As to MW, I agree it should go back up to the 20/40/60/80/100% stack on crit that it was originally, but to change it to something similar to that of Lightning Overload, where the next spell cast is either cast for free or at a reduced mana cost...30% ish? (would solve our mana problems) and does half the damage and NO THREAT (which was our OTHER concern due to our large amount of damage coming from spells). Wouldn't that effectively nerf the amount of spell damage that we do without messing with our melee damage? So instead of seeing 7k+ LvB crits, we only see 3kish crits. That would allow us to gain back our flurry and DW spec stats as well as the SS buff but keep the new "combo point" feature that everyone seemed to be so happy with. ED would also remain up at 100% upkeep so our melee dmg would still be buffed.
That's a nice idea. I loved the new dps rotation but i hated what it did to my mana pool and to my threat..that sort of solves both and lowers dps without hurting Elemental builds.
Just a random thought, but since MW now affects ALL spells with a cast time of less than 10 secs (minus ghost wolf), why not change the wording of it to something similar to Nature's Swiftness, like "....reduces cast time of any damage or healing spell with a cast time of less than 10 sec..."
As to MW, I agree it should go back up to the 20/40/60/80/100% stack on crit that it was originally, but to change it to something similar to that of Lightning Overload, where the next spell cast is either cast for free or at a reduced mana cost...30% ish? (would solve our mana problems) and does half the damage and NO THREAT (which was our OTHER concern due to our large amount of damage coming from spells). Wouldn't that effectively nerf the amount of spell damage that we do without messing with our melee damage? So instead of seeing 7k+ LvB crits, we only see 3kish crits. That would allow us to gain back our flurry and DW spec stats as well as the SS buff but keep the new "combo point" feature that everyone seemed to be so happy with. ED would also remain up at 100% upkeep so our melee dmg would still be buffed.
and all the other classes have it, why not roll in a "increases OH wep dmg by x%" into DW spec, would actually make our OH more viable, and wouldnt that constitute a 1% dps per talent point budget allocation?
any thoughts?
Yah I have to agree that is a really good idea - gonna crosspost it in the Beta forums if it isn't already there
Losing 2 seconds of melee time for a few % crit for 10 seconds(and a lavaburst I suppose)? I doubt it, but its possible. It might depend if they allow stormstike to go back to including fire/frost spells. Crit will certainly be a stronger stat for gear with the change. Hopefully they build the change in soon so someone can figure out the PPM before this actually goes live.
Can anyone confirm if our Spirit Wolves are scaling from strength? The reason I ask is beause of the following GC quote:
The last numbers I saw, the wolves did fairly nice dps. They do scale their strength, stamina and resistance from yours and inherit your hit. We can make sure nothing broke though.
They are intended to be burst damage, like the elementals. The root breaking is useful and the healing is a little bonus. The taunt will probably always be pretty situational, but the idea was you might be able to save the day sometimes if adds are running amuck.
Assuming that this isn't just an instance of Ghostcrawler mixing up our wolves and the DK's ghoul, it seems odd to have our wolves scale off strength when we have just been moved over from strength-based scaling to agility-based scaling.
Basically, goodbye Flameshock->Lavaburst, and its inherited high ED uptime. We did get our pure melee talents restored but I guess testing will show how MW will perform with the new PPM system once it is in place.
On the spirit wolves scaling (just "tested"), Level 70 stats.
Zero gear scaling, It still scales with raid buffs however (UR, totems, etc).
So if someone would be as kind as to rectify GC on his wolves comment on the US forums pretty please.
There is however "some" stat scaling as you level but I don't know the level 80 stats of the wolves. Could anyone dig those up from the current build perhaps ?
Last edited by Karok(EU) : 10/02/08 at 3:01 AM.
Reason: removed gcpost + updated dog stats with ap.
The latest changes also served to devalue haste and give crit a similar value to what it currently does. If they hadn't, anyone with current knowledge of the spec, but little knowledge of where LK was going would have had a shock when patch night suddenly dropped the value of the crit stacking which had been a staple of the spec for so long.
I'm really happy with Ghostcrawler's comments. They are reversing the duel wield nerf, the flurry nerf, and changed Maelstrom Weapon so it works with all speeds of weapon. They removed Lava Burst from MW which means the stormstrike change is essentially negated since we'll now be using Earth Shock and Lightning Bolt.
Slow Windfury might be top DPS now that Maelstrom Weapons doesn't scale with haste. Static Shock and Flametongue still favor haste though. It's an interesting comparison now as Lava Lash and Stormstrike favor the slow off-hand. Simming it isn't an option until we know what the PPM for Maelstrom is. If Maelstrom procs more often, it reduces the number of Lava Lashes since it's a higher priority for us to use the Maelstrom.
It should be interesting to see how much PPM Blizzard thinks is the right number. With Lava Burst gone, it should increase the chance that we get a better number.
Manually casting Lava Burst should be a DPS loss without Maelstrom to reduce the casting time. Remember you stop your swing timers when you cast a spell normally. It only worked when Maelstrom reduced it's casting time and didn't reset the swing timers.
Hopefully the PPM number will be high enough so that we don't have a hateful rotation including Shocks, SS and Lava Lash. Spice things up with MW, if Lava Burst is being removed from MW rework it pre-nerf please: so we know that crit gear scales etc. Our stats are not looking healthy at the moment...
Haste - scales melee dps very well, doesn't scale WF very well.
Lava Lash - scales with slow off-hands very well, flametongue (which favours faster weapons) increases it's damage.
Only a few examples, there are many more: Crit not scaling well etc.
Lava Burst foremost goal is for elemental shaman, not enhance shaman. This change also gives them bigger freedom to adjust it for elemental shamans (i.e. improve coeficient or damage or whatever). So overall I can't really blame them to choose that avenue.
I'd like to believe the guaranteed crit of an FS->LvB combo was there aswell to make ED usefull. The removal of LvB cuts the dps per point gain from ED by a significant amount.
The good part however is that with the current hit/crit system, ED will atleast be more usefull then its live version.
@ pitbuller:
Is that with just LB or FS->LvB? (I guess it is just with LB, but I'd rather get a completer picture since so far I've only been busy at level 70.
@ arten:
Why should a spell be restricted to one spec? The foursome (MW, FS, LvB, ED) of synergy we had with the old MW is just as valid as its use in a proper Elemental rotation. The LvB damage component of that foursome however scaled too well. A simple nerf to its damage in conjunction with MW (so it won't affect elemental) could have panned out to be a good solution aswell, while keeping the old crit-based MW fun for enhancement.
These changes are brilliant. Before these changes using Lighning bolt + earth shock give 3791dps. Lava burst + Flame shock give 3823dps. Changes are dps buff when raid buffed. PPM system favor slow weapons and thats good thing. Slow weapons just do more damage. I hope they do PPM system carefully. It's have to scale with haste and any hidden cooldown will destroy system. Or change would be like 50% with slow weapon and 1s cd. I don't wan't it to be next Seal of Casino without haste scaling.
Karok: With nax10man gear elemental uptime is still 60%.
Edit: If they don't mess proc change of maelstorm then 4000dps is good low end estimate.
Just a thought: due to the removal of LvB from Maelstrom it might be possible to revert the SS debuff change as well, which would improve LL damage. It would make imp SS more useful than now and as far as I understood LvB was the main culprit in terms of doubledipping. Right now its pretty unlikely that you will be able to use the 4th SS charge (having ES + LB both twice up between an 8 second SS window is highly unlikely if even possible). Furthermore rotation FS - ES will become viable again. If we agree on this one might post this as a suggestion to the US beta forums since the EU board is less likely to receive any attention in this matter.
As it stands with the latest changes, speaking in favour of a fast offhand is Flametongue Weapon's static 10% coeffecient.
However, Lava Lash favours slow offhands, as does Stormstrike, and probably most importantly, it gives a higher flurry uptime.
PPM doesn't really care for slow or fast offhands, neither does it make a difference if FT can still proc MW charges. You may hit twice as many times with a fast weapon (and hit twice as many FTs too), but your proc chance will effectively be halved, so it is of little concern.
Unless there's an actual feedback system relying on our offhand that scales with speed (e.g. Combat Potency, rage generation, poisons) there's not really any point in using a fast offhand. It is no coincidence that you only see combat rogues using fast offhands - they're the only ones with a viable feedback system.
I do hope they make Flametongue Weapon scale linearly with speed as it seems a very nice and viable option for the offhand now while being severely less impacted by weapon speed. With the latest changes the damage difference between a fast and a slow offhand should be considerably less than current live mechanics while still favouring a slow offhand.
Question then is, just how much more weapon dps on a fast offhand would it take to offset the inherent swing speed dps difference from Stormstrike, Lava Lash and high Flurry uptime?
Only thing I haven't seen a report on is whether you can still get double procs or not (remember some early posts saying they thought they might have removed that).
Yes, mongoose will still double proc. I did test this across an hour on the beta server and recorded multiple instances of it. I am not sure when its value drops off however.
Hello " comunity " , this is my first post here, and i hope i won't get banned for it ( since I'm not an expert at theorycrafting )
My question is ( adresed at the ones of you who have access to the beta realms ) : is it better to just ignore the Lava Burst auto-crit on a target just because it means that you have to stop melee damage for 2 seconds? ( considering the fact that you gain the 9% melee crit for the next 10 seconds )
While looking at the posible rotations for the enh shaman, i can't help to wonder if a rotation that includes a 2sec cast time can be better than a "classic" melee/shock rotation.
Example:
Stormstrike(0s) - Flame Shock(1s) - Lava Lash(3s) - Earth Shock(5s) - Lava Lash(6s) - Lava Lash(9s)
Stormstrike(10s) - Lava Burst (11s-13s) - Flame Shock(14s) - Lava Lash(15s) - Lava Lash(18s) - Earth Shock(19s)
Stormstrike(n s) - Lava Burst (n+1s - n+3s) - Flame Shock(n+4s) - Lava Lash(n+5s) - Lava Lash(n+8s) - Earth Shock(n+9s) - repeat
This is available with the folowing build 20-51-0 ( 10 sec Stormstrike, 5sec shocks, no Static Shock - for better mana regeneration ). Also, Maelstrom Weapon will give an instant CL/LB every X seconds, and it can be put in the rotation in the n+6 - n+7 interval ( or somewere else, since the Flame Shock / Lava Burst has a 3 second possible delay window - this is also good for those that experience 0.2s or more lag ).
Last edited by unckle : 10/02/08 at 8:52 AM.
Reason: some grammar corections
A problem with hybrids is that they get too few abilities, since effectively almost 2/3 of the abilities are of no to little use for a spec compared to a pure class. Starfire isn't useful for feral druids, chain heal is of little use to an enhancement Shaman etc.
The problem becomes even bigger with each expansion. Each class gets 3 new abilities. For a hybrid to scale accordingly to the pure classes, all those three spells must be useful in all specs. With how maelstrom weapon worked previously, at least enhancement got good use out of LaB but that isn't so any more.
So while most classes get three new abilities, enhancement will only get one and even that one is quite poor in melee (the only cc with a cast time and cooldown). While LaB and earthliving weapon will remain 100% useless.
I really do not see why Blizzard keeps nerfing the PvP usefulness of Enhance while buffing it for certain other classes (such as Rogues). There is a reason as to why any team with an enhance Shaman has the lowest average rating out of all teams ( World of Warcraft Arena Ranking | SK Gaming ).
I was using the premade gear sets. Melee gear with a melee testing and caster gear for 'caster' testing. Obviously I couldn't get my hands on a caster offhand, so I used a slow offhand for much higher lava lash hits. Now you say that you are geared in level 80 blues. Is that premade gear or just quested/dungeon dropped blue gear. The distinction needs to be made.
Level 78-80 dungeon drops with 2-3 epic heroic items - the stuff you wear when you enter new naxx for the first time. Caster gear is a mixture of T5/T6 gear from MH/BT with some stuff from ZA.
PPM system favor slow weapons and thats good thing. Slow weapons just do more damage. I hope they do PPM system carefully. It's have to scale with haste and any hidden cooldown will destroy system.
Pit, PPM systems don't scale with haste. They use your paper doll weapon speed to determine the proc rate and the rate changes as you add additional haste. They only thing they scale with is instant attacks since the more instants you have the more likely it is that you will get a proc.
Let's say they set it at 10 PPM or 1 proc every 6 seconds. With no haste active a 2.6 speed weapon will have a 2.6/6 = 43.3% chance to proc. Lets say you add in 50% melee haste bringing weapon speed down to 1.73 that reduces the chance to proc to 1.73/6 = 29%. How about a 1.4 speed weapon with 50% melee haste, that gives a base weapon speed of of 0.93 which means you will get a 15.6% chance per melee hit to get a proc.
Instants don't decrease the proc rate but any haste applied will lower it. Which is why the PPM system works so well with slow weapons since you get a larger chance for the procs to occur on any additional instant attacks you apply.
I would bet they are planning on setting Maelstrom Weapon up as 2 PPM per talent point. Which would be an average of a 5 stack every 15 seconds before instants are included. With 2x2.6 speed weapons Stormstrike and Lava Lash should add an additional 7.25 charges per minute giving you 27.25 charges per minute or a 5 stack every 11 seconds for dual slow wield. With 2 quick weapons you will get a 5 stack every 12.4 seconds once you account for the instant attacks.
10/01/08, 10:35 PM
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