jaske

This is for melee specifically.

We face the problem that im sure others have faced with shamans in an alliance raiding guild, which totems are ideal.
Note: we have no fury warriors they are ms.

Our group make ups range from:
Enh shaman,rogue,rogue,rogue, mswarrior/hunter.
to enh shaman,rogue,ms warrior,ms warrior,hunter.

We are always discussing which is better and why, i have never been a spreadsheet person and im not sure how you could use them to work out numbers for a group as a whole. My Class Lead always says agi+poison>windfury(not sure if this is true or not).
Our normal group is Enh Sham, Rogue(swords),Rogue(swords),Rogue(daggers),Hunter/MS Warrior.
From watching DM i can see a huge boost for the ms warrior's dps when he gets windfury. So my question is in this situation and other possible group make ups, is it worth sacrificing agi+poison for rogues and agi for hunters for windfury for rogues/warriors, Hunters are really in a lose lose situation as its hard to cater for them.

 

Myul

In your case, it's simple:

Enh shaman + rogue + rogue + rogue + mswarrior = wf
battleshout is a huge dps buff, let your warrior do good damage, to.

Enh shaman + rogue + rogue + rogue + hunter = goa
there are only 3 receiving maybe a little more from wf, but they can pick up instant or deadly poison instead and the enhancement shaman will push his damage as also the hunter's one.

Not only the hunter will lose some dps from dropping wf totem, your enhancement shaman will do, to!

My choises are:

rogue rogue feral hunter = goa
rogue rogue rogue warr = wf
rogue rogue feral warr =agi (huge boost to feral dps, your warrior should pick up some +dmg or critstones for this case)

But you may have to look at the encounter as well. In a fight like a gruul, your hunter will stand on a safe spot, while your rogues have to avoid cave ins and run to his back after repositioning, over and over, all the time. That's why i drop then wf for 'em, if there are 3+ in the group. It's only 30y range, in allmost any case it won't be enough for every member of your group.

The dps of gladiator or tier II blacksmith weapons with instant poison and goa are on par with wf for rogues. WF will only really shine for your warriors, for a reason you've allready mentioned.

 

Harthag

On relatively stationary fights like Gruul you can give them the best of both worlds for the most part. WF totem buffs the main hand weapon for 10 seconds so you can drop WF then right after drop Agi for 8 seconds or so and repeat. Works well enough if you have BoW and cheaper totems. For trash just pick one and go with it pretty much.

Group had Enh, rogue, rogue, rogue, MS.

Warrior was oh so giddy and one of the rogues just got frustrated about losing agi for maybe 2 seconds at a time.

 

• Shifft

For sinister strike specced rogues windfury is a much bigger DPS increase than GoA+poisons...about 60 buffed DPS better with my gear/spec. For daggers it's closer, but windfury still edges out GoA+poisons by a bit.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...7jin&n=Shifftz
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...us&n=Shifftlol
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...jin&n=Shifftqt

 

missiletoad

Not true, sir. Windfury Totem is a clear winner in rogue/warrior groups. It mostly comes down to WF scaling with gear and GoA not. Cumulative raid dps gets kind of cloudy when a hunter is in there as well, as his and your own dps will be better boosted by GoA. I'm not sure where the balance gets tipped in there in favor of GoA, but more often than not WF Totem will be the way to go.

That's of course also not accounting for a potential use of GoA for mitigation sake or Flametongue Totem for the hell of it. This all smells like a theorycraft spreadsheet waiting to happen.

 

Boevis

If you're sporting a Feral Druid and a hunter, don't even think of dropping WF, you've got 3/5 of the party not being able to use it.

That being said, a Hunter will actually be best off in a Shaman + Shadow Priest group for mana returns even if the shaman is dropping Wrath or Tranquil totems.

 

Gonz

I am my guild's enhancement shaman, and I have yet to have a hunter in my group for a boss fight, unless all of the warriors are tanking (i.e. Magtheridon, phase 1). The 100 attack power that the group receives from the hunter is minimal compared to another rogue or a warrior receiving totems and unleashed rage.

That being said, typically my group consists of: enhancement shaman, combat rogue, ms warrior, fury warrior, and either a feral druid or an assassination rogue(trying to get him to go combat!). Windfury is a huge buff for combat rogues and all types of warriors. Even if only three of the members of my group are benefiting from windfury, most of the time it is the better choice. This is not always the case, but being aware of your group make-up and their specs is half the battle when deciding to drop totems.

 

Skiace

it's pretty damn messy though, which is why it's not been put into a spreadsheet already, i suspect. you have to account for:

-large variety of possible group combinations
-different rogue and warrior specs
-WF scaling at differing gear levels of everyone in the group


the first is probably fairly easy, assuming you can quantify the other two. the second could possibly be solved by devising a weighting system for each (popular) spec based on the already developed rogue and warrior dps spreadsheets. the third is pretty tough to account for in any meaningful way without plugging everyone's gear into the rogue/warrior spreadsheets.


hell, it's probably easier to just drop WF for one trash pull and GoA for the next, and see which gives the group higher overall dps.

 

Sebudai

There really are not that many group combinations that get used on a consistent basis. In my raids my group is almost always one of the following two options:

Rogue
Rogue
Rogue
Warrior(fury)
Shaman(enhancement)

-or-

Rogue
Rogue
Druid(feral)
Warrior(fury)
Shaman(enhancement)

99% of the time my group looks like one of the above options, and I'm willing to bet it's the same for most raiding shaman. Obviously Windfury Totem is better for the first group, but it's not so clear for the second. I'd like to see someone with a better grasp of math work out the details for each option. Just assume 'cookie cutter' raid specs for each class involved.

 

• Shifft

Well as I posted before, WF totem gives me 60 DPS over GoA+poisons, and I'd guess closer to 100 for a fury warrior, so if you think yourself and the druid will gain more than 200 DPS total from GoA then that would be better, if not then drop WF.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...7jin&n=Shifftz
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...us&n=Shifftlol
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...jin&n=Shifftqt

 

panny

You forget the benefit the Shaman gains from GoA.

So, GoA would need to be about a 220 dps increase from the Shaman and the Feral combined for it to be worth using over WF if your numbers are right.

 

Xelopheris

GOA AND FLAMETONGUE!

My rule of thumb is 3 people max that will benefit from WF before WF goes down. But once we get to ridiculous levels again, WF's scaling factor will do better than GOA.

(p.s. If you're on a fight where you can't use poisons, might as well drop flametongue if you're dropping GOA)

 

Soladoras

In regards to kara, with only 10 members my group looks like this:

Warrior (prot)
Warrior (prot)
Rogue (20/41)
Rogue (41/20)
Enhancement Shaman

The two warriors are both prot, but for many boss fights, only one tank is needed, so one of them will throw on his dps gear and "dps" to the best of his ability. Without a Hunter or Feral Druid in the party, I am inclined to ask for WF = SoE over GoA + flametongue (what the shaman is advocating). I can't see any reason to take the GoA + flametongue, other than the additional dodge for the tank. Even then, I am skeptical that that dodge is of enough benefit to lose the dps by dropping everyone else to GoA + flametongue. Thoughts anyone?

 

◊ Kalman

41/20 typically rogues get more out of GoA than from WF, since they get a comparatively higher benefit from using poisons. Given two prot warriors (even if one is DPSing), a shaman, a mutilate rogue, the only winner with WF is the 20/41 rogue... I'd drop GoA, personally.

 

Malan

Psshhh. I'd love to see how you plan to keep the mana costs for that up for the duration of an entire fight.

Also as said on page 1, WF is nearly always the clear winner for rogues and warriors. The GOA bonus is just a flat AP increase for the rogues, and all the warriors get out of GOA is some crit if they're in DPS mode. The WF totem is more rage, scaling dmg (since its wpn dmg + AP) for the warriors, and is still scaling for the rogue.

 

Soladoras

Is this primarily because of the 3 second WF cooldown (which I am under the impression is a new thing)?

Also, with 5/5 Vile and 5/5 Imp Poisons, I'm assuming Instant Poison will out-preform Flametongue for the Mutilate Rogue. What about for the 20/41 Rogue (me)? I'm currently running 4/5 Imp Poisons, 0/5 Vile. Off to the spreadsheet I guess, lol.

 

◊ Kalman

It's because their spec emphasizes the damage done by poisons, combined with the preexisting semi-bias against WF for dagger rogues (especially when the cooldown was implemented).

 

Humbaba

I'm pretty sure that windfury totem is not affected by the 3 second windfury cooldown that affects windfury weapon, the shaman only self-buff. By "pretty sure" I mean that such was said on this forum a few weeks ago and I haven't seen anything since that refutes it.

 

◊ Kalman

That's fine; the statement held before the cooldown was known anyway, simply because dagger instants occur less frequently and the benefit from windfury on instant is lower; not to mention, Mutilate's poison bias tends to lean away from anything preventing you from poisoning up your mainhand.

The agi benefit from GoA to the MT is nothing to sneeze at, either. It's what, 3.5% dodge and ~175 AC, plus the boost to threat and rage via increased crit rate?

 

Skiace

the prot warrior tanking doesn't get more benefit from the extra rage granted by WF? seems to me that both warriors and possibly the 20/41 rogue get more out of WF than GoA, but surely this is the case for at least the tank, right?

 

Soladoras

Well, I ran the numbers for myself in and the Mutilate Rogue in the spreadsheet, and its a loss of ~20 dps between us for us to use GoA instead of WF (I get more from WF than she does from GoA), but that's not really a big deal if the two warriors get the dodge, especially on physical damage-centric bosses. I don't know how to figure the difference from the warriors dmg, but since they are both prot, it probably doesn't matter that much.

 

◊ Wubwub

Just going to throw this out there... If you have melee in your group, you should be dropping windfury. It's really that simple, but everyone else can explain it with numbers and logic and such that should be entirely unnecessary.

 

Skiace

i can't quite tell if you're serious, because that really doesn't make any sense at all. what if the group looks like this?

shaman (enh)
rogue (mutilate)
rogue (mutilate)
kitty druid
kitty druid

 

◊ Praetorian

Then that'd be a bad group. He's pretty much serious.

I've found that the group setups that Sebudai listed above (sham/war/rog/rog/rog and sham/war/druid/rog/rog) produce the best results, and benefit the most from windfury in the aggregate.

 

Skiace

that makes more sense. but this is true even if the rogues have specs that are less favorable to windfury, like mutilate in particular? or does the fact that the rogues are mutilate make it a "bad group?"

i suppose it comes down to either trying to quantify the benefit to each class/spec, or just observing it in practice. this of course, brings us right back to where we started.