• Disquette

This seems a bit off to me.

Assuming you Proc a windfury on your stormstrike. You will have 4 white attacks within the WF cooldown window, assuming 2.6 speed weapons, flurried to 2.0.

All that sets up a scenario where you can have quite a few white attacks afterwards, which don't necessarily have the benefit of any extra attacks (windfury/stormstrike) to kick up the flurry chance hits.

And (if flurry worked the way the tooltip says it does, which it doesn't, yadda yadda) that leads to a scenario of just white attacks with a 57% chance not to crit (from 43% chance to crit).

.57 ^ 3 = 19%.

To me, having a 19% chance to be out of flurry from white attacks is significant enough that you can't just write it off as "100% time in flurry mode".

 

Igniter

Yep. And with the hate passive gear in BT... I could see that dropping further. And considering how much the dragonspine and mace proc and how often flurry is up,

 

Stigmata

Well i doubt its a massive increase for you, and you would lose 44 ap and 21 crit. but i'm currently in a haste stacking phase, so I wouldnt swap to the axe from the mace.

 

mek

I don't think this has come up, sorry if it has.

What weapon is best for enhance shamans on Kael'thas? The axe seems like a more significant upgrade(passive haste etc), but then you have to contend with the downsides of 2handing (UR uptime, SR procs). The dagger is the only other option, which can be MH'd to decent effect, but it's pretty underwhelming.

Perhaps dual wielding dagger + regular OH for SR, and then switching to axe the rest of the time?

 

Stigmata

I've tried both the 2 Hander and the dagger, (my dagger skill is only at about 320ish so that was out of the question, the 2 hander while fun to see the massive crits/wf's still isnt viable imo.

I would assume for anyone who does not have good weapons then the 2 hander may be the better option, with the debuffs from the weapons others are using I would say that my normal weapon combo is far superior to hoping for a WF proc with a 2 hander.

 

panny

Maybe I don't understand the fight (only read about it), but would you really take either over a 2h warrior or dagger rogue?

Or is it like a quest item that everyone can loot?

 

Stigmata

Everyone can loot them. or at leaast 10 of each item afaik.

 

panny

It's sad that there's no appropriate Shaman weapon

First the Blades of Azzinoth, now this? Obviously, Blizzard hates Shaman.

Edit: Before I get reported, that's a joke. It's pretty sad that we miss out alot of the awesome items though... petition for Shaman to be able to weild swords?

 

Stigmata

I know its been suggested before any many non shaman (and im sure some shaman) hated the idea, and thought it would make us overpowered, but i still think giving enhancement shaman a 41 point talent or slotting it in somewhere around there to wear plate gear.

Wearing the plate gear would only give us 25% (or whatever % seems reasonable) of the AC.

This would fix the glaring holes in enhancement itemization and would stop the retarded amount of plate dps gear being sharded or going to healing palas/tanking warriors that will sit in the bank for ever.

This would in effect give us plate gear without any of the survivability that comes with plate. I am yet to hear a argument against it.

Sorry for the offtopic!

 

Igniter

Just wondering how you feel on the T6 stats (as you are far into BT/hyjal). Seeing so much mp5 again made me taste a bit of vomit, it seems blizzard is reverting back to mp5 and +dmg, although theres no +dmg yet. Looking at T6 chest vs. bloodsea brigands just seems like stam vs. a but of hit/crit. 11 mp5... =( (ignoring kings, and cancelling sockets/bonus' out)

Bloodsea Brigand's Vest
404 Armor
Equip: Improves hit rating by 12
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 9

Skyshatter Tunic
1022 Armor
+43 Stamina
+23 Intellect
Equip: Restores 11 mana per 5 sec.

Or if not plate, perhaps the idea of adding in multi slot items, such as a middle amount AC bracers which both healing druids and priests will both want to use.

 

Sebudai

The amount of plate dps gear in this game has been a complaint of mine for a while now. There is absolutely no reason for there to be so much of it. How many dps warriors do most guilds raid with? One. Why does every boss in the game drop atleast 1 piece of dps plate? Nobody knows. Does every boss in the game drop a piece of moonkin leather or enhancement mail? No, and for good reason.

Tone the plate dps gear down a notch. Jeebus.

 

Stigmata

Well the mp/5 is shit, everyone knows this except blizzard. What I do think is that it has probably just crept through the net and that they do intend to put the T6 stats/bonuses to better use.

So far in BT (only 5 bosses) i havent come across a fight where i havent had enough HP, so 67 stam on chest, while it is always handy to have isnt really needed.

But looking at most of the T6 sets, all classes seem to get lots of stam, so maybe the future content will be very raid dmg intensive and people will need a flat amount of XXk hp. The only fight so far in TBC where you have absolutely needed a good foundation on 8-10k hp have been pre nerf gruul, doomwalker and now Naj'entus.

I think I will definetly be using some T6 but which pieces remain to be seen.

 

• Disquette

It's the only Shaman cause that I champion, really. Sure there are things that I think should be changed in some way or another, but I don't know what those ways are. For itemization, however, this seems to be a very easy and reasonable solution.

We're already the only class that has to spend a talent point to learn a weapon skill (I think), we might as well be in a similar position for armor classes.

Then again, I'm biased on this topic :-)

A question about this - Is the moonkin desired itemization such that cloth drops to them are like leather drops to us? That is, they're often the best out there, but not optimal because of some wasted item budget? For instance, I like the leather drops in many cases, but i'd like strength instead of dodge, agility, or AP in many cases.

 

Malan

I can't remember the last time I saw moonkin loot drop in KZ, and I don't believe Gruul or Mag have any on their table, so I'd guess they'd be wearing quite a bit of cloth.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Stigmata

Someone said on vent last night that the end boss of bt or maybe hyjal drops 2 pieces of oomkin loot, and other than that there is no other drops in the entire instance.

 

Malan

I'm sensing that the devs don't see Moonkin as a "raiding spec" much like they said Enhancement was a "leveling spec".

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Tornhoof

Hmm?, i thought we agreed that neither WF nor SS use up flurry charges.
As far as I'Ve tested it that is the case currently, both are flagged as Instants which don't use Charges. But they can still Proc Flurry.

Let's assume we do 1000 swings, for that Crit number we should have 815 swings flurried, let's assume we have a WF Procrate of 18%, 180 wf procs, 360 wf swings, each can crit individually and proc Flurry. 290 WF swings should be critical.
Additionally we have Stormstrike, for our 1000 swings, with dw, they should take like 1060s (for our 2.6s flurried example), we should atleast get 100 stormstrikes, each stormstrike swing can crit individually, giving us some 163 critical stormstrikes. So each critical wf or SS swing can give us flurry charges. I'd say on average 0.6 flurry charges (1-0.81)*3 for each of the swings. This should get us above the magical 1000 flurried swings mark (imho).

This also is consistent with the real life experience by some players, that they have a way larger flurry uptime than theoretically possible.

 

• Disquette

I agree that they don't use charges. The point of talking about WF and SS not happening is that in some scenarios, they won't be able to help proc new flurries.

I also happen to agree that flurry is up way more than it should be. I don't, however, think it's reasonable for any crit rate less than 50% to be considered in a constant flurry mode.

There's a difference between averages and reality.

On average, you get 2 stormstrikes and 3 windfury hits (1.5 windfury procs = 3 windfury hits) every 10 seconds or so. So if you're using 2 2.6 speed weapons, that's *about* a 50% increase in hits that could proc flurry (2.6 goes to 2.0 with flurry, so 5 hits each for 2 hands in 10 seconds = 5x2 = 10 white hits, and we've just said 5 yellow hits are also average in 10 seconds).

So there's the average - your total # of hits that can proc flurry are 50% more than your white hits.

Let's look at the reality, however.

On average, you'll most likely proc a windfury on your stormstrike, and there's a decent chance not to proc (7% or so, because 4 of the attacks happen in the cooldown, and the other 6 attacks have a (1-.36)^6 = 7% chance of not proc'ing windfury) that you won't proc a windfury for the rest of the 10 second interval.

That means, after your first stormstrike mh/oh and simultaneous regular white mh/oh hit, 7% of the time you'll have simple white attacks for 10 seconds that may or may not crit.

7% of the time, you have a 19% chance (from my earlier post), therefore, of not being in flurry. Sure, 7% of 19% is small = 1.33%, but it still exists. This is the reason that sim'ing has been so much easier than the closed for that you're looking for (which I respect greatly) - you don't have to worry about any averages.

 

• Disquette

FYI, per my post in the blizzard forums, if any of you know about this and if it were documented somewhere, I'd love to hear about it...

 

Ilmatar

So what are you all wearing for boots?

I picked up http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30041 this weekend primarily because I fail at reading. (Pattern isn't BoP, but result is...I have a bunch of feral friends, and since I <3 Ferals I was going to make them all boots, along with me). It's less hit rating than the Chess-event boots...but I have yet to see any boots with better stats within reach for me.

 

◊ Rob

I'm wearing Fiend Slayer's, which are pretty similar in DPS to those Boots of Natural Grace according to my math. Edgewalker's from Karazhan are probably a bit better pure DPS than Fiend Slayer's or Natural Grace. But this SSC/TK world drop leatherworking pattern which creates BoP boots is the nicest "attainable" option, IMO.
Since Agility and SoE both just provide buffs, I feel confident that it wouldn't have been possible to double up on those...

Except for back around 1.6, some enterprising shamans discovered if you dropped SoE/GoA and zoned via summon/hearth/portal, you kept the stat additions but lost the buff icon, so with a shaman and 2 mages providing portals back and forth, you could buff crit and AP to insane values. I saw a video of a shaman two-shotting max-level elites using this method way back when.

 

mek

I know Totem of Wrath could be "twisted" and similarly you could have 3 totem of wrath buffs for a total of +9% hit and +9% crit; of course, your elemental shaman would be wasting all of his gcds trying to keep that up, so it wasn't exactly practical. I never saw it work with SoE or GoA. (You can still get GoA and WF to overlap pretty nicely if you're feeling ambitious.)

 

Igniter

Pretty much on par with vashj boots, but the vashj ones have a nice blue socket you can use for reaching your desired meta.

Also wondering people's thoughts on the ring enchants (2dmg vs. 4 stats).

 

panny

For those of you in lots of leather, how are your mana concerns? Leather generally has better DPS stats in exchange for Int/mp5, but even with only one piece of leather (the awesome Merciless Bladed shoulders from Chess), it's quite possible for me to get OOM in between Shamanistic Rage cooldowns in certain fights.

I (like to think) I've got a good SR+trinket+consumable rotation with a decent mana pool (~7k unbuffed). I typically pop my SR+trinket macro fairly early in a fight (keeping in mind future damage windows) so I can get a few uses per boss encounter. Is it just a point of shocking less as you get close to the bottom of your mana pool, from an itemiezation perspective, essentially trading more melee damage for less magic damage? Do you have problems with wasted SR procs?

Armoury: http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...eaker&n=Hortez

 

drats

@ panny, With your gear and the proper raid buffs/trinkets, you should be seeing upwards of 350mpp from SR. Are you using major mageblood pots and getting JoW when possible? I usually get kings, salv and might, so I use major mageblood to give my mana pool a little boost. 16mp5 is 1820m per minute, and really gives you some breathing room in terms of mana usage. I also use mana pots to supplement my mana pool inbetween SR's, but if I use mageblood I usually don't need them.

Your melee damage should be constant throughout the fight, and your shocks/totems are all instant casts. Unless something goes wrong you shouldn't run out of mana to the point where you can't SS. I'm not really sure what you mean by trade melee damage for magic damage, unless you mean at the gear level.

Edit: I guess I should add that from what I've seen in the armory, the leather alternatives generally have better stats than their mail counterparts (tier gear not included). Feral druid gear in particular seems to be really well suited for enh shaman, so I can't imagine people wearing mostly leather having issues with mana if they buff properly and stick to DPS. Having to drop back and heal is another story completely.