Math:
Elemental Devastation = 9% crit ~= 12% weapon damage - crit also needed for Flurry
1.5-2+s of every ~5.5s (totems permitting) is spent casting Lightning Bolt/Chain Lightning + Shock until proccing Devastation
100% chance to crit and proc Devastation on opening (assuming Elemental Mastery doesn’t get resisted)
Theoretical rotation until Devastation using slow 2h (with Annihilator just add an auto):
Auto (x2 if the first had Flurry) -> Lightning Bolt (Chain Lightning instead if any adds, Clearcasting or Elemental Mastery) -> Shock -> repeat
6% bonus chance for Lightning Bolt to crit; 10% bonus chance for Frost Shock to crit with 5 stacks of the mage debuff
Not having those last 11 points of enh costs 53 AP and 10% weapon damage which is actually nearly 1:1 comparable to Elemental Devastation’s bonus crit, and considering it’s a nearly guaranteed proc the talents aren’t missing out on 30 enh at all not to mention the more frequent McFlurries. It benefits just as much from physical dps gear as enh while still benefitting a decent amount from spell damage/crit gear AND has the option of swapping to all spell damage gear for anti-melee fights. It also doesn’t go OOM nearly as quickly as standard ele in fights where one can melee. On paper it’s the best of both worlds.
I haven’t had a chance to actually raid with it yet but when I do I’ll let y’all know; if anyone has tried anything similar I’m all ears. I appreciate enh but aside from the fact that it can offtank most trash and MT some bosses it’s indeed a meme spec. Granted my guild appreciates me offtanking ZG as they’re always short on OTs so maybe they’ll miss that haha.
Any thoughts? The AQ40 shaman set seems BiS for this btw, and the ring and back from AQ20 are worth noting as well. Speaking of, is trash in AQ nat immune? If so, yikes lol.