The Change to Windfury and You! (does not apply to warriors)
 

I decided to make a new thread about this change so we don't Hijack Durnitols Thread he made on enhancement itemization at 70. (Sorry Durn!)

I realize this may be dooming and glooming a wee bit too early, but this change significantly affects our ability to dps efficiently and will require a significant "2nd Glance" as it were to our weapon choices. Considering I'm trying to update my enhancement gear guide to a 2.0 version, I'm particularly concerned as well.

But yes, I'd definitely like to start a conversation on the implications of this. For those of us just joining in on this, this is basically what is set to happen in either 2.1.0 or some later patch:

Windfury has now been officially confirmed by Tseric as having a "hidden" 3 second proc cooldown. This cooldown apparently has been in the game since they re-did weapon procs and windfury from chain procc'ing off each other, but we haven't noticed it until now since we just got dual windfury abilities.

So essentially what this means as I detailed in Durn's thread. If you proc windfury on either your mainhand or off-hand, the cooldown will physically preclude you from procc'ing windfury on either hand for 3 seconds, significantly reducing our dps.

To add the concern, another thread in the shaman forums was started pointing out how faster and faster weapons and the effects of "haste" supposedly nerf our dps even more, causing us to miss more chances to proc windfury. The math in that thread seems pretty solid so I'm not sure where this is all going to end up as Tseric seemed genuinely interested at figuring out what was going on.

Anyhow, your thoughts and maths would be greatly appreciated regarding this topic, hopefully we can figure this out and where it's going.

Would you mind linking that post, if possible?

http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/79216389.htm

I've been leveling a shaman (48 so far) so I don't know too much other then what I have read. I do a lot of reading and found out a few things but that doesn't mean I know anything definitive. What you 'read' vs what you have 'tested yourself' are two completely different things often times.

So... two thoughts.

I've heard people talking about downranking their Windfury on their off-hand in order to handle this. However, that wasn't addressed in the OP. Does this actually work or was that proven to be bogus?

Second, if you are limited on Windfury, why not just use something other then Windfury on another weapon like Rockbiter?

This is the other thread that shows how haste effects can push weapons into the cooldown. This has the potential to make small haste gains net DPS losses (if they're at the edge of the 3-second delay breakpoint). Tseric seems to be making an effort to understand it and to bring the point to the developers. http://blue.cardplace.com/newcache/us/79821827.htm



The other forum threads I've read are saying that WF5/WF5 does 7%-12% less overall damage (SS+autoattack) than WF5/WF4.


My own take on the theorycraft is that the shared cooldown hurts fast offhanders more than slow offhanders: if your offhand is fast, it will proc more than your MH (doing less damage than your MH) and suppress more MH procs. OTOH, a slow offhand will suppress fewer MH procs.

It seems that poorly-geared shaman will probably go with WF5/FT. Above some level of AP, WF5/WF5 will be the best despite the shared cooldown.



To the poster above me: RB is the worst OH chant possible. It is subject to the 50% offhand damage penalty, and is mitigated by armor.

People currently avoid the 3 second rule by using different ranks of Windfury. Tseric has explicitly said that this work-around is a bug and will be fixed.

The question that will probably be soon answered is where the breaking point is for using another offhand buff. You can use rockbiter, but what amount of AP and what dps weapon would make windfury better since it scales with weapon damage?

My initial results are ...
Mh 85 dps 2.6 speed
Oh 82 dps 1.8 speed

AP 2100 (with UR and some pots)
crit 25%
hit 18%

Just melee attacks no shocks no storm strikes no bloodlust.

Staggered WF DPS ~680
Same WF DPS ~600

Change in overall melee DPS about 13%

The change in Storm strike is similar but equates to an overall damage drop of around 1-2%

Total DPS drop roughly 15%


Hopefully this change does not make it live without something to balance it out. If not 15% will be the most significant adjustment ever made in this game and will have a terrible impact to the players.

They can say that this is a bug fix but I reported the 2 ranks of WF issue during Beta in late September/Early October. They have had all the time and data in the world. To make this change now will be rough and hard to understand.

I can understand them not wanting insane burst dps, and to lower enhancement dps overall a bit, but I'd really like to see them implement a cooldown that's proportional to the speed of the weapon you procced with. Something like a 1.5x weapon speed cooldown (3 second cooldown for a 2.0 speed weapon, 2.25 cooldown for a 1.5 speed weapon)

Shamans used to be the only physical damage class (well besides feral druids) that had the same overall dps regardless of weapon speed. You could choose if you wanted steadier or burstier damage based on your weapon choice.

Now like everyone else, you want slow weapons or you hurt your dps woot.

Were DW shamans dealing so much damage (and not managing to pull aggro) that this was necessary? I'm curious.

Well the thing is the downranking trick we've been using in the upper levels was the way to get around this forced 3 second cooldown. This has now been confirmed by Tseric as being no longer possible. Thusly all ranks of windfury share a 3 second cooldown now.

As for using other enchants, well here's the thing, windfury just hands and away scales better with attack power and weapon quality than any other enchant right now. Flametongue doesn't scale and Rockbiter just don't improve our ability to proc unleashed rage or shamanistic rage. Thusly that's why windfury is overall the best, particularly at high levels.

Now of course with this change if it goes live this might change all that for the offhand specifically. This change basically will make OF windfury not a suitable choice for weapon enchantments. The problem now lies there's not much better for enhancement shamans as a result of this. Rockbiter and flametongue overall just don't scale well enough in higher levels. :(

In many cases bringing a shaman over a class like a rogue resulted in higher raid dps yes.

That was the whole point though was it not?

Yeah but I guess according to their numbers it was just a bit too much.

Even after the nerf, bringing an enhancement shaman will probably still result in similar if not higher raid dps, plus the various tricks a shaman brings.

The shaman I've been running Karazhan with can equal and sometimes exceed the threat I can generate on the heavier hitting trash. His sustained TPS is up to 1k sometimes according to KTM, which means he's either doing about 1150+ dps for sustained periods of time or KTM is broken for him. Since he can pull aggro even in the later stages of a fight, I tend to think it's the former. If he gives me a headstart we're fine; if he doesn't, it's nap time.

Maybe anasthetic poison should have been a shaman weapon enchant instead of a rogue poison