I'm pretty sure he meant no spriest giving him mana regen, not no spriest in the raid at all, given that he is (a) talking about the raid buffs he's giving himself at the moment, and (b) he says he's using the presets in the spreadsheet, which assume a spriest's debuffs on the target.


Note that the presets assume 1.13 on CoS for a malediction lock. Not only should that be CoE now, but if you're like us, we're not even running with an affliction lock (yes, even for Brutallus we're all destruction.)

Based on the numbers he posted, he means no Spriest in his group (i.e. no mana regen), but spriest in raid.

For myself, I also see a ~120 dps gain from fire vs shadow. It's even more in practice, as my raid can't guarantee a spriest.

When I pick up 4 pc T6, the gap drops to around 90 (a good portion of Incin's appeal is Immo, which doesn't benefit from the set bonus). I need around 85% (up from ~60%) ISB uptime to show an even dps number. Part of the issue is that Incinerate picks up misery, so gains 5% over shadow.

Would it 'gain' 5% w/Misery over Shadow, when Shadow gets the 5% also?

Running f.Locks only seems to be dependant on having a enough s.Locks in the raid to keep ISB up for Shadow Priests. Seems that if you dont have SPs in your raid, or only 1, that your dest locks should just all go fire.

Just for the sake of making sure I'm not messing something up horribly, I'm seeing Fire destro as a slight personal DPS increase over Shadow at the T6 level (something like 20-30 DPS) and a slight DPS downgrade or even with Shadow at the Sunwell geared level (when I have a ton more haste gear). Is this about what other people are coming up with? Note that my Sunwell fire numbers are probably a little low because I didn't completely optimize it.

Yeah the spreadsheet, as I keep playing with the new version, seems that Fire Dest pretty much always comes out ahead on personal DPS.

The factor that I (and maybe all of us) need to dig into more is ISB and how it impacts the raid as locks go Fire.

The difference we found is probably attributed to 1.13 CoS which is what it would be unless pretty much all your destro lock and mages are fire.

Most WWS on brutallus i've seen have an aff lock for embrace.

Shadow is 10% + 5%.

Fire is 15% + 5%.

Then of course, fire has the 'free' 10% haste from emberstorm. Personally, I'd love to be shadow, but it just doesn't make sense for my raid.

Fire gains even more if you consider that you can start using Flame Caps. 1 shadow, rest fire is probably the best way to go at the moment.

Very nice spreadsheet

just one thing

I'm using this thing on my growing warlock and it means i sometimes don put on all
enchantments, sadly you can not put none on all the enchantments would be nice to have the possibility
should be a small thing for u just extend the enchantment list on some items with none.

thx


[Edit]
I know a bit about Excel but the Excel has limits on the place where i want to have none
He has used list and they are limited

It is not exactly difficult to add gear and enchants to the list that is already in the spreadsheet, or even to add "none" fields to the enchants listings.

Yes, "no sp" meant no sp in group (changed in original post). Not bringing any sp would nerf every caster dps by at least 5% anyway, so there is no point to not bring at least one.
Both results were with a 1.10 cos or coe.

I'am not making any number, i'm just reading the spreadsheet.

Speaking of Sunwell gear we will see if there is any difference.
We take the following gear for example :
Head : [Hood of the Malefic]
Neck : [Amulet of Unfettered Magics]
Shoulder : [Amice of the Convoker]
Back : [Cloak of the Illidari Council]
Chest : [Sunfire Robe]
Wrist : [Bracers of the Malefic]
2H : [Grand Magister's Staff of Torrents]
Wand : [Wand of the Demonsoul]
Hand : [Sunfire Handwraps]
Waist : [Belt of the Malefic]
Leg : [Leggings of Calamity]
Feet : [Boots of the Malefic]
Finger 1 : [Mana Attuned Band]
Finger 2 : [Loop of Forged Power]
Trinket 1 : [The Skull of Gul'dan]
Trinket 2 : [Hex Shrunken Head]

Every Yellow socket is gemmed with [Reckless Pyrestone]
Every Red socket is gemmed with [Runed Crimson Spinel]
But we have at least 2 red socket gemmed with [Glowing Shadowsong Amethyst] for the CSD
Enchants are the common ones, except for the weapon which will be Spellpower for comparison purpose.

I took the staff and not the Sunflare/Chronicle combo, because we cannot expect to kill Kil'Jaeden before at least 2-3 monthes.

With the exact same buffs i stated in my previous post, we have :
+ 1674dmg and + 80 shadow/fire dmg(flask) for a total of +1754 shadow/fire dmg
+ 205 hit rating (didn't manage with the staff to not being over the cap without losing dps)
+ 385 crit rating (including the 66 from ret pal)
+ 434 haste rating (including a bloodlust of 40s over 360s)
+ 354 mp5 in shadow, +376 in fire (gained from more JoW proc)

Loading the 0/21/40 Shadow preset and setting the ISB tab with 2 warlock having the same gear (~2s per bolt with 94% cast time, 16%hit), and 2 sp doing a direct damage (MB or SW: D) every 6.5s (what our sp are doing in raid), we have exactly 2800dps.
Loading the 0/21/40 Fire preset we have 2877.4 dps (or 2910.2 with flame cap)

So with sunwell gear, the difference drop to 2.76% in favor of fire spec, or 3.9% with flame cap.
In full sunwell gear, a sp will do 1700dps to 1800dps with a sham. We will assume 1750dps with a 70% ISB uptime (3 wl @ 35% crit)
If we count 2 sp and 1 shadow warlock instead of 3 in a raid, the isb uptime will drop from 70% to 55%, which is a 1-(1+0.2*0.55)/(1+0.2*0.70) = 2.631% dps nerf.
Each sp @ 1750dps will do ~1700dps instead, so a 50dps loss for the sp. If the shadow warlock is destru spec with the above gear and buffs, he will loose ~75dps.

So if we bring 2 sp and 3 warlock in a raid, having 1 shadow warlock and 2 fire lock will nerf the shadow users by a total of 175dps, while upping the fire warlock by 80dps for each one, or 110dps chaining flame cap.
This give us a 15dps loss (or a 45dps gain with flame cap on cd). So with sunwell gear in mind, going from shadow to fire for 2 locks on 3 is not a dps gain for this raid.

I always assume there is at least 3 warlock in a raid, to have cos/coe/cor for every bosses.


If we want to play more with numbers :
With 1 sp in raid, ISB uptime is 76% with 3 warlock shadow, 73% with 2, 65% with 1
1 shadow priest + 3 warlock shadow = 1*1768 + 3*2827 = 10249
1 shadow priest + 3 warlock fire = 1*1535 + 3*2880 (+3*30 w/ flame cap) = 10175 (10265 w/ flame cap)
1 shadow priest + 2 warlock shadow + 1 warlock fire = 1*1759 + 2*2815 + 1*2880 (+1*30) = 10269 (10299)
1 shadow priest + 1 warlock shadow + 2 warlock fire = 1*1735 + 1*2775 + 2*2880(+2*30) = 10270 (10330)
With 1 sp, the global dps is pretty much the same (0.2% max gain without flame cap, 0.8% with).

With 2 sp in raid, ISB uptime is 70% with 3 warlock shadow, 65% with 2, 55% with 1
2 shadow priest + 3 warlock shadow = 2*1750 + 3*2800 = 11900
2 shadow priest + 3 warlock fire = 2*1535 + 3*2880 (+3*30) = 11710 (11800)
2 shadow priest + 2 warlock shadow + 1 warlock fire = 2*1735 + 2*2775 + 1*2880 (+1*30) = 11900 (11930)
2 shadow priest + 1 warlock shadow + 2 warlock fire = 2*1700 + 1*2725 + 2*2880 (+2*30) = 11885 (11945)
With 2 sp, we have at best the same dps with only one fire lock, and have a 0.37% dps increase if we have 2 locks chaining flame caps.

Those numbers are assuming 35% crit destru warlocks (with a ret pally in raid).
We have to take into account the mana return increase provided by a sp with a higher ISB uptime (50mp5 more for a 1750dps sp instead of a 1535dps one). In a warlock pov only being in a sp group, +50mp5 is ~15 more dps.

What we can conclude, is that if we have only 1 sp in a raid, we must have at least one warlock shadow, and if we have 2 sp, 1 warlock shadow at least is required too.
Every other warlock can be what he wants to be : it will have nearly no impact, even if fire for a 4th warlock would be a litlle better.

All in all, in sunwell gear, the real advantage of being fire is the use of flame cap over runes (which i didn't take into account of, because it seems a real pain in the ass to farm).

excellent post plopinou!!!

I was running numbers myself and I'm finding pretty much the same to be true, so thats good!

Time to farm Flame Caps all weekend

What about the mana returned to other players as a result of the Sps?
If there are 3 locks and 2 sps, that means that 5 other players are also getting the mp5 increase when the SPs do more dmg as a result of the ISB uptime.

Did you account for the tradeoff between the mana returned to the other 5 group members before concluding that warlocks should spec fire and chain flamecaps for a raidwide dps increaes that is <50? Not to mention, giving up healthstones is somewhat risky itself.

Keep in mind all these calculations assume 1.1 coe and cos, it will dramatically change if one is 1.13. Also fire lock numbers will be decreased in a real situation due to likelyhood(especially with 1firelock) of non-100% immolate. I would recommend 2fire lock, 1 shadowlock if your going to be destro.. and thats the only circumstance I would recommend ANY firelocks in.. Every other setup should not have firelocks. Also if you can't be bothered to get flame caps you also probably shouldn't bother with firelocks. Additionally firelocks take more debuff slots, so if your having problems with the debuff cap, you probably shouldn't bother with firelocks.. Additionally as was stated above.. 1 spriest dps helps the raid more than 1 lock dps so its not apples to apples.

I am pretty sure with all these IFS almost no guild should be running fire locks.

I said "In a warlock pov (point of view) only", so i just wanted to say that for only one warlock in the sp group, being shadow spec instead of fire spec and assuming every other warlocks are fire, it will bring him 15dps more solely from the mp5 increase.

For a mana intensive fight, giving 50mp5 more to healers in a sp group is priceless in comparison to having 2 fire lock doing some more dps with no gain for overall dps. That's why i always conclude that we must have at least one shadow spec warlock.

Just to clear things up, the 50 mp5 increase is only in the case we bring one shadow spec lock instead of 0. If we have 1 shadow and 2 fire, the gain in mp5 to make them respec to shadow is 12mp5.
I don't know how to weight dps tradeoff for healing power in a brutallus like fight, so the only thing i can do is looking for the dps increase 12 mp5 represents for every caster class :
- For a warlock it's a theorical 3.5 dps increase.
- For a mage, probably less.
- For a hunter, well they don't need a sp anyway.
- For a moonkin, probably some dps, but who bring a moonkin ? Some guilds do, we will probably never, because slots in raid aren't cheap (but i don't have anything against moonkins, i just consider that they don't represent a good addition to a raid).
- For as Elem Shaman, it seems that they don't really need one, or that even a low dps one is sufficient.

For CoE/CoS @ 1.13, if you have 2 fire lock, the 1.13 one would certainly be the CoE.

If you read my previous post, you will see that i conclude that fire locks can be brought along under certain condition, and just for the show, not for a real raid dps gain.
If you read my antepenultimate, i said that having fire lock is a concrete gain for raid dps.
There is no contradiction here.
In the previous we're considering full sunwell geared warlocks, and in the other, full BT geared ones. It seems that as we get more haste and crit, the ISB uptime increase closes the gap.

Being the caster officer in my guild, i will probably advice my warlocks to stay shadow, but let one or two respec fire one day or two just to let them try it out (when we will easily farm those 3 first sunwell bosses for example).

Wow Web Stats which is the WWS from the well diffused video of SK-gaming World First Brutallus down on the Live.
They brought 3 firelocks with 2 sp. Yes you can look for a 4th warlock everywhere, there isn't one, so no ISB at all for the 2 sp.
Furthermore, one of the 3 warlocks put CoD instead of CoR. A CoR with their raid composition which has 12250 physical dps would have give them a net 700dps increase, which is nearly 5 times the dps gain a warlock can hope by putting a CoD. And as you may all know, with an improved demo shout that cost no dps for a DW or a 2H warrior (it fits perfectly between the cycles, which is not the case of TC), the bonus AP a boss have from CoR is completly negated.

We never have to underestimate the lack of calculation that even the best guilds out there forget to do.
You will probably see a lot more fire lock that what you think, and for a really simple reason : we can now spam incinerates and somehow "time" immolates instead of endlessly spam Shadow Bolts for 6 more monthes.

Since affliction warlocks generate significantly less ISB due to lower crit and lower SB cast frequency, you kinda have to do that comparison all over again assuming the first warlock in the raid is affliction for the many guilds that always bring one for shadow embrace (and imp). And calculate his personal DPS assuming he's in the tank group would be a good idea (so for him no shaman/sp/whatever).

mp5->dps for mages in general is pretty similar to warlocks, although it varies a lot more between different fights and setups. For a warlock X mp5 means Y more shadowbolts on any fight where lifetap is used, while for a mage the extra fireballs casted from that extra mp5 will be much higher if he uses evocation (evocation uses more time for less mana compared to life tap), but gain a tiny bit less DPS than a warlock would if that mp5 is helping turn a mana gem into a flame cap or a mana pot to a destruction pot. Anyway counting the reflected mp5 gains when you change ISB uptime by a few % gives quite a neglicible effect on total raid DPS as you've already noticed, but pretty much never a neglicible total direct shadow DPS increase.

i have a 70 lock with about 1000 bonus spell damage 17% chance to crit and about 48 hit rating.

Every time i run Kara i consistently do damage equal to or less then the tank. I don't understand what i'm doing wrong. I've tried keeping my dots up and SB inbetween and i've tried spamming SB and what not. Nothing seems to work

Help plz

Please read the first post in this thread. You'll find a lot of tips and recommendations to achieve better DPS.

I apologize if my words were to harsh, that wasn't my intention at all. This was just to reply to Flamingcloud about the fact that warlocks will go fire anyway, at least to test it. I will do so when i have a new back. On another note, did you not brought an affli warlock because you had 2 bear tanks ?

To Flamingcloud : you're totaly right. I wanted to include some calculation if the single warlock shadow was affli, but the post already were too long, so i gave up.
The critrate of an affli lock is not so far from a destru, because we generaly are 40/0/21, so it's 3% crit less. ISB uptime is a little less, and the impact for a sp is minor. I believe the added dps loss due to this minor ISB time change is counterbalanced by the smaller dps loss the affli warlock has (because he's doing a lot less dps).

Question about the gear buffs tab. I made a "current" and a "wishlist" itemset to compare and see what are good upgrades and what not. However i don't see any changes in the DPS field when selecting upgrades. Did i miss something?

Affliction warlocks will not only have 3% less crit from talents, but they also gear for less crit (although not as much of a difference at higher gear levels due to lack of options) and most importantly spend a lot less time casting shadowbolts. All of this combined make them proc significantly less ISB while gaining a lot from anyone's ISB proc due to the DoTs not eating the charges. Therefore having that shadow warlock being affliction will probably greatly shift the odds in favor of the shadow destro warlock over the fire destro.