Shaman Dual Wield: Do all caster weapons need to be "main hand" now? - Page 2

Mendoza · 09/06/06, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle

Uhm... why? I have very little knowledge of melee weapons so I don't really understand this.

Why not? Because giving up extremely powerful healing talents so you can wield 2 weapons with 40 dps that have stats on them is a better idea to be a good healer than just going down resto? An extra brilliant mana oil and slight itemization increase is not going to turn dual wielding Shamans in to incredible healers that somehow supplant the resto shaman as a healer of choice. Any Shaman who chooses to DW healing/damage weapons is going to give up a considerable amount of melee DPS (about 20 raw weapon DPS by the time you're in AQ, which makes up most of a Shaman's per-swing DPS in pre-Stormcallers), healing between swings resets your swing timer so you lose even more DPS to healing, etc. Giving a shaman two awesome healing weapons is not a silver bullet to making an awesome shaman that can do everything. If anything it's a consolation to enhancement shamans by recognizing there are a lot of fights that they won't be able to melee on (see that big list of hunter pet no-no fights in the "are these talents placeholders" thread).

You said that not allowing it made as much sense as making swords MH only. I was asking what shaman DWing caster weapons had to do with making swords MH only. Unless I'm missing something you're answering an entirely different question.

Anyway, I'm not saying that DWing caster weapons turns enh shaman into some do-everything-superbly uber-class. I'm asking 'would this be balanced?' (which is very different from saying it would be ridiculously unbalanced) and 'do you think this is what Blizz has in mind?' which is what will ultimately decide what the outcome is anyway.

How do you deal with the caster 1h drop rates when 5 classes will only be using 1 at a time and the other can use 2?

How many Shamans do you see marching around with a two-handed staff on their backs in comparison to how many you see with a Zulian Defender/Malistar's/RDP? With the exception of the BQR there is no staff in the game I would use over a solid 1her and shield at this point in the game. Simply due to the fact they are the only class on their faction that can use caster shields, Shamans have been by and large already pigeon-holed into using one handed weapons even if it wasn't the intent of guilds to do it.

Do you restrict your Warriors to using 2h weapons just because they can use them, and save your 1hers for your Rogues? There have been one-handed caster weapons in the game for a very long time now and they added more of them in Naxx, and you can't tell me with a straight face they didn't itemize Naxx without knowing about the Paladin/Shaman crossover and a not having pretty good idea of where they were going with the talents. This isn't unplanned, and to be frankly honest I'd write off Enhancement being a truly viable raid spec if they did remove the ability to have caster weapons in both hands.

Again, either you're missing my point or I'm missing yours.

As it stands, if a 1h (non caster) weapon drops, then (with the exception of tanking weapons, are designed for tanking anyway) it's going to be dual wielded, whether it's by a warrior, rogue or hunter. The drop rates of 1h weapons are based around this.

What happens when you enter a situation where 5 of the 6 classes that use 1h caster weapons can use only 1 at a time, but when the other class can use 2 at a time. This is a situation that (afaik) isn't comparable to any other case for item drops. How do you best assign items (and how do Blizz assign drop rates) when some people will only use 1 such drop and others will use 2 at a time? This is less to do with how you'd prioritise such loot (and I don't really care for loot prioritisation anyway) and much more to do with how organising drops around such itemisation options would work.

Kasonic · 09/06/06, 11:39 AM

I think it's fine.

WTB theorycrafting; would an Unleashed Rage chain-shocking shaman be better off using DPS/DPS weapons or DPS/caster weapons? I.e. Gressil/Castigator versus Gressil/Wraith Blade.

Andrise · 09/06/06, 11:45 AM

Originally Posted by Kasonic

I think it's fine.

WTB theorycrafting; would an Unleashed Rage chain-shocking shaman be better off using DPS/DPS weapons or DPS/caster weapons? I.e. Gressil/Castigator versus Gressil/Wraith Blade.

Shaman can't use swords.

• frmorrison · 09/06/06, 11:48 AM

IMO, since shocks get little out of +damage (43%) and dps gear doesn't have much +damage out of it, it is best to go dps/dps. Most of a Enh Shaman's dps is from autoattack.

However, it would be good to have a macro to swap to caster weaps if the guy needed to swap to healing duty.

Nite_Moogle · 09/06/06, 11:54 AM

You said that not allowing it made as much sense as making swords MH only. I was asking what shaman DWing caster weapons had to do with making swords MH only. Unless I'm missing something you're answering an entirely different question.

It makes no more sense to restrict a melee weapon type to main hand than it does to restrict a caster weapon type to main hand. Or if you want a different way of saying it, any melee weapon with stats needs to be main hand only. Offhand weapons can only be pure DPS. Does that make any sense at all? Of course not.

The drop rates of 1h weapons are based around this.

The drop rates of Paladin armor are pretty low for Horde at the moment in MC and BWL too, I would imagine that the Alliance doesn't see much Earthfury or Ten Storms either. You can't compare current drop rates to what they will be in the expansion, because nobody knows what they will be. If anything the fact that there are multiple +healing weapons in Naxx is a positive sign because they have been slim pickings in previous dungeons.

The argument of priority of one-handed weapons to a class that must use them (Rogues) over a class that can use them (Warriors, Hunters) is as old as WoW itself and there's no magic wand solution. Odds of a Shaman wanting a staff are already low, and dual wielding shamans are most likely going to opt out of two-handed caster weapons entirely, and Paladins can't use staves or daggers. Now you have only 2 classes that have high desirability of any healing staff, and will get loot priority on it in smart guilds. Add to this that if we ever see a +healing axe, it's automatic dibs for Shamans and Paladins. A +healing sword or polearm is going to a Paladin. There is still a lot of breathing room for creating items that won't be available or desired by all four healing classes.

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 12:02 PM

As an aside to caster weapons, what would be the enchants of choice for a duel wield enhance shaman? I assume it would 2x crusader since it's ~25 str per enchant. For pvp purposes a stormstrike with 2 crusaders up would be some nice burst damage. Would that be better than two 15 agi enchants for pve, though?

Andrise · 09/06/06, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by Humbaba

Would that be better than two 15 agi enchants for pve, though?

"Only" about 200-300% better.

CSM-Stormcrow · 09/06/06, 12:05 PM

It seems like this thread is completely ignoring the elemental tree. =/ I know my first BC spec will have at least 40 into elemental, because I love it so much. From there to me, its a choice of getting NS and some really solid resto talents or going into the still junky <20 point enhancement tree. The thing with dual wield is how far down the tree you must go to get it. In getting it, you don't get any of the uber talents later in resto or elemental that would truly break dual-wielding healing/casting weapons. I think shields are pretty underrated. Effectively doubling your ac in most cases, I don't think it's something that should be overlooked as was said previously in this thread.

Kasonic · 09/06/06, 12:08 PM

I don't know what Shaman need for a crit, but they get 2AP per Str, so I'd most likely rather have the Crusaders.

Nite_Moogle · 09/06/06, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Andrise

Originally Posted by Humbaba

Would that be better than two 15 agi enchants for pve, though?

"Only" about 200-300% better.

Well, it depends on what you're trying to do. 30 agi is a reasonable amount of crit, and if your goal is to keep the AP buff up more than to improve your personal DPS, then it may play out better to use dual agility enchants. Crusader is unquestionably better if you are concerned with personal DPS.
(I can't believe I just typed a reccomendation of dual agi on a melee class, I'll never hear the end of it...)

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 12:24 PM

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle

Originally Posted by Andrise

Originally Posted by Humbaba

Would that be better than two 15 agi enchants for pve, though?

"Only" about 200-300% better.

Well, it depends on what you're trying to do. 30 agi is a reasonable amount of crit, and if your goal is to keep the AP buff up more than to improve your personal DPS, then it may play out better to use dual agility enchants. Crusader is unquestionably better if you are concerned with personal DPS.
(I can't believe I just typed a reccomendation of dual agi on a melee class, I'll never hear the end of it...)

Would the extra 1.5% crit from agility provide more up time for Unleashed Rage? That's 10% more AP for everyone in the group. I'm not beating things with axes just because of my amazing dps; I'm beating them with axes to boost the rogues and warriors in my group. I think the answer would be that the agility is more useful only if the extra crit % means I could keep the buff up when it would otherwise be down. Without doing the math, I'd guess it wouldn't help since I should be critting 25% of the time (as a nice round number) and I'll be getting ~6 swings with my main hand (2.3 speed) when under flurry, i.e. UR will be up all the time I'm in melee.

So crusader is better, but there's more to it for shamans than for rogues or warriors.

• frmorrison · 09/06/06, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle

(I can't believe I just typed a reccomendation of dual agi on a melee class, I'll never hear the end of it...)

Well, it is the best setup for Hunters, and a decent for a Rogue.

Really it depends on what you have for current gear. You need a min amount of crit to have enough 10% AP uptime to justify using an Enh Shaman, which I would say is 25% to crit.

Also you can argue that Crusader main, 15 str off hand is useful (due to off-hand being always on rather than waiting on a proc, and having more constant strength is good for the 41 point talent).

BByte · 09/06/06, 12:30 PM

Regarding caster weapons there are two separate itemization pools to consider: First there's the normal budget where 1H weapon gets ~41-42% of the stats a similar iLvl 2H weapon gets. Because item power scales linearly with budget, that can't make two 1H weapons better than a 2H weapon (2 * 42% < 100%).

However, when converting DPS to +Damage/Healing or +Healing, the 42% modifier doesn't apply. If you lower the DPS of a 2H weapon by 20 you'll get roughly the same amount of +Damage/Healing added as you would if you lowered the DPS of a 1H weapon by 20. This means that dual wielding caster weapons will be highly beneficial if it in fact will become possible.

Whether this will be of any concern in TBC is something that can't really be anticipated because we don't know whether TBC caster weapon itemization will follow the same rules as current raid quality caster weapons do. And of course whether the capability of dual wielding caster weapons could make shamans too powerful is another thing entirely.

Nite_Moogle · 09/06/06, 12:34 PM

I think the answer would be that the agility is more useful only if the extra crit % means I could keep the buff up when it would otherwise be down.

In healbot gear this will almost always hold true, I don't think Stormcallers has enough crit to hit the break point. Weapon speed is also going to play a large factor in keeping the buff alive since your swings per minute could potentially mean a lot more than your actual crit rate. I'm pretty sure that a pair of Julie's Daggers or something similarly fast with 15 agi on each is going to be reasonably good at keeping the AP buff up regardless of what other gear you're going to be using.

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 12:52 PM

How does dual wield work? Both the main hand and offhand have the same 24% chance to miss, but the offhand does 50% damage when it hits?

Kalman · 09/06/06, 12:55 PM

Originally Posted by Humbaba

How does dual wield work? Both the main hand and offhand have the same 24% chance to miss, but the offhand does 50% damage when it hits?

Yes, although that can be improved with talents (to 75% for rogues and 62.5% for warriors - I don't recall if shamans got a similar talent or not).

Nite_Moogle · 09/06/06, 12:57 PM

For normal white damage that's how it works. Special attacks use the normal 5% miss rate, so a Shaman with the 10% to hit talent is never going to miss on a Stormstrike (could still be dodged/parried of course).

• frmorrison · 09/06/06, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by Kalman

Originally Posted by Humbaba

How does dual wield work? Both the main hand and offhand have the same 24% chance to miss, but the offhand does 50% damage when it hits?

Yes, although that can be improved with talents (to 75% for rogues and 62.5% for warriors - I don't recall if shamans got a similar talent or not).

The Shaman talent is 10% to weapon damage, so that should mean 110% for MH and 55% for OH, equaling 165% damage, so a little better damage potential than DW Fury warriors.

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 1:11 PM

Alright, my first foray into math on the EJ boards.

If a 2.3 speed weapon (I have a Crul) is 1.61 under flurry you will swing 6.2 times every 10 seconds with flurry active. Adding in the miss rate of 24% and the 13% to hit shamans get from talents you will miss 11% of the time and have 5.53 hits. A decently fast offhand like a dragonfang blade (reasonably attainable if it drops between now and TBC) at 1.8 would be 1.26 or 7.93 swings or 7 swings every 10 seconds. Combined it's 12.53 hits every 10 seconds before other mitigation. Add in block, dodge and parry (16.8% combined) and it's 10.4 hits every 10 seconds. That means it would take a crit rate of right at 10% to keep UR up.

With my current healing gear I have 9.25% crit chance (I have Thundering Strikes), so I could use a Crul and a Dragonfang Blade and almost keep UR active and then switch to healing weapons if I needed to heal full time. Adding in just 1 agility enchant would give me .75% crit and put me at exactly 10% crit, which is the number I want with those weapons.

I probably wouldn't be dual wielding those weapons with healing gear (I'd have melee gear), so it may be moot, but if I did, I would know that I wanted at least 1 to have agility on it.

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Mendoza · 09/06/06, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle

You said that not allowing it made as much sense as making swords MH only. I was asking what shaman DWing caster weapons had to do with making swords MH only. Unless I'm missing something you're answering an entirely different question.

It makes no more sense to restrict a melee weapon type to main hand than it does to restrict a caster weapon type to main hand. Or if you want a different way of saying it, any melee weapon with stats needs to be main hand only. Offhand weapons can only be pure DPS. Does that make any sense at all? Of course not.

Your analogy is backwards then, if it makes any sense at all.

You can get swords for MH or OH or both. So why wouldn't you get caster weapons that were MH, or OH, or both? (as someone pointed out OH caster weapon are unlikely since they only fit 1 class and spec). You do get MH only swords, so why wouldn't you get MH only caster weapons? And by extending that, isn't it very possible that they could make all future caster weapons MH only?

Drukal · 09/06/06, 1:28 PM

Originally Posted by Humbaba

Add in block, dodge and parry (16.8% combined) and it's 10.4 hits every 10 seconds. That means it would take a crit rate of right at 10% to keep UR up.

Not quite that easy - that assumes every 10th hit would be a crit, where in reality you have a 10% chance on each hit to crit. This means you'll have streaks of crits where the UR procs overlap and are wasted, and streaks of normal hits where it will inevitably fall off.

If you want to work out the long-term UR uptime fraction, you would use the following formula:

1-(1-C)^S

Where C is your crit rate, and S is the average number of swings per UR uptime (Just like the flurry uptime formula, with the power changed from 3 to a variable number depending on your weapon choice)
So, in the case of 10% crit rate, over 10 swings (rounding, because I'm lazy) we would have:

1-C=0.9, S=10

1-(0.9)^10 = 65.1% uptime.

Thanks to the comparatively large time window offered by UR's uptime, this value rapidly approaches 100% as you gain crit though - 15% crit yields over 80% uptime, 20% over 90% uptime (those values still assume the 10 swing per UR uptime value, faster weapons improve it even further).

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 1:32 PM

OK, I knew there was something missing. I'll rework it this afternoon and see what the magic number is.

Humbaba · 09/06/06, 5:21 PM

Flurry formula: 1 - (1-C)^3

Average swing speed: (S * (1-F)) + (S*0.7*F)
S = Weapon Speed
F = Flurry Up Time

Example:
Speed = 2.3
Crit = .25
Flurry Up Time = .578
New Weapon Speed = 1.901

Swings per 10s: 10 / New Weapon Speed
2.3 speed means 1.9 flurry average or 5.26 swings every 10s
1.8 speed means 1.49 flurry average or 6.72 swings every 10s

Hits per 10s: S * (1 - .24 + H - D - B - P)
S = Swings
H = % to hit (13% from talents)
D = Dodge (5.6%)
B = Block (5.6%)
P = Parry (5.6%)

Hits per 10s: 8.65

Keeping 13% to hit constant and changing crit, this is what it looks like:

Crit	F. Up1	Hits	UR Up 	Hits2	UR Up2
0.050	0.14	7.47	0.32	11.60	0.45
0.065	0.18	7.56	0.40	11.75	0.55
0.080	0.22	7.66	0.47	11.90	0.63
0.095	0.26	7.75	0.54	12.04	0.70
0.110	0.30	7.84	0.60	12.19	0.76
0.125	0.33	7.94	0.65	12.33	0.81
0.140	0.36	8.03	0.70	12.47	0.85
0.155	0.40	8.12	0.75	12.61	0.88
0.170	0.43	8.20	0.78	12.74	0.91
0.185	0.46	8.29	0.82	12.88	0.93
0.200	0.49	8.38	0.85	13.01	0.95
0.215	0.52	8.46	0.87	13.14	0.96
0.230	0.54	8.54	0.89	13.27	0.97
0.245	0.57	8.62	0.91	13.40	0.98
0.260	0.59	8.70	0.93	13.52	0.98
0.275	0.62	8.78	0.94	13.64	0.99
0.290	0.64	8.86	0.95	13.76	0.99
0.305	0.66	8.93	0.96	13.87	0.99
0.320	0.69	9.00	0.97	13.98	1.00
0.335	0.71	9.07	0.98	14.09	1.00

F. Up1 is the % of time Flurry should be active with a 2.3 and a 1.8.
UR Up1 is the % of time UR should be active with a 2.3 and a 1.8
Hits2 is with 1.3 MH and 1.3 OH
UR2 is 1.3 MH and 1.3 OH

What did I miss this time?

If that's accurate, 15 or 30 agility is useful at low levels of crit, but diminishes quickly as crit increases. A far greater benefit can be had just switching to fast daggers. If you're wearing good melee gear and have a high crit, there's little disadvantage to using the best dps weapons possible rather than sacrificing for faster speed.

Sorry for the derail, but this turned out to be more complicated than I expected and had different results than I expected.

Rz · 09/06/06, 5:29 PM

You're not going to want to use fast daggers with Stormstrike, though. 20 second cooldown is too long to waste on using some 1.7 speed dagger when you could be using 2.7 speed axes/maces. Remember new Stormstrike = "instantly attacks with all equipped weapons."

Although I am too much in class and too much on hydrocodone to figure it out right now.

Rabid Rob · 09/06/06, 5:40 PM

Originally Posted by Praetorian

But then what will hunters offhand for sick arcane shot damage?

And a hurricane of serpent sting damage!

Lol, I originally thought all the One hand caster weapons in Naxx were set up by the secret hunter dev who made Claw of Chromaggus One hand, but it's clear they were just anticipating dual wielding shammys waaaay back then... (I mean Naxx development, not BWL!)

So it's clearly working as intended.