Question:
With my gear (The Armory), I can manage to pull about 900 stable DPS on Dr. Boom. However, I don't have maxed out hit, and Dr. Boom is not a level 73 mob, so the resistchance isn't 17%. I don't know how much I SHOULD be able to pull out on a stationary bosstarget, but maybe you have some ideas?

And also, Scryer's Bloodgem to get closer to 16% hit or Quagmirran's Eye for the passive 37 damage and the on-cast proc?

Well let´s see - a gear post would definitely spice this discussion up or to get some feedback for future items:
Note: I started into TBC with 6part t3, an Atiesh, Ring of the Fallen God and a Neltharions tear - therefore i gotta adjust things a little.
[Destro warlock]
Startup:
3/3 Frozen Shadowweave
Head/Gloves T4
Spellstrike legs
Ashylens Gift
Wand of Tirisfal Ascendancy

SSC/TK:
With the hard time of getting hit capped and crit up i set my sight on
Robe of Hateful Echoes
Boots of the Shifting Nightmare
Belt of Blasting
Mindstorm Wristbands
Illidari Shoulderpads
Sextant of Unstable Currents
Cowl of the Grand Engineer
Wand of the Forgotten Star

Boots of Blasting would have been a great long-term upgrade, but they just didn´t want to drop.

Vashj/Kael
Ring of Endless Coils
Vestments of the Sea-Witch

As for my personal juridication:
Vestments of the Sea-Witch appear to be the best warlock chest available still.
Socketing Hateful Echoes with Veiled Noble Topaz would bring it up to 12/25/75 [hit/crit/dam]
Archimonde's Robes of Rhonin have 27/24/81 - decide for yourself on that margin.
Boots of the Shifting Nightmare blow Frozen Shadowweave imho - thought i heard someone claiming differently(long after that though)
Belt of Blasting is an obvious end-game upgrade everyone should get.
Mindstorm Wrirstbands are the only bracers you can get in that period of time - most guys use Bracers of Havok still in BT(shame on me).
Wand of the Forgotten star is one of the 2 SSC till BT wands you can get - this one is a simple must.

Sidegrades:
I probably could have used Mantle of the Elven Kings over Illidari Shoulderpads - but they just happened to drop earlier.
Sextant of Unstable Currents replaced my Shiffar's Nexus Horn.
Cowl of the Grand Engineer with proper gems is a good upgrade for a long time - not even T5 head would take that one away.

Appreciating Feedback so we can offer a good guide - mathematical backup is welcome.

Shifting Nightmare are better, however you are losing 16 shadow damage for 18 spell hit and some stam/int. Certainly an upgrade, although some people are really attached to their FSW boots.

While Mindstorm is the best until BT, the 2nd best is the PvP Veteran's Silk bracers.


Cowl is better than Corrupter's, but with the Metagem slot it may be more fun (using the half cast time one), and depending on how well you use it it could turn out better, especially if you had the new patch 2.2's set bonus.

I'm 0/21/40 and I've just started hy/bt level raiding, I use lootzor.com - World of Warcraft search and rate items - profile your wow character to help make my gear choices and just use veiled gems where needed to keep hit capped.

The values I use:
1.0 damage
1.0 shadow damage
0.6 crit rating
0.2 int (for its crit bonus)
0.0 sta (I should have enough with whatever gear I get)

Previously (ssc/tk level gear) I used a hit value of 1.2 but as the amount of hit on bt/hy gear in creased I found that exceeding the hit cap would become a problem.

I'm not sure if my values are correct and I don't know how to value haste (a subject I'm very curious about), but this is the direction I've been going.

It's not hard to figure out for your build/gear which provides more DPS. For me and destruction, it was mana pots. I think in affliction, destruction pots were higher dps, but I don't really remember.



Regarding groups:

I've pushed hard to consider groups more fluid, and to put your better DPS'ers in with the percentage-increasing buffs rather than going strictly by class. Why put an app mage in with an elemental shaman when you can put in your top destruction warlock, for example =).

You do have to be flexible though. We give the spriest to the healers on fights where it's needed, and make sure the mages get it on the AE fights (since worst case locks can just do absolutely no damage between AE phases because we're lifetapping down so we can have a full mana bar next go-around.)


But yeah, when push comes to shove, we and hunters sometimes still get the short end of the shaft. Even though all of our warlocks can sometimes beat our mages in DPS, and some of our warlocks always beat our mages. People can't seem to let go of the belief that your mages will always be your top dps no matter what so should get all the buffs.

However: an affliction lock should never be in with a moonkin -- arguably shouldn't even be in with an elemental shaman, versus any nuke-based class/spec. The fact that affliction locks don't nuke keeps them out of some of the group buffing opportunities (and that they can dark pact.)


The BT/Hyjal guild on our server got an elemental shaman and followed the "mages always get the buffs" dictum to absurdity sometimes (their warlocks also out-damaged their mages.) For example, on Al'ar, they put him in with the fire mages, rather than with, say, the warlocks...

Assuming the current change on the PTR is deliberate and not an error..... (15.7 rating = 1% versus 20.1 = 1%)


I plugged in the new haste rating change and re-examined the BT tailored gear, and it still doesn't seem worth using over most other options (even for SB-spamming 0/21/40). I'm not convinced I didn't make an error though. Has anyone else looked at it yet?


(10% haste giving me (my gear, my buffs, my spec, etc.) 57.5 dps increase. But losing 6.3 of that to having to lifetap more often, to give a total effective dps increase of 10% haste of 51.3, or 0.33 dps per haste rating.)



(edit) nevermind, I did those calculations with my affliction build. Re-doing it with destruction now, heh.


Destruction: 10% haste giving me 134.7 dps, 20.1 of that lost due to lifetapping more often, leaving a net of 114.5 for 10% haste, or 0.73 dps per haste rating.

I'm still not seeing the crafted gear being worth it, although it's closer. Unless you have a 2000dps shadow priest around so you don't ever have to lifetap =).

It's not even beating the T5 options as it stands, though.

Would that still leave Icon above Quag's Eye for 0/21/40?

I haven't done any real math on the haste items (well I did plug in the rings to Leulier's spreadsheet), but I am picking some of them up. Not sure what my Armory is displaying right now, but I've managed to acquire two of the trash rings and my third and final piece will most likely be the bracers, once we're done farming Hearts of Darkness for Mother.

My reasoning is sketchy, but even disregarding sockets, my gear "wishlist" puts me a little over the hit cap, and that's not even considering the bracer or both ring slots (which will be occupied by the haste gear). So I have a little room to experiment with haste. It just seems that of all the haste pieces, the rings and bracers provide the most benefit at minimal cost. For example, when looking at shoulders and belt there are much better alternatives to Nimble Thought (Malefic, Blood-Cursed) and the Waistwrap (Blasting, Anetheron's Noose).

Ultimately, I'm sure that Cuffs of Devastation, exalted Scales of the Sand ring, and the Captured Storms ring will provide higher DPS; however, with the gear slots I've chosen to itemize with haste, it doesn't seem like the DPS difference will be that huge.

Man, lifetap hurts.

I just went to see what percentage of the dps from the haste is lost to more frequently lifetapping: a full 20% of the benefit.


I hope, when they address mana pot/longevity issues with other classes, they don't neglect warlocks entirely. I'm not sure what the correct solution is to the larger problem, but I don't think it's something like just giving everyone except warlocks a bunch of free Mp5 or whatever "because locks can lifetap." Thankfully lifetap scales with +dmg, although +hit/+crit/+haste don't affect it. (If haste on items affected the GCD, though, it actually would affect lifetap amusingly.)

Not that they don't have other issues there (such as how arcane mages would scale relative to other mages if mana regen were suddenly in much more plentiful supply.)

I really don't see Blizzard neglecting us in terms of longevity. The lifetap (and later dark pact) changes, Fel Armor, Soul Leech and even imp Drain Soul all seem to be ways that Blizzard has tried to help us out in terms of "efficiency." Perhaps in the future, we'll see Fel Armor provide a bonus to Lifetap or directly transfer heals received to our mana pool.

They should take away Warlocks' mana pool, have our spells cost health, and have int give some reduced amount of health /whistle

Only macro I'm using was listed here already which is:

/Script PetDismiss

Other than that I use mousebutton 5 for charge, keep pet on passive and use ctrl-1 to ctrl-3 to control the pet which has been more than enough. That combined to chainheals and SP been enough for me so far to raid succesfully apart from few bosses I mentioned in the guide (azgalor, etc).

That might have been fire resistance tanking gear? Just guessing now. I have 10,62% hit at the moment in my dps gear, and I know it sucks in terms of sometimes not hitting shatter, but I always hit shatter in time (mostly because of that, aka not getting best possible use of it). We do however have great tanks with high TPS output which allows me to slack in that area a bit.

Other thing is that I have [Eye of Magtheridon] which allows me to focus bit more to non-hit gear. Now don't get me wrong. I know that maxing out hit is more dps than not maxing it out. But according to my calculations currently I get around 10 dps from 10 spelldamage, around 8 dps for 10 spellcrit and around 6 spelldamage for 10 spellhit (this is because eye of magtheridons proc will get nerfed for each hit I will get) I have backup trinkets when I get "hit-threshold" that's when I change more hit based gear on and change Eye of Magtheridon away.

Another big thing why my hit might be lower what you expect (Also relates to Eye of Magtheridon), is the fact that some good hit items are getting bidded for very high dkp in our guild, where eye of mag again allows me to take different approach here focusing on other rare items I need and get best use of my dkp.

Lot of stuff is involved but I done very accurate what to loot etc after my own dps spreadsheet that simulates eye of magtheridon and hit changes when using this trinket.

hmm...

oh we also have elemental shaman seeing his raid viability, so that's 3% more hit most of the time. (which will screw up my perfect dream gear set :p)

Tornwings, here is the video where I'm pulling like 1400ish DPS in phase 1 on Illidan. I pretty much destroy everyone on meters at the end of the fight, as you'll see. I think it's a pretty good example of dot uptime during phase 1.

Premonition vs. Illidan Stormrage

You'll see there's times where I'm not refreshing my dots and just chain shadowbolting at some points. I'm not being bad, but this is to ensure that there are not dots ticking when Illidan changes phases to avoid pulling aggro. Oh yea, and the phase 2 elementals are immune to fire so that's why I'm not using immo on those.

@Nyarlathotep and the other demonology warlocks:

What are your thoughts on the possible Demonology raiding specs? As I see it there are currently two basic specs available, with slight variations:

6/44/11
1/44/16

I have tried both (albeit instead of 6/44/11 I went with 7/43/11), and am still unsure which is the right choice purely from a raiding perspective.

7/43/11 certainly played itself more "fluently", but 1/44/16 to me seems to have more raw power (it is also slightly ahead in the spreadsheets) and contributes better to ISB-uptime.

I haven't tried out spec with devastation, but I'm sure it is more dps on fights where there's very much movement involved, where instant corruption has it's strengths in fights where a lot of moving is involved. This is only guessing though.

I guess question is what boss you are on, and what spec serves that fight best, since the both are very similar. I go with instant corruption at least for now cause I feel that many fights involve moving and you can shoot extra shadow bolts and renew more dots in those fights.

I guess best way would be to test it out, but testing out is such a pain since you need identical environment to see what is better build etc. But it's also playstyle preference since all warlock builds are raid viable as long as the guy playing them knows his job

Why these over T5? [Mantle of the Corruptor]

For the crit.

The hit cap is easy to obtain in kara level gear.

[Mantle of the Corruptor] > [Illidari Shoulderpads] for Affliction.

If you're trying to maintain the hit cap while continuing to push your bonus damage, and you have access to any or both of the shoulders mentioned, you shouldn't be wearing Karazhan gear (besides [Handwraps of Flowing Thought] or [Ruby Drape of the Mysticant]).

I don't know, your statement is kind of frustrating me, because it's so vague. I would try to get as much hit as I can on gear that doesn't sacrifice damage. I guess if you're Destruction it's a bit harder to balance stats because you need to find crit too, but those shoulders are pretty much the same if you're going to put hit gems in the Illidari and crit gems in the Tier 5.

I think if you're Destruction, the one you choose to wear is going to dependent on your other stats, which I think was the thing that bending my mind because it's so obvious that if you need more crit, go for the Illidari Shoulderpads and if you need more hit, go with the T5 shoulders. There are people with access to T5 or the Illidari that need more hit to be capped though.

The answer just lies in what stat you need more.

After trying the PvE Demo build as Nyar suggested I found that it was pretty competetive with heavy Affliction/Destro builds. I like the utility and the outright boost in raw spell damage I got, combined with the benefit of having a seperate dps entity (Felguard).

Only thing I didn't like, and this is probably just because I was new to it, was that you need to be planted most of the fight spamming SB's and controlling your pet effectively so that he doesn't parry the boss, or get cleaved/aoe'd down. I have Voidstar, and on Void Reaver the pet was still taking a lot of damage sadly.

Here's my list for affliction as you get into SSC/TK, focusing on a 16% hit set, so you don't need that nasty Suppression talent!

Entering 25 man raids:
Spellstrike Hood (gem as needed)
Brooch of Unquenchable Fury (Moroes)
Frozen Shadoweave Shoulders (Veiled Noble Topaz, Glowing Nightseye)
Frozen Shadoweave Robe (Veiled Noble Topaz, Glowing Nightseye)
Ruby Drape of the Mysticant (Prince)
Bands of Nefarious Deeds (Maiden)
Handwraps of Flowing Thought (Attumen)
Sash of Serpentra (Heroic SV - Kalithresh) or Netherflame Belt (crafted)
Spellstrike Pants (gem as needed)
Ashyen's Gift (CE Exalted)
Seal of the Exorcist (50 spirit shards), Violet Signet (if you don't need hit)
Icon of the Silver Crescent (41 heroic badges)
Quagmirran's Eye (heroic SP), Darkmoon: Crusade (collect for Darkmoon Faire), Neltharion's Tear (BWL - Nefarian, if hit needed)
Nathrezim Mindblade (Prince)
Orb of the Soul Eater (25 heroic badges)
Tirisfal Wand of Ascendancy (Shade of Aran)

Gruul/Mag upgrades:
Voidheart Mantle (High King Maulgar)
Belt of Divine Inspiration (High King Maulgar, if your +hit can afford it)
Bloodmaw Magus-Blade (if you didn't get the one from Prince, like me)
Band of Crimson Fury (Mag's head quest reward if you don't need +hit)
Eye of Magtheridon (not ideal, but if you're missing some +hit, it will help)

SSC:
Pendant of the Lost Ages (Morogrim, if you don't need hit from Kara neck)
Vestments of the Sea Witch (Vashj)
Cord of Screaming Terrors (Lurker)
Boots of the Shifting Nightmare (Hydross)
Ring of Endless Coils (Vashj, if hit is OK)
Fang of the Leviathan (Leotheras, if hit is OK)

TK:
Cowl of the Grand Engineer (Void Reaver)
Mantle of the Corruptor (Void Reaver)
Mantle of the Elven Kings (trash, though T5 is preferable)
Royal Cloak of the Sunstriders (Kael'thas)
Mindstorm Wristbands (Al'ar)
Trousers of the Astromancer (Solarian)
Band of Al'ar (Al'ar)
Wand of the Forgotten Star (Solarian)

That's a decent list. I know I didn't get all the warlock-usable items, I tried to focus on +hit and +dmg. It's up to you guys to figure out which of those items you'll need to keep +hit capped, so I'd advise against throwing things out when you upgrade, as you may need it later to compensate for a different upgrade.

Also if you are curious about what gear to use, I'd suggest learning how to use wowhead item searches/filters immediately.