Demonology, releasing the demon in you. - Page 3

pRo-Micha · 05/25/10, 1:56 AM

Originally Posted by Vidiz

I totally agree with this. It's for this reason that I only bind /petattack to my curses. In most cases the target I'm attacking won't survive long enough to warrant a quick Curse of Agony, certainly not a Curse of Doom. In the unlikely event that this would happen I use a Shift modifier on each Curse key in case I don't want to include the /petattack. It's handy to have a /petattack macro on your bars as well for fights suck as Putricide with the Volatile Ooze - hit the macro upon spawn and hit the macro again when switching back to the boss.

The /petattack macro by itself is redundant as you can just do it with CTRL+1, which is the standard pet attack command.

Vidiz · 05/25/10, 4:39 AM

Originally Posted by pRo-Micha

The /petattack macro by itself is redundant as you can just do it with CTRL+1, which is the standard pet attack command.

I use one of the G-keys on my keyboard. Each to their own.

Warlocomotif · 05/25/10, 6:39 AM

I just finished writing the "mechanics: demonic knowledge" section, I believe all data in there should be correct, however it would be great if someone could verify. I had to backtrack base values from talented values a couple of times and there might have been a couple of rounding errors at the base values.

Caltiom · 05/26/10, 5:11 AM

Thanks a lot for the great guide, very clean and well structured.

Regarding the rDPS scale values, I'll give it another try in the next days. I hope to have access to a bit more CPU power to increase the iterations for computing the raid_dps. Natehieter was right that the error's in a raid simulation, especially without optimal_raid=1, are quite high. I don't really trust my old results with such few iterations anymore.

xeonoex · 05/26/10, 4:45 PM

Great guide. It's nice to have an update to the old Demonology thread.

Because of all the movement on the ICC fights, I would add Curse of Agony to the priority lists. I use it quite often on fights like Putricide, chasing slimes or moving in P3 with time to die less than 1 minute. I think it's right above Incinerate on the priorities, just only while moving.

Shijoku · 05/26/10, 5:09 PM

As long as you're using CoA just on the slimes, it shouldn't be a problem. But if you're using it on Putricide himself, it's a dps loss if you're overwriting your CoD. Corruption, life tap, death coil (if it's off CD), are all much better choices when moving.

xeonoex · 05/26/10, 6:14 PM

Originally Posted by Shijoku

As long as you're using CoA just on the slimes, it shouldn't be a problem. But if you're using it on Putricide himself, it's a dps loss if you're overwriting your CoD. Corruption, life tap, death coil (if it's off CD), are all much better choices when moving.

I'm saying to put up CoA in P3 when CoD does not have time to go off and you can't soulfire because you're moving, not to overwrite CoD.
CoA is also useful on Deathwhisper. Not that it's really a rotation or priority thing, just bad luck. MC'd players often dispell dots and a dispelled CoD does no damage.

The main thing I'm saying is that CoA has a higher DPCT that corruption and proper use of it should be mentioned. I'm not saying "use it over CoD".

Warlocomotif · 05/26/10, 6:23 PM

CoA is worse than SF and obviously worse than CoD- but I can agree that on a movement heavy fight there might be a reasonable place for it. Generally though, demo can fill most of it's movement time with life taps- though I guess not really during decimation. I'll see if I can find a good way to word that into the first post, though honestly there are other things id like to add first.

Caltiom · 05/27/10, 4:15 AM

Regarding scale factors for raidDPS of a demonology warlock, there are 2 approaches:

1. By simulation in simcraft:

First, I set up a normal raid with players who profit from enhanced spellpower of demonic pact:
MMO-Champion RaidComp
Simulating with 100'000 iterations and smooth_rng=1.
One simulation to calculate the base raidDPS, then one with +100sp on the demonology warlock, one with +100 spi, +200 sta and +100 int.

Base raidDPS	138211.4183
+100 sp	138575.6653
+100 spi	138448.8424
+100 int	138284.5135
+200 sta	138313.9254

Differences:

+100 sp	364.247
+100 spi	237.4241
+100 int	73.0952
+200 sta	102.5071

Divided

SP	3.6425
SPI	2.3742
INT	0.7310
STA	0.5126

2. by calculating and using predefined scale factors for different casters.

First, we have to calculate how spirit, int and stamina turn into spellpower on the demonology warlock himself:
In the section Mechanics: Demonic Knowledge it states that

A warlock's pet gains stamina and intellect scaling from it's master, inheriting 75% of their master's stamina and 30% of their master's intellect.

and

After all this is done, the Warlock gains 12% of his pet's stamina and intellect as spellpower from [Demonic Knowledge].

We also have to include Blessing of Kings (two times), Fel Vitality and Demonic Embrace

Spirit: This is already found in the guide in Miscellaneous: Stats - Spirit where it states that
1 Spirit -> 0.649 Spellpower

Intellect: 1 Intellect -> 1.1 *1.1 * 1.15 * 0.3 * 0.12 = 0.050094 Spellpower

Stamina: 1 Stamina -> 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 0.75 * 0.12 = 0.1377585 Spellpower

As we know, [Demonic Pact] turns 1 spellpower into 0.1 spellpower for the whole raid, so in summary we have:

1 spellpower	0.1 raid spellpower
1 spirit	0.0649 raid spellpower
1 intellect	0.0050094 raid spellpower
1 stamina	0.01377585 raid spellpower

Now we would have to calculate 1 Raid Spellpower -> k * raidDPS
k would be the sum of all personal spellpower scale factores for every raid member. The good thing about this is that you can calculate this quite easy for your own individual raid.

For my example raid:
Scale Factors:

Druid_T10_58_00_13	SP=2.0575
Mage_T10_57_03_11	SP=2.2838
Mage_T10_20_51_00	SP=2.3064
Paladin_T10_09_05_57_HA	SP=0.2382
Paladin_Tank	SP=0.1444
Priest_T10_13_00_58_277	SP=2.3355
Shaman_T10_57_14_00	SP=2.1213
Shaman_T10_19_52_00	SP=0.8970
Warlock_T10_56_00_15	SP=2.3106
Warlock_T10_56_00_15	SP=2.3106

k=16.9043

1 spellpower	1.6904 rDPS
1 spirit	1.0971 rDPS
1 intellect	0.0846 rDPS
1 stamina	0.2329 rDPS

Keep in mind that these factors here just represent the DPS gain of the raid without the warlock himself, so you would have to add the personal scale factors of the demonology warlock.
Warlockt10005615rdps_test Sta=0.2733 Int=0.6371 Spi=1.2494 SP=1.9610 Hit=4.2402 Crit=1.4200 Haste=1.9631

Sum of these 2 values:

SP	3.6514
SPI	2.3465
INT	0.7218
STA	0.5062

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The values seem to match quite good - keep in mind that in the simulation a gap of +100 is used, instead of an infinite small one.

Edit:
I found my error, i accidentally used +200 stam, so the simulation value is now also 0.5.

Edit 16. July 2010:
Changed the calculated spirit scale value from 2.3460 to 2.3465=1.2494+1.0971. A simple addition error, thank a lot to Bahlshaab.

Warlocomotif · 05/27/10, 6:35 AM

I suspect it might be that sometime during WotLK blizzard modified warlock pet stamina scaling, due to the fact that demonology didn't become "mainstream interesting" I think we might not have realized a demo lock's benefit from this at the time.

This is however just a theory, I haven't checked simc code to confirm. Here's my personal data:

By a gear difference of:
1439 Warlock Stamina, the pet gained 1242 stam (that is *0.75*1.15).
1281 Warlock Intellect, the pet gained 442 int (that is *0.3*1.15).

The *1.15 = Fel Vitality, the *0.75 and *0.3 are the rates the pets scale at.

[edit]

Wait, that makes no sense. Blizzard buffed pet stamina scaling, but simc calculates the stamina value far above where our calculations put our stamina value?

[edit 2] Okay, your edit makes sense. Still slightly off but close enough.

CaseyTheRetard · 05/28/10, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by Caltiom

Stamina: 1 Stamina -> 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 0.7 * 0.12 = 0.1285746 Spellpower

You used 0.7 here instead of 0.75 for the pet scaling from warlock's stamina. Changing that scaling factor results in

Stamina: 1 Stamina -> 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 0.75 * 0.12 = 0.1377585 Spellpower

For a raid scaling value of k * 0.1377585 * 0.1 = 0.2329 rDPS, which combines with the pDPS value for stamina to end up with 0.2329 + 0.2733 = 0.5062. This scaling factor agrees a little more with the one obtained from method 1.

Warlocomotif · 05/28/10, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by CaseyTheRetard

You used 0.7 here instead of 0.75 for the pet scaling from warlock's stamina. Changing that scaling factor results in

Stamina: 1 Stamina -> 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.15 * 0.75 * 0.12 = 0.1377585 Spellpower

For a raid scaling value of k * 0.1377585 * 0.1 = 0.2329 rDPS, which combines with the pDPS value for stamina to end up with 0.2329 + 0.2733 = 0.5062. This scaling factor agrees a little more with the one obtained from method 1.

The number we're expecting would be 0.5126 (since we *know* we made the mistake of not accounting for the double delta), we're at about 0.0064 from that- which is close enough. I think it's reasonable to say our numbers and simcraft's numbers are in agreement with eachother.

I'm trying to get some statistics on raid setups from WoL, based on that I'll make a setup for the OP.

It would however be nice to have some discussion on how to quatify the value of this buff for healers.

Caltiom · 05/28/10, 4:14 PM

Thanks a lot CaseyTheRetard.

I'm not sure if discussing spellpower gains for healers is something for this thread & guide, since it's just nothing objective and calculable.
My personal opinion is that it really doesn't matter if I get 450 or 470 spellpower from the warlock - it may be a nice bonus, but the main concern for a healer in the actual fight is his mana, and how to use his repertoire of spells, the right one at the right time.
Don't get me wrong - spellpower is useful for every healer and certainly not wasted, and 1 demonology warlock should be part of the raid group. The step from 280 to ~450 spellpower is a big one, and can be useful. An example to underlay this would be to counterheal infest with PW:S in 25 lk hc, where even with the 15% buff the shields don't suffice on classes without damage reduction, or even a malus (fire mages, fury warriors).

But the difference between a demonology warlock equiped for ego-dps and one for raid-dps is just so extremly low and meanigless for healers, it is certainly nothing to be concerned with.

Ezzergeezer · 05/31/10, 7:21 AM

A very nice write up.

Couple of questions.

I'm currently running a slight variation to the recommended build, replacing glyph of quick decay with glyph of immolate and changing some talent points around so that I have improved immolate.

I've noticed some good results on this build and my dps is getting closer to our top affliction lock in the raid. I was interested to see that this was not recommended though.

So the question is, am I just noticing an increase in my dps as a result of something else or is this build a loss of dps ?

The other question I have is used of corruption during blood lust when not in the execute phase. I see my cast time for incinerate drop to 0.9s and shadow bolt drop to about 1.3s. In this scenario would it be better to just spam shadow bolts and not bother keeping up corruption for the molten core effect ?

Thanks

Tinava · 05/31/10, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Ezzergeezer

A very nice write up.

Couple of questions.

I've noticed some good results on this build and my dps is getting closer to our top affliction lock in the raid. I was interested to see that this was not recommended though.

So the question is, am I just noticing an increase in my dps as a result of something else or is this build a loss of dps ?

The other question I have is used of corruption during blood lust when not in the execute phase. I see my cast time for incinerate drop to 0.9s and shadow bolt drop to about 1.3s. In this scenario would it be better to just spam shadow bolts and not bother keeping up corruption for the molten core effect ?

Thanks

Isn't the point of demo to be a buff spec? Demo's received some nice buffs so it isn't JUST a buffbot, but it still has that component to it, so I'd say you want to stick with buffing the raid more than yourself.

For the second question, corruption during the execute phase is a must (unless molten core is already up) because it boosts soulfire, which is what you should be using in place of shadowbolt under 35 percent. Only use SB at that point to keep the crit debuff up on the boss.