Elemental Build at lvl 80

[Nanhesan]

ye, we shall, before buff change, breakpoint was at 2k SP unbuffed, with changes it will be abit lower, around 1900 i guess, since we lost BoM + BS combo, but we got alot stronger SoE totem, so, a little loss

Yea probably in the 1900 range is a good guess. With all the new gear being listed, it's pretty reasonable to assume gemed/enchanted level 80 Shaman (before counting in talents/raid buffs) will be in the 1500-1800 spell power range within a month of hitting level 80 (going off of heroic gear blues/epics + pvp reward blues/epics listed on this site).

So 43/28 build will probably be good enough for T7 content, and will be dropped somewhere between mid-T7 gearing and end-T7 gearing in favor of 51/0/20. Kind of like how Warlocks in tBC were all Affliction in T4-T5, but by late T5 content/early T6 they all had to respec Destruction because of Destructions (as per Blizzard blue post) unintended overpowered DPS scaling.

And to some of the posts above, no serious end-game raider will take Thunderstorm in a raid build. Thunderstorm = PvP / casual. That's the way it is, and no amount of whining or bad theory-crafting is going to change that.

[Sarevokcz]

yea, i agree, we hit that dmg cap for 43/28 prolly sooner then expected, since we already got 160dmg from ToW and 112(?) dmg from flametongue wep, and thats pretty significant ammount, this would make me around 1400 SP with my current gear, also if that BS mace stay BoE, wooot! my maelstrom fury will cry hard 490 SP? gief

[anyaka21]

in other words, kind of like the time we switched from straight damage gems to haste gear.

[Deleted]

Now I'm a bit scared about posting here, I know I'm a big newbie so please don't bash me too hard.
I'm watching over and over and over the spec you posted over from ElitistJerks.
I haven't read the full EJ article explaining why that spec is the best, but I trust EJ so it probably is.
Still, I'm wondering how big of an improvement would that be over other spec. Would the difference be huge? Or just marginal?
I'm not that hardcore, but I really don't like that spec =/

What's the use of all those enhancement talents?
Mental Dexerity increases my AP by 100% of my intellect. Let's suppose at level 80 in green I should have at least, I'd say, 550 Intellect unbuffed. So +550 AP to my basic AP which at 80 should be of at least I dunno.. at least 450 probably? So 1000 AP.
Now with Mental Quickness I get 30% of that as Spell Power, so +300 Spell Power, which is huge indeed.
All other bonuses like Shamanistic Focus and Toughness are probably there only so you can reach the correct number of needed talents to access Mental Quickness. We don't really care much about Armor and instant spells, as much as they are welcome bonuses especially for solo/grinding/leveling/questing.
Did I get it right? Now this sounds awesome, and we even get the totem enhancements from Enha tree.

Still, at the same time, this spec doesn't really look "fun" compared to other options. Also, I wonder the real utility of some talents. Like Eye of the Storm, which got reworked to a much more useful form indeed, but still, do we really need that? I've hardly met bosses that interrupt you if you stay beyond a certain range (as much as I never went past TK/SSC), also, those who do usually use a "special" kind of interruption which is not avoidable with talents/abilities.
So while I see the importance of that for example while leveling, is it really that useful in raid? We're talking about 3 full points.
Does Call of Flame affect Flame Tongue and Totem of Wrath, or only direct-damaging totems like Searing, Magma and Fire Nova?
And what about Elemental Oath? Is it really that useful? It sure looks like it but with the new non-stacking policies I'm having huge headaches in understanding what stacks with what. For example Elemental Oath doesn't stack with Moonkin Aura, but it should stack with Totem of Wrath I think.

Now, this spec sounds like much more fun to me: LINK
The 3 Resto points are just random.
You get Lava Flows which imho sounds really interesting (60% ain't nothing!), even more if Lava Burst will prove to be a good spell to put inside normal spell rotation cycles.
And you also get Earth, Wind and Fire which also sound lovely. The increased Flame Shock also makes me wonder if it could be worth to stick Flame Shock once in a while inside your normal spell rotation cycles.
Pre-wotlk it wasn't worth, as much as the DoT is interesting, the global cooldown (and the 20 yards thing) didn't make it worth to put it inside your normal Lightning Bolt-Chain Lightning rotation.
Could it be worth to do so now with that 2x DoT damage?
Also, you would get Thunderstorm which as useless as it may be, sure looks and sounds cool :P

Now please, don't bash me, I'm looking just to discuss and learn something, I really want to know if the difference is HUGE between this two specs (the one I posted and EJ's), or just marginal.
I'm normally a resto Shaman but when I go Elemental I currently use THIS spec, if you wanna judge my high noobness value, take a look: LINK.

This also makes me notice how now Elemental Shamans get a sh*tload less of Spell Hit, means now Ele Shamans will have to pursue Spell Hit just like all other spellcaster classes had to? On TBC they only need like +50ish Spell Hit to reach cap, if you specced like I did and if you're using Totem of Wrath.

[Nanhesan]

Akusama, basically it looks like the worse your gear is, the better MQ is. The better your gear is, the better SEF is. So if you are decked out at level 80 in 100% epic gearing, SEF is the way to go. If you are just starting out at level 80 and don't have your first epic raid tier set yet, MQ is the way to go by a large margin.

If you don't care about any of that, and want to PvP with Thunderstorm and you don't raid Naxxramas, Thunderstorm is the way to go. =P

[Deleted]

So the difference is indeed noticeable.
I see, guess I will have to try it on my own and will most likely use that build then.
Too bad tho, I really loved some of the new tools in the Elemental tree (that I mentioned above). But since I despise PVP in every form, I guess I'll have to learn to live without them.
Maybe I'll just try when and if I'll reach better gear (the above mentioned 2000ish spell power)

Oh and btw, this is not "definitive" anyway, talents might still change from here to the release of the game, no? We're just talking about the best spec with the current talent-sets of the current beta build, am I right?


P.S.
It's great having someone knowledgeable just answering my questions in a kind way instead of bashing me 'cause I'm a noob who doesn't understand anything of WoW mechanics

[Soresu]

I just don't like the 43/28 Option - I know the theorycraft says it's the best DPS option for starting out, but I'm planning on raiding an I'm also planning on going 5x points into Elemental to do so - The DPS and utilities brought by an Elemental Shaman will still be significant enough to warrant a spot in a group, as long as the person behind the keyboard has a clue about what they're doing with the character, imo.

Also, the utility of Thunderstorm as a mana regen tool and possible protective method for squishies in your raidgroup seem to be overlooked - Mage pulls aggro, while stood next to the Shaman, mob leeroys towards your mage to crush his face > punt, 20yds, by which time the tank has got it back. More fun than BoP!

[Sarevokcz]

ya, thunderstorm, when used correctly, will be pretty nice tool, i am looking forward for ping pong with DK tank i overaggro, DK will deathgrip him, i overaggro second time, then ill just blow him away with TS, rinse, repeat, profit

but as mentioned, MD MQ build will be for first tier of Raiding only, simply because u need full squad of AP buffs, for 5mans, and most of the 10mans also, SEF build will rule, by utility, and by damage, too

[Deleted]

Ahaha, just the image of me ping-ponging with a DK tank makes me drool.

Still, I'm afraid the pusback effect from Thunderstorm will most likely not work on thrash from advanced raids, where mobs will be most likely immune from it, I guess?

[Nanhesan]

I dunno, lots of raid trash can be CC'd, so I don't see why they won't be affected by Thunderstorm.

In any case, the whole EJ debate basically revolves around min-maxing high-end raid DPS. Both build bring all the raid buffs to the table, so the debate is which build maxes out the pDPS and at which point does the better scaling build (Elemental) pass up the static build (MQ).

Now, that's the math part of it. If you just personally don't like the build and don't want to do it, and you aren't in a high-end raid, then there really isn't any reason to do it. The differences in the builds are largest in stacked raid settings, and if your gameplay is 99% solo, 5-man and maybe the occasional casual raid then who cares really, fun and 90% effective in those scenarios is usually better than not fun and 100%.

[jumpingjacks]

I agree the 43/28 build is alot better. I was sceptical at first, but I did some math. anyway wwhat really bugs me is our current lack of spell hit. we used to be able to get 12% from talents. now we only get 3%. so would our gemming priority would be hit then crit?

[Sarevokcz]

ye, that will probably be the case, if we wont have alot hit on our gear, but i suppose we will want all +hit necks, rings and maybe even trinkets to support hit, id rather leave as much gemslots as possible for crit/haste

[Deleted]

I agree the 43/28 build is alot better. I was sceptical at first, but I did some math. anyway wwhat really bugs me is our current lack of spell hit. we used to be able to get 12% from talents. now we only get 3%. so would our gemming priority would be hit then crit?

Makes me wonder why they took out the 3% hit from Resto tree, and the 3% hit from Totem of Wrath. Did Blizz thing it was too unbalanced?
I have to agree other classes were maybe mad at shamans for being able to cap hit rating with just +50ish spell hit, still at the same time completely changing that situation looks like going a bit too far, from blizz's side.
No?
I was really happy about the fact I didn't have to care for Spell Hit that much unlike on my mage, for example =/


Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm afraid Blizzard is trying to "standardize" and "simplify" things too much. Now a simple piece of gear will be useable by 20000 classes. There are pros with that... more equal chances to get gear from every raid, for example, or less chances to see drops go to waste.
At the same time, maybe it's just me, but I really liked the "specialization" of items, which was even more evident before TBC with class-specific gear.
Some piece of gear you could easily tell "this is for a mage", "this is for a destro warlock", "this is for a balance druid", "this is for a shadow priest", "this is for an elemental shaman". I dunno... now aside from the Cloth/Leather/Mail there really are little differences, even between DPS and Healers.
Maybe I just have to get used to this new "approach" to the game, but for now I think I kinda liked the old one more, despite the new pros this new one brings.

[Nanhesan]

The amount of hit % needed to be capped vs raid bosses was significantly lowered, and all hit cap requirements (pvp, generic pve) was also lowered. The tBC levels of hit many classes had would have put them over the hit cap for everything, in WotLK, and would have made the hit stat completely useless for casters under the new system.

So every caster class (except Warlocks) had their +hit talents nerfed significantly in order to keep the stat valuable.

But you won't need to gem for it if you don't want to, there is plenty of gear with +hit rating on it in the expansion. Now if you don't get it / don't want it you can still always gem for hit, but I don't think it will be a priority.

And Blizzard is standardizing everything to save money -- less gear = less gear designers = less payroll overhead. The upside to it is that less gear will be DE'd / go to waste (sucks to run an instance 20 times and your gear never drops, and all the while you know some other group is running it and DEing your gear because THEIR gear never drops, because you keep DEing THEIR gear lol).

[Sarevokcz]

Makes me wonder why they took out the 3% hit from Resto tree, and the 3% hit from Totem of Wrath. Did Blizz thing it was too unbalanced?
I have to agree other classes were maybe mad at shamans for being able to cap hit rating with just +50ish spell hit, still at the same time completely changing that situation looks like going a bit too far, from blizz's side.
No?
I was really happy about the fact I didn't have to care for Spell Hit that much unlike on my mage, for example =/

sharing loot and homogenizing classes' needs :/ tho dunno why eleshammy and boomkin cannot have more hit from talents, pff we wont be really that often rolling on cloth items with spirit will we?

also Nanhesan, i dunno, they were some tests, but we havent got the confiramtion on 9%hit cap yet, i will keep my hopes till i see it on my own eyes :/

[Deleted]

@Nanhesan
I'm still kinda with this "safe" approach toward the spellhit stuff you mentioned. Yes I read it, but not having tried Beta extensively on my own, I still don't know up to which point I Can believe it.
And on the rest, concerning gear and classes homogenization, you got it right, that's exactely what I meant to say. There are pros, of course, good pros too. But still, for now, I kinda miss how things used to be =/


@Sarevokcz
It comes down to personal play-style too.
I know now many hardcore gamers will bash me for what I'm about to say, but due to personal choices I always refused to lot cloth/leather gear, (aside from a few exceptions I can count on 2 fingers), even when they were slightly better than the mail gear I had.
I dunno, it's just that I want to use the gear meant for my class from the start, and at the same time I would feel bad "stealing" cloth/leather loots from my guild-mates

[Sarevokcz]

yea, well, me neither, id rather stick with good old mail, but sometimes i sinply had to close my eyes and try to get something else, + we didnt have moonkin but i have never bid against cloth caster on cloth, only 2 things a really liked, are leather belt for badges, http://thottbot.com/i33559 which, in the time being was the best dmg belt up to akama (bought it in mid t5 content) and later, http://thottbot.com/i32352 , best pre SWP eleshaman boots those were the only 2 exceptions in tBC i made, otherwise i am full mail