What are shaman groups seeing for DPS in heroics?

[Niley]

I was just looking at that SS in the other thread. I'm still boggled by your numbers.

I think having a dk added a whole lot more dps to my group, Ive been having some moments when I think in my head " O sh!t" that boss died so fast, after i swapped from pally to dk tank.
Im going to try do one more of those test things soon, see how it goes with better gear and maybe heroism.

[Niley]

I was just looking at that SS in the other thread. I'm still boggled by your numbers.

I think having a dk added a whole lot more dps to my group, Ive been having some moments when I think in my head " O sh!t" that boss died so fast, after i swapped from pally to dk tank.
Im going to try do one more of those test things soon, see how it goes with better gear and maybe heroism.

You know, I tried something similar to the 13% DK thing.

Afflication Warlock brings Imp. Curse of Elements - 13% increase dmg from all magic sources ('cept holy). It didn't seem to help _at_all_

13% is huge, on lava burst alone that lets say crits for 8k on average its over 1000 damage, now do that times 4(lets say that my main crits for 8k too, although in reality its much more) and You're ending up with 4k extra damage every 8s alone. And that's just tip of an iceberg, as Your every cast is increased.

[puppychow]

MY god Niley you are a machine! You just started a mage and priest and they are 60 already???? I have a druid I'm leveling, I can't be arsed to level more than 4-5 levels a week (lol). My DK is level 56 and I started him a week ago, lol.

just focusing on PVE is a lot more fun than trying to mix in PVP right now (and by PVP i mean arena, bgs and wg is still fun). Niley is off on his own little island though, none of us mere mortals can touch his DPS or gear Thats interesting you are going for holy priest, even after the next patch COH nerf? Just get tons of spirit and spam PoH/Nova?

I definitely see the difference gear upgrades make, I spent some time enchanting and getting gear (I had 110 badges on my shamans and hadn't spent one yet, lol) and breezed through 2 heroics today with 0 wipes and record times.

At this point I think really the issue is the next nine months, whatcha gonna do? Its a given you will get 2 pc t7 from badges or voa/os, its pretty easy getting even 2 pc t7.5 from 25 man versions. You can also run them solo through naxx (or group if lucky) and get some more, to the point where they will be decked out in epics. I wonder though how many more 5 man heroics Blizzard will release? Historically we'll see 2-3 more 10/25 man raids and maaaybe 1 5 man in this expansion cycle.

At this point really just trying different compositions may be a good use of time, gearing up for really nothing has very high diminishing returns.

Has anyone by the way tested on dummies the DPS diff between just spamming LB and doing FS/LvB/LB/CL? I'm gonna try that later today, just gotta get in my 10 arena games, do 1st boss of Kara, kill Ony, and do the mount bosses in ZG...

[Seneca]

I have to agree with Niley on the mixed group composition, I'm running something quite similar. I am currently using a paly tank, so I brought a moonkin instead of a mage (to compensate for no DK 13% +dmg), otherwise identical. I do have a 70 mage and a 73 DK that I might level and switch in to see how it goes.

Apologies for going off topic... but anyway...

I agree that a mage brings a lot of utility, ie. ports/water/crit/etc. However, I went with a paly/druid for the extra buffs (over DK/mage), without access to raid level gear I really wanted to maximise buffs that would help me clear heroics. With the (sort of recent) changes to buff stacking, I used MMO Champion's RaidComp to decide on an optimal group. Its great for figuring out new compositions. I spent quite a while just working through different combinations til I came up with the one I have now. Prot paly, Moonkin, Ele shaman x 2, Disc/Holy priest. Not quite 80 yet, I started leveling from scratch after WotlK came out, but I've completed every instance so far without problems.

[Meeo]

well just to keep this thread on right tracks, I found a ss that i think Ive posted before, thsi si from few weeks back, when my slave shammies didn't really had taht good of a gear(now they all have 2 piece t7 etc).
I did this dps test on a dummy, and with cast random macro, no heroism(You can see cd on exhaustion, but that's from my previous try on the heroic dummy)



and, Im changing my team too, its going to be Dk tank, Mage, Holy Priest, Elemental shaman x2 - started priest and mage yesterday, and they're almost 60 now. I was considering a moonkin, but I think I'll gain much more from a mage, 10% crit/water/ports/sheep/int, from moonkin i dont really get anything but motw/brez and o sh!t heal.

What Castrandom did you use for those s.s., if you can recall?

[Niley]

I still use same macro, its
/castrandom lightning bolt,lava burst
and on another button i have
/stopcasting
/cast flameshock
the simpler the better \o/

[Hachoo]

You don't use chain lightning at all? I use chain lightning on my main DPS macro because it has a higher DPS than LB and its good to take down multi mob pulls faster. Only time I don't use it is when its a mana intensive boss fight. Just curious on your opinion on this.

[Multibocks]

CL does add dps, but I don't bother on 2 of my slaves as my damn macros are too long.. lol. I haven't seen a huge difference.

[Meeo]

I still use same macro, its
/castrandom lightning bolt,lava burst
and on another button i have
/stopcasting
/cast flameshock
the simpler the better \o/

So i was able to test this macro out on Patchwerk tonight, as well as another..../castrandom Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Flame Shock

With the /cr LB, LvB & /sc flame shock, i got 2297 and my gears pretty crappy on my shaman.
With the /cr lb, cl, lvb, fs i only got 2029

Again this also varies to others becuase of the difference in crit/haste/hit. So dont take my word for it, but i saw a huge difference in my dps from the 2 different spell setups, i will test it in heroics with my 5 box team to see how they do away from the raid enviorment, i still have yet to get to a town and test my dps against a dummy.

[Niley]

You don't use chain lightning at all? I use chain lightning on my main DPS macro because it has a higher DPS than LB and its good to take down multi mob pulls faster. Only time I don't use it is when its a mana intensive boss fight. Just curious on your opinion on this.

Nope, i dont use cl in my main dps spam macro, I do have it set to another button that sometimes Ill use on trash. A while ago I noticed higher deeps with just basic macro that i posted above, its a random macro, so Ill take my chances on 50/50 lvb, rather then 33%.
I dont know about others, but I do 4x healing stream, they tick for 1k, that way i still dps for trash and some bosses on my resto shaman, and if i use cl there Ill run oom, as Im close without using it.
Even when I'm raiding on my main, Ill barely use cl in my rotation, only when i need my rotation to "stick", so i don't have to wait on LvB. So while in theory its better dps, in reality I get higher dps without it.