Well, this may or may not have been posted before, I'm not too worried either way.
I didn't create this, nor am I trying to take credit for it. I'm merely providing some helpful information to those who may be interested.
I know some of the pictures (mainly the ones showing calculations) don't show up right, that's why I'm also providing a link to the website.
Here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t13297-e...rycraft_vol_i/
An Enhancement Shaman is an integral part of any melee group. Besides offering substantial personal DPS, an Enhancement Shaman brings group specific buffs through talents beyond those offered by a Resto Shaman. These include Unleashed Rage (an on-crit proc for 10% additional melee AP), Strength of Earth (+97 STR) Windfury (20% proc instant attack with extra AP), and Grace of Air (+88 AGI). Enhancement shamans are equally useful in a main tank group, offering increased dodge and armor, or increased threat generation.
An Enhancement Shaman is not a melee healer. While many will have a resto sub-spec and can certainly help top off a group after an AoE or step in to prevent an emergency, their gear's focus on melee stats makes them unsuitable healers in the endgame. An Enhancement Shaman should be dedicated to DPS, maximizing Unleashed Rage and totem coverage for his group.
Enhacement Shaman have four sources of damage:The vast majority (75-80%) of a shaman's damage comes from autoattack and Windfury. Shamans also have three on-crit procs: the aforementioned UR, Flurry (3 attacks at +30% speed) and a special clearcasting state for shocks.
- Windfury, a weapon imbue that gives the shaman a 20% proc of two instant attacks with a substantial AP bonus
- Stormstrike, a 10s cooldown instant attack with both weapons
- Elemental Shocks, shared cooldown instant elemental damage offering stealth prevention, snaring or interruption
- Fire Totems, pulsed direct or AoE fire damage
Enhancement shaman are highly gear dependent, perhaps more so than any other DPS class. The 'skill' required to be effective at the class manifests in proper gear selection prior to combat; during combat the amount of 'skill' to produce respectable DPS consists mainly of staying in contact with the mob and maintaining totem coverage. This gives an Enhancement Shaman a great deal of latitude while DPSing since there are a limited number of actions that we can perform while waiting on Stormstrike and Shock cooldowns, allowing many possible global cooldowns to be used for purging mobs or removing poison/disease debuffs with no interruption of the DPS cycle.
Things we know about patch 2.4
(Or, Don't post this stuff again because we've already seen it)Contents
- Totem UI allows individual totems to be destroyed, and is accessible through the API for macros/mods.
- Sunwell badge loot [Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality] and [Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality] are just under ~10 DPS of the S3 weapons.
- [Mounting Vengeance], drops off Sunwell trash, is the 2.4 Best in Slot OH weapon.
- Ghost wolf will be insta-cast if you max the T2 talent (alternate place to spend the 2 pts in Anticipation)
- The T6 belt/boots/bracers have had all stamina removed and replaced with Expertise. We will be able to cap expertise using these 3 items and the Shard of Contempt.
- [Shard of Contempt] from heroic Magister's Terrace will be as good, or better than, the DST.
- Shamanistic Rage in the latest build is no longer a magic effect and isn't dispellable
- Stamina added back to the T6 belt/boots/bracers, they still have expertise
1 Major Abilities
1.1 Windfury Weapon
1.1.1 Weapon Speed Interaction
1.1.2 Windfury Proc Rate
1.1.3 Can Windfury Totem avoid the cooldown problem?
1.2 Flametongue and Frostband Viability?
1.3 Stormstrike
1.4 Elemental Shocks
2 Talent Builds
2.2 The Myth of Elemental Devastation
3 Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman
3.1 Enhancement Points (EP) Stat Weight System
3.1.1 Using EP - Examples
3.1.2 Hit Rating
3.1.3 Haste Rating
3.1.4 Intellect and Mp5
3.1.5 Expertise Rating
3.2 Weapons
3.2.1 Main Hand
3.2.2 Off Hand
3.2.3 TwoHand Viability
3.3 Relics
3.4 Gems and Meta Gems
3.5 Trinkets
3.6 Enchanting your Gear
3.6.1 Weapon Enchants
3.6.2 Agility vs Run Speed for Boots
3.6.3 Enchants for the rest of your gear
3.7 Consumables
4 Enhancement Shaman in a group
4.1 How to choose totems
4.1.1 Totem Twisting
4.2 Managing your threat
5 Notes for Raid Leaders
5.1 Group compositions that work
5.2 Evaluating with WoW Web Stats
6 Simulations
7 Useful Links and Addons
8 Changelog
1. Major Abilities
1.1 Windfury Weapon
Windfury Weapon was corrected in the 2.1 patch link Windfury on the main and off hands. At some point prior to that, a hidden/internal 3 second cooldown had been added to Windfury Weapon. As a result, OH procs now (correctly) trigger the cooldown on the MH. Despite this set back to shaman DPS (net loss of about 10-15% DPS for enhancement shaman), Windfury Weapon is still the best weapon imbue to use – former CM Tseric has stated that the devs have no plans to scale the other weapon buffs to match Windfury. [footnote]http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=102731970&pageNo=1&sid=1#0[/footnote]
1.1.1 Weapon Speed Interaction
Weapon Speeds play an important role in maximizing DPS from Windfury procs. The goal is to chain WF procs every 3 seconds, as soon as each cooldown ends. Both the OH and the MH need to be as slow as possible to achieve this(they do not need to be matched in speed, just as slow as you can get it). The idea is to reduce the number of swings made during the time that windfury is on cooldown. Since the cooldown is 3 seconds, weapons speeds are preferred to be close to that speed, generally this means 2.6 - 2.8 under current itemization. The idea is that a faster weapon would proc a WF, and then strike again within the cooldown window, which means that windfury would exit cooldown and your weapon would still be on some significant portion of its swing timer, unable to proc another WF.
Many shaman will correctly use a slow MH weapon but use a fast OH such as a dagger, generally because its easier to find fast OHs than slow ones. This combination however means that your OH is much more likely to be the first one to hit outside of a WF cooldown and will "steal" the potential chance to proc, placing your main hand on lockdown. In order to maximize the potential for MH procs the OH needs to be as slow as possible.
The image below courtesy of Yo! illustrates this principle. You can see that as the MH and OH approach 2.6 speed (arbitrarily chosen as the cut off point for the scale) that the number of WF procs lost to the OH become lower, at around a 45% predicted loss rate. A fast OH with a slow MH combination has a higher rate of loss to the OH, at nearly 55%.
1.1.2 Windfury Proc Rate
When you are wielding a two handed weapon, or are using a shield, your chance to proc windfury on any landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is 20%. When you dual wield weapons, the chance on each landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is approximatedly 36%, if and only if both weapons are imbued with Windfury. (Original findings were posted on the WoW forums by Disquette, the thread has been removed from the official archives)
Analysis of the combat log shows that if you sum all hits, the proc rate while DWing is 20%, but that includes hits you make while inside the 3 second cooldown, which cannot actually proc WF. When you remove the ineligible hits the observed proc rate from the eligible hits becomes 36%.
1.1.3 Can Windfury Totem avoid the cooldown problem?
While you may ~think~ it will help you avoid the WF cooldown problem, the totem isn't providing anywhere near the benefit you'll get from the weapon imbue.
WF Totem has the following issues: no elemental weapons bonus (40% multiple), only one extra attack (200% multiple), lesser AP bonus (scalar). Each MH WF Totem hit would be 100% extra damage or so compared to a normal attack, and has only one chance of proc'ing flurry, any weapon procs, and UR. Each MH WF imbue hit would be 280% extra damage or so compare to a normal attack, and has 2 chances of proc'ing those things.
In a very very simplified way of looking at it, you'd have to proc MH WF 2.8 as many times using the totem as you do using the imbue, for it to be worth it.
1.2 Flametongue and Frostband Viability?
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1.3 Stormstrike
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1.4 Elemental Shocks
There are 2 possible rotations that an Enhancement shaman can use. Initially most shaman will assume that with the Stormstrike nature damage bonus Earth Shock spam will yield more DPS. However, Earth Shock is a binary spell and is susceptible to full resists, whereas Flame Shock has no binary component and will benefit from partial resist rates due to spell hit. Additionally, Flame Shock benefits from Curse of Elements and the Improved Scorch Debuff, while Earth Shock is only amplified by Stormstrike. (Both benefit from Misery)
In determining the ideal rotation, let us assume a sandbox environment with no crits and no resists to worry about. The mob will be fully raid debuffed with CoE and Malediction, Misery, and Improved Scorch Debuff. Assume that Earth Shock always has the benefit of Stormstrike, and that the Enhance Shaman in question has 2500 Attack Power, yielding 750 spell damage (approximate) with the Mental Quickness talent. Earth Shock has a spell damage coefficient of 0.42 and Flame Shock has a coefficient of 0.67.
Earth Shock Spam
This is a 6 second cycle.
Flame - Earth Rotation
This is a 12 second cycle that begins with Flame Shock.
While a single earth shock in 6 seconds is worth more than a single flame shock that is allowed to go its full 12 second DoT, the combination of the two in a single, 12 second rotation, provides superior DPS.
Finally as a third point of comparison, let us compare Earth Shock to Flame Shock directly, using only 6 seconds of the DoT component of Flame Shock. Earth Shock was computed above as providing 207.9 DPS every 6 seconds.
Therefore, you can see that Flame Shock over a 6 second period provides more DPS than Earth Shock.
2 Talent Builds
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2.1 Elemental or Resto sub-spec
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2.2 The Myth of Elemental Devastation
One of the more prevalent suggestions is that Enhance Shaman should optimize their DPS by speccing into Elemental for a 5 second shock cooldown, 5% increased shock damage, and of course the Elemental Devastation Talent, typically achieved by removing points from Mental Quickness and/or Improved Weapon Totems for an 18/43/0 build.
The logic of this build is fundamentally flawed. A properly geared Enhancement Shaman will have at most a 6% spell crit rate from Intellect. Under perfect conditions this will amount to a 1% crit gain from Elemental Devastation. Under not-so-perfect conditions, this talent would be negligible and worthless to an Enhancement shaman.
The probability of getting 2 crit shocks in a row at 6% spell crit, in order to sustain the extra melee crit bonus of Elemental Devastation, is 1-(1- 0.6)^2 = 0.118. That's about 12% uptime of an extra 1% crit from 3 talent points.
3. Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman
3.1 Enhancement Points (EP) Stat Weight System
Extensive modeling, simulation, and empirical testing by Disquette, Pater, Tornhoof, and Yo! have led to the development of a system for determining the items which produce the highest DPS in a raid environment. The Enhancement Points (EP) system assigns weights or scores to each stat point. These EP weights can then be used by hand or in automated programs such as Enhancer, Pawn, LootRank and Thottbot to score items. Today, the best tool for determining these weights is to use the Crazy Shaman's DPS & EP Calculator produced by forums member Yo! For those who cannot run the simulator, are unwilling to do the legwork, or just want to check their own numbers, the following sets of EP values are provided:
Entry Raid (T4) EP Values
If you have just hit level 70 or have been running some heroics for a while but have not started raiding KZ and 25 mans yet, your EP stat weights will be significantly different from shamans wearing high-end gear. Use these values until you have progressed into SSC/TK beyond the first 1-2 bosses. These values were arrived at using simulation of a shaman wearing best of slot quest and instance blues, with some heroic loot. Buffs were limited to what a 10 man raid would normally have - no Kings, no LotP, no flasks, and assumed lower quality gems and enchants.
Attack Power = 1 EP
Strength = 2 EP
Agility = 1.74 EP
Crit Rating = 1.97 EP
Hit Rating = 1.34 EP (explanation below at VIII.4 Itemization - Hit Rating)
Haste Rating = 1.28 EP (explanation below at VIII.3 Itemization - Haste Rating)
Armor Penetration = 0.22 EP
Expertise Rating = see the Expertise section below for an explanation
Middle Raid (T5) EP Values
These values are a generally agreed-upon set produced by the average of the most reliable closed-form model and iterative simulations across the breadth of shaman gearing possibilities. They rapidly become less accurate as you accumulate more pieces of T5-level gear. As such, using Yo's simulator to obtain individualized EP numbers is strongly advised. Note that Blessing of Kings increases the contribution of Strength and Agility by 10% and thus their EPs when it is active.
Attack Power = 1 EP
Strength = 2 EP (2.2 EP with Blessing of Kings)
Agility = 1.8 EP (2 EP with Blessing of Kings)
Crit Rating = 2 EP
Hit Rating = 1.4 EP (explanation below at VIII.4 Itemization - Hit Rating)
Haste Rating = 1.48 EP (explanation below at VIII.3 Itemization - Haste Rating)
Armor Penetration = 0.28 EP
Expertise Rating = see the Expertise section below for an explanation
High Raid (T6) EP Values
These values were contributed by forum member Sebudai based on an end-game T6 gear set, essentially with best-in-slot items for all slots. These should be viewed as a rough estimate for shaman entering T6 content, and include Blessing of Kings.
Strength = 2.2 EP
Agility = 1.69 EP
Crit Rating = 1.74 EP
Hit Rating = 1.69
Haste Rating = 1.82
Attack Power = 1
Armor Penetration = 0.35 EP
Expertise Rating = 3.18 (Yo's Simulator recently changed to give EP weights to Expertise Rating)
Weapon DPS EP Values
Pitbuller and Rob have shown that it is possible to convert weapon DPS into EP values. This is useful to compute the total EP of a weapon in order to compare two weapons, as seen in this post (link to where you or someone compared Netherbane to MG Cleaver). The following values are only valid for a 2.6 speed weapon. EP would need to be recalculated for any other speeds. These are presented here because 2.6 is the most common speed for weapons.
1 MH DPS = 9.03 EP
1 OH DPS = 3.70 EP
Careful! Only use these numbers for comparing weapons; do not use them for drawing other conclusions. For example, these numbers do not mean that 9 AP = 1 DPS for enhancement shamans. Why? Note the distinction between EP and AP. 9 AP will in fact increase your DPS by more than 1; just as 1 weapon DPS will increase your overall DPS by more than 1. To understand why, imagine that 1 weapon DPS increases your DPS by exactly 1 after glances, misses, dodges, and crits are accounted for. Now throw in Flurry, WF procs, and Stormstrike and realize that the weapon is hitting more often than the tooltip says it is, so you gain more DPS from the nominal weapon DPS.
3.1.1 Using EP - Examples
First, you must make a decision whether or not to assume that you will have Blessing of Kings. As a general rule, Salvation and Might are superior buffs, so you can only expect Kings in a 25-man scenario. In this example, we’re comparing 25-man gear, so we’ll assume Blessing of Kings is active and use the T5 EP Values. Then, it’s a simple matter of looking at the stats available on each item, multiplying them by their attack power equivalence, and adding them all up:
[Valestalker Girdle]
+27 Agility (x 2 = 54)
+25 Stamina
+18 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 36 (x 1.4 = 50.4)
Equip: Increases attack power by 76 (x 1 = 76)
Total: 180.4 EP
[Girdle of the Tidal Call]
+35 Strength (x 2.2 = 77)
+30 Stamina
+20 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 33 (x 2 = 66)
Total: 143 EP
So, Valestalker Girdle (180.4 EP) is a larger increase to melee DPS than Girdle of Tidal Call (143 EP); for our purposes, we’ll say that makes it a better item. Note that values are not assigned here to Stamina or Intellect; these stats do carry some value for raiding enhancement shamans, but any assignment of value to them would be arbitrary and is for each individual shaman to decide on her own.
Now lets compare two weapons using the weapon EP values.
[Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver]
97.5 DPS (MH: x9.03 = 880.4) (OH: x3.70 = 360.75)
+27 Stamina
Equip: Improves hit rating by 10. (x1.4 = 14)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19. (x2 = 3
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 12.
Equip: Increases attack power by 30. (x1 = 30)
Total MH EP = 962.4
Total OH EP = 442.75
[Netherbane]
96.5 DPS (MH: x9.03 = 871.4) (OH: x3.7 = 357)
+25 Agility (x2 = 50)
+21 Stamina
Equip: Increases attack power by 40. (x1 = 40)
Total MH EP = 961.4
Total OH EP = 447.05
Comparing the two weapons we can see that the difference in the MH for each weapon is relatively minor with a 1 EP difference, but in the OH the Netherbane performs better with a 5 EP difference.
3.1.2 Hit Rating
Hit Rating is a subject of much anxiety among Enhancement Shaman. Hit Rating is valuable, but beyond hit capping your special attacks it provides less benefit per point to our damage than an equivalent item budget amount of AP, Crit, Haste, or Expertise.
Since we can get a large quantity of +Hit from talents (9%), our special attacks (windfury and stormstrike) are already hit capped. All the extra +Hit rating on your gear is going toward improving white damage only, which typically comprises between 40%-50% of your total damage. When you consider the itemization costs of hit rating compared to crit rating and AP, which directly impact 90% of a shaman's total damage, you can see why hit rating is given lower precedence. Take the talents to hit cap your specials, any hit rating on gear after that is icing on the cake.
A common misconception is that you "have to hit before you can crit." This is a fallacy and illustrates a misunderstanding of the attack table. (Note that this is in reference to white damage which uses a single roll system.) Your Hit Rating will not impact your Crit Rate in any way.
A second misconception is that a miss is a "missed opportunity for a WF proc" and that more Hit Rating will generate more WF procs. This misconception is generated from the flawed assumption that all swings are possible WF procs. However only swings that are outside of the WF cooldown are eligible to proc WF. A good portion of your autoattack hits will never be capable of producing WF procs. A 5 minute fight with no flurry would see 115 white swings with a 2.6 speed weapon. A Shaman might look at that and think that 0.36 * 115 = 41 possible WF procs, but that is incorrect since each successful proc locks out 1-2 hits that follow, shrinking the pool of actual eligible hits. It is actually quite difficult to calculate the number of attacks that you *should* have producing WF in a given amount of time, and that is why we rely on simulators to generate the EP value of Hit Rating.
There is no magic value of +Hit that an Enhance Shaman needs We need as much of every stat as we can get, but hit rating is just less important than the others. That does not mean that the goal is to have low hit rating either though. Rogues and Warriors require large amounts of +Hit to be effective because of their rage and combo point systems, and because they do not have talents that can hit cap their specials before considering hit on gear. Enhance shaman have no such feedback system and are able to hit cap specials through talents - therefore, hit rating above and beyond your talents is great to have, but is not a necessity.
3.1.3 Haste Rating
Haste Rating will directly increase the contribution of white swings to your DPS - 1% Haste will generate 1% more auto attack DPS. Prior to patch 2.2 Haste Rating became the superior stat, but the 2.3 patch reduced its EP value closer to that of Hit Rating.
Boss mobs are currently believed to have 5.6% dodge vs a player. It will take 23 Expertise (91 Rating) to remove Dodge from the attack table versus a boss mob.
Modeling at one time indicated weapons hasted between 1.51 and 1.41 speed will actually experience a sharp decrease in potential Windfury DPS. The range of 1.51- 1.41 speed was believed to cause the main hand to always finish a swing just before the end of a WF cooldown, making you wait longer for the next eligible swing that can proc WF. If hasted in this period for a long duration, you could expect WF DPS contribution to decrease. However, you'll also experience many more white swings during that time, and so the loss of potential WF procs should be offset by the increased white DPS. It is no longer believed that the 1.5 to 1.4 hasted speed will actually cause any decrease in DPS - you should notice an overall increase.
There is no need to worry about the 1.51 - 1.41 hasted weapon range. The original claims about the supposed DPS loss had done no empirical or simulated testing to back up their modeling. More recent testing has indicated that whatever potential WF DPS is lost because of swing timer issues is more than made up for by the gigantic leap in autoattack DPS.
3.1.4 Intellect and Mp5
Intellect on gear is not a significant source of DPS contribution. Pater has a short writeup exploring this here.
Mp5 is almost universally agreed to be a hunter stat that is wasted on enhance shaman gear. Note that the more you decide to contribute in a "hybrid" manner (healing to top off yourself and others) the mana pool will become slightly more important, but not such that you should sacrifice significant DPS upgrades to hold on to 15 Int on another item. The combination of Judgment of Wisdom and Shamanistic Rage (use it early, use it often) should prevent you from running out of mana even in full rogue leather gear - unless you're having to spot heal.
3.1.5 Expertise Rating
Patch 2.3 changed all weapon skill rating into weapon expertise rating, which converts into Expertise skill at a rate of 3.95 expertise rating:1 Expertise, and reduces the chance for your target to dodge and parry by 0.25% per point of Expertise. [Shoulderpads of the Stranger], which used to provide 10 dagger skill rating, will now provide 10 expertise rating (all weapons).
The parry reduction element of Expertise will have only marginal use in raid settings: mobs cannot parry attacks made from behind. Many bosses randomly turn to cast attacks and can parry while turning, but this possibility is too random to value significantly. Unlike parry, mobs can dodge attacks from behind and Expertise is currently the only way to reduce the number of dodges. The dodge reduction element of Expertise will vary from encounter to encounter: it will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting (e.g. Shade of Aran, High Astromancer Solarian, Reliquary of Souls) because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells. Expertise has been shown to affect yellow damage as well as white damage, so under the second circumstance it is actually more useful than hit rating for enhancement shamans.
We still don't know how Expertise's dodge and parry reduction affect the one-roll white attack table. For now, the community is assuming that it converts dodges and parries into hits that do not have a chance to crit. On the other hand, we are now confident that Expertise will allow yellow attacks to crit, since they are resolved through a two-roll system. Thus, we will estimate expertise rating to be similar to the weight of hit rating, with some exceptions.
First, expertise rating is only useful in chunks, because there is no concept of having 2.5 Expertise - the Skill values are all rounded down to whole integers. To get around this, you first need to sum up the expertise rating across all your items, divide by 3.95, take the floor, and multiply by 3.95 again. This gives you a "white hit rating" equivalency. Note that this makes expertise rating EP discontinuous. One expertise rating may be worth 0 EP because it is not enough to give you an extra skill point -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 15 expertise rating -- while a jump of two expertise rating at the same point may have a surprisingly high EP -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 16 and thus 0.75% dodge reduction to 1.00% dodge reduction.
Next, we must account for the fact that Expertise, unlike hit rating, also effects the yellow damage from special attacks in addition to the white damage from auto-attacks. To correct for this, you need to multiply by the ratio of melee damage to white damage, or (Yellow % of damage + White % of damage)/(White % of damage). Also, because white crit rate as a percentage of landed swings decreases as hit rate goes up, but with the two-roll system, yellow crit rate stays constant, we must adjust for that. Finally, we must multiply by the EP of 1 hit rating, to convert our "hit rating" equivalency into EP.
Our final expertise calculation is:
EP =
Example Calculation:
Assume that we are examining a new piece of gear that will bring our total Expertise Rating to 17, Hit EP is 1.4, Crit% is 30%, White% of DPS is 50%, Yellow% of DPS is 40% and the remaining 10% is shocks and searing totem.
Expertise EP =
Expertise EP = 45.12
Note that this value is not the EP stat weight of Expertise Rating, it is the total sum worth of the Expertise Rating on all your gear.
3.2 Weapons
Optimizing enhancement shaman DPS requires running two slow weapons with Windfury Weapon on both weapons.
The best way to choose between multiple items in the same slot is to run Yo's simulator, once for each item, using the stats that you would have with that item equipped. Do not post asking which weapon is best: find out for yourself by running the sim. That said, here are some general guidelines.
A frequently asked question is how to wield weapons with differing speeds but similar DPS values, such as using a Rising Tide and a Syphon - is it better to put one weapon in the main/off hand over the other? Simulation results indicate that it makes little difference which hand the slower weapon is wielded in. It appears that in general, a 2.x/2.y = 2.y/2.x.
3.2.1 Main Hand
Arena Season 3 weapons (e.g. [Vengeful Gladiator's Cleaver]) are the best currently available.
Any combo of [Rising Tide] and [Syphon of the Nathrezim] or a pair of Syphons is the second-best option for those unable to attain an 1850 arena rating.
Arena Season 2 weapons (e.g. [Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver]), [Dragonstrike], [Wicked Edge of the Planes], [Netherbane], and [Talon of the Phoenix] round out the list of third-best choices.
Orcs should prioritize axes for the +5 Expertise racial bonus. This is believed to be applied per hand non stacking, so an axe/mace combo only applies expertise to the axe, and an axe/axe combo would apply 5 Expertise to each hand.
The differences in DPS within these "tiers" are relatively minor. Which weapon is best for you, or which weapon to mainhand and which weapon to offhand, can only be found by using the simulator with your stats, and no general conclusions can be drawn.
3.2.2Off Hand
OH itemization is fairly poor early on, but recent changes in patch 2.3 have added several new options in KZ and ZA that will help fill the gaps. If you are not yet raiding, the best choices for OH in a WF/WF setup is a 2.6 speed Gladiator weapon from Arenas, a crafted Runic Hammer (2.4 speed) or a blue one-hand weapon available in several heroic instances (Auchenai Crypts last boss drops a 2.6 speed one-hand axe). Failing that, get yourself a green 2.6 speed off the Auction House.
An epic dagger with high dps (such as [Malchazeen] or [Guile of Khoraazi])and imbued with Flametongue can be used to temporarily replace a green or blue OH weapon. This comes at the cost of reduced Windfury procs, reduced Stormstrike damage, and a reduction in Flurry uptime. This should be seen as a stopgap measure only, not a weapon that you should commit to using for long periods of time.
Current best choice for an offhand is any of the Season 3 Arena weapons ([Vengeful Gladiator's Cleaver]).
A [Rising Tide] or [Syphon of the Nathrezim] comprise the 2nd best options available.
Rounding out the list are [Netherbane] or [Fury] as your third choice options.
3.2.3 TwoHand Viability
2H weapons are strictly inferior for PvE DPS situations, and reasonably poor for PvP as well. Talents and mechanics of shaman DPS at lvl 70 are built around DW. 9% +Hit while DWing through a 0/42/19 build allows all special attacks to be hit capped through talents alone, while a 2H will only receive 3% of the hit benefit. DW also scales better with AP. 2h effectively gains (1.0 * 0.95 hit rate) = 0.95 from AP and DW gains (1.5 * 0.74 hit rate) = 1.11 from AP. The more +hit you have (until we reach cap) the greater the difference between the two is. At a certain point (easily reached when raid buffed), this difference in gain from AP will outweigh the bonus base DPS of a 2H weapon over similar ilevel 1H weapons.
The second largest benefit you bring to your group is Unleashed Rage, and your Flurry and UR uptime will take a large hit from using a 2H, as strings of dodge/miss/non crits become compounded by a single, slower swing time. Threat concerns are even more problematic with a 2H because of large WF procs, requiring that you heavily pad your threat against a tank.
And finally, as mentioned in the Windfury Proc section, DW with WF on both weapons results in an increased chance to proc WF off either hand (36%). 2H weapons will not benefit from that increased proc rate.
To illustrate:
Note the differences here. 2H has a higher flurry uptime because DWing will consume the 3 charges faster, but the Uptime for UR is much higher for DW than 2H, leading to greater group synergy.
Derivation of the Unleashed Rage uptime:
UR Uptime =
HitsPer10sec =
Windfury =
Flurry Uptime =
3.3 Relics
The two best choices are [Totem of the Astral Winds] and [Stonebreaker's Totem]
A: Astral Winds EP = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Astral_Winds * Elemental_Weapons
B: Stonebreaker EP = Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3)
B1: Stonebreaker EP to WF = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Stonebreaker * Elemental_Weapons
B2: Stonebreaker EP to SS = Percent_of_SS_Swings * Stonebreaker
B3: Stonebreaker EP to white damage = Percent_of_white_Swings * Stonebreaker * (1 - MissRate)
Physical Damage breakdown:
Assuming two 2.6 speed weapons, flurried to 2.0 speed, means you get around 10 white swings per SS cooldown. 40% of those swings will be WF, meaning 10 white swings, 2 SS swings, 4.8 WF swings. 10+2+4.8 = 16.8
Percent_of_WF_Swings = 4.8/16.8 = 0.286
Percent_of_SS_Swings = 2/16.8 = 0.119
Percent_of_white_Swings = 10/16.8 = 0.595
(This breakdown is conservatively in favor of the Astral Winds Totem. Many WWS parses from raids show the balance slightly shifted away from WF towards white swings)
A: 32
B1: 44
B2: 13
B3: 65 * (1 - Missrate)
A = Stonebreaker_Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3).
32 = Uptime * (44 + 13 + [ 65 * (1 - Missrate) ]
Let Missrate = 19%
Then Uptime = 29%
As miss rate decreases, so does the required uptime to break even. An enhancement shaman with +9% hit from talents and no hit rating on gear would see a 19% miss rate against boss mobs, resulting in a required uptime of 29%.
Changing some values for more hit gear, we find that even if your miss rate is better than 2% the required uptime is 26.4%. This gives us a fairly good window of possible required uptimes for the Stonebreaker buff over a wide variety of gear, with a good conservative estimate being 30%.
Now what does it take to achieve a 30% uptime? Here’s a simplified formula for determining this.
(Seconds per Shock) = (Stonebreaker proc chance) * (1-Spell miss rate) * (Stonebreaker duration) * (1/Stonebreaker Uptime)
(Seconds per Shock) = (0.50)*(1-0.14)*(1/0.30) = 14.3
This means that on average, a shock every 14.3 seconds is the minimum needed to maintain 30% uptime on the totem buff and thus make it come out ahead of the Astral Winds totem.
Conclusion: The Stonebreaker totem should be superior to the Totem of Astral Winds on average if the shaman can shock at least once every 14 seconds. Note that Stonebreaker has a 10 second hidden cooldown.
3.4 Gems and Meta Gems
In general, [Bold Living Ruby] should fill every socket unless there is a socket bonus that does not require using a Blue gem color, and where the socket bonus is worth more EP than what the loss of the dps stats on the blue gem would be.
If you are matching gems for socket bonuses, use the following:
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.
Naturally the epic BT/Hyjal versions of these gems follow the same logic and you should be able to extrapolate which gems to use.
[Relentless Earthstorm Diamond], Best choice for a meta gem. This gem will scale with your crit rating. The 3% crit damage can be roughly approximated to raise your DPS by 0.03 * Crit Rate. At 30% crit rate this amounts to nearly a 1% gain in damage dealt.
[Thundering Skyfire Diamond] gives 240 haste rating for 6 seconds. This is your second choice for meta gems as it appears to have a 1 minute cooldown. Shaman with lower crit rates (20% or lower, geared in heroic/blue gear, just starting 25mans and KZ) will benefit slightly more from this gem over the RED.
[Swift Skyfire Diamond] will yield a very minor DPS increase - same for [Potent Unstable Diamond]
3.5 Trinkets
Trinket gains are converted using the EP formulas above in the itemization stat weights from above, and listed as greatest EP at the top.3.6 Enchanting your Gear
- [Dragonspine Trophy] 160.25 EP = ( 40 + ( 325 * HasteRating * 10 * 1.5 / 60 ))
Assuming a 1.5 PPM- [Berserker's Call] New drop from Zul'Aman. 150 EP = 90 + ( 360 * 20 / 120)
- [Madness of the Betrayer] 142 EP = ( 84 + ( 20 * HitRating ) + ( 2.4 * 10 / 60 * 300 * ArmorPenetration ))
Using 2.4 PPM (see here) the uptime is 40% giving a passive -120 Armor- [Tsunami Talisman] 141 EP = (( 10 * HitRating ) + ( 38 * CritRating ) + ( 340 * 10 * 0.9 / 60 ))
Assuming a 0.9 PPM- [Ashtongue Talisman of Vision] 137.5 EP = ( 275 * 10 * 0.5 / 10 )
Corrected in patch 2.3 to have the listed 50% proc rate, and observed at this rate on the PTR.- [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] 120 EP
At a full stack, since this will take 10-15 sec to achieve, the EP might be considered less valuable.- [Bloodlust Brooch] 118.3 EP = ( 72 + ( 278 * 20 / 120 ))
- [Hourglass of the Unraveller] 109 EP = (( 32 * CritRating ) + ( 300 * 10 * 0.9 / 60 ))
Assuming a 0.9 PPM- [Abacus of Violent Odds] 96 EP = ( 64 + ( 260 * HasteRating * 10 / 120 ))
- [Drake Fang Talisman] 84 EP = ( 56 + ( 20 * HitRating ))
- [Kiss of the Spider] 79 EP = (( 14 * CritRating ) + ( 10 * HitRating ) + ( 200 * HasteRating * 15 / 120 ))
- [Romulo's Poison Vial] 49 EP = ( 35 * HitRating )
And some unknown value from the nature damage proc, which is usually 1-2% of your damage. Unless you're totally starved for +Hit this probably isn't a trinket for shaman. Especially as you become better geared the proc will become less and less of your total damage done since it cannot scale with your gear. This trinket was most certainly designed with warriors and rogues in mind, not shaman.- [Darkmoon Card: Wrath] The value of this card is low once your buffed crit rate is 30% or higher.
3.6.1 Weapon Enchants
[Enchant Weapon - Mongoose] 4.8% crit per proc (double procs stack) and 2% haste.
[Formula: Enchant Weapon - Crusader] provides 60 Strength (120 AP) at lvl 70 per proc.
[Enchant Weapon - Potency] is a constant +20 Strength (40 AP).
Clearly Mongoose is the preferred enchant, although Crusader can be a cheaper, but still effective alternative. Potency should be completely avoided.
[Formula: Enchant Weapon - Executioner] is roughly equivalent at high T5/T6 levels of gearing to a single enchant of Mongoose. However, Mongoose/Executioner or double Executioner will not outperform the dps benefit of double Mongoose unless the Enhancement Shaman is geared with nearly unobtainable values of Armor Penetration.
Executioner currently does not stack from multiple hands, each proc when DWing will simply refresh the buff. It is unknown if this is intended, since this deviates from how other weapon enchants function. Obviously the value of Executioner will increase as you gain more -Armor gear. At entry raid level a shaman will probably gain more from dual Mongoose enchants. At high T5 content and beyond, Executioner will become more valuable.
Evidence suggests that Mongoose and Executioner have nearly the same uptime and PPM, around 40-45%
3.6.2 Agility vs Run Speed for Boots
For PvE, either [Formula: Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed] or [Formula: Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness] are going to be big payoffs. Increased run speed is hands down the best enchant you can get for PvE. Derivation:
Let D be your dps without a boot enchant. For the run speed to provide more benefit, we need:
(D+12A)(T-t) < (D+6A)(T-t/1.0
which simplifies to
T < [(1-k)D + (2-k)6A]t/(6A)
where k = 1/1.08. For example, gives A = .16286, and so we have
T < (.07581D + 1.074) t
Using some actual data, a shaman that does betwen 900 and 1000 dps will have T < 76.88t
For 5 minutes, we would need t > 3.90 seconds and for 6 minutes we would need t > 4.68 seconds.
So for a 5 minute fight if you spend roughly 4 seconds moving between adds, running to the boss, etc, Run Speed provides a superior DPS benefit.
3.6.3 Enchants for the rest of your gear
Asked often enough that it ends up needing its own section. These are the enchants contributing the most to DPS. Stength is always preferred over AP due to the effects of BoK.
Helm - Glyph of Ferocity (34 AP, 16 Hit)
Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Blade (15 Crit, 20 AP) or Greater Inscription of Vengeance (30 AP, 10 Crit)
Cloak - Greater Agility (+12 Agi) or Subtlety (-2% Threat) if you feel threat constrained
Chest - Exceptional Stats (+6 Str/Agi)
Bracers - Brawn (+12 Strength)
Gloves - Major Strength (+15 Strength)
Rings - (Enchanter Only) Stats (+4 Str/Agi)
Legs - Nethercobra Leg Armor (50 AP, 12 Crit)
3.7 Consumables
Translating the benefit of consumables using EP values we can assess DPS consumables in order of greatest benefit:Potions on 2 minute timers:
- [Flask of Relentless Assault] 120 EP
- [Elixir of Major Agility] 110 EP
- [Fel Strength Elixir] 90 EP
- [Elixir of Major Strength] 70 EP
- [Haste Potion] [(1.48 * 400) * 15]/120 = 74 EP
- [Insane Strength Potion] (120*2*15)/120 = 30 EP