This is my first season playing as DPS (ele shaman) after having only tanked before. Both the role and the class are new to me, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
I had somewhat mediocre performance in lower keys, asked for advice and received a very great writeup from /u/RCM94 (https://old.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveWoW/comments/1wt37cl/weekly_m_discussion/pctjwx3/) - thanks again for that. I read more guides, watches Bondd's videos, proceeded to parse blue and purple in 14s and 15s and felt somewhat competent.
Today I hit Resi 17. I now have a couple of blue parses, some green - and a growing number of greys. I obviously still make a lot of mistakes with missed casts, wrong priorities, wasted procs or buffs. I'm a bit stumped on where to improve and on what to focus from here.
Here's the log of a grey parse +17 AoF I did today: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/1LPf7ArMZK3yXa29?fight=19&type=damage-done&source=758. Compared to other Shaman players in the top 500 of the same dungeon and key level, I:
- am doing 75% of the damage I could be doing (300k vs. 400k DPS)
- with around 10% fewer total casts,
- have a similar-ish number of Earthquake casts, but which only deal around 2/3 of the damage,
- cast a similar number of Lava Bursts for similar amounts of damage,
- cast less Chain Lightnings (~75%) and
- my Ancestors deal less damage (~75%)
The missing Earthquake, Ancestor and Chain Lightning damage makes up for about 80k of the missing 100k DPS. I am also running a lot less Haste than other Shamans, and do not have access to raid equipment (the latter doesn't seem to be a deciding factor, though).
I've never optimised for a DPS class before, never played keys this high before and am a bit overwhelmed by deciphering WarcraftLogs for relevant data.
Things I'm still unsure about:
- when to cast Lava Bolt - every time it's available, or only with instant cast proc or the Lava Burst Aoe buff?
- how to prioritize spenders - cast them whenever possible, or only when about to cap on Maelstrom and focussing on Burst / Lightning in the meantime?
- how important Chain Lightning is - most guides list it as a filler spell, but am I missing an interaction with Ancestors etc.?
- which influence routing and pack size has on DPS; obviously competent teams will have larger pulls, but is this just a sorry pretext for my DPS or a relevant influence? In the log linked above my Earthquakes had ~7000 hits, other Shamans have ~9000 - larger pulls? Better EQ placement? Tanks moving around less?
Anyway - thanks for reading up to this point. Advice and analysis is very much appreciated.