slant

At 21 points, enhancement shamans would take it over the spirit wolves. At over 20 points, restoration shamans wouldn't be able to take it, and they need it to solo/grind/PvP.

The way I would fix it would be to drop LvB's base coefficient significantly, then hugely buff that coefficient back up in a deep elemental talent, probably lava flows. The idea being that we want enhancement shamans to use LvB for the guaranteed crit to trigger elemental devastation, not for its damage. Instantcast LB and CL should do more straight damage than critting LvB every 8s, once spell power is taken into the equation.

Malan, I take it you played a bard in EQ1?

 

◊ Malan

I played something in EQ briefly, but it was so long ago that I don't recall what. I didn't play for long, West Point shut down the network ports that EQ used.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Quaunaut

Something I'm wondering considering the Lava Burst change:

What does this do to our mana usage? Are we still relatively alright from the few extra crits, or are we looking at being seriously mana starved and staring at our Shamanistic Rage cooldown?

 

Rounced

Easier solution without anything messy (posted this a few times already).

Drop Lava Burst to 1.5 second base cast time, that drops the coefficient to 43% and makes the spell much more usable for Resto Shaman in PvP and when grinding.

Change Lightning Mastery from
Reduces the casting time of your Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning and Lava Burst by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds.

to

Reduces the casting time of your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds and increases damage of your Lava Burst by an amount equal to 3/6/9/12/15% of your spellpower.

That way Lava Burst has it's coefficient nerfed for Enhancement but Elemental keeps the spell in exactly the same form as it exists currently. Resto does have to deal with the reduced coefficient but in exchange they get a faster casting spell in return for that reduced coefficient which does make it more functionally useful.


Shouldn't be an issue provided someone is giving you refreshment in a grouped/raid situation.

 

boneblood

Is 15% enough?

Dropping the co-efficient of LvB (coupled with it's cooldown) doesn't make it more desirable to use for our elemental bretheren. And as much as we like to think LvB was made for us of the enhancement flavour, it was introduced to make elemental dps rotation more involving than spamming the LB over and over.

 

Skreekins

To compliment Rounced's (try and pronounce that...) simple and elegant solution to allow us to keep lava burst, a very promising idea popped up in the same thread that Rounced first posted that idea in:

Change Lava Lash to Frost Lash.

A big issue that helped create this whole lightning knives/caster gear/Lava Burst orgy of fun is the addition of spellpower to the flametongue enchant, plus a basically mandatory talent for windfury in our own tree increasing that spell damage (Elemental Weapons). So, what if we got Frost Lash that encouraged the use of frostbrand rather than flametongue? No extra spellpower, but a resurrection of a useless imbue and introduction of a vital PvP skill.

example:
You charge your off-hand weapon with ice, instantly dealing 100% off-hand Weapon damage as frost damage. If your offhand weapon is imbued with Frostbrand, the damage of the Frost Lash is increased by 25% and the strike forces a Frostbrand attack. (This of course assumes that the proc rate and damage coefficient of Frostbrand are adjusted to make it more attractive in the first place.)


No more excessive spellpower for enhancement, and we gain a makeshift crippling poison/shiv move since we probably wont be using earthbind for snaring anymore. Win/Win.

 

boneblood

I like your idea - specifically as it has more application in PvP than using FT on the offhand.

However, the issue isn't with using FT as that only increases our spell power by a set amount. The issue is the 30% conversion of AP to Spell power in a raid setting where AP buffs abound. As has been pointed out by other smarter shaman than myself (read: anybody), they have backed themselves into a corner with MW....

... which, in hindsight, was always going to be the case. Bottom 2 tier talents in enhancement either geared towards spell damage or a dps timer with added utility? Yep - balancing that was always going to be a problem.

 

Rounced

Whether it's enough or not is up to the developers but that change would nerf the coefficient for Enhancement shaman without changing a thing about how the spell functions for Elemental Shaman.

Notice the numbers - currently they have a 1.5 second cast Lava Burst with a base coefficient of 2/3.5 = 57.1%. Drop it to a base of 1.5 seconds and increase their coefficient for Lava Burst by 15% and then they have a 1.5 second cast Lava Burst with a 1.5/3.5 = 42.85% + 15% = 57.9% coefficient.

 

Orlgin

Mana usage shouldn't be a problem in a raid. We'll be using less mana for our new rotation than we use currently in Live and we'll have more than double the mana pool. For raiding, it shouldn't be a problem.

Frost Lash is a terrible idea. It's a direct DPS loss. If you want to buff PvP, that's fine. But not at the expense of PvE.

Removing Lava Burst from Maelstrom Weapon allows Blizzard to nerf our damage without making the talent so gimp it isn't worth taking. Flame Shock/Lava Burst does a high amount of damage but it doesn't scale as well as Lightning Bolt/Earth Shock does. Especially if you consider that Stormstrike doesn't affect fire spells anymore.

So this reduces our current damage capability back where it needs to be but allows us to scale better later. That makes it a good change in my book.

I like Maelstrom Weapons as a PPM. It means we can use a slow weapon in the main hand which is what our mechanics (Windfury and Stormstrike) were designed for.

As for the off-hand, it is really interesting. Going fast makes Flametongue damage much higher as well as a lot more static shock damage. Going slow means your stormstrikes hit harder, your lava lash hits harder, and you get slightly more procs from Maelstrom Weapon. Napkin math says they are pretty close in DPS but we'll see what the sim says.

Windfury won't be an option for the off-hand because of the Windfury cooldown issue. Getting a lot more procs on the off-hand due to lava lash is a bad idea.

 

Rounced

Nope not gonna be fast on the offhand either, it's slow/slow with Maelstrom Weapon as a PPM mechanic.

You forgot the simple principle of PPM's. Instant strikes proc at the same rate as normal strikes. Slow weapons have a significantly higher proc rate then fast weapons. Use a fast weapon (say a 1.4 instead of a 2.6) in the offhand and now your 2 offhand instant strikes (lava lash and stormstrike) just had their proc rate cut in half. Which will significantly decrease your stacking rate.

So if it is worth getting Maelstrom Weapon changes it will be worth using Slow weapons in the offhand.

 

Skreekins

how is frost lash a direct dps loss? It would be hitting harder than lava lash after accounting for the frostbrand proc. Besides, the whole point of throwing around ideas IS to lower our dps... Its too high. That's why we were nerfed.

 

Raut

Removing LvB may have been needed if it's meant to be the savior of dull elemental rotations. I don't mind really. Having 100% ED uptime was pretty OP all in all(not to mention the insane crits it got on beta). Having lost it does not mean the end of the world. Also if you are a CD junkie you have just gotten LL and Mael in addition to a shorter SS CD. With LL and Mael being unlinked you get more stuff to take care of and I'm sure we can separate the goods from the bads.

Regarding macros: Swearing to all in macros or no macros at all makes you Special People. Stop it.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

13:17 < Kalroth> gays on men tv? I love that channel

 

Orlgin

Here's the deal. If slow spell damage weapon is still best DPS, we'd use a weapon like titansteel guardian. It adds 490 spell power. We get 165 from FT totem talented. FT adds 274 spell power when it's talented. At 3000 AP, we get 900 spell power. This adds up to 1829 spell damage.

A 1.4 speed dagger with 35% flurry haste (Naxx 4 piece bonus) and 20% haste from Windfury totem is 0.86 speed weapon. Compare this to a 2.6 speed offhand which is 1.6 speed after haste bonuses. You get approximately 4.24 extra attacks because of the speed difference.

FT scales at 0.10. So 1829 spell damage adds 182.9 damage per FT proc. So that adds 775 damage.

Static Shock procs at a 6% rate. 4.24 x 0.06 is 0.2544. Now we calculate how much damage a lightning shield charge is.

1829 x 0.33 = 603 damage (round down). Now we add base damage which is 380. Total is 983. But wait, you get a 10% bonus to Lightning Shield from Naxx 2 piece bonus and 15% from talents. So 983 x 1.25 is 1228 (round down).

So 0.2544 x 1228 = 312 damage (round down)

But wait, FT can crit. Assuming a 35% spell critical rate raid buffed, you get 775 x 1.35 = 1046 damage (round down).

So 1046 + 312 damage = 1358 damage which is 169.75 DPS.

Now add base damage of FT: 88.85 x 4.24 = 376.72 divided by 8 sec sample which is 47.09 DPS

Total is 216.84 DPS.

Now for 2.6 speed off-hand.

At 3000 AP, we add 214.28 (round down) dps. So 1.2 speed difference means 257.14 damage. Add 50% critical rate and you get 385.71 Damage. Times 1.1 for Weapon Mastery so 424.28 damage. But wait, there is also a base damage difference average of 188.5 which times 1.1 is 207.35. Add 50% critical to that and you get 311.02. So 424.28 + 311.02 is 735.3 Damage which is 122.55 DPS.

Stormstrike gets off-hand penalty which is negated by 50% critical rate. 257.14 + 207.35 = 464.49 which is 58.06 DPS.

So 122.55 DPS + 58.06 DPS = 180.61 DPS

Which means the Maelstrom difference needs to be greater than 36.23 DPS to make slow better.

Edit: Fixing my math. Note this is Napkin math and doesn't have all the factors involved. The sim will tell the tale when it is ready.

Second Edit: Fixing more mistakes.

Base FT damage gets critical bonus of 35% so 47.09 x 1.35 = 63.57 DPS. New total for fast: 233.32

Lava Lash gets 125% bonus for FT: 122.55 x 1.25 = 152.81. New total for slow: 208.87

Difference would be 24.45 DPS. Maelstrom does more than this, slow is best.

Before I did the napkin math, I thought slow/slow was better too. Interesting how the mechanics are shaping up. It will be interesting what the sim will say once we get the new numbers in place.

 

Pitbuller

Glyphs: SS > WF==FT > ES for personal dps. Even without Maelstorm weapons SS glyph win with nax10man kit.

Lava Burst. It was fun but nothing big. Bigger crits and hidden damage loss. Almoust 100dps lost from shocks. under 100dps more than lighnin bolt. Some dps from elemental devation. Total 27dps winner. If Lavaburst coef was lower(10% or more) then lighning bolt is winner. Raid buffs give almoust 20% spell crit. From naxx10man gear yuo get 14%. Elemental devastion uptime with using only shocks is 50%(1-0.66^1.66). When accounting some lighning bolts it gets almoust 65%. This is 5.85% melee crit from elemental devation. With Lava burst you can't get 100% uptime if maelstorm PPM is under 6 but 90% is doable. Difference is only 2.25% melee crit which is ~1% damage. With lower coef Lava burst isn't competitive.

If we should use slow weapon then flametongue scaling have to be fixed.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Rounced

It won't matter any more.

Maelstrom with a PPM mechanic is very preferential towards slow weapons.

Mainhand Slow with Windfury will destroy the stack rate of a fast weapon, since each Windfury hit has a chance to add to the stack and the Slow mainhand weapon would already be stacking faster due to Stormstrike.

Offhand Slow will also beat Fast not only due to the increased MW stacking rate but also because a Slow weapon will hit harder with each Lava Lash as well.

Lets try the numbers with decent PPM number - 9 (same as Frostbrand)

2.6 weapon with 50% haste drops to 1.73 speed or a 25.9% chance per hit
1.4 weapon with 50% haste drops to a 0.93 speed or a 13.9% chance per hit

White hits should be the same stacking rate (since that's the nature of a PPM mechanic) so we only need to look at the instants.

5 minute test yesterday gave 62 Windfury hits when it was only used on the mainhand, so that's 12.4 hits per minute.

Stormstrike is a mainhand and an offhand hit every 8 seconds or 7.5 hits per hand per minute

Lava Lash is 10 offhand hits per minute.

Mainhand, with Windfury, gets 19.9 additional instant hits per minute and offhand gets 17.5

Mainhands
Slow mainhand with Windfury will have ~5.2 additional procs from instant attacks while a Fast mainhand with Flametongue will get ~1.0, meaning the Slow mainhand will get ~4.2 more procs per minute then the fast one.

Offhands both using Flametongue
Slow should have ~4.5 additional procs from instant attacks, Fast should have ~2.4 additional procs per minute from instant attacks. So the slow offhand will have ~2.1 more procs per minute then the fast one.

Pitbuller, you know the numbers for what you get from each stack of MW better then I do. Keeping in mind that Lava Lash does more damage with a slow offhand, do you really think that a fast offhand's additional Flametongue damage can overcome the additional stacks of MW too?

As for the caster mainhand it now has to overcome not only the additional damage Windfury with a Slow weapon does over Flametongue on a fast but also the additional ~4 stacks of MW the slow weapon with Windfury is going to give over the course of a minute.

Maybe that slow caster claw would beat out a slow melee claw when both are imbued with Windfury since then it is a question of just the weapons stats being compared and the weapon's specific dps difference but a fast caster weapon with Flametongue just won't be able to overcome Windfuries melee damage and the additional stacks of MW combined.

 

Levva

Hmm its been a busy week at work and I've not really been keeping up, and what happens Blizzard drops a big change then partially reverts it and possibly breaks other mechanisms at the same time.

I'm particularly annoyed at present that the whole synergy mechanic has been removed. I like some of the suggestions for using Lava Lash to replace this to keep a feedback mechanism and reason to use FS to proc ED.

It does seem at present though that a lot of the usefulness of our skills/talents has been removed. eg: Do we need to ever cast FS, is UR talents worthwhile any more, should we bother with Imp.SS if we can't use the charges etc. A lot of spare talents potentially with little to replace them.

Here is hoping that they take on board some of the excellent ideas that have been proposed and give us back some interesting synergy. I suppose that's the pain of being in beta you get to see all the cool overpowered stuff then miss it when they take it away, whilst those that see the finish result wonder what you are moaning about.

From what others have posted we could have a balanced (for dps) class yet still retain interesting complimentary skills that would make it fun to play. At present it feels like we will have a lot of old toys lying forgotten and unloved in our spell books/talent trees. Which will only serve to bring a wistful tear to the eye when we stumble across them on a cold dark winter's night and remember "ah those were the days when I had to rotate between two shocks". I bet some still have a favourite old two-hander in the bank they remember with fondness when they used to smash the living daylights out of things pre-BC. Lets not let things like FS go the way of the two-hander.

 

darkInertia

quick question:

what are the critical strike damage values for lava lash? (with elemental fury and without?)

 

Sprout

No offense, but who cares if resto cant take elemental fury? I dont know of any resto that runs with 21 points in elemental, ESPECIALLY with the expanded trees.

Make it a 26 point talent if thats what is needed. I still have not heard one reason this would not work.

 

◊ Malan

Resto shaman getting elemental fury is a non-concern, the devs were explicit about that talent, it was moved so that Enhancement had access to it.

Vyktianity already has over 75 billion followers. The first verse in his book "Gift of the Wild" is "In the beginning Vyk cast lifebloom and then maul."

 

Rounced

It's 200% with Elemental Fury and 200% without it too.

Acts just like a Melee attack just does damage as a spell - not sure what the crit rate relies on though - would be hard to get your melee and spell crits separate enough to really be able to tell (although from what I've seen I lean towards the idea that it uses spell crit but not sure at all).

 

Rhaegal

Shouldn't be too bad. Thundering Strikes is still melee crit only, so that's 5% difference there. All of our agility will fuel our melee crit, but not our spell crit. With over 400 agility at 70, that should be another ~10% melee crit. In mostly leather, I know I don't have much int on my gear currently to contribute similarly to spell crit, and even if I did, int contributes at a much poorer rate than agility even post-3.0, and we'll stack a lot more agility than int no matter what. So that's ballpark ~15% even without making friends with a bored feral druid to stand there while you beat on a target dummy for a while. That much of a difference should be easily discernible.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

mek

Nope.

 

darkInertia

Ok, so reworking FT-lava lash synergy to provide a crit (to fuel ED), as opposed to the current +25% more damage, assuming we want the effect to be comparable to the damage it's currently pumping out:

c: crit%
h: hit%
d: damage of lava lash
x: FT-lava lash bonus crit%, as in "You charge your off-hand weapon with lava, instantly dealing 100% off-hand Weapon damage. Critical strike chance is increased by x% if your off-hand weapon is enchanted with Flametongue."

mmm, i'm not sure if it's a one-roll or two-roll, so let's figure out both:

One Roll (crits will push hit off the table)

current damage:
c * 2 * d * 1.25 + h * d * 1.25

new damage:
(c+x) * 2 * d + (h-x) * d

Setting them equivalent:

2.5dc + 1.25dh = 2d(c+x) + d(h-x)
c/2 + h/4 = x

So for example, if we assume a crit chance of 25% and a hit chance of 60%, the value of x is 27.5%


Two Roll System
current damage:
h ( c * 2d * 1.25 + (1-c) * 1.25 * d)

new damage:
h ( (c+x) * 2d + (1-(c+x)) * d)

2.5c+1.25-1.25c = 2c+2x+1-c-x
1.25c+1.25 = c+x+1
c/4+0.25 = x

So for example, if we assume a crit chance of 25%, then x would be 31.25%

***

What does this mean? Well in either case, the value of x is directly proportional to the crit chance: as your crit goes up, the buff for the suggested version of lava lash would have to go up as well. This makes sense since you'd have to make up for the 25% additional damage from the current version, and the higher your base crit is, the more this 25% is multiplied by the crit damage modifier. Of course, there is a