[Warlock] how do you do high DPS? - Page 5

tetracycloide · 05/16/07, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by Kyth

I re-geared when I re-spec'd, swapping in pieces that were higher dps for the new build. I would not have seen as good a performance without a gear swap.

Could you attach some numbers to this? Like before and after +shadow, +fire, +hit, and +crit values?

also, i'm a lot more interested in what happened to the other affliction lock's and your shadow priest's DPS after the switch. how much of a boost did they actually realize from your switch?

Trospar · 05/16/07, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Veneda

Destruction perspective - yes, I can agree with that. It's probably the same with demo/ruin builds. But my perspective is of affliction lock of 42/0/19, 40/0/21 or 41/0/20 build.

From affliction point of view (shadow priests, that are actually affliction warlocks in disguise share it), frozen shadoweave is THE SET. Not Tier IV, not even Tier V (which you have to kill non-trivial number of bosses for, so you need DPS first, not after). Just fill all the gem slots with +9 spell damage (ignoring small +hit bonuses) and watch the numbers flow.

And difference in spellstrike if are a tailor is noticable. It's still good without set bonus of course, but it loses most of its charm.

Personally, I am not putting +9 dmg gems in my Frozen Shadoweave set as that hit is important and makes up for other pieces of gear that don't have any +hit.

Is everyone else stacking +dmg gems in their set?

Tahapenes · 05/16/07, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by Kyth

Yeah so we're agreeing -- except the logic doesn't extend to shadow priests, who are in the same itemization boat.

So as much as I'd love to think this is deliberate itemization (as I posted), I think it's probably accidental or laziness.

Remember, there are some crazy Priests out there that do go lolsmite so crit does benefit them. So, the reason I see the Priest damage gear look the way it does is so that it can be dual purpose to work both for Shadow Priests (although it's not very good at that) and the Smite Priests (which are few and far between).

Overall, I think the way they went about designing the Tier sets for the classes was to look at how many different play styles there are for each class and how far apart they are. The looked at Mage, Hunter, Rogue, and Warlock and said that only one itemization scheme was needed even though each of these classes has two playstyles. For Priests and Warriors they only saw two schemes, healing/tanking and DPS and itemized accordingly. For Druids, Shaman, and Paladins they had to go with 3 different sets because depending on which tree you specialize in your required stats are very, very different for each of these classes.

Demi9OD · 05/16/07, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by Trospar

Personally, I am not putting +9 dmg gems in my Frozen Shadoweave set as that hit is important and makes up for other pieces of gear that don't have any +hit.

Is everyone else stacking +dmg gems in their set?

If it is blue and yellow I stack +9s. If it already has a red slot, like Spellstrike, I will socket bonus it. Thats just personal preference, but I feel I get more out of my gear that way. Once the hit/dmg yellows come in to play I will probably be resocketing all of my yellow sockets to get them. Although recently I've had a 41pt elemenetal shaman in my group and if he stays that spec I will not need the hit (15.76% hit with totem of wrath down)

Tahapenes · 05/16/07, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by Veneda

Destruction perspective - yes, I can agree with that. It's probably the same with demo/ruin builds. But my perspective is of affliction lock of 42/0/19, 40/0/21 or 41/0/20 build.

From affliction point of view (shadow priests, that are actually affliction warlocks in disguise share it), frozen shadoweave is THE SET. Not Tier IV, not even Tier V (which you have to kill non-trivial number of bosses for, so you need DPS first, not after). Just fill all the gem slots with +9 spell damage (ignoring small +hit bonuses) and watch the numbers flow.

And difference in spellstrike if are a tailor is noticable. It's still good without set bonus of course, but it loses most of its charm.

The thing is, those little +3s do add up. I don't know about you, but I have had soul shatter resist on a boss with 10% hit and let me tell you, that sucks. You're looking at losing about 8 damage getting the socket bonus, but IMO, if you have to stop casting to let your aggro settle down, you're losing way more DPS that way than you would by losing the roughly 3 to 4 DPS from socketing 2 Rubies instead of socketing a Nightseye and Topaz.

Trospar · 05/16/07, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by Tahapenes

The thing is, those little +3s do add up. I don't know about you, but I have had soul shatter resist on a boss with 10% hit and let me tell you, that sucks. You're looking at losing about 8 damage getting the socket bonus, but IMO, if you have to stop casting to let your aggro settle down, you're losing way more DPS that way than you would by losing the roughly 3 to 4 DPS from socketing 2 Rubies instead of socketing a Nightseye and Topaz.

This is my stance also. On the frozen shadoweave set you can have:

+54 spell dmg

OR

+ 12 spell crit rating
+ 30 spell dmg
+ 18 stamina
+ 9 spell hit

It's all personal preference though and trying to come up with a balance of stats.

Kyth · 05/16/07, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by Trospar

Personally, I am not putting +9 dmg gems in my Frozen Shadoweave set as that hit is important and makes up for other pieces of gear that don't have any +hit.

Is everyone else stacking +dmg gems in their set?

I've got nothing but runed living rubies

.

That said, I will be regemming T4 shoulders (and T4 BP). In general when I was looking at the new gear, it was worth regemming (even with a sta/dmg dmg/hit pair) if the socket bonus was +4 or +5 damage. The +3 hit actually wasn't, unless you can't get high enough on hit to be comfortable otherwise.

I actually shy away from getting +hit socket bonuses (and I'm going to be grumbling about +hit gems) because +hit is wasted unless you're on a boss. And there definitely is trash where dps matters too, it's not just meter buffing to want to use your highest-possible dps for trash.

Originally Posted by tetracycloide

Could you attach some numbers to this? Like before and after +shadow, +fire, +hit, and +crit values?

also, i'm a lot more interested in what happened to the other affliction lock's and your shadow priest's DPS after the switch. how much of a boost did they actually realize from your switch?

1187 shadow, 14% crit, 12.8% hit (affliction w/100 from fel armor)
1207 shadow, 21% crit, 10.8% hit (destruction w/135 from fel armor)
1180 shadow, 19.8% crit, 12.5% hit (slightly lower dps but safer: destruction when I need SS not to resist no matter what)

Crit gear is well-itemized, plus you get a free 3% from backlash. Hence pretty much just gaining crit and giving up not that much damage in the process.

I've found the spreadsheet posted here to be accurate with respect to my relative damage when I go out and hit Dr.Boom with various gear/spec changes so I re-geared by using the Pawn mod (wowace) to plug in the relative values for hit/crit/dmg/shdmg (and I even put in a value for each point of int based on how much crit it gives me) I pulled from the "next stat" area of the spreadsheet.

That let me see things like the neck from prince with crit (which I don't have) is about the same dps as the trash +shadow neck (which I don't have.) I still would prefer the trash neck for flexibility, but I won't let the prince neck get disenchanted again as the extra crit adds a little intangible "boost" to the value of the piece. Using the pre-buff black stalk is actually more dps than my +25 of shadow wrath wand. Using the pre-buff badge cloak is more dps than my +45 of shadow wrath back.

As for actual numbers... no. Any time I try to put any specifically quantifiable there's too many caveats due to it being a real-world fight.

Our shadow priest commented that he was surprised how well he did. He noticed his mana return was a lot better than normal, which would be directly related to ISB being up more (his gear hasn't changed.)

I wouldn't be surprised if it worked out to as much as a 5% boost (25% more ISB uptime) just because we only had 2/3 affliction locks with ISB before, and both of us were very crit-light (i.e. focused on as high dps as we could get) and very good at prioritizing dot refreshes over shadowbolts. Also keep in mind that we're going from 0-1 spriests to 1-2 spriests, and the extra shadow user is part of my fluffy handwaving evaluation.

Unfortunately our last two weeks of Gruul have been marred by stupid stupid people (19 growths shouldn't happen post-patch... this week was 11 growths and more normal), and before then the shadow priest I trust the most had spent a few weeks as holy. So finding good meters to compare is a challenge. But we saw our shadow users consistently higher on the meters (even though I was lower) relative to the other folks.

I 5-manned with my normal crew last night, and the elemental shaman was complaining the entire night about ISB and what it did to our shadow priest's damage (usually he can beat the priest on the meters) -- so from that more controlled test of watching our damage in a well-known heroic, I became even more comfortable with the decision. (for us, your mileage may vary, etc. etc.)

If you handwave and assume that the ISB contribution in a raid is similar to a 5-man with a spriest, since you have 1 generator and 1 consumer, then it was even more of a boost than I thought.

Originally Posted by Mordekhuul

For the 0/21/40 crowd, how are you sustaining your high dps for fights like Gruul? Are you dependant on a shadowpriest/shammy group for mana regen, or are you popping mana pots every 2 minutes as well?

To me it's not weird to lifetap and expect heals based on pre-TBC raiding (and our loverly healers who get my mana pots). So the odd bit to me was being affliction and not as often needing heals, versus being destruction and needing them.

But as I said, if I need to on a particular fight, I do have the option to drop my dps by 15% and become more sustaining, either through health regen if I'm taking non-LT damage, or direct mana regen through FH sac.

But yes, for increased damage over a 2-minute period, a mana pot buys you more than a destruction pot. For increased damage in a short period, it depends on whether you need to lifetap (mana pot) right then or not (destruction pot.)

Originally Posted by Veneda

Destruction perspective - yes, I can agree with that. It's probably the same with demo/ruin builds. But my perspective is of affliction lock of 42/0/19, 40/0/21 or 41/0/20 build.

From affliction point of view (shadow priests, that are actually affliction warlocks in disguise share it), frozen shadoweave is THE SET

I disagree, since I made my current looting decisions as affliction and I don't regret them. T4 shoulders/BP in particular are a bit of an upgrade but then you get the set bonus also which will work with dots after the patch. That makes it worth swapping out from FSW imo -- plus the gemming choices are better for both than for FSW.

Note the BP and shoulders also have no +crit on them, so you aren't wasting budget points.

Now depending on when you're willing to spend DKP, it might not be worth getting the pieces -- but they're upgrades, and then there's the set bonus on top of it.

Mordekhuul · 05/16/07, 3:53 PM

Originally Posted by Kyth

I disagree, since I made my current looting decisions as affliction and I don't regret them. T4 shoulders/BP in particular are a bit of an upgrade but then you get the set bonus also which will work with dots after the patch. That makes it worth swapping out from FSW imo -- plus the gemming choices are better for both than for FSW.

Note the BP and shoulders also have no +crit on them, so you aren't wasting budget points.

Now depending on when you're willing to spend DKP, it might not be worth getting the pieces -- but they're upgrades, and then there's the set bonus on top of it.

Is the 2 pc set bonus proc'ing so often that it makes up for the +dmg difference that going from 3/3 FSW to 1/3 FSW means?

Despite my penchant for respecs lately, I'm most likely to end up full affliction (currently 44/0/17 with 3/3 malediction, might end up 44/6/11 if I really feel losing 600 HP is hurting my arena matches), and wearing some voidheart is an intriguing idea, considering how much I woul gain in terms of stam/int in doing so...

Kyth · 05/16/07, 4:08 PM

Originally Posted by Mordekhuul

Is the 2 pc set bonus proc'ing so often that it makes up for the +dmg difference that going from 3/3 FSW to 1/3 FSW means?

T4 BP/Shoulders after 2.1 are a direct upgrade for both affliction and destruction, just not a huge one. There is no 3/3 FSW that matters since the set bonus is crap, so it's just a direct upgrade, the difference is in favor of T4 for those slots.

Then the T4 set bonus is added benefit, since the slight dps difference is in favor of T4, not FSW. (remember +dmg difference doesn't have to mean dps loss: +hit adds a lot of DPS, and you're using two schools so just moving to +dmg versus +shadow has advantages. Although this does mean that you get a bit less out of each lifetap -- I keep meaning to model that to have a better sense of how much that matters, especially if I stay destruction so end up getting crit more which does nothing for lifetapping.)

The other pieces aren't upgrades, for various reasons (mostly that spellstrike is so good, and that the rest of the slots contain annoying things like meta gems and +crit.)

Veneda · 05/16/07, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by Tahapenes

The thing is, those little +3s do add up. I don't know about you, but I have had soul shatter resist on a boss with 10% hit and let me tell you, that sucks. You're looking at losing about 8 damage getting the socket bonus, but IMO, if you have to stop casting to let your aggro settle down, you're losing way more DPS that way than you would by losing the roughly 3 to 4 DPS from socketing 2 Rubies instead of socketing a Nightseye and Topaz.

Oh, definetly.

But then I guess everyone got multiple replacements for many gear slots, that allow you to mix and match your gear depending on fight. I can easily switch between +hit gear, stamina gear and full damage gear depending on encounter. It's just that if I socket/enchant parts of my "all out" gear, I would not go for middle ground choices, because I can easily achieve the same by switching 1/2 items in other slots.

Anyway, I guess it's not really discussion about the effect of tailoring on warlock/mage DPS (as a trivia, I was raiding with firelock in full spellfire, so it's not that only about frozenshadoweave), but the the difference it makes, right?

TheOnly · 05/16/07, 5:42 PM

Originally Posted by Trospar

This is my stance also. On the frozen shadoweave set you can have:

+54 spell dmg

OR

+ 12 spell crit rating
+ 30 spell dmg
+ 18 stamina
+ 9 spell hit

It's all personal preference though and trying to come up with a balance of stats.

Affliction UA / bane / ISB spec:
UA/ Corr/ Immo / siphon/ SB spam <curse>

1 spell damage is worth 1 spell damage
1 crit rating is worth ~0.4 spell damage
1 hit rating is worth 1.1 spell damage
1 shadow damage is worth 0.9 spell damage (assuming immolate, which maximizes dps)

So the tradeoff is 10 damage equivalent for 18 stamina.

__________
DS/S&F spec (maximizing the importance of crit, shadowbolt spam with succy sac)
Immo / Corr / SB spam

1 spell damage is worth 1 spell damage
1 crit rating is worth 0.65 spell damage
1 hit rating is worth 1.15 spell damage
1 shadow damage is woth 0.9 spell damage

Tradeoff is then a loss of ~6.5 damage equivalent for 18 stamina gain.

-------------------

Personally, I'd just get a second backup set of gear in a couple slots that has massive stamina on it like battlecast or PvP stuff.

Using the numbers above, Spellstrike is far and above anything else (use lootzor.com). Frozen shadowweave? Not as far ahead of everything else as you'd expect unless you are hit capped.

Oh for aff locks, having enough suppression to be hit capped on DoTs doesn't help that much, hit rating goes from being worth 1.1 damage to 0.7 damage. Shadowbolt dps will always be important.

Hit rating is simply the best single warlock dps stat in raids, followed closely by +damage and +shadow.

Lastly, on non-bosses where hit rating is not important, pure +damage is king. Even in crit monkey specs crit rating is so-so.

Kirion · 05/16/07, 6:14 PM

Humble question for 21/40 guys. All our warlocks are affliction and doing just fine, but some of them are dreaming about destro spec

. After reading this thread i'm going to let 1-2 spec in this build. Any tips on damage cycles and spells? Do you ever use incinerate, conflargate?

doogless · 05/16/07, 6:28 PM

Originally Posted by TheOnly

Lastly, on non-bosses where hit rating is not important, pure +damage is king. Even in crit monkey specs crit rating is so-so.

The main thing with crit rating is that it costs SO MUCH to get 1% crit compared to anything else.

• frmorrison · 05/16/07, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by doogless

The main thing with crit rating is that it costs SO MUCH to get 1% crit compared to anything else.

Well crit takes around 22 rating to get 1% vise 12.6 for spell hit, when Blizzard mixes many stats (like crit, damage, and hit/resilience, think Spellstrike or Felweave Gladiator set) all on one item, the crit does not cost as much as the cost of an item with just spell crit on it.

However, +damage still comes up top with regards to the item budget.

Originally Posted by TheOnly

Lastly, on non-bosses where hit rating is not important, pure +damage is king. Even in crit monkey specs crit rating is so-so.

With Felguard specs (I know they are rare, but there are a few out there), they get 57% of your +damage as AP, so for a Demo lock that is a little bit better than spell hit.

Edit: http://www.lootzor.com/ is pretty good if you give it an accurate item weight, it will quickly tell you the best item. Note it doesn't have updated 2.1 loot in it yet, so it isnt' the best tool.

• Slake · 05/16/07, 7:13 PM

I'm currently 0/21/40, using incinerate, and according to a few hundred thousand simulator runs, I've found that (below the hitcap) 1 spell hit rating is worth about 1.77 spell damage for relatively long-term dps (i.e. non-burst), not even accounting for resists on important utility spells like banish and soul shatter.

In contrast, 1 spell crit rating is only worth 0.70 spell damage; therefore hit >>> crit up to the hit cap. Unfortunately, the best gems currently available for matching red and yellow slots are Runed Living Rubies (9 spell damage) and Potent Noble Topazes (~7.8 spell damage), respectively. Once 2.1 hits with the new +spellhit cuts, the best gems will change to Veiled Noble Topazes (~12.08 spell damage) and Great Dawnstones (~14.16 spell damage) respectively. This will be a huge boost to destruction gear, in addition to all the raid-loot buffs going into the patch as well. After 2.1, I'll be hitcapped with a Totem of Wrath, something previously incredibly difficult because there are no destruction +hit talents.

tetracycloide · 05/17/07, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by Kyth

Our shadow priest commented that he was surprised how well he did. He noticed his mana return was a lot better than normal, which would be directly related to ISB being up more (his gear hasn't changed.)

This is a major benefit of having a well geared shadow destruction lock in the raid that had not even occurred to me until you mentioned it.

I very much appreciate the lengthy exposition on your switch my post prompted, it was most informative.

authority11 · 05/20/07, 9:20 PM

What is the best mod to compensate for the lag on shadowbolt casts and what not?

Thelyna · 05/20/07, 9:24 PM

Get Quartz castingbar from WoWace, fix yourself up with a few stopcasting macros, and you should be good to go.

TheOnly · 05/20/07, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by tetracycloide

This is a major benefit of having a well geared shadow destruction lock in the raid that had not even occurred to me until you mentioned it.

I very much appreciate the lengthy exposition on your switch my post prompted, it was most informative.

ISB is very important. So much so that shadow priests SHOULD NOT use mind blast or SW: D if it is up. Overall raid dps is higher if ISB is up longer. MB in particular is marginal dps increase over mind flay, and MF doesn't use up ISB charges. SW: D adds some significant DPS to a shadow priest, but not enough to offset the threat issues it causes and the loss of dps from every other shadow damage caster due to shorter ISB uptime.

Shadow wands are evil too, too bad Blizzard made 80% of all wands do shadow damage.

tetracycloide · 05/21/07, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by TheOnly

ISB is very important. So much so that shadow priests SHOULD NOT use mind blast or SW: D if it is up. Overall raid dps is higher if ISB is up longer. MB in particular is marginal dps increase over mind flay, and MF doesn't use up ISB charges. SW: D adds some significant DPS to a shadow priest, but not enough to offset the threat issues it causes and the loss of dps from every other shadow damage caster due to shorter ISB uptime.

Shadow wands are evil too, too bad Blizzard made 80% of all wands do shadow damage.

I'm a tad bit confused. What part of this is a response to my post which you quoted? I was talking about the increased mana return to the shadow priest and, by extension, his group. I think we all know ISB is good for damage, what had not really clicked for me before is that with a shadow priest around ISB is also good for mana.

Zyrexana · 05/21/07, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Kirion

Humble question for 21/40 guys. All our warlocks are affliction and doing just fine, but some of them are dreaming about destro spec

. After reading this thread i'm going to let 1-2 spec in this build. Any tips on damage cycles and spells? Do you ever use incinerate, conflargate?

There are two kinds of 21/40 destruction; Shadow, and fire.

There are four factors determining their differences;

-Raid composition (do you have shadowpriests? fire mages?)
-Do you have mana to burn? Shadow takes more mana than fire, but shadow damages better straight up.
-Improved Shadow Bolt
-Emberstorm

Shadow uses more mana, however, shadow benefits the raid with Improved Shadow Bolt, which is godlike imo. Shadow dots that tick for it will do 20% more, shadowbolts, mindblasts, etc will do 20% more. (To clarify, periodic shadow damage does 20% more but by the mechanics of the spell does not remove one of the four "charges" of an Imp SB proc). Fire destro does NOT have an equivalent ability. Also, fire destro takes 5 special talent points to make it viable, which shadow does not; you must have 5 points in Emberstorm, where you need no such side points to make shadow do compareable damage.

Outside of a raid, fire benefits, in that it has a lot of fast burst damage. However, grinding shadow is cake for me, too, because I regularly 2 and 3 shot upper level mobs (makes grinding fire elementals yay).

And comparing actual experience; even without a shadow priest, and with a fire mage, compared to a fire spec destro lock in the guild I historically do just under/compareable dps as shadow in those situations. When there's a Shadow priest, I out dps her by far. But => If there's never shadow priests and you have a fire mage, fire may be the better option for you. If you have shadow priests, shadow is win.

In spite of the mana concerns of shadow, it's really not a big deal if you chain mana pots and throw in the occasional timely lifetap/bandage. With less gear than I have now, I've managed an average 927 dps on Magtheridon dpsing for the majority of the fight, not dying or being oom at the end, according to swstats and wws. I wish to run numbers with what I have now (in my boss gear, 834 damage, 140 hit, 18.83% character sheet crit) and see how much I have improved with a few pieces of gear to upgrade me. (Was all excited our last Magtheridon kill, because I could have tested it, but then that snake RESISTED my first soul shatter /cry, and I just sprinkled on dps whilst topped out on the threat chart and cried in my little corner. Weaksauce!)

Another nifty thing is the crits you'll see with shadow, where fire can't match it (I again point to the lack of Imp Shadowbolt). Right now, my highest crits are over 7k and every now and then 8k, and I only have 834+damage for bosses! The shadow multipliers are amazing.

As far as various spell rotations go;

If you're shadow, your base is (I'm assuming you're using a debuff curse and not CoA), Corruption, Immolate, and Shadowbolt. Do not use in a straight up rotation incinerate or conflagrate; conflag isn't worth the global cooldown it consumes for the dps it gives(though I have it anyway for special circumstances and grinding), and examining Bolche's nifty spreadsheet (another) DPS Spreadsheet you will see that using Conflagrate actually lowers your dps for a shadow build.

On the other hand, if you're fire destro, you want to use corruption, immolate, incinerate, and only situationally conflagrate; ie, like you're running to a new position or such and immolate is about up, and you couldn't cast another spell in that time before you're moving, it's a good use of your time. As part of the normal rotation, though, the spreadsheet tell me it hurts your dps just a touch.

With shadow destro, though, in good gear, you'll often find yourself topped out on the threat meters. Salvation is your friend, but sometimes even that isn't enough.

Fire is that way too, but since the crits from shadow can be much bigger, you need to be a touch more careful where you are on the threat meter.

Destruction locks FOREVER!

I hope this wall of text helps. =)

Kyth · 05/21/07, 12:34 PM

With shadow destro, though, in good gear, you'll often find yourself topped out on the threat meters. Salvation is your friend, but sometimes even that isn't enough.

Fire is that way too, but since the crits from shadow can be much bigger, you need to be a touch more careful where you are on the threat meter.

So is affliction. There's this general perception that because you see big numbers with destruction, it's a threat problem. But affliction has just as bad if not worse threat issues -- if only because you can't "turn off" your damage if you miscalculated.

threat = damage. affliction is at least as good as destruction's damage (and I and others would argue it's more in many cases.)

And yeah I've now beaten mag with this spec, and I was happy I didn't have to sac anything other than succubus. Was #1, despite doing CC at the start, and being on a cube (although after the wipe at 50% I convinced the raidleader to give me a closer cube.)

ieatfish · 05/21/07, 1:33 PM

With regard to high dps output - does anyone else have problems with stopping your dps due to aggro generated?

I like my current 45/5/11 spec just fine (5/5 SE) but I start topping KTM way too often for comfort so much that I've considered losing the 5/5 SE and 5/5 DE for 3/3 Imp imp and 2/2 Destructive Reach.

Is the 10% destruction threat reduction worth it? I've found my casting groove but having to stop casting so the tank can gain more of a lead in aggro is really hurting my dps.

Zyrexana · 05/21/07, 1:40 PM

Originally Posted by Kyth

So is affliction. There's this general perception that because you see big numbers with destruction, it's a threat problem. But affliction has just as bad if not worse threat issues -- if only because you can't "turn off" your damage if you miscalculated.

threat = damage. affliction is at least as good as destruction's damage (and I and others would argue it's more in many cases.)

Well, yes, of course. I just meant to say two different things there; 1, as it stands, destruction is an EXCELLENT damage spec, and two, it's particular spikey threat generation needs it's own personal care. Affliction gets just as high of threat as well, it just requires a different kind of care; more pre-emptive, rather than just giving yourself a big enough gap between you and the tank. (Once the dots are burning... they're burning.) (Edit: for the record, in my previous post I was Not comparing destro to affliction at all, so I wasn't dissing afflic. :P )

And for the record of comparing damage, affliction is, imo, a different kind of damage than destruction. Some fights, destro shines more, some fights, affliction owns face. I think it's just safe to say that warlocks, period, are awesome. ;D Provided you have a solid spec, rotation, and gear balance, of course.

Kyth · 05/21/07, 2:15 PM

Originally Posted by ieatfish

Is the 10% destruction threat reduction worth it?

What percent of your damage is coming from destruction spells? That will answer the question for you: that's how much initial threat ceiling you'll gain (and then you'll gain more after shatter.)