Fully-talented immolate on a fully scorched for your joe average destro warlock is about 20-30 dps gain (already modeled in the spreadsheet: you lose at least 3 in cataclysm as well, and that immolate costs more resulting in more lifetaps, and immolate doesn't benefit from ISB). Add some haste and/or consider ISB time dropping slightly for your raid and it turns into something you're not bothering with. Corruption is even worse in that regard.

While warlocks gain more from crit (as they gain about the same personal dps as mages but also increase raid dps a bit), a moonkin without a shadow priest is a wasted raid slot (heck it'd be hard for you to justify a moonkin WITH A shadow priest). I mean buffing is nice but not when you have to bring a shitty dps class to do it.

I disagree. A moonkin that needs a shadow priest to be doing decent damage is a waste of a raid slot. Moonkins should just man up and chug pots. That's not to mention; the moonkin aura is a complete waste on an spriest. Support classes/party buff classes like moonkins/enh shamans/spriests/etc should never be catered to/have group buffs made around them. They're there to stand on their own and buff other people.

The moonkin is there to do decent damage (top ten?), but mainly he is there to buff the other people in his party. He's not there to justify his spot on the meters. It shouldn't be expected of him to hit #1 every time, and when he does hit #1, you have to consider what the other dps classes are doing to allow that moonkin to hit #1 on the meters.

Not every guild has enough of the right spec or class to warrant having a moonkin (i.e. mages/destro locks) but that doesn't make the moonkin class or aura a waste of a raid slot entirely as a whole. It just means not every guild has a use for it.

A large number of the WWS parses I've seen have moonkins in with classes like pallies, affliction warlocks, spriests, and others; which is just sad because it's a total waste of a good aura. Sure, affliction locks are going to get SOME benefit out of it; but 3-4 destro locks/mages would be a far, far, far superior group choice to put in with the moonkin. It would be mostly wasted on affliction locks when compared to destro locks/mages. But again, like I said, not every guild would have this many of those two specs/classes to warrant having a moonkin.

Given his own self innervate and no spriest, what is the typical t6 nuking time for a boomkin?

Even in my own not-ideal gear (my gear isn't even 4pc t5; it's a real mix of nontier pieces from all 3 lvls), I can last 12 minutes without my own innervate or an spriest doing 1000ish DPS. 4pc T5 would jump that up at least by 200 dps. And if I used Mighty Resto with Mana Oil instead of Blinding light/Wizard OIl, that would jump up to 13-14 minutes. So, I don't know if that gives you a frame of reference or not. Using my own innervate would boost that further to 15 minutes. All those times are just straight up standing there, casting; no moving around, no switching targets; etc etc.

Sure, I have to chug mana potions like theyre going out of style but most fights aren't longer than 7 minutes; and any longer than that usually requires alot of running around and/or time spent not casting. Yes, a destro lock is oging to destroy a moonkin in terms of DPS. But the moonkin is *there* specifically to buff the other 3-4 ppl in his group; not recieve a bunch of buffs so he himself can DO dps, hah.

Also, I saw Gal post earlier about how it's better to bring a pure DPS class instead of a shitty enh shaman; and I disagree with that as well. I can only speak from experience of my own guild; but our enh shaman buffs our rogues by 200-400 DPS PER rogue and they put 4 rogues in with our enh shaman. That's 800 DPS minimum that enh shaman is bringing to the raid without even touching the boss whatsoever. I would say it's much better to bring a crappy enh shaman than a pure DPS class, because a pure DPS class won't be able to make up for the party buff the shaman is providing to the melee group. Add in the 1000+ DPS the enh shaman is actually doing and that's 1800 DPS that even a mediocre shaman is bringing to the raid.

I would say for a guild that already has everything on farm it doesn't quite matter if a druid wants to go moonkin and have some fun for a while.

If we're talking best raid compositon you are likely bringing 2-3 shadow priests for sheer mana batteries. You need to look at in your particular raid force who needs the shadow priest and the moonkin can also help if you really need it have a group with a spriest/moonkin/3 holy paladins. Also a raiding mooonkin is actually amazing if you know you can rely on them being to every raid then all of your melee can socket accordingly assuming they will always get 3% hit from a moonkin *same for tanks getting 3% hit being amazing*

As for Destro Locks vs Fire mages "Needing" the elemental shaman, personally i'd opt for a spriest given any of the options, and outside of that give it to who in your particular raid does the best. We can theory craft all day about what class deserves it the best, but in the end it should go to who in your raid will make the best use out of it. If you have a mage that despite theorycrafting is beating every lock every time chances are he's gonna make more use out of it then a warlock who is to idiotic to press 33333.

You also kinda get into the problem that destro locks can still be threat capped depending on the fight due to their higher potential for damage over other casters. If you keep buffing them its likely they will simply need to hold back more and waste all the buffs anyway.

Is that 800 dps above what a resto shaman would give them, or just flat out 800 dps? Because you have to remember that if you don't have an enhancement shaman in the melee group a resto shaman should be taking his spot and put those totems down. That means enhancement only gives unleashed rage +slightly extra windfury attack damage. Wether this is enough to make up for his lack or personal dps or not depends on the shaman and whatever other class/player you could've brought in his place, but if he's shitty and you have a good hunter/mage/lock sitting out you should switch.
Buff class or not, if your personal dps/healing is crap you're a wasted raid slot. Granted you don't need to do as much as everyone else but there's a minimum threshhold you need to cover as a buffing class so that your personal dps + buff dps is better than the personal dps of another dps class that could take your raid slot.

If I had a moonkin to work with I think 1 group would be shaman (ele or resto), mage, mage, mage, moonkin. If all those mages were frost or fire. The sp would then go to the locks with a resto shaman in his group also for totems.

The main reason I normal have a group or sp, shaman (ele or resto), mage, mage, mage and then the locks go with the extra bm hunters is because if a mage's cooldowns are all used and he's oom he's totally out of the fight. The locks atleast have the to tap down and get back into it.

I have a feeling you either misread those table's, or don't know what they're refering to. What about those table's are you using to determine this plateau exactly?

Notice how adding more warlocks past a certain point, or adding more crit on those warlocks gives swiftly diminishing returns? In fact past a certain point you DECREASE your uptime by having more warlocks.

If this is the case, then the rhetoric that boomkins need the spriest is completely unfounded.

I would have to question any sim that showed decreasing ISB uptime with more destro locks or more crit. Also there has been more recent work done on ISB uptime since the shadowpriest.com sim.

I would like to add that shadowpriest.com's simulations are not based on real raiding habits eg. the destro template assumes CoD, Immolate, Corruption + Shadowbolt cycle. This skews every result generated on that simulationcraft site including the ISB uptime section.

The moonkin wants the shadowpriest (?) but the shadowpriest does not want the moonkin.
The shadowpriest wants the elemental shaman but post-2.3.2 the shammy does not need the shadowpriest.
Warlocks (in theory) get more benefit out of shadowpriests because they can lifetap, but mages (in practice) get more benefit because their mana is finite to begin with. Shadowpriests probably want to be grouped with mages, VE with lifetap will give them crazy agro they don't need.
Warlocks and shadowpriests get more out of warlocks having a boomkin and ele shaman than mages.
Elemental shamans and boomkin generally want each other, but not as much as mages or warlocks want either (?).

Sounds like you should have one group with boomkin, ele shamans, and warlocks, and another with shadow priests and mages, mostly depending on whether or not boomkin can or cannot support themselves with just an elemental shaman. Other than that, all the buffs are going to those that can best make use of them except wrath of air on the shadow priest if you only have one elemental shaman. If any of my assumptions are wrong, please indicate.


If you have a fair number of shadowpriests you're probably going to see more improved shadowbolt time by increasing the warlocks' mana supply than their crit rate. ISB uptime tens to be relatively inert with respect to crit chance. What does change is, is how much they cast nukes compared to shadowpriests, which can be improved by having them nuke more and tap less. However, on a fight where regen is a consideration, you still want your mages being covered by shadowpriests first.

It's also worth noting which buffs stack when you have several of them in the same group, and which do not, for when you have several of these class and might consider grouping them together.
STACK
Totem of wrath
Healing stream totem
vampiric touch*
vampiric embrace
DON'T STACK
Wrath of air totem
Mana spring totem
Boomkin aura
*Note, however, that while VT stacks, one is almost always enough.

In addition, unless he's changed his position on refusing to complicate his simulator with the rest of reality (i.e. lifetap), all his warlocks have infinite mana. This skews the dps reports for the warlocks significantly, and may have other odd effects.

It's possible he did indeed add it, but I haven't looked at the site since reaching an impasse on the issue of how warlock dps was being misreported.

Wow - reading through this thread and i still see that a lot of this is still very opinionated - but anway here goes.

This advice, is specific to *your* case, since you only have *one* shadowpriest. It's also *extremely* opinionated

Firstly - a mage who chain chugs mana pots, evocates, and does everything he can to keep his mana going will go oom after 4-5 minutes, spamming his best DPM spell . From this point on, he is worthless, and spends his time wanding
A warlock will go oom faster than a mage , but lifetap means he loses 20-30% of his damage, and not 90%
Do you know what that means?

Your optimal group setup - should be
Spriest
+ 4x DPS who are unable to do *anything* once oom

Doesn't matter if they are elem shaman, boomkin, mage, warlock. It's almost clear as day that, both a boomkins and mages are completely, utterly, useless OOM (to the point where it's probably better to let them die to save on raid healing). Elem shamans, I have no idea - maybe they face the same case. If so, they deserve the same priority to go in that group.

And what if, you don't have enough shadowpriests or mana to go around for everyone? Then unfortunately, bring more warlocks and less mages. Heck, I would advocate bringing no more than 1 mage into the raid, and just bring other classes (such as hunters and warlocks) which are actually capable of DPS without screwing the rest of the raid DPS over by sucking up mana.
You could be even more harsh, and bring mages for trash, and rotate them out for warlocks at the boss (though this probably won't make very happy mages), and only bring your very best DPS mage to the boss.

---

Ok - to be slightly more realistic - you need to talk to your mages, and see whos actually capable of conserving mana and chain chugging mana pots. You also need to see which warlocks are capable of liftetapping properly.

For example (and a very unlikely one at that), if your very best mage has serpent coil braid, has a tonload of spare spirit on his gear, and is willing to spec 33/28 to lower his DPS (a lot, but not as much relative to going OOM) but to up his mana (in combination with mage armor) so that he can last 6 minutes instead of 4 on his own, then potentially it is worth putting him on his own, if you desperately need to put others in the SP group. This is especially true on fights where there is a lot of movement, and not much true DPS time, or where the encounter is much based on survivability. If you're doing leotheras, I was always put on my own without a shadowpriest, even as full fire, because you never run OOM anyway if you are smart with gems and pots - the vast majority of DPS is in demon phase, and the majority of the fight (for us) was simply surviving without losing members to stupid things like whirlwind.

If you have a warlock who you notice, is superb at timing his lifetaps only when moving, or during times when you can't DPS (remember - even 9 seconds in a fight where there is a little bit of animation or something, is enough for a warlock to lifetap to full provided he has good coordination with a healer), then it is probably better sticking him on his own, because he is smart enough to know how to keep his DPS up even without a mana battery, saving up more shadowpriest spots for others.

And perhaps, your very, very first priority, is to start recruiting more shadowpriests.

Yeah, shadowpriests are the class we design our caster dps groups around, but we just don't get any applicants. Plenty of rogues and far too many bad hunters, sadly.

We have 2, but one works a lot of late shifts so can't attend very often. As we usually run with 4 mages we put them and the one spriest in one group, and put our destro warlock in a second with a moonkin and resto shaman. Usually a couple of healers as filler. This works well, with the destro lock usually top (our raid leader, best geared caster) and the other dps not far behind. He used to take the spriest but is happy to take the totems, bloodlust and crit instead to keep the mages happy. If we get a second spriest, he goes with the lock along with one of the mages for a group of death. This puts the lock and lucky mage well ahead of the other casters, and the moonkin jumps a few spots, so is obviously the best setup. If only we could make it happen more often.

On moonkins - we had a healer switch to moonkin when we recruited another tree, so he's not been doing it very long. Usually does reasonable dps with only a resto shaman, but with a spriest he doesn't do anything like what a mage does with one.

What if you swapped players to the shadow priest group during the fight ?

Yes, thats the fundamental difference between mages and warlocks. We have cooldowns whereas they have none. We can hence take better advantage of cooldown stacking.

Oh, I should have said, we're 4/6 SSC and we only raid 2 nights a week, so we're pretty casual in the grand scheme of raiding guilds. The 4 mages we normally take to raids are 2 fire (me and a girl who's pretty new to it so is a bit timid with threat) and 2 arcane (2t5). So I'm the only one who would make full use of the bloodlust/molten fury/cooldown stacking bit. I already talked him into giving up his shadowpriest, but I might have more luck getting myself swapped into his group at 20%. I'll have to try that.

Obviously a 2nd spriest would solve this (provided I was the lucky mage, but I could probably swing that).

Oh then it's easy - don't bring the arcane mages and then you got 2 extra SP spots for the raid. It's been proven several times arcane is a pretty suboptimal raid spec and burns up way too much mana, and can't actually keep up with fire unless you have something like an 80% AB uptime.
Mage informational thread basically says its not better for fights that last longer than 60 secs

First off, sorry for bumping an old thread but with brutallus sitting there flaunting guilds with his 10 million hp and 6 min enrage i was wondering if anyone has numbers on an optimal dps caster group.

We have two shadow priests. Should they typically be grouped together, or split apart into separate groups, or in terms of theorycrafting does it not matter?

We have 3 mages, 3 warlocks and 4 paladin healers, just one shamen (enhancement). A typical setup is a group with the two shadow priests + three mages, and everyone else spread out, though sometimes healers get a shadow priest.