Khlysti

Firstly, if this is too narrow merge it into the itemisation at 70 thread.

So, it was said for ages 'why do they place +damage on our gear when we have no need for it?' and after enough time it seems the blizzard devs agreed that it was a waste of itemisation points on enhancement gear. What I am failing to understand is why our tier 6 gear now has large amounts of MP5 on it instead. The tier 5 gear has only 1 item with mp5 on it, and that is by far the weakest item in the set. Although when grinding or in small groups mp5 can be of use (due to short encounters meaning we can't fully use shamanistic rage) in raids it is very near to useless. So far in TBC I have found no raid encounters where I can't fully use SR, so I will assume it is able to be used at all times.

So where does this leave us? Lets first get some basic figures and assumptions.
We will assume the shaman has (before the teir gear) no MP5 on his gear at all, and is gaining no mana from spirit at all (in reality the odd tick here or there will slip in, but that only weakens mp5 further). We will use 2400 as a buffed AP value and 22 as an average SR procs per use (22 is the average of procs per use in the last 2 weeks of raids for me, only counting times when I was meleeing the full length of the effect). I am also taking the 2.1 changes into account for things like mana spring being 2 minutes.

We can take basic mana usage as 1 WF totem, 1 SoE, 1 Mana Spring, 2 Searing totems and 12 stormstrikes per 2 minutes, using 3870 mana in 2 minutes. Beyond this we can only make use of shocks and heals to use mana. We will also assume all 4 totems in use are active at the start of our 2 minutes, and will be refreshed as and when gcd allows, so as to not loose any possible dps. This means we need to refresh the totems slightly more frequently than their maximum length and as such we can consider them costing slightly more. We can therefore take basic mana usage as 4000.

If we have BoW and add in the Mana Spring we are gaining 1920 mana, meaning our net loss is ~2000 mana in 2 minutes. With 8000 mana we can sustain this for 8 minutes, nearly the length of most boss fights. This basically means that any mana gain above these 2 sources is converted into damage via earth shock. Since we have poor spell crit rate (~5.6%) and 3% spell hit (from talent) this doesn't convert too well. Unfortunately I suck at caster math, so will just use my average listed earth shock value of 720 as the damage for this, considering loss to resists, and gains from a small amount of crit, and SS charges which I mainly make use of myself this sounds about right.

We therefore spend 535 mana to do 720 damage. Using this ability every possible cooldown is not something we can sustain (even with SR) unless JoW is active, and if JoW is active we go mana infinite, so I will assume it is not up. Using the assumptions listed earlier SR will be gaining us 7920 mana, basically our full mana pool, however as this arrives over a peroid of 30 seconds during which we can still spend mana an increase in this ammount can still be used. A full shock cycle would burn an extra 10700 mana per 2 minutes, a 2780 deficite from what SR gains us, with the base mana loss from earlier we have ~5k mana per 2 minutes being lost. Clearly this is not sustainable, and it is by controlling how often we use shocks that we manage to last longer. As such any gain in mana will simply allow us to insert an extra shock and be modelled for dps gain as such.

The enhancement teir 6 set has 35 MP5 on it which will gain us 840 mana per 2 minutes, this is 1130 damage from shocks, or 9.4 dps. This is a fairly poor contribution to damage, and in reality will be worse, as it requires us to meet perfect cycles, and be exactly oom as the fight ends for the damage to be attributed to this small gain in mana. We effectively get 0.269 dps per mp5. Using the assumed value of 22 procs per use on SR we gain 3.6 mana per AP per 2 mins, or 0.1513 mp5 per AP. This is the same as saying 6.6 AP will give us 1 mp5.

I think it is fairly well known that our damage scales quite well with AP, roughly gaining 0.236 dps per AP (with my hit/crit etc). 5 AP would give us 1.38 dps including the mana gain.

5AP and 1 MP5 cost the same in the item budget, yet one is more than 5 times as effective in boosting our damage as the other. If the mp5 on the skyshatter gear were AP we would have 175 more AP, a useful stat. Instead we have mp5 which in the best case gives us a minimal damage gain, and if JoW is present actually does nothing at all. We do need a certain amount of intellect on gear to give us a large enough mana pool to refil each time SR is up. But mana regen is one thing the enhancement shaman does very, very well at the moment. Hit (unless capped), Strength, AP and Haste all gain us more mana via SR, while at the same time causing more damage through our primary attacks. MP5 gives us slightly more mana to use on our worst option since we can already afford the primary mana uses indefinately.

I have basically shown that while dpsing an enhancement shaman can run out of mana if using shocks every cooldown, but that the extra mana we gain through mp5 does not allow a worthwhile gain in dps from using the mana on extra shock we otherwise could not have cast. It therefore seems to me that this stat was added either becuase the person adding it had no idea how awful it was for our damage, or because it was assumed we would make use of the mana on heals. I hope I don't have to describe how useless heals in enhancement gear are compared to raid buffed hp levels. It would cost me ~1500 mana just to heal 50% of my own health, taking 5 seconds to do it, I may aswell just bandage.

So since mp5 does not increase our damage by a worthwhile amount, and a raid where we need to do anything more drastic than self heal is probably already wiping, why is it on our gear? There are reasons for it outside of raids, but this is raid gear, from raids, for raiding in. Its not needed here.

(I hope my numbers are correct, but even if there are errors it still holds that mp5 gives us nothing)

 

• constantius

Just a thought, but ...

- it's on the gear because Blizzard's devs are silly
- see point 1
- same reason there is spell crit and hit and +dmg on priest "nuker" sets instead of +shadow dmg
- same reason there is Mp5 and intellect on paladin tank gear
- same reason there is intellect and spirit on druid feral gear
- see point 1 again
- same reason T4 and T5 hunter gear has AP instead of RAP

Blizzard's devs have never impressed any of us with their ability at understanding what players actually need from their tiered sets. Enhancement T4 is a perfect example, as is Priest T4 and T5 (nuker). The priest T3 and T4 (healer) legs are another example of a poorly itemized piece.

If you go down the list, I think every class can point to a piece, or a set, or even an entirely legacy of gear that is piss-poor in design, poorly allocated points-wise, or just plain BAD.

And it continues to happen. I really don't know where they think they are going, or why they stacked all these worthless stats on our gear, instead of making it as good as they have shown they can (tailoring sets as example, insert here).

I feel your pain. This is why Frozen Shadoweave is the only redeeming gear choice for a shadowpriest who wants to raid at 70. It's not like full T5 is any good for raiding. T6 starts to show vague glimmers of hope, but even then .......

 

Friedrich

Trade the Enhancement DPS set stats with the Fury set's stats and I'd be happy. If Blizzard truly wanted to make itemization that helps us with our primary raid role, then t4/5/6 would look like Windstrike Gloves. If you combined that with some nurturing instincts-like talent that gave us some fractional amount of healing/mp5 for each point of AP we have, then I'd be such a happy camper. While I don't really see why such a solution would be unbalanced, I'm not holding my breath. After all, what are we that we should have that kind of flexibility, druids?

 

Sir Dankus

MP5 was never a particularly good investment for any DPS class. The reason being that DPS mana usage is very controlled. Healers have no choice as to when they need to spend mana, and how much to spend.

I agree with constantius, and think that Blizz:
1) Is just trying to reinforce the hybrid status of Shaman.
AND/OR
2) Fired the people who designed T1-3, replacing them with monkies.

 

Sebudai

The way I look at it, the mp5 on this gear is in place of more intellect. Giving us a little of both instead of a lot of one is more efficient and we will get more bang for our buck this way. I don't think they're conciously reducing the AP, crit or hit on these items because they think we want a little mp5.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a perfect item. You could take almost any item and technically make it 'better' by min/max'ing the most desirable stats. No duh. I don't think Blizzard is trying to make the perfect item at all. They're trying to give us balanced upgrades, and when all of this item adjusting is done, I'm certain these items will be.

 

VinnieJones

Or they let the guy who designed shaman T3 design this set perhaps? Maybe they are trying to subtly point out that we should all be raid healing still. With a few exceptions, it's always felt like mixing and matching pieces worked better than using sets, or at least using full sets.

 

Sir Dankus

This would be a fair statement, but isn't balance the point of having multiple sets for hybrids to choose from? MP5 is just not a useful statistic for Enhancement whatsover. It is very much necessary for our Resto set, and somewhat less so for Elemental (being that MP5 in that tree is derived mainly from Int). A full Enhancement Shaman uses spells more for utility (interrupt, kiting, etc.) than for pure damage.

Aside from totems, the only mana-drain when I DPS is Stormstrike and FlameShock. The SS debuff I let envenoming rogues use, since it is much more mana-efficient than EarthShock. That means I get several ticks of natural regeneration between every burst of SS and FS, making token amounts of MP5 useless.

 

Kirion

While Shamanistic rage is nice, if you want (and if you good shaman you will) to make some spot healing you will need int and mp5.

This was already discussed several times on enhance itemization thread. Do we really need to start it again?

42.

 

Ahindwe

I don't mean to troll, but if you're implying all the pre-TBC tiered sets were well itemized, they didn't really get the Shaman sets right until Tier 3. We're leaps and bounds ahead of where we used to be, in terms of our gear itemization.

 

Friedrich

Spellfire/Spellstrike/Frozen Shadoweave? They are as close to perfect as you can get, really.

If we do 10% of our damage via Earth Shock etc, then I think that 10% of our item budget should be invested into int/mp5. To me, that would be balanced according to our raid role. But I'll wait and see about the gear changes before saying anything more, I guess.

 

Ahindwe

Not to rehash an old argument, but there's plenty more shamans can do with mana than cast Earth Shock.

Sebudai is probably exactly right; they want a certain portion of the item's budget to be geared towards the mana end of things, and that's why we see INT and MP5 on the gear. Which is just fine, considering the nature of our class. If they want Enhancement to be melee support rather than dominating melee, then it makes perfect sense. Tossing out occasional heals on yourself and your fellow melee can be of great value.

 

Friedrich

Must...resist...urge...to argue...aaaaaaaahhhh

 

• Axen

I agree, there's a need for balance in some places, but I don't think Enhancement gear really needs to be overhauled like everybody wants. I'd like to see some more gem slots, though. Giving hybrids socket choices makes up for the minor itemization issues. Also, this thread feels like it belongs elsewhere.

[Shaman] Itemizing Enhancement at 70

 

VinnieJones

Seconded! I doubt most people are ever going to be happy with the tier sets, so why not give us more flexibility to do some of it ourselves?

 

Mearis

Blizzard is not intent on making the best possible gear given a specific item budget, and considers items made in such a way to be mistakes. The only reason that they are not taken away is because of the uproar of people who do not want to see gear they worked hard for taken away, even though it is probably necessary for the health of the game. At least mana/5 is marginally useful, other classes have it much worst.

 

Pater

Thanks for going through the theorycrafting. I have been curious about this myself--afraid that I might be missing out somehow by ignoring MP5. Looks like not at all. It also seems that, as long as I have SR, INT is similarly unimportant.

I do find myself healing a bit, to save healers and squishies. There are certain fights that are pretty mana-intensive, too. For curator, I'm the flare tank and go through mana quickly using frost shock to bring them to me. But I also know that I'm not making full use of SR--I tend to save it/forget about it instead of using early/using often.

 

Aett

I'm the kind of guy that has four sets of gear in his bank. I have one I use for normal raiding, a few for PvP (depending on what spec I choose for it), and a healing set. In any successful encounter I'm going to know ahead of time if I'm going to need to heal at all. Rather than have sub-optimal sets, I'd rather switch out some enhance pieces with either spelldamage or healing in order to become more hybrid.

Leaving it to the player to switch out pieces give much, much finer control over how hybrid they want to become. If you need lots of healing, switch out a chest or legs, if you need a little a belt or bracers. You can always set up a keybinding to equip your healing weapons before casting a heal.

If we get stuck with healing stats on enhance gear we'll be toting those stats around with us whether we are using them or not.

 

desertswarm

Your theorycrafting shows 6.6AP to 1mp5, while the item budgets are 5:1. That isn't nearly as bad as crit rating on afflication warlock gear in terms of efficient use of the item budget. As many have already stated, they dont like to make "perfect" gear. Imagine how boring these boards wold be if every piece of gear (for an enhancement shaman) was "perfect"; there wouldn't be much theorycrafting

 

Khlysti

6.6:1 is for how much mana we get from the stat, AP also boosts our physical damage.

The reason for me posting this was that teir 5 has only 1 item with mp5 on it, the shoulders, and that its by far the worst item. We then have tier 6 appear with 4 items using mp5 and wasting the budget. I am not saying they should convert the mp5 to AP and give us gear with Str/Int/Stam/crit/hit/AP, but just that it should be removed and the budget allocated to other stats.

I have the current enhance teir 4 gear, so I am well used to poor use of the budget, but to see teir 5 so near perfect, then teir 6 include that much mp5 seems very silly.

 

desertswarm

Good point. I overlooked the primary benefit of AP. Doh.

 

Friedrich

Let's wait and see how the t4 review turns out. Maybe we'll see a bit less mp5/int and we'll be happier campers as a result.