Cataclysm changes - Enhancement

[shamlrock]

I've been wondering a few things about Beta i.e. Cata enh. I guess my first question would be the viability of FS. The main reason I'm unsure about it is because I believe its(the FS dot) supposed to scale with haste right? Well with the changes to gear itemization and the introduction of the mastery stat haste is no longer our best stat, agi is. With that being said I can't help but wonder if Cata gear will have so much haste on it that it will somehow make it on par with Pre 4.0 FS.

Pre-patch FS + its dot easily stayed on par(and at higher gear levels) easily surpassed ES in my overall damage. While spending time on the dummies it seemed even perfect 5min runs with no clipping showed ES beating out FS. Now i know the first thing on the tip of anyones tongue would be "Well 4.0 is the prequel to cata and thus your numbers are off since your gears not optimal and neither are you(being lvl 80)." But herein lies issue, with Mastery and Agi boosting ALL OUR SPELL DAMAGE what is it that will get FS back up to its former glory?

With everything; gear scaling, the debuff from SS only affecting nature based spells, the UE effect only affecting the initial damage from FS(which if you hadn't noticed is NOT where the majority or even close half of damage comes from), what aside from movement fights where you spend time off the boss (i.e. switching targets to go kill some new npc that threatens the raid) will FS become more viable? I can see it catching up at insane Cata gs levels but even then whats to stop Enh shams from reforging haste to mastery which will in turn be a damage boost to LB, ES, and LS.

Note I am by no means saying that this is how it will be nor do I have a beta key and this is all just speculation based off tool tips and the numbers I get dicking around on training dummies as I wait for the expansion to hit . Just wanting other shamans input since there seems to be a lack on Enh players on my server.......who aren't seven e_e'.

<Moderator Edit: Fixed your text splitting it into paragraphs. Please check your keyboard and see if your return key is broken. If not please use it in future so people can read your comment.

[Elementium]

How great would it be if BOTH ways worked. WF/FT gets the higher Lava Lashes and higher Earth Shocks/MW_5 procs, and WF/WF gets alot more Maelstrom procs for instant Lightning Bolts.

I would personally choose WF/WF just because i hate Lava Lash with a dire passion, and i love Windfury.

I think before they said they wanted all weapon enchants to be unique eventually. Meaning Shaman and Enchanting ones.

[Gargz]

Does anyone currently Beta testing the raid content as an enhance shamana, have any logs or recount parses showing dps/dmg? I just watched a danish cho'gall kill showing two fury wars and a dk blowing away everyone with at times 1mil dmg more than anyone else. I believe the dps looked to be two fury wars, dk, mage, lock, ele shaman.

Watching the POV's Scrolling combat text, I took note of how hard HS and BT were critting for. Most were 40k+ with a few 55k+ in there and ended with the war's dps hovering around 18k and the shamans was around 12k. Now, before you start spewing garbage like this is beta and all that shit. I'd like to hear from enh numbers. B/c frankly from what I saw not only is enhance going to be SEVERELY behind the curve, it looks like ele is going to be in the same boat.

[angeleg]

On live its the same gargz everyone (except for hunters wich i dont know if they have got the hotfix yet) are doing 16 to 18k dps while we are at 12k.

[Deleted]

I've been wondering a few things about Beta i.e. Cata enh. I guess my first question would be the viability of FS. The main reason I'm unsure about it is because I believe its(the FS dot) supposed to scale with haste right? Well with the changes to gear itemization and the introduction of the mastery stat haste is no longer our best stat, agi is. With that being said I can't help but wonder if Cata gear will have so much haste on it that it will somehow make it on par with Pre 4.0 FS.

Unleash Elements means big buffs to FS.

[Gargz]

On live its the same gargz everyone (except for hunters wich i dont know if they have got the hotfix yet) are doing 16 to 18k dps while we are at 12k.

I am aware of this. However, I wanted to see if the level difference + increase in gear etc has made an impact since alot of the gear we have is limited to ICC/Hal which is inferior to heroic/raid gear in Cata.

Levva, have you gotten a chance to do any testing in a raid setting yet??

*side note*

VoA 25 just now. Same dps as pre-4.0 maybe slightly lower.

[Mello]

Has there come some kind of list on what gear one should assemble as first 85 gear, like, full blues before heroics? I know that the Justice Points brings lots of gear but a lot of it is based on haste and 3 of the pieces has mastery, obviously i will get the 3 mastery items but i look for alternatives for all the other slots, as haste suck.

[kosajk]

With everything; gear scaling, the debuff from SS only affecting nature based spells, the UE effect only affecting the initial damage from FS(which if you hadn't noticed is NOT where the majority or even close half of damage comes from), what aside from movement fights where you spend time off the boss (i.e. switching targets to go kill some new npc that threatens the raid) will FS become more viable? I can see it catching up at insane Cata gs levels but even then whats to stop Enh shams from reforging haste to mastery which will in turn be a damage boost to LB, ES, and LS.

i read somewhere that UE buff will afect FS dot, accually it should afect it alredy on beta i cant check it by myself tho

Has there come some kind of list on what gear one should assemble as first 85 gear, like, full blues before heroics? I know that the Justice Points brings lots of gear but a lot of it is based on haste and 3 of the pieces has mastery, obviously i will get the 3 mastery items but i look for alternatives for all the other slots, as haste suck.

reforge is made to solve that problem, haste is worse than mastery but its for sure not trash stat that we should avoid at any costs