I’ve moved my blog location (again) over to TotemSpot

Binks.

I’ve made “blank” copies of each, for interested people to copy & use.

Legendary Progress

Jewelcrafting Cuts

However, when you’re looking at a hard cap for a stat that is your most valuable, then things start to get tricky. Some people will say that going over a hard cap like hit or expertise is a bad thing, and should never be done. While this may be true in some cases, it’s not true for all of them.

The better way to figure out if you should go over the cap is to do some simple algebra: value of capped stat under the cap multiplied by the quantity remaining until capped, compared to the value of the other stat multiplied by the total quantity, and then pick the largest of the two.

Using Elemental as an example, we have rough stat weights of Hit: 4, Haste: 2, Mastery: 1.8, Crit: 1.3. Obviously the question is between Haste and Hit. To work out how far over the hit cap we can go before haste is better, we just take the ratio of the two values, ie: 2:1. While this means that hit is worth twice as much as haste, it also means that when comparing stats for reforging, enchants or gems, you can go over the hit cap by half of that amount before it’s better to use haste instead.

eg: You are 12 hit rating short of the cap. You can either gem for 20 hit, or 20 haste. 12 hit * 4 ep = 48.  20 haste * 2 ep = 40. Hit wins out.

Often you’ll find smaller differences due to re-forging, but the same principle applies.

One site that assumes that over the hit cap is bad is www.askmrrobot.com. The following is how they tell me I should reforge with their default stat weights.

As you can see, we’re trading a net 14 hit (22 less for 14 haste, and I’m currently 7 rating over the hit cap. Using their “modified” stat weights of Hit: 2.7 and Haste: 1.73, we can see that hit = 7 * 2.7 = 18.9 vs haste = 14 * 1.73 = 24.22, and haste wins. However it is noted that they manually modify their stat weights so that Int > Hit, in order to make gem/enchant selection work correctly.

Using my own stat weights generated via SimCraft using my current gear I obtained different results: Hit: 4.475, Int: 3.8562, Haste: 2.0297, Mastery: 1.8153, and Crit: 1.2781. Doing the same calculation we get 4.471 * 7 = 31.297 vs 28.4158, in favour of Hit again. To make Mr Robot do what I’m expecting, I need to over-ride their default values, and set the hit cap to 17.1%. The new results match perfectly with my gear as it’s set up (I use www.wowreforge.com to manage my reforging with a minimum hit cap).

In short, going slightly over a cap can be a good thing, as long as you consider it in context.

Firstly, everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Shannox. This is a fight where our sale target and high mobility comes in handy.
Things to fix: none
Changes made: can’t fix what ain’t broken.

From here we visit the web covered lair of Beth’tilac. Elemental doesn’t fare so well here due to the multi target environment in the first phase (unless you’re some sort of tab targeting flame shocking nova god), but the second phase comes back to our usual single target goodness.
Things to fix: can’t handle short AoE bursts and effective single target damage requires some ramp up (also have shock cool down issues).
Changes made: the removal of the chain lightning cool down, plus a buff to earthquake will make AoE a lot easier, in both the fire-and-forget form and active cleaving. Shock cool downs shouldn’t be an issue with quick target deaths making flame shock somewhat useless, and the higher CL damage plus more frequent orb generation should make CL plus ES spam more useful than any FS plus LvB use.

Rhyolith is a similar story to Beth with the combination of AoE and single target damage requirements.

Alysrazor is a little different. While the fit is primarily single target damage, other mechanics “conspire” against us, primarily the haste buff while flying not being as advantageous to us as other classes, and the importance of interrupts which will almost always involve shaman (although it is worth noting that the 2 second lock out from wind sheer is a downside in this encounter, rather than something that can be ignored).

Things to fix: haste scaling, dependence on shaman for interrupts
Changes made: while shamanism has received a minor boost, nothing has really changed with respect to how we scale with haste buffs. We’ve already seen two boss fights this expansion which have encounter based haste buffs, which has some people suggesting more mastery focused gear sets for these specific fights.
As for interrupts, I don’t think anything will change for wind sheer this expansion, but I hope that we see an increase to both the lock out and cool down to bring it into line with other classes to avoid the shaman interrupt team in raids, and move to less class based but more team work focused interrupt requirements.

Both Baleroc and Majordomo Staghelm are similar to Shannox, with mostly stationary dps phases inter-spaced by short movement phases, although for Staghelm there is more movement and more cleaving.

The same thing can be said for Ragnaros as well, as the cleave/AoE portions have already been covered earlier. There are still a few general concerns about damage output, mostly related to fire totems, but aside from that everything looks pretty good.

I’m currently working on a new Elemental Guide. The main page is for the basic stuff, with links at the end of each section to the “more advanced/detailed” stuff. What I want to know is what extra stuff you think should be added to the guide. Obviously the advanced sections are a work-in-progress, and I have a few more things I want to add in, but I thought this would be a good time to get your feedback.

With this in mind, wouldn’t it be easier if we had a better way to connect those doing the early theorycraft/guide work with sites that use their findings? That way site administrators don’t have to manually update their stat weights, and users get more accurate information.

To do this I’m suggesting the creation of a standardized XML format for defining stat weights, which can then be distributed to item sites either by uploading them to specific community/theorycrafting sites, submitting them directly, or via some other means. They can even be turned into import strings for in-game addons like Pawn. The XML files would contain information on the class, spec, tier level, all possible stats with a use/don’t use flag, stat weights & stat caps. As this progresses we would be able to build multiple EP stat weight sets for those just starting out on 5mans, vs those working on the latest heroic raid, and adjust weights for specific breakpoints (eg: haste over X%, hit over cap being zero).

Of course, this will require a wider community participation than just myself, so if you are interested in this, leave a message here. If there is enough interest to move forward with this, I will create a sub-forum on TotemSpot to start discussing it.

Pair of casts: Crit^2

Normal cast freq: crit^2/((lbcast * lbcount + shockcast * shockcount)/(lbcount + shockcount))

LvB + normal cast: Crit

LvB Surge offset:  0.2/fs tick time

LvB double freq with surge: Crit*(1+surge offset)/9 (9 being slightly longer than the base internal cd to allow for not casting as fast as we’d like)

Can then add both freqs together to get a cast based charge frequency (C Freq). Can then add on a value for FS freq based on crit/fsticktime less C Freq to give a dot based frequency which will be greater or equal to zero (D Freq). Subtraction occurs due to the fact that a FS crit will only have an impact if there isn’t a cast based crit (while in reality it can happen in either direction, this makes things simpler).

Add C Freq and D Freq together to get an overall proc frequency per second.

Assumptions made: ignoring fulmination as a separate spell, but it would double the crit chance for ES and increase proc chances. Add in later for a more complex model.

However, all is not rosy in Elemental land. No doubt you’ve seen the veritable lack of single target changes in the patch notes, and wondered about things like the SimulationCraft T12 Heroic sim results to see us down the end of the pack again. Fortunately though, there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel as well as some potential changes around fire totems. Will these changes be enough though?

Looking a bit deeper at the SimulationCraft results, there are a few assumptions going on there, but first, a recap of the numbers.

• Total DPS: 33042
• Fire Elemental DPS: 5634
• Personal DPS: 27191
• Personal Mobile DPS (ignoring LvB): 19079

Putting two and two together, assuming the Fire Elemental works properly we’ll be doing 24713 DPS while moving, vs 33042 DPS when stationary (or in other words, we’ll be doing roughly 75% of our stationary DPS while mobile) without taking the 4pc Insta-LvB-On-Lava-Surge bonus into account. This is all thanks to that Unleashed Lightning LB-While-Casting glyph. Without it we’d be doing a much lower 8373 (~25%), although this is without taking UE & more frequent ES casts into account. In any case, it looks like the power indicator has swung from grossly underpowered to grossly overpowered for Elemental mobile DPS.

Scaling wise, things look fairly good. The graphs show what we expect, Int>SP>Haste>Mastery>Crit, with a large focus on haste over mastery & crit. However, the stat preferences for Elemental runs a bit contrary to that of Resto (being mostly Mastery>Haste>Crit) and also leaves me wondering why there are so many crit based items for Shaman. It may be that because we scale well with specific stats and poorly with others that has resulted in the general impression that we scale badly overall. It’s likely that if we weren’t restricted to mail for the 5% intellect bonus that we’d be picking up cloth & leather items that are itemised “better” than mail gear. This suggests that a background mechanics change on improving the value of crit while reducing the value of haste may make gearing more interesting and solve those “scaling issues”.

In short, until the fixes we need for Fire Elemental actually come through, Elemental is definitely the bottom-of-the-pack DPS spec that we were back in the Black Temple/Sunwell days, and even when those changes come through our deficiencies in stand-and-deliver encounters will be masked by our new mobility strength. The only silver lining is that you can pull out my old quote from 2.4 where I said “If you’re getting beaten by an Elemental Shaman, you’re doin’ it wrong”

Shaman

• We previously nerfed Water Shield via hotfix because shaman were gaining too much mana in PvP when attacked (especially by pets to discourage drinking). The 4.2 change is just a more elegant implementation of the same nerf that should keep the same mana per time as they have currently.
• We recognized Fire Nova had some usability issues so we increased its throughput and added the Flame Shock refresh mechanic to help ease some of the inconvenience. This is a new mechanic and one we are still evaluating.
• We introduced the Glyph of Unleashed Lightning to help shaman feel less punished by movement in both PvP and PvE. The impact of changes like this are very difficult to model.
• We nerfed Mana Tide for the same reason we nerfed Innervate — it was just providing too much mana for the group’s healers as a whole. We didn’t want to decrease the benefit to the shaman, so we redesigned / added the talent of Resurgence to help offset the nerf to them personally

Being an Elemental kinda guy, I’m going to ignore the first and last one because they don’t affect me.

It’s good to know that the Fire Nova changes are being monitored. I still think that it’s a bit of an awkward system to manage, and could stand to have things tweaked and limited, because I can see things getting a bit silly with never-ending dots and high numbers of novas going out. The question is really whether we’ll get to any of those extreme points or not, and how long the ramp up time is. Too long, and we’ll be under the curve, but too short and things will be a bit over powered.

Likewise, the introduction of Unleashed Lightning will most likely get reviewed after 4.2 is released. I still believe that it’s going too far, and we’ll turn into running, jumping lightning bolt machines, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m still thinking that a better way to handle the Movement Problem is to rejig the Spirtwalker’s Grace duration/cooldown, or change it so that it has no cooldown/duration but rather a toggle with a damage/healing reduction.

In any case, those words “still evaluating” and “very difficult to model” make me think that there is some hope for improvements after 4.2 is released.

Essentially, making sure you know what is coming up is one of the most important things to do when trying to improve your damage output. This means that you can do things like cast Earth Shock early, or delay it, when you know what is coming up. For example. if I see that my Lava Burst cooldown will be up in a second or so after my next Lightning Bolt cast finishes, and I have my yellow eight lightning shield charges warning up, I’ll cast Earth Shock next rather than another Lightning Bolt in order to get that Lava Burst out earlier.

This is why bar systems like EventHorizon or Gnosis are useful. They allow you to see what is coming up, rather than what you have to react to now. Using Power Auras and other popup indicators are useful, but if you don’t have some sort of indicator that allows you to make split second decisions about what to cast next then every Lava Burst cast will be a surprise reaction, as opposed to a more informed choice for when you don’t get a Lava Surge proc. One of the reasons I like EventHorizon is that it allows me to put some extra time bars in, so in addition to the 0 point (ie: now) I also have a pair of lines, one at 2 seconds and the other at 5. This gives me a good indicator for managing my shock casts, as well as a better visualisation of how my other cooldowns are going.