ain Shamans - what do you use for opening burst DPS?

[Clovis]

My main shaman is 74 and little shamans are 66 so I havne't had the opportunity to use lava burst yet.

I'm thinking the best opening burst DPS will be flame shock + lava burst against a single target but in areans or against multiple targets chain lightning would be better, amirite? Especially with the change to elemental mastery to being 20% crit for 20 seconds?

For 5s I'd like to quickly make it 5v4 or better yet 5v3 but immedinately taking out another player with an opening volley.

Advice?



-Clovis

[Dominian]

Flameshock-lava burst- chain lightning

The problem in arena thought is that a flameshock means that a lavaburst is incomming and most players will iceblock,bubble,los etc. It will certainly be harder to los now that flameshock cd is only 0.5 seconds wich mean the lavaburst is on the way in less then 2 seconds.

My plan prob will be:

Flameshock a mage or paladin in order to make them bubble/iceblock and negate alot of damage.

Then having a focused target wich i lava burst/chain lightning/shock (if this doesnt kill them i will start with a lightning bolt.)

If i meet the same team over and over i will send lava burst on them the 3rd time when the mage "thinks" the flameshock is just there to fool him into a iceblock.

4 applied flameshocks = 4k damage NON critted.
4 lava burst critts on 1k resillience targets = 6-7k each aka 16k-20k damage.
4 chain lightnings = about 12-15k depending on critts.

The point is to make them all hit nearly instant wich makes us very dangerouse, but it aint always easy due to stuns,silence etc etc..

[Multibocks]

hope you are using a targetless system or your fake out will be seen coming a mile away when you dont change targeting.

[Dominian]

hope you are using a targetless system or your fake out will be seen coming a mile away when you dont change targeting.

my main will always target something thats why i use focus to choose a prime target.

[pinotnoir]

What about lavabursting then flameshock after. If you do it fast enough the flameshock will be applied before the burst hits.

[magwo]

Doesn't matter. Flame shock only counts toward 100% crit if the actual caster's OWN flame shock is on the target, at time of RELEASE.

Personally I don't rely at all on the FS -> Lava Burst setup.. not even in BGs.. people go defensive and I find that I don't really need it.
Which is why I'm starting to stack up on more +Crit. When WOTLK hit, I went purely for spell power because I was planning on relying on FS -> LVB.. but that setup has proved to be too revealing and predictable even in BGs.

Critting became more valuable with the 3.0.8 change to Elemental Oath.
Since we don't have any good instant nuke nowadays as elemental, in arena I'm totally relying on focus-based surprise attacks. No good players will give me enough LOS time to cast anything that will kill them.. so you really really need to use focus.

Like Dominian.. I also like to apply flame shock on a diversion target. This is a win-win situation because one of these will happen:
* Diversion target bubbles or iceblocks, then the nuke lands on focus target which dies.
* Some healer starts dispelling the flame shocks off the diversion target. This means the healer isn't prepared to go full out defensive to try and save the focus target.
* Diversion target + team ignores the flame shocks, which means that he is basically fucked beyond fucked if the lava bursts don't go on the focus target like they expect. If you find yourself being abused in your focused targeting by the same team, start lava bursting the diversion target.


By talenting for shorter shock cooldown, you can, after flame shocking, then apply the following nuke on your focus target:
EM -> LVB -> CL -> ES

It puts anything but a prot warrior or DK to sleep basically.. all the damage lands in a time frame of 0.1-0.5 seconds usually if you have some range. I would say the damage applied is roughly 40k on average, unmitigated.

[magwo]

Also I would like to give this tip.. focused nuking works very well on healers.

Especially if you are facing a meelee heavy team, the healer(s) might be your best chance on a clean kill that won't circle you like mad.
If you start by putting a little pressure on some of the dps by AOE.. the healer will stand in the open keeping people topped up.. which is when you can kill him. :)

An example of a team against which this can be useful is Rogue, DK, Retri, Holypala, Restodruid. None of the dps:ers are good reliable targets.. so I would suggest TS rotation to keep them off you, then surprise kill the druid or the holy pala.
After that you should be able to outlast them with AoE, shocks and heals.

Killing a healer is much better than trying to kill a rabid hyperstrafing dps for 15 seconds and failing.
I do have slave turning keys, but it doesn't always work perfectly, usually some slaves will point in a bad direction from CCs until you tidy it up.