Still, the fact that the best 1h DPS axe in the game is the Key, and there's NO epic 1h DPS axes is sorta weird. 1H axes seems like they'd be useful for shamans/Arms warriors/DKs, and hunters could certainly use them in a pinch.

I noticed that too. They really need to just make it so elem and resto get their kilts and we get pants. Even so I really love the look of it.

The pictures I saw have both pant and kilt models for both males and females, just which side of the picture they were on was reversed between the sexes. Look pretty badass to me regardless.

Obligatory remove main-hand restriction on fist weapons comment.

The obvious fix is to normalize instant attacks and abilities, just like every other class. Normalize stormstrike and lava lash to 2.5s, remove the silly WF cooldown, change static shock to a PPM, and alongside the 3.1 changes to flametongue coefficient, we'd be all set. Slow weapons would still be slightly superior due to their damage range, but it wouldn't be a big deal.

What's confusing is that GC said he wants us to want slow/slow weapons. I hope that was in the context of discouraging fast/fast FT/FT with a SP mainhand and not an indication of changing design goals where they intentionally restrict appropriate itemization.

All that said, yes, fist weapons should be one-handed, excepting cheaper PvP/badge offhands and spellpower mainhands.

I am rather sure that these models will be used for NPC's as well, some of them probably with the pants model and not the kilt model. Honestly though, since a rolled troll (ugh?) I like the kilt over the pants only due to my knees being hidden, doesn't look that "dumb".

PS: Yeah, remove main-hand restrictions so I can OH my CG. . . Please

I'm guessing that's cos no other class actually needs them (except perhaps being DW hunters), given that fury warriors DW with 2-handers now and that DK's prefer them too (not too sure about that though since I don't have one myself).

As far as fists being MH/OH, it makes sense in the way that gloves are right or left handed...but some of the AH greens and the ring of blood one are 1H. Gief more knuckle-duster type fists that can be made 1H.

Another thing to note...they seem to want us to replace our naxx MH with the ulduar one (given that it's 2.7 speed with a socket) but not our naxx OH unless we pvp...weird (unless it's to hold our dps back by using a sub-par weapon). Whoever suggested the sunmote-trading type system is right IMO, different classes use 2.6/1.5 OH weapons just like different specs use hit/mp5-based robes etc.

And they can just solve that issue by making such weapons unique or unique equipped. (or indeed for any weapon deemed to be too OP to have two of)

I wouldn't hold my breath. While that may end up being higher dps for a short while, I don't think what you've described is Blizzard's inteded model for the class, afterall, GC stated that they're happy with the way our rotation is right now. If we start casting more LBs and start favoring more caster gear over mail DPS gear, I would expect to see some alterations from Blizz to counter these kinds of caster gear choices.

Haste should basically be a wash, you will lose 5% from Flurry but gain 3% if you have 10% personal haste.

The issue is clipping your melee swings. With 4 stacks you have a base LB cast of 0.5 seconds. With 3 stacks it's 1 second. Much harder to squeeze a 1 second cast past 2 swing timers without clipping then it is a 0.5 second one.

As for Call of Thunder, are you actually being serious or just looking for a reason to bring up the "threat" of spellpower gearing again. Running the sim with Call of Thunder and MW4 in the rotation shows it adds 42dps. Which means the wolves merely have to do more then 168dps (25% active time) to be the better option. Looking at my last 25 man patchwerk my wolves did 782dps during their active time on patchwerk. Even looking at their average over the course of a 10 man Naxx they did 555dps.

Wolves are always a better spec choice then Call of Thunder for an Enhancement Shaman.

Also the haste buff is melee only, our casting haste is unaffected. If you stack a bunch of haste you're going to lower your melee swing speed faster than your casting speed and 4MW will become less viable, not 3MW becoming more viable.

Suggestion: Because Enhancement has lost most of it's Burst dmg in comparison to lv 70.. the idea of an Healing Reduction Effect could be viable again... I would suggest a 5% healing reduce that stacks 5 times... and is only caused by using lavalash... this would make that skill a viable one and it would give us a chance vs fury, hunters, rogues and healers again in Arena...
This debuff should'nt last longer then 15 secs.. so it would take 30secs to debuff your ennemy and only 6(cd) + 9secs to remove it either completely or stack by stack... this would be an very interesting point of ms i think.. and it would finally make lavalash (which is nerfed a bit for pvp by 25% cause of frostbrand instead of flametongue on oh) a viable skill and the PvP totem relict more interesting...

what do you guys think of such an idea?

(atm rated 1930 in 2vs2 with heal Paladin, so plz don't think i'm only foolish^^)

First off, I'd say go for broke and ask for the full effect right upfront, without any stacking needed. Consider how they changed wounding to a non-stacking debuff - it's a buff for rogues since they got the full effect right away, but it was also easier to dispel since it only counted as a single stack.

However, they've said often that the reason they don't want to give too many classes the mortal strike debuff is because if it's so prevelant then they might as well just remove the debuff entirely and apply a flat 50% reduction to all healing in arenas.

If you will excuse my ignorance, in what way did Enhancement pvp lose burst from lvl 70 to 80?

First of all Windfury hasn't improved that much in dmg as other skills of other classes did...
A three times krittet wf (autohit+double wf krit) will never reach the burst of other classes, as boonkins(9k), ferals(10k), hunters (pet dmg+dots+massive instant dmg, 7k instant singnils of retardins+melee dmg) all on full resilence gear...

To compare... at 70 I won a duel vs frost mage if i could reach him 2-3 times to hit him with melee strikes.... right now.. he will absorb the first wf with his shields.. + he got even more cc..
A feral can't be killed while using his regeneration in dire bear.. even when switched at 2k life and his healer is drinking out of healrange

Aditionally i got 20,2k life with nearly full deadly gear and sockets that are a mix out of dmg and life... ennemys often have much more with similar gear... 25-29k (fury, dk , retardin, wl, druid)... so overall the 7k of a krittet wf as enhancement shaman isn't a real burst right now.. which leads me to the conclusion that there has to be something else added
(critical shocks deal half the dmg of arkan barrages that don't krit, and instant lightning bolt deals about additional 2,2k ( nearly doesn't krit on full resilence cause of spell crit chance)

Applying your earlier comments about wound poison stacking, they could implement it to where we only need 2-3 stacks of Maelstrom in arena to get an instant LB. Or possibly make Maelstrom stacks ignore resil, so we could see similar numbers from our LB's to an arcane mage jumping in circles arcane barraging everything.

That would be making a second set of rules for the Arena which is something they have said they don't want to do.

The easiest solution would be to give us a new PvP oriented glyph for Maelstrom Weapon that gives us charges when we are hit as well as when we hit something. I don't believe the tech is there for them to calculate PPM rates when something is hit but they could also do something similar to how resilience works for defensive cooldowns and just have it calculate the proc chance based on your weapons or even just make it a set percentage.

Something like

Glyph of Maelstrom Weapon - when struck by a direct attack you have a 30% chance to gain a charge of Maelstrom Weapon.

would probably be the easiest to code and would address the issue, somewhat, of there being no disadvantage at all to focusing on the Enhancement Shaman. The direct attack portion would make the glyph basically useless for PvE, except for farming/grinding, since if you are taking direct attacks as an Enhancement Shaman you are doing something very wrong.

With the exception of the last sentence, you guys are absolutely right. I did some bored spreadsheet math at work yesterday after your replies, and found that:

Currently I enjoy a 1.56s MH swing speed and a .46s 4-MWLB cast time fully raid buffed. That's a ratio of 3.37:1, which makes it easy to slip a quick-cast 4-MWLB in according to the simulator.

My cast time for a 3-MWLB is .92s, which lowers the ratio to 1.69:1. The lower ratio means it is much harder to "sneak" a 3-MWLB cast in without clipping, hence the overall decrease in DPS.

You are totally right that no amount of Haste will ever make 3-MWLB viable without clipping, because currently those ratios don't change no matter how much Haste you add. (Even if you got 3-MWLB cast time down to half a second, which would take around 3k Haste rating, your MH would be swinging at .84 and you would still clip).

I do, however, disagree with 4-MWLB becoming "less viable" than it is now in 3.1. Even with the 30% increase in melee haste gained from Haste rating, my numbers indicate that it would take ~500 rating for the MH:4-MWLB ratio to fall below 3.37:1 due to the Flurry nerf.

Once we eventually break our 4-piece T7/7.5 bonuses, 4-MWLB will become even "safer" until we approach 1200 rating (which won't happen).

No sir I was actually being serious, and I certainly wasn't trying to fear monger about the threat of spell power gear.

I was thinking (out my ass) that if maybe you could reach a magical happy place where you cast 67% more Lightning Bolts than the next guy, that Call of Thunder might actually become a worthwhile talent.

Next time I have an idea, I'll spreadsheet it first and post second.

Why would you need to restrict it that much? Any Direct Damage attack makes sure that it won't be a raiding glyph (think about what most Raid mobs hit for on mail with no shield and you will see why it would be as viable for a dps boost as using pop as a threat wipe) and even with additional charges from being hit while farming/grinding you are better using the Lightning Shield glyph since there is no mana cost to that damage so it's additional dps for no cost.

The other thing with yours is it would be too good in a situation where you are being kited by a say a Hunter with his pet on you or anything like that, once you are snared those little attacks from the pet means you would be instant casting Lightning Bolt practically non-stop.

When you hit something with a 2.6 speed weapon you have a ~43% chance of gaining a charge, which is why I thought 30% would be fair provided it was only from Direct Attacks.

I agree, which is why I suggested a short ICD.

I was thinking about this exact problem the other day. A PPM mechanic would really be the right answer, but we know there is probably no tech in-game that would deal with incoming PPM. An ICD is one possible solution, but may not be good enough if you are focused. Or it may be too good for 1v1.

I think a good solution would be to add a new debuff (glyphed or talented) that makes the afflicted unit apply MW to the shaman at the same PPM rate that the shaman accrues them. I would either tack this into Frost Shock or as an additional effect from a lightning shield charge. Frost shock would have the advantage when you want to apply the debuff to a particular unit, but LS would have the advantage when you are ambushed by a rogue/druid.

The drawback to this is it would not be effective vs. a caster (unlike a flat 30% proc on any damage), but I do not think casters tend to be our largest problem anyway.

Rounced has the easiest solution. As soon as you get into trying to determine PPM's on incoming damage and talking about internal ICDs, things have a tendency to get overly complicated very fast.

I know a lot of pvpers wish there were no RNG effects in the game but imo that would be pretty damn boring. If you already know the outcome of the fight, what's the point in fighting? PPM starts to lean too much in that direction of predictability.

ICDs are why the shaman community had to turn to advance mathematical modeling just to figure out windfury mechanics, which has been a disservice to anyone who's played a shaman since BC started.

I've heard a lot of people say that Glyphs shouldn't be used as a patch for what is fundamentally a broken mechanic, and I have to agree with them.

While it goes a way in providing "fixes" for Arena issues without the devs having to build an entirely seperate set of rules for the arena, I still think we venture onto thin ice when we propose new glyphs as solutions to problems with our class.

I still think that using a certain element of imbue should break that element's shocks off of the shared cooldown. IMO, it could solve so many problems with Enhance PVP without further bloating our tree with utility talents. It also lets us change our tactics given the situation, which is really what Shamans and their totems are all about.

I think the real answer to making Maelstrom Weapon viable in PvP and PvE is to drop the manual activation of charges and have them generate over time while in combat. Each new rank of the talent increases charge generation rate. Make the charge buff physical so it can't be dispelled.