Enhancement WotLK Talents and spells discussion. - Page 131

Jheherrin · 10/17/08, 9:57 AM

Just on a very rough calc (just base damage and cast times) and on a single target (most boss fights) the break even is around 1300 Spellpower, which should be achievable.

Anything at all (raid buffs) which increases spellpower is going to reduce that break even point in favour of Lighting bolt due to the cast time difference.

The best choice between LB and CL will be situational depending on mana, spellpower, cooldowns and number of mobs hittable.

Low Life · 10/17/08, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

Am I wrong in using Flamtetongue on OH (2.6 speed)? It didn't seem to weaken my WF attacks in any serious manner, it still does about the same percentage of damage as before. Of course if the maths clearly support WF, then I better use that.

Just like many other questions during the last few pages, you can find the better choice for you using the EnhSim DPS simulator. It's very likely going to be Windfury, though. I'm not sure if anyone's managed to find stats that would favor Flametongue at level 70.

Jumato · 10/17/08, 10:35 AM

If you are using Lava Lash in your rotation with FT on your OH - it is superior DPS (according to Recount in game) than dual WF - so I don't think you are incorrect in using FT on OH. There is still the 3sec internal cooldown on WF anyway - so by removing WF from your OH, you remove the possibility of "stealing" the effect from your MH.

Toksletok · 10/17/08, 10:58 AM

Castsequence has two major downside. 1) if the next cast in the sequence is on CD, you're stuck. 2) it'll always mean less dps, compared to doing it "manually".

I still got one for myself, for the simple reason that doing "lesser" instances is going so fast now, i hardly have time to keep track of everything. The one sequence that gave me the least dps-loss is:

/castsequence [combat] reset=6/nocombat/target Earth Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike; Stormstrike

I only need 1 extra button now for the LB on the 5xMW.

Amaxe · 10/17/08, 11:32 AM

Personally I don't like Castsequence for macros, as they often mean you wind up with the wrong spell up at the wrong time. I prefer to use [button:2] to allow you to right click when it comes to often used alt items (Earth Shock/Windshock, Poison/Disease, lightning/chain lightning, heal/chain heal)

But my sequence is MW Lightning (if up), SS, ES, LL using dual windfury and glyphs of Windfury and Strength of Earth. When health gets low, I use MW for instant heal. I don't have the amazing DPS numbers some of you have been getting, but then my gear is a combo of S2 and T4 mostly done with soloing and not with raid buffs.

I'm sure I'm doing some things wrong, but I hope to keep learning more as I read this thread and get more efficient

(thanks to all who posted the useful advice)

Rouncer · 10/17/08, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by Jumato

If you are using Lava Lash in your rotation with FT on your OH - it is superior DPS (according to Recount in game) than dual WF - so I don't think you are incorrect in using FT on OH. There is still the 3sec internal cooldown on WF anyway - so by removing WF from your OH, you remove the possibility of "stealing" the effect from your MH.

Sorry to single you out but you are a perfect example of what NOT to do.

We have a wonderful sim and using that sim showed that WF/WF is better dps then WF/FT until you gain a few levels and have Elemental Fury. This was previously posted and in that previous post people actually took the time to check and see if what they were posting was correct.

You are posting ANECDOTAL evidence based on your personal opinion that has no validity behind it and no concrete experimentation besides a few minutes looking at recount. The difference between WF/WF and WF/FT is small but it shows consistently over thousands of hours of testing with the sim.

Reason why WF/WF is better even though LL may cause offhand WF procs is because WF gives significantly more MW procs then FT so whether it is a mainhand or an offhand proc you will get more charges by using it and more charges equals more LBs and that is why it is better then WF/FT until you get Elemental Fury and the damage from FT increases enough to offset those additional LBs. Even once you have Elemental Fury the advantages to WF/FT over WF/WF are not that significant (2-3% at most) where you will actually be able to see the difference just by watching recount over the course of a single fight.

So people please take a moment to actually read (skim) the thread and if you want to post something about how a person should play or how a mechanic works then look for the research people have done already or experiment on your own if you think they are wrong but at least have something more then just your opinion to back up your statements.

On a different Topic,

/castsequence [combat] reset=6/nocombat/target Earth Shock, Lava Lash, Stormstrike; Stormstrike

is a BAD macro since it will never get to that last stormstrike and you wasting a lot of potential dps by forcing that sequence on yourself.

Rhaegal's is much better and even his isn't perfect

/castsequence [reset=8] Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash, Earth Shock Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Earth Shock, Lava Lash

Ideally the best thing is to stick to a priority list and manually activate the spells but if you really want a castsequence macro then Rhaegal's is pretty good.

Cyaxeres · 10/17/08, 12:00 PM

Can anyone point out what is wrong with this macro?

/castsequence reset=6 Earth Shock, Lava Lash

I thought it was pretty simple and should prioritize Earth Shock, but all throughout Sunwell it seemed to be using Lava Lash first about 50% when both Earth Shock and Lava Lash were off CD. One thing I don't think I understand very well is exactly what the reset=? does and I bet if I did something wrong with the macro it's in there.

Also, if it's important, I had a tendancy to spam this macro when SS was on CD and I did not have a MW 5 stack.

Khaul · 10/17/08, 12:25 PM

Ive probably missed it if was said (dont think i have though!)

The tooltip for maelstrom...When you deal damage with a melee weapon, you have a 100% chance to reduce the cast time of your next Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, Lesser Healing Wave, Chain Heal or Healing Wave spell by 20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 30 sec..

Each rank is the same. Does the PPM go down the less points you spend in it? The old version was 20% on crit, 40%, 60% etc. Is it just blizz being lazy with fixing tool tips again

Roflmeow · 10/17/08, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by Cyaxeres

Can anyone point out what is wrong with this macro?

/castsequence reset=6 Earth Shock, Lava Lash

/castsequence [reset=6] Earth Shock, Lava Lash

Your syntax was wrong

Ive probably missed it if was said (dont think i have though!)

Each rank is the same. Does the PPM go down the less points you spend in it? The old version was 20% on crit, 40%, 60% etc. Is it just blizz being lazy with fixing tool tips again

Indeed it was stated, about 10 pages back. Search is your friend.

PPM increases by about 2 per point. 2 for Rank 1, and ~10 ppm for rank 5
Haste also affects PPM however i'm not sure of the ratio, or what specific varieties of haste affect it.

Levva · 10/17/08, 12:40 PM

I noted this blue post has some interesting info posted by GC:

Originally, we liked the fact that dots didn't crit. It's one of the things that made them different from other types of spells. In turn, it meant that classes and specs that focused on dots cared about different stats than other classes. We think it's interesting when say a ring drops, and the group has to speculate about who would get the most benefit out of it.

We are changing our minds about that design though, because it does make it hard to keep everyone scaling well with gear. A lot of raid buffs are based around adding things like crit and haste, which not everyone cares about to the same degree.

This would obviously have an impact on the effectiveness of FS if they allowed the DoT component to crit. At present FS is effectively dead mostly because it doesn't scale with crit (is my understanding).

Toots Hepcat · 10/17/08, 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Jumato

If you are using Lava Lash in your rotation with FT on your OH - it is superior DPS (according to Recount in game) than dual WF - so I don't think you are incorrect in using FT on OH. There is still the 3sec internal cooldown on WF anyway - so by removing WF from your OH, you remove the possibility of "stealing" the effect from your MH.

This post is inaccurate, circumstantial and barely literate.

As has been mentioned in these forums a hundred times before, the offhand does not steal procs from the mainhand. You will have MORE mainhand procs with dual windfury than you will with just the main hand windfuried, even considering Lava Lash.

The reason is simple: adding the offhand proc increases the Windfury proc chance by 16% on each hand. Sure, the offhand procs -- procs that do plenty of damage on their own -- but the main benefit is from the increased proc rate.

Flametongue will, for some raids and some builds, do superior dps EVEN considering the reduced proc rate. This is especially true if you've got slower weapons, like those crummy 2.5s fists But it is by no means a sure thing. Simulation under the conditions of your raid is essential.

On Macros

I will never use the word "Monkey" to deride macroing -- it is, after all, a tool and if it provides superior DPS you would be an idiot not use it.

But macroing enhancement is just stupid. It can only result in inferior DPS, because a macro can't track cooldowns or Maelstrom Weapon and our best DPS comes from hitting the highest DPS cooldowns first.

If you're looking to reduce your toolbar clutter, a castsequence macro for Earth Shock and Lava Lash isn't a terrible idea, provided you have a reset for interrupts. Macroing your Berzerker's Call or Bloodlust Brooch to Shamanistic Rage isn't a bad idea, either. But including Stormstrike, or god forbid Lightning Bolt, in a cast sequence makes you a bad player.

Rouncer · 10/17/08, 12:53 PM

Originally Posted by Roflmeow

/castsequence [reset=6] Earth Shock, Lava Lash

Your syntax was wrong

No there is nothing wrong with his syntax. You don't need brackets with a castsequence macro. Where the issue lies is with how both of you think a castsequence macro works.

The way it works is very simple. Every time you hit the key you move to the next spell on the list and get stuck there until it casts or until the reset conditions are met.

So lets look at his macro.

/castsequence reset=6 Earth Shock, Lava Lash

So what this macro will do is cast an Earth Shock and then after the GCD cast a Lava Lash. Then it will be back on Earth Shock again and will wait for that to be off cooldown before casting either spell.

The issue that you are having is due to the reset conditional. That will reset the macro to the first spell whenever there is 6 seconds without the macro being pressed. But if you hit it and the spell is on cooldown or the GCD is active then the reset starts counting all over again.

So if you are spamming it then the reset conditional timer is always being reset to 0 and does nothing. What's happening is that you are getting unsynched due to the other attacks GCDs so that there develop pauses where Lava Lash is off cooldown but unable to be cast due to a GCD from another spell so the cooldown on Earth Shock keeps running while that Lava Lash is waiting to cast making it so that eventually both Earth Shock and Lava Lash are off cooldown at the same time but you are stuck casting a Lava Lash since it is the next spell in the sequence that is due to be cast.

ChaguraED · 10/17/08, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Low Life

Just like many other questions during the last few pages, you can find the better choice for you using the EnhSim DPS simulator. It's very likely going to be Windfury, though. I'm not sure if anyone's managed to find stats that would favor Flametongue at level 70.

My sims have favored Flametongue by a considerable margin, from solo buffs to every raid buff enabled. Config is below. I'd like to ask some people who are showing WF/WF to post their config so I can see what is different about my stats.

##########
#SHAMAN###
##########
mh_speed			2.60
oh_speed			2.50
mh_dps				96.5
oh_dps				103.0
mh_crit				23.79	//%
oh_crit				23.79	
mh_hit				9.77	//%, you give hit which shows on your character sheet
oh_hit				9.77
mh_expertise_rating		36	//notice that these are given as rating, 20 rating is about 5 expertise
oh_expertise_rating		16
ap				1957	//when changing this, remember to change the spellpower also(if have mental quickness talent)
haste				8.94	//%
armor_penetration		2.43	//%
str				115
agi				410
int				214
spellpower			587	//you give the spellpower which shows on your character sheet
spell_crit			15.49	//%
spell_hit			12.21	//%, you give spell hit which shows on your character sheet
base_mana			2958

mh_imbue	 		windfury	
oh_imbue	 		flametongue
//{ windfury | flametongue | - }

mh_enchant			mongoose
oh_enchant			mongoose


trinket1			bloodlust_brooch
trinket2			darkmoon_card_crusade


totem				stonebreakers_totem


set_bonus			-


metagem				relentless_earthstorm_diamond


//you can't use same type of glyph in multiple slots
glyph_major1			-
glyph_major2			-
glyph_major3			-
glyph_major4			-
//{ lightning_shield | flametongue_weapon | lightning_bolt |
    windfury_weapon | stormstrike | earth_shock | - }

glyph_minor1			-
glyph_minor2			-
glyph_minor3			-


###################
#ROTATION AND MISC#
###################
mh_auto_attack			1	//{ 0 | 1 }
oh_auto_attack			1	//{ 0 | 1 }
wait_ss_with_wf_cd		0.00	//max seconds to wait to SS, if wf cd is still up
cast_ll_only_if_wf_on_cd	0	//{ 0 | 1 } this is noted only if you have dual wf
bloodlust_casters		2	//{ 0 | 1 | 2 }
sync_bloodlust_with_trinkets	0	//{ 0 | 1 }
cast_lvb_only_if_ed_left	15.0	//cast LvB only if ED duration x or less seconds left
cast_lvb_only_if_fsdots_left	4	//maximum Flame Shock dot ticks left to cast LvB
cast_lvb_only_if_fs_active	1	//{ 0 | 1 }
wait_mw_if_lvb_cd_left		0.0	//maximum seconds to wait for LvB cooldown to use MW
cast_fs_only_if_dots_left	0	//maximum Flame Shock dot ticks left to cast Flame Shock
cast_ls_only_if_charges_left	0	//maximum Lightning Shield charges left to cast LS


//set the rotation priority

rotation_priority_count		5
rotation_priority1		ES
rotation_priority2		MW5_LB
rotation_priority3		SS
rotation_priority4		LL
rotation_priority5		LS



##########
#BOSS#####
##########
miss				9.00	//%
dodge				6.50	//%
glancing			25.00	//%
armor				7700	
spell_miss			17.00	//%

nature_resistance		0	//effective resistances
fire_resistance			0
frost_resistance		0


#########
#TALENTS#
#########
ancestral_knowledge		2/5	//ENHANCEMENT
improved_shields		1/3
mental_dexterity		3/3
shamanistic_focus		1/1
flurry				5/5
elemental_weapons		3/3
unleashed_rage			5/5
weapon_mastery			3/3
dual_wield_specialization	3/3
mental_quickness		3/3
improved_stormstrike		2/2
static_shock			1/3
maelstrom_weapon		5/5

convection			5/5	//ELEMENTAL
concussion			0/5
call_of_flame			0/3
elemental_devastation		3/3
reverberation			0/5
elemental_focus			0/1
elemental_fury			0/5
call_of_thunder			0/1
elemental_precision		0/3
lightning_mastery		0/5
elemental_oath			0/2
lightning_overload		0/5
lava_flows			0/3
storm_earth_and_fire		0/5

EDIT: I tried dialing the offhand up to 2.7 speed and 113DPS. FT on OH netted 2,234.74 DPS. WF gave 2,222.13. It's the ~9% Passive haste then?

Cyaxeres · 10/17/08, 1:02 PM

Thank you for the information Rounced. I knew there was a gap in my knowledge of castsequence macros and you cleared it up nicely. I supposed my followup question would be this: is there a way to fix the macro or improve on the situation besides stop spamming? I know I can make myself stop doing it, but a backup in case I do would be nice.

Toots Hepcat · 10/17/08, 1:08 PM

Originally Posted by ChaguraED

My sims have favored Flametongue by a considerable margin, from solo buffs to every raid buff enabled. Config is below. I'd like to ask some people who are showing WF/WF to post their config so I can see what is different about my stats.

Ton of haste and that shitty badge offhand will select for flametongue.

Will explain why after lunch.

Thados · 10/17/08, 2:31 PM

Don't know about the experience any of you might have had with the new talents and the affect on rotation, but personally I had Maelstrom proccing so often that I hardly had time to keep the Flame Shocks up, between using Stormstrike and Lava Lash there wasn't much time for ever using Earth Shock. Last night on Kil'Jaeden I would spam SS, LL and use Chain Lightning of my Maelstrom and never run out of mana, practically be at 100% mana all the time and hardly have time to put up Flame Shock. So what I am looking for would be optimal rotation for boss fights. Theoretically Flame Shock is more dps than CL, but MS would proc so often that I could literally spam CL.

Roflmeow · 10/17/08, 2:46 PM

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

Ton of haste and that shitty badge offhand will select for flametongue.

Will explain why after lunch.

Interested to see were this leads since i use "That shitty badge off-hand" as well as the main hand. And have several other options i could use instead.

Although i understand about why FT is better at high haste due to the WF internal cooldown. I've been wondering myself since with WF totem my weapon speed reduces itself to around 1.8 ish from 2.5 before flurry

Janraea · 10/17/08, 3:15 PM

Originally Posted by Thados

Don't know about the experience any of you might have had with the new talents and the affect on rotation, but personally I had Maelstrom proccing so often that I hardly had time to keep the Flame Shocks up, between using Stormstrike and Lava Lash there wasn't much time for ever using Earth Shock. Last night on Kil'Jaeden I would spam SS, LL and use Chain Lightning of my Maelstrom and never run out of mana, practically be at 100% mana all the time and hardly have time to put up Flame Shock. So what I am looking for would be optimal rotation for boss fights. Theoretically Flame Shock is more dps than CL, but MS would proc so often that I could literally spam CL.

Will you people stop talking about how much mana you have? JoW is bugged, if you can spam all your abilities and never use shamanistic rage, it just means that you have a paladin keeping it up.

There is no 'optimal rotation' for boss fights. You have a priority system, if you've read much of the thread. In Wotlk, you'll be using ES, not FS. I'm not sure what you mean by 'spam', but you clearly can't 'literally spam CL', as it has a cooldown.

SpottedCowz · 10/17/08, 3:40 PM

Originally Posted by Rhaegal

That's correct.

The problem, as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, with a 3-entry cast sequence macro is that you're effectively giving Earth Shock and Lava Lash 8 second cooldowns. If you insist on monkey macroing your abilities and want to optimize your DPS as much as possible with that kind of macro, try something more like:

/castsequence [reset=8] Stormstrike, Earth Shock, Lava Lash, Earth Shock Stormstrike, Lava Lash, Earth Shock, Lava Lash

Ignoring MW and Static Shock for a moment, that macro will significantly out-perform these crappy simple cast sequence macros (assuming I didn't screw up a cooldown or miscount GCDs, which is possible this early in the morning, please correct my timing if so). Once you throw in the fact that MW is higher priority than everything else, and that it becomes available randomly, the castsequence macro will always lose to an actual person deciding on every GCD what button to push based on a priority queue. How much it will lose by, I don't know. It might be < 2% as suggested above. But if you're going to spend time figuring out the exact EP for every stat so you can eke out every last bit of DPS, and basing those EPs on a non-monkey-macroed cycle, it's probably worth putting in a little extra effort.

I imagine you're assuming no haste rating. Remember that haste rating now applies equally to spell haste. I was looking at testing a "slam" style rotation (for lvl 80 obv.) with LvB, SS, LL, shocks and an open slot every 10 seconds for MW; the idea was that by eliminating race conditions (and with a little spec tweaking) I could possibly see higher dps than with a priority rotation not utilizing LvB. The one thing that I didn't take into account is that my CDs are reduced by the haste on my gear, whereas they did not used to be. The tooltip for my Stormstrike, without the 2 seconds from talents, shows 9 seconds on the CD. I imagine it's actually 8 and some change, but I'm not willing to sit down and add up my haste and do that math, because it would be nearly impossible to effectively model a rotation based on 4 separate cooldowns that have to be tracked down to the 1/1000th of a second. If you're just looking to model to the half second, like I was, you'll eventually find yourself off your rotation by a significant amount and hit race conditions anyway.

Whether or not priority rotation is the way to go, well, I'm not 100% convinced. I still think that as high as the DPS is for MW, race conditions and the CD's available can make for wasted DPS time when you run into all your abilities being in CD/not being up. However, currently at 70, with the amount of haste rating you're going to get just from normal gearing, I can't see a regimented rotation packing enough DPS to overtake the more free-wheeling style. Which is kind of meh. I mean, I'm not a fan of the idea of a castsequence macro, other than twisting, I've never used a castsequence macro, because macros like that make for boring raiding. At the same time, the more random our DPS, the harder it is to compare changes, to the point where people are having to sim hundreds of thousands of hours to get an accurate picture, which is ridiculous.

raabnox · 10/17/08, 3:41 PM

I've noticed something that I figured I should point out. Since the item changes of 3.02, loot rank isn't displaying scores correctly. I found this in particular for items that had armor penetration and items which went from from strength to attack power. To verify this, I ran loot rank with armor pen= and AP=1 and all values set to zero.

I bring this up because many base their gear decisions based off of inputing their sim values into loot rank. If in doubt, run the numbers on your own.

Bigbare · 10/17/08, 4:01 PM

Originally Posted by raabnox

I've noticed something that I figured I should point out. Since the item changes of 3.02, loot rank isn't displaying scores correctly. I found this in particular for items that had armor penetration and items which went from from strength to attack power. To verify this, I ran loot rank with armor pen= and AP=1 and all values set to zero.

I bring this up because many base their gear decisions based off of inputing their sim values into loot rank. If in doubt, run the numbers on your own.

I noticed this as well right off the bat when the coif was very highly rated based on my new ep input. The armor pen difference stems from the ratings conversion. The item displays armor penetration rating correctly but caculates as though the item has flat armor penetration (rating x 7 x your ep input value). Simply take the ep value you have for armor penetration rating and divide it by seven then the math will work.

Sydane · 10/17/08, 4:16 PM

Just to lend some numbers to the broken Judgement of Wisdom mana regen in case people still aren't quite grasping how powerful it currently is. In my guild's 1'56" Teron kill last night, I regenerated 17.4k mana in two minutes as a warlock and finished with a full mana bar without lifetapping. However, our enhancement shaman regenerated 71.2k mana from JoW in the same time span. One would assume this will change with 3.0.3 but enjoy it while it lasts.

vestibule · 10/17/08, 4:35 PM

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

Ton of haste and that shitty badge offhand will select for flametongue.

Will explain why after lunch.

To see this in here is depressing. I don't see any of the Shamans on here with more raid experience and gear knocking on peeps for their gear. I thought this a place to gather intelligence, put our heads together to find out what other shamans are doing.

I advise before you ask some of the questions that you may have to go back to atleast page 126 and start reading, it will probably be answered by the time you get to this post.

One of the biggest things that I have taken away from reading this forum daily pre/post patch is that the sims are great but nothing is set in stone. Randomness, what you see on this forum may not work for you if you implement it. There are a lot of shamans running 10 Agilitly gems, while others are gemming crit/AP everywhere, and both getting great results. As far cookie cutter specs, Hard core raiders can spec differently than peeps that are doing 10 mans and below. 10/51/0 yields more damage in raid, but that is only my opinion with JoW being really friendly to us right now.

When I posted 2.9k on Brut this week, it was with WF/FT. Badge MH and MV OH and no battle elixir.

Finally, been playing around with the Grip of Mannoroth WF/FT. More to follow.......

Rhaegal · 10/17/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by SpottedCowz

The one thing that I didn't take into account is that my CDs are reduced by the haste on my gear

Haste does not affect ability cooldowns. Never has, and probably never will. Global cooldown, yes, and only of spells, but that's an entirely different mechanic.

ChaguraED · 10/17/08, 4:44 PM

Originally Posted by vestibule

To see this in here is depressing. I don't see any of the Shamans on here with more raid experience and gear knocking on peeps for their gear. I thought this a place to gather intelligence, put our heads together to find out what other shamans are doing.

I advise before you ask some of the questions that you may have to go back to atleast page 126 and start reading, it will probably be answered by the time you get to this post.

One of the biggest things that I have taken away from reading this forum daily pre/post patch is that the sims are great but nothing is set in stone. Randomness, what you see on this forum may not work for you if you implement it. There are a lot of shamans running 10 Agilitly gems, while others are gemming crit/AP everywhere, and both getting great results. As far cookie cutter specs, Hard core raiders can spec differently than peeps that are doing 10 mans and below. 10/51/0 yields more damage in raid, but that is only my opinion with JoW being really friendly to us right now.

I'm not sure that anyone saw my edit at the bottom of my previous post mentioning that with a 2.7 spd higher DPS weapon the results are the same. At this point I'd say that rather than making it easier to judge upgrades, Enhancement shaman are even more fractured right now. Every shaman is posting different EP Values, with gear that's not far off.

I'll wait to see the supporting math, but expect that 9% passive haste is what's making Flametongue better