Epic weaponsmithing weapons no longer unique
by Daniel Whitcomb 
Apr 28th 2008 at 11:30AM
MMO Champion has pointed out something that should make Warrior and Shaman weaponsmiths rather happy: all one-handed epic weaponsmithing weapons will be non-unique as of 2.4.2. Combine this with the fact that the Main Hand designation is being taken off of most weapons as well, and you can see where this is going. Dual-wielded Dragonmaws, anybody?
If you can scrape together the mats, 2.4.2 should be a very good time to be a dual-wielding weaponsmith of the non-Rogue variety. The 2.7 speed on the mace and axe weapons means that your Windfury and Whirlwind will be very happy. All you have to do now is hope you have enough badges, gold, or pull with your raid leader to get all the Primal Nethers and Nether Vortexes ready to go.
Filed under: Rogue, Shaman, Warrior, Blacksmithing, Patches, Items, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Angus Apr 28th 2008 12:07PM
Okay, we apparently have to get some misinformation fixed now.
This is getting absurd.
Weapon speed is important for Enhancement Shaman but people quote the numbers without knowing why and it is frustrating.
Here's the reasoning.
1: Weapon DPS is calculated by take the damage range (average it) and speed and getting how much average damage the weapon does within a second. Pretty simple huh?
2: Slower weapons do more damage. See #1? Yea, if you swing 3 times for every 2 of a different weapon with the same DPS, you are swinging for less damage each swing.
3: Stormstrike does weapon damage. Every 10 seconds we hit with the normal damage of the weapon. If it is a faster weapon it does less damage with this attack.
4: Windfury also attacks using weapon damage (and extra AP) when it procs. Having the highest possible damage range matters then.
5: There is a 3 second cooldown on Windfury. Having 30% flurry along with this means that we swing at 1.82 with a 2.6 speed weapon. Therefore it procs, there is a single swing and 3.64 seconds after the proc another swing happens, which is now eligible to proc.
6: If you have enough haste going on that you are seeing a 1.4 swing timer you won't care about lost windfury proc uptime as the white damage is making up the difference.
What this all means:
Dragonmaw has a base damage range of 172-320 and a 2.7 timer giving it 91.1 DPS. Vanir's fist has 180-335 and a 2.5 swing timer for 103.0 DPS. See the difference in damage range? Very little. Both get 1 swing in before WF CD is up.
The lower DPS weapon is almost equal to a faster weapon for Stormstrike and Windfury purposes.
The weapon speed is just a way of showing the damage range.
As it stands the proc on dragonmaw/dragonstrike makes those weapons very nice for DPS and if you don't have the badge fists yet it makes them a very good option instead.
Talquir Apr 28th 2008 12:32PM
Note: A 2.6 weapon does not attack at 1.82 with 30% haste, but at 2.0. The calculation is:
Speed * (1 / (1.3))
not
Speed * (1 - 0.3)
Common mistake.
hellshire Apr 28th 2008 12:44PM
Assuming the procs stack, it might just be the second best enhance shammy weapon combo, right under dual siphons.
Angus Apr 28th 2008 1:21PM
Best weapon combo for Shaman is 2 S3 weapons.
badge fists X2 is next highest barely edging out the syphons.
Talquir: So that is what was throwing my numbers off. I was watching my weapon speed on the character sheet and things weren't adding up right. Thanks, good to know.
Daniel Whitcomb Apr 28th 2008 3:01PM
Angus:
I was aware of the reasoning for why Enhancement Shamans generally go for slower weapons, but I figured that a more indepth explanation of exactly how enhancement shaman DPS works would be more of a subject for Totem Talk than a quick news post on a change to the Blacksmithing tradeskill.
Thanks for the clarification though!
Angus Apr 28th 2008 3:50PM
It was a nice way to say it but it irks me to see people attribute the speed thing to windfury when it is a lot more complicated than that.
Sorry my spleen got bent out of shape.
Daniel Whitcomb Apr 28th 2008 4:00PM
Oh, don't worry about it. It's a good quick and enlightening guide.
rocketscientist Apr 28th 2008 12:10PM
Let's see...so if you're a swordsmith, you get 2 1.6 speed weapons which is pretty much good for...nothing.
If you're a rogue and picked up macecrafting, you're going to be going slow/slow, which is...bad. Slow/slow for a warrior isn't great either since it's so hard to hit cap you're best off using a fast offhand for more consistent rage generation.
The only class this really works for is shaman, who can dual wield the slow axes or slow maces. Otherwise, meh.
They need to remove the specialization too in order for this to be useful. I mean, crafted 1h mace + crafted 1h sword offhand would be awesome.
kevin Apr 28th 2008 12:26PM
you're misinformed about warriors. slow/fast is better for rage generation, true, which is why it's ideal when the mob is in execute range, but if you have over 29-30% crit, you can keep flurry up without a problem, and slow/slow clearly will put out more damage. the hit cap is not important for warriors. well, not AS important, compared to other stats. once you reach 95 hit, your yellow attacks won't miss. and since your white damage only consists of around 40% of your total damage, AP and Crit are so much more essential, as it affects 100% of your damage. i wouldn't recommend only having 95 hit as a fury warrior, you'll never have any rage, it won't matter if you're slow/slow or slow/fast.
rocketscientist Apr 28th 2008 1:58PM
PvE warriors = epic fail. Given the choice of pretty much ANY other DPS class, I'll take...any other dps class. Poor group utility. Pretty much the only class I'd bump for a moonkin.
PvP yeah, you might have a point. But I think that dual wielding vs a 2 hander might make the point moot.
Argent Apr 28th 2008 7:58PM
really shows just how little you know. dps warrirors just scale right into the stratosphere the further along their gear progresses. a T6+ dps warr can and will rock any and all comers in terms of melee dps output.
it takes them a while to get good in terms of gear, but when they do, they are simply awesome. if i had a 5 man group with a non-warrior tank, i'd go out of my way to get a dps warr in. shouts, fears, badass dps and the ability to OT in a pinch hardly constitutes bad group utility.
jake Apr 28th 2008 12:43PM
When I first read this, I mistakingly thought they were no longer BoP.
I was expecting to see some really mad replies. :p
Fraufrau Apr 28th 2008 2:07PM
I hope the haste buff from the mace does not stack with itself otherwise that will be seriously overpowered
juicyjuice Apr 28th 2008 3:27PM
Here's my question: Just how much is "MANY/ MOST main hand weapons being changed to one hand" going to add up to? Is this going to include healer 1H'ers? I remember they slowly started changing all the healer maces to main hand when Shamans got the ability to dual wield, so are they going to change these weapons too?
Ive wanted to try out a dw resto shaman since they introduced dualwielding for the class. I mean can you imagine dropping your shield and picking up an extra mace from illidan and adding an extra 400+ healing...good grief.
MechaKingGhidra Apr 29th 2008 5:56AM
I understand changes are a part of the game and to expect them at some point or another. However, this is a tad bit more insult to injury than I could have *reasonably* expected. If you're confused exactly how I mean this, I am an armorsmith.
How is it that not only is there a much greater variety of weapons *but* they are no longer expected to be wielded by the creator, but others as well? I admit I didn't do any homework about choosing my professions as a Holy-spec paladin as I had no clue as to the existence of websites I could research, but blacksmithing made logical sense at the time.
So having leveled my blacksmithing with armor specialty to 375 I find that there is *nothing* that benefits me, and the plans obtained from raiding (which I still have yet to actually get my hands on any so far) are able to be used by weaponsmiths as well. Unless I respec to Retribution (*not* going to happen, I leveled 1-70 as a healer, I cannot fathom doing anything else without going insane), I have to hope Blizzard doesn't drop the ball on continuing professions when Wrath of the Lich King comes out.
I could switch professions, but let's see:
1) Unless you give me the materials to power-level something like alchemy or some such thing (even going back and choosing weaponsmithing, though I don't like that idea very much either), I don't have the time (nor money, despite the ***eventual***, i.e. very long-term, gold mine via dailies as I am still trying to save for my epic mount/training) to go back to all the low-level content and start over in the very awkward play schedule I have.
Everyone who would, in general, agree with me in this regard will obviously have their own personal situations vary, but the basic concept is agreed upon.
2) I could just petition for a similar change to come into effect for armorsmiths, seeing as how there is very limited ways armor can benefit the creator when one is not the most preferable class/spec so why not try to salvage our work by selling it to other people? I know many a dps warrior who doesn't have the time to grind out honor for PvP equipment but wants to get in on what they can with the earlier mentioned Retribution-potential gear (that is obviously more suited to warriors due to lack of spell damage) but chose enchanting, jewelcrafting, etc. Those have fun/beneficial attributes but equipment is the base product that those other things need to have in place before they can possibly be applied.
/endrant
MechaKingGhidra Apr 29th 2008 6:40AM
I am not only ridiculously stupid for typing my previous comment but also for reading this stuff so late/early (depending on location).
Post #12's comment basically sums it up and I guess I'll go back in the deepest recesses of my mind with a tad more sleep before I do anything else as I know I will just make even more ridiculous mistakes should I continue onward.
Terribly sorry to eat up so much space with a rant that doesn't even hold the slightest ground against the article's contents.
BB Apr 29th 2008 3:02PM
While I am a swordsmith now (Fireguard/Lionheart Champ) to see this change coming is exciting as it is wishful. Once the patch notes are more nailed down, I will be dropping swords and going to maces, for I am running Fury build now for my warrior, and I must admit, its quite fun. At the same time I feel MechaKings post... with Herbers/Alchy and J/Cs being such a money maker. Would be nice if we could at least make some of these weaps BOE. (Only the entry levels epics like fireguard/drakefist etc) After that you can either leave the upgrading to the BS peeps. I know there are those Felsteel recipes... but most people seem to be selling those recipes for more than they are worth these days. I would love to see maybe a armoursmith have the ability to repair out in the field (Hears engineer's cries...) or maybe "enchant" something with infusing something made by another profession.
Not a QQ post.. just a rant of a wishful thinking... and it's slow here at work today
Ronoldo May 13th 2008 12:31PM
This may turn out to be a dumb question, so please be gentle with a relatively new player =)
If a hunter dual-weilded Dragonmaws, would the haste buff activate off of ranged attacks? I don't even know if the added speed would benefit a hunter, but am curious if it would work.
Daniel Whitcomb May 13th 2008 12:42PM
Hey Ronoldo!
Melee weapon procs generally do not proc off ranged attacks, but only upon hits made with that weapon.
In this case, it doesn't matter for hunters anyway, as they cannot use maces, and therefore could not wield the Dragonstrike and its kin.