rava

Was probably on Jaina trash/rage/aneth in Hyjal, I think it's the footies that do a Rallying Cry for ~200 ap, I've had some pretty ridiculous ap numbers as a result.

 

Malan

This is incredibly encouraging. WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Shaman: Key talent in your build?

Or would be if they were posting about the worthless talents in Enhance. Christ. Can one of your Euros post some good stuff about the first 2 tiers of Enhance being utterly stupid? Ancestral Knowledge in particular.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Igniter

Windfury Totem 19

Gotta love Teron.

 

Puretide

First off, I'd like to thank all of you guys for putting together this thread, its been an amazing and incredibly informative read.

However, I come with a few questions, that I hope some of you more experienced players can help me out with.

[Just as a heads up, my guild is still pretty new to the raiding world, we only just downed Gruul last week. Otherwise, Karazhan is on farm (except for Netherspite, which tends to get left out in our casual raiding schedule) as well as High King)]

As you can tell from my armory page, my gear isn't exactly spectacular in some cases.

Now I've been having some difficulty keeping up with my guild's DPS in 25 mans for some reason. I know I'm not shooting for First, or even second, but sometimes I'm in like 8th or 9th on damage, and I feel that I could be doing better. At times my raid doesn't have a fire mages so I tend to just keep with Earth Shock (Since my charges aren't getting eaten up, since most of my guild's rogues run with Deadly Poison in their OHs and I keep up WF for them), is this a good idea? Or should I still consider using a Flame Shock/Earth Shock Rotation?

Another thing, somethings before I ask for some suggestions with my gear. First off, my two primary trinkets are Romulo's Poison Vial and Core of Ar'kelos, I know that neither are particularly good, but the only other trinket I've been able to get is Bladefist's Breadth and Uniting Charm, so I figure those two are my best bet till I can get my hands on Abacus of Violent Odds and the Hourglass. Also, with some of the gems (and in some cases lack of enchants), right now I'm pretty pressed for gold since I'm powerleveling Leatherworking for the set and from repair costs from learning Gruul. I'm hoping to get my leatherworking set soon (or at least my chest), but its really slowing down recently, but thats another issue.

Now, I know that my neck, legs, trinkets, chest, helm and one of my rings are my weakest items. Right now I'm grinding honor for the PvP neck, which I'll throw in an Inscribed Noble Topaz. Is this probably my best bet for upgrades from the PvP world? (Not arena, I'm still 2 or 3 weeks from my season 2 helm which is the item I'm gonna get next) Or should I upgrade my Ring of Umbral Doom? I've had absolutely terrible luck when it comes to necks, I'm exalted with Violet Eye and have honestly never seen any of the epic karazhan DPS necks. Also with my totem, I know its not the best. I've been trying to get Astral Winds, but so far my luck has been dry. Should I pick up the Zangermarsh totem with the additional shock damage until I get luck with Heroic Mana Tombs?

Also, with my Girdle of Treachery do you think I should switch out my Hit/Agi gems for Inscribed Noble Topazes? I already plan on changing my Helm of Desolation's gem after reading through the topic.

Is it just a gear problem? Otherwise I'd greatly appreciate any other suggestions you guys could give me to help up my DPS.

On a sorta side note; on trash I die a lot. Mostly from lack of rage on my tanks since they aren't getting hit that hard, so I tend to pull aggro (this is mostly Karazhan, Gruul's Lair trash isn't very extensive). Should I just wait till a certain percentage to DPS on trash, not use Windfury (so that I can keep up UR), or something else?

For comparison sake, here are some of the DPS that consistently beat me by wide margins (so you can get a grasp of any gear differences)
Kitna
Mewt
Stings

 

• Disquette

Mod for twisting WF/GoA:

http://www.discofiend.com/wow/Shaman...Totem_Time.zip

If you use NabuFiveSecond cast bar, you cannot use it.

I totally used that mod as the skeleton for the WFTotem timer code. It has all the same commands as nfs does. I'll clean up all the commands and language later, but this is all I can do today.

What it does:

cast windfury totem, it puts up a bar that is 10 seconds long. It will keep refreshing the windfury totem buff every 5 seconds (since that's how WF works).

This is canceled as soon as you use Grace of Air totems. Yes, I should put the other air totems in there, but i didn't. feel free to mod it up yourself.

It starts out as a blue bar while WF is active, then changes to a green bar (but doesn't alter the location) when GoA is up.

Eh, if you try it you'll see what I mean.

To repeat tho - I totally just worked within the NabuFiveSecond code - the author did a nice job on making that easy to read and use. If you use NabuFiveSecond, DO NOT use this mod.

Anyway, here are a couple screenies of it in action so you can see what I mean. The first is with WF Totem up, but not GoA. The second is showing what happened when i dropped GoA totem. Your goal is to redrop WF totem by the time the green bar runs out. That's all there is to twisting.

Sorry the rest of my interface sucks. For this mod, it's just that blue then green bar in the center.

Attached Thumbnails

   

 

Iol

@ Puretide

Rogues will always be way ahead of you if they have similar gear and are inside your group. I'd try to replace your OH by a 2.6 speed green just to see... the non-sync'd weapons could mean you get more OH wind fury. Also, at your gear level, i'd gem and enchant for Crit instead instead of Hit. (mongoose instead of crusader, and +crit rating gems.) Reason being, more UR uptime, and more Flurry. WF adds a good chunk of AP to your WF'ed strikes and WF is a good % of your total dmg.

 

◊ Rob

Puretide --

Some of the easiest and cheapest things you can do to greatly improve that gear are:
* Run Heroic SP for Midnight Legguards (not 100% sure off the top of my head that it's worth breaking 2-piece Deso until you get Cyclone Helm, but when you do, it is.)
* Enchant said Legguards with +40 AP/+10 crit, not 30 STA/10 AGI like your Desolation has.
* Save Heroic badges for Bloodlust Brooch.
* Spend the 90g on the helm enchant from Revered CE (this is a much better cost-benefit ratio than regemming and it should be your first priority).
* Use your arena points to buy a Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler or Cleaver for your OH instead of arena armor.
* Keep working on your Heroic MT totem.

 

aroma

Yes sir <o.

 

Puretide

Alright thanks for the help.

Also, I think Runic Hammer was better than everything but the Arena MHs, at least thats what it said in the main post?

With Arena gear, and the desolation legs, its for pvp, if I could get some better PvE leggings I could easily get the leg enchant on them. Also right now, Mongoose is just too expensive for me. I can probably start running Heroic SP too, I could use neck and healing boots.

Edit: I know I'm not supposed to be at rogue DPS levels, but I'm pretty damn far away from them at times. Is that something I should be worried about? Every melee in the guild absolutely love me, so I'm not worried about losing my raid spot, but I just felt like I could be doing better.

 

Malan

Puretide - you're pretty heavy on +Hit. Drop all the Hit gems, and strongly consider dropping the Vial for the brooch.

@Disquette - damn you and your spiffy space totem skins.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Puretide

For some reason I thought the more hit the better so I just whored it up, but now after reading this thread I see that it was a bad idea. I'm in the process of regeming as best I can. Probably just a legacy from my rogue days.

In regards to the Brooch, its been difficult getting heroic groups running for me (barely been able to setup heroic Pande runs for the totem), so getting the 41 tokens I need for my brooch will take a very long time. I was contemplating getting the ring first (due to its lower cost in tokens), and shoot for the two blue trinkets I mentioned earlier (since getting in a normal mech and/or BM run is a lot easier for me.)

 

Xaanix

Another rogue turncoat eh? Good to know i'm in good company

 

Ardonomus

I just wrote a lengthy reply and as I hit preview... it showed nothing and I forgot to copy it before I hit preview. >.<

Here it is again, reply 39 on page two of the thread.

Let me know if I should change and\or add anything, please.

 

◊ Rob

That's true, perhaps my post wasn't specific enough. As I said, you should buy a MG's Pummeler or Cleaver -- those are the 2.6 speed one-hand weapons that cost 2625 arena points. Your best DPS will come from using that in your offhand (since you have a Decapitator MH).

 

Puretide

I do plan on getting two of these, if possible, but my arena team would like it if I get some better gear first. I have pitiful resilence and hp, and I need all that I can as enhancement.

But as far as raw Honor, is the neck the best bet? I should have enough honor for that or the ring (or the belt even) in a day or two.

 

◊ Rob

Yes. the PvP neck is very solid for PvE when socketed with +4STR/+4 Crit.

 

Timmervargen

Just dropped a line to say that I think more of the EU people from EJ that frequent this thread should go and post their views:

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Shaman: Key talent in your build?

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Shaman: Key talent in your build - Discussion

Our useless talents are unlikely to change if we just sit quiet. The more people that make their voices heard and present our case in a calm and logical fashion the more likely it is someone will listen. I posted my views just a few minutes ago. Some of it is probably wishing for a bit much, but one can dream!

On a slightly related note, I've given up on trying to find out if Thundering Strikes is indeed bugged or not. Gut instinct says that it is, but I can't replicate circumstances that will prove it. Most of data to go on comes from guild raids these days. Lack of time is evil. Only red thread in them is that Stormstrike and Windfury often seem to end up just a little short relative to the Auto Attack crit rate. Never more than 1-2% or so though. Which in turn would indicate that the circumstances provoking the bug are not consistent, occuring substantially less than half of the total dps time.

Or it means that I've been chasing a ghost, and it's just probablility messing with me. :p

 

Malan

Yah its long been believed that Thundering Strikes is either not working, or that its working and the tooltip is wrong (should state white dmg only if thats the case).

Be sure and make that remark in that thread if possible.

Someone please make the suggestion that Imp Lightning shield should affect ALL shields. Anticipation and Toughness should be totally reworked, nobody takes both talents. Tier 1 talents are remnants of the WoW beta or something and should be totally redone.

The point should be hammered in that with Resto and Elemental the thought is "fuck I don't have enough points to get all this good stuff!" whereas with Enhance its "fuck, how do I get to the bottom of the tree with the least points spent on this shit"

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

joelpt

Hi all,

I'm developing an enh shaman dps simulator called Shamulator which you may have heard of. I am currently preparing the next version, but work has come grinding to a halt because of a specific WF issue I have run into.

The common view on the forums is that same-speed weapons are the best choice for enh shamans, because they give you the best odds of proccing WF from the MH instead of the OH.

Well, in my simulations, I am finding same-speed weapons result in a big DPS penalty vs. a slightly faster OH. Let me give you an example.

For the purposes of this example, assume a 100% WF proc rate (i.e. it goes off as soon as it can every time), a 100% hit rate (no misses), and no SS/Flurry.

Take a pair of 2.8/2.8 speed weapons. With a WF cooldown of 3.0 seconds, by my understanding this means that you will get to proc WF once every 5.6 seconds (2.8x2).

Now consider 2.8/2.7 speed weapons. Again due to the WF cooldown, by my calculations you will get to proc WF once every 4.2 seconds on average.

This is because with 2.8/2.8 weapons which always strike at the same moment (simultaneously), you'll get a chance to swing exactly every 2.8 seconds. Since WF cooldown is 3 seconds long, that means you can proc WF exactly once every 5.6 seconds.

With 2.8/2.7 weapons, one or the other hand will always get a chance to proc WF sooner than every 5.6 seconds (average every 4.2s). For instance, the first three WF procs with these speeds will occur at 0.0 (MH), 5.4 (OH), and 8.4 (MH again) seconds. Since the weapon swings are not synchronized, the time between swings will tend to be shorter (moreso at certain points than others, but always proccing WF more often than 5.6 secs).

So, the end result is that comparing these two speed-pairs, WF can proc 25% more frequently with 2.8/2.7 than with 2.8/2.8. (5.6 * 0.75 = 4.2)

Now, this being the case (as I currently understand it), using 2.8/2.8 still yields a better MH:OH WF Proc ratio than 2.8/2.7 -- 50.0% versus 47.3% in my tests. Furthermore, a 2.7 OH means slightly lower DPS from OH WF (& SS) hits.

However this benefit is outweighed by the higher overall number of WF procs that can occur with the different-speed OH. By my calculations, taking all this into account, 2.8/2.7 results in an overall ~10% increase in DPS vs. 2.8/2.8.

Adding Flurry/SS back into the mix reduces this disparity a lot, but the relationship still exists, with same-speed weapons at most speed points suffering a big drop in DPS compared to a slightly faster OH.


Now I understand that this is decidedly the opposite of the prevailing opinion regarding same-speed weapons for enh shammies. So can anybody clue me in on what I might be failing to understand about this?

Thanks
Foozga aka Joel

 

Etelmo

I was talking with a priest in guild, and he reminded me that your crit is based on all attacks, not just hits.
You should be comparing the CritOnZeroDamage(for SWS) for both Windfury/Stormstrike/White damage, rather than CritOnHit. CritOnZeroDamage includes dodge/parry/miss, CritOnHit is just attacks that land.
Loading past raids, they are allmost identical for me.

 

Malovent

Hi everyone

Most interesting thread and I found it very useful. I currently have 2 of these equipped

[Fel Edged Battleaxe] and I would like to hear your thoughts on this combo. Is it a good combo or would it be better to get something like the [Runic Hammer] in both hands or maybe keep one Fel Edged axe in MH and a Runic hammer in OH?

 

Jameseh

You want something slower than what you currently have equipped in your offhand. If you can, try and acquire a [Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver].

Infact, quoted from the opening post of this thread:

 

• Disquette

Ok, so i finally ventured past Kara last night, and went on a guild clear of SSC and TK.

To get it out of the way, oh my god melee range is punishing when you don't know what all the mobs do, or forget exactly what "you're standing in pyro" means for kael :-(

But, back on topic. In kara I'd tried twisting totems using just the standard timers you get with yata / totemus / whatever. It was rather difficult, and I know I botched it sometimes. Using the mod tonight, however, knowing when to refresh was never a problem. I feel pretty good about that aspect of it, and think that if I get to go back again, and know where tthe tank spot are, they can be twisted just fine (on non aoe-silence) fights.

 

Ardonomus

If you read the original post you'd know the answer to your question. FEB is too fast.

 

Stigmata

Post 69, and i quote you Malan, since you have some ideas.

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Shaman: Key talent in your build?