fugger

Yeah, I've been finding 70% to where it feels like it's the optimal point. Of course sometimes like you said you end the fight with a big threat gap and realize you could've popped it sooner.

Bonus Damage: +752 Damage, +54 Shadow Damage (+806 total to shadow spells) <- Self Buffed w/ Fel Armor
Hit Rating: 83 (6.58%)
Crit Rating: 91 (10.40%)
Penetration: 39
HP: 8817, Mana: 8199

I am using Xi'ri's Gift and Ancient Crystal Talisman in my trinket slots, so there's 2 pop trinkets worth of damage as well.

I could have a little more crit or more damage, I sacrificed some for soft stats.

 

Gogusrl

i came in tbc with 629 spell damage. now i have
Spell Damage: +831 with fel armor (no aegis)
Shadow Damage: +233 (+1064) with fel armor (no aegis)
Spell Crit rating : 56
Spell Hit rating : 101
HP : 7340 (no demonic embrace)
MP : 6670

profile with no gems : http://ctprofiles.net/5066931

 

• probiscus

I'm surprised at you guys saying you're not able to do 100% DPS as whatever spec. Of the three tree's the only one I've not spec'd in a raid environment is deep destruction, simply b/c of the mana inefficiency of it. I toyed w/ 0-40-21 for PvP and 4k+ crits are fun, but nuking isn't where it's at in kara in my experience. Especially w/ all you give up in terms of utility in heroics/questing/grinding, etc.

Between demon and affliction, yes demon has higher +damage, and sbolts hit harder, but with our group and my spec, I found I was able to significantly outperform my demon DPS (regardless of pet choice) as an affliction spec.

PvE gear: http://ctprofiles.net/4602640
Talent points: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IiMrzRftVtfo0xZxx0z

For reference, a fellow guildy and I have basically been shadowing eachothers specs, and perform nearly identical every raid ... when we were both demon specs. I sneakily re-spec'd affliction for this past weeks kara/prince kill to primarily aid healers (we run with 3) w/ my 5% physical dmg debuff - and ended the prince fight at approx 229K dmg, with the next closest (the other warlock) at 170K. I was on CoS duty, as I have 3/3 malediction. Our destro warlock was 5th with 161k. We don't have shadow priests or mages.

As far as aggro on that fight, as it's rather long (for us) - I did not nuke for the first dot rotation, then at the beginning of my second round of UA/corr I began nuking judiciously (no trinks just yet), then went 100% full on DPS for the rest of the fight. While I wasn't flasked I still wasn't exceeding 80% of our MT's threat no matter how hard I tried.

Now, the primary thing I was focused on was keeping UA/Corr up for the dmg debuff, so those, along with CoS were up 100%, siphon life may have fallen off a few times but only b/c I was dropping shadowbolts (with ISB and bane). I was using adepts and the greater shadow elixirs and I think 8m/5 food (though I'll swap that for dmg food next time, mana was not an issue). Given the duration of the fight there's clearly room for me to improve my DPS, however I don't think I could improve it to the point where I'd be pulling off our tank.

So, I'm wondering what the deal is:
1) Is there something I'm doing wrong? I see the cycles from the OP include immolate, however due to my wearing frozen shadoweave, I see immolate as a giant waste of time compared to another partial Sbolt.
2) Is there something your tanks are doing wrong?
3) Is my tank superman?

 

Maels

Check for ill-fitting glasses and a unexplainabe preference towards public telephones over cels.

 

• probiscus

I was just talking w/ our hunters about that fight over vent (we had 2 that evening) - apparently they were spamming misdirection on our tank throughout the fight, on its cooldown. Sounded like a great idea, is that common practice?

 

Cursedflame

Pre tbc : 643 dmg, 87 shadow -> 730
After tbc : 937 dmg (3 new epics 2 shadoweave + exalted scryers ring, rest is some blue replacements for chest, 1 trinket, neck)

 

Deathwing

I don't think Destro builds miss out on that much utility. I have both improved imp and improved HS, which is just about all the utility you'll get from demo in terms of helping other people. The unique utility from affliction is Malediction and instant HoT, and I'd say the last one is the only real pivotal one.

Secondly, how does a destro build really differ that much in playstyle from others in a raid environment? On trash, I put up a curse(CoE), corruption, immolate, and then nuke. Unless you have UA, that's really the same thing you're doing. Trash dies too fast for Siphon Life. And I've found that nuking things down ASAP is what you want in karazhan. You want that shadowpriest dead right away on Moroes.

Lastly, Destro builds are actually mana efficient compared to other builds. 5% off most of the spells you cast and 2 of them, Incinerate and Conflagrate, already having a low base cost. If you take a look at the wiki.shadowpriest.com site, the destro fire build is 50% more efficient than the 40 affliction/21 destro build. Now, that's largely equalled out by affliction having dark pact and improved lifetap, but a fire destro build is not mana ineffecient.

 

Lamaros

If you can't go all out on DPS from the get go on pretty much every fight, using trinkets and everything, then your warriors just aren't that good.

I'm +970 shadow selfbuffed now (still missing shoulder, head, wrist, back, and glove enchants - waiting on a couple of upgrade pieces/scryer rep) and I have to try really hard to pull aggro, with soulshatter I can burn all my trinkets early and still be in the clear.

Above poster:

You forget siphon life. Mine ticks for 300+ on boss fights - that's 100+ health per second before we factor in a shadow priest. With and dark pact you can cast *forever* without breaking your cycle - drain life is used as a healing spell if you cop a blast or something.

Affliction isn't just about mana efficiency, it's about self-sufficiency.

And nuking isn't that important in Kaz. Curator is probably the only point where it helps, but there's enough DPS from a mage and rogue there that destro warlock burst isn't required.

 

fugger

Well, I guess I'm always trying really hard then . The only warrior in our guild who I have trouble catching on threat is the one with Thunderfury, and at level 70 even that is somewhat proc dependent.

I find that unless I slack on paying attention with renewing dots (especially CoA/Corruption), catching the tank isn't hard. I'll admit, and I'm sure we all realize that this happens, that on some farm fights we get lazy and after the first couple rounds of dots we might end up spending a little too much time Shadow Bolting and not refreshing the dots. When that happens to me that's when the tank pulls away.

 

Deathwing

Yes, affliction locks are get to put 1-2 more dots up on a boss than destro locks. After those 3s, you're going to be doing the same thing as a destro lock. That was my point, affliction locks nuke almost as much as a destro lock.

Curious about Dark Pact, how long can the imp's initial mana bar and regen sustain you before you have to resort to lifetapping? Additionally, if you lifetap, how can you convince your healers not to heal you? That's probably the one thing I miss from affliction, taking healing load off the healers.

 

Overnuker

It takes two Dark Pacts to empty its mana, but it regens half its manapool in 15-20secs I guess.

 

• frmorrison

If you think Nuking isn't that important, what you are doing between casting DoTs?

If you look at the damage meters of top damaging Locks that have been posted here, no matter the spec Shadowbolt is the largest source of damage.

 

• probiscus

Life tap, dark pact, running away from infernals on the fight I'm talking about particularly.

As far as the comment about our tanks sucking if I can't blow trinkets off the bat: we have no TF, I didn't have salv and I don't have MD imp bonus. Do you blow trinkets as soon as you see a sunder in that situation, when your dots can tick for over 500 easily? For some more flavor, it was our first Prince kill, so I wasn't about to be the guy who pulled aggro b/c KTM doesn't update threat post Soul Shatter (grrr) - so I definitely was playing it conservative. The tank probably just hit the threat point of no return (is there such a thing?) sooner than I expected.

On previous attempts I was able to creep up to his threat level w/in a couple dot / nuke cycles, but at that point I was running the chance of enfeebling him - which was unacceptable.

As far as shadowbolt being a large part of DPS, of course it is. However my priority on that fight is to maintain debuffs (by far #1), keep myself at about 95% health, keep my pets mana below 100% via dark pact... on THIS fight. Also worth mentioning Ph2 for us is the burn, so we try and save our trinkets for that. On, say, curator, shadowbolt (aside from the dmg bonus) is an even larger part of my dmg, 1) b/c that's all I'm doing to the flares and 2) you've got a short period of time to nuke him as hard as you can and 3) my debuffs aren't *as* important.

 

Evalara

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=32599

It's a flat amount, not a %. That trinket as well as the slightly better blue one from Shadow Labyrinth are all but useless.

 

◊ Kyth

Pick up 19.6 or later, it does, and it's a beautiful thing to watch your threat drop.


To the threat discussion: no TF here either. I definitely notice a bit difference when I'm with a TF tank.

To the hunter thing: I asked our hunters about spamming misdirection, they said hunter mana is limited and they regen slowly, and it cuts into their dps too much to keep using it.

 

Demi9OD

Misdirection is on a 2 min cooldown, so even at a (relatively) high mana cost your Hunters should definitely be trinketing aimed/multi/arcane misdirections every 2 minutes if threat is an issue for other classes. Thats what mana pots are for.

 

Myonax

Bleh, waste of a bank slot. thanks. 720 isn't even a blip in aggro.

 

Lamaros

I have 10% less threat accross the board, which helps. But even then, sounds like you need better tanks then.

 

Bolche

If you don't want to go deep demonoly to get the thread reduction from MD, you can use a SM/Ruin build (something like a37/3/21 or even a 41/3/17) and get the -10% thread on both affliction and destruction spells.

I'm currently using the first build, and with BoS, I can't pull aggro from our MT1 druid (except if the mob is ummune to bleed effect)



About including immolation in cycle if you have a lot of +shadow damage :

If you have a lot of + shadow damage, you are probably not deep destruction. Lets asume a nice 0/0/0 build :

Immolation dmg = (327+0,198*add_fire)*(1+crit/2) + (615+0,653*add_fire)
SB damage = (572+0,856*add_shadow) * (1 + crit/2).

for respectively a 2s and 3s cast time.
So if we take a 800 "all spell damage" and 10% crit, your immolation damage per cast time is :
Immo dpct = ((327+0,198*800)*(1+0.1/2) + (615+0,653*800))/2 = 824 dps
while SB one is :
SB dpct = (572+0,856*800) * (1 + .1/2) / 3 = 440 dps

The +shadow dmg you need to reach "SB dpct" > "immo dpct" is around 1100 (1900 total shadow damage)

In (almost) the worse case (something like a 40/21/0 with sacrified succub, and with shadow weaving and misery but without imp. scorch)
the formulas become :
SB dpct = ((572+0,856*800) * 1.05 * 1.10 * 1.15 * 1.15 * 1.05)/3 = 692 dps
Immo dpct = ((327+0,198*800)*1.05 + (615+0,653*800))*(1.05)/2 = 864 dps

And in this case, you only need 360 +shadow damage (1160 total shadow damage) to remove immolation from your cycle.

I hope there is not to many mistakes in what I have written ^^

Warlock DPS Spreadsheet

 

• frmorrison

Without having to calculate, since Immo takes 1 second less to cast than SB with the spells have similar base damage, if your target is going to last more than 14 seconds it is better to cast Immolate.

Are there really Locks that don't cast Immolate on a target that isn't going to die in <14 seconds?

Even with about 150 +shadow damage, immolate is about 15% of my damage on boss fights.

 

◊ Kyth

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=AqMbVMcZZxx0trhtMuVo is what I use to get -10% on each school (and still pull aggro, but as I said, might be a MT-gearing issue still, I got all the crafted stuff I could, so outpaced the rest of the guild.)

I'm not really happy with the placement of the 5 points that normally go into emberstorm, but I haven't really found anything that makes me happy. (only 15-18% of my damage on a raid comes from fire spells.)


I've been considering going back to 41/x/x though.

Does anyone have a formula/spreadsheet to calculate at what gearing point on a single boss fight Ruin becomes better than UA? I lost my hard disk in January and the spreadsheet that went with it and have been too lazy to recreate it yet.

 

Zoner

Fel Armor is for taking the healing load off the healers. And with lifebloom, you can time it yourself reactively to maximize its usefulness. Its far better than getting hit for a 6k greater heal crit that overhealed for 3k out of the blue.

 

Melchior

Well, with the upcoming patch changing Demonic Tactics to 5% increased crit instead of damage, how does this change the 0/40/21 build? How much will the increased ISB procs offset the loss of DoT damage, and does it make the build any better off overall?