Enhancement: Live vs PTR (Sims)

[Imnick]

Quite right, obvious on a dummy, not so much in a dungeon.

EDIT: Also just realised lighting bolt now casts doom vortex.

Until Blizzard fixes that bug, I'd recommend tracking FoA with a weakaura or something.
It's kind of silly, but you'd have to do it anyway if you glyphed it to remove the effect :P

Also Overcharge has always procced Doom Vortex! It's just something a lot of people are surprised by, because we've not used it until this patch.
It's kind of funny because if you shoot an Overcharged Lightning Bolt at range and it spawns Doom Vortex, the Vortex will despawn before it ever reaches your target.

[Gunwolf]

The new guides are recommending FoA because they are written assuming that you are weren't mailed all of the pieces of the nighthold tier set as soon as you logged in.
FoA is the best talent before you get the 4 set. After you get the 4 set, it is viable to take Boulderfist and drop FoA.
But you have to get the 4 set first.

FoA has gained value because it was buffed, and because LL was buffed. The buff to LL means that it pushes CL out of the rotation, meaning that we wouldn't use it to trigger CS, with any talent combination. You take CS with Boulderfist because you cast CL like six times in a fight to trigger Alpha Wolf, and that's more DPS than the 0 DPS from the other two talents.
(This is talking single target of course, for multiple targets you still cast CL).

Earthen Spike and Sundering just aren't viable right now. They don't do enough damage.

This is also mentioned in the wowhead guide.

Cool, thanks for the explanation. It's always tricky reading optimal specs for guides cause many times they assume you have BiS gear (like the 4set bonus) which can really skew expected results, esp when we can't even access tier gear yet.

I have been playing around with FoA and while its alright the animation does annoy the hell outta me.

So the buff to LL damage outweighs the SS proc potential of CL? Or is that only once u have the set bonuses?

And yea, ES or Sundering (and the whole build I listed) was only a fun spec to use... seemed like it might be good in PVP with more burst, less sustained. I can't see it being better in PVE for high dps.

[Imnick]

So the buff to LL damage outweighs the SS proc potential of CL? Or is that only once u have the set bonuses?

Yeah, it does.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

do we still try to proc alpha wolf while they are up for single target?

[Metaslave]

do we still try to proc alpha wolf while they are up for single target?

Yep always.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Yep always.

Any reason for that?

[Metaslave]

Any reason for that?

It's more damage.

[MakeMeLaugh]

It's more damage.

But even for single target? How does that work?

[DisposableHero]

But even for single target? How does that work?

Because the tooltip on Alpha Wolves is shit. Rather than making the wolves attacks cleave as it seems to indicate it buffs them with a hailstorm-esqe skill that hits all enemies within 8 yards, so they do cleave, but they also do increased single target damage. Look up Snowstorm and Fire Nova under Feral Spirits Damage in warcraft logs parses. A cast of CL on single target is worth ~400-500k additional damage from the wolves if you get the 7ish seconds of buff out of it, which puts CL damage above lava lash damage during wolves.

[nerf shaman]

Because the tooltip on Alpha Wolves is shit. Rather than making the wolves attacks cleave as it seems to indicate it buffs them with a hailstorm-esqe skill that hits all enemies within 8 yards, so they do cleave, but they also do increased single target damage. Look up Snowstorm and Fire Nova under Feral Spirits Damage in warcraft logs parses. A cast of CL on single target is worth ~400-500k additional damage from the wolves if you get the 7ish seconds of buff out of it, which puts CL damage above lava lash damage during wolves.

So do we just press crash lightning as soon as we cast feral spirits, or do we have to press it on cd to keep the buff up? Thanks for this explanation. I have never seen anyone actually explain why we have to press crash lightning on single target.

[DisposableHero]

So do we just press crash lightning as soon as we cast feral spirits, or do we have to press it on cd to keep the buff up? Thanks for this explanation. I have never seen anyone actually explain why we have to press crash lightning on single target.

Press CL immediately upon casting wolves and then again 8 second later to cover the 15 seconds of wolves.

[MakeMeLaugh]

Oh that's good to know thanks. Before, even if I didn't know, CL was part of the rotation anyway so I would always buff my wolves. But now it's good to remember since we don't use it for single target anymore.