Our Balance druid does about 3.8k last time I was in there with him about a month ago. He was second and not even fully geared yet. Balance is pretty good dps now.
Not going to get into the holy pally bit though, I know less about them than I do about rogues and I know jack and shit about them.
Mazzyx on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Wow, nice Adda. I would like to raid with people capable of such things. Perhaps some day...
Your guild name is interesting. What's that all about?
Really Aldarez, that we manage such things suprises me. We've had ex members leave and slam us for the quality of the player base so it's great that we can push on through to do this.
Well I originally played with 'Blackrock Mining Company' (best guildname ever) and they joined with 'Trial and error' to become the cheesy 'Fused'. There was another guild on alliance called 'Fate has fans' and they wanted in on the merger action in TBC so the guild turned into 'Fused has fans'.
It does always break my heart to hear of people struggling to find good guilds. We are in the top 150 world to get heroic glory done yet we struggle to get good apps. o_O
if you are willing to xfer, the sky is the limit
the people who can't find good guilds are the ones who refuse to look off-server.
not that thats a bad thing...you might have friends, or other ties, holding you to one server.
but if you cant find a good guild, its probably because you haven't looked off-server
Can you link the armory of your DK tank (or feral if you use a feral MT) post 3.0.9?
I have been getting a heck of a time with consensus to whether or not to go deep blood or pick up boneshield / amz post nerf. There hasnt been much about DK specs post 3.0.9 on EJ.
Can you link the armory of your DK tank (or feral if you use a feral MT) post 3.0.9?
I have been getting a heck of a time with consensus to whether or not to go deep blood or pick up boneshield / amz post nerf. There hasnt been much about DK specs post 3.0.9 on EJ.
Can you link the armory of your DK tank (or feral if you use a feral MT) post 3.0.9?
I have been getting a heck of a time with consensus to whether or not to go deep blood or pick up boneshield / amz post nerf. There hasnt been much about DK specs post 3.0.9 on EJ.
But the Enhance Shaman thing is all too real. It has to do with the scaling ability of caster spells and Flametongue weapon as Enhance. The recent change to the Windfury glyph almost made Flametongue on a caster mainhand the uncontested winner, but since they apparently left in the ghost +40% Ap to WF attacks in the glyph, they're about neck and neck. So the Torch and the claw are actually comparable depending on your gear.
Seems like I spoke too soon. Or late? The ghost AP was apparently hotfixed, meaning that the Torch of Holy Fire is now the genuine Best In Slot for Enhance. Outstanding...
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of enhance shaman using spellpower weapons instead of melee dps weapons. At what point does that become preferable? When you've got points into Elemental Fury?
Well, that's definitely part of it, but I wouldn't say start fishing for caster weapons as soon as you have 5/5. Though that is the time where you should definitely be using Flametongue on the offhand, at the very least.
This is mainly all theory, but here's what (I interpret) is being said:
You sort of need a certain level of gear, too. Namely because if you're relying on dual flametongue, you need spell hit cap, and a decent amount of spellpower/spell crit, which you simply get for having good normal crit and a lot of attack power due to the AP-> Spellpower conversion. Really, it's mostly about the spell hit. Getting spell hit capped is something you want to do as an Enhance raider anyways, because so much of their damage is spells.
I'm not as good at explaining mechanics, but to just sum it up real quick, Flametongue scales even better with faster weapons because while it advertises hitting harder with slower weapons and this is true, there's a flat percentage of spellpower that it gets, regardless of the speed, so it'll more damage even though hitting for less with quicker weapons. The best offhand for enhance, regardless of what Windfury is or was, is the dagger Webbed Death due to its speed. There are a couple of slow caster weapons, like the fist spellpower weapon Wraith Strike, but from what I read, you'd actually use Windfury on it. Though with this hotfix in place, perhaps Wraithstrike falls below Hammer of the Astral Plane which is nearly identical stats but fast to take best advantage of Flametongue. The Torch is the best by far, being ilevel 226, fast, and having quite a bit of spellpower.
Flametongue can also make use out of both melee and caster synergy buffs, as attack power buffs will raise AP, therefore spellpower, and spell buffs will directly help spellpower/spell damage and spell crit. So, therefore even better scaling in situations like 25 mans. Oh and an interesting thing to note is that the Glyph of Flametongue weapon gives you 2% spellcrit. Using dual flametongue will double the effects of the glyph. Something tells me that won't last long. So with the WF glyph out of the picture, you're free to pick up Flametongue or Lightning Shield glyphs. Static shock should also theoretically proc more with fast weapons as you're getting in more hits.
Also, in 25 man situations where someone else is dropping flametongue totem, I am free to drop magma to boost my dps even more. With the ton of extra spellpower I'm getting from 2 applications of flametongue and a 460 spellpower mace, it should be pulsing harder too.
Sooo, yeah. Anyways, all I really have to go off of is people's word and a dps simulator since I've only done two heroics since using this caster mace (it did fine), but I'm taking it and offhand dagger to the raid this weekend and I'll try it for myself.
I tried a crazy setup while leveling through BC content back in the day. There was a small window where I wasn't max level yet but I had enough points for 5/5 elemental fury plus the enhance talents so I started using dual frostbrand with quick, spellpower weapons instead of the traditional slow/slow windfury setup. It did well enough that it wasn't a clear cut choice between that or windfury. Without the 5/5 elemental fury though it didn't work and windfury still ended up scaling better in the long run so I reluctantly gave up on my little experiment.
And now it's actually viable to do this. The experiments will continue!
I suppose I should mention that if you go dual FT, the offhand has to use one lower rank of FT due to this pseudo-cooldown it has using two of the same rank. It's small, like a second, but it's there.
Oh, and using this setup is also aggro city, thanks to Spirit Weapons only working on physical attacks. If your tank is good it shouldn't matter, but be careful if not. Spirit Weapons will reduce aggro for all abilities come 3.1 though, thankfully.
This isn't really something viable leveling up or just doing heroics though, namely because the weapons available aren't good until Naxx. Without a lot of buffs, it's not as impressive. My test dummy... tests had pretty similar dps results between slow/slow WF/FT and fast/fast FT/FT. Granted this was before they fixed the glyph but still.
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
The notion of Enhance Shammies using Spellpower weaps is actually quite cool. I love it when abilities work out in such a way that unusual, seemingly counter-intuitive combinations are superior to the obvious abilities.
What, are you a retarded relic from early Burning Crusade?
Indeed, some of our hybrids regularly put our pure DPS to shame. Moonkin, enhancement shaman, and one exceptional shadow priest.
I really dont like the phrase hybrid as some people use it to imply that they should be doing less dps as a 'pure' dps class. An enh shaman is DPS as much as a rogue is DPS and should be capable of the same damage. It should come down to player skill / items.
Yes the shaman can respec and be a good healer too, but when specced enh, the shaman is dps. Period.
frylocked on
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
edited February 2009
Quick question - what's the appeal of the claymore from 4H in regular Naxx?
What, are you a retarded relic from early Burning Crusade?
Indeed, some of our hybrids regularly put our pure DPS to shame. Moonkin, enhancement shaman, and one exceptional shadow priest.
I really dont like the phrase hybrid as some people use it to imply that they should be doing less dps as a 'pure' dps class. An enh shaman is DPS as much as a rogue is DPS and should be capable of the same damage. It should come down to player skill / items.
According to Blizzard, they try to balance hybrids to do about 5% less damage.
Of course, Blizzard also says that the 5% will probably be obscured by skill differences (and gear).
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
I really dont like the phrase hybrid as some people use it to imply that they should be doing less dps as a 'pure' dps class. An enh shaman is DPS as much as a rogue is DPS and should be capable of the same damage. It should come down to player skill / items.
Yes the shaman can respec and be a good healer too, but when specced enh, the shaman is dps. Period.
Unfortunately Blizzard does still make a distinction. In their current design philosophy, if you take two players of equal skill and gear, the warlock/mage is supposed to be posting like 5% more damage than the moonkin. It's no longer "the shadow priest should be 30% behind the pure DPSers" but there is still meant to be some disparity.
The difference, assuming the classes are all balanced, is supposed to be something to the tune of 5%. If every class topped up at 5,000 DPS, that'd mean the hybrids would optimally hit 4750. So close as to be completely eliminated by RNG.
However, right now things are far from balanced. I don't even think it'd be useful to go into examples because just about every aspect of cross-class DPS potential balance is off by large degrees. Until blizzard fixes it, I'll be sitting at spot 1-3 as a hybrid. Or, I guess, until our other mages figure out that they can do 6k dps on demand, I guess.
Dehumanized on
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AngryThe glory I had witnessedwas just a sleight of handRegistered Userregular
"Pure" dps class denotes that you're incapable of speccing for anything other than DPS (or PvP). Mages, Warlocks, Rogues, Hunters. That's pretty much it. Everything else is a hybrid.
The "5% difference" deal is pretty much a joke. That much of a disparity, as Dehumanized suggested, can easily be lost in RNG, gear, "skill," etc. It's basically so that when pure classes complain, Blizzard can turn around and say "well it's only 5%, it's possible that the hybrid dps was better geared/skilled than you, had a better connection, the fight favored his playstyle, blah blah blah." I doubt it's something they're actually balancing for.
Does this apply to fury warriors and DKs as well? We are as 'hybridy' but pump out the dps.
It is supposed to. Any class that can perform two roles as part of their class design (tanking and DPS as roles) should be affected by the hybrid tax. As I mentioned in my earlier post, however, shit is broken unbalanced right now.
Does this apply to fury warriors and DKs as well? We are as 'hybridy' but pump out the dps.
It is supposed to. Any class that can perform two roles as part of their class design (tanking and DPS as roles) should be affected by the hybrid tax. As I mentioned in my earlier post, however, shit is broken unbalanced right now.
I would gladly lose the ability to tank to not have a "hybrid tax" imposed on me. They should make it optional to completely dump a talent tree and give me +5% DPS in return! Not that warriors are hurting right now.
They'll never, ever get balance close enough to reflect the hybrid tax. Classes will be unbalanced either above or below some average, and you just have to hope your class is currently in the overpowered category at a given time.
Dehumanized on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2009
The hybrid tax is dumb and the people who suggest it are likewise dumb.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
My guess is that dual-FT will be nerfed into the ground. Enhancement rocking x2 FT with a caster weapon was something that happened in beta, and Blizzard went out of its way to turn Enhancement away from it. This is why Lava Burst is no longer affected by Maelstrom Weapon, because the return on spellpower was getting too high.
This latest development brings a question up, though, that Blizzard needs to do a little thinking on. Since spells are so much a part of Enhancement shaman DPS now, maybe it's time to stop jamming a square peg in a round hole and rework the spec.
Alternatively, take away AP->Spellpower conversion and instead make Shamans able to gain spellpower benefit on every weapon, sort of like how Druids now get Feral AP off of every weapon.
It's dumb to get annoyed about a mechanic that won't get reflected in the game itself ever.
Especially when the problem has virtually been solved compared to how limited classes were before either expansion. The game accommodates way more builds than it used to.
It's dumb to get annoyed about a mechanic that won't get reflected in the game itself ever.
Yeah, it's really not very measurable. dps usually varies in amounts larger than 5% of each other anyway.
Generally, I think it's an attempt to prevent "pure" classes from becoming irrelevant. Expanding "pure class" utility might be a better way to go here though.
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
Can you link the armory of your DK tank (or feral if you use a feral MT) post 3.0.9?
I have been getting a heck of a time with consensus to whether or not to go deep blood or pick up boneshield / amz post nerf. There hasnt been much about DK specs post 3.0.9 on EJ.
Can you link the armory of your DK tank (or feral if you use a feral MT) post 3.0.9?
I have been getting a heck of a time with consensus to whether or not to go deep blood or pick up boneshield / amz post nerf. There hasnt been much about DK specs post 3.0.9 on EJ.
That's pretty standard. Most would skip the dps stuff at the bottom of unholy and get Imp IT though. I like the heavier blood build, but then again, I haven't killed them yet.
And further, why would a tank actively skip avoidance talents o.O
Looks like either a weird PvP spec, or a weird "hybrid" dps/tank spec. At any rate, I guarantee he's not tanking sarth with that.
It's dumb to get annoyed about a mechanic that won't get reflected in the game itself ever.
Yeah, it's really not very measurable. dps usually varies in amounts larger than 5% of each other anyway.
Generally, I think it's an attempt to prevent "pure" classes from becoming irrelevant. Expanding "pure class" utility might be a better way to go here though.
And some of the utility they added was a little too late to be useful. Look at tricks of the trade. How awesome would it have been to have that ability in TBC. Now with better threat scaling it's kind of meh. Hell, give rogues Heroism.
Thomamelas on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2009
Rogue heroism would be nice.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
It kills two birds with one stone. It gives people a reason to bring rogues and it reduces the "OMG Must have Shaman!" mindset. And you can do it without slaughtering game balance since heroism is a tested ability. Well you might get some complaints from Arena players but hey, one keeps one's pimp hand strong for a reason.
Posts
Not going to get into the holy pally bit though, I know less about them than I do about rogues and I know jack and shit about them.
if you are willing to xfer, the sky is the limit
the people who can't find good guilds are the ones who refuse to look off-server.
not that thats a bad thing...you might have friends, or other ties, holding you to one server.
but if you cant find a good guild, its probably because you haven't looked off-server
Do DK tanks not need to be defense capped?
And further, why would a tank actively skip avoidance talents o.O
Oh we totally do, just like every other tank(except Feral Druids of course).
Seems like I spoke too soon. Or late? The ghost AP was apparently hotfixed, meaning that the Torch of Holy Fire is now the genuine Best In Slot for Enhance. Outstanding...
This is mainly all theory, but here's what (I interpret) is being said:
You sort of need a certain level of gear, too. Namely because if you're relying on dual flametongue, you need spell hit cap, and a decent amount of spellpower/spell crit, which you simply get for having good normal crit and a lot of attack power due to the AP-> Spellpower conversion. Really, it's mostly about the spell hit. Getting spell hit capped is something you want to do as an Enhance raider anyways, because so much of their damage is spells.
I'm not as good at explaining mechanics, but to just sum it up real quick, Flametongue scales even better with faster weapons because while it advertises hitting harder with slower weapons and this is true, there's a flat percentage of spellpower that it gets, regardless of the speed, so it'll more damage even though hitting for less with quicker weapons. The best offhand for enhance, regardless of what Windfury is or was, is the dagger Webbed Death due to its speed. There are a couple of slow caster weapons, like the fist spellpower weapon Wraith Strike, but from what I read, you'd actually use Windfury on it. Though with this hotfix in place, perhaps Wraithstrike falls below Hammer of the Astral Plane which is nearly identical stats but fast to take best advantage of Flametongue. The Torch is the best by far, being ilevel 226, fast, and having quite a bit of spellpower.
Flametongue can also make use out of both melee and caster synergy buffs, as attack power buffs will raise AP, therefore spellpower, and spell buffs will directly help spellpower/spell damage and spell crit. So, therefore even better scaling in situations like 25 mans. Oh and an interesting thing to note is that the Glyph of Flametongue weapon gives you 2% spellcrit. Using dual flametongue will double the effects of the glyph. Something tells me that won't last long. So with the WF glyph out of the picture, you're free to pick up Flametongue or Lightning Shield glyphs. Static shock should also theoretically proc more with fast weapons as you're getting in more hits.
Also, in 25 man situations where someone else is dropping flametongue totem, I am free to drop magma to boost my dps even more. With the ton of extra spellpower I'm getting from 2 applications of flametongue and a 460 spellpower mace, it should be pulsing harder too.
Sooo, yeah. Anyways, all I really have to go off of is people's word and a dps simulator since I've only done two heroics since using this caster mace (it did fine), but I'm taking it and offhand dagger to the raid this weekend and I'll try it for myself.
And now it's actually viable to do this. The experiments will continue!
Oh, and using this setup is also aggro city, thanks to Spirit Weapons only working on physical attacks. If your tank is good it shouldn't matter, but be careful if not. Spirit Weapons will reduce aggro for all abilities come 3.1 though, thankfully.
This isn't really something viable leveling up or just doing heroics though, namely because the weapons available aren't good until Naxx. Without a lot of buffs, it's not as impressive. My test dummy... tests had pretty similar dps results between slow/slow WF/FT and fast/fast FT/FT. Granted this was before they fixed the glyph but still.
Battle.net
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Indeed, some of our hybrids regularly put our pure DPS to shame. Moonkin, enhancement shaman, and one exceptional shadow priest.
I really dont like the phrase hybrid as some people use it to imply that they should be doing less dps as a 'pure' dps class. An enh shaman is DPS as much as a rogue is DPS and should be capable of the same damage. It should come down to player skill / items.
Yes the shaman can respec and be a good healer too, but when specced enh, the shaman is dps. Period.
According to Blizzard, they try to balance hybrids to do about 5% less damage.
Of course, Blizzard also says that the 5% will probably be obscured by skill differences (and gear).
Unfortunately Blizzard does still make a distinction. In their current design philosophy, if you take two players of equal skill and gear, the warlock/mage is supposed to be posting like 5% more damage than the moonkin. It's no longer "the shadow priest should be 30% behind the pure DPSers" but there is still meant to be some disparity.
However, right now things are far from balanced. I don't even think it'd be useful to go into examples because just about every aspect of cross-class DPS potential balance is off by large degrees. Until blizzard fixes it, I'll be sitting at spot 1-3 as a hybrid. Or, I guess, until our other mages figure out that they can do 6k dps on demand, I guess.
what? what kind of question is that?
No kidding. Huge fucking swords are always appealing.
Does this apply to fury warriors and DKs as well? We are as 'hybridy' but pump out the dps.
The "5% difference" deal is pretty much a joke. That much of a disparity, as Dehumanized suggested, can easily be lost in RNG, gear, "skill," etc. It's basically so that when pure classes complain, Blizzard can turn around and say "well it's only 5%, it's possible that the hybrid dps was better geared/skilled than you, had a better connection, the fight favored his playstyle, blah blah blah." I doubt it's something they're actually balancing for.
It is supposed to. Any class that can perform two roles as part of their class design (tanking and DPS as roles) should be affected by the hybrid tax. As I mentioned in my earlier post, however, shit is broken unbalanced right now.
I would gladly lose the ability to tank to not have a "hybrid tax" imposed on me. They should make it optional to completely dump a talent tree and give me +5% DPS in return! Not that warriors are hurting right now.
This latest development brings a question up, though, that Blizzard needs to do a little thinking on. Since spells are so much a part of Enhancement shaman DPS now, maybe it's time to stop jamming a square peg in a round hole and rework the spec.
Alternatively, take away AP->Spellpower conversion and instead make Shamans able to gain spellpower benefit on every weapon, sort of like how Druids now get Feral AP off of every weapon.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Yeah, it's really not very measurable. dps usually varies in amounts larger than 5% of each other anyway.
Generally, I think it's an attempt to prevent "pure" classes from becoming irrelevant. Expanding "pure class" utility might be a better way to go here though.
Looks like either a weird PvP spec, or a weird "hybrid" dps/tank spec. At any rate, I guarantee he's not tanking sarth with that.
Like they did when TBC came out? Aurastone Hammer used to be a one-handed weapon.
Yeah, caster weapons have been MH only for a long time.
Except Maelstrom's Fury. That had like, a year, I think, of being one-handed before it got change to mh.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
And some of the utility they added was a little too late to be useful. Look at tricks of the trade. How awesome would it have been to have that ability in TBC. Now with better threat scaling it's kind of meh. Hell, give rogues Heroism.
It kills two birds with one stone. It gives people a reason to bring rogues and it reduces the "OMG Must have Shaman!" mindset. And you can do it without slaughtering game balance since heroism is a tested ability. Well you might get some complaints from Arena players but hey, one keeps one's pimp hand strong for a reason.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat