One of the topics coming up with some frequency in the mage forums has to do with Improved Scorch vs Improved Shadowbolt and whether it's a bigger raid DPS loss for the mage to maintain the buff or for the Warlock to have a spec and DPS cycle that maintains the buff. After a bit of back forth, there's discussion about how a raid would want an Imp. Shadow Bolt Warlock because of the Demonic Pact buff, which would free up other classes (Elemental Shaman) to use higher DPS rotations etc.

To use a 3.0 example of overlapping buffs, there's a Warlock's Curse of Elements vs a Moonkin's Earth and Moon. Or a Moonkin's Improved Fairie Fire vs a Shadow Priest's Misery.

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So the big question, which I'll try to update the first post with is-

Which class or spec is the best source for the various raid buffs and debuffs?


And an additional related question, but something that will become more important as 10-man hard modes become an important part of the game --

When building a 10-man group, which tanks should the raid bring and what are the best classes/specs for the foundation of that DPS (casters vs melee)? I know that the basic directions for Sarth3D 10-man was to concentrate on casters vs melee, but might as well look into it with more detail now that 3.1 and Ulduar are about to come out.


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Abilities with an asterisk are the sub-optimal sources. I'm trying to add in the raid or self-DPS losses for using those abilities when I get information.



Buffs:
Agi/Str: Enhancement Shaman
* Death Knight with Horn of Winter. Raid DPS loss of ??
* Non-enhancement Shaman getting the talent. Self-loss/raid DPS loss of ??
Armor %: Holy Priest or Restoration Shaman
Attack Power: Retribution Paladin with Improved Blessing of Might
* Fury Warrior with Commanding Presence - Self-DPS loss of ??
* Paladin or Warrior without the talents
Attack Power %: Blood Death Knight or Enhancement Shaman (talents with a selfish benefit)
* Marksmanship Hunter with Trueshot Aura. Does the Trueshot Aura Glyph work as a selfish benefit?
Damage %: Retribution Paladin
* Beast Mastery Hunter Don't know if there's a DPS cost or benefit from these classes
Damage Reduction %: Protection Paladin (Works on multiple Targets)
* Discipline Priests - Single target only, but allows the Paladin to use a different blessing
Haste %: Balance Druid or Retribution Paladin
Healing Received: Restoration Druid or Protection Paladin
Health: Fury Warrior with Commanding Presence
* Warrior without Commanding Presence
* Warlock's Imp
Intellect: Mage
* Warlock's Felhound
Melee Crit: Feral Druid or Fury Warrior
Melee Haste: Frost Death Knight
* Enhancement Shaman with Improved Windufry totem (self-DPS loss of ??, Raid-DPS gain of ??)
* Shaman with Windfury totem
Replenishment: - Optimal options -- Marksmanship Hunter, Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin
* Destruction Warlock - Talent point DPS loss to pick up the ability?
* Frost Mage - Maintaining the debuff - ?? DPS loss. Also does not provide 100% Replenishment uptime.
Spell Crit: Balance Druid or Elemental Shaman (required talents)
Spell Power: Demonology Warlock - Raid DPS gain of ??, self-DPS loss of ??
* Elemental Shaman - Totem of Wrath. Self-DPS loss of ??
* Shaman with Flametongue totem - Self-DPS loss of ??
Spirit: Priest
* Warlock with a Felhound

Debuffs:
Armor (major): Protection Warrior (applied in normal rotation)
* DPS Warrior - Sunder Armor - Self-DPS loss of ??
* Rogue - Expose Armor - Self-DPS loss of ??
Armor (minor): Feral Druid (Free to apply)
* Non-feral druids - Self-DPS/healing loss?
* Warlocks - Curse of Weakness - Self-DPS loss of 6%
Attack Power: Demoralizing Roar or Shout?
* Warriors/Feral Druids?
* Warlock - Curse of Weakness - Self-DPS loss of 6%
Bleed Damage: Feral Tanking Druid or Arms Warrior
* Feral DPS druid - Lowers their DPS to apply the debuff - DPS loss of ??
Cast Speed Slow: Rogue? Warlock? Depends on why it is needed probably
Crit Chance: Retribution Paladin or Assassination Rogue
* Elemental Shaman - Totem of Wrath - Self-DPS loss of ??
Healing: Combat Rogue or Arms Warrior
* Depends on the reason required for other specs.
Melee Attack Speed Slow: Protection Warrior or Death Knight
* Protection Paladin - Self-loss of ??
* Feral Druid Tank - Self-loss of ??
Melee Hit Chance: DPS loss for both Hunters and Balance Druids
* Balance Druid - Losing the DPS glyph is a 1-1.5% loss in self-DPS. There's an additional DPS loss from prioritizing the debuff, probably another 0.5-1.5%.
* Hunter - Using Scorpid Sting results in a 4%ish or more DPS loss depending on spec.
Physical Vulnerability: Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue
Spell Crit Chance: - Optimal option -- Demonology Warlock
* Fire Mage - Maintaining the debuff - 1.2% DPS loss. Glyphing for the debuff - an additional 3.2% DPS loss*
* Frost Mage - Maintaining the debuff - ?? DPS loss.
Spell Damage Taken: Balance Druid or Unholy Death Knight
* Warlock - Curse of Elements - Self-DPS loss of 6%
Spell Hit: Shadow Priest
* Balance Druid - Self-DPS loss of ??

I think the validity of this thread lies not in "how to do sarth +3 10 man" but "who is the best choice for speccing into x buff/debuff"

Does that ISB Lock > Scorch + Totem of Wrath depend on having more than 1 warlock, or a specific number of mages, or is it simply "If you have a mage, a warlock, and an elemental shaman, then the warlock should be Demonology/Destro spec to provide ISB and Demonic Pact so the mage doesn't have to scorch and the shaman can drop flametongue"?

I've always used MMO-Champion RaidComp to try balancing raid buffs/debuffs when forming 10 mans and tried to mix both maximizing buffs/debuffs and taking players that need the achievement. With my fairly caster heavy guild, it's often been tough fitting in a 3rd melee for achievement attempts.

A lot of answers to your question become a simple matter of who you have. At the moment I don't have an Enh Shaman, so Agi/Str and +10% AP are almost always coming from my DK.

Simply going down the list and trying to think logically about opportunity cost in terms of both time and talent points:
Buffs:
Agi/Str: Enhance Shaman (Easily improved making it better than Horn)
Armor %: Holy Priest (Shamans have more/other talents worth taking)
Attack Power: Retribution Paladin (Warriors can opt for Unleashed Rage talent, or apply Commanding Shout, also have to reapply midfight)
Attack Power %: Blood Death Knight (Lower talent cost, also increases personal DPS)
Damage %: Retribution Paladin
Damage Reduction %: Protection Paladin (Works on multiple Targets)
Haste %: Moonkin (required talent) or Retribution Paladin (nothing else to spend points on really)
Healing Received: Restoration Druid or Protection Paladin (Both will take the talent anyway)
Health: Warrior (Unimproved version superior to warlock alternative, Paladins providing other Shout)
Intellect: Mage (Superior)
Melee Crit: Feral Druid (Required talent)
Melee Haste: Frost Death Knight (Required Frost DPS talent)
Replenishment: Shadow Priest and/or Retribution Paladin (required talents)
Spell Crit: Moonkin Druid or Elemental Shaman (required talents)
Spell Power: Demonology Warlock (Better than Totem of Wrath at higher gear levels, allows Shaman to use Searing?)
Spirit: Priest

Debuffs:
Armor (major): Protection Warrior (applied in normal rotation)
Armor (minor): Feral Druid (Free to apply)
Attack Power: I don't know.
Bleed Damage: Feral Druid (Required talent for tank specs)
Cast Speed Slow: Probably Rogue (Mages won't be arcane?, Warlocks Curse of Agony)
Crit Chance: Retribution Paladin
Healing: I don't know. Probably Rogue depending on Marksman Hunter viability.
Melee Attack Speed Slow: Protection Warrior or Death Knight (Part of Normal rotation, Protection Paladins and Feral Druids have other necessary talents)
Melee Hit Chance: Probably Hunter (Moonkin glyph removes the hit reduction but may not be required in 3.1)
Physical Vulnerability: Rogue
Spell Crit Chance: Apparently Demonology Warlock
Spell Damage Taken: Moonkin or Unholy Death Knight (Required talents, free to apply)
Spell Hit: Shadow Priest (Required talent, free to apply)

Exactly. There's a DPS cost for maintaining some buffs or debuffs while in a "best DPS spec" (Improved Scorch for example) and for some classes there's a DPS cost for even speccing into a talent that keeps up that buff (Mages speccing Frost for Replenishment). My biggest problem is that I don't know what the tradeoffs are for other classes.

I bring up Warlocks again because I've been told that their top individual DPS spec won't get Improved Shadow Bolt or Demonic Pact -- but I still want to work in a Demonology Warlock in for the raid DPS boost of Demonic Pact (which adds in the DPS boost of Searing Totem for Shaman). And that's the main thing I'm trying to learn.

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The 10-man thing is more of a generic question for how to increase raid DPS with a limited number of DPS classes in the raid. The two questions there are - "What are ideal 10-man groups that have 5 DPS, 2 tanks, and 3 healers?" and "I've got nine people. Who should my tenth be between these classes and specs?"

This build for tanking feral druids can apply both Demoralizing Roar and Infected Wounds (melee attack speed slow) and gives up Improved Mangle and Master Shapeshifter. MSS is a little less than 4% threat and Improved Mangle is in the range of 3% threat. For comparison, what do other tanks give up in order to apply these debuffs?

Also, while a tanking feral druid can keep up a bleed debuff easily, it's a dps loss for a dps feral if he has to. Arms warriors apply their bleed debuff automatically but spend 2 talent points to do so. For me it would be about a 1.5% increase in dps to ignore Mangle, which would probably be closer to 2%-2.5% in 3.1 when we drop Glyph of Mangle. Assuming arms becomes a viable raid spec, how much of a dps loss is Trauma?

Combat rogues apply this for free, and as of 3.1 will likely become the most common spec amongst raiding rogues. So I think the answer here is pretty definitively "combat rogue".

In a larger sense, it might be worth making a more complete ordering rather than merely listing the best for each one - for instance, if you don't have a prot warrior, it's worth knowing whether it's better to have a DPS warrior do the honors, or a rogue (the answer, of course, being the DPS warrior). So it might be worth going into a little more detail on each class and specify, in addition to which classes are "best", classify the other classes as "good" or "bad" or whatever.

0-2.5% in general. 0 if you are expertise capped through gear (willing or not - its a common case with abundance of exp on plate). 1.5-2.5% otherwise - more if you dont have a combat rogue.

In regards to those applicable to hunters:
Attack Power %: The buff is not currently selfish, unless you have the glyph that goes along with it, which may or may not be of value. But it's not quite as simple as this because the hunter has a guaranteed 100% uptime on this as long as he is alive, no matter what fight situation is.
Damage: The hunter contribution is basically irrelevant because ret has nothing better to spend points on, correct?
Replenishment: A lot of people are still proposing builds with at least 2 points in Hunting Party. Even though the selfish part of the talent is not that great, we run out of more desirable places to put it. 2/3 Hunting Party has a projected uptime of around 95%
Healing: Aimed shot is included in a lot of SV builds too regardless of the reduced healing component, mainly because it is affected by Sniper Training.

For Shaman buffs:

Any Shaman can take Improved Strength of Earth without sacrificing dps. The only Caveat is: Elemental would take mana efficiency talents instead. Depending on their mana drain/gain/haste that could result in a dps loss during actual play.

The raid dps change of fire totems is something I don't have enough data to calculate, but we would need to include totem refresh time and time to run to melee range along with personal gain/rdps loss.

11 points in Holy give 0 benefit to dps for a raiding Ret Pally. 17/54 will be the most popular spec, only 5 points in Prot gives more damage, the last 12 are in Prot because there are since they provide the most utility.

The best source of 10% AP is Enhancement Shaman, who want the talent since it is very "selfish". The other two are fine (although those specs aren't as popular), and Marks/Blood will always have 10% AP buff as well.

An enhance Shaman gains AP/spell crit from having more Int (they could get that instead of imp Totems), but the dps lost is small. Elemental would lose a spell crit from less Int as well, so both dps specs do lost some dps.

I don't think the attack speed slow is a loss to Protection Paladins; the use of those talent points elsewhere is generally considered a poor idea. The best you can probably get out of them is 2% crit, which given Tankadin crit coefficients is pretty pathetic.

I was under the impression Protection Warriors give up marginal damage by using Thunderclap instead of higher-damage single target moves. Possibly somewhere in the same neighborhood that Bears have to in order to keep up infected wounds.

I'm surprised that Hunting Party is non-optimal for Survival. 1% agility per point seems like it would be a shoe-in; I'll go check out the hunter forums better.

Yeah, that makes more sense. There are two basic ways to look at this-

1. Start by adding a 25th person to a 25-man raid. All other buffs are accounted for, so they are free to maximize their DPS/tanking/threat/healing. Then ask that person to keep up a buff or debuff - what's the DPS cost in terms of talents, rotations, and/or glyphs needed?

2. A certain buff gives a larger DPS boost to the raid then the cost to the buffing class due to the mechanics behind it (Demonic Pact and Enhancing Totems will be the two obvious examples here). Which buffs are there that act in this way, and what is the individual cost to using them?


For mages, I guess, my examples would be like this-

Spell Crit Chance: - Optimal option -- Demonology Warlock
* Fire Mage - Maintaining the debuff - 1.2% DPS loss. Glyphing for the debuff - an additional 3.2% DPS loss*
* Frost Mage - Maintaining the debuff - ?? DPS loss.

Replenishment: - Optimal options -- Survival Hunter, Destruction Warlock, Shadow Priest, Retribution Paladin
* Frost Mage - Maintaining the debuff - ?? DPS loss. Also does not provide 100% Replenishment uptime.

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I'd need to double check the figures for Frost, as I'm not too sure if the model I'm using is accurate. I think the numbers for a Fire Mage are accurate, but I'm not 100% sure.