[Warlock] how do you do high DPS? - Page 22

• Curved · 07/07/07, 12:16 AM

Here are the promised parses. Karathress first, since i think its a better indicator than an AoE intensive fight.

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...&s=11445-11799 <SB spam only.

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=gojuuwxgp33vs < normal rotation.

Lurker parses.
http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...y5&s=4680-5188 < Sb spam

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...1i&s=4155-4693 < normal rotation.

I don't DPS on leo or i would put that up. Just from a cursory glance at the parses, i'm not sold on Sb spam being better DPS than using Immo/SB. WWS shows my DPS supposedly going up, but in encounters with approximately the same duration and little gear changes, i'm usually pulling less damage than normal.

Actually lurker was pretty bad, considering i had CoD this week, and still somehow did less damage than 2-3 weeks ago. Guess i could attribute that to getting knocked back a bit more than normal, but i'll be interested in seeing what others think.

Hmm used CoD this week on karathress compared to the other parse too, though we shaved 2 minutes off this time.

Noximus · 07/07/07, 12:31 AM

Originally Posted by Mallahet

Dar, I guess what I meant was improved immolate. A couple of the people who replied that going shadow/destro was a good thing, and I understand why you use shadow bolt, but was curious as to why you'd not get improved immolate over cataclysm. The extra damage to me seems > than saving 500 mana over a 10k mana pool.

In order to have an efficient Shadow Destro build, you will not be casting any fire spells at all as your shadow bolts will deal more damage. This has been proven in a couple threads already (I think even this one.) I personally did the same thing for my Shadow Destro build, full Cataclysm, 1 point in Aftermath to get to the Backlash tier and 2/3 SL to get 5/5 S&F.

Kyth · 07/07/07, 4:19 AM

Originally Posted by Suggestive

I don't DPS on leo or i would put that up. Just from a cursory glance at the parses, i'm not sold on Sb spam being better DPS than using Immo/SB. WWS shows my DPS supposedly going up, but in encounters with approximately the same duration and little gear changes, i'm usually pulling less damage than normal.

It may be the start/stop nature of the fight. Each time he comes up out of a submerge, you're guaranteed not to have an ISB debuff up at the start. Same thing with the adds.

Immolate beats shadowbolt on damage per cast time, so it's just if the handwavy nature of pre-existing ISB debuffs can outweigh its advantage, at least as I understand the arguments being made in favor of a pure-SB-spamming model. (and if anyone has spriests they can give me who actually pay attention to ISB and don't consume the charges, I'll give you a very nice finder's fee! Mine claim they don't have screen realestate for a debufffilter window containing just the ISB debuff itself.)

It seems solvable via a good enough simulation, however, if nothing else. (I have followed the simulation threads here, but missed it if someone directly addressed this -- if I did, apologies.)

galzohar · 07/07/07, 4:29 AM

Remember that from a raid DPS prespective, not having imp SB up is all more of a reason to cast shadowbolt, as when it's not up it's time where ALL UAs, corruptions, SW:Ps and mindflays all lose the 20% damage increase, so you want the imp SB to be up there ASAP... When it's already up though, it's less of a worry becuase either someone will use it up for something worthwhile or it'll just stay up there waiting until you finish casting immolate and cast another shadowbolt.
All in all it's really hard to compare imp SB for raid VS your own DPS, but all in all with all those DoTs you should have in your raid imp SB's raid damage is far from something you can ignore. This of course also means that shadow priests should *probably* not MB/SW:D when imp SB is up, or at least not MB/SW:D when it only has a few charges left, as keeping it up there not only means the whole raid gets more DoTs to tick with 20% more damage, their mind flay also gets the 20% damage increase without consuming the buff. Of course it's all theory and nothing calculated/tested, but I think it's really worth looking into.

Proxy · 07/07/07, 11:48 AM

That ISB-debuff-check could actually be macro'd into all spriests' MB/SWD macro's right? So it casts a MF instead of that spell if the debuff is up, so as not to lose too much time.

shamelessly copied some macro over from: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...14753344&sid=1 and edited it:

/run local C,z=CastSpellByName,0 for i=1,40 do x=UnitDebuff("target",i)
if x and strfind(x,"-Debuff you are checking-")
then z=1 end end if z==1 then C(“-spell you want to cast if target is NOT debuffed-”)
else C(“spell you want to cast if the target IS debuffed”)end

Demi9OD · 07/07/07, 12:39 PM

Originally Posted by Proxy

That ISB-debuff-check could actually be macro'd into all spriests' MB/SWD macro's right? So it casts a MF instead of that spell if the debuff is up, so as not to lose too much time.

shamelessly copied some macro over from: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...14753344&sid=1 and edited it:

/run local C,z=CastSpellByName,0 for i=1,40 do x=UnitDebuff("target",i)
if x and strfind(x,"-Debuff you are checking-")
then z=1 end end if z==1 then C(“-spell you want to cast if target is NOT debuffed-”)
else C(“spell you want to cast if the target IS debuffed”)end

I don't think that kind of intelligent macro syntax works since TBC. I could not get any modification of this to work with sburn/sbolt on backlash proc.

Proxy · 07/07/07, 12:55 PM

True, been reading around a bit more on macro's. The ability to check for debuffs is no longer possible alas

galzohar · 07/07/07, 12:59 PM

I'm unaware of anything that makes this sort of smart macroing possible... But the best you *could* do is *while* you're casting 1 spell, keep an eye open and choose your next spell according to what you see on the debuff list right now. Worst case is a shadowbolt will crit exactly while you're casting your MB or right as you hit your SW:D, but it's not as bad as it'll still have 3 charges left on which you can MF. Not optimal but better than gimping your DPS because you're basing your spells on ISB procs.
In other words, if ISB isn't up while you're casting your current spell, feel free to add a MB/SW:D as your next spell. If you see it up while casting your current spell, make a DoT refresh or mindflay your next spell.

mav1234 · 07/07/07, 5:08 PM

Very interesting discussions here. I really wish I could access excel to take a look at the DPS spreadsheets, heh.

I'm currently a shadow destruction lock, 0/21/40. I recently respecced from a 41/0/20 build and I am frequently amused by the larger numbers. My DPS on trash is, obviously, much higher, though on boss encounters it seems largely the same. I'll be able to really test that in Gruul's tonight.

I currently use a mystical skyfire diamond. However, because of that fact, I can't really fully socket my gear to take advantage of the noble topaz's because of the hate the diamond has for yellow gems. I do have quite a few fit in with purples to negate them, but my hit is just under 100, which is obviously not enough. In this case, would you guys recommend I drop the mystical skyfire and instead pick up a 12 spell damage meta and socket everything up with +hit? The actual difference is only going to be another +12 or so hit on this gear, but as my gear improves, that'll change significantly.

Also, does the proc from 2pc Voidheart stack with the Spellstrike proc? Is it worth picking up if that is the case? Right now I use FSW. I was thinking of grabbing the shoulders and gloves from Voidheart and the Spellstrike leggings and helm.

• Curved · 07/07/07, 5:11 PM

Originally Posted by Kyth

It may be the start/stop nature of the fight. Each time he comes up out of a submerge, you're guaranteed not to have an ISB debuff up at the start. Same thing with the adds.

Immolate beats shadowbolt on damage per cast time, so it's just if the handwavy nature of pre-existing ISB debuffs can outweigh its advantage, at least as I understand the arguments being made in favor of a pure-SB-spamming model. (and if anyone has spriests they can give me who actually pay attention to ISB and don't consume the charges, I'll give you a very nice finder's fee! Mine claim they don't have screen realestate for a debufffilter window containing just the ISB debuff itself.)

It seems solvable via a good enough simulation, however, if nothing else. (I have followed the simulation threads here, but missed it if someone directly addressed this -- if I did, apologies.)

I would pay for SP's that actually watched when the debuff goes up and react accordingly :P. Its a bit aggravating putting it up and watching it drop over and over. Will probably keep doing this for another week, and see if having a bit more experience with it will change the outcome.

Edit:@ mav: I would highly recommend the relentless earthstorm diamond. Better than the 12 damage gem by quite a bit, and pretty close to the mystical skyfire. And you don't lose much meeting the requirements at all.

mav1234 · 07/07/07, 5:29 PM

Really, the relentless? Is it that much better for a 'lock? I figured it was for fire mages, but our crit rates tend to be a bit lower than theres (at my stage of gearing).

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check out the DPS numbers on it.

galzohar · 07/07/07, 6:38 PM

12 damage gem will be probably a bigger dps loss than the slight gem gimping you have to go through to make the meta work. Of course there's always the option of the 12 agi 3% crit damage gem but be aware bliz might nerf/fix it to not work with casters, nobody knows right now if it's intended or not.

An easier solution would be to just get spellstrike and have both more DPS AND no meta problems ;p

Manniefresh · 07/07/07, 8:09 PM

I'm using Spellstrike + T4 shoulders and gloves and it seems to be working out but I don't really have any other gloves/leggings to test out. I would like to be able to upgrade the Spellstrike along with my FSW chest so I can dump Tailoring but that is going to take a while.

My question is, since I recently got pretty close to max +hit, how much crit should I be looking for in an upgrade if it comes at a loss of +dmg? I'm guessing I should try not to lose any +hit at all but I'm lost from there. I really can't make any sense of those spreadsheets.

Here's a link to my armory. Scryer's Bloodgem is always in for raids. I'm well-aware that my cloak and belt need upgrades and I just got those boots and haven't had a chance to get them enchanted yet =P

• frmorrison · 07/07/07, 8:18 PM

Originally Posted by Manniefresh

I would like to be able to upgrade the Spellstrike along with my FSW chest so I can dump Tailoring but that is going to take a while.

My question is, since I recently got pretty close to max +hit, how much crit should I be looking for in an upgrade if it comes at a loss of +dmg? I'm guessing I should try not to lose any +hit at all but I'm lost from there.

Really the only upgrade to Spellstrike is Tier 5 items and random Tier 5 quality items, and the 2/2 bonus is really nice, so I would hold on to Tailoring. Plus you can make shadowcloth every 4 days for some bonus cash.

I would like at one of the Warlock dps spreadsheets to see what may happen if you swap around gear pieces. To maximize imp SB and Ruin, you need about 20% to crit.

One easy upgrade would be to get the Veteran's Silk Bracers, and put in a spell crit/spell damage gem (would add about 1% to crit via the bracer slot), then enchant with 15 damage.

Faradin · 07/07/07, 10:42 PM

Originally Posted by mav1234

Very interesting discussions here. I really wish I could access excel to take a look at the DPS spreadsheets, heh.

I'm currently a shadow destruction lock, 0/21/40. I recently respecced from a 41/0/20 build and I am frequently amused by the larger numbers. My DPS on trash is, obviously, much higher, though on boss encounters it seems largely the same. I'll be able to really test that in Gruul's tonight.

I currently use a mystical skyfire diamond. However, because of that fact, I can't really fully socket my gear to take advantage of the noble topaz's because of the hate the diamond has for yellow gems. I do have quite a few fit in with purples to negate them, but my hit is just under 100, which is obviously not enough. In this case, would you guys recommend I drop the mystical skyfire and instead pick up a 12 spell damage meta and socket everything up with +hit? The actual difference is only going to be another +12 or so hit on this gear, but as my gear improves, that'll change significantly.

Also, does the proc from 2pc Voidheart stack with the Spellstrike proc? Is it worth picking up if that is the case? Right now I use FSW. I was thinking of grabbing the shoulders and gloves from Voidheart and the Spellstrike leggings and helm.

I'd suggest the +14 spell dmg gem from Blade's Edge. It's a pain to get, but it has no requirements and seems to be the best meta option in game for affliction anyway.

EDIT: after looking into this meta, it seems that it does actually have requirements. You need 3 yellow gems for it, which makes it a little less appealing.

clavarnway · 07/08/07, 3:15 AM

Was looking at a WWS posted, I got a question (I know you all were talking about this):

http://wow.virakar.com/stats/wws-200...9/dommius.html

"Virakar - June 25th Magtheridon - Mon 25 June, from 18:19 to 18:32"

Does this mean it was a 13 minute fight? If so that's 780 seconds of time in that fight. I think WWS simply has to only include time you were casting in the fight, because if you divide how much damage Dommius did in that amount of time you don't get anywhere close to that DPS I think.

I ask this simply because I'm considering respeccing since we have generally 4-6 warlocks in every raid, and most have went the Affliction route, and I see dots falling off and that's bad. I'm just wondering how much damage these specs actually put out in reasonable gear compared to a reasonably geared UA lock, which is what I am right now - I think I will try it anyway, because that's a sure fire way to find out, just throwing that out there.

edit: I do need to get more crit gear before I go that spec, I know that

Gives me a goal.

Lumines · 07/08/07, 3:30 AM

I've been 43/0/18 for about 3-4 months and been slowly gearing up for 0/21/40 shadowlock. We usually bring 2-3 locks into the raid with 3 shadow priests so IBS will help improve the DPS. I got a lot of good tips from reading the whole thread too. Do you guys think I should wait or is my gear decent enough for entry to Hyjal/BT(killed Kael'thas for the first time last night).

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...roth&n=Loomies

Still a few pieces I need to switch out such as the OH, neck piece and should use adept elixirs on boss fights. I'm guessing you need at least 20% unbuff crit to be viable for DPS? Thanks

clavarnway · 07/08/07, 4:24 AM

Originally Posted by Lumines

I've been 43/0/18 for about 3-4 months and been slowly gearing up for 0/21/40 shadowlock. We usually bring 2-3 locks into the raid with 3 shadow priests so IBS will help improve the DPS. I got a lot of good tips from reading the whole thread too. Do you guys think I should wait or is my gear decent enough for entry to Hyjal/BT(killed Kael'thas for the first time last night).

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...roth&n=Loomies

Still a few pieces I need to switch out such as the OH, neck piece and should use adept elixirs on boss fights. I'm guessing you need at least 20% unbuff crit to be viable for DPS? Thanks

Good god you have nice gear. I thought they meant 20% on the character pane, which meant having 17% unbuffed since you'd get 3% from Backlash (and 5% not shown from Devastation).

But jesus you got awesome hit, crit, and damage. I'm very jealous.

But that is a good question, when they said 20-25%, did they mean not including talents? I don't know.

Lumines · 07/08/07, 4:40 AM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

Good god you have nice gear. I thought they meant 20% on the character pane, which meant having 17% unbuffed since you'd get 3% from Backlash (and 5% not shown from Devastation).

But jesus you got awesome hit, crit, and damage. I'm very jealous.

But that is a good question, when they said 20-25%, did they mean not including talents? I don't know.

Thanks. Most of the time they're talking about not including the talents. I guess I could sacrafice a few hit to get 1% crit from mantle of the elven king. I can't take that spreadsheet site seriously so hoping to hear from some hands on experience. Majority of the geared people who is 0/21/40 are in BT/Hyjal so was trying to figure out what is the entry level for this spec

• frmorrison · 07/08/07, 1:19 PM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

But that is a good question, when they said 20-25%, did they mean not including talents? I don't know.

20% is the bare miniumum for 21/40, so that you have decent uptime for imp SB. This includes talents, so you really only need 15% on the character sheet (the 5% crit does not show, but the 3% to crit does show). Of course more is better.

Loomies, you have the gear to run shadow destro now and at least have about the same personal dps, since you would have have 3% more crit with 40 Destro.

shed · 07/08/07, 5:38 PM

I'm basically thinking of doing the same as Lumines (currently a broken 42/0/19 - messed up last spec and been lazy).

I'm sitting on full T5 and starting to get some T6. Right now i have 2x haste rings but i also have the kara exalted/the chess ring/and honored scales of sand or whatever ring (all have nice crit). I'd also probably switch back to the slave pens haste trinket over exalted Ashtongue (pretty gimp on single target dps imo). I might have to use Cenarion exalted ring to get the +hit and maybe even get the scryer +hit trinket.

Carver · 07/08/07, 8:05 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

20% is the bare miniumum for 21/40, so that you have decent uptime for imp SB. This includes talents, so you really only need 15% on the character sheet (the 5% crit does not show, but the 3% to crit does show). Of course more is better.

Loomies, you have the gear to run shadow destro now and at least have about the same personal dps, since you would have have 3% more crit with 40 Destro.

How do you come to 20% being the minimum? I have 16.6% crit & the Luelier spreadsheet still shows 0/21/40 to be higher dps than 41/0/17+3.

I have been looking everywhere for the math showing what crit % is the bare minimum for 21/40; could someone please direct me to this? [I already searched the forums for 'minimum' 'crit' '21/40' and found nothing.....]

Solrael · 07/08/07, 9:48 PM

Originally Posted by Kyth

(and if anyone has spriests they can give me who actually pay attention to ISB and don't consume the charges, I'll give you a very nice finder's fee! Mine claim they don't have screen realestate for a debufffilter window containing just the ISB debuff itself.)

Although I can't provide the requested shadow priest, I can offer them a suggestion: Power Auras. It is basically a customisable way to provide visual alerts for a variety of events (eg, target has the improved shadow bolt debuff, player is missing salvation). The alerts themselves can be large and transparent (and actually look quite cool) so they aren't a distraction, but can be easily noticed without shifting focus away from important tasks.

The mod itself is unfortunately no longer under development, though it can be downloaded from:
http://www-en.curse-gaming.com/downloads/details/3897/

Unfortunately the mod hasn't been updated to include 2.0 debuff limits, but doing a search through the code for 16 and replacing it with 40 should do the trick (I didn't use a search and replace, but I did modify it up to 40 debuff slots with no issues thus far).

The screenshots for the mod are awful on the curse site, but here's one of mine. This one's probably a little over the top, but it works for me. The blue halo (left and right), intricate pattern, top half of the "wings" and bottom half of the "wings" are all separate indicators (curse of shadows, imp shadow bolt debuff, trinket and spellstrike proc).

If anyone is interested I'm working on a few modifications to the mod including the above debuff limit change, the ability to only display auras during raids (eg, salvation warning), auras for my own debuffs on a target (useful as a backup dot-timer but for the current target only), the ability to trigger auras only on a specified number of stacks of a debuff, and timers updated from the original system.

Sorry if this is too off topic, but I find it to be the best use of screen realestate for displaying procs like imp shadow bolt, and is fantastic for proc alerts and customisable for encounter specific debuffs etc that have all helped me greatly.

Noffy · 07/08/07, 11:18 PM

Originally Posted by Silmeria

I'll help -- why are you using CoA? CoD should be your staple; your shadowbolt to DoT ratio is kind of low, some skew is expected based on the shatter mechanics, but you can fit in more shadowbolts if you don't have to bother with CoA. This is mentioned in this thread, as well as the basic warlock theorycraft (Working Theories of Theorycrafting as of 2.1).

Your DoT uptime is bad too -- 69 ticks of corruption means you were up 207 seconds, or 3:27 minutes of your 5:30 segment. Conversely, your CoA was up 282 seconds, or 4:42 minutes, but again CoA is a bad idea, see above. Your immolate uptime was even more atrocious.

Your hit rating could improve, you're seeing an avg of 10% misses on your shadowbolts between your three Gruul encounters.

The rest of your warlocks suffers similar problems. Nikteus needs hit gear, STAT. 25% miss rate on one of your encounters is absolutely horrific.

Here is out latest Gruul run, this time we took him down on our 3rd time and it felt a LOOOT stronger.

I was trying very hard to work on my DoT uptime and my shadowbolts, I know it still needs improvement, but I am very happy with our guild as a whole. How does this log look compared to our previous run?

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=nri3fbl413qri

mav1234 · 07/09/07, 12:05 AM

I keep hearing from Destruction locks, both here and in game, that they have *lower* dps with corruption and immolate. The working theorycraft thread stats that immolate is always beneficial to cast.

Which is it? O.o

The reason I ask is because I can't see a noticeable difference in personal DPS either way, but since I'm new to 0/21/40, it's hard for me to get exact conditions which would help with any kind of comparison.

I can't use one of the XLS spreadsheets because I don't have excel. >.<