Taken from a blue post:

We also tried to improve Enhancement’s AE. In this case, the DPS was fairly competitive, but applying the AE was a headache with having to tab through multiple targets to spread Flame Shocks. Enhance can now use Lava Lash to spread Flame Shock (and the bonus granted from Improved Lava Lash has been baked into the base Lava Lash ability, so Enhance should not suffer any DPS loss as a consequence)

The bold part is what's confusing me, only explanation i can think of is there is a change to reduce reliance on searing flame stacks that wasn't announced yet.

Not sure if I'm reading this right, but we're gaining 5% more SP from AP (MQ buff) plus an additional 5.5% from the 10% AP buff...but losing 6% SP from the mage buff and 10% SP from the ele shaman buff together with 2% from having to spec into reverb instead of precision...overall nerf? Or do the mage/ele buffs not stack? (I'm assuming SP debuffs like CoE etc. are unaffected as they're on the target not us)

The solution they should've used is to leave the CD at 6 secs (and reverb at -1 secs) but add a 20 sec increase to the CD when you take resto as your main tree...just like your mastery gets reduced by 6 when you take the frost tree as a mage. (this ofc would prevent resto from choosing between 5 sec WS and instant GW...but wasn't the intention to stop resto using short-cooldown WS?)

Played with it this morning. Spread worked fine with the dummies. Spread a flame shock with exactly the same remaining duration as the one on the lava lash target. Searing totem seemed to stay on the initial flame shock target as well following a spread, even if I was attacking a target that the flame shock had been spread to. Spread did not refresh flame shock timer so lava lashing with only a couple of seconds left on the flame shock meant that it fell off the spread targets. I would be happier if it spread an 18 second flame shock no matter the remaining duration on the LL target and whether or not we were using the Flame Shock glyph but the behavior does seem to be working as intended.

12 yards for the spread seems accurate, could always spread to dummies in range of unglyphed fire nova but could not spread between targets that glyphed fire nova could just barely hit.

Seems like multi-dotting will still be the best way to optimize performance but won't be anywhere near as required. Flame shock glyph also seems like something with only limited utility since it would require 12 or more targets that were going to persist for more then 20 seconds to have value.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the AE changes. I'm more concerned with the MQ changes but considering their successes in balancing single target I'm content to wait and see what SimulationCraft has to say about overall spec balance.

They are just saying that even though the effect was removed from the talent won't reduce the effect of the skill since the 60% offered by the talent is now baked into the base spell.

As far as raid buff changes they buffed MQ from 50% to 55%. That 5% is exactly equal to the buff we would have gotten if we still scaled with the 10% SP raid buff (0.5 * 0.1 = 0.05).

Also it seems we are likely losing contributions from our natural int and the direct kings int but that amounts to less than 200 SP (for my character) . This should in part be mitigated by the FT change.

So yes it's looking like at least a net 0 change to overall DPS (with several quality of life changes).

The new FT buff (7% when talented) also increases the damage of Lava Lash and Flametongue itself, so this also helps to regain any "lost" damage. Also not needing the SP buff can be an advantage in PvP and 10m raiding, where it may not always be around.

Have you confirmed that on the PTR or is that supposition?

1797 with FT on OffHand and WF MainHand
1922 with FT on OffHand and MainHand

FS direct dmg:
No FT: 2839
1 FT: 3038
2 FT: 3250
For FS ticks it is +7% dmg too

LL:
No FT: 2544
FT on MH: 2724

It is a 7% dmg increase per FT on FS, FT dmg, LL (With Elementals weapons 2/2)

[Edit] it is working with searing flames and fire totem too

I made a version of EnhSim with some of the PTR changes: https://rapidshare.com/files/2960904...fnar_PTR43.zip

• I removed all spellpower buffs as far as I can tell and changed MQ to 55%.
• I also removed the spellpower bonus of FT and gave it a multiplicative 5% (7% talented) spelldamage bonus similar to Elemental Precision. Maybe additive would be the more correct implementation.
• And I also removed the internal cooldown of FT.

Looking at the first results, FT/FT (with FT glyph) gains a small advantage over WF/FT (with WF glyph), but nothing major. If they put the cooldown back in and/or lower the damage of FT a bit, WF/FT will be back in the lead.

I am torn between liking the pseudo-cleave and disliking an automatic AoE tied to two of our core single target DPS abilities.
In situations where single targeting is mandatory we would have to skip FS or the occasional LL, the numbers will tell which is the least evil.

Why not link it to Fire Nova?

We lose a GCD but also add mobility and quite bit more control...
[I can FS mobs being off tanked while continuing my queue on primary target]

Because that's not what Blizzard decided to do. There have been countless suggestions given on how to fix up our AE, many of them I like better then this one. None of that matters though since this is what they decided on.

The FS won't spread to targets already affected by FS or that are CCed, so get the CC out and then Lava Lash. As for why lava lash, they may like the challenge it presents to players rather then just hitting Fire Nova and it just happening. By attaching it to Lava Lash they force us to pay attention to the remaining duration of FS on targets before we hit Lava Lash since spreading around a Flame Shock with only a few seconds remaining would be a waste. I know many would like it if it spread a full duration Flame Shock for just that reason, I wouldn't mind that myself, but that may be their justification for why it doesn't.

I never saw this while testing with FT on either the MH or the OH, but when I put FT on both weapons, every LL yielded 2 FT procs and every SS yielded 4 FT procs. Definitely a bug, but baffled as to the behavior behind it.

Other things I observed during a brief test of LL in various configurations:

• The glyph is still multiplicative. However since the base is now 260% weapon damage, the tooltip correctly reflects glyphed damage as 312% normal weapon damage. Enjoy the little things.
• I'm sure it's known, but I haven't seen it explicitly stated so far; the spell damage multiplier on FT works for all of our spells, not just fire.
• The spell damage multipliers with 2x FT are multiplicative, not additive (14.5% v 14%)

Other things worth noting:

• Stormstrike did not get changed to a player buff. It remains a target debuff.
• Transferring to the PTR, my char did indeed lose 20 SP from the Int on +20 stats to chest.
• Even with a 2H weapon, SS granted 2 charges of the fluid death buff. Probably not important, but worth noting nonetheless.