And another fast off-hand fist weapon. But at least both mail items and one necklace are well itemized for us.

With all the new hard mode items updated except Algalon, I'm under the assumption that our new best in slot offhand is now going to come from the 2200 rated PvP weapon?

Wouldn't surprise me, since the 1H/OH pvp weapon is often best in slot. (depends how the item budget resilience uses is like these days compared to tbc)

Even giving myself the Orc racial bonus for using axes, I'm showing [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest] and [Touch of Madness] as better then the [Furious Gladiator's Handaxe] for offhand. For mainhand, [Furious Gladiator's Handaxe] is beaten by [Golden Saronite Dragon], [The Masticator] and [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest]

I was told today by another shaman on my server that the change to FT speed scaling didn't go through and thus until fixed fast OHs are still the way to go. I had not heard anything about that until today so I wanted to ask here if this was true or not. I'm apologize if this has been a topic of discussion in previous pages or on another thread, I've been busy with finals and been unable to keep up with the forums as of late.

Your friend is an idiot. Just tested. 1.6 speed weapon had a 6% spellpower coefficient while a 3.8 speed weapon had a 14.5% coefficient so yes, the change to Flametongue did indeed make it into the patch.

Slow OH is better. Not sure if way better (depends on what weapons you have available/RNG on loot drops/etc.), but slow OHs are better.

In the end, the answer to any question like that is: Sim it and see for yourself.

[Pride] beats [Sinister Revenge] by a significant margin (~100dps). [Grimhorn Crusher] will beat [Pride], [The Stray] will beat [Grimhorn Crusher], [Angry Dread] should most of the time beat [The Stray], [Touch of Madness] will beat [Angry Dread] and [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest] will beat [Touch of Madness].

Hi,

Ive had a couple questions in regards to the Slow/slow vs. Slow/Fast.

My understanding is that Flame tongue weapon has been normalized in 3.1.

Pre-3.1, FT would have the same base damage, no matter the weapon speed, which proved the faster weapon was superior.

Ok, so lets fast forward to current times. 3.1 brought around the normalization of FT. I am under the impression that normalization allows for the same amount of damage to be done within a controlled amount of time, regardless of weapon speed. Hence all weapons are viable in terms of the damage produced by a fast OH vs a slow OH.

With this in mind, MSW charges procs from melee hits, which in turn provide for a larger dps gain overall.

My question to be answered is a. am i not understanding the normalization of FT correctly?; b. If i am, why a slow weapon over a fast.

Slow weapons and fast weapons will generate the same amount of FT damage over time.

Slow weapons will deal more Lava Lash damage. (Consider the T8 2-piece bonus here)

Slow weapons will deal more Stormstrike damage. (Also consider the T8 2-piece bonus here)

Slow weapons will generate more MSW charges from instant attacks because MSW is PPM. (Consider the T8 4-piece bonus here)

Slow weapons win. Fast weapons used to off-set these advantages because they dealt more FT damage over time, that advantage is now gone.

Since all weapons do the same Flametongue damage, slower weapons provide superior dps overall because of larger Stormstrike and Lava Lash hits. I don't think it is much more complicated than that.

I'll bite.

There are basically four factors involved in selecting weapon speed for Enhancement:

1. Maelstrom Procs: Maelstrom Weapon works on a Procs Per Minute system. This means slower weapons are more likely to proc, so that all weapons generate the same probable number of procs over a period of time. However, Stormstrike and Lava Lash generate extra, instant attacks that inherit this probability. Since you will always generate the same number of Stormstrikes and Lava Lashes, you want the chance per hit to be as high as possible, which means you want the slowest weapon possible. Advantage: Slow weapon.

2. Stormstrike and Lava Lash: Both of these are non-normalized, instant attacks. Slower weapons do greater damage per hit, and again since you will get the same number of Stormstrikes and Lava Lashes regardless, the slower the weapon the more damage you will deal from these abilities. Advantage: Slow weapon.

3. Windfury: Windfury generates another two swings with a fixed percentage chance of activating. If that were all there was to it the greater frequency of procs using a fast weapon would balance out with the harder hits of a slow weapon -- but Windfury has a hidden 3 second cooldown during which it will not trigger again, preventing fast weapons from proc'ing often enough to catch up. Therefore, the slower, the better. Advantage: Slow weapon.

4. Flametongue: This was the most interesting, and is what changed. Flametongue used to deal 10% of your spell damage + a speed-dependant base every swing, regardless of weapon speed. This meant that with a trivial amount of spellpower it became better to use a fast weapon with Flametongue, giving fast weapons a viable weapon imbue. This had tension with Lava Lash, which, being an instant attack, prefers slow weapons, and made for an interesting decision. However, now Flametongue scales its coefficient so that it provides the same DPS from your spell power, regardless of weapon speed. This means the only speed-dependent factor left for Flametongue is Lava Lash, which again favors slow weapons. Advantage: Slow weapon.

It looks like our big analysis and decision making is down to WF/WF vs. WF/FT vs. FT/FT. There is no reasonable circumstance now in which we benefit from using a faster weapon.

(Edit: Last to the party! Ah, well...)

I simmed that [The Stray] beats [Angry Dread] by a good margin because of the same speed (if you are using a 2.6 main hand) (Tested with Stray Speed 2.6 and 2.59 to take the medium value out of this two sims)




Pre 3.1 we had non-proper FT-scaling which meant that faster offhands did more damage. Webbed Death with its 1.4 speed was even better because the minimum damage of FT was reached at 1.5 speed. This benefit from a faster OH was more than the dps-loss you get from "fewer" MW-procs, less Lava Lash damage, less Stormstrike damage.
With 3.1 FT does the same dps on a 2.6 as on a 1.4 so there is a dps loss if you still use Sinister Revenge, Webbed Death etc.

Edit: carified

Guess it depends on the rest of your gear, which is why the correct answer is always Sim it. By the way, did you actually load all the stat changes switching between weapons or just do speed and weapon dps? If you do it that way then yes, The Stray will look much better then Angry Dread but that also makes the Cake into a Lie since Angry Dread has better stats then The Stray in addition to it's superior dps.

For me setting The Stray to 2.59 had it 15dps under Angry Dread, setting it to 2.6 had it 10dps over Angry dread. Assuming you could keep them synced 50% of the time Angry Dread is just a few dps better then The Stray. Personally I would rather not worry about having to keep them synced 100% of the time to realize a gain of a few dps, especially since getting them resynced requires you to stop hitting the target for a couple of seconds to get them back into sync which costs you more dps then any advantage you gain from them being synced.

Also, Angry Dread doesn't clip the floor when I run with the weapon out.

Sorry about the quote splitting but separate issue so want to deal with it separately.

FT does the same DPS on a 1.4 as on a 2.6, not the same damage. There is no dps loss from using Sinister Revenge or Webbed Death, they do the same dps as the slow weapons. The damage loss is all from the other instant attacks, SS and LL, as well the reduced number of MW charges the faster weapon gains.

The faster weapons used to do more dps with Flametongue compared to slow weapons since the spellpower coefficient didn't change with weapon speed, so they lost dps compared to before 3.1 but the fast ones do just as much Flametongue dps as the slow ones in 3.1

I did not sim with exact values when I simmed Angry Dread against The Stray, but changed the Weapon-DPS and speed because I assumed that my stats remain the same because of regemming/enchanting. I think the difference at that time (about 1-2 Weeks before 3.1) seemed that big because the sim was not 100% 3.1-ready

Angry Dread is about 25EP more then The Stray from the stats alone. Depending, of course, on your EP values and whether you are over the hit cap or not.

With 2pc T8, Slower speeds will become even better, so keep that in mind as well. For me, The Stray has always simmed higher than Angry Dread, even prior to 2pc.

The marginal differences in DPS between The Stray and Angry Dread _should_ favor The Stray once 2pc is taken into account.


Well, added a piece or 2 of gear, and AD is now back ahead of The Stray... - Sim often, with the right gear values.

Okay, back to slow OH. I got that mace Auriyia (whatever, the cat lady) drops. its fast but its stats are very good, i currently have calaminty's grasp in my main hand slot, and used to have Sinister's Revenge in OH, but now im forced to question myself. Should i use Angry Dread instead of the mace i got last night? I would really hope not because that was DKP gone, but i obviously want to max my DPS. I understand the SS, and MMS, and LL abilites are better with slow weps, but the stats are significantly different. Please help

and Caress of Insanity (http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...26_9806_40.jpg) should be in between [Vulmir, the Northern Tempest] and [Touch of Madness]

Generally you will always be better with a slow OH. But you need to sim it for yourself to know for sure. We are not here to tell you how to gear and play your toon. The tools and resources are here(the sim, TTT and the search button) to find all of the answers you need.

Yes, you just wasted dkp picking that up and deprived your raid of a weapon that probably would have been useful on another class.

Somewhat off the topic but still a big question i have had for a while.

First off, though Rawr still says WS is still second BiS, do you guys believe CG or WS is a better MH until caress or golden.
Personally i have seen higher dps with WS but pretty difficult to test the two on different bosses.

Secondly, will you all start using more ap+haste gems with new gear or will 32 ap still be the standalone gem to use.
Am going to try my dps with more ap+haste this week.