I started this thread on my guild boards, and wanted to see what some people thought about it, since i've read some very nice gear/builds discussions on these boards.

I was making a bunch of builds the other day now that my guild has BWL/MC on farm , and i created 2 VERY appealing builds, but each focusing on different things, mainly 1 is pretty heavy on +stamina and +dmg, while the other creates a big balance between +hit/+dmg/+crit, so i thought i'd start a thread and see what people think about such stats.

first off, this is the build i originally made, and it was VERY appealing for obvious reasons.

This build gives me a ridiculous amount of hp, almost 6k hp UNBUFFED, 4.7k mana , while still retaining +531 dmg and 6% crit (with the assumption that 100int = 1 crit) and +2% hit .

Another thing about this build, its a BIG mix of +dmg and +shadow dmg, so its +531 dmg for my shadow spells and 271 for all others.

For testing's sake i'm just going to assume 100int=1crit, even though for warlocks this is debatable and there's a lot of rumors of being far less, nevertheless im going to assume it's 100int=1crit.

Now my 2nd build , this build is also pretty interesting.

This build is full nemesis, so i benefit from set bonuses , the -20% threat is awesome and gives me the versatility to drop MD if i wanted for PvE without even noticing the difference, as for PvP it gives my felhunter godlyness with the 5 piece bonus, this is a more balanced build because it has : 5.5k hp , 5.7 k mana (1k more than other build) , only -400 hp from other build, i have +3% hit (even though its just a 1% increase from other build, i hold this value very important because for pvp with about 4-5+hit you can barely miss on people equal your lvl).

The build also gives me a whopping 12% crit without talents, this is of course with the assumption that 100int > 1 crit, if its less , this could be much higher if the int> crit conversion was lower for warlocks (which is the rumor).

Something also very appealing about this is that it's +500 dmg, only -31 dmg from other build, but the best thing about this is... its +500 dmg to ALL school, whereas the other was a mix of shadow and all.

they're both very appealing, i'd like to get some feedback on this and hear some thoughts, in 1 build im low mana , super high hp and +dmg, moderate +hit and +crit, other i'm high hp/high mana , but with a high +hit and +crit, and also getting full nemesis bonuses.

Any feedback is appreciated , and since we have everything on farm, i'm just undecided as to which direction i'm taking on gear build.

Thx in Advance

59.5 Int = 1% crit for Mages. I believe this also holds true for Warlocks.


On my Mage, I would personally maximize +damage and +hit% and ignore other stats (depending on the fight, of course; I would use +int gear for AoE or mana-intensive fights). I don't know about Warlocks, but when myself or my fellow Mages would ever pull aggro, we'd either die in one hit or Iceblock to shed aggro (and hopefully not get a healer killed in the process). I don't really see the value of +sta myself (which may not be true for Warlocks because of Lifetap but either way it just seems like you're transferring your healers' mana to yours or you're going to have to bandage anyway).

By maximizing my +damage, my damage not only significantly increased, but mana efficiency also began to become better and better. I was at the point where I could drop down a rank or two on my Frostbolts and Fireballs during certain aggro-sensitive fights and have no fear of pulling aggro while providing significant DPS and have killer mana efficiency to boot (I was Horde pre-Tranquil Air Totem). I valued Spirit at approximately the same as Intellect due to Mage Armor and Arcane Meditation, but I never really gunned for either stat.

This has not been tested, and it has been suggested this is not the case.

Reply coming when I get a chance to read the whole first post. I may have a bit of math for you. :)

Right Finger: Archimtiros' Ring of Reckoning

?:(

I personally think you should get rid of the ring of reck / dragon slayer because Crit = Bad from a PvE stand point, and put a Band Of Forced Conc instead, since Hit > * in relation to PvE. You would only lose 200 life from the first combo, and lose a crit / 30 mana / 20 life from the second combo.

But this again is looking from a PvE standpoint of it all, and the fact that I play a mage!

I'm sure we all read Eyonix's post about this matter, but you're right- I've yet to see any conclusive tests. THX 4 LETTUCE SNOES BLIZZARD.

These are overall builds, by this i mean, trying to make a balance between PvP and PvE, hence the reason i didn't care about the high crit rate on build #2, although i do recognize the dangers it has for PvE :D , i also recognize the potential to 2shot people on PvP.

The ring and neck on build 1 are a bit unconventional for a caster :P , however i chose to put them there for the insane amount of +stamina they have, the 2 combined its 52 stamina and 59.8 stamina if you count Demonic Embrace talent, that's a pretty significant amount of HP if you ask me :P

It's all theorycrafting, just trying to see the potential in each of the build, build 1 is very appealing for the fact that running around with next to 6k hp unbuffed while retaining high +dmg is just too hot for PvP.

Certainly - nobody doubts the utility of Archimteros as a pure PvP ring, but from a PvE perspective it's not particularly useful for a warlock to have that much HP.

I'd heartily second what Brilliance said - crit is the death of offensive casters in PvE. To that end, I'd recommend using the Blessed Quiraji Acolyte's Staff over the Staff of Shadow Flame. Slightly less damage, but you get more of the raw stats(STA/INT) that are useful to you.

Improvements I would suggest for the gear:

Cloak of Consumption (Hakkar): +2 damage +1 hit -2 int -17 stam
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHA

ha

That's an impractical wish because all melee should get priority over warlocks. Yes I lust after it, but any warlock purchasing this over needy rogues/warriors is acting in a manner detrimental to his raid's overall success.

My suggestions for replacement:
Band of Forced Concentration: +21 damage +1 hit -19 stam +12 int
Zanzil's Band: +13 int +1 hit
Zanzil's Seal: +11 damage +1 hit +10 int

Bracers of Arcane Accuracy are higher +damage than Nemesis and have hit on them as well,

Instead of Zandalar Hero's Charm, for PvE I'd take Briarwood Reed or even Royal Seal of Eldre'Thalas. Consistent damage is superior to spike damage for aggro control purposes, and it's much easier not having to pay attention to cooldowns, etc.

For pure DPS, Firemaw's Clutch is superior to Nemesis Belt for non-ruin builds.

And of course Quiraji Acolyte's Staff, which is bar none the best warlock staff in the game.

General thoughts:

I used to be a total stam whore. I still want a damn Heavy Dark Iron Ring, Dragon's Blood Cloak, and a few other high stamina items. Unfortunately, beyond a certain point stamina does nothing for our survivability. After around 6000 health buffed, either we'll get a heal before being killed or we'll be splatted so quickly no healing could possibly save us (or a third option: the healers will refuse to heal us and the warriors will refuse to taunt things off us and we'll die horribly regardless - not that I'm bitter). Once we've reached a level of health we're comfortable raiding at, we're best off maxing out our damage. We are after all, primarily a DPS class in combat. The sum total of our support tasks in combat is pressing the Curse button of our choosing and waiting 1.5 seconds before starting up the shadow bolt spam.

Mixing +shadow and +damage: How often do you cast Immolate in raiding? How about PvP? My answer to that question was "virtually never, it's not instant cast." For me, +shadow is 99% equivalent to +damage, and cheaper on the item budget. I therefore feel it's a very good idea to take +shadow whenever possible.

+hit: I did a big math-heavy write up of this and posted it internally. Basically, at 500 +damage, +1 spell hit is the DPS equivalent of ~12 spell power without Shadow Mastery, ~13 spell power with (assuming Rank 9 Shadow Bolt). Resist rates are:

60 - 4%
61 - 5%
62 - 6%
63 - 17%

Therefore, in PvP anything over +4 hit is absolutely wasted. In PvE you can push harder, but be aware current itemization generally makes +damage better than spell hit on almost all items. Angelista's Grasp is inferior to Nemesis until well over 600 +damage, even though it drops from a much later boss. This despite the fact that at around 500 +damage, +hit is a more efficient use of item budget.

Frankly I think any "overall" equipment loadout suffers from being too broad and unfocused. If I were more serious about PvP I'd have a set to wear for that and something else to wear for PvE. Since PvE is what I do with 95% of my time, I use the same set (which just happens to have +4 hit on it) for PvP as well. I'm not really crit-centric anyhow, so this works just fine.

I run 560 +damage 4% hit 2% crit, in case you're curious.

Ty for the reply. What i was originally intending was to create a be-all build, for both PvE and PvP, even though i PvE 80% of the time, i tend to PvP whenever i'm bored and not raiding, and my guild tends to have an AB group or something running around.

But i guess that the conclusion is that i cant just make an uber build that tries to delve into all aspects, most importantly getting into too much +crit while endangering my raid on PvE, the Archimitros was just a hypothetical setup, heh, by no means i intend on getting it anytime soon, and if i did it'd be a while unless i get lucky and no one in the raid wants it or something and that's still far off, i was just trying to not rule out that possibility.

I do agree with you completely, that HP for warlocks is awesome but up to X point, i personally can break 7k hp raid buffed (alliance ezmode with kings) with 400so dmg and i'm still lacking a lot of stamina gear, i guess that my best conclusion is simply to build myself up to a nice hp point were i feel comfortable without dying and maximizing dmg output, i was a bit curious about +hit gear and although i didn't run any personal testing i was aware of how valueable the stat is for both PvE and PvP.


Some things though.... would you prefer full nemesis for bonuses and overall usefulness? or going for popular +dmg items like firemaw's clutch, Bracers of Arc Accuracy, mantle of Blackwing Cabal etc... ?

For most fights out there I prefer Firemaw's, Arcane Accuracy, etc. The 8-piece nemesis bonus (damn you Razorgore) would only be useful for a few fights. I'm usually stuck in an MT group for Broodlord for imp, and not being MD spec that means I'm totally without deaggro. I can pull aggro on Firemaw pretty easily too if I'm not careful. So, for those fights, I'd wear 8-piece nem. Everything else I'd prefer to max out my +damage and therefore my contribution to the raid.

What's described above is similar to my situation as a Mage.

You basically have to be able to decide before you start whether your damage contribution in a fight is limited by time, mana, or threat and gear accordingly. In my profile, you see which I think is the gear direction that is most useful, most of the time, but I certainly swap in other things quite often.

Of course, the NW bonus means that many Mages forgot about the concept of interesting gear selection long ago.

At that level of +damage, Zandalar Demoniac's Robe would actually be slightly better for non-Ruin builds, assuming level 63 mobs. For trash clearing Doomcaller's would still be superior because you have 7% hit on the base set.

That gear is very close to what I'm hoping for, actually. I have the AQ20 necklace instead of Choker, Cloak of Consumption, and Briarwood Reed (which I prefer over ZHC because it's stable, non-forgettable damage). I want the Doomcaller's Mantle badly, because it's the only shoulder item with +hit that I've seen. I prefer Forced Concentration over Spell Power - Forced Conc is better after around 400 +damage.

Neltharion's Tear is probably a ways off for me yet, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. It's definitely the best offensive caster trinket in the game right now. Quiraji Acolyte Staff is the best non-Ruin warlock staff in the game; mages and possibly Ruin locks might like Shadow Flame better.

I'm not a big fan of adding DPS with crit for PvE. Doomcaller's Leggings are an upgrade (1.4 DPS) over Nemesis, but I'm not really sure I want them because of the crit.

Once I topped 500 spell dmg with a MD/Ruin build I really found that my bottleneck lay in mana pool (and I don't really see this changing by changing builds). I lost so much damage life tapping back up that I rarely had problems pulling aggro. The second build you listed sounded like a lot better PvE damage build except for the crit. Crit is nice, but crit really starts to limit the amount of damage you can throw because of the increased threat.

Cape of the trinity is nice, but honestly I don't think stam is so important for PvE like the guys were stating above. Cloak of Consumption gives you a little less int, a lot less stam, but the ever important +hit and slightly more spell damage are worth it imo. I also don't like the dragonslayer's signet. There are much better rings out there for non FR fights. The set from ZG is incredible until you have access to dark dominion/forced concentration/Brood Rep ring. It has +3 hit with the set, a little spell damage, and a good amount of int.

The only other thing I don't really see echoed here is that I really don't like staves. I honestly prefer the 1h + oh combo as you can generally get more overall spell dmg out of them (assuming you are mainly casting sb) and you can switch up offhands for resist fights allowing you more flexibility.

I just tend to wear whatever comes my way and don't focus on a dream set of gear even in the slightest. If endgame raiding in WoW has told me anything, it's that warlocks are the single most flexible class, overall. A varient of a Ruin build will be your best bet for hybrid usefulness, in my experience. Soul link is a lot of fun to play around with and is useful in both PvP or PvE, but I ultimately found all of my ruin centric builds gave me more mileage in PvP than the others while providing at least decent raid-ability in PvE content, still.

If you're going Ruin, you have a choice to make. Do you go all out for PvP, or do you ease down a bit so you're more useful to guild raiding while still being decent at PvP? To me, that would make the gear decision easy for you, between the two. (Assuming you went with a ruin build of some sort.)

Really, though? With proper BWL gear, you could use just about any logical spec you felt like trying and still be highly effective in almost every encounter in the game. I think that's pretty cool. When my gearset shifts to an extent that a new build is in order to make optimal use out of it, I'll shift my build. If my threat production starts to become such a problem that it has a massive impact on my contribution to raid damage, I'll shift. If the powers that be decide they would rather me be a different spec for the greater good, I'll shift.

Otherwise, as I see it, gear is largely gear and spec is largely the same. Even at maxed efficiency, you'll only ever be so much more efficient than you were due to the math...based on your personal gear. So I prefer to go with whatever strikes me as the most fun at the time.

In relation to this post, I say go for the gearset that properly sets you up for what you most enjoy doing. Do you enjoy PvP more than raiding? Build a PvP-centric character with reasonable functionality in PvE and gear accordingly. Enjoy PvE only? Go for the safer raid-damage build and gear accordingly. Want to be able to do both efficiently, but neither to the maximum? Build a hybrid and gear accordingly. Gill and the others have well lined out the ups and downs of the various gear sets, so it's really down to personal preference in playstyle as to what you should be going after.

To me, it sounds like you would be most happy as a hybrid-lock and should work a build in that vein. Figure out which end of the PvP vs. PvE spectrum you'd prefer to favour, and there's your appropriate gear decision to go with that build, in my mind. Sure, you won't be the top DPS warlock in your guild for PvE, nor will you be the top PvP lock on your server outside the raid scene, but you should function very well in both venues.

(Look at all of you crit-fearing pansy demon huggers with your ruin hate. Bah! They should take away your right to hellfire if you don't have ruin and let you raid the ghosts of Lorderon so you don't get hurt. :P)

Hell yeah. Now we're talking!

Life is such a bore without something worth fearing.

shadowbolt
CRIT
"Hehe."
shadowbolt
shadowbolt
lifetap
lifetap
CRIT
"Hehe, um...hmm...I wonder if..."
CRIT
"OHGOD!!"

Slug has died.

"My heal landed the second you died or you'd have survived that."
"Sweet. That was fun."
"You're a retard."
"I'm still having more fun than you."
"You're still a retard."
"GB2shadowspec."

I gotta admit, I'm easily amused, and that staff does tend to scream "Wheeeee!" in my general direction.

I keep waiting for the powers that be to tell me to change my build for the greater good; but I think that somewhere, deep down, they secretly enjoy watching me gamble with my own life so long as I'm not standing next to them.

thx for the replies.

Mainly, my concern was, ive been playing the game for a year, recently came to a new server to start anew (server opened on dec) , and now we have everything on farm xcept AQ of course, and since i'm pretty much building up my gear from scratch (still ahve some blues) i decided i'd put up some thought into it and make a pre-decided set, but like you said, i guess it's just better to get what comes along, even though i'm hoarding DKP for my Blessed Qiraji weapon ;) .

The problem to me comes in balance, another lock in my guild sits at +650dmg , usually uses couple of consumables on bosses just to break 700 for shits and giggles, and while he's the reigning king of the charts, he has about 4kish hp , raid buffed of course he nears the 5.8k-6k mark, and he also has a relatively low mana pull, which results in him pulling a lot of lifetaps out of his already low HP, this is exactly what i don't want, not only is it gimpage for PvP, not because he cant 2shot people, but rather cuz he can barely tank (not SL) so he ends up being a blinkless mage.

Don't get me wrong, i'm mainly PvE focused, it's why i play this game, but everynow and then i do PvP, call it an in-game hobby if you will :P , and there's just something about running around 4k hp in PvP , specially since i'm used to tanking rogues and warriros like the best of them.

After reading a lot of the responses, i guess that 8/8 nemesis isn't really a wonder bonus, definetly gives more versatility i guess since you can switch to any spec and still have the threat as if you had MD which is nice, i guess i might go for the usual 5/8 nemesis with the non-set items here and there :P .

Just out of curiousity, my server's new and we havent opened the gates yet (hopefully this weekend) , and since you guys have acquired a variety of gear in there i was wondering if people have done any testing with the "Decreases Target's resistances by X amount" items, and just how valuable are them, and how do these affect +hit (since the target now has stacked -resistance from curses and the effect) ?

Its almost purely PvP bonus, since in PvE you are always have curses and additional 20 or 30 reduction wont be of any signifance.
Tohit is completly separate stat, it reduced level-based resists and is very valued in PvE, since you have base 17% chance to miss against raid level mobs (regardless of their resists to particular school)

Good point, but there is itemization issue, since current gear has either spellhit or spell penentration (arc. accuracy vs. ossirath shackles is perfect example). So youll have to choose between those too (unless you capped tohit, and that is impossible with current itemization). Without some serious calculations i can't tell for sure, but empirically i'd say that if you have to choose, than tohit > spell penetration by a large margin.

Now you're assuming those mobs with high elemental resists will be level 63.

Why not a zerg of level 60 undead with 200 resistance to all schools of spells? Heck, 125 resists if it's a zerg, since we won't be able to drop curses on all of them.

My spell-hit set is up to +11 now and I'm still missing a few pieces, most notably Doomcaller's Mantle, which does in fact have spell hit and penetration on a single item. Yes it's a rare combination, but they can coexist. Using Nat Pagle's Broken Reel that's +21 to hit, well over cap for brief periods. Even without the Reel, I think it might be just barely possible to hit the cap with current itemization. I'll have to play around with it later to see.

My suspicion is trash will have fairly high elemental resists in future content, making spell penetration a nice addition to 6% or so hit on normal DPS gear. That's easily attainable with current itemization. I'm not sure how melee DPS/hunters could be made less viable than casters on high-resist mobs, but then I'm not a game developer.

http://ctprofiles.net/98359

Check out the Spell Hit (max) Profile. Unbuffed:

+19% to hit with spells
3944 hp
5623 mana
+457 spell damage

That's above the 17% cap, but I don't have time to consider what would be best to remove right now. The set relies heavily on ZG items, and requires Tailoring 300, but it is entirely obtainable by anyone in a raiding guild. I could even burn a trinket slot for Briarwood Reed.

1 spell hit at +450 damage is approximately equal in DPS upgrade to 12.5 spell power, so 17% to hit (cap) is 212.5 effective +damage. This set should, over the long term, show equal DPS to a level 63 mob as a 669 +damage set with no spell hit.

I mostly did this to find out whether it's possible to hit cap vs. level 63s, but the math is interesting as well.

For reference, it's +20 for Mages (we get two ZG enchants that you don't, but can't get a +hit in the shoulder slot).

If anything, I've always thought there was too much +hit in ZG. A Mage/Warlock who doesn't raid 40-man yet, but regularly raids ZG (presumably a significant part of the intended ZG audience), can get 10 or so +hit without too much trouble. It's at the point where a good amount of the +hit is wasted on all but level 63 mobs. Until you're at the point where you can start swapping in separate gear for bosses solely due to the +hit cap (a pain in itself), you have to choose between items which are useful only in boss fights, and items which improve your DPS everywhere else.

Incidentally, the Bloodvine Garb doesn't require Tailoring 300--that's only to obtain the set bonus.

On a related note, what sorts of uses for the Broken Reel have you found?