Elemental Shaman DPS Theory - Post 3.3

[Fursphere]

So its that time again, new patch, new toys, new ways of blowing stuff up. I'm going to talk about DPS rotation theory here, I'm not going to be writing macros - you should all know how to do that by now.

So your general rotation is FS, LvB, CL, LB. This has been a static rotation for some time now. However, we need to do a dynamic priority based rotation, as different abilities have different cooldowns and durations.

Shaman have two different DPS phases.

Phase 1 - Prioritized Cooldown abilities
1) Flame Shock
2) Lava Burst
3) Chain Lightning

These are abilities that you use in a priority order, as I have listed above (in that order).

Phase 2 - Spam!
4) Lightning bolt

When everything else is on cooldown, this is what you should be doing.

Now, the biggest change is elemental mastery. It now provides HASTE for the duration. This is a significant change.

Before we also used to macro in EM with LvB, to get the instant cast on LvB. This is most likely not what we should be doing anymore. I have moved mine down to CL, so CL is instant, and when entering Phase 2 of the DPS rotation, the haste duration is used only to boost LB (more LB casts before Phase 1).

This also holds true for HASTE "use" trinkets and engineering buffs (hyper speed accelerators). If you've got them, use them for your LB phase, NOT for your FS - LvB - CL phases. Obviously there will be some overlap, but the idea is to prioritize your haste abilities and items towards your LB phase. You should also "attempt" to blow heroism/bloodlust as your entering Phase 2 - although this is less important overall, because Heroism/Bloodlust has a much longer duration.

Also, you should all have your Tier 9 two-piece bonus by now - don't forget to adjust your flame shock macros.

[Svpernova09]

The EJ thread on the PTR version (which went live) of EM showed the DPS difference between 3.2 and 3.3 versions of EM was rather trivial. I've seen about the same results in my DPS. What I've done is swap blowing EM on every CD on my spam macro, to using it on my LB macro to get LBs out faster. I've also stopped using heroism before FS->LB and use it after CL. So the bigger part of Heroism is affecting my LB spam. I've only been doing this since tuesday, so I don't have any concrete numbers, but it seems like a DPS increase on the meters. But I've also gone from 2pc T8 to 4pc T9 on all my DPS. The shaman are hitting 5k easily on tank and spank bosses without heroism. Before I changed where I was using EM and hero, I was high 4.8-4.9k on tank and spanks.

[Ualaa]

Unless you are manually casting EM, it doesn't really matter where you put it, in a click sequence.
Every ability which is not on the GCD will fire off, on the first press of the button.

You can test this quite easily.
Stand with your back to the target.

Have a click macro, which goes a, b, c, d.
Place trinkets and EM on "d".

They'll fire off, on the first press.
Because the click clicks all of the buttons at once.
And only the GCD spells are limited by the GCD.

So to reserve EM until we want it, we must manually click it.
Or we can include it in the click, by placing it anywhere in our sequence, which means it will fire off as soon as ready, every time.

[Fursphere]

Unless you are manually casting EM, it doesn't really matter where you put it, in a click sequence.
Every ability which is not on the GCD will fire off, on the first press of the button.

At least with the click slots I choose, this is simply NOT the case. They fire off in order, top to bottom.

[Ualaa]

All of my spells on the GCD, fire off in the order they are listed.
The click macro, calls all of the castsequences, but because of the GCD and wow executing top down, only the first spell on the GCD fires off.

Flame Shock, then Lava Burst, then Chain Lightning, and finally Lightning Bolt.

However, any spell or ability not on the GCD, fire off on the first click.

It is extremely easy to test this in game.
Just add the /use 13, /use 14, and Elemental Mastery, to say your Lightning Bolt fall-through spell.
Then have the button and trinkets visible on your bar, as you go through the macro.
Observe when they are used.

Click functions the same as one huge macro.
/castsequence Flame Shock,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence Lava Bolt,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence Chain Lightning,,,,,,,,,
/cast Lightning Bolt
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Elemental Mastery

[Zub]

Click functions the same as one huge macro.
/castsequence Flame Shock,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence Lava Bolt,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence Chain Lightning,,,,,,,,,
/cast Lightning Bolt
/use 13
/use 14
/cast Elemental Mastery

excuse my lack of macro knowledge, but does this mean that it will cast Flame Shock on cooldown (i.e. every 4-6 seconds) even though the dot still lasts a while?
is that the wanted behavior?
or is there a way to only cast it, say, after 12-15 seconds (with a [reset=x] maybe?)

cheers
-Zub

[TheFallenOne]

In a heavy DPS situation, EM is best to use with Lightning Bolt, not LvB or CL, as it is the longest cast spell out of the three and gains the most benefit. I've always been confused as to why people use it with LvB.

As well, you should cast LvB -> LB -> CL instead of LvB -> CL -> LB, as that ensures that Clearcasting is up for CL. The projectile travel time on LvB means if you go LvB -> CL, the buff may not yet be up for CL.

Of course, some of this is hard to setup properly in castsequence/click macros. :P

[Fursphere]

OK, Ualaa - looks like you're right. I could have sworn the behavoir was different. /doh

Now off to figure out a better way to control that

[thinus]

You can probably put the EM in a castsequence buffered with a few ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

/castsequence reset=combat ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Elemental Mastery

[Ualaa]

Unfortunately...

I'd much rather have it (and trinkets) fire off, on the macro that it was put into.
But that's not how the game works.

Personally, I've just said screw it, it will fire off whenever it is ready.
And I'll have maximum up-time on the ability.

But I'd rather have an ability like that, when I choose for it to fire off.
But also not sure its worth an extra thing to manually control.