How much is too much Spell Damage?

[Schwarz]

Hearing that Wotlk is only a couple months away and seeing the preceived nerfs (no chain casting bloodlust/totem of wrath not stacking) I have started gearing out my shamen even more. I am currently sitting at +966 spell damage with ~14.5% crit unbuffed. My goal has been to reach 1k spell damage before Wotlk hits. I am starting to worry that I have been min maxing too much and not paying attention to other important stats. Once I get my moonsoon belts made and socket them with 2 +12 spell damage gems I should be right around 1k spell damage. In a few weeks I plan on getting the 100 badge legs also as well as upgrading my main hand to s2 mace from s1. With all these upgrades I might be looking at ~1.1k spell damage.

I have been tossing around the idea of trying to put together a stam set for all the shamen in case I run into some hard hitting trash or what not in Wotlk.

....Discuss

[Kicksome]

Personally, I'd work on all my PvP gear for expansion if you are on a PvP server. Most of the stuff you'll be doing is outside questing. Quest after quest after quest. My guess is it'll take 8 days played to get to 80 from 70. Most of the time will be spent outside where you're vulnerable to attack by the other faction. I see a ton of high 70's still wearing their s4 PvP gear because it's so easy to get ganked while you're questing. If you get 4/5 brutal and all the guardian stuff you'll be in good shape as far as spell damage - around +1050 - more if you have enchanting for the rings. Plus you'll have resilliance so you won't get 1 shot by level 80s.

[Otlecs]

>How much is too much Spell Damage?

1.

I'm on a PvE server, and fully intend to do absolutely nothing to gear up my newest 70 team before WotLK :)

[Schwarz]

Personally, I'd work on all my PvP gear for expansion if you are on a PvP server. Most of the stuff you'll be doing is outside questing. Quest after quest after quest. My guess is it'll take 8 days played to get to 80 from 70. Most of the time will be spent outside where you're vulnerable to attack by the other faction. I see a ton of high 70's still wearing their s4 PvP gear because it's so easy to get ganked while you're questing. If you get 4/5 brutal and all the guardian stuff you'll be in good shape as far as spell damage - around +1050 - more if you have enchanting for the rings. Plus you'll have resilliance so you won't get 1 shot by level 80s.

I am more concerned with being able to blow through the new instances than guarding myself from being ganked. I play on a pvp server if a group of people wants to kill you they can. It is a fact of life. As far as season 4 stuff goes I don't enjoy the arena system at all I did a couple weeks of games during season 3. I don't plan on doing any games in season 4. I might be nerfing myself but I don't want to put the time into bg farming to get the intial gear to compete in arenas. This is a personal choice but gearing myself out in complete welfare epics isn't going to be an option.

Back to my goals. I am hoping to get to a comfortable gear level so I can get the gear upgrades in wotlk. I thought I read something a while back that if you have t6 equivalent gear this will hold you out until ~level 78. Isn't all 100+ badge gear/season 4 stuff t6 equivalent.

[Drizzit]

Isn't all 100+ badge gear/season 4 stuff t6 equivalent.I think it is like this:

S1 = T4
T4 < Badge Gear < T5
S2 = T5
S3 = T6
S4 = T6.5

I also read a blue post saying that lvl 70 instance in wrath will be able to be done in green quest gear in BC. So if you get any tier/badges/season gear you will be able to solo those instances easy. That is why i am working on my S2 gear so when wrath hits i can solo those instances. I know i could do heroics to get gear, but that is all based off of drop rate and might not even get my gear the times i run it. I am also way under geared for heroics so i would have to do normal instances to build rep for the key and get blues to do heroics. I also know that pve gear is better then pvp gear but S2 gear is sort of equal to T5. So doing BG not only do i skip normal instance grind, but i skip the heroic, badge, and kara grind. I know people will disagree with this, but oh well.

[Schwarz]

Isn't all 100+ badge gear/season 4 stuff t6 equivalent.I think it is like this:

S1 = T4
T4 < Badge Gear < T5
S2 = T5
S3 = T6
S4 = T6.5


It was my thinking that there was almost 2 tiers of badge gear pre SSO and and post SSO. It has been a while since I have raided but I think a person geared out in post SSO epics should be able to do sunwell.

[Pikey]

Isn't all 100+ badge gear/season 4 stuff t6 equivalent.I think it is like this:

S1 = T4
T4 < Badge Gear < T5
S2 = T5
S3 = T6
S4 = T6.5

Actually Badge loot has been release twice since TBC's original release, each time with upgrades.

Though it may have the same modeling it is not equal. Your talking apples and oranges. PvP is defensive gear: Stam + resil. It stops the spike damage from other players. I spec'd my pld ret when no body had arena gear. I could 2 shot them. PvE is kinda of offensive, but more towards enhancing your classes spec/role in raiding. And it should look more like this.

S1= T4, TBC release badge loot
S2= T5, Crafted gear
ZA loot, ZA release badge loot
S3= T6
S4= Sunwell and Sunwell release badge loot

But to be honest I wouldn't waste to much time gearing up because the quest rewards will be equal if not better than anything in TBC, ask my warlock about his full T3.

Also remember you also are getting higher rank spell's and talent's.

[Sanctume]

More like S4 = SSO Badge < Sunwell T6.5

S3 = pre SSO Badge < pre-Sunwell T6.0 ?

S2 = Heroic 5-man < KZ T5?

Arena and Honor gear is easier to get, so I'm not familiar with T4-T6 stuff.

[Sanctume]

Isn't all 100+ badge gear/season 4 stuff t6 equivalent.I think it is like this:

S1 = T4
T4 < Badge Gear < T5
S2 = T5
S3 = T6
S4 = T6.5

Actually Badge loot has been release twice since TBC's original release, each time with upgrades.

Though it may have the same modeling it is not equal. Your talking apples and oranges. PvP is defensive gear: Stam + resil. It stops the spike damage from other players. I spec'd my pld ret when no body had arena gear. I could 2 shot them. PvE is kinda of offensive, but more towards enhancing your classes spec/role in raiding. And it should look more like this.

S1= T4, TBC release badge loot
S2= T5, Crafted gear
ZA loot, ZA release badge loot
S3= T6
S4= Sunwell and Sunwell release badge loot

But to be honest I wouldn't waste to much time gearing up because the quest rewards with be equal if not better than anything in TBC, ask my warlock about his full T3.I agree not working on loot much since the 80 green items will be better.
However, it also depends if my box team will want to tackle WotLK instances all by myself.
Also, I think some S4/S3 items are worth getting before WotLK such as weapons if one is not really doing any raiding.
Even S2 weapons would be a small investment for a great started for one's character doing WotLK leveling contents.

[TheBigBB]

If you are that worried about the stacking nerfs, the far better solution is to go level up some other classes. Stacking up nothing but spell damage isn't making you more powerful than you would have been. As soon as you get a boss that doesn't go down in 10 seconds and starts pounding on you, all the utility of the spell damage goes out the door. You'll need good armor and stamina at that point just as much.

However, the items you mentioned do have plenty of stamina and they're mail epics, so I don't know what you're really missing out on in terms of stats if that's the stuff you're gearing up with.

[Skuggomann]

Well ints never to much, i have had 1800 on a firemage and i sitll wanted MOAR, but 1,8k is lol

[Schwarz]

If you are that worried about the stacking nerfs, the far better solution is to go level up some other classes. Stacking up nothing but spell damage isn't making you more powerful than you would have been. As soon as you get a boss that doesn't go down in 10 seconds and starts pounding on you, all the utility of the spell damage goes out the door. You'll need good armor and stamina at that point just as much.

However, the items you mentioned do have plenty of stamina and they're mail epics, so I don't know what you're really missing out on in terms of stats if that's the stuff you're gearing up with.

I am really not that worried about the "nerfs" shamen are going to undergo. I think the team will be able to do everything that it could do before. The only problem that I see is you need to gear out a little bit before you tackle the hard stuff. Gearing out my shamens was vastly different that gearing out my warrior. With my shamen I go to maxdps and check out what is the best thing I can possibly get then I try to get 5 of them. Typically these are badge items so grinding heroics only takes time. With my warrior I would take lots of small upgrades over time. I am thinking in wotlk I am going to have to spend some time getting the in between items before I transition to heroics.

So the advice so far is spell damage is good but don't forget about armor/stam. All my stuff if mail pieces and will continue to be mail I think I am doing good in this area.

To be honest what I am really scared of in the future is if the earth elemental will be a good tank or not. Alot of the bosses I do I can only do b/c of earth elementals. If this guys stays at 70 or doesn't get somewhat of an upgrade then I think it will be time to goto plan b. Plan b is 1 pally tank 1 boomkin 1 tree 2 elemental shamen.

[Havelcek]

With my team so far, my gearing gap is with my paladin, not my shaman(s). Its been much easier to find DPS gear than tanking gear since I can put cloth, leather or mail on the shaman. I'm sure this will be the same situation in WOTLK with questing.