The truth about WOTLK Totem of Wrath

[glo]

So, basically, just spec 40/21 on everyone but the one guy that specs for ToWrath...even for PVE. Schweet. Of course, I didn't bet the farm on shammies, so even if they'd deleted ToWrath from the tree it wouldn't have affected me that much. ;)

Is anyone in beta experimenting with 5 shammies or the 1 pally 4 shammy combo as far as using thunderstorm or the 40/0/21 type build? 4-5 thunderstorm rotation seems like it would be powerful and really irritate melee types. I only have 2 shammies and pally on the beta and it's pretty fun with them specced for thunderstorm.

More then likely I'll keep the insta-gib for leveling and all that but I'm definitely going to check out the knockback rotation at 80.

[Stealthy]

Nice post. As others have pointed out - the increase in crit was good for mana efficiency, since Elemental Focus was proc'ing more often. For longer (boss) fights this was a great bonus.

Also - the actual crit damage will be higher due to Lightning Overload proc'ing (which can crit and can proc itself).

Cheers,

S.

[Ken]

This is also interesting:
Glyph of Totem of Wrath - http://thottbot.com/wotlk/i41552
I wonder if it stacks...

[bodefeld]

This is also interesting:
Glyph of Totem of Wrath - http://thottbot.com/wotlk/i41552
I wonder if it stacks...

From what I've been testing on the PTR, it looks like you cannot "equip" the same glyph into more than one slot.

[Ken]

This is also interesting:
Glyph of Totem of Wrath - http://thottbot.com/wotlk/i41552
I wonder if it stacks...

From what I've been testing on the PTR, it looks like you cannot "equip" the same glyph into more than one slot.

Sure, but 1 glyph for each player affects the totem of each player that has the glyph and puts the totem down. So I wonder if this stat will stack when multiple totems are placed by different characters.

[Fuzzyboy]

spell_dmg = (castdmg-avg_damage) / spell_coeff
spell_dmg = (1956 - 765) / .794 = 1500. Which is exactly right, so we have some confidence in my math.

solve for spell_dmg again:

spell_dmg = (1971 - 756) / .794 = 1530

So adding 1% crit is roughly the same as adding 30 spell damage in the above scenario.

I'm a bit confused here - I'm not sure I get why you use 756 instead of 765. I guess it's possible you just mistyped, but is there an explanation I don't get? If you use the avg damage from above, you get:

spell_dmg = (1971 - 765) / .794 = 1519,71

The way I see it, calculated based on the average damage and average LB would be avg_spell_dmg + (spell_dmg * coeff) - in the 1500 scenario its 765 + (1500 * 0,794) = 1956 just as you figure. With a 25% chance to crit (ie. a 25% chance to do double damage), the number is simply 1956 * 1,25 an average damage of 2445. For 26% its 1956*1,26 = 2464,56 or a 19,56 (2464,56-2445 = 19,56) differencewhich is equal to the number you get from using 765 in your equation. For four totems its 1956*1,37 = 2679,72 - 2445 = 234,72 which is less than the 280 damage from the current ToW.

Simplified the equation for the damage per crit% = 0,01 * (average_spell_damage + (base_+dmg * coeff)):

0,01 * (765 + (1500 * 0,794)) = 19,56

or for the 12%:

0,12 * (765 + (1500 * 0,794)) = 234,72 - so even more of a buff that we initially assumed


However! Crit% has the ability to scale with gear - a fixed +dmg number does not. Adding up current heroic gear from http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=18255.0 totals up to about 1800 including +dmg from enchants and flametongue weapon and thats mostly blue heroic gear, 2200+ is probably available for later tiers, thus making the equation:

a) Mostly blue heroic gear - 1800 dmg: 765 + (1800 * 0,794) * 0,12 = 263,30 or roughly equal (small buff)

b) Higher tier gear - 2200 dmg: 765 + (2200 * 0,794) * 0,12 = 301,41 again roughly equal (small nerf)

Our conclusion is still that for most of us it'll be a buff, so thanks for the post! :-)