Affliction in Cataclysm (4.3 Release) - Page 2

Raqi · 01/06/11, 8:03 PM

Crit may be better than mastery for single target fights without any movement, but for any real encounter, mastery should beat it.
at 60% mastery efficiency the dps gain of mastery and crit should be roughly equal, since 1% crit requires the same rating as 1.67% mastery, and 60%*1.67%=1%.
In the simcraft output the parts of dmg, which benifit from mastery, namely UA + Corruption + Drain Soul + BoA, deal a total of 54,4% of overall dmg.
When looking at the top affliction reports at World of Logs, these sources account for far more than 60% on all bosses, even 70-80% at some.

lockluster · 01/07/11, 1:08 AM

"Added new meta gems:... and Burning Shadowspirit Diamond (Intellect/3% critical damage). These new recipes are unbound and can drop from any Cataclysm creature. The new meta gems have a requirement of 3 red gems equipped."~ Zarhym
Just saw this on MMO-Champion - Index and it almost certainly means that we will be changing which meta we use as of 4.0.6 also in regards to dark intent with only personal experience to back me up i would swapping it with another affliction warlock whenever possible as the 3% haste does stack.

• Zakalwe · 01/07/11, 1:35 AM

Originally Posted by lockluster

in regards to dark intent with only personal experience to back me up i would swapping it with another affliction warlock whenever possible as the 3% haste does stack.

So neither you nor your fellow warlock would have no qualms about depriving another raider of 9% damage or healing over time, just so you could have a paltry 3% extra haste for yourself? Unless your raid is full of holy paladins and marksman hunters, you're both idiots.

Innulock · 01/07/11, 5:43 AM

Shumoo, it seems you still didn't really get where the benefit from getting over the DoT treshold comes from. If you get an extra dot tick, you refresh your dot one tick later and the next time, again one tick laters, resulting in one cast less after a while, here is an example for the 10% treshold:

UA @ 9.999...% haste = 5 ticks 2.7272 sec/tick

82 second fight: 30 ticks= 6 UA casts

UA @ 10% haste= 6 ticks 2.727272 sec/tick

82 second fight= 30 ticks= 5 UA casts

getting over the cap gained you 1.36sec (=1.5/1.10) extra cast time you can spend on (part of) a shadowbolt or something else each ~82 seconds. This is a pure DPS gain only due to getting over the haste treshold. The only thing that's up for discussion is, if this dps gain is large enough to warrant sacrifying other stats to get to the haste treshold.

Jmickey · 01/07/11, 7:27 AM

Originally Posted by Raqi

Crit may be better than mastery for single target fights without any movement, but for any real encounter, mastery should beat it.

The percentage shown on world of logs to not account for pet DPS. The percentage that DoTs contribute to OUR personal dps is close to 70%, although, will only account for ~55% if you include our Succubus DPS.

Until there is further evidence to say so, Mastery will remain our weakest stat for a Shadow Bolt filler rotation.

Regarding what revulva has been saying:

The statement could possibly be reworded. However, it is still effectively correct. I understand that haste is still a wonderful stat at any level of gear, but reaching the point where Unstable Affliction or Corruption gain an additional tick should result in a DPS increase, as these are both our highest DPET spells.

One statement in you post that you linked that does not make sense to me is this one:

If you cast UA 19 times in a fight with 70% haste, you do 19 more ticks of UA and lost 2.28 seconds of useful cast time over the course of the fight. So, at the expense of 1 shadowbolt (almost 2) you get 19 more ticks of UA. that's a pretty good trade-off.

Please explain to me where you are losing 2.28 seconds of effective cast time, I am having trouble understanding your logic here.

The interval of UA is the base, 3 seconds, divided by haste:
580 Haste Rating: 3/1.045313 = 2.8700 seconds
581 Haste Rating: 3/1.045391 = 2.8697 seconds

This is incorrect, more information can be found here: http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t111390-...3/#post1828020

revulva · 01/07/11, 10:02 AM

Jmickey,

I see what happened. 581 is the haste rating required on just gear. What you really need is 30% haste.

That doesn't change the conclusion in my post at all, though. It would read instead:

If you have 580 haste on gear, your haste is:
ISF + Dark Intent + 5% buff + gear (580/128.05701) = 30.006% haste

If you have 581 haste, your haste is:
ISF + Dark Intent + 5% buff + gear (581/128.05701) = 30.015% haste

The interval of UA is the base, 3 seconds, divided by haste:
580 Haste Rating: 3/1.3006 = 2.30759 seconds
581 Haste Rating: 3/1.3015 = 2.30742 seconds

In a 300 second fight you will get:
580 Haste Rating: 300/2.30759 = 130.006 UA ticks, or, 130
581 Haste Rating: 300/2.30742 = 130.015 UA ticks, or, 130

This is now the correct math, but the point I was making is exactly the same. Yes, you get an extra tick on UA at 581 haste rating, but the damage you gain from UA doesn't jump.

The only real "jump" is that the duration of UA at:
580 haste = 13.85 seconds = cast UA 22 times
581 haste = 16.15 seconds = cast UA 19 times

Cast time is 1.15 seconds, so, you gain a total of 3.45 seconds over the course of a 300 second fight. You can't even cast two shadow bolts in that time.

I think this is a very interesting mechanic, but, in the end, saying these "thresholds" are somehow important to our DPS as affliction warlocks or shadow priests is very misleading. We're already going to be tweaking our gear to have as much haste as possible. Would you really reforge away 50 crit or hit to squeeze in an extra shadow bolt? Would you change a 20int/20haste gem to 40 haste? Would that even be a DPS gain? The numbers we are talking about here fall within the margin of error in SimC, so there is no way for me to even test it.

shumoo · 01/07/11, 10:08 AM

Originally Posted by Innulock

Shumoo, it seems you still didn't really get where the benefit from getting over the DoT treshold comes from. If you get an extra dot tick, you refresh your dot one tick later and the next time, again one tick laters, resulting in one cast less after a while, here is an example for the 10% treshold:

UA @ 9.999...% haste = 5 ticks 2.7272 sec/tick

82 second fight: 30 ticks= 6 UA casts

UA @ 10% haste= 6 ticks 2.727272 sec/tick

82 second fight= 30 ticks= 5 UA casts

getting over the cap gained you 1.36sec (=1.5/1.10) extra cast time you can spend on (part of) a shadowbolt or something else each ~82 seconds. This is a pure DPS gain only due to getting over the haste treshold. The only thing that's up for discussion is, if this dps gain is large enough to warrant sacrifying other stats to get to the haste treshold.

You only gain that time effectively once, and inbetween thresholds you slowly lose it again until you get another tick to add duration back on to the DoT. Don't forget that haste makes the time between ticks smaller, reducing total duration. If it didn't DoTs dps would just become longer durations for more fillers without getting a DPS increase themselves. That isn't the case at all as revulva points out. If you're trying to say that each time you meet a threshold you gain more time to do other things, show me where UA's duration gets longer than 17 seconds.

shumoo · 01/07/11, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by Innulock

Ok Shumoo, you've posted alot of wrong information in this thread already, please don't confuse people more with your misinformation. EVERY haste treshold you get the dps gain from an extra global cooldown every so many seconds.

Assume a theoretical 420 second fight with 50% haste, that means 840 ticks and UA has 8 ticks per cast.
For every tick we have gained upto that point, we received extra global cooldowns:

5 tick UA = 168 casts
6 tick UA = 140 casts - gained 28 GCDs
7 tick UA = 120 casts - gained another 20 GCDs
8 tick UA = 105 casts - gained another 15 GCDs

every extra tick you gain, you have to cast less. The dps gain from the previous extra tick does not go away and you get an extra dps gain each time you receive a new tick. However YES this dps gain becomes smaller and smaller for higher haste tresholds.

I apologize for frustating you...

show me the durations of UA and how you calculate them above.

revulva · 01/07/11, 10:40 AM

Innulock, you are absolutely and completely wrong. You do not understand how haste works with DoTs.

Here is a table that I posted in another forum for a 300 second fight and Unstable Affliction.
At 00% haste: 1.50 sec cast, 15.000 sec duration, use UA 20 times to get 100 ticks.
At 10% haste: 1.36 sec cast, 16.364 sec duration, use UA 19 times to get 114 ticks.
At 30% haste: 1.15 sec cast, 16.154 sec duration, use UA 19 times to get 133 ticks.
At 50% haste: 1.00 sec cast, 16.000 sec duration, use UA 19 times to get 152 ticks.
At 70% haste: 0.88 sec cast, 15.882 sec duration, use UA 19 times to get 171 ticks.
At 90% haste: 0.79 sec cast, 15.789 sec duration, use UA 19 times to get 190 ticks

The duration of a DoT can never vary from the base more than:
base interval +/- DoT interval/2

Your table is wrong. Not sure why you are considering an 840 second fight, but, the actual table would read:
5 tick UA = 56 casts
6 tick UA = 52 casts
7 tick UA = 52 casts
8 tick UA = 53 casts

shumoo · 01/07/11, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Innulock

Yes, my bad the fight duration is ofc 840 ticks x2 sec = 1680 seconds and not 840 /2 =420 seconds.

i took 840 ticks cause it's the smalles common multiple of 5,6 7 and 8

I didn't get what revulva had found at first, but since we can see (and his math is solid) that the number of ticks where 1 point of haste makes the difference is the same before and after, we can safely conclude it's just as he says - you gain a casting window for ~1 filler. This is the case for each DoT we have so we're really close to another threshold at just about any amount of haste and getting that filler somewhere.

My question earlier was "is there a DPS gain that depends on which DoT is actually providing the filler space?" If not, then revulva is correct in that gearing for thresholds for Aff isn't all that beneficial.

Innulock · 01/07/11, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by shumoo

I didn't get what revulva had found at first, but since we can see (and his math is solid) that the number of ticks where 1 point of haste makes the difference is the same before and after, we can safely conclude it's just as he says - you gain a casting window for ~1 filler. This is the case for each DoT we have so we're really close to another threshold at just about any amount of haste and getting that filler somewhere.

My question earlier was "is there a DPS gain that depends on which DoT is actually providing the filler space?" If not, then revulva is correct in that gearing for thresholds for Aff isn't all that beneficial.

The only DOTs gaining from the effect are UA and BoA (and immolate, BoD and corruption for non affliction specs) and the effect of the BoA tresholds are even smaller than the one of UA

Jmickey · 01/07/11, 11:07 AM

Revulva,

Thanks for the clarification. what you have said there now makes alot more sense. Admittedly I should have already understood this, but I have had much on my mind and it simply didn't click.

I will reword what I have said.

I think this is a very interesting mechanic, but, in the end, saying these "thresholds" are somehow important to our DPS as affliction warlocks or shadow priests is very misleading. We're already going to be tweaking our gear to have as much haste as possible. Would you really reforge away 50 crit or hit to squeeze in an extra shadow bolt? Would you change a 20int/20haste gem to 40 haste? Would that even be a DPS gain? The numbers we are talking about here fall within the margin of error in SimC, so there is no way for me to even test it.

Correct me if I am wrong (which is highly possible, flu ridden minds do not seem to work very well sometimes), This should simply be a matter of taking the DPET time of 2 Shadow Bolts (I'm rounding up) and comparing that to the DPS loss of the stat you are sacrificing over a 300 second fight. Example:

(I will be using the stat weights of the Pre-Raid Affliction SimulationCraft results.)

Sacrificing 20 hit for 20 haste to reach 581 haste:

((20 * 1.5690) * 300) - ((20 * 1.2767) * 300) = 9414 DMG - 7660 DMG = 1754 DMG lost over 300 seconds.

Now if you add the damage of 2 Shadow Bolts, each with a DPET of 8461. You gain a total of 15,168 DMG over the course of a 300 second fight.

Extremely minimal as you can see. about a 50 DPS increase if I am not mistaken.

Aristeides · 01/07/11, 1:32 PM

Thank you to Jmickey for creating and maintaining this thread. I would like to suggest a small addition to the spell priority list. As with Demonology and Destruction, Shadowflame has a higher DPCT than our base filler for both Affliction specs (BiS profile sims put it at a 470 DPS increase for both specs). If you are ever in melee range, even in a single target encounter, it is a DPS gain to use Shadowflame on cooldown (my own sims put it at around 250 dps in average ilvl 355 gear).

Majin72 · 01/07/11, 2:55 PM

Our opening set has pretty much always been slightly different than our priority list and I noticed that you didn't say much about it other than an instant Soul Fire to get the haste buff up, so I was wondering if you were meaning that in order to maximize our DPS we should immediately follow the priority list or if there's an optimal starting set that you would suggest as well?

I've been using: SB (for S&F debuff)>Instant SF>Haunt>BoA>Corr>UA, then dropping into the priority list from there.

I've also been working with a version that swaps the first SB and the instant SF, as well as a few others.

Another thing that I've been wondering about and haven't heard one way or the other on is usage of Fel Flame. I've been using it to refresh UA, but I just recently started to experiment with refreshing it as soon as it drops by recasting just like in WotLK.

Hope this helps as another track to think on and many thanks for all the useful information!

shumoo · 01/07/11, 3:57 PM

Originally Posted by Majin72

Another thing that I've been wondering about and haven't heard one way or the other on is usage of Fel Flame. I've been using it to refresh UA, but I just recently started to experiment with refreshing it as soon as it drops by recasting just like in WotLK.

There's some discussion on it here...
http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t111390-..._demonic_mage/

It's also absent from the Sim priority list for both Aff and Affdrain
SimulationCraft for Warlocks (Cataclysm Edition)

With the 4pc 100% crit bonus, it is a small dps gain as last stated in the destro thread. Nothing in the Aff tree really makes it worth casting more than in destro so I would expect it to also be a small gain with the 4 piece for Aff. Use when moving and keep your DoTs up, otherwise recast UA.

Edit:

The above is no longer correct for patch 4.0.6 and later

MMO-Champion - Patch 4.0.6 Notes Update - January 11

The PvE warlock 4-piece set bonus (Fel Spark) now increases the damage done by the next 2 Fel Flame spells by 300%, rather than increasing the critical effect chance of one by 100%.