with LvB > EB > SL is probably best if you're running EB. With the start above (assuming starting with 0 stacks), you should get a 7 stack fulm at almost exactly 5 seconds remaining on your first FlS, giving you a beautiful burst phase at the beginning.

[Deleted]

His opening rotation is not that good though. Normal rotation is very situational so I can judge much on that..

But the way I seem to put out more dps is:

1. Fire Ele
2. Pre pot
3. Flameshock (this makes the ele attack boss faster as well because your elemental does not engage combat until you deal dmg or receive dmg)
4. Lava Burst ( this allows for it to procc during the next cast)
5. Elemental Blast (long cast so very often lava burst proccs up here)
6. Stormlash
7. If Lava burst procced during elemental blast do that first
8. Ascendance
9. SPAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMM Lava Burst.

Placing your fire elemental in combat results in dps loss as you giving up a GCD to do a non dmging cast...if you do any non instant cast after you placed fire ele then he will stand there still for 1-2 sec till your cast hits the target....flameshock makes him engage the boss instantly.

If anyone thinks I'm wrong I'm happy to listen to any explenation of why I would be wrong on this...

imo:

1: Prepot
2: Precast LB
3: (BL) + SL (you don't only stormlash for yourself, so using it early on is better imo for people with on pull haste CD's like the troll racial, also stacking it with crit banner is a very nice boost, also in my guild we BL right on pull so dot classes first set of dots can get the extra haste.)
4: FE
5: FS
6: LvB
7: EB
8: LvB if proc, if not ascendance.

Some people like to cast EB first as their precast, which i think is very wrong, and here's why: it has a 12 sec CD, meaning you won't cast another one before you use your ascendance, unless you hold it, but you want your ascendance together with trinket procs, so you probably wont, also, EB really only benefits 3 spells: LB, ES and LvB. and as you can see, i don't cast either LB or ES, and LvB only benefits from haste and mastery (only mastery if it's bl on pull fight), now you could argue that FS benefits from it, but is it worth burning your EB for FS when you risk losing 3,5k mastery/haste for 8 sec in your ascendance?

anyway, this is just my take on things.