◊ Eph

Don't know that it was changed, as far as I know it always has.

 

vreki

Oh, sorry, I missed the wand. Not used to seeing that one instead of the TK one!

 

◊ Eph

Yeah, and in your case as horde that TK one would be better since your shaman don't give the 1% Hit Aura.

 

aphro1

Hi everyone, just a quick question, i wanted to know if anyone has tried the meta gem entitled [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] in end game raiding (BT/MH)

I was under the impression it would not work properly with caster dps, althou when looking at it, in theory it might work. The benefits would in theory be only 9 spelldamage and -2% threat, (i would only loose out 3 spelldamage and minor run speed on my current choice of meta) which whilst added to destructive reach and subtlety enchant, shud be quite nice, (-14% threat), especially for insane agro generating destro locks.

Has anyone tried it ?

thanks in advance

aph

edit: the item link is out of date, the current stats of the gem is 26 healing and 9 spelldamage, and 2% reduced threat., also the gem requirements are "more red than blue".
Bracing Earthstorm Diamond @ wowhead

 

• frmorrison

The BED does give 9 damage as well as 2% threat and has very easy gem requirements.

If you need the -threat (i.e. have poor tanks), then it is an option.

Know Thy group function; Thy DPS shall avoid aggro, Thy tank shall not attempt to DPS, and Thy Healer shall not go AFK without notifying Thy group.

 

Alonso

Hi guys just a quick question. I heard of 21/40 build in terms of shadow, and I understand that understand that it would require at least 1000 shadow damage, 202 spell hit and 20% spell critical.

I have a few questions
20% spell critical includes talents?
I do understand that warlocks need 202 spell hit on level 73 bosses.
If i would have 190 spell hit, does it means that my shadow bolt is not getting full damage? or is it just 2% chance missing when up against a level 73 boss.

I have viewed many end game locks in armory and seen many locks do not have 20% crit UNTALENTED, they are mainly in BT.
How much does crit out dps spell damage in end games?

I have recently tried to hit 202 spell hit, 20% crit, and 1000 shadow damage(unbuff.)

Can I get help/suggestions on my current gear/spec best on my gear.
The World of Warcraft Armory
Currently my shadowbolts hit for 2.6k average and 4k when crit, is this normal? How much a 21/40 warlock damages when shadow bolting?
Seeking for help to improved raiding.
Thank you.

 

Ammanas

It could conceivably be an option and might be worth adding to the meta section in the OP, but you would have to be in really dire straits to take it over the CSD. You're better off trying to get a TA totem or getting a shaman in your tank group to help with threat, but if you don't have any other options you could check it out... but if you're having such horrible threat problems that you are considering this I doubt the 2% threat reduction is going to be that big of a benefit. Just my opinion though.

 

Ele'

[Edit] My bad, I mistaked the T6 helm for the Illidan one... so let me delete this useless post and blame that on the lack of coffee :'(

 

Talosh

The 2PT5 is fair enough for playing demo and it can compete in most fights in MH/BT. Felguard-Raiding is much more fun than the sb-artillery, but you need to know more details for the boss encounters (e.g. call back the demon for a moment when Illidan is casting flame crash) which aren't of any interest when being destro. In my eyes its also a bit stronger in movement fights like Supremus and Archimonde, but for pure single target tank & spank destro beats it due to the 4PT6. ISB-uptime is absolutely no argument for or against Felguardspec since you have the same spellrotation on boss fights (Curse, SB SB SB SB, reapply Curse, ...).

One of the best advantages of destro is when learning fights, since you don't have to watch your DoTimer and can concentrate much more on the encounter itself (Illidan Council is a very good example to avoid the AoE effects).

A lightning arrester on a steeple is the strongest vote of no confidence against our beloved god.

 

Xzal

Couldnt find a specific thread for this, but all the strats didnt say anything about whether or not Netherprotection is a go or no-go when offtanking. i know it makes me immune, but not totally positive if that'll make me temp break aggro while its procced

 

Codpiece

Token Affliction lock chiming in here! Sorry if this has allready been covered a million times, but I'm wondering if I should switch over to 40/0/21. Putting my numbers in the spreadsheets give me lower DPS, but I was thinking if the spec would actually give me better utility (like dps on trash, less pushback on bolts) and maybe even more dps. I was thinking that since the spreadsheet measures perfect play, and less dots are "easier" to play that I actually would be able to put out more dps in real encounters.

Also, I'm guessing that when putting nubers into the spreadsheet I should do so raid buffed, as that's the situation I'm trying to measure. I guess I'm looking for people who has experience with this spec and could tell me if my gear was up for the switch. I'm intentionally a little low on hit as supression helps me out a great deal. This factor will of course diminish slightly if I made the switch.

I'd love to do a little more DPS, annoys the hell out of me that having more stuff to do gimps my dps. Ah well, at least I'm enjoying it. Tried destro for some time, and I guess the big numbers are fun :P

<- armory profile at the avatar space

 

galzohar

Actually with the "DoT gap" in the spreadsheet sometimes it actually undervalues your ability to play well, as the default is set to 2 seconds which is probably too high considering on average it'd be 1/2 a shadowbolt + safety measure (where safety measure should be (<max latency> - <minimum latency>), which is generally a rather small number), and even less if you do a tap/pact when you see the gap with shadowbolt would be >1s, so if you can actually get mana from LT/DP at that point every time it happens your dot gap will actually go down to an average of 0.75s+safety. Anyway I don't see a reason for average 2s dot gap other than simply bad play or very very movement intensive fight, which would hurt your shadowbolts more than it hurts your DoTs anyway.

Also the ruin build will also gain a lot less from fights that allow multi-dotting and will lose more on fights where you need to move, but will gain more from fights with just enough pushback to make UA builds lose a lot of dps time but not extreme pushback as that would make you unable to cast much more than your DoTs anyway (although such a high level of pushback is quite unrealistic in most fights at least, so overall you can say the ruin build is more pushback resistant).

 

Codpiece

I never even noticed that option, that spreadsheet is more elaborate than I thought

Thanks for the reply, I'm guessing that means that I have no reason to switch over. It seems as if i need several pieces of BT/MH pieces to spec out of UA. Was just wondering since the spec was mentioned in the OP. 0/21/40 is not really an option as I'm the malediction/imp/SE bitch.

 

galzohar

Just figured I'd post what I got playing with the ISB simulator, considering how much sampling it took and that such experiements weren't really done before to evaluate the extra value of crit that comes from ISB:

Baseline: 1 aff lock (20% crit), 2 destro locks (2% haste each. 30% crit), 3 shadow priests.

ISB uptime: 55.62 +-0.13 %

Adding 3% crit to the aff lock:
ISB uptime: 56.53 +-0.13 %

Adding 3% to a destro lock (instead of the aff lock):
ISB uptime: 57.05 +-0.11 %

Note that the '+-' is because of variance, I ran the simulator at max fight length 50 times for each setup to get those results. Would take much longer to significantly reduce the error.

ISB increase for adding 3% to the aff lock: 0.9 +-0.19 %
ISB increase for adding 3% to the destro lock: 1.42 +-0.17 %

Assuming the ISB time is approximately linear to the crit chance at this range (as in, I know it's not linear, but assuming it's close enough to linear when you only change crit chance by 3%) allows to say:

ISB increase per crit rating for the aff lock: 0.0045 +-0.0029 %
ISB increase per crit rating for the destro lock: 0.0215 +-0.0026 %

Assuming DPS for the shadow priests and destruction warlocks and multiplying the total by the ISB increase * 0.2 (since ISB is 20% increase when it's up) yields a noticeable increase in crit value in comparison to spell damage. My baseline affliction warlock for example goes up from 0.22 dmg per 1 crit rating to 0.33, and the destruction lock goes from 0.6 spell dmg per crit rating up to 1. Playing with different stats slightly changes this, of course, but the bottom line is ISB is a rather significant factor when it comes for determining the value of crit rating for all warlocks (even affliction), and 1 crit rating can actually beat 1 spell damage (or at least come very close). This still means +12 damage gems are the best but items with yellow sockets and a good socket bonus suddenly become something worth considering (for example 2 dmg bonus for yellow socket makes 6 dmg 5 crit superior to 12 damage in that socket).

I do wish the simulator would allow you to run much longer fights to reduce the variance in the results, though, as going over it 50 times was bad enough, improving it noticeably would require at least 200 measurements (150 more for each setup!)... Since it's just a loop that repeats itself I see no reason to just allow it to run longer, however as of now there is still a maximum.

On a side note the huge variance in ISB uptime on such a long measurement means it's completely pointless to use any WWS/combatlog or any kind of in-game measurements to determine the value of ISB, even if it actually becomes possible to do so accurately in 2.4.

 

Trickykid

Hmm, as FG-demo you should really take a look at your DPCT on corruption and immolate, as I can almost guarantee they are worth casting. Depending on the spec, you can end up with more crit than any other spec, but since you're casting the dots it's a wash. It's certainly more fun than destro though ... if you screw up just a little and your demon eats damage too quick to dismiss without his buffs, you'll likely be in for a painful rest of the fight.

Those numbers match up almost exactly to the modeled (non-sim) numbers I've been using for months I didn't dig around to find the exact "destro" and "aff" cast-ratios, but using 90% destro, 50% aff->
Isb increase by adding 3% crit to:
Aff: 0.94
Dest: 1.67

Given that, the simulator really doesn't need to be stretched much more since it seems to be agreeing with modeled numbers pretty damn well (which are included in the latest spreadsheet). I've been using a number between 0.9-1.05 for crit for a while depending on the typical raid composition.

 

• frmorrison

Finally a buff for in 2.4 Affliction Locks (too bad Destro still scales better with haste), with 520 spell haste rating you can cast your DoTs 0.5 seconds faster .

I need to pickup a ring of ancient knowledge now.

Know Thy group function; Thy DPS shall avoid aggro, Thy tank shall not attempt to DPS, and Thy Healer shall not go AFK without notifying Thy group.

 

galzohar

The reason the simulator needs to be stretched a LOT is that I needed to run it 50 times at max length just to get ~0.1-0.15% error. Increase the max to 250-1000 times as much as it is now and you can get rather reliable results by just running it once.
Remember that assuming something that we know is not linear scales linearly is only approximately true when your value doesn't change much. At first I wanted to run it with 1% crit difference however I ended up with a deviation too close to the actual difference and thus the results were meaningless.
If the simulator could give a deviation of the uptime as well it would be awesome too, so you don't have to run it several times to see how accurate it is. If you go to the simulator and run it a couple times you'll see what I mean.

Anyway the bottom line is it makes crit more or less on par with spell dmg point for point for destruction, which is noticeably higher than the spreadsheet shows. And for affliction it's more like 0.33 rather than 0.22, which while still low is a significant difference.


EDIT: Looking at the formulas the spreadsheet does seem to assume SWD is being cast every 12 seconds, which set my results off a little. Wish you could set overall shadow damage spells frequency for shadow priest that I can get from a shadow priest simulator, considering VT and probably SWP are still a priority for MB/SWD.

 

Trickykid

I understand that it's not super accurate at telling you next-stat comparisons unless it's run many times. My point is that since running it many times matches up very well with the models created for ISB-uptime, we can just use the models instead of running a simulation 10,000 times.

Are you using the latest version of the spreadsheet? Mine puts crit at roughly the same value as spell damage if you use the Raid ISB tab. If anything the model slightly OVER-emphasizes crit compared to the sims.

 

Fafhrd

Made some quick calculations, and the buff to spell haste affecting GCD is about 1% buff to dps for a 0/21/40 warlock with 5% spell haste ratings, maybe 1.5%.

 

galzohar

I was using an older version that didn't have the "Raid TNS" option. Looking at the default raid ISB settings you need to change a lot there to match a real raid (for example SWDs not counted, do 1/(1/MBCD+1/SWDCD) to get real average time between shadow spells for shadow priest, but remember sometimes it doesn't sync so it's actually a little longer than that). Using that I get exactly 1 crit = 1 dmg, which is pretty much what I got using the old spreadsheet version modifying crit myself.
So yeah no point with the simulator when the model works just fine and doesn't have variance ;p

The practical conclusion remains the same, 1 crit is more or less equal to 1 spell dmg for a destruction warlock, which is much higher than how good crit is for any other class (even fire mages only get 0.7-0.85 or so).

 

Suggestive

I figured it would be a non issue till i remembered lifetap will get affected by it too. Its not the biggest DPS increase in the world, but it makes stacking haste much less of a liability than it used to be.

 

galzohar

2.4 changes will actually make it a lot more realistic to get 2XUA/corruption inside a 20s trinket, but that would require actually equip haste which isn't exactly a top stat for you considering it doesn't make dots tick any faster ;p

Haste for destruction will probably see a nice small improvement, and will chage the point where immolate turns from worth casting to not worth casting if you have any haste.


Looking at the effect casting immolate has on ISB, it makes it pretty break-even with full fire talents, scorch and CoE if you consider the ISB drop, although with stats close to default it's still a very (VERY) small DPS gain. With extremely high spell dmg and/or 4/6 T6 it becomes just a waste of a spot on your castbar.

 

Brachamul

Hi, just a quick question about Shadow and Fire destro.

It is said in the original post that, thanks to ISB, Shadow scales better than Fire. However Fire also gets a bonus from the mage's +15% debuff thanks to Scorch. In the end though I guess Shadow also gains 10% from priests that Fire doesn't get...

I'm confused about which between Fire and Shadow is the better DPS. I've calculated that just spamming SB can bring a Lock with SSC/TK gear to 1600 dps, and that seems kinda... lame.

 

Trickykid