Elemental - perfecting the rotationFollow

I've found that I've hit some kind of plateau when it comes to Elemental DPS. Granted, some of my gems need to be replaced, but I'm currently raking in gold to do it.

Armor profile is in the signature.

On a raid boss dummy I push 4.1k DPS if I don't ***** too much up. What's odd is that Bloodlust does very little to my DPS (from 4100 to 4200 or so), which tells me I'm nearing the haste soft cap for Elemental. Since the DPS output relies heavily on which spells you cast and how fast you can cast them in succession, here's my normal rotation:

Flame Shock -> Lava Burst -> Lightning Bolt -> Chain Lightning
Priority: Lava Burst > Chain Lightning > Lightning Bolt

Flame Shock is kept up at all times, naturally.

Now, my issue is that often I'll be done casting a Lightning Bolt, but Lava Burst or Chain Lightning is at a point where they're not ready to be cast yet, but will be ready before I get off another Lightning Bolt. Should I skip the extra Lightning Bolt and spend the 1½ second waiting for Chain Lightning or Lava Burst to come off cooldown? Or should I just fire off the second Lightning Bolt and then switch to CL/LvB when ready?

What's odd is that I often find myself being completely blown out of the water by Warlocks and Hunters with lesser gear than me. I usually make up for it on the trash pulls (<3 Chain Lightning), but on single targets, I just can't get above 4100-ish DPS. If I pop the Fire Elemental and hit Bloodlust, I've managed to get upwards of 5500 DPS instead, but I can't go around popping elementals all the time. There's a 10-minute cooldown and all.

Any advice on what I should focus on gear-wise? As said, I'm in the process of changing my gems to Runed Cardinal Rubies (except for two blues), so I've got that covered. I'm also hit capped (by a bit too much, but that's better than not being hit capped, I guess), so it can't be that. I have no mana issues, with 23k mana and around 500 mp5 self-buffed, which is why I don't focus all too much on casting Chain Lightning only when Clearcasting is up. I cast Chain Lightning when it's off cooldown, unless Lava Burst is off cooldown as well.

On movement heavy boss fights, my DPS drops as low as 3500 sometimes.

Anyway, in case the Armory is acting naughty, here's my stat breakdown:

Bonus Damage: 2535 (w/ Flametongue weapon buff)
Bonus Healing: 2261
Hit Rating: 378
Crit Chance: 26.98%
Haste Rating: 464
Mana Regen: 376 (w/o Water Shield)

I should be able to squeeze a few more points of spell power out of the new gems.

I'm currently wearing 4pT9 with ilvl 245 helmet and the EoF belt. One of my major works in progress is my cloak and my neck. I'm hoping to get the necklace from Heroic Forge of Souls, but until I get another 60 EoF, I'm stuck with the ilvl 264 PvP cloak (which has resilience instead of crit, I believe).

My trinkets probably need work, but I can't decide what to get (what I can get) since I don't actively raid yet.

Currently I'm using the Shard of the Crystal Heart and the Talisman of Resurgence.

Edit: I have the Crystal Heart macro'd to my Lightning Bolt, otherwise I'd forget to use it at all. This gives me a pretty neat haste buff every 2 minutes, but is lost on fights where I activate Bloodlust from the start. The Talisman is macro'd to Berserker or w/e the Troll racial is called, giving me a spell power boost and a haste boost when I pop Berserker. Any suggestions on how to improve this? I'm horrible with on-use trinkets as I always forget to use them. I've worked out a routine where I hit Berserker (and thus the macro for the Talisman) when Crystal Heart is done. This usually gives me a haste buff throughout the entire fight as by the time Crystal Heart and Berserker is done, it's time to use Bloodlust.

Edited, Mar 2nd 2010 6:51am by Mazra

I was under the impression you only chain lightning after lava blast when you 100% have clearcasting?

Also, there are a couple suggestions I could make for your gear. Int is pretty terrible and you could prolly get more mileage from Ice Crystal or Sundial. If I were you id prolly also pick up the 245 cloth hit helm from triumphs. More haste and would allow you to drop the hit trink and get a better necklace.

Mind you my main spec is resto and I only play ele occasionally.

Edit: Changing those pieces would put you 2 hit rating from cap assuming boomkin / spriest

Edited, Mar 2nd 2010 10:58am by Destandasi

Edited, Mar 2nd 2010 10:59am by Destandasi

Short answer - Dead dps = 0 dps
Long answer - You reduce incoming dmg so you can survive that much longer for that heal to hit you. Or you can heal yourself.

Also, due to the changes to elemental mana regeneration. Convection has lost alot of its charm. Unless you spam CL and Fire Nova, mana is unlikely to be an issue.

I only offspec in ele but Mazra's post raises a question -- why no CL? Because it's a mana hog? It seems that unless you oom a lot (and given the number of ele shammies who share gear with their mp5-heavy resto set, i cant imagine that happens often) you get more dps with cl woven in. However, you do get that moment when you could cast a lightning bolt, or you could wait .75 secs until flame shock comes up again. That's inconvenient (and I wouldn't be shocked if theorycrafting showed that the .75 w/out casting hurts your dps more than using lightning bolt with its lower base damage). Our guild's ele shammy said that with adequate haste this is no longer an issue, but then we pulled and I couldn't ask him anymore. I did notice, though, that he only casts lightning bolts. So can the professionals explain this situation? Why no CL?

Edited, Mar 5th 2010 4:50pm by tuskerdu

CL thoughts: Pretty much dead on right here. CD's and use may vary depending on how much movement there is in the fight.

Lightning Bolt spam is pretty much required to proc the relic. This is another reason to minimize CL when it's not necessary.

As this is still pre-Cata, Int atm is a neglibile stat. Spell power, hit rating (as needed), and haste/crit rating are about it. Mp5 is better than spirit (if given a choice), but since gear has different mixes with haste/crit, some upgrades aren't as obvious as they should be. Situational upgrades galore at this point.

4T9 is a solid base to work from, and I'm finding it hard to how best upgrade from it (given my current guild run progress in ICC10, and personal lack of running ICC25).

Gemming, sp is king with haste/sp, sp/sta as needed for meta, and then only to snag a +7 sp socket bonus, generally speaking. More exact min/maxxing can be done in Rawr or spreadsheets.

Trinkets... what a pita. I'm using Dying Curse and Sundial. For me, any raid trinket would be an upgrade, but as I'm sitting 2% over hit cap atm, the triumph badge ones are piddly.

Aerotika if interested.

Edited, Mar 9th 2010 11:28am by Azaza

Are you keeping Water Shield up? That may help a little w/ mana issues.

Why would you wait 1 1/2 secs for anything to cool down? Sometimes, if I have to wait, I even throw in a Frost Shock--instant cast w/ just GCD.

Are you using totem of wrath? That'll get you extra SP. What food are you eating? I always have Firecraker Salmon or Fish Feast up.

Are you all out of Stonekeeper shards? You can trade them in for honor, and then trade honor for gems. I think it's 30 shards for 2000 honor and it takes 10,000 honor for an epic gem. Getting it cut will just cost a tip if you don't have any JC'rs in your guild.

When raiding, are you using flask of the wyrm (whatever the exact name is)?

Are you using wrath of air? More haste.

CL won't do anything for you on a single target.

just a suggestion,

why not start an actual ele set? rather than using your resto set?
i mean they ARE seperate sets for a reason, and the 2piece from resto doesnt help you at all.
if there isnt any significant difference between them besides the set bonus, then i suppose im just talking where i shouldnt(enhancement).

but i bet that having the 2piece/4piece bonus from an ele set would help.

P.S.
pure classes will always whoop us in dps :(
top dps in my guild is always mage/rogues/hunters/warlocks

While it's hard not to compare dps vs other classes (with or without comparing gearscore too), I try to remind myself that being a hybrid class, I'm bringing utility to the table. Totems are golden.

And if that argument with myself doesn't pacify me, I'm still only arguing with myself to improve, which is a good thing.

As for the CL-mana efficiency angle, I guess I could/should use my proc watching addon and adjust my "rotation" and see how well it works and how comfortable I can adjust with it.

Mana regen is largely not an issue for most of LK, especially when T9 geared and up. The only time I currently run low is, ironically, on the Gunship encounter, where I spam Chain Lightning and frequently neglect Thunderstorm and Water Shield for mama regen.

So, if you're one of those people without mana regen issues, when do you find practical uses for it? A few ideas:

-Mob positioning. Knockback mobs towards the tank(s), typically when trash goes chasin after healer.

-Instant cast. Green oozes on Putricide, when stacked on it's target, it's my typical last second cast before the ooze blows us around (also because shock is on cd).

-Interrupts. Some mobs cast/channel spells that are marked as "uninterruptable". Trash mobs with these abilities usually can be stunned or knocked back to interrupt (whereas Counterspell, Kick, Pummel, Mind Freeze, etc would have no effect).

Edited, Sep 23rd 2010 1:08pm by Azaza

You can get a minor glyph of Thunderstorm that increases the mana regen by 2%, but no longer knocks back the mobs. I use it as a filler spell sometimes.

Before I glyphed I never used thunderstorm, because I pissed off a lot of tanks(and a lot of healers when the mobs lost aggro on the tank and made a bee-line for the healer)