Low Shaman DPS.

[Tyval]

Since I've been back from a break (came back after the patch). I've noticed that my shaman dps seems low.

My gear score is over 4k now, I've still get some crap pieces but most are i232 and above. (with exception of weapon, off hand and trinkets). My elem shaman have the obvious elem glyphs, i've also been swapping over my spirit to mastery as my tohit is capped. Think I have around 20% for the overload proc.

My team is
pali
priest
2x elem shaman
arcane mage.

Typically my arcane mage beats the shaman unless the fight is more aoe based.

I think my main issue is I'm not getting in the extra lava bursts as the cooldown resets.

My rotation is typically

flame shock,
then a macro with
/cast sequence Lava burst, lightning bolt x4 repeat.

I throw in chain lightning when 3 or more mobs.

I've tried using an another key for lavaburst but seems timing this is problematic , and i'm afraid if I use it then I'll lock up my cast sequence.

I seem to be around 2k on trash (though things do die fast so not an optimal fight). On tank and spank bosses my shaman tend to be 2.5 to 3k.

My arcane mage seems to be higher dps even if I just do the arcane blastx4 arcane barrage.

Overall I notice my dps dropped with the 4.0.1 patch (from when I played months ago.)

Any help tips would be great, also numbers on what others are doing would help to gauge my lvl of sucking as well :).

Thanks
T

[Toned]

If you aren't using your lightning shield stacks you're doing it wrong. You need to make sure you earth shock.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/forumdisplay.php?f=14

Look in the stickies.

[Littleburst]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=32633
To be even more specific.

Mercurio + his backup ftw.

To simplify it if you don't want to use the 2 macro's, use something like:
/castsequence reset=combat/8 Flame Shock,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Earth Shock,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt,Lightning Bolt
/cast Lava burst
/cast Elemental Mastery

Adjust as needed. I think the flame shock will fall off, depends on your haste etc. So possibly remove some lightning bolts from the castsequence and move earth shock further forward.

[Tyval]

I have tried using the earth shock with lightning shield but not regularly or with much noticeably effect, Thanks for the tip, I'll do some more reading. Main issue I found was keeping track of when my stack might be full. Also I think I had my lightning shield recast each time I laid down totems as I wanted to stagger cast them and ,, wasn't working anymore.

T

edit:

Thanks for macros and info little burst (was posted while I typed my original reply).

I'll try that out.

[Littleburst]

You're welcome :)

And you shouldn't have to recast lightning shield. When you gain an orb from the talentthingy it refreshes the duration from lightning shield. It's very helpfull to have a partyframe showing the charges and time left on Lightning shield. Shadowed unit frames and pitbull will do this. Not sure about Xperl.

[Tyval]

So I skimmed the elemental macros from the link,

This is kind of what I was trying to do, but I didn't think of having ISBoxer doing the work. SO that will clean things up a lot.

But that said, I was at one point trying to do almost the same thing with 2 macro /dps keys.

look at my x2 shaman.
1) my main macro spam key (say lightning bolt spam (will add in earth shock now))
1) a key that would cast lavaburst

I ran into 2 issues though.
1)How do I tell when my lavaburst has reset/procced? I looked at jamba which displays a lot of procs but didn't seem to handle that one.
2) What about the case when one slave has procced but the other ones haven't. What I mean is, I can't get the lavaburst to cast until the last spell has finished casting, so I switch to spamming the proc key, the last spell finishes casting, now lavaburst casts on one, nothing on the other, I switch back to the main dps macro and the second starts lightning bolt, but now both are out of sync time wise. And depending on how fast I was and timely I may have lost 1/2 second on my second shaman who was doing nothing while I was getting the lavaburst on the other to start.

It seems this way forces me to really monitor everyone's cast bar. Which is ok, but I guess I need to get an add on for that.

Am I missing something (quite likely :) )

[Littleburst]

Am I missing something (quite likely :) )

YES :D

The brilliant part in mercurio's macro is that (simplified) you press 1 button, but 2 keystrokes get send. So you just mash that 1 key and your shaman will cast lava burst when it's off CD, if not they will cast the other castsequence.

How easy can it get?

[Tyval]

ooohhhh...

*light bulb goes on, flickers a bit and eventually stabilizes*

I can't wait to try that out tonight.

Thanks all for your help!

Tyval

[Ualaa]

If you didn't have IS Boxer (or something similar, which alternates outputs), you could do exactly the same, via alternating between 1 and 2 (or whatever keybinds your dps macros are on).

[Tyval]

If you didn't have IS Boxer (or something similar, which alternates outputs), you could do exactly the same, via alternating between 1 and 2 (or whatever keybinds your dps macros are on).


This kind of confuses me,

So say I'm alternating between the 2 keys, key 2 is my dps macro, key 3 is my proc macro. I assume in a semi-spam fashion steady rhythm, 2,3,2,3,2,3

It seems there would be a 50% chance on which spell gets cast. Currently lighting bolt is mid cast, lava burst is ready to fire. Now when lightning bolt is finished, the next keypress that comes in will determine what is cast, assuming a steady rhythm that could be either the dps macro, or the proc macro key. Still better than what I was doing but doesn't seem optimal.

If I wanted it to weight things towards firing lava burst if available, I should hit 3,2 quickly. so something like 3,2 little time 3,2 little time 3,2 little time. where 3,2 is one right after the other, little time is say 1/2 sec.

Is that correct? ( Not trying to nit pick here or be disagreeable just trying to understand.)


By the same token it seems like the setup for ISBoxer isn't quite right.

The 2 step macro should send the proc keybind first, then the normal dps key, that way if lava burst is up it will fire, if not it won't do anything and the dps keybind will come through right after firing something off in the DPS macro. If it is done the other way , (as it seemed to be in the link/example) it seems to me (assuming each step 2 is executed quickly after step 1) one would be more likely to fire the dps macro (unless lavaburst became available somehow between the dps step and the proc step.

Or am I again missing something? :)

I'm current setting up ISBoxer as we speak!

[Ualaa]

With IS Boxer, we have mapped keys.

One mapped key is your DPS spam.
This one has two steps, which means one thing happens on the first press and a different thing on the second press.
Because there is no third step, after step two it resets back to step one.

The mapped key, will likely have the hotkey of wherever your spam key is.
In my case, that is usually "1".

In step 1, it will:
- Do Mapped Key Action - FTL Assist Me, Target: Current Window
(This is the mapped key for the slaves to assist the active character)
- Sends "1" to all windows.

In step 2, it will:
- Send "2" to all windows.
(Or wherever you put your proc/second macro).



Not much difference in the end result.
Pressing 1 then 2, then 1, then 2...
Or having your software output 1 then 2, then 1, then 2.



The idea here, isn't to push both at once.
It is to push one and then the other, alternating.

[Tyval]

Hmm,

Guess I wasn't clear on my question confusion. I get the whole mapped key in ISBoxer vs alternating two keys.

My question/comments were specifically making sure lava burst would cast when up.

Method 1 (No ISBOXER): I have 2 keys, key 1 is dps macro, key 2 is proc macro.

I alternate hitting these keys, lets say on the beat like a metronome is going hitting a key every .5 secs

So I get 1,2,1,2,1,2 etc hitting 1 on 0sec 1 sec 2 sec, and 2 on .5 sec 1.5 secs 2.5secs.

assume lightning bolt has cast of 1.8 (mine does without buffs)

Now show up in the middle of combat..
Lava burst not available

time 0: key 2 pressed nothing happens
time .5: key 1 pressed lightning bolt starts cast
time 1.0 key 2 pressed: nothing happens in cast
time 1.5 key 1 pressed nothing happens in cast
time 2.0 key 2 pressed nothing happens in cast
time 2.3 Lightning bolt fires, resets lava burst.
time 2.5 key 1 pressed lightning bolt starts cast
time 3.0 key 2 pressed nothing happens.

So we missed a lava burst. The point I was making or asking about, if one is alternating keys there are times when lightning bolt will cast even though lava burst is up because we are alternating keys and if I'm not casting anything and I hit 1 , lightning bolt goes off regardless of whether lava burst is available or not.

My thought/question in this case is if instead of evenly hitting keys I alternated quickly with key 2 first.

time 0 key 2 pressed nothing happens lava burst not off cooldown
time .1 key 1 pressed lighting bolt starts
time .5 key 2 pressed nothing
time .6 key 1 pressed nothing.
time 1.0 key 2 pressed nothing
time 1.1 key 1 pressed nothing
time 1.5 key 2 pressed nothing
time 1.6 key 1 pressed nothing
time 1.8 lighting bolt casts procs lava burst
time 2.0 key 2 pressed lava burst casts
time 2.1 key 1 pressed nothing happens.

The method below is more likely to cast lava burst when it is up, the only time it won't is if lava burst refreshes between pressing key 2 and key 1.

now of course you wouldn't want to have .5 sec between key strokes as that could be .5 sec with nothing getting cast, but illustrates the point.

If I alternate keys, I won't cast lava burst if refreshes between me hitting key 2 and 1.

So now I take that case to using ISBoxer.

it is doing the same thing really as you pointed out, Key down simulates/sends one key, key up simulates/sends another key.

now when I mash my key I tend to hit if quickly down and up with a bigger duration between key downs. So I would want the proc key (2) to be hit on the key down, and key 1 on key up.

This would yield the greatest odds of lava burst getting cast when it is available.

That was the only point I was making sure I understood, these methods are much easier /better than what I was doing but one is not guaranteed always casting lavaburst when it is available, one can make it though so one is much more likely to cast lavaburst when it is up.

Does this make sense?
T

[Tyval]

Tried an instance using the macros and the toggle 2 step settings.

DPS as expected went way up.

Was hitting over 4k on bosses and trash was over all up about 500-700, depending on the fight, and how fast they went down.

Ended up setting fastest kill times on all the bosses.

Next up my arcane mage.

Thanks everyone so much for your help!

T

[Ualaa]

You can take your mapped key, and set it so it cannot advance to the next step for "x.xx" seconds.
That will ensure whatever is on that step is executed correctly, prior to the next step.

Not sure you need it, but it is an option.