[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[fearchanges]

Thanks allready for the opinions. It seems that people are looking ok when it comes to Ele PvE and that makes me happy.

For my flavour of playing I'm really hoping they buff PE. I did read somewhere that blizz confirmed that pets aren't scaling like they should, so a fix will come?
I'm just excited about having this talent and the utility it gives. Own personal barkskin and such, does Reinforce/Empower work with AG? could be cool to pop your EE and AG for a bit extra healing if needed.

I really looking forward to TP, throwing your totems around is so cool and give a lot of options for controlling ads. Throw your earthgrab in the pack, Earthquake is next, with the 10 sec cd on TP you'll be able to throw your Capictator in the pack or replace your Earthgrab. Knock them back in with Thunderstorm. So cool.

My choice for talents will be SBT, Earthgrab, TP, EM or AS (not sure yet), AG and PE if they fix some numbers and balance the details. This spec wil give me a lot of fun in my raids.

For the glyphs I would take FS, FE and UL for fun gameplay.
Like Binkenstein all ready said, FE is great with PE. UL is just cool for gameplay and FS is a great dps improvement.
If we have the T14 set bonusses, the FS will get even more credit because will be gainig a lot LS stacks and maybe ES on cd during haste/mastery proccs.

@ Recom; I think in PvP the FS glyph is gonna be valuable. It gives you a lot of free shock cds to use ES or FS. Especially if you're using Frozen Power.
In case of Arena and people are concerned the opposing healer is going to dispel your FS the very moment it's up; I'm reconsidering (if I try some Arena) to run with a Dot and healer in 3v3. Something like Ele/(shadow/lock/Firemage/Boomkin)/healer. The dot class gives a lot of dispel protection for your FS and overall dps, where the Ele gives great burst with EM + Ascendance + trinkets and some great utility like HTT/AG, FP/Windwalk Totem, Capictator etc.
So my bets for a great comp is gonna be Ele/Lock/Disc.

[Endus]

Thanks allready for the opinions. It seems that people are looking ok when it comes to Ele PvE and that makes me happy.

For my flavour of playing I'm really hoping they buff PE. I did read somewhere that blizz confirmed that pets aren't scaling like they should, so a fix will come?

Yes, the low damage on Elementals is just the pet scaling bug, which should be fixed soon. The normal FET should be about as much of your DPS, relatively speaking, as it currently is on Live, and the Primal versions 50% more.

[Protoman]

You mean if it WEREN'T factoring in hard-casting, that wouldn't be testing what it should be, right?

Because hard-casting is a DPS increase. You SHOULD be doing it if nothing else is up. The guide here recommends it. The guide on EJ recommends it. The sim shows increased DPS if you hard-cast. Why are you saying we shouldn't be?

If it's because you have some concept that Enhancement "shouldn't" hard-cast, just be clear that you're playing a suboptimally on purpose.

I know hardcasting is recommended for more DPS, I do it myself when I have gaps and sure nothing will be available in the next second. But we aren't discussing how to get the most DPS as Enhance, or which priority gives the optimal DPS, because that is obviously MW5 at lower priority under LL. You are trying to tell me that my statement about haste and MW5 is not true, and that having to delay MW5 use (meaning wasting potential procs) doesn't matter cause you get almost the same amount of LB's either way. But when you show me the ppm of LBs, or how many LB's you cast on average it is including both the ones from MW5 and hardcasting sub MW5.....that MW2 is on different priority and is used when there are gaps in rotation, gaps you see because of a static rotation and no ability but MW to fill it in.

It really doesn't have anything to do with what I am talking about, which is the stacks you lose in those 1-2 GCD's when you have to use SS/LL instead of MW5.....both the time you could have been gaining stacks thru melee attacks, plus the stacks you could have gained thru melee abilities like SS or LL which usually give you atleast 1 stack. You are trying to say the priority doesn't matter for MW cause they have same ppm, but that is not LB's from just MW it's also hardcasted LB's which isn't doing a good job of comparing how many LB's you would cast with MW5 in a different priority, and ONLY MW5. You are comparing total LB's for multiple sources, not two diff priorities of MW5. That is what I mean by "extraneous variables".

If you did compare just MW5 at top or low, there might actually be a difference in LB's used per minute because of MW5 at low priority, and it equals out when looking at the overall data because you have more gaps to hardcast LB's when MW5 is lower priority so thats why the numbers look similar.

I'm not sure what your point is, because the testing method was accurate. I tested the difference between having MW5 at third in priority where it "should" be based on the DPET, and moving it to the top priority to see what happens if you dump as many charges as you possibly can.

And the difference is one LB every 3 minutes in the sim. The sim isn't just guesstimate math, it simulates actual combat and the actual ability conflicts that crop up. That's the accurate number. It's why we USE the sim. It's a "perfect" number since the sim never makes an error, but it's also an average number a great player can beat, given some luck. Quite a few of the top parses on WoL for Ultraxxion beat the simmed DPS for BiS Enhancement, despite Ultraxxion also having boss effects that lower DPS, for instance.

Your testing is inaccurate as I explained, since you are not just testing LB's from MW5 so not a valid comparison of LB's from MW5. The sim IS math, it's not exactly the same as in game experiences and it can try to simulate actual combat like running around and stuff, or cd conflicts with abilities, but its done by using math to estimate the changes in DPS and abilities used. It is the absolute best case scenario with extremely precise reactions. It's good at predictions, and its good for stuff like gear upgrades or changes in rotation when their is a significant change in DPS.....but for subtle things like this issue with MW5 I think in game experience is the best way to judge the difference.

There is also this post you should pay attention to regarding the simulator being too fast in reacting to MW:

I've been thinking about this for awhile now and I think it would be a good idea to revisit how the sim handles latency and maybe add some additional complication to the system. This is especially true with how 4T10 is being modeled and how the sim's results are not translating well to what is being seen in game. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with how the sim is modeling the bonus - more that the sim seems to be overvaluing MW efficiency even when compared to best case in-game testing.

What I'm proposing is adding an additional delay factor into the sim. So then there would be two categories of "delay" on ability activation, Latency and Reaction Time. Latency would use the current mechanics and the tooltip would be changed to instruct people to report their average latency as reported in-game. Reaction Time would be a bit different. It would only need one box, instead of needing a random spread of time and the tooltip would instruct people to estimate their personal reaction time informing them that an average person should react to visual stimuli in 215ms.

That was over a year ago, bringing up the issue of sim being too fast with MW5, and is why there is a latency option now. Improvements have been made since then, but as you can see the simulator reacts faster then humans, so it could hardcast LB in a gap that could be a gap of only fractions of a second, where a player would not and wait for their next ability because it is almost ready to be useable.

I went and simmed some stuff myself, first increasing latency up to 400-500ms to make it more realistic and give more room for error. I noticed some interesting things, such as removing hardcasting giving almost no DPS change at all. Also, removing the "MW5 w/ SW" option gave me more DPS. I took SW out along with the 4set bonus so it was just our basic rotation and compared MW5 under LL to top priority, and I got something like 7.8ppm at low vs 8.6ppm at top.....so there is about one extra LB per minute if you have it at top priority, not once every 3 min.

Not the way you think. It just delays the actual cast, it doesn't actually lead to a major difference in the number of LBs cast. MW5 is a PPM mechanic. It's not as prone to RNG clashing as, say, Lightning Shield charges for Elemental, which are ALSO not the kind of conflict issue you're talking about for a good player, even though that ALSO has the additional restriction of the shared shock cooldown.

I'm not sure it's that simple because its not just about making the procs back up again thru ppm mechanics, but finding time to use them when other abilities get in your way. Its the same idea behind haste giving you more procs but still having to waste them cause of SS or LL.

I'm not making it up. I hate doing this, but here we go.

He says "Ultimately, we'd like to [do X]". "Ultimately" implies a distant goal, as opposed to a more immediate one; it's a long-term word, an end goal in the distance, not the next step. "We'd like to" means it would be nice if they could, but it doesn't carry any real weight if they don't get to it.

There is NOTHING in that phrasing that suggests they're planning to add this for MoP. It strongly implies that they won't, and they think that's okay.

And there is nothing that implies they won't add it for MoP....maybe not during the beta but during MoP. This is again just your subjective interpretation vs mines. The word "ultimate" does not have to mean distant, it could be the larger, main goal which they are aiming to achieve thru various other small changes.....flurry giving a "tuning knob" for haste being one of them, with more changes to come that could all add up to haste "doing more" active abilities for Enhance. He was responding to various complaints about enhance regarding our static rotation, no extra abilities during BL, haste not following the "do more" theme ect.......its obviously an issue for enhance and a failure to meet a fundamental aspect of the stat for one spec out of all classes. This is something a developer will want to improve on since it's part of their standard design for the stat. It may not be top on their priority but once they get the major balance problems out of the way like locks, monks, and resource tuning....Haste for Enhance could be next on their "to do" list.

It does NOT imply that they won't look into haste to "do more", or that they feel OK ignoring the issue. They gave reasons why it might be a complicated issue to protect themselves from criticism on why they can't just simply add "sanc of battle" for Enhance and be done with it. It's certainly not being used as an excuse to get themselves out of fixing the problem as you are making it sound.....a "scape goat".

Plenty of Enhancers do have expectations on Blizz to put more work into haste then they have currently. Since you don't play enhance you might think just the stat value improvement is enough, or the "band-aid' fixes for our haste CD's by having to sync them with another CD, but it's not. We want haste to behave just like it does for all classes, and while I don't expect them to have it done by MoP release (even though they should have started it much earlier)....I do expect them to work on it during MoP and will be reminding them that the problem still exists, like many other Enhancer's will.

@ Recom; I think in PvP the FS glyph is gonna be valuable. It gives you a lot of free shock cds to use ES or FS. Especially if you're using Frozen Power.

The FLS glyph won't be picked up in PVP because the instant damage of FLS is important, and longer duration isn't reliable cause of dispels so you might reapply more often meaning more instant damage. Also, PVP Elem won't have many free glyph slots since GW and Unleash Lightning will easily take up two slots, and that last slot there are many more valuable glyphs to pick from.....like thunder, capacitor, even TC if what people are saying about mana problems in PVP is true.

[Endus]

I know hardcasting is recommended for more DPS, I do it myself when I have gaps and sure nothing will be available in the next second. But we aren't discussing how to get the most DPS as Enhance, or which priority gives the optimal DPS, because that is obviously MW5 at lower priority under LL. You are trying to tell me that my statement about haste and MW5 is not true, and that having to delay MW5 use (meaning wasting potential procs) doesn't matter cause you get almost the same amount of LB's either way. But when you show me the ppm of LBs, or how many LB's you cast on average it is including both the ones from MW5 and hardcasting sub MW5.....that MW2 is on different priority and is used when there are gaps in rotation, gaps you see because of a static rotation and no ability but MW to fill it in.

It really doesn't have anything to do with what I am talking about, which is the stacks you lose in those 1-2 GCD's when you have to use SS/LL instead of MW5.....both the time you could have been gaining stacks thru melee attacks, plus the stacks you could have gained thru melee abilities like SS or LL which usually give you atleast 1 stack. You are trying to say the priority doesn't matter for MW cause they have same ppm, but that is not LB's from just MW it's also hardcasted LB's which isn't doing a good job of comparing how many LB's you would cast with MW5 in a different priority, and ONLY MW5. You are comparing total LB's for multiple sources, not two diff priorities of MW5. That is what I mean by "extraneous variables".

If you did compare just MW5 at top or low, there might actually be a difference in LB's used per minute because of MW5 at low priority, and it equals out when looking at the overall data because you have more gaps to hardcast LB's when MW5 is lower priority so thats why the numbers look similar.

You're missing the point. Your argument was that "MW5's low priority means it does not benefit as much from haste, specifically because extra procs gained thru haste are sometimes wasted when you delay MW5 use by an extra GCD or two cause of SS/LL coming first."

My point is that looking only at MW at 5 stacks is misleading, since you're excluding the stacks used in hard-casting, and then claiming that there's lots of "extra" procs that are being gained that aren't used.

Yes, I include hard-casting at certain stacks. Because you should be, in determining the value of Maelstrom Weapon and Lightning Bolts. You can't focus exclusively on 5-stacks when discussing the MW mechanic, because you're also hard-casting (or should be, at least), and those stacks need to be factored in.

Which you're not doing. Which is the issue. There is not some major difference in the number of stacks used at the current priority, or at the top priority. That was simply an untrue statement. Increasing the priority artificially in the sim DOES show a significant jump in the valuation of Haste (~1.22 DPS per point to ~1.46 DPS per point), which goes to show that changes which result in an actual priority shift in MWx5 specifically, like the increased Crit scaling for spells and such, will also lead to commensurate increases in the value of Haste.

That was over a year ago, bringing up the issue of sim being too fast with MW5, and is why there is a latency option now. Improvements have been made since then, but as you can see the simulator reacts faster then humans, so it could hardcast LB in a gap that could be a gap of only fractions of a second, where a player would not and wait for their next ability because it is almost ready to be useable.

And there's two issues with that post.

The first is that there IS a default latency in all the sim calculations I ran. The second is that the post is relying on a solely reactive gameplay style, and any good raider plays proactively. If I'm playing Enhancement, I'm not getting surprised by Maelstrom hitting 5 stacks all the time. I'm watching my stacks, and when I hit 3-4, I know when I'm likely to hit 5, and I'm adjusting for that. I do the same thing all the time for Elemental, with Fulmination. I do the same thing with my boomkin, so I don't wait to see Eclipse actually proc before I change my casts, I see that my current cast will proc Lunar Eclipse so I queue a Starfire proactively, rather than waiting to see the proc and react to it.

I'm not sure it's that simple because its not just about making the procs back up again thru ppm mechanics, but finding time to use them when other abilities get in your way. Its the same idea behind haste giving you more procs but still having to waste them cause of SS or LL.

It is that simple.

If you have "open" GCDs, more Haste means more LBs cast, because you've got more procs being generated, meaning higher availability. That you have other abilities that take priority just delays those casts, they're the GCDs that were already "used" and weren't being included in the consideration to begin with.

Yes, you'll occasionally have to delay an LB to use SS or LL, but that's what it is, a delay. You'll lose some procs, the same way Elemental always loses some Lightning Shield procs, and Haste will mean you lose more procs, but you'll also have more successful casts. The wastage is already included in the valuation of the ability.

Plenty of Enhancers do have expectations on Blizz to put more work into haste then they have currently. Since you don't play enhance you might think just the stat value improvement is enough, or the "band-aid' fixes for our haste CD's by having to sync them with another CD, but it's not.

I *do* play Enhancement. It's not my main spec, but it's decently geared, about half (H) gear. I'm not "an Elemental player". Hell, I'm not even "a Shaman player". I don't have any alts I raid with currently but that has to do with the server change my guild just made a few weeks ago, and that my new Druid is only 82 because I've been busy. Before the server change, I had an alt Warlock I was raiding as both Demo and Destro, and a Paladin I raided as Ret and Holy. The list of specs I haven't raided with is shorter than the list of specs I have raided with. And I mean in alt raids and the like, not just going through LFR.

Seriously, the idea that someone only has enough room in their head for one spec in the entire game, I don't get that, at all. Is my focus on Elemental? Sure. Is that all I know? Heck no.

We want haste to behave just like it does for all classes, and while I don't expect them to have it done by MoP release (even though they should have started it much earlier)....I do expect them to work on it during MoP and will be reminding them that the problem still exists, like many other Enhancer's will.

You're claiming a universality of opinion, and I guarantee that most Enhancement players have been complaining more about the stat value of Haste rather than the ability of Haste to allow more abilities to be used. And that stat value has and is being addressed.

I pretty openly agree that they letting Haste "do more" is the better way to go, but I've caught enough flak from other members of the community in the past for it that I know full well that it hasn't been the major complaint through Cata.

And my agreement in principle with the concept doesn't mean that GC quote supports your point, since he's saying they don't see it as a priority item.

[Protoman]

You're missing the point. Your argument was that "MW5's low priority means it does not benefit as much from haste, specifically because extra procs gained thru haste are sometimes wasted when you delay MW5 use by an extra GCD or two cause of SS/LL coming first."

My point is that looking only at MW at 5 stacks is misleading, since you're excluding the stacks used in hard-casting, and then claiming that there's lots of "extra" procs that are being gained that aren't used.

Yes, I include hard-casting at certain stacks. Because you should be, in determining the value of Maelstrom Weapon and Lightning Bolts. You can't focus exclusively on 5-stacks when discussing the MW mechanic, because you're also hard-casting (or should be, at least), and those stacks need to be factored in.

Which you're not doing. Which is the issue. There is not some major difference in the number of stacks used at the current priority, or at the top priority. That was simply an untrue statement. Increasing the priority artificially in the sim DOES show a significant jump in the valuation of Haste (~1.22 DPS per point to ~1.46 DPS per point), which goes to show that changes which result in an actual priority shift in MWx5 specifically, like the increased Crit scaling for spells and such, will also lead to commensurate increases in the value of Haste.

The whole argument revolves around haste having a reduced effect on the rate of LB use from MW5, since delaying MW5 means wasting potential stacks. That MW5 is in the priority right under LL. Your MW2-4 is at the bottom of the priority list and has nothing to do with haste. Haste gives you faster MW5 procs, which you can use earlier once you have a full stack. The MW2-4 is not influenced by haste, it's used when you have a gap in your rotation that is caused by static CD's.

You cannot get an accurate comparison of the LB's cast by MW5 at various priorities and haste levels if you also include sub-MW5....since that is not dependent on a priority or haste, but rather the lack of any other button to press including a full MW5.

The comparison I made between our regular rotation (no MW2-4, no SW, no 4set bonus, increased latency) did show that you get about 1 extra LB a minute.....in the actual game it might even be more. Also, the sub-MW5 (MW2-4) if you remove it from the rotation gives almost NO DPS change....it's even less of a change then moving MW5 to top priority. So you should be running tests with no sub-MW if you are willing to run tests with MW5 at top priority. And it gives a much more accurate idea of how priority or haste effects MW5 and number of LB's used.

And your statement about haste rating increasing when MW5 is top priority proves my point, that haste rating has a reduced effect when MW5 is a lower priority. And that if MW5 was top priority again, it would naturally improve haste rating along with letting us "do more" active abilities.

And there's two issues with that post.

The first is that there IS a default latency in all the sim calculations I ran. The second is that the post is relying on a solely reactive gameplay style, and any good raider plays proactively. If I'm playing Enhancement, I'm not getting surprised by Maelstrom hitting 5 stacks all the time. I'm watching my stacks, and when I hit 3-4, I know when I'm likely to hit 5, and I'm adjusting for that. I do the same thing all the time for Elemental, with Fulmination. I do the same thing with my boomkin, so I don't wait to see Eclipse actually proc before I change my casts, I see that my current cast will proc Lunar Eclipse so I queue a Starfire proactively, rather than waiting to see the proc and react to it.

Yes, but the default is set at 250ms. I'm saying you should increase it to simulate a more human reaction time and not give the sim computer like precision when it comes to using MW5 soon as possible, or MW2-4 the millisecond you have a gap. I put mine around 400-500ms to get more realistic results.

It is that simple.

If you have "open" GCDs, more Haste means more LBs cast, because you've got more procs being generated, meaning higher availability. That you have other abilities that take priority just delays those casts, they're the GCDs that were already "used" and weren't being included in the consideration to begin with.

Yes, you'll occasionally have to delay an LB to use SS or LL, but that's what it is, a delay. You'll lose some procs, the same way Elemental always loses some Lightning Shield procs, and Haste will mean you lose more procs, but you'll also have more successful casts. The wastage is already included in the valuation of the ability.

You have been using the PPM mechanic to justify why a low priority MW5 has same LB's as top priority. I don't think thats true, its prob being made up for with the gaps in your rotation when you hardcast, or just the sim making unrealistic use of MW5 or MW2-4. If I made MW5 bottom priority would PPM mean I still get the same amount of LB's? I doubt it.

When you have a gap, or open gcd, haste isn't really a factor cause you just use MW5 regardless of number of stacks....that 1.5sec is plenty of time to fit a cast of any speed into. The extra procs thru haste are a factor for a full MW5, back when you could use it right away at top priority. Because you delay it sometimes, you lose potential procs.....not just from time, but also abilities like SS that hit twice and would have let you get another MW5 much faster if you used MW5 before it instead of after.

You're claiming a universality of opinion, and I guarantee that most Enhancement players have been complaining more about the stat value of Haste rather than the ability of Haste to allow more abilities to be used. And that stat value has and is being addressed.

I pretty openly agree that they letting Haste "do more" is the better way to go, but I've caught enough flak from other members of the community in the past for it that I know full well that it hasn't been the major complaint through Cata.

And my agreement in principle with the concept doesn't mean that GC quote supports your point, since he's saying they don't see it as a priority item.

Even the people who want Haste to influence active abilities/rotation ultimately (see how I use this word) want the stat value to improve as well. It's connected and you have to stop trying to make them two separate things when they are completely related. You have to see WHY the stat value got so low, and HOW to best fix it by addressing those flaws.....which is letting haste influence more then passive damage since our focus is active damage now and for all other classes haste follows "do more" by giving resources which we don't have. We have CD's or MW5, both which aren't really effected by haste.

I don't think the majority of Enhance wanted haste to buff our passive damage. It's always done that, and when you look at haste rating vs any other stat the first thing that pop into your mind is that it doesn't do anything for your actual abilities while crit, mastery, hit, expertise, agility....ALL work on atleast some active abilities. The next thing you notice is that your Blust doesn't change how often you attack at all, just passive damage.

If you polled the entire population of Enhance Shaman and asked if they want haste improved thru more passive damage or active damage (for the same buff to haste's stat value/scaling with either decision), no one would select passive.

I highly doubt anyone would "give you flak" for suggesting haste "do more' or influence active abilities, I'd like to see those posts and if those players even know what they are talking about. Regardless, your constant support of the Flurry change to just buff haste value, along with criticizing any suggestions for further improvements, make your whole stance of "even though I agree it's the better way to go" useless and irrelevant. You can't play both sides, and its obvious you have chosen the "its fine, more adjustments aren't needed" side. Also, you have no idea what GC sees as a priority or not, just your subjective opinion based on a few sentences. He highlighted this Enhance issue out of several questions for all Shaman, and mentioned "do more" specifically, with that as their "ultimate goal". That should tell you something, even if it's not their immediate priority it is more likely something they plan to address then not address at all.

[Endus]

The whole argument revolves around haste having a reduced effect on the rate of LB use from MW5, since delaying MW5 means wasting potential stacks. That MW5 is in the priority right under LL. Your MW2-4 is at the bottom of the priority list and has nothing to do with haste. Haste gives you faster MW5 procs, which you can use earlier once you have a full stack. The MW2-4 is not influenced by haste, it's used when you have a gap in your rotation that is caused by static CD's.

MW 3/4 is affected by Haste, since 1> Haste reduces the remaining cast time and 2> you get more opportunities to use those procs since they stack up faster and are available more often.

You're confusing the idea that you lose stacks and therefore don't get optimal benefit from haste with the idea that the resulting benefit of Haste is not an improvement, which isn't true. If you run the sims, a change in priority DOES increase the value of Haste, for the reasons you're dismissing, based on no evidence at all.

You cannot get an accurate comparison of the LB's cast by MW5 at various priorities and haste levels if you also include sub-MW5....since that is not dependent on a priority or haste, but rather the lack of any other button to press including a full MW5.

It's more accurate to say that MWx5 as a separate distinction is basically irrelevant, since we're discussing the value of Haste and how it interacts with Maelstrom Weapon charges, and firing at full stacks is only part of the equation.

Yes, including MWx3/4 uses will muddy the results of trying to look purely at MWx5, but looking purely at MWx5 isn't useful to this discussion.

And your statement about haste rating increasing when MW5 is top priority proves my point, that haste rating has a reduced effect when MW5 is a lower priority. And that if MW5 was top priority again, it would naturally improve haste rating along with letting us "do more" active abilities.

Nobody was disputing that Haste has a reduced effect if Maelstrom Weapon is at a lower priority. Nobody at all.

Also, MWx5 being at the top of the priority would improve Haste. It would NOT let you "do more" active abilities. Actually stacking Haste would do so. They're two unrelated arguments. At the current priority, stacking more Haste already allows you to "do more"; I forced the sim to stack on 2000 Haste rating out of nowhere (Which isn't achievable in that gear, but the point here is to prove a mathematical point, not stick within available gear). The result was a ~2700 DPS increase, about what you'd expect given current scaling, but that's not really important. What's important is the number of abilities used. ~52.2 stormstrikes in each parse, which is what you'd expect. 41/42 LLs, again, no change. Flame Shocks, no change again. But Earth Shocks? That went from ~39 per parse to ~42 per parse, a gain of 3, via having more gaps to fit them in around other abilities. Not a huge change though, since it's still tied to the 6s shock CD. LBs, though? 88.4 to 98.4. 10 more LBs per parse. The idea that the current priority does not allow you to get extra LBs from haste is wrong.

I think your estimate of 4-500 MS latency is a bit much; my own reaction time usually measures in the ~250ms range (online test here), and I run with ~50ms world latency, so if I re-run these sims with the 300ms latency option, just as a nod to your issues with human reaction time, the sims again show a gain of ~10 lbs.

The point I'm making is that stacking Haste already adds more LBs. Stacking Haste is what does that, though, not the change in priority; the change in priority results in very little additional LB use. Yes, changing the priority will increase the value of Haste, but unless it makes it high enough to change your gearing priorities, it won't have much effect on your actual LB use. And if it does, what's actually affecting your LB use is the Haste you're stacking, not the LB priority.

Claiming the priority is the problem is putting the cart before the horse. The problem is the scaling value.

Yes, but the default is set at 250ms. I'm saying you should increase it to simulate a more human reaction time and not give the sim computer like precision when it comes to using MW5 soon as possible, or MW2-4 the millisecond you have a gap. I put mine around 400-500ms to get more realistic results.

The default's 100ms. Human reaction time is usually in the 200-300ms range. 400-500 is much higher, especially given the predictable nature of most gameplay.

You have been using the PPM mechanic to justify why a low priority MW5 has same LB's as top priority.

No, I was pointing out that it's a PPM mechanic because there's two kinds of RNG in WoW; "true" RNG like Lava Surge or Rolling Thunder, where it's a straight chance to proc with no jiggling of the numbers, and PPM mechanics, which have a certain amount of variability but are mathematically bound to a specific number of procs-per-minute (hence PPM). Some PPM mechanics aren't affected by Haste, MW's proc chance is. The reason I brought it up is because you aren't going to get the same kinds of lucky streaks or dry spells with Maelstrom Weapon that you can get with "true" RNG mechanics, meaning the performance of MW is much more consistent and reliable, and at least somewhat predictable.

It's like the difference between a normal slot machine, and a slot machine that's guaranteed to pay out 5 times in every 15 pulls. You can do 30 pulls on a normal machine with no wins. If you do 5 with the second machine with no wins, though, you know each spin for the next 10 is a 50/50 shot. And if you go 5 more without a win, you've got 5 guaranteed wins in the next 5 pulls. There's still some randomness, but the overall performance is MUCH more predictable.

When you have a gap, or open gcd, haste isn't really a factor cause you just use MW5 regardless of number of stacks....that 1.5sec is plenty of time to fit a cast of any speed into. The extra procs thru haste are a factor for a full MW5, back when you could use it right away at top priority.

Haste absolutely IS a factor for hard-casting. It both reduces the cast time of the hard cast, and because there's more procs being made, you'll be more likely to have 3/4 stacks when an opportunity to hard cast crops up.

Regardless, your constant support of the Flurry change to just buff haste value, along with criticizing any suggestions for further improvements, make your whole stance of "even though I agree it's the better way to go" useless and irrelevant. You can't play both sides, and its obvious you have chosen the "its fine, more adjustments aren't needed" side.

There aren't "sides", and this isn't a black-or-white, with-us-or-against-us issue. Seriously, that's ridiculous.

[Grubjuice]

I am having trouble wrapping my head around tiers 4 and 5 from a resto point of view.

I think I would prefer Elemental Mastery because it suits my styles (cooldowns>random procs)
but Would i be better off taking Ancenstral Guidance to get its 2 min CD to jive with Elemental Mastery (leaving Ascendence to stand alone)
or should I use Healing Tide Totem and coordinate it's 3minute cooldown with Ascendence, (leaving Elemental Mastery to stand alone)

[Undefetter]

I am having trouble wrapping my head around tiers 4 and 5 from a resto point of view.

I think I would prefer Elemental Mastery because it suits my styles (+cooldowns, -random procs)
but Would i be better off taking Ancenstral Guidance to get its 2 min CD to juve with Elemental Mastery (leaving Ascendence to stand alone)
or should I use Healing Tide Totem and coordinate it's 3minute cooldown with Ascendence, (leaving Elemental Mastrery to stand alone)

Its unlikely you'd want to blow all cooldowns at once anyway, and if you did, you would go Elemental Mastery + Ascendance + SLT + Conductivity (if your going to be blowing all your cooldowns at once then your likely stacked and because of the haste from EM and the healing split from SLT, as well as the healing copying from Ascendance you'd be better off spamming HS/GHW than CH so Conductivity would be the way to go I think).

Even if Ancestral Guidance did more HPS in that situation, theres no way you would ever need to pop Ascendance, EM, SLT and AG all at the same time so you can take Conductivity to benefit you for the rest of the fight too. Your also better off staggering your cooldowns because your not the only healer with cooldowns. It doesn't make much sense to make your shaman pop everything he has and as (apart from SLT) none of his cooldowns increase the healing done by other healers/reduce damage taken by the raid he would basically have to dump like his entire mana pool into keeping the raid alive if he did pop everything.

Long answer really for a short point I wanted to make. You shouldn't really (in a general view, a certain encounter may say otherwise but that would answer the question for you) pick talents to stack them together as a healer. You want to get maximum coverage so that you can make sure people stay alive the whole time, not be a massive AoE beast for 10 seconds then let someone die in the next wave of damage 1 minute later.

[Grubjuice]

I see what you mean.

---------- Post added 2012-07-10 at 04:58 PM ----------

Say, has any one used Conductivity + Glyph of Telluric Currents, what sort of healing output does that generate when in a mana conservation phase?

[Undefetter]

[/COLOR]Say, has any one used Conductivity + Glyph of Telluric Currents, what sort of healing output does that generate when in a mana conservation phase?

The healing isn't too bad. If you took Conductivity + GoTC you would use that in phases where you'd normally be using HW to just top off the raid. GoTC isn't really a mana regen tool anymore, the net mana returned from it isn't very much. As GC said, its meant to be a glyph to make LB free, not a glyph to be another mana regen tool.

[Endus]

The healing isn't too bad. If you took Conductivity + GoTC you would use that in phases where you'd normally be using HW to just top off the raid. GoTC isn't really a mana regen tool anymore, the net mana returned from it isn't very much. As GC said, its meant to be a glyph to make LB free, not a glyph to be another mana regen tool.

And to be pre-emptive before anyone else says it, Glyph of Telluric Currents is meant to be mana-neutral to make LB free, and the Priest talent Power Word: Solace IS meant to generate mana via dealing damage, and this isn't a balance issue because PW:Solace is one talent among three that are all aimed at mana regen, and Priests' regen will be balanced assuming they have one of those three, whereas Shaman regen will be balanced WITHOUT the necessity of GoTC.

[Grubjuice]

And to be pre-emptive before anyone else says it, Glyph of Telluric Currents is meant to be mana-neutral to make LB free, and the Priest talent Power Word: Solace IS meant to generate mana via dealing damage, and this isn't a balance issue because PW:Solace is one talent among three that are all aimed at mana regen, and Priests' regen will be balanced assuming they have one of those three, whereas Shaman regen will be balanced WITHOUT the necessity of GoTC.

Ahh, good, because frankly i never liked TC, but i would not mind a GoTC+Conductivity build if it was viable a some encounters with low continuous AoE damage; rather than TC being so strong it was mandatory all the time; So i can swap in and out of a GoTC+Conductivity build as I see fit.

[Aviators]

So the new Call of the Elements being tested internally is all totem cooldowns less than 3 mins with a 3 mins CD.

I think the problem is still there, especially with HST with Glyph of HST. This will be mandatory for Resto shamans, considering the other 2 talents do not provide any throughput.

[Endus]

So the new Call of the Elements being tested internally is all totem cooldowns less than 3 mins with a 3 mins CD.

I think the problem is still there, especially with HST with Glyph of HST. This will be mandatory for Resto shamans, considering the other 2 talents do not provide any throughput.

Not really. HST is already at ~50% uptime (15s uptime, 30s CD), so over 3 minutes, you're talking about the difference between 90 seconds of HST vs 115 seconds, a little over a 20% boost to the ability. And since HST is single target, the glyph isn't nearly the raid damage mitigation powerhouse the Cata version is.

CotE may provide a minimal throughput advantage, but the other two will provide decent new situational advantages, like popping SLT to even out damage after the tank takes a massive hit and immediately recalling SLT so you can do that twice as often, with Totemic Restoration, or not losing healing ability by using Totemic Projection to throw SLT into the melee group rather than running there.

[Illitti]

I think this just makes the whole tier pretty much useless, and you can throw a dice to decide which one you take. Not to mention I can't even count how many times this has happened in the past, where we're barely competing with other classes in throughput/utility and then they make this last second change that screws us over.

Since there seems to be a huge outcry about this on US forums, maybe there's a slim chance that they will do something to compensate. But considering how broken the spec was at the launch of Cata, I don't really have any hope left.

[Undefetter]

I think this just makes the whole tier pretty much useless, and you can throw a dice to decide which one you take. Not to mention I can't even count how many times this has happened in the past, where we're barely competing with other classes in throughput/utility and then they make this last second change that screws us over.

Since there seems to be a huge outcry about this on US forums, maybe there's a slim chance that they will do something to compensate. But considering how broken the spec was at the launch of Cata, I don't really have any hope left.

There is no problem with the tier not being a direct numbers increase tier but pure utility. Sure theres fights where you might not need any of the three but then the same can be said for many classes and some of their tiers. Basically every class (in fact every class I believe) has a utility tier or two. The change to CotE is a good thing, its gone from "Take CotE always, the others arent even close" to actually getting to pick the one you want that fits the situation (or if no situation permits, the one you like the most). Thats the whole design of the new talent system.

[Recom]

I think this just makes the whole tier pretty much useless, and you can throw a dice to decide which one you take. Not to mention I can't even count how many times this has happened in the past, where we're barely competing with other classes in throughput/utility and then they make this last second change that screws us over.

Since there seems to be a huge outcry about this on US forums, maybe there's a slim chance that they will do something to compensate. But considering how broken the spec was at the launch of Cata, I don't really have any hope left.

Please stop acting like you know better. Do you know for sure that say Totemic Projection isn't going to be useful EVER ? Like Endus said, Totemic Restoration can be used to have lower duration - lower cd totems (SLT/grounding) and that may be useful here and there. Yes CotE is not the overpowered mandatory talent it was but having overpowered mandatory talents IS NOT THE POINT...
It's all about what's best for what encounter and it's utility, it's not awesome imba omg looking but it is nice to have anyway.

I haven't been raid testing nor have I seen any logs so I don't know how shamans are doing compared to other healers but you can't dismiss the fact that we've got some nice tools and QoL improvement so shaman WILL be better than they were in T11.

[Illitti]

There is no problem with the tier not being a direct numbers increase tier but pure utility. Sure theres fights where you might not need any of the three but then the same can be said for many classes and some of their tiers. Basically every class (in fact every class I believe) has a utility tier or two. The change to CotE is a good thing, its gone from "Take CotE always, the others arent even close" to actually getting to pick the one you want that fits the situation (or if no situation permits, the one you like the most). Thats the whole design of the new talent system.

Indeed, conceptually this tier is now much closer to how Blizzard wants the new talent system to work out. I still think it is stupid to have a tier or two of uninteresting talents, and the talent system can be balanced and have interesting choices. When none of the choices really even matter, that's not good design either.

The fact that I'm more annoyed about is the timing. This issue has been well known and complained about on Blizzard forums since the start of the beta, yet they decide to act now when whole lot of raid encounter data is already gathered.

[Jecht]

I understand how frustrated Resto Shams might be regarding Call of Elements, but for Ele/Enh I can't see why you would want CotE over Totemic Projection which has a MULTITUDE of utility within it. Especially in Cataclysm raids (Haven't seen much of the new raids).

[binkenstein]

The healing isn't too bad. If you took Conductivity + GoTC you would use that in phases where you'd normally be using HW to just top off the raid. GoTC isn't really a mana regen tool anymore, the net mana returned from it isn't very much. As GC said, its meant to be a glyph to make LB free, not a glyph to be another mana regen tool.

Currently TC is returning 2.2% base mana per LB hit, since LB costs 7.8% base mana and TC returns 2% total mana (total mana is 5x base mana), so until they change how Telluric Currents behaves it's still a mana regeneration tool.