07-10-2006, 07:24 PM
So Mav's post got me thinking about the Dungeon 2 (or T0.5) set and shaman. As he pointed out for T2 to be considered useless it needs to be outdone on the other side of the shaman coin. He has a very valid point and I'm just wanting to look at it more closely. Good discussion it seems to be generating.
The sets - This does not include set bonuses
As I mentioned in my other post when looking at T1 vs T2 the extra 9 mana on T2 doesn't matter if the fight lasts at least 84 seconds of you constantly casting because of the difference in mana/5, if you stop casting T1 has more spirit too so it will shorten the time to the 9 mana not being as good more quickly. Most battles, even many of the trash pulls, in raids will reach the 30-45 second mark, even the 1.5 minute Rag kills break that 84 second barrier. So I think the int side is pretty well covered as being worse or negligible because of the superior regen (and there is more spirit on T1 too).
Mav mentioned the +damage because of his build so I got cursious about Five Thunders since it is all +damage and healing on that set. As the chart shows it turns out that Five Thunders has better +damage than Ten Storms as well. However the stam, armor and int gaps are significantly bigger, and while 5T has the same mana/5 it has less spirit so it's losing on that regen front talked about already. Of course if you are swinging a weapon, 5T has 63 str vs 0 on the raid sets and that much str is 9 DPS (126 AP, 14 AP = 1 DPS) with the weapon.
Pure stats I'll give the nod to T2 over D2 for damage. The extra int and better regen will beat out the 6 extra spell damage. But I can't stop at just the stats, have to look at set bonuses.
10 Storms Gives:
30% more healing for the 2nd and 3rd targets of a chain heal
3% nature spell crit (so the heals, lightning, and eartshock)
Gives a chance at a 50 damage lightning shield on the target when after you heal them.
The 3% crit is very nice for damage even if a couple of spells don't get it. It's hard to factor the lightning shield deal but it will help a groups DPS if you do any amount of healing. However I think that since we are looking at doing damage you'll only be spot healing which will make that LS damage pretty minimal.
Five Thunders gives:
8 all ressit
A chance on any spell cast to add 95 damage and healing for 10 seconds
23 damage and healing
200 armor
So a full Five Thunders is 2396 armor (just 31 behind T1 and 374 behind T2) and 118 damage and healing which is 29 more damage than T2 though it is 30 healing less.
I'd give the nod that 3% nature spell crit will be more damage than the chance a cast will proc giving the 95 damage and healing bonus for next couple of spells. The 45 extra int (which is 675 mana) is like 2.5 lightning bolts or 1.5 earth shocks, that can't be ignored as a DPS casting shaman can run dry pretty quick. I think we can mostly ignore the LS proc as mentioned because that requires you to heal, not do damage. I think the T2 set might still win for the damage set over the Dungeon 2 set, the 3% nature spell crit is a big deal and the extra mana could be a big deal. The extra survivabilty from the stamina can not be ignored either. It is still going to be behind by 9 DPS for melee attacks, and 29 damage and healing. And with the 8 piece set bonus being the weakest of the bunch on Dungeon 2 you could just get that 6 piece and still have two other slots to play with likely making it even stronger. Of course you can do that with the T2 set as well (get the 5 piece bonus and put 3 other pieces in there) so I'm not really going down that road.
Regardless, even though I think on paper the T2 set is still going to be the slightly better option for damage over the Dungeon 2 set, I think it still points to a problem in shaman itemization that I wasn't nearly as a aware of until this thread got me thinking about it. The T1 set looks to be better for a healing shaman, the T2 set looks like it would be better for a hybrid DPS and healing shaman. The Dungeon 2 set looks to be nearly as good as any of the other sets for a DPS shaman. Though without having done the research, I'm betting that like many of the other hybrids or "variants" (i.e. you play a class in a way that Blizzard doesn't seem to think it should be played in a raid) that item sets aren't the way to go anyway.
It's also true that the T2 set is a sidegrade for several other classes as well (again mainly considering what Blizzard seems to think is the primary role for that class), generally making several of the classes a bit more "hybrid" by keeping the 'primary' role at about the same level but giving a little more power to the secondary role. The shaman set though seems to weaken the primary role, partly because of changes to the class after the items were implemented, fairly hard. The biggest weakness of shaman healing from what I understand is longevity. The T1 set has the T2 set beat pretty easily on that score with the stats and set bonuses. That 5 set bonus is a big longevity boost and with it working so nice with the 8 piece bonus it gets even better.
Yeah I'd like to see some itemization help for shaman after looking at some of this more closely. Paladins don't have it as bad. A DPS paladin can start to gear up like a DPS warrior to up the damage, they will have to sacrifice most of their healing though and there is no such think as a caster DPS paladin. :) Shaman can look at some of the hunter DPS items but really since hunter itemization is pretty poor and limited as is there aren't a lot of options there and honeslty +agi +int isn't all that great for a melee DPS shaman, is so so for the caster/melee DPS shaman, and is meh for a pure caster DPS shaman. So that has them dipping down into some of the druid leathers. Yeah there are some pieces out there that are great for the DPS shaman (be it melee or caster) but it seems there is a bigger itemization problem for shamans than I had ever suspected. No wonder so many of the DPS shaman really chomp at the bit to get some of the PvP rewards there just isn't much for them in the PvE world.
The sets - This does not include set bonuses
Code:
Earthfury(T1) Ten Storms(T2) | Five Thunders(D2)
+ healing: 125 148 | 95
+ damage: 27 89 | 95
spell crit: 2% 2% | 2%
mana/5: 20 12 | 12
Armor: 2427 2773 | 2196
Strength: 0 0 | 63
Stamina: 127 134 | 113
Intellect: 148 157 | 112
Spirit: 112 105 | 73
Fire: 34 40 | 0
Nature: 0 10 | 0
Frost: 0 10 | 0
Shadow: 24 30 | 0
Arcane: 0 10 | 0
Durability: 635 635 | 585As I mentioned in my other post when looking at T1 vs T2 the extra 9 mana on T2 doesn't matter if the fight lasts at least 84 seconds of you constantly casting because of the difference in mana/5, if you stop casting T1 has more spirit too so it will shorten the time to the 9 mana not being as good more quickly. Most battles, even many of the trash pulls, in raids will reach the 30-45 second mark, even the 1.5 minute Rag kills break that 84 second barrier. So I think the int side is pretty well covered as being worse or negligible because of the superior regen (and there is more spirit on T1 too).
Mav mentioned the +damage because of his build so I got cursious about Five Thunders since it is all +damage and healing on that set. As the chart shows it turns out that Five Thunders has better +damage than Ten Storms as well. However the stam, armor and int gaps are significantly bigger, and while 5T has the same mana/5 it has less spirit so it's losing on that regen front talked about already. Of course if you are swinging a weapon, 5T has 63 str vs 0 on the raid sets and that much str is 9 DPS (126 AP, 14 AP = 1 DPS) with the weapon.
Pure stats I'll give the nod to T2 over D2 for damage. The extra int and better regen will beat out the 6 extra spell damage. But I can't stop at just the stats, have to look at set bonuses.
10 Storms Gives:
30% more healing for the 2nd and 3rd targets of a chain heal
3% nature spell crit (so the heals, lightning, and eartshock)
Gives a chance at a 50 damage lightning shield on the target when after you heal them.
The 3% crit is very nice for damage even if a couple of spells don't get it. It's hard to factor the lightning shield deal but it will help a groups DPS if you do any amount of healing. However I think that since we are looking at doing damage you'll only be spot healing which will make that LS damage pretty minimal.
Five Thunders gives:
8 all ressit
A chance on any spell cast to add 95 damage and healing for 10 seconds
23 damage and healing
200 armor
So a full Five Thunders is 2396 armor (just 31 behind T1 and 374 behind T2) and 118 damage and healing which is 29 more damage than T2 though it is 30 healing less.
I'd give the nod that 3% nature spell crit will be more damage than the chance a cast will proc giving the 95 damage and healing bonus for next couple of spells. The 45 extra int (which is 675 mana) is like 2.5 lightning bolts or 1.5 earth shocks, that can't be ignored as a DPS casting shaman can run dry pretty quick. I think we can mostly ignore the LS proc as mentioned because that requires you to heal, not do damage. I think the T2 set might still win for the damage set over the Dungeon 2 set, the 3% nature spell crit is a big deal and the extra mana could be a big deal. The extra survivabilty from the stamina can not be ignored either. It is still going to be behind by 9 DPS for melee attacks, and 29 damage and healing. And with the 8 piece set bonus being the weakest of the bunch on Dungeon 2 you could just get that 6 piece and still have two other slots to play with likely making it even stronger. Of course you can do that with the T2 set as well (get the 5 piece bonus and put 3 other pieces in there) so I'm not really going down that road.
Regardless, even though I think on paper the T2 set is still going to be the slightly better option for damage over the Dungeon 2 set, I think it still points to a problem in shaman itemization that I wasn't nearly as a aware of until this thread got me thinking about it. The T1 set looks to be better for a healing shaman, the T2 set looks like it would be better for a hybrid DPS and healing shaman. The Dungeon 2 set looks to be nearly as good as any of the other sets for a DPS shaman. Though without having done the research, I'm betting that like many of the other hybrids or "variants" (i.e. you play a class in a way that Blizzard doesn't seem to think it should be played in a raid) that item sets aren't the way to go anyway.
It's also true that the T2 set is a sidegrade for several other classes as well (again mainly considering what Blizzard seems to think is the primary role for that class), generally making several of the classes a bit more "hybrid" by keeping the 'primary' role at about the same level but giving a little more power to the secondary role. The shaman set though seems to weaken the primary role, partly because of changes to the class after the items were implemented, fairly hard. The biggest weakness of shaman healing from what I understand is longevity. The T1 set has the T2 set beat pretty easily on that score with the stats and set bonuses. That 5 set bonus is a big longevity boost and with it working so nice with the 8 piece bonus it gets even better.
Yeah I'd like to see some itemization help for shaman after looking at some of this more closely. Paladins don't have it as bad. A DPS paladin can start to gear up like a DPS warrior to up the damage, they will have to sacrifice most of their healing though and there is no such think as a caster DPS paladin. :) Shaman can look at some of the hunter DPS items but really since hunter itemization is pretty poor and limited as is there aren't a lot of options there and honeslty +agi +int isn't all that great for a melee DPS shaman, is so so for the caster/melee DPS shaman, and is meh for a pure caster DPS shaman. So that has them dipping down into some of the druid leathers. Yeah there are some pieces out there that are great for the DPS shaman (be it melee or caster) but it seems there is a bigger itemization problem for shamans than I had ever suspected. No wonder so many of the DPS shaman really chomp at the bit to get some of the PvP rewards there just isn't much for them in the PvE world.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.