Orlgin

I'm working on a build that maximizes Maelstrom Weapon using lots of haste, hit, and crit that tries to fire as quickly as possible. It's going to take some time for me to build a spreadsheet that will do the math for me so I plan to be gone. I did a quick check in for mail and saw this so I thought I'd thank you for the correction. I'll work on furthering my education so I don't make these mistakes in the future.

As for a new topic for the thread, assuming the previewed glyphs are Major. Which three would you take and would you take Inscription to take a fourth based on the Glyphs that have been offered?

 

testthewest

As already stated: Hit will do nothing for your Maelstrom weapon stack accumulating speed. Absolute zero.

There are following outcomes for a white attack:
Hit
Crit
Miss
Parry
Dodge

They are determined in one roll, meaning the factors are independant.

Increasing hit, will decrease only misses and will not increase anything else.
Increasing crit will decrease ordinary non-crit Hits, and do nothing else.

Maelstrom weapon procs only on crits, therefore only critrating (and haste of course) will increase the proccs gained per given timeframe. Hit will not increase crits done in that timeframe, only decrease misses.

 

Toots Hepcat

Orlgin: you've done a good job of proving to us that it's important to hit.

What you haven't done is proven that it's more important to hit than to hit big.

"Hit capping" means devoting sockets and enchants to hit, or making similar tradeoffs with gear choice. Every point of hit is a point of something else we don't get to have.

So the benefit of hit has to outweigh the benefit of crit, agility, expertise and straight up AP before it becomes a worthwhile stat to stack.

I can't speak for all of these, but Expertise is certainly going to kick hit rating's ass.

You can make a spreadsheet if you want, but as long as it's predicated on a concentration on certain aspects of the build -- such as increasing flamestrike and static shock DPS -- they're not going to suggest maximum DPS.

Please:
- Learn the attack table
- Understand why we balance stats via EP
- Stop trying to invent a theory in which your hit rating gems (which I notice you still have) seem like a good idea

I will say this: hit will be more important. We will probably have more of it than we do now. I will even grant that hit and crit may be back and forth in terms of value based on gear selection. But I doubt we'll be capping anything but expertise.

 

• Daler

Ignoring all this hit capping nonsense, I do have a question as to our decision making in the WotLK attack "cycle". By this I'm referring to decisions we will have to make on the fly in regards to Maelstrom stacks and the various timers we have to juggle. And I didn't see this addressed specifically aside from the brief discussion of casting at partial stacks.

In specific, I'm thinking about a situation where we've just refreshed Flame Shock on the target immediately after Lava Burst. We now have an 8 second window before LvB is back up. Let's suppose that we hit a hot streak and gain a full stack of MW well prior to that 8 second interval. At what point of inflection do we burn the MW stack on a CL versus waiting for the LvB cooldown to end?

My gut says that will depend on the expected time interval to crit 5 times. But lord knows I've been wrong before. Might it be the case that we should always burn MW whenever it stacks so as to not waste melee crit procs? And, if so, how would one go about determining what kind of detriment that might cause on our ED uptime (if any)?

I'll profess to being at a loss on where to begin. Any guidance/thoughts/ideas?

 

Toots Hepcat

Daler -- there are two schools of thought on that subject, both relating to Elemental Dev (Lavaburst is a more or less guaranteed ED proc).

One: you can toss off a lightning bolt and hope it or one of your other spells crits before or shortly after ED runs out.

Two: you can just wait until LvB is up. You lose a bit of DPS time but gain near perfect ED buff.

Which you go with is going to depend on the following:
- Your spell crit rate
- Your MW stack rate (calculated using crit rate, weapon speeds, etc)

From which we can derive an estimated ED downtime. If the average ED downtime times the average input of 9% crit to your melee dps cycles is less than the damage of a lightning bolt divided by the average time to 5 stack, you're better off choosing 1. Otherwise, choose 2.

Also: don't use chain lightning unless you want the multi-mob. It's more expensive and has a shorter cast time, so it has a smaller coefficient. With raid buffed AP, Standard LB will probably do more damage. Elemental shaman use CL because it does more damage per second.

EDIT: Actually, I misrepresented the damage increase from using LB, because we're not just adding a lightning bolt -- we're adding a lightning bolt at the expense of lost MW stacks for LvB. You trade waiting for the LvB cooldown to waiting for a 5 stack. So really you've got to figure in the lost dps by not using LvB on the cooldown...which, since LvB is pretty much a guaranteed crit, should be substantial. Ex: if LvB is a 2500 damage crit, and LB averages 1750 damage and an average MW stack rate is 6s, you'd lose 1300 damage by not waiting without even considering ED. (Faster stacks would equalize this).

In the end, I doubt we'll be doing strategy 1 unless we're in a hasted weapon setup with the sort of high crit rating that can bring the average MW 5 stack down to 4 or 5 seconds. And that we will lose so much melee DPS to get to this point that it won't be offset by the additional spells.

 

Hothgor

Indeed, the 'hit cap' many shamans are referring too is the 'spell hit' cap, not the melee hit cap. That's either 16 or 15% hit for players. I can think of no circumstance in which we would ever want to reach the melee hit cap.

 

Toots Hepcat

So the equivalent of 202 hit rating, then...that's very feasible. But we don't get anything magic from hit capping spells. Once you cap expertise, best-in-slot gems will be predicted by the stat that offers the higher DPS, which at some gear levels may be hit rating (and at others may not be).

Any way you look at it, there are going to be three tiers of hit values: a very high value for 0-48 (equiv), a moderate value for 49-202 (equiv) and a pretty low value for 203+ (equiv). Hit capping yellow is more or less essential, hit capping spells is possible and hit capping melee is unlikely. Until we work in EP values, though, it's hard to predict whether gemming for hit will be the way to go, and at what level adding more crit/ap/what have you would be more worthwhile.

Finally: remember that hit rating is largely a wasted stat against same level mobs and even level + 2 bosses (which have a MUCH lower hit cap for both melee and spells). So if you had a more or less equal choice between hit and crit, or hit and AP, picking something other than hit would have more overall benefit.

Am I saying gear to trash is a good idea? No -- I'm saying that capping is a trade off and you'd better get something special out of it. If there's another stat that's AS good or better, take the other stat, especially while grinding 80.

 

Hothgor

Just keep in mind that if you don't spell hit cap yourself, your flame shocks, lava bursts, searing totem and flametongue weapon enchants 'assume it stays as is on beta' will be missing quite often on mobs in a raid setting. A missed Flame Shock/LvB could mean the difference between 100% ED uptime and 80% ED uptime.

If Dual Weild Spec doesn't give us 6% spell hit, you will need either 420(H) or 394(A) hit rating to be spell hit capped. If DWS does affect spell hit rating 'malan says it does currently', then you need only 263(H) or 237(A) hit rating to be spell capped. That's roughly twice as much hit rating as most high end enhancement shamans currently run with. Basic itemization inflation will probably cover 90% of that rate.

 

Toots Hepcat

Again -- some spells missing doesn't automatically mean you should hit cap.

It all depends on what EP simulators come up with. If, after considering all our abilities and real gear/buff levels at 80, hit rating has a stat weight less than 2 EP, we won't be capping.

If they suggest otherwise, given L70 gearing a spell hit cap of 202 should be simple to hit; I myself have picked up 135 hit rating without really trying. (I prefer to deal with L70 equivalents and not the L80 figures, because we know what gear is like at 70 and can infer that the relative quality at 80 will be similar.)

 

jaredh

From what I'm seeing in the Beta running Enh with my fairly solid (albeit the "yeah, I'll take that offspec") BT gear, I'm missing far more than I want on spells....it's really very noticable against equal level mobs, and I do not remember ever seeing shocks miss nearly as often on live, even running with my Resto set on.

I'm starting to agree with the theories here....it's starting to look like stacking hit rating for spell hit may be significant. This is not to increase DPS, it's to simply sustain current levels.

I cannot prove my "feeling", but the Enh community should probably start seriously considering it rather than dismissing it off-hand. I know of 2 other shaman in my guild on Beta and they are both agreeing with my observation....far too many spell misses and seeing DPS go down rather than up with same gear on Beta versus Live.

I'll go grind some mobs on Live tonight and then grid those same mobs on Beta and see if I can quantify it.

 

Sprout

That would be 36/190 for us space goats, right (just want to make sure I understand your math)?

To that point, does inspiring presence now give 1% to spell AND melee hit? If not my statement above is obviously flawed.

I was look ing at a leveling build (solo questing, etc) and after hearing the difficulty some beta testers are reporting in getting MW to 5 proc on solo mobs, I started considering a considering a 23/38/0 build.

NOTE: This misses some great gorup talents, but Im looking at solo questing etc. If Im in a group Ill spec resto.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Dual wield melee, MH dmg mace and OH melee weapon, both with FT weapon imbued
(Its possible 2xmelee would work out to more dmg, but spell weapons would buff the spels, LS and FT procs.)


The key to the rotation is to try to burn the mob and get the 200% crit to both do alot of dmg and proc ED. Crit value here is awesome becauase of its value in both your spells and melee.

DPS rotation:

LB
LB (maybe-depending if you can hit from max range)
CL
SS (2x weapon, plus 2x FT weapon procs)
LS Proc on receiving a hit
Earth Shock
Melee til dead (if not already)


Any comments from current beta testers?

 

Jakuniku

I think a problem with a hybrid build like that is that you are going to burn through a bunch of mana on spells and not be able to make good use of SR, thus increasing your downtime by a lot vs. going for a traditional enhance or elemental build.

It's not like leveling and questing are difficult though, so if you think that build is more fun then go for it. Min/maxing for leveling is pretty much a waste of time.

 

Skreekins

UPDATE



it looks like the rotation would repeat itself every 24 seconds, or every 3 stormstrikes. The more exciting news is that the GCDs from your stormstrikes and shocks would NEVER clip eachother regardless of how long you sustain the rotation. I think this would more accurately reflect blizzard's intentions in giving us abilities on cooldowns. We really would be able to strike and shock every cooldown as soon as it finishes. They made a change with steady shot no longer clipping auto shot in a hunter's rotation because the two abilities could conflict with eachother and actually reduce DPS. I think we are in a similar situation without our stormstrike/shock abilities, which is only going to be exacerbated in WotLK with our newfound access to reduced cooldown talents.

I was also thinking about that PvP thread by Malan/Push in the beta forums and him/them saying something about maelstrom being less than useful for PvP in its current form because of resilience. This would certainly address that issue as well.

This seems like a real winner of a change for all aspects of enhancement play. I am without beta access, so I can only speculate about these things. I would really like to hear Malan and Push (does he read these forums)'s feedback on the possibility/necessity of this being implemented or at least suggested in the appropriate places, with them being the PvE and PvP enhancement gurus, respectively. At the very least it would make for an interesting forum read.

 

Skiace

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Content Patch Before Wrath of the Lich King
Sounds an awful lot like we may be seeing the Wrath stats revamp in this patch, and sooner than some might have expected.

 

LazyJoe

Again it is a tradeoff between hit and crit. Getting more hit means your FS/LvB cycle is more reliable to keep ED up, but getting more crit means more of your spells will keep ED uptime without considering LvB.

It is reasonable to think that hit rating will be far more efficient for that matter (better rating to % conversion, and a missed spell can't crit, and lavaburst doesn't benefit from crit), but if your consider only melee attacks crit will still be better. So in overall, we really can't predict which one will be the best, only strong EP calculations will tell.

Reading Malan improves my english

 

Bellante

Seems like an odd timing, when there's still so much tweaking going on for all classes, and shaman revamp still hasn't seen the light of day. I do hope Koraa uses a search button for Malan posts on the US forum, if those posts get adressed we should be fine, but I have my doubts.

 

Rhaegal

Just a minor note, but the reason a lot of us end up with a boatload of hit with current gear is that TBC rogue gear is itemized more friendly to us than hunter gear. Under the assumption that hunter gear is going to look significantly more attractive to us in WotLK, we may not find ourselves just idly ending up with something close to the spell hit cap worth of +hit. Not terribly important right now though--as has been said, until we have a sim that can model level 80 enhance DPS and spit out EPs, the question of whether or not we need to spell hit cap will remain unanswered. There's really no reason to debate it at all.

As to the comments about shocks and spells missing a lot... having only been in the beta for a few days and only done about 3/4 of a level of questing in the starting zones, I'm yet to have a shock or a Maelstrom Weaponed LB miss. Of course, I am still wearing my BC leather and have ~170 hit rating. I don't see how, with even mediocre BC gear, you'd be seeing an extremely high shock miss rate on equal level mobs.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

Toots Hepcat

We will certainly be seeing more viable hunter gear.

But with only 1.21 EP from INT, and 1.6+ from hit/crit ratings, we're as likely to take rogue gear.

"High miss rate" without numbers is anecdotal and worthless. The miss rate on day one of wrath against l71 mobs will be 4%.

 

Fearlezz

Is there any way to get Yo's simulator updated with 3.0 patch mechanics and AEP calculation so we can start preparing a new set of gear along with gems for when the patch hits? I'd really like to be ready to keep the performance up in SWP and not hinder the guild because of these changes

 

Toots Hepcat

Yo is either a) working on it or b) not worrying about it until the changes solidify and/or 3.0 is released.

If it were me writing the sim, it would be b.

Everybody in your guild is going to be thrown for a loop when 3.0 hits, man. That's why it's certain they'll release it weeks in advance of the expansion.

 

Orlgin

Since I've been gone, I noticed that we're still discussing Hit and Crit Rating. One thing that apparently was lost in the discussion was what I mentioned about a bit back:

The latest testing on Beta indicates that it still takes 17% to cap spell hit on a mob 3 levels above you. This will dramatically change the value of hit rating for us since it won't be nearly as easy to spell cap as we thought.

This testing was listed on the Combat Ratings thread.

This indicates we need 558 Hit Rating on our gear to be spell hit capped. (assuming you're horde. Alliance need 525). If you took DW specialization, you now hit 95% of your attacks (not counting dodge/parry).

To answer questions:

1) Yes, I am referring to spell capped for the Maelstrom Weapon test. It's just so I don't miss any of the spells I'll be firing off.

2) What kind of build are you using for that: 21/50/0. It's an experimental build based on the idea that you essentially turn Enhance Shaman into an Elemental Spell firing platform.

3) What does it do? I noticed that a lot of the new caster gear had a ton of haste and critical on it. If it converts to Haste and Critical respectively, you can generate a really high amount of haste and critical. You take the melee pieces that have high haste and critical on them and add in caster pieces to fill out the slots that are lacking. The result is some seriously fast weapon speeds and a high critical rating.

20% Haste with 1.4 speed weapons w/ Windfury and Flurry gives 0.75 speed weapons or 1.33 attacks per second. Assuming a 55% critical rate, you generate a Maelstrom Weapon charge every 3.42 seconds.

You take 5/5 Reverberation and take advantage of the lowered GCD to fire shocks roughly every five seconds.

The cycle then becomes firing your instants between Maelstrom weapon spells. You have a heavy amount of spell damage and good spell critical so most of your spells are either discounted (LBs) or free (shocks). You also now deal double damage on critical spell hits. Your Lava Burst auto critical ensures the Lightning Bolts you fire are mostly if not completely discounted.

The question becomes whether the big hit in stats is worth it. You lose AP in exchange for pure spell damage which isn't as bad in a build that uses a ton of magical effects. Threat is the same thanks to the change in Spirit Weapons (all attacks get 30% less threat). You lose good talents this way (no 6% hit from DW specialization, no improved stormstrike, no instant ghost wolf, and only 3 pts in Ancestral Knowledge) so there's no question that it's a big change.

The mechanics of Static Shock become interesting here. If FT does indeed proc static shock, this becomes serious DPS potential. Just white hits and FT procs is 5.32 opportunities per second. Maelstrom weapon adds 0.266 opportunities per second and shocks add 0.2 opportunities per second. Stormstrike adds 0.2 opportunities per second. A total of 5.986 opportunities per second. That is a proc every 2.786 sec at about 700 a pop which is 251 DPS.

It's still just a questionable theory so far. I have been slow in my spreadsheet development so I can't test it yet. I'm assuming that FT doesn't proc Static Shock, that I'm standing behind an boss three levels higher, and enough gear of the right stats will be available to pull this off. I also assuming the Earth Shock Glyph (-1 sec GCD) will go live and am using this.

The relationship between haste and critical rating is interesting when it comes to Maelstrom Weapon. The idea of an enhance shaman doing his best elemental shaman impression while blitzing his enemy with lightning fast attacks at the same time just sounded really cool so I decided, what the hell, I'll test it.

 

Rouncer

Where is that from? None of the talent calculators show that and that hasn't been in any of the patch notes. As far as I know Spirit Weapons is still only melee attacks so your little experiment is gonna get you smushed real fast.

In fact I don't see how they could ever make Spirit Weapons affect everything since it would be too easy for an Elemental Shaman to grab that along with Elemental Precision for a lot more threat reduction then Blizzard intends for any class.

 

• Daler

Orlgin, I'd like to see you build a theoretical gear set that approaches 55% crit and 17% hit with 2 x 1.4 speed weapons and enough spellpower to outshine the horrific dip in physical DPS output you'll experience. Warcrafter.net perhaps?

 

Toots Hepcat

No need to answer questions. Nobody asked any. Everybody but you realizes how insane this build is, because it on its very premise nerfs our primary damage cycles to moderately increase our secondary ones.

Let's compare spell damage with AP. AP has half the itemization cost of spell damage, and also provides .3 spell damage. 2 AP + .6 SPD > 1 SPD unless you are doing more than 60% of your damage from spells. Thus, if an enhancement shaman were to "add in caster pieces to fill out the slots that are lacking," he would obviously suck compared to other enhancement shaman who optimized their gear and talents according to what simulators predicted. Just like you do now, hit gems.

Please:
- Read the thread you're posting in.
- Do the math on the alternate build you are proposing, and if it isn't in your favor, don't post it.
- Learn the mechanics of the class you are theorizing.
- Realize that doing less DPS isn't a cool idea, no matter how fast you do it.

 

Rhaegal

Wrong again. You will need 446 hit rating on your gear to be spell hit capped, because, as you continue to ignore, 1% spell hit requires less rating than 1% physical hit.

And, yeah. Listen to Toots. You're obviously not actually doing the math, and have little actual understanding of how enhancement shaman mechanics work, yet keep posting nonsense that just confuses people that come here for information. Please read and understand what people have done before you before trying to reinvent the wheel.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!