Good recommendations. I was thinking about that belt but didn't remember the name or where it was from. As for the MH, I agree that is more easily attainable, but I also wouldn't want to skew calculations TOO heavily in favor of Attack Power (i.e. away from Crit/Hit due to low weapon damage). Fool's Bane is probably the best compromise.

I'd give it a solid "Meh...". It was an upgrade, but not a huge one. That's not really surprising from the ring slot though. It has about a 10% chance to proc with a 60 second internal cooldown. I think the ring hierarchy probably looks like this(at least for me):

Stormrage Signet Ring - 156.78 AEP
Band of the Eternal Champion - 137~ AEP
Unstoppable Aggressor's Ring - 136.2 AEP
Ring of Deceitful Intent - 133.05 AEP
Band of Devastation - 123.35 AEP

Sebudai you also value hit rating at are you getting a higher than normal value to it, because you have such low hit in comparison to most shaman for your lvl of gear?

I guess. That's just what Yo's sim told me to value it at!

Well HitRating always rivaled CritRating in value for all of the more recent models.
Especially if we assume the 28% miss rate for dw without +weaponskill.

The optimal gear my model currently outputs has well above 20% +hit currently, usually between 12 and 15% from items. Since haste went down to mediocre and critrating usually affecting +dmg only anymore (we're closing in on the 90+% flurry uptime, 99%+ UR), 1% crit is still 50% better than 1% hit, but since 1% hit needs way less rating than 1% crit the individual rating comparisons are not that different.

Edit:
This does not yet contain external optimization for Enchants and Gems, so some Enchants and Gems are not yet optimal.

I have yet another slightly off-subject question, but i couldn't find a threat that would be more relevant.

My question is, ideally how many enhancement shamans would you bring into a raid ?

We usually have one, in our typical 2rogues/EnhShaman/Feral/Furywar group, and we are debating getting another enhancement shaman. Would you think it's redondant?

I'm not good enough at hunter knowledge to know wether it would be better to have two groups such as: 1rogue/EnhShaman/Feral/FuryWar/BMHunter.

Our hunters seem to want more a spriest than all these buffs from this group, is their mana that starved?

My question for sebudai for example singe juggernaut seem to be quite good at min/maxing raid dps, ideally for most fight, how would you use enhancement shamans, and how many of them?

Thanks in advance!

If I may answer that, 1, simply, what benefit is there to any other group in comparison?

Unless you run a really melee heavy raid team I cant see where you would put a second, that would be viable.

We run with 4-5 shaman, myself as enhancement and 1 elemental and 2-3 resto. the resto can provide the tank group with totems that they require, and the other resto(s) can provide totems for the healer/hunter group. With the elemental with the best dps casters.

Our typical group composition is MT group, Melee group, Caster group, hunter group and healer group.



The mage in group 5 is out of place, but he could be swapped for the resto in group 4, but then they dont get the totems. Also if the mage was short on mana we would swap him witha warlockj, but since warlocks seem to be so much better than mages on the damage meters they get the priority on groups.

One other thing to note, bringing an enhancement shaman is about buffing their group while still being viable on the damage meters.

Putting one in the MT group is pointless, MT usually use commanding shout so no BS, they dont get feral if you usually have one.

My most important buff is BS, without it, its such a huge chunk of missing AP.

As a hunter, I'd prefer a S.Priest. to an Enh. Shaman.

The first time I had a shadow priest, I didn't have to chain mana pots.
The second one, I brought more drums and haste pots, and rediscovered the concept of "having potion CD available".

A spriest brings mana return and pet healing (hunter healing as well).
BM hunters give him FI, which improves this mana return and healing.

An Enh. Shaman brings UR, GoA, SoE for the pet, and a small mana return (Mana Spring).
We give him +3/6/9% dmg (which could bring aggro problems on some fights, I guess).

My guild generally raids with 3 hunters (all 3BM, typically grouped with a shadow priest and a triple-FI-addicted Warlock).
We leave the Enh. Shaman to the melee group.

If we were to raid with a second Enh. Shammy, I could take it in my group instead of the Warlock, but wouldn't replace my s.priest (sort of a "trading "longevity" for higher damage" dilemna).
The way I see it, there might be other groups in which a second Enh. Shaman might bring (and receive) more. If one spot's available in the MT group, I'm pretty sure the additional threat and dodge given by WF/GoA twisting would have a bigger impact on the raid's performance.

Off-topic, but check out the mage dps we've had on some encounters since the last patch. A couple examples:

WWS
WWS

Our warlocks definitely have room for improvement, but I think mages are actually pretty crazy as of the last week or so. =P

I think a more likely belt to be used would be the Tracker's Belt from Slave Pens.
Tracker's Belt - Items - World of Warcraft
At high raid levels stam doesn't have a huge value, but at Heroic and KZ entry level, having Stamina on your gear is a *big* deal - as well as Armor actually. I didn't take any leather until I was out of KZ because all too often I would end up off tanking something in a heroic. Obviously in a 25man you can't do that, but for lower end content mail gear is very useful.

@Stigmata - how's that Retadin working out for your group?

Retdins are actually rather nice, the problem they have (and probably resolved or alleviated in 2.3) is the fact that their threat is bad, and for alliance paladins (aka no Seal of Blood), there's no consistent damage output.

Now that their threat is reduced by 25% (which is greater margine than warriors), I can see Paladins doing quite decent DPs in raids without pulling aggro. Just that Paladins are really amazing single target healers so that they are highly desired (also doesn't help that the fact typical retdins.....suck at what they're doing)

2% more damage is what they would bring. Pretend they're an arms warrior without battle shout for the most part. They'll need the exact same totems.

Wow, didn't expect to hear dissenting opinion, but let me try to elaborate. I'll compare mail Kara gear to leather Kara gear and blue level 70 leather gear. In each case, I'll assume whatever gems that (with their socket bonus) give the most AEP). Take a look at gloves:

Gloves of Quickening (Mail Kara Epic) - 121.2 AEP
Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation (Leather Kara Epic) - 147.2 AEP
Gloves of the Unbound (Leather 70 Blue) - 127.2 AEP

Note that the 70 rare leather item is better than even the epic Kara item. Now boots:

Fiend Slayer Boots (Mail Kara Epic) - 145 AEP
Ferocious Swift Kickers (Mail Kara Epic) - 125.2 AEP
Edgewalker Longboots (Leather Kara Epic) - 158.8 AEP
Boots of the Shifting Sands (Leather 70 Blue) - 116.6 AEP

In this instance, all the Kara mail gear is better than the pre-Kara leather gear, but note that the leather Kara gear is still significantly better than any mail gear.

Finally, bracers:

Stalker's War Bands (Mail Kara Epic) - 86 AEP
Bracers of Maliciousness (Leather Kara Epic) - 94 AEP
Armwraps of Disdain (Leather 70 Blue) - 78 AEP

Once again, the leather gear is king.

Now, would you take the Stalker's War Bands over Armwraps of Disdain if there was a hunter in the party that could use them? I wouldn't... not when the Bracers of Mani are a much bigger upgrade.

My point is this... I'm not just going to accept scraps when every Hunter or Rogue in my group doesn't want something. So that means I need to roll on some gear. Now if I'm doing DKP, I don't want to spend them on, say, Ferocious Swift Kickers or even Fiend Slayer Boots, when I know I really want the Edgewalker Longboots. If I'm not using DKP, then I'm just being selfish if I just roll on EVERYTHING that's an upgrade for me. So, to me, you have to pick the best gear for your class in every dungeon and roll on those pieces. That means I pick leather every single time. Now, yes, if there is a throw-away mail gear that all the hunters have that's better than my current gear in that slot, I'll roll on it. But that's it. Otherwise, I think mail is for hunters and leather is for rogues and enhancement shaman.

As for not having enough mana, I don't have a problem with it, and my enhancement gear has only one or two pieces of mail. With all leather gear, a lvl 70 tauren shaman should have 4577 mana, and that would be completely refilled with every Shamanistic Rage. If not, then maybe you need to use a pot. That would be rare, and hunters and mages would laugh at you for crying about that.

My opinion, regardless of DKP being used or not, is to never pass on an upgrade even if you know some boss further down the line drops something 'better'. Its always beneficial to take what you can when you can get it without hoping and praying for the RNG to show you some love. Passing on a Mail item that's an upgrade because there is a Leather item later on seems silly to me.

Our retadin is doing pretty well, still threat capped, still missing some items, he has full T6 quality healing gear before he asked if he could swap. his armory is here The Armory check out his second trinket!

Btw Malan, change your avatar back! I keep thinking its Nite_Moogle every time you post.

Shhh.... It has begun.


(If you were in the Benefactor Bar with all the other cool kids Stigmata, you'd know about these things! Now go fork over your :10bux

Thanks Stigmata and Sebudai for answering my question, and Jerem for the hunter PoV. I do get your points.

It seems you both went for a Melee & Hunters separate group setup. That's interesting, i didn't realized hunter were 'that' mana starved that even with JoW they would be chain chugging mana pots, i guess the marginal upgrade to mana spring won't make up for that, it's still a bit silly from a mechanical PoV that mana regen outclass atk power for hunters, that spriest > UR+GoA in other words... :s

It's a bit of a shame however to not have FI on the rogues but i guess it's simply unpractical.

I see on lossendil however that Blood Legion seem to be running with 2 enhancement shaman, apparently with a Tank group being a mixed of dps plus tank.

I'd assume groups to be tank dpswar rogue feral shaman / dpswar dpswar rogue feral shaman. (link : Loading... )
In other words it's a setup that is only viable with a melee heavy raid, not more than 6 healers i guess.

So you're saying we should roll on leather AND mail gear ANY time it's an upgrade, even though our actual DPS gained from those items is less than what a hunter or rogue would gain?

By that, I mean to say that if you had the same leather gloves as a rogue and you both got Gloves of Dexterous Manipulation, he would gain more dps than you would from that item. Similarly, if you had the same mail gloves as a hunter and then you both got the same mail gloves, the Hunter would gain more dps from it than you would.

Do you dispute that?

I think the best way to put this is, where do you put a stop to this? When leather gear drops for rogues, do hunters, enhance shaman, rogues, and dps warriors all roll for it? IMO, no. Hunters stick to mail gear because they need the INT. Warriors stick to plate because the armor rating is so useful to them (throw on a shield and they can OT in a pinch). I do think, however, that enhance shaman should roll against rogues because that is the best gear for them.

Let's say you allow enhance shaman to roll against both hunters and rogues. Now let's say that as a group, all of you have the best stuff you can get from heroics and have NO epics. Out of that 10-man group, the shaman will most likely be the first to get full epic gear from Kara (because of having the most chances at gear to roll on). Now consider that the enhance shaman still isn't doing as much damage as the less-geared hunters and rogues in the group. If nothing about that sounds strange to you, I'll shut up.

One page ago you were saying that I need to put a line up that says "wear more leather," and now you're questioning taking leather over rogues because they get more DPS out of it? Make up your mind.

And yes, if an item drops and I can use it, and its an upgrade, I stick my lot into the pile and wait for the system to see who gets it based on DKP priority. Any discussion of anything related to that aspect of it is pretty silly since everyone is running different loot priority systems, and doesn't belong in this thread. My point was that an upgrade is an upgrade regardless of how much or how little armor is on it. Take what you can use when you can use it.

I've been following the Moogle revolution and am so tempted to Honk Honk, but I just don't want to seem like a follower. Must resist the Moogle.

Umm to keep this Enhancement Shaman related.
Should I be using a Malchazeen with Flametongue? I hear it's just awesome for max DPS.








I kid. I kid.

We walk in single fil to hide our numbers.

The leather/mail dispute really becomes a non factor at T6. There are a lot of random pieces and fortunately for us the rogues and hunters love their T6 sets.

Our T6 set is a little bit skanky except for the gloves which are top notch. So picking up random mail/leather is really easier than it has ever been.

Seriously though our T6 set is going to look even worse in 2.3. Who needs 40 mp5? Those points could have been like 50 agi and -350 armor or something along those lines which would have made the set amazing.