Personally I'm far more leery about soulshatter resists than an earlier poster. Being confined to the tank's threat for the entire rest of the fight is not what my raid needs out of me on most TBC fights. If I can get a soulstone on me, I just hellfire down and start over -- I put out more dps that way.

(amusing note: this does not work if you are in the shadow priest's group with VE up. You can spend a *very* frustrated 20 seconds yelling at your healers to stop healing you while hellfiring until you catch on.)


I happen to agree with you, however you need to not act as if the warlock with 10% hit has no other gear making up for it. Remember: points not spent on +hit are spent on other things. Yes, +hit is easy on the budget, that's why everyone is so enthusiastic about it. But it's not like you get *zero* return off replacement stats.

(I'm assuming your 3% statement comes from "50% of your damage is shadowbolts, so 6% hit = 3% dps gain" -- if I'm wrong, I apologize.)

hehe..nope, I used my XLS and compared DPS of warlock with 3/5 supression and 10%hit and warlock with 0/5 supression and 16%hit, and difference in DPS was over 3%.

But you have point there - in order to get 6% more hit, you *may* be required to sacrifice some other stats. Probably not same amount, since you could wait/choose items with slightly less +dmg but much more +hit, instead of going for just more +dmg, so it is hard to estimate answer to question:

"if you have now 10%hit and you decide in near future to pick new items in such way to maximize both dmg and hit, how much less +dmg will you have when you reach +16%hit compared to someone who was only trying to maximize only +dmg in same situation?"

But considering that for several slots you can find items with +hit that have comparable +dmg to best non-hit items (since +hit usually come in place where +crit is, as addition to +dmg on item), some wild guesstimate would be that , while acquiring new 6%hit (~75 hit points) you would miss on about 20 +dmg and 40+crit (and that is probably more than you would really miss, but lets take it as worst case)

If i run that in XLS, I get that warlock with 16%+hit still has 1.5% more DPS than warlock with 10%+hit and 20+dmg/40+crit more

as for:
It was answered above - i did not use some simplistic "6% off 40-50%", i used XLS calculator where effect of miss/hit is modeled on each spell separatelly.
But even if i was doing such simple math, i would not consider "100 lucky rolls" since even in game, if you take stats from whole evening, your "luck" will average out - not to mention that your 0%hit warlock could just as well had 100 unlucky rolls and miss on all ot them ;p

As for difference between XLS calculation and simple "40-50% * 6%" math, I believe you did not take into consideration increased ISB uptime with better +hit.

"Thanks" to a stupid Gruul wipe tonight (10%, both tanks die... grats?) I got a chance to test Icon+Mags versus Icon+Crusade. And Mags performed far worse than I would've expected -- unfortunately, since we use DKP and I paid a fair bit for it (fixed price.)

After thinking about it, I believe part of the additional failure of Mag's as a design, beyond just the oft-repeated "gets worse as your gear gets better", is that time spent not casting, or lifetapping, is time for the Icon to recharge. It's 100% wasted time for mags, however, since it can only proc when you are casting.

This makes it even worse than it looks on paper.

You initially stated he would have 3% more dps, I said he would have 1.2%. I was closer to the figure, and I'm guessing you didn't read what I was calculating with my "simplistic maths".


Why would I take into consideration increased ISB uptime when we were discussing single warlock dps, and not raid dps?
And in case I was misunderstood, my point is simple. Claiming Soulshatter is the single most important reason to get hit capped just means that your tanks' threat generation is lower than normal, simple as that. Soulshatter is NOT a mechanic necessary on each and every fight, and lack of %hit on the MT will mess you up far more than only having 10% hit + 3/5 Supression.

That correction from 3% to 1.5% was due to valid remark from Kyth, related to difference in +dmg and +crit for warlock that reach intended +hit.

If I look at what you did post ...
... I do not see any relevance with those 1.2%. Especially since difference between lock with 10% hit and one with 16% hit is 6% hit, not 3%. So your math would be 40% of 6% = 2.4%. Unless I'm mistaken there, you did not take into consideration fact that lock with more +hit would have less +dmg, you somehow produced 3% number (that should probably have been 6%), and you ended up with some result that is close to calculation where all that is considered

ISB is important factor even for single warlock on boss fights, and those are only fights where +hit matters (and arguably only fights where high DPS at all matters). Normal or trash mobs your level have 4% miss rate so with only 3%hit you are capped.

As for boss fights, ISB effect is in range 8-10% for single warlock, and it gets slightly improved with more hit.

I did not claim that Soulshatter is single reason to get +hit maxed. I claim that if you want to maximize DPS, you need +hit maxed. And improving reliability of Soulshatter is very nice secondary effect, since on many boss fights i HAVE to use it if i want to keep max DPS. Saying that it is "not necessary mechanics" is same as saying than any +dmg on items is not necessary, or that trying to do as much damage as you can on bosses is not necessary ;p

Did you test those on Gruul fight itself? Or somewhere like DrBoom? I ask since on Gruul my DPS vary considerably depending on luck (ie how often you or pet get hit by AE), so i found it not suitable for tests ;p

Also, you were comparing Magtherodpn's Eye with Darkmoon:Crusade or with Icon of Silver Crescent?

Interesting thing is that my XLS shows both of those items better than Mag's Eye when +hit is capped , although Icon is only marginally better. But of all those 3 trinkets , Icon is most "stable" - ie, will not reduce its value on fights where you are not casting lot of time. Both Mag's (due to no misses when not casting) and Crusader (if you dont cast spell in 10sec) will have noticeable lower values there.

I tried to model "time unable to cast" in my XLS, and it works partially, ie if you set "20%" time unable to cast, it will reduce accordingly your DPS (mostly reduce SB damage, much less reduce DoT damage), and will show that afflic locks suffer bit less of reduction than demo/destro. It also reduce value of Mags Eye , due to less SBs, but it does not accuratelly reduce value of Crusader (ie if non-cast periods are longer than 10sec)

I changed layout in my Warlock DPS XLS calculator , it should be easier now to compare different trinkets or set bonuses.

For trinkets I added option to only include their 'proc' effect on DPS ("only eff"), which is useful if you already wear that trinket and you already included its fixed +dmg bonus to "Spell +dmg" field, and now you only want to see how much trinket effect actually increase your total DPS.

Second option is "eff+fix" which enables you to see how much in total that trinket affect your DPS, which is useful if you want to compare different trinkets.

Nenad, your spreadsheet seems to not work with the version of Excel for the Mac; it complains about a circular reference. Is there some 'feature' to your spreadsheet that I can disable (maybe the automatic calculating of LT/DP information) so it's still mostly usable?

well, I can not check on Mac version, but on Windows Excel you have option to turn on calculation of circular references, and it is done in

Tools->Options->Calculation->Iteration

there you need to check that "Iterations" check box, and it will work. You can optionally lower number of iterations, 15 is enough (default is 100), but that is optional.

I believe (for windows Excel) that "Iteration" state (ie, checked) is saved in XLS itself, so if you make it work on Mac, it will probably also save in XLS.

The problem is that the value of the eye proc scales nearly linear with your miss chance. With 5% or 10% misses, you gain nearly five/ten times as much benefit from procs compared to 1% miss at the cap. If there was a noticable effect at 1% miss, it would be overpowered at high miss levels. And any proper value at 5-10% misses will be meaningless at 1% miss.

As a mage, I could see myself drop some hit in fights where DPS on adds is more important than DPS on the boss itself, and the Eye could make up for some of the damage loss from boss resists. Then again, I should just stick with a proper trinket that is more beneficial on adds, so it's kind of counterproductive.
This is even worse for warlocks who don't want to risk Soulshatter resist.

As for your tests, you're comparing the Eye to the two best trinkets for sustained, controlled spell damage. You probably expected to much from an item that requires a high-miss environment, favours fast spells and a caster who doesn't have the gear to reach the hit-cap without losing a lot of spell damage/crit/stats (something like Scorch or Wrath spammers maybe?). The requirements to make it shine are just too narrow.

There is one last thing that still has me laughing though, cynism at its finest:

A trinket that grants you a damage bonus after a Soulshatter resist is pure gold.

That works great. For the reference for anyone else, on the Mac it's File > Preferences > Calculation > Iteration.

Thank you.

Is there anyone that have tried to raid with a 41/43 Demo build and use the Felguard in a 25 man raid? I have played around with the warlock DPS spread sheet and it acutally looks "ok" on paper. But I doubt it acutally plays well in a large raid. Am I correct about this or can your Felguard acutally survive during a lot of the boss fights? The reason I am asking is because we are poking at Tempest Keep, and most likely I'll be the tank against Leo. But since I am not very keen on respeccing every time I was wondering if there was anyone with any experience with this kind of build and if it was in anyway useable.

It becomes a lot more viable if you can get 2 piece of tier 5 for the set bonus. Soul link isn't required for tanking Leo though, but it can't hurt for learning. One of my guildies had a soul link build where he would keep his succubus out for the damage bonus and still did pretty well on the charts. As long as you are sure to position your felguard behind the mob, it should work for a decent amount of fights. And in the case of something like void reaver, sacrificing a succubus still gives you a decent amount of damage, without having to worry about a pet getting killed.

I agree with that, crit is stat that is most affected if you go for +hit gear. My numbers from previous post are almost same as yours:

"some wild guesstimate would be that , while acquiring new 6%hit (~75 hit points) you would miss on about 20 +dmg and 40+crit (and that is probably more than you would really miss, but lets take it as worst case)"

Yes, I'm 9/41/11 demo (was demo long before TBC and FG), and I can say that demo lock is completely viable build for all type of raids (10/25/40). Not only viable, but it seems to me to be best build . Apart from fact that my XLS DPS calculator also shows demo+pet at better DPS than afflic or destro, my raid experience confirms it. I have comparable gear with our other locks, and I'm regulary at top of damage charts when pet damage is counted in. Demo lock has advantage for raid in using less debuffs, providing improved HS, and having better damage. Disadvantages are need to be healed (but occasional HoT is hardly noticed by healers), need for pet micromanagement, and some (rare) encounters where pet is not usable (like Lurker in SSC).

Nenad - I've been 42/0/19 for quite a while, and am one of our top DPS for Kara and Gruul (not saying a lot there, I promise - we just killed Gruul for the first time).

I went 5/44/11 (still deciding where to put the last point) last night and really, really enjoyed the matches we played on our new 3 vs 3 team.

Any tips for a felguard lock on Gruul? My buddy and I lead the raids, and we have other warlocks with improved imp in their affliction specs, so I don't believe having a DPS pet out will be an issue. I may or may not fit myself into a shadowpriest group, depending on whether other classes (hunters) need her more - that would obviously help my pet stay alive...

My experience raiding as Demo (7/43/11) is that a Shadow Priest is absolutely the most beneficial group buff I can get. VE healing on my pet means incidental damage is taken care of without me stopping DPS to bandage/Health Funnel him (I still have to pull him out if he gets caved in on or something), and of course VE/VT on me means I never have mana issues.

Basically just watch your pets debuffs and pull him out when there's a cave in, and either grab yourself a Shadow Priest group or ask healers for a few GCDs worth of HoTs.

And yeah, having a spec that destroys in PvP and then can put out really impressive PvE damage is rather nice

As Doogles pointed above, getting VE from Shadow Priest is best for Gruul fight, since it can keep pet up without attention from any healer. Of course, as part of pet micromanagement, you need to pay attention to pets debuffs far more than you pay attention to your own - so same moment you see AE debuff on pet, you need to pull him out. If you want to maximize pets dps, i suggest after pullling him out to do two things: first, try to send him right back - if pet was on other side of gruul when pulled back, it will this time attack from your side, which may be free from AE. If that does not work, when time to refresh insta dotss or LT came, move a bit around gruul while casting those, and send pet again from your new postion - chances are it will not charge in AE again. And yes, have intercept always on to minimize time pet spend on those charges.

In case you can not get in Shadow Priest group, it helps if your healers are aware of pets (have them on healbot or whatever lists they have) since occasional HoT can keep pet up for long time, and it usually is not strain on healers.

Do not try to self heal pet if you dont have any of above options, since it will damage your DPS much more than just recasting new pet.


this is correct, and even if at present our afflic warlocks dont have much threat problems on bosses if they have threat debuffs like BoS, and use (like demo need to use) soulshatter when needed, it is still important advantage of demo.


But one thing about demo locks in raid should be noted - it is not good to have too many of them, because then it will become noticeable on healers effort. Just like it is not good to have too many afflic locks in raid, since it will strain even 40 debuff slots. So healthy mix between those is best.

What are people using for a farming / pvp build? I ask this because my main is a pro spec MT warrior, and I am going to use my lock for farming and secondary PVP.

I personally do not want to go a felguard build unless I am convinced it is absolutely the best there is for this. I know its awesome in PVP situations, but the farming definitely concerns me more. I am leaning towards a 40/21/0 build with DS, but if I am doing the tanking while I farm, is UA just too useful?

Im leaning towards:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IiMriRfkqtbofx00I

But if I find I can do afflic/ds, then something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IiMriRfkqtbofx00I

For Farming/PvP, the Felguard works out fine. It is indeed the best solo PvP build, and works great for 2v2 Arenas. For PvP, you don't need any points in Mana Feed, but for 1 point for farming it is helpful so you don't have to resummon the pet to refill its mana bar.

If you prefer to drain tank for farming, UA is much more useful than Saccing a pet. Use UA/Corruption and then Drain Life spam, and then use the Succy with all spells not on autocast (so you can drain her mana). You would use something like 42/19 for that type of build.

I may have missed this in one of the eleventy billion warlock threads. If so, my apologies.


Can someone with 4-piece T5 talk about it? I've been leery of taking any T5 because the 2-piece is so terrible relative to 2-piece spellstrike + 2-piece T4.

I can not comment on farming as afflic, since I've been demo since long before TBC, but I can not imagine afflic being better , and I'm fairly sure destro is worse of all 3 builds for farming.

When I farm (It is not so often, but every now and then i need to farm, for example for motes for primals), my main goals is to kill as many mobs as possible in period of time i'm able to farm. To do that , I need following things:

1) kill mob as fast as possible
I believe Demo lock is also best for this. I usually dont waste time on DoTs for those lvl 70ish mobs. With pet on mobs, I usually use 2-3 nukes and finish with drain soul (low lvl, for shard only) while pet kills last 1% if mob not already dead. Most elementals I had to farm die to 2 nukes and pet dmg (like mana elementals in netherstorm). Some, like air elementals in nagrand with 7.5k hp, need 3 nukes and pet. In rare cases when i farm mobs with more HP, i either use more nukes, or start with Corruption.

2) lose as little mana/HP as possible per kill
which is important for sustained mob killing without often downtimes. I usually can kill about 15-20 mobs before I need to go into "regen mana/HP" mode. I have fairly low hp/mana use per kill because pet saves abone one nuke , and because i usually drain soul at end, both for shard and for those 15% mana due to "Improved Drain Soul". Also, i have "Improved LT" so when i use it, i get that 20% bonus. And most important, i have point in "Mana Feed" so pet can go long time. I use only intercept and cleave on pet, not taunt, to preserve pet mana - I can get aggro after 1st nuke, but usually 2nd nuke land and kill before mob closed on me. When pet is oom (happens also after 20 kills or so) i recast new pet, since I have loads of shards anyway due to drain life.

3) have efficient downtime
when i use all my mana and most of HP due to LT (as I said, can take 15-20 mobs or so), I can either use food/drink to regen, or if mob in sight, i use drain life while pet is on mob ... pet gives me chance to drain life mob to death without aggro. I usually need to do this on two mobs to get back HP/mana, but it is more productive than just sitting down ;p

4) being able to "tag" mobs
in farming areas with lot of people, it can often happen if you target and attack mob, that someone unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) tag that mob before your nose. If you open with SB, those 2.5sec are loong time. If you open with DoT, 2-3sec before first tick is also long time. Basically, only insta "tag" for warlock would be shadowburn (use shard) or death coil (on CD, and have travel time). But pets can help there. I use FG on aggressive, and since i'm usually on flying mount, when I see free mob in crowded area, I dive and land on top of mob and press key for unmount - that immediatelly tag mob since FG instantly hits it.


In conclusion, I believe Demo lock is better than afflic for points above, mainly in being able to kill mob faster (with help of FG), and using less mana (again due to pet's part of damage), and also being able to tag mobs faster as part on normal fight process ( afflic can also use melee pet like succy for this, but afflic usually use imp as mana battery)

Afflic lock would be better for farming that allows multiple mob pulls and either AE kills or multiple DoTs/kite kill. But I find majority of mobs that I need farmed at lvl 70 as hardly viable for such tactic, either due to mobs having too much HP, or being casters and not bunching due to that, or simply being in crowded farm areas where it is both rare to find 4-5 mobs close and alive, and you can get other farmers angry if you AE pull. Afflic can also do drain life tanking, but it takes much more time to kill mob than 2-3 nukes - and slow killing time especially hurt if you farm in crowded area, since competing players will kill all mobs around you. And if afflic lock decide to use normal nuke kills, there he need to use at least more mana for at least one morre SB due to not having pet DPS, and also possibly will lose some HP in process due to not having pet tanking.

And majority of points I made for afflic goes also for Destro, except they usually cant use drain life tanking, and can lose HP even more than afflic during fights.

Edit: i didnt mention above, but my points may be dependant on gear that lock have. I mentioned that i kill mobs like mana elementals in 2 SB + pet melee during those 6 sec casting SBs. That may not be case for all locks, since it depends on +dmg (not so much on +crit) that you have. I have over 1400 +shadow and 16% crit self buffed. But this is another good point for Demo locks - due to pet added +dmg (about +120 dmg) and due to +30 on improved Fel armor, Demo lock have around 150 +dmg more than afflic lock in exactly same gear, and unless afflic lock specced destruction, have also 5% more crit, not to mention 5% damage due to MD and SL are more effective than 10% due to SM ( since MD+SL are 10.25% combined). Those Demo 'advantages' are there to offset additional DPS that afflic have from UA and improved other DoTs, so on raids it should even up ... but for farm kills, where you kill in under 10 sec, DoTs are only partially useful. BTW, those +150 dmg more (that Demo has) are even more noticeable with lower lvl of gear - if you have 900 +dmg as afflic and you respec to demo you would have 1050 (17% increase), while from 1250 afflic you would have 1400 as demo ('only' 12%). AS for Destro, they have additional disadvantage, since they not only lack +dmg bonuses, but also lack 10% talent dmg multiplier like SM (or SL+MD). They do have Ruin, with more +crit% due to talents , so on long fights it can even up - my 16% crit equals +8% dmg, while in same gear destro with backlash would have 19%crit equaling +19% dmg, so +11% dmg more, enough to offset MD+SL. But, crit is not something that will help you in farming so much as fixed 10% dmg. It is not reliable for farming, and often even when you crit, you still need to cast another nuke to finish last few % of mob HP, so does not reduce used mana same as fixed 10% dmg talents or more +dmg.

I would say that affliction and demonology builds are about even for farming, with destruction being less effective due to downtime. ( I have tried all three)

It all depends on your play style though, I enjoyed farming with my felguard because it was easy, but found affliction to be more effective mainly due to the fact you can pull 4 to 5 mobs and end up with full health and mana by the time they are dead (which doesn't take long).