If FT gets normalized, to what extent will static shock make up for the "lost" damage from SS and LL (edit: CG/WD + WF/FT )?

How do you know damage is going to be "lost"? The intent to normalize the bonus damage has just been announced. No one knows what the base damage coefficient per weapon speed will be.

The question he posed, though, makes little sense. With a CG/WB setup he'll lose damage once FT gets normalised. The way to fix it is to get a slow offhand.

Exactly. You'll lose FT dmg on a fast OH but gain FT damage with a slow one, as well as raising your SS and LL damage again. Solution is to replace your OH and all will be well with the world.

I knew the solution will be a slow OH, but I'll try to explain my foolishness:
I assumed the fix would be something that puts slow/slow > slow/fast by making the auto hits equal leaving instant attacks and procs as the difference. This would fit to GC's post as the instant attacks and increased MW procs are worth a lot more than static shock's gain from a fast oh.


(posted too slow at first => edit to explain and get some use out of that post)

You can think of it as though they are changing FT so that no matter what speed weapon you use you'll get the same overall damage from FT. A fast weapon will hit more often for less and a slow weapon will hit less often for more but the flametongue damage portion should be the same from both.

I think you're trying to say the same thing but attempting to look at static shock damage too. There is no way the tiny increase in static shock procs from using a fast offhand will make up for more stormstrikes and lava lash damage.

Hopefully we can get some numbers and then get an updated sim. I've been telling my guildmates that there is no way I'm getting caster gear to maximise FT damage since I was "sure" that blizz would fix the problem. Hopefully this will.

Going from a fast OH to a slow OH will cause your static shock DPS to drop, and although it is speculation at this point, I strongly suspect your FT damage will take a nose dive too.

I think what you are asking is will the extra melee damage from Stormstrike and Lava Lash offset this double loss?

Bottom line, you will have to sim it. But we can get an estimate to see how bad it might be.

With 3/3 Improved Shields, 3/3 Static Shock and the LS Glyph, a raider might get 6% of their DPS from Static Shock with a 1.8s OH. Going from a 2.6s/1.8s setup to a 2.6s/2.6s setup can be esitmated as follows...

New SS DPS = 6% x (1/2.6 + 1/2.6) / (1/2.6 + 1/1.8) ~= 4.9%

So expect about a 1% loss in Static Shock DPS. If you are using fast caster/fast, expect a bigger loss.

Let's assume they normalize FT around a 2.6s weapon, i.e., a weapon of base swing S will do...

78.8 x S + 0.1 x S x SpellPower / 2.6

With 30% flurry and 20% haste, a 1.8s weapon swings 1.2 x 1.3 / 1.8 = 0.8667 times a second.

A 2.6s weapon swings 1.2 x 1.3 / 2.6 = 0.6 times a second.

If you hit Stormstrike every 8 seconds and Lava Lash every 6 seconds, that adds another 1/8 + 1/6 = 0.293 swings a second.

1.8s weapon = 1.1597 hasted/special swings a second
2.6s weapon = 0.893 hasted/special swings a second

A raider might see 12% of their DPS coming from FT with a slow/fast setup.

So ratioing what a fast weapon does now by what a slow weapon *might* do after the FT change...

New FT DPS = 12% x 0.892 x (78.8 x 2.6 + 0.1 x SpellPower) / 1.1597 x (78.8 x 1.8 + 0.1 x SpellPower)

New FT DPS = 12% x (157.6 + 0.07692 x SpellPower) / (141.84 + 0.1 x SpellPower)

If you fool around with that equation, you will see that at spellppower over ~700, you will always have a DROP in DPS by switching to a slow OH (assuming the assumption about how they are going to change FT holds true!)

In a full heroic raid, an enh shaman might sustain 6k AP or 1800 spell power.

New F DPS ~= 12% x 0.91 = 10.9%

Again, a drop of about 1%.

What can you expect from Stormstrike?

If Stormstrike is 5% of your DPS, then it will increase roughly like...

Stormstrike DPS = 5% x (2.6 + 2.6/2) /(2.6 + 1.8/2) = 5% x 1.11 = 5.55%.

Or about 0.5%.

If Lava Lash is 3% of your DPS, then 3% x 2.6 / 1.8 = 4.33%

Or about 1.3% increase.

Factor in reglyphs and it might come out to be a wash.

Are you really implying that if they normalize flametongue that a slow weapon will be less dps then a fast one?

Lets try this logically.

First off they won't normalize around a 2.6 they will normalize around a 4 since that is slowest weapon speed available but they will probably set the coefficient to the current value at a 2.5 or a 2.6 weapon.

Flametongue base damage scales perfectly from 4 to 1.3, this is easily seen in the tooltip.
89 to 274 fire damage
1.3 / 4 = 0.325
0.325 x 274 = 89

The issue is the coefficient so they will just do the same sort of scaling but they will probably start it at say 2.5 = 10% and scale it up and down from there.

So then a 4.0 speed will get 16% of your spellpower and a 1.3 speed will get 5.2%.

I'm not saying this is what they will be doing, but those are the results I would expect and there is no way that a fast weapon will do more flametongue dps then a slow one with that sort of normalization in place.

Then it becomes Flametongue likes slow, Stormstrike likes slow, Lava Lash likes slow and Maelstrom Weapon likes slow. The only thing that would like fast is Static Shock and that definitely won't be enough to overcome all those other attacks.

GC posted:

4) To satisfy 2 & 3, we are normalizing flametongue's damage to weapon speed. If you use a fast weapon now for FT, your damage will come down. If you use a slow weapon, your damage will come up. Please keep that in mind as you continue to gear up preparing for patch 3.1.

Do you asume he is referring to slow weapon as those in the 2 hander speed range since you took 2.5speed=10% as your benchmark? (with 2.5 being a middle speed weapon if you include 2handers but a slow one if you only include onehanders in the equation)

Also, I'm unclear on how to interpret his comment about added damage. Is it increased output specifically for slowweapon Flametongue or is it the more general Blizzardesque "including all the other changes" type of increased damage. The sentance reads mostly like he is explaining FT normalization specifically but given the mindset of developers to look at the whole picture I wouldn't exclude the other interpretation.

Since they are expecting to have to nerf us in the dps department that was why I started with 2.5 since they could just as easily set 2.0 as the 10% coefficient start or 2.4 and then work from there but the results will be the same.

The person I was responding too was using some very wonky math to try and demonstrate that even if they normalize flametongue damage that a fast weapon was still going to work out better and since that is clearly going against what GC stated in that post there is no math that would make me think they were right about that one.

Well, finally they adress the FT scaling issue. But there are still open questions.
How exactly will FT scale and will a slow OH really be better?
Will dual-FT really be worse then or could a slow/slow combination with dual-FT like Wraith Strike/Angry Dread still outperform WF/FT?
When will the FT scaling change, right at 3.1 or at a later patch since there isn't anything in the ptr patchnotes.

The caster mainhands is comparatively new development compared to the fast offhands issue.

I'm sure there are many more changes coming, I just hope the caster mainhands issue gets some attention.

I just made some sims with my actual gear.
Calamity's Grasp/Angry Dread (WF/FT): 5817 dps
Wraith Strike/Angry Dread (WF/FT): 5817 dps
Wraith Strike/Angry Dread (FT/FT): 5827 dps

We'll have to wait how FT-scaling will exactly work in the end and how the other patch-changes influence the dps of each setup. But if there are no significant changes, it depends mainly on the gear-scaling which setup will be the best in Ulduar.

With flametongue fully scaling, caster mainhands shouldn't be an issue anymore. Caster mainhands are only that good, because a very fast offhand carries flametongue for them and it gets even better, if the caster mainhand is also quite fast. With a normalized flametongue coeffizient of 10% at a speed of lets say 2.5 (they use this number often when normalizing something), flametongue will still be the best offhand enchant, but it wont make caster mainhands BiS anymore.

For example I use WS/WD with WF/FT currently. If I change my offhand's speed from 1.4 to 2.5, I would lose 33 DPS (5757 -> 5724). This would put this combination on par with CG/AD (5732, but simed with the old 2%/AP wf glyph). In case of ToHF, where you also use FT on your fast mainhand, the hit would be much larger (by just setting both weapon speeds to 2.5, which even compensates the change a bit through Stormstrike, ToHF/WD would drop from 5764 to 5675 in my case). So in the end, the usually fast caster mainhand weapons wouldn't be that good choice anymore. Wraith Strike would still remain a good alternative to CG, but with its speed it's a rather special weapon and the useability for enhancement shamans could even be intended.

Edit: Just resimed the values with new version:

WS/WD WF/FT 2.6/1.4 = 5740 DPS
WS/AD WF/FT 2.6/2.5 = 5708 DPS
CG/AD WF/FT 2.6/2.5 = 5715 DPS
ToHF/WD FT/FT 1.8/1.4 = 5779 DPS
ToHF/WD FT/FT 2.5/2.5 = 5692 DPS

-> CG/AD would be the best choice with my gear.

I am speculating that a slow weapon AFTER the change *might* do about the same damage as a fast one NOW.

I didn't make a comparison of slow vs fast AFTER the change. Although that is an interesting question.

The post was meant to show that we are talking about ~1% changes to effects that are offsetting each other.

Since I am using a raid-level, fast OH (The Hand of Nerub), I certainly want to know how badly it will be nerfed after the change. (And yes, I do expect the damage to go down.) But I think I will wait until the details are known about the FT change and sim/test it.

[Blade of Unquenched Thirst] is a fun offhand. I can't sim it properly because it is bugged.

This is last nights WWS report using the dagger:

Wow Web Stats

I've done better with regular gear, this was mostly to test the dagger. Average life drains were in the 3300-3400 range with a few in upwards of 4200 with various trinket procs etc.

"drain life" was ~2% of my overall damage, ranking just below our 51 point talent

Not as good as webbed death, but probably holds it own compared to Librarian's paper cutter. All of which won't hold up when 3.1 comes out though.

Which would not only make Rounced a good guesser but also infer that Ghostcrawlers comment regarding slow weapons means twohander weapon speeds in regards to increased damage.


Back on topic : I tried some Simming with my current gear and a proxy of known changes. (t7,5 closing in on BiS with a few lacking items)

And I came up with for my gear and with current known information WF/FT still outpaced WF/WF by some 2-300 dps.

Why would I test this again? Well I found several small changes that might effect the endgame especially considering we might lose a couple of point of dps on our flametongue from having a 2.5s offhand as our most popular choice (with slightly lower than the base 2.6 we currently see as needed for a 10% coefficient)

Things I've tried to take into account.
Lower critchance from crit debuff (scorch etc) (10->5%)
Increased Physical DPS from Blood Frenzy. (2->4% debuff)
I am currently wielding Angry Dread for OH so I didn't change anything regarding FT imbue and asumed a close to 10% SP conversion rate. (not that I could change the sim code if I tired)

I also made an asumption that I think I can recall blue post talking about that the changes to armor debuffs would not affect PvE targets. (can't find it now so It might be something I misunderstod/dreamed up)
The asumption there was that they would lower Boss armor from it's current 13K to a value that would give the same net effect when they changed from around 4K from large and 1,2K for small armor debuff to 20% and 5%.
To keep the old effect that would mean they would have to drop boss armor to around the 10K mark.(10533 if I done my math)
IF this asumption would be false and the new armor debuffs stays at 20 and 5% while boss armor remains at 13K it would only further widenen the gap between WF/FT and WF/WF.

The changes to FT would In my mind also rule out fast caster weapons and FT / FT.

The Wraith Strike and Angry Dread might still be a contender if the armor debuff changes comes live without changes to boss armor. (thus favoring spell dps despite loss of 5% spellcrit and increased physcial debuff 2->4%)

So although there have been several small changes that would lean towards increased physical damage axiom I think we can with current information temporarly put WF / FT as being the best choice with Calamity's Grasp and Angry Dread being the BiS pair until you can upgrade from Ulduar.
The upgrades then being as slow as possible.

One disclaimer, Ghostcrawler promised/hinted changes to Melee Haste and changes to Armor Penetration rating. If these make it into 3.1 then they might change the situation.