Enhancement Cage Match: Two specs enter, One spec leaves - Page 13

Rhaegal · 03/20/08, 5:51 PM

Originally Posted by beetlejuice

My opinions are not speculated or emotionaly attached. In single dps target of this long fight uninterrupted, i never reached dps of this number as Enhancement / Restoration and totem twisting. In fact all the last week where i tried Ele/enha and totem twist i was top 5 easily. I could even try and see how this WWS addon works and show you data for the whole next week, but i wont be bothered if i just need to prove just to you something.
I made something really interesting happen last week with my spec and my effort trying to totem twist and achieve best personal DPS. I wouldn't care less for other shamans to know, if all were like you .

Yes, your opinions are anecdotal speculation and emotional attachment. You showed two specific examples of two specific fights where you happened to do very well. The nature of enhancement DPS is such that luck plays a very very big factor. Any enhance shaman on these boards will tell you that his DPS on a given fight, especially a short one, can vary by as much as 200-300 DPS from night to night despite having identical gear and spec every time. What you're telling us is that you specced elem/enh for a raid or two, saw big numbers, and decided it clearly had to be an awesome spec. It didn't take into account any difference in buffs or raid balance (do you always have LotP and imp BS, as you had there? do you always have CoR? imp FF? Expose Weakness? any of these can provide very significant boosts to DPS), or whether your observed crit was unusually high or you got lucky and 80% of your Windfuries were from your MH, either of which aren't that uncommon and can seriously skew data to point to a false conclusion. That's exactly the kind of information that is not in any way useful here.

• sordee · 03/20/08, 6:04 PM

Originally Posted by beetlejuice

The 3% of Nature's Guardian is obsolete when you play at 235 hit rating.

Kinda lost me on this one. Since no matter what your melee hit rating is, 3% spell hit is still very much useful for shocks.

Sebudai · 03/20/08, 6:06 PM

To play your game, here's a link to a WWS for one of my guilds recent Teron kills: WWS

Whoa my dps is even higher than yours and I am Enhancement/Restoration. It must be better!

It doesn't work that way, and either of us linking single parses or screenshots of damage meters doesn't prove anything.

testthewest · 03/24/08, 6:57 PM

Originally Posted by beetlejuice

I am the only one on my server to play this way. And my server has many guilds farming T6 content the last months. At Horde side all enhancement shamans who totem twist at T6 content are enhancement/restoration.

My opinions are not speculated or emotionaly attached. In single dps target of this long fight uninterrupted, i never reached dps of this number as Enhancement / Restoration and totem twisting. In fact all the last week where i tried Ele/enha and totem twist i was top 5 easily. I could even try and see how this WWS addon works and show you data for the whole next week, but i wont be bothered if i just need to prove just to you something.
I made something really interesting happen last week with my spec and my effort trying to totem twist and achieve best personal DPS. I wouldn't care less for other shamans to know, if all were like you .

The 3% of Nature's Guardian is obsolete when you play at 235 hit rating. I may exaggerate on this but this is what my last week's raiding shows. If you want to Theorycraft about it go ahead , it will prove your approach at what it is. Ironic and "words of the air"

I think i am out of this forum, the lack of perfect english from my part and the "jerk attitude" without the "elitist" part from some people on this forum really makes me lose fast any sparkle of interest i have to talk or say stuff.

Honestly: You wearing T6 4pieces already shows that you are not maxing your dps.
I guess we are trying here to solve a mathematical problem the scientific way, not parsing some "expieriences".

Piestein · 03/29/08, 4:41 PM

Sorry, I am new to the mathematical part of the game, simply because I haven't looked so much into it for the past almost 2 years. But I have noticed something in the previous pages. I think it's ~page N6 or page n7, don't know. But THERE(not my idea, but still interesting for me), a guy/girl said that if you have more armor penetration and crit, you will do bigger hits(and bigger, more often crits). Therefore, if you have 3% more hit, you should do more damage then if your shocks are improved(ur white hits and crits being fatter).

And the other conclusion was that AP scales better with ele/enh.

Is that correct and is it correct then that for enh/resto we should go for Executioner/Mongoose(MH executioner ofc and OH mongoose) and armor penetration, when for ele/enh you should go for ap and double mongoose?

Like I said, I am new to WoW calculations, so that is why I ask. And rest assured, I won't try to make any math myself(like the others that say their math is bad and then try it on), just try with logical deductions.

Oprahwinfury · 04/02/08, 4:10 PM

So what is the final verdict, Ele/Enh or Enh/Resto?

Malan · 04/02/08, 4:19 PM

Elemental had a pretty small advantage although it is reliant on being able to hit the max # of possible shocks per minute. Conclusion was that it doesn't matter in the end. Personally I found 20 yard totem ranges to be large enough a pain in the ass that I will be staying resto subspec for the foreseeable future.

testthewest · 04/02/08, 6:31 PM

Originally Posted by Malan

Elemental had a pretty small advantage although it is reliant on being able to hit the max # of possible shocks per minute. Conclusion was that it doesn't matter in the end. Personally I found 20 yard totem ranges to be large enough a pain in the ass that I will be staying resto subspec for the foreseeable future.

Yes, the difference seems to be so small, that you decide which utility you like better: spell-breaks every 5 sec or better totem range. Guess we must congratulate Blizzard to have created two specs, that are both offer something slightly different, but are equal.

Last verdit seems to be: Your choice, spec what you like better!

Raut · 04/03/08, 4:44 AM

I've been playing with enhance in raids lately and while the Enh/Elem sub-spec may come out on top in theory, I just can't see how it beats a resto sub-spec given the number of CDs you're constantly waiting for and that have priority. Now, I'm a nub at twisting, but I landed on shocking whenever GCD allowed and nothing else was pending. I still had mana issues and a elem sub-spec will draw a lot more mana. I think this is one of those cases where I will ignore the best DPS option in favor of utility and endurance.

Killme888 · 04/03/08, 5:32 AM

Originally Posted by Oprahwinfury

So what is the final verdict, Ele/Enh or Enh/Resto?

It really depends on the fight and if you have a ret pally or not.

I've been resto until recently, but I've chosen to respec to elemental for Brutallis for more dps. For a fight like that where you're just standing in one place and no problem with the totem range, elemental comes out superior. You definitely cannot go elemental without JoW being kept up, I was having some problems even with JoW if I got unlucky with my SR.

It's also much easier to maintain a perfect SS - FS - WF - GoA - ES cycle with 1.0 second totems and having no clipping issues at all.

• Daler · 04/04/08, 1:04 PM

Originally Posted by Raut

I've been playing with enhance in raids lately and while the Enh/Elem sub-spec may come out on top in theory, I just can't see how it beats a resto sub-spec given the number of CDs you're constantly waiting for and that have priority. Now, I'm a nub at twisting, but I landed on shocking whenever GCD allowed and nothing else was pending. I still had mana issues and a elem sub-spec will draw a lot more mana. I think this is one of those cases where I will ignore the best DPS option in favor of utility and endurance.

No offense, but if you're not experienced at twisting, then you're probably not the best subject to base conclusions on which spec is superior. As it's been said, though, it's personal preference, and resto if you're inexperienced at twisting is almost undoubtedly better.

Malan · 04/04/08, 1:10 PM

I am in an incredibly busy period right now between Sunwell, work and my wedding in 3 weeks. I could use someone (1 person and one person only please) to assist in summarizing the calculations that led us to the conclusion that both specs are roughly equal. Not looking for a windy explanation (I will fill that in) but the math is spread out enough between dumb posts that I don't have time right now.

• Daler · 04/04/08, 3:45 PM

@Malan: I can get to that tonight, I think. If someone beats me to it, just drop a note in here or my PM box so I don't unnecessarily duplicate efforts.

Malan · 04/04/08, 11:15 PM

Oh we don't need it tonight, anytime in the next few weeks is fine just to get it added to the wiki article.

• Daler · 04/05/08, 5:31 AM

Excellent, since I got stuck at the office tonight.

Madstabber · 04/05/08, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by testthewest

Honestly: You wearing T6 4pieces already shows that you are not maxing your dps.
I guess we are trying here to solve a mathematical problem the scientific way, not parsing some "expieriences".

I'm not sure why you said this considering I have 4 set bonus t6 and still have better stats than you...(Maybe you shouldn't make comments like that when your gear leaves much to be desired.)

Raut · 04/05/08, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Daler

No offense, but if you're not experienced at twisting, then you're probably not the best subject to base conclusions on which spec is superior. As it's been said, though, it's personal preference, and resto if you're inexperienced at twisting is almost undoubtedly better.

Oh, I wouldn't say that. I can't maintain a perfect spell rotation and still have mana issues. This will only get worse the better I optimize my rotation. Thus I feel I'm in the clear when I make such a statement.

It's just beating the rotten horse corpse that's been laying around for a while.

Wraithlin · 04/05/08, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by Madstabber

I have 4 set bonus t6

If you dont want to theorycraft, dont come to a theorycrafting forum, we care little for expereince unless it has been done in a proper and systematic manner. We arent bothered about the gear people wear, though if they are doing obviously dumb things with their gear we will tend to ignore their comments. Good gear doesnt give you more authority in a thread based around math and simulation.

In short, the fact you have better gear doesnt mean that what you have to say if of greater value in this thread, infact from the fact you are wearing 4piece T6 we are less likely to pay any attention to your comments than the person you tried to belittle.

Madstabber · 04/05/08, 8:55 PM

Originally Posted by Wraithlin

If you dont want to theorycraft, dont come to a theorycrafting forum, we care little for expereince unless it has been done in a proper and systematic manner. We arent bothered about the gear people wear, though if they are doing obviously dumb things with their gear we will tend to ignore their comments. Good gear doesnt give you more authority in a thread based around math and simulation.

In short, the fact you have better gear doesnt mean that what you have to say if of greater value in this thread, infact from the fact you are wearing 4piece T6 we are less likely to pay any attention to your comments than the person you tried to belittle.

I think you misunderstood my post, my point was that someone shouldn't be talking about gear when this thread is about ele/enhc vs resto/enhc.

• Daler · 04/09/08, 1:04 PM

Originally Posted by Binkenstein

Random Thought: Rather than suggest various builds, run them through the sim, and then say "this one is better", maybe we (by we I mean you guys, because I'm not much of an Enh TC type) use the base stats (0/45/0) then add single points, and run the sim again.

This way we'd be able to have a "This talent is worth X dps per point for our base stats/build." Then we can solve a concussion + reverb + nature's guidance + call of flame equation to find the highest dps gain. It could quite possibly come back to the 3/45/13 build, but there would be more "proof" for it than random selection & testing.

Test examples on top of the standard 45 Enh points:
1-5 Concussion
5 Concussion, 5 filler points (as CoF is calculated seperately)
5 Concussion, 1-5 Reverberation
1-3 Nature's guidance (with 10 filler points)

Going through the thread to collect all the rationale for Malan's write up, I noticed this. Now that Yo's sim does accomodate single points of each elem talent (Concussion, CoF, Reverb), would this still be worthwhile?

Malan · 04/09/08, 1:32 PM

Might be, if someone has the spare cpu cycles. Might at least verify our rationale.

• Daler · 04/09/08, 6:08 PM

Hmm. I'm done with NG, CoF, and Concussion (along with the three spec options and the baseline), but when testing Reverb point by point, I'm getting some very odd results. As an aside, expect a ghetto .xls sometime soon with the combined testing results, Malan.

With only 1 point in reverb, I'm taking the FLOOR(120/(6-0.2*n),1), where n = # of points in Reverberation, and using that as the number of shocks per 2 minutes. Additionally, I'm selecting the number of points in Reverberation from the drop down list.

I have no idea why, but the DPS output is decreasing from the baseline (not a single thing else was altered, double and triple checked).

Any idea what's going on? Yo, if you're reading, can you chime in?

Malan · 04/10/08, 10:39 AM

What happens if you don't select Reverb in the drop down list, can you just increase the number of shocks per 2 min? We need to know if the sim is actually checking to see if you enter more shocks then is possible over the 2 minutes or if Yo is actually modeling the shock cooldown using the Reverb selection.

• Daler · 04/10/08, 12:22 PM

There's definitely something screwy going on. I just used the default values Yo's sim pops up with, and set the shocks to 20 to get a baseline. After that, I selected 5/5 reverberation, changed nothing else, and noticed an approximate 25 dps decrease, despite changing no stat value, no buff, and keeping the shocks constant at 20 per 2 mins.

The reverse case didn't affect the DPS though. I set shocks to 24, deselected Reverberation (0/5), and got the same DPS as the initial baseline. So I'm assuming there's a check against the number of shocks input, but I'm not certain how the drop down list is working at this point.

On the bright side, Concussion and CoF seemed to be working as expected during my testing yesterday.

Malan · 04/10/08, 12:38 PM

Sounds like he's actually trying to apply the change to the shock cooldown and then taking that into account with the number of shocks that you said you do in 2 minutes. ie, if you say 20 in 2 min and take 5/5 Reverb, he does a function that adds 4 shocks to the timespan. Since you're getting a decrease my hunch is that he's got a sign error in the code and is probably decreasing the number of shocks done instead of increasing them.

I just did the same test and got the same results. Sim reported a 30 DPS loss just from setting 5/5 reverb.

And he is definitely limiting the number of shocks you can perform in 2 min if you don't select Reverb. Using all default options and setting shocks to 24 results in the same DPS values as using 20 shocks.