Shamanaut

No, I don't have any specific WWS reports. What I can tell you is our guild has #1 WWS kills on multiple T6 bosses, so we must be doing something right.

I'm curious though at the statement that I am giving up significant talents. The 49 points in resto picks up everything that is included in the normal 8/0/53 except Nature's Guardian and a 2 points in improved reincarnation.

Here is my WWS from our last BT run.

Wow Web Stats

The entire night I took less then 260k Fire/Frost and Nature. That means the 8 points in elemental would reduce my damage by 26k total. I'm almost certain that even on a most basic level, the cost of saving myself 26k of damage and giving up Nature's Guardian is outweighed by the benefit of additional hunter/druid damage, even if it is very minimal. I'm sure someone who knows hunter/druid mechanics better then I do can tell us what the exact benefits are.

 

• Raut

Hard to say. I believe it's fundamentally wrong to evaluate mp5 with a fixed value, because you want to reach a level X where X is what you need to cast the spells you need during a fight. When X is reached, you can focus purely on +heal. But! If you focus purely on +heal, you can gain a form of regen from it. You have a hell of a lot of regen available to you during raids(not just a spriest) and with >2k +heal, you can down rank your spam and still be very effective.

2.3 changed regen for shamans. We used to be a mp5 dependent class, but with the Water Shield changes(both of them) and the buff to Manaspring, we are free to focus more on +heal.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

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

 

Skyhoof

In that raid you were with a priest, mage and two warlocks most of the night. How about your WWS from a little earlier? Maybe http://wowwebstats.com/qkh6thufaygfk

It looks like you were with the hunters and druids in this raid.

 

• Raut

You are preaching the same thing. What can a 0/12/49 do that a 8/0/53 or 0/0/61 can't? Those 11.5 extra ag and 12.9 extra str are not gonna tip the scale and set your guild apart from others.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

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

 

Shamanaut

The one thing that I find interesting in reading through this entire thread is the lack of attention paid to the 0/12/49 spec.

The improvements to a hunter/druid group while minor are better for a raid then the fact that I'd take 10% less damage from elemental spells. On how many fights is that 10% difference truly going to matter? I know that since I have been using it (Over 0/0/61) the hunters have improved their damage numbers, I haven't died any more, and my healing numbers remain the same.

Loosing Nature's Guardian is not a huge loss as usually by the time it is going to proc, I'm going to die anyway.

Loosing Healing Grace is easy. In the days of hunter misdirects, if you are pulling aggro in a fight, you need to replace your hunters or your tank.

I took the other points from Imp. Reincarnation and Totemic Focus. With the buff to Water Shield, the cost of totems is almost negligible. Imp. Reincarnation hurts a little bit (I still have 1/2) but again, this is a talent that you are usually only using if you have screwed up. Making fewer mistakes in raids will make this talent less of a benefit. I think I've used an ankh once in my last 4 BT/MH raids.

While I agree that 8/0/53 or 0/0/61 are better specs for some fights at some time, particularly where you or your guild are learning the encounters, I honestly think that as your guild progresses, it is better to go 0/12/49 and place yourself in a group of hunters/feral druids.

 

Skyhoof

Set his guild apart from others? No. Boost the DPS of his group? Yes. The question is by how much. I'm not familiar enough with hunter and druid mechanics to either tell from the WWS data or use the WWS data to do some theorycrafting. However, if this is a good WWS to use I may post in the hunter thread to see how much more DPS they think the shaman provided.

However, what about survivability (since those were the talents Sham gave up for the improved totems)?

Shamanaut took 752,984 damage and died 9 times.
Daidalos (who has Elemental Warding and Nature's Warding) took 559,752 and died 7 times. Daidalos seems to have died to trash several times while Sham died more during boss fights.

On healing, Shamanaut did 4.9 million and Daidalos did 5.3 million. Considering the skill that Daidalos posses, Shamanaut did extremely well.

 

Ranalis

My raid group is probably somewhat atypical, and we run a steady, consistent hunter group (we have 5 very solid hunters, and always have 3 in raid) that includes me and a feral druid. We have only one shadow priest, and I don't get him basically ever. So, I thought - might be worth considering this 0/12/49 build, and I spent some time working out the details today. In my opinion, 8/0/53 remains a vastly superior build. Others may make a different decision, but I thought I would put my calculations out there to save others making this decision the time. Here's the basic set up:

Assuming a group of 3 hunters doing approximately 1.1k DPS each (all BM), with a feral druid doing 850. 10 minute fight, constant totem and DPS uptime. Working from Cheeky's spreadsheet, our best hunter calculates that, including kings, he would gain roughly 10 DPS total (himself and pet) from the 13 str and 11 agility from improved totems. Our feral druid calculated his DPS increase at 15-20, assuming 14 AP = 1 DPS, and that he gains .7% crit from the agility. I didn't check these numbers individually, so feel free to refine them as necessary. That gives, at the high end, a 50 DPS increase to the group as a whole. Over a 10 minute fight, the overall increase is 30k damage.

Given that I'm currently 8/0/53, I'd have to give up two useful talents (neither core, but both boosting survivability) in Nature's Guardian and Elemental Warding to gain 30k damage over each boss fight (again, assuming 100% uptime on both DPS and totem buffs). To me, increased personal survival vastly outweighs the DPS increase and mana gain from 0/12/49, which has a minimum of 5 wasted points (T2 enhancement) which have no raiding value whatsoever. This aside from the fact that most shaman consider Ancestral Knowledge a subpar talent, so you could reasonably argue that you give up 12 talent points for a 50 DPS upgrade in the BEST possible group for a 0/12/49 shaman. Based on all these factors I think that 0/12/49 is dramatically underwhelming compared to more traditional healing builds.

Edit - Tt occurs to me that this is for a group at the entry-into-T6 phase. Certainly once BT is on farm and you and your group are using T6+ gear there could be a different interpretation, and I'd love to see some numbers on that. I would guess, though, that the marginal value of 11-13 Str/Agi are going to go DOWN with increasing gear, not up. Would be interesting to see if others get a similar interpretation from their guildmate/math.

 

• Raut

You can't draw any conclusions from just one raid. Of course it's a difficult question because there is no perfect answer. It's a matter of taste, just like the 8/0 vs. 0/5 vs. 0/0 problem.

Baby, you can hold my balls.

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

 

Shamanaut

Sorry, I was using the WWS to show the damage I was taking that night, and why elemental warding was not as worth while.

I can also tell you Daidalos is using the same 0/12/49 spec right now. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...ath&n=Daidalos

The WWS you linked with me in the hunter group is the best to take to a hunter thread for their opinions.

I truly appreciate the complement with respect to Daidalos. It definitely means a lot.

 

Skyhoof

Thanks, Ranalis. This sort of analysis was exactly what I was hoping someone would post. And the DPS boost is a bit underwhelming. There is nothing wrong with the 0/12/49 spec it's just you're not getting a whole lot for the talents you give up. And I would have to agree that as the quality of gear improves, the DPS added by the totems would decrease (at least on a percentage basis).

So, I suppose if all you did was raid with hunters and druids and you never do any PVP or farming, then the spec would be OK. However, the 5% increase in damage to shocks and bolts is nice when farming. The threat reduction is nice for 5-mans and 10-mans and trash pulls that go bad (Oh, I thought you were sheeping the square!). And Nature's Guardian is awesome for PVP and staying alive until the warrior taunts, the hunter misdirects or your shadow priest pulls aggro with that mind blast.

 

Shamanaut

I agree, and I'm not arguing which one is better for a person at a given time. I am just arguing that it is definitely a viable raiding spec, and that it seems to have gone largely ignored in this thread. There is no attempt to discredit any of those 3 as valid raiding specs (Though I agree with the majority that 0/5 is the poorest of the choices compared to 8/0 and 0/0).

 

Skyhoof

OK, I'll post in the hunter thread to see what they estimate as the DPS boost. And tell Daidalos to get on here and explain this spec. Especially why he put 2 points into improved reincarnation. There must be something we are missing. I'm sure it will all make sense after he walks us through it. Afterall, I did think he was a bit crazy when he started wearing T2 to boost his chain heal. It just so happened that it was an amazing idea that works very well for several fights.

EDIT: Here is the post I made in the hunter forum: Help me please

 

Ranalis

Based on my analysis that's definitely true - it has most of the things you'd want and depending on your feelings about the DPS increase, I feel I could respecc 0/12/49 and do similarly well in terms of healing to my current 8/0/53 spec. I just don't feel I can personally give up the survivability to do so (at least given my gear and relative knowledge of T6 fights at the moment). It was definitely a good idea to have the discussion on this spec, though, and I'm really glad to have had the chance to think it through clearly.

 

Shamanaut

Well, seeing some more feedback from hunters on this spec will also go a long way. And I agree, if you feel you can't give up survivability, I definitely would not recommend the spec to you. Of course the flip side is true, that if you can afford the survivability, it can't hurt to have the extra dps. The fact is, 50 dps isn't going to make or break a raid, but there isn't anything that truly is make or break on a raid. If I take my +81 healing off my weapon, it isn't going to hurt my healing that much. If I take the healing off my shoulders, it won't hurt that much. But it is the cumulative effect of all these little things that do make or break raids. This is just one of those little things.

 

Jamegumb

Thanks for the response Skyhoof,

I got it from wowwiki:
Every class except Warlocks uses: (Intellect/80) + (Spell Critical Strike Rating/22.08) + Class Specific Constant
...so every 80 Int gives you 1% crit and with BoK it would be 72.72727
and with 1 mana tide, I get 0.213125 mp5 with BoK 1.1( (15 mana * 1.24 for mana tide * 5 per sec)/480 sec)

With one mana tide, I get
1 int = .33 heal + .1375 heal (crit) + .062517 heal (mp5) = .530017 healing

I'm guessing that the ranking issues may potentially come from how mp5 is valued but that number is so subjective and situation dependent (e.g., do you have an spriest, etc.) I'm not sure what to say.

If I look at how dps classes that use mana like enh shaman and hunters calculate AEP, they don't seem to include mp5/regen in their calculations at all...for resto shaman its a little more complex because when a hunter or enh shaman run out of mana, they can still do white damage...when a resto shaman runs out of mana, people die

I've found your rankings very helpful and have gotten to the point now where I look at an item and see if it is an upgrade to my max heal/haste/crit set or my regen set before I figure out if I want to roll on it.

Thanks again,
--JG

 

Skyhoof

Shamstats also uses 80. I'm going to edit my original post so I don't confuse people later on. And valuing mp5 is a pain but someone has to do it

Thanks for pointing out the over valuation of Intellect. I'll update the main post. I'm also going to add three sets of stat weights -- one for T4, T5 and T6. I took the idea from Malan’s Enhancement post. It doesn't completely solve the issue of mp5 vary by situation so much but it should help a little bit.

 

Mandrachalos

Well, the thing with improved reincarnation should be easily explained. Some raiding shamans seem to like it since ankhing up isnt really important for wipe protection in raids.
So usually you reincarnate during boss fights should you die. Therefore some shamans seem to like buying the improved reincarnation so you get up with some more HP and mana and can do it more often - easy explanation.
In the early days of BC the "standard spec" of Nihilum`s shamans included it too btw. Just a matter of taste tbh. I never liked the talent.

 

• Binkenstein

Yeah, Int based crit is 1/80

I think the biggest fault with a 0/12/49 build is that you expect to be grouped with Hunters/Ferals all the time. If you weren't, you'd be wasting those talent points. If you're always grouped that way, then yes, sounds like a pretty good build, but I dislike pigeon-holing myself with specs (so says the Elemental with ToW... irony noted).

 

Daidalos

I raised all manner of complaints before I repecced then after respeccing found I didn't miss the other resto points at all. I picked up the imp reincarnate for the increased HP/mana esp with so many aoe happy bosses basically I feel I have 4 points to spend after picking up the 12 in enh and the necessary resto points. I put 2 in imp reincarnation and 2 in Nature gaurdian those points could easily go in something else but I wanted a lil bit of survivability points esp since I never have any mana issues or healing throughput issues.

 

• Binkenstein

Probably worth adding it to the talent spec section anyway.

 

Mandrachalos

I got the feeling the 0/12/49 spec is only an option if you are in a raid group which usually has a raid setup classwise that fits.
If you arent in a raid group which usually takes an enhancement shaman with it or you usually have really many hunters (at least 3) every raid it should work I guess.
Otherwise the enhancement shaman will be in the group with rogues and dps warriors - so those are taken. The feral druid(s) might be in that group too depending on overall setup. That would leave only hunters and maybe a feral druid for the shaman`s group.
So I guess it is basically a question about how your usual raid setup looks like.

 

Skyhoof

Or how much gold you and your guild have to pay for respecs. While the DPS boost is small, Sham is correct in pointing out most of the ways we boost DPS and healing are small but have a large cumulative effect.

I'm really glad Sham brought up this spec and have added it to the list on the first page. If I'm ever put in the hunter/druid group for the night, I can say to my guild, "Do you want me to respec to get improved strength and agility totems? It will boost the DPS of the group by about 50 DPS. I won't lose any of my healing abilities but I will take more damage."

There wasn't much feedback from the hunters, which is surprising because they seem obsessed with maximizing their DPS. The analysis that Ranalis and his guild did seems to be accurate.

 

Daidalos

I collborated with some hunters before speccing to but subsequently forgot all numbers involved since that was ages ago. So I was no better off than you guys right now. I can say from extensive experience (from Vashj-Illidan) I don't feel I have gimped myself at all. I have been raiding with this spec since we were starting on vashj over 7 months ago. I have found the spec to be decent in bgs for the imp grounding and a very buff-oriented spec which "feels" right to me as my role as a shaman. I do find the elemental spec for those times when I chuck LB as resto appealing like on RoS and Akama I have thought about speccing this way since I have been the caster group alot lately but I never know when I"ll end up in the hunter or tank group (the little extra agi for prot wars gives a little bit of extra dodge as well as the all around benefits to a feral tank). My only reply to those who feel they are giving up somthing by speccing to this is "stop standing in fires" ;-)

 

Vlydia

So essentially for fights with lots of aoe damage you choose to die and resurrect with slightly more health and mana than use preventative measures via nature's guardian and elemental warding?

 

Daidalos

No I hardly ever die. Also I have2 points in nature's guardian. It's easy don't stand in the fire. Do I die sometimes? Sure maybe once in BT once in hyjal clear and plenty of times I haven't died at all. You saying you never die? If you don't want to thats fine. It works for me and for my guild.