Azaranth

Yes.

Using a fast offhand weapon just means that a higher percentage of your windfuries will be offhand windfuries - which are at 50% (ish) damage. Before you suggest something like "use a different offhand enchant", I'll answer that none of the rest are viable.

 

• Disquette

I think it was pretty awful how hunters were keeping lower iLevel weapons due to the speed requirements.

I think it was pretty cool that Blizzard changed the combat mechanics for them (via steady shot, I believe) so that other weapons were more viable.
EDIT - After reading the hunter haste thread, I'm no longer sure that hunters are fixed in the way I thought they were. If so, I'm disappointed to hear it.

I hope that Blizzard helps out Enhancement Shaman in a similar way.

And, out of curiousity, would you please post the combat logs, wws, or recap of the 2.6 speed gcleaver versus 1.5 speed hacker test you did? People here have been finding large differences, so your data point would be exceptionally useful in debunking what has become "common knowledge". Please note I'm not saying you're wrong or that I don't believe you. However, seeing as how your claim is hugely different from that made by everyone else, I believe the burden of proof is on you for this one.

Please help us understand!

 

◊ Gwaihir

Rogues are not hit by the windfury cooldown, since the windfury TOTEM buff does not have a cooldown. You can most certainly have back to back procs from the totem with sub 2.0 speed weapons. Only the shaman self buff is an issue.

 

Chemoshvt

By that logic, if you werein a group using WF totem for your mainhand and the self buff on your offhand...would that bypass the cooldown (and thereby having more dps?)

 

◊ Shalas

Yes, but WFT procs do half as much damage as the WF enchant. There's probably some point where it'd be better, but you'd never want to use weapons that fast.

 

• Disquette

probably less than half - I assume that elemental weapons (increases *total* damage from windfury by 40%) does not effect hits from the windfury totem.

So, it seems like 1 versus 2.8, unless I have some assumption wrong.

 

Sintor

I was actually playing with that last night and it exhibits... odd behavior. The totem does indeed block your offhand windfury proc, however, it doesn't block itself. The totem was proc'ing back to back on mainhand but blocking the offhand enchant, and when the offhand enchant would go off, it prevented the totem from proc'ing.

I would say I have fairly optimal gear for a raiding enhancement shaman, including two gladiator weapons (not a smith), and I can consistently pull top 10 dps, depending on the encounter. What I find more important is that my melee group is ALWAYS top five if it is indeed a melee-friendly encounter. I don't really find the class boring, but then again I constantly twist tranq/wf or goa/wf and work on perfecting rotations that include both totems/ss/es.

As for items, I really would like to see more +hit on epic chain, even though hunters don't want it. In the meantime, I'll continue to wear rogue leather, I suppose. I would also like to see the improved dual wield talent have hit AND a reduction to offhand damage penalty, making the wf/wf cooldown a bit less painful.

 

Stigmata

Where are these agro problems coming from people are reporting?

I can only think of 2 reason why any shaman would have an agro problem.

No BoS
Terrible Tank

 

Malan

I'd sure as hell hope so - 4 tanks, 8 or more healers in a 25man raid doesn't leave much more than 10-12 DPS slots.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Tenu

The vulnerability of our DPS to the "Terrible Tank" is a weakness of the class though. Most other DPS classes are able to push a lot harder when threat limited as they have either range or active abilities to avoid threat problems.

 

Aett

I'm definitely having aggro problems every so often. It's not a huge problem though as it doesn't happen too much. Our tank generally pulls around 800 tps (just a guess as to the average) and with full melee buffs and some luck I do slightly more than that with salv. It takes a few minutes and some lucky procs, but I do occasionally catch up.

Generally when this happens I start to put a tranquil air/windfury cycle in my spare global cooldowns, specifically right before a SS or right before a known damage spike (such as when all the cubes are clicked on Mag) will open up the tank's threat lead a bit more. I'm thinking about doing this a lot more as our fury warrior is getting threat capped more than me; a lot of time he looses salv due to the pallies not keeping up the 5 minute buff.

 

◊ castille

Just to make sure we're clear on this, Windfury weapon has the cooldown, not totem. Rogues are not affected by windfury's cooldown.

 

dukes

Shaman Vanish surely counts as an active ability! Stig uses it every so often when the tanks are having problems (either our MT is having a bad day, or its something like Void Reaver).

Obviously you lose your buffs, but if you do it enough people get used to having to rebuff you.

 

Sintor

You use four tanks and eight healers? For what? Karathress? Magtheridon? We only use two prot spec warriors and a feral druid (he will dps any fight that he doesn't tank, obviously), the dps warriors tank an add here and there if the encounter requires it. I would say, on average, we have fifteen dps slots on a given fight. More accurately I place around 5-7 on any given melee friendly encounter.

 

Ralgarog

Lets look at a rogue:
Ambush
Garrote
Cheap Shot
Sinister Strike
Backstab
Gouge
Ghostly Strike
Riposte
Blade Flurry
Hemorrhage
Eviscerate
Kidney Shot
Expose Armor
Rupture
Slice and Dice
Mutilate
Auto Attack

Some of those do no damage and generate high threat, But they are all attacks a rouge can actually use. I dont care if i needs combo points: The fact of the matter is that they can do it (if they spec for some of the stuff there)

Lets look at useful things for a Enhancement shaman while attacking
Stormstrike
Earth Shock
Flame Shock
Auto Attack.


While attacking, those are the only useful things that shamans can actually use. I was mostly enhancement since i started playing a shaman and after a while, you notice that it gets a tad bit boring. Wither your willing to accept that or not, Enhancement shaman have a very, very, very limited effective arsenal when it comes to dealing damage to a target. You can argue how "ineffective" one of the other attacks for a rogue is, how much threat it generates, but the fact of the matter is that they have it. It's choice.

For the guys that keep listing heroism/bloodlust: It's on a 10 minute cooldown. Your making it seem as if that it's up ever second and when ever you have a shaman in a group, everybody always attack 30% faster. In some cases (usually first few minute or two of a boss fight) Bloodlusting is basically saying, "Please Gruul, please aggro on me and one shot me...i beg you gruul!"


I got a question for you: Do you really think that you can compare a Enhancement shaman's arsenal to a: Feral Druid's Retribution Paladin's (included for completeness), Dps warrior's?
If Shaman are the only dps ordinated hybrid of the 3 classes considered to be a hybrid (Paladin, Druid, Shaman) why do they have the least amount of offensive abilities? How can you argue against having another attack and justify it by saying, "Tell me a class that does not feel the same way" when we, dps hybrids: We either heal or dps, have the least amount of damage dealing skills?

 

Ralgarog

It would seem like alot of you are just scanning thought the post with out reading it. The post is not about the damage we do. Its about those 5 talents in our talent trees that are basically fillers: Nobody wants them but you have to spec into them. Show me a PvE enhancement shaman that specs into toughness or shield spec? Why is ancestral knowledge in the enhancement tree? Why does it give you 5% mana instead of 5% intellect? 5% of not much is not enough.

In the Karazhan run i am in, i am always 1 or 2 on the dps. In 25 mans i run in, since the patch, i have always been in the top 5 dps spots. Last week i was number 2. In 5 mans i have only met 4 people who can constantly out dps me. I am not saying dps is our problem.

 

Nite_Moogle

It is sometimes frustrating that there isn't much to do in between totem refreshes and stormstrike/shock cooldowns, but there is a lot that you need to keep track of and it would be pretty easy to hit information overload if there was anything more to do, not to mention the first 10 seconds of a fight are already pretty constrained for global cooldowns. WoW doesn't exist solely in the raid environment, and there is plenty to do in a 5-man dungeon.

Yes. Paladin blessings are very powerful in the scope of a raid, but pound for pound there is no class that amplifies their group as much as a Shaman does, and Enhancement is bar none the best 5th member of any physical DPS group.

You aren't telling anyone what they don't already know. Railroad talent trees and mixed abilities are issues for every class, no one is surprised when you say that itemization is a problem considering 90% of all mail is itemized for Hunters and that melee classes have a tough time finding raid slots given the current state of caster DPS. I think you are a victim of Grass Is Greener syndrome, and you don't even really know what it is you want to fix your perceived problems. There's a pretty short list of things that the class could really use but this isn't the WoW suggestions forum.

 

Malan

Look guy if you don't like the class or how it plays, that's cool and all, but you don't need to come here to whine about it. This thread is just stupid. You basically cut and paste some garbage from the WoW forums that you didn't even update from however many weeks ago you originally posted. Its filled with misinformation, WoW Forum Suggestion crap, and just general idiocy in only 2 pages.

If what you need is more buttons to push, just go find a class that suits you better and be done with it.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Ralgarog

I did not bother to post the rest of my thread or any of the updated versions here because i just wanted to see what type of response my first two (out of date, yet still relevant ) parts of the thread would get. And so far most people are only saying, "Our talents, are fine, i love the mp5 on our gear, i think we have more than enough attacks and heroism is on a 5 second cooldown.
I mean thanks for the feed back and all thought.

 

Skiace

how has this thread not yet been tanked?

 

Malan

So in other words, you put no effort or thought into what you posted, you hit Ctl+C and Ctl+V on something that 1)is out of date, 2)is really of no discussion value, 3)makes personal assertions about stuff you don't like which you then claim to the majority opinion, and then expected us to nod our heads and agree with you?

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Soladoras

See, now you are just whining. Half the abilities you list for a rogue are never used in raids or are 2+ min CD abilities (like the totems you didnt bother to list for yourself), and SS, BS, and Multilate are all used exclusively depending on your spec (no one uses all three). What the class boils down to is:

1) Auto Attack
2) Primary Combo Point Generating Attack
3) SnD
4) Rupture if your spec has room for 2nd finisher
5) Evis if your spec has room for a 3rd finisher

Really complicated.

To sum up, Enhancement Shaman are quite desirable for 25 man raids for their melee buffing + solid contributing dps, despite small problems with the class that may exist.

or more generally,

To sum up, _____________________ are quite desirable for 25 man raids for their __________ + _________________, despite small problems with the class that may exist.

 

Harem

This is dumb. You complain about shamans in raid settings versus bosses, and then say that rogues can Gouge? What? If you're going list all buttons that you can possibly press in an encounter, include Lightning Bolt, all your Shocks, totems, etc. Sure, they're not as useful as the ones you listed for shamans, but they're certainly better than a dagger rogue using SS or hemo.

 

Ralgarog

No. I expect for you to do what your doing now. Tell me how you feel about the out of date information which i hit Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Nothing else really. I've been told that there are a lot of smart Enhancement shaman that post on this forum: I wanted their opinions on what i just wrote.

I got a question:
Can you point out to me, which parts of my thread (other than the tier gear) are out of date please?

Thanks for responding to my thread all of you. I appreciate the feedback .

 

• Juice

I'm glad you two douches summed that up (and I mean that in the best way possible, I'm a douche myself). I read this thread shortly after it was posted and prepared to crap all over it as a typical WoW Shaman Forums post with no redeeming qualities for this forum. I thought I was being overly harsh, and backed off. This thread has since developed some redeeming features, through no fault of the OP. So now that the OP is back trying to get us back on track with the original, low value post, it might be time to put it to sleep.