Shaman: Enhancement

An Enhancement Shaman is an integral part of a raid group. Besides offering substantial personal DPS, an Enhancement Shaman brings talented totem buffs beyond those offered by a Resto or Elemental Shaman. These include Unleashed Rage (an on-crit proc for 10% additional melee AP), Strength of Earth (+STR/AGI), and Windfury (20% Melee Haste).

An Enhancement Shaman is not a melee healer. While Maelstrom Weapon instant cast heals can certainly help top off a group after an AoE or step in to prevent an emergency, their gear's focus on melee stats makes them unsuitable healers in the endgame. An Enhancement Shaman should be dedicated to DPS, maximizing Unleashed Rage and totem coverage for the raid.

Enhacement Shaman have 6 sources of damage:

• Windfury, a weapon imbue that gives the shaman a 20% proc of two instant attacks with a substantial AP bonus
• Lava Lash, an off hand instant attack (6s cooldown) that deals fire damage, does more damage if Flametongue Weapon is used.
• Stormstrike, a 10s(8s talented) cooldown instant attack with both weapons
• Elemental Shocks, shared cooldown instant elemental damage offering stealth prevention, snaring or interruption
• Fire Totems, pulsed direct or AoE fire damage
• Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolts instant casts triggered by a 5 stack of the Maelstrom Weapon talent.

 

Shaman - Contents

1Shaman: Enhancement 1.1Major Abilities 1.1.1Windfury Weapon 1.1.1.1Weapon Speed Interaction 1.1.1.2Windfury Proc Rate 1.1.2Flametongue Weapon 1.1.3Frostbrand Weapon 1.1.4Stormstrike 1.1.4.1Timing Stormstrike to Proc Windfury 1.1.4.2Stormstrike and 2H Weapons 1.1.5Lava Lash 1.1.6Elemental Shocks 1.1.7Maelstrom Weapon 1.1.8Feral Spirit 1.1.9Static Shock 1.2DPS Rotation 1.3Talent Builds 1.4Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman 1.4.1Enhancement Points - EP - Stat Weight System 1.4.2 Sample EP Values 1.4.2.1Using EP - Examples 1.4.2.2Hit Rating 1.4.2.3Haste Rating 1.4.2.4Intellect and Mp5 1.4.2.5Expertise Rating 1.4.3Weapons 1.4.3.1TwoHand Viability 1.4.4Relics 1.4.5Gems and Meta Gems 1.4.6Trinkets 1.4.7Enchanting your Gear 1.4.7.1Weapon Enchants 1.4.7.2Agility vs Run Speed for Boots 1.4.7.3Enchants for the rest of your gear 1.4.8Consumables 1.4.9Professions 1.5Notes for Raid Leaders 1.5.1Evaluating with WoW Web Stats 1.6Simulations 1.7Useful Links and Addons 1.8Copyright Information 2Shaman: Elemental 3Shaman: Restoration

[top]Major Abilities

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[top]Windfury Weapon

Mechanics of the Windfury Weapon imbue can be found in the Shaman: Windfury article. Below are specifics as they relate to weapon choices for Enhancement Shaman.

[top]Weapon Speed Interaction

Weapon Speeds play an important role in maximizing DPS from Windfury procs when using dual WF. The goal is to chain WF procs every 3 seconds, as soon as each cooldown ends. Both the OH and the MH need to be as slow as possible to achieve this(they do not need to be matched in speed, just as slow as you can get it). The idea is to reduce the number of swings made during the time that windfury is on cooldown. Since the cooldown is 3 seconds, weapons speeds are preferred to be close to that speed, generally this means 2.6 - 2.8 under current itemization. The idea is that a faster MH weapon would proc a WF, and then strike again within the cooldown window, which means that windfury would exit cooldown and your weapon would still be on some significant portion of its swing timer, unable to proc another WF.

Additionally the instant cast nature of the Windfury proc greatly benefits from slower weapons and their higher damage range. Since there is no way to speed up the cooldown of the Windfury proc, or to proc more often by using a fast weapon, the only way to increase damage done by Windfury Weapon is to use a slow, high DPS weapon.

Many shaman using WF/WF will correctly use a slow MH weapon but use a fast OH such as a dagger, generally because its easier to find fast OHs than slow ones. This combination however means that your OH is much more likely to be the first one to hit outside of a WF cooldown and will "steal" the potential chance to proc, placing your main hand on lockdown. In order to maximize the potential for MH procs the OH needs to be as slow as possible.

The image below(courtesy of Yo!) illustrates this principle. You can see that as the MH and OH approach 2.6 speed (arbitrarily chosen as the cut off point for the scale) that the number of WF procs lost to the OH become lower, at around a 45% predicted loss rate. A fast OH with a slow MH combination has a higher rate of loss to the OH, at nearly 55%.

[top]Windfury Proc Rate

When you are wielding a two handed weapon, or are using a shield, your chance to proc windfury on any landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is 20%. When you dual wield weapons, the chance on each landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is approximatedly 36%, if and only if both weapons are imbued with Windfury. (Originally posted by Disquette on the WoW official forums. Original post is no longer archived by Blizzard.)

Analysis of the combat log shows that if you sum all hits, the proc rate while DWing is 20%, but that includes hits you make while inside the 3 second cooldown, which cannot actually proc WF. When you remove the ineligible hits the observed proc rate from the eligible hits becomes 36%.

[top]Flametongue Weapon

Flametongue has become much more viable due to the merging of Hit and Crit rating into a universal rating. Flametongue now performs better than Windfury on the Off Hand in most cases (once appropriate talents are taken in the Elemental tree). Flametongue scales appropriately with weapon speed. Slower weapons cause more FT damage and fast weapons cause less damage.

Flametongue Weapon is not recommended for use until you are able to commit 5 talent points to Elemental Fury.

[top]Frostbrand Weapon

Long considered the bastard child weapon imbue of the class, FB has seen some recent attention since 3.0 in an attempt to make it viable in PvP. Coupled with the Frozen Power talent FB is capable of producing impressive damage - however all NPCs categorized as bosses are immune to this effect. FB is strictly a PvP enchant and will not be covered in any further detail in this article.

[top]Stormstrike

Stormstrike is an instant attack with both weapons. Unlike many other classes that have normalized instant attacks (Mortal Strike for example), Stormstrike is not normalized. Non normalized instant attacks benefit greatly from using the slowest weapons with the highest DPS possible.

Stormstrike provides two major benefits to the Enhancement Shaman - it is capable of producing Windfury procs, and it will proc, but not consume, Flurry.

[top]Timing Stormstrike to Proc Windfury

Has not been shown to be a significant DPS increase during Burning Crusade. With the release of 3.0 mechanics, waiting to use Storm Strike is almost always detrimental because it also delays the use of Lava Lash, Shocks, and a possible Maelstrom Weapon proc. Abilities should be used as they are available, according to DPS priority. Simulation shows that delaying any instant attack in order to time them with Windfury results in a net loss of DPS.

[top]Stormstrike and 2H Weapons

Taking the idea that slower weapons are better, many shaman will assume that a 2H weapon will therefore produce better damage with Stormstrike. Disregarding Crit and the idea of "burst" damage for the moment, here is how Stormstrike plays out using S3 Arena weapons with 1500 AP.

S3 2H =

S3 DW 2.6 =

Dual wielding produces nearly the same Stormstrike damage as using a two-handed weapon. Additionally DWing produces more opportunity for Windfury procs, Unleashed Rage procs from crits, and Flurry procs from crits. Overall the benefit of DW far outweighs the "higher end damage" of a 2H weapon for Enhancement Shaman.

[top]Lava Lash

Lava Lash is an instant attack using the OH weapon. The attack follows all rules of melee combat, but manifests as fire damage. The benefit of this is that the attack ignores all armor. Lava Lash does more damage with Flametongue on the OH and can also be improved through the use of the Lava Lash Glyph.

[top]Elemental Shocks

Changes in 3.0 to the Stormstrike debuff (more charges and a personal debuff only) as well as Curse of Elements gaining Nature Damage have pushed Earth Shock to be the superior shock for DPS. However this has changed in patch 3.2.2 with the lengthening of the FS DoT to 18 seconds. With that change using Flame Shock without clipping anything more then the last tick has been found to be a slight dps increase.

[top]Maelstrom Weapon

Maelstrom Weapon is a PPM talent that will reduce the cast time of a spell 100% at 5 stacks. At 5 points in the talent the proc has been resolved to 10 PPM. With fewer talent points invested the PPM will lower by an estimated 2 PPM per point.

The use of the instant cast spell does not interrupt the swing timer of the shaman's auto attacks. If a cast is made with fewer then 5 stacks the swing timer continues and if the cast timer clips the swing timer then the swing timer is reset. If you are using 2 slow weapons then you may be able to slip a 4 stack MW cast between swings but if you are using a fast offhand it is not advisable since if either swing timer is clipped the dps loss will most likely outweigh any benefit gained from casting it early.

Unlike many PPMs, Maelstrom Weapon scales with weapon haste. It can also proc from Stormstrike or Lava Lash. An enhancement shaman with raid haste buffs and using all available instant attacks will see 5 stacks very frequently. Slow weapons give the best results, as slow weapons will have a higher proc rate per swing. More viable at level 80 when most Enhancement Shaman will have significantly more intellect, and a larger mana pool, from their gear.

Chain Lightning will produce more base damage than Lightning Bolt, but Lightning Bolt has a higher coefficient than CL. This means that LB will scale rapidly compared to CL and in a single target environment LB will produce superior DPS.

[top]Feral Spirit

Our 51 point talent produces approximately 100-200 net DPS when used on each cooldown, around 300-400 DPS during each activation. Wolves scale with the shaman's Stamina, Hit Rating, Armor and Attack Power. Their attacks fall under the 1H/2H attack table and will reach the Hit cap on physical attacks at 8% (262 rating).

Stat	Scaling
Stamina	0.30
Hit Rating	1.00
Attack Power	0.30
Armor	0.35

Stats on Spirit Wolves can be viewed by summoning the wolves and using the following script command. The pet data will be visible in the character paperdoll as an additional Pet tab.
Feral Spirits are classified as pets and can benefit from any buff activated after they are summoned. They do not share any buffs that are on the player, other than through the stat scaling noted above. Buffs such as totems, Battle Shout and Bloodlust all affect Feral Spirit.

[top]Static Shock

Simulation shows that the use of Static Shock is superior to any other 3 point investment of talent points once the other standard requirements for the Enhancement tree are filled in. However Static Shock is difficult to maintain outside of groups or raids with a class that can offer the Replenishment buff and/or Judgment of Wisdom. While the ability does not have a mana cost to activate, it has a high 'maintenance cost' equal to the mana regen that could have been gained from using Water Shield.

[top]DPS Rotation

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The new talents arrangements in 3.0 have brought some much needed freedom to the Enhancement spec and how it plays in-game. While there are still theorycrafted, optimal rotations, these rotations have been compared against simulated "worst" rotations and do not greatly differ. (Pitbuller in particular looked into this aspect of our new dps cycle and his results showed less than 50 dps difference in simulation)

Elemental talents that were rearranged to add synergy with the Enhancement tree have pushed spell damage up as part of our damage breakdown, and as such Maelstrom Weapon procs will take great priority in a DPS rotation. Due to the randomness of the PPM mechanic of MW, a 5 stack MW should always be used before any other ability, even it if interrupts your rotation or leaves another ability off cooldown for a longer period of time.

The optimal rotation is:

Lightning Bolt if MW is at 5 stacks
else Stormstrike if available
else Earth Shock if available
else Lava Lash if available

[top]Talent Builds

For the raiding shaman there is a single framework build with some movement of points depending on the composition of your build.. The distinguishing factor is whether your raid has the specs/classes that provide some of the same buffs that we do, thus freeing up points for extra personal DPS improvement.

The basic talent build will at a minimum spend 15 points in Elemental and 51 points in Enhancement for 5/5 Elemental Fury and Feral Spirits. The variance comes as you decide which buffs you need to provide and also where you want to spend the "optional points". It is always more personal dps to spend the two points in Improved Windfury Totem so only remove those points if another Enhancement Shaman or a Frost DK will be providing the buff.

The World of Warcraft Armory

That's the basic Enhancement Build. It requires at least 1 point in either Improved Ghost Wolf or Improved Shields to actually work as a build which leaves 3 points free to spend on:

Second point in Imp Ghost Wolf (very good talent to have for any 'outdoor' raid encounter involving any movement)
Third point in Call of Fire (best dps value out of the talents remaining)
Points in Elemental Warding (our health pool is on the low side so this can help to keep the death count managable)
Points in Improved Shields (worth more dps per talent point then Ancestral Knowledge)
Points in Reverberation (this is a good option if you don't need to spend the points on Improved Windfury Totem)

Addendum:
Elemental Focus is not worth the talent point even if you don't have replenishment in the raid. If you are in a 25 man raid with Replenishment and JoW then a point can be pulled from Improved Stormstrike as well (not really recommended since the dps gain from spending that point elsewhere is minimal).

[top]Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman

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[top]Enhancement Points - EP - Stat Weight System

Extensive modeling, simulation, and empirical testing (Original testing and theories done by Disquette, Pater, Tornhoof, and Yo!) have led to the development of a system for determining the items which produce the highest DPS in a raid environment. The Enhancement Points (EP) system assigns weights, or scores, to each stat point. These EP weights can then be used by hand or in automated programs such as Pawn or EquivelancePoints (in-game), or LootRank, Wowhead and Thottbot (out of game) to score items.

Combat Ratings at level 80

[top] Sample EP Values

The dynamics of shaman DPS are dynamic enough that we will no longer offer authoritative EP values. All shaman are encouraged to use the simulators to determine their own EP values. However, the following values are offered with the caveat that they are not accurate for every enhancement shaman and should not be used for important gear decisions. They offered only as an example.

The following values assume that a level 80 enhancement shaman is about to enter Naxx:25 and is neither hit nor expertise capped.

AP - 1
Crit Rating - 1.7
Hit Rating - 3.1
Expertise Rating - 2.6
Haste Rating - 1.3
Armor Penetration Rating - 0.8
Spellpower - 0.9
MH dps - 5.9
OH dps - 2.5
Strength - 1.1
Agility - 1.7
Intellect - 1.7

[top]Using EP - Examples

First, you must make a decision whether or not to assume that you will have Blessing of Kings. Then, it’s a simple matter of looking at the stats available on each item, multiplying them by their attack power equivalence derived from the simulator, and adding them all up:

Using the sample values listed above, we calculate the value of each stat on the item according the EP weight. Remember that these values are relative to your particular gear at a particular point in time - these are not set in stone values.

[Necklace of Arcane Spheres]
+29 Agility (29 x 1.7)
+45 Stamina
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 42 (42 x 1.7)
Equip: Improves attack power by 86 (86 x 1)
Total: 206.7 EP

[Necklace of the Chrono-Lord]
+38 Agility (38 x 1.7)
+43 Stamina
Equip: Improves haste rating by 37 (37 x 1.3)
Equip: Increases attack power by 76 (76 x 1)
Total: 188.7

Thus for a shaman with the EP weights as described above, the Necklace of Arcane Spheres is considered a superior item to the Necklace of the Chrono-Lord.

[top]Hit Rating

Changes to the unified hit rating mechanic and an increased use of spell damage abilities due to Maelstrom Weapon have greatly increased the need for Hit Rating for Enhancement Shaman. While there is still no need to reach the DW hit cap for melee attacks, the spell hit cap has become very important. Recommendation is to gem/enchant to hit the Spell Hit cap, keeping in mind that you can get 3% spell hit from raid buffs (Shadow Priest - Misery), and you can also consume a Hit Rating food buff. Draenei of course have another 1% hit that they do not need to gear for due to their aura.

Spells have a miss rate of 17% (16% for Draenei) against level 83 (Boss) targets, but this is lowered to 14% (13%) after raid buffs. Spell hit correspond to hit ratings as follows::
17% - 446
16% - 420
14% - 368
13% - 341

A common misconception is that you "have to hit before you can crit." This is a fallacy and illustrates a misunderstanding of the attack table. (Note that this is in reference to white damage which uses a single roll system.)

A second misconception is that a miss is a "missed opportunity for a WF proc" and that more Hit Rating will generate more WF procs. This misconception is generated from the flawed assumption that all swings are possible WF procs. However only swings that are outside of the WF cooldown are eligible to proc WF. A good portion of your autoattack hits will never be capable of producing WF procs. A 5 minute fight with no flurry would see 115 white swings with a 2.6 speed weapon. A Shaman might look at that and think that 0.36 * 115 = 41 possible WF procs, but that is incorrect since each successful proc locks out 1-2 hits that follow, shrinking the pool of actual eligible hits. It is actually quite difficult to calculate the number of attacks that you *should* have producing WF in a given amount of time, and that is why we rely on simulators to generate the EP value of Hit Rating.

[top]Haste Rating

Haste Rating will directly increase the contribution of white swings to your DPS. 1% Haste will generate 1% more auto attack DPS.

Modeling at one time indicated weapons hasted between 1.51 and 1.41 speed will actually experience a sharp decrease in potential Windfury DPS. The range of 1.51- 1.41 speed was believed to cause the main hand to always finish a swing just before the end of a WF cooldown, making you wait longer for the next eligible swing that can proc WF. If hasted in this period for a long duration, you could expect WF DPS contribution to decrease. However, you'll also experience many more white swings during that time, and so the loss of potential WF procs should be offset by the increased white DPS. It is no longer believed that the 1.5 to 1.4 hasted speed will actually cause any decrease in DPS - you should notice an overall increase.

There is very little need to worry about the 1.51 - 1.41 hasted weapon range. The original claims about the supposed DPS loss had done no empirical or simulated testing to back up their modeling. More recent testing has indicated that whatever potential WF DPS is lost because of swing timer issues is more than made up for by the gigantic leap in autoattack DPS. Simulation now shows that in fact the plateau range at 1.5 weapon speed is much more narrow than previously thought and will be difficult to hit on a frequent basis.

During simulation though you will notice that as you approach 1.5 weapon speed when using windfury that the value of haste will decrease sharply. This will continue to occur until you have enough passive haste to push your weapon speed beyond that slight dip. This occurs when the sim finds that adding haste pushes you into speeds where windfury procs are reduced because of swing times.

[top]Intellect and Mp5

Intellect now provides 1 attack power through talents, up to a max of 1.10 Attack Power if 8 points are spent. This change in 3.0 shifts focus away from leather gear designed for rogues, and emphasizes what had previously only been hunter gear.

Mp5 is universally agreed to be a wasted stat on enhancement shaman gear. The combination of Judgment of Wisdom, Replenishment and Shamanistic Rage (use it early, use it often) should prevent you from running out of mana even in full rogue leather gear - unless you're having to spot heal.

[top]Expertise Rating

Expertise Rating converts into Expertise skill at a rate of 8.1975 expertise rating:1 Expertise at level 80, and reduces the chance for your target to dodge and parry by 0.25% per point of Expertise. 214 Expertise Rating is required to achieve 6.50% dodge reduction, which is the maximum observed value of any NPC. In 3.1 unleashed rage was changed to provide 9 expertise for 3 talent points. If you have specced for 3/3 Unleashed Rage you will only require 140 expertise rating to reach the dodge cap. Orcs also gain 5 expertise when wielding Axes or Fist Weapons (added in 3.2) so make sure to take that into account when determining your personal expertise cap.

The parry reduction element of Expertise will have only marginal use in raid settings: mobs cannot parry attacks made from behind. Many bosses randomly turn to cast attacks and can parry while turning, but this possibility is too random to value significantly. Unlike parry, mobs can dodge attacks from behind and Expertise is currently the only way to reduce the number of dodges. The dodge reduction element of Expertise will vary from encounter to encounter: it will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting (e.g. Shade of Aran, High Astromancer Solarian, Reliquary of Souls) because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells. Expertise has been shown to affect yellow damage as well as white damage, so under the second circumstance it is actually more useful than hit rating for enhancement shamans.

We still don't know how Expertise's dodge and parry reduction affect the one-roll white attack table. For now, the community is assuming that it converts dodges and parries into hits that do not have a chance to crit. On the other hand, we are now confident that Expertise will allow yellow attacks to crit, since they are resolved through a two-roll system. Thus, we will estimate expertise rating to be similar to the weight of hit rating, with one exception.

Expertise, unlike hit rating, also effects the yellow damage from special attacks in addition to the white damage from auto-attacks. To correct for this, you need to multiply by the ratio of melee damage to white damage, or (Yellow % of damage + White % of damage)/(White % of damage). Also, because white crit rate as a percentage of landed swings decreases as hit rate goes up, but with the two-roll system, yellow crit rate stays constant, we must adjust for that. Finally, we must multiply by the EP of 1 hit rating, to convert our "hit rating" equivalency into EP.

Our final expertise calculation is:
EP =

Example Calculation:
Assume that we are examining a new piece of gear with an Expertise Rating of 17, Hit EP is 1.4, Crit% is 30%, White% of DPS is 50%, Yellow% of DPS is 40% and the remaining 10% is shocks and searing totem.

Expertise EP =
Expertise EP = 48.552

Note that this value is not the EP stat weight of Expertise Rating, it is the total sum worth of the Expertise Rating on that one piece of gear.

Previous thinking was that expertise only worked in "chunks", that values are rounded down to whole integers. This has recently been disproved and expertise, despite what the UI might lead you to believe, does not drop fractional points. That is, if you have rating sufficient to give you 25.5 expertise rating, you actually benefit from all 25.5 points of it, not only 25 as has previously been conjectured.

Retesting hit table assumptions

[top]Weapons

A frequently asked question is how to wield weapons with differing speeds but similar DPS values, such as using a Rising Tide and a Syphon - is it better to put one weapon in the main/off hand over the other? Simulation results indicate that it makes little difference which hand the slower weapon is wielded in. It appears that in general, a 2.x/2.y = 2.y/2.x.

If using Windfury on both weapons the optimal setup is to use two slow weapons .Flametongue on the OH however can produce a wide range of choices for weapons. A slow OH with FT will produce more LL and SS damage, but will do less damage from the FT proc. A fast weapon will produce the opposite effect. In the end, FT allows the use of either a slow or a fast weapon with no major difference in DPS potential, as long as the fast weapon would be a significant upgrade in weapon DPS and stats.

The best way to choose between multiple items in the same slot is to run the DPS simulator, once for each item, using the stats that you would have with that item equipped. Do not post asking which weapon is best: find out for yourself by running the sim.

[top]TwoHand Viability

2H weapons are strictly inferior for PvE DPS situations. Talents and mechanics of shaman DPS at lvl 80 are built around DW. Lava Lash requires an offhand and DW also scales better with AP. 2h effectively gains (1.0 * 0.95 hit rate) = 0.95 from AP and DW gains (1.5 * 0.74 hit rate) = 1.11 from AP. The more +hit you have (until we reach cap) the greater the difference between the two. At a certain point (easily reached when raid buffed), this difference in gain from AP will outweigh the bonus base DPS of a 2H weapon over similar ilvl 1H weapons.

The second largest benefit you bring to your group is Unleashed Rage. Flurry and UR uptime are significantly lower when using a 2H, as strings of dodge/miss/non crits become compounded by a single, slower swing time. Threat concerns can also be more problematic with a 2H because of larger WF procs, requiring you to pad your threat against a tank.

To illustrate:

Note the differences here. 2H has a higher flurry uptime because DWing will consume the 3 charges faster, but the Uptime for UR is much higher for DW than 2H, leading to greater group synergy.

The following section is currently under dispute, equations may following community review.
Derivation of the Unleashed Rage uptime:
UR Uptime =

HitsPer10sec =

Windfury =

Flurry Uptime =

[top]Relics

While it is possible to swap relics during combat to try and take advantage of multiple relic buffs, this is not recommended. Swapping a relic incurs a global cooldown and resets your swing timer.

The major choices at level 80 are [Deadly Gladiator's Totem of Indomitability], [Totem of Splintering], [Totem of Hex] and [Totem of Dueling]

A: Splintering EP = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Splintering * Elemental_Weapons
B: Indomitability EP = Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3)
B1: Indomitability EP to WF = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Indomitability * Elemental_Weapons
B2: Indomitability EP to SS = Percent_of_SS_Swings * Indomitability
B3: Indomitability EP to white damage = Percent_of_white_Swings * Indomitability * (1 - MissRate)

Assume two 2.6 speed weapons, with flurry and WF totem hasted to 1.67 speed. With a small amount of haste (~90) that leads to 5 main hand attacks within a SS cooldown. We will estimate that 20% of these swings will proc WF, meaning 10 white swings, 2 SS swings, 2.4 WF swings and 1 LL swing.
Percent_of_WF_Swings = 2.4/15.4 = .156
Percent_of_SS_Swings = 2/15.4 = .130
Percent_of_white_Swings = 10/15.4 = .649

A: 46
B1: 26.18
B2: 15.58
B3: 77.92 * (1 - Missrate)

A = Indomitability_Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3)
46 = Uptime * (26.18 + 15.58 + [77.92 * (1 - Missrate)])
Let Missrate = 10%
Then Uptime = 41%

A missrate of 10% is achieved by having enough hit rating to reach 15% spell cap as well as 6% from DW Spec. So if you use LL every 14 seconds, then Indomitability will be better than Splintering.

Totem of Dueling provides 60 haste rating for 6 seconds every 8 seconds, or the EP equivalent of 45 haste. Indomitability provides 120 AP for 6 seconds everytime you use LL, so potentially every 6 seconds. So Indomitability EP equivalency is 120*6/LL_usage. If you use LL every 8 seconds this comes out to be 90. So for your personal haste EP value if HasteEP * 45 > 120*6/LL_usage then use Dueling, otherwise use Indomitability. Generally Totem of Indomitability will come out on top.

Totem of Hex gives us 182*.7143*1.05(Concussion) = 136.5 more base damage on Lightning Bolt. Assuming a 35% crit rate and a LB every 6 seconds with all raid buffs/debuffs and a glyphed SS debuff on the target, Totem of Hex is worth 136.5*((1 - crit rate) + (2.09 * crit rate))*1.13*1.28 / 6 = 45.46 dps. Since 1dps ~ 1.82AP, Totem of Hex is roughly equal to 82.73 EP

Conclusion: Indomitability > Hex ~ Dueling > Splintering

[top]Gems and Meta Gems

In general terms, Hit and Crit gems will have the highest return for investment. Shaman that are geared in Sunwell items will probably find that Agility or just AP gems are superior. Simulation is required to find the best fit for your gear.

[Relentless Earthsiege Diamond] is the best choice for a metagem as it only requires 1 sub-optimum blue gem. However if you have 2 socket bonuses that you want to activate that require blue gems then the [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] is an acceptable alternative. These gems will scale with your crit rating. The 3% crit damage can be roughly approximated to raise your DPS by 0.03 * Crit Rate. At 30% crit rate this amounts to roughly 1% gain in damage dealt.

[Thundering Skyflare Diamond] gives 480 haste for 6 seconds. This is your second choice for meta gems as it appears to have a 1 minute cooldown on the proc. Shaman with lower crit rates will benefit slightly more from this gem over the RED and CSD.

[top]Trinkets

Trinket gains are converted using the EP formulas above in the itemization stat weights from above, and listed as greatest EP at the top. A convenient Google Docs spreadsheethas been created that will allow you to view the formula below using your own EP values, and arrange the trinkets in order of highest benefit, courtesy of Utters. Please note that this document is read only, you need to save a local copy in order to modify it.

Wrath of the Lich King Trinkets

Trinket	EP Calculation
[Mark of Norgannon]	69 * Expertise EP + (491* Haste EP/6)
[Bandit's Insignia]	190 + [(1 + Crit%) * (1504+2256)/2]/50 * 2
[Fury of the Five Flights]	short warm-up period, 310 EP over time
[Grim Toll]	83 * Hit EP + Armor Pen EP * 612 * 10/50
[Darkmoon Card: Greatness]	90 * Agility EP + 300 * Agility or Intellect or Strength EP * 15/45
[Loatheb's Shadow]	84 * Crit EP + 670/6
[Mirror of Truth]	84 * Crit EP + 1000/6
[Incisor Fragment]	148 + 291* (Armor Pen EP/6)
[Meteorite Whetstone]	74 * Crit EP + 444 * Haste Rating EP * 10/50
[Fury of the Encroaching Storm]	(44 * Haste EP) + (280x(20/60))
[Pendulum of Telluric Currents]	74 * Haste EP + 1450/60 * 2
[Sphere of Red Dragon's Blood]	55 * Hit EP + 670 * 20/120
[Tome of Arcane Phenomena]	68 * Spell Dmg EP + 256 * Haste Rating EP * 20/120
[Vestige of Haldor]	65 * Haste EP + (1024+1536)/2 * 1.3 * 2/50
[Fezzik's Pocketwatch]	60 * Haste EP + 432 * 15/120
[Crusader's Locket]	106 + 258 * Expertise EP * 10/50
[Thorny Rose Brooch]	(43 + 212 * 20/120) * Haste EP
[Rune of Finite Variation]	47 * Crit Rating EP + 208 * Haste EP * 20/120

[top]Enchanting your Gear

[top]Weapon Enchants

Information on weapon enchants courtesy of Rounced.

Mongoose
Proc for 120 agility and 2% haste. Stacks if both weapons are imbued. Proc mechanic thought to be set to 1 PPM. Works out to approximately 40% uptime (based on WWSs). Does not appear to scale down with level. 2% haste = 65.58 haste rating. So each proc should be worth (65.58 x haste EP) + (120 x agility EP) = 302.4 EP for a value of 121EP after uptime.

Berzerking
Provides 400 attack power in exchange for 25% of your armor when it procs. Does stack if used on both weapons. Proc mechanic is reported to mirror mongoose (and current findings appear to validate that model) so it should have approximately a 40% uptime. 400AP = 400EP. With uptime should be worth 160 EP.

Accuracy
Provides 25 hit and crit rating. If you are under the spell hit cap (taking this enchant into account) then it is worth (3.2 x 25) + (1.7 x 25) = 122.5EP. If you are over the spell hit cap then it is worth (1.6 x 25) + (1.7 x 25) = 82.5EP.

Berzerker is the best option to use on at least one, if not both, of your weapons. However unless you have separate weapons for PvP the debuff is going to be very painful (400AP versus giving every melee the equivalent of 385 Armor Penetration Rating). Mongoose is still a great second choice and if you can use Accuracy to just hit the spell hit cap it's an acceptable option as well.

[top]Agility vs Run Speed for Boots

Runspeed in some form can be very useful in PvE encounters even if the movement requirements seem very light.

Current Facts:
- Icewalker is ~20 dps more then Cat's Speed
- Icewalker is ~25 dps more then Tuskarr's Speed

From those facts we can derive roughly how much time has to be spent in motion per encounter for runspeed to be more dps then the alternatives.





So for a shaman outputting 5000dps on a 5 minute encounter they will have to spend at least 15 seconds in motion for Cat's Speed to be superior to Icewalker.

For this reason it is recommended that raiding shaman keep two pairs of boots. One pair with some form of runspeed and one pair with either an Icewalker or a Greater Assault or (if they are an engineer) a Nitro Boosts enchant. That way the proper boot enchant to use can be determined by the encounter.

[top]Enchants for the rest of your gear

Helm: [Arcanum of Torment]
Shoulders: [Greater Inscription of the Axe]
Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Major Agility or Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
Tailoring Only: Swordguard Embroidery (25% proc rate, assuming 75 second cd (like the Darkglow Embroidery), average of ~58 AP)
Bracers: Enchant Bracers - Greater Assault or Enchant Bracers - Expertise
Gloves: Enchant Gloves - Crusher, Enchant Gloves - Precision or Enchant Gloves - Expertise
Legs: [Icescale Leg Armor]

Inscription Only: Master's Inscription of the Axe
Leatherworking Only: Fur Lining - Attack Power

[top]Consumables

Battle Elixir: [Wrath Elixir], [Elixir of Mighty Agility], [Elixir of Accuracy], [Elixir of Deadly Strikes], or [Elixir of Expertise]
Guardian Elixir: [Elixir of Mighty Thoughts]
Flask: [Flask of Endless Rage]
Food: [Fish Feast] or [Dalaran Clam Chowder]

[top]Professions

If you want to truly min/max your character and have no qualms about releveling professions for max benefit, below are estimated EP values of each applicable profession.

• Alchemy: Mixology passive ability grants +64 AP from the AP flask.
• Blacksmithing: ~64 EP (before and after caps with epic gems, that are not available yet) from glove and bracer sockets. Epic gems will boost this benefit to ~80 EP.
• Enchanting: +64 EP from 2 ring enchants (32 AP each).
• Inscription: 64 AP bonus on shoulder enchants over Sons of Hodir enchants
• Jewelcrafting: 66 EP currently (or 3 gems with 11 more crit/agi/exp/hit) plus the benefit of not needing blue gems to activate a meta slot. When epic gems are released the benefit will drop to 42 EP (or 3 gems with 7 morecrit/agi/exp/hit)
• Leatherworking = 114 AP enchant to bracers. Taken over an Expertise or similar AP enchant and this is ~65 - 75 EP bonus.
• Skinning = 32critical strike rating ~64EP
• Tailoring =An average of 75 AP, minus the benefit of having 22 agility enchanted instead and Tailoring is worth an estimated ~30 EP.

[top]Notes for Raid Leaders

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[top]Evaluating with WoW Web Stats

Determining if an Enhancement Shaman is performing to his potential is tricky for a raid leader as the damage output can be very random from one raid to the next, and there are no clear indicators of "using the wrong ability at the wrong time" as with other classes. The following list is intended to assist raid leaders on where to focus their efforts.

• First and foremost, familiarize yourself with this article so that you can talk the talk with the shaman. You need to understand what Stats benefit them and what sort of weapons they need, as well as getting a good understanding of just how random our DPS can be.
  
• Raid buffs are the primary reason you're bringing this shaman and so you should check to make sure he's fulfilling that role. Using WWS you can check to see how many times a totem was dropped on a fight by viewing the Shaman's record for that event. Check the "Performed" section and see how many times a totem was dropped. Multiply that by 300 seconds and compare to the length of the fight (60 seconds for Searing Totem). The estimated uptime should be pretty close. If there are gaps of uncovered time, your shaman is not keeping totems down and your melee group is suffering. Unleashed Rage should ideally have 99% uptime which requires an approximate 30% crit rate fully buffed.
  
• Evaluating personal DPS contribution is tricky because it depends on armor level of the boss, your strategy on the boss, and the nature of the fight itself.
  His spread of damage should follow a general trend. Windfury attacks may be from 15 to 30% dependant on what weapon imbues he is using(if he is using FT as an OH wep imbue, WF will do less overall damage. In that case, FT should do 6-9% damage). His shocks should account for 5-10% of his damage and only Earth Shock should be cast, Fire Shock being history. A significant amount(9-13%) of damage should come from Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning, any of them doing more damage than the shocks. If both shocks and LB or CL are doing less damage, check if the spellhit is capped. Searing Totem also does a significant amount of damage now. It's uptime is one minute - you can check its uptime by using the same model that is being used for the other totems, just replace the amount of time it is up(Usual totems are up for 5 minutes, this one - for 1). Lava Lash should be doing in the ideal case( Where you can cast every LL and every SS, aka impossible case)45% of SS damage- making that around 3-5% of total damage without FT imbued on OH and with FT imbued - 56% Stormstrike damage or 4-6% of total damage. You should see on the charts also Ghost Wolves damage and Static Shock(Will be shown as Lightning Shield) damage if the shaman has points in it, but those two should be with least percentage on the chart.
  
  There should be a minimal level of Parried attacks indicating that he attacked from behind the boss. His Miss Rate on WWS is mostly irrelevant unless he hasn't hit capped his specials. Except for cases where debuffs cause loss of Hit %, no special attack should ever be Missed (only dodged/parried), nor should a spell be resisted. The number of white attacks missed should not be used as an indicator of "needs more hit rating."
  
• It is no longer as hard to compare two enhancement shamans. The previous factor, being the group the shaman is in, is now gone, since all buffs are raid wide. If gear levels are similar you can generally compare shamans by checking totem uptime and the number of times each ability was used.

[top]Simulations

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The nature of windfury and flurry interactions make closed form modeling extremely difficult and prone to a high degree of deviation. The Enhancement community turned to combat simulators as a way to model our DPS to make informed decisions. Currently the best utility for doing this is EnhSim

Enhsim has pre-compiled binaries for Windows. Mac and Linux users will need to compile from the source. Read the configuration instructions carefully.

There is also a Rawr.enhancement module that can work either as a standalone product or one that can export it's configuration to Enhsim for more accurate simulation. Rawr - Home. Information about the Rawr module and it's exporting function can be found here, [Enhancement] Rawr.Enhance thread

Rawr has been designed to work with EnhSim through export/import functions built into their respective GUIs.

1) Load the latest versions of Rawr and EnhSimGUI those versions are current at time of writing.
2) in EnhSimGUI load up the default config.txt file and check that it works by clicking Simulate. You may have to look at the bottom right to ensure that the executable location is correctly chosen if not browse to where EnhSim.exe is located.
3) In Rawr load your character and configure the character for what you want to simulate
4) Under the Options tab there will be a tab labeled EnhSim. Open that and click "Copy EnhSim config to clipboard"
5) In the EnhSimGUI click on copy from clipboard.
6) Click simulate to get EnhSim's dps results.

Now change something in Rawr - eg: a gem, equip new item etc. Then repeat steps 4-6 (that's only 3 mouse clicks) to get a new simulation.

Please note that these are important tools, but we should not forget that they only show one simple situation. A fight against a single boss without interrupts, adds, movement, the need to heal and so on. The moment the fight diverges from this situation, our EP values and so our BiS equipment indicated by those values may change in reality.

[top]Useful Links and Addons

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• Shock And Awe - Updated version of DisqoDice for 3.0. Supports Maelstrom Weapon notification among many other features.
• Pawn Addon Latest version now supports haste, expertise, and -Armor, as well as having a GUI to fill in the stat weights. This will add a "rating" to your item tooltips that you can fill in with the EP values, allowing you to view the EP value of an item in-game.

[top]Copyright Information

This article is the original work of Malan (Malan of <Serious Casual> on Mal'Ganis-US). The article and all future versions of the article are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Reproduction of the article in full or in part, or derivative works based on the article, including translations, are permitted as long as:

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