flametongue weapon ptr change

[Deleted]

Extract from the blue post:

Flametongue Weapon no longer increases spell damage. It now increases all non-physical damage done by the wielder by 5%.

Is this a buff for elemental? or is it the same as always just that it doesn't work for enhancement now?

[Endus]

It's not a new change. The current, live, Flametongue Weapon adds Spellpower, which boosts spell damage directly, but only affects spells. The PTR version boosts all non-physical damage.

For Elemental, there's no effective difference other than precisely how it scales (flat amount on Live, scaling with gear on PTR). For Enhancement, though, the Live server version only affects about half their damage; the actual spells. The new version will continue to affect those spells, but ALSO affect non-spell non-physical damage. The biggest change this makes in practice is that the old Flametongue had no effect on Lava Lash, as Lava Lash is a melee attack ability, not a spell, and is based on Attack Power. But, Lava Lash deals Fire damage, which is non-physical, so the new PTR FTW will boost it by 7% (once talented).

It's a buff for Enhancement, and a slight nerf in BiS T12 gear for Elemental, but possibly scaling up to the old FTW by BiS T13 gear.

[Cairm]

Nvm just saw Endus' answer.

[Radux]

No Endus, it's an actual change.

PTR (as of last night) increased spell damage by 5% (7 if you talent it).

This just buffs all spell damage plus things (if I'm interpreting this correctly) like Lava Lash.



EDIT: I obviously need to read your post closer. My bad.

I'm also thinking this will discourage Enh from going FT/FT.

[Rouncer]

The thing that discourages enhancement from going FT/FT is that they changed it in one of the recent builds so that the 7% buff won't stack with itself. At the same time they fixed the flametongue glyph so that it won't double dip when running FT/FT (only get 2% additional spell crit no matter how many weapons are imbued with flametongue). True, they did remove the hidden ICD which increases FT's direct damage when running FT/FT but without being able to stack the passive buffs there won't be any reason for anyone to run FT/FT unless they give us a mob that takes additional damage from fire or something wonky like that.

[Deleted]

any changes to earthliving "flat amount of healing-power" ?

[Deleted]

Extract from the blue post:



Is this a buff for elemental? or is it the same as always just that it doesn't work for enhancement now?

It's a big nerf. The old one gave us 11% spellpower, the new one give 7% more magical damage done.

In simulations, it'S about 800 DPS loss in T12 heroic gear.

[Applesaus]

It's a big nerf. The old one gave us 11% spellpower, the new one give 7% more magical damage done.

In simulations, it'S about 800 DPS loss in T12 heroic gear.

However the old bonus didn't scale as gear increased while this new version will.

[Pope]

I can't understand how people can call 800 DPS-loss "a big nerf".

I know that everything counts, but I take a percentage-increase over every static Spellpower.

[Oneleg]

I can't understand how people can call 800 DPS-loss "a big nerf".

I know that everything counts, but I take a percentage-increase over every static Spellpower.

They need to try to balance it around "non-T12 heroic" geared players. Sorry not all of us are full T12 Heroic... Those of you that ARE T-12 heroic should get a very nice bonus.

[Rouncer]

It's a big nerf. The old one gave us 11% spellpower, the new one give 7% more magical damage done.

In simulations, it'S about 800 DPS loss in T12 heroic gear.

What simulators? It's not a nerf. In fact your personal damage is getting buffed for 4.3, the only thing getting nerfed is your 2pc bonus as far as I can tell.

SimulationCraft 4.2 Live Raid sample output puts elemental without unleashed lightning at 36,274 dps. Of that 6,108 dps is attributed to the 2pc bonus and the fire elemental's damage. Leaving 30,166 dps.

SimulationCraft 4.3 PTR Raid sample output (same gear) puts elemental without unleashed lightning at 34,249 dps. Of that 3,188 dps is attributed to the 2pc bonus and the fire elemental's damage. Leaving 31,061 dps which is an increase of 895 dps.

What people are missing is that the current flametongue buff is a static amount of spellpower. The flametongue buff coming in 4.3 is going to be 7% additional damage so it will scale with everything, including things like volcanic potions and trinket procs. That said, I still expect an additional elemental buff for 4.3 but that has everything to do with the (much needed) nerfing of the 2T12 bonus and nothing to do with flametongue. Set bonuses should never be that strong.

[Deleted]

However the old bonus didn't scale as gear increased while this new version will.

Well but in any achieveable gear, it's still a nerf. We might get to a point where it's not a that big nerf but it's still a nerf. Say 1500 DPS in blue 346 gear, 1200 in T11, 800 in T12 heroic, 700 in T13 and 500 in T13 heroic.

Yeah, great, it's scaling!

---------- Post added 2011-10-18 at 07:47 PM ----------

What simulators? It's not a nerf. In fact your personal damage is getting buffed for 4.3, the only thing getting nerfed is your 2pc bonus as far as I can tell.

Simcraft version before the last PTR build. It showed our DPS going down by 800 DPS and the only change was the FTW.

But it's also pretty easy math. You lose close to 10% in T12 heroic gear, so it's about 9% damage. But you gain 7% more cast damage, petsfire totems aren't affected. So it's a nerf and sim craft also has shown that.

You can't compare the actual version since it's also implemented the T12 2p nerf.

---------- Post added 2011-10-18 at 07:48 PM ----------

They need to try to balance it around "non-T12 heroic" geared players. Sorry not all of us are full T12 Heroic... Those of you that ARE T-12 heroic should get a very nice bonus.

But even T12 heroic is getting nerfed. Simcraft simulated it for T12 BIS without legendary and it was a nerf by 800DPS.

[Applesaus]

Well but in any achieveable gear, it's still a nerf. We might get to a point where it's not a that big nerf but it's still a nerf. Say 1500 DPS in blue 346 gear, 1200 in T11, 800 in T12 heroic, 700 in T13 and 500 in T13 heroic.

Yeah, great, it's scaling![COLOR="red"].

I get what you're saying, that the up front loss seems huge and it will shrink over time, but eventually (and we can't tell when because we don't know what DPS will be like in high-end T13) the new change will overthrow the old FTW. it's not like this change is a perpetual nerf that will just shrink slowly over time, that's the point of scaling

[Endus]

Well but in any achieveable gear, it's still a nerf. We might get to a point where it's not a that big nerf but it's still a nerf. Say 1500 DPS in blue 346 gear, 1200 in T11, 800 in T12 heroic, 700 in T13 and 500 in T13 heroic.

Yeah, great, it's scaling!

---------- Post added 2011-10-18 at 07:47 PM ----------



Simcraft version before the last PTR build. It showed our DPS going down by 800 DPS and the only change was the FTW.

But it's also pretty easy math. You lose close to 10% in T12 heroic gear, so it's about 9% damage. But you gain 7% more cast damage, petsfire totems aren't affected. So it's a nerf and sim craft also has shown that.

You can't compare the actual version since it's also implemented the T12 2p nerf.

---------- Post added 2011-10-18 at 07:48 PM ----------



But even T12 heroic is getting nerfed. Simcraft simulated it for T12 BIS without legendary and it was a nerf by 800DPS.

Seriously, stop making stuff up.

Just ran 422-2, the most current live simulationcraft, with the BiS profile, on 50,000 iterations; 36,943.7 DPS
Exact same profile with Windfury Weapon instead of FTW, to get a baseline without the ~1050 spellpower; 34,158.4 DPS
Add 7% to that to add in the new FTW: 36,549.5 DPS

I'm not sure where you're getting your math, but I already ran this once, here, and you can see how close the numbers are to what I just ran again. It's about a 400 DPS loss in current BiS gear. If we gain about 5700 DPS in T13 BiS, we'll outdo that. And T11 BiS with the current mechanics parses out to 29,926 DPS, about 7k below T12, so that big of a boost is by no means unexpected.

The FTW change is almost certainly a net buff by the time we get to T13 BiS.

We don't lose 10% of our damage in T12. We lose about 7.5%, but the new factor scales, and it will scale out of that 0.5% nerf by the time we hit BiS.

I have to wonder what math you're running, since I'm using the exact same sources you are and coming to a completely different conclusion.

[Rouncer]

Simcraft version before the last PTR build. It showed our DPS going down by 800 DPS and the only change was the FTW.

But it's also pretty easy math. You lose close to 10% in T12 heroic gear, so it's about 9% damage. But you gain 7% more cast damage, petsfire totems aren't affected. So it's a nerf and sim craft also has shown that.

You can't compare the actual version since it's also implemented the T12 2p nerf.

But even T12 heroic is getting nerfed. Simcraft simulated it for T12 BIS without legendary and it was a nerf by 800DPS.

Except you are wrong and just making stuff up. Nothing changed for elemental's single target damage outside of the flametongue change and the 2T12 nerf between the live servers and the PTR. I subtracted the dps attributed to the fire elemental, which also removes the 2T12 bonus, meaning any dps changes are directly attributable to the flametongue BUFF. Both profiles have the exact same gear, both show the exact same unbuffed spellpower. Current shows flametongue spellpower buff in it's buffed spellpower figure while the PTR version is missing that spellpower. Neither one is modeled with the legendary staff.

PTR version does more dps with it's spells then the Current version, 895 dps more to be precise. Meaning the flametongue change is a direct buff to elemental at current gear levels. It will be worth even more in next tiers gear. The only nerf elemental is going to have to swallow is to their 2T12 bonus. They will need compensation for that looking at the chart but that has nothing to do with the changes to flametongue. Those numbers are based on the latest PTR build, the most correct build currently available from them on the effects the changes will have. Also I CAN compare the actual version since it DOES NOT have the implemented T12 2p nerf. How can I know that?

Live Version
pet - fire_elemental 6396 / 6108

PTR Version
pet - fire_elemental 6194 / 3188

[Devious009]

I fully expect a buff to elemental, nerfing T12 2pc bonus has too big an impact for blizzard to not do something about it and I have faith that they are aware of it and are currently working on a compensation, some buffs I would like to see:

1. Call of Flame - Increase the damage of your fire totems and fire nova by 20% and the damage done by your lava burst spell by 20% (up from 10%)

2. Elemental Oath - While clear casting is active, you deal 15% more spell damage (up from 10%)

3. Lava Flows - Increase the critical strike damage bonus of your Lava Burst spell by an additional 30% (up from 24%) and the periodic damage of your Flame Shock by 60%, also increases the duration of your Flame Shock by 50%

4. Shamanisim - Your lighting bolt, chain lighting, and lava burst spells gain an additional 36% (up from 32%) benefit from your spell power, and their casting time is reduced by 0.5

Glyphs

Glyph of lighting Bolt - increases the damage of your lighting bolt by 6% (up from 4%)
Glyph of Flame Shock - increase the periodic damage of your Flame Shock by an additional 10%
Glyph of Fire Elemental - Increase the damage of your Fire Elemental Totem by 30%

Not sure if all of this would be enough or if its going overboard, just a few places I thought could use some changes to help compensating and maybe buff Elemental a little bit, one can only hope we see something at least.

[Alltat]

any changes to earthliving "flat amount of healing-power" ?

Earthliving already scales with spell power, haste, mastery and crit. Well, only the HoT proc does, but that's the main reason you're using Earthliving anyway. The flat SP is just a bonus. For Flametongue, there's no such secondary effect, meaning the ability did not scale at all.

[woopytywoop]

any changes to earthliving "flat amount of healing-power" ?

Actually good point, with the mental quickness changes, does enhancers heals scale off "spell healing" or directly from AP?

[Applesaus]

Actually good point, with the mental quickness changes, does enhancers heals scale off "spell healing" or directly from AP?

From the patch notes: "Mental Quickness has been redesigned. Instead of granting the shaman spell power, Mental Quickness now causes Enhancement shaman spells to behave as though the shaman has spell power equal to 55% of attack power. Enhancement shaman spells no longer benefit from spell power from other sources."

Meaning: All spells cast by a Shaman whose main spec is Enhancement will behave as if your spell power is equal to 55% of your AP. This includes heals.

I think Blizz enjoys the hybrid ability we have to throw the occasional heal or drop healing rain on the raid stack point to help the healers. I don't see any reason that they'd want to take that away from us

[Pantsless]

If they changed FTW so that it would do damage like the Seal of Truth DoT ( each single target spell and melee attacks deal an additional x fire damage over 15 sec stacking 5 times), then Elemental would have a new source of damage to compensate for Fire Elemental. It is weird that Enhancement benefits more from FTW imbue ( both the % damage and the damage on attack ) even though FTW is by default the Elemental shaman weapon imbue. It would also make FTW a simpler mechanic, no longer requiring an internal CD, and it would make FT/FT useless as well. Just my 2 cents.