Tornhoof

I changed my model and the difference between two slow wf weapons (dragonstrike/syphon) and dragonstrike/swifsteel bludgeon (slow/fast) with flametongue on oh is in the <2% range, with the flametongue version being a bit more.

This includes, spellhit (e.g. a 14% resist chance), spellcrit but none of the external fire buffs like coe.

Actually I'm not really surprised that the difference isn't much at all, since this is clearly just a fix to allow us use more weapons, not for a dps increase in melee.
Since I'm talking high end gear (close to perfect), this gear selection has high amounts of +haste stacked (30%+). So keep in mind, that without that much +haste flametongue will lose much of it's appeal, because the +spelldmg bonus is fixed and not speed dependent.

I think with flametongue the optimal weapon choice would be dragonstrike/swiftsteel bludgeon for the haste effects, and syphon/swiftsteel for the looks.

http://code.google.com/p/wowequipoptimizer/

 

Malan

I think Tornhoof nailed it on the head - Blizzard already had the problem of Windfury being the clear victor over all the other weapon enchants, (and had acknowleged this in this IRC dev chat they did) yet very few items support the DPS model that Windfury has created. By giving us some extra spell damage for free they're really just allowing you more weapon choice so that you don't have to stick to using a lowbie weapon just for the slower speed. I think this is the best way we can look at this.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Stopokingme

I believe I saw a post some pages back that said that +hit does indeed become more valuable when you get more haste. Would make sense to ofcourse, the more haste you get, the more damage you'll be getting from white attacks, so getting more hit then should increase your dps by a larger margin. But don't take my word for it, I'm hardly an expert on the subject, maybe someone else can do the math?

 

Bain

If this is correct (im barely grasping the concept as it is), does this mean that a re-evaluation of the "optimal stats" will need to be redone? +Hit in particular? and maybe a few others.

I'm only curious about this, as i've gone from focusing on the left over leather pieces from kara, to now, thinking about grabbing all the mail i can, with its +int, +hit (not that im neglecting upgrades).

 

Aett

You're not going to see any significant haste gear until you're well into BT. If you're at the T4 or T5 level instances I wouldn't worry too much about gearing for it.

If haste does increase the value of hit over the value of crit by any significant amount there are some smaller changes that you can make to buff your +hit pretty quickly. Like putting back on the Kara rep ring and the heroic badge neck.

I'd be interested in seeing how much haste increases the value of hit by.

 

berg

Do not think of it in such binary terms.


Using a simple damage model for a T5/6 shaman you should see something near this in a wws reports. This is just a crude approximation, don't nitpick.

500 dps white 50%
300 dps wf 30%
100 dps SS 10%
100 dps shocks 10%

So adding a very respectable amount of haste rating, say ~200 for 20% haste would linearly increase white damage up to 600 dps. wf damage would increase to a lesser extent but I will ignore it just for demonstration purposes yielding a new wws report of...

600 dps white 55%
300 dps wf 27%
100 dps SS 9%
100 dps shocks 9%

So as you can see here a very sizeable amount of haste still has a tough time of largely changing the damage ratios. It would require a LOT of haste and likely some mechanic changes for our white damage to grow large enough to make +hit on par with some of the other stats.

Quick recap:
Increasing white damage makes hit more useful, but it has a lot of ground to make up compared to other stats.

In the example above ~200 haste increased white damage 10%. White damage is the only group that benefits from +hit so it follows that +hit would have become roughly 10% more effective. +Hit is currently more than 10% behind other stats though so it is difficult to fathom an amount of haste that would make +hit a preferred item mod.

 

Malan

By the time that you're really considering all the +Haste items you're in BT/Hyjal anyways, and all the gear from those 2 zones has tons of +hit on it already. Take a look at the armory for some of the shaman in this thread that have killed Illidan, and they certainly aren't hurting for +hit on their gear.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Malevolencia

Yesterday I got the [Rod of the Sun King] (2.7spd for OH) to go with my [Dragonstrike] (2.7spd MH). Up til now, I had a 2.6spd gladiator offhand, so I was muchly "yay" for having same speed weapons now. However today I've been hitting random mobs in BEM and watching my combatlog. I'm finding that sometimes the OH will hit before the MH, and continue to do so until the mob is dead. Needless to say, this seems to be horrificly bad for dps using WF/WF if this were to happen and I not notice it on a boss fight (can be fixed, by stopping combat and restarting until eventually the MH is hitting first).

It seems to happen an awful lot (I'd say 50% of the time) yet nobody else who's used same speed weapons has reported anything other than MH hitting first all the time? It makes me feel that using a slower OH (e.g. [Syphon of the Nathrezim] for me) than MH is perhaps safer dpswise since so many fights have you running about that every time you start hitting again you may have to stop hitting a few times til it's in the correct order, wasting valuable dps time (or worse, not noticing and doing primarily OH WFs the whole fight).

Apologies for screenshot not having timestamps (using simpleCombatLog and couldn't find where if possible at all to add timestamps). But I think it shows clearly enough what I mean..

 

drats

You may just be seeing a string of bad luck. If you've only had them for a day I wouldn't get too worried about it.

** I could be totally wrong about this, but what I've observed is:

When you start attacking and you are in range, your MH hits first followed by your OH. If you start attacking and you're out of range, when you move in range both weapons attack at the same time. So if you're seeing a lot of offhand hits, you may want to stop auto attacking for a sec, then start again.

 

Tornhoof

@Malevolencia: Actually this is well known, but a rare case in real life combat, because the mob dodges, you miss etc. But you're correct that sometimes a fight is started with the OH instead of the MH, I noticed that too. But in a real boss mob fight the amount of wf procs should be distributed fairly even for weapons with the same speed.
If you really encounter this problem more often in a boss fight, just turn around for a sec or heal yourself once or just stop auto-attack

http://code.google.com/p/wowequipoptimizer/

 

Nite_Moogle

Well, yeah. The WF timer is shared between hands and has a high chance of going off -- if the main hand "misses" its chance then the next time it comes up your offhand will have the first chance at proccing, potentially several times in a row. The same scenario can happen with your main hand getting a long streak of procs as well. This is pretty much exactly how things go with random numbers. If you're getting 50% of your procs on the offhand making the same number of attacks with each hand that's not really something to worry all that much about :P

If you want to avoid it, start auto-attacking while facing away from the mob or while you are out of range for about 1.5 seconds to allow the "warm up" on the offhand to expire before you actually swing. This will allow your swings to be synchronous, and in this situation the main hand will have its chance to proc WF first even if the OH had caught the previous proc. It isn't practical in all situations but it is useful to know and practice.

 

Malevolencia

Ah this seems to be correct yes. I've always had to habit of running to mobs while in combat, and that seemed to be giving equal chance that either would hit first. If I only enter combat after in melee range it does indeed seem to be the case that the MH will always start first.

Many thanks

 

Rescorla

Has Blizzard officially stated when the new talent changes are going live? I was going to enchant my Runic Hammer with Mongoose sometime in the next fews days but if these changes are scheduled to go live in the 2.3 Zul Aman patch, I'll put it on a Malchezeen instead.

 

Malan

2.3 patch? Heck man, 2.2 is still on the PTR and won't be released until the Voice comms are working - which aren't even on the build yet! 2.2 is still a month to two months away. 2.3 probably another 3-4 after that.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Sorail

Can't deceide between two cloaks. From pure AEP [Vengeance Wrap] should be the clear winner but [Crystalweave Cape] is way cheaper to get. In your opinion is that 20 points difference in AEP worth gathering mats for the epic cloak?

 

drats

I love my Crystalweave Cape. I only take it off to PvP, and I probably won't get rid of it until I find a cloak with more haste. Oh wait, there are no other cloaks with haste :-) Seriously, I probably won't drop it until I get more haste items from BT/Hyjal.

 

Unaz

I have Vengeance Wrap at almost 29 points over Crystalweave using ( Thottbot World of Warcraft: Customize Item Score Multipliers )

And with only 3 better cloaks in the game over Vengeance Wrap. So I'd say, yes, it's worth the trouble.

I have these as the top 5 cloaks in the game (Crystalweave clocking in at 13th), so it's up to you as to how long you want to wait for upgrades:

[Shadowmoon Destroyer's Drape]
[Thalassian Wildercloak]
[Black-Iron Battlecloak]
[Vengeance Wrap]
[Razor-Scale Battlecloak]

Edit; This reminds me, has anyone come up with an AEP value for Armor Penetration, now that we can key on it?

 

Snubble

Aren't there other factors though that need to be taken into account when switching from a slow MH/OH combo using WF to a slow MH/fast OH combo using WF and FT? I know the weapon buffs themselves are a focal point for discussion, but doesnt switching to a fast offhand have some inherent benefits? And maybe disadvantages?

With a 1.3-1.4 offhand weapon, you'll get more Shamanistic Rage, Judgement of Wisdom/Light and Shamanistic Focus procs which should give you more mana efficiency.

And even though most trinkets/enchants/meta gems with chance on hit/crit procs have internal cooldowns, won't more swings still increase the proc rate once the internal cooldown is up?

Will a fast OH effect how much of a DPS increase flurry will give you? Will it hurt your SS damage?

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm still tring to take all of this in.

 

Stopokingme

This might actually have something to do with the wacky way the combat log reports things, it's pretty well known that chain heal and chain lightning appear in the combat log in the reverse order you'd expect. Might be the same for MH and OH hits occuring at the same time, not sure though, never really bothered to check that.

A huge string of OH wf's can easily just be reported to bad luck.

I know I have no problems with my 2 2.6 speed weapons at least.

On a side note, if you ever notice a gap between MH and OH attacks occuring and you want to synch them again, an instant LHW from the 2 piece tier 5 proc resets them to both attacking at the same time again, or just turning away for a second and then facing the mob again.

 

Revdarian

Heya Disquette, just catched a small mistake IMHO on your calculations, since the dodge//crit rolls are done at the same time they aren´t multiplicative but additive actually so the number should be (1-0.06 + 0.35) =1.29

Spells don´t follow that rule tho, for them Hit//crit are multiplicative effects.

That should help a bit on your modeling.


Also i would like to add to the general discussion that people seem to forget also the effect of using a fast offhand with Flametongue for PPM enchants due to the instant attacks, and the effect itself of the diminution(sp?) of Stormstrike damage//dps due to the use of fast weapons.

 

Bai

Just to throw around some numbers for everyone:

Last Teron Gorefiend Kill: Loading...
(I was alive the entire 5mins.)

Our Last Anetheron Kill: Baii - WWS
(98% Present)

Alot of other fights are not as stable for melee to stand and dps. Teron is pretty much the most solid benchmark ingame currently. (outside the fact if you get Deathed.)
Both of these kills are after I just recently got the Rising Tide for my offhand. Still using Dragonstike mainhand.


--Also curious: Since we're all getting free spell damage next patch; What are some of y'alls spike AP in raids? Personally, I've hit 3370.

 

Iol

Question Disquette: Asumming both hands have equal speed weapons. Do you assume 50% procs on Both hands on dual WF? If the main hand is processed first, and dont go out of sync, wouldn't the main hand have a higher % of the procs? Since 20% off the main hand, and 16% on the off hand. (20% of the time when main hand didnt proc, thus 20% of 80%.)

The question then would be, do they go out of sync eventually and what makes them go out of sync?

 

• Disquette

I force the hands out of synch by putting in a randomized lag aspect. So, in my model, it's something like

0 MH hit
0 + 2.6 +/- 0.1 (randomized through that range) MH next hit.

I also have another bit of code in my sim that's a flipper - if both hands land simultaneously, it alternates which one goes first, so the next time they hit simultaneously, the other hand goes first.

As for why they go out of synch - I don't know. But I do know that some events happen simultaneously in the combat log, but regular white attacks don't, even when using same speed weapons.

 

Revdarian

Just to prove a small point i will use your Teron log.

My point is about stormstrike damage, currently you are hitting for (2.7 + 2.6/2) = 4 multiplicator sorta of weapon speed and AP, if instead of the Rising Tide you would use a dagger like Tracker´s Blade which is pretty similarly all in all to the R.T. you would get a (2.7+1.5/2)= 3.45 multiplier roughly for your stormstrike.

So if you currently did 37182 dmg it is safe to asume that you would do roughly 37182*3.45/4 = 32069.48 dmg with stormstrike, for the same duration of time, and even adding the extra 1% crit from the dagger it would go up to 32303.56 dmg.


So i believe that yes, we will need tests once the changes hits us, but that there are still lots of benefits from using slow weapons and thus not flametongue enchant on the offhand, and that just seeing the proc damage granted from each enchant isn´t enough honestly.

 

Stigmata

I hover somewhere between 3000-3300, this is dependant on the ashtongue trinket, which is pretty much always on.

Although I did notice a 568 SR tick the other day, not sure exactly what I had at the time. 568 would be like 3800?