Windsong and Elemental Force Information

We recently hotfixed the Windsong and Elemental Force weapon enchants to improve their performance for many users. The important part for most players is that Windsong is now a useful enchant for all classes and specs (save Hunters who use scopes, and Death Knights who use Runeforging), since it will trigger on all damage or healing, be it spell, melee, or ranged, and direct or periodic. Elemental Force will also trigger from all damage, so is useful for all damage dealers.

Additionally, these two enchants use a new system for triggering, which we wanted to give some details on. These are the gritty details, which you do not need to understand in order to use these enchants, but we wanted to lay them out for the benefit of the theorycrafting community. If mathy simulations and modeling aren’t your thing, none of this will matter much to you.

We have had various methods for triggering procs throughout WoW’s history. Most procs fall into two categories for the past few years:

• Relatively high but static proc chance, with a significant cooldown. Most trinkets and caster procs fall into this category. For example, a trinket may have a 30% chance to proc on hit, with a 55sec cooldown. This lets us balance the trinket with a pretty safe assumption of procing about once per minute. Unfortunately, since it’s so reliable, it doesn’t really feel like a random proc, but rather like an On Use trinket that’s just on auto-cast. The uptime won’t increase significantly with any stats with this type of proc.
• Relatively low proc chance with some normalization based on weapon speed, typically referred to as ‘PPM’ (procs per minute). Most melee weapon enchants fall into this category. For example, a weapon enchant may have 3 PPM. That checks your weapon speed, and gives your attacks a % chance based on that. If you have a 3.6speed weapon, your attacks will have a 3(PPM) * 3.6(weaponspeed) / 60 (sec per min) = 18% chance. All your white and yellow attacks with that weapon will have an 18% chance to trigger the enchant. Despite being supposedly ‘3 PPM’, that really will result in significantly more than 3 procs per minute, since all of the special attacks can proc it. Since there is no cooldown involved here, this type of enchant can feel random and streaky, instead of reliable. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing though, as you are just as likely to get lucky and get several procs in a row, which can be exciting. Some stats, primarily haste, will increase the frequency of these procs. However, since they vary heavily based on weapon speed, and how many special attacks you’re doing, these can proc significantly more or less for one class/spec/weapon than another, making them difficult to balance.

So, there are pros and cons of both of those types of procs. We’re trying a new system for these enchants. This new system, nicknamed Real PPM, aims to give the random nature of procs, the scaling with haste, and the ability for us to balance them assuming a standard proc frequency. Here’s the short version of how you can expect them to function:

• Windsong is 2 Real PPM, and Elemental Force is 10 Real PPM.
• Dancing Steel and Jade Spirit are 2 Real PPM, River's Song is 4 Real PPM, and Colossus is 6 Real PPM
• Regardless of how you’re attacking or healing, slow or fast, with DoTs or direct heals, whatever, you can expect to get the same proc frequency, on average.
• Dual wielding and having both weapons enchanted with the same enchant will double the frequency of procs that you get.
• This Real PPM is increased by your haste %. (The highest of your melee, ranged, or spell haste is chosen).
• Simple as that. Whether you’re an Affliction Warlock dealing very frequent DoT ticks and Malefic Grasp ticks, or a Holy Paladin casting purely Holy Lights, or a Combat Rogue quickly attacking and using specials, or an Enhancement Shaman attacking with slow melee attacks and spells, or a Shadow Priest channeling Mind Sear on fifty Onyxian Whelps, you’ll get 2*Haste Windsong procs or 10*Haste Elemental Force procs per enchant per minute.
• We’re excited to see how this proc system works out. If it works well, we may start using it for more types of procs. Feedback about how it feels is most welcome.

Here are even more nitty gritty details, if you’re interested:

• It can proc from any damage/healing event. It keeps track of the last time it had a chance to proc for that enchant.
• It calculates the difference in time since the last chance to proc. It uses that time to determine the chance for that event to trigger a proc.
• For example, if you have 22% Haste, it was 1.4sec since the last chance to proc, and you’ve got Windsong, then the chance to proc is 2(ppm) * 1.22(haste) * 1.4(time since last chance) / 60 (sec per min) = 5.693%.
• The ‘time since the last chance to proc’ is capped at 10sec, so that your first attack of a fight isn’t a guaranteed proc.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to post them here, and we’ll try to answer them.

10/15/2012 10:20 AMPosted by Garratha

But now can you explain why Black Magic still procs from just targeting enemies?

This isn't really related to this topic, but we'll look into it.

10/15/2012 10:30 AMPosted by Digerati

Is it intended that these enchants can be better than the Sha Crystal equivalents, ie: Jade Spirit?

It's intended that they're very viable enchants, but the top tier (Sha Crystal) enchants should usually win, on average. But there may be exceptions in certain situations.

10/15/2012 10:31 AMPosted by Sylvyr

How do you determine WHAT buff Windsong will Proc.?

10/15/2012 10:44 AMPosted by Thanatosia

Thanks for the info Daxx, but could you clarify a little more on Windsong - is it 2RPPM PER effect (haste proc, Crit Proc, Mastery Proc) - thus essentially 6RPPM among the 3 different buffs it can proc, or 2RPPM to get A proc at random?

Windsong is 2 RPPM total and the buff applied is totally random. Each time it procs, you randomly get 1 of 3 buffs.

10/15/2012 10:46 AMPosted by Purplestone

How does this apply to Guardians and Ferals?

The same way it applies to everyone else. Swing speed is not a factor in this proc mechanic.

As a dual wielding melee, I would frequently see double and sometimes even a triple proc of Windsong rolling at once, if only for a few brief seconds. And even outside of getting double procs, it was up quite often.

Does this new proc design for Windsong mean I'm going to see a decrease in procs, and thus a decrease in stacked up procs?

It should proc roughly as frequently as it did before for a rogue, and this change has no impact on its ability to stack. It is fully intended that Windsong’s 3 different buffs can stack with each other, but each is a result of a separate proc event.

My only question about the "Real PPM" is if the new system ONLY applies to...

This new proc mechanic is only used for Windsong and Elemental Force currently. Depending on how it works, we may use it for more procs going forward, but are unlikely to apply it to previous procs. We chose to apply it to Windsong and Elemental Force because their existing proc mechanic was problematic and significantly underperforming for a many of its intended users, so the change was almost universally a buff.

10/15/2012 10:56 AMPosted by Alicenchains

Windsong procs on my Recuperate tics and breaks me out of stealth. Quite troublesome in PVE and PVP situations.

This sounds like a bug. We'll investigate and fix if necessary. These sort of procs should not break stealth.

So what you are saying is that we are penalized if our class does not favor haste over mastery and crit? How is this in any way a good idea?

No, we're saying that one of haste's benefits is giving you more procs, which has always been the case, and we wanted to preserve that.

So after 10 seconds, it takes Around 3-4 swings, Ticks, casts, etc should proc it, baring any RNG God Hate. Since The buff is 12 Seconds, its close to 100% uptime?

I think you're misreading 'time since the last chance to proc' as 'time since the last proc'. That's a very important distinction.

How does this interact with swapping weapons with different enchants? I'd hope TSLP is reset on weapon swap, so that weapon swapping is not promoted.

Equipping a weapon resets the time since the last chance to proc in this case, so a weapon swap does not gain you additional procs.

The question for comes up for dual wielders with it on both weapons. Does it count each weapon's enchant only for attacks made with that weapon or does having it on both weapons cause every attack to reset the counter?

Both weapons' attacks can proc both enchants. You can think of dual wielding Windsong enchanted weapons as having a second chance (at the same proc chance) at each damage event. And yes, both can proc from the same event; you could indeed have two Windsong procs from one attack.

10/15/2012 02:43 PMPosted by Pins

By haste, do you guys mean haste rating, total haste effects, or attack speed?

Ah, that’s a good thing to clarify. Thanks for bringing that up. In this case, it refers to the highest of your casting speed multiplier, or your attack speed multiplier. So, haste rating, increased attack speed effects (such as the attack speed raid buff), pure haste (such as Heroism or Bloodlust), or even Mind-Numbing Poison will all affect it.

Also, a minor clarification from the original post:

Windsong is now a useful enchant for all classes and specs

*Except Hunters, since they use scopes instead of weapon enchants.

10/15/2012 05:27 PMPosted by Eternalreign

And DKs, since our Runeforges are superior to these enchants

Oh, oops, yes, them too. Sorry!

10/15/2012 06:42 PMPosted by Pins

I suppose this brings up another question of mine. Does it dynamically update with haste procs?

Yes. The proc chance is determined based on the haste at the time of the damage/healing event.

In 5.1, we’re migrating four additional procs over to the Real PPM system. Dancing Steel and Jade Spirit are 2 Real PPM, River's Song is 4 Real PPM, and Colossus is 6 Real PPM.