Thanks for running through those cals Ohgg. My theorycraft, from which I concluded that AP was the more efficient way to gear, was based on (what I now see as) very weak gear: 70dps weapons with 1000 AP.

Then I did some very rough calculations above that suggested to me that the break point (at which crit would begin to predominate) was about 2200 AP assuming 70dps weapons, or less than that for better weapons. Your numbers don't seem to disagree with that, if I understand them correctly.

I'm just getting a blank page.

You need to either share or publish the doc and then post the link.

I'm happy to work with pawn, and come up with an (easy to import) weight scale for Enhancement gear.

I'd just like some community help on establishing accurate weights for various stats.

Numerically, I think we can reach a consensus on the value of most melee stats. For this particular weighting, I think we might need to exlude a value like stamina, which we all value differently. (I know that personally, I put a very high premium on stamina these days, more than most might).

Pawn also can't recognize and value the haste rating stat yet, so we'll exclude that as well.
Here's stats that we should weigh:

Strength
Agility
Intellect
Dps
HitRating
CritRating
SpellHitRating
SpellCritRating
Ap
Mp5
Mana
SpellPower
(?) Stamina
(?) Health

I'll also assign weight values to all sockets, which is easy to do once we've got an established value for the other stats.

I propose that we use a single point of attack power as our base score of 1.0.
Therefore, I believe I value Strength as 2.2 (since strength is affected by kings). However, you won't always have Kings available, so maybe we value strength closer to 2.1?

I also think we might want to express values as a formula based off of weapon speed and damage. I personally believe that we'd be best off assuming 2.6 speed 88 dps weapons, but some here might disagree with me.

Az

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...LD-rHeDN_8mPTA

My mistake, didn't know I had to publish it first. I see absolutely no reason to ever anything but the shoulders for cyclone. Legs are the furthest from an upgrade of all the piece. SOckets can be chagned up obviously but I went put the same in both sets. I didn't include enchants since the difference would be exactly the same since I would put the same on each piece.

Tier 4 has 121 spell damage or around 53dmg on a shock. I just can't fathom what blizzard is thinking. I really hope this is one of the sets that they look over.

Let's give melee shamans a way to heal and do DPS at the same time? Speccing 42/19 doesn't remove heals from your hotbar. It's not like there is going to be a shortage of non-set hunter and rogue drops that go unclaimed at some point in your raids, but finding something that doesn't completely gut your healing ability and gives you good DPS stats at the same time is going to be really hard to find outside of this set gear, even if it isn't 100% omg completely optimal for doing DPS.

That being said there's still some room for itemization improvement, not unlike about a billion other items that currently exist at the raid level.

I think there needs to be a deep enhancement talent to advocate this. I'm a big proponent of spell damage for a hybrid enhancement role. I'd just like to see an enhancement talent that gave us a higher coefficient on shocks and heals, or one that let us convert a small amount of AP to +SpellDamage.

Oh, and t5 2-piece bonus makes me so pants happy.

this: http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=37239 is an appropriate way to do that. 121 +damage&healing isn't. besides, if the goal was to aid in off-healing capabilities, they could have put +healing on instead.

Summarized your gear comparison and factored in gems.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...EIvLQ8PE0EwuBg

Analysis:

Cyclone Helm is superior.
Cyclone Shoulders are superior.
Cyclone Chest - unavailable at this point? Moot.
Desolation Legs - Superior
Cyclone Gloves are superior.

Given that you'd want the 2 piece Desolation bonus, I think you'd want the Desolation Chest and Legs. If you don't have the chest, I'd keep the shoulders.

Edit: Now that I compare them directly, I'd take Cyclone over Desolation in every slot other than Legs (when you discount the extra 2% hit from the set bonus). Cyclone is comparable in most categories, adds stamina and some spell damage which is not as worthless and people say it is. You can argue it's wasted itemization, and that's fine, but as is, the Cyclone set is generally an upgrade over the Desolation set.

So here's the question. +30 damage per weapon on stormstrike vs. 2% hit rating. The hit rating would make it pretty hard to give up that set bonus.

Oh, and regarding Windfury's damage being broken and the 5/4 trick fix:
The fact that Windfury Weapon, even post-nerf (used to be double the bonus AP), is considered way too powerful when it actually reflects its tooltip is evidence that the mechanic is just poorly designed (something every Shaman has said since launch). Nobody likes the idea of their damage being 85% based on procs off white damage. Shamans don't like sitting around hoping WF procs, Paladins don't like sitting around hoping SoC procs. It's a bad mechanic put together by lazy developers.

So how can it be fixed? I don't really know. It's clearly not a development priority to give Shamans and Paladins controllable melee damage. The 5/4 trick is not a "bug" really, as all it does is up the WF proc rate to very near the advertized 20%. Even with the 5/4 trick you're not gonna see a 20% proc rate, because each weapon is subject to its own 3 second Windfury cooldown. So clearly Blizzard designed themselves into a corner and implemented the 3 second rule as a crude workaround.

I think Enhancement DPS is about where it ought to be. Talented and geared Rogues will exceed Enhancement damage, particularly when they're grouped with the Enhance Shaman. This gap will only expand as gear improves. Any melee class can stack every consumable in the game and go apeshit on Aran and put up ridiculous numbers. That doesn't change the fact that compared to Rogues, Enhancement Shamans do less damage, have less survivability and no Crowd Control abilities.

Regarding stat weights and Pawn. Here's the simple pair of questions.

How much AP would you give up for 1 point of crit rating? why?
How much AP would you give up for 1 point of hit rating? why?

Hit should be linear, as long as you're are greater than 6% and less than 25%.

I realize that AP and Crit are nonlinear. However, they should make a smooth graph, which means we can express it in a formula, with the variable being AP and Weapon DPS.

Unfortunately, it's hard to get enough data points to really make this slope. With all these damn sockets, I dont really have any gear that only modifies my AP, and not my Crit and Hit, which makes parsing DPS troublesome.

Why would +hit be linear? It affects how your AP is applied just as crit does.

OP updated.

Long-time lurker here, but was hoping to spur a little more interest in this thread....

Having switched my main from a hunter to a shaman, I’m finding myself at a loss at quantifying the “value” of shaman enhancement gear in terms of improving my personal DPS (I know, not our sole purpose, but it's the easiest to quantify). Part of the issue is that so much of our DPS effectiveness is based off on proc’s, so I’ve tried to create approximations to assist in evaluating potential gear upgrades. I wanted to run my assumptions by the community since there’re enough theorycrafters here to reasonably evaluate them. (I apologize for the length, I wanted to explain my reasoning to see where any holes might be found)

“Effective” weapon speed: To approximate the number of swings from both weapons over a period of time, I’ve used “effective” weapon speed (EWS). Basically, this is the amount of time between swings if you took the total number of swings and divided them evenly over a given period of time. It has no real meaning, except for purposes of calculating procs that occur off of crits, regardless of which hand procs the effect.
Formula: [MH weapon speed * OH weapon speed] / [MH weapon speed + OH weapon speed]
Example: 3.0 MH, 1.5 OH = 1.0 EWS (or 3 hits every 3 seconds)

Unleashed Rage: Over a suitably long period of time (abbreviated ‘TT’ in my formulas for ‘total time’), you will proc UR a total of [crit % * # of swings] or [crit % * (TT/EWS)] times. The shortest amount of time you could possibly have UR up (if all of your crits were in a row with all non-crits to either side of this block) is [UR procs * EWS + 10] (note: the +10 can be ignored over a large enough period of time as it will be an insignificant amount in comparison). The longest period of time, if you crit every time that UR wears off, is [UR procs * 10]. The actual amount of time under UR will be somewhere between those extremes, so I took the inelegant (and possibly incorrect?) assumption that an average of those two numbers wold be a reasonable approximation of UR time. Dividing that by TT (to give a % that UR is up) reduces to:
Formula: [Crit % / EWS] * [EWS + 10] / 2
Note: This may result in numbers > 100%, which indicates that UR is effectively up continuously.

Flurry: I used a similar strategy as above: [crit % * (TT/EWS)] flurry procs, with a minimum of [Flurry procs + 2] flurried swings (all crits in a row), and a maximum of [Flurry procs * 3] (all crits on the 3rd flurried swing). Averaging and dividing by # swings (TT/EWS) gives the % of swings that are flurried:
Formula: [Crit % * 2] (Can it really be this simple?)
It is important to differentiate between MH flurries versus OH flurries, however. Over a period of time, the percentage of MH swings is equal to [TT / MH speed] / [TT / EWS] or [EWS / MH speed], with a similar formula for OH swings. It stands to reason that the number of flurries, again over a long enough period of time, would be in a similar proportion to the % of swings
MH Flurry Formula (% of swings that are flurried): [Crit % * 2 * EWS / MH speed]
OH Flurry Formula: [Crit % * 2 * EWS / OH speed]

“True” weapon speed: To calculate the “true” or average weapon speed (using MH in this example) over an extended period of time:

[Crit % * 2 * EWS / MH speed] percent of the time: MH speed / 1.3 (assuming 5 talent points spent)
1 - [Crit % * 2 * EWS / MH speed] percent of the time: MH speed

Formula: MH speed - [0.6 * crit % * EWS / 1.3]
Note: This is not a truly accurate number as the total swings is increased due to flurry, creating a recursive formula. My days of remembering the calculus to derive a “real” formula are long past, however, so for purposes of my comparisons, I’ve stuck with this formula as a “close enough” approximation.

“White damage” DPS: Ignoring glancing blows, parries, etc., the outcomes of the damage roll are:

(24.6% - hit %): 0 damage
Crit % = 2 * damage
(75.4% + hit % - crit %) = normal damage

Reducing the hit/miss/crit formula, multiplying by the UR effect and dividing by the “true” weapon speed, we get:
MH Formula: [75.4% + Crit % + Hit %] * [Avg. weapon dmg + (AP/14 * Base MH speed)] * (1 + 10% * UR %) / “True” MH speed
OH would be calculated similarly, with the 0.5 damage modifier.

Stormstrike DPS: Similar formula to above, only dividing by the 10s cooldown and using lower miss rate for special attacks (if hit % > 5.6%, use 5.6% for hit %)
MH Formula: [94.4% + Crit % + Hit %] * [Avg. weapon dmg + (AP/14 * 2.4)] * (1 + 10% * UR %) / 10.
Note: 2.4 speed is normalized for 1H weapons. Use 1.7 for daggers.

“True” windfury proc rate: With the soon-to-be-implemented 3 second cap rate, the true rate is a percentage of how many swings occur in that 3s timeframe. Essentially:
Formula: 20% * [EWS/3]
The same percentage of procs will be MH or OH as calculated above, or:
MH Formula: 20% * [EWS/3] * [EWS/MH]

Windfury DPS: Windfuries only proc on hits/crits, so the long-term DPS calculation must be multiplied by [75.4% + hit%] to represent “lost” procs due to misses. The “Windfury” weapon speed is equal to the “true” weapon speed / proc %. In addition, windfuries crits are calculated independently, essentially giving a [1 + Crit %] modifier to the base windfury damage. Putting this all together yields:
MH Formula: [75.4% + hit%] * 2 * [1 + Crit %] * [Avg weapon dmg + ([AP+445]/14 * 2.4)] * [20% * (EWS/3) * (EWS/MH speed)] / “True” MH speed

After all that, it’s basically a matter of plugging your values into a spreadsheet to give an approximate DPS value for these major sources of damage and then comparing the values for different sets of gear. Again, there’re several assumptions that may or may not actually hold up, so please let me know if I’m totally off base for anything here.

Addendum: While writing this up, I think I would place the "true" weapon speed calculations first, using these numbers for all subsequent EWS calculations (UR and Windfury).

Let's get over this whole "+121 damage helps you heal" crap. No it doesn't - having high mana at all times because of huge AP+hit and popping SR does. The only times you *should* heal is when there is a spike in damage (kazaak enrage, whatever), or you can't do melee damage because of encounter mechanics (nasty periodic PBAE, knockback making you threat-capped, etc.). Healing is not more important then doing damage, and interrupting too much of your damage to do healing makes you suck at both - especially in non-spiky situations where one of your healers is about to top off the person anyways if they are paying attention. If you can't trust your healers to play that's a whole other issue.

A truly amazingly good way to help enh shamans heal is the tier 5 set bonus precisely because you can now toss out some small heals *without* interrupting your primary job - dps. It's also instant - much less chance of wasting healing on someone another healer is already going for. +121 spelldamge is just a good way to screw you over.

As for desolation against cyclone, I did the comparison at some point myself (earlier in this thread I think) and roughly speaking they are about even depending on how good the 4 piece desolation proc is (if you're in a group of 5 melee for the SoE bonus, personal dps deso is almost certainly better). The only piece of cyclone that is definetly better is the shoulders. What's alot more annoying is that if you want to concentrate on doing damage your best bet is the wastewander set - same set bonuses as desolation, no int, but much more stam/melee stats. Of course it's leather.

This crappiness in itemization is precisely why I'm now restoration - and guess what there is no stupid +damage on the healing set. Even though we could technically make more use of +damage as resto then enh - because while you could "use it" it's not optimal, by no means. Maybe if they realize what good gear for enh actually is I'd spec back but frankly to output dps that is very close to rogues I'd need to wear rogue leather and that pisses me off. Don't get me wrong, the spec itself is strong, even with this gimpy itemization you can do a ton of damage. It's just annoying we have to deal with these itemization mistakes and apparently the WF "bug" fix soon to be applied that will make getting the right weapons a pain in the ass.

I've been meaning to ask this directly for some time, but I have been hesitant given the fundamental complications of modeling enhancement DPS. How do [Black Planar Edge] and [Dragonmaw] stack up?

The weapon DPS and speeds are identical, so it comes down to 8 stam and a 200 haste proc vs. 41 AP and 20 crit rating. At first glance, I would naturally lean toward the haste proc because I have the gut feeling that it scales better; however, with the convoluted nature of our mechanics it seems far from clear.

The problem with two independent analyses is that the UR and flurry procs aren't independent - it doesn't matter whether the MH or OH triggered it. Additionally, while the WF procs are semi-independent (MH proc triggers a MH windfury), the planned cooldown isn't. Short of a true modelling simulation (not something I'd want to run for every gear comparison, even if I had the coding skill and computing power for it), I don't see a way around a measure of overall swing rate.

I had originally started my calculations using those methods, but the downside is that once you're out of the Flurry or UR effect, you don't have a way to calculate the average amount of time until your next proc. Given a way to do that, the backwards method would be superior, but short of some sort of derivative equation, I can't figure out a better way to model it.

With a little further work, I think my assumptions dividing the two procs is incorrect. The 20% * [EWS/3] should be applied to both hands. (3.0 and 1.5 OH, EWS = 1.0, so WF = ~7%; 3.0 x2, EWS = 1.5, so WF = 10% ... which makes sense, if the cooldown affects both hands, you'd lose half of your potential procs right off the bat because you're using two weapons with speeds less than 3.0). Either way, though, it's a serious drop in damage output. (My calculations show WF DPS to be about 20% of white damage, unlike the near-100% that I've seen bandied about).

No kidding!

Which is why I'm thinking I'll just write a little program to simulate a couple hours of swinging away at a mob. A large enough sample will average out over time.

The devil is in the leftovers. When determining how many swings you have remaining before UR expires, your average swing timer won't be correct. A 3.0 and 1.5 give an AWS of 1.0, but you won't actually get as many swings in a UR duration using those two weapons as you would with a single 1.0. You'll have leftover time at the end waiting for both weapons to cycle around again. Assuming you procced UR immediately at the start of a fight (so both weapons swung at 0.0), your 3.0 will only swing twice more and the 1.5 four times more before UR expires whereas the AWS would say you get 9 more swings before UR expires.

You don't calculate the time to next proc since the procs can overlap. Your first 3 swings following a UR proc will be flurried since you just crit, and the rest won't be until UR starts over again. Knowing this you can determine the number of swings you'll get in 10 seconds with no further crits, and thus the odds that you will not crit before the 10 second UR window is up. You'll end up with something like 1-((1-crit%)^numatks), which will be pretty dang accurate.

Regarding WF proc chance, your best bet is to find the least common denominator between your two weapons (that is, the second point in a timeline where they will both swing at the same time with the first being 0.0) and determine the maximum number of times that WF could have procced if you got one starting at 0.0, then multiply by 20%. It won't be totally accurate, but given the massive variance in potential proc rate it'll be reasonable.

Your calculations aren't right then, it should be much closer to 40%. Make sure you're accounting for higher AP, inability to glance, and 2 swings per proc that will not miss with any amount of +hit gear at all.

http://www.noobschoolbus.com/wow/wftester.cs
There's a start ^_^

Well over 20%.

Example A: http://www.juggernautguild.com/wws/w...3/sebudai.html
Example B: http://www.juggernautguild.com/wws/w...7/sebudai.html

I'll further agree with the above posters. Windfury for pretty much every shaman that's posted a damage breakdown has been in the area of 40 to 45% of damage. White damage has been in the same area and the rest is whatever shocks and damage shields the shaman uses.