LF Post about Windfury vs. GoA - Page 2

• Relwin · 03/08/07, 3:28 PM

If there is a warrior, you will want windfury. Combat swords/mace rogues are few and far enough between that if you have a you can safely say that if you don't have a warrior you drop GoA. (as envenom will be a solid finisher(especially when they steal my stormstrike charges(fuck you dagger rogues)))

crimsonsentinel · 03/08/07, 4:18 PM

How would the extra dodge from GoA factor into a tank group? Or is it so minimal that windfury for rage is unequivocally better?

Lumi · 03/08/07, 4:32 PM

Originally Posted by crimsonsentinel

How would the extra dodge from GoA factor into a tank group? Or is it so minimal that windfury for rage is unequivocally better?

I believe windfury was patched to generate no rage.

• Maestroquark · 03/08/07, 4:38 PM

Originally Posted by Lumi

I believe windfury was patched to generate no rage.

Please, read before posting. Every time Windfury is brought up, there's confusion on white damage / yellow damage, and it's only exacerbated because people don't read before they post.

• Fogbug · 03/08/07, 4:40 PM

Originally Posted by Skiace

to further clarify, there was a time when they were going to make this the case, but then the decision was reversed. that was some time around last spring/summer, i.e. before the horde paladin/alliance shaman anouncement, so people made a lot of noise when it was proposed.

that was something a little different - under that proposal, instant attacks (i.e MS and hamstring) wouldn't proc WF procs. actually, there was a period of testing where no instant attacks procced any procs and Blizzard was staying mum on the subject before the change was reversed, so who knows what evil they were planning :I

Binkenstein · 03/08/07, 4:50 PM

It pretty much boils down to who's doing the tanking.

General rule:
Warrior = WF
Druid(tank) = GoA
Rogues/Hunters = GoA
Spell Casters = WoA
Agro sensitive fight + no-tanks = TA

Those are about the only air totems I use outside of situational stuff (Grounding for Maiden, etc).

As for Flametongue, I don't use that as it's redundant with WF, and useless for Druids/Hunters, and more often than not rogues have their own weapon buffs going anyway.

Searing totem is better imo.

crimsonsentinel · 03/08/07, 5:53 PM

The reason I ask is because our main warrior tank is an avoidance freak (he's already at the defense cap and sits at around 12k health unbuffed so he says he's prioritizing avoidance atm).

I have no idea how rage starved or not he is, although he always talks about mitigation more than aggro generation so I assume he's doesn't need that much help in the aggro area.

Right now, we have yet to raid with a shammy, as the 2 people in our guild who rerolled have been pretty slow with leveling but are going to be 70 very soon. Therefore, I want to be prepared for when they do start raiding with us. I was just wondering how to convince someone like our tank that windfury would be better than GoA.

edit: I was just browing wowhead and I realized that there is no new rank of GoA totem past 60. Is this intended? Because frankly, that seems a bit silly since there are new ranks of pretty much every other totem.

Shabadu · 03/08/07, 5:56 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

As for Flametongue, I don't use that as it's redundant with WF, and useless for Druids/Hunters, and more often than not rogues have their own weapon buffs going anyway.

Searing totem is better imo.

The only time I ever use flametongue is when an RSTS will target totems and don't want to drop a totem that might break CC. Also we use it on Strawman in Oz, but that is the totality of the totem.

Binkenstein · 03/08/07, 6:10 PM

Originally Posted by crimsonsentinel

The reason I ask is because our main warrior tank is an avoidance freak (he's already at the defense cap and sits at around 12k health unbuffed so he says he's prioritizing avoidance atm).

I have no idea how rage starved or not he is, although he always talks about mitigation more than aggro generation so I assume he's doesn't need that much help in the aggro area.

Right now, we have yet to raid with a shammy, as the 2 people in our guild who rerolled have been pretty slow with leveling but are going to be 70 very soon. Therefore, I want to be prepared for when they do start raiding with us. I was just wondering how to convince someone like our tank that windfury would be better than GoA.

edit: I was just browing wowhead and I realized that there is no new rank of GoA totem past 60. Is this intended? Because frankly, that seems a bit silly since there are new ranks of pretty much every other totem.

If he has rage issues then WF = must.
If he has agro issues the WF
If he has neither of these, then GoA is ok.

Mordinm · 03/08/07, 6:11 PM

Originally Posted by crimsonsentinel

The reason I ask is because our main warrior tank is an avoidance freak (he's already at the defense cap and sits at around 12k health unbuffed so he says he's prioritizing avoidance atm).

I have no idea how rage starved or not he is, although he always talks about mitigation more than aggro generation so I assume he's doesn't need that much help in the aggro area.

Right now, we have yet to raid with a shammy, as the 2 people in our guild who rerolled have been pretty slow with leveling but are going to be 70 very soon. Therefore, I want to be prepared for when they do start raiding with us. I was just wondering how to convince someone like our tank that windfury would be better than GoA.

When I am tanking as a druid GoA is just about as imbalanced for me as WF is for a dps warrior. GoA is just over 6% dodge for a druid (before the talents that improve it and before BoK). It's probably close to 4% crit as well for increased agro and 5 bonus rage goodness. Your warrior tank is getting a bit less then that out of it, probably between 3 to 4 % dodge and the same for crit. If you decied that you need a shammy in the MT group then the needs of the tank are most likely your biggest concern. You've probably got a lock in with the MT already, the shammy and perhaps a pally for an aura, that only leaves one or two dps classes tops to consider.

The best way to do to choose a buff is to look at what is going wrong with your raid. Are the dpsers having to hold back or hold off a bit while the tank establishes agro but able to unload the rest of the fight? Myabe drop WF first then GoA for the rest of the fight. If healers are being stressed to keep up your MT then GoA will make a big difference in the amount of physical damage your MT takes. If everything is going great then WF it up in a rogue/warrior group and leave less time for things to wrong.

Lord BEEF · 03/08/07, 6:16 PM

To get a real answer for this, you need to do the math on how much dps a typical warrior would get out of Grace of Air + flametongue versus windfury. Chances are the damage warriors lose would be greater than the rogues would gain.

Whenever there's a druid tank though definitely use grace, it's a good 5-6% dodge for bears.

panny · 03/08/07, 10:56 PM

It really depends on the situation. We have a Druid MT and a Prot Warrior OT for Karazhan. The tank group is an Enhancement Shaman, Paladin, and MS Warrior.

On Attunmen, there's no problem with incoming damage, but there is a chance we'll pull aggro from the OT (our +1000 damage shadowpriest/lock managed it), so I'll drop WF.

On Morroes, damage seems to be spread out and DPS at the begining is really important, so I cycle between WF and Grounding to eat the Mana Burns.

On R+J, I drop GoA because Romulo seems to hit pretty hard, and the fight is more about controll than dps.

I'm not sure about Aran though... I think GoA might be more overall dps.

Kink · 03/09/07, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by Relwin

If there is a warrior, you will want windfury. Combat swords/mace rogues are few and far enough between that if you have a you can safely say that if you don't have a warrior you drop GoA. (as envenom will be a solid finisher(especially when they steal my stormstrike charges(fuck you dagger rogues)))

I almost feel guilty about stealing SS charges. Almost =).

As a combat mutilate rogue I preferred GoA for the extra crit and AP. Yes, WF is still nice, but mutilate REALLY shines when you crit, so any minor increase was really nice. With my daggers WF procs were just not amounting to so much.

And someone above stated that WF is better than the 40 agi ~1% crit from GoA, but thats false info. GoA is 77 agi and ~2% crit for rogues.

For a dagger build I really feel that GoA is the best bet as we NEED the crits. For mutilate it is even more pronounced. Of course if you are outnumbered in the group and you get WF as a combat mutilate, you can, as stated above, just shiv at the start and usually your mutilates will keep the target poisoned anyway (as mutilate is also an instant yellow offhand attack). The problem arises on fights like the curator where you are constantly switching target to adds, you always have to shiv and this is just the sort of fight where you really want to be saving your energy to burstt he add down ASAP.

IceBox · 03/09/07, 7:35 AM

Well in Karazhan we usually put our Shaman in the "caster group" so they get WoA and Mana Spring/Tide.
I just thought about 25-man raids where you can build a full melee group :>

So we currently came up with the following setup for our melee group:

Rogue
Druid (LotP)
Warrior
Warrior
Shaman (Enhance)

Rogue is currently Combat Fist, one warrior is 2h-fury and the other one (me) is DW-fury. So we got 3 people with heavy-hitting two- or onehanders.
The only real fight where I can test the differences between GoA and WF is Gruul but he's a "bit" aggro sensitive so we can't nuke the hell out of him or we'll get an Hurtful Strike in our faces.

• Bluefish · 03/09/07, 9:13 AM

Lets not forget the WHOLE description of Windfury Totem. It adds 440 AP (untalented) to the extra hit. That's part of why it was godly for Rogues at 60, because we were so frakking AP-starved that an extra hit with 30%+ of your AP added to it was a serious increase in damage. It is NOT a straight increase of 20% MH DPS, it is more.

There really is a hard and fast answer to this question: If you favor everyone getting big numbers more than absolute raid DPS, then drop the totem that benefits more people. If you're looking for max DPS, don't need avoidance, and have 1 or more really solid DPS Warriors, drop WF.

IceBox · 03/10/07, 7:07 AM

Thx for your nice inputs, I will bring 'em on next time we're going to raid

Healranktwo · 03/13/07, 3:17 PM

Would anyone mind showing me some math for WF totem vs GoA totem for a group of say...

2 Combat Swords Rogues
Enh Shaman
Feral Druid
Hunter

Recently, a huge discussion about this came up in our forums, and it's pretty much back and forth. From this thread I concluded that GoA totem is superior over WF totem for the above group, but some rogues seem to think otherwise. Anyone able to help out? Much appreciated.

Nite_Moogle · 03/13/07, 3:25 PM

Assuming that the druid in that group is tanking, hands down GoA. It's around 5% dodge for them and a solid 3% crit for everyone else in the group with the Rogues and Hunters getting a good chunk of AP as well. The net damage for the group with GoA + poisons is going to outweigh the WF damage that the rogues will gain, with the added bonus of the druid getting more mitigation from it.

It's hard to show math without knowing how the rogues are geared, but the group as a whole gains 288 AP and a combined 15% to crit.

Erongg · 03/13/07, 3:59 PM

Originally Posted by Healranktwo

Would anyone mind showing me some math for WF totem vs GoA totem for a group of say...

2 Combat Swords Rogues
Enh Shaman
Feral Druid
Hunter

Recently, a huge discussion about this came up in our forums, and it's pretty much back and forth. From this thread I concluded that GoA totem is superior over WF totem for the above group, but some rogues seem to think otherwise. Anyone able to help out? Much appreciated.

Presumably the rogues are using Chalon/Kalman/Pf's spreadsheet to calculate the DPS difference? If so, that should basically tell the story. I haven't used it lately, but back during Naxx days sword rogues would gain about 15 DPS using WF over GoA+poisons and dagger rogues would lose about the same. In the group you listed, I would choose GoA without a doubt. The buffs to the druid, hunter and shaman are surely worth more than the marginal rogue gains.

If that answer isn't good enough and you want real modern day numbers, check out a TBC rogue spreadsheet and that will tell you your answer.

Erongg · 03/13/07, 4:43 PM

I was bored at work and curious, so I plugged in Esdue's gear and spec (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...runner&n=Esdue) using a 3s/5s/5e cycle and came up with 1131 raid buffed DPS (Kings, Might, MOTW, SoE, Unleashed Rage, LOTP, Trueshot, no pots, no Battleshout) using GoA+Deadly, and 1160 DPS using WF. This is against a target with raid boss defense, and I believe the sheet assumes zero armor.

Binkenstein · 03/13/07, 5:18 PM

I go on a simpler reasoning.

Number of party members that get a bonus from a totem.

2 WF v 5 GoA = GoA

Erongg · 03/13/07, 5:28 PM

That really isn't valid reasoning and you know it. There is nothing that states that the totems are equal by default, and thus that 5 > 2 means anything. For a member of a guild called QED I'd think you'd be a little more mathematical about it

Morrigdu · 03/13/07, 5:37 PM

Originally Posted by Erongg

I was bored at work and curious, so I plugged in Esdue's gear and spec (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...runner&n=Esdue) using a 3s/5s/5e cycle and came up with 1131 raid buffed DPS (Kings, Might, MOTW, SoE, Unleashed Rage, LOTP, Trueshot, no pots, no Battleshout) using GoA+Deadly, and 1160 DPS using WF. This is against a target with raid boss defense, and I believe the sheet assumes zero armor.

Question: did you use Dual Deadly for the GoA check? If so, the numbers are incorrect. Pf's parent post makes note that there is an error in the deadly calculation.

Using all the same parameters, but replacing instant for deadly in both calculations, with my gear and spec (http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...jal&n=Morrigdu) I come up with WF+Instant offhand: 1201.68; GoA+2xInstant: 1184.06

So it would seem, using this particular tool, that WF is still a better choice than GoA for dagger rogues. On HKM attempts last week, just eyeballing the dps reports, it seems that this is fairly accurate. Caveats: they were attempts not kills, the numbers were not recorded for posterity, did 2 with GoA and 2 with WF. Needs actual testing, but my impression from a cursory examination did seem to bear out the dps differential indicated by the spreadsheet.

edit: corrected dps #s due to incorrect equipment entered in spreadsheet, conclusion still holds.

Nite_Moogle · 03/13/07, 5:45 PM

The difference of 34 DPS between the 2 rogues isn't even worth giving up the extra 5% dodge on the bear, much less the extra DPS that the crit and AP will give for the shaman, hunter, druid, and pet.

Morrigdu · 03/13/07, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by Nite_Moogle

The difference of 34 DPS between the 2 rogues isn't even worth giving up the extra 5% dodge on the bear, much less the extra DPS that the crit and AP will give for the shaman, hunter, druid, and pet.

This is definitely true, if the druid is tanking (and even if dpsing). Group composition and the benefit to each individual has to be tallied up. In general I think we see, more rogues/warriors = windfury. More druids/hunters/shaman = GoA. All depends on how the raid leader stacks the groups.