I know I read this in some thread a few weeks ago but I cant seem to find now. I looked over the usual suspects but didnt see it or perhaps I may have overlooked it. (please forgive me)


From what I recall up until you reach the spell hit cap 16% affliction spells, 10% Destro spells, pound for pound spell hit is a better stat vs Crit/Spell Damage. I seem to recall someone posted some math to support this.

The reason this has gotten my attention is because recently I noticed that I was very low on spell damage, ~300-400 when compared to my fellow locks (tailors). However I can stay with them in DPS or flat out beat them. We are all relatively specced the same (affliction) but I noticed that I had way more plus hit than them. So I am wondering if that is the reason why I am able to keep up with them like I do. I have 9%, them 3%, 2%, 6%. I do notice the 6% lock is the one that gives me a run for my money although he out spell damages me so I think that makes up for the 2% difference??

I think we are all relatively equally skilled and if I can support the idea that plus hit is better maybe I can convince them to add some plus hit gems/items in favor of pure spell damage. This would ultimately increase their dps which would help our guild overall.

Any information which supports this or not would greatly be appreciated.

Generally speaking, until you cap out hit (16%) you generally will be losing DPS to resists and other related factors.

Suppression can and does act as Spell Hit for Affliction spells only, but generally 30% of an Affliction warlock's DPS is Shadowbolt so it's still important to stack spell hit even if you technically meet the cap with 5/5 Suppression and 6% Hit from gear.

While I would need to see the gear of you and the warlocks in question (I honestly do not believe that a 300-400 Damage difference lets you maintain top DPS because of your 9% hit) but I suppose it is entirely possible.

But, you are correct in your assumption that Spell Hit is important enough to stack. Not to the exclusion of all other stats - it is entirely possible to pass 10% hit from gear AND 1000-1100 spell damage - but this requires time and luck with drops as well.

If you really want to convince them, just continually surpass them in damage. When they see that a lower spell damage warlock is beating them, you can bet that they will figure out the why.

Also remember that having a DoT resisted means you only lose 1.5s (again ignoring efficiency) of tick time and 1.5s of a shadowbolt, you don't lose the whole dot. So it's not AS important as it is for, say, mages or destro locks, but due to the fact 1% hit is so easy to get due to how the rating system and itemization is made, hit is still a good stat to get for an affliction warlock according to the spreadsheets flying around.
If you want to max your DPS though, getting frozen shadoweave and spellstrike with good gems is your top priority, over maxing your +hit... Worry about stat balance when you actuall have to choose between high quality items that are close together, not when you have to choose between a piece of oblivion to a sick epic.

I don't know about alot of luck just some..

CE - Gives you ~2% to hit ring ... Spirit Shards x 50 gives you another 1% spellstrike set gives you another ~3%.. Thats already ~6% right there. Doesn't even matter if your a tailor or not they should all have a set of spellstrike..

Then you just need 10% from the rest of the gear... If you lucky you can 15-20 man BWL for some gold + trinkets.. Good some lucky drops off doomwalker / karazhan. If your in SSC there are 2 sets of boots ( 1 BoP crafted / 1 off hydross ) + 2 belts ( Lurker and BoE craftable ) that also have alot of hit on them.

Unlike Mages with ignite... Shadow vul... gets eaten by other locks / SPs more than yourself so critting has less issue with your dps.. so you are able to rock alot of % hit gear without feeling much loss / if any in DPS..

This isn't as hard as it seems. With tailoring, gems, and only 2kara/2gruul/1mag drops I'm capped and over 1100 unbuffed.

I suggest updating your EJ profile.

Are you talking abotu this?

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=24266#z0z


I thought that required tailoring to wear?

No, it just requires tailoring to get the set bonus. The set bonus is extremely nice, though.

Very interesting. I currently have doomcallers ( yes dont laugh) I will get with our guild tailors to have one made for me. Thanks for the info

I wasn't being clear when I said, "It is entirely possible to pass 10% hit from gear AND 1000-1100 spell damage - but this requires time and luck with drops as well."

I meant from the perspective of someone who does not have Tailoring and doesn't plan on it. I personally had 2 gathering professions that make me alot of money to support my respec habit on 3 different characters.

IF you can level Tailoring, do so, it is the easiest and fastest way to get yourself balanced stats and pretty incredible gear besides. But, if you're like me and opt not to do so, you still can get the Hit gear to support good DPS.

With 5/5 Suppression you only need to really worry about 6% to hit, but you're still going to lose some DPS with Shadowbolts but it's not too major.

Lock 3 is just wasting his time. Those stats are just terrible. Lock 1 really needs to work on his hit. Lock 2 has pretty decent stats, if he had 5/5 Suppression I am sure he would top meters (given decent rotation and curse assignments). Your hit is great, your spell damage is not really acceptable given the ease of obtaining quality items these days.

*P.S. In terms of updating your gear, IF you don't want to spend the money to get the Spellstrike crafted (given that you have Voidheart pants I wouldn't) here is what I suggest:

Helm: Uni-Mind Headdress
Shoulder: Voidheart
Gloves: Handwraps of Flowing Thought

There are other replacements as well, but those 3 will get your hit higher and also increase your damage.

Saying that someone else eats your imp shadowbolt is a very selfish attitude. When that person ate that shadowbolt, you increased his DPS. That DPS wouldn't have been there without you. Therefore it's EXACTLY as effective as if you used it up yourself. The only loss of imp SBs wearing off because of someone else is a reduction in uptime and thus less effect on DoTs, but if it's another warlock with the same crit as you, he also puts it back up. If it's affliction, while he does reduce the uptime for you, you increase it for him, so overall you increase his DPS and he decreases yours, which, while hard to math accurately, is roughly as good as if he never took your charges away.
Just remember personal DPS isn't everything when it comes to debuffs on mobs, or else you would never use curse of elements as a shadow lock now would you? But that 10% more damage for mages is a lot more than your CoA/CoD will every do.