Blessings>Totems in Raids - Page 3

jubelio · 03/24/06, 7:57 AM

Originally Posted by EgaL,March 24th, 2006 @ 6:55AM

Lets not derail too much please.

Greater Totems any one got any cons?

Every person that has replied to you has in some way shape or form told you that raid wide totems arent a good idea and have given multiple reasons.

EgaL · 03/24/06, 8:01 AM

Which that you like it to build groups around shamans?

Thats the only con: "making a horde raid group becomes easier" ?

I see that as a pro tbh :P

You would still build groups around shamans but in a different approach because you cant put down greater tranquil air totems you have to put down the small ones that affect only your group.

jubelio · 03/24/06, 8:06 AM

It is a lazy fix and It would be better to see an increase in some totems power (not windfury or GoA) instead of seeing them affect more people. Raid wide totem would present problems with tranquil air, your suggestions for avoiding tranquil air issues are inelegant at best.

Edit: A large problem with totems currently is that some that seem like they should be worth while(healing stream, mana stream, stoneskin, stoneclaw to name a few) are way too underpowered to even be worth casting. Another problem is that while the wind totems and water totems have multiple useful incarnations, we see little to no reason to drop fire totems for the majority of all fights we enter in raids. ANOTHER problem is that totem talents are about as attractive as a crack whore who is about to retire. NONE of these problems would be fixed by making totems raid wide.

EgaL · 03/24/06, 8:11 AM

Well it is easy and thats why they are gonna do this most likely -_-

Tranquil air totem wouldnt change but the difference would be that you can be affected from a windfury totem as well.

I do believe that some totems need a buff though (searing totem and so on)

The buff strength of Totems is pretty balanced the only problem is that you cant apply the buff to the whole raid if you want, when on the other hand with blessings it is no problem.

Auras should be applied to the whole raid too I guess to compensate for the greater resitance totems.

EDIT:

You are right those issues will be fixed with the shaman patch hopefully...
only 3 major patches to go...

You sure are pretty fucked up being last. Perhaps you ll get it a week before expansion hits the shelves rejoice!

jubelio · 03/24/06, 8:17 AM

Originally Posted by EgaL,March 24th, 2006 @ 7:11AM

Well it is easy and thats why they are gonna do this most likely

indisputable proof :zoid:

Kalman · 03/24/06, 8:19 AM

Originally Posted by XI-,March 24th, 2006 @ 7:36AM

Also I highly doubt that GoA and weapon poisons is pushing more dmg than WF, and even if its close now, the gap is going to increase in the future since neither GoA nor poisons scale.

I'd be highly surprised if GoA/poisons provides more DPS than Windfury, honestly.

I can't test it, what with the whole alliance thing, but, math.

Compare.

I MH a Brutality Blade, I sit at around 1315 AP raid buffed (including battleshout). Obviously, this is significantly boosted due to Blessing of Might/Kings, so let's dump 150 AP and call it good, yeah? 1165 AP.

A Windfury attack will thus average 393.2 pre-mitigation damage. As a 20% chance on hit, this equals an average damage boost of 78.65 damage per strike.

GoA 3 provides 77 AP and 2.56% crit. IPVI, with the 3 piece Bloodfang bonus, adds an average of 32.5 damage per strike (not mitigated by armor). 77 AP adds roughly 13.75 damage per strike, mitigated by armor.

Let's assume ~20% armor mitigation, which seems to be about right for raid-debuffed (CoR, FF, and 5x Sunder) bosses.

62.92 damage per strike for Windfury, vs. 43.5 damage per strike for everything but the crit added by GoA/IPVI.

Does 2.56% crit add 19.42 post-mitigation damage per strike?

On my SS, 2.56% crit adds 14.46 pre-mitigated damage per strike.
On my white damage, it adds 8.98 pre-mitigated damage per strike for my MH (BB) and 6.78 for my offhand (Perdition's... we have weird drops, okay?)
Eviscerates are such a minimal amount of my overall strikes they can be considered negligible, but it adds 29.2 pre-mitigated damage per strike.

I SS once every 4 seconds, MH every 1.92, OH every 1.38, and Eviscerate roughly once every 45. This gives a weighted average added damage per strike as:

1/4(14.46)+1/1.92(8.98)+1/1.38(6.78)+1/45(29.2) = 13.85, pre-mitigation.

The math changes slightly for a dagger rogue, in that they get slightly less benefit out of WF due to fewer instants and smaller hits off instants (white damage evens out - more triggers, but for smaller amounts), but not significantly.

WF > GoA + poisons. Gear shouldn't change this much, but I'm entirely too lazy to check.

(This might change for heavily armored mobs, or for DPV, or for heavily poison-talented builds.... but that's grasping at straws.)

Sebudai · 03/24/06, 8:21 AM

Saying shaman is the least played class was cute, but is fundamentally untrue. If you realize shaman can only be played by 1 faction, then there are more shaman then, druids, priests, and warlocks, and the same as mages. If you also calculated that alliance is the more populated side 60/40, then there are probably roughly the same amount of shamans as paladins.

This pretty much doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I guess if you are basing this off of total % per faction? Could you explain a little more.

The whole woa is me cry is cute on the blizzard forum, but honestly I don't think many people here care whether you cancel your account or not.

I have no intentions of canceling my account, and I don't expect anyone here to care if I did. I will however express how I feel about certain subjects in threads focused on discussing them. That ok?

I did not intend to turn this thread into something similar to what you would read on the R&D forums. If I did, I apologize. I hate class whining as much as anyone, and I have honestly tried to keep an open mind about these reviews. I just want a little more communication from Blizzard. The shaman forums are such a desolate wasteland of useful discussion and communication. It gets annoying sometimes.

I imagine how much more interesting the game would be if some of our more useless totems(Flametongue, Stoneskin, Windwall, etc) were a little more viable in more raiding situations, and it makes me anxious. The class could be so much more fun and interesting, possibly without affecting balance in any meaningful way.

---

Anyways, back on topic.

As I said earlier, I don't like the idea of raid-wide totems, and I don't think blizzard will ever impliment a system for them.

I do like the pulsing, 30ish second duration buff idea.

I think totems should have a larger radius, cost less mana, and last longer.

I think they need to significantly change every single talent that improves a totem on the shaman talent tree. Most likely by combining a lot of them and increasing the bonus from the talent.

I would really like to see some new totems added, to give us more options and make choosing which totems to use a little more strategic. The +spell damage fire totem is the most common example.

jubelio · 03/24/06, 8:30 AM

Originally Posted by Sebudai,March 24th, 2006 @ 7:21AM

Saying shaman is the least played class was cute, but is fundamentally untrue. If you realize shaman can only be played by 1 faction, then there are more shaman then, druids, priests, and warlocks, and the same as mages. If you also calculated that alliance is the more populated side 60/40, then there are probably roughly the same amount of shamans as paladins.

This pretty much doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. I guess if you are basing this off of total % per faction? Could you explain a little more.

It is no secret that there are tons of shaman. I'm sure someone could quote census statistics, but I am suprised anyone would need to see numbers to be convinced.

Also, you should read other class forums occasionally, blizz is an equal opportunity ignorer. I dont blame them, they have about 5 million customers and every angry customer is on the boards complaining daily. Most classes have more issues than shaman and they have been waiting longer for those bigger fixes.My suggestion to you is to calm down and realize that your class is in a pretty decent position right now.

• Wodin · 03/24/06, 8:52 AM

Originally Posted by Kalman,March 24th, 2006 @ 8:19AM

WF > GoA + poisons. Gear shouldn't change this much, but I'm entirely too lazy to check.

(This might change for heavily armored mobs, or for DPV, or for heavily poison-talented builds.... but that's grasping at straws.)

Sup, Kalman. Thanks for running the math your way, since the approach I was taking (normalizing everything into an AP contribution) was ugly as hell.

In addition, even if windfury were suboptimal for rogues, they would still get it, due to the necessity of battleshout. I'd subtract the 128AP delta from (4/5 Imp.) Battleshout -> TSA in your calculations for the Grace of Air portion, as that represents the necessary group composition.

As a side note, we've found DPV to be almost entirely useless due to the "one stack per mob" rule. You can have one person using it, but then it doesn't max out its contribution fast enough. Two people using it, and you end up burning procs left and right.

Sebudai · 03/24/06, 8:52 AM

It is no secret that there are tons of shaman. I'm sure someone could quote census statistics, but I am suprised anyone would need to see numbers to be convinced.

I don't need to see the numbers. I regret making that comment, since it obviously has nothing to do with anything, and isn't accurate. I don't think there are more shaman than priests, warlocks, and mages, though. Maybe on the horde side, but not when you take into account both factions.

Also, you should read other class forums occasionally, blizz is an equal opportunity ignorer. I dont blame them, they have about 5 million customers and every angry customer is on the boards complaining daily. Most classes have more issues than shaman and they have been waiting longer for those bigger fixes.My suggestion to you is to calm down and realize that your class is in a pretty decent position right now.

I actually read the other class forums quite often(more like skim them, looking for something useful). There has recently been quite a bit of communication between Blizzard and the paladins, rogues, mages, druids, and priests(obviously). The shaman forum has had something like 4 blue posts. Ever. Half of which preview a couple of the new Relic's.

Anyways, this has nothing to do with the original topic, and I apologize for derailing the thread with any of my posts.

• Wodin · 03/24/06, 8:55 AM

Originally Posted by Sebudai,March 24th, 2006 @ 8:52AM

rogues

Trust me, you don't want the kinds of posts that the rogue forum has gotten. Really, you don't. They fall into "here's the latest nerfbat", "here's us trying to be warm and fuzzy", and "here's us cherrypicking stupid ideas and shooting them down."

Oh, and there was the whole feedback debacle. That was fun.

Sebudai · 03/24/06, 8:55 AM

Maybe I'm misreading your math, but it looks like you're accounting for Windfury proc'ing from off-hand attacks. Last I knew Windfury only affected the main-hand.

I would also like to see the math for Windfury on a dagger wielding rogue. I've done it myself, and GoA + Poisons came out on top. It's very possible I made some errors, though.

-edit-
The rogue I based my comparison off of uses Blessed Qiraji Pugio and Perdition's Blade. I'm no math wiz and I could have messed up, so I'd like to see the math from someone else.

• Wodin · 03/24/06, 8:59 AM

Hmm. As I was reading it, it was mainhand only, and the only place the offhand entered the calculations was calculating the value of AP and crit. (since the offhand is IP for both a windfury rogue and a GoA rogue).

Kalman · 03/24/06, 9:01 AM

Originally Posted by Wodin,March 24th, 2006 @ 8:52AM

Originally Posted by Kalman,March 24th, 2006 @ 8:19AM

WF > GoA + poisons. Gear shouldn't change this much, but I'm entirely too lazy to check.

(This might change for heavily armored mobs, or for DPV, or for heavily poison-talented builds.... but that's grasping at straws.)

Sup, Kalman. Thanks for running the math your way, since the approach I was taking (normalizing everything into an AP contribution) was ugly as hell.

In addition, even if windfury were suboptimal for rogues, they would still get it, due to the necessity of battleshout. I'd subtract the 128AP delta from (4/5 Imp.) Battleshout -> TSA in your calculations for the Grace of Air portion, as that represents the necessary group composition.

As a side note, we've found DPV to be almost entirely useless due to the "one stack per mob" rule. You can have one person using it, but then it doesn't max out its contribution fast enough. Two people using it, and you end up burning procs left and right.

Yeah, I thought about trying to AP normalize, but it seemed simpler to just convert it into a damage-per-strike equivalent and work from that.

You know, soloing with DPV on, I haven't seen a problem with getting it stacked up to five reasonably fast; the 30% proc rate alone gets it up, and I'm not even 3 piece BF yet (waiting for a MH... still... my bad luck with MH drops is becoming ridiculous). That said, even though it provides pretty good DPS, I stick with IPVI in raids; the minor bonus from DPV isn't worth the debuff slot and (yes, I'm a cheapskate) the extra cost.

Again, I've never played a horde char past level 4, so: what's the interaction between GoA and Battle Shout that I've seen you refer to a couple times?

From what I know of totem mechanics, I don't think there's a simple change for what's *really* wrong with them (mobile fights making them useless). It's simply a fundamental problem with the design, that of a static buff source (see priest complaints re: lightwell for another example of this). I don't see a reason not to make them last a bit longer, though, in order to balance mana consumption for buffing cross-faction. Making them raid-wide would seem to have obvious problems, although possibly some totems could be extended raid-wide (resistance totems, mana tide, etc.) while keeping others (WF, TAT) group-centric.

People complaining about the fact that blessings are better than totems (arguable, but probably true) - honestly? Get over it. Faction imbalances should be something we're used to by now.

A pulsing aura would also help with in/out of range, although it comes with the downside of - if you miss a pulse, you're out of luck for the duration of time in between pulses.

Anyway. I'm alliance, and on this subject, I'm probably full of crap.

• Wodin · 03/24/06, 9:05 AM

If you're getting Grace of Air, you're not getting Battleshout because you're in a Shaman/Rogue/Rogue/Hunter/Hunter group. Warriors get windfury, period. Any small DPS gain the rogue might have would be completely annulled by taking away WF from the group's warrior, since the rage generation is significant.