Castsequence vs LB spam

[Niley]

Alright guys, results are in, with one ss, since i accidentally deleted my screenshot folder.
Overall, LB spam came on top of castsequence, by a pretty good amount, i would say good 2k dps on my best geared shaman(on some bosses), yes I didn't believe it first, but its seems like lb spam>castsequence, for now.
Il get some more ss, but my usual dps would be around 4-4.4, depending on the boss(otherthan vh last boss), this is my last gundrak run:
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/5873/wowscrnshot082609222347.jpg
my last run here had Niley with 4.8-5.1k for past 3 days, thats quite an improvement.

[Niley]

Right... castsequence is crap.

Have you tried a /click macro, so you can do a proper rotation?

thank you kind sir, i just converted my shamans to clickers, and on a dummy without hero results were:
http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8311/wowscrnshot082609233508.jpg

[outdrsyguy1]

any idea why? I wonder if cast sequence waits till spell goes off and there's a lag or something.
i'll have to look up click, never heard of it.

[Meathead]

What is your /click macro? cuase thats awsum dps and my guys are fully decked but maxxing at 3.5k dps just spaming lighting bolt

[KvdM]

Overall, LB spam came on top of castsequence, by a pretty good amount, i would say good 2k dps on my best geared shaman(on some bosses), yes I didn't believe it first, but its seems like lb spam>castsequence, for now.

A more logical conclusion would be that there's something wrong with the castsequence you're using. I highly doubt that blizzard would add all these extra spells (that have a higher dps per cast time) if they did not boost your dps when used correctly.

[Jamella]

i would suggest to check ej from time to time

endgame gear: flameshock, lb, lb, lb, lb, lb... repeat when dot runs out is best "rotation" nowadays

[SmartJelly]

A more logical conclusion would be that there's something wrong with the castsequence you're using. I highly doubt that blizzard would add all these extra spells (that have a higher dps per cast time) if they did not boost your dps when used correctly.

I could be wrong, but I dont think this is about what's in the sequence, instead it's about:

/cast Ligntning Bolt

being better than:

/castsequence Lightning Bolt

However, as you say, I'd imagine that using a combo of Lava and Lightning would increase dps over just Lightning. But you'll limit it's potential if you put it in a cast sequence.

(Your castsequence milage may vary)

[Klesh]

A more logical conclusion would be that there's something wrong with the castsequence you're using. I highly doubt that blizzard would add all these extra spells (that have a higher dps per cast time) if they did not boost your dps when used correctly.
Well, did you have a look at the triumph emblem tier set bonus? Am quite sure blizzard is well aware of Lava Burst being crap.


On topic: Am posting this for how many months now? My highest burst DPS so far was 6527 DPS.
My not thaaaat good geared shamans (am not raiding) are able to deal 4k non-lusted DPS. Am not talking about burst DPS here, it's casting from full to no mana...
It might be possible to deal more damage with some kind of Flame Shock, Lava Burst and Lightning Bolt combination with some uber gear. But it's absolutely not worth it to use anything but pure LB spam in heroics with "common" gear.

We did 4 heroic Gundrak runs the last 4 days (heroic daily). Each time my casters (2 shaman, 1 druid) averaged total instance DPS at 3.0 to 3.2k DPS (pure single target DPS). From what I'm reading, some are struggling to deal that kind of damage while fighting bosses...

[Niley]

I honestly can't tell if you're being sincere or a smartass.
I was thanking You....I did change my shammies to click macros after your suggestion.


My cs was:
/castsequence [target=focustarget] reset=combat flame shock, lava burst, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt, lightning bolt,, lightning bolt, lightning bolt

I have another one with Cl in there for aoe stuff.

And Im quite aware what are the rotations for end game elemental raiding, i've had 8 top 10 finishes on wmo scoreboard for elemental before I quit raiding....in fact after 6 weeks I'm still listed on some. I'm not really sure what the difference is between click and cs, but like fur said cs is for some reason crap.
I can see LB spam coming on top on short fights since my LvB on best geared shaman crits for about 1k more, and if i get lucky with crits spamming lb i will do more than whole cs macro.

[Niley]

Groovy. :)
Im using your click macro too o/

[Lyonheart]

Niley, when you do those 6k+ numbers, what buffs are you using? Are you food/flask/potion wild magic/hero?

BTW, I like that set up spot! I had been doing kind of the same thing. I had my team in the circle backed up against one of the pillars in the fence thingy.

[Niley]

Niley, when you do those 6k+ numbers, what buffs are you using? Are you food/flask/potion wild magic/hero?

BTW, I like that set up spot! I had been doing kind of the same thing. I had my team in the circle backed up against one of the pillars in the fence thingy.

I dont use flasks, except flask of the north on my 2 alchs, no wild pots, no speed pots, heroism is a given :)'
I have a pretty well geared shamans thought, on the ss from training dummy i didnt use hero or any flasks, just em/trinkets and spam click macro, i didnt even use fire totems except one ToW.

[Niley]

Fur you should come over to IRC chat so I can pick your brain :o

[Meshuggenah]

Ya, I'm hitting 5.5k DPS with my lead Shaman with heroism popped. Its not that hard once you get your macros right and "tuned" to your gear level (biggest thing is timing for haste, because it'll probably be different on each shaman).

Any chance you could paste in the /click macros you're using (or link to where you have already)? My shamans are sitting just over 2100SP (unbuffed) and I'm only just breaking 4k DPS on bosses. I thought my macro's were doing alright. I have no idea how you guys are getting those sorts of numbers unless you're in BiS gear? Also, what glyphs are you using?

[Niley]

Any chance you could paste in the /click macros you're using (or link to where you have already)? My shamans are sitting just over 2100SP (unbuffed) and I'm only just breaking 4k DPS on bosses. I thought my macro's were doing alright. I have no idea how you guys are getting those sorts of numbers unless you're in BiS gear? Also, what glyphs are you using?



/assist focus
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","0")
/cast elemental mastery
/click MultiBarRightButton1
/click MultiBarRightButton2
/click MultiBarRightButton3
/click MultiBarRightButton4
/run SetCVar("Sound_EnableSFX","1")

1st button
/castsequence reset=combat flame shock,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

2nd button
/castsequence reset=combat lava burst,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

3rd button
/castsequence reset=combat chain lightning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

4th button
/cast lightning bolt I love this macro, but one thing i would like is version of it without cl

These are my shamans, you can see gear, glyphs and spec.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Niley
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Arieh
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Ishv
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Stormreaver&n=Yishai

from best to worst geared, although last 2 are kinda even.

[Niley]

Latest result,
Click macro without Chain Lightning
Loken down in 18s which is 3 or 4s better than with castsequence, <3 click
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2180/wowscrnshot082709151709.jpg

[Whowantstoknow]

Ya, I'm hitting 5.5k DPS with my lead Shaman with heroism popped. Its not that hard once you get your macros right and "tuned" to your gear level (biggest thing is timing for haste, because it'll probably be different on each shaman).

There is the theory of writing separately timed macros for when heroism is used.... but man, that would be a LOT of macros. (reason is heroism also effects the global cooldown, so you could cast some spells like lava burst MORE when heroism is up... like 3x instead of 2x per flame shock).

This is incorrect. Haste affects the GCD which is 1.5s for most spells, it does not affect spell specific cooldowns ie LvB will always cast in 8s no matter how fast you are hasted.

The macro should stay the same for all toons regardless of haste rating as effectively you are just telling Wow to wait the number of seconds that each spell comes off cooldown.

A normal castsequence macro is dependant on haste rating though

imagine a spell with a 6s cooldown your rotation would be (assuming 0 haste effects)

1,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2

if you added enough haste to make the gcd 1s your new rotation would be

1,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,2,2,1,2,2,2,2,2,2

Note that spell 1 cast 6s apart in both sequences but the number of casts between 1s has increased

the /click (how I hate this misnomer but it will suffice for illustration) method basically is this

1 (drop to next line for 6s) 1 (drop to next line for 6s) 1 (drop to next line for 6s)
2

which will allow the number of 2 cast to vary depending on the GCD ie how much haste you have


if you are still unconvinced run this little script to show cooldowns


/run hooksecurefunc("CooldownFrame_SetTimer", function(_, start, duration, enable) if start > 0 and enable > 0 then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(duration) end end)

[Meshuggenah]

I love this macro

Thanks!

Going to the training dummies now to test the difference. Your shamans are definately better geared than mine, but not enough to account for 1500DPS.
--Edit

After some testing, my DPS has increased around 200-300 average :) Still a good deal behind you, but you have 400(ish) SpellPower, 200 haste and 7% crit on me.. which might account for the +/-1,000 difference in DPS.

Still, I like the way the click macro takes a lot more advantage of heroism than a sequence does.

[outdrsyguy1]

I changed from /castsequence using Light Bolt, Flame shock, and lava burst, to just plain lightning bolt and was really surprised, my pvp geared (season or 2 old) shaman went from about 1700dps to roughly 2200 just spamming lightning bolt instead (doesn't include heroism). I'll really have to try out the click macro stuff sometime and see how it goes. If i could get out of the AV xp grind soon :P

oh, and my latency is usually around 100 to 200 ms. So i'm not sure it's a huge factor, probably just the /castsequence command having delays in it for some reason.

[Twyman]

Hey thanks for the explination on /click... i didnt really know how it worked.

[poing]

assume latency of x in ms ping
since castsequence "hangs" until the cast successfully finishes casting, we add +x ms (or x / 1000 in seconds) to the cast time of your spell

let's say your lightning bolt has a cast time of y seconds (2 seconds base / talented spell time minus whatever your benefits from haste are) and does z damage.

assuming a perfect world where everything happens automagically:
your dps for lightning bolt with a /cast is z / y
and your dps with the same spell with a /castsequence is z / ( y + x / 1000 )

your dps gain for casting lightning bolt with a /cast instead of a castsequence is then:
( z / y ) - ( z / ( y + x / 1000 ) )
if we do some fancy algebra, that turns into:
( z * x ) / ( 1000 * y ^2 + x * y )

which translates to:
( z - y ) / ( 1000 y ^ 2 ) dps gain per ms of ping

plug in random theoretical shaman that does average 10k lightning bolt damage per cast (including crits, lightning overload, whatever the hell you want) with a 1.6 second cast time:
3.906 dps gain per ms of ping

this means, if you are that theoretical shaman, you are losing about 1k dps on lightning bolt if you have 256 ping by using /castsequence lightning bolt instead of /cast lightning bolt . even if you have a good connection and have 25 ping, you're still losing around 100 dps

this equation of course becomes way more complicated when you add other spells, but i'm sure you get the point. using cast sequence is easier, but is costly even if you have great ping. bottom line is, if you have > 100 ms in ping and are wondering why your dps isn't cutting it, you should consider not using /castsequence at all.