Shaman on Ramen

There is an oft-repeated maxim  on the shaman forums that Enhance shaman scale with every raid buff/debuff that exists. For the most part, this is true- I’m personally not positive what I’m getting from Divine Spirit, but other than that I’d agree. However, what we don’t tend to talk about is how much we scale with these raid buffs, and what raid buffs do we absolutely need to see in a raid.

I felt that it would be a fun project to see exactly how much we do benefit from each debuff, so I opened up my handy dandy enh simulator and simmed my DPS five times, averaging out to 7347DPS with .05% Out of Mana time. I then went and systematically removed buffs/debuffs and recorded the damage lost. For simming unleashed rage, I did one sim without changing my expertise to emulate not taking the talent, but having another 10% ap buff (abom might/trueshot), and another sim without changing my expertise and not having another 10% ap buff. For 3% spell hit, I dropped my hit rating down to 368 as I’m spell hit capped in my current gear. I also looked at the difference between using regular and improved versions of the buffs I remembered to.

Something important to keep in mind here is that these numbers are based on my own individual gear, and that they will probably differ from your own values. Beyond that, buffs and debuffs play with each other, so in order to figure out the exact data you’d probably have to do tons of combinations of sims. So, take these as they are: a basic idea of what you’ll get from different buffs and debuffs. Without further ado, this is the raw data I collected:

No Flask: 7232 DPS. Loss of 115 DPS.
No Potion of Speed: 7316 DPS. Loss of 31 DPS.
No Fish Feast: 7265 DPS. Loss of 82 DPS.
No Replenisment: 7323 DPS. Loss of 24 DPS. .85% OOM time.
No Blessing of Wisdom: 7343 DPS. Loss of 4 DPS. .20% OOM time.
No Judgement of Wisdom: 7345 DPS. Loss of 2 DPS. .11% OOM time
No Arcane Brilliance: 7291 DPS. Loss of 56 DPS.
No Imp SoE: 6995 DPS. Loss of 352 DPS.
Horn of Winter Instead of Imp. SoE: 7297 DPS. Loss of 50 DPS.
No Gift of the Wild: 7204 DPS. Loss of 143 DPS.
No Blessing of Kings: 7135 DPS. Loss of 212 DPS.
Loss of Totem of Wrath/Heart of the Crusader Crit Portion: 7158 DPS. Loss of 189 DPS.
Loss of Ferocious Ins/Sanctified Ret: 7144 DPS. Loss of 203 DPS.
Loss of Mookin/Ret Aura Haste: 7207 DPS. Loss of 140 DPS.
Loss of 3% Spell Hit. (I dropped my hit down to 368/14% for the purpose of this test, as I was spell hit capped in my gear.) 7248 DPS. Loss of 99 DPS.
Loss of 280 Spellpower: 7155 DPS.  Loss of 192 DPS.
144 SP (Flt Totem vs. ToW): 7256 dps. Loss of 91 DPS.
Loss of 13% Spell Damage debuff: 7008 dps. Loss of 339 DPS.
Loss of 5% Spell Crit Debuff: 7218 dps. Loss of 129 dps.
Loss of 5% Spell Crit Buff: 7213 dps. Loss of 134 dps.
Loss of 5% spell haste Totem: 7322 dps. Loss of 15 DPS.
Loss of 10% AP. (Changed expertise to 216 to not reflect loss of expertise in date.): 6916 DPS. Loss 431 DPS.
Loss of 10%AP+9 Expertise. (0/0 UR.) 6797 DPS. Loss of 550 DPS.
Loss of Imp might/BS- 687 AP. 6892 DPS. Loss of 455 DPS.
Loss of Imp Might, using regular might- 550 AP. 7258 dps. Loss of 89 dps.
Loss of 5% Crit- LoTP/Rampage. 7168 DPS. Loss of 269 dps.
Loss of 20%melee haste. 6692 DPS. Loss of 655 DPS.
Loss of 4% melee haste- no imp wf. 7213 DPS. Loss of 134 DPS.
Loss of 4% physical damage- 7191 DPS. Loss of 156 DPS.
Loss of 5% armor reduc- 7288 DPS. Loss of 59 DPS.
Loss of 20% Armor reduc: 7070 DPS. Loss of 277 DPS.

So, with the raw data behind us, let’s take a look at what this means. First off, let’s look at the buffs you bring to yourself in a raid: One Enhancement Shaman, specced into Cookie Cutter Imp. SoE/Imp. WF/Unleashed Rage (Relying on other for FT in favor of using magma): 1557 DPS. By not dropping your totems or speccing into unleashed rage, you gimp yourself out of 1,557 dps. So, don’t be lazy and drop your totems. That said, if you’re the type of person looking to play better by reading information on blogs, I doubt you’re doing something as silly as not dropping totems.

Now, let’s look at something that a lot of people DO do- try to skip out on improving their own totems to gain talent points elsewhere. The rationale of “oh, the other enhance shaman brings imp. soe” or “the frost dk has imp. icy talons” might work…until they die. And once they die, and you’re left not specced into these abilities and this is the case: One Enhancement Shaman using untalented Imp. WF/Imp Soe/16% Melee Haste= 184 DPS. You gain 184 DPS just by speccing into these talents.

Some of the more important things to look at: Imp. BS/Imp. Might are the best possible buff for us, at 455 dps. Regular might is fine, but we lose 89 dps from not getting the improved version.

Finally, here are some of the best combinations of classes for us (assuming no one else in the raid can provide all their buffs. This is rarely the case- you might not have a moonkin, but your ret paladin will be supplying 3% haste. Or something.):

Boomkin give: 13%Spell Damage, 5% Armor Reduc, 3% Spellhit, 3% Haste 5% Spell Crit/Gift of the Wild: One Boomkin=914 DPS.
One Elemental Shaman: 5%Spell Haste, 5% Spell Crit, 3% Crit, 280 Spellpower: 530 DPS loss.
One Fury Warrior: 20% ArP, 5% Melee Crit, Imp BS: 1001 DPS.
One Arms Warrior: 20% ArP, 4% Physical Damage, Reg BS: 799 DPS.
One Combat Rogue: 4% Physical Damage, 20% ArP: 433 DPS.
One Feral Druid: 5%ArP, 5% crit. 328 DPS.
One Ret Paladin: Imp Might, 3%Crit, 3% Haste, Sanctified Ret: 987 DPS loss.

The kind of really striking thing to me was that the fury warrior ended up giving more dps than the boomkin, proving my own hypothesis wrong. D:

So, there you have it. These are the way debuffs play out for me, and I’d imagine most people would see numbers within a few standard deviations. Hope this helped!