Elemental mastery changed on PTR

[Fuzzyboy]

... from crit to haste. To be honest I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. 15% would be 492ish haste rating, correct? And EM + Heroism would put us near the 1 sec GCD, assuming they will stack.

What impact will the change have if it goes live?

[yaki]

Should be more useful at higher gear levels, a little less at "I haven't run a heroic or crafted a purple, ever" gear levels.

[HPAVC]

Seems like an odd and needless choice of things to mess with on their part. A nature swiftness + proto icy veins isn't really something i would think they could account well for on a three minute cool down.

[TheFallenOne]

They decided they liked the T10 2 piece bonus, and instead of changing it, figured they'd change Elemental Mastery to make it a worthwhile DPS increase. :)

Overall, it's definitely a buff, so no complaining from me!

[yaki]

Well I wouldn't mind if the cooldown was shortened...although I'd take a de-nerf to Heroism limited to party scope over it, and I'm hesitant to ask for changes to anything given that more often than not you don't really want to get dev attention if something isn't outright bugged.

[Fuzzyboy]

was it done to make shamans less bursty in pvp? I'm having a hard time seeing the reason behind this change.

[Altsoba]

was it done to make shamans less bursty in pvp? I'm having a hard time seeing the reason behind this change.
I'm not a maths guy but our harderst hit spell is an auto crit in the initial burst, so maybe and only maybe, it's better to have haste instead of those extra % crit.
Hope the math guys step forward :p so we know if haste is more dps than crit.

From Elitistjerks:

"In ZAP, assuming EM and BL stack, using them together is roughly equal to using them apart until about 900 haste rating (+ buffs, ~38%). At that point using them separately is better and it's still a DPS increase over the old EM. By 1100 haste without 2t10, if you use new EM+BL together it's less DPS than using old EM, but new EM decoupled from BL is still very slightly higher DPS overall (~10). With 2t10 new EM is clearly better than old EM whether it's used with BL or not.

This is assuming a 6.7% uptime on BL (that is, 40 seconds every 10 minutes) and an 8.3% uptime on EM (that is, 15 seconds every 3 minutes) without 2t10 (which increases EM's uptime to between 15 and 19% depending on haste).

So:
Haste < 900 = no significant difference between using EM with or without BL
Haste > 900 = better to use without BL
That means it'd be better to use the new 3.3 PTR incarnation of EM on cooldown every cooldown than to wait and synch it with BL.

If most of us save EM for use with other cooldowns at present, this change would increase our EM usage and uptime as well as increasing the DPS of the effect, which adds up to more of a DPS boost than the spreadsheet will claim (as it assumes EM usage on cooldown every cooldown anyway)."

[Whowantstoknow]

Yeah its a dps boost haste is better than crit for Eles up until you run into problems with 1s cast times which is what the EJ post is getting at. Its going to make the ToEW less desirable in 3.3 as anyone with BiS non raid gear will be getting close to 900 haste without it and our BL uptime on bosses is much higher than for raiders

[Fursphere]

was it done to make shamans less bursty in pvp? I'm having a hard time seeing the reason behind this change.

LESS? THey didn't say they are removing the nature's swiftness effect. That's still there from what I understand.

THey are just changing crit to haste. Haste = moar bursty.

[Multibocks]

I would like them to change it to +15% spell power, but we know that ain't gonna happen.

[Svpernova09]

People don't use EM every cd in PvE situations?








lol?

[Ualaa]

For heroics and raids, people have a tendency to save the cooldowns for the bosses.

I have EM built into my click dps, along with trinkets.
Which is a less common approach, because you don't have them for bosses always.

Both approaches work.
Use them when you need them most.
Or use them every cooldown, but don't have them available on demand.

[Multibocks]

People don't use EM every cd in PvE situations?








lol?

I have em built into my click sequences so I dont even have to think about it. Makes PvP a challenge though as you dont have your insta cast ready when you really need it.

[Fuzzyboy]

People don't use EM every cd in PvE situations?








lol?

I don't need EM at every cooldown, but then again a lot of us a vastly overgeared for heroics anyway. I have a "mini-burst" button (avenging wrath, rockets, em, trinket) and a "big burst"-button (basically the same, but with heroism) that I use mostly for bosses (heroism i saved for certain bosses - BK phase three etc.).

When you're at the gearing level where EM makes a significant difference (and by that I mean where it's not just a matter of downing a random boss 1.5 seconds faster), it's probably more efficient to micromanage it, than to pop it mindlessly whenever it's up (at least if you have a team of shaman - if you're running with a mixed group, where one is a shaman, the situation may be different).

For WG/PvP though, it's very nice to have control over when you EM and when you don't, instead of just spamming.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I don't need EM at every cooldown, but then again a lot of us a vastly overgeared for heroics anyway. I have a "mini-burst" button (avenging wrath, rockets, em, trinket) and a "big burst"-button (basically the same, but with heroism) that I use mostly for bosses (heroism i saved for certain bosses - BK phase three etc.).

When you're at the gearing level where EM makes a significant difference (and by that I mean where it's not just a matter of downing a random boss 1.5 seconds faster), it's probably more efficient to micromanage it, than to pop it mindlessly whenever it's up (at least if you have a team of shaman - if you're running with a mixed group, where one is a shaman, the situation may be different).

For WG/PvP though, it's very nice to have control over when you EM and when you don't, instead of just spamming.
Well stated.

[Fursphere]

I've been auto-using it since sometime mid-BC (PvE).

Its just one more thing to manage. I'd rather focus my attention on tanking and healing.

[Multibocks]

Hah same, but then I'm a lazy boxer!

[Powerwar]

I personally prefer the haste.

For PvE it's a big boost because I run around with 30% crit and EM already crit caps me.
I have also enough hit rating, so hit rating would do nothing for me.
Haste on the other side will be a nice DPS boost that is quite more difficult to get capped, specially if go for +hit gear for raiding.

[Fizzler]

I manage it in PvP but use it as part of my click sequence in PvE.

Comes in handy when protecting a tower... taking out the biggest threat instantly is a nice thing.

[Multibocks]

I personally prefer the haste.

For PvE it's a big boost because I run around with 30% crit and EM already crit caps me.
I have also enough hit rating, so hit rating would do nothing for me.
Haste on the other side will be a nice DPS boost that is quite more difficult to get capped, specially if go for +hit gear for raiding.

Are you spellpower capped? =P

[Stealthy]

It's a nerf for PvP, since it reduces our burst.

In PvP, you normally pull out EM + FS/LvB when you need an instant (almost) guaranteed kill. However for the next 8 secs while LvB is on cooldown , you'll be relying on your next biggest nuke - LB/CL + FrS. Since none of these spells have a guaranteed crit, 15% crit >>>>> 15% haste in this situation. Getting your spells off 0.2-0.3 secs faster doesn't compare to 15% higher chance for killing a target outright.

Cheers,
S.

[heyaz]

LESS? THey didn't say they are removing the nature's swiftness effect. That's still there from what I understand.

THey are just changing crit to haste. Haste = moar bursty.

Not really, everything will be on cooldown except lightning bolt. In arena it's a nerf for sure.

Haste might be ok in battlegrounds or something. Maybe put nitro boosts on my gloves, pop bloodlust... cast really fast for 15 sec... oh wait just lightning bolt

give me no cooldown on chain lightning and that might actually be interesting

[Whowantstoknow]

yes

PvE Buff
PvP Nerf

As im mainly PvE I am happy :)

[heyaz]

What is the spell crit cap?

[Ualaa]

You're not likely to ever hit the crit cap.
Hit + Crit + Miss = 100%.

As you increase your hit percentage, your miss percentage decreases.
And as you increase your crit percentage, your hit percentage decreases.
It is theoretically possible to get to a point where you have no hit left so additional crit is impossible, without first increasing hit (decreasing miss chance).
Not likely to get there.

As a caster, against a raid boss, with no hit gear, you have say 17% miss.
Which means there is 83% chance of a hit or crit.
If you were 83% crit chance, anything beyond this gets you nothing.
At least until you increase your hit, which lowers your miss, and gives you space for more crit to be helpful.

I believe the worst to-hit is dual wielding.
And against a raid boss, rather then an opposing player.

[yaki]

You're not likely to ever hit the crit cap.

I believe the worst to-hit is dual wielding.
And against a raid boss, rather then an opposing player.

Dual-wielding imposes a hefty hit penalty. There are generally talents to reduce this, and practically it just means you need more +hit gear over something else. If there were no drawbacks, it would be a massive free DPS gain. The miss chance and the reduced ability to wear more generally DPS-increasing stats balance the gain from the second attack so that it comes out where they want.

Level-based miss is based on the size of the level gap. Raid bosses are always +3 levels, so you need more +hit when facing one than when you're at max level and facing another max level player. The penalty scale for attacking a higher-level target is also more harsh in PvE than PvP, but only diverges beginning at a +3 gap. Note that people at the bottom of a level bracket in battlegrounds are screwed...even a +5 gap is already down to 73% base hit in PvP.

Crit is generally nicer in PvP, even with the LvB factor. Haste does a nice job of packing an extra LB between those LvBs in a DPS rotation, but in PvP there is too much downtime. It's much more important that the LBs crit as often as possible so you can keep mobile and remove a given target from battle ASAP. So it's a PvP nerf...but only every three minutes, and not a crucial one, and the opener of doom is still intact.

For PvE...since crit did nothing for LvB and we see it as an increasing factor at higher iLvL, this probably translates to a nice on-call DPS boost. Heroism Light. Since they stack, since Elemental Mastery remains off the GCD, I suspect most of us will have an EM+Heroism macro in place of our Heroism buttons making for an even larger can of whoop-ass to go to when handling troublesome boss phases. Even in PvP, that should be a rather uncomfortable thing to stand in front of.

The practical crit cap is however many points translates to 100%...but the pts/% value changes with level, so there will never be gear to allow you to get anywhere near that level. The closest is temporary abilities that give a large crit% boost or which cause the next attack to automatically crit. It is also worth noting that the gain in % per point of crit decreases the more crit you have...it loses efficiency as you go. Haste on the other hand gains efficiency, at least until all your spells take 1 sec to cast.