Replies to Comments & Questions
Thanks everyone for the comments. Your feedback means a lot to me so keep it coming. Here are two questions/comments posted earlier, and one request from me.
Bert asked: so for 3.0.2, what do you reckon to be the weapon speed of choice? since maelstrom weap deals 25% xtra dmg for OH, when imbued with FW, I was thinking of using a faster OH (i got bad mojo dagger and swiftsteel bludgeon)
Bert, the Slow/Slow WF/WF is still shown to be better than the Slow/Fast WF/FT combo, even with the extra damage for MW. It’s only between 2-5% better according to my theorycrafting and what I’ve read of others. 2-5% is really splitting hairs at some levels, especially now in World of Nerfcraft. But at an end-game raiding level where wipes at 1% on bosses are as common as Warriors whirlwinding sheeps that 2-5% extra DPS can make the difference. If I were you I’d hang on to that dagger and the bludgeon in case they want to make Fast/FT the ideal OH combo. But for now if that 2-5% makes a difference then I’d go with Slow/Slow WF/WF. If it doesn’t make that much of a difference then have fun with it!
Jaron (Azjol-Nerub) adds: Right now I have my enhance shammy specced w/ full pts in static shock and imp shields. I don't fool with Lava Lash at all at 70. Is Elem-Dev really that much better? I'm playing with EnhSim and not seeing much difference. I pvp enough to enjoy the better LS (especially with the glyph!).
The thing with Ele Dev that people love is the synergy it creates between melee and casting—which is the essence of Enhance right now. Since we cast a spell on every GCD (well, except when SS is available) Ele Dev should proc regularly and should have an uptime between 35% and 40%. That’s a 9% increase to Crit 40% of the time. It’s like Sex Panther by Odeon “60% of the time it works every time.” Ele Dev isn’t made with bits of real panther, but it is damn fine.
As for Ele Dev vs Static Shock, what is the difference that you are seeing Jaron? I’m a hardcore min-maxer so I obsess over squeezing every last drop of dps out of my Stoneybaby. I also believe raiders have a responsibility to their fellow guildmates to maximize their potential. If it comes down to 5% difference or less, that could be negligible for some but not for me. If you’re talking 10% difference in DPS then I can’t condone that.
Ultimately it comes down having fun playing your class. And I do really want to try out the Static Shock. I was just saying last night that I haven’t PvP’d on Stoney since August and I want to get back to it. That 0/61/0 spec you have Jaron is exactly one of the ones I’ve been eyeing! I’m considering yours and 5/56/0. What do you think of those? Maybe this weekend I’ll respect and glyph it up and see how it goes.
Finally, keep the comments coming. I appreciate the input and I want to know what’s working for you. I’ll keep you informed of my findings (new EnhSim is up btw and my armory profile is finally updated) and if you find a spec/gear/chant/gem combo that’s really singing for you in PvE or PvP post us a link to your armory and details on what’s working for you
Thanks again and stay tuned for more!
Bert asked: so for 3.0.2, what do you reckon to be the weapon speed of choice? since maelstrom weap deals 25% xtra dmg for OH, when imbued with FW, I was thinking of using a faster OH (i got bad mojo dagger and swiftsteel bludgeon)
Bert, the Slow/Slow WF/WF is still shown to be better than the Slow/Fast WF/FT combo, even with the extra damage for MW. It’s only between 2-5% better according to my theorycrafting and what I’ve read of others. 2-5% is really splitting hairs at some levels, especially now in World of Nerfcraft. But at an end-game raiding level where wipes at 1% on bosses are as common as Warriors whirlwinding sheeps that 2-5% extra DPS can make the difference. If I were you I’d hang on to that dagger and the bludgeon in case they want to make Fast/FT the ideal OH combo. But for now if that 2-5% makes a difference then I’d go with Slow/Slow WF/WF. If it doesn’t make that much of a difference then have fun with it!
Jaron (Azjol-Nerub) adds: Right now I have my enhance shammy specced w/ full pts in static shock and imp shields. I don't fool with Lava Lash at all at 70. Is Elem-Dev really that much better? I'm playing with EnhSim and not seeing much difference. I pvp enough to enjoy the better LS (especially with the glyph!).
The thing with Ele Dev that people love is the synergy it creates between melee and casting—which is the essence of Enhance right now. Since we cast a spell on every GCD (well, except when SS is available) Ele Dev should proc regularly and should have an uptime between 35% and 40%. That’s a 9% increase to Crit 40% of the time. It’s like Sex Panther by Odeon “60% of the time it works every time.” Ele Dev isn’t made with bits of real panther, but it is damn fine.
As for Ele Dev vs Static Shock, what is the difference that you are seeing Jaron? I’m a hardcore min-maxer so I obsess over squeezing every last drop of dps out of my Stoneybaby. I also believe raiders have a responsibility to their fellow guildmates to maximize their potential. If it comes down to 5% difference or less, that could be negligible for some but not for me. If you’re talking 10% difference in DPS then I can’t condone that.
Ultimately it comes down having fun playing your class. And I do really want to try out the Static Shock. I was just saying last night that I haven’t PvP’d on Stoney since August and I want to get back to it. That 0/61/0 spec you have Jaron is exactly one of the ones I’ve been eyeing! I’m considering yours and 5/56/0. What do you think of those? Maybe this weekend I’ll respect and glyph it up and see how it goes.
Finally, keep the comments coming. I appreciate the input and I want to know what’s working for you. I’ll keep you informed of my findings (new EnhSim is up btw and my armory profile is finally updated) and if you find a spec/gear/chant/gem combo that’s really singing for you in PvE or PvP post us a link to your armory and details on what’s working for you
Thanks again and stay tuned for more!
posted by Rich @ 12:24 PM
6 Comments:
At October 28, 2008 4:48 PM ,
Jaron (Azjol-Nerub) said...
Thanks for the nice response to my brief post. I've played some now with EnhSim. An Elem-Dev spec similar to yours does in fact give about a 3% bump in damage over my current spec, so I totally agree that it is optimum for raiding. Our guild is extremely raid-casual, although we're well into BT since the nerf-patch. We tend to raid for 3 hrs at a shot, down a couple bosses, then wind down with some quality time killing in the bg's. When we do PVP, I see a huge bump from Static shock + Imp shields + LS glyph, so I plan to keep my build as is for now. I could definately see tweaking it even more towards pvp or optimizing for raiding as you have, but I'll trod the middle ground for a bit. Maybe when the dual spec system is implemented I can set up my pvp and raid specs separately to fully optimize them both.
I also found that for my build and stats (some badge gear, some MH/BT stuff) I get a ~1% improvement for FT on a slow off hand over WF on the slow off hand. I raid with the syphon in my MH(nice and slow, sweet WF!) and Vanir's (2.5) in my OH. This is contrary to your findings in a previous thread. Apparently this is a very gear dependent point. I've gemmed using ep-values from the sim recursively, and I think I've optimized the gear I have.
So what I'm doing now is raiding Syphon/Vanir's with WF/FT. Then I PVP with CoMF/Syphon with WF/WF. The idea being that for pvp, burst is king.
As for the 5/56 build, I think if I were to put 5 pts in the elemental tree, I'd find a way to go ahead and put in the other three for ED. I couldn't live with being that close to it and not grabbing it, although it's unclear from where in the enhance tree I'd find the points.
At October 29, 2008 6:05 PM ,
Konstantinus said...
Heey, i've been reading up on your blog for a couple weeks. It's hard to find anyone being current on the Enhance issues and its great to see alot of info from a top raiders perspective. Helps starters out alot. I've been somewhat confused with the 3.0 changes and with AGI and Int (with talents) adding to AP was wondering if that Jungle stalkers helm was better then the Grimgrin faceguard you have currently. Im currently following the updated maxdps.com item list to find out what i need to change. i dont expect to get most of it with 2 weeks till expansion but still would be pretty cool. I also dont really know how this response works so im including my shamans name with the armory link. Any advice would be great.
At October 30, 2008 8:29 AM ,
Jaron (Azjol-Nerub) said...
konstantinus,
I've wondered the same thing. If you run EnhSim and use the ep values for your gear, lootrank.com will give you an idea which of the two ZA hats is better. For me, it is nearly a toss up. However, the Grimgrin gives a lot of hit and I need that to make it to the spellhit cap. So, the answer to your question depends quite a bit on your gear set.
At October 30, 2008 9:40 AM ,
Rich said...
Jaron you're right about the gear dependency of WF vs FT. very interesting that you get about 1% increase for FT on a slow OH. I wonder if the speed sifference between syphon and vanir contributes to that? I haven't seen the syphon drop in a while but if I do I'd definitely spend DKP on it!
Konstantinus I have to agree with Jaron on this one. The +hit on the grimgrin makes it a very nice piece. Since you're horde you don't get the extra 1% hit that the alliance does, so you need to hit 177 hit. I would take the grimgrin. In fact, I do take the grimgrin for myself :D.
As for gems, as long as you are hit-capped you then want to gem for AP, Crit, and Agi. Armory is down this morning so I can't look at your profile. Will check you out later.
As for websites, Wowhead also has a gear value filter where you can plug in your EP values. Here's the link to the one I was using:
Stoney's EP
At October 30, 2008 7:22 PM ,
Konstantinus said...
Thanks alot for the responses. Guess the +hit is the deciding factor. Also it seems like My armory page is not updating from me being elemental 2 weeks ago. dont know whats going on with that. might be updated after the maintenance today.
At October 30, 2008 9:59 PM ,
Rich said...
Yeah it took 10 days for my armory profile to update. Blizz must be busy with _something_ over there =p
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