Originally Posted by Pullo

I don't have CSD because I happen to have hood of hexing as my helm. I do have 4-piece Tier 6 though and I did some testing and made a post with the results on "another" forum. I got mostly mindless crap as a response with a few exceptions.

I'll share the results here and I'll let you decide.

Pasted below:

Ok, I realize the math on Leulier's spreadsheet shows that UA is better than ruin on affliction spec and that you should be casting immolate in every spec except for destro until you get enough BT/MH drops.

I've been skeptical since almost every test I've tried shows me losing dps when I add immo to my rotation.

I was bored and curious and did some testing on the PTR last night.

The testing sample is Dr. Boom. I used a flask, oil and spell dmg food and used Curse of Shadow for every sample below. The tests were always taking Dr. Boom from 100-0 percent, as to get a fair sample and recreate having to use life tap and siphon to regen mana. I figured this kind of sample would offset if I got a lucky string of crits or nightfall procs. This seemed to work pretty well since I crit 22-18 percent in every sample.

This is using the methods Vivvid stated in a previous post here about keeping all four dots up for the maximum time, not refreshing until they've ended as to not lose dps from the last tick.

1480 Shadow Damage
1318 Fire Damage (I lose +162 fire dmg using kara neck, frozen shadoweave boots and soulfrost)
16.44 Crit
Hit Capped

First test
Spells used: Curse of Shadows, UA, Corruption, Immolate (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up)
Result: 1197.4 dps (21 crit rate on shadowbolt)
Comments: I seemed to get quite a few nightfall procs on this test, but not very many when Improved Shadowbolt is up and not very many trinketed crits when ISB was up. I decide that I'm not satisfied with this test so I do it again.


Second test
Spells used: same as previous
Result: 1219.7 dps (22 crit rate on shadowbolt)
Comments: Not as many nightfall procs, but the timing of my crits seemed to be favorable. Still, I don't like casting immolate when I've just crit on a shadowbolt. I can't help but suspect I could be doing better without immolate, so I decide to try do a test without using immolate, to take advantage of my extra 162 shadow dmg and 4-piece tier 4 bonus buff to shadowbolts.

Third test
Spells used: Curse of Shadows, UA, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up)
Result: 1250.5 dps (20 crit rate on shadowbolt)
Comments: I find that not casting immolate gives me more opportunities to cast shadowbolt, improving ISB uptime. I didn't get very many nightfall procs and my crit rate is only 20 percent, but I still manage to significantly increase my dps -- without using immolate. I'm tempted to test this rotation again, but I'm too eager to try my next rotation. (With the thought in mind that I could probably improve my performance).

Fourth test (respec required to drop UA and pick up Ruin -- yay for PTR respecs)
Spells used: Curse of Shadows, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up)
Result: 1278 dps (18 crit rate on shadowbolt)
Comments: Obviously I'm a little disappointed in my crit rate (only 20 percent after seeing 22 on one of my UA/Immo samples). I got off to a really slow start, but I get a few crits on the end. Still, I've beaten my third test sample (UA/no immolate rotation) by 28 dps with a crappy bad-luck crit sample. Obviously I'm going to try this test again. Clearly Tier 6 4-piece bonus is putting ruin ahead for me.

Fifth test (for @#%ts and giggles)
Spells used: Curse of Shadows, Corruption, (shadowbolt filler, dark pact, life tap and siphon life only to keep mana up)
Result: 1323 dps (22 crit rate)
Comments: I'm able to get a nice crit rate (22 percent) and you can see the difference. A hunter decides to land right on top of me at around 20 percent (but doesn't dps Dr. Boom during my test, thanks btw). I do my best to not be distracted (and I'm not). Dr. Boom dies with 6 seconds left on my trinket cooldown or it could have been even better.

So take it for what it's worth. I did my best to try to follow what the annointed experts say that immolate is a must for affliction and UA>Ruin. But yet, both proved (at least for my playstyle and gear) to be incorrect in this scenario.

Say what you will about the test sample. I realize there are fights and situations where using immo will improve my dps (Archimonde, Supremus kite phase come to mind). Also realize that we have fire mages so COE and scorch debuff will help immolate dps a bit. But also realize that there was no shadoweaving debuff on Dr. Boom either, which would increase my shadow damage even more. Misery is another factor not in this sample.

So my conclusion is using immolate isn't terrible, but for many fights, not using it is better dps. In addition, with Tier 6 four-piece bonus, Ruin has shown it can be better dps than UA.

One other minor reason for using Ruin over UA. UA and immo is terribad for most trash. I know, I know, who cares about trash. Unless maybe you're trying to do a ZA timed run for a bear mount. Then speed on trash is a little important.