As Patch 3.3.3 continues to wrap up and looks to be almost complete it is time to review and discuss the changes Elemental Shamans will be looking at after the patch goes live. There are not many changes but the Flame Shock changes do have an impact on rotations and therefore need to be discussed.
- Flame Shock: The damage-over-time component of this ability can now produce critical strikes and is affected by spell haste.
Flame Shock the base spell of elemental rotations very important because of the ability for shamans to produce guaranteed critical strikes from our Lava Burst spell. With the changes to Flame Shock this patch it is important to note that the use of Glyph of Flame Shock is no longer mandatory and which Glyph should replace it is up for discussion. Now that Flame Shock can produce critical strikes without the glyph we can use either Glyph of Totem of Wrath or Glyph of Lava as a replacement depending on which glyph you left out of your set. It should be mentioned that use of Wrath and Lava with Lightning Bolt are the glyphs you should be using post 3.3.3.
The most important change to Flame Shock is the dot portion of the spell is now effected by haste and depending on your level of haste will determine how many Lava Bursts you can fire off during your rotation. Also remember there is no preset rotation that can be used by all shamans, your rotation is and has to be a priority rotation that must take into account Flame Shock falling off and Lava Burst extensions. Basically it has not changed refresh Flame Shock when needed and do not miss Lava Burst casts when they come off cooldown to maximize DPS. You will be casting Flame Shock more and less Lightning Bolts but the hasted dot with be more dps than the loss of firing off less Lightning Bolts.
- Talents
- Elemental Combat
- Elemental Oath: This ability is now always on as a passive aura.
The changes to Elemental Oath will give a passive 5% crit at all times which is awesome and help some shamans that have a hard time finding a raid spot give their raid leaders another reason to take them.
on March 16, 2010 at 12:46 AM
This should be an interesting change, but I still don't see this as groundbreaking for ele shamans, as it seems Blizzard balances damage/mana consumption.
Btw, Hakawa, do you have a "contact me" link to send you emails or a forum to post questions for you?
on March 17, 2010 at 9:10 PM
Sorry mate, dont quite understand you comment,
"You will be casting Flame Shock more and less Lightning Bolts but the hasted dot with be more dps than the loss of firing off less Lightning Bolts".
Are you saying we should be casting FS more often then just refreshing them (maybe at the expense of a bolt) , and if so how often?
Love your posts
on March 18, 2010 at 10:12 AM
Danny,
what he is saying is that since FS is now going to tick faster (due to haste rating making it tick faster) it will not last as long as it is lasting right now.
however, he is explaining that even though you need to cast it more, the fact that its ticking quicker means you will get more DPS out if it rather than casting LB.
basically, he's saying not to overcast it, cast it when needed, and don't worry about losing DPS (since some people think that casting more FS and less LB will be a DPS loss which it won't be)
on March 18, 2010 at 10:21 PM
on March 18, 2010 at 10:24 PM
I thought the change of the FS (haste affected) will work another way. Tha time of it will remain the same but the ticks themselves will hit more often increased by haste. That would bring a vast grow of dps. But you say it will make the FS shorter which is really not that interesting forcing us to refresh it more often which doesn't make me happy. It should be tested though.
nd one more thing. If it will give a boost to the dps does it mean we should gem for haste?
Sorry, rephrased the first one a bit.
on March 19, 2010 at 8:14 AM
That is the point he was trying to make. Although it ticks faster due to haste, and you need to refresh it more often, it still is a big dps boost to us :)
don't forget, once you get to 4piece T10 gear, the bonus will extend FS by about 6 seconds everytime so you will eventually cast it a bit less, but still more than what we do right now.
if it ticked faster, but the time remained the same, it would be a MASSIVE DPS boost... and blizzard probably doesn't want that for a hybrid class like ours :(
on March 20, 2010 at 12:45 AM
I think it needs to be tested fully it looks like they are doing for shaman what they did with shadow priests including haste more. Whether or not it is a massive dps increase or a slight one hopefully blizzard gives us shaman something to keep us hanging on.
on March 20, 2010 at 3:13 AM
Elemental Oath is up atm after your first crit, which is what 2-3 spells in? With a 100% uptime afterwords. So the changes don't really do anything.
on March 20, 2010 at 4:32 PM
I can be reached at shamantavern@gmail.com
Hak
on March 23, 2010 at 6:28 PM
They changed the exsisting flame shock glyph which increases the crit strike damage bonus of your flame shock by 60%. So would it be better to keep that or still replace it with the wrath glyph?
on March 24, 2010 at 9:02 AM
For the benefit of the people who just want the raw facts, I’ll try to break it down as simply as I can:-
* When patch 3.3.3 hits, remove your glyph of flame shock. Replace it with either glyph of lava or glyph of flametongue weapon
* Flame shock now being affected by haste is a DPS increase, despite the need to cast it more frequently
* Our DPS “rotation” remains the same, you open with flame shock, follow with lava burst and fill with lightning bolts and chain lightnings
* The duration of our flame shock is no longer a fixed time but rather a fixed number of ticks. As these ticks are affected by our personal levels of haste at the time of casting (and these can vary during a fight), the “time” our flame shock remains on a target will also vary. If you don’t use one, a DoT timer will be essential
* It’s better to clip a flame shock than to cast a lava burst with a risk of it hitting an unshocked target
* Our tier 10 four set bonus has got better and it will continue to scale based on our levels of haste. If you have avoided it in the past due to it’s initially questionable value, stop doing so. You really want this bonus
* Glyph of Lightning Bolt – 260 DPS
* Glyph of Totem of Wrath – 170 DPS
* Glyph of Lava – 120 DPS
* Glyph of Flametongue Weapon – 120 DPS
* Glyph of Flame Shock – 80 DPS (this is the new FS glyph)
on April 3, 2010 at 5:10 AM
How about Glyph of shocking to save that gcd or glyph of elemental mastery to pop that cd even faster?
on April 6, 2010 at 1:14 PM
The T10 2 piece bonus shortens the duration of elemental mastery's CD for each LB or CL cast by 2 seconds i think, so glyphing for it is a waste because if u do more LBs and CLs the cooldown will decrease and ur dps will increase at the same time
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