Enhancement WotLK Talents and spells discussion. - Page 12

Malan · 07/19/08, 9:54 AM

Bad news
Strength is only 1 AP now.

Pitbuller · 07/19/08, 9:57 AM

Still seem buff rather than nerf.

Tornaz · 07/19/08, 9:58 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Bad news
Strength is only 1 AP now.

Ahh.

Welcome to competing with Hunters for everything.

Have they changed Shamans AGI to Crit ratio, or is it still the same as before at 25 AGI giving 1% crit at 70?

Malan · 07/19/08, 10:01 AM

It must be changed, I'm missing at least 15% crit on my char right now from live. (This is a copy I did yesterday since all my alpha chars are locked for a week or two)

Paladia · 07/19/08, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Paladia

2.63/2.19 ~ 1.2 as in 20% haste
2.19/1.68 ~ 1.3, as in 30% haste

Seems to work fine.

Might as well test if it stacks with flurry as well while you are at it. It should bring your attack speed to 1.2923.

Interesting that Agility finally has a decent use, it was lacking quite a bit for Shamans before with all the hunter gear.

Paladia · 07/19/08, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Tornaz

Have they changed Shamans AGI to Crit ratio, or is it still the same as before at 25 AGI giving 1% crit at 70?

Judging from his numbers you seem to need 30 Agility to get one percent crit.

This is quite bad though, if stacking agility is the way to go instead of crit rating. As then you won't get any spell crit, which kinda nullifies Blizzards intent on making the hybrids more like hybrids. Unless of course agility would also give spell crit.

Malan · 07/19/08, 10:24 AM

Live: 364 Agility increases my crit by 16.24%
Beta: 364 Agility increases my crit by 12.02%

Enroute to test flurry + bloodlust + Windfury Totem
Those 3 take me to 1.29 Main hand (2.8 with 6.6% passive haste)

Paladia · 07/19/08, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Live: 364 Agility increases my crit by 16.24%
Beta: 364 Agility increases my crit by 12.02%

Enroute to test flurry + bloodlust + Windfury Totem
Those 3 take me to 1.29 Main hand (2.8 with 6.6% passive haste)

Seems like live is bugged then or I am misinformed. As with those numbers you'd get 1% crit from 22.5 Agility instead of 25 Agility (which I thought was the breaking point). The beta number does indeed seems to be 30 agility, provided you are at level 70.

Good news about Windfury, Flurry and Bloodlust stacking as it should though.

Tornaz · 07/19/08, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Paladia

Judging from his numbers you seem to need 30 Agility to get one percent crit.

This is quite bad though, if stacking agility is the way to go instead of crit rating. As then you won't get any spell crit, which kinda nullifies Blizzards intent on making the hybrids more like hybrids. Unless of course agility would also give spell crit.

It just says crit strike on the tooltip Malan posted.

Malan? Is there any difference in your spell crit live compared to beta?

Malan · 07/19/08, 10:35 AM

Yah spell crit on Beta is 10.69%

I'm able to self buff my AP to 2677 (1888 base) at lvl 70. (Without Mental Dexterity, I didn't take that talent on this char copy)

Beta tooltip: 302 Strength (107 + 195) Increases AP by 292

Tornaz · 07/19/08, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by Malan

Yah spell crit on Beta is 10.69%

Is that from changes to Ancestral Knowledge?

Malan · 07/19/08, 10:47 AM

No, I put a few points into AK for talent requirements but that was it, and I did not take Mental Dexterity which actually converts the Int to AP. Remember, if we get 1 AP from Agility, I'm running Double Mongoose!

LazyJoe · 07/19/08, 12:49 PM

Well if blizzard wants us to stack agility, it seems logical to nerf the agility to crit% ratio, otherwise we would get insane crit percentages through lots of agility, dual mongoose and elemental devastation.

Also, since it seems a greater deal of our damage will come from spells, and we will gain a permanent 20% haste increase through the new windfury totem, i bet "unified" hit rating will become the best thing to stack (atleast until spell-hitcapped, which won't be very far from melee-hitcapped anyway).

We were gemming rogue gear like fury warriors at lvl 70, we will be gemming hunter gear like rogues at lvl 80

Tornaz · 07/19/08, 1:11 PM

Originally Posted by LazyJoe

dual mongoose

Off-topic, but does Mongoose have a point of maximum benefit a la Crusader?

Beowolf · 07/19/08, 1:21 PM

So it seems that Str, Agility AND Int(talent) all give us 1 AP each. Thats a TON of extra AP :P

Malan · 07/19/08, 1:42 PM

The strength bit is of no concern, all that means is that we don't need to gem or enchant for strength anymore, but now we'll probably gem for agility and hit (up to the spell hit cap, no more). Much more rogue like now, and we'll have to manage our hit gems as we acquire new gear too.

Atren · 07/19/08, 1:48 PM

They are pretty much redoing everything at our itemization.

One thing to remember in all the happyness around agi change is that it is not straight buff -- we apparently lose a lot of crit from it and strength no longer gives 2 AP. It is hard to say whats the net change over it. It can come back biting us especially with Flurry mechanism. Lower crit lessens flurry uptime. One thing is clear, if it remains so then str is big NO NO, which is rather colossal change from being best stat so far.

That str change also means that they have to redo T4-T6/S1-S4 or will leave enhance shaman with truly pathetic tier armors.

Concerning values you showed Malan, can you do another with less agility as the starting point is not 0 it would give good indication of what it is. And another thing is hunters dont need nearly as much of hit rating as we do and expertise is still ours only. I am starting to envy ret paladins more and more for sharing their gear with warriors.

Probably stupid question -- but does WF still have 3 second cooldown and 36% proc rate with DW?

madrix · 07/19/08, 3:25 PM

Is there any confirmation that WF totem does not stack with bloodlust for other members of the party? I read that it works for the shaman but i guess there is some debate about the WF haste effect not being self cast and therefore would not stack for others with bloodlust. If these did not stack together that would be very bad for melee dps given this change.

Skiace · 07/19/08, 3:43 PM

Originally Posted by Phlis

Yes, enhancement shaman will be dropping Flametongue totem. They're the only ones who will be speccing into Enhancing Totems, which increases Flametongue Totem's spell damage increase by 15%. So they'll have the best version.

Elemental Shaman, while we may be speccing into enhancement because of Mental Dexterity + Mental Quickness, will be dropping Totem of Wrath as our Fire Totem.

Resto shaman could easily pick up the talent, and would be much more likely to be in range of the spell casters who'd want it.

lizard · 07/19/08, 3:57 PM

am i the only one who thinks that the str -> agi "buff" is a BAD thing? not only does this make us the only hybrids with less than 2 AP per 1 str, but it also greatly narrows our choices when it comes to gear. while atm agi + ap gear is not great but OK for us, we will be completely reduced to it at lvl 80. think of all the new fury+ret+deatknight+feral rings, trinkets and weapons that will become basically useles for us. furthermore, as someone also noted above, stacking agility will only increase our melee crit, thus our spell crit will stay relatively low.
bottom line is: enhancers will be reduced to stacking int, agi and +hit (maybe also haste), which will narrow down our item choice even more than it is now.
i'm really thinking about switching back to my warrior. 2x2hand whirlwind and insta-slam sounds just too sexy...

PsyBomb · 07/19/08, 4:03 PM

Originally Posted by lizard

am i the only one who thinks that the str -> agi "buff" is a BAD thing? not only does this make us the only hybrids with less than 2 AP per 1 str, but it also greatly narrows our choices when it comes to gear. while atm agi + ap gear is not great but OK for us, we will be completely reduced to it at lvl 80. think of all the new fury+ret+deatknight+feral rings, trinkets and weapons that will become basically useles for us. furthermore, as someone also noted above, stacking agility will only increase our melee crit, thus our spell crit will stay relatively low.
bottom line is: enhancers will be reduced to stacking int, agi and +hit (maybe also haste), which will narrow down our item choice even more than it is now.
i'm really thinking about switching back to my warrior. 2x2hand whirlwind and insta-slam sounds just too sexy...

I think that's a bit too alarmist. While I'm not a big fan of losing 2x Str conversion, going to 1 Str, 1 Agi will allow the gear to be better itemized by a long shot. Also don't forget that any crit rating you get on your gear will apply to both, which is a direct buff from the current state of things.

Skiace · 07/19/08, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by lizard

am i the only one who thinks that the str -> agi "buff" is a BAD thing? not only does this make us the only hybrids with less than 2 AP per 1 str, but it also greatly narrows our choices when it comes to gear. while atm agi + ap gear is not great but OK for us, we will be completely reduced to it at lvl 80. think of all the new fury+ret+deatknight+feral rings, trinkets and weapons that will become basically useles for us. furthermore, as someone also noted above, stacking agility will only increase our melee crit, thus our spell crit will stay relatively low.
bottom line is: enhancers will be reduced to stacking int, agi and +hit (maybe also haste), which will narrow down our item choice even more than it is now.
i'm really thinking about switching back to my warrior. 2x2hand whirlwind and insta-slam sounds just too sexy...

On the other hand, we've been playing TBC with pretty sub-optimal gear the whole time (how much strength do you have that's not on a gem? how much wasted int do you have?). This change will make existing mail itemization much closer to optimal for enhance.

Malan · 07/19/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by lizard

am i the only one who thinks that the str -> agi "buff" is a BAD thing? not only does this make us the only hybrids with less than 2 AP per 1 str, but it also greatly narrows our choices when it comes to gear. while atm agi + ap gear is not great but OK for us, we will be completely reduced to it at lvl

bottom line is: enhancers will be reduced to stacking int, agi and +hit (maybe also haste), which will narrow down our item choice even more than it is now.
i'm really thinking about switching back to my warrior. 2x2hand whirlwind and insta-slam sounds just too sexy...

This is some pretty reduculous whining, and shows very little thought into the mechanics you're complaining about. You aren't seeing the forest for the trees.

Paladia · 07/19/08, 4:47 PM

Was the mana cost on lightning shield removed? Did they fix the scaling on frostbrand and flametongue weapon so it isn't just 10% of spell power regardless of weapon speed?

Lujaar · 07/19/08, 9:07 PM

On the flametongue/enhancing totems issue, it seems likely you'd want a resto shaman dropping flametongue whenever possible. A 20-yard radius totem at the boss's feet isn't going to reach casters on basically any fight with positioning requirements.

Strength of Earth seems likely to have the same issue with hunters. I can easily imagine wanting a resto shaman with Enhancing Totems to drop SoE (which needs to reach the whole raid) while the enh shaman covers Stoneskin (which only needs to reach the tanks).