Not sure if other classes do this, but on my enh shaman I have to sync my wep swings using a macro so my mh attacks first to maximize wf damage. It kind of overcomplicates things and I’m hoping it goes away in wrath.
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Enhance is a harder spec in Wrath than in TBC whether or not weapon sync is a thing, so…
Not a thing afaik.
But weapon speed still is. Enhas want slow weapons
Enhance still synchs weapon speeds, we just don’t stagger (due to not running WF/WF) anymore. We want to hit within a certain range so that we have maximum Flurry uptime, as the behaviour of flurry in TBC not consuming two charges for an MH/OH swing if they hit close together still exists. Plus, lightning weaving (casting Lightning Bolt at 3~4 stacks instead of potentially wasting procs by waiting for 5) is a thing, and it has to be done between swings.
It’s… well, more relevant now for swing timers, as you’re actively working in between swings vs. just synching/staggering.
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For spellhance pickin’s are slim after Tier 7 content. In T7 you have Wraith Strike which is a respectable 2.6 speed. After that you have:
- Lockjaw - Rotface 10m - ICC - 2.2
- Valius - LC 10m - ICC - 2.2
In between you are stuck with 1.8 speed main hands. You’ll still see benefits from having a slow offhand as to increase the Maelstrom proc chance for lava lash and offhand hit of stormstrike.
The flurry behavior isn’t as big of a deal in wrath as your uptime on Elemental Devastation will be much higher with the number of spells being cast. The +9 melee crit this provides makes it much easier to maintain near 100% uptime on flurry even if your weapon speeds aren’t matched and your swings unsynched.
Also note that once you get enough melee haste to drop your GCD down to .75 seconds (not including flurry as it doesn’t count towards GCD reduction) overcapping on maelstrom charges is much less frequent if you have good reaction time. You’ll likely only have one swing after capping before your GCD is available to LB.
Spellhance isn’t a thing. It’s just Enhancement, with slightly different pieces of gear. They play and spec the exact same, the only difference sometimes is gemming.
Proc chance isn’t really the reason why you want a slow OH, and Lava Lash is a button you hit when you’re forced to - preferably never.
It doesn’t really matter if we have more crit, as I run with a lot of crit in raid but synching will still significantly increase Flurry uptime. It’s simply more DPS to do so.
And overcapping doesn’t happen if you don’t wait until 5 MSW stacks. Also, I’m pretty sure you can’t go below 1s for GCD. Plus SS can give you two MSW procs, so you can absolutely overcap.
The most critical difference is your main hand weapon. What I was pointing out is that there is ONE weapon in all of wrath with spell power on it and a 2.6 speed. It comes from T7 content. There are only TWO weapons in all of wrath that have spell power on them with 2.2 speed. They both come from T10 content.
In between there you will be using a 1.8 speed weapon so likely won’t be able to synch your weapon speeds. It’s not a matter of if synching is better. It’s a matter of synching simply not being a good option. You will benefit more from having the slower off hand to increase your MW procs from LL and ST than trying to find a decent weapon with 1.8 speed to synch with your main hand.
Again, I’m not trying to argue that synching isn’t better. What I’m saying here is that desynching isn’t as punishing in wrath as it was in TBC due to having much higher crit due to better uptime on ED.
You may be right on the GCD cap, though I could swear the melee and casting cap were equalized in wrath. Otherwise classes/specs such as rogue and kitty wouldn’t gain anything from haste in that department as they are already locked in at 1s.
Precasting LB at 3-4 stacks is probably counter productive as it delays your swing timers while casting. You only avoid overcapping because you delayed those swings causing a DPS loss overall.
Well, that’s the thing. We’ve been testing and fast/fast FT/FT (and I’m not sure if they’ve even tested fast/slow FT/FT) just isn’t as competitive. Wraith Strike isn’t a Spellhance weapon, it’s just really good in general for Enhancement with a perfect speed and itemization - spell power is a DPS stat for Enhancement and with spell damage doing so much more of your DPS compared to TBC, it’s just that much more valuable.
Private server values aren’t inherently accurate, since they’ve shown they have wonky interactions with multiple aspects that inflate, “Spellhance” viability.
Again, I’m not trying to argue that synching isn’t better. What I’m saying here is that desynching isn’t as punishing in wrath as it was in TBC due to having much higher crit due to better uptime on ED.
Haste does also affect energy regen (or at least does on the beta currently) and DoT tick speed, if I recall right, even for bleeds/poisons.
MSW prevents any delay to your swings by casting, it also works for some reason with Lava Burst (meatballweave is a dream for some) and heals. So, so long as you don’t start casting right before a swing (where it may, “skip” the auto), nothing bad happens and it’s a DPS increase overall. And a noticeable one, probably 5% or more. It just requires watching swing timers.
As for Lava Lash, it does at most 2% of your overall DPS even if you cast it way more than you should.
I’d love to see the results of these tests. Do you have a gear list used for each, DPS breakdown by skill? Were these done on lvl 80 or 83 dummies or done in raid setting? What stat weights were used for determining gear choices? What ability priorities were used? Is there a thread or particular reddit you are referencing?
The interactions with trinkets that provide damage procs either on hit or stacking charges have always been suspect on the private servers. I’ve personally never used them for this very reason. The basic ratings conversions, damage calculations, spell coefficients and such have been pretty accurate for a while now, though used to be all over the place.
MSW should only avoid swing delay if it has a full stack which actually changes the spell classification to instant cast. If it does not delay the swing timer, that is a bug and should be reported. Any spell with a cast time should delay the swing timer or outright reset it depending on the spell. And MSW working with LaB is definitely a bug and should be reported. Although that would be awesome if left in there.
As for LL, you aren’t using it for the damage it produces. You use it to try and force a MSW proc to cap so your next GCD is instant LB.
Almost all weapons in WOTLK are a 2.6 speed, and there are many maces and axes that were made with enhance (and dual wield dk’s) in mind. There are also some core changes to how enhance and swing timers work with abilities that more or less removed any need for the player to pay attention to them.
Discord. Essentially, sims suggest WF/FT is ahead on single target, but FT/FT pulls ahead on cleave (which isn’t surprising), but that SP isn’t as valuable for these situations as you’d expect. We’re not going to gear for it specifically, but we will prefer SP pieces with better itemization (the i226 SP neck is P1 BiS simply because there’s no ilvl equivalent, since the itemization on the AP neck isn’t as good.
We’re testing for Classic. We can’t take private server findings as accurate. The further we move from better itemized SP pieces, the less we’ll gear for it.
Note: FT/FT with slow/slow. Again, simming will be needed to see if faster SP weapons will overtake slow/slow, but I doubt it will since autos are still a large portion of our damage - and SP’s interaction isn’t as big for Nova. We also gain SP from AP.
Sure, but some of the reasons, “Spellhance” did so well on private servers is that they had bugs (Fire Elemental interactions, FT iCD not tracking the rank, double procs), which many of them aren’t on Classic. It seems like if FT/FT (with rank difference between the two) isn’t accurate, Spellhance is nerfed quite a bit.
That’s not how it works, though. Any stack of MSW removes the swing delay from casting specific spells. It’s authentic to how it has always worked. It’s also intended for PvP use, since you won’t always wait for 5 stacks to cast an affected spell.
LvB already worked with it in original Wrath, people were trying to figure out how to use it back then, too.
If this is specific to Spellhance, I’m not as sure about it. Lava Lash does less damage than an auto, and there is almost always something better to cast. Especially when you factor in casting LB at <5 stacks.
The risk of overcapping, which is a large DPS loss, is removed if you do that.
Enhance will still always want to synch their weapons for Flurry, and will still watch for lightning weaving purposes which we’ve seen is a large DPS increase.
That’s actually kind of why I’m not as sure if I want to main it again.
Do either of you know of a really good WeakAura based Swingtimer?
Thank you!
I’ve heard that WA dropped support for swingtimers, but I don’t know for sure. Generally, lurking your class’s Discord helps. I haven’t yet found a replacement for Wrath.
I use SixxFix’s swing timer. Not a WA though.
Feel free to drop into the shaman discord. They are doing some amazing testing, which answers pretty much all your questions. Testing is still in process, but they are discovering some awesome stuff. Super excited with enhance for wrath.
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I’m in the class disco already. I was wondering if there was some other source since the info above seemed to be old/incorrect. Double FT is ahead for both single and cleave since they fixed a bug with the sim that was incorrectly calculating damage. Which includes supporting the use of rings/neck/cloak as spell off pieces for an overall damage increase.
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