I'm having trouble deciding on badge rewards. Right now, my gear is as show in my sig, with Earthblood Chestguard, Dragon-Quake Shoulderpads, and Belt of Gale Force to switch into for fights that require high stam/damage mitigation (Aran, Nightbane, Gruul, etc.). However, I have about 100 badges, and think I should spend them. I was thinking about getting Treads of the Life Path to replace my leather PvP boots (which happen to also be good for PvE), and one other thing. Any suggestions?
It doesn't really matter to me, Mauro rapes damage meters using a bunch of +hit gems just fine. Doesn't it seem odd to you that some 'tests' with such poor methodology are used as gospel though?
When you're choosing gear, you have to base your choices on something right? What are you going to base it on, your general assumptions from what you know of how hit and crit works, or tests that have been performed and presumably(I don't care enough to check all tests) looked at and studied by the other theorycrafters in a generally quite good forum for that kind of information?
You are one person saying that there's no real indication either way(and with 9% base hit my own ignorant observations would already lead me towards crit), versus the tests that haven't been generally accepted as false. It'd be great if they'd go back through and redo the tests, but until then, I don't know why I wouldn't give crit at least some preference.
100-120 is generally considered plenty of hit rating and any more is probably lowering your DPS. In order to uncover this supposed bias against hit, you would need 200-300 compared to something in the 100-120 range (which of course would have significantly more crit and AP). Let us know when you get that all tested and parsed.
That's your view, not mine. An isolated, unproven view I might add. I'm giving you the chance to show me otherwise.
EDIT: Let me clarify that I'm still not stating the simulators are 100 percent correct. However, I strongly argue that the act of raising hit to high levels lowers DPS when compared to modest amounts of hit (with the talents).
So it's okay with you that their methods are based on untrue assumptions?
Don't we think it's reasonable that in the vast majority of cases(if not able to be assumed as 100% of cases), with 9% base hit plus maybe some small amount extra, that you will have a windfury proc every 3 seconds? If it's reasonably close, then I think their assumptions of assigning a point value to each would also not be very far off, and considering they value crit about 60% higher, it would still seem to be a accurate to favor crit.
But really, you should be convincing the theorycrafters. They're the ones that'd be willing to do a test, and if nothing else is done, I'm gonna go with preferring hit over crit, with no test showing opposite results.
Do you remember those several months where they kept saying that achieving a 1.41-1.49 weapon speed through haste would lower your overall DPS? Turns out it's completely untrue.
That was a result of their assumption that you'd have a 100% windfury proc rate.
Regarding high levels of hit... Sacrificing ilvl to obtain hit is still stupid, but so is sacrificing ilvl to obtain crit or AP, the stats are still valuable. The weights they put on hit are extremely low because of the assumption that you have a 100% windfury proc rate, which you don't. Ever. I'm not saying hit is more valuable than any other stat, but one hit rating is certainly worth more than half one point of strength, which is what EJ would have you believe.
If it's not 100%, what is it? Maybe we should value hit a bit higher, like closer to 1.5 rather than 1.34 EP.
But when we've got tests on one side, and none on the other, I'm going to favor the side with tests, if not follow the recommendations to the fullest extent.
Do you remember those several months where they kept saying that achieving a 1.41-1.49 weapon speed through haste would lower your overall DPS? Turns out it's completely untrue.
That was a result of their assumption that you'd have a 100% windfury proc rate.
Regarding high levels of hit... Sacrificing ilvl to obtain hit is still stupid, but so is sacrificing ilvl to obtain crit or AP, the stats are still valuable. The weights they put on hit are extremely low because of the assumption that you have a 100% windfury proc rate, which you don't. Ever. I'm not saying hit is more valuable than any other stat, but one hit rating is certainly worth more than half one point of strength, which is what EJ would have you believe.
And how was that flaw in reasoning discovered? Testing. You seemingly want to skip straight to the new assumption part.
If it's not 100%, what is it? Maybe we should value hit a bit higher, like closer to 1.5 rather than 1.34 EP.
But when we've got tests on one side, and none on the other, I'm going to favor the side with tests, if not follow the recommendations to the fullest extent.
So if I told you that Pacific Tree frogs could not, in fact, jump. Then as a test, I tie one frog to the ground, cut another frog's legs off, have Rorus sit on a third one, and then watch them for three days. With such thorough testing you'd obviously believe that frogs really are incapable of jumping, right? I mean hell, if *three* don't...
I may have seen a frog not jump for three days, but the underlying conditions of the test are so fucked up that any conclusion you draw from it would be flawed.
And that's the problem with assuming 100% windfury proc rate.
If parses show a consistently high windfury proc rate for these people with low hit, in the area of 95% or more, is that somehow going to make the value of hit rating shoot through the roof relative to crit rating?
How many pieces of information throughout the game do we say we "know" only through extensive testing and calling these mechanics true, as opposed to knowing the actual coding?
Best bets are to use
Red socket: [Bold Living Ruby].
Yellow socket:[Inscribed Noble Topaz].
Blue socket: [Sovereign Nightseye].
The [Rigid Dawnstone] is always the wrong answer for enhance shaman.
The [Bold Living Ruby] will always be better then [Bright Living Ruby] in a raid environment due to Blessing of Kings.
In the only area in which you can actually choose which stats to use, EJ recommends stamina/strength gems over +hit gems.
Oh, and a 100% windfury proc rate would make +hit nearly worthless (Just like EJ says,) the most optimistic observed proc rates are at 36% for WF/WF, which is a far cry from every swing proccing a windfury. If you're gauranteed a proc on every landed hit, then it wouldn't be important at all to land all of your hits to minimize the amount of time between windfury cooldowns.
Right, when you have the choice, you look at the point values, and choose crit because it's valued higher. On items without slots, you tally up the value of all the stats, and you may end up choosing an item with hit on it.
That does not mean that you give no value to hit whatsoever.
That blurb from EJ says that 6sta/4str is better than 8 hit.
so 8.8 whole AP is worth more than half a percent chance to hit.
The way you phrase that makes it sound like that's some amazingly incredulous thing, so you're using some basic assumptions(what are these, with what testing?) there. I mean, I certainly have always thought of hit being very valuable, but also, being much less valuable after covering special attacks, and talents go even farther than that, meanwhile I also know that crits are very important for flurry.
That blurb from EJ says that 6sta/4str is better than 8 hit.
so 8.8 whole AP is worth more than half a percent chance to hit.
The way you phrase that makes it sound like that's some amazingly incredulous thing, so you're using some basic assumptions(what are these, with what testing?) there. I mean, I certainly have always thought of hit being very valuable, but also, being much less valuable after covering special attacks, and talents go even farther than that, meanwhile I also know that crits are very important for flurry.
If it's not 100%, what is it? Maybe we should value hit a bit higher, like closer to 1.5 rather than 1.34 EP.
But when we've got tests on one side, and none on the other, I'm going to favor the side with tests, if not follow the recommendations to the fullest extent.
So if I told you that Pacific Tree frogs could not, in fact, jump. Then as a test, I tie one frog to the ground, cut another frog's legs off, have Rorus sit on a third one, and then watch them for three days. With such thorough testing you'd obviously believe that frogs really are incapable of jumping, right? I mean hell, if *three* don't...
I may have seen a frog not jump for three days, but the underlying conditions of the test are so fucked up that any conclusion you draw from it would be flawed.
And that's the problem with assuming 100% windfury proc rate.
What if I told you speccing enhace was terrible then I cut the legs off of a frog and threw that motherf**ker into some water then traded for Johan Sanatana AND beat the New England Patriots? Any conclusion drawn from that would be fuuuuuuucccckkeeeedddd
Despite my distaste for the new expantion and the direction its going with more levels and whatever, I'm back playing again. This game has a way of slapping you in the face and then welcoming you back in to its warm bosom.
But I see that the shaman forums are just as gloom and doom as when I left. Even with all the shit enhancement got this recent update. I'm leveling a Shaman Alliance side and I was wondering if Enhancement is good for leveling in the old world still. Also, how viable is a end game enhancement shaman now?
Enhancement is very good for leveling, endgame enhancement shamans do very well in PvE though in PvP they suffer from a lack of crowd control, offensive dispelling of their abilities and the weakness of totems (applies to all shamans though).
Enhancement is very good for leveling, endgame enhancement shamans do very well in PvE though in PvP they suffer from a lack of crowd control, offensive dispelling of their abilities and the weakness of totems (applies to all shamans though).
Is that a sufficient answer?
Yeah, it is. Kinda sounds like not much has changed. Thats ok though. I'd like to get to some of the end game stuff eventually. I'm actually looking forward to that more then PVP and the Arenas.
Enhancement is very good for leveling, endgame enhancement shamans do very well in PvE though in PvP they suffer from a lack of crowd control, offensive dispelling of their abilities and the weakness of totems (applies to all shamans though).
Is that a sufficient answer?
Er well sort of? I'm leveling two shaman right now and have been digging around on the EJ forum a bit to see what I should be doing for leveling. One of the main problems I'm having is finding a slow enough off hand weapon to not gimp my WF hits. Right now my off-hand on one shaman is way too fast and doesn't really allow for my main hand weapon to proc windfury. I'd recommend leveling as Elemental until you have enough talent points to spec for DW and be sure to have two decent weapons ready to go as well. Well that is what I've do so far and it seems to work quiet well for me, YMMV.
Man, it's kind of sad, that when looking through WoW-loot.com, I don't see a single proper enhancement weapon from either quests or instance drops, until Mana Tombs. What the hell Blizz?
Enhancement is very good for leveling, endgame enhancement shamans do very well in PvE though in PvP they suffer from a lack of crowd control, offensive dispelling of their abilities and the weakness of totems (applies to all shamans though).
Is that a sufficient answer?
Yeah, it is. Kinda sounds like not much has changed. Thats ok though. I'd like to get to some of the end game stuff eventually. I'm actually looking forward to that more then PVP and the Arenas.
Enhance is probably the #2 build for PvE, though I'm sure some would argue that. It's not very good; however, if you're stacked, it's not terrible.
Enhancement is very good for leveling, endgame enhancement shamans do very well in PvE though in PvP they suffer from a lack of crowd control, offensive dispelling of their abilities and the weakness of totems (applies to all shamans though).
Is that a sufficient answer?
Yeah, it is. Kinda sounds like not much has changed. Thats ok though. I'd like to get to some of the end game stuff eventually. I'm actually looking forward to that more then PVP and the Arenas.
Enhance is probably the #2 build for PvE, though I'm sure some would argue that. It's not very good; however, if you're stacked, it's not terrible.
Worthless in PvP.
I would think that elemental would have to have quite a personal dps lead on enhancement to make it more worthwhile than enhancement's greater(I think) group buffs.
I would think that elemental would have to have quite a personal dps lead on enhancement to make it more worthwhile than enhancement's greater(I think) group buffs.
They're both pretty bad, but I can put out around 950 DPS with a full compliment of buffs & consumables and specced strictly elemental PvE (e.g., Relentless storm, totem of wrath, and 5 second shocks - more than 40 points in ele).
Enhance, right now, I can put out 750-775ish with the stuff I have (T4 + LW set, Decapitator MH/Merc Glad. MH for off-hand). I also have dragonspine trophy, which is nice. Shock cost was a big boost for my DPS in enhance but it still pales in comparison to MY particular ele set which I work on like crazy.
It depends on what your raid is heavy in. If you've got a lot of caster DPS 41+ elemental makes more sense. If you're melee heavy a 40+ enhancement shaman makes more sense. I know DnT uses an enhance shammie.
Of course, keep in mind that, at the end of the day, you'll be asked to spec Resto.
A warrior, particularly if that warrior uses a 2 hander(presumably as Arms) gets an absolutely massive dps boost from windfury. Like, that one buff alone, for one warrior, is basically equal to the difference in personal dps you're seeing(more if the warrior uses a 2 hander), let alone UR, or the difference in AP granted by a talented Strength of Earth. These last two buffs probably won't equal totem of wrath, but I would bet in general, with a good warrior in your group, the difference between elemental and enhancement is either small, or possibly favorable to the enhancement shaman, with the balance tilting either way depending on if the fight is long and requires a lot of mana, or particularly punishes melee.
A warrior, particularly if that warrior uses a 2 hander(presumably as Arms) gets an absolutely massive dps boost from windfury. Like, that one buff alone, for one warrior, is basically equal to the difference in personal dps you're seeing(more if the warrior uses a 2 hander), let alone UR, or the difference in AP granted by a talented Strength of Earth. These last two buffs probably won't equal totem of wrath, but I would bet in general, with a good warrior in your group, the difference between elemental and enhancement is either small, or possibly favorable to the enhancement shaman, with the balance tilting either way depending on if the fight is long and requires a lot of mana, or particularly punishes melee.
I don't particularly prefer Elemental in a raid setting.
I mean, it's nice, but, Locks bring AOE+Banish CC, Mages bring AOE, as well as the best CC in the game, Polymorph, and Shadowpriests are a fuckhuge awesome Mana battery, as well as their own little CC.
Tremor totem/Mana Spring/WOA just don't make up for it.
The reason why Enhancement is seen more often, is because, on top of the totems, they have a 10% damage buff, which, in long fights, is a MASSIVE fucking difference in DPS.
This is the reason why I would like to see a Elemental version of UR, to take advantage of the stupid amount of spell crit shamans get. Then, like Enhancement, you would be stupid not to bring at least one.
Man, it's kind of sad, that when looking through WoW-loot.com, I don't see a single proper enhancement weapon from either quests or instance drops, until Mana Tombs. What the hell Blizz?
Found this one almost by accident, something strange with wowhead search. It seems to miss quest rewards in searches.
EDIT: Probably not much of a consolation, MH and 2.8 so you won't easily find an equally slow OH. Best to just stick with dual 2.6 1-handers.
A warrior, particularly if that warrior uses a 2 hander(presumably as Arms) gets an absolutely massive dps boost from windfury. Like, that one buff alone, for one warrior, is basically equal to the difference in personal dps you're seeing(more if the warrior uses a 2 hander), let alone UR, or the difference in AP granted by a talented Strength of Earth. These last two buffs probably won't equal totem of wrath, but I would bet in general, with a good warrior in your group, the difference between elemental and enhancement is either small, or possibly favorable to the enhancement shaman, with the balance tilting either way depending on if the fight is long and requires a lot of mana, or particularly punishes melee.
Agreed, but Ele sham shouldn't be in the melee group.
Again, it depends what the needs and strengths of your group are. If you're heavy on caster DPS, it makes sense to supplement that DPS with an elemental shaman (3 % hit 3% crit + 120 spell damage), mana regen and tremor for utility.
If you're melee heavy, of course it makes more sense to bring an enhancement.
[The reason why Enhancement is seen more often, is because, on top of the totems, they have a 10% damage buff, which, in long fights, is a MASSIVE fucking difference in DPS.
It's 10% to attack power, not damage buff. 10% of say 2000 attack power is 200AP. That's an increase of like 14DPS per person. It's not a MASSIVE fucking difference. Enhance is also another melee range character that becomes a liability.
I've raided with a rogue and I retired him for a reason. I couldn't stand playing another melee class again in a raid setting. Ranged classes have it so much easier and are much less hassle for healers.
Man, it's kind of sad, that when looking through WoW-loot.com, I don't see a single proper enhancement weapon from either quests or instance drops, until Mana Tombs. What the hell Blizz?
Found this one almost by accident, something strange with wowhead search. It seems to miss quest rewards in searches.
EDIT: Probably not much of a consolation, MH and 2.8 so you won't easily find an equally slow OH. Best to just stick with dual 2.6 1-handers.
You've failed me for the last time WoW-loot!
And I'm very rusty on enhancement itemization, but your weapons don't specifically need to be close in speed for windfury do they, just as slow as possible? I'm not sure it'd matter though. The change to flametongue weapon supposedly makes it a perfectly acceptable alternative to windfury on a fast offhand, which I'd gladly use if it meant a sizeable increase in dps to my mainhand.
WF still does more damage by a pretty good margin, but the gap is smaller now. Before end game, there are certain situations where using a fast OH with FT is better, but not usually.
I think the 2.6 or slower is the goal, but slightly faster weapons are ok while working towards that goal (2.4, 2.2, etc).
When you get to level 61, AH two fists of reckoning. That will last you until high 60s / 70s. If you keep an eye out early, they can be easily had for 40-50g.
Posts
Anyone?
Steam: pazython
When you're choosing gear, you have to base your choices on something right? What are you going to base it on, your general assumptions from what you know of how hit and crit works, or tests that have been performed and presumably(I don't care enough to check all tests) looked at and studied by the other theorycrafters in a generally quite good forum for that kind of information?
You are one person saying that there's no real indication either way(and with 9% base hit my own ignorant observations would already lead me towards crit), versus the tests that haven't been generally accepted as false. It'd be great if they'd go back through and redo the tests, but until then, I don't know why I wouldn't give crit at least some preference.
QFT
EDIT: Let me clarify that I'm still not stating the simulators are 100 percent correct. However, I strongly argue that the act of raising hit to high levels lowers DPS when compared to modest amounts of hit (with the talents).
Don't we think it's reasonable that in the vast majority of cases(if not able to be assumed as 100% of cases), with 9% base hit plus maybe some small amount extra, that you will have a windfury proc every 3 seconds? If it's reasonably close, then I think their assumptions of assigning a point value to each would also not be very far off, and considering they value crit about 60% higher, it would still seem to be a accurate to favor crit.
But really, you should be convincing the theorycrafters. They're the ones that'd be willing to do a test, and if nothing else is done, I'm gonna go with preferring hit over crit, with no test showing opposite results.
That was a result of their assumption that you'd have a 100% windfury proc rate.
Regarding high levels of hit... Sacrificing ilvl to obtain hit is still stupid, but so is sacrificing ilvl to obtain crit or AP, the stats are still valuable. The weights they put on hit are extremely low because of the assumption that you have a 100% windfury proc rate, which you don't. Ever. I'm not saying hit is more valuable than any other stat, but one hit rating is certainly worth more than half one point of strength, which is what EJ would have you believe.
But when we've got tests on one side, and none on the other, I'm going to favor the side with tests, if not follow the recommendations to the fullest extent.
And how was that flaw in reasoning discovered? Testing. You seemingly want to skip straight to the new assumption part.
So if I told you that Pacific Tree frogs could not, in fact, jump. Then as a test, I tie one frog to the ground, cut another frog's legs off, have Rorus sit on a third one, and then watch them for three days. With such thorough testing you'd obviously believe that frogs really are incapable of jumping, right? I mean hell, if *three* don't...
I may have seen a frog not jump for three days, but the underlying conditions of the test are so fucked up that any conclusion you draw from it would be flawed.
And that's the problem with assuming 100% windfury proc rate.
We do care that parses of guys with high hit ratings show DPS significantly lower than guys with moderate hit ratings.
Case closed.
How many pieces of information throughout the game do we say we "know" only through extensive testing and calling these mechanics true, as opposed to knowing the actual coding?
Have you seen their EP comparisons? If that were true, hit would be at 0, rather than at 1.34 EP, or 34% better than 1 point of AP.
In the only area in which you can actually choose which stats to use, EJ recommends stamina/strength gems over +hit gems.
Oh, and a 100% windfury proc rate would make +hit nearly worthless (Just like EJ says,) the most optimistic observed proc rates are at 36% for WF/WF, which is a far cry from every swing proccing a windfury. If you're gauranteed a proc on every landed hit, then it wouldn't be important at all to land all of your hits to minimize the amount of time between windfury cooldowns.
That does not mean that you give no value to hit whatsoever.
so 8.8 whole AP is worth more than half a percent chance to hit.
The way you phrase that makes it sound like that's some amazingly incredulous thing, so you're using some basic assumptions(what are these, with what testing?) there. I mean, I certainly have always thought of hit being very valuable, but also, being much less valuable after covering special attacks, and talents go even farther than that, meanwhile I also know that crits are very important for flurry.
Not to mention UR & SF.
Anyhow, no help on my earlier post?
Steam: pazython
What if I told you speccing enhace was terrible then I cut the legs off of a frog and threw that motherf**ker into some water then traded for Johan Sanatana AND beat the New England Patriots? Any conclusion drawn from that would be fuuuuuuucccckkeeeedddd
Massive Crystal Cavern!
So...is there any Enhance loots I should look out for on my way to 70?
Stockpile honor imo
Everything else is pretty obvious
Massive Crystal Cavern!
But I see that the shaman forums are just as gloom and doom as when I left. Even with all the shit enhancement got this recent update. I'm leveling a Shaman Alliance side and I was wondering if Enhancement is good for leveling in the old world still. Also, how viable is a end game enhancement shaman now?
Is that a sufficient answer?
Er well sort of? I'm leveling two shaman right now and have been digging around on the EJ forum a bit to see what I should be doing for leveling. One of the main problems I'm having is finding a slow enough off hand weapon to not gimp my WF hits. Right now my off-hand on one shaman is way too fast and doesn't really allow for my main hand weapon to proc windfury. I'd recommend leveling as Elemental until you have enough talent points to spec for DW and be sure to have two decent weapons ready to go as well. Well that is what I've do so far and it seems to work quiet well for me, YMMV.
Enhance is probably the #2 build for PvE, though I'm sure some would argue that. It's not very good; however, if you're stacked, it's not terrible.
Worthless in PvP.
Massive Crystal Cavern!
I would think that elemental would have to have quite a personal dps lead on enhancement to make it more worthwhile than enhancement's greater(I think) group buffs.
They're both pretty bad, but I can put out around 950 DPS with a full compliment of buffs & consumables and specced strictly elemental PvE (e.g., Relentless storm, totem of wrath, and 5 second shocks - more than 40 points in ele).
Enhance, right now, I can put out 750-775ish with the stuff I have (T4 + LW set, Decapitator MH/Merc Glad. MH for off-hand). I also have dragonspine trophy, which is nice. Shock cost was a big boost for my DPS in enhance but it still pales in comparison to MY particular ele set which I work on like crazy.
It depends on what your raid is heavy in. If you've got a lot of caster DPS 41+ elemental makes more sense. If you're melee heavy a 40+ enhancement shaman makes more sense. I know DnT uses an enhance shammie.
Of course, keep in mind that, at the end of the day, you'll be asked to spec Resto.
Massive Crystal Cavern!
I don't particularly prefer Elemental in a raid setting.
I mean, it's nice, but, Locks bring AOE+Banish CC, Mages bring AOE, as well as the best CC in the game, Polymorph, and Shadowpriests are a fuckhuge awesome Mana battery, as well as their own little CC.
Tremor totem/Mana Spring/WOA just don't make up for it.
The reason why Enhancement is seen more often, is because, on top of the totems, they have a 10% damage buff, which, in long fights, is a MASSIVE fucking difference in DPS.
This is the reason why I would like to see a Elemental version of UR, to take advantage of the stupid amount of spell crit shamans get. Then, like Enhancement, you would be stupid not to bring at least one.
Found this one almost by accident, something strange with wowhead search. It seems to miss quest rewards in searches.
EDIT: Probably not much of a consolation, MH and 2.8 so you won't easily find an equally slow OH. Best to just stick with dual 2.6 1-handers.
Agreed, but Ele sham shouldn't be in the melee group.
Again, it depends what the needs and strengths of your group are. If you're heavy on caster DPS, it makes sense to supplement that DPS with an elemental shaman (3 % hit 3% crit + 120 spell damage), mana regen and tremor for utility.
If you're melee heavy, of course it makes more sense to bring an enhancement.
In the end, both builds kinda suck.
Massive Crystal Cavern!
It's 10% to attack power, not damage buff. 10% of say 2000 attack power is 200AP. That's an increase of like 14DPS per person. It's not a MASSIVE fucking difference. Enhance is also another melee range character that becomes a liability.
I've raided with a rogue and I retired him for a reason. I couldn't stand playing another melee class again in a raid setting. Ranged classes have it so much easier and are much less hassle for healers.
You've failed me for the last time WoW-loot!
And I'm very rusty on enhancement itemization, but your weapons don't specifically need to be close in speed for windfury do they, just as slow as possible? I'm not sure it'd matter though. The change to flametongue weapon supposedly makes it a perfectly acceptable alternative to windfury on a fast offhand, which I'd gladly use if it meant a sizeable increase in dps to my mainhand.
I think the 2.6 or slower is the goal, but slightly faster weapons are ok while working towards that goal (2.4, 2.2, etc).