Enhancement WotLK Talents and spells discussion. - Page 143

Sydane · 10/23/08, 3:46 PM

My mistake, I misread the El's page. Even so, I would bet they will either not be able to reduce the GCD below 1 second, or will chose not to. Regardless, it will never push the GCD to zero, haste is applied last. First the glyph would push the cooldown to 0.5 sec, then haste would be applied to the 0.5 sec time. If you want to see this in action use the spell Fel Domination, my default summon time with haste is well below 5.5 seconds, but once Fel Dom is popped reducing the original 6 seconds to 0.5, it still has a 0.4 or so cast speed.

Toots Hepcat · 10/23/08, 3:49 PM

Even if haste wasn't checked last (which it is), it would take 788 haste rating to reduce the GCD to 1s (610 with raid buffs).

I am pretty sure you can't get there; even if you could, you'd sacrifice so much in the process it probably wouldn't be worth it. GCD interference costs a few percentage points of DPS at best.

Hytoshu · 10/23/08, 4:06 PM

I don't have the time right now to figure out where on this forum the breaking point for people asking questions about talents that don't exist anymore and where the actual braintank started.

What I'm interested in is whether or not anyone has been testing Flametongue in game. I know that the mechanics have changed slightly but I've gotten a weird phenomenon accuring in my test sample.

What I did was change the ammount of crit on my gear to the following numbers per test. 5%, 10% 15%, 20%, 25% 30%. Mind you its not right on the money but for instance my 25% was closer to 25.34% but even still I always over cut the crit, never under cut it.

When I went up against the dummies in TB the first thing I noticed was that Flametongue no longer has the 5% static crit. The second thing I noticed s that it never actually reaches the crit I had. It was always 2.5% - 1.5% lower after 2000 hits of flametongue. The third thing I noticed was that the miss% for spells is right on the money.

This raises some questions in my mind. Why ~2% lower crit every time and and why the change to mechanics but still not able to proc elemental devastation? It still takes in 10% bons damage and it still can't be dodged or parried llike windfury but is that justifiable over the extra procs of maelstrom weapon from windfury? I understand its a ppm but it "appears" to proc more while using duel windfury although its much harder to test accurately.

Rouncer · 10/23/08, 4:30 PM

Originally Posted by Sydane

My mistake, I misread the El's page. Even so, I would bet they will either not be able to reduce the GCD below 1 second, or will chose not to. Regardless, it will never push the GCD to zero, haste is applied last. First the glyph would push the cooldown to 0.5 sec, then haste would be applied to the 0.5 sec time. If you want to see this in action use the spell Fel Domination, my default summon time with haste is well below 5.5 seconds, but once Fel Dom is popped reducing the original 6 seconds to 0.5, it still has a 0.4 or so cast speed.

Fel Dom reduces the base cast time by X and then that result is affected by haste. The GCD reduction will work the same way. I already got a blue post on the beta forums from GC that they will be looking into why the ES glyph is only taking it to a 1 second GCD since it should be doing more.

Originally Posted by Hytoshu

I don't have the time right now to figure out where on this forum the breaking point for people asking questions about talents that don't exist anymore and where the actual braintank started.

What I'm interested in is whether or not anyone has been testing Flametongue in game. I know that the mechanics have changed slightly but I've gotten a weird phenomenon accuring in my test sample.

What I did was change the ammount of crit on my gear to the following numbers per test. 5%, 10% 15%, 20%, 25% 30%. Mind you its not right on the money but for instance my 25% was closer to 25.34% but even still I always over cut the crit, never under cut it.

When I went up against the dummies in TB the first thing I noticed was that Flametongue no longer has the 5% static crit. The second thing I noticed s that it never actually reaches the crit I had. It was always 2.5% - 1.5% lower after 2000 hits of flametongue. The third thing I noticed was that the miss% for spells is right on the money.

This raises some questions in my mind. Why ~2% lower crit every time and and why the change to mechanics but still not able to proc elemental devastation? It still takes in 10% bons damage and it still can't be dodged or parried llike windfury but is that justifiable over the extra procs of maelstrom weapon from windfury? I understand its a ppm but it "appears" to proc more while using duel windfury although its much harder to test accurately.

Lets break this one down (and honestly I should just say read the damn thread before posting but I'm in a nice mood).

Flametongue glyph adds 2% spell crit, if you are double enchanting it may be showing as 4% spell crit on your paper doll but we have had Blue posts that have stated that is a bug and it should only be applied once. Which means if you are double imbuing Flametongue then it is working as intended even if it is disagreeing with the paperdoll. If you are not double imbuing then Bug report it.

Flametongue Totem has never given spell crit, Totem of Wrath gives spell crit. Flametongue Totem has only been spell damage since they changed it way back when in the Beta.

Windfury Weapon hits count as additional instant melee attacks in regards to Maelstrom Weapon so they do indeed give an increased stacking rate. Why it is that way is because the developers in their infinite wisdom have decided to make it that way.

Procs aren't supposed to proc other procs. Windfury Weapon appears to be an exception to that rule (which was probably made to keep enhancement mechanics working the way they do) but Flametongue is not. Why it is that way is because the developers in their infinite wisdom have decided to make it that way.

Toots Hepcat · 10/23/08, 4:36 PM

Hyo --

Windfury and all instants get chances to proc on-hit/on-crit abilities and use the chance to proc of the weapon doing damage. They aren't considered during PPM calculations, and so real-world proc rates are much higher than 10 PPM.

If there's a 10 PPM proc chance on a 2.7s weapon, your chance to proc per swing is about 45%. Thus the chance to proc from Stormstrike is 45%, and 2 chances at 45% from Windfury. Since you swing SS once every 7.5s, and proc WF about every 6s or so, SS gives an extra 3.375 and WF an extra 9 PPM.

Dual wielding means a higher WF chance per swing and twice as many swings. This directly feeds into more MW procs, I'd guess 4 PPM or more.

Thus for most shamans there is a big advantage to dual Windfury at 70 over Flametongue. We've known about this for around two weeks and it's modeled correctly in the simulator.

Hytoshu · 10/23/08, 4:38 PM

Originally Posted by Rounced

Lets break this one down (and honestly I should just say read the damn thread before posting but I'm in a nice mood).

Flametongue glyph adds 2% spell crit, if you are double enchanting it may be showing as 4% spell crit on your paper doll but we have had Blue posts that have stated that is a bug and it should only be applied once. Which means if you are double imbuing Flametongue then it is working as intended even if it is disagreeing with the paperdoll. If you are not double imbuing then Bug report it.

Flametongue Totem has never given spell crit, Totem of Wrath gives spell crit. Flametongue Totem has only been spell damage since they changed it way back when in the Beta.

Windfury Weapon hits count as additional instant melee attacks in regards to Maelstrom Weapon so they do indeed give an increased stacking rate. Why it is that way is because the developers in their infinite wisdom have decided to make it that way.

Procs aren't supposed to proc other procs. Windfury Weapon appears to be an exception to that rule (which was probably made to keep enhancement mechanics working the way they do) but Flametongue is not. Why it is that way is because the developers in their infinite wisdom have decided to make it that way.

When I was testing it I wasn't talking about the totem, I was talking about the imbue. The weapon imbue now scales with your crit, but its always 2% under the tool tip crit after 2000 hits. How I tested this was stack the crit mention above, unspec and then beat on the target dummies in TB for 2000 hits and did this 3 times at crit level.

Sydane · 10/23/08, 4:40 PM

Originally Posted by Hytoshu

When I went up against the dummies in TB the first thing I noticed was that Flametongue no longer has the 5% static crit. The second thing I noticed s that it never actually reaches the crit I had. It was always 2.5% - 1.5% lower after 2000 hits of flametongue. The third thing I noticed was that the miss% for spells is right on the money.

As it is treated as a spell, flametongue will suffer from spell crit depression and partial resists. I don't know if those are modeled in the sim, but if they aren't, it means the actual ingame numbers for all the spell damage will be lower than the sim projects. Crit depression, to my knowledge, has never been fully explained or understood. While it is possible it is related to the 2 roll system, it tends to be static enough that most people believe it is just unavoidable like partial resists.

Rhaegal · 10/23/08, 4:40 PM

[edit] Toots beat me to it.

Hytoshu · 10/23/08, 4:44 PM

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

Hyo --
1.
You look hit capped, but I'm going to roll forward with a theory anyway.

With one-roll melee attacks, your chance to crit is what it says on the dial. With a 30% crit rating and, say, a 5% miss chance, out of 100 attacks you'll crit 30 times.

With a two roll system, your chance to crit is always going to be a bit lower, because you need to hit before you can crit. Thus, out of 100 attacks in the above scenario, you'd hit 95 of those, and then crit 30% of that 95, or about 28.5.

If you're hit capped, you should see a crit chance equal to your spell crit. A 2% difference over 2000 hits seems like it could be within the margin of error, but I'm intrigued and will check this out tonight after the raid.

2.
Windfury and all instants get chances to proc on-hit/on-crit abilities and use the chance to proc of the weapon doing damage. They aren't considered during PPM calculations, and so real-world proc rates are much higher than 10 PPM.

If there's a 10 PPM proc chance on a 2.7s weapon, your chance to proc per swing is about 45%. Thus the chance to proc from Stormstrike is 45%, and 2 chances at 45% from Windfury. Since you swing SS once every 7.5s, and proc WF about every 6s or so, SS gives an extra 3.375 and WF an extra 9 PPM.

Dual wielding means a higher WF chance per swing and twice as many swings. This directly feeds into more MW procs, i'd guess 4 PPM or more.

Thus for most shamans there is a big advantage to dual Windfury at 70 over Flametongue. We've known about this for around two weeks and it's modeled correctly in the simulator.

Ah, okay. I will need to test this off of recount ( I know its terrible but its what I use). What I was understanding is that the it was only taking when flametongue hit. The actual weapon count would be close to 2200 or so before I would get the 2000 flametongue procs to test. Its something I will have to test again because last night was a long one.

The reason why I am testing this is most people are talking about the advantage of using a fast weapon in the offhand. From everything I've seen and tested it under preforms the slow/slow windfury/windfury and the slow/slow windfury/flametongue. This is what sparked me to originally test the flametongue mechanic because I realised it wasn't working like it has in the past. If it does take in your spell crit then it is a definant improvement over the old static crit chance.

... if it proc'd elemental devastation I would call it op'd but even that would have a had time moving me from the duel windfury.

Hytoshu · 10/23/08, 4:47 PM

Originally Posted by Sydane

As it is treated as a spell, flametongue will suffer from spell crit depression and partial resists. I don't know if those are modeled in the sim, but if they aren't, it means the actual ingame numbers for all the spell damage will be lower than the sim projects. Crit depression, to my knowledge, has never been fully explained or understood. While it is possible it is related to the 2 roll system, it tends to be static enough that most people believe it is just unavoidable like partial resists.

Which is another funny thing I found. There are no partial resist from what I've found. It is a static damage that occasionaly vary by 1 because it adds up the fraction of your spell damage conversion over time. For instance if you have 96 spell damage it'll take 10% of that and add it to the damage. The .6 rolls over though and applies to the next flametongue for some reason.

How I tested this was I took off all my gear and took a level 1 vendor weapon and imbued it. Still hits the same no matter what, only varies on +spell damage and speed. Even haste doesn't seem to effect it which in turn more haste better flametongue.

ChaguraED · 10/23/08, 4:50 PM

Originally Posted by Hytoshu

Ah, okay. I will need to test this off of recount ( I know its terrible but its what I use). What I was understanding is that the it was only taking when flametongue hit. The actual weapon count would be close to 2200 or so before I would get the 2000 flametongue procs to test. Its something I will have to test again because last night was a long one.

The reason why I am testing this is most people are talking about the advantage of using a fast weapon in the offhand. From everything I've seen and tested it under preforms the slow/slow windfury/windfury and the slow/slow windfury/flametongue. This is what sparked me to originally test the flametongue mechanic because I realised it wasn't working like it has in the past. If it does take in your spell crit then it is a definant improvement over the old static crit chance.

... if it proc'd elemental devastation I would call it op'd but even that would have a had time moving me from the duel windfury.

It didn't have a static crit chance before the patch, it worked off our spell crit. No enhancement shaman was running around with more than ~5% spell crit from base intelligence. Now that we have suddenly received so much more spell crit, it's critting regularly.

And I think everyone here has professed that Slow Offhand is still the right choice, regardless of whether WF or FT is said to be best by their particular sim results.

Which is another funny thing I found. There are no partial resist from what I've found. It is a static damage that occasionaly vary by 1 because it adds up the fraction of your spell damage conversion over time. For instance if you have 96 spell damage it'll take 10% of that and add it to the damage. The .6 rolls over though and applies to the next flametongue for some reason.

How I tested this was I took off all my gear and took a level 1 vendor weapon and imbued it. Still hits the same no matter what, only varies on +spell damage and speed. Even haste doesn't seem to effect it which in turn more haste better flametongue.

Okay now I think this needs to stop being posted. There are a Ton of partial resists in our WWS reports. Are you just hitting the lvl 70 dummy?

This is a long post about the fundamentals of Flame tongue. it's well known.

Rouncer · 10/23/08, 4:51 PM

Toots handled it.

Toots Hepcat · 10/23/08, 4:55 PM

Originally Posted by Hytoshu

The reason why I am testing this is most people are talking about the advantage of using a fast weapon in the offhand.

There are no advantages to using a fast weapon in the offhand. Nobody who knows anything about the mechanics, or can input numbers into a simulator, has been talking about this for around three weeks. I don't know where you have been getting your information from, but stop getting it -- it's bad.

BlueBows · 10/23/08, 6:27 PM

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

There are no advantages to using a fast weapon in the offhand. Nobody who knows anything about the mechanics, or can input numbers into a simulator, has been talking about this for around three weeks. I don't know where you have been getting your information from, but stop getting it -- it's bad.

I think it's been from the Shaman forums. A lot of people are talking about upping spell damage and increasing weapon speed for FT. I'm not saying it's correct, just offering where it may have come from.

Pane · 10/23/08, 6:58 PM

Originally Posted by BlueBows

I think it's been from the Shaman forums. A lot of people are talking about upping spell damage and increasing weapon speed for FT. I'm not saying it's correct, just offering where it may have come from.

That was relevant before lavaburst was taken off the list of 'stuff you can do with maelstrom weapon', and also before MW was a PPM. The instant, guaranteed (with flameshock), ginormous crits + the added elemental devestation uptime made any dps you'd lose to a fast offhand well worth it for the higher MW procrate. Basically it was going down the road of making everything subservient to being a lavaburst machinegun.

KraxisSingular · 10/23/08, 8:35 PM

Just a quick question...

At this time (level 70) wouldn't the best food be Skullfish Soup? And in Wrath likely the equivalent of that?

I mean the crit affects both parts of the DPS fully, while stuff like Warp Burgers and Ravagers Dogs only partially affect the spell part. In fact doesn't the crit actually boost spellcrit slightly more than meleecrit? Ah well, minor issue one way or the other.

Or would the best food be Spicy Talbuk? Depending on how much +hit you got of course.

david0925 · 10/23/08, 8:49 PM

Originally Posted by KraxisSingular

Just a quick question...

At this time (level 70) wouldn't the best food be Skullfish Soup? And in Wrath likely the equivalent of that?

I mean the crit affects both parts of the DPS fully, while stuff like Warp Burgers and Ravagers Dogs only partially affect the spell part. In fact doesn't the crit actually boost spellcrit slightly more than meleecrit? Ah well, minor issue one way or the other.

Or would the best food be Spicy Talbuk? Depending on how much +hit you got of course.

Food will follow the rule of any gear, so for precise values, the sim will give you the best.

On a more general rule of thumb, Hit until cap is a priority, then you can't really go wrong with 20 agi, 20 crit, or 40 AP.

Andrast · 10/23/08, 9:13 PM

Originally Posted by david0925

Food will follow the rule of any gear, so for precise values, the sim will give you the best.

On a more general rule of thumb, Hit until cap is a priority, then you can't really go wrong with 20 agi, 20 crit, or 40 AP.

I'd say the best food is Spicy Talbuk. Gem/enchant your gear until you are 20 hit rating below the cap and use food to get you the rest of the way for bosses. This means your stats for trash, 5 mans and solo play are better.

If you are hit-capped and don't wish to regem then just use whatever food the sim tells you is best. Last time I checked I had an agi value of 2.10 and a crit value of 2.06 but the important thing to remember with the simulator is everyone will get different values.

Xoya · 10/24/08, 12:20 AM

I just submitted a suggestion on the beta forums, here:

WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> [Suggestion] ED, FT, and the WF 3Sec Cooldown

A little background first: I was the shaman who asked the question about windfury at Blizzcon. To my understanding, the response was, in short, "If we can ensure that people won't be using dual-WF we would like to remove the WF cooldown."

To that effect, I'd like to suggest the following change:

Allow Flametongue Weapon crits to proc Elemental Devastation.

This would make Flametongue Weapon far and away the best enchant to use on the offhand, thus (hopefully) negating the benefit of dual-enchanting WF with the the windfury 3-second cooldown removed.

Additional comments/remarks about its benefits: simulations have shown that Earth Shock (particularly with the use of the -1 second on GCD glyph) is the #1 priority spell to use at level 80 (level 80 is when we're able to spec for both Elemental Fury and Maelstrom Weapon). This change would hopefully bring Lava Lash more in line with Earth Shock, thus reducing some of the complexity of spell choices in raiding.

Thanks for reading.

If you approve, please bump the thread. If anyone has recommendations otherwise or points I can add, please mention it so I can adjust the post. Thanks!

Rouncer · 10/24/08, 1:55 AM

Originally Posted by Xoya

I just submitted a suggestion on the beta forums, here:

WotLK Beta (US-English) Forums -> [Suggestion] ED, FT, and the WF 3Sec Cooldown

If you approve, please bump the thread. If anyone has recommendations otherwise or points I can add, please mention it so I can adjust the post. Thanks!

It's not a bad suggestion except WF/FT is already going to be better then WF/WF in a few levels. Once Elemental Fury enters the picture its better by a significant enough margin to make sure that we all use WF/FT.

I doubt they would implement such a change anyway without ensuring that we couldn't abuse it by imbuing WF/WF. Either they will make the cooldown only active if imbued WF/WF or they will make WF mainhand only. Either option means there is no real need to push for FT to be better on the offhand anyway since those conditionals would basically "force" it there either by the dps increase or by just not giving any other acceptable option for the offhand.

Devnex · 10/24/08, 2:12 AM

Originally Posted by NeuroMedivh

This is incorrect. The /castrandom WILL attempt to cast spells that are on cooldown.

Simple verification: make a macro "/castrandom Shamanistic Rage, Healing Wave" and spam it. Half the time you will get "Ability not ready" errors.

That's not to say a castrandom macro isn't useful; If you just want to spam the heck out of it, it'll work "ok", but you'll lose time to 'misses', and the more spells you put on castrandom, the higher chance of not getting the one that is on cooldown.

Good to know. I've never really used it in a non-spamming macro and hadn't paid enough attention to the mechanic obviously.

Originally Posted by Toots Hepcat

Rounced -- I believe the GCD is tripped the second you start casting a spell. That's why haste used to be worthless to folks with 1.5s casts, prior to patch 2.4 (?) and haste reducing the GCD.

If you stopped casting immediately after a non-instant, your swing timer would be unaffected, but you'd trip a GCD and you'd add no DPS.

If you incorporate the /stopcasting into the macro itself you experience no (or close to none) gcd loss. Give it a try.

Xoya · 10/24/08, 2:15 AM

Truth. I was smacking the dummies earlier today and quite literally spamming this macro:

/cast Lightning Bolt
/stopcasting

There was no perceivable difference. Next step is to combatlog it.

Xoya · 10/24/08, 2:46 AM

Edit: Somehow I knew I'd end up putting this in the wrong thread...

Levva · 10/24/08, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by Andrast

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.

Well the 2nd part should now work in v3.30beta3 - command is /saa export

Tukez mentioned he could rejig the default config file so it could be pasted at the end overwriting the defaults.

calebdk · 10/24/08, 10:25 AM

Instead of castsequence i just assigned my G-keys on my logitech keyboard instead.

Made a macro which is spamming the 3 keys in a the following order (gave the highest dps for me in enhsim using this)

Earthshock
Lavalash
Stormstrike

So the first ability which comes out of cooldown will be used. A castsequence macro will lock and wait for the for the next ability to come out of CD and this will give a loss of dps.

MW5_LB still got the highest priority and iam using shockandawe to track this. When the sound pops out i just throw a LB or CL as fast as i can and after i start spaming my macro again.

So now i just have putted all my movement keys and totems over on the G-keys so iam playing with those instead of using WSDA