Immolate still has a very high damage per cast-time. So you do benefit from casting Immolate as a shadow-mage.
This is actually incorrect. You can check with your gear in the Warlock dps spreadsheet, but because the coefficient bonus of Shadow and Flame, a 40 pt Destruction Warlock will lose dps by using Immolate in their rotation even if they have equal fire/shadow dmg. It because an even worse choice if you have more shadow than fire. Immolate is an excellent spell to have in your rotation as Affliction/Demo however. For optimal damage as a 0/21/40 Destruction build you will be using a curse and Shadowbolt...only shadowbolt. The coefficient bonus from SnF is just too big to make it effective.
This is actually incorrect. You can check with your gear in the Warlock dps spreadsheet, but because the coefficient bonus of Shadow and Flame, a 40 pt Destruction Warlock will lose dps by using Immolate in their rotation even if they have equal fire/shadow dmg. It because an even worse choice if you have more shadow than fire. Immolate is an excellent spell to have in your rotation as Affliction/Demo however. For optimal damage as a 0/21/40 Destruction build you will be using a curse and Shadowbolt...only shadowbolt. The coefficient bonus from SnF is just too big to make it effective.
That's actually not true. As destruction immolate is worth keeping up untill you get to about 100 or so haste rating. At least that's what buzzkill from nihilum does, and I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
That's actually not true. As destruction immolate is worth keeping up untill you get to about 100 or so haste rating. At least that's what buzzkill from nihilum does, and I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
Being in a respectable raiding guild does not necessarily mean you are intelligently maximizing your DPS. I don't mean to be a prick, but just look at this Deus Vox warlock (top 25 worldwide Illidan kill):
That's actually not true. As destruction immolate is worth keeping up untill you get to about 100 or so haste rating. At least that's what buzzkill from nihilum does, and I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
It depends on gear for one thing, but it has also been shown by numerous people that even with Imp. Immolate and 5/5 Emberstorm dps will actually drop as a result of including Immolate in your cast rotation. Using the Warlock dps spreadsheet v1.15 I get the following. This is with 1300 Shadow, 1200 Fire (including Demonic Aegis) 25% crit, 16% hit and 0/21/40 build with 5/5 Improved Immolate, and 5/5 Emberstorm. All examples using sacrificed Succubus and 5/5 Shadow and Flame.
CoR, Immolate, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1274.37
CoR, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1285.26
If I raise the Fire damage to 1300 (equal with Shadow damage) then the results change to:
CoR, Immolate, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1282.00
CoR, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1285.26 (no change)
These results have no haste rating, which would skew the results even more in favor of using primarily Shadow Bolt as it gets a larger benefit than Immolate from haste rating. Also consider that this is with 10 talent points spent to make Immolate better. If you free up those 10 talent points you can get something like Cataclysm 5/5 which changes the numbers again.
With 5/5 Cataclysm, 5/5 Improved Immolate, and 0/5 Emberstorm:
CoR, Immolate, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1275.41
CoR, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1295.35
With 5/5 Cataclysm, 0/5 Improved Immolate, and 0/5 Emberstorm:
CoR, Immolate, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1262.24
CoR, Shadow Bolt
DPS 1295.35 (unchanged, but with 5 extra talent points to spend!)
Edit: I did forget to mention that at least as things are currently, my guild is running all arcane mages, so improved scorch is not a factor and was removed from my calculations. This will obviously increase the values for Immolate if Improved Scorch is always stacked. That being said, I still believe the end result of using Immolate (at the cost of 10 talent points) will always be inferior for a 40 pt destruction build. And as the other person mentioned, being in a good guild, and being present for a successful end-game kill don't mean by any means the person knows the best way to maximize dps.
Last edited by Gionnelles : 10/30/07 at 5:00 PM.
Reason: missed heading
If anything, it's probably kinda safe to assume that the DPS increase from immolate, if there is one (and for some cases there is), is too small for the raid imp SB uptime lost. However there is no way to verify this 100% that is actually reliable, although I would be interested to see a "worst case (realistic) scenario for SB vs immolate" modeled and see how much DPS the extra imp SBs actually give. By realistic I mean, for example, taking at least 2 shadow priests and at least 2 warlocks in the raid, and by "worst cast" I mean, for example, to include imp scorch and CoE, maybe even a 13% one. Remember if immolate isn't worth casting in the scenario that favors it, it's never worth casting, so should start making some simulation for that.
Edit: I did forget to mention that at least as things are currently, my guild is running all arcane mages, so improved scorch is not a factor and was removed from my calculations. This will obviously increase the values for Immolate if Improved Scorch is always stacked. That being said, I still believe the end result of using Immolate (at the cost of 10 talent points) will always be inferior for a 40 pt destruction build. And as the other person mentioned, being in a good guild, and being present for a successful end-game kill don't mean by any means the person knows the best way to maximize dps.
Could you maybe put that edit at the beginning of the post? It's a bit misleading to show numerical comparision and then tack on at the end "oh, by the way, I didn't calculate it with an extra 15% fire damage." I realize it's not your intention to be misleading, but it skews the results in favor of shadow bolt if someone is looking for a quick answer and just looks at the math portion of your thread.
I think we can summarize the point by saying this:
1.) Download Forte Warlock and ShadowSeer.
2.) If you have several warlocks and Forte Warlock is indicating that you have absolutely zero problems with ISB uptime in your raid, then it might be worth it to squeeze in Immolate if you want to spend some extra talent points on it and you're not wasting a large amount of haste rating on it.
3.) If Forte Warlock and/or ShadowSeer indicate that you're losing too much ISB uptime and raid shadow damage by including Immolate, then it's probably not worth it.
We have no problems with ISB uptime in my guild, and my Dr. Damage tooltip indicated that the DPCT on Immolate was high enough that I would probably see an increase in damage over pure shadow bolt spam. Having said that, I don't currently have any haste rating on my gear and I'm not using any +shadow pieces (enchant excluded). The DPS increase from Immolate has been minimal.
Could you maybe put that edit at the beginning of the post? It's a bit misleading to show numerical comparision and then tack on at the end "oh, by the way, I didn't calculate it with an extra 15% fire damage." I realize it's not your intention to be misleading, but it skews the results in favor of shadow bolt if someone is looking for a quick answer and just looks at the math portion of your thread.
I think we can summarize the point by saying this:
1.) Download Forte Warlock and ShadowSeer.
2.) If you have several warlocks and Forte Warlock is indicating that you have absolutely zero problems with ISB uptime in your raid, then it might be worth it to squeeze in Immolate if you want to spend some extra talent points on it and you're not wasting a large amount of haste rating on it.
3.) If Forte Warlock and/or ShadowSeer indicate that you're losing too much ISB uptime and raid shadow damage by including Immolate, then it's probably not worth it.
We have no problems with ISB uptime in my guild, and my Dr. Damage tooltip indicated that the DPCT on Immolate was high enough that I would probably see an increase in damage over pure shadow bolt spam. Having said that, I don't currently have any haste rating on my gear and I'm not using any +shadow pieces (enchant excluded). The DPS increase from Immolate has been minimal.
Yeah, I would have included that right up front, but I use my spreadsheet to calculate my own dps increases and had totally forgotten at first I had made that modification. If you want tomorrow I'll run the numbers with Imp. Scorch debuff up, but the truth is the dps increase even with equal shadow/fire gear, 10 talent points invested into it, and Improved Scorch debuff is very minimal and reduces both ISB uptime and loses efficiency increasing talents (such as Cataclysm or Soul Leech). In any situation your overall dps will likely suffer, in my situation its just more obvious how much. That being said, I'm Demo spec now anyway, so I use Immolate regularly in my rotation which provides a clear and noticable dps increase.
The spreadsheet also fails to model casting time clipping with immolate, which affects its dps increase. In a 21/40 build your lifetaps + shadowbolts tend not to line up perfectly with the 15 second duration, especially if you have haste, and in an affliction build its odd duration makes it bloody fuckall to weave shadowbolts with near-perfect uptime. Its time between casts can be rounded up to 16 or 16.5 in most "real-world" situations, which drops its dps contribution by as much as 10%.
Immolate is definitely one of those "looks good on paper, sucks in practice" kind of things. It should be better, but its usually not.
*I am the lock on Malediction duty, so I don't cast CoA, nor carry Imp CoA.
Should I have the following curse/dot rotation?:
Corruption, UA, SL, Immolate...Shadowbolt spam?
My current rotation is:
UA, Corruption, Immolate, SL..ShadowBolt spam.
I'm not sure how to interpret the results and apply them from the spread sheet. I realize its under an IDEAL scenario, but this is saying 1144.10 DPS? As in Damage Per Second?I'd be off about 400, since I test on Dr Boom, unbuffed, at about 640 dps. With Raid Buffs I could hit 750. Am i doing some really wrong?
In last nights Gruul's/HKM/VR raid, I was at 750 through a good many parts, and around 550when I had to run around alot, ie VR etc. (I was getting a boatload of Arcane Orbs at me, and my area).
Is this sheet in anyway valid in a possible outcome of dps? Recount did show a fellow affliction lock at around 900 dps, who has all the same gear as me, except (1) better weapon, (2) 2 pieces of t4, so he as 1 additional proc from t4. He's same build, less spell hit, and in fact, less shadow damage. I have quag's eye and the spellstrike set which proc quite often.
Affliction has a lot of room to fall from the spreadsheet DPS if your dots aren't running efficiently. The spreadsheet counts the sum of every split second not recasting dots as SB-time. You might want to increase your dot gap on the sheet to compensate for this (compare to some WWS logs until the time you spent casting SBs lines up with the sheet). If your raid is lock/SP heavy you may be capping out on debuff slots, as well.
That wasn't DR Boom, that was the spreadsheet calculation. I don't recall what DR BOOM was, except for being around 640DPS with CoS up.
My Shadow Damage with FEL ARMOR up is 1040. If Quag's Eye proces, and SS strike PRocs, then I have haste + 92 more damage. This is without any raid buffs, which would be 23+42+55 for consummables = 120 additional spell damage. I was around 1200 spell damage last night, without procs.
Whether it's possible, I dunno. I'm affliction, I didn't watch the corruption tick. I do know I need another 1-hander, which will give me 100 more spell damage, and if I get t4, another proc, and slightly more damage WHEN it procs (without the proc, I'd have less Shadow Damage, but I'd get more bonus when it does and to fire damage).
I've specced both into immolate fully, into just emberstone, and into nothing in fire talents and to be totally honest I saw almost no change in damage for all of those speccs.
How ever which specc to go for raiding is interesting you can either go full out Immolate talents or half/half or no fire talents.
From what I've seen ingame doing full tk clear having a specc with 5/5 cata, 5/5 emberstone seemed to give the highest overall dps for me atleast.
And really what good dps boosting talents are there instead of Emberstone? NONE (outisde of Imp searing pain) They are all utility talents... and while Nether Prot is fun to see going off it really never outright saved me in TK for the week I had it. Having 2/3 soul leech is cool but very rarely will the heal actually help me in a raid(it is a great farming talent though sacc hunter never need to bandage). But again in a straight stand still for 10 minute spam fight ya ok Immo will probably be no good but get real! How many "patchwerk" fights are there in TBC?
That aside I do agree with people decked in 4/5 T6, haste gear, and basically the best of the best. In that point in time I really wouldnt cast Immolate either... not when Shadowbolt is getting buffed so dramatically over immolate.
Can anyone really argue that Immolate is bad to cast for warlocks not in 4/5 T6 and haste gear? Cause based on numbers I see Immolate on a T5 lock is still worth the time to cast.
Here are updated numbers with some differen factors taken in. My previous numbers didn't include some debuffs that my guild doesn't run with that might not be the case across the board. The previous numbers included dps values with no malediction CoE (which my guild doesn't use) and no max Improved Scorch stacks. This obviously skewed the results very heavily. In -my- case, they are accurate, but I understand that isn't the same across the board so I redid all of the numbers. One of my other factors was assuming the 10 talent points spent in 5/5 Improved Immolate and 5/5 Emberstorm precluded 5/5 Cataclysm, which it does, but 2/5 Cataclysm is obtainable with giving up Soul Leech. Because these factors can contribute greatly to the viability of Immolate for a Destruction build I have included them all for these numbers.
All tests w/max Improved Scorch debuff, 3/3 Malediction CoE/CoS, Misery, SW, static ISB uptime (ie. results are not weighted off ISB debuff being applied)
This shows that if you have all fire debuffs applied (scorch/Malediction CoE) you can actually gain 31.12 dps by spending 10 talent pts and adding Immolate to your rotation. If you have 100 less fire damage than shadow damage, you can still gain 16.03 dps for the same talent investment. The bonus begins to shrink as haste is applied, giving a 12.55 dps increase at 2% haste. This does show however that my original tests were based off my particular situation with no Malediction CoE, and no Scorch which changes the numbers highlighting the need for people to check against their own raid environment. That being said, over-all, I would consider 10 talent points and lost ISB uptime to be worth more than a marginal dps increase in ideal situations.
Last edited by Gionnelles : 10/31/07 at 2:28 PM.
Reason: Updated with hard numbers
Can anyone really argue that Immolate is bad to cast for warlocks not in 4/5 T6 and haste gear? Cause based on numbers I see Immolate on a T5 lock is still worth the time to cast.
I plugged in a best case scenario for immolate into the sheet (scorch, mal CoE), to do some comparison. At my raid-buffed stat level (~1400 shadow, 1350 fire), dropping cataclysm for immolate/emberstorm increases my dps by ~20 on the sheet. According to my ISB uptime model for my raid group (2 destro, 2 aff, 2 SP):
Dropping SB cast time from 85.8% to 74.4% drops my raid's ISB uptime by 0.66%.
So if the shadow-portion of the raid is doing more than 20/.0066 = 3030 DPS, the increased ISB uptime makes up for dropping immolate even at my low-t5 gear level.
It's going to be such a close call that it really depends on the specific raid group you're in and the fight you're on. I'm not sure if there's a good generalized answer to that even for a less-geared lock.
That wasn't DR Boom, that was the spreadsheet calculation. I don't recall what DR BOOM was, except for being around 640DPS with CoS up.
My Shadow Damage with FEL ARMOR up is 1040. If Quag's Eye proces, and SS strike PRocs, then I have haste + 92 more damage. This is without any raid buffs, which would be 23+42+55 for consummables = 120 additional spell damage. I was around 1200 spell damage last night, without procs.
Whether it's possible, I dunno. I'm affliction, I didn't watch the corruption tick. I do know I need another 1-hander, which will give me 100 more spell damage, and if I get t4, another proc, and slightly more damage WHEN it procs (without the proc, I'd have less Shadow Damage, but I'd get more bonus when it does and to fire damage).
I'd say 640 on Boom seems a bit low, and the 1100 dps your got from the sheet too high. I think your DoT gap needs adjusting, or you have raid debuffs turned on.
It's been awhile since I ran against Boom, but I typically avg ~1k dps on him, solo, self buffed (he overvalues the Crusade trinket, since the buff never drops) with 1200 +shadow. Although I use CoD, the DPS difference is minor since you have Malediction. You should be in the 700-800 range, imo.
What many of you fail to realize is that many fights involve movement. If you are standing still SB is flat out better to spam.
How many times in a movement related fight have you started to cast your shadowbolt only to have the mob run out of range just before it finishs? In this case that 1.5 Sec Immolate would have boosted your dps.
I would advise against speccing out of the imp immolate/conflag for Nether prot/soul leach.
When a warlock is tanking and nether protection procs is an instant deagro. Often a warlock need to be versitile as well as a raw dps class.
What is boils down to is this:
With significant movement, immolate has a good place in your rotation, patchwerk fights, SB spam is superior especially because of the ISB raid dps boost.
If the DPCT makes you do SB>Immolate on a stand-still fight, the DPCT should make you do SB>Immolate on a movement fight. The only time that is not true is if you have JUST 2 seconds to move, so not enough time to get a full SB off.
EDIT: To clarify, every time you can cast a spell you should be casting the highest DPCT spell you have available (that can run its full course if it's a dot). If that spell is shadowbolt (ie, if it's always the case that you will use that time the best by casting shadowbolt), then it's still the most profitable spell to cast even if followed by movement.
When a warlock is tanking and nether protection procs is an instant deagro. Often a warlock need to be versitile as well as a raw dps class.
It has been my experience that when nether protection procs, the mob will attempt to melee the warlock which causes the mob to move out of position. The mob wil not attempt to cast at another target.
It has been my experience that when nether protection procs, the mob will attempt to melee the warlock which causes the mob to move out of position. The mob wil not attempt to cast at another target.
When tanking Leotheras and Capernican, they both deagro and cast on another target when NP procs.
When tanking Leotheras and Capernican, they both deagro and cast on another target when NP procs.
Nether Protection shouldn't proc off of anything in Leotheras if you're tanking. His Chaos Blast is an AOE ability; Damaging AOE abilities do not trigger Nether Protection.
From my personal experience, this is what I have witnessed Capernian do to an NP Warlock tank:
1. Cast Fireball
2. Nether Protection Procs, Capernian begins casting another Fireball.
3. Second Fireball hits, Capernian recognizes target as immune, heads into melee range.*
4. Usually Nether Protection fades by this time and the Warlock tank now has either been Conflagrated or Arcane Bursted.
*Sometimes she would cast another Fireball despite NP being up, sometimes not.
Even with a /cancelaura I noticed she would still move slightly, which really screwed things up in terms of Conflagrate and healer positioning.
As for movement and DPS, I can pretty much count on my hand the number of times that I've had a Shadow Bolt cancel due to a moving target getting out of range at just the last second. While Immolate might have been a greater increase in DPS at that moment, it happens so rarely that it's still pretty much insignificant. Supremus is probably the greatest example of this, but he has a rather high innate Fire Resistance so Immolate would still be impractical.
You only need one warlock in the raid to not have nether protection though, so it shouldn't really be an issue.
In general PvE though, NP is pretty useless. Sure it may proc when you get hit, but it's unlikely you will get hit again in 3 seconds while the buff is up. The duration is simply too short. It would be better if it was something like take 50% shadow/fire damage for 10 secs. Also right now it doesn't proc on dots (e.g. doomfire), which sucks. The only times I've found its been somewhat useful in T6 content are MH trash necromancers and Illidan fireballs.
10/30/07, 2:39 PM
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