Thanks for the community and DPS rotation?

[SuS]

Hello all

Great site, great community you have all been a great inspiration so much so I started up a 5 man team.

Reading (and searching) these forums a lot has been invaluable yet I have a couple of questions some one might be able to help with.

My shammys in PVE (Dungeons) when I DPS are oom so fast, I use a CL,LB,LB,LB,CL rotation.
Is there a better rotation? I have a lock who finishes the fight on ¾ mana full and my shammys were oom or nearly oom after trash pulls?

FYI:- Tankadin, Shammys x 3, Lock x 1 lvl 40. (took a lock because I wasn’t sure I wanted to raid end game with my guild with a shammy)
Am I missing so much by having the Lock? Is it worth power levelling a 4th shammy to fit the mix? As I will PVP with them as well as Heroics?

Thanks In advance.

[merujo]

Hello

I would go 5 shaman :D nah, i guess 1 pala 4 shaman is a great pve combo.

plus, dont worry about mana issues, thats COMPLETLY normal man. @60 and past it ull notice no more problems regarding mana, as u have greater mana pool, many mp5 mail ele gear, even mp5 on weapon. i can pretty much quest around without a single mana break on my shamans, just doing LB's, and without totems.

gl leveling, thats the hard part :P

[-silencer-]

Are you keeping Mana Stream totem and Blessing of Wisdom up? I don't usually have a problem with mana on a single group pull - and usually I can handle another group of adds when I start running low on mana. I tend to use this strat on pulls so far:
- Break follow with 4x shaman just out of aggro range, throw down healing/mana stream totems. Throw down totem buff set (windfury, strength of earth, stoneskin, tremor).
- Pally w/standard AoE prot spec - SoL, BoSanc, Ret Aura, Righteous Fury, Holy Shield - rushes the mob set. Pull them toward shaman group and lay down consecrate.
- Shaman throw down 4x magma totem (this is the reason for pulling the group toward shaman, my magmas are spec'd for less threat & more damage) to start wearing down all mobs.
- After 2-3 ticks of magma totems, for consecrate to build aggro, I usually start the CL -> LB -> LB -> LB/CH/CL rotation and toss in another consecrate. Usually the fight doesn't last much longer anyway, so I tend to not go all out on my dps to conserve mana.

All 4 shaman are full ele spec, and wear mostly cloth +spell dmg gear that I've found available. Sometimes I don't bother with the buff & stream totems if I know it'll be a quick pull.. then I'll just stick with the AoE from pally & magma totems, and CL/LB as needed.

[Anozireth]

Spec can make a pretty big difference in mana usage as well. Make sure you're taking the talents that reduce mana cost, reduce cost on crit and give mana back while casting.

[vindicated]

I believe some of your oom problems are a result of low crit - as a ele shaman you become much more mana efficient once your buffed crit is above 40%

with 3 shamans you got 9% coming from totems and 10% coming from talents so you got 19 with no gear at all! If you are having that much trouble when leveling it wouldn't be a big deal to just spam lightning bolts. But, without any haste, 3/1 rotation will maximize your dps.

On another note just general ele information that could help you in the future.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t16947-shaman_one_stop_elemental_shop/
Learn, read, understand how the class works. Your gear choices are vastly different then other classes and you have to balance your gear accordingly.


http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hEczq0MsAotZxbjz0x

This is your basic starter spec. The 1 point in reverb can be reassigned as you like, but ultimately its just one really questionable point to spend. As you gain more hit, you can move talents around in resto to max out totemic focus, tidal focus is not useful as you should not be healing unless it is an emergency in pve. Although, this is a raid spec so some of those points could be changed around as you will be using your shamans to dps and heal.


This how you should gem/gear yourself for best possible DPS as an elemental shaman, in a nutshell.


Step 1) Cap hit, its a joke to do at only 3%, but until you do its the worth about 2 spell damage per 1 hit rating, far more then equivalent pieces.

Step 2) Crit. You want 40% raid buffed crit before you start delving into haste. This reduces your dependence on a shadow priest so that you can dps for the entire duration of a fight while not having to drop chain from your rotation at any point. The other reason is DPS. A lot of your damage is dependent on you critting and to go any lower then that reduces how much damage you do overall in addition to fucking your mana.

Step 3) Haste. I don't remember the numbers offhand but you want about enough haste to get you a 1.5 lightning bolt to give you the cleanest possible 4/1 rotation. You don't want to be swapping to a 4/1 rotation until you get ~1.8 second lightning bolts. Keep in mind haste procs like the VERY VERY amazing Skycaller's Totem (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33506) let you hit this cap so a lot of your play in a fight is paying attention to haste procs and where your lightning bolt cast time is at.

Step 4) Spell damage. Spell damage is not something you want to be gemming specifically for, it should be more of a natural side effect from your gear. In very end-game gear with all the best pieces in the game, you should be able to keep 40% raid buffed crit, a clean 4/1 rotation, and then have a couple of gem slots where you can put spinels.

Gemming
Though at lower gear levels, sometimes you have to use yellow gems to get your crit up, ultimately you want to be using mostly oranges whenever possible. In terms of your 2 blues to activate the meta, greens are much better then purples. Try to avoid yellow haste gems as you gear up, and stick to orange haste gems because of how our scaling works. Basically around the time you can start really looking at haste, your generally at a point in your spell damage where pushing too much of one stat (talking about haste vs damage) causes the other to become slightly more valuable, and by gemming oranges, your pushing them both up at closer to the same rate and ultimately leading to slightly more dps (though this is generally measured in 10's - 20's rather then hundreds) in the long run.

Hope this informations helps a lot - ele shamans are so different than ever other caster class and this should solve some problems you might be having.

[Vyndree]

Reading (and searching) these forums a lot has been invaluable yet I have a couple of questions some one might be able to help with.

I <3 you already :) Thanks for helping make our lives easier and our patience last longer for the people who don't read before posting. Much love. :)


My shammys in PVE (Dungeons) when I DPS are oom so fast, I use a CL,LB,LB,LB,CL rotation.
Is there a better rotation? I have a lock who finishes the fight on ¾ mana full and my shammys were oom or nearly oom after trash pulls?

FYI:- Tankadin, Shammys x 3, Lock x 1 lvl 40. (took a lock because I wasn’t sure I wanted to raid end game with my guild with a shammy)
Am I missing so much by having the Lock? Is it worth power levelling a 4th shammy to fit the mix? As I will PVP with them as well as Heroics?

For an elemental shammy PvE dps, chain lightning is never effective. Just spam lightning bolt unless you are doing an AoE pull (in which case you lay AoE totems and chain lightning when available).

Make sure water shield is always up, mana spring totem, high lightning bolt crit rate (shoot for 30% after talents to start with).

Don't compare the shammy to a lock -- shammies are more like a mage without mana gems/evocate. You will need to bring mana pots if you're undergeared for your instance (I typically use the combat mana pots with the BG tokens that I have extra of. You can carry a stack of combat mana pots per BG token type). If your resto shammy is the healer, use mana tides early enough in the fight so that you could potentially use two of them in long fights.

The lock should do fine, but remember that locks are dot classes and shammies are burst classes. They don't exactly have the same role. So either one or the other will likely suffer a bit in dps since lots like to dot up all targets and shammies typically focus fire them down one at a time.

Just an FYI -- take a look at some of my pally + 4 shammy videos around level 40. You'll notice most of them I'm going OOM. This is common. Shammies at low levels just don't have any good way to regen mana. Things change with water shield -- they change TREMENDOUSLY. Just hang in there, you're at the rough spot (pre-60) for ele shammies.

[vindicated]

For an elemental shammy PvE dps, chain lightning is never effective.
Chain lightning is the reason you use a 3/1 rotation and 4/1 when you get the haste. It is a very effective spell and adds a "substantial" amount of dps to your shaman. Now, as far as mana efficiency is concerned, no - it is not as efficient as lightning bolt spam but it is definitely effective in increasing your damage.

Other than that comment I agree with most of what you said - except comparing shamans to mages.

[-silencer-]

You're getting close to my Pally/4xShaman team in level, so here's my Shaman spec for comparison..
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Laughing+Skull&n=Zandantilis
I usually save Elemental Mastery for the cases when I may be getting low on mana and need to end the fight soon, and I'll probably end up redistributing points a little when I hit 70.. like removing 2 points from Improved Fire Nova Totem and 1 from Call of Flame to put them in Unrelenting Storm.

[Vyndree]

except comparing shamans to mages.

The closest comparison to elemental shaman is mages. The only other caster DPS is warlock or priest, which means DoT classes.

Priest is to warlock what ele shammy is to mage.

I still disagree on chain lightning being > lightning bolt -- chain lightning has a lower +spelldamage coefficient and scales worse than lightning bolt.

[vindicated]

The closest comparison to elemental shaman is mages. The only other caster DPS is warlock or priest, which means DoT classes.

Priest is to warlock what ele shammy is to mage.

I still disagree on chain lightning being > lightning bolt -- chain lightning has a lower +spelldamage coefficient and scales worse than lightning bolt.
Generally accepted rotations
Lightning Bolt Spam
Lightning bolt spam is the most mana efficient rotation, but lower in terms of damage output. Best used in mana sensitive situations. Requires less spell crit, as it has lower mana use. 3 Lightning Bolt/1 Chain Lightning
The 3/1 rotation is three Lightning Bolts and one Chain Lightning. This is the most practical of the high (non-hasted) DPS rotations. It uses three bolt casts while waiting for the 6 second chain cooldown to finish. Can also be used for short fights/trash pulls where it is possible to drink often. 4 Lightning Bolt/1 Chain Lightning
4/1 is the hasted Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning rotation, as once your bolt cast time drops bellow 2 seconds an additional bolt cast is used to allow Chain Lightning to finish its cooldown.
First, chain lightning > lightning bolt issue
Chain Lightning has a higher damage/cast ratio. And the 3/1 rotation provides much higher dps because you can cast more spells than a shorter amount of time, and there are usually more than 1 mob per pull increasing the viability of chain lightning even furthur. Not to mention spell damage is NOT a primary stat of ele shamans, crit/haste is. However, it uses more mana on a per damage basis, so may not be used when mana is an issue, either at low gear levels, buff availability, or encounter mechanics. Which is why i recommended him the lightning bolt spam "rotation" if he is having these problems pre-water shield.

As far as comparing other classes to a shaman, idk there are minor aspects of the mage/warlock classes that could compare to shamans. Neither classes have as much mana concerns, neither class relies on critting for mana effeciency - exluding fire mages. Shamans have no cc, no agro wipe/reduction, not barely similar itemization. I guess your arguement is hinging on the spell rotation of spamming frost bolt - or coa, immolate, shadow bolt spam, refresh dot/immolate, shadow bolt spam(refering to destruction locks) or that they all use ranged mana spells. Other than that there are hardly any similarities between shamans and other caster classes and I would feel uncomfortable comparing them to the others. Not to mention how much better off they are in every aspect of the game- shamans need a major overhaul and I believe where they will be in wotlk is where they should be now.

Idk how i am coming off in these post, but i assure you i am not trying to sound angry or come off as rude - quite the contrary i am really enjoying our theorycrafting battle :D

[Bena]

do you use CL when available or stick with LB? I've been using CL on 2+ mobs.. is it better to stick with LB?

I still disagree on chain lightning being > lightning bolt -- chain lightning has a lower +spelldamage coefficient and scales worse than lightning bolt.

[vindicated]

For MAX dps you do lb, lb, lb, cl if the fight doesn't restrict your mana or it would break needed cc.
For conserving mana you use lb spam

[Vyndree]

I guess your arguement is hinging on the spell rotation of spamming frost bolt - or coa, immolate, shadow bolt spam, refresh dot/immolate, shadow bolt spam(refering to destruction locks)

I'm comparing the classes as a whole.

In general, destro locks are referred to as "shadow mages". ;)

It's just the playstyle in general -- a mage in a PvE situation will likely be spamming spells with cast times which require facing the target. In general warlocks will be more of a drain class, using DoTs (though the destro spec or demo/destro -- do people actually run that? -- are exceptions) or drains (mana/life). Warlocks also have some casted DoTs and direct damage spells, but in general when you think "lock" you think "MOAR DOTS!"

Priest and Shaman are the "slimmed down" hybrid versions of the above two classes. Shaman are spamming spells with cast times that require facing the target. Priest is using dots and channeled spells (flay) while also using direct damage (mind blast/death) though you typically think of the dots/drains first.

It's a comparison -- if priests and shaman had the CC that warlocks and mages, then they wouldn't BE priests/shaman. They would be warlocks/mages. There are similarities and there are differences, but they are the closest comparison I can think of.

It's just a contrast of playstyles. If you make the lock destro it will very much be like the shaman in that it relies on cast times and crits. I agree here. I hadn't really thought of destro locks since to me, they're just "shadow mages". ;)

[vindicated]

When I think warlock I think shadow bolt spam - you realize how much more dps destruction spec'd locks do than affliction locks

[SuS]

Ya know I go home do some levelling come back to work and see a plethora of really helpful replies cheers guys.

The Shammys are indeed spec for mana reduction and Elemental focus I guess its just a case of pushing on until I hit 60+ and get the crit gear.

I have just 3 shammys and 1 Warlock for DPS and I’m starting to question my Locks place in the team, has its uses but still feel I’m missing that Fourth set of totems?
Its tough to weigh up some CC Vs the missing totems anyone else experienced a similar team on both counts? 4 shammys ‘and’ 3 shammys + Lock?

I had CL in the front of my DPS macro due being on a PVP server and I’m glad as the two Rogues 4 levels above me reminded me in STV last night right before I killed them, odd they choose to try and take my Paladin down rather than my currently Destro speced squishy lock? /lol nubs.

Think I shall make a rotation Macro for Questing/world PVP and one for PVE. Cheers for the great feedback.

[yarr]

i find myself agreeing with both sides of this argument, CL or not to CL? I think there is a place for both. Single target, i tend to find myself spamming LB exclusively unless I am sure that I will not run out of mana and DPS is important. Multitarget, i like to squeeze in CL's after my tank has solidified aggro. It allows me to do that much more DPS.

A 3 LB (or 4 with haste) + CL rotation *does* increase your dps if done properly, CL does have a lower spell coefficient, BUT, its cast time is 0.5 sec lower than LB. So it actually gains *more* DPS per spell dmg than lightning bolt, because of its faster cast time. However, its DPM is horrid for single target.

I used to LOVE using a LB LB LB CL rotation with a castsequence, but i found that if I threw out the CL too quickly, my pally sometimes would lose aggro over some of the adds. However this was before I was even level 70... perhaps now that my pally has a much higher spell damage, i can hold aggro over CL's better. Oh well I have alreaady gotten used to having a separate button for CL and LB, and throwing each spell out when appropriate =D