Second Most Popular

PoaH update.

Turns out I'm the second most popular Path on PoaH. How do I know this? The first most popular guy made a comment to me congratulating me on being the SECOND most popular... hmmm.

Here's today's post:
I didn't buy the Savage Gladiator's Totem like I intended... because it doesn't exist in game yet. But I did spend some DKP on a new chest piece, then bought boots to match. I also picked up the Mirror of Truth and put on a pair of gloves without hit rating to keep my Hit at a decent level.

I now have 2 chest pieces, 2 bracers, 3 gloves, 2 belts, 2 boots, and 4 trinkets that I keep in my bags. Why? because they all have varying amounts of hit and if I want an upgrade and I need to increase or decrease my hit then I have choices in my bags. For example if Sapphiron drops Bandit's Insignia then I have a choice if I want to use that and Mirror of Truth, thus losing the 83 hit on Grim Toll. It's a constant balancing act.

Grim Toll & Hit Caps

PoaH Update
Every time I get a new piece of loot I have to reconfigure my gear to get as close to the hit cap without going under. Grim Toll is a very nice upgrade and while there are better upgrades to be had in Naxx25, the time was right and I was next up on DKP. Glad I got it; it's a crapton of hit.

I tried using the ShareThis feature to publish directly to my blog but it didn't seem to work. Will be interesting to see if I end up with 3 posts tomorrow here or if they all go to the wrong blog. Anyway, if you are on PoaH hit me up as a rival. It's a fun site.

Hitting Hit Cap at 80

OK my fellow enhancers it's time to hit the hit cap. Or at least start preparing to maybe eventually possibly get ready to kinda get close to thinking about hitting the hit cap.

Are you ready for the final number? The goal, the target, the must-hit-this-hit-in-order-to-hit-bosses in raids in WotLK. Are you ready for it?

No, you're not.
Really.
I about fell out of my chair when I read the number.



367 for Horde
341 for Alliance

Ouch.

That number represents the spell hit cap, not the dual-wielding hit cap. It's been shown that we really only need to hit the spell cap in order to maximize our dps. Anything above that is OK, but going above it by much is not worth the trade-off in loss of other stats.

Once you get up off the floor from the initial shock of having to tack on another 190 or 177 hit rating let's take a look at why this isn't going to be so terrible.

First, the stats on gear and gems has been increased, so if you were able to hit the hit-cap before then you should be able to hit it again once you get up to 80 and start raiding. Just by replacing three pieces on my gear I am able to get to 210 with quest rewards greens/blues. Those pieces now make up my "Dungeon Hit" set in Outfitter. I expect by the time I get the next 5 levels I'll be up in the high 200's or low 300's just off reward gear.

Second, that's the hit cap. It's a hard cap but it's just a target. To maximize DPS you don't want to socket 100% hit gems and wear only greens with +hit while sacrificing other stats like AP, Crit, and Agi. There's a lot of ways to max your dps so keep your eye on the big picture when considering hit upgrades. Just as a guess, I would estimate getting up to 300+ is a raiding minimum requirement, but I'm interested in your opinions/findings on that.

Third, there's a lot of gear out there with +hit on it. Here's a search with EP filters I ran on Wowhead that lists everything in WotLK that is either Mail or Leather and has +Hit. It is sorted by total EP value. (Jaron, can you create a similar search on lootrank.com? I'm a wowhead user and have limited time here at work today)

Fourth, gems, consumables, and enchants. Clickyclick for links. The "consumables" includes links to enchants (listed as scrolls) and other than the enchants there are not many consumables to tap into. One elixir and one food buff. However, if you pop both of those you'll be putting 85 hit on yourself, which is a pretty significant number.

Fifth, the new head glyph for WotLK does not have hit, so if you're not Revered with CE and you need hit rating, you best get ye to Outlands (or rather the AH) and grind up some CE rep for the Arcanum of Ferocity.

OK so those numbers are not impossible and shouldn't be too hard to hit, especially if you use the consumables.

Happy hitting!

Enhancement Points for 3.0.2

OK. After running the EnhSim tool with Slow/Slow WF/WF and my best rotation among the five spells, I came out with current EP values. Keep in mind these are relevant to my current gear. That means two things
1) I am going to change my gear based on these values and then run the simulator again
2) they may not be relevant to you if you were at a lower or higher progression level than me

But what the hell, they can make for a nice baseline for all of us:

AP	1.00
Crit Rating	1.87
Hit Rating	2.53
Expertise Rating	3.02
Haste Rating	1.49
Armor Pen. Rating	1.40
Spellpower	0.48
Strength	1.00
Agility	1.79
Intelligence	1.17
MH DPS	6.80
OH DPS	4.13

What I find interesting is the high value for Hit Rating. That is interesting because I ran the calculations assuming I was already hit capped. What I'll do is just treat it like I used to treat Defense on my feral druid: it is the single most important stat until capped, then when capped its EP value goes to zero. (FYI in case you missed my post below, the hit cap for Alliance is 164 and it's 177 for Horde).

Next step is to plug these into my EP calculation spreadsheet and see what I need to replace.

Hitting Hit Cap

It has been determined by the brain trust at Elitist Jerks that there is now a specific hit rating that Enhance Shamans must reach. That is 177 for Horde and 164 for Alliance. (Alliance shamans benefit from the Draenei aura that gives +1% Chance to Hit)

There a lot of ways that you can reach the hit cap, the key is to do so without gimping the rest of your stats. Here are some of the easiest ways to get up to the hit cap including buffs, rep rewards, and easy-to-get rings:

1. Arcanum (formerly Glyph) of Ferocity +16 - CE Revered - If you don't have this you better start grinding CE rep now!
2. Spicy Hot Talbuk +20 - kill them 'buks!
   
3. Enchant Gloves Precise Strikes +15 - 6 GPE, 2 AD, 2 LPS
   
4. Violet Signet of the Master Assassin +25 - Kot Exalted & Quests
5. Ashyen's Gift +21 - CE Exalted
6. Fused Nethergon Band +28 - 60 BoJ
   
7. Garona's Signet Ring +18 - Curator
8. Ring of a Thousand Marks +19 - Prince Mal
9. Shaffar's Band of Brutality +19 - Heroic Mana Tombs
   

As for Stoney, I'm hitting hit cap by doing the following:

• +24 Grimgrin Faceguard
• +16 Arcanum of Ferocity
• +20 Pauldrons of Primal Fury
• +23 Belt of the Silent Path
• +17 Softstep Boots of Tracking
• +25 Violet Signet of the Master Assassin
• +21 Vanir's Left Fist of Savagery (or Brutality)
• +20 Spicy Hot Talbuk

For a total of 166 Hit Rating. It's 2 points over the cap, but it was the best I could come up with based on my current available gear, and without regemming anything.

Pawn Values for Enhancement

Pawn. It's an add-on that allows you to assign weighted values for different stats (i.e., Strength or Haste or Hit Rating). It then multiplies each stat by the weighted value and sums it up for total score. This allows you to compare items according to your own customized scale. This scale for Enhancement Shamans is often referred to as "Enhancement Points" which is a spin on the mod that started this concept "Tank Points."

If you've ever wondered, is this piece better than what I've got now Pawn helps figure that out in-game.

With Unorthodox clearing deeper into BT I figured it was time to look at my gear choices and compare those to the loots we're seeing drop. Here are the values I plugged in for Stoney:

Stat	EP
Attack Power	1.00
Strength	2.20
Agility	1.50
Hit Rating	1.21
Crit Rating	1.54
Haste Rating	1.38
Armor Pen.	0.18
Expertise	3.37
Red Socket	22.00
Yellow Socket	18.69
Blue Socket	11.00
Meta Socket	25.00
MH DPS	9.03
OH DPS	3.70

Now keep in mind these are my own customized values built around our current progression level. That is, they are probably best suited for those of you at the T6 level.

Reapplying these values I took a hard look at my gear and made some significant changes. It all started when one of our raiders was on her Enhance Shaman alt and asked me why I was wearing the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve. My answer was that I wanted the extra hit and expertise, and that the stam didn't hurt for heavy damage boss encounters. This got me thinking... was this really the best use of my gearing options?

After applying the Enhancement Points and looking at my gear I realized I could get my +hit from other sources and use a better neck piece.

I ended up replacing Coif of the Jungle Stalker with Grimgrin Faceguard that keeps my AP and damage output up there while bringing in the hit I need to replace the tanking SSO neck. Next I replaced that neck with the Shattered Sun Pendant of Might. Just those two swaps ended up being a total gain of nearly 74 EP for me which should translate into slightly more damage over the long haul.

For those of you not at the T6 level or interested in reading more into this I recommend going to Elitist Jerks (of course) and getting their recommended scales. But in case you are too lazy to click... here they are for your enjoyment:

Stat	T4 EP	T5 EP	T6 EP	Sunwell
Attack Power	1	1	1	1
Strength	2.2	2.2	2.2	2.2
Agility	1.91	2	1.69	1.89
Crit Rating	1.97	2	1.74	1.94
Haste Rating	1.28	1.48	1.82	1.98
Hit Rating	1.34	1.4	1.69	1.8
Armor Penetration	0.22	0.28	0.35	0.41
Expertise Rating	3	3	3.18	3.53

* assumes you have Blessing of Kings

As you can see my personal EP values differ slightly which is the result of extensive modeling I did for myself on Yo's Simulator.

Good luck setting up your values. Post any questions you have about EP or gear and I'll be happy to help.

WotLK Changes 7/25 & 8/1

Continuing right along with the changes for Enhancement Shamans in WotLK using my Nobel-nominated SEESWARS system let's start with three massive and entirely horrible changes.

Weapon Specialization: Removed. (Axe - Increases the critical strike damage bonus by 5/10/15/20/25%. Mace - Has a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to increase your melee haste by 10% for 15 sec. Fist - Attacks from your fist weapons have a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to reduce the armor of your target by 20% for 6 sec.)
SEESWARS - 5
This was a great talent. I was thoroughly excited to see how this would play out in end game and with gearing selections. I was particularly excited by the Axes effect which would increase crit damage and scale with gear. But instead it's replaced with this half-assed piece of shit talent:

Maelstrom Weapon - When you critically hit with a melee weapon, you reduce the cast time of your next spell by 4/8/12/16/20%. Stacks up to 5 times. Lasts 15 seconds. (5 Ranks)
SEESWARS - 4
I have to sink 5 talent points, then crit 5 times in order to get a free cast of a spell that I would otherwise never freakin use because... I'M MELEE SPEC!! Hi, news flash: Enhancement is the MELEE tree. When I first saw this change I had to read it twice and then double check they didn't suddenly move the Elemental tree over to the middle. But there it is as plain as day: a melee talent being replaced by a caster talent, not in the first two ranks but as the 46 point talent.

There is a decent discussion happening on the comments section of Wowhead for this talent with most posters excited to combine it with an Elemental Devastation build. In the comment thread runjah makes the most important point but is unfortunately buried as a reply towards the bottom of the page. His words that are the make-or-break for this talent: it resets the swing timer.

I'll say that again for the kids in the back row: IT RESETS THE SWING TIMER! That means working in a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or the new Lava Burst will throw off your Windfury procs in the worst case scenario, in the best case you'll have to carefully time your insta-spells with your WF internal cooldown, your Stormstrikes, and your shocks.

Maybe I'm being bitter here because they took away Weapon Specialization which was such a cool talent. Maybe I'm being bitter because they are forcing the Elemental Devastation build on me (currently that build is garbage, but that may all change as you'll soon see). Or maybe I'm just being lazy and I don't want to have to time my shocks with my Stormstrikes with my WF with my Lava Bursts.

There are two rays of hope here. First one poster commented that Blizzard already changed the talent to work for every spell, though the tooltip does not yet reflect the change. And secondly, one commenter speculated they mean for it to NOT reset your swing timers. If that comes to pass then I will revise my rating. But for now I'm not happy about it.

Anyone out there with a beta key willing to test this one out extensively? Does it reset your swing timer? Does it throw off your WF procs? Would it be worth it to spend 5 points in this purely for DPS' sake?


Nature's Guidance is missing from the Restoration tree.
SEESWARS - 5
There is no mention of it in the WotLKWiki.info site but I stumbled across this little tidbit while mocking up a few builds. If I could give this a worse rating I would. 'Hello, welcome to Northrend, please turn all of your current gems for +Hit ones. Thank you and enjoy your stay.' What an absolutely horrid thing to do. It was one of the great things about an enhance shaman, we didn't have to stack Hit Rating like an idiot (i.e., rogue) because we got 3% from Nature's Guidance and 6% from Dual Wield Specialization. Not so anymore. We now have another 3% hit to make up after this loss.

The only bright side here I already alluded to above: this could make the Elemental Devastation build a viable one for Enhance Shamans. Regardless, we will be forced to sacrifice other stats for hit rating when we didn't have to do so before.


The range of all “friendly totems” has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
SEESWARS - 1
I felt like injecting some good news. Yay 30 yard totems! As a result, Totemic Mastery was removed. With Nature's Guidance gone, Totemic Mastery implicit in all totems, and Totemic Focus a 1st tier talent, the Elemental Devastation Build is looking more viable.


Shamanistic Rage now gives your successful melee attacks a chance to regenerate mana equal to 15% of your attack power. (Old version : mana regeneration equal to 30% of your attack power)
SEESWARS - 4
Only a slight nerf compared to the blasts above, but a nerf nonetheless. Why must you punish us Blizzard? And why must you constantly mess with Shammy Rage? At first it was 15% for 30 seconds, then 30% for 15 seconds. Then you added the reduced damage component. Next came Improved Shammy Rage. Which was subsequently taken away. And now the effectiveness of this ability is halved with one hand while the other hand serves up insta-spell casts.


Feral Spirit now lasts 45 seconds instead of 30 seconds.
SEESWARS - 3
I don't even have the heart to get into how incredibly mediocre this 51 point talent will be. I've read rumors of the wolves getting stun or some other ability. If that happens then maybe... but until then this is a bit fat MEH. For me it comes down to the question of the usage of the talent point. Just because it's there doesn't mean we need to use it. Are these wolves going to be the Shaman version of treants, or will they have some additional usage like a Shadowfiend or the ever annoying Water Elemental?

Farewell Fire-Toasted Buns

Let's have a moment of silence for my Fire-toasted Buns.

...

Today they all expired and disappeared. I did all the Mid-Summer Festival quests and had enough Burning Blossoms to not only buy the Brazier of Dancing Flames, but also well over 100 Fire-toasted Buns. Who could resist those buns? They are too good to pass up, those delicious, hot, sexy buns that give you 20 free hit rating in addition to your food buff.

But alas, like any good bun they have a limited shelf life. These were given the 14 days played that we first saw with the flying brooms in Hallow's End. I did my best to stretch out their lifetime. I bought them on the very last day of the festival. I played alts. I did my grinding and farming on other toons. I swapped back to Stoney only just before raid start time. I even took some time off from raiding (well, that was to travel to go see a concert). But in the end, 14 days played is still 14 days played and my buns expired.

Fare thee well, Fire-toasted buns, fare thee well. You will be missed.

Bow-Stitched Leggings

I knew it. Bow-Stitched Leggings. I knew they would drop. And they did tonight. Being highest on DKP among mail wearers I got them. But I lose 21 hit rating by dropping Cataclysm Legplates.

But I was ready for this and had badges saved up for Belt of the Silent Path to replace Bladeangel's Money Belt, which resulting in picking up 23 hit, or a net gain of 2 hit rating after the switch of the legs & waist items.

Overall it ended up being some sweet upgrades. I gained a whopping 79.20 in enhancement points between the two; 62.96 on the legs and 16.24 on the belt. And now according to my EP calculations there are ZERO leg upgrades left for me until SWP. (I know I know I owe a post about EP and how I run my numbers. I'll get there soon enough, I promise).

Overall Damage & DPS

Yesterday as I was prepping for our raid a fellow Enhance Shaman pinged me and asked me what was my AP & Crit%. I get these random pings every so often as I'm pretty well geared--probably geared ahead of my guild's progression level thanks to lots of hard work collecting badges. I replied I'm at 1562 AP and 29.65% crit, to which he replied that he is at similar levels. He asked for some suggestions on gearing so we found each other outside of the Aldor bank and like two dogs sniffing each other's privates we started inspecting one another.

I have a helpful inspection mod that summarizes the target player's key stats so I quickly noticed he was at 140+ hit rating. As we were comparing notes he told me I should get more hit as I am currently at 113. As an aside, I don't know how one goes from asking advice to doling it out, but that's not the point here. As I've read there is no magic number of hit for shamans, we get a good deal of it from Nature's Guidance but in truth I would be sacrificing something in AP, crit, or my new favorite: haste. I'm in no rush to start stacking hit; as long as my miss % stays around 10% during 25man raids I'm happy.

Next we launched into a quick discussion about dps in raids. For some reason I was overcome with a brief moment of modesty--I don't know what hit me!--and said my raid DPS is somewhere in the 800+ range, topping out at 1000 on good nights. And like all good random people in WoW I was immediately one-upped with a "oh well I top out at 1200 and am usually around 1000 dps. Yeah, you need more +hit." OK, now he's gone from asking advice, to doling out bad advice and lousy oneupmanship.

Despite being put off it got me thinking, what is my damage like? I went back to some recent WWS summaries and realized I was being quite modest--and also talking about overall sustained DPS, and not a flash of Heroism-inspired burst damage. Here's a few snippets of damage in both 10 and 25 man raids:

SSC - 4 boss power clear night

• 1,041 DPS overall on the night
  
• 9% of total raid damage, 2nd in damage meters
  
• 1,254 DPS sustained throughout the Karathress fight!
  
• 12.8% miss--wow that was higher than I thought
  
• 44% of my damage was from white swings, 27% from Windfury, with 36% and 38% of those two being crit strikes, respectively

ZA - 4 bosses down, took in some guildies for a gearing run

• 767 DPS overall on the night
  
• DPS during boss fights was mostly 970+, though Jan'alai I do significantly less because I'm killing one of or both of the hatchers
  
• White damage was 45% of my total, with 37% of that crit and only 10% miss
  
• Windfury was 29% of total damage and 35% of that crit

Gruul/Mags Night - another gearing run for some that still need T4

• Only 885 dps, 2nd in the raid right behind our main s-priest
  
• But that low overall DPS number is to be expected consider all the running around in the HK and Gruul fights
  
• 968 was my best dps against Mags.
  
• Overall white damage was 47% to total, with only 31% crit and and 13.9% missed
  
• Windfury was higher with 30% to total damage but yet only 28% of that critting.

I think that last bullet is the most interesting. Windfury contributed 30% to total damage which was the highest of the three examples given, but yet it was the lowest crit of the three. What this means is that I was landing more Windfury's off my main hand than my off hand. Now given that my gear was the same on both nights, I wonder what else is at work here? Is it the Blizzard RNG at work, or is there some way to time my shocks and stormstrikes...? Anyone have any thoughts about this?

But overall, it just goes to show at even at 113 hit rating I more than make up for the misses with increased damage. Though I still might go to Yo's Simulator to and try to tweak my raid gear choices a bit for Monday's raid.