◊ Rob

Ebon Netherscale is still pretty solid, but personally, I'd say the most useful profession would be Blacksmithing for Dragonstrike (and if you enjoy PvP, a Stormherald would probably make you pretty nasty.) The Ebon Netherscale stuff is all replaceable by SSC, the Blacksmithing MH isn't replaceable until BT.

When your hasted, flurried weapon speed drops below 1.5, it is theoretically possible to do less damage than if it was above 1.5 due to the fact 3 swings will not be eligible for WF to proc instead of 2. However, if haste drops you below 1.4 your damage should pick back up again. As far as applying this theory to current itemization, this appears to mean that you primarily just need to be sure that passive haste + flurry + Mongoose doesn't push you under 1.5, because large haste procs like DST and Dragonstrike, and large haste use effects like Bloodlust and Haste Potions will be large enough to increase your DPS no matter where you are on the Haste curve (for example, if your weapon speed is 2.0 and Heroism pushes you down to 1.43, that's still going to be a net DPS increase even though you may lose some WF damage).

--

Sadly, the totem nerf probably wasn't really about shamans, but about Arms warrior effectiveness in PvP and PvE. (Blizzard probably didn't forsee spamstring in PvP or Arms warriors passing Fury warriors in PvE DPS.) Hopefully we will get some changes to compensate us for this nerf, since I don't feel that anyone would say Enhancement Shamans were overpowered in PvP or PvE. (And of course, the Warrior/Paladin and Warlock/Druid duos go unnerfed, while I still have to respec for arenas since my team doesn't have a paladin. )

 

Hedin

I am LW+BS

WF3sec Ace2 - Shows WindFury and Stormstrike cooldowns.

 

Ilmater

Sorry, did I miss something? Totem nerf? When?

 

Ketrew

A link to the blue post regarding the totem nurf can be found here:

WoW Forums -> Hotfixes for August- 08/09/07

-Tenion

 

Malan

Latest PTR change -
* Ankhs now stack to ten.

Game breaking mechanic right there folks.

Does anyone carry that many ankhs with them? I never take more than a 5 stack.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

falonub

I'm guilty of carrying 10 on me =( I do pop a lot in bgs though XD. But having 20 on me will be nice as I do forget to re-stock

 

Iol

I just did some 2hours of testing / farming...

i started auto attacking from range on the first mob, then starting auto attack after i get hit 1 time on the second mob.. and back and forth each mob.

I can pretty much confirm that starting from range start the OH attack first, and starting in range start the MH attack first. WF procs are also skewed a lot more on the first swinger of each avaible swing set.

OH WF procs could only happen if the MH failed, so 20% of 80% of the eligible time, when i started auto attacking inside melee range. The variation of DPS was pretty significant, depending on wich hand i had going first.

- I didn't use heals during battle so i don't know yet if casting can de-sync or re-sync this.
- Stormstrike looked like it was processing first wichever hand is going first in auto attack.
- Didn't test shock, but since it doesn't reset swing timer i assumed it not changing anything. (i'll try throwing shocks in the mix later)

Anyone else has similar results?

 

Malan

I tested it a few times in heroic mech a little bit ago, same results as you. Definitely appears to make the OH swing first if you autoattack out of melee range.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

• Shabadu

Also from the updated notes:

* Crypt Fiends around Azeroth and at Hyjal Summit are now more totem friendly.

 

Lorven

Is there any circumstances where an enhancement Shaman would use a two handed weapon instead of dual weild, like against a not purgable DS. I dont think there is but thought Id ask. By the way thanks for the great info making me rethink a lot on my gear, tactics and a minor twink to my enhance build.

Lorven

 

Malevolencia

Well, in pve for kael'thas you may use the legendary 2h axe but that'd probably only be for the speed buff it has.. in general, I don't think in pve you'd ever want to use 2h besides that. For pvp however, 2h can give you some quite nice burst potential and could possibly be the right choice. However you need a completely different set of gear than in pve (since all that +hit you probably have should be replaced with more stamina/resilience/str/crit etc)

 

Lujaar

For T4 loot (heroics/Kara/Gruul/Mag), the leather pieces are almost always better. If you have the choice between a leather and a mail piece from T4, the leather piece is going to have superior melee stats, and the mail piece is going to have int/mp5. Two-piece T4 is worthwhile because of the set bonus, but other than that leather is the way to go.

Past T4, the difference isn't as clear. Comparing T5 hunter gear vs T5 rogue gear, the rogue gear typically has hit and more stamina, whereas the hunter gear has int and more crit. Crit is a better use of item budget for shamans than hit, so the melee DPS loss from wearing mail over leather is minimal to nonexistant. By this gear level your mana pool also starts becoming more important, as you actually have enough AP to refill a larger mana bar.


To further illustrate the point, compare Chestguard of the Conniver - Items - World of Warcraft vs Scaled Breastplate of Carnage - Items - World of Warcraft, both Nightbane drops. The leather piece is solid; the mail piece is garbage. Now compare Swiftstrike Shoulders - Items - World of Warcraft vs Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes - Items - World of Warcraft, both BoP craftables from BT patterns. The two are so similar that my choice came down to which one I thought was less hideous.

 

Nazgull

--


flurry+2 moongose procs + dragonstrike proc >1.51 its around 1.6~ i go under 1.51 speed only with bl on which ofc happen once every blue moon

i use dragonstrike on mh and netherzim on oh and dragonstrike tbh isnt proccing alot (less then 10%)but its the best pve mh no item can replace the haste proc unless you have dragonspine from gruul ( never drop for me )
nothing is better then 1.2 mh and 1.3 oh its just crazy dps if u leave the wf for sec if u doing over 1k dmg in 1 crit with mh and like 500+ with oh( if u have like 40% crit buffed) can cover any wf that doesnt proc

 

Tambard

Excellent post! I learned a lot from reading it, and I'm very appreciative that you took the time to write this. I do still have a few questions. I attempted to search the forums for information, but I wasn't able to find anything...

Why do many Enhancement Shaman spec into Restoration with their extra points? I believe it was originally for the Hit Rating and possibly enhanced Ankh, but this guide reveals Hit Rating to be less important than originally thought, is that still the best way to spec? If so, why?

And I saw a lot of theory (which makes a lot of sense) on why a faster OH is a poor choice when applying Windfury to both weapons... But I am currently using the Runic Hammer with Flame Tongue in my Main and Malchazeen with Windfury in my offhand... How much of an increase would I be looking at if I slid the Runic Hammer to my offhand and got say... Fool's Bane in my main hand?

 

david0925

1.3% hit and spell hit are good. Hit is not the optimal way to increase DPS over Str or Crit, but it still increases dps by a good margin. In addition, improved Ankh helps as a "aggro wipe", and Healing focus allow you to actually toss out a couple of spot heals. Of course, all these might change with the new Enhancement Talents

You'll see a pretty decent chunk of DPs increase if you go with the later setup, the damage will be more spikey, however. So you need to test extensively to see accurate results

 

Tambard

Ah! Thank you very much.

 

rava

Prism of Inner Calm was buffed to -150 threat per crit somewhat recently. I still can't pull aggro on bosses even if I try though; so I can't see a reason to use it anywhere but on trash.

 

Malan

Recently? Its been 150 ever since the last patch. It was -50 when TBC was released.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

Sebudai

Do people actually use Reincarnate as a poor man's Vanish? I have never once actually overaggrod on purpose just so I can Reincarnate and start over threat-wise. There isn't really a fight in which I'm threat capped anyway, let alone enough of them to singlehandedly justify putting points into this talent.

Reincarnate is one of the huge advantages of our class. I put points into this talent because being able to Reincarnate more often and coming back with more hp and mana has been the difference between winning and losing on a lot of encounters for us over the years. I'm pretty sure all five of our shaman spec into this talent.

 

Iol

Doing the switch for WF on both hands, with Fool's bane and Runic Hammer would give you a pretty huge boost. Specially considering you don't put WF on your main hand, i must say, i really don't see why you'd ever want to use the combo you are using, with these choices of weapon imbue..

Mind enlightening me on why you chose to wield this combo?

 

Malan

I joke about it but haven't actually ever done it on purpose - it just helps being on a shorter cooldown to not really care too much about using it in the middle of a fight. Usually I only have to use it on multi-mob fights where one of the OTs doesn't have too good of a threat cycle.

Edit - I have updated the Pawn string and the link, the new version supports Haste Rating built-in.

Shitting up every single thread on EJ since '06

 

• Aeolian

I dont pull aggro and die on purpose. Its not something I set out to do, in fact I go to great lengths to avoid having to use my ankh. But its nice to have the points in the talent to allow me to ankh more often and with more health and mana.

 

TradewindKlaatubarada

Is there any info on +weapon skill for shamans? Seems quite confusing on the rogue/warrior theorycrafting post.

 

Tambard

Well, I happened to really like the slow MH and fast OH. I had heard a while back about Windfury had a timer for when it can proc again, so I knew that Windfury on both would be a waste much of the time. Then, I decided to go for the Flametongue's dmg on the mainhand, while keeping the Windfury procs to the offhand, since it's more likely to steal the procs in any case. I hadn't done all the research as the people who typically post here had done, but then again, I've been raiding Resto for the last 6 months, so I haven't done too much research on it.

 

LazyJoe

Simply put, windfury gives rouglhy 60% more damage to your weapon if you just take the procs into account (in fact it gives much more because it increases the time you stay in flurry, as well as everything that can proc : mangoose or crusader enchants, various trinkets, chamanistic rage, etc....) so just do the math and you'll see that even with very crappy gear windfury is always far better than flametongue.

This is for the mainhand, things are a bit different for the offhand because it gets only 50% of the physical damages, but flametongue -as well as frostband- being magical damage are not affected. Anyway windfury is still the best because it scales with your melee stats, while flametongue scales with spell damage, and you usualy don't have spell damage in your enhancement gear.

Even with the upcoming talents which will provide us with a fair amount of spell damage windfury will still be better if you're wearing epic gear (but it may become a good choice for leveling i guess)