I was playing around with the new gear on CTProfiles and I wanted to run my math by the resident gurus here to make sure I was coming up with the right numbers.

http://ctprofiles.net/22018

17.45% crit
12% hit
+756 shadow dmg

Rank 10 shadow bolt: 482-538, 2.5 sec cast

Spec: MD/Ruin (Imp. Shadowbolt 20% on crits, next 4 sources of shadow dmg)

Buffs (jumper'd succubus) - Curse of Shadows (10%), MD Succy (10%), DS Succy (15%), 5x Shadow Weaving (15%).

Bonus from +dmg = 756 * 3.0/3.5 = 648 dmg
Avg. Base Shadow Bolt = (538 - 482) / 2 + 482 = 510 dmg

Average Shadow Bolt hit = (648 + 510) * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 1.15 = 1853.06 dmg

Chance to resist vs lvl 63 mob = 17% - 12% (from gear) = 5%

Effective Shadowbolts factoring in resists = 0.95 * 1853.06 = 1760.41

Since resists are factored in, 17.45/95 will crit. So an additional 18.37% increase from crits with Ruin gives 1.1837 * 1760.41 = 2083.79

With Imp. Shadowbolt, each crit yields 20% dmg increase from the next 4 shadow bolts (assuming no one else is casting shadow spells). At a crit rate of 17.45, using Moleva's suggested formula of (1 - (1-Crit Rate)^4) it looks like 53.56 out of 100 shadowbolts get the 20% increase. so .2 * .5356 = 10.71% increase from improved shadowbolt.
Above is the part of the math that I'm most sketchy on, dealing with a "next 4 sources" was confusing to me

2083.79 * 1.1071 = 2306.97

given the 2.5 second cast time, 2306.97 / 2.5 = 922.79 dps.

Of course, this doesn't factor in any DoT's up on the mob, inherant shadow resist beyond 75 (and the apparent partial resists that level difference can yield), or the fact that raid buffed to about 7k mana this only lasts for about 45 seconds, but I was curious what some of the new gear is capable of.

Here's another question, if anyone has an answer. With a jumped succubus, a warlock can get +25% shadow damage, from Demonic Sacrifice, and Master Demonologist. I note, however, that Soul Link claims to also give a +3% dmg increase whenever active. Is this also applicable in this situation, making SL+MD+jumped suc equal to +28% dmg? I realize that's not exactly applicable to your post, since the build you're posting includes Ruin. But just for curiousity's sake, anyway.

Your bonus from +dmg should be 756 * 3.0/3.5 = 648. Also, I don't think all the bonuses are multiplicative. I'm guessing that the MD and DS bonus are added to your shadow bolt's base damage, and the +dmg bonuses on the mob are applied to that each time you cast. So I think it's more like (648 + 510) * 1.25 * 1.25 = 1809.375 for a normal shadow bolt hit, but I can't really find any good information to support this. Anyway, I don't think your calculations are totally correct, but I'm not sure what is correct either. The rest looks fine to me though. I wish I had 7k mana buffed...

I look at your Imp Shadowbolt math with caution, since other Shadowbolts/Corruption will "eat" the debuff in a raid setting, and not sure of the numbers you used.

But anyway, assuming the math was right on that and adding up the +shadow buffs, it would look like you would pull aggro very easy.

Also, not sure how lucky you would be to rez your succy and have a Shadow Priest around.

In regards to the "next four sources", uptime for it would be better approximated by 1-(1-CritRate)^4.

Edit: That's assuming you are the only one consuming it.

That's why I added the (assuming no one else is casting shadow spells) line. Also, I believe it says in the 1.11 Patch notes -

Having a shadow priest isn't as unlikely nowadays with Shadow Weaving only 20 points in to the tree. The XL cables have a 50% success rate as opposed to non XL at 20%.

Blam: I literally smacked my forehead when you wrote the 3/3.5 number. Don't know why I did 2.5/3.0

I'll do some parsing to see how the self buffs factor compared to target debuffs. In the meantime I'll edit the original post for the damage coefficient.

And oh yeah, nerf blessing of kings regarding mana pools.

That would make it totally different from SM, I haven't tested it myself in a while but I was fairly sure the bonuses are factored after +damage.

Also, getting both bonuses by ressing your succubus is clearly a bug that I hope they fix soon.

Would you please excuse my alliance-only ignorance and tell me why it is easier for horde?

At the end of the day, you'll still be partially sitting on your hands for half of a lot of fights, because we can't vanish. (Oh wait...BoS...) ;)

I'm still not entirely sure how the math is factored on demonology talents, but I lean toward what Blam said. I respecced from SM/Ruin to a MD/Ruin build on test in hopes of perhaps increasing my damage output overall, but it stayed very close to the same range in the end, over time. I expected a noticable increase, based on the modifiers, especially with a jumpered succubus running around at my side. What I saw would suggest to me that some or all of the demonology bonuses are multiplied off the base bolt instead of compounded, but I couldn't jump my succubus reliably enough with oldschool cables to really get any good info in the time I had to play with it.

I've never been a huge fan of soul link, but I would expect it to stack with the other demonology talents and work in a similar fashion, yeah. I'm not certain if application of the soul link buff itself would erase one of the other buffs or not, so you'd have to see about that first.

As to the jumpered succubus in general, it was once mentioned that it was not viewed as a bug. (How that could be, considering you lose the buff when summoning a new pet, is somewhat beyond me...but whatever.) Take that stance as you will, but I don't see Blizz changing it anytime in the near future. "Feel free to exploit the hell out of it in the meantime", seems to be their official line. Heh.

Back when I tested it atleast I got no difference in average damage with SM compared to MD succubus, and SM is definately applied after +damage.

Beserking. With rez only taking 9 seconds to cast, there's no reason to ever fail.

It was Tseric who said that, so "feel free to exploit it" is a good summery. Maybe succ rezzing is how they decided to add some extra "skill" to raiding?

I thought alliance had it easier, in that a paladin can cast blessing of sacrifice on your pet, and you dont even have to res it because DS reduces the pet to a very minor amount of hp, while giving you the ds buff. Perhaps they "nerfed" that and i wasnt paying attention because i mainly play horde.

Yeah, I've tried both specs as well and never noticed any significant difference in damage output. Although I'm not an engineer and never bothered to res the succubus. In the end, the lack of instant corruption annoyed the hell out of me so much that I just couldn't stand to be MD/ruin.

Yeah, I guess I didn't make that clear. I was factoring in the +dmg from equipment as base damage which my computations showed. By base damage I meant the damage your shadowbolts do without any external modifiers like shadow weaving or curse of shadows. Also, I was specced soul link for a while and used MD + DS + SL a bit when fast damage was needed, but I found MD/Ruin to be a lot better. In a lot of fights you'd have to avoid using soul link because you might take a few thousand damage and your pet will die almost instantly. Then it's basically like you have an MD/Ruin build but without the benefit from ruin.

Improved life tap is the only thing I really hate giving up; losing instant corruption never really bothered me. In PvE waiting 1.5 seconds for the global cooldown is not too much better than waiting 2 seconds to cast corruption in most situations. Improved life tap really makes regaining mana go so much faster, though. However, I think it's worth sacrificing for ruin because it doesn't produce big numbers.

They did in fact nerf this. Of course, I only found out about the whole blessing of sacrifice thing when I read about the change in the patch notes. Also, I don't deny that it's a bit of a sketchy tactic, just wanted to see what this new gear was capable of, and that I was actually doing the math correctly.

I didn't get a chance to test how the damage increasing buffs stack last night, but I did start thinking about how I was going to test it.

Basically I separated the buffs into self and target buffs for organization purposes.

Self:
Master Demonologist Succ. - 10%
Touch of Shadow (DS Succ.) - 15%

Target:
Curse of Shadows - 10%
Shadow Weaving - 15%

1. No buffs, cast 50 shadow bolts, get an average.
2. MD
3. DS
4. MD+DS

Ideally using my normal gear (533 +dmg), I should see an average of 966 damage with no buffs, 1062 with MD, 1110 with DS, and 1222 with both.

5. CoS
6. SW
7. CoS + SW

Expected results, 1062 with CoS, 1110 with SW, 1222 with both.

Combination - Expected

8. MD+CoS - 1169
9. MD+SW - 1222
10. DS+CoS - 1222
11. DS+SW - 1278
12. MD+CoS+SW - 1344
13. DS+CoS+SW - 1405
14. MD+DS+CoS - 1344
15. MD+DS+SW - 1405
16. MD+DS+SW+CoS - 1545

Unfortunately I won't be able to test this till later tonight, but if people want to take their own +dmg values and see if they get corresponding expected values, it'd definitely be less work on my part. That's something I'm always in favor of :) If I take 100 cast sample sizes, it'd take me over an hour's worth of straight casting ><