That confirms a 40 agi to 1% crit ratio.

Yea, I said that in my first sentence, it will depend on if lavaburst can be resisted or not.

But redoing the math for the accurate agi -> crit ratio, agi went from 2.66 to 2.28. So it's likely that hit might overtake agi.

If we're gonna be aiming for hunter loot, we'll need a lot of hit from gems since hunter don't need that much

Given that the stat preference will also be shared by Rogues, I would guess that Neck, Rings, Trinkets and back will be good slots for picking up hit.

Or of course there's always the possibility of wearing Leather.

How much hit is needed for the spell cap now? I know the rating conversions were unified, but is it still 16% or did the entire mechanic change? IIRC non-survival hunters need 9% anyways, so assuming the mail itemization supports at least that, getting another 7% from neck, back, rings, trinkets, gems, and enchants seems entirely reasonable. At a minimum, enough hit to cap a hunter will also cap us for SS/WF. Whether additional hit is even desirable over agi or whatever at that point is up in the air.

Extremely good news! Gems in Wrath are insane, theres expertise gems, haste gems, expertise and hit, agility and crit rating, armor pen, etc etc. There are a stupid amount of combinations and stats with gems, as long as there is plenty of gear with sockets i think itemisation is going to be easy.

Jewelcrafting

EDIT: As a side and sort of unrelated note, based on these gem changes you can be damn sure Mining is going to be HUGE.

Gonna do what I try to avoid usually, but from reading a random shaman post on beta boards, it's same as rogues, 1str=1AP and 1agi=1AP(at least that's how rogues used to be last time I played one).

This has been actively discussed over the past 3 pages.

Let's see about that maelstrom weapon:

Let's assume two 2.6s Weapons, 25% haste from Flurry (~84% uptime or something, should be fine), 20% from Windfury Totem and 5% from static haste. So we get (rounded) an average weapon speed of 1.6s.
Now how many attacks do we do in 15s (yellow hit cap, 10% miss for white), let's assume 3 wf procs and 3.75 stormstrike swings, no dodge or other fancies here
0.9*(15/0.8) + 2*3+3.75 = 26.625, rounded to 26 for now, let's make it easy and we'll take 25 for now

So we have 25 swings in 15s on average

That maelstrom thingie is a bernoulli experiment with P(x>=5):
P(x>=5) = 1- P(x=0) - P(x=1) - P(x=2) - P(x=3) - P(x=4);
So for 25 swings and 35% crit (fits with the 84% flurry uptime) P(x>=5) is 0.96, we can pretty much safely count on maelstrom weapon to give us an instant lava burst every 15s.
Now let's do the same for 10s, since we basically want it every 10s, since elemental devastation is only 10s long.

So let's assume 18 swings in 10s, maelstrom Weapons uptime is now 0.81.


So for the 10s case, we can say that together with the probability of critical shocks and (maybe lightning shield?) we can safely assume we will have an elemental devastation uptime of > 80%. Which should be fairly nice.

We certainly could need addon help there to tell us when 5 stacks of maelstrom weapons are up to prevent accidental swing interruptions from casting attempts, if they actually implement that a 5 stack maelstrom is an instant cast without swing timer reset. If not, forget everything above

The gem changes do not surprise me in the slightest. In their hunt to make more gear drops good for more people, Blizzard HAD to do this in order to let people tailor their gear to be what's best for the class. Keep in mind that changes to class mechanics plus the merger of Haste, Crit, and Hit radically change the values of some of the gems. That, and I want to see the prices the Hit/Expertise gems fetch.

12 Agi = 12 Expertise = 84 Armor Pen

Looks like we'll be using expertise gem til we're capped, then possibly armor pen or agi/hit.

Can't make that addon without testing it in WoTLK... Would be the 1st thing to do after (if) I'll get to Beta ;-)

You make the addon, I'll test it.

Example of how new itemization will benefit us:
http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...ediceboots.jpg
41 Agi (41 AP)
23 Int (23 AP)
22 Haste
64 AP

Total: 1% Crit and 128 AP and around 1.5% haste.
Compare to my gemmed and enchanted boots from Mother Sharaz - 2.45% Crit, 109 AP

Maelstrom + Chain Lightning + Elemental Devestation will be a nice boost to our damage on multi-mob pulls. The extra damage from instant Chain Lightning and extra proc chances for keeping Devestation up will be great.

Found an addon that works in the beta and shows nice and clearly whenever you have a 5 stack of Maelstrom Weapon.

Power Auras (continued) | World of Warcraft Addons | World of Warcraft @ Curse.com

Power Auras

Just make that a new buff and then set it to only show when you have a 5 stack and when you do it pops up a HuD type thing around your toon letting you know that it is time to hit LB, CLB or LvB.

Oh and Pitbull working (just turn off the Aura module) is just the icing on the cake. Now just need Dominoes Configuration Menu to start functioning and I will be all set.

Wouldn't a standard 20 ap gem be better for us until the expansion comes out? 10 Agility is only 10(11) ap in the 3.0 patch before we get our hands on the WotLK gems. And we only need 30% crit as it is...

Oh hm I suppose that's true. I forgot about the double AP gems.

Who says we will get a 3.0 patch pre-xpac? Remember one of the big reason (if not the only one) we got 2.0 was because it missed the x-mas shipping date.

Agi ep value with kings is: old ep value * (25 / 40) + 1.1ep (from 1.1ap)
Using sunwell value 1.89 * 0.625 + 1.1 = 2.28
without kings is still 2.07. Both are greater than 2.

But is agi better than crit rating in level 70?(can't say anything about ratings at 80lvl)

Crit rating is now 1.98
Spell crit rating ep value is all about rotation. If used only flame shock to fuel lava burst cycle spell crit ep is very low(0.27). But if using fast off-hand with flame tongue(greater dps with new mechanics) and Fs/es cycle raise ep value dramatically(0.45). So if you use more crittable spells than one flame shock per 8s. Crit rating is still better than agility.

Also I want point out that we get ton of extra dodge for pvp and much better pvp gear. Str/crit vs Agi/ap/crit. [Guardian's Linked Bracers] vs [Guardian's Chain Bracers]

Any chance somebody could please post a War tools link for the updated official Bata Shaman talents if one exists? I am, unfortunately, locked out of most of the official gaming sites. Thanks.

Compare them to Teron´s boots actually...

Softstep Boots of Tracking
Binds when picked up
Feet Mail
679 Armor
+27 Agility
+29 Intellect
Durability 70 / 70
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves hit rating by 17 (1.1%).
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 26 (1.2%).
Equip: Increases attack power by 76.



Remember that with WF totem haste will actually lower it´s value a bit, and well the patch will change the Mother boots from best to 3rd best pre sunwell (under the other two mail boots).

Since i understand that the change is here to stay i will just try and get my offspec set prepared for the expansion.

=> Rough guideline:
Customize Item Score Multipliers - Thottbot: World of Warcraft