Does this mean that fast OH is better than slow after the FT buff? Probably not, due to SS.

With a 5 second duration on the debuff, you don't want a slow offhand weapon. Due to resilience, you cannot count on a decent flurry uptime, therefore a faster offhand might yield better results (the debuff falling off due to miss/dodge/parry is no real option, i think).

SS is 10 sec cooldown and the buff lasts 5 sec there for it would be 5 sec window but it should apply evreytime on hit w/o diminishing returns. We use 2.6 speed so it should always be up i dont think a 1.6 would matter and it would be retarded to switch because we need 2.6 for pve as well.

"It sounded like Anetheron's Carrion Swarm. Reducing outgoing heals."

I'm sure it's just bad wording. The more obvious answer is it's supposed to be a replica of MS. It's currently bugged right now, so it's impossible to know for sure what it's intended to do. Can pretty much guarantee it's just an MS debuff though.

Wow, that's huge. Looking forward to seeing some good enhance shamans in 2.4. Up until now it's almost been a case of ignoring them, or swatting them out of the way quickly, focusing powerful CCs on their warrior / rogue companions.

A question regarding toughness though -- "movement impairing effects", does that include roots / frost nova? I'm assuming it will, which makes me a lot more hesitant to face enh shamans on my mage. They already smash me if they can get into melee range.

Oh, and I'd be betting that all ret pallies and feral druids are awaiting the next PTR updates with baited breath right now

They also reduced the global cooldown on totems which is extremely awesome.

Using the macro: It is confirmed that it has been reduced to one(1) second from the original 1.5 seconds.

I'm not so sure on the 15 sec reduction on SR time though. That hurts.

I genuinely wish that flametongue was not involved. To me this implies a strict disconnect between the pvp designers and the class mechanic designers.

It sounds a little odd but for the most part the Enhancement patch seems to have buffed the holy hell out of resto.

TBH it was too strong when it couldn't be dispelled, and useless when it could. Having it at 30 seconds and undispellable would be ludicrous.

I will probably be picking up a new 1.5 speed offhand when the changes roll through. Haven't done the maths yet, but keeping up 50% healing will be pretty vital. I'll need to set up some kind of macro to put FT on MH when I switch in a shield I think.

Assuming current 2 x 2.6 weapon speed, what it the average los in dps having WFx2 versus WF/MH and FT/OH?
I don't see it as huge, but it certainly means less Flury/Focus/Rage procs/uptime.

I use outfitter and have an outfit made called Shield that swaps in my shield whenever I hit the "+" key on my numberpad. Just planning on changing that outfit to not only have a shield but also to have my hacker move to my mainhand. I hit it again and my cleave moves back into mainhand and the hacker moves to offhand.

Thinking about even getting more complicated and making the "-" key on my numberpad a weapon swapper for cleaver/cleaver vs cleaver/hacker for when you are dealing with teams/targets that aren't getting healed.

Only real issue should be remembering to windfury both cleavers and flametongue the hacker whenever I need to rebuff.

The mod seems to work fine on the PTR so shouldn't be any issues with getting it to work that way.

Too bad...guess maybe it would be worth keeping a fast dagger on hand and adding that to the shield outfit to avoid any issues with the mod.

I have different enchants on my weapons (exe on mh, mongoose on oh) and my equipment managers do not have a problem placing the weapons in the correct hands since the enchant is "part" of the weapon and causes it to be unique (shown by Wardrobe complaining about being unable to find XXX whenever you put a new gem or new enchant on the item).

So if you have the same setup I think we could handle it. I will say that Wardrobe absolutely refuses to work while I am in combat however.

That's not the reason it screws it up at all. I'm not talking items being named the same. The problem is that the addon will try to swap both weapons at once, which results in 1 of the weapons being moved to a bag at the same time that its trying to be moved. The interface throws an error, and you end up with 1 item not equipped. You can test it yourself, set up 1 set with WeaponA/WeaponB, and another with WeaponB/WeaponA. Now try to swap them.

Going to a quicker weapon doesn't make to much sense considering its a 5 sec buff and the weapon speed is 2.6 it will always be up (if you hit the target), Just seems like to much trouble a faster weapon with FT will do more DPS but FT with a 2.6 will do just as good damage.

That's exactly what we need to figure out. How much DPS does what combo on a target with resilience. PvE experience learns us that a faster weapon will do more damage with FT, how does this translate to PvP?

Since most of the talking about weapons revolves around staying in range and hitting, well we do have Stormstrike to help with that, and from what I've seen the weapon imbues do trigger from that just fine. If the debuff time gets reduced from 5 seconds, then I can see needing a faster weapon to keep it on your target. It shouldn't be a big issue keeping the FT debuff on a target, at least for half the time, even if you only tap them once due to kiting.

Unless you're trying to keep it stacked on a few people around you? Then I could see a faster weapon being worth while.

If you do it right I think you could keep FR's debuff on people for up to maybe 3 targets if they're all next to you, with a faster weapon. That's would be insane in 5v5. I don't think MS or aimed shot could be spammed as fast as this could be. Am I wrong? Is this debuff only applicable to one target a time?

Since the Spelldmg coefficient for FT is a flat 10%, a fast weapon has more benefit from FT than a slow one and assuming the bonus is added at the time of FT being casted, the dps difference can be quite big(if you're wearing ele gear and a on use +selldmg trinket.)

Another advantage is the cast pushback FT provides on a fast weapon, but I think everyone has to see for himself which combo suits him best.

It's nice to see that blizz reduced the GCD of the totems to 1sec and toughness becoming a considerable pvp specific talent.

I think people are forgetting the damage component of flametongue. In an arena, you're not going to have the time or mana to swap FT / WF on your offhand, so your best bet is going to be getting a separate offhand weapon. If this weapon is used exclusively for flametongue, theres zero benefit in a slower weapon, simply because flametongue hits every time and isn't a % chance to proc. There's zero cooldown, and teh coeff/ crit % (yeah ft can crit, granted its low on enhancement) doesn't change based on swing speed, so you benefit from faster hits.

edit: the totem changes make a huge impact as it really allows melee characters without MS (fury wars, ret pallies) to fill in a slot normally reserved for MS. A smart sham can swap WF / FT whenever its called for. Honestly, this is the larger buff to shaman, particularly resto and elemental in group pvp.

I could also see putting Deathfrost on a fast OH with FT on it. I haven't done the math for it but it seems pretty viable.

The somewhat stinky thing about incorporating this into our talent tree is that we'll most likely have to sacrifice Mental Quickness to get it. Mental quickness impacted FT damage, if Im not mistaken.

The changes look to be pretty positive, especially for enhanement tree.

YET the fact that it is a patch pretty far in the future, and it would bring us to viability in pvp today, I have to worry about the other classes getting similar buffs and the gap staying the same.

This is my only 70, next highest is a 40 warrior and I really don't have any interest in leveling another.

Can someone who is more familiar with the other classes and changes coming address the question of whether we are really gaining?