best weapon to use with WindfuryFollow

I'm fairly new to playing a Shaman (lvl33) and am trying to work out which weapon will do the most overall damage in PVE with the Windfury weapon buff, which seems to be the best buff by far.

I don't care about threat issues for grouping, i'll fall off that bridge if i come to it. I just wanna do a lot of damage so i can level quickly.

People keep saying that a weapon with high damage values is best and citing the example of a lvl 16 white weapon outdamaging a lvl 40-50ish blue weapon purely because the lvl 16 had higher damage. But surely since Windfury is a 20% chance PER HIT rather than a Proc Per Minute (PPM), it shouldn't matter what the weapon damage is? Because higher damage generally means slower speed, in which case you'll have less procs of Windfury and it will generally balance out.

Obviously there will always be weapons which have the same speed but different damage values so they'll perform slightly differently. But generally speaking, a really fast dagger should perform the same as a really slow two-hander shouldn't it?

And if not why not?

When i get to lvl40 i was assuming that Dual Wielding would be the best option since that gives even more attacks, which also means more crits and therefore more Flurrying so surely two really fast weapons are the best option?

Sure there's the whole 3 second cooldown between Windfury procs thing, but surely people aren't actually consistently getting Windfury procs within 3 seconds of each other? So it won't actually effect things all that much?

Cos surely it's just to stop the rare occasions in PVP when a Shaman takes someone down in a few seconds and then that person kicks up a huuuuuge fuss on the boards?


I just remembered what Stormstrike does. Or at least what i think it does from the description - with the whole instant attack(s) thing. So is this what swings things in favour of high damage weapons?

Or does Windfury actually work on a PPM basis despite the description? It doesn't seem to be proccing once every five attacks for me so far...


Many thanks to anyone who gives constructive comments!

I want to use a sword!!!!!

The "best" is relitive to what type of dmg you want to do. Spike or dps. Both are fine, its just that each has a better strength in certain situations.

If your going for dps, then DW a Slow MH and fast OH tends to be the way to go. I don't know any "good" MH that are 3 secs delay (well at least any that are good all the way to 70), but getting one as close to the 3 sec mark is your target (since when WF procs, the CD will be ready by the time the weapon strikes again). Your OH weapon, you have liberty to pick just about anything, as long as you don't put WF on it. Obviously if you do, it will blow the chance that the MH will get the proc, and a OH proc of WF won't do near as much dmg that the MH could (typically it shouldn't). DWing is getting pushed into the relm of depending on white dmg more than dmg from our weapon buffs. While Blizzard keeps throwing enh gimps time and time again, this is forcing us to rethink our gearings, in order to make it "viable", tho this is getting harder and harder to do. DW is good for PvE dmg, as the dot will start racking up, especially if the fight goes longer and longer.

IF your going for spike dmg, then simply use a 2h weapon. Pretty much all 2h weapons have a delay of 3 secs or slower, so that cancels the 3 sec CD on WF procs. Not really much brain surgery here, just get something that hits hard and put WF on it, and pray it procs. This type of dmg is usually prefered for PvP, since your hoping on dropping your target in 1 round, then moving on to the next.

As to your main question, use the highest rated DPS (not damage) weapon you can find. Windfury damage averages out across all weapon speeds, so speed is not a concern; I have the math from awhile ago if you want me to dig it up. The only difference will be TYPE of damage: slow weapon for bigger burst (generally for PvP) and fast weapon for more consistency (generally for grouping).

The math gets uglier when DWing. WF is (supposedly) on a per-hit as opposed to a PPM basis, but the main problem with dual-wielding windfury is the aforementioned 3-second cooldown. If one of your weapons procs a WF, then neither weapon has a chance to proc for the next 3 seconds. This was a work-around implemented before we could use two weapons, to prevent WF procing off itself.

The reason a level 16 slow weapon can produce better (total) DPS is because they had it in the off-hand during those tests (NOT because the level 16 weapon had higher damage... in fact, the weapon had abysmal damage rating to drive the point home). When dual-wielding WF, the offhand proc will "steal" any chance the main-hand has to proc for 3 seconds... and since there is a damage penalty associated with the off-hand, that is bad. Thus, if you're dual-wielding WF, use a SLOW offhand to lessen the chance of a main-hand WF cooldown. If you have a fast offhand, try using a different weapon buff on it. Using different ranks of WF to create separate WF cooldown timers will no longer work, as of the new patch.

Thanks very much everyone! That's cleared it all up and given lots of info to help decide which weapon(s) to use :)