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Q u o t e:
What makes dual wielding better than using a big 2hander or 1h + shield. Other than the looks i dont understand why a sham would want to dual wield. Can someone explain why a sham would want to spend all the talent points to get this.

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http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20355

50% proc chance

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Q u o t e:
Dual wield?

Ever noticed the 1-handers did 40 DPS for high blue 1-hander weapons, and 50 DPS for high 2-hander?

Not much difference in DPS. Do the math.

40 + 40(.75 for miss chance) = 70 DPS or 1.4 times the DPS of the 2-hander. More if you take the 10% reduced chance to miss talent.

Used to be that 2-hander was better of our special abilites that work off of having a long swing. With WF, SS, and flurry we could get over 2x the attacks on a long swing weapon, it just did alot more damage. But the duel wilder now will be able to get WF on either weapon and SS will attack with 2 swings, one from each weapon, this will be much more powerful than 2-hander also think of the double crusader procs with flurry, WF, bloodlust...it will massive the amount of damage we could output, we could top the charts again on DPS, which I dont see except in UBRS or something.

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Your position is correct, however the math is wrong.

Any dual 1 hand combination utterly destroys 2 handers in terms of dps, so blizzard implemented two debuffs for dual wielding. Firstly, the off-hand weapon will always, always do 50% of the damage it should, and this is reflected on the damage window in your character sheet. Secondly, there is an inherent 24% miss rate on DW white damage, which doesn't count for the global 5% miss rate on special attacks (yellow damage) that every class has. With these two mechanics in play, dual wielding now roughly equals 2 hand damage, and both are calculated to be a good 25% more dps than 1 hand + shield.

Therefore, given fairly equal gear, a shaman will always deal just as much damage with either combination, but the reason DW'ing edges out in the end is the large amount of attacks that can proc %chances, and a shamans Stormstrike ability. Also, we get a 5 point talent just after dual wield on the enhancement tree that gives us an increased 10% chance to hit while dual wielding, which is enormous. Ask any warrior or rogue about it and they'll salivate at your talent tree. This makes DW damage look like it's going to be significantly better than 2 handed... In theorycraft, anyways.

We still don't know how this is all going to work in game, but I'd say Enhance shammies are getting a major buff come the expansion.

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Q u o t e:


http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20355

50% proc chance

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Basically this plus shamanistic rage gives thae shaman unending mana pool

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Q u o t e:
Not much difference in DPS. Do the math.

40 + 40(.75 for miss chance) = 70 DPS or 1.4 times the DPS of the 2-hander.

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DW miss penalty applies to both hands, and you forgot the 50% damage on the offhand.

(40 * 0.76) + (40 * 0.76)/2 vs 50 * 0.95
or 45.6 vs 47.5

However, that small advantage in raw dps for the 2H is negated by the DW setup getting more benefit from attack power so they end up pretty even.

But yeah, with +13% to hit from talents DW gets a significant advantage over a 2H in sustained DPS (but will still lack in PvP burst potential).

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Q u o t e:


http://www.thottbot.com/?sp=20355

50% proc chance

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basically this plus shamanistic rage and duel wielding give the shaman an unending mana pool

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Q u o t e:
unless it works different than WF totem, then WF will not proc from offhand

flurry should proc from offhand though, but then offhand swings will also eat charges

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the spell alone doesnt work the same as WF totem. the spell just says that it buffs the shaman's weapon so as long as it doesnt change it wont matter. also we can buff the weapon and then take it off and move it to the OH.

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Q u o t e:
Dual wield?

Ever noticed the 1-handers did 40 DPS for high blue 1-hander weapons, and 50 DPS for high 2-hander?

Not much difference in DPS. Do the math.

40 + 40(.75 for miss chance) = 70 DPS or 1.4 times the DPS of the 2-hander. More if you take the 10% reduced chance to miss talent.

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Two things need to be taken into consideration:

1. 25% miss rate applied to both weapons

2. ATK Power scales with weapon speed.

Two-hander blues are around 53 dps. One-handers are around 41 dps.

(41x0.5 + 41)x0.75 = 46.1
^ ^(for miss chance applied to both weapons)
^(for off-hand damage reduction)


ATK Power scales to weapon speed, so having two faster weapons probably won't provide much more of an atk power bonus than having one slow weapon.

Through talents a shaman can get +13% to hit.
Through talents a Warrior can get +25% off-hand damage.
Through talents a Warrior can get +50% off-hand damage and +3% to hit.

Shaman (41x0.5 + 41)x0.88 = 54.1
Warrior (41x0.75 + 41)x0.78 = 56.0
Rogue (41x1.0 + 41)x0.75 = 61.5

Buuuut...
Put me with Unleashed Rage, Strength of Earth, and Grace of Air in a group with 4 rogues and just watch us pull aggro off of tanks! Seriously, I believe that Tanks are going to have to have a shaman in their group just to keep aggro off the rogues. It may require exchanging Grace of Air for Tranquil Air in the Rogue group.

the main reason for taking DW spec is so that you buff the real DPSers in your group. that +mana based on str talent will help negate your low mana pool when you are in physical DPS gear.

"Buuuut...
Put me with Unleashed Rage, Strength of Earth, and Grace of Air in a group with 4 rogues and just watch us pull aggro off of tanks! Seriously, I believe that Tanks are going to have to have a shaman in their group just to keep aggro off the rogues. It may require exchanging Grace of Air for Tranquil Air in the Rogue group. "

Tanks are getting a boost to aggro-management.

Again, as 1h as base:

AP contribution= around 65% of your dps; 1h weapon= 35%

2h weapons do 30% more damage than 1h weapons.

dual wielding for us will give us 11% chance to miss (24%-13% from talents); with talents 1h and 2h both have 2% chance to miss.

1h dps:
0.98*(.65+.35)=.98

2h dps:
.98*(.65+1.3*.35) = 1.0829

DW dps:
.89*(1.5*(.65+.35) )= 1.335


So with same tier gear DW > 2h > 1h

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Q u o t e:


Two things need to be taken into consideration:

1. 25% miss rate applied to both weapons

2. ATK Power scales with weapon speed.

Two-hander blues are around 53 dps. One-handers are around 41 dps.

(41x0.5 + 41)x0.75 = 46.1
^ ^(for miss chance applied to both weapons)
^(for off-hand damage reduction)


ATK Power scales to weapon speed, so having two faster weapons probably won't provide much more of an atk power bonus than having one slow weapon.

Through talents a shaman can get +13% to hit.
Through talents a Warrior can get +25% off-hand damage.
Through talents a Warrior can get +50% off-hand damage and +3% to hit.

Shaman (41x0.5 + 41)x0.88 = 54.1
Warrior (41x0.75 + 41)x0.78 = 56.0
Rogue (41x1.0 + 41)x0.75 = 61.5

Buuuut...
Put me with Unleashed Rage, Strength of Earth, and Grace of Air in a group with 4 rogues and just watch us pull aggro off of tanks! Seriously, I believe that Tanks are going to have to have a shaman in their group just to keep aggro off the rogues. It may require exchanging Grace of Air for Tranquil Air in the Rogue group.

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You forgot the shaman talent for 10% to weapon damage.

(41x.5 + 41)(1.1)(.89) = 60.2

A close second to the rogue, plus the boost to group damage from totems...yeah, a shaman in a dps spot now definately deserves it, imo. Might even go so far as to say it's required.

Edit: Maybe, just maybe, *two* shamans in a dps group. One for windfury or grace of air, the other for tranquil air.

Keep in mind that we still do not know if the off-hand will be enchantable with Windfury. If not, then two-handed may actually have a dps advantage.

To elaborate, there'd be two handicaps:
1) Only the mainhand would be enchanted, therefore only the mainhand can proc Windfury. Windfury would then only benefit from the single weapon's dps.
2) The dual wield miss penalty would apply to the mainhand, thus assumingly also to Windfury procs. So compared to wielding a single weapon (be it one-handed & shield or two-handed), you'd have 9% less hits that'd all have a chance to proc WF (this assumes dual wield specialization), and all Windfury procs would have 9% less chance of hitting.

I also cannot understand why shamans think dual wield can give them so better DPS.

1. We need to put more talent points to get all the +hit talents and you need lots of +hit gears to compensate the high miss rate of dual wield. That means you have lower attack power and melee crit than shaman with 2-hander.

2. Shaman can always use a main-hand/2-hander, that means dual wield only give you extra DPS from your off-hand. Off-hand weapon damage is reduced by 50% with 24% base miss chance. Does that off-hand really give you "awesome" DPS? We are not rogue or fury warrior, we only have one instant attacks(Stormstrike).

I don't say dual wield is bad for DPS. However, the output DPS of dual wield is simliar to 2-hander or even worse. That means you will only choose to use 2-hander or dual wield in enhancement tree in order to save your talent points for elemental or restoration. That means dual wield is overlapping with 2-hand...I really wish they give us more talents on enhancement tree to enhance our melee abilities rather than some overlap talents which I will only choose either of them.

And I don't know why people like to compare dual wield shaman to warrior. We are totally two different classes. Warriors like to DW because of their rage system which shaman will never have. If you ask a rogue if they would like to use dual wield or 2-hander, which one you think they will choose?

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Q u o t e:
Dual Wield is an AP multiplier. DW for a Shaman will utilize 165% of your AP. 2h will only use 110%. So it scales better at the high end.....it also makes Rockbiter more powerful. As well, depending on the interaction of weapon buffs, it would give Shaman a very viable melee DPS output.

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blizzard hates when people don't use stuff they've put in the game. if there was no reason for people to use Rockbiter over Windfury, then they'd make one - and that's exactly what has happened.

There are a couple nice things to dual weild for shamans. Above someone mentioned dual aurastones, and while funny, it could be very beefy for an enchance/ele spec. If you need to heal a fight, equip 2 healing hammers both with a +healing enchant on and thats easily +200 healing usually on just weapon slots for a non resto spec. It's pretty potent. There is also the added crit bonus a second weapon can provide to proc flurry more. There is mroeto it than just your base dps.

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Q u o t e:
There are a couple nice things to dual weild for shamans. Above someone mentioned dual aurastones, and while funny, it could be very beefy for an enchance/ele spec. If you need to heal a fight, equip 2 healing hammers both with a +healing enchant on and thats easily +200 healing usually on just weapon slots for a non resto spec. It's pretty potent. There is also the added crit bonus a second weapon can provide to proc flurry more. There is mroeto it than just your base dps.

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I also think dual wield some weapons like Claw of Chromaggus and Aurastone Hammer are pretty nice. However, when I see the dual wield talents are in Tier 7 in enhancement tree...hmm...I don't know how to build my talent tree :(

Off-hand weapons also eat up your Flurry charge. Moreover, your gears for dual wield are mainly +hit, that means your have lower melee crit than 1-hand + shield or 2-hand. So I think the second point doesn't be valid to me.

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Q u o t e:
I also cannot understand why shamans think dual wield can give them so better DPS.

1. We need to put more talent points to get all the +hit talents and you need lots of +hit gears to compensate the high miss rate of dual wield. That means you have lower attack power and melee crit than shaman with 2-hander.

2. Shaman can always use a main-hand/2-hander, that means dual wield only give you extra DPS from your off-hand. Off-hand weapon damage is reduced by 50% with 24% base miss chance. Does that off-hand really give you "awesome" DPS? We are not rogue or fury warrior, we only have one instant attacks(Stormstrike).

I don't say dual wield is bad for DPS. However, the output DPS of dual wield is simliar to 2-hander or even worse. That means you will only choose to use 2-hander or dual wield in enhancement tree in order to save your talent points for elemental or restoration. That means dual wield is overlapping with 2-hand...I really wish they give us more talents on enhancement tree to enhance our melee abilities rather than some overlap talents which I will only choose either of them.

And I don't know why people like to compare dual wield shaman to warrior. We are totally two different classes. Warriors like to DW because of their rage system which shaman will never have. If you ask a rogue if they would like to use dual wield or 2-hander, which one you think they will choose?

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Did you read anything in the thread before you posted? Have you looked at the new talents at all, besides having heard of dual wield and +hit talents?

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Q u o t e:


Did you read anything in the thread before you posted? Have you looked at the new talents at all, besides having heard of dual wield and +hit talents?

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Sure I did.
What do you want to tell me?

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Q u o t e:
What makes dual wielding better than using a big 2hander or 1h + shield. Other than the looks i dont understand why a sham would want to dual wield. Can someone explain why a sham would want to spend all the talent points to get this.

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Spell interrupts and more frequent crits/procs.

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Q u o t e:


Spell interrupts and more frequent crits/procs.

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More spell interrupts and procs = true

More crits? hmm...you gears are mainly on +hit for dual wield, while you can focus on +crit / agi with 2-hander or 1-hand + shield.