This build goes 31/7/13 on a one-minute single-boss fight. Elemental goes deep enough for
Lava Burst, and the rest buys what the Elemental tree can't give you: 5 % crit with all spells from
Thundering Strikes in Enhancement, and 5 % hit and regeneration while casting from
Tidal Focus and
Mindfulness in Restoration.
5500310320123051-052-50305Each fight and faction has its own searched build. They differ mostly in the filler points, so the reasons below hold for all of them.
Why these talents
Elemental Alacrity takes half a second off
Lightning Bolt,
Lava Burst and
Chain Lightning. Lightning Bolt drops from 2.5 seconds to 2, which means 25 % more bolts in the same fight. It is the build's most valuable talent at 18.3 %, and its third point alone is worth 7.9 %.
Elemental Fury raises your crits from 150 % to 200 % damage on Nature and Fire spells and on your fire totems. Every crit now adds twice the extra damage, and the talent is worth 9.5 %.
Tidal Focus pays for the 13 Restoration points. In Forever it adds 1 % hit with all spells and attacks per point as well as cheaper heals. Without hit, 17 % of your spells miss a raid boss, which makes those 5 % worth 6.0 %.
Call of Flame adds 15 % to
Flame Shock, Lava Burst and your fire totems, worth 5.1 %. On three bosses for three minutes the figure is 6.2 %, as
Magma Totem supplies about a quarter of your damage there.
Thundering Strikes now counts for spells, so its 5 % crit is worth 4.0 % to a caster. The talent still asks for a melee weapon, and the set's staff counts as one.
Concussion (2.9 %) adds 5 % to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning.
Mindfulness (0.8 %) lets 50 % of your Spirit regeneration continue through your casts, by the talent's rank data. Wowhead's tooltip prints 5 % instead, and a beta shaman with the talent can read the real number.
Two deep talents are worth less than their place in the tree suggests.
Lightning Overload (2.1 %) fires its half-damage copy on 10 % of your bolts at 3/3, by the talent's rank data (Wowhead prints 30 %). Lava Burst (+2.1 % on one boss for three minutes) mostly replaces a Lightning Bolt that does about as much damage for its mana.
Flexible points
About nine points in this build only open the rows below them. Spend them however you like.
- Rows 2 to 4. The one-boss builds put four points into
Improved Fire Nova and
Elemental Reach (the Alliance three-minute build into
Elemental Warding and Reverberation), the three-boss builds into
Reverberation. No rotation casts Fire Nova, the simulator has no range or movement, and a shorter Shock cooldown doesn't help because you only recast Flame Shock when its 12-second dot runs out. Each is worth nothing here. - Restoration's first row. Five points in
Improved Healing Wave or
Totemic Focus open Mindfulness and Tidal Focus. Take Totemic Focus if you fight packs: it cuts Magma Totem's 650 mana by a quarter and is worth 2.6 % on three bosses for three minutes.
Ancestral Knowledge. The leftover Enhancement points add 2 % Intellect each, worth 1.0 % in all. They are the cheapest points to move.
Water Shield is in reach with 13 Restoration points. Its globes restore mana only when you are hit or one of your heals crits, which never happens in our fights, so the simulator can't price it. If your raid takes area damage it can repay a point.
What each talent is worth
Every value comes from running the build once more with that talent removed, on the same simulated fights. Each talent is priced on its own, so the column doesn't total your damage. When a single point is free to move, look at the last-point column.
On every fight
The one-minute build swaps
Elemental Focus, whose free casts matter only when mana runs short, for a point of
Elemental Devastation that does nothing for a caster. The three-boss builds move the filler into Reverberation and Totemic Focus, and on one minute they trade a point of Mindfulness for a third point of Ancestral Knowledge. The table shows how far each fight's build strays from this one.