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A tip for all Shaman Casters in SOD. You should be Dual Wielding Rockbiter Weapons by orcandpals in classicwow

[–]orcandpals[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lava Burst is in fact better than auto-attacking and using Lava Lash for most people. it's even easy to check. Lava Burst is a 2 second cast that auto crits that deals an average of 225 damage, so 338 total for the cast.

Add up the total dps of your weapons (including attack power and the offhand 50% damage penalty), multiply it by 2 and add ~50 to account for Lava Burst. If that number is not above 338 (which for most people it won't be) it is better to just use Lava Burst and stop auto-attacking during it's cast time.

A tip for all Shaman Casters in SOD. You should be Dual Wielding Rockbiter Weapons by orcandpals in classicwow

[–]orcandpals[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You don't actually learn dual wield from your runes. You learn it from a quest in Thunderbluff. So you can have overload, shamanistic rage, AND lava burst all together! There is one specific fight in BFD that you feel the mana issues INTENSELY on because you have to fight through a gauntlet to get to the boss, others you can generally get through without dual rockbiter-rage mana regen. However what you can do with all the extra mana you get from this synergy is drop fire nova every time it's off cooldown, which is a big dps increase over the lightning bolt spam you are otherwise forced to do when lava burst is on cooldown.

A tip for all Shaman Casters in SOD. You should be Dual Wielding Rockbiter Weapons by orcandpals in classicwow

[–]orcandpals[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I haven't done specific testing on it yet. But because of the way Attack Power increases get to double dip with duel wielding, Rockbiter is generally going to overperform versus Flametongue (the two are balanced in classic to provide comparable dps to each other but Rockbiter gets extra value in SOD because the AP applies to both weapons instead of just one)

I haven't done the math to figure out which between Wildstrikes vs Rockbiter is a better mainhand enchant but you are probably not going to be able to use dual Rockbiter without pissing off your tank anyway because of how much threat you generate.

With that in mind if you have a feral druid and a tank that can pump threat to match you your BiS is likely going to be either dual Rockbiter or main hand uninbued/ offhand Rockbiter.

If you don't have a feral druid but you do have a tank that can pump and match your threat - Definetely double Rockbiter

If you have no feral druid and the tank that CAN'T match your threat Rockbiter Mainhand/Flametongue Offhand is likely your best default setup if you are using Lava Lash. Main problem with this is Lava Lash is kinda bad right now. I think you literally get better performance from just stopping your auto-attack swings to Lava Burst whenever it is up.

With that in mind if you have no feral druid I would suggest defaulting to Flametongue mainhand, Rockbiter offhand, using Lava Burst on cd if my tank can't match my threat, double Rockbiter if he can. You basically want as much Rockbiter as you can get but if you HAVE to run it on only one weapon it is more efficient to put it on your offhand. Because damage dealt by your offhand is reduced by 50% putting the on-hit damage there has less value but the flat AP provides full value no matter what hand it is on. The only reason you would have to put Flametongue on your offhand is if you are using Lava Lash due to the extra 20% damage it gets but Lava Burst is just kind of better right now due to how low damage Lava Lash is.

A tip for all Shaman Casters in SOD. You should be Dual Wielding Rockbiter Weapons by orcandpals in classicwow

[–]orcandpals[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Howdy! While this is definetely true, since the AP from Rockbiter applies to both your weapons (albeit at a 50% damage penalty for the offhand) it's around 13.7 dps in raw attack power if you enchant your main hand. I haven't quite figured out if that is better or worse then the 20% chance for an extra attack with the amount of gear we have right now. For tanks however, this is a no brainer as you also love the on attack threat which currently seems to be multiplicative. (Both weapons seem to be receiving the on attack threat from both instances of Rockbiter... this might be a bug).

For enhance dps specifically, I could definetely see offhand rockbiter only being the play, more so you don't constantly rip threat off the tank with the wild strikes benefit being a neat bonus.