EP Value- EP commonly stands for “Equivalency Points,” and they’re a way to determine the weight of each stat on your gear. With EP, you choose one stat to be the base stat, which is equivalent to 1 EP. For Enhance shaman, we choose Attack Power, as it’s plentiful- most casters use Spell Power. Your EP value for attack power is never going to change, since it’s the base of all your other stats. 1 Attack Power is ALWAYS 1 EP.

The rest of your gear weight changes, and this is where EP points come in. EP is used to determine how useful another stat (such as critical hit or haste) is when compared to one point of attack power.

Here are the EP values provided by Des in Des’ Simming Service (http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=20677632588&sid=1)

EP                        value     DPS       total DPS      difference

baseline                                      7925.67

ap                                              1.00      0.67      8060.48        134.81

crit rating                               1.96      1.32      7965.24        39.57

hit rating                                 1.88      1.27      7963.73        38.07

expertise rating                    1.02      0.69      7948.26        22.59

haste rating                             1.98      1.33      7965.70        40.03

armor penetration rating  1.76      1.19      7961.27        35.60

spellpower                               1.08      0.72      8034.42        108.75

mh dps                                       4.90      3.31      7950.46        24.79

oh dps                                         2.79      1.88      7939.77        14.10

strength                                      1.10

agility                                          1.72

intelligence*                             1.44
What this sim tells us is that Haste is equal to 1.98 points of Attack Power, Agility is equal to 1.72 Points of Attack Power, and Crit is equal to 1.96 points of attack power. We can then take these numbers and use them to determine how we gear. For example, 40 attack power gems are 40 EP. Right now, Des’ EP for Haste is 1.98. Since Haste gems give +20 haste, 20X1.98=39.6 So, even though it’s a small loss, Des would lose DPS by putting a Haste Gem into a new piece of gear rather than an AP gem.

The really important thing to remember about EP values is that they’re -always- changing. Every upgrade you get can and likely will change your EP. To this end, while Des can supply your ep values once or twice, you should become best friends with your own sim, because there will be times your Haste will hit 2.5 and other times you’re better off gemming AP+crit in yellow sockets.

Also, EP values will change from gem to gem, which makes it pretty impossible for us to just come out and say “if your haste is at 2.5, gem haste.” It’s possible, though unlikely, that two gems later your haste will drop crazy amounts and you’ll lose dps by gemming the next 8 gems as haste. A good solution to this, once you’ve learned to use your enhsim, is to sim that change- drop 400 Attack Power from your stats and add 200 haste (or 7.93% haste).

I highly recommend anyone who hasn’t had the chance to look at their ep values yet to drop by Des’ thread (while logged out in enh gear!) and ask for some help!

However, on things like Onyxia whelp phase, we don’t just suck. We blow. We blow like cocaine. Iirc this week’s Onyxia, I was sitting at a merry 6300-6500 DPS during phase 1, somewhere within the top 5 spots. Phase 2 hit, and while I ran around dropping my magma totem and throwing out some chain lightnings, I watched our rogue FoK himself to 10kish, and our mages and locks unleashe their targeted aoe of doom to put up some pretty nice numbers. I kept myself at around 6kdps…but dropped from 4ish to last on recount.

And then, our of the darkness, mmo-champon and the worldofwarcraft.com official patch notes updated with this rainbows-and-happiness filled patch note: Fire Nova now Causes the shaman’s active Fire totem to emit a wave of flames, inflicting 893 to 997 Fire damage to enemies within 10 yards of the totem. And I saw it. And it was good.

So, here is the initial breakdown on Fire Nova:

It replaces Fire Nova as a spell. Your Fire Nova totem is extinct as of 3.3, and unlike the dinosaurs, this extinction is widely seen as a good idea. It deals similar damage to what Fire Nova Totem does now, and crits for double damage with Elemental Fury. At the moment, it does proc flame stacks for Reign of the Dead/Unliving, the BiS caster trinket. However it does not proc Elemental Devastation. It is emitted from your current fire totem, not from you.You can talent the totem to do 20% more damage and have a 6 second cooldown, and can glyph it down to 3. It costs 967 mana on the PTR right now.

As you can see, it comes out of the totem.

Now, to talk about this ability and how it impacts game play! I’m breaking this into three sections: AOE, Single Target, and PVP. First off:

A. WE CAN AOE. OMG.

This is demonstrated in these next two screenshots of an Onyxia 10 I did while writing this post:

DPS I did immediately following her first liftoff, during the two waves of whelps.

This is mislabeled as Postsarth. This is post-Ony- my first time ever seeing anything other than melee as my number one damaging ability.

My dps is pretty low, but that was mainly due to the tank turning Onyxia at the start of p3 and getting me cleaved. If I had been alive to use Fire Elemental, Ghost Wolves, and Bloodlust, I’d have ended the fight with 7k+ easily. For aoe, Fire nova was priority over everything. Magma totem was second, and moved up to first if the tank moved anywhere even close to out of range of the totem. After that, MW5Chain Lightning+regular priority system took over. I think it worked out fairly well.

One of the real pros of Fire nova for enhancement is that we’re already reliant on magma totem for single target/aoe damage, and we have to be in melee range of the mobs to do damage anyway. This means that we’re moving with the mobs anyway, and thus we don’t lose anymore dps than we already would. For Elemental, Fire Nova becomes more of an issue, as they do have to move and redrop totems to use Fire Nova and Thunderstorm. In my opinion, this is a good thing- Fire Nova Totem was an iconic shaman ability. TOTEMS are an iconic shaman ability. Fire Nova coming out of the totem is a good thing; mechanically, a targeted aoe of blandness would be better. However, not homogenizing our aoe into bland circle of doom and making it totem based was a good class design idea.

Beyond that, I like the fact that this totem makes shaman think. It’s not fire and forget. It makes the shaman go “Whelps AOE is pretty excellent- would it be better for my personal dps to move and throw down some aoe?” The answer is pretty definitely yes. (Besides, that lock using rain fire/mage with blizzard have 8 second channels anyway- your aoe takes 2 gcds to complete. You have 5 seconds of movement time to catch up. ) OR, it makes you think “I know rubble on Kolgaron is always tanked here, maybe I should drop my totems here as we run in, and then proceed to fire nova liberally whenever rubble is down for the rest of the fight.” All in all, a good change for both specs, imho.

This takes place on a more minor scale with Enhancement. Fire elemental totem is a huge dps increase for us, and should be used liberally. However, more than ever, we now will need to be cognizant of where we lay our Fire Elemental totem. I ran away from a fire wall and dropped him on the opposite side of Sartharion last night. While he moved and aoed adds+sarth, my fire nova ability was trapped to the totem on the wrong side of Sarth. It stayed consistent single target damage, but it didn’t help my aoe a bit.

B. Fire Nova-A boost to single target dps!?

Much like my good friend Magma Totem, Fire Nova (as far as I can tell) provides a boost to single target dps. To show this, here is a screenshot of a 10 minute long damage test done on a SWC Level 83 dummy, done during non-peak hours to make sure no debuffs were present on target. Failam is spellhit capped, 1892 spellpower, 24.33%spellcrit before totems/unleashed rage. I dropped magma rather than flametongue, because I’m really bad at ever remembering there was a time when I didn’t just drop magma totem. It’s also worth noting that I am/was specced into Improved Fire Nova, which makes Fire nova do 20% more damage and shortens the CD to six seconds.

As a comparison, here is my lava lash damage.

Fire Nova and Lava Lash are a good single target comparison, as they’re both abilities with a six second cooldown, and would both be prioritized after your MW5/ES_SS/SS/ES in your rotation for single target. As we can see from these screenshots, even though I actually did less Fire Novas (54) over the course of the fight, it actually did MORE damage than Lava Lash, which I cast more (56). Moreover, let’s look at the raw data:

Fire Nova hit for between 1800-2k. It crit for between 3800-4200, as it makes use of Elemental Fury. It uses my spellcrit chance, so it crit around 25% of the time. It added 4.6% to my damage- a hefty amount for an ability that is totally new and fits into GCD gaps nicely. And, it did 131,186 damage over 10 minutes. 131186/600seconds=219DPS. This is unbuffed, with no flametongue totem or anything. While it’s possible to model the changes in dps that adding another 10-15% crit, 13% spell damage, 280 Spellpower from tow, spellpower from might, etc, I’m not that good at math. However, I’m fairly comfortable saying that in a raid setting, we’ll see Fire Nova contributing 400-500 single target dps, provided full raid buffs/debuffs.

Lava Lash: Hits for between 900 and 1200. Crits for between 2200-2500. It crits much more than fire nova (37% according to my recount) because it takes from my melee crit rather than spell crit. Even though it is less damage, it can proc flametongue, a mw charge, and a static shock charge. It’s still a useful spell, but it does not frontload the damage that fire nova does. It contributed 3.6% of my damage over this fight, but I can’t guess at how it impacted my dps by proccing abilities. 88,367/600 is 147dps, which would also be ramped up by raid debuffs.

My own personal feelings are that we’ll be using a priority system of MW5LB, ES_SS, SS, ES, Fire Nova, Lava Lash, Refresh Totems/Shields. When Magma Totem drops off, the system would be MW5, ES_SS, SS, ES, Lava Lash, Refresh Totem, Fire Nova, Refresh Shield. At least, this is my personal opinion and conjecture. (I’m using one test as my example, but I have been using this rotation for the past 2 days and am finding it pretty awesome.) The sim will eventually tell the whole story, but these are how I feel for now.

C. The ugly: PVP nerf.

The new Improved Fire Nova is an excellent talent. 20% fire nova damage, 6 second cd, yes plz. (In fact, I think it’ll be mandatory and provide a greater dps increase than 3/3 imp. shields.) That said, the new talent takes the place of an old and beloved talent- a talent that allows your fire nova to stun anyone hit by it for 2 seconds. It is an elemental shaman’s only stun, and one of two for Enhancement: (The other is on a 3minute cooldown and requires you using your wolves to do, which is a drawback on it’s own.)

To be honest, I’m pretty baffled by this change. Fire Nova stun, to me, was perfectly balanced- due to the 4 second wait for it to go off, it require great execution and finesse to pull the stun off, and was rewarding when it happened. I’m fairly certain part of the removal of the stun has to do with the removal of the 4 second wait, but I do believe it is overkill. In my opinion, the best case scenario would be to lose the rather cruddy glyph of fire nova (which shortens the cooldown to 3seconds-your mana will be dead), and replace it with one that increases the cooldown by 14 seconds and allows fire nova to stun. 14 seconds is to make it 20  to compensate for the fact that it is now a clickable ability, rather than one we have to wait to go off and hope the opposing player is still there.

I’m never an advocate for insulting Blizzard. Personally, I feel I’m rather good at taking nerfs/buffs in stride, knowing that the main goal of the company is overall game balance, and I think sayings like “OMG BLIZZ HATES SHAMAN” or “Itz bcuz opclasses lyk rouges cant have counters” are stupid. All of this said, I am more baffled and a mite annoyed by this nerf than I have been at most nerfs in the past, mainly due to the fact that I don’t understand the rationale behind it at all. If that is ever posted, I might have to reconsider my opinion, but for the moment I’m pretty confused and let down.

However, despite ending on a downer, I have to say this: I love Fire Nova. Sososomuch. If Fire Nova were a guy, I’d elope to Vegas with it. Hopefully maybe get in the tabloids. That’d be rad.

And now, myself and Failam bid you ado. G’night!

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!

1. Cleansing Totem: No longer pulses instantly when dropped.

I will probably do a post about this change in particular later. There is no way this is not a nerf in both PVE and PVP, but I’ll be frank and say I will not tolerate whining comments about this change. When I do a post about it specifically, this might change, but for now comments like “omg blizzard is so unfair” will get deleted without a second thought.

2.  Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).

For those of us who spec into pvp for Faction champions, this may in fact be a PVE nerf. For those of us who don’t spec into PVP for faction champions, it won’t. However, this is a slight pvp nerf. It may be warranted- it still removes snares on pulse/drop, it just doesn’t allow us to hand of freedom our entire 5s team for 5 seconds at a time.

3. Bug Fixes:

• Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.
• Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).
• Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.
• Stoneclaw Totem’s pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.
• Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.

Grounding Totem vs. DG was a big issue when 3.2 hit because Grounding Totem recognized the taunt and the pull as two seperate effects, and grounded the taunt. Lava burst change makes sense. Lightning Shield change is fun- nerf to anyone who was trying really hard to spam their lightning shield to get mana back from trinkets!

The last two need a little more time: A) Stoneclaw totem’s aoe taunt has no damage component, nor does it debuff. There is no reason as to why it SHOULD break rogues out of vanish. Bug Fix. For the second, both of these abilities say “this spell is useable while stunned.” Cyclone isn’t a stun. Frozen isn’t a stun. Sapped/Incapacitated both break on damage and are not stuns. Once again, emphasis on the Bug Fix. If you’d like to see these changes actually implemented, post on the suggestion forums, but don’t call these nerfs. They were not working as intended.

4. The Awesomeness that is Flame Shock.

Flameshock received quite a few changes this patch. First off, it is no longer consumed by Lava Burst. Not too amazing for us, but Smellementals will love it. Second, the duration has been increased to 18 seconds- which might be awesome for us. And third, glyph of Flame Shock now allows Flame Shock dots to be critical strikes.

Now, the number crunching at Elitist Jerks is not totally finished, and we can’t be positive, so everything I say is conjecture, but it looks like we will be adding Flame Shock into the Enhancement Damage Priority system. I’m not sure how minor a dps increase this will be (it will be minor- don’t expect to be doing 1k more damage because of this)but, 200 more dps is 200 more dps! Additionally, one of the cool aspects of this is that it makes our priority system a little bit more dynamic- for something that hasn’t changed since 3.0, this is welcome.

Flame shock looks like it will be added into the rotation whenever you would Earth Shock after the Flame Shock debuff has run out. This is important, as Flame Shock will only do competitive dps if allowed to tick fully. So, you Flame Shock to get it up, and then fill in the next (3, normally, unless you get -a lot- of MW5 stacks) shocks with Earth Shock, and then once FS has fallen off you THEN add in a new Fire Dot.

To help make this easier on you, there are two addons you can configure to help you- Shock and Awe and Power Auras.

For Shock and Awe, you have to use the /saa config command to bring up the configuration interface. From there, go to your priority list section and edit in Flame Shock.

I added it in right after MW5 Lightning Bolt and before anything else so that it takes the place of my ES_SS when Flame Shock debuff isn't on the target.

From there, it becomes up to you as to where you add it in. In my opinion, you should add it in right before Earth Shock, as then it will show up on your priority frame whenever Earth Shock would and the Flame Shock debuff is not on the target. This means that, if you’re using the ES_SS second priority “rotation,” you’d put Flame shock prior to ES_SS. If you’re using the cookie cutter MW5->SS->ES priority list, you’d add it in after SS and before ES.

And then, once shocks are off CD, this is what it should look like when FS debuff runs out.

SAA isn’t the only addon that can help you- and, if you’re one of the many that feels SAA is a bit “cheaty” (I’ve heard it quite a bit), there are other ways to monitor your FS. My personal favorite is Power Auras Classic.

The fireball is there to tell me Flame Shock is not on my target.

As the caption said, that little fireball is there to tell me that Flame Shock is not on my target. It does nothing else- especially not telling me where I am in priority to cast it. It just lets me know that FS is not there. How do you set one of these badboys up? It’s easy!

It looks scary, but it isn't.

To bring up the Power auras Classic screen, just type /powa. After that, click “new.” The right screen will show up. (Note- both these screens show up in the screen’s center- you can manually pull them apart, though!)

Now, to set up this debuff, first choose the image texture. As you can see, I dragged it to Texture 13, a nice fireball picture to remind me to cast my fire spell. You can then go to the little color box and choose a color- I thought orange made sense for Flame Shock. You can also choose “random color” if you want to spice it up. (You can also choose later to just make the Flame Shock icon show up. I tend to not like how that looks, though. ) Size is pretty self explanatory, x axis allows you to move the aura left and right, and y axis lets you move it up and down.

Now, head down to “activation by.” First, you want to use the pulldown bar to bring it to “debuff,” as that is what FS is. Second, you want to write in the name! After that, go to “Show when not active.” This makes it so that the aura shows up when Flame Shock is NOT on the target. If you don’t click this, you’ll have a fireball on your screen for the length of the debuff. Next, check only if in combat/ only if in raid- this will keep it from showing up while soloing and while pvping and stuffs! (If you run a lot of heroics, you might want to choose to not check only if in raid. And, remember- only use FS on fights that will last longer than 18 seconds.)

Finally, check Enemy Target. This will make sure that it’s only checking people you’re hitting for FS- otherwise, this will show up when you’re getting flame shocked by enemy smellementals.

5. Totem of the Quaking Earth now is a 400 AP proc, not 200.

This was needed to bring QE in line with DK/ret relics. This does NOT automatically guarantee that QE is better than Electrifying Wind. QE does not have a 100% uptime, as Lava Lash is late in the priority system and so isn’t used every cooldown, while LB is the core of our dps. This means EW has a 80%ish uptime, and QE has a 95%. This also means that EW is better: A) if your haste EP is over 2.1 and B) if the fight is not an aoe fight where you’ll be using Chain Lightning. For most other purposes, use QE. But own both!

“Enhance Your Game” is my attempt at a weekly (or bi-weekly) blog column. In it, I’ll be covering integral programs/addons that I feel benefit my playstyle, the melee playstyle, and playing an Enhancement Shaman. This is my first attempt at an actual stable column (small, clouded in mystery aside- this might not be my only column starting in the near future. ), so bear with me! This week’s “Enhance Your Game” will be covering one of the most integral addons of Enhancement Raiding- the Enhancement Damage Simulator.

“Sim It” is a phrase heard weeklydailyhourlyminutely on the shaman forums, a phrase that anyone who frequents the forums on a regular basis has probably read. The majority of them have probably said it at one point or another. Other forums have their own response to “sim it,” and these responses generally include the words “spreadsheet” and “it.” Simming/Spreadsheeting is an important part of end game raiding- a way for you to understand how to get the most out of your class’ dps potential. For this, Enhancement Shaman turn to the Enhancement Damage Simulator. I’m here to offer you a short (2500 word, xD!) tutorial on how to use the Enhancement Simulator.

The first thing to know about using this addon is that you need some form of “winzip” or assorted program to extract it to your computer. I’m not going to cover thise because A) I’m rather computer illiterate, and I’ll do more harm than good, and B) it’s not what this blog is about. Suffice to say, once you’ve figured out how to get the Enh Sim program onto your computer, return to this page and we’ll talk!

So, on to using Enh Sim. As soon as you open your EnhSim folder, this assortment of varied links should become available:

I not so subtly have a certain tab highlighted. Why might that be! ^_^

As you can see by my blatant highlighting of it, the program we are looking for is the Enh Sim Gui. Double click it, right click and go to open, roll your face on your keyboard toward the enter key, or sacrifice virgins to Cthulu, but do something to open that program. Once that happens, you’ll be faced with:

The Scary GUI of Death and Dismemberment. (Click4bigz!)

This is the main tab of the GUI. We like this tab. This is where we get to feel good about ourselves and plug our stats in. ^_^ Head on over to your local World of Warcraft realm, log onto your shaman, and open up your character tab.

It should look something like this. If it does not, you might be from outer space.

Now, this point relies on a lot of alt-tabbing, so you might be better off putting wow into windowed mode for a few minutes and going back and forth. You want to make sure you’re using unbuffed stats to begin with. (The Enhancement Addon Shock and Awe also features an export function. I won’t be covering that tonight, but will in a future Enhance Your Game post.) For most of these stats, your mainhand should be the same as your offhand (such as for the mainhand/offhand crit categories.) However, orcs are weird, and if they have an axe/fist weapon in one hand and a mace in the other, they’ll have 3 more expertise in one hand than the other. Make sure for any category that has a % next to it you put the % number- the simulator does not need to know your critical or haste ratings, just the actual % they increase.

If you're me, your EnhSim GUI probably looks like this now. If you're you, the numbers are different!

The  middle part of the EnhSim is your boss frame. The developers already supplies default boss values for you, so we’re just skiping straight over that tab to procs and stuff. As you might be able to imagine, procs and stuff is where your procs AND STUFF, go. Most of these tabs are pretty self-explanatory. Mainhand imbue is windfury, offhand is Flametongue, not FT9. The enchant section only lets you put proc enchants- agi/ap enchants (you should be using berserking anyway, btw) would simply be stat additions at the beginning. We’ll go besererking/berserking, because we know that’s best.  MH weapon only applies if you’re an orc, so I’m not filling it in- if you’re an orc and you’re wielding an axe or fist weapon, go for it!

For trinkets, totems, and set bonuses either use the pulldown menu or use wowhead! (While the config files for the simulator have been changed to include set bonuses, the gui has not, so you need the spell numbers.

For Trinkets: Blood of the Old God: 45522. Death’s Choice/Verdict Reg: 47303. Death’s Choice Heroic: 47464 Dark Matter: 46038. Comet’s Trail: 45609.

For Totems: Totem of Electrifying Wind: 47666. Totem of Quaking Earth: 47667.

For t9 Set Bonuses: 2Pc: 67220, 4PC: 67221.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, if you have 4pc Enh sim automatically counts 2pc in it’s calculations, but putting both in to be on the safe side doesn’t hurt. If you have glove/cloak enchants, fill them in quickly and we’ll move on to glyphs! For glyphs for your first time, you might want to stick with the cookie cutter Stormstrike, Windfury Weapon, Feral Spirits. The awesome part of EnhSim is that once you know the basics, you can tweak these to figure out what really works for you.

Now, once again, if you're me, you might look like this! If you're not, than you'll look differently. Lets move to rotation!

The rotation tab is a pretty packed tab, and one that will be pretty difficult to decipher upon first look. So, let’s try to break some of this information down.

1) MH/OH Auto Attack: Check this, you want to be white hitting.

2) Wait SS w/ WF: Keep this on the default 0.00. This harkens back to a time where we believed it was better to proc after WF ICD in order to increase the chances of a proc. Since SS puts a debuff up that is quickly consumed AND is a chance at at least 2 MW charges, we don’t wait on it anymore.

3)Cast Lava Lash only if WF is on CD: You’ll see I have this checked in my upcoming screenshot- this is a mistake. You might not want to check it. As far as I can tell, this was meant for when we still believed WF on both hands was the way to go, so we didn’t want to risk using our instant offhand attack to proc windfury. You probably don’t want this checked. (I saw a 2dps increase not checking it! xD)

4. Bloodlust Casters/Sync trinkets with bloodlust: First part shouldn’t matter, as you can no longer chain bloodlusts. 1 is enough. Second part you want clicked, particularly if you have clickable trinkets. (I’m not sure how this treats wolves- I don’t think they’re always popped prior to bloodlust.)

5. Cast Lava Burst if “blah.” These three are all only activated if you activate LvB in the rotation bar. They’re useful for testing purposes, but you probably don’t want LvB in your rotation when just learning to use it. Leave these alone, and leave Lava burst unchecked.

6. Cast Flame Shock only if dots left: Once again, requires FS to be clicked in the priority frame. For just learning it, don’t click it.

7. Cast Lightning Shield only if charges left: This means that, once it gets to LS in your priority with nothing else up, it will check to see if it has this many or fewer charges before refreshing. Typically, I do between 0-2.

8. Cast Shamanistic Rage only if mana left: Default setting is 750. With the one minute cooldown, 0 points in improved stormstrike, and less mana back than we used to, I prefer to do it around 3-4k.

9. Use mana potion if mana =: Only does this if mana potion is checked on the consumable page.

Next, on to the actual priority tab.

• SW= Spirit Wolves.
• MW5_LB=Lightning Bolt with 5 stacks of Maelstrom Weapon.
• ES_SS=Earth Shock if Storm Strike Debuff is up.
• SS=Stormstrike
• ES=Earth Shock
• LL=Lava Lash
• MT=Magma Totem
• LS=Lightning Shield
• SR=Shamanistic Rage
• FS=Flame Shock
• LvB=Lava burst.
• Frost-Frost Shock
• CL=Chain Lightning
• LB=Lightning Bolt
• MW#_CL/LB=Self Explanatory.
• ST=Searing Totem

You organize your rotation in order of priority. Once again, the power of this is that you can fiddle with priority based on gear. For example, I have 4PCt9/5/5 Reverberation, so I go Earth Shock before Stormstrike as long as the SS debuff is still on the target.  Spirit Wolves is put first so that they are always popped as they come off cooldown. Mess with this to see what your ideal rotation is once you’re comfortable!

This would be my priority list, hastily thrown together!

The next tab you’ll see is “Talents.” As you might expect, this is where you would go to input your talent choices. This section is pretty self explanatory, and there’s not much that could be confusing about it, so I’m not going to spend any more time on it. Here is what mine looks like!:

Notice the 5/5 Reverberation, with 2/3 Call of Flame and no Imp. SS. Don't follow my spec- it's not cookie cutter.

The next section is an awesome section, devoted to debuffs/buffs on you. Remember, Enhancement Shaman scale pretty well with almost every buff/debuff in the game, so you want as many of these as possible. If you’re unsure as to what debuffs you do have present, think of your normal raid and compare it to these:

• 20% Armor Debuff. Brought by Prot Warriors/Smart DPS Warriors or Rogues in a Prot Warriors absence.
• 5% Armor Debuff: Druids of any spec, hunters with wasp pets, warlocks.
• 4% Physical Damage Debuff: Arms Warriors/Combat Rogues
• 20% Melee Haste. Yourself/Frost DPS warriors
• 5% Melee Crit: Fury Warriors, Feral Druids
• 688 attack Power: DPS Warriors/Ret Paladins. Tank warriors/other pally specs have worse versions.
• Attack Power Multiplier: It uses your unleashed rage if you don’t put points in, so don’t put points in to this. Would be blood dk/marks hunters, though.
• 5% Spell Haste: Mainly resto/elemental shaman, but you possibly could.
• 5% Spell Crit Buff: Elemental Shaman, Moonkin
• 5% Spell Crit Debuff: Imp. Scorch Mages, Frost Mages, Imp. SB specced Destro Locks.
• 13% (Make sure you change this from 10%): Moonkin, Unholy DK, Warlocks
• 280 Spellpower: Elemental Shaman. If you’re one of the rare few who run with a demo pact lock, this number might be slightly higher.
• 3% Spell Hit: Boomkin/Spriest
• 3% Haste: Ret Paladin, Moonkin
• 3% Damage Increase: Retribution Paladin, Feral Druid
• 3% Crit debuff: Elemental Shaman, most Paladins- in the Retribution tree.
• 10% stat Multiplier: Paladins, any spec.
• 52 Stats: Druid Gift of the Wild
• 178 Agility and Strength: You. Death Knights give 155.
• 60 Intellect: Mages

For flasks, you generally want flask of endless rage, for 180 AP.  Since you’re using a flask, skip guardian elixir. For potion, try out potion of speed, and for food use Fish Feast (assuming they’re dropped in your raid.) 80 AP+46 Spell power? Ffs yes plz.

For mana return buffs, click replenishment if you have one of the million replen giving classes present. Do not use water shield, as you are using LS. Choose either Blessing of Wisdom or Mana Spring totem, as they are the same thing. And, use Judgement of Wisdom if your raids normally have a paladin judging it.

This is what it will look like with a fully optimal raid.

We’re skipping over the EP tab-much like the bosses at the beginning, it is set up with default EP for a shaman. So, we’re going straight to the final side- “simulation variables,” also known as “oh noez scary math class! D:”

First, there is simulation time. This means that the simulator will run and pretend that it was going for however long is in that box. The generally accepted practice is to throw in an extra 0 to make it 10000 hours.

Second is Simulation Time Combatlog. This is what is used if you choose combatlog output vs. simulate.

Fight length: The number of minutes of each fight. So, if you’re doing 10000 hours of simming, it might be simming 120,000 5 minute fights. Fight length is important because it determines the amount of time cooldowns/trinket procs/bloodlust/etc are active. 5 minutes is a pretty stable amount of time, and is what is used in the Enh. BiS Gearing thread.

Report count: Actually not sure, will look into it. Same with threads.

Lag. 0-0 MS. Enh Sim is awesome because it can tell us how well we can play at perfect latency. However, the world doesn’t operate on perfect latency, and neither do our reflexes. Set this lag for what you normally play at- for me, 100-200.

Simulate Mana: Simulate mana is a powerful tool, but also one that can ruin your report if you forget to prioritize something like shamanistic rage. You should learn to use simulate mana to your benefit, but it is understandable to run your first few sims without this box checked. I know I did!

Output file: Output.txt

Combat log output file: Combatlog.txt

Simulate is a clickable box that will simulate your damage over the simulation time.

Calculate EP is a powerful tool that can be used to teach you how to gear better.

Combatlog output shows a basic breakdown of your damage over the past (however long you put in the combat log time box.)

Info shows you relevant information, such as caps you might have gone over by a small bit.

And finally, use the button after the box at the bottom that says path on top, and find the file that ends “EnhSim.exe” Throw that into the box, and then go up and click one of the buttons!

(Also, make sure to check out the organe donate button: these designers work hard.)

This is what my Simulation Variables typically look like prior to a sim!

Now, after all that hard work (It really only takes ten minutes at most), we’re finally ready to simulate! Hover your mouse over that nice simulate button and press it down. Watch the numbers scroll past. (note: If the simulation length is set to 10000 hours, the numbers won’t scroll fast initially. The simulation will take a bit long.)

Yes, that is 7366 DPS!

So, as you might be able to notice, there is a wealth of data we can see here. However, I’m only going over the very basics- I think next week I might go into what sort of conclusions/knowledge we can gleam from the simulator. And remember, these numbers are based on an ideal, patchwerkesque, five minute long fight- fights are often much different in reality.

Now, really quickly, I’m going to do a quick show of the other great function of the Enh Simulator-Calculate EP values. This one is a really useful tool- EP values are the value of an item as it relates to one point of attack power. I’m also not going to go in depth into thise (maybe next week! ^_^), but they are useful, so clicking that calculate EP values button helps.

Look at that stunning 3.09 haste EP. I've never seen numbers that high before. O_o

That’s it for my guide to using the Enh Simulator. I hope everyone who reads this can enjoy it, or at the very least use it. It is now 5:45 AM, and I’ve been working on it for nearly three hours, so I’m going to take a well deserved nap. xD

(That said, I think I’ve put as much effort into this blog as my enhancement sticky, and I’d really love to get the word out there. Even if people don’t want to read anything else on my blog, I would love to see anyone who needs help with simming get directed here! ^_^<- I’m addicted to this emote omg.)

Now, with that awkward vignette out of the way, you shoud click below this shiny line to read my ramblings about why On Use trinkets are underrated additions to your enhance arsenal. (Also, that sentance ending was LIKE assonance, but not. >:()

Trinkets tend to be seperated into two distinct groups- On Use and Equip. Anyone familiar with itemization at level 80 probably understands difference between the two: Both trinkets tend to provide a passive bonus (such as 84 critical strike rating), but On Use trinkets also provide a temporary bonus you click to activate, while Equip trinkets provide a temporary bonus that activates after filling some sort of condition: e.g, after getting a melee critical strike, you have a chance to gain 1000 Attack Power for 10 seconds. Equip trinkets tend to be viewed in a better light than On Use trinkets, mainly due to their lower Internal Cooldowns- the majority of Equip trinkets you’ll get have ICDs of 45 seconds with durations of 10 seconds, while On Use trinkets generally have cooldowns of around 2 minutes, slightly less powerful buffs (670 On Loatheb’s Shadow, iLevel 200, vs. iLevel 200 Mirror of Truth‘s 1000AP) but 20 second durations. The assumption becomes that on use

This means, assuming the above stats and RNG favoring you enough that the trinket procs as soon as the ICD expires, that on a 6:00 Patchwerkesque fight your Mirrot of Truth will have an uptime of around 70 seconds (10 Sec First Proc +45 Sec +10 Sec +45 Sec +10 Sec +45 Sec +10 Sec +45 +10 Sec +45+10+45+10 Sec). 70/360 Seconds is just below 1/5 of the fight. 1/5X1000AP means Mirror Of Truth is optimistically a static 200 ap bonus. However, Mirror of Truth only has a 10%chance to proc, and that chance to proc comes off crits, not just any hit, so first you have to crit, and then you have to factor in the 10%, so the uptime of MoT is probably more around 50-60 seconds. Pessimistically, assuming it has a 50 second uptime on a 6 minute fight, MoT comes out to 140ish Static AP.

Loatheb’s Shadow, on the other hand, looks like this: (20 second use + 120 second cooldown +20 second use +120 second cooldown +20second use  +60 second cooldown till end of fight.) Because you chose when to use it, and you used it as soon as it became available to use again, we know that the trinket has an uptime of 60 seconds. 60/360 is 1/6 of the fight as uptime. 1/6+670 is about 110 Static Attack Power. Your RNG would have to be pretty far off the mark for a fight to only have a 40 second uptime on mirror of truth-you’d have to go about 30-35 seconds after the ICD without proccing it every time- but that is about the amount of time you would need for the two trinkets to be equivalent. This would be why On Use trinkets tend to be seen so disfavorably.

However, I’d like to offer up some reasonings as to why every raiding DPS, melee or caster, (healers/tanks are a different story-more on that later) should HAVE at least one appropriate iLevel On Use item, even if it’s not a part of their regular gear set. Here is the main reason:

Every Boss Isn’t Patchwerk.

We tend to speak of DPS in terms of ideal situations-Patchwerk is the closest thing to these ideal situations, as all you do is sit there and hit him. However, here are some situations where I believe On Use trinkets might win out-and guess what? None of them are Patchwerk.

A) Masochistic Bosses make On Use trinkets fun. You get to time your trinket to go off at the best possible moment to maximize your damage output in accordance with other things that buff you. On some fights, this may simply be a bloodlust. On others- Deconstructor Heart Phase or Hodir when Singedx30 is up while you have Storm Power AND a Haste Cloud are both situations where you want to be able to hit harder on command. If your MoT procs during transition into the heart phase, or your pyrite infuser infuses you with pyrite while the storm cloud is sitting tight in the ranged and your precious moonbeam of gloriously fast blows has a giant ICICLE OF DEATH rune sitting under it, it doesn’t matter that you’re hitting slightly harder than normal. If you could have timed your trinket, you could be hitting much harder than normal.

B)Dying because you didn’t DPS hard enough sucks: Think Iron Council Hard Mode, where you have 90 seconds to do about 14million damage. 4/9 of that fight will be bloodlust, and during that bloodlust you’ll be popping everything- feral spirit, potion of speed, firing off some rapid prayers to your deity of choice, etc. It’d be so uncool to see your wolves fade into oblivion, your potion of speed sweated out of your pores, and your bloodlust fade…just as the 45icd on your Equip trinket comes up and you feel awash in the Belated Blood of the Old God while the rogue who popped his trinket mutilates his way up the damage meter.

C)Some bosses make you move. More at 11: Nearly every 80 raid fight in this game has something you have to avoid, run out of, run into, etc. It doesn’t matter if your trinket gives you 10,000 Attack Power- you still just wasted it running away from your raid because Grobbulus’ gave you his beauticians number his disease. It doesn’t matter that your trinket has a 15 second duration when it procs while you’re meleeing the first brain-room tentacle on yogg-it won’t be up for the brain phase that matters. Trinkets that proc prior to you needing to move are wasted dps.

That said, there are some fights where double equip trinkets are great. Kologarn, Patchwerk, General Vex, Sartharion, etc. all maximize time on target (for melee) and don’t buff your dps in any way.While an On Use trinket might be beneficial during a bloodlust, you might see better result using two very good Equip trinkets.

There’s more to this story for other classes: Warriors/Death Knights might want to use Mjolnir Runestone/Death’s Choice/Verdict nearly all the time despite their being On Use, because Strength and Armor Pen are so incredibly powerful for them. Healers don’t want their Egg of Mortal Essence to haste them up during XT Heart Phase, but Tears of the Vanquished’s 500 mana back proc is highly coveted. And tanks probably exclusively want On Use items, as procs aren’t reliant forms of damage mitigation.

In my opinion, for DPS, you want to have a set of one reliable On use trinkets, and two pretty good Equip trinkets- just ike 3.2.2 will make it so that we might want to switch out totems for different fights, we should ideally be switching out trinkets the same way. This becomes a bit of an issue in ToC, as the only on use trinket that is really ideal for us is Vengeance of the Forsaken/Victor’s Call, but there is no matching Equip Trinket that gives us 83 expertise. Since expertise above the cap is worth absolutely 0 dps, we either A)Don’t use this trinket, or B)Remove Expertise Gear/Gems/Enchants to match the expertise on the trinket. The second option isn’t great, however, because we then are stuck using the Expertise trinket for every fight-we can’t sub it out for anything else or we’d no longer be  expertise capped, and we can’t sub it in for a normal trinket while expertise capped because the 0 benefit it’s passive stat would give us outweighs any benefit of having an on use trinket.

TL:DR: On Use trinkets are situationally use them. Use them in those situations- don’t just right them off because they underperform on Patchwerk.

Totem of the Electrifying Wind (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47666) is somewhat comparable to quaking earth in that A) It provides a 200 pt bonus to one stat. B) Assuming 60 PPM (I sim at 61 due to gemming haste with the t8 4pc. Other people’s PPMs might be lower, but I assumed 60 for ease, because it means one proc per second, and for the purpose of napkin math I’m saying this is one static proc per second- no more, no less), you should be firing off an instant lightning bolt every 5-6 seconds, comparable to the 6 second cooldown on lava lash.  C) It has a high proc chance, albeit slightly less than Quaking Earth’s- 70%. It also has a shorter buff duration- 12 seconds, to Quaking Earth’s 18.

The difference with Electrifying Wind is that it has a 6 Second Internal Cooldown, which means assuming a lightning bolt every five-six seconds will result in your first lightning bolt not being able to renew the buff. This leaves you with one lightning bolt that CAN renew the buff before it falls off, at a 70% chance to proc. Your next chance to proc the buff would be at 15 seconds, also at a 70% chance to proc. Because it has such a high proc chance, my best guess is that you’d rarely go anymore than three-eight seconds without a proc, and at times would keep the buff up consistently. (Once again, this is assuming you had a static proc per second of maelstrom weapon- you will be seeing more and less than that at different times.)

However, this slight drop off in buff uptime can be counteracted by the fact that the buff is 200 haste, rather than 200 attack power. Assuming Unleashed Rage/Aboms Might/trueshot aura being up 100% of the time, the maximum EP you’re going to get over a 36 (Least Common Denominator FTW) second period for Quaking Earth is a static 220. I’ve seen Haste EPs of between 1.7-2.3- I’m going to assume 2 for simplicity. This means that if you get super lucky with your 2nd lightning bolt always renewing the buff, you’re going to see 400 EP from Electrifying Wind. If you get somewhat unlucky and you miss out on renewing the buff before it falls off and instead proc it at 15 seconds every time, you’re going to see an EP of 400X30(12 seconds + 3w/o + 12 seconds +3 w/o +6 seconds to the end of test uptime)/36(test length)= 333.33 EP. Still, 113.33 more than Quaking Earth. Assuming RNG hates your guts and you only proc it on your fourth lightning bolt every time, you’re still going to see an EP of 400X24 (12 sec + 8 w/o +12 sec +4 w/o)/36=266.66 EP. Even with the RNG Gods hating you (and I don’t think there’s much of a chance of you going longer than 8 seconds without seeing a proc refresh), you’re looking at a totem that packs a serious punch. (Note: On fights with a lot of AOE where you’ll be using chain lightning most of the time, Quaking Earth may be a better choice.)

Now, the irony about me writing an as-of-right-now 660+ word post about these totems is that you can read the front page of the shaman forums and see Enhancement Shaman being told to grab the Totem of Electrifying Wind. It’s easily accessible information. What is also accessible, however, is the rampant trash talking that has gone on about blizzard since this information has gone live. And, honestly, it both shocks and appalls me. I’ve heard everything from “Blizzard is lazy” to “Blizzard has no idea about how enhancement shaman work” (this one always gets me- they can make sure that pve dps for nearly every class is where they want it to be, but they don’t understand how the classes work? Dear stupids, stop saying stuff like this. <3) to “Blizzard is intentionally trying to nerf enhancement by giving it a subpar totem.

And honestly, the best thing I can say to this is “stop and think.” Please, for the sake of the mental health of everyone around you, stop being a turd and ask yourself a few questions. What is the chance of Blizzard not realizing that haste is an incredibly desired stat for enhancement, a spec that uses lightning bolt as it’s single hardest hitting ability? I’d say slim to none. Despite the fact that lightning bolt is in the elemental tree and lava lash is enhancement, and the fact that the totems respective spells on wowhead’s database say “t9 enhancement or elemental relic,” is there anything about these totems that say “limited to enhancement or elemental shaman only?”  The answer to that one is “nothing.”

Last question: In a game where half the player base is already complaining that content is “too easy,” why do we want our gear choices to be easy to choose and dictated by the fact that it “looks” like it belongs to our spec? Personally, I find that “I-don’t-want-to-have-to-think-about-my-gear-choices” mindset is pretty lame, as might be evident by this blog post. To me, the fact that Blizzard was able to design a totem that is highly desirable by both enhancement and elemental, made it ottainable through emblems rather than a competitive random raid drop, and then gave us another totem that screamed “enhancement” to fake out the shaman who don’t want to do the work to remain on top makes me applaud them. I applaud them a lot. /applaud!

Also, go go nearly-1100 word blog posts. I should be an English Maj–oh wait.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, a grave in the Sepulcher, or an abandoned area in hell known as “anywhere that is not internet accessible,” you’ve probably realized by now that the t8 Enhancement 4Set bonus (http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=-72) is pretty much the coolest thing since me. It’s pretty common knowledge that, since Maelstrom Weapon already scales with haste, Haste Rating becomes a gemmable/enchantable option for Enhancement shaman seeking to improve their DPS. This is because EnhSim EPs rate Haste at values above 2.0, and it assumes Attack Power as 1.0. So, any +20 rating gem that sims above 2.0 is going to up your dps more than a +40 Attack Power gem. (2.1X20=42, which means that gem has an EP of 42, for example.)  It gets more convoluted then this- there are certain high and low points in which gemming haste is a VERY GOOD THING (right now, my EP for haste is 2.43, and other points) where haste is only attractive if you’re very, very drunk.

And I have to say, I hate it. Haste and I had a good run- we’ve been together a month, maybe a month and a half, and I did notice an increase in dps afterward. (However, as soon as I hit 4Pc t8 I regemmed for haste, so it’s impossible to say how much of my DPS increase can be attributed to gemming haste.) But, like Pokemon, Pogs, and Beanie Babies, my love affair with this fad of a stat has come to an end. And it’s not me, it’s Haste.

Haste just feels like RNG to me. Everytime I have windfury totem down, bloodlust up, flurry going, and a potion of speed popped and I STILL don’t see a 5 stack of maelstrom weapons every five to six seconds, I want to kill a kitten. Since I’m a dog person, this is not that much of a problem, but it’s still quite annoying. I understand quite well that Maelstrom Weapon is a ppm that scales with haste. I know that haste has other potential benefits- an increase in white damage, more Static Shock procs, more flametongue weapons going off, but I can’t help but feel that stacking haste adds more RNG to a spec that is already pretty RNG dependent. Attack Power, on the other hand, provides a static bonus to every attack, but we would lose the chance at more procs that haste does afford. And, +40 AP gems just look so.damn.sexy.

This is not to suggest that haste does not have it’s positive sides- When the RNG gods favor you, and with everything popped/procced you’re proccing 5stacks every 2-3 seconds, it’s simply -amazing.- It makes you happy to be playing enhancement. Attack Power doesn’t induce any reaction like that- I don’t know the last time I was like “WOAH LOOK AT THAT FIVE MORE WHITE DAMAGE PER ATTACK.”  Unfortunately, no one likes relying on RNG to make or break an extra hundred or so dps. If Haste ever starts EPing at numbers like 3.0 or so, I won’t be able to deny it’s usefulness. Until then, when it’s only making a few dps difference, I’m not subjecting myself to RNG. So, in conclusion:

Dear Haste,

We’re over. It’s not me, it’s you. Since you are quite useful around the cave, you’ll remain gemmed until I get Trial of the Crusader iLevel replacements, but after that it’s 40 AP or bust. Please don’t call, write, text, twitter, or leave embarassing facebook comments. Ty qt. </3

Elam.