I keep trying to make DT/Ruin work but it never turns out nearly as good as DS/SnF in all but a few fights ><

I've found that 40/31 and 21/40 will produce similar results as far as DPS goes. (Using the DPS spreadsheet.) The downside to DT/Ruin is that you have to have a succubus out and ALIVE to be effective, which can often be a real challenge. (Read: Nijentus.)

That being said, there are a number of advantages to being soul linked, the 1st of which is not being dead from damage that otherwise would have killed you.

Hello.

I have been a silent reader for quite some time now and I think I am ready to make my first post.

I am a little confused why so many warlocks claim that you need 16% hit for 0/21/40 to work.
I will explain to you my view on this issue.

First of all ( and relevant for the discussion ) I am not exactly sure how hit/crit/resist for a spell like shadow bolt are handled.

I always thought for a long time now, that the "single roll" system is used in WoW to determine wether a spell will crit, hit or is resisted. If there are some new findings on this, ignore the rest of the post because it is based on the assumption that WoW uses the single roll system.

Assuming now that the single roll system is used and the warlock has skilled ruin isn't it irrelevant wether you increase hit % by one oder crit % by one for the average damage output?

I think the average dps of a warlock with ruin will increase by the same amount for 1% more hit or 1% more critical strike chance.

I will explain why I think that:

Assuming a warlock with 0% hit and 0% cirt does 1000 dps ( average damage of one shadow bolt divided by 2.5 ) simply by spamming Shadowbolts ( let's ignore ISB and such for now, as it will only make crit even more valuable ).
Against a lvl 73 mob this warlock will on average do 1000*0.83 = 830 dps
Now the warlock has 1% more hit.
He will now do 1000*0.84 = 840 dps against the same mob on average, an increase of 1% of his initial 1000dps.
Now lets set his hit back to 0% and give him 1% more chance to crit.
He will now do 1000*0.82 + 0.01*2000 = 820 + 20 = 840 dps, also an increase of 10 dps.

By this little calculation that is of course also valid for less arbitrary and more "real worldish" numbers.
The immediate result for me is: crit% and hit% increase a destruction warlock's average dps by the same amount and there is no reason to use one stat over the other at this point.

Now I would like to address the concept of hit% being somehow a more "reliable" stat than crit%.
Again, if we assume the single roll system the server rolls a number between 1 and 100 to determine the outcome of a spell (hit/crit/resist)
For a warlock with 20% crit, 5% hit against a lvl 73 mob, the numbers from 1-20 will result in a crit, from 21-88 it will result in a normal hit and for numbers between 89 and 100 the spell will be resisted.
(Note: I don't know if it is exactly done like this, I don't know how the "hit table" for casters is set up, but with the single roll system it has to be something similar, so w/o l. o. g. we can assume that it is done like that)
If we add 1% hit to the warlock's equipment, 21-89 will be a hit and 90-100 will be a resist.
To actually notice the 1% additional hit on the equipment the server would have to roll the one number whose outcome has changed: 89, a 1/100 chance.
We can do the same observation for an additional 1% crit on the warlock's equipment: To notice it, the server has to roll a 21, also a 1/100 chance.

This is why I believe that you don't have to be hitcapped as a destruction warlock to do good dps, as a matter of fact I would say that hit% and crit% are
equal in their contribution to the warlock's average dps. It should therefore be your goal not to have more than 16% hit and try to go for a maximum combined hit and crit % for a maximum increase in your dps while
also keeping an eye on your spell damage. Think of hit and crit as one stat that increases your dps.
However, since hit seems to be cheaper in the item budged ( I am not certain of this ! This is a personal observation and I gladly accept any corrections on that) and you try to max your combined hit/crit stats your hit% may be stacking up higher faster.

As I stated above all my thougts are based on the assumption that WoW uses the single roll system. If this is not the case I am very interested in what is actually used.

1: Single roll versus 2 roll is still a bit of a debate. There is conflicting evidence that goes both ways. Some have claimed that a level 40 warlock against a level 60 mob crits for the same % as against lower level mobs. Others have claimed otherwise.

2: Crit % versus hit %
-- yes, for a ruin lock one percent of each is roughly similar. But that isn't the problem!

2a) It takes a LOT LESS hit rating to get 1% than it takes crit rating to get 1%. For most gear exchanges and choices, the proper comparisson is "drop 3% hit and gain 2% crit". In this case hit wins every time
2b) Hit rating is important for soul shatter
2c) In a max dps cycle, you will be using Immolate (if shadow dps -- possibly corruption, depending on your gear). Both of these gain more from hit than crit, since all or a large chunk of thier damage can't crit.

3) yes, it is not critical to be hit capped. But it is critical to pick your gear knowing that 1 hit rating is worth a lot more than 1 crit rating. 6 hit rating =~ 10 crit rating =~ 5 +damage for destro (varies depending on your gear). This usually means you are hit capped after kara level gear and gem choices (+5 dam / +4 hit gem is always better than +5 dam / +4 crit gem until capped).

Hello, 'locks.

After reading the working theorys thread I saw that one of them was that Shadowbolts would always give more dps than Incinerate unless you have massive +fire damage. Since my guild has 2 destro-fire warlocks I mentioned this to them. They replied by linking me this:
ø Warlock Spell Damage Calculations - SpellDamage.com ø
which says Incinerate is better.

Has something changed since the thread here was written, or is the linked site wrong/being taken out of context?

I am an affliction lock and I have been reading this thread since few weeks ago, only now I have decided to register and post.

I really have a question with +hit vs dps.

I have been using Warlock DPS Calculator to calculate my dps. I am not too sure how accurate this calculator is. I am hoping someone could help me solve these mysteries:

1. Should I stick to max +hit and suffer less 135 shadow damage?
2. How can Gear B possibly outdps Gear A?
3. I have also used leulier spreadsheet, however, the dps number doesnt seem to change according to how much +hit I have, but I do know that with little to none +hit, I get frustrated alot as all bosses tend to resist my spells, therefore, I don't know how accurate both calculators are. I do know they serve as a guide/simulator, I guess the only way for me to find out is to go into Kara and kill the same boss twice in 2 weeks time, however, any advice from anyone would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.


I have 2 gear setup, both with the followings checked:
and both with the following checked:
5 - Suppression
12 - Soul Siphon

Curse of Shadows
Curse of Elements
Fire Mage (+15% Fire damage)
Shadow Priest (+10% Shadow damage)
Misery (+5% Spell damage)
Use Fel Armor

Drain Life when low on health
Use Curse of Agony

Consider Lag (200ms)
Flatten (this will reduce the randomness of the DPS)

Improved Corruption
Improved Life Tap
Improved Curse of Agony
Nightfall
Empowered Corruption
Siphon Life
Shadow Mastery
Contagion
Unstable Affliction

Improved Shadow Bolt
Bane
Devastation
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gear A. With my normal +hit gear (not shown on my armory), I have:
8320 - Mana
9830 - Health
942 - Spell
1044 - Shadow
942 - Fire
11.96 - Crit
144 - Hit

With the Gear A setup I get:
2249480 Damage in 600 seconds.
3749 Damage per Second.
190 Healing per Second.


Damage Breakdown:
23% Shadowbolt (4258 avg, 124 ticks)
10% Immolate (1120 avg, 212 ticks)
21% Corruption (2506 avg, 189 ticks)
17% UnstableAffliction (2337 avg, 173 ticks)
8% SiphonLife (1072 avg, 185 ticks)
18% CurseOfAgony (2200 avg, 185 ticks)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gear B. With my max +hit gear (currently shown on my armory), I have:
9025 - Mana
9990 - Health
909 - Spell
909 - Shadow
909 - Fire
12.12 - Crit
208 - Hit (capped, 16.54%)

With the Gear B setup I get:
2566277 Damage in 600 seconds.
4277 Damage per Second.
255 Healing per Second.


Damage Breakdown:
19% Shadowbolt (4001 avg, 124 ticks)
10% Immolate (1355 avg, 206 ticks)
22% Corruption (2991 avg, 192 ticks)
18% UnstableAffliction (2800 avg, 174 ticks)
9% SiphonLife (1278 avg, 185 ticks)
19% CurseOfAgony (2648 avg, 186 ticks)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Long time lurker, first time poster, great forum.

With Bane you will need 2.5 seconds to cast a Shadow bolt, while most affliction spells are instant, only needing the GCD.
A miss will mess up the spell rotation for an affliction lock more than for a destro lock, but that is not time wasted missing that is DoT uptime.

6% caps hit for affliction spells anyway, which you should be getting without even trying nor thinking about it.

Lets imagine hit and crit take the same amount of rating to reach 1%, it would still be bad to not be hit capped. You mention imp SB being a reason to stack crit or whatever and ditch hit, but what if you get a crit SB and imp SB is up and then your next SB or two is a resist? You'll also want to hit as many other SB's with someone else's imp SB up.

I've done a bit of testing myself on bosses, and my conclusion is that being hit capped is better overall damage (DPS) even if you lose damage and crit from gear.

Also i'm not really sure on the mechanic, but I think you'd get more mana back with Wisdom up on the boss (no mana returned with resists?).

I'm not even going to mention how bad a resist on a banish would be or if you had to tank with a bunch of resists.

6% caps hit for affliction only if you put five points in suppression. I know you eluded to this but it's still worth mentioning flat out.

I don't think you need max hit or anything like that.. The benefit of destruction is superior scaling. I plug in my numbers for affliction and destruction, and then I add +200 damage, destruction gains more dps, I add 5% crit, destruction gains more dps, I add 5% more hit, destruction gains more dps, I add 5% spell haste, destruction gains more dps.

The site is being misunderstood - those calculations are when ISB isn't up. In a raid setting, ISB will be up a portion of the time, and consequently shadow destruction does more damage (in addition to boosting overall raid DPS).

While 6/34/21 and 40/21 are nice when your guild is learning Leo or Kael, it is not needed always, not to mention it is subpar dps.

Also, keeping the succy alive is an exercise in futility, she has only around 5,000 buffed health, medium armor, and no special survival talent (like FG's 50% to resist AoE spells).

While I will agree that it is possible to do those encounters without MD/SL, I would disagree with your contention that those specs are subpar DPS. All the numbers that have been output by Leulier's DPS spreadsheet say that those specs are very competitive DPS.

As far as keeping the succubus alive, you simply park her 50 yards or more from the fight to avoid any direct damage. Any damage she takes as a result of soul link would be a problem, but 2-pc T5 could easily counter this.

I personally don't really see a point to SL in a raid unless you're the warlock tank, but this isnt even needed for Illidan. You shouldn't be taking that much damage in the first place without any heals, and even if you are, you should have quite a bit more HP than anyone else in raid except the tank.

You need soul link active to gain 5% more damage to you (and the pet)?

Actually, depends on the situation. If you're having to lifetap to maintain your manapool, incinerate provides a bit better dps. Now, that's singular dps, and the benefits of ISB to the whole raid most likely outweighs that, but I just wanted to point that out. There are some guilds who were too stupid to recruit shadow priests(my old one), hence making the decision between fire and shadow more relevant. Plus, Imp Scorch > Shadow Weaving.

Hmm. We do have a shadow priest and mages with imp scorch as well as 3 other locks with ISB, so it sounds like it there's not much difference.

personally I Run with Felguard.

What do i gain vs a 21/40 build?

270-300 dps pet that is not attributed to your own threat
Soul link
+35 resist to all
240 generic spelldamage from DK (if youre at 1500 spelldamage then S/F will boost you 300 on shadowbolts, thats it) The generic damage boosts corr, immo and CoD as well.
Instant corruption

What do I loose vs a 21/40 build?

5% shadowdamage
ruin
conflag


+ its more fun playing a demo spec than the standard spam number 2 button for shadowbolts

300 dps seems a bit high for the FG. Plus, I doubt he has 1600 combined int+sta even buffed. Some destro locks don't even cast corruption. Keeping the FG alive in some cases isn't easy. SL can easily lead to his death.

Plus, you glossed over some intangibles from the destruction tree, like 10% less threat, 70% pushback resistance, and 20% increased range.

I will agree that FG build is more dps if you can keep the pet alive. I never had great luck with that.

As for your definition of fun...I see having less to worry about(simple spell rotation and no pet to worry about) means I get to concentrate on the fight more, which is more fun in my mind.

Since shadowbolts are 3s cast in terms of coefficients, they get 3/3.5 modifier. Add 20% and you get 0.2/(3/3.5)=23.33% more benefit from spell damage. So with 1000 spell damage and shadow and flame you will hit your shadowbolts for exactly the same amount as if you had 1233 spell damage, not 1200.

If you have instant corruption it means you're not running with destructive reach... Is it really worth it? I'm assuming you're still going for 15 in destro for 5% crit, bane and imp SB?

Also isn't demon 2% more crit than destro? However listing the pros and cons like that doesn't mean much as estimating the value of stuff like ruin is more at the spreadsheet level. Remember with X crit ruin is effectively increasing your DPS by (x/200)/(1+X/200) so with 30% crit it's 13% damage increase with all crit-capable damage.

we have 3 spriests in guild and with VE/VT Felguard can keep going non stop, and 2 piece tier 5 is something you really dont want to replace.

1600 combined int and sta is very much obtainable, Ever tried priestbuff, magebuff and BoM + BoK on the guard? with a proper group setup you can get 2.6 K AP with guard, i usually place myself with 2 BM hunters and spriest + shammy.

Lock scaling on stats are through the roof and the synergi between my stats and the Felguards just keep improving. Raidbuffed the guard is at 8.8 - 9k hp.

There is only one fight that I cannot use him on and thats Archimonde.

Have yet to see a fight where I would be thinking, Darn those extra 6 yards on bolts would make it so much easier

After patch the Pets will be so much easier to keep alive so that its possible that I will be switching to Succy to get ruin back.