5 sounds about the same as when last I entered, but as Ralene said, they are only just starting VR, so they would do alot less trash.

Last time we did TK we got 3 >.> (including 2 from Kael!).

Are you windowing in and out of WoW, or another graphics intensive program? I have no idea why, but if you do that Yo's sim craps out and does exactly what you just said. It can go all blank, freeze up the entire window, or cause the field area to take on a screen shot of whatever was there on the screen before. When I run his sim I either go afk, read, or surf the net until it finishes. I can't go into WoW while it's running.

Yo's sim is not multithreaded, e.g. ui does not react while running the calculations.
If you're already running some highly cpu intensive program like wow (wow behaves badly with cpu usage) the sim might take ages to react etc.

[Belt of One-Hundred Deaths] / Weapon Expertise Adjustment discussion follows:

Before, the belt was granting 6 weapon skill, which translated into a bit over 3% white hit.
Now, it is granting 6 expertise, which translates into 1.5% dodge reduction and 1.5% parry reduction.

In a raid environment, the parry reduction will be largely useless as we will be attacking from behind. However, in the event that you are forced to attack from the front (RSTS ability causes boss to turn, tank repositioning, void-zone type AoE on floor, etc.) parry reduction should be quite nice. Increased damage output and you will lessen the possibility of anyone dying to a hasted swing timer resulting from a parry.

Dodge reduction will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting (e.g. Shade of Aran, High Astromancer Solarian) because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but fairly useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells. Mobs can dodge attacks from behind and weapon expertise is now a reasonable way to reduce these dodges. If weapon expertise is found to affect yellow damage as well as white damage, and if it adds to the chance to "Hit" rather than merely raising the hit cap, it should still be a good use of item budget for enhancement shamans. Additionally, items such as [Shoulderpads of the Stranger] with dagger rating now have merely expertise, so some gain can be had there.

As an example, let's assume that expertise works how we think it does (affects both white and yellow attacks; converts dodges and parries to hits). The Belt of One-Hundred Deaths used to give me 3% white hit rating (affecting ~50% of my damage); now it will give me 1.5% increased white damage and 1.5% increased WF and SS damage (affecting ~90% of my damage). It's probably an oversimplification, but it looks like a minor nerf: before I would get at most a 1.5% damage increase from the weapon skill on the belt, now I get at most a 1.35% damage increase from the expertise on the belt. (I am intentionally ignoring the effects of critical strikes in this analysis.)

I also happen to wear Shoulderpads of the Stranger, so I will have 8 expertise, resulting in a 2% dodge reduction. Theoretically, the net effect of this may be a buff (2% * 90% of damage = 1.8% damage increase, up from 1.5% in 2.2.)

We still don't know three things:

1. Whether or not Expertise is working as intended (appropriately reducing dodge and parry chance). It is believed that the parry reduction supposedly granted by weapon skill was not working as intended, and if the expertise code was copied from the weapon skill code, it may not be functioning correctly.
2. Whether or not Expertise is intended to affect yellow damage. So far, our assumption is that it is, but we do not have any evidence to prove this is correct.
3. How Expertise's dodge and parry reduction affect the one-roll hit table and/or two-roll attack system. Possibilities include:

• The most logical functionality would be that expertise reduces the number of dodges and parries while simultaneously increasing the number of hits.
• However, it could be that rather than being converted to "Hit", "Dodge" and "Parry" are converted to "Miss". This would make Expertise far, far less valuable than Weapon Skill for enhancement shamans and essentially obsolete the stat.
• Another possibility is that rather than being converted to "Hit", "Dodge" and "Parry" are removed from the table. If you don't follow me, I am saying that in this scenario, the percentage of "Hits" would increase as a number of total swings but the ratio of "Hits" to "Crits" would not change. For example, a character with 25% combined miss/dodge/parry and 75% combined hit/crit/glance that equipped items totaling 10 expertise would then have 20% miss/dodge/parry and 75% hit/crit/glance. Obviously these do not sum to 100% so the true numbers become 21% miss/dodge/parry and 79% hit/crit/glance. I realize this is a terribly tortured explanation without any tables to show what I mean, so if you don't get this, just ignore it for now.

TL;DR Summary:

• It looks like the conversion of Weapon Skill to Expertise has slightly nerfed the Belt of One-Hundred Deaths, but overall it remains a decent use of item budget, and items that previously granted dagger skill may now be good choices for enhancement shamans.
• Extensive testing will be needed to determine the true effects of expertise and reveal if this initial theory proves correct. We must determine if expertise affects yellow attacks and if it increases the number of hits or merely raises the hit cap. If it does not affect yellow attacks or if it merely raises the hit cap, expertise will not be a good use of item budget.
• Weapon type considerations are no longer relevant for anyone except Orcs. It remains unknown if the 1% crit racial ability outweighs the inherent superiority of Syphon and Dragonstrike to Rising Tide and Wicked Edge, respectively.

It gripes me that Rogues and Warriors get "free" Weapon skill and I assume free expertise when the patch goes live. It makes it annoying to be required to have to use items such as belt of one hundred deaths or the gloves from alar or even the shoulders.

This reminds me of the mail gloves every dps warrior used to wear back in Naxx, because of the glancing thing even though they were not intended to be used in such a manor.

I realise all classes can't have the same talents, but it again is something that as a melee class we should have access to without having to get a specific item, especially since all the items are now in shit instances that most end game guilds dont even frequent. My guild could not go into TK/SSC now purely because no one wants to waste 3+ hours on getting 15 void crystals and hoping the odd random piece that it useful will drop.

Wishful thinking sadly

Sup Edgemaster's Handguards.

I've been submitting feedback for t6 trying to explain why mp/5 is not good, I doubt it'll do anything but I would applaud anyone else who does the same.

Again, not sure if this is a silly question, but it was stated that until 100 Deaths was tested with its new stats, that Boneweave Girdle - Items - World of Warcraft was the second best belt.

How would Don Alejandro's Money Belt - Items - World of Warcraft compare to this? with 2 sockets, it seems like the obvious choice with BT or JC only gems.

Again, sorry if this has already been asked, but i searched and couldnt find it.

Did the same on the eu forums here

Difforgazm: please read "VIII.2 Itemization – Using Stat Weights" of the first post. There lies your answer about the two belts, after using a calculator.

I did in the thread Eyonix was looking at, but based on what he was saying, I think it's a lost cause.

Because this patch is making a lot of changes to the shaman talents, now would probably be an excellent time for every shaman that reads this thread to make feedback on the PTR.

As Rob suggested above, if several hundred of us (or more? who knows how many are reading this thread) gave feedback stating that Toughness or Anticipation should be changed to Weapon Expertise, maybe we'd have a shot of getting it.

With the new enchant in ZA, I wanted to compare it to Mongoose, but need someone to test my math. From what Wowhead shows, it has the same duration (15 sec) with no apparent ppm as well. Assuming 1 AGI = 2 AEP, Haste = 1.48, and Armor Pen. = .25 then Mongoose = 240 AEP from agility and 46.65 AEP from Haste (2% haste = 31.52 rating) = 286.65 AEP. Exectioner is 840 armor penetration = 210 AEP. Am I correct in this math? I understand that my personal AEP will change with my gear, and Armor Penetration may become more valuable as my gear changes.


On another note, AEP has helped me a lot while comparing armor, but I was wondering if there was a formulae used when comparing weapons. Since there is more to a weapon than the stats and gem slot, is there a way to assign a value to the difference in DPS? Assigning a value of 14 AP = 1 DPS doesnt seem correct to me as it is a huge AEP difference between weapons, and seems inflated in comparison to the AEP difference in pieces of armor. Id rather run it through a simulator, but my system is a bit dodgy atm, and Yo! isnt working because of that.

Speaking of badge gear, has any shaman checked if there is any shaman only gear for sale? As i think druid was the one who recorded first sightings and therefor there was a druid only piece for sale.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe that PVE mobs (bosses at the very least) can parry from behind; it is converted into a "miss" (or a "dodge", i forget) in the combat log, but mobs still get their parry chance even when attacked from behind.

You see "parry" when you're attacking a mob from behind?

That was already said in executioneer vs mongoose testing thread, Since warriors and shamans don't gain ap from agility, only haste part of mongoose proc give us fixed dps increase and crit part from agility may vary dependant on rng. Also i think that armor penetration is a bit undervalued in op. According to raid bosses armor thread -840 armor is over 5% more dps on fully debufed boss mob.


Mobs cant parry from behind. If it would so, tanks instagibs would occur too often.
Many boss mobs have around 10% parry, much higher than usual mobs.

double post, delete please

No, i see parry when i am parried.

EDIT: Noticed this thread has over 500k views :P

Theres a new trinket dropping in ZA that might be the 2nd best trinket in game atm.

[Berserker's Call]

Doing the Math : 90 AEP + (360*20/120) = 90 + 60 = 150 AEP

Making it the 2nd best trinket after the DST.

Something not right here.

Blizzard have always been shit when it comes to trinkets. DST being a prime example in tbc and Rejuv Gem or Nelth Tear etc in vanilla wow.