• Toots Hepcat

Well, you're up a certain creek, mate -- the mail gear at that tier is terrible!

My advice to you is simple: get your set pieces, get the shoulders off Nalorak, get the best weapons you can and spend the rest of your effort farming for badge gear. Master Assassin's Wristguards are cheap and way better than anything you'd roll on. Same with Ninjah's Tabi Boots.

 

• Toots Hepcat

Myul, you've spun this yarn before, and you're comparing apples to oranges. Best in slot at T6 is not the same as best in slot at T4. Mail doesn't catch up to leather until you get to T5.

You're also comparing set pieces to non-set pieces...which have a lower item level. Try comparing mail to leather wrists, belts and boots; the difference is not 5%.

The blue Talbuk Hide Spaulders and Fel Leather sets, gemmed with BLRs, will out-dps every non-set mail piece out of T4 and some of the set pieces, too. It's garbage, and for shamans who want to progress, not being able to roll on leather can be a big setback.

 

Hornbreakerz

Ok, so I've searched for "Relentless Earthstorm Diamond meta value", but it didn't give me any clear answer...

Also tried with "Relentless Earthstormd Diamond Loot Rank meta value", only showed me what i had already written :/

Any ideas?

 

• Aeolian

Horn you do not NEED to have the value of the meta. While it may change slightly as your gear changes, just assume the same value for the 3% additional crit damage, figure the agility into your EP values and base the overall EP value of the helm on the numbers without the 3% crit damage as it will always be there. And if you are hell bent on finding it out, and I might have very well missed it myself because this thread grown to a size that even I have lost stuff, try searching "RED".

 

Mkael

I modded CooldownTimers2 to provide that information, I also modded it to show hidden cooldowns on abilities/trinkets f;r better coordination of boosts.

Its fairly easy todo if you have the time to browse the codebase and know some rudimentary lua coding.

 

Mkael

As stated it depends on your current gear status, but for comparison purposes its only needed to separate the metagem gear from the non meta. Go with 50 and thats enough unless you really want the exact ep (for whatever reason) in which case run the sim with and without meta for your current setup and convert that dps into an ep estimate.

Anyway I use 50 for gear comparison and thats enough for me.

 

Hornbreakerz

Thanks for the help Aeolian, but searching for RED found nothing at all, on the whole forum :/ but maybe i can find a way to calculate it myself? Will try to think about it.. if i come up with anything, i will let u know... tho it's a very small chance i will :P

 

• Toots Hepcat

Problem is, it's difficult to give a easy answer, as the RED's value scales with your current gear.

So you need to get a WWS, learn know how much melee dps you do and learn what your raid buffed average crit rate is. It also helps to learn what your AP -> DPS conversion is, or just use 1 AP -> .25 DPS.

Crit rate * .03 * DPS / (AP/DPS), add 12 * agility EP = meta EP.

For me, it's 70 EP, and let me tell you: when I accidentally broke the gem requirement last week, I noticed it big time.

(Note: Some folks will tell you to subtract the DPS you'd have got from gemming everything with BLRs, but it's not as simple as that. You're bound to have several pieces of gear that could grant a decent set bonus if you only slotted them with blues instead of reds...for example, I swapped 24 STR in my chest for 16 STR, 4 CR, 4 Agility, and 16 STR in my boots for 12 STR, 3 HitR. Total opportunity cost of about 8 EP).

 

Hornbreakerz

Ok, thanks for the replies and help! I implemented it in in Loot Rank and it made a big difference!

 

McCloude

Well To sum it up, I was put in a group with 3 warriors and a druid. That tank said that WF only procs for two people at any time so it's a waste. Which I said was BS. I have decided that the warrior is an idiot and that's it. I Feel like I'm pulling teeth for the RL's to put me in melee groups. Finally got in a melee group with this warrior again (dps spec this time). Go figure WF totem wasn't better than the +9 sharpening stone. His loss, I'm done trying to convince.

 

Rhaegal

Again, another anecdotal suggestion: a long time ago I got annoyed with the group composition I was seeing, so I did a lot of research on group/raid synergies between all classes, and made it known that I was a good guild resource for information like that. The raid leaders started putting me in charge of organizing groups, switching people around for bloodlusts, etc. If it really bothers you, and you wouldn't mind taking on a little extra work, talk to your raid leader about it and see if you can become a little more involved. It's definitely constant extra work, though; in addition to being familiar with just about every class's buffs/etc., you have to know what spec everyone in the raid is, down to which DPS warrior has 5/5 commanding presence, which (for whatever reason) only put a couple points in it, which shaman has better totem uptime, etc. It's pretty rewarding, though, when you can put together a perfect melee or caster group and see how much the raid improves as a result.

Also, as a shaman, call people out if you know they're doing it wrong. Our job isn't to show up, hit stuff until it's dead, and go home. It's to enhance the abilities of everyone in our groups to the best of our ability, to the betterment of the raid as a whole. We can't do that if they're lazy and uninformed. On the other hand, if the warrior wanted to DPS without Windfury, all hope is probably lost for him already...

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

McCloude

I think I might try to do that, Thankyou for the advice.

 

• Toots Hepcat

Raid leaders could really use a clue stick sometimes. Buffs make or break a melee group; create a synergistic group and you increase everybody's output by 30% or more. Lump all the rogues in their own group and you've basically wrote them off.

The most important group buffs, in order:

Unleashed Rage: +10% AP means +10% damage. A big deal.

Windfury: by far the best buff available for arms warriors and ret pallies, it's nearly a 15% increase in total DPS. Fury warriors and rogues should see a 5 - 8% increase in total DPS, depending on their spec & DPS cycle. This is about a 3% increase beyond using poisons and way better than sharpening/weight stones. Scales better too; actually, no other buff scales like Windfury.

Battle Shout: extremely valuable buff to all dual wielders. I get 80 dps from it.

SoE Totem: Great for warriors & paladins, pretty nice for rogues & ferals. I get 50 dps from it.

LotP: 5% melee crit is nice, but in the long run it's only about a 4% total increase in total DPS.

GoA: Nice to have; affects your whole group including shamans and ferals.

What's this mean? The best thing you can do for ANY melee class is team them with an enh. shaman. The next best thing you can do is to add a battle shouting warrior to the group. Finally, a feral is a nice treat; if your feral can do within 15% of the damage of your worst rogue, swap 'em in.

 

Rhaegal

I might actually swap WF and UR (mainly because due to weapon damage and normalized instants, I think +10% AP = +10% DPS is overestimating except for feral druids--I could be wrong though), but you're absolutely right about melee groups being very buff dependent. My only real addition is to this comment:

True in general, but also adds to the uptime of on-crit abilities and procs, like Unleashed Rage, Flurry, [Hourglass of the Unraveller], Expose Weakness (though I'm not sure why you'd have a SV hunter in a melee group unless it's a caster-heavy 10-man), etc. Most of the always-on-crit abilities will have nearly 100% uptime, but an extra 5% crit does a good job of reducing that small % of the time that they're not. Pedantic, I know, but occasionally worth considering.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

Mindrila

Well I have a question concerning Archimonde. Right now I am quite new to the fight and I am the only enhancement shaman raiding. As survival seems to be the biggest problem for the raid I was put into the tankgroup for setting up grace of air and tremortotem.

Is this a wise choice of my RL or should I be put into the melee DPS group instead?

I'm not shure for myself but it didn't seem to be the problem that the tank dies but someone running into a doomfire or not having the parachute (hehe), so I would put me in the DPS group.

 

Joy

You should be in the melee group, and you should get the occasional fear ward for manual tremors.



On a more general note, have I missed the new PvE mainhand? Because season 3 is better than the badge loot, and having just seen the season 4 2 hander its reasonable to assume the s4 1hers will be around 110 dps.

 

poofypajamas

I feel like a complete retard for having to ask this question, but stormstrike cannot proc WF right? So when timing WF cooldowns to time stormstrike appropriately, you want to stormstrike while windfury IS on cooldown correct?

 

Joy

Stormstrike most certainly can proc Windfury, so if you have a WF CD timer it can be beneficial to wait a second or so for the WF cd to be available before Stormstriking.

 

◊ Rob

Incorrect on both counts. Stormstrike can proc WF and you want to Stormstrike while WF is not on cooldown.

Malan, probably best to add this to the OP under Stormstrike.

 

• Sebudai

Assuming the raid group is fairly balanced composition-wise(i.e. contains the usual caster dps group, melee dps group, healer group, etc), and only contains one enhancement shaman, I don't think it is ever a good idea to put that shaman in the tank group. I've put myself in the tank group for Gurtogg before, but I doubt it's even optimal for that encounter. Actually, the tank group is just plain the last group that should ever get a shaman. The only time I will give our tanks one is when we have five shaman in the raid.

Archimonde specifically is a melee friendly encounter. Enhancement shaman #1 should definitely be in the melee dps group. Melee dps shoulders most of the responsibility on that fight as far as actually doing damage to Archimonde. When we were learning the encounter we actually told all of our non-melee dps players that we didn't care if they did 0 dps as long as they didn't die. Tremor Totem and GoA for the MT on that encounter are both unnecessary. Even if they were necessary, a restoration shaman can provide both of them just as well. Why would the MT need Tremor Totem anyway, unless you're not using a warrior and have less than four priests in the raid? If you're using something silly like a Feral druid, I would probably put him in the following group(assuming you're twisting GoA/WF):

Rogue
Rogue
DPS Warrior
Feral Druid(MT)
Enhancement Shaman

 

Rhaegal

This depends heavily on the skill and buffs of both the tank and your DPS. If anyone in the raid is threat capped, a shaman in the MT group is going to raise that cap quite noticeably. The effect is most significant for warriors, but I've found that Unleashed Rage does fun things for feral MTs, too, since Mangle's threat is a multiplier instead of a static amount + damage done, so +10% AP = +10% mangle and melee threat. More if you count SoE, and (if applicable) GoA. In any case, it's heaps better than putting one in the healer group, as Mana Spring and WoA are mostly icing. On the other hand, if your raid doesn't have many DPS that are pushing their limits, sure, shaman are wasted in the tank group.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

Amagnus

Which is the best totem to use in a 5-person group with a prot palladin tank? The OP says windfury in the totem section but in the footnotes it says there was a change (which I cannot find) to use Wrath of Air.

Thanks.

 

• Sebudai

Protection paladins generate most of their threat via Consecrate and Holy Shield, both of which scale with spell damage. If tank threat is your primary concern then Wrath of Air is probably the best totem to drop. I normally just twist WF and GoA when I group with a protection paladin. They shouldn't have any problem holding aggro on non-caster mobs. In fact they're normally quite good at it.

 

Pitbuller

You can do some radical and twist wf + wrath. Prot paladin will always love you and you allways get 10 minute blessings without asking. But its not usually case that enhancement shaman found himself at this kinda group.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.