Warlock dmg at lvl 60/70: afflic/demo/destro - Theory

nenad · 12/20/06, 12:24 PM

*EDITED* Jun 2007, with new Warlock DPS XLS calculator

I tried to compare afflic, demo and destro builds. Main element that I tried to compare is damage on raid boss mobs between those 3 builds.

Originally I included only damage modifier talents in XLS calculations, but later I added other elements , so now its possible to set calculations for different:

1) Warlock base data
-Time period or fight duration
-items spell +dmg
-items shadow +dmg
-items fire +dmg
-crit% without talents
-added hit%
-spell haste %
-warlocks mana
-warlocks HP without talents

2) Enviroment data
-global cooldown delay+lag
-delay to recast DoTs
-raid buffs CoE / CoS
-raid buffs SW/Misery / Scorch
-additional shdw+fire buff mult.
-mob level compared to lock
-mob shdw/fire ressist
-Include Pet DPS
-sascrifice pet
-Pet type

3) Talent points (all DPS related talents in Affliction, Demonology and Destruction)

Goal was to require minimum changes in input if I want to compare DPS of same warlock with diferent talent builds, or same lock/build with different stats. Therefore, warlock data is entered without any talent modifiers (ie crit% without devastation/DT etc, so if i change from destro to afflic, i dont need to change warlock stats, only talent points). Also, frequency of all important spells are auto-calculated if that spell is chosen for use ... and that include needed LifeTaps, so when I change stats or build resulting in more/less mana usage, it will automatically adjust needed LTs and influence DPS.

In addition to DPS for chosen build, new XLS also calculate equivalents between +dmg stat and other stats like +shadow, +cri%, +hit and +haste.

New XLS can be found here:

Warlock DPS XLS calculator

Pictures and initial posts below are based on older versions of XLS calculations

nenad · 12/20/06, 12:27 PM

some results from lvl 60 comparition - note that i made those before I added some elements like mob misses/ressists or HP/mana regens

guesstimate for warlock damage at lvl 60 over 100sec fight against average boss mob:

btw, one of main reasons for such advantage for affliction build is that I consider realistic scenario where lock need to regain mana in those 100sec (ie, not to use more than 6k mana, rest needs DP/LT) - and Dp > LT because it can be used in CD period.

But i made assumption that afflic lock can use DP 6 times in 100sec period. I guessed that you can DP 3-4 times before imp gets out of mana, and that imp need about 60sec to regen mana back.

comparative pies for afflic@60 related dmg % and cast time:

or

comparative pies for demolock@60 related dmg % and cast time:

Emily · 12/20/06, 12:28 PM

Possible to delete my post here? (Didn't mean to break up a brother's flow!)

nenad · 12/20/06, 12:51 PM

and finally some comparitions for lvl 70. So far without pictures ;p

For max DPS, with only limitation that you can not spend more mana that you have (ie, you must regain mana either with LT or DP), but without limitations on using your HP, ie you can LT as much as you need, and can expect some heal. This is viable only for short fights, or when you can count on healing:

81,656 dmg= 41/00/20 Full Afflic
75,865 dmg= 30/21/10 SM/DS
75,546 dmg= 31/00/30 DP/Ember
74,541 dmg= 07/41/13 Full Demo
72,576 dmg= 30/00/31 SM/Conflag
69,924 dmg= 00/21/40 SF/DS
68,698 dmg= 20/00/41 Full Destro

I tried even some non-41pts builds, and while most of them suprisingly did better than full Destro or full Demo, still full Affliction wins ;p

For no heals DPS, with limitation that you can not spend more than your total mana/HP, you can not count at outside heals, but still in 100sec period (ie you can end up with 100hp/mana at end of 100sec). This is viable scenario for most boss fights.

81,656 dmg= 41/00/20 Full Afflic
70,431 dmg= 07/41/13 Full Demo
68,452 dmg= 30/21/10 SM/DS
65,025 dmg= 20/00/41 Full destro

For sustained DPS, with limitation that you can not spend more mana/HP than you regen back, but without outside heals. For this calculations i presumed 1000sec period, and i will show DPS over period instead of total damage. This is mostly theorycraft, since you will rarely fight 10min in continuity without any heals and such:

785 DPS= 41/00/20 Full Afflic
591 DPS= 07/41/13 Full Demo
507 DPS= 30/21/10 SM/DS
495 DPS= 20/00/41 Full destro

While I can not be 100% sure in all formulas I used, above numbers definitelly take into account often ignored fact that you need to somehow get mana during fight and need to lose time doing it.

Since I'm personally demonology lock, I would appreciate if someone find and point out that i missed something in my XLS calculations , that would potentially close gap between demo and afflic ...otherwise I predict changing to afflic very soon ;)

♦ Praetorian · 12/20/06, 1:02 PM

I'll let this stand separately because of the amount of content and the unique points it makes. Small questions or comments should be folded into larger threads, but this merits a thread of its own.

nenad · 12/20/06, 1:08 PM

Originally Posted by Emily

This is good stuff, but I'd suggest adding it to this thread:

http://forums.elitistjerks.com/viewtopic.php?id=8156

yes, I checked that thread (well, at least starting pages ;) , but assumptions there differ slightly from my assumptions:
- they do not take into account time needed for mana regen (DP/LT)- they have 18/19sec spell cycle period ... spell mix in that period does not represent raid boss fight, i wanted to fit all appropriate spells (+UA/siphon, LT/DP)
- zero +dmg gear was considered, and it has huge impact on lock DPS and differently affect DoTs, nukes and different builds

It does not means that calculations there are not correct - I just feel that for real raid boss fights my assumptions are more appropriate.

Of course, another reason why i didnt want to post this in other thread is that it would end up at page 62 - and not many ppl would find it there ;p

• frmorrison · 12/20/06, 1:20 PM

Your numbers are not surprising, the dps of DoTs has been improved quite a bit, also assuming you have a Fire Mage @ 70 (15% more fire damage), Immolate/Incinerate could be decent dps.

Suggestion with regard to hosting, that host you used requires one to register, try savefile.com.

delljit · 12/20/06, 1:21 PM

Originally Posted by nenad

But i made assumption that afflic lock can use DP 6 times in 100sec period. I guessed that you can DP 3-4 times before imp gets out of mana, and that imp need about 60sec to regen mana back.

For what it's worth, at a little over 600dmg my imp gives 2 dark pacts before going oom.

Emily · 12/20/06, 1:32 PM

Can any lvl 70 locks give accounts of the dps of their pets? In fights where pets are given free reign to whomp the target, how much of the difference between Demo/Aff can that +30% damage Felguard make up?

nenad · 12/20/06, 1:45 PM

Originally Posted by delljit

For what it's worth, at a little over 600dmg my imp gives 2 dark pacts before going oom.

tnx, I also got info from afflic locks that they can get 2 full and one partial DP before imp is oom. If that is 2.5 DPs per imp full mana, and imp regain mana in 60sec, that could still allow for 6 DPs in 100sec : 2 near start, and in remaining 90sec imp would regen 1.5 times mana bar, giving ~ 4 more DPs. But this is still guesstimate, so if some afflic lock have more precise answer to "how many DPs possible in 100sec", it would be nice ;p

BTW, I noticed slight error in XLS, related to improved Immolate at lvl 70 (when it was not present, i multiplied initial immolate damage with zero). Fixed this, included in new XLS that I hosted according to previous suggestion at another host:
Warlock damage.XLS

I will edit above posts to reflect new numbers - it increased numbers for afflic and demo only, since destro already had improved immol...making difference to destro even greater. I must admit that I expected destro to have at least same damage as demonology, or even greater. As it stands now, I either have another bug in calculations, or I had wrong expectations ;p

Fres · 12/20/06, 2:04 PM

Very interesting to read, but I have a few comments/questions-
[Edit: For your level 60 comparisons]Why did you exclude a traditional SM/Ruin build from your comparisons? In essence, does UA and the 5% bonus damage from contagion outweigh the dps increase from ruin and 5% to crit? What if we remove Curse of Agony?

Why did you assume any innate magical resists at all?
Why did you assume 0% to-hit from items?
Why the arbitrary 100 second duration?

nenad · 12/20/06, 2:04 PM

btw, as comparition to above pie-charts, here is affliction @ lvl 70:

Shugorei · 12/20/06, 2:08 PM

Why are you using Shadowbolt as the main attack for the detructolock, instead of an Immolate/Incinerate/Conflag cycle?

nenad · 12/20/06, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by Fres

Very interesting to read, but I have a few comments/questions-
Why did you exclude a traditional SM/Ruin build from your comparisons? In essence, does UA and the 5% bonus damage from contagion outweigh the dps increase from ruin and 5% to crit?

I have SM/Conflagrate build in there for lvl 70 comparition, which include SM/Ruin. As it can be seen, it does not outperform Full afflic.

What if we remove Curse of Agony?

In first chart (for lvl 60 comparition) you can see one graph for 'no CoA". Of course, it is easy to change it in XLS for lvl 70 builds and check, but end result is that , while we lower our DPS, gap between affliction build and rest is not lowered.

Why did you assume any innate magical resists at all?

It was, as I mentioned in first post, guesstimate - I presumed that most boss mobs would have some ressist. Also, I wanted to be able to differenciate between builds with suppression and ones without, and to see how it affect differently nuke-heavy builds and DoT-heavy builds. As with all other stats, you can change it to 0 in XLS and check how it change results ;p

Why did you assume 0% to-hit from items?

I was not sure that there is some item common to all warlocks that have +hit, but mostly since I didnt have any guesstimate I put 0 . What would be average value that we could expect warlocks to have?

Why the arbitrary 100 second duration?

As you said, it is arbitrary, but it is much closer to average boss fight than 18sec. Main reason was that in 100sec you can fairly accuratelly include whole number of DoT durations (XLS would accept partial durations in period, but i didnt want to use them). Allowing some 'slack' time, lag, waiting to finish current nuke, slow reflexes etc, I estimated about 6x Immolate and other 15sec DoTs, 5xCorruption and other 18sec DoTs, 4 x CoA at 24sec, 3x Siphon etc.

Main approach was to keep all DoTs up, and in pauses of recasting DoTs you use LT/DP as needed., and in all remaining time you cast nukes. But you can change spells that you want to use and how many of those in period in XLS and even use partial values, and you can change period also. I tried different spells distribution for every build and kept those that seemed to have best DPS results.

Brassicus · 12/20/06, 2:22 PM

A lot of this number crunching theorycrafting has been done already, and not just for warlocks. Check it out for all casters here: http://shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?t=568

It suggests, under a couple different sets of conditions, that affliction and destro locks have very comparable damage, and that they both have equivalent damage to mages (assuming shadow priest present). Full demonology looks like ~10% less dps up to ~20% less as gear scales.

The author is really active, so if you poke holes in his assumptions, he'll update it. He might be a good one to talk to about additional theorycrafting for locks.