After much trolling these forums, which i find of most help in raid compositions (i'm RL as well) and to further deepen my knowledge of my class, i'd like to ask you some questions.
I've been so far an affliction warlock with the following stats:
1100+ spelldmg
hit capped (affliction-wise)
18% Crit on SB (due to devastation) and 11% otherwise.
Full FSW set + SpellStrike set (mostly socketed with 9 spelldmg gems)
and was doing great in almost of the fights.
I've recently been able to get 4 piece t4 bonus, so was wondering if:
- is viable to respec to 0/21/40 (shadow-based destro lock?)
My idea is to go on a Immolate - SBx3 pattern, with no Conflagr (would be a waste of dps).
My experience is limited to first bosses of SSC (lurker/Hydross in SSC and Void Reaver in TK), so i'd like to have a genuine feedback from you BT raiders.
- is instead viable to keep FSW+Spellstrike and use only the 2 set piece bonus from t4, still maintaning the same spec (0/21/40, succubus sacrified).
After much trolling these forums, which i find of most help in raid compositions (i'm RL as well) and to further deepen my knowledge of my class, i'd like to ask you some questions.
I've been so far an affliction warlock with the following stats:
1100+ spelldmg
hit capped (affliction-wise)
18% Crit on SB (due to devastation) and 11% otherwise.
Full FSW set + SpellStrike set (mostly socketed with 9 spelldmg gems)
and was doing great in almost of the fights.
I've recently been able to get 4 piece t4 bonus, so was wondering if:
- is viable to respec to 0/21/40 (shadow-based destro lock?)
My idea is to go on a Immolate - SBx3 pattern, with no Conflagr (would be a waste of dps).
My experience is limited to first bosses of SSC (lurker/Hydross in SSC and Void Reaver in TK), so i'd like to have a genuine feedback from you BT raiders.
- is instead viable to keep FSW+Spellstrike and use only the 2 set piece bonus from t4, still maintaning the same spec (0/21/40, succubus sacrified).
Thanks in advance for your replies.
I couldn't find your armory so I can't comment on if you have the gear or not to go shadow destro. It's been said again and again, but the average stats you would want to be around is 1k shadow, hit capped, and around 25% crit. For more details check out [Warlock] Destro raiding and minimum stats
Edit: I found your armory, I would stay affliction a little longer until you can get hit capped with a bit more crit.
* apart from the basic stats required, my point was also if procs of Spellstrike + 2 set bonus t4 where more worthy of 4 set bonus t4 ; my gear should be on par with both affli and destro reqs.
Last edited by Silentuviel : 10/08/07 at 9:45 AM.
"I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions that we didn't even know we had and realize that the opposite may also be true." - Derek Sivers
* apart from the basic stats required, my point was also if procs of Spellstrike + 2 set bonus t4 where more worthy of 4 set bonus t4 ; my gear should be on par with both affli and destro reqs.
I believe there was a comparison of the 2 set bonuses earlier, I'll see if I can find it for ya. Another factor you may want to consider is how many warlocks / SPs are you running with currently and are you running into any DoT uptime issues due to the debuff limit.
i'll pars soon some WWS Stats from our latest 25 man raids so we can talk on facts.
ATM we're running with the following line up:
4 locks, 3 affliction, 1 destro (of the 3 affli locks, one is me)
2 SP
4 Mages, 3 of them fire, 1 Frost.
1 Elemental Shammy as caster's boost (Sometimes in the following group setup: SP + Ele shammy + 3x mages).
Actually after reading the threads, i'm wondering about making another lock go Shadow-Destro in order to avoid any debuff limit issue, which could be an issue to deal with. (apparently most of the locks starting BT/Mount Hijal are respeccing destro also because of this reason )
"I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions that we didn't even know we had and realize that the opposite may also be true." - Derek Sivers
Well if your at hit cap its worth a shot. For myself I have noticed that with my gear set that puts me at 25% crit on the character sheet I do a lot more damage, than my pure spell damage set that only has me at 20% to crit raid buffed. Its personal preference. I find that I may not crit as big, but i crit more often, which i find beneficial to the raid more due to ISB uptime.
One of the great things about speccing 0/21/40, in my opinion, is the ability to see massive 10k crits on bosses and the thrill of seeing both your position on the damage and threat meters shoot up. My problem, however, is where to allocate my gem resources? Should I gem for pure +crit and rely on gear for damage? Should I gem for pure damage and rely on gear for crit? Or should I go for the hybrid +crit/+damage gem? Right now, I'm sort of mixing between crit/damage and pure damage.
For me, the Leulier spreadsheet designates damage as the higher DPS route. I've gone a long time without knowing if it factored in the benefit of proccing ISB into crit's DPS bonuses, however. I'm also not a big fan of streaks, and gemming with crit would definitely eliminate entire phase 1's of RoS with a 7% crit rate.
The other benefit of gemming for pure damage would be the ability to also pick up the Mystical Skyfire Diamond. As I think about it, pure damage would also boost not only my non-crit damage but also the damage that my crits do, although I'll be critting less.
Gemming for damage/crit seems like a decent compromise, because I'll be maintaining a considerable crit rate with a reasonable amount of damage. More crit means more ISB procs means more shadow damage in general.
Finally, gemming for pure crit seems like the least profitable avenue. I would be losing out on a ton of damage which would bring down both non-crit and crit damage, although I would be increasing ISB uptime significantly.
Alternatively, with the addition of this new caster meta-gem, which is to fill the gap left by the fixing of the RED, would it be better to wait for its stats before deciding to regem?
I'd wait for the new gem socket requirements to come out, then if you need yellows, do [Potent Pyrestone]. Otherwise I'd stay with [Runed Crimson Spinel], 6dmg is worth more than 5crit.
I'd wait for the new gem socket requirements to come out, then if you need yellows, do [Potent Pyrestone]. Otherwise I'd stay with [Runed Crimson Spinel], 6dmg is worth more than 5crit.
My thoughts exactly, destruction scales too well with damage (Shadow and Flame) to socket for crit, in my opinion. ISB uptime does factor in, but I am not a fan of half baking things, I'd either go all out crit, including both gems and items or just gear towards personal DPS by socketing for damage. You would be contributing to ISB uptime whether you gem or not anyway, so it is not like you are being "selfish" by not looking after your personal DPS, that is the way I see it anyway. =)
For personal DPS, damage beats crit rating point for point for quite some time (play around with the spreadsheet for your personal breaking point). If you include raid DPS, crit gains quite a bit but (at least for me and my raid) it still doesn't pass damage.
The decision will come down to whether you want to boost raid dps or your own as well as your particular raid makeup. For my raids, one point of crit rating gives the raid ~0.3 extra DPS from ISB uptime. Factoring that into stat weights puts it much closer to damage but for pure raid benefit damage > crit rating for me (If damage = 1 point, crit rating = 0.92).
I believe there was a comparison of the 2 set bonuses earlier, I'll see if I can find it for ya. Another factor you may want to consider is how many warlocks / SPs are you running with currently and are you running into any DoT uptime issues due to the debuff limit.
why not dumping improved immolate, emberstorm and conflagrate for soul leach and nether protection which rocks REALLY hard at teron ros mother archimonde etc
why not dumping improved immolate, emberstorm and conflagrate for soul leach and nether protection which rocks REALLY hard at teron ros mother archimonde etc
I'm our guild's warlock tank on Kael and Illidan. I'd love to respec before and after each Illidan and Kael, but that gets quite costly. I understand the benefits of it and if I wanted to maximize my spec for each raid I would definitely do that.
I'm our guild's warlock tank on Kael and Illidan. I'd love to respec before and after each Illidan and Kael, but that gets quite costly. I understand the benefits of it and if I wanted to maximize my spec for each raid I would definitely do that.
If you spam a macro with /cancelaura Nether Protection, I think it's still posible to tank Kael/Illidan. We've had a successful kill after one wipe due to Nether Protection on Kael before. (Thats what our warlock did as far as I know anyway).
After much trolling these forums, which i find of most help in raid compositions (i'm RL as well) and to further deepen my knowledge of my class, i'd like to ask you some questions.
I've been so far an affliction warlock with the following stats:
1100+ spelldmg
hit capped (affliction-wise)
18% Crit on SB (due to devastation) and 11% otherwise.
Full FSW set + SpellStrike set (mostly socketed with 9 spelldmg gems)
and was doing great in almost of the fights.
I've recently been able to get 4 piece t4 bonus, so was wondering if:
- is viable to respec to 0/21/40 (shadow-based destro lock?)
My idea is to go on a Immolate - SBx3 pattern, with no Conflagr (would be a waste of dps).
My experience is limited to first bosses of SSC (lurker/Hydross in SSC and Void Reaver in TK), so i'd like to have a genuine feedback from you BT raiders.
- is instead viable to keep FSW+Spellstrike and use only the 2 set piece bonus from t4, still maintaning the same spec (0/21/40, succubus sacrified).
Thanks in advance for your replies.
I did some testing of the 4-piece voidheart gear and how it compares to 2-spellstrike,2-voidheart and also 2-FSW,2-Spellstrike. There are a string of posts, try starting here: 4-piece voidheart comparison.
It depends pretty heavily on spec.. destro gains the most assuming you use both immolate and corruption (even if you're saccing your succy, it's worth it with 4VH).. affliction gains potentially the least because it's hard to work the new durations into a good rotation (I'm yet to hear of one, at least).
We are hitting the debuff limit in raids (Rank 3 CoS / Rank 4 CoE are being pushed off in fights), which is getting annoying. I read that Rank 2 CoS / Rank 3 CoE still have priority on the debuff list. I believe that BC raid bosses don't have resistances, so Rank 2 CoS / Rank 3 CoE would be just as effective for raid dps. Can anyone confirm this strategy and it's effectiveness? Thanks.
just wondering which way would probably get better dps for 25 man
I would say the 2nd choice for your current gear. Lightning Capacitor isn't too great to begin with, even for a destro lock. Also, UA is more dps than Ruin (and usually is at any gear level). For reference http://elitistjerks.com/f40/t12514-w...ps_comparison/, I found it in the mechanics archives. Also, I looked up your armory and saw you had 2/3 Frozen Shadoweave. Why Boots of Foretelling over Frozen Shadoweave Boots? The boots are probably the best affliction boots in the game up until Slippers of the Seacaller.
Originally Posted by Razumikhin
We are hitting the debuff limit in raids (Rank 3 CoS / Rank 4 CoE are being pushed off in fights), which is getting annoying. I read that Rank 2 CoS / Rank 3 CoE still have priority on the debuff list. I believe that BC raid bosses don't have resistances, so Rank 2 CoS / Rank 3 CoE would be just as effective for raid dps. Can anyone confirm this strategy and it's effectiveness? Thanks.
Yes, this works and the difference in resistances is negligible.
AoE question: Some mages are spamming AE until their MSD procs, then casting a hasted Blizzard to boost their DPS. Aside from the obvious threat and positioning issues, is something like this viable for warlocks? The most obvious benefit seems like it would be stretching the focus buff out over a 7.5s hellfire rather than a 1s (1.5 w/ GCD) SoC - basically making the haste last five times longer per proc. Just curious if anyone's done any testing or theorycraft on this - a cursory search of the thread shows basically no interesting discussion of hellfire whatsoever, much less its interaction with the MSD.
Well, the problem with that is unlike AE, hellfire, rain of fire, and seed of corruption detonations don't proc just about anything. The initial application of Seed procs just about everything, because it's a DoT application, but your average AoE situation won't let you cast enough Seeds to actually see one proc. Honestly, I'd rather keep at range than hope for maybe a hasted hellfire. Remember, we can't spec for 40% reduced agro on our AoEs so keeping at range is a bigger deal for us.
If you do get a focus proc it's probably worth it though, a hasted hellfire sounds nasty for all parties involved (mobs, warlocks, and healers!).
AoE question: Some mages are spamming AE until their MSD procs, then casting a hasted Blizzard to boost their DPS. Aside from the obvious threat and positioning issues, is something like this viable for warlocks? The most obvious benefit seems like it would be stretching the focus buff out over a 7.5s hellfire rather than a 1s (1.5 w/ GCD) SoC - basically making the haste last five times longer per proc. Just curious if anyone's done any testing or theorycraft on this - a cursory search of the thread shows basically no interesting discussion of hellfire whatsoever, much less its interaction with the MSD.
I haven't done any theory crafting but hellfire does become a 7.5 second channel with the MSD buff and I'm guessing Rain of Fire does as well.. With my gear and spec that comes out to about 1k dps or 7kish damage per cast.
In 7.5 seconds I could get off 4 seeds of corruption (because we're assuming one MSD proc) that would do around 6k damage total.
That's rough damage of the spells not factoring in targets they hit.
Other things to consider.
-Seed of Corruption won't do much damage to the target you put it on if any.
-Seed of Corruption has a 15 yard splash while Rain of Fire only has an 8 yard radius. I believe Hellfire is also an 8 yard radius.
-Hellfire requires you be within the 30 yard 30% threat buffer zone making pulling aggro easier. In addition to this you'll be taking the same 1k dps the mobs will be.
-One Hellfire takes about half the mana the four Seeds will while providing more damage per second assuming all the targets are with in the 8 yard radius.
Conclusion - Hellfire is a better use of an MSD proc then Seed of Corruption in some situations. It's still Hellfire though and even more dangerous to use during an MSD proc then it is normally. It'll generate it's threat twice as fast and do it's damage twice as fast as well, to both you and any mobs caught in it's radius. Where appropriate it is better but I'd use it sparingly on boss encounters where having a dead warlock wouldn't be much benefit.
*edit* Wanted to mention a couple other benefits of Hellfire and Rain of Fire and were I use them in raids. When I do have some aggro, especially on aoe trash packs, I tend to dive into the middle and drop hellfire. While it does get me killed on occasion it's on trash. I do this because I have intensity (casting seed of corruption with aggro doesn't work out to well) and because by the time I pull some aggro seeding has generally become less affective (fewer mobs for the splash or targets will die mid-cast forcing me to switch targets).
Been doing a lot of reading and I cant find if this has ever been posted. I know the min stats/gear requirements for destro and affliction but what about a FG raiding build?
Obviously hit will still be important but what sort of itemization should I be looking at. Also what type of spell rotation would a FG lock use? CoA > Corr > Immo > Bolt spam?
Been doing a lot of reading and I cant find if this has ever been posted. I know the min stats/gear requirements for destro and affliction but what about a FG raiding build?
Obviously hit will still be important but what sort of itemization should I be looking at. Also what type of spell rotation would a FG lock use? CoA > Corr > Immo > Bolt spam?
Yeah, you're on the right track. Basically the same gear as affliction since a big portion of your damage can't take advantage of crits. In general: cap hit, stack damage, pick up cit along the way. Forspecifics try entering your stats/build in to the spreadsheet in the other lock thread.
Been doing a lot of reading and I cant find if this has ever been posted. I know the min stats/gear requirements for destro and affliction but what about a FG raiding build?
Obviously hit will still be important but what sort of itemization should I be looking at. Also what type of spell rotation would a FG lock use? CoA > Corr > Immo > Bolt spam?
You're also going to want to look at trying to picked up a 2-pc T5 set bonus and a Void Star Talisman as soon as possible. They're not absolutely required all the time, but there are quite a few fights where they are very useful.
You're also going to want to look at trying to picked up a 2-pc T5 set bonus and a Void Star Talisman as soon as possible. They're not absolutely required all the time, but there are quite a few fights where they are very useful.
I got the voidstar yesterday so I'll work on getting my 2-pc T5 next.
When I spam Seed during AoE, I always get at least one MSD proc, and for now I have been using it for a 1 second cast Seed.
Hellfire hasted would do more damage, but even ignoring the aggro and self damage, I would have to run in to cast it (wasting 2-3 seconds) losing much of the dps gain and the 15 yd vs 8 yd difference.
I am unsure if Rain of Fire gets hasted, I will look into it.
10/08/07, 9:26 AM
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