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