Why is Elemental Blast a poor choice for Enhancement?

[Drunkmoose 2]

Basically what I am trying to figure out is why everyone thinks Elemental Blast is a poor talent choice.  I am currently using it at 548 ilvl and it hits twice as hard as Lava Lash and in normally in my top 3 damaging spells, and when going against other enhance shamans with similar ilvl who are using Primal Elementalist i always pull ahead of them by a decent margin.

[Stoove 347]

First off, do remember that there might be other factors when comparing yourself to other Enhancement Shaman - they might simply be not as good as you are, or they might be focusing more on some non-DPS role, or they might be less well geared. It pays to make the comparison carefully.

 

My understanding of the choice is that Elemental Blast has one particular problem: it complicates the rotation more than it already is (and I always had trouble with the Enhance rotation, personally). This is a major disadvantage. It would be made up for if the talent did significantly more damage, but this does not appear to be the case at your gear level. I don't have any particular source for this other than the Icy Veins guide, but I would assume that this is based on sims.

 

Have you tried changing talents and giving Primal Elementalist a go?

[Drunkmoose 2]

Giving it a go now just the last few times i tried it my rotation felt awkward without Elemental Blast.

[Stoove 347]

Giving it a go now just the last few times i tried it my rotation felt awkward without Elemental Blast.

 

Really? 

 

I am genuinely surprised by that, because I think the rotation with EB would feel even more awkward.

 

Just to check, are you following the rotational guidelines we've published here on Icy Veins?

[Drunkmoose 2]

For the most part I am.  I never hard cast elemental blast though just use it on Maelstrom weapon.

[Stoove 347]

One does wonder whether that's optimal, but I don't have the tools or experience to tell.

[Elro 47]

I'm not an Enhancement expert, but generally, you use Maelstrom stacks for Lightning Bolt, and cast Elemental Blast when Stormstrike and Lava Lash are both on cd, and you don't have Maelstrom stacks for the Lightning Bolt. I could be wrong, however, that's just my interpretation of the guide.

[Drunkmoose 2]

I do notice the burst is higher by far with primal elementalist but it seems to lack the overall damage done that i normally get.

[SparkSovereign 61]

Three words: Assurance of Consequence.  That trinket massively inflates the value of Primal Elementalist.  (Incidentally, the tier bonuses inflate the value of Unleashed Fury, but not by nearly as much.)  If you don't have it (or only have a raidfinder or non-upgraded flex version), it wouldn't surprise me at all that you're doing better with Elemental Blast, which is also stronger at lower gear levels.

 

If you can provide an armory link I can see what simcraft thinks for your gear.

 

Edit:

I'm not an Enhancement expert, but generally, you use Maelstrom stacks for Lightning Bolt, and cast Elemental Blast when Stormstrike and Lava Lash are both on cd, and you don't have Maelstrom stacks for the Lightning Bolt. I could be wrong, however, that's just my interpretation of the guide.

From the guide:
If you chose Elemental Blast as your Tier 6 talent, then using it on cooldown becomes your highest priority.

If you were to prioritize lightning bolt over it, you'd essentially be wasting the benefit of your level 90 talent.  They're close enough in cast time (same, maybe?  I can't recall offhand) that you aren't losing anything compared to the increased uptime of the buff.  Back in ToT the tier bonuses meant that you wanted to Stormstrike before it because the additional Maelstrom Weapon charges resulted in it finishing the cast before it would've if you'd hardcasted it, but I think that's no longer the case.  Unless you're crazy haste stacked, maybe?  I'm not sure, I'm just getting back into the enh groove for Heroic Norushen.

Edited January 31, 2014 by SparkSovereign

[Drunkmoose 2]

There is the armory link it shows me using Primal Elementalist on that but am currently using Elemental Blast.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/kiljaeden/Fangleymik/advanced

Edited February 1, 2014 by Drunkmoose

[Drunkmoose 2]

Well ran the simulation with both Elemental Blast and Primal Elementalist and they show that both talent choices are pretty close just a 3000 dps difference with Primal Elementalist being ahead.

 

Shows 262881 dps with Elemental Blast

 

And 265845 dps with Primal Elementalist

Edited February 1, 2014 by Drunkmoose

[Elro 47]

Thanks for clarifying, SparkSovereign :)

 

Edited February 1, 2014 by Elro

[SparkSovereign 61]

I think part of it is how much mastery you have.  They're pretty close (closer than I thought they'd be, honestly), although I'm also seeing Primal Elementalist a few thousand dps higher than Elemental Blast for your gear.  I tried fiddling with your reforges to stack haste instead of mastery, and PE got a little better, but only by about 1k dps.  Just goes to show you how well balanced the stats are for us, I guess.  I also simmed you with Unleashed Fury, and it was about where Primal Elementalist was.

 

Basically, the class balance guys did a great job with our level 90 talents (and stat priorities).  If you actually prefer the Elemental Blast rotation (I'm with Stoove here, this boggles the mind, but I've heard stranger) then go for it.  Your best talents are the ones you know how to use, first and foremost.  If you get a better version of Assurance of Consequence, or need that extra 1% dps to beat an enrage timer or something, then go for Primal Elementalist.  Otherwise, it really doesn't matter.

 

Non-number-crunchy points to consider;

• Primal Elementalist provides serious burst over its duration, which is nice for dedicated burn phases (Protectors, Dark Shamans, Garrosh phase 3, Galakras, etc.)
• Primal Elementalist has real problems with target switching or phasing (Heroic Sha of Pride is the big one, although Blackfuse belt duty is another one).  It works on Norushen mostly because your pets are phased with you (and go behind people automatically) and due to bizarre interactions with the corruption debuff.
• Elemental Blast has fantastic "snap dps" for when you need to do damage within a handful of GCDs rather than over a prolonged burn phase. (Immerseus adds, Norushen test, Heroic Sha maze adds, Garrosh MCs or certain weapon strats)
• Unleashed Fury has similar properties to Elemental Blast, but its ideal burst window is about 10s rather than 5s.  (Norushen unleashed adds, Nazgrim adds, various Paragons mechanics)
• EDIT: Primal Elementalist's value is also inflated when the fight duration coincides with the end of one of its uptimes.  For example, it's going to do okay on a 5 minute fight/test but fantastic on a 6 minute test (adjust numbers for glyph/AoC as necessary).  As you pull the CD down this becomes less of a factor, but you can do some cheesy things with this.  It's recommended more for its pile of misc. advantages than for its tiny patchwerk dps gain; most of the fights with brutal, unrelenting dps checks are also the ones where it does very well.

 

 

Thanks for clarifying, SparkSovereign

 

No problem.

Edited February 1, 2014 by SparkSovereign

[Drunkmoose 2]

Well thank you for your feedback, has helped me out a bunch and i think depending on the fights i will just rotate between the 2 talents.

[Stoove 347]

Just wanted to say that was a fantastic response from Spark there, he deserves likes for that :)

[thatoneguy 1]

unleashed fury, FTW? thats what 95% of the enh. shamans i see in lfr/flex taking, even the enh. shaman's on bladefist roll it

[Stoove 347]

When I played Enhancement, I always ran with Unleashed Fury because it was easiest to maintain damage with. Primal Elementalist gave a lot more burst, which I didn't like. However, if I had current level gear I think I'd run PE - even at low gear levels I was simming higher with PE, I imagine the difference only got bigger.