It will be very interesting to see if flametongue is now a viable offhand enchant. maybe I'll update the mod.
I would use flameshock on crits, but never earth shock (still need to provide the earthstrike bonus to the elemental shammies). However, in pvp, the reduced mana and up'd dps from shocks will be really nice.
Shamanistic rage... I'm not sure about when you'd use it? Maybe during an earthquake from doomwalker, aoe dmg mobs, or other predictable damage source?
I'm very happy with these updates, but i'd love them now instead of later. Perhaps I should have grabbed a karazan dagger :-)
You'll probably find a better level 80 blue quest reward, I wouldnt worry too much about it
My guess would be that these changes aren't going to wait for the expansion, but were in Blizzard's latest build when they connected to the expansion realms for Blizzcon. We can only hope that they would ship with 2.2, after the testing for in-game voice chat is complete.
Yah, exactly Gorlek. I felt like I got the shaft a little bit when AQ and other items were updated with better stats after I'd passed on them because they didn't fit my rogue with their initial stat composition.
I'd like to avoid a similar situation this time around. With most of my guild in Hyjal/BT gear, getting a nice dagger from heroic rewards or karazan doesn't seem to be a horrible idea for the "just in case" scenario.
It will be very interesting to see if flametongue is now a viable offhand enchant. maybe I'll update the mod.
30% of AP turning into damage seems to be really nice, especially if it makes Enh Shaman not locked into just using slow off-hands (more choices are good!), and to have a reason to use something other than Wind fury.
The PTR is not updated, so I wonder when this is going to happen.
The use of Shaman Rage would be just to use it like you do now, I don't think waiting to use it (like during Earthquake or before a Shatter) would be worth it in the long run.
I think the threat aspect might get seriously out of hand with 30% AP -> +dmg when shocking.
I rather would have liked some active thread reduction, like that -30% Dmg with Sham Rage, just with threat instead.
Anyway frostbrand or flametongue on OH might be a working alternative with these talents, for MH I don't think it will do more dmg than WF
Wow. These changes will be awsome. Inc theorycraft!!!! Maybe these changes will make them take MP/5 off T6 and put on something useful... Find a T6 vendor!
Hoping they tweak elemental/resto as well. Maybe convert ToW to plain 6% crit.
Ok, I updated an older (but probably 90% accurate) version of my code, since I ran over my laptop that has the most recent versions with my truck. oops.
Here's the setup:
Test 1 and 2
AP 2500 (before UR, but after totems, etc)
Crit 32%
Hit 16% (inc talents)
Glance 24% @ 24% reduction
Dodge 6%
Test 1
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
OH - 97.7 1.5speed Galdiator Bonecracker w/FT
Test 2
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
Test 3 and 4 - Heroics Gear
AP 1500 (before UR, but after totems, etc)
Crit 26%
Hit 16% (inc talents)
Glance 24% @ 24% reduction
Dodge 6%
Test 1
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
OH - 97.7 1.5speed Galdiator Bonecracker w/FT
Test 2
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
MH - 97.5 2.6speed Gladiator Cleaver w/WF
Great Gear
Test 1: 787dps
Test 2: 830dps
Heroics Gear
Test 3: 587 dps
Test 4: 586 dps
So we've learned what we already know - WF scales. The new MQ talent for flame tongue weapon scales nicely with AP, but it doesn't scale with melee crit. The Great Gear tests would probably look a lot more like the Heroics Gear test if I didn't increase the crit rate at the same time I upped the AP level.
I don' t have any FT resists modeled in here, but I do have the 30% MQ bonus and elemental weapons factored in. Also, since I don't have resists, I also put the crit rate for FT at 0% in order to make up for that a little. Also of note, with the new MQ bonus, you make up 20dps from flame shock (800 dmg * 30% / 12 seconds).
This sim is not the latest and greatest, but it's pretty close probably. We'll have to see if real world testing bears this out.
I think the threat aspect might get seriously out of hand with 30% AP -> +dmg when shocking.
I rather would have liked some active thread reduction, like that -30% Dmg with Sham Rage, just with threat instead.
Anyway frostbrand or flametongue on OH might be a working alternative with these talents, for MH I don't think it will do more dmg than WF
Threat reduction is going from 15% to 20%, but I very rarely have issues with threat, tank threat gen is really good, if yours isn't sort him out.
We still don't know how spells and abilities will be changed in the expansion patch. For example, flametongue's coefficient may be raised. But it's definitely a nice start. Synergy with elemental/resto was really lacking before. Also I didn't expect them to buff enhancement's actual damage, that's a nice surprise.
Hopefully some of those unknowns will help out enhance shamans in heroics and 10mans, which is where we're truly lacking in 2.1.
Does Elemental Devastation trigger from Flametongue? I cant test it on my shaman (low level=no gold for respecs), but if so, it might add a lot to the viability of an Ele/Enh build.
I know there has been some talk about modeling armor penetration effects in this thread. World of Raids is reporting a new enchant from Zul'Aman with that efffect: New Enchant: Executioner -- Zul'Aman
- Armor Penetration proc (proc rate similar to mongoose)
Use: Learn how to permanently enchant a Melee Weapon to occasionally ignore 840 of your ennemy's armor. Requires a level 35 or higher item.
I'd be interested to see from those who are much smarter than I how this stacks up against mongoose.
I'd be interested to see from those who are much smarter than I how this stacks up against mongoose.
Too early to speculate.
I'll be using a WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Shaman -> Talent Calculator spec lujar. I find the second/third tiers to be quite unimpressive for dps. Using all the necessary enh talents, you only get a single point into elemental devastation. Although, I'd be interested to see how it fairs when you remove two points from the new mental quickness to devastation. We all dismiss elemental because of the 3% hit (including spell) from resto, but considering the gear level is ramping up (and draenei have 1% spell hit passive) I could see an elemental spec being viable. This could be especially true if the -ac enchant is as good as it's being hyped up to be, losing one or possibly two mongoose enchants hurts the crit chance.
Disquette - If your test includes a 24% glance rate, and doesn't include spell crits or spell resists, your sim probably shows flametongue performing better than it would in actual play. Against a raid boss an enh shaman can expect spells to resist a lot more often than they crit.
I think we can conclude that slow/slow WF/WF is still best in epic gear, as you said. I'd be interested to see how slow/fast WF/FT performs against slow/slow-but-crappy WF/WF though. For example, WF/FT Decapitator/Emerald Ripper vs WF/WF Decapitator/Boggspine Knuckles.
Is the version of the sim you used publicly available?
Also, about the AP => spell damage conversion, a shaman with 2200 AP could expect to gain 284 damage on each shock. It seems like that, combined with increased mana efficiency from Shamanistic Focus, would make a 16/45/0 build worth re-evaluating. Thoughts anyone?
Let's set a couple ground rules from here on out for this thread, in a gentleman's agreement fashion:
We should avoid speculaton about changes we'd like to see or how things will be at level 80 since we have no information about those aspects of our class/talent tree yet.
Theorycrafting about the talent changes shown at blizzcon should focus on right now at level 70, with current itemization.
Also, continue to keep the PvP stuff in the PvP forum.
Does Elemental Devastation trigger from Flametongue? I cant test it on my shaman (low level=no gold for respecs), but if so, it might add a lot to the viability of an Ele/Enh build.
Unfortunately no. I tested that out a while ago when I got my darkmoon fairy card. I was hoping that I could offhand FT and use it to proc ED to boost my crits, but it didn't work. I can understand blizzards reasoning for this, though. A fast offhand with FT and haste effects could give almost a permanent 9% crit bonus.
I'm hoping since they're releasing a new 25 man raid dungeon before xpac2 comes out, we'll see these changes sooner and not later.
19/42/0 is a good spec already. I have no clue where I'm going to pull the points for mental quickness from and still get elemental devastation. I'm liking these changes more and more, it's been a long time since I had a hard decision about where to use talent points. Kudos to blizzard.
PS. Hedin, I just started to use wf3sec and I'm never looking back. You're my hero.
Hmm, that is interesting though. At least there is an alternative to WF in the offhand. Even though we lose out on a little dps, it might outweigh the effort in getting the arena mainhand as our only viable upgrade from runic hammer till A'lar or hyjal.
These changes surprised me a lot, showing that Blizzard is at least understanding our core issues and seeing through the drama and stupidity of their forums. I thought these changes were rather intelligent. Im still waiting to wake up from this dream of shaman lovin :P
What are people's thoughts on spell crit now for raiding? I've been playing around with a sort of a 24/37 suicide spec, i guess, for shits and giggles in pvp and i quite like the extra damage potential, despite the mana issues (i refuse to pot in pvp!). With the new changes i'm seeing spell crit being potentially more useful as people might (unless i'm severely undervaluing Nature's Guidance) switch to 18/43 builds or some variant.
Obviously we're gonna lack a little by choosing Shamanistic Rage over Elemental Fury in terms of valuing spell crit and thus shock DPS. Or will we? If our shocks are consistently cheaper by a large amount, and a lot bigger, will we even need SR to keep our mana up if we're still chugging mana pots? If not, then 21/40 might be the way to go, and dare i say it but perhaps a little MP5 wouldn't go amiss.
At the same time though i know all too well that a lot of my shocks do get resisted. I'll admit ignorance on spell resist mechanics and whatnot, but if we're gonna be seeing a lot of resists on our shocks (it feels as though every other shock i cast on Aran is a resist) then this might be in vain.
Shaman scaling in multiple directions is always the way I thought it just should have been. (AQ Stormcaller set will back me up on this) It lets use such a varied amount of itemization that we can tailor our DPS to come form multiple sources and eventually equal out to a similiar value with some quick gear swaps or a slight change in skills used. All in all, it makes us just feel more 'hybridy' when we can get meaningful contributions from basically all stats.
fake edit: they should make spell damage scale all of the weapon enchants in some way to encourage use across the board (and maybe make rockbiter into an armor penetration enchant for hits from that hand since they can do it ala that new enchant)
Nah, my test didn't include the debuffs on the mob which would make flametongue look better. I considered it, but as Lujaar pointed out, I already have it performing higher than it should due to resists. Also, I assumed a 23% dmg reduction due to armor, which is probably on the high side, so I'm undervaluing the melee aspects (probably) a little already.
I'm pretty sure testing at this point would show that wf/wf slow/slow is still the way to go.
I really do like the changes though, and hope they're put in the game sooner than later.
These are very exciting changes and I hope they come in 2.2. I'm glad that Bloodlust Brooch makes you glow red so that Shamanistic Rage won't be quite as obvious a "dispel me" signal in 5v5. Anyone know any other items/procs that cause the red glow that shamans can equip?
08/04/07, 11:41 AM
Similar Threads
