Haste Rating - reduce the 3.5 second cooldown on Chain Lightning?

[Kulzor]

I'm not at home, so I can't test it, and Googling is coming up empty.

So I figured I'd ask my brethren here, who have so many elemental shaman... :)

If you stack Haste Rating, does it reduce the cooldown on Chain Lightning, in addition to the cast time?

[Turenn]

No, Haste only reduse cast time/channeling and GCD.

[Kulzor]

Hmm, so with my current 1.82 or so cast time on LB, casting LB,LB,CL is great - unless I use bloodlust. Then /castsequence is probably getting stuck at the CL while waiting for the cooldown.

That may explain why my shaman doesn't even come close to the BM Hunter or Arcane Mage in damage done on an instance.

Perhaps I'll make a second macro just for boss fights that removes CL entirely. Either that or change the /castsequence into a /castrandom LB,CL.

Edit: The 1.82 is without dropping the haste totem. I've been dropping Windfury, but when that nerf goes in to not affect the hunter, I'll go back to the spell haste totem.

[Crucial]

Theres also the elemental talent which reduces CL cooldown.

[Kulzor]

I have it, which is why I mentioned the "3.5 second cooldown" in the title. The same problem would apply to others without that talent, and who used LB,LB,LB,CL or LBx4,CL though.

[Crucial]

I have it, which is why I mentioned the "3.5 second cooldown" in the title. The same problem would apply to others without that talent, and who used LB,LB,LB,CL or LBx4,CL though.Sorry missed that - this is why I use 2 two bindings so I can time it independant of other spells - especially if things like interrupts need to be worked in as well.

[Turenn]

Have you tried useing /castrandom Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt

[Kulzor]

I haven't tried it, but now that someone has verified about no reduction in cooldown, I'm going to try it. Worst case is the shaman ends up just spamming LBs over and over for a rare fight, but in the long run it should work out better (especially when activating Bloodlust).

[Turenn]

They will cast CL very often, if not just at the CD's end it isn't far from it. I use it and it works great. At least it's better then a castsequence.

[Turenn]

They will cast CL very often, if not just at the CD's end it isn't far from it. I use it and it works great. At least it's better then a castsequence.The risk here is that it will open with a CL and pull aggro.

If you're a 5x Shaman team, this is not an issue. If you're more traditional with a Tank/Healer/DPS setup, this could be bad. (Talking from experience here. ;) )

I use a tank, I just open with a TC/Shockwave or Consecrate depending on the tank I use, it isn't a problem, not yet anyway. Things might change with the LK.

[Turenn]

I was thinking of Heroics are raids (kara) aswell. Works like a charm, but warriors as I've said before, awesome!

[Kulzor]

I actually use two macros for fights. One of them is a lead-off macro that won't cast an instant or a chain lightning, and thus it guarantees no accidental pulling.

The "spamming" macro is the one I'll be changing on the shammie.

[suicidesspyder]

so in otherwords your saying since i have five shaman i thought having chain heal would be good enough but you should always have a resto in there or does it not matter cause that stagger macro you were talking about. My 4 on follow do the /target 'main' /castsequence lb,cl,lb,lb and the next would do lb,lb,cl,lb and last two would be lb,lb,lb,cl it works pretty well because by the third cast unless im trying to take something ten levels higher then me out its already dead. And the comment elemental shamans are low dps where we can take things out with five two even three levels higher then us out in two casts.

So in otherwords should i only use four dps shamans and resto or as i get higher doing instances will chain heal not be good enough.

[Multibocks]

honestly I like them all being elemental, one being resto reduces your dps which makes fights longer which increases your chances of wiping. Now with a tank I could understand one being resto.

[Fuzzyboy]

I use a tank, I just open with a TC/Shockwave or Consecrate depending on the tank I use, it isn't a problem, not yet anyway. Things might change with the LK.

Paladin - Avengers shield hits a max of 3 mobs. :( Consecrate doesn't do THAT much damage, so a CL crit may still pull aggro.

Warrior - Shockwave - This works good, provided everyone is in the frontal cone.

I'm speaking purely in a heroic/raid sense here, where pulling aggro can be an instant wipe.I haven't had had CL pull aggro off consecrated mobs so far (i use /castsequence LB, CL, LB for trash and /castrandom LB, CL, CL, CL for bosses) if I just make sure that the main target is hit with AS. I'll try and experiment a bit and see if I can pull aggro by using CL as a starter :)

[Kulzor]

Ok, I made the change to /castrandom LB,CL on my mashing button.

There's good and bad to it. On the boss fights, where I use Bloodlust, the shaman went up to almost the same DPS as the arcane mage. That's awesome!

The bad is that on non-boss fights where I DON'T use Bloodlust, he's not casting CL as often, which means bolts take more time to get to the mobs, and thus if CL would have been the last spell on a mob, instead the bolt gets wasted because someone else wastes an attack or two on it (hunter/pally/mage).

I'm going to switch to using two macros instead for my "mashing" button during fights.
On non-boss fights I'll use: /castsequence reset=4 [target=focustarget,harm] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lightning Bolt
On boss fights I'll use: /castrandom [target=focustarget,harm] Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning

It'll be more of a pain to drag a button before an after every boss fight, but it will optimize damage output I believe.

[Schwarz]

When I goto maxdps and bring my character in it shows I will be getting more dps by just doing a lighthing bolt spam

Lightning bolt spam : Total DPS: 1,377.42
3 x LB / 1 Chain : Total DPS: 1,300.84
4 x LB / 1 Chaing : Total DPS: 1,365.18

I used to never really use chain lighting that much as when I pull packs I generally want them taunted by my stoneclaws. I have been using this a little more now that I have thunderstorm and can keep mobs away from me longer. There has to be value added to being able to have all your toons cast lighting bolt followed by a chain lighting. When you cast the lightning bolt it flys through the air before it gets to it's target in this time I am able to cast chain lightning. It seems they both hit at about the same time. The net result is usually one dead guy as soon as I pull.

I am just a little weary of a cast sequence that is really rigid as a little change might screw the whole thing up (ie having to heal someone).

[Kulzor]

Cooldown on talented CL is 3.5 seconds. Cast time on LB is 1.84 seconds (will drop to 1.75 seconds when I start using the spell haste totem again). 1.75+1.75 = 3.5. Should work out perfectly into the rotation.

In the OLD system, CL had a 5s cooldown, and required an additional LB. But not any longer...

[TeK23]

I don't see how a Shaman can pull Aggro from a Pali Prot Tank?

My Shamans are 30%+ crt and can never come close to pulling off of my Prot Pali.

My Pali is normally x4 ahead in Threat and normally generates more threat then Shamans.

The ONLY time I've ever had the shamans pull aggro off of tank was if I forgot to put on R.Fury. Otherwise she has rediculously threat generation.

What blessing, Aura and attack sequence are you using?

I just can't see how a shaman can pull aggro unless you don't have any threat reduction talents specced.

[Kulzor]

Sure thing! :)

I'm pulling about 1300 dps over an entire instance with my shaman at this point, been using the /castrandom because I keep forgetting to switch to the dual-macro thing (/castrandom on bosses only, /castsequence LB,CL,LB everywhere else).

The only negative of the /castrandom, when used on non-Bloodlust fights, is that you only have a 50% chance of casting CL when it is available, and only a 75% chance by the time after that. Not so important on a boss fight though - in fact, a pure LB spam *might* do more dps on a boss fight. (I've not tested this one, but it just struck me that I should...)

[Kulzor]

I did try Earth Shock in my rotations due to the enhanced range, but found that it didn't do enough extra damage for the 1.5 second cast time to be worth it.

If I recall off the top of my head:
Earth Shock: 1.5 seconds for about 1300 damage (yes, it is an instant, but the global cooldown makes it act like a 1.5 second cast time)
Lightning Bolt: 1.75 seconds for 1550 damage