Oh sorry I forgot morons actually still play meme specs in 2020
Spell pen is a big deal in TBC. Not so much now.
You sound pre
Youâre sounding pretty elitist for a guy who parses in the 60âs and has yet to clear AQâŚ
Ele Shams are more or less on par with hunters and most of the other caster classes, and they bring more to the table. Which youâd know but⌠see above.
Congrats on pulling memespec DPS in P3/4 despite rolling a superior class and scoring some of the best loot in the game 
You mean in the top 4 parsing specs in AQ40 behind mages,rogues and warriors?
Frostbolt (and affliction warlock spells) unlike fireball is binary. It either hits for 100% damage or itâs resisted fully. Once youâre hit capped stacking magical resistance decrease via target does nothing.
Fireball (and a warlocks shadowbolt) on the other hand can be either 100% resisted, 25% resisted, 50% resisted, 75%, or 0% resisted. Even with the caster being at hit cap of 16%, you can see partial resists on a spell that lands. So following this reasoning frost mages and affliction warlocks donât need to stack this spell penetration stat.
I think its War > rogue > mage > warlock > feral druid = hunter > sham > shadow priest etc etc. Top 4 is a bit of a stretch, but also after locks the difference between the other dps specs isnât really that big and shams bring far more to the table than any other class.
Ele was doing very very well in the first weeks of progression but seem to have slipped abit.
Spell Penetration (as in Decreases the magical resistances of your spell targets by...) is the biggest DPS stat you can get on gear⌠IF AND ONLY IF your target has resistance.
Aside from two or three bosses in MC, no boss so far actually has any resistance to any school of magic. I donât know about the resistances of mobs in dungeons and UBRS, though.
Bear in mind that bosses are 3 levels above you, so they act like they have 24 resistance to all schools of magic, but this resistance cannot be mitigated by spell penetration or by curses. Since weâre playing on patch 1.12, a targetâs resistance may not drop below zero.
Thus, spell pen is almost always completely worthless in PvE.
P.S. Also note that full resists arenât distinguished from misses due to lack of hit until some time in TBC I think. Even the advanced combat log doesnât reveal which is which.
Yeah the off-target often takes a while to die in groups with weak gear. You donât put agony on the main target. If youâre in UBRS and thereâs a big dragon captain and caster dragons you agony the big one because itâs going to die last and then blast shadowbolts or w/e on the caster dragonkin who die first. Agony does huge damage for a GCD compared to almost any other spell if it runs itâs course.