I ran a M+2 Spires last night with two guildies. Normally I heal but yada yada yada I end up as Elemental. Fine. Less stress and I love the casino feel of Elemental.
Then at the end of the dungeon the MM Hunter in our group links total damage. He beat me by 1mil damage. I’m a 201 ilvl. He’s a 185 ilvl. It was his meter, and I didn’t check the gear levels but why would he lie?
I need to fix something - where do I start? Should I use an add-on to track this? If so, which?
Part of this is that MM is meta and part is that ele doesn’t have a great damage profile for the frequent short aoe fights found in low keys because Ele’s aoe dps is largely tied to Earthquake, a dot that you have to build up to meaning it requires a longer fight to both build up the maelstrom and have the trash live long enough to see every tick.
I like the “details” addon for tracking damage
I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Mm hunter doesn’t scale well but they jave a lot of base damage. Additionally that’s likely whole dungeon damage, where he’s padding on big trash pulls.
Your single target damage on the boss (which is likely what matters most) was probably twice his.
Run Details! Damage meter, and look at this stuff yourself. If for nothing else but to make you more competitive to do better.
Normally I wouldn’t but at one point that same MM Hunter (again, guildie, nice guy) goes “Where is our DPS?” Which at the time (before the last two bosses) I didn’t have numbers and tried to go twice as hard. Then the numbers came and I was a bit crushed.
You can try using MaxDPS.
I am a healer with an elemental off-spec. I find that the shorter fights, as was mentioned, I just don’t have the DPS or overall. However, as the fights ramp up and get a little longer, I will top the charts.
So, no. I wouldn’t worry too much. Try the addon, or there is also ConRO. I personally wasn’t crazy about it. 
I prefer MaxDPS. Personal preference and all that.
So… the hunter may have forgotten to reset his damage meter at the beginning of the instance and his extra damage may have come from whatever random stuff he was doing before the instance. That said… Voltorch is right on with low keys being poor for ele dps because of their ramp-up time.
However, assuming that the dps meter was accurate… here’s some things you might try:
For keys, consider running with aftershock instead of echoing shock. You need those earthquakes for your AoE dps, so you need to keep that maelstrom up as much as possible.
Consider pairing Echo of the Elements with Master of the Elements (better for ST, you might get more bang for your buck on tyrannical weeks). Or pair Earthen Rage with Liquid Magma Totem for fewer procs to manage (given that ele is your off-spec, sometimes it’s better to simplify the rotation).
Also, consider swapping Icefury for Primal Elementalist, again for the simpler rotation on an off-spec.
For specific help with your rotation, I like kr3b5’s shaman weakauras. They’ll show you recommendations for which ability (or abilities) you might want to use next based on your current procs and cooldowns. Although kr3b5’s weakauras are tinier than I prefer… I’ve resized them all for my use which is a chore.
You could also get yourself a damage meter. Details is popular. I use recount because I’m old and don’t like to change the addons I’ve been using for years until they stop updating… but anyway… get yourself a damage meter, set a stopwatch, and go to town on a target dummy for 2 minute bursts until you’ve got a feel for the flow of your cooldowns.
Oh! Also, if fiddling with weakauras is too much work, try hekili instead. It runs into problems when you want to intelligently hold off on an ability that it thinks you should be using next, but it’s good for practicing on target dummies, and will be better than nothing in an instance as well.
If you want to pump dps numbers on low M+, try Enh. It has a waaaay better damage profile for that. Sundering > Crash Lighting > Aoe Stormstrike > AoE Lavalash. Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam. All the little aoe adds don’t stand a chance. Then you get that sweet instant buffed Chain Lightning/ Harvest. mmm
Wow a lot of all over the place suggestions.
What leggo were you running?
Did you change your conduits for your ele spec?
What talents were you using?
Was the tank chain pulling or just pulling small 2-4 mob packs?
Was the tank running all over the place like a 
with his head cut off?
1,3,4,5 can mean the difference between good dps and crap dps.
If you have the EQ leggo and FE conduit run ER(EotE)/AS/SE/PE/SK.
However if the tank is kiting from one side to the other constantly then none of this will work and you dmg will be crap.
If you don’t know the tank you might as well run lava resurgence leggo and just focusing on funnel dmg on 1-4 mob targets and CL>EQ spam for 5+(if you can keep EQ ahead if the tank. If not just funnel.
Run FE conduit with lava resurgence leggo with EotE/AS/MotE/PE/SK.
LvB>FS
CL>LvB
Cl>ES
CL>FS
AS instead of EchSh for runs of procs for both ES and EQ is my preference.
Granted I am not doing anything past 9s at the moment but the last 4 dungeons the tanks did not play like they were tweaking and actually slowly kited through aoe to include my EQ. All players actually used snares/roots/knockbacks/stuns to keep aoe packs together to be aoe’d down.
With my current gear (I believe I logged out in my m+ set (which is nothing special)) I can burst 15-20k dps on large packs. Finish most dungeons 1st/2nd in dmg with avg 4-6k overall dps.
1st pull is usually my maelstrom builder pull. LvB>FS>CL>LvB(I run EotE)>CL>FS off target. I want to end as close to 85+ maelstrom as possible. I know I will lose 10-15 depending on the tank.
Next pull is CL>ES>SK+trinket>CL>EQ>CL> ???. From here depends on target(s) health and where the next pull is.
You have to plan ahead:
Always be thinking ahead.
Always be healing/rezzing for the healer so they can drink and you cN facilitate faster pulls.
Always be using EB totem, cap totem, HST, TS, EE to facilitate control and larger pulls.
Remember we are greedy we want the largest pulls available with the least amount of movement as possible.
If you are teamed with a druid/hunter/shaman/mage there is zero reason you should be kiting all over the map.
Do not take magma totem or IF or Ascendance
I hope this helps.
I am not sure I’d say zero. Granted with the recent nerfs its a lot better.
That ain’t “being a nice guy”. If it’s a guildie, that’s even worse. Guy’s being a clown and putting you down, regardless of if your DPS was poor or not.
I appreciate the support, Beezik.
500 iq advice…drives me nuts when I’m trying to rez to get things going faster and healer starts rezzing as well instead of drinking.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You say you normally heal but ended having to dps. It doesn’t matter what item level you are, but if you’re unfamiliar with how to use your kit, it’s not surprising the hunter out dpsed you. And like other’s said, if you didn’t have the right soulbind/conduits/legendary on, even more so.
Just keep playing elemental more and you’ll naturally get a better feel on what to do and how to play the spec to maximize damage in trash pulls/single target boss fights
Edit: your guildie was also being a douche. Don’t let it get you down