Sprout

Looking at some of the latest higher level blues posted on WoR, you see some interesting mail pieces

this: Mail15 - World of Raids Gallery

Looks like traditional hunter itemization. It would be a decent enh piece (how decent depends on hoe EP flushes out)


This: Mail16 - World of Raids Gallery

looks like it is custom made for enh, and gives me hope that we wont end up having to grab leather again. Im not saying its great (once again EP TBD) but the +hit/+crit combo is interesting in that it seems to say that Bliz thinks we will need hit as well as crit. Then again their record in itemizing is not the best, but the intent seems to be there.

 

Orlgin

@Rhaegal - You are correct. Hit Rating affects Melee Hit % and Spell Hit % differently. I was using the Hit Rating thinking that Spell Hit was just the old stat that was discontinued for the expansion. Sydane explains that in the thread and I missed that. Thanks for the correction.

@Toots - I understand you are not interested in the build. I simply explained what I was doing to those who were interested. If it does less DPS, then it does less and won't be used.

The breakdown for spell misses is 4/5/6/17 for 0/1/2/3 levels higher than you. I double checked that one and you are welcome to verify that.

 

Toots Hepcat

@Orlgin - My point was that nobody here is interested in the your build. You are making proposals based off assumptions that fly in the face of time tested theory that countless raiding shamans have used to get strong. Therefore, the burden of proof is on you to illustrate how the elements of your build make sense considering the trade offs they require.

Here are some questions you need to answer to be taken seriously:
- Theory and simulation suggest that with all stats equal but speed, slow weapons in the main hand offer superior DPS to fast weapons for the reasons listed in my sig. Please address your plan for mitigating these losses.

- Theory and simulation suggest that stacking crit rating, AP and many other stats provides superior benefits to stacking haste rating. At what point do you predict the increase in MW procs to outweigh the damage lost by not stacking one of these other stats?

- Theory and simulation have classically suggested that the relative value of crit rating decreases as you add it without adjusting other stats. At what point do you predict this decrease in value will instead become an increase in total DPS? Show that the total DPS at 55% melee crit is more valuable than 54% crit rating and an itemization equivalent amount of AP.

- Spell damage has classically had an extremely low EP value. You have suggested that swapping in caster gear will result in superior DPS. Please show your reasoning for this, also taking into account equivalent itemization.

You must describe your theoretical model when answering the questions. Graphs would be appreciated, especially in those areas where you predict a cross over (such as fast weapons + haste + crit == more damage). We would also accept in game evidence of you doing more DPS with fast daggers and high crit as opposed to slow weapons and balanced stat weights with all gear of equivalent iLvl. In this case, "LoL hey u guys I crit alot and MW liek procs all the time" is not good enough. Combat logs illustrating you critting alot and MW proccing liek all the time would be required.

Until you can provide these, if you have to dream about lightning knives, take it to the WoW forums. This is a place of science.

 

Skreekins

Just to play devil's advocate here, "theory and simulation" as we have come to understand it over the past expansion assumes that at least the main hand is enchanted with windfury weapon, which does not benefit from haste stacking due to the internal cooldown.

Other than that, I agree with you.

@ Orlgin

I believe the lack of need for calculating windfury mechanics in your fast/fast FT/FT build greatly simplifies the simulation. A poster in the "Yo!, Please Help Me" thread has been working on a stand alone sim that might allow you to prove/disprove your theory. It is still in the preliminary stages but I think most of the kinks deal with windfury mechanics. He is calling it EnhSim for the time being. Might be worth checking out. No GUI yet as far as I know but he seems like a nice guy and may even help you run it as an official test. If it shows that you are right it would generate some significant positive exposure for him within this community.

I may even do it myself to put an end to this flame war so other topics within this thread can gain a little traction *cough*.

[e] My reason for suggestion EhnSim over Yo!'s being that EhnSim currently models maelstrom casts.

 

Paladia

The itemization cost of AP is 0.5 and for SP its 0.86, not 1.0.

Thanks to mental quickness adding just 0.3 spell damage per AP instead of the 0.6 it should to add for the spells in order to scale properly, the enhance Shaman is lacking on that department.

Going from 1000 to 2000 AP on average gear will add ~30% dps increase on white damage, ~26% dps to windfury but only roughly half that on Shocks, depending on the debuffs the target has. With the increased dependency on spells Blizzard are forcing upon the enhance Shamans, I am suprised no one brings this up in beta, as improper scaling is a major concern.

 

Rouncer

One issue with taking Mental Quickness up to allow for proper scaling is that it would make the talent too irresistable for Elemental Shaman. Which would make the 43/28 build the defacto Elemental build and that isn't something I see Blizzard being interested in doing.


(e) Although they could bring it up to proper scaling and then swap the positions of Static Shock and Mental Dexterity removing the possibility of a 43/28 build entirely.

 

• Daler

For the record, I asked Tukez if EnhSim models MW. He said he has not yet converted it to model WotLK talents. It will do nothing to help him with researching his proposed build.

 

iconocclast

has anyone done any theory on the new 8% base mana cost of stormstrike? i mean, every 8 seconds of casting this will blow our mana pretty fast will it not?

 

Shuror

I'm sorry, what are you talking about? Stormstrike costs 8% of base mana on live.

 

iconocclast

i mean will the 2 second reduction have any issues?

 

iconocclast

it's a static mana cost on live tbh.

 

• Chicken

8% of your base mana does mean it costs 8% of your total mana. 8% base mana is a value that scales with level, and is based on the amount of mana you would have without any extra mana from intellect.

And it already costs 8% of base mana right now. Ask a Shaman that isn't level 70 how much his Stormstrike costs, it's less than yours.

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

iconocclast

on a more important note... how does everyone feel about losing 3% hit with the next patch?

 

• Daler

I'm elem subspec, so it doesn't bother me one bit.

 

Toots Hepcat

I'm ecstatic.
- Losing 3% hit will give us a definite hit cap, so when people ask "wut shamn hit cap," they won't keep pestering me after I tell them there isn't one (or at least not one they'll be hitting). Heck, we may even have two tiers of hit cap (the yellow cap and the spell-o cap), which should have the must-hit crowd jumping for joy.
- Losing fast heals means I won't be asked to heal as much.
- Longer reincarnation timer means more time to browse ebay after I pull hate and die.
- I'm not twisting any more, making the mp5 value of cheap totems much, much lower.
- I have 14 points freed up to put wherever I like. And I'm putting them all in ghost wolf baby!

 

Mikari

MMO-Champion BlueTracker - Malan's Enhancement-a-palooza (8770)

 

ChaguraED

I would assume 'make it a flat mana reduction in shock cooldowns' is a typo, and Koraa meant 'costs'.

It would have to be a flat 60% to equal what it is now. I know it's always procced within the 6 second cooldown for my next shock; so having it be less than 60% in exchange for always active would be a nerf.

On the altering the mechanics of WF, that could be a serious paradigm shift for Enhance. A huge Haste proc perhaps to mirror the totem?..

Edit: re: Disarm mechanics - I'm curious to know if these are a significant issue for either PvP or PvE shaman. Are they present in Wotlk more-so then in BC?

 

Veritas17

Hey Malan, I think a post we (collectively) over there made about how they haven't said squat to us about just round about getting to enhancement at some point in time, maybe, just got some kind of note worthy mention for your post.

They called it "nit-picky" though.

....

Do they even understand half the stuff that... grr at least they're going to do something, at some point maybe? But do we really need a disarm? Sigh.

BTW I'm over in the beta as darkenedligh if anyone else is there that I could pal up with and try some stuff out in the beta by chance?

 

spanko

That blue post is irritating and full of ignorance. I take offense to the "nitpicky" comment, asking to change terrible talents like Enhancing Totems and Elemental Weapons is not nitpicky, both of those talents are god awful despite the fact everyone will get them cause there's no better alternative.

What's nitpicky about pointing out the bugs with Maelstrom Weapon and Spectral Transformation that cripple their usefulness? That post didn't address any of the concerns or bugs posted all over that thread, and it shows they haven't even considered tweaking WF Weapon yet, which should of been one of the first Shaman abilities up for review in Wrath.

The Anticipation change is also random as hell considering the heaps of feedback given on the forums and the talent was never mentioned. I'm sorry if I sound whiny, but to go this long with so much feedback given and then finally get a post that says absolutely nothing relevant is irritating.

 

Rouncer

The disarm thing is probably in response to Rogues getting dismantle.

Dismantle - Spell - World of Warcraft

That is going to really hurt us for PvP so the Anticipation change may be in response to how they are seeing it all work out on their internal test servers.

 

Skreekins

The way I took the "make it a flat mana reduction in shock cooldowns" statement was that the mana cost of all spells cast would be reduced by 60% while your shocks are on cooldown. It would be an interesting and unique mechanic I suppose, but suffers from the the fact that shocks (our biggest mana sink without the current shamansitic focus) cannot be cast within the shock cooldown (duh). The cavalier attitude in which it is said makes me think that it must have been a typo. However, blizzard giving a talent that only costs a single point that early in a tree that reduces mana costs by 60% is equally unrealistic.

I too am a bit upset by Koraa's apparent lack of understanding of what the big issues are... It's funny (in a sad way) how warriors, with all of their success in arena, can make a huge thread that supports the removal of the +10% damage taken penalty while in zerker stance and then shaman get told that our legitimate concerns are nitpicky.

While our new talents do seem a bit lackluster in comparison with what other classes are getting, I would be mostly fine with it if it weren't for the awful bloat. I am completely frustrated that I can't seem to find a single desirable build that will allow me to max out Ancestral Knowledge without making significant sacrifices. that talent, as awful as it is for 5 points, is a really important factor of the mail v. leather argument as it bumps the EP value to 1.1 (without kings). Leather will probably still be better, but I am frustrated that we are basically forced to spend 8 points in talents that do literally nothing for us in terms of better DPS or utility just so we can wear our own tier sets and hunter hand-me-downs. These are not "nitpicky" problems.... There is too much bloat and a lot of talents need to be absorbed, made trainable or straight up buffed.

 

Veritas17

And I agree with you Skreekins. I made a post saying as much as well. I'm happy to know they ARE reading it, but c'mon is that really how they feel??

 

Draenorm

To anyone who doesn't understand our mechanics, the post probably would seem full of "nitpicks". As long as people who understand how our spec works are reading it, then I won't be upset. I'm putting faith into blizzard, they're doing a really good job listening right now.

 

Pitbuller

Shamanistic Focus - Spell - World of Warcraft change help PvP if it still be -60% other wise it's nerf pve. It can only lower shocks cost(and instant cast with mael) or it will be must to elemental spec.



About 3.0 what gonna be our new cookie cutter?

08/53/00 look good at start but when simmed elemental devastion + concussion combo yields only 3% damage with 8 points.

1/60/0 You get every thing from enhancement but look very boring build.

?/51+?/0 ten floating point's.

We got much easier time than some other classes. Even with 61 points to enhancement our damage will be 95% of potential.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Skiace

What was the uptime for ED in this sim you refer to?