Hello all, first off I'd like to say that even though this is my first post here I have been reading the threads here for quite some time and really enjoy the site.

Now on to my question, I am a level 70 affliction lock and kind of @ the point of a hard decision on where I'd like to go with my gear. I am a 375 Tailor wearing the Frozen Shadoweave set and have currently have it paired up with 2 piece T4 (Helm & Gloves). One major shortcoming I have on my gear at the moment is I am wearing BM pants (~10 Opera kills and 0 TF pants droped and lock T4 is terrible).

For this thread lets disregard my current pants and do a little "theorycraft". Before I start rambling stats, please assume that when I post the +dmg of a item that they are max slotted with +9 damage gems. Also I am not factoring in enchants on any item because regardless of the item they can both have the same enchants so they need no be included.

I am torn between 2 gearsets for primary raiding. The first being 2 piece T4 and Trial-Fire Legs. Stats are as follows:
Total:
Stamina 99
Intel 92
Crit 33
Damage 154
Bonus: Your shadow damage spells have a chance to grant you 135 bonus shadow damage for 15 sec and your fire damage spells have a chance to grant you 135 bonus fire damage for 15 sec.

The second option is to have the Spellstrike Set crafted and pick up the Attumen gloves.
Stats are as follows:
Stamina 47
Intel 39
Crit 50
Hit 50
Damage 196
Bonus: Gives a chance when your harmful spells land to increase the damage of your spells and effects by 92 for 10 sec.


Which for a affliction lock would you recommend? The +41 damage from spellstrike is quite nice , however it comes at a loss of 52 stam and 53 Int. The difference of +17 crit is not a huge game breaker since only 2 of my 6 spells I cast can crit and even at that +17 is not dramatically large. +50 hit is nice.


Is the set worth the expense + stat loss of T4 + T-F? Also does anyone have experience with either set bonus? Does Spellstrike proc more frequently then lock T4?

Thanks in advance for some suggestions!

Regards,
-Srg-

I actually already swap between Bracers of Havok & Plagueheart.

As for Belt I have the belt off High King Maulgar. Slightly better stats for a affliction lock. (Belt of Divine Intervetion).

More so concerned about the helm / gloves / legs combo.

Spellstrike procs 5% of the time and has no internal cooldown, but you know that because I constantly harp about how good it is. =)

As of now the T4 2 piece bonus procs only off direct damage spells IE. Shadow Bolts, Death Coil, Shadowburn etc.. However, next patch the bonus will proc off of all shadow spells, including dot's.

I'm pretty sure that means that it will proc off the initial application of the DoT, not the ticks. As for the proc rate, currently it sucks due to the direct damage spell requirement. I'm sure it will proc more often after this patch though, we'll just have to wait and see.

If you're doing this for PvE and are willing to get the mats the Spellstrike pants are worth it in terms of damage. If you think you'll just replace them soon or don't want to farm the mats just get TF legs.

affliction warlocks get through a lot of mana, the extra int at the start is used so quickly (1-2 global cooldowns).

lower mana = first lifetap sooner, but no change in frequency.
lower hp = riskier lifetaps on aoe fights. dark pact is there anyway

Anything PvE I typically don't typically look for stats over damage, unless it's a ridiculous sacrifice for one over the other. That being said if you are doing mainly PvE affliction I try to keep my mana above 65-70% at all times, keeping my health high enough to survive and healers will always have me topped off if they're not sleeping.

As for lifetapping more with less sta/int if you've got 2 points in Imp LT you shouldn't be lifetapipng more than twice if you try to stay about 70% mana.

Thanks for all the advice guys, time to get Tempestra moving on my spellcloth

Appreciate the time you guys took.

-Srg-

The SpellStrike+Handwraps is definately the better option, IMO. 520HP really isn't a huge amount in the grandscale of things. But 40Spell damage and 50hit is a pretty decent increase in damage, the +crit is also apprecitable for keeping ISB procs on the target.

I actually was facing almost the same choice recently. At that point in time, I was not Tailoring, wore 4 piece Plagueheart (head, shoulders, pants, boots), and had just picked up T4 helm. I crunched some numbers, decided that the T4 helm, when fully socketed and enchanted, was a slight upgrade to the PH helm (taking into account the +12% damage to Corruption bonus), so I went ahead and used that. And then a little bit later, I realized that I was an idiot and that the Spellstrike set was actually NOT tailor-only (only the set bonus is, and I just hadn't read it carefully), so I set out to compare them. Comparing them side by side, I found that a full set of Spellstrike, socketed and enchanted, would cost me 6 blue gems (~300g), 20 Spellcloth (~1000g), 10 Primal Might (~1000g), whatever the crafter charges for the nethers, and another 100g for a head enchant. And for all that, I'd get 25 Spell Hit, 22 Spell Crit, and 32 damage, at the cost of 210 health and 705 mana. I decided that yes, it was worth it. So I dropped JC (the entire profession offered all of one useful BoP item to casters), powerleveled tailoring to 375 and crafted the entire Frozen Shadoweave set in about 4 days (bought some mats, farmed a lot of primal waters, borrowed a lot of shadowcloth).

And then I saw that the T4 2pc bonus was being fixed in 2.1.0. This made me rethink my choice... is all that time spent to farm the mats for Spellstrike really worth it? I was already at the point of never wanting to see a fire elemental again (prior to making my FS set, I had farmed up about 30 primal fires in 2 or 3 days to get a Girdle of Ruination crafted), and I just couldn't stomach going through all that for the gain.

Didn't really mean to go off on a rant, but anyway, I decided to go for 3pc FS + 2pc T4 (have Head, waiting on Pants) + Girdle of Ruination + Bracers of Havok + Attumen gloves (still waiting on these, /roll-ing in Karazhan FTL) - I think that those gloves and T4 pants make for a better combination than T4 gloves and Spellstrike pants (assuming you have access to them, of course), and will cost you considerably less.

Haha, well, just ot be more specific, as a destruction lock, I'd like to mention the t4 pants are actually quite good; for a destruction lock. Exactly the stats we need (good balance of hit, crit, and +damage)... but yeah, for an affliction lock, aren't exactly what one might call ideal.

Have you considered Battlecast Pants, as well, though? Being craftable, it's pretty easy to pick up, 42 stam, 27 int, a red and blue socket, and 46 +damage; I would not recommend spellstrike in spite of its high damage, however, because so many ilevel points are spent on hit and crit, which are less effective for you than for, say, a spell-nuking destro. It depends on what stats you value more, personally, because it's trading stats for damage. It seems to me, though, like a lot of stats for less damage (that is to say, damage you would derive from the +hit and +crit).

What I meant to suggest was, not just look at +damage, but at stats, as well. Stamina, for example, doesn't contribute to damage, but it does help keep you alive so you're not doing an effective 0 dps on the floor dead. It helps, and it's just another way to look at it and stat usefulness imo.