What are you talking about?

I wasn't responding to Hothgor, I was responding to Pitbuller. He said it could be fixed by changing Elemental Weapons except that Elemental Weapons only affects the spellpower from Flametongue and has nothing to do with it's damage now (except indirectly though giving it more spellpower). Basically the nerf he was recommending has already been done in spades.

Old talent was 30% more Flametongue Damage, new talent is 30% more spellpower from Flametongue. Reducing that won't fix the situation at all and if you change it to damage you worsen the issue instead of making it better (and nerf Elemental at the same time).

Issue with Hothgor's solution is that it does nothing to fix the issue if Flametongue becomes the better mainhand option then Windfury with current scaling with a Slow caster weapon (which I think it will with enough haste). It also would increase our damage output which the developers have already said is bordering on being too high.

I may not be right (and I really hope I'm not since it is a pretty manipulative thing to do) but just changing the coefficient of Flametongue to scale with weapon speed might not be enough to correct the issue and Windfury may need more to make it remain our mainhand imbue. FT/MQ bug ensures that FT won't be our mainhand imbue and also ensures that FrB would end up our offhand imbue which might be what they have decided is the better way to go anyway.

Issue, from what I can tell, is only with slow caster weapons though so they could also just not give us anymore.

I'm pretty sure Wraithstrike's speed was just an oversight by item designers. The last slow caster weapon that even comes to mind was Aurastone Hammer with a 2.7, and that was oh so many years ago. There was just no precedent for fist caster weapons and it's something that I fully see corrected with Ulduar itemization and beyond.

See, I actually think the exact opposite thing. I think it was an intentional "experiment" to see what we could come up with using that item.

I also think we will see more because they are perfect for someone who wanted to dualspec between Enhancement and Resto/Ele. Druids also like them for boomkin spec so that means a slow caster claw has a nice spread of classes that would want it and could use it. Also it is a lot more interesting then just continuing the stream of caster daggers.

I believe this is exactly what Hothgor was saying: leave the normalization effect alone and change the Elemental Weapon talent bonus from spell power to fire damage per hit, and let it apply to Frostbrand as well

Current: Increases the damage caused by your Windfury Weapon effect by 40% increases the spell damage on your Flametongue Weapon by 30% and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 30%.

Suggested: Increases the damage caused by your Windfury Weapon effect by 40% increases the damage dealt by your Flametongue and Frostbrand Weapon by 30% on the offhand, and increases the bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon by 30%.

Wouldn't that be a much simpler and elegant 'solution' to the current offhand weapon imbune conundrum? True it would be a reduction of ~63 spell power for Elemental AND Enhancement Shamans, but it would effectively ensure that FT and FB remain viable offhand weapon enchants with no possibility of them being better in the main hand or forcing you back towards WF/WF.

So, here is it: http://wow.nuclear-warriors.de/wflogparser.rar

Just click the Exe, input your charname, press the button and select a logfile. Then wait, until the results pop up.

It's completly beta and if your PC explodes or my program tries to take over the world, well, it's not my fault. :P

The normalization change is a separate thing that just prevents using fast weapons to make flametongue utilize more spellpower then intended.

If they fixed the FT/MQ bug and implemented your talent change then FT/FT is the only game in town since it would be significantly better then any other option.

Which is why they changed the talent in the beta from being EXACTLY what you are suggesting to it's current form where it only affects spellpower.

(edited to make clearer)

If they did nothing else I would be the happiest shaman in all the world.

9 expertise is more than I ever hoped for, and is an incredible relief from having to fill almost every single gem slot with +16 exp.

.

Agreed. Instead of needing 214 rating, we'll need 140 rating. That will (for me at least) completely free up almost 5 gem slots. Seems like a pretty huge buff to just be able to go ahead and gem those for AP or crit. Almost seems like too much

MQ still not working with FT as of the latest build.

Rava, mind bumping any of the threads on the PTR forums about the FT/MQ bug with that statement. Mine's there somewhere and there are numerous others so pick any of them that you like.

I just made a short half an hour log on the PTR of one-handed (2.6 speed) fighting with windfury weapon enchant and windfury totem and then used my parser on it. 2.542 seconds was the smallest amount of time between two windfury procs and I had 5 procs with a cooldown lower then 3 seconds. This is by a large margin the lowest amount I ever got. I never got something lower then 2.9 in gigabytes and months of combat logs. So I say, they definitely changed something here.

I will got to bed now, but if you want to take a deeper look, here is my log: http://wow.nuclear-warriors.de/wfcombatlog.zip

Edit: It was completly free of any lag, I just wanted to add.

I just tried your WFparser out and my results don't jibe with yours.

Took a 1.3 speed dagger, 9.15% personal haste rating, 4pcT7, WF Totem and a Flurry build. Attacked the level 60 targeting dummy for awhile.

Min WF cooldown - 2.828
Total Procs - 337
Procs under 3 sec CD - 1
Lines parsed - 7121

Guess I will try another run with a 2.6 speed weapon and see if anything is different.

1000 hits with a 2.6 same haste, through in some engineering glove clicky hastes and 2 lusts for good measure

Min WF cooldown - 2.735
Total Procs - 175
Procs under 3 sec CD - 2
Lines parsed - 4034

Clarification from GC about FT/MQ

Can one of you lads with the ear of the devs suggest the change to make Frozen Power offhand as well, and change the +20% damage to +20% proc chance?

If you consider that adding 440 spellpower by changing a Kel'thuzad's Reach to a Wraith Strike only increases FT DPS by something around 50 on the PTR, while doing that also nerfs your MH DPS by like 120+ and your WF proc damage by about 550, it isn't hard to see why a slow caster weapon pushes us towards dual FT. Using dual FT with a DPS weapon should be a huge DPS loss now, while still somewhat viable if you don't have access to a good weapon.

The primary DPS gain from using a spellpower weapon isn't FT damage. It is the damage on our other spells, since LB gains over 700 damage from it and ES gains over 400. I'm not sure if Blizzard actually wants us to consider using caster weapons, but there isn't much they can do to stop us from using them, and as long as they aren't a huge DPS gain, there isn't much reason to dissuade our use of them.

I'm interested in proposing an idea of mine to improve Shaman PVP viability while not completely FUBARing their PVE capability (I don't like the "lets just add more talents to the Enhance tree" school of thinking). I would need a bit of help with the mathematics side of things since EnhSim cannot simulate what I'm proposing.

It's pretty simple. We need to be able to use certain shock spells consecutively in order to be viable in PVP. (I know where you think I'm going, I'm not! Hear me out!) Obviously ES is our bread-and-butter DPS spell, and I think it's unfortunate that it's also our interrupt. WS, while aimed primarily at resto shamans, has some promise.

But how do you break apart the shock spells without totally screwing everything up? I propose linking a separate cooldown for each class of spell with the currently used imbues by the Shaman.

Say the Shaman uses WF/FT on his MH and OH. This places WS and FS on their own, separate cooldowns. Say the Shaman uses ES, then FrS goes on CD with ES while WS and FS remain off cooldown. This allows this Shaman to have a ready WS for interrupt (PVP) or threat reduction (PVE, though the upcoming change to Spirit Weapons could make this moot). Flame Shock added into the rotation would add a max of about 200-250 DPS or so (if my math is correct), and since the Devs think we're too high DPS for a hybrid class, lets knock MQ down to 5/10/15% to compensate (I think?).

Lets try another situation. Shaman imbues WF/FB: Leaves Frost Shock off the Shock Cooldown, for easier use of the new Frozen Power ability without cutting into the Shaman's ES spam during ranged PVP where the Shaman is attempting to close with the target. Personally I believe the Frozen Power should not be subject to the 15 yard range rule, but should only proc if FB is imbued on the OH. Add FB to the Elemental Weapons talent, and we're looking at an imbue that, while situational, might be worth using.

FT/FT and WF/WF imbues suddenly become less appealing. Particularly WF/WF, but FT/FT also becomes less effective with my proposed halving of MQ. FT/FB still is worthless, as an extra shock spell every 6 seconds will come nowhere near to the DPS gained by WF on the MH.

Elemental Shamans would also come away from this with limited PVP benefits as well. Most importantly, with FT imbued, the ability to cast an available interrupt followed immediately by a FS -> LvB. PVP becomes a bit more manageable when our PVP utility abilities are not all linked to the same cooldown. I believe that my proposed nerf to MQ should keep the Enhancement Shaman DPS in line, but that's where I need some affirmation.

So what am I missing here? Does this solution seem viable?

edit- spelling fix

Well, even 2.828 and 2.735 are way smaller then anything I got in months of logs (starting from BT until today I never had anything under 2.9). Did you use Stormstrike or only auto-attack? Best thing would be to use WF/WF with two weapons with a different speed, so they don't get sychronized.

In my opinion, removing the interrupt from Earth Shock and probably replacing it with some kind of debuff against melees would be a great thing. Earth Shock's interrupt can be a problem in PvE sometimes, if we shouldn't interrupt, because our school lockout is so short, but we still do because Earth Shock is part of our DPS.

Given that there are instances of abilities scaling with ratings (Icebound Fortitude, Cheat Death, etc.) it might be reasonable to see if the WF ICD is affected by our haste rating, assuming it has been changed. Considering Blizzard does want to make haste rating better for melee, this wouldn't be a bad way to make it good for shaman. Also, it would make sense if haste rating was good for us, since hunters get a huge benefit from it.

I can also see changing ES to do something else. I'm not sure what would be good, though. Maybe an AP reduction debuff?

How about 20% reduced melee and ranged attack speed? As far as I know, only DKs and Warriors have that effect currently. As Earth Shock then would almost only be used by Enhancement Shamans, it would be a good thing to help us in close quarter combat against other melees. But in the end thats wishlisting. Windshock has to be removed from the global shock cooldown, I think that is something, every Shaman agrees with.

And yes, that haste change would be nice, but until now we only know, that they have changed something with the cooldown, but not what exactly. They could just have lowered it or let haste affect it, but what haste? Meleehaste, spellhaste, with our without Flurry? I wish they could just write things like that into the patch notes. Instead we now AGAIN have to do hours of testing, just because our class mechanics are that complicated and fogy.

All four tanking classes/specs have an attack speed reduction debuff (paladins and druids have talents deep in their trees). Rogues also have an attack speed reducing debuff from a talent for no reason I understand. Of the tanking classes, only warriors and druids have an AP reduction debuff. Warlocks also provide an AP reduction debuff, but it replaces CoE, which might not be an acceptable loss in a 10 man environment.

When it comes down to it, an AP reduction debuff is more useful in PvE for ES than an attack speed debuff. In PvP, I'm not sure which is better, but when it comes to mitigating burst, I'd say AP reduction is better. Having a 20% slower attack speed isn't going to make two mutilates and an eviscerate hit any slower, while the AP reduction would make them hurt less.

Of course, this is a pointless topic unless someone wants to post a suggestion to Blizzard.

Well I finally got a chance to hop on the PTR and thought I'd put my insomnia to use.

Using Jaffnar's parser:

1.3/1.3 daggers
22.66% haste, 20% WF totem, flurry, Whetstone + Totem of Dueling and a few Heros/Speed Pots

Min WF cooldown - 2.782
Total Procs - 296
Procs under 3 sec CD - 2
Lines parsed - 62192


2.6/2.5
22.66% haste, 20% WF totem, flurry, Whetstone + Totem of Dueling and a few Heros/Speed Pots

Min WF cooldown - 2.815
Total Procs - 144
Procs under 3 sec CD - 3
Lines parsed - 22212


2.6/1.3
22.66% haste, 20% WF totem, flurry, Whetstone + Totem of Dueling and a few Heros/Speed Pots

Min WF cooldown - 2.30
Total Procs - ---
Procs under 3 sec CD - --
Lines parsed - ---

I forgot to enable logging for the 2.6/1.3 test and I'm still trying to not cry. I watched an easy 10 procs <3.0sec. I know empty claims with no logs are no good here, so all I can use is a screenshot of the WFCDT addon.



Now each of these tests were over the course of quite a span of time, using Hero 3-4 times per test. So it just begs the question that if the WF ICD is truly effected by haste, why are there so few procs <3.0sec?

ignore me, I only repeated previous tests, tho with a larger set of data. Lag made the test pretty inconclusive unless an abnormally large sample size was used, but I didn't find anything to support the ICD of WF scales with personal haste.