Totem Talk: Enhancement post-patch theory
by Rich Maloy 
Oct 18th 2010 at 2:00PM
This patch hit me hard, harder than any patch before it, and I know I wasn't the only was one to be drastically affected by it. Other than the usual spate of patch-related addon issues, I was struggling to keep the downloader connected. After turning off all anti-virus, firewall and other sorts of computer safety monitoring programs, I finally got into game on Friday night. Mostly, though, I just lacked time to log in this week. Once in game, I was faced with just as many challenges getting Stoney in order and raid-ready as I was trying to get online. This patch was more disruptive in game than any patch before.
A far an enhancement goes, there's so much that still needs to be tested and refined. The greater enhancement community is working hard at the theorycrafting, but even the simulations are not fully refined for level 80 testing; the latest alpha of EnhSim is tuned to level 85 right now. The decisions I made in game are based on the best available data as well as some things I want to test out for myself. There was a lot to accomplish in-game including, respeccing, retraining, regemming, reforging, readjusting and refining.
Tweaking the spec
Starting with the respec, I went 5/31/0. I went with 2/2 Improved Fire Nova over 2/3 Improved Shields. This will be helpful in heroic Halion, or any fight with adds where I can take advantage of Magma or Fire Elemental totems. The extra 10 percent gain to Lightning Shield, which will be only between 3 to 4 percent of our total damage, wasn't that appealing to me. Also, I went with 2/3 Acuity and 3/3 Concussion, instead of 3/3 Acuity with 2/3 Concussion. This is an experiment that I need to test out; my working theory is that because I'm moving away from crit and towards elemental damage, the extra damage to my main spells will be better than a little more crit.
Trainers and totems
After making my spec choices, I rode over to the trainer to pick up some fun new stuff including Bind Elemental, Cleanse Spirit and Totem of Tranquil Mind. More importantly, though, I was sure to train my mastery, Enhanced Elements. Mmmmm, delicious elemental damage. Next, it was time to check caps. I was close to the hit cap and right on the expertise cap, so the process was going to be easy for me.
Midway through this process, I realized that Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice was no longer the right choice for enhance; the intellect is inferior to the agility on enhancement totems. I had a Totem of Quaking Earth in my bags and put that on. If you don't have an enhancement-focused totem lying around, Totem of the Avalanche is probably a better choice, after reforing the crit to expertise. But because I had a Quaking Earth available, I opted to use it, and with two gem changes, my expertise capped out exactly at 140.
I love hitting the caps dead on. I did with expertise, but I needed a little more for hit. Rather than reforge for it, I worked it out with gems. Ah yes, gems.
Time to regem and reforge
Remember my advice from last week in my path to victory post to buy your gems now, "because after that patch drops, you'll be paying double or triple pre-patch prices just to get back to raid-ready status"? If only I had heeded my own advice. I needed 11 cardinal rubies, two dragon's eyes (I'm a JC), and one ametrine. I did not have nearly enough justice points for all of those gems. Thankfully, by Friday night, the market was not hyper-inflated and I was only paying around 110 gold per gem.
After the re-gemming, my agility went from 1,749 to 2,149, my attack power from 4,739 to 5,531, and my haste dropped down from 33.73 percent to 24.15 percent.
Next up, reforging! I decided to start out reforging entirely for mastery. I really wanted to sim out the optimal reforging choices but simply didn't have enough time. Reforging is easy enough, and given enough gold, you can do it as often as you want. I opted to replace crit with mastery on all items except two. My cloak has 68 haste rating and 60 critical strike rating, so there I reforged the haste to mastery, and Band of the Bone Colossus had haste and hit, so again I reforged the haste to mastery. Everything else that had crit was reforged to mastery. I ended up with melee crit dropping from 57.27 percent (taking the regemming to agility into account) down to 47.90 percent, but mastery rating jumped from 8.00 to 18.96.
Fine tuning bars and rotations
The last bit of prep work was redoing my action bars. I use a Razer Naga -- a perfect mouse for all the spells in enhancement -- so my bars are set in a 3x4 configuration to match the button layout on the side of the Naga. From an action bar standpoint, very little changed. I moved Ghost Wolf to my bars permanently, replaced Magma Totem with a Searing Totem / Magma Totem macro, and changed my self-heal macro to use Greater Healing Wave instead of Healing Wave. My keybinds are as follows:
- Lava Lash
- Flame Shock / Earth Shock
- Stormstrike
- Lightning Bolt
- Chain Lightning
- Feral Spirit
- Ghost Wolf
- Fire Nova
- Searing / Magma totems macro
- Purge
- Shamanistic Rage
- Healing macro
- Searing Totem (ST)
- Maelstrom Weapon 5 Lightning Bolt (MW5_LB)
- Stormstrike (SS)
- Lava Lash (LL)
- Flame Shock (FS)
- Earth Shock (ES)
- Spirit Wolves (SW)
- Shamanistic Rage (SR) (assuming you have two-piece tier 10)
Next, Flame Shock is still worth casting, despite the DoT's not being hastened. Well, that's not entirely accurate. The DoTs will tick faster the more haste you have, but the duration of the DoT on your target remains the same. So you may end up getting a few extra ticks of FS before it expires, whereas before it was a set amount of ticks, just ticking off faster. Short story: Use Flame Shock when available.
As for Fire Elemental Totem, it is definitely still a DPS increase to use in multi-target fights. Heroic Halion 25-man comes to mind, for one. Likewise, Magma Totem with Fire Nova will also be a DPS increase if doing damage to adds is a priority. However, on a fight like Lich King, regular and heroic, I would favor a Searing Totem. The damage in phase one is inconsequential because you use the Necrotic Plague to kill the adds; then in phase 2, single-target DPS is a priority.
Finally, everyone was astounded to see Shammy Rage (with a two-piece tier 10 bonus) at the bottom, but no matter how you slice the numbers in the sims, it comes out as our lowest priority; at some point you have to trust the data and adjust your play accordingly. And the other thing the sims show is that an attacking fire totem (Searing, Magma, or elemental) down 100 percent of the time is essential to maximize your output.
At this point, all of my decisions are based on theorycrafting and judgment calls. Next week, once I've had a chance to raid, test it out on different fights, and compare simulations to real data, I'll report back on what's working and what's not. Until then ...
May all your hits be crits!
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk. Whether it's Sarah Nichol's elemental edition, Joe Perez's coverage of restoration or Rich Maloy's enhancement edition, WoW Insider's shaman experts have you covered.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Saeadame Oct 18th 2010 2:14PM
Ugh, I'm so bad at remembering to put down a fire totem. Granted, I'm only 72 atm, but it's so hard to get in the habit...
erictapley Oct 18th 2010 2:36PM
A request for all of us who aren't quite as experienced with the game mechanics: when you mention a macro (such as "replaced Magma Totem with a Searing Totem / Magma Totem macro"), please share it! Even if it's a link to some other location where we can find them... at least for myself, I know that having the macros detailed would be a huge help.
Thanks!
Conchar Oct 19th 2010 1:47AM
I can only guess that he means he has the 2 in one button like holding a modifier to cast Magma totem, such as:
/cast [modifier] Magma Totem; Searing totem
Drag that macro to your bar, and if you press shift-9 (or whatever number you put the macro in) it will cast Magma Totem, otherwise pressing 9 will drop searing totem.
You can specify which modifier you want to use in your macro as well, instead of the catch-all generic [modifier] option. Such as:
/cast [modifier:shift] Flame Shock; [modifier:ctrl] Frost Shock; [modifier:alt] Wind Shear; Earth Shock
There you have a macro that combines all your shocks to one button! You just have to memorize which modifier goes with one shock. I don't actually put Wind Shear in my macro like that, but I was just using it as an example of an alt-modifier option.
Wraithanne Oct 18th 2010 2:36PM
It still amazes me that people can actually use a Naga. It would seem amazing for a person like me with small hands but how do you keep track of what you're pressing?
On the article itself, I'm kinda glad I just dinged 80 the night before the patch. Having 4 other 80s has made the respec/forge/gem process REALLY expensive. Glad I can take a little time with my EnhSham.
bloodfyr Oct 18th 2010 3:17PM
It's something you get used to eventually. Do you touch type (typing without looking at the keyboard)? It's the same thing.
Daynthebold Oct 18th 2010 3:22PM
It's all about the muscle memory. I had to do a fresh install of Windows once and WoW with it. However, I forgot to save my addon settings so I was stuck re-binding every single ability on every single toon.
However, it gave me a chance to streamline my keybindings for more efficient use. After a week of using them, my fingers got accustomed to just "finding" the appropriate key or button. Same principle with the Naga. Once you've got all the bindings set and have practiced, it becomes second nature.
humperdinck Oct 18th 2010 3:51PM
Also, configuring your action bar into the 3x4 layout as pictured above is a huge visual help at knowing which Naga button to push.
Wraithanne Oct 18th 2010 4:34PM
I don't really mean in a touch-typing sense, more of a...well is say 8 ridged differently than 12? How do you differentiate the buttons using just your thumb? Do the buttons have a different texture or is it just guess til it becomes natural? I'm used to using a 10-key but that's using my entire hand.
Actually I guess I'd like something like an inverse Naga. A Trackball with a 10-key attached. Or maybe a right-handed G13...I can dream.
Guy Oct 18th 2010 5:29PM
I use a G13. It has 22 buttons (I use 19 the bottom 3 are binded to alt+ one of the keys above it for quick self heal, lay on hands and bubble), and making one of the side buttons a modifer (I bind it to ctrl), I have 38 total, plus tab,up, down, strafe left and right for easy circle strafing.
I like how the keys are full sized. I also have two sets of bars, each with 2 rows of 7 and 1 row of 5 to match the gameboard. The set on the right is without modifications and the left is with the ctrl added to the same key bindings (so some are like ctrl-shift-5).
The only problem is, it can't be used with the right hand.
Elmo Oct 18th 2010 2:45PM
Having played Enh for ages and at least throughout the entire lenght of Wrath as my main I found it very odd to not click a button every GCD.
often I found myself thinking "ehh, yes that's it for now 4-3-2-1 GO!"
Luci Oct 18th 2010 3:09PM
Ha, same, but I like that! So I miss it :'(
Jackwraith Oct 18th 2010 3:13PM
Likewise. I know they tried to put in some gaps so that we weren't completely enslaved to the GCD and we didn't end up as the MMO world's largest carpal tunnel syndrome society, but the current gap is just way too long. I'm fine with sprinkling in 3 seconds here or there, but sitting after Lava Lash for 10 seconds, auto-attacking, is crazy, especially in contrast to what it was a week ago. Obviously, there's a spot in the for Unleash Elements, when Cat drops, but even then there's going to be a significant amount of dead time.
Kunikenwad! Oct 18th 2010 3:29PM
Amen to that ... I agree with Jackwraith too. It feels wrong to be watching my CDs and waiting to press something. I loved being active and pushing a bunch of buttons instead of waiting for cooldowns ... I feel like a ret pally now :(
On the other hand, I'm getting used to the new rotation and finding that redropping Searing Totem is an effective gap-filler. 100% uptime, just like Rich says!
Stilhelm Oct 18th 2010 5:49PM
If you're sitting there for 10 seconds after hitting LL, then your dps must really suck. In between LLs, you should have at least 1 SS, 2 shocks, and LB. Then you've also got your searing totem to monitor, wolves cooldown to watch, etc.
However, the main thing I don't like about the cooldown management system vs the resource management system, is that for example, on a mut rogue, if you don't hit Mutilate when you have exactly enough energy (55, I think?), you haven't lost any dps (and in fact, by pooling energy to manage the envenom buff, can gain significantly). You can choose to pool your energy or use it right away, and you really only lose big if you cap energy. With a CD-based system, you *have* to hit the button the exact moment it comes off cooldown, or you're losing out on damage. One provides flexibility and strategy, the other requires complete rigidity. If you go 1 second past your 8-sec SS cooldown every time during a 5-minute boss fight, you lose out on 4 SS, which doesn't sound like much but definitely adds up (since you're probably also missing LL cooldown, shocks, MW5 by a second or two occasionally as well).
I guess that's why, while I enjoy the aesthetics of enhance shaman dps, really can't stand to do more than a couple bosses in a raid that way, but with the rogue the 10th boss is just as enjoyable as the first. That's why I'll always only be a "fair" shaman dps, while on the rogue I can be "decent".
Jackwraith Oct 18th 2010 3:10PM
Imp Fire Nova over Imp Shields isn't even a consideration. The DPS increase from Imp Shields is ridiculously low. Only one spec (Resto) should be even considering Imp Shields. The worst part about that is that they've made Fire Nova so difficult to use that we'll be wasting 2 talent points on an ability we'll only seriously use once or twice a raid, if that. But even for that once or twice, it's better than Imp Shields.
Boobah Oct 18th 2010 5:33PM
"Only one spec (Resto) should be even considering Imp Shields."
Right. Because low resto has such wonderful toys for elemental (read: no DPS buffs). And at 85, elemental is going to want Ancestral Swiftness, which means buffing either Lightning Shield or Primal Strike to get there. And 3/3 Improved Shields is +15% to Fulmination; an easy win over a melee strike.
Luci Oct 18th 2010 3:13PM
How about glyphs? I keep seeing different takes on which 3 to choose out of:
Feral Sprit
Lava Lash
Windfury
Stormstrike
I chose to leave out Windfury, but then I noticed I seemed to be accumulating MWx5's really slowly...
Haven't had time to try out a new glyph combo other than that yet.
bloodfyr Oct 18th 2010 3:18PM
I noticed that too. I hope they just didn't turn down the proc rate.
I also notice that I'm considerably squishier than I used to be...not a fan of this.
Camdin Oct 18th 2010 3:59PM
Ok I may be fairly new to playing a shammy(lvl 56) and I understand why you took Improved Fire Nova over Improved Shields but why on earth would you ever want to take 2 points in Ancestral Swiftness over 2 points in Improved Shields. Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't we be more concerned with raising our dps rather than increasing our movement speed?
Jackwraith Oct 18th 2010 4:07PM
Raising your movement speed will raise your DPS in encounters where movement is a necessity. It's more of a raiding thing, certainly, but the DPS gain from Imp Shields is so pathetic that you're much better off taking the movement gain and instant Ghost Wolf (now usable indoors!) than putting any points in Shields.