Dudes! (And Dudettes) elemental DPS and castsequences are simply not worth it!

[Kaynin]

I've been messing about with these ever since I was level 75. Testing various haste/crit. But in reality, they are almost impossible to apply to PvE.

Extra healing, moving around, changing targets, all make long castsequences that are cooldown based a pain. All mostly upsetting the cooldowns so much it's not worth it. The only reason castsequences seems good for is for when you get in that situation when you do still have thge cd's and need to totally nuke as much as possible, or a few fights where you do indeed not have to heal/move. Patchwerk in naxx for example. Or when testing dps. But with the vast amount of various tactics needed for pretty much all five man and the lack of hp on trash causes castsequences for us to be more of a pain then to be effective.

/castrandom is as close to effective as it will get, but even then you would stumble upon problems with changing targets, blowing flameshock cd's on low targets and lava bursts on flameshockless targets. The problems come with the AI needed to apply flameshock at the proper targets and the timing on the lava bursts.

So I've come to the conclusion that it is pointless to try and make an effective one button dps for us elementals, because it's simply not happening. Stick to 4 buttons and your overall dps should increase. If you have a tank and 4 shammies, try minimizing the buttons needed for your tank instead, while proper dpsing with your shamans with Flame Shock, Lava Burst, Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning in individual buttons/modifiers. It might take a few days, to get the feel to it, but eventually I'm sure yo�'ll be able to dream your flameshock cd's/timers and lava burst cd's!

Just wanted to say. :P

[pinotnoir]

I agree! After much time messing with the perfect sequence I give up. Right now I have Flame Shock on #1, lightning bolt on #2, and Lava Burst on #3. My chain lightning is on another key..

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast [target=focustarget] Lava Burst

/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast [target=focustarget] Lightning Bolt

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focustarget] Flame Shock

/cast Elemental Mastery
/cast Blood Fury
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/console Sound_EnableSFX 0
/use 13
/use 14
/console Sound_EnableSFX 1
/run UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/cast [target=focustarget] Chain Lightning

[Sarduci]

Like Fur said, it's all about speed break points.

At some points in time in TBC, you could go backwards in DPS due to global cooldowns and spell rotations. If you search EJ now somewhere in there is buried is talk about how they changed the way it works so you'll never have a negative dps gain from adding haste now.

You'll still want nice planned out rotations for longer fights since you'll have a good dps gain their vs the random spell casting without the bonus damage. Trash pulls shouldn't need that kind of attention, otherwise they're not really the speed bumps that they should be.

[heffner]

I just use /castrandom for most of the DPS macros as well. I haven't hit heroics yet (only L66) so I haven't really optimized anything. I always activate my trinkets and DPS talents (e.g., icy veins, elemental mastery) as part of my macro regardless of what I am fighting. I went this route since I run five different classes and just wanted things to be as simple as possible.

I recently switched to using two macros, one is more for when the fight initiates, since I wasn't able to put things like Faerie Fire into my other macro, and the other is my straight DPS spam macro.

[Ualaa]

On my 5 shaman team, I only have one dps spell per button.
Pretty much, the spells are set up like this: "[harm] Lightning Bolt; [help] Lesser Healing Wave" for each of my nukes.
But its still one button per nuke or heal spell I have.

I could see the advantage of castrandom or castsequence for a mixed team.