Elemental Fusion question

[Akoras 2]

Hello fellow shamans!

I have a question regarding the Elemental Fusion talent.

Since we cast LvB very often I feel that (exept for the opener) it should be easy to maintain a buffed FS on the boss.

Most of the time we'll even have 2 stacks to cast ES.

But let's look at the worst case scenario here:

What if I end up sitting on 17+ (or worse, 20) stacks if lightning shield, my shocks off cooldown, but with zero elemental fusion stacks?

Would it be worth delaying my earth shock to first build up those elemental fusion stacks?

Or at least one stack given it'd take quite some time to cast two LvB without a surge proc..

I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on this matter (or better, actually did the math ;) )

Cheers

Akoras

[Stoove 347]

So, I haven't done the maths but I do think that it depends drastically on how long you wait to try to get those stacks up again. If you're going to have to recast Flame Shock again soon anyway, it might just be worth casting Earth Shock without the stacks of Elemental Fusion and using your Elemental Fusion stacks for the next Flame Shock.

 

I'd love to see some good Theorycraft on the question though, and I will give copious Likes to anyone who does it! ^__^

[Akoras 2]

Thanks for your answer Stoove, as always greatly appreciated :)

Yeah as you said, the value of Elemental Fusion with Flameshock is higher that with ES anyway so I imagine there won't be much difference whether or not you keep an eye on the stacks or treat them (more or less) as a passive damage gain..

But certainly there is an optimal way to do it

I imagine the calculations would be complicated though, with both Lava Surge procs and Lightning Shield charges genaration affected by rgn

Well maybe we'll be able to at least see a "rule of thumb" how to do it once we have more logs from actual Raid content.

More of an experimental approach that way but I'll take what I can get ;)

[PacThaManiac 1]

Hello all, 

 

i am new to the Forum but i've been following Icy veins and the forum for years now.

 

i think its not important how many stacks of the shield you have when you cast ES with 2 Stacks of Elemental Fusion because the Fullmation is not increased from Elemental Fusion. Only ES itself does more dmg.

 

Correct me when i am Wrong.

[Akoras 2]

Ah, well didn't think about that..

But still this would just mean there's less difference damage wise (and therefor you're problably good if you just ignore it) but the basic question remains the same..

Btw: does the dot of FS increase with elemental fusion too or just initial damage?

[PacThaManiac 1]

Talked about that with my Guild member who also is playing elemental. He tested it and said:

 

if you have a good timing with Elemental Fusion and Unleash Flame you can buff your FS up to 120% more dmg which can be usefull for movement fights

 

80% trough Elemental Fusion

40% trough Unleash Flame

 

and it works like he said for the whole DoT dmg.

[Stoove 347]

Nice bit of information there, thanks! :)

[Cheze 6]

On most fights ES+fulmination is a much larger % of my damage done than flame shock, which leads me to believe you should prioritize using EF for that.

 

All you lose by not refreshing flame shock with 2xEF is ~15s of +40% flame shock damage (assuming that you would have 2xEF again within 15s for your next flame shock refresh.)  You'd compare that to the fulmination damage 'lost' (i.e. charges not gained) by waiting for 2xEF again, or the loss of the EF buff on earth shock if you cast it on CD without waiting.

 

ed: although I have been assuming that EF also buffs the fulmination damage; if that's not correct then it doesn't matter too much whether you wait for the EF buff or not and you should probably be prioritizing EF on flame shock.

 

ed2: also, you should be in this situation relatively rarely if you stay on top of refreshing your flame shock early.  You can refresh it any time from ~15s to zero without a loss of cast time, and you should easily generate another 2xEF within the last 15s.  So when 14-15s are left on flame shock, either use your 2xEF to refresh it right then, or use fulmination then if you are at 18-20 charges and refresh flame shock later.

Edited November 28, 2014 by Cheze

[dean771 3]

 

ed: although I have been assuming that EF also buffs the fulmination damage; if that's not correct then it doesn't matter too much whether you wait for the EF buff or not and you should probably be prioritizing EF on flame shock.

 

ed2: also, you should be in this situation relatively rarely if you stay on top of refreshing your flame shock early.  You can refresh it any time from ~15s to zero without a loss of cast time, and you should easily generate another 2xEF within the last 15s.  So when 14-15s are left on flame shock, either use your 2xEF to refresh it right then, or use fulmination then if you are at 18-20 charges and refresh flame shock later.

 

Yeah its shocks only not flum

 

and pandemic is 30% not 50%, so the refresh window is 9 seconds unless I'm missing something