I would suggest breaking the wiki & ep calcs into a dual WF build & a WF/FT build and treating them like they are totally different specs. I don't see making people choose as a bad thing, particularly because they will be able to read about both build styles. The progressive enhancement shaman are going to go straight to the sim for customized answers and the rest would appreciate the info as new gear drops.

Additionally, if I can be of any help with specific wiki sections or calculations let me know.

edit: Thank you for all of the work you do to maintain the flow of information.

I made a spreadsheet to keep track of my paper doll stats. It blows for trying to gem gear, and I haven't gotten around to cleaning up the armor penetration values yet, but it works well enough for me.

I'm working on figuring out total mana gains /2 minutes to see if I can avoid falling short before SR kicks in.

On the sims I'm averaging -13,470 mana/2 minutes with 5/5 convection.

With the update to JoW being 2% total mana, 50% chance to proc on hit, 4 sec CD; I'm roughing out 2% total mana/5

The total pool consists of:
+6,000 mana unbuffed (gear)
+600 mana (40 int AI buff)
+450 mana (30 int elixir)

Turning water shield and mana stream totem into 2 minute values:

+1,200 (watershield 50/5)
+1,200 (manaspring 20/2)

And finally JoW:

+3,384 ((7,050*.02)/5)*120)

The Net is 13,470-12,834 = 636 mana to go.

Now to be fair, the SR cooldown starts from initial cast, so maybe I'll be just fine having to bridge only 112 seconds.

I just wanted to offer a working method of figuring out JoW's contribution when it's fixed.

In response to Rhaegal.

Yeah, that is kind of what I had working in my head. I'm not worried about coming up with a system for my own evaluation but a system that can be used by the general enhancement community. As long as we make sure people are aware that those guidelines are just guidelines a system like that might be very effective. The resources are avaliable for anybody who wants to test their specific gear.

Sort of tangental to this, has anybody else found that the sim over values stats that increase the proc rate of maelstrom. This is sort of how being laggy devalues certain mechanics and therefore certain stats. I'm just not as good at useing maelstrom weapon as the sim and therefore cannot press that button as fast as it does, meaning that sometimes I lose proc chances. Obviously this is just a "skill" problem, but with a certain amount of haste I'd imagine it is a problem that a lot of people will have.

Yes, this is the problem that I'm trying to solve. People are already showing up in this thread saying "lulz, what gim shuld i uze?" It's going to get much worse when Northrend opens up and people have access to new gear and trinkets as their old gear devalues. The fact that we had numbers next to all the trinkets in the wiki for so long, and could with no doubts say "gem strength" and "use these enchants" helped reduce the amount of stupidity (not eliminate it though).

So the issue I'm raising now is that if I write a statement that says "I can't tell you how to gem/enchant/gear your character. You must run the sim in order to find that out" we will be flooded with stupid questions.

The level of stupid in this thread alone has made do some serious thinking of whether I have the intestinal fortitude to rework the wiki, I'm not sure my blood pressure can handle what I think will happen when Northrend opens.

Well, if we start with the assumption that ANYONE asking for us to do the work for them isn't looking for accuracy or how to gear for the cutting edge -- they're just looking for a shortcut -- we can take a cue from the Prot Warrior wiki (which lists a number of macros, preceded by the phrase "if you use these macros, you are a bad tank").

We create a section that says ''Here is the EP for a shaman using Windfury and Flametongue with 2.6s weapons and full T6. Note: You really should sim your own."

Honestly, anything more complex than that is just going to result in headaches. Players who want accuracy and cutting edge gear will be using some sort of simulation anyway.

It doesn't have to be misleading. Any EP will lead to better gearing; but personalized EP is the only way to get to the BEST gearing.

Here's an interesting thought: it never mattered before (since we never really had a cap before), but though the EP value of hit rating drops significantly once you're spell capped via gems/enchants/consumables, the actual value of a hit rating on a potential upgrade is that of what you'd replace, assuming you had more hit rating.

EG: I am hit capped through gems. I find a piece with 50 hit rating on it. The actual value of that piece isn't 50 * the new value for hit rating -- it's 50 * the value of 2 AP, which is what I'd swap if I was hit capped through gear.

Any stat that increases the proc rate of MW -- hit, expertise or haste -- will increase your DPS of your autoattack as well, so it doesn't seem like that big of an issue to me. I'll give you the same argument I give whenever lag comes up -- lag is constant to a player on a machine on a connection. So let's say it takes you 500 ms to launch MW after a 5 stack. If the talent 5 stacks 10% faster, you'd have that 500 ms lag, but the stack indicator you're ignoring for 500 ms came up faster -- so in the end, you're still getting more procs. Not quite 10% more, but more.

I do think a lot of us are still getting used to the flow of MW.

That's why I said to give an option. Tell them: "The ideal solution is for you to run the sim. If you can't or won't, instead of risking misleading you with sub-standard values, here's a link to MaxDPS.com, as what they provide suits your needs better than we can." A statement like that would serve the dual purpose of providing such people with a tool they can use to approximate their gear, as well as shoving them off somewhere else for their silly gear questions. People who still ask stupid questions because they didn't read it still won't have read any other explanation you give them in the TTT article.

@ Toots - Right and that's the sort of decisions that the Rawr models make, and that's why I'm eager for Blizzard to get around to fixing WF to MH only.

@Rhaegal - yah I suppose that will work.

This is true, but if the sim is able to use MW 5 times a minute and I am only able to use it 4.5 (from delay and missing proc chances) it is going to favor those certain stats that benefit MW more. Whether or not this is enough to make a difference in how I value stats, I'm not sure. Every single stat that benefits my other abilities benefits MW in some way, but not neccesarily proportionally. It would be interesting to test, and something that could be added to sim I suspect (a MW specific lag).

I'm inclined to think most reasonable trinket questions will be about the various procs, so having that information in a list could prove to be a time saver, especially since sites like wowhead tend to have contradicting comments, even more so early on. Just glancing at the list of new trinkets I see four or five that look reasonable for enhance that have procs of one sort or another.

Simple, meaningful rules like going for hit until the spell hit cap tend to get the most repetition and help provide the most accurate, genuine information to the masses, even if they aren't always absolutely perfect. The sim is there for those that want much more detailed information. Most people tend to use general information primarily for gems and enchants anyway, as the RNG has a bigger effect on gear choices than anything else.

Personally I'd love for you to put in big bold letters "Don't gem AGI" because it seems like everyone I know thinks it's the best stat for enhance now and I've yet to see even one gear setup where the sim says that is true.

Big difference this time around is having access to the source. tukez can abandon EnhSim completely, like we've seen with Yo!, but hackers lurking on EJ can pick up the slack. The sim has a sensible license so it's possible to fork if there are disagreements or development stops.

That being said, I hope tukez continues to develop his superb sim and I really doubt anyone is looking to fork a successful, actively-developed project.

That's largely my fault, people on beta were quoting me from like 6 months ago suggesting that Agility gems would be best.

I think simple rules of thumb would work best to explain the changes to the window-lickers.

Gem hit till you are at the spell hit cap (rule #1)

Gem/Gear Expertise till you have 6.25% dodge reduction (rule #2)

Rule #2 supercedes Rule #1 if you are a Troll who has no fear of Ret Pallys. (<3 Toots)

Crit Rating > Attack Power > Agi > Haste > Hit Rating (after spell hit cap) = Armor Penetration = Spell Power (rule #3 - these values are an incredibly rough guideline. Use the sim for precise values)

Slow/Slow is best but a fast weapon is acceptable in the offhand if the dps is significantly higher then the slow weapon (evaluate fast weapons in the Sim for specific choices) (rule #4)

WF/WF at level 70 (rule #5)

WF/FT at level 80, due to Elemental Fury (rule #6)

Hard Casting Lava Burst is a dps loss except if your spell crit is incredibly low. Test on Sim to determine optimal priorities based on personal stats (rule #7)

Maelstrom Weapon has a PPM of 10. Disparage that determination at your own risk. (rule #8)

Glyph of Stormstrike > Earth Shock glyph > Windfury glyph = Flametongue glyph = Lightning Shield glyph (rule #9)

Flame Shock glyph could be good but the rotation will most likely give you a migraine and cause such carpal tunnel pain that you will be forced to reroll a Hunter or a Ret pally so your entire rotation can be macroed to one button that can be spammed by a G15 key. (rule #10)

If you disagree with any of these rules....eh, you will still do acceptable dps provided you know not to stand in the fire and you understand that if you can see the bosses face, you are standing in the wrong spot.

Any other disagreements with the rules is best qualified and quantified by use of Tukez Sim. If you still don't know what to do with your Shaman take a look at the loading screen, select your shaman, click the option marked delete, then type "DELETE", hit enter and make the World of Warcraft a much nicer place for the rest of us.




The preceeding was a tongue-in-cheek example of the type of thing that should be listed on the TTT until we get a real handle on the issues that will need to be covered in a rewrite of the TTT.

Have we seen any indication that they plan to do this? The last post I saw on the subject made it sound like they were very reluctant to do so.

Probably by the weekend I will have ShockAndAwe exporting your paperdoll stats ready for EnhSim. I'll need a fair bit of assistance in testing it with lots of different trinkets and glyphs though. The idea is that you run a command line and it creates the config.txt file - excluding the non paperdoll stuff.

Initially I'll go with a flat export assuming no buffs. I'll then add checks to remove buffs/buff effects, I'll need clarification if any raw stats need adjustment for talents. I should also be able to export the talents section & glyphs. I will do it step by step though. Testers most welcome - pls reply with pm or to the ShockAndAwe thread.

Actually how I understood that quote was that they will remove the cooldown if Windfury is only on one hand.

Meaning you will have to deal with the cooldown if you use WF/WF but if you use WF/FT then there would be no cooldown. Which should be fine since once WotLK is released WF/FT is the best option for an enhancement shaman under all circumstances anyway.

Either way, it works out for us! I may have been interpreting the response through rose-colored .. ahh .. ears .. when GC answered my question, but it seemed like they were definitely interested in finding a way to remove the cooldown without making WF/WF ridiculously overpowered once again.

I don't know what's running wrong with the Sim, but AP is by far the best stat. I suggest you to get EP by using the Sim manually. Just try to observe how much DPS will be brought trough these values: 5% Haste vs 328AP/98SpellP vs 3.57% Spell/MeleeCrit vs 180AP/54SpellP/1.65%Meleecrit.
Do you feel the difference?

I would rather rate like this: (based on Beta experience/Simulation crafting based on full Naxx10 Gear)

Expertise till cap > Spellhit till cap >> AP >>> Crit=Agi > Hit > Haste > ArP

Imho most of you are underestimating the great value of Expertise that it still offers.

I've been using chardev.org v4 - A World of Warcraft character planner -. Seems to be pretty accurate.

I think that the bolded section needs to be emphasised.

Every time I run the sim with my current gear I get a value for Agi that is greater than Crit. What might be helpful are some nice tutorials that really demonstrate how to use the sim easily. Software development experience leads me to suggest that command lines scare people. This means that having a webpage that gives a step-by-step idiots guide to the sim would be well worth the time-investment.

Hopefully we'll soon be able to say:
1. Download ShockAndAwe
2. Click/type the command to export your paperdoll values.
3. Paste that stuff into config.txt
4. Run the batch file.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 every time your gear/gems/enchants change to get updated EP values.

I was actually under the assumption that people with better gear than mine got AGI out as the best single stat. My simulations show me that expertise>crit>agi... I was kind of confused, but I trusted the sim.

@ Malan - Those of us, who take the time to dig through all the info in here will find it and find out that the sim is the way to go. So in my humble opinion those of us who actually care to spend a little time reading up will find the info they are looking for. Those who just want quick answers should really be greatful if there is a quick list of "standard answers and EP", even if those are a little less than optimal. This will also make a good appetizer for people. If they read the "easy list" and get a performance boost form it, they will be motivated for readin up on the backgroundstuff and using the sim.