4.3 Item Enhancement Guide

[Digren]

<grin> thanks.


We'll see how things go as the week progresses. While I'm adamant about not wasting space with threat enchants on survivability gear, real evidence that they are necessary (to some extent) will prove me wrong and I'll quickly adjust my advice accordingly. I plan to avoid threat stats whenever possible, and we'll see how I do compared to all the folks that plan to stack expertise rating everywhere. It's hard to quantify whether I die less than they do (since that depends on many factors), but I can certainly quantify whether or not my threat is sufficient. And the only useful threat is sufficient threat.

[econ21]

I decided to enchant all my gear today, as it is "heroic ready" and found this guide very useful. Unfortunately, most of the top tier enchants were not available on the AH as scrolls so I ended up going with lesser ones. In that spirit, it might be worth adding the savage armor kit to lists for the (5?) slots it can be applied. It did not seem a bad option for hands, chest and feet, until I can get the top tier ones (e.g. at +36 stamina, I think its better than the 275 hp chest enchant I think I used in wotlk). Heavy savage armor would have been better but was more expensive and I did not want to spend the gold for something I will either upgrade or enchant over.

For the weapon enchant, mending caught my eye. I don't know the proc rate, although wowhead says it heals for around 800 hp. Probably useless for dungeons (although stuff hits so hard and drains healer mana so quick, any little bit of healing I will take). But it seemed enormously helpful for soloing. I've already switched from truth to insight since questing at L84-85 incurs so much damage. But with this enchant, I seldom seemed to have to use WoG. I think it will be nice for those "kill 12 spider" type dailies where you want to pull a lot and get it done quick. (Before the enchant, 6 Tol Barad dailies took me 26 mins and one death - it reminds me of the Isle of Quel'danas in BC; we kill stuff slow.)

[Thels]

Will there ever be love for Enchanters and Blacksmiths again? Yes, the basic stat benefits are on par, but that's about all there is to it.

Alchemists: Save money on flasks (longer duration), nice starting trinket.
Jewelcrafters: Slightly higher bonus, nice starting trinket.
Leatherworkers: Cheaper leg enchants.
Scribes: Don't have to grind rep. (And they're no longer missing out on the PvP enchant, since the PvE enchant is actually decent nowadays.)
Engineers: Nice starting helm, nice cooldown, alternative enchants.

Enchanters: Have to spend extra enchanting mats on gear instead of replacing regular enchants/gems by cheaper profession only enchants/gems. No BoP items.
Blacksmiths: Have to spend extra mats on gear to create the sockets instead of replacing regular enchants/gems by cheaper profession only enchants/gems (thought admittedly, they are now negligible). Have to buy additional gems. No BoP items.

Seriously... I've got too many plans in both of them to drop either Blacksmithing or Enchanting, and replacing one by another would be too much a waste of money, but if I could go back and pick different professions, I would have chosen so different.

[Gavinas]

For the weapon enchant, mending caught my eye. I don't know the proc rate, although wowhead says it heals for around 800 hp. Probably useless for dungeons (although stuff hits so hard and drains healer mana so quick, any little bit of healing I will take). But it seemed enormously helpful for soloing. I've already switched from truth to insight since questing at L84-85 incurs so much damage. But with this enchant, I seldom seemed to have to use WoG. I think it will be nice for those "kill 12 spider" type dailies where you want to pull a lot and get it done quick. (Before the enchant, 6 Tol Barad dailies took me 26 mins and one death - it reminds me of the Isle of Quel'danas in BC; we kill stuff slow.)

I've also been trying out Mending since it gave me 5 skill ups on my enchanter and wasn't too expensive. Procs for 800-1000, can crit for 1.5x the heal and seems to proc off most/all of our abilities. Did some brief testing on a dummy and it seems to have ~10% proc chance with a 2.6 speed weapon, I assume it's a ppm enchant but haven't bothered testing other weapon speeds. I have a brief combat log using it attacking one of the combat dummy's in SW with both just autoattacks and doing a rotation for 5 minutes or so if anyone is interested. Based on my experiences in heroics today I'd say it acts like a small HOT, but since I have more threat than I know what do with at the moment and the higher end enchants like Windwalk aren't available yet I'll probably stick with it for a while.

[Hiroko]

There's an intermediate Twiglight Leg Armor: http://www.wowhead.com/item=56503
85 stam and 45 agility

[Shathus]

For the weapon enchant, mending caught my eye. I don't know the proc rate, although wowhead says it heals for around 800 hp. Probably useless for dungeons (although stuff hits so hard and drains healer mana so quick, any little bit of healing I will take). But it seemed enormously helpful for soloing. I've already switched from truth to insight since questing at L84-85 incurs so much damage. But with this enchant, I seldom seemed to have to use WoG. I think it will be nice for those "kill 12 spider" type dailies where you want to pull a lot and get it done quick. (Before the enchant, 6 Tol Barad dailies took me 26 mins and one death - it reminds me of the Isle of Quel'danas in BC; we kill stuff slow.)

I've also been trying out Mending since it gave me 5 skill ups on my enchanter and wasn't too expensive. Procs for 800-1000, can crit for 1.5x the heal and seems to proc off most/all of our abilities. Did some brief testing on a dummy and it seems to have ~10% proc chance with a 2.6 speed weapon, I assume it's a ppm enchant but haven't bothered testing other weapon speeds. I have a brief combat log using it attacking one of the combat dummy's in SW with both just autoattacks and doing a rotation for 5 minutes or so if anyone is interested. Based on my experiences in heroics today I'd say it acts like a small HOT, but since I have more threat than I know what do with at the moment and the higher end enchants like Windwalk aren't available yet I'll probably stick with it for a while.

I was in the same situation and tried it out. On a norma HoO run last night, on the last boss, it accounted for 25k healing, and about 206k over the course of the run. Meant to run logs, but forgot. It equated to about a 20-25% of my healing done, the rest being WoG (which I was only using situationally).

[Digren]

I'll hit 85 tonight, after which getting this guide updated will be my top priority.

[Cromzinc]

I'll hit 85 tonight, after which getting this guide updated will be my top priority.

Hello, I noticed some math maybe be off in a section that is on page one.

Now, however, block again reduces incoming melee damage by a significant amount - 40% (or more depending on meta gem selection). Once again trying to push "regular" hits off the combat table makes sense. Note that it's not possible to block cap in Cataclysm (at least through T11), but nevertheless mastery rating reduces incoming damage more than dodge or parry rating. In Cataclysm, consider blocked hits the norm, and unblocked hits as +70% damage. Welcome back crushing blows!

It would appear to me, unless a change has occurred, that incoming melee damage is reduced by 30% (or more depending...). Which would mean, that unblocked hits as only +30% damage.

The logic of your post would make it seem as block only lets melee damage hit for 30%, instead of block 30%.

[Maelsstrom]

Cromzinc:

We block for 40% with holy shield up. So we take 0.6x the damage. If you don't block, you take 1.0x the damage. 1.0/0.6 = 1.667.

...and 66.7% more damage taken, relative to if you block, is pretty close to 70%. It is higher if the 40% block is slightly higher due to a glyph that makes it 41%. 1/0.59 = 1.6945.

[Rhiannon]

I know it's the weaker option, but you've omitted 50 mastery on gloves from your glove enchant section. Given that 65 mastery requires 2 x maelstrom crystals which are going to be extraordinarily rare for a few weeks, it's probably the next best non-profession specific alternative as far as survival-oriented enchant.

[econ21]

...50 mastery on gloves... it's probably the next best non-profession specific alternative as far as survival-oriented enchant.

How should we trade off mastery with stamina nowadays? e.g. is 50 mastery better than 44 stamina (from heavy savage armor kit)? Looking at the gems (30 mastery or 45 stamina), it is certainly a higher item level but is there anyway to say more about this trade-off?

[Goodheart]

It's not really a trade-off, but more like hitting a "cap" with stamina I think.
You simply need a certain ammount of health to survive the nasty stuff, the estimate of 150k buffed mentioned before feels about right. After that mastery is king.
This is offcourse without much evidence from raids, but at the very least for heroics this seems like the way to go for me.

[Digren]

...50 mastery on gloves... it's probably the next best non-profession specific alternative as far as survival-oriented enchant.

How should we trade off mastery with stamina nowadays? e.g. is 50 mastery better than 44 stamina (from heavy savage armor kit)? Looking at the gems (30 mastery or 45 stamina), it is certainly a higher item level but is there anyway to say more about this trade-off?

We ought to be able to translate both into a given increase to average TTL, and then calculate an average effective health equivalent. So a direct comparison ought to be possible, ignoring that stamina provides worst-case TTL and mastery through randomness is only average.

Also it might depend very heavily on your starting stamina/mastery, making it difficult to wrap into a simple conversion.

[Digren]

I updated the reforging guide to provide specific help for each type of gear. I still need to make the suggested corrections to the gem and enchant guides.

[Digren]

What about Heavy Savage Armor Kit as an glove enchant You missed that 1 ^_^

Added. Thanks!