A Enhancement Shaman is not meant to provide more total damage to a raid than a skilled Rogue in comparable gear, especially not over any sort of sustained fight.
How exactly are we supposed to know the answer to this? It definitely seems that Blizzard is really going for a "Total is greater than the sum of it's parts" style of raiding where most classes buff other classes usefulness in Raids.
The issue is not does one Enh DW Shaman = 1 Rogue or Fury Warrior, it's does Group 1 out DPS Group 2:
Obviously you don't think it does, but I think it might...otherwise, why give Shaman Unleashed Rage? Remember that Enhancement Shaman are dropping WFT/GoA and SoE. They also will be dropping Flametongue (in the case they drop GoA) or even Searing Totem (you'd be surprised how much damage that does over a long fight for virtually zero mana) not to mention either dropping Mana Spring for themselves, or Poison/Diesease cleansing for the group. Throw in Bloodlust and Unleased Rage and that's a lot of extra DPS.
Will a Shaman ever approach a rogue in DPS? Nope, but will the overall Raid DPS be higher if you have a Shaman in melee group? I think so. If it's not the case, we'll all know pretty quickly.
Assuming you'll be in a group with 4 melee DPS classes in a 25 man raid is something of a stretch to say the least. I don't doubt that the mere act of throwing down a Windfury totem for four two-handing Fury warriors is in and of itself more raw damage than what the Shaman himself can provide, but what you suggest is an extreme case. In a 5-man group this will practically never be the case, if it is you're healing anyway. In a 10 man group the odds of this being the case are extremely slim. We have no idea how the TBC raids will play out and how in demand tanks will actually be/not be: a lot of raids may only end up with 3 pure melee DPS classes of some sort. Stick a Hunter in the group and the effect of the Shaman changes drastically. If the Shaman is in the MA group the effect of the Shaman changes again. You cannot simply assume that all four people recieving the AP buff will be able to take full advantage of it, and it certainly is not a 10% boost in total damage for each person in the group.
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
Assuming you'll be in a group with 4 melee DPS classes in a 25 man raid is something of a
stretch to say the least.
...
I don't doubt that the mere act of throwing down a Windfury totem for four two-handing Fury warriors is in and of itself more raw damage than what the Shaman himself can provide, but what you suggest is an extreme case.
You're kidding right? You don't think you'll have 4 Rogues/Fury Warriors in a 25 man raid?
In a 5-man group this will practically never be the case, if it is you're healing anyway.
Since when are we talking about 5 mans? In 5 mans EVERYBODY does multiple jobs, even rogues. Occasionally Fury Warriors pull out the Sword and Board, Mages and Warlocks are on CC duty, etc., etc. I don't expect a Shaman to go into a 5 man and just DPS, I never said they did. We're talking 25 man usefulness.
We have no idea how the TBC raids will play out and how in demand tanks will actually be/not be: a lot of raids may only end up with 3 pure melee DPS classes of some sort. Stick a Hunter in the group and the effect of the Shaman changes drastically. If the Shaman is in the MA group the effect of the Shaman changes again. You cannot simply assume that all four people recieving the AP buff will be able to take full advantage of it, and it certainly is not a 10% boost in total damage for each person in the group.
You are right, we have no idea how TBC raids will work, although you are quite confident in the fact that a Shaman will not be used. But having 3 rogues and a DPS Warrior (maybe even a 41/5/15 MS/Tanking Hybrid) is hardly a stretch. 25 people/9 classes = just under 3 per class. In an ideal situation Druids and hunters probably drop to 2 each, so there's your 25. That gives 3 Rogues, 3 Warriors one of which will be the MT, one OT and probably one DPS.
We'll have to see how it plays out obviously, but I'm thinking you'll be wrong on this one.
Nowhere did I say that Shamans would not be used. Given the right group makeup a single Enhancement Shaman can potentially provide more DPS than a Rogue. I don't disagree with it. In fact given the right group a Resto Shaman could damn near provide as much damage as a Rogue. I am saying that you cannot justify your raid slot by saying "I do more damage than a DPS class" when you depend on the other DPS classes to do the damage to out-do the damage classes, and you cannot provide any additional benefit in that style by adding a second Shaman of that type. I'd probably argue that the 2 "short" classes for most guilds will be either a [Paladin, Shaman, Druid] and a Warlock just due to the fact there aren't many warlocks and there are usually craploads of every other class, and one hybrid one way or the other won't make or break the raid. Doubly so early on while there are few high-level Paladin/Shamans depending on your faction.
I don't doubt there will be some combination of 4 hunters, rogues and part-time DPS warriors in a raid, but a 10% AP boost does not equate to a 10% damage increase, and changing the group from less than 4 DPS warriors with two handed weapons dilutes your totem effectiveness for each variable you change. Due to the fact that Shamans have zero raid-wide buffs your contribution is limited to your group, unlike most other class synergies that work off debuffs on the target. If the Warrior dual wields and wants to have a Hunter with TSA to improve his personal DPS, your WF totem doesn't do anything for the Hunter and has a lower effect on DW than on 2H weapons. The dagger Rogue that wants both Battle Shout and TSA drops your effectiveness; SoE has a reduced effect for Rogues compared to Warriors and WF has a reduced effect for dagger rogues compared to Sword rogues. There are way too many non-ideal factors for you to be able to say with confidence "I'm going to contribute more damage than X class" in every situation, because it's just not going to happen with any reliability, certainly not over the benefit that a non-Enhancement Shaman will provide. The 10% AP alone is not enough to prevent you from being replaced by another Shaman that is a better healer. The majority of the non-healing benefit of having a Shaman in your raid stems from the totems you drop regardless of spec. DPS classes are a dime a dozen, skilled healers are not. A skilled Shaman with a healer spec is still going to be more valuable to a raid than a skilled Shaman playing a wannabe DPS class.
It's nice to put that on paper and say "wow look at how effective that would be" but putting it in to practice doesn't happen very often. Shamans are going to earn their raid slots through flexibility in what they can do, not single-minded dedication to a goal they can only achieve under optimal circumstances. Saying that a Shaman will provide more DPS than a Rogue is simply not a true statement under non-ideal circumstances, especially when you cannot add a second Enhancement Shaman and gain a further increase in DPS. Most raids (that even allow such things) don't want any more than one Shadow Priest, similarly most raids will not want any more than one Enhancement Shaman.
Edit: wall of text crits you for massive damage fixed
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
[Since Unleashed Rage will give an extra 10% AP (and therefore, at least an extra 10% damage) to four people, that's an extra 40% damage. 60% + 40% = 100%, which means a Shaman will be contributing the equivalent of a Rogue/DPS Warrior's DPS.
If you look at gear outs now:
2-handed warrior, 82 dps weapon, 1600 AP (warriors, if that's significantly different than top-of the line warriors unbuffed currently, please holler!) -> ~196.3 paperdoll dps, ~58% of which comes from AP. If you carry that through the dps spreadsheets, you'll find that somewhat less of that is the case for composite numbers with static features, somewhat more than that due to raid buffs etc. On average though, I'd guess you'll see a 10% increase in AP ~ 5-6% increase in composite DPS.
DW warriors, with higher AP:Weapon DPS ratios will be on the higher side of that.
Rogues, ~65 DPS weapons, ~1100 AP (same here rogues, if your unbuffed AP/weapondamage is significantly off that I'd love to have better numbers)-> ~143.6 pd dps, ~55% coming from AP. Somewhat lower than the 2-handed warrior, but raid buffs will impact them by more.
A 5-6% increase per, to 4 people puts you in the 20-25% range, so to make your comparison you're going to need to have the shaman putting out 75-80% of rogue/warrior dps. That's not really a fair comparison though, because if you're talking about swapping a shaman for a rogue or warrior, and the shaman should offer clear benefit because now you can also count the impact of windfury/GoA + SoE.
The real balance point, is if the marginal benefit of added DPS from an enhancement shammy is worth the lost benefit of the points in resto (or to be fair, ele) and that will depend on both your raid composition as well as the content in TBC.
I don't doubt there will be some combination of 4 hunters, rogues and part-time DPS warriors in a raid, but a 10% AP boost does not equate to a 10% damage increase
Correct, but UR + WFT/GoA + SoE + Bloodlust does, or likely even more than a 10% DPS increase. UR on it's own once everyone is raid buffed is probably a 7% DPS increase or so.
WF has a reduced effect for dagger rogues compared to Sword rogues
Since when? WFT is a straight DPS increase over the long run of a fight, slower weapons only benefit by more Burst Damage with WFT (which is why Shaman use slow 2H in PvP), the damage increase of WFT of 2 equal DPS weapons is identical.
I've read everything else you said, and frankly we're going to have to agree to disagree otherwise this is going to turn into a WoW Forums shouting match that will get us nowhere. You definitely seem like the "Force Spec" kind of guy that thinks that classes can only do one thing. That's fine, if you and your guild play that way all the power too you. Other guilds don't, we encourage offspec-ing and playing what you want.
We fully intend to give our one Enhancement Shaman every opportunity to see if this works, if it does, then great, we get equal or better DPS for the raid and have an emergency healer...now only if the Enhancement Shaman was an Orc with 2 Axes, then we'd be set. ;)
WF is less valuable for dagger rogues vecause of a reduced number of instants and a reduced return on proc for instant attacks. Sword rogues push 50% more specials out, giving them more WF procs as a result (and those procs tend to be more damaging to boot).
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
WF has a reduced effect for dagger rogues compared to Sword rogues
Since when? WFT is a straight DPS increase over the long run of a fight, slower weapons only benefit by more Burst Damage with WFT (which is why Shaman use slow 2H in PvP), the damage increase of WFT of 2 equal DPS weapons is identical.
Sword rogues use more instants though (SS every ~4 seconds vs. BS every ~6) and in conjunction with swords generally being slower, it ends up resulting in an increased benefit from Wfury relative to dagger rogues.
Est. with 2.8 MH sword vs. 1.8 MH dagger -> 2.8/20 = .14 vs. 1.8/30 = .06
[Since Unleashed Rage will give an extra 10% AP (and therefore, at least an extra 10% damage) to four people, that's an extra 40% damage. 60% + 40% = 100%, which means a Shaman will be contributing the equivalent of a Rogue/DPS Warrior's DPS.
If you look at gear outs now:
2-handed warrior, 82 dps weapon, 1600 AP (warriors, if that's significantly different than top-of the line warriors unbuffed currently, please holler!) -> ~196.3 paperdoll dps, ~58% of which comes from AP. If you carry that through the dps spreadsheets, you'll find that somewhat less of that is the case for composite numbers with static features, somewhat more than that due to raid buffs etc. On average though, I'd guess you'll see a 10% increase in AP ~ 5-6% increase in composite DPS.
DW warriors, with higher AP:Weapon DPS ratios will be on the higher side of that.
Rogues, ~65 DPS weapons, ~1100 AP (same here rogues, if your unbuffed AP/weapondamage is significantly off that I'd love to have better numbers)-> ~143.6 pd dps, ~55% coming from AP. Somewhat lower than the 2-handed warrior, but raid buffs will impact them by more.
A 5-6% increase per, to 4 people puts you in the 20-25% range, so to make your comparison you're going to need to have the shaman putting out 75-80% of rogue/warrior dps. That's not really a fair comparison though, because if you're talking about swapping a shaman for a rogue or warrior, and the shaman should offer clear benefit because now you can also count the impact of windfury/GoA + SoE.
The real balance point, is if the marginal benefit of added DPS from an enhancement shammy is worth the lost benefit of the points in resto (or to be fair, ele) and that will depend on both your raid composition as well as the content in TBC.
I think a fully raid buffed Rogue will have way more than 1100AP, remember the UR is a 10% AP boost after everything else it taken into effect (like Battleshout, BoK, etc.)
Also, one thing we have to remember is because in the past Shaman in the Melee group have been just dropping totems, then running back and healing (generally anyways) so pretty much any Shaman would do. Obiviously Melee would prefer the Imp SoE and Imp WFT, but beggars can't choosers. Now, DW Shaman will actually benefit from their own totems (not WFT obviously) and from their Unleashed Rage and Bloodlust, so they are going to be doing more DPS than ever before.
Another thing is, now that there are actually useful caster totems outside of Mana Tide, you won't want an Elemental Shaman to be in the Melee group, you'll want them with your Mages and 1 non-Blood Pact Warlock who is in the MT Group.
Obviously this is all theorycraft and requires pretty much "perfect" group setup, which we know won't always happen. But I think large, skilled guilds will find a way to make things work if it grants an overall net value to the Raid. Most guilds tried Feral Druids after the Druid Review for a few weeks to evaluate whether they gave an added benefit to the Melee groups or not, when they found they didn't, they stopped, but they at least tried.
WF is less valuable for dagger rogues vecause of a reduced number of instants and a reduced return on proc for instant attacks. Sword rogues push 50% more specials out, giving them more WF procs as a result (and those procs tend to be more damaging to boot).
Ah, forgot about the instant attacks. Remember the change to WFT that it would only work on White attacks that was supposed to go into 1.12 that they pulled back at the last second? I fully expect that to be implemented in the Expansion, and that is where I was coming from...err, yeah, that's it. ;)
I've read everything else you said, and frankly we're going to have to agree to disagree otherwise this is going to turn into a WoW Forums shouting match that will get us nowhere. You definitely seem like the "Force Spec" kind of guy that thinks that classes can only do one thing. That's fine, if you and your guild play that way all the power too you. Other guilds don't, we encourage offspec-ing and playing what you want.
I don't think Enhancement will be bad at what it does (it's certainly better than before by a huge margin), but the build doesn't stack at all and it's not a vast improvement over just bringing another DPS class or just bringing a Resto Shaman if your intent is to earn your spot based on your damage and not your total contribution.
I'm not hating on Enhancement for the sake of it, I like to be able to melee. The problem is I am never standing around with nothing to do. I was 21 Enhancement for a really long time. My mana pool, regeneration and +healing all went down the toilet when I wore my DPS gear. I had to go out of my way to get good enhancement gear because the itemization I was able to get on raids leaned toward Resto or Elemental. There are too many boss fights where you have to avoid AE effects and I was relied upon to heal enough that the only time I ever really got to melee was on Garr or Ebonroc or trash mbos when we had more than 15 healers in the raid. I eventually just gave up, banked my DTC and melee gear and specced deep Resto to improve what I was doing 95% of the time anyway. Will things be different in TBC? Maybe. It'll depend a lot on the encounters and how much AE damage there is and very much so on itemization. If we see Stormcaller V2 it'll be possible, if we see more Earthfury-style gear all over the place it's going to continue to be a challenge to gear up without using leather armor. Copious amounts of AEs will prevent meleeing on bosses, rendering the #1 reason to be Enhancement worthless on the #1 reason to improve your DPS. It's still up in the air.
As a Resto Shaman I can safely say that I'm able to contribute effectively to the raid regardless of who else shows up, whereas you can't say that with as much confidence with a full Enhancement build that relies heavily on doing damage. I think a flexible Enhancement Shaman is going to be great, swapping gear to do what you need to do at the time is what hybrids are all about. Pinning your contribution on being more DPS than a Rogue by relying on using your mana for Stormstrike and Frost Shock is not, and you'll end up with the same reputation as that Priest that never drops out of Shadowform or the Warrior that doesn't even own a shield.
Edit: redundant conclusion about sword/dagger
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
You question the spec as if the raid expects the enhancement shaman to be healing. Obviously if you're going to let him do his job it'll be keeping UR up and all the DPS totems down, not healing. I'm not saying an enhancement shaman should be draining his pool whenever possible with shocks and never healing, but don't say you can't melee well because you're focused on healing. If anything it should be relegated to chain healing your own DPS group from any AE damage they take and that's it.
In live WoW, Enhancement is useless, because a resto shaman can drop all the totems he can but heal with far more effectiveness than Mr. enhancement can DPS. In BC, with UR, you'll be giving your raid a massive DPS bonus a resto shaman can't, and be able to generate more yourself.
I think Shamanistic Rage is going to be important as well. It is worded very, very similar to JoW, which could imply a 50% proc rate, then again, it might not. The new Arena Gear that has been leaked has the Shaman gear with STR on it, which is important for Shamanistic Rage (unless they plan to change it to a percentage of your AP). Add to the JoW (which I expect to be up on pretty much all single target boss fights) and BoW might mean that an Enhancement Shaman can utilize CoE and use FlameShock quite often during a fight.
But its all theorycraft for now, I just hope it (and all the other talent changes to other classes) make it so multiple raid makeups are possible. It'd be nice to see a MS raiding again, or a Disc Priest DoT-ing mobs, etc., etc. While Blizzard has gone a long way to make new Raid Encounters interesting like in Naxx, the raid makeup and roles are still pretty standard...and using MC on one fight doesn't count as changing up roles ;)
Besides, for the expansion I'll be playing my rogue, and I want Bloodlust and the 10% to my AP!!! ;)
You question the spec as if the raid expects the enhancement shaman to be healing.
Do you bring Shadow Priests to raids to do nothing but lolmindflay? Hybrids will not surpass pure classes in effectiveness. The point of hybrids is to be able to do more than one thing. A Shaman that doesn't heal is a shitty shaman.
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
That's a terrible example. I know of several guilds that let a single priest go Shadowform DPS for the sake of Shadow Weaving.
A reasonable expectation of an enhancement shaman would be to keep maintenance healing on his group. The more healing he does means the less UR and its 400+ raid DPS buff is up, which is the whole reason he's specced that way and why you brought him. That is not efficiency.
It would be a different story if constant shocks and Stormstrike still have you sitting at full or close mana. Then you better be sinking that into some spare healing around the raid. But that's a totally unknown factor right now.
Being a Shaman has always been about using all of your abilities when they are appropriate.
Dps'ing while your group is dying or carrying a general disdain for healing is retarded. Likewise, healing exclusively when dps is smart/required makes you an equally bad player. There is no difference between the newb enhancement Shaman letting his group die and the newb resto Shaman spamming chain heal as the gargoyle emits a strange cracking sound.
Previously there was no reason to have people focus on Melee or Elemental. Now there is a reason, but nothing has changed. A Shaman still has to do a little bit of everything to be a good player.
Q: Will enhancement Shaman exclusively melee at all costs?
A: Only if they suck ass.
Q: Will elemental Shaman stop healing despite wearing +500 in dam/heal gear?
A: Only if they suck ass.
Q: Will resto Shaman stand around spamming heals while the eye tentacle is destroying a rogue?
A: Only if they suck ass.
If you abandon 2/3rds of your class then you are playing poorly.
I'll try to lessen use of the phrase suck ass in future posts.
Some people are missing the point. Nite_Moogle and berg i guess. (i'll work with my example because it is much clearer)
I will be speccing ~39/0/22 on my Priest.
4 Points in Misery
1 point in Improved Shadow Weaving.
That means i am able to give 9%increased spell damage to every single caster in the raid.
If i wasn't there, they would all be doing 9% LESS damage.
Say there was 8 dps casters designed for a raid group.
They all (in a perfect world) do 100% of their maximum DPS. (which "perfect world" is all exactly the same)
Now instead, say we bring 7 dps casters, plus my priest.
I increase every one of the 7 dps casters damage by 9%, meaning with me doing 0 damage, i have added 63% of the damage, that the missing DPS class would have done.
So if i do anything over 37% !!! [read: HARDLY ANY DAMAGE] of what that missing DPS class would have done, I've contributed more to the raid dps than he would.
Aside from the fact that i'll be adding an almost constant renew, and +10%spell damage from everyone's spirit. (which the enh shaman ALSO has other features apart from the raw dps increase).
Remember, the enhancement Shaman / my disc/shadow Priest, would be brought into the raid as a DPS slot. The fact that he's a DPS character that add's equally to the overall DPS of the raid AND can keep his own group alive, means he is worth more to the raid than just another DPS character.
Add in Shocks and Stormstrike, and a Shaman's total damage will be doing at least at much as a Rogue's white damage.
This is from the previous page. This is the conclusion I disagree with, because using shocks and Stormstrike is a poor way to play a Shaman in a raid. That's why I used the Mind Flay comparison. That's all. It's not rocket science.
Additionally, the class synergy from Unleashed Rage is worse than other classes synergy abilities like Shadow Weaving becase the Shaman can never affect more than four people, whereas the other abilities can affect the entire raid and more importantly are not dependant upon group composition. The difference between a Shaman without UR and a Shaman with UR is 10% AP, slightly better buffs to the group and a not-really-impressive amount of DPS versus greater capacity to heal, regardless of Resto or Elemental spec (+dmg still heals). I don't know about your guild but my guild is not so lucky as to have people that can heal show up in such large numbers that we can say "no, we need more DPS classes, sorry". Unless you're in such a guild, if you show up on your Shaman, you're probably going to be a healer first, buffer second and a damage dealer third in the majority of situations regardless of what spec you are. How you fulfil that capacity is up to you.
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
This is from the previous page. This is the conclusion I disagree with, because using shocks and Stormstrike is a poor way to play a Shaman in a raid. That's why I used the Mind Flay comparison. That's all. It's not rocket science.
Rember, this Enh. Shaman in question is taking a DPS slot.
I don't know about your guild but my guild is not so lucky as to have people that can heal show up in such large numbers that we can say "no, we need more DPS classes, sorry". Unless you're in such a guild, if you show up on your Shaman, you're probably going to be a healer first, buffer second and a damage dealer third in the majority of situations regardless of what spec you are. How you fulfil that capacity is up to you.
Yes, that most likely will be the case, but i thought this was a theorycrafting session for Siddown (well it turned out that way), where he was looking to see if it would be possible to justify a position for an off spec shaman (enh), into a pure dps slot, and to see if it would raid benefitting.
From your previous responses it seemed you were argueing a different point
(i.e it looked like you thought Siddown was saying the Shaman was taking a "Hybrid" slot, rather than one of the other pure DPS classes slot's)
Your Priest DPS assumption is that no other priest in the raid will have those talents. If the raid goes with a heavy Disc priest and a tri-spec priest, your Disc/Shadow priest is just bringing anemic DPS to the raid.
Yes, that most likely will be the case, but i thought this was a theorycrafting session for Siddown (well it turned out that way), where he was looking to see if it would be possible to justify a position for an off spec shaman (enh), into a pure dps slot, and to see if it would raid benefitting.
Well I didn't start the thread, I was just arguing that in a single melee group in a 25 person (just for Tigole) raid an Enhancement Shaman does have value. Now maybe it's just my guild, but we have tonnes of Shaman...probably because we're all ex Alliance, but to our first Hakkar kill we had 8 Shaman in the raid and 5 Warriors. So not having healing is never an issue for us, if anything we're short on Melee DPS. Discussion like this which don't degrade into "Horde Vs. Alliance" or "Shamans just shut up and heal" is why I like these boards. Not everyone is going to agree, but at least it's civil.
I am liking the new way Blizzard is looking at raiding though, offspecs (beyond a Shadow Priest probably) are looking a million times more viable than in the past, which can only be a good thing. As I said, I'll be playing my rogue so I'll be estatic if I can get Bloodlust and Unleashed Rage.
In all 3 cases Shaman, Paladin, Priest its obvious that blizzard has given abilities that at the very least allow a case to be argued for a ret paladin,enhancement shaman and Shadow priest being a permanent part of your raids. But in each case its a singular person. So 1 Enhancement shaman not 2, 1 ret Paladin not 2. This will likely work out to you have say 4 shaman in your guild of which on any 1 raid 3 are likely and 1 is enhance spec.
As to the who misses out, based on existing classes, 1 druid/paladin/shaman and 1 hunter/warlock would be a reasonable guess. But in the short term hundreds of Draenai Shaman and BE Paladins on day 1 of TBC does not mean you will have >10% of your server population available as Paladins and Shamans ready to go 25 man raiding 2 months or so down the track. I would expect Horde raids with 1 or 2 Paladins and Alliance raids with 1 or 2 shaman to be the norm for at least 6 months unless Blizzard stuffs up and one if obviously greater then the other.
Perhaps I am incorrectly drawing a conclusion based on several posts but We dont have many healers so we force spec them could be considered self fullfilling.
The numbers look reasonable for 1 enchancment shaman ,certainly better than 1 retribution Paladin and its likely a alliance shaman would have bok/bos/bow. No Bom. Just as its likely a alliance fury warrior would have Bok/Bom and either bol or 5 min salv(sometimes). I look forward to real numbers instead of theorycraft.
Add in Shocks and Stormstrike, and a Shaman's total damage will be doing at least at much as a Rogue's white damage.
This is from the previous page. This is the conclusion I disagree with, because using shocks and Stormstrike is a poor way to play a Shaman in a raid. That's why I used the Mind Flay comparison. That's all. It's not rocket science.
TODAY, it's a poor way to play. Why? Because of the lack of mana. I addressed this.
Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle
Additionally, the class synergy from Unleashed Rage is worse than other classes synergy abilities like Shadow Weaving becase the Shaman can never affect more than four people, whereas the other abilities can affect the entire raid and more importantly are not dependant upon group composition. The difference between a Shaman without UR and a Shaman with UR is 10% AP, slightly better buffs to the group and a not-really-impressive amount of DPS versus greater capacity to heal, regardless of Resto or Elemental spec (+dmg still heals). I don't know about your guild but my guild is not so lucky as to have people that can heal show up in such large numbers that we can say "no, we need more DPS classes, sorry". Unless you're in such a guild, if you show up on your Shaman, you're probably going to be a healer first, buffer second and a damage dealer third in the majority of situations regardless of what spec you are. How you fulfil that capacity is up to you.
Wait, are you saying you currently DON'T structure your melee groups around Shaman? And why are you bringing up the amount of people that UR affects is capped at 4? That's the figure I went by.
Talking about the availablity of healers is also pointless, as this is a theorycrafting exercise. (For the record my guild has too many healers and not enough DPS.) With all the enrage bosses floating around, you CAN wipe due to not enough DPS.
You say not impressive DPS. Are you saying that at least 60% or so of a Rogue's DPS isn't significant enough? Or do you disagree with how I arrived at 60%? Cos if it's the latter, you should explain why, without talking about things we've already discussed (i.e. mana shortage).
Originally Posted by Jaerel
Originally Posted by panny
[Since Unleashed Rage will give an extra 10% AP (and therefore, at least an extra 10% damage) to four people, that's an extra 40% damage. 60% + 40% = 100%, which means a Shaman will be contributing the equivalent of a Rogue/DPS Warrior's DPS.
If you look at gear outs now:
2-handed warrior, 82 dps weapon, 1600 AP (warriors, if that's significantly different than top-of the line warriors unbuffed currently, please holler!) -> ~196.3 paperdoll dps, ~58% of which comes from AP. If you carry that through the dps spreadsheets, you'll find that somewhat less of that is the case for composite numbers with static features, somewhat more than that due to raid buffs etc. On average though, I'd guess you'll see a 10% increase in AP ~ 5-6% increase in composite DPS.
DW warriors, with higher AP:Weapon DPS ratios will be on the higher side of that.
Rogues, ~65 DPS weapons, ~1100 AP (same here rogues, if your unbuffed AP/weapondamage is significantly off that I'd love to have better numbers)-> ~143.6 pd dps, ~55% coming from AP. Somewhat lower than the 2-handed warrior, but raid buffs will impact them by more.
A 5-6% increase per, to 4 people puts you in the 20-25% range, so to make your comparison you're going to need to have the shaman putting out 75-80% of rogue/warrior dps. That's not really a fair comparison though, because if you're talking about swapping a shaman for a rogue or warrior, and the shaman should offer clear benefit because now you can also count the impact of windfury/GoA + SoE.
Thanks for this. I knew I was missing something with how abilities like SS use weapon damage + static damage use AP. I guess we'll have to see if GoA/WF + SoE + bloodlust will fill the gaps.
TODAY, it's a poor way to play. Why? Because of the lack of mana. I addressed this.
Spamming Shocks and Stormstrike will always been a poor way to play because you are not keeping people alive while you're doing it. Shamanistic Rage and JoW are not going to feed you such outrageous amounts of mana that sustaining the 80%-of-a-Rogue damage will be possible forever. You are still going to run dry eventually, or have to rotate your attacks to use either only SS or Shocks and your DPS will drop off sharply when you do. Ask any Warlock what happens to their DPS once they have to start lifetapping. You'll be in the same boat.
You say not impressive DPS.
Give a 0/11/40 Shaman a two handed weapon comparable to the weapons the 0/44/17 Shaman is using and the white damage will not be very far off. There is no rule that says a Resto Shaman can't shock too and have a melee set in his bags; Shamans are extremely gear dependant when it comes to melee damage due to the lack of special attacks that can be used forever. Elemental Shamans burn through their mana approximately as quickly but will have Unrelenting Storm and have very efficient damage:mana ratios, and the gear that allows them to be effective nukers also makes them effective healers. This means the only major DPS differences are UR, which is approximately 7% damage for 4 people, and Stormstrike. See above paragraph for why the non-white damage won't hold out forever.
Under the right circumstances the Enhancement Shaman will bring more DPS to the raid than a Rogue. However, in any situation where the DPS Enhancement Shaman is effective, any other Shaman can also melee and provide non-trivial damage with either a two handed weapon or elemental weapon enchants on a fast weapon with +dmg gear. Your question is can you replace a DPS class. The answer is yes. Windfury says that a Shaman as the 5th member of any melee DPS group is better than another melee class to fill the 5th spot on its own. Anybody who runs numbers on the effects of WF totem, especially on 2H warriors, will tell you the DPS difference is staggering.
The real question is are you any more effective in that 5th slot than any other Shaman who walks in?
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
09/20/06, 2:51 AM
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