Stat Optimization on Raid Gear for Enhancement

Classes Shaman
1

With Doom Winds being our go to legendary, and windfury attack being a big part of our DPS, I feel like I’m running into real itemization problems as someone who raids and doesn’t jump into Mythic+ as much. For whatever reason, haste seems to be in short supply on the gear I’ve been able to obtain. On top of that, the best haste items seem to drop from some of the more difficult later fights on Heroic (like the haste ring off Denathrius or the belt off Sludgefist). It became very apparent for me when I raided with another Enhancement Shaman who does a lot of Mythic+ and had about 50% more haste than I did.

For those that spend their time raiding, or only have time to focus on raiding, what are the best ways to counter this? Should I be looking for lower ilvl gear with better haste and see if it works better?

EDIT: I’ll add that it seems like BIS trinkets are either off Denathrius or from Mythic+, but that’s not a secondary stat issue.

2

Our best stats depend a lot on what we already have, our soulbind choice, and comp/talent build.

If you are Venthyr, then you’ll probably find haste to be good, but if you’re Night Fae then haste is not particularly great. This also depends on your race, for instance Troll gets a huge haste buff every 2 minutes which lines up with 2m cooldowns and doom winds, which as a result means we don’t need a lot of haste.

It’s always best to sim your gear rather than just rely on what people say is the best stat.

For instance, i’m currently running the following:
27% crit, 15% haste, 16% vers, 23% mastery.

I know a lot of Shaman say that haste is the most important stat, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

The other Enhance in my guild has about 25-27% haste, but our damage is pretty much equal in raid although i’ve started to pull ahead a little the past month.

We’re at the same item level (although he has better weapons), and i’m Night Fae while he’s Venthyr.

His 10%+ haste advantage over me does not equal better dps, and in fact I just REMOVED all of my haste gems because sims suggested I had too much, so i’m now running crit which is still my top stats in my setup.

That being said, the easiest way I found to gear was to do some PvP. You can get to 1400 pretty easily and then put 207 gear in most of your slots. You can pick haste/vers or crit/vers, which is pretty much perfect for us given that mastery is the lowest stat for us regardless of all of the above.

Getting to 1600 can be a little difficult if like me you can’t find people that want to run rated games, but the 213 gear at 1600 is better than anything you’ll get in m+ and better than most raid gear until you get 220+.

3

This isn’t just an enhancement issue, or even a shaman issue… the variety of gear drops from CN are abysmal.

Every class only has 1 wrist and 1 shoulder item, 2 necks, etc… if those aren’t itemized specifically for whatever your spec you are just sol until next tier.

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4

Since simming is an area I’m inexperienced with, what do you use to do that? I’m not a world class raider by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want to get better.

Fair point. I honestly don’t remember it being this bad in past tiers. It’s an overlooked part of what tier sets offered outside of bonuses, too.

5

SimulationCraft is the go to sim, and there is an online version available (that’s much faster and won’t kill your computer lol).

If you wanna be cheap and use it for free, there’s a queue time and you’re limited at how much stuff you can sim at once. If you pay the $5 a month, or year, or whatever it was, then you can sim without the queue (99.99% of the time), and can sim more options at once - I use this religiously at the moment, it’s definitely worth the money for me.

Edit: get the SimulationCraft (simc) addon for WoW so you can create your character export and paste it in to the browser window. It also allows you to sim your great vault options if you run /simc after you open the vault.

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6

I’ll add that there are some drawbacks to sims in general, but I would only suggest running Top Gear sims if you have never used them before.

Plenty of YouTube guides on getting started with that as well.

Just to comment on this, they’ve made primary stat so valuable for all dps specs that unless a new piece is within a close ilvl range to what you’re already wearing and contains a very high amount of desired secondary compared to absolute absence of it on your equipped piece, I’d say downgrading ilvl is almost certainly not worth it. There’s some exceptions to this rule but none I know of that currently affect shaman specs.

That being said, the sim results will more or less tell you the same thing.

7

The answer to any “How do I get gear that I want” issue for Shadowlands is pvp.

You can target any secondary you want. And versatility isn’t generally a desired stat it’s also not really anyone’s worst stat either.

So if you specifically want haste gear, so some pvp and get haste items. You can even merc mode if you find your faction is sucking at that time for quicker queues/wins/etc.

8

That was my general assumption, but Doom Winds/Windfury Attack seems to be so tied into how many whacks you can get in that I’m not sure if that’s necessarily the case for Enhancement? I could be 100% wrong though, and I know RNG plays a role there, but when comparing logs that’s sometimes such a large discrepancy for me that it is really noticeable.

Fair point. Like Mythic+, it’s more of a time thing than anything else. I just haven’t had the personal time outside of raid nights to really focus on other gameplay options while keeping up with things.

9

It would largely boil down to simming your stats for the gear you have. The other key with Doomwinds is knowing what triggers windfury during your DW buff window and maximizing pressing those on priority. SS,CL & Sundering are all on top before anything else, capping MW is also fine during this window.

10

I agree on simming for optimal DPS, I think the big element about haste is that it makes the spec “feel” a bit smoother and better, if that is important to you as a player. Sims are great at what is the best, and how much an item might be an upgrade, but some players want feel over min/max.

11

For example before simming i had my haste up at around 22% but found that dropping it for more vers and less mastery was quite a decent increase. Wish it was simpler but simming is the best way.

12

Agreed to both you and Kaalet also, You do need a min amount of haste but if it is breakpoint oriented, which I would assume it is. I did the same getting to about 21-22 and then balancing my crit and vers through sims. It really makes the class feel smoother. Overall though, it is RNG based and you can fail to get a good string of Stormbringer procs. You have low burst openers or really exceptional ones.

13

I think you’re right. I don’t see anything out there saying there is an actual breakpoint, but I feel like there is one in theory when it comes to Doom Winds and windfury attack simply because you can get more (RNG) chances at procs during the right window.

My haste truly is low. I see lots of people at around 20%, and I only have 13.58%. It sucks, because at my ilvl, Mythic+ seems to be the only “reliable” source of more haste without losing agility in the process (short of downing heroic Denathrius weekly/Great Vault and crossing my fingers on that juicy ring).

14

Don’t worry about it too much. I only run with about 15% haste, I actually have 16% vers and vers is still considered a better stat for me than haste at the moment. Crit is my top stat and I have 27% of that. Yes things might feel smoother at 20-25%, but it also depends on your build/soulbinds/legendaries/race.

For instance, Troll gets a 10% haste buff once every 3 minutes that lines up perfectly with Ascendance. Because of this haste buff I have over 25% haste during my biggest burst window, so I don’t really need more.

Mag’har orc has a random stat (sometimes haste), which can be used once every 2 minutes (lines up with wolves). This is great for maelstrom generation and will also be used during doom winds.

Kyrian soul bind has a 3-15% stacking haste buff, almost all the soulbinds have some sort of haste, mastery, versatility, or crit buff. Depending on which one you use, your weights will change.

I am currently Night Fae so I get a big mastery buff on pull which increases my chance to proc I wanna say stormflurry, and windfury. It also increases my damage while the buff is up, which is then followed by the usual doom winds + ascendance + wft, so that i’m doing more windfury damage while I have that buff.

Haste does not prove to be better simply because my racial + covenant combination lead to hits that would benefit more from crit/vers than say a venthyr orc, who might need a lot of haste.