Totem & Ankh Shaman Blog

Totem & Ankh: Elemental DPS - Spreadsheets and Experience

WoW Blogs - Totem & Ankh Shaman Blog

Last Updated on Wednesday, 01 September 2010 12:37 Written by Savoire Wednesday, 01 September 2010 02:34

If you've been following Totem & Ankh, you have seen my previous articles exploring Savoire's elemental offspec as she learns the nuances of glyphs, rotations, talents, and gear.

I’ve had a lot of fun getting Savoire ready to try her elemental spec out in a raid. She is hitcapped at 14% with the talent, Elemental Precision. It was a challenge getting her gear sorted and it’s not ideal now, but I do think she’s worth bringing to a raid if she’s not needed as a healer. I kept most of Sav’s gear as she upgraded and some of that gear has been regemmed for elemental, primarily by using Rigid King’s Ambers and Veiled Ametrines. I ended up using emblems to get Maghia’s Misguided Quill and Shard of the Crystal Heart. Those two trinkets improved my hit rating by 280. I also used emblems to get the Totem of the Electrifying Wind, although I’m planning on getting Bizuri’s Totem of Shattered Ice soon, which is only 30 Emblems of Frost.

While doing random heroics, I ran into the challenge of tanks who couldn’t keep aggro. I use omen and was able to survive but I was surprised at how quickly the mobs ran for me. I am guessing that the trouble is more due to the low quality of tanks I found when pugging random heroics than because I was pouring out that much threat.

I have told a few of my closest friends in guild about my desire to get Sav raid-ready as an ele shaman and they have been very supportive. Upon describing my difficulties with pugs and random heroics, my guild mates grouped with me to do our own random heroic. I did very well with dps, had no trouble with aggro, and no one died. My dps was around 3.3K. I think with raid buffs and the 30% ICC buff, I could hit 4-5K in Icecrown Citadel.

I need to work on my rotation a bit. It’s still feeling awkward and not as fast or easy as it should be. I start with Flame Shock, and hit Lava Burst. If it’s a single target boss, I hit Elemental Mastery and then Lightning Bolt. I renew Flame Shock as soon as it’s needed, I hit Lava Burst as soon as the cool down is over, otherwise it’s Lightning Bolt. If I’m facing a lot of AOE trash, I hit Flame Shock on one, Lava Burst it, then I do Elemental Mastery and Chain Lightning.

I tend to forget to use Berserk (Sav is a troll which gives me a nice ability) and I still forget to use my trinkets. I may end up using macros for those which would come in handy on boss fights.

In order to help me be better as I re-learn how to dps as an elemental shaman, I started using the ZAP spreadsheet and information I found from MaxDPS.com and Elitist Jerks. However, one of my friends directed me to a new site, which I totally love. It’s called AskMrRobot.com. It is only set up for a few dps classes – luckily included is for elemental shamans. It’s got a cute sense of humor, declaring that not only do robots play World of Warcraft, but they play it better than you! I have found this to be very true. According to Mr. Robot, Savoire should be able to hit well over 7K dps in a raid with full buffs.

First, load your character from the armory. I made sure I logged out with my elemental spec and with my elemental gear so I could upload Sav easily onto Mr. Robot’s spreadsheet. Next, I saved her so that I could have the information handy as I played around with the various options. You can edit the gear, talents, glyphs, buffs and rotation of your character. When you press SIMULATE it should show the dps that your toon is capable of. If you want to switch out one glyph for another to compare the difference in dps. I think the site still has a few kinks to work out, but overall I was impressed and it was interesting to see what it stated for improvements in gear and it’s recommended rotations. I really liked looking at the combat log and seeing how Mr. Robot ran Savoire to get the dps numbers listed. It was interesting to see when he had her use her trinkets and Bloodlust (Heroism for alliance.)

After playing with the simulations, I have decided to keep the Glyph of Flametongue Totem and to change my talents around too. I’ll have full points in the Enhancement tree for Ancestral Knowledge, Thundering Strikes, Elemental Weapons and Shamanistic Focus. I may change things around a bit more as I experience and continue to gear up.

Meanwhile, I will keep practicing my rotation and running heroics until I feel comfortable. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do a raid in my shiny new dps spec! I will post my experiences once I have done so. Keeping my 3 fingers and 2 toes crossed!