[Enh Shaman] Ap Crit gems VS Agi Crit gems, Why?

[Catmandoo]

I don't get exactly why EJ and such suggest attack power+ crit gems provide more of a benefit than agi + crit gems.

It just doesn't make all that much sense since you'll be losing more crit.

The only reason I could really come up with is that it takes what, nearly 82 agility to equal ~1% crit, so it wouldn't seem like much, and that agility has diminishing returns when converting to crit, no?

That and I suppose you get even more attack power out of the gems. Only like 8 more per gem.



Meh.

[Gunwolf]

Pretty much. An AP gem would give u 32 AP, while an agility gem is 16 Agility, so 16 AP and some crit...like .2% or something lol.

So you get twice as much AP thru raw AP gems then agility, and the crit gain from Agility gems is not very noticeable with raid buffs when you will have 40%+ melee crit anyways.

[Omanley]

raw attackpower is best, because it fuels your spellpower as well.

looking at how enhancementshaman are the most hybrid-like class/spec ingame, doing half/half melee/cast dmg, stats like crit, haste, hit and attackpower, which greatly benefit both parts, come out on top

agility/intellect however:

intellect & agility use same pointbudget than other attributes ( except stamina ) & stats like crit/haste/etc

in terms of int, the manapool increasement doesn´t translate into damage as you´re not supposed to be mana-capped, the attackpower gain through mental dexterty gives int and value of 1.1 + the ( very small ) extra spellcrit, which only affects spells

in terms of agility, you gain have of the stat in form of attackpower, which is good ( like int, it also scales with BoK ) the crit increasement however is melee only, not affecting your spells

so to make it short: intellect and agility do not influence 100% of you´re damage done, while crit/haste/etc do.

[Spaceinvader]

I think you have the right idea about enhancement doing hybrid damage but not sure all your generalizations are correct.

Let's not forget that Expertise is a tremendous stat until capped even though it only affects melee damage. Also, Intellect and Agility do affect both your melee and spell damage -- they both convert to 1 AP (when talented). Haste, on the other hand, should only affect your melee damage since your spells should be instant casts. And hit only benefits your spell damage until you hit the spell cap (and is still a pretty solid stat beyond the spell hit cap).

[Deleted]

I think you have the right idea about enhancement doing hybrid damage but not sure all your generalizations are correct.

Let's not forget that Expertise is a tremendous stat until capped even though it only affects melee damage. Also, Intellect and Agility do affect both your melee and spell damage -- they both convert to 1 AP (when talented). Haste, on the other hand, should only affect your melee damage since your spells should be instant casts. And hit only benefits your spell damage until you hit the spell cap (and is still a pretty solid stat beyond the spell hit cap).

Haste does actually affect spells as it influences their GCD which can have a profound effect on the number of abilities you can use in a given combat period. This is the principal reason that when you graph haste rating vs dps you get a line with peaks and troughs are you hit various sweet spots.

You statement about hit is a bit confusing I suspect you meant to say "Hit loses a lot of its benefit once you hit the spell cap", the wording you used is ambiguous as it could be read as "hit ONLY benefits your spell damage" which ofc is not true.

[Fornaw]

I think you have the right idea about enhancement doing hybrid damage but not sure all your generalizations are correct.

Let's not forget that Expertise is a tremendous stat until capped even though it only affects melee damage. Also, Intellect and Agility do affect both your melee and spell damage -- they both convert to 1 AP (when talented). Haste, on the other hand, should only affect your melee damage since your spells should be instant casts. And hit only benefits your spell damage until you hit the spell cap (and is still a pretty solid stat beyond the spell hit cap).

Another way to think about this however is maelstrom, only attacks that land can trigger the talent, Haste and expertise increase the number of attacks that land, thus they increase your lightning bolt damage. The increase is roughly the same percentage that they increase your white/melee special damage in the case of Expertise, and by about 50% of the amount it increases your white damage in the case of haste (some of your maelstrom procs come from yellow damage this portion is negligibly affected by haste).

Edit to clarify: With expertise for example 4 expertise is 1% more white damage, 1% more melee special damage, and 1% more lightning bolt damage, not a bad boost from 2 gems worth of a stat.

[Omanley]

spells cannot be parried/evaded, so expertise wont increase your damage with spells

expertise is viable because 16 expertise equals 1% less chance vor the enemy to evade it´s damage, which is huge enough of a buff to overcome the "not-affecting-cast-dmg" thing.

keep also in mind that attacks which got evaded wont be able to trigger maelstrom and static shock, so although indirect, it does in fact increase spelldmg as well.

yes im aware that the attackpower portion of agi/int does convert to spellpower. what i said was meant this way:

agility/int do not to 100% affect both sides. half of agility goes to ap, which does convert to spellpower
the other half does only affect melee damage, so agility does only affect to 75% our overall damage.

in terms of haste: just like levva pointed out, it does shorten global cooldowns, and it also shortens procs per minute, in other words, maelstrom.