I've been playing around with [Shifting Naaru Sliver] and how to model the on use. For now I am just going to treat it like any other trinket use, since honestly not being able to move for 15 seconds 99% of the time isn't going to matter. If there is a fight mechanic that makes you move after using it you probably would have been just as negatively affected if you were using a traditional non-gimmicky-powercircle trinket since you won't be DPSing while running from conflag or what have you either way.

Roughly I'm valuing it at ~53 damage, obtained by doing 320(bonus) * 15(duration)/90(CD as of 2.4.2). So, am I missing anything here or does 54 haste and ~53 damage seem like a correct assessment of the trinket?

I'm sorry, but is that not the definition of a best case scenerio? If not, then what would be a better scenerio for haste then when you do assume that the fight is completely stationary?

It is, kind of. You only get the benefit of that extra shadowbolt at the end of you dps window. Meaning when you have to move, get silenced, (get threatcapped i guess but ignoring that) or when the boss dies. Lifetap and mana usage is modelled by the spreadsheet. So for a very short time window like 24 seconds you might get a higher value than the spreadsheet, but it is a very unrealistic scenario and completely nullifies the time modelled for lifetapping. On a more average fight length that extra shadowbolt before the boss dies will have very little impact on overall dps. Do not get the impression that you can get higher than spreadsheet value in a fight by moving and aborting your shadowbolts. You loose casting time when aborting, but every time you move you might land additional bolt compared to an unhasted warlock which is also moving.

The best case scenario for haste is a fight that is completely stationary AND the last haste rating yielded you an extra cast just before the fight ended. Sure your dps will go down when you have to move. But similarly, if you have 2500 dps according to the spreadsheet with 0 haste rating you won't expect 2500 dps on a movement fight. Haste has a "relative" best case scenario, compared to other values of haste within the same item budget. The "absolute" best case scenario is always a stationary fight.

Alythess tanking can be used as a good example. The boss throws the fireball of doom at you every 2.5 seconds, forcing you to move. IF you manage to get your searing pain cast time down to 1.25 you can get 2 casts off between movements, thus effectively doubling your dps with 20% haste.
Spreadsheet says you have 1500 dps with searing pain. With 0 haste you will see 700 dps, with 20% haste you will see 1250. This can be considered a best case scenario. Of course 1500 dps can still be reached on a stationary fight.

It's very possible to land cast twice between her spells even with 0 haste, the blaze doesn't tick immediately after the cast.

I would have to disagree. A best case scenario is talking about the best case in terms of possibilities obtained by chance. Your haste rating not being 'optimal' enough to get you off an extra cast is your own failing in terms of min/maxing your stats.

If you start when she starts and then move after she lands her spell you would only get 1 cast the next blaze. With haste you can get two or more(she sometimes sits around doing nothing) casts every blaze... phase 1 anyways.

I was reading a couple pages back about using the infernal on brut to increase dps. I was just wondering if any of you warlocks use the infernal (being destro that is) during other boss fights? I was doing hyjal this week, and was contemplating throwing down an infernal on the boss fights at say like 40% or lower. Since You don't lose the sac'ed succy buffed. Just trying to get every little inch of dps i can get =D. Any thoughts?

While I now end up missing most of my guild's BT/Hyjal runs, I would venture to say that using the infernal on the bosses in Hyjal would not be too bad of an idea. Like all pets, you would probably have to micromanage it to some degree, though the Infernal's fire and (presumably) Fear immunities would make that task a lot easier.

Just a cursory glance at some fights:

Rage: Might need to pull him out of bad Death and Decays
Anetheron: Not sure how to avoid Carrion Swarm, unless it doesn't hit melee.
Kaz'rogal: Golden, since it has no mana bar.
Azgalor: Golden, since it'd be immune to Rain of Fire.
Archimonde: Golden, since it'd be immune to Doomfire and, possibly, Fear.

On a side note, does anyone have the "perfect" 0/21/40 Shadowbolt spam gearset as generated by Rawr?

The issue with the infernal in Hyjal is not its effectiveness but its cooldown. At 1 hour you have to really select which fights you wish to use it on. I am not at a stage where I've seen all of the fights yet, but it appears that Rage would be a good first drop for a new MH guild, leaving the cooldown to expire by time you get to the third boss. The infernal isn't hard to micro manage as it has no specials, with timing its release/death so you don't have to re-enslave or banish and getting it out of aoe affects appearing to be the only goals.

Worst case, for a new guild in Hyjal you would look to use on every second boss (or third/fourth attempt if you are wiping). A farming guild would be clearing each of the bosses in under 30 minutes so would need to pick which 2 bosses they would like to use them on. I do not know the instance well enough to conjecture which these are, but I would guess that the first two bosses aren't on that list.

Don't use it on Archi, if you get tossed, it'll break.

Why would you want to compare two items while disregarding major stats, or even any at all?

Not to mention the Skull's effect lasts 20 seconds, while the Eye's only lasts for 6.

Sorry to interrupt this lively discussion but I would like to pose a question about something else:
I know that most warlocks on the planet are already 0/21/40 but I am still affliction and would like to stay that way as much as I can.My guild has just killed archimonde and closing on illidan, last night I got me the T6 helm and I am wondering if the chaotic skyfire diamond is still superior to a spelldmg metagem or does it only work for heavy destruction builds.

I think it depends on your stats : how many crit, hit and spell you got, and the dps cycle you use. Even with T6, +spell meta is probably better. But it seems hard to answer whithout knowing the details. (assuming you got ruin in your template. Without ruin, I think it's clear that the +spell gem is better.) There's no generic rule for a question as large as this one... (for destruction the answer would have been easier)

If you are running the more popular high-end 40/0/21 affliction CSD is certainly better, if you are running UA it depends on your cast rotation and specific stats. If you are that progressed and want to stay affliction 40/0/21 is probably the way to go if you aren't already, especially when you get 4PC T6.

With your actual spec and %crit, even if I'm not a specialist in affliction (I always played demonology, destruction or destrumonology), I'm pretty sure the +spell metagem is more effective than the crit one. (whithout ruin, the effect of the 3% is divided by 2... :/ - and less interesting because the crit representents a smallest part of your global dps)

I'm currently the dev for the warlock module of Rawr (picked it up recently to try and make it work when the old one disappeared) and I want an opinion from the warlock community on which way of modeling would be more useful.

Currently, what I coded up takes in a fight duration and assumes there are a bunch of spells that you're going to keep on the target all the time (curses and dots). It calculates the number of casts necessary for each of these and subtracts the necessary cast time/mana cost from the totals duration and mana available. It then solves for the number of filler spells (SB or Incinerate) and Life Taps to fill out the duration while keeping end mana above 0.

On the other hand, the spreadsheet uses a more averaged module (percents of total time instead of specific numbers of casts). The reason I didn't code it this way in the first place is that the spreadsheet uses a bunch of circular references to do this and I had trouble coming up with a way to avoid this. However, I feel like this is a more useful approach because the first way devalues certain stats (haste in particular because if you don't get an extra cast, the haste is basically wasted). Is this also the general opinion?

So, I've been reading this for the past few days and sitll something I don't understand....If theres normaly 2-3 Warlocks in the raid and 1-2 Shadow priests in the raid...would it be better for MY DPS to use my crit or spell damage trinket...? I'm only sitting at approx 1400 DPS and I can't help but thinking I'm doing something wrong and it should be higher or what not... I think this has something to do with it


With Hex Shrunken Head and Xi'ris Gift I'm sitting at 1293 spell damage and 24.58% spell crit.
With Hex Shrunken Head and Icon of the Silver Crescent I'm sitting at 1336 spell damage and 23.08% spell crit.

Any ideas appreciated.

32 crit is clearly inferior to 42 spell, keep using crescent.

Even with you middle-high spellpower and middle-low critrate, 1 spell is way better than 1 crit (probably way better than 1.5 crit, if not 2)

So 42 spell > 60 crit (if not 80+), that's certain. (1 hit ~ 1 spell ~ 2 crit, that's of course not a generic rule, but a global idea of the values. The more you have in one value, the more the interest in upgrading it decreases. You reach very soon the cap where spell is a little less interesting than hit, so hit must be capped in most of the cases, if not all)

You lack a little +hit (if the stuff in your armory is correct, but maybe are you switching trinket or other piece of stuff for bosses ?), try to cap it, that'll help a little.

I don't think there could possibly be a problem with your DPS cycle, the shadowlock cycle is not - really - hard. XD

I can't think of anything else... Maybe a caster in the raid is joking with you and DPS with a shadow wand ?

I am capped...15% hit, I'm ALWAYS in a draenai group so that's a free 1% anything else is pretty Overkill

That's just flat out wrong. Use the spreadsheet to determine exact values, but the generic rule of thumb is 1 dmg ~ 1 crit rating ~ 1 haste rating. How much you value hit depends on whether you're hitcapped or not.