Leachim you are right, I never do things like dps-ing myself to death. Having 2 points in improved reincarnation is more like an opportunity to continue doing a boss if you make an error. I usually don't ankh up to resurrect people faster, only if I'm the last one who can do it. In overall I favorize putting 19 points to resto instead of elemental.
An other question: Do you really think 2% threat reduction to cloak is better than 12 agility? Someone mentioned it's good to have. 12 agility is almost 0.6% crit with kings, I don't think -2% threat matters a lot.
Leachim you are right, I never do things like dps-ing myself to death. Having 2 points in improved reincarnation is more like an opportunity to continue doing a boss if you make an error. I usually don't ankh up to resurrect people faster, only if I'm the last one who can do it. In overall I favorize putting 19 points to resto instead of elemental.
An other question: Do you really think 2% threat reduction to cloak is better than 12 agility? Someone mentioned it's good to have. 12 agility is almost 0.6% crit with kings, I don't think -2% threat matters a lot.
Well, it depends on the fight. If you're extremly threat-limited, then the reduction means at least 1% more dam that you can do, which is better than 0.6% crit. But on the other hand, the reduction is always wasted, when you're not threat-limited, while 12 agi is not.
the main goal of an enhancement shaman is to SUPPORT the MAIN-dps - not to be nr 1 in dmg themselves.
While your first statement may be true its just as bad to ignore the fact that you have the potential to put out large amounts of damage. And I've never asked for buffs but after ankhing I normally receive them if its not a strain.
Dieing during an encounter isn't just about epeen. I've become threat capped to the point where even auto attacking is going to yank - forcing me to stop hitting the mob and dropping the Unleashed Rage buff from the group. Your post above makes it sound like we'd be out of the fight for minutes at a time. At most I've been out of the fight for 4-5 seconds and can then go full bore.
Wolflord, you're not factoring in the hit you can drop due to your extra +3% hit talent. By dropping that extra 3% hit off your gear in favor of crit/str, you'll be increasing your DPS by more than your shocks would.
There is no such thing as hit that I can 'drop'. The correct amount of hit rating to aim for as an enhancement shaman is 'whatever happens to be on the gear'.
Panny: I definitely agree on the +spellhit side of things, if I ever find myself in a situation where the guild lacks primary interrupters then Ill gladly respec to resto. However for now the extent of my interrupt responsibility is 'whatever you want' on Aran, and as such 3% spell hit works out to be nothing more than a 3% increase on the tiny 10% of elemental damage that I do.
Nemaa: I definitely think its worth having a Subtlety enchanted cloak on hand. DPS cloaks are many and numerous, so I think it would be well worth enchanting every second cloak you get with 12agi, the alternate with Subtlety just to have that option.
Malan: I think all mention of the 'golden ratio' of stats should be removed from your original post, it seems pretty much canon that hit rating should never be prioritised over or equal to strength and crit, regardless of gear levels.
I've become threat capped to the point where even auto attacking is going to yank - forcing me to stop hitting the mob and dropping the Unleashed Rage buff from the group.
Try changing weapons to two grey daggers to keep up unleashed rage but stop doing considerable threat. You can use itemrack or stancesets to bind a key for quick weapon swapping.
Wolflord: I have a Muck-Covered Drape enchanted with -2% threat but I never had the feeling that I should use it.
I'm really curious how you guys are managing to do it, since I know that, for example, on Magtheridon I can go all-out without worrying about threat, which means I can shock every CD, which means I need to chug at least 1 mana pot over the course of the fight -- even with 1494 unbuffed AP, 6.3k unbuffed mana. I can only assume that the difference is JoW? (Or are you on a clicking rotation for Magtheridon? That would also do it.)
Just to provide a contrary description of my experience on Void Reaver: I get to stay in through pounding (we brought a ridiculously low number of melee, like two, to our first kill last night) but I am threat-capped from just autoattacking + SS, so mana's not a concern there. (It might be if I had two piece Tier 5, as I would definitely take advantage of the instant-cast LHW on that fight. Even though it would increase my threat, I sometimes have to run out for pounding and/or pop a healthstone when I'm getting scared that I won't get healed.) I think if our 4th tank were better, I would not be quite so threat-capped, he really can't keep up with the first 3.
Dunno if you're still browsing Rob but I would highly suggest you just go balls to the wall on VR pull aggro die and ankh up, you pulling aggro on VR has no raid consequences at all, also tell your healers to keep you up because melee own the VR DPS :]
Try changing weapons to two grey daggers to keep up unleashed rage but stop doing considerable threat. You can use itemrack or stancesets to bind a key for quick weapon swapping.
Keep in mind that I'm occupying what would otherwise be another DPS warrior or Rogue spot in a raid, so while I'm brought along to provide substantial buffs to the group, I'm also brought along because I smash face substantially well with the proper gear. If I threat cap halfway through a fight and then spend 20 seconds hitting with shit items, I'm now putting an increased DPS burden on the rest of the raid. A few seconds of lost buffs from my death seems like a better option than a large period spent with less DPS output because I'm waiting for a good threat lead. As long as it can be done safely there are virtually no repercussions.
Wolflord - Not sure about something being "canon" just yet. There's still plenty of enhance shaman out there using daggers and other fast off hands, and flametongue on their offhand. See the WWS thread for many, many examples of this. I don't think its a bad thing to reiterate the "obvious" stuff about the spec.
If you just mean there's a different way of wording it, I can certainly change it around some.
I've never felt the need to use a death as a threat wipe, even on VR. I sustained 742 dps and had to slow down a couple times and forgo shocks, but I didn't feel like a waste of a raid spot because I chose to cut back instead of getting a threat wipe via a death.
Typically, it's the fights with frequent threat wipes (like Hydross) that are the worst for me, and a threat wipe won't help me much there.
Keep in mind that I'm occupying what would otherwise be another DPS warrior or Rogue spot in a raid, so while I'm brought along to provide substantial buffs to the group, I'm also brought along because I smash face substantially well with the proper gear. If I threat cap halfway through a fight and then spend 20 seconds hitting with shit items, I'm now putting an increased DPS burden on the rest of the raid. A few seconds of lost buffs from my death seems like a better option than a large period spent with less DPS output because I'm waiting for a good threat lead. As long as it can be done safely there are virtually no repercussions.
Wolflord - Not sure about something being "canon" just yet. There's still plenty of enhance shaman out there using daggers and other fast off hands, and flametongue on their offhand. See the WWS thread for many, many examples of this. I don't think its a bad thing to reiterate the "obvious" stuff about the spec.
If you just mean there's a different way of wording it, I can certainly change it around some.
What fights do you find you are threat capped to this extent?
Pre 2.1 I could understand this being an issue, but now, surely not.
Originally Posted by panny
Typically, it's the fights with frequent threat wipes (like Hydross) that are the worst for me, and a threat wipe won't help me much there.
Don't you DPS the first add or two before moving back onto the boss?
I've never ripped on Hydross that i remember, infact in the last 2-3 months I don't recall ripping on anything but trash.
There is no such thing as hit that I can 'drop'. The correct amount of hit rating to aim for as an enhancement shaman is 'whatever happens to be on the gear'.
Panny: I definitely agree on the +spellhit side of things, if I ever find myself in a situation where the guild lacks primary interrupters then Ill gladly respec to resto. However for now the extent of my interrupt responsibility is 'whatever you want' on Aran, and as such 3% spell hit works out to be nothing more than a 3% increase on the tiny 10% of elemental damage that I do.
Nemaa: I definitely think its worth having a Subtlety enchanted cloak on hand. DPS cloaks are many and numerous, so I think it would be well worth enchanting every second cloak you get with 12agi, the alternate with Subtlety just to have that option.
Malan: I think all mention of the 'golden ratio' of stats should be removed from your original post, it seems pretty much canon that hit rating should never be prioritised over or equal to strength and crit, regardless of gear levels.
So what you're saying is that if my gear has a total of 50 hit rating on it, that that is the correct amount to aim for?
If people nowadays are running around with anywhere from 80-120 hit rating, I would say that's a pretty solid number to go off of. By removing your +3% hit from talents, you'd need to stack more on your gear to get the same +hit% as everyone else, thus lowering your other stats.
Wolflord - Not sure about something being "canon" just yet. There's still plenty of enhance shaman out there using daggers and other fast off hands, and flametongue on their offhand. See the WWS thread for many, many examples of this. I don't think its a bad thing to reiterate the "obvious" stuff about the spec.
If you just mean there's a different way of wording it, I can certainly change it around some.
Thats exactly what I mean. From the post it sounds like you're saying 'for every 1str/1crit rating you also want 0.7 hit rating' ie that you want to maintain a 'golden ratio' of stats. Whereas in truth we just want every damned point of str/crit we can get our hands on.
ps. Its incredivly obvious how many shaman have yet to be enlightened. Im currently trying to change guilds and its somewhat hard to apply to another guild with the line 'your enhancement shammy is awful'.
ps. Its incredivly obvious how many shaman have yet to be enlightened. Im currently trying to change guilds and its somewhat hard to apply to another guild with the line 'your enhancement shammy is awful'.
Enlightened about what?
From all your previous comments it seems to me that you think you know best, and whatever anyone else says is wrong, when looking at your spec, your gear and comments you have alot to learn still.
From all your previous comments it seems to me that you think you know best, and whatever anyone else says is wrong, when looking at your spec, your gear and comments you have alot to learn still.
Very true, which is why I come here to learn. All I mean by enlightened is to have seen the depth of good theorycraft into the enhance shaman spec that goes on here. Generally Im only here to lurk and learn, the only thing thats inspired me to post is that I think Enh/Elem gets looked down upon without any real theorycraft to suggest Enh/Resto is any better.
I think all mention of the 'golden ratio' of stats should be removed from your original post, it seems pretty much canon that hit rating should never be prioritised over or equal to strength and crit, regardless of gear levels.
Itemization - Gems
The +8 Hit gem is the wrong answer for enhance shaman.
Best bets are to use +8 Strength (never the +16 AP) or +4 Str/+4Crit.
Im a new raiding enh shaman (formerly resto). My stats are as follows: 1300 AP, 108 Hit, 22.5% crit. (EDIT: Here's my armory page. Disregard my World Breaker. I raid with Fool's Bane MH and Runic Hammer OH, both with mongoose on them.
Given my current gear, should I get my +hit to 150 first and then worry about AP? Should I get my AP to 1500 and then worry about hit? In my meager mind, it would seem that adding +56 hit (7 +hit gems) would increase my dps more so than 112 AP (7 AP gems).
The lion's share of conversation about stat valuation in this thread pertains to an already well geared Shaman (2200 AP, 25% crit). My question is, which stat first for those of us still in Karazhan epics? And specifically, which for PvE boss fights.. I just finished putting all +8 hit gems in my slots to get my hit rating up to a whopping 168 rating. Then I read the 2nd quote above and banged my head on my keyboard.
So 150 +hit is the benchmark Enh shaman should shoot for, but putting +hit gems in my gear sockets is a waste? Im having to resort to leather gear just to get my hit rating over 100, let alone 150-190.
Here are the 2 scenarios for my current stats:
A. All +hit gems in sockets
1238 AP
164 +Hit
23% Crit
B. All +8 str gems in sockets
1350 AP
108 +Hit
23% Crit
As an aside, this is my first post, so please forgive me if i've done something wrong
is this item order truly the best there is? can this list be trusted or is this some1's opinion.
This weighting is on the currently tested maximum contribution for each stat. Lootzor doesn't do haste rating, so you'll need to consider that as well. HasteR is pretty subjective based on your other gear, since you don't want too much haste, especially if you have a dragonspine or BS mace; ideally you don't want to drop your hasted speed below 1.50. For weapons it doesn't take speed into account, so always shoot for the slowest possible weapons you can get for each hand. These values don't consider set bonuses or sta/int, so you'll need to choose for yourself.
The gem choices are simply that choices, Crit, ap, hit, all have different values to different people. My preference at the moment is crit/ap, but my gear is pretty balanced for all 3 main stats.
The patchy dps of a shaman can never be consistent, some times my dps will be at 900 and others it will be at 1100 without changing a single piece of gear, the randomness of WF and which hand it procs on is always going to make it inconsistent.
@Acks, go with what you feel is best, the difference between the two choice will be marginal.
Don't you DPS the first add or two before moving back onto the boss?
I've never ripped on Hydross that i remember, infact in the last 2-3 months I don't recall ripping on anything but trash.
We've tried a variety of ways, what worked for us was to Seed of Corruption Hydross and keep single target dps on him. Because the Shadow Priests would stay on Hydross anyway and he'd be fully debuffed already, DPS on hydross was higher than it'd be on an add meaning SoC would go off faster. When we tried focusing an add first, I'd get pull aggro on them anyway, so either way, I'd have to hold back.
Stigmata - I've been severely threat capped on Void Reaver and Morogrim recently. Although on Void Reaver its mostly a "I think I might be capped" since no threat meter is accurately calculating the knockback yet. At around 50% though it just feels pretty dangerous. 2-3 weeks ago I was sitting just under the tanks on the meter and a rogue who was listed as 40k under me suddenly got spattered by Void Reaver, followed by the Fury Warrior who was also below me. That left me in a scary place. :;
Stigmata - I've been severely threat capped on Void Reaver and Morogrim recently. Although on Void Reaver its mostly a "I think I might be capped" since no threat meter is accurately calculating the knockback yet. At around 50% though it just feels pretty dangerous. 2-3 weeks ago I was sitting just under the tanks on the meter and a rogue who was listed as 40k under me suddenly got spattered by Void Reaver, followed by the Fury Warrior who was also below me. That left me in a scary place. :;
Well VR is one on its own, no other fights are like that, and similar to you other people below me on threat have ripped, but saying your threat capped for 1 or 2 boss fights out of 20-30 isn't really a fair reflection on the class as a whole.
Morogrim is a funny one, the tank gets a attack slowing affect, and I'm always close, but no more so that the rogues/dps warriors, to an extent the rogues even more, the best rogue can vanish and still get back to the top of the threat meters in no time, especially when he is churning out 1600-1800 dps.
Stigmata - I've been severely threat capped on Void Reaver and Morogrim recently. Although on Void Reaver its mostly a "I think I might be capped" since no threat meter is accurately calculating the knockback yet. At around 50% though it just feels pretty dangerous. 2-3 weeks ago I was sitting just under the tanks on the meter and a rogue who was listed as 40k under me suddenly got spattered by Void Reaver, followed by the Fury Warrior who was also below me. That left me in a scary place. :;
Do you use KTM on Void Reaver or Omen? I haven't given Omen a shot yet but last night against Void Reaver I was #1 on KTM from about 40% -> 0% and I was waiting for him to hit me and kill me just so I could ankh, but it never happened. I've just stopped worrying about agro on Void Reaver as KTM is never right, heh.
I've used both Omen and KTM, neither are anywhere near being accurate on that fight.
Stigmata - there may be others, I've only just started getting into deep SSC with my new guild and we're starting on the rest of TK soon so we'll see how that goes. Those are just 2 fights in recent memory that I know for sure I am capable of ripping aggro pretty early in the fight, I'm sure there are others that I could do the same if I used a few more consumables (heroic/haste pots, drums).
Yes, Void Reaver and Morogrim are encounters where threat for shamans is indeed an issue. And yes its always good to try to maximise your dps. But again I say encounters like that arent about dps, thats why blizzard made them so agro-sensitive. Furthermore, if were talking about morogrim and voidwalker were talking about 2 very easy encounters who dont require much effort at all (hes called Loot Reaver for a reason)... Its like totemweaving: sure its 'a way' to impriove your dps a little, but why bother?
Id be curious what the difference in your damageoutput is between a Morogrim kill where you suicide-ankh and one where you go fullout but keep your agro always just below that of the mt (getting watertombed is a great way of agro-reduction anyways). Is it realy worth the hassle?
I just get the feeling that some of the posts here claim that suicide-ankhing should be considered a 'standard procedure' for enhancement-dps, where imo its only suitable for a very limited number of encounters and even then it can hardly be labled as required.
Well VR is one on its own, no other fights are like that, and similar to you other people below me on threat have ripped, but saying your threat capped for 1 or 2 boss fights out of 20-30 isn't really a fair reflection on the class as a whole.
Morogrim is a funny one, the tank gets a attack slowing affect, and I'm always close, but no more so that the rogues/dps warriors, to an extent the rogues even more, the best rogue can vanish and still get back to the top of the threat meters in no time, especially when he is churning out 1600-1800 dps.
I was pretty seriously threat capped on both Essence of Desire and Essence of Anger. When you put out a single WF crit of 5410 on Anger, it's pretty easy to see how. Likewise in Hyjal there are a lot of low armor bosses, Winterchill, Anetheron, Kazrogal and Archimonde are killer melee fights. I've had aggro issues on Anetheron, and I'd have issues on Archimonde except for the luck I've had with having to avoid shitty melee doomfires and air bursts at the same time as fear keeping me out of range of my tremor. The next cloak I get is getting subtelty, and I'm praying for a Prism of Inner Calm to drop.
Its like totemweaving: sure its 'a way' to impriove your dps a little, but why bother?
I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on swapping WF/GOA or WF/Tranq (on threat limited fights). In principle it sounds great - how does it work in practice? Does anyone do it consistently in pretty much every fight? How do you manage your global cooldowns? How does it affect your own DPS? How annoying is it to keep up, and do you use any macros to help?
The upside to totem swapping is pretty great, so I'm curious about people's experiences with it.
07/10/07, 8:27 AM
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