The problem with this is that it's extremely time consuming and offers dubious benefit.

While this is true, it does not follow that all avenues are equally likely to produce results. Generally speaking, advancement of an existing model is more likely to produce than the ad-hoc creation of a new one.

It is true that the new mechanics change some of our assumptions. It's valid to challenge them. But challenging them requires a two main things: knowing what you're challenging, and some strong evidence that there's a problem.

I think I'm pretty open to most talents being reconsidered. I have, in the past, considered such possibilities as losing UR ( if there are two shaman in the raid), dropping dual wield spec, and so on. I have a spec I intend to use to level that's like nothing posted here so far. (And I don't intend to post it. Not until I've tested it, anyway.)

But that reconsideration needs to come as the result of an informed challenge to the status quo. It has to address the ENTIRE feedback system of shaman DPS, and not just a single element. And it needs to take into account itemization costs, and the fact that every point of X is a point of Y we don't get anymore.

To be fair, I'm doing both. In my defense, it's not about "oh this guy's gear sucks." I know all about sucky gear. I used to use daggers, before I found out about this place. Thus it's more about, "oh, this guy has made glaringly bad choices that a even basic knowledge of shaman mechanics would have prevented. And now he's telling me how I should be playing in Wrath?"

And how exactly can one who has comprehension of existing mechanics be expected to effectively predict the consequences of new mechanics that are not fully implemented and finalized yet?

I would also argue that it was not "very obviously" demonstrated. There are going to be many new inputs that need to be implemented into the sim before we start getting something resembling valid wotlk numbers. We need to know how the raid synergies will all work together (which will of course require them to be finalized first), group composition, raid composition, itemization, ect. Basically, all the speculation and arguement is almost worthless at this juncture since we dont know exactly how things are going to look like come 3.0.

Personally, I'm kind of hoping that there will be more than one way to skin a cat moving forward, making player skill that much more important in determining performance as opposed to being essentially required to spec/gear in one particular manner. Other than that, I'll just sit back and wait before jumping to conclusions.

Well, don't get your hopes up. There will be a max dps build for a given configuration, because there almost always is.

Hey, if you want to throw everything you know about the current mechanics and rebuild a sim from the ground up, no one is stopping you. Let us know what you find out when your model is complete. It sounds to me like you want someone else to do this for you, and that's not as likely to happen.

Ok, I was exagerating to make a point that the current sim, while probably the most powerfull tool in an enhance's arsonel for comparisons is currently ill equipped to make accurate comparisons using our current best guesses as to wotlk mechanics. I'm also positive that it can be made to work in the future, but I hope you can understand the point that because the sim says something now doesn't mean that it is actually correct for the future. I freely admit that I do not have the skills necessary to build a new sim, so yes, I want someone else to do it for the EJ community.

And yes, there will probably always be a max dps build for a given configuration. I do believe however that those configurations are going to be very fluid moving forward with the large variety in effective raid compositions, group compositions, raid positioning, boss encounters, and so on. Hell, the issue becomes even more complicated if one starts evaluating rDPS instead of just personal dps.

Very easily. It's called "hypothesis." It is the process by which you review all available knowledge, contrast it with historical record, and arrive at a prediction which is ostensibly more likely than just guessing.

There are valid and invalid hypothesis. An invalid one is one that could not be true given the available body of knowledge. A valid one is something which COULD be true, that is not invalidated given available knowledge. That doesn't mean it won't be invalidated by future knowledge...it just means that it is not provably incorrect.

Example: while it is true that we have a lot of new things coming down the pike, most of our mechanics have not changed. Windfury and melee damage will remain a significant, probably majority, share of our DPS. Thus any hypothesis that suggests trading some amount of melee DPS for spell damage DPS must be accompanied by evidence that the gains outperform the losses. The losses can be simulated, the gains can be approximated and the end result is a valid assumption. For now, anyway.

Were it not for the hypothetical, we would make no progress in theory at any point. If you are not comfortable with hypothesis, or the process by which it is challenged, I invite you not to read this forum, and certainly not to post in it. Cos that's kind of what we do here.

I'm sorry Malan. I understand your frustration completely! No matter how many times I post a cycle with whatever combination people throw out at me, they still don't get the futility of trying to use SS, LvB AND 5 second shocks the moment the cooldown is over.

Let me try to make this clear to everyone with your two options:

You can have continuous 5 second shocks with 10 seconds between LvB and SS.
You can have continuous 8 second shocks with 8 seconds between LvB and SS

YOU CAN NOT HAVE CONTINUOUS 5 SECOND SHOCKS WITH 8 SECOND LvB AND SS!!!!!!!!

Unfortunatly, the subtle sarcasim in that post was probably difficult to detect in print. I believe that you missed the point of that quote, which was referring to the assumption by mek that a misunderstanding of current mechanics (as evidenced primarily by an Armory check) inherintly means that any suggestions or hypotheses as to future mechanics will be incorrect as a result. I was referring to the idea that even someone without perfect understanding of current mechanics could have a hypothisis which could be considered valid given some of the talents and abilities that we've been shown (namely that trading some amount of melee dps for spell damage dps could result in improved overall dps). Will it prove to be true or untrue? Once again, we will not know until wotlk progress further, and even then future patches might change the math. Declaring a hypothesis like that dead at this point would be erroneous until we have all the inputs to look at. In any case, I think we're beginning to argue semantics, which is of dubious value to say the least. In fact, I think that we agree on the idea of hypothesis formulation and testing way more than we disagree.

*face palm*

The entire point of the Reverberation talent is to reduce the cooldown on your shocks by one second. Normally, as in untalented, you can cast 10 shocks per minute on a target. 60 seconds divided by 6 seconds gives us 10. Talented, Reverberation gives us 5 second shocks, so you can cast 12 shocks per minute on a target. 60 seconds divided by 5 seconds gives you 12.

Are you following me so far?

So you ask why a 5/5/6 rotation is fine? Why would you waste 5 talent points in a talent spec that you can not get the full benefit from?

Right now, shocks make up about 10-15% of your overall damage, depending on if you are resto or elemental subspec. In the expansion, we are probably going to still do about 10% damage untalented from shocks, with another 20% coming from Lava Burst, which raid buffed should be hitting the target for nearly twice as much as our Flame/Earth Shocks. That's a total of 30% spell damage.

Still with me?

By cutting back on your Lava Bursts, you are reducing its damage from 20% to 16%. Thats a 20% reduction in its overall damage because you will be casting Lava Burst every 10 seconds instead of every 8 seconds. But your shock damage will be increasing by 5% over all, so on paper you have a net gain in damage, right?

But you are forgetting about Stormstrike.

Stormstrike already makes up 10% of our damage. Talented, this will be 12% of our damage. Using 5 second shocks, you will only be casting a SS roughly every 10 seconds on average instead of 8. This means its a net loss in PRESONAL damage, AND a net loss in raid damage due to having 6 less storm strike charges on the boss for the entire raid to consume.

Now why on earth would you want to gimp your raid damage to better your own? This is akin to people who use Stormstrike then immediately follow it up with an Earth Shock. Sure your one earth shock will hit for 20% more, but that means an elemental shamans Lightning bolt wont hit for 20% extra. And who exactly do you think does more damage with their spells?

But we are also forgetting about other enhancement talents!

You will lose SOME combination of 4% int, 2% melee hit, 5% more damage on your lightning shield, and 5%/2% less damage on your fire totems/lava burst. And all of this JUST so you can cast 1-2 extra shocks per minute.

Now when we get a working simulator to help us better understand how this works out, it may be better for us to have 5 second shocks while using Stormstrike and Lava Burst every 10 seconds. Or it may be better for us to shock every 8 seconds so we can cast Storm Strike and Lava Burst every 8 seconds. Regardless of which ends up on top, the same basic sets of rules will apply:

You can have continuous 5 second shocks with 10 seconds between LvB and SS.
You can have continuous 8 second shocks with 8 seconds between LvB and SS

YOU CAN NOT HAVE CONTINUOUS 5 SECOND SHOCKS WITH 8 SECOND LvB AND SS!!!!!!!!

Stormstrike every 8 seconds, LvB every 8 seconds, shock every 5 except one third of them are 6. Yes you will sacrifice some talents to get that, but you do not have to limit LvB or Stormstrike to 10 seconds. Now if that sacrificed talents wind up being more dps than reverberation fine, if the mana use is too high to be sustainable fine, but there's nothing gained about talking about sacrificing dps from stormstrike and LvB which doesn't need to happen at all.

I will say: many times, a dumb question based off incorrect assumptions has lead me to discover something exciting about our mechanics or led me to try something new.

However, the question was still dumb, the assumptions still incorrect. And any theory generated from it would be equally incorrect.

In my opinion, there are three major theories about the enh shaman:
1) Two slow weapons, with windfury on each, will offer the best dps at a given item level by a wide margin, and the slower the better.
2) Hit capping is not a very efficient use of itemization budget. (this is sort of the impetus behind EP)
3) Most mail armor is not itemized properly for the (BC) shaman, because we have no way to turn int into DPS.

If you knew nothing else about shaman mechanics, you'd still do all right by following these three. And if you did not follow these three, you're likely to do quite poorly.

Of these three theories, the only one that evidence suggests has changed in Wrath is #3. To challenge #1 or #2, you'd need some pretty solid assumptions and a fully flushed out theory to support it. To challenge these from a position that didn't accept them in the first place doesn't diminish the challenge, but the lack of understanding this position garners you doesn't exactly strengthen your argument.

I believe I just showed you why you will do less overall personal as well as raid damage with 5 second shocks vs 8 second shocks. Why exactly do you feel that its better to waste 5 talent points in Reverberation when you can spend them on the enhancement tree to fill out your melee combat abilities? Melee does make up 70%+ of our damage...

We're only going to be getting enough hit rating to cap spells. Presently, its still believed to be 17% needed to cap spells, as they apparently took out the 1% base resist rate. Taken from Combat Ratings for level 80 Deciphered in WotLK Beta | Spooncraft, that is 446 (420 for Draenei due to racial) hit rating from gear. That's enough hit rating for 13.6%(13.81%) melee hit which easily caps our specials hit. You can then increase your melee hit rating alone with Dual Wield Specialization for 19.6%(19.81%) total melee hit rating. That's still about 8.5% below being 'hit capped' for WotLK.

So you're going to be looking for 446 or 420 hit rating in the expansion. That's a tad more than rogues get new, but easily doable with the expected item inflation in WotLK.

No you didn't, you showed how you'd do less damage (and less raid damage) if you SS less and LvB less.

If you want to show how 1 point in call of flame, 1 point in Dual wield spec, and 3 in elemental shields/or ancestral knowledge will do more damage than 3.75 shocks per minute, please do. It may very well, but I haven't seen anything approaching conclusive evidence of that.

Pretty sure I've seen it posted that spell-hit cap was being lowered to 9% but it could have been speculation or I may not be remembering properly.

edit: first post i found refferencing 9% spell hit cap http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27014-e...p5/#post816656 still looking for something more concrete.

edit2: from malan, a bit more conclusive: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27014-e...11/#post825687

There has been speculation about this however I have not been able to find a blue post to verify this, and so far what I've seen from in game testing (that others are reporting) is that the hit needed for lvl+3 is ~16 (currently uncertain if its 16% or 17% since the data I saw showed a 15.3 miss rate. More data is needed). Further data needs to be gathered I hope to do this over the weekend sometime.

Original post can be found here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t27016-e...23/#post836437

That link above was someone using level 70 spells, getting the normal 17% (which is the BC hit cap). However I know of two people using level 75 spells showing a spell hit cap of 9%.

Anyway, having LvB crit is very nice, so you want to have 9% spell hit, which means 9 * 30 or whatever hit is required at 80 or 270 hit rating (assuming no hit buffs).

Because oherwise, you have a shock cd of 8 sec. With 5/5 Reverb it is 5sec, 6 sec, 5 sec, thats all.

You can't get 2 shocks between a SS with 8 sec cd. It is a fact. Therefore your shock cd becomes 8 sec, if you give SS the highest priority of your styles.

I will direct your attention to http://elitistjerks.com/845546-post1065.html

I discussed in depth the breakdown between 12 shocks with 6 Lava Bursts/Stormstrikes and 8 shocks with 8 Lava Bursts/Stormstrikes work out. Lava Burst does a massive amount of damage, as does Stormstrike. Just at a glance you should be able to see why NOT putting points into reverberation just makes sense from a simple rotation stand point.

Honestly, I don't get it.

If you go 5sec-6sec-5sec, YOU WILL NOT LOSE ANY SS AND LvB CD TIME!
All you lose is 1 sec, every 3 shocks.

If you don't skill it, you will shock 50% less AND HAVE NO BENEFIT, BECAUSE YOU WON'T SS ODER LvB MORE!


That's the whole point, understand it, or wait until you will find out yourself in WotLK.

One last time:
THE BEST IS:
- using SS on 8 sec cd
- using LvB on 8 sec
- shocking as much as possible without interfering with SS or LvB

Solution:
- spec Reverb 5/5 and do the cycle I mentioned.

Note:
This cycle wants to max dps, not shock every 5 sec, since, as you found out yourself, will no go with 8 sec based cycles.

Where have you talked about 11.25 shocks per minute with 7.5 LvB and SS per minute? You don't have to give up any stormstrike or LvB damage (aside from the point in call of flame). Without reverberation you can only shock 7.5 times per minute, with reverberation you can shock 11.25 times per minute. 5/5 reverberation is potentially adding 3.75 shocks per minute.

Having our cooldown reduction talents clash so intensely with one another seems like an unintended consequence that has a detrimental effect on our ability to perform. Blizzard addressed a similar issue with hunters clipping their auto shots (thus lowering their DPS). I think it at least shows precedent that Blizzard is willing to fix game mechanics where using an ability (or in our case spending talent points on a cooldown reduction) that is intended to produce greater results actually diminishes them. This current discussion about rotations should probably be brought up in the beta forums. We don't want easy mode macro spamming, but some adjustments to make it more "user friendly" seem to be in order.

Because Reverberation and Imp Stormstrike both work well on their own for specs that do not take both, they should not be touched. There are other options that would likely solve the problem, but may be overpowered. Still, how can we know what blizzard will consider if nobody asks them?

One thing that would probably solve nearly all of the problems is adding a talent to decrease the shaman's GCD by .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds in deep enhancement. The massive amount of abilities we need to use and the frequency in which we use them practically requires a 1s GCD for everything to function smoothly. Rogues and cat form druids have it and their rotations are nowhere near as complex as ours (I am including totem refreshing as it is a necessary class function that also impedes our ability to produce a reliable rotation due to GCD). We also know that global cooldown alterations are not unheard of for different talent builds (Druid - Gift of the Earthmother and Death Knight - Unholy Presence). Lastly, all of our damaging abilities have their own cooldowns or share their cooldowns with other spells, so we would not see a massive increase in DPS by spamming an endless chain of instants. We would simply gain the ability to more reliably use them when they become available.

This would preferably be tacked onto an existing talent since we don't seem to have enough points as it is. Maybe add it to maelstrom weapon? It would definitely increase the appeal of the talent to the PvP crowd and offset the fact that its effectiveness is reduced by resilience.

Thoughts?

Time to interrupt Shock rotations with news:

# Glyph - Strength of Earth 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Your Strength of Earth Totem also grants 1% melee and ranged critical strike chance.
# Glyph - Windfury Weapon 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - The attack power bonus on the additional attacks granted by Windfury Weapon is increased by 40%.
# Glyph - Stormstrike 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the nature damage bonus from your Stormstrike ability by an additional 8%.
# Glyph - Earth Shock 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Reduces the global cooldown triggered by your Earth Shock ability by 1 sec.
# Glyph - Frost Shock 01 (Shaman) (Class: Shaman) - Increases the duration of your Frost Shock by 2 sec.


In the new build