Ammanas

Use the HSH and Crescent, damage > crit at almost all gear levels. Also, fix your spec - drop the emberstorm/improved immolate and get 5/5 Cataclysm. If you are casting immolate stop, start the straight SB spam. Use Super Mana Pots on CD to save GCDs from life tapping, it will increase your DPS significantly. I am in full BT/Hyjal gear with some SW pieces and only have 24% crit, it should never be prioritized over damage and haste. Also, use the spreadsheet

 

Fimotik

The debate about haste has been very interesting. The one thing I like about haste is its consistency, there's no randomness to it. The alternative to stacking haste is crit, and crit can be very random. I can look at WWS for the same fight 3 weeks in a row with 3 destro locks, all very similarly geared, with 3 very different results depending on how the crit roll of the dice goes. Sometimes I get a 28% crit rate, sometimes 41%. Haste has an appeal from that angle.

The other comment I wanted to make on the haste debate is that haste gearing doesn't exist in a vacuum. You also have trinkets, Bloodlusts and Drums working as well. It's rare that I'm relying just on my gear for my haste.

 

Arelenda

You _always_ have a crit chance, and it's always random, whether you have more or less of it. You could argue that you could have 40% crit chance and see only 5% in a real fight, but all the bolts you gain from haste could also all be resisted which is more likely to happen. If anything, getting more crit makes a fight less random, not more: assume 50% crit chance, you'll see most results between 40-60, get 10% and you'll see results between 0-20%, resulting in a much more noticeable variation in SB uptime between fights.

Getting more haste increases your amount of bolts, though, which also lowers the chances of damage spikes a bit. But there is nothing so hard to measure as real effectiveness of haste. We can simulate it and estimate results, but how much you really gain from, say, reducing SB cast time from 2.5s to 2.48s is not clear.

I'm not saying haste is better than crit, just mentioning that "it makes fights less random" isn't really the case.

 

Deathnotes

I notice on the spreadsheet Life Tap times have a HUGE impact on DPS (I knew it had a little bit, but not as much as I see on the spread sheet) and I was curious at what times should I Life Tap? I TRY to do something like I'll SB until 75% mana Life Tap, Shadowbolt to 50% Life tap, 25% Life Tap and usually by then the fight is over, if not, I'd life tap between moves etc. etc. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Nymph'

You're right, my calculs was based on a 1 hit ~ 1 spell base who was true with the average gear 1 year ago, but not actually true anymore. (Of course the 1 hit ~ 2.4 crit keeps being true, for average values, and if you consider the ISB proc as negligeable (neglectable ?) )

Now we got 1400+ spell, so the impact of +spell is clearly less important than when we had +650, sometimes +1000. (I'm outdated. :/ )

 

Anthraxx

It feels like you are controlling your mana this way, it's hard to resist sometimes, I know

BUT... Lifetapping when over 25% in many cases will mean wasted dps. You never know what will happen later. Most likely you will have to move at some point which will buy you a "free" life tap. Getting a mana tide right after u potted and tapped to full hurts.

 

Wfatboy

In actuality, increasing haste (always) or independently increasing crit rating (crit < 50%), while keeping other stats constant will always increase the variability of your damage. Trading haste for crit will affect your variation based on how much of either stat you had previously, and by how much you are trading.

See: Standard deviation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Zasz

Skull only gives 11% every 2mins while the eye gives 19% with only 45sek cooldown.

 

Arelenda

Would you mind explaining this? I thought that if you increased your crit chance, you were only increasing the mean value, not the standard deviation.

It's similar to taking a six sided die (1-6) and adding a dot to all sides. If you roll both dice 100 times (signifying 100 shadow bolts and their crit chance), one will not have "more random" results.


And if I had to choose between throwing 50 bolts for 2K average (higher crit/damage/hit) and 100 bolts with a 1K average (higher haste), I'd expect to see more consistent results with the latter.


Feel free to tell me if I'm wrong, but you will have to explain why.

 

Kalle

Casting a spell is some sort of a binary experiment - the spell either crits or it does not crit. This type of experiment can be described by a binomial distribution which has a probability mass function of

where p would be your critchance, n the amount of spells and k the amount of crits. It can be shown that the expected value is np and that the variance is np(1-p). The variance has a maximum for p=0.5.

 

Deathnotes

That's if it happens to proc... Skull is Guarenteed haste if you remember to use it...

 

Nonrelent

I believe the malediction assessments here to be mildly flawed, as follows:
Having 2 locks fully specced into it, you get (X persons: X*0.13/15) = .866% incrase to overall Raid DPS per person affected. (15 DPS in a standard raid setup)
3 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 2.6% raid dmg increase
6 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 5.2% raid dmg increase
9 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 7.8% raid dmg increase

Anecdotally, Curse of Agony/Curse of Doom makes up about 1/3 of an affliction warlock's total DPS. This is heavily gear dependant, but varies between 20-35% of their damage depending on haste, spell rotation, and a few other factors.

The raid increase to damage from a destruction warlock casting the same curse:
(X
Having 2 locks fully specced into it, you get (X persons: X*0.10/15) = .66% incrase to overall Raid DPS per person affected.
3 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 2% raid dmg increase
6 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 4% raid dmg increase
9 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 6% raid dmg increase

Only 3% of the 13% increase comes from talents. This means that to find the difference would be (.03% / 15 = .2%). This also means the talents increase overall raid DPS by .2% per user of that particular curse (shadow/arcane for easy example). The destruction warlock in question is losing a theoretical 1 Global cooldown per 5 minutes, or .012% of his damage, but in practice it is cast during the time while he is waiting for tanks to grab aggro anyway. This assumes all shadow users have about the same DPS for easy of comparison. If the affliction lock losing the curse does significantly less DPS, the threshold shown below could be as low as 6.

Now, for the telling comparison: (X is the number of people using the affected curse in your raid, shadow/arcane for curse of shadows, fire/frost for curse of elements). Loss of 30% of 1 person = total raid DPS loss of .3/15. Again for simplicity the calculations assume that all DPS are created equal. The calculations will shift somewhat if the person dropping the curse is significantly below the raid's average DPS.

_____DPS increase__Raid DPS_____DPS Increase___Raid DPS
X___Talented Base_Minus loss____Untalented Base___Minus loss
1______0.87%_______-1.13%__________0.7%________0.655%
2______1.73%_______-0.27%__________1.3%________1.321%
3______2.60%________0.60%__________2.0%________1.988%
4______3.47%________1.47%__________2.7%________2.655%
5 _____4.33%________2.33%__________3.3%________3.321%
6______5.20%________3.20%__________4.0%________3.988%
7______6.07%________4.07%__________4.7%________4.655%
8______6.93%________4.93%__________5.3%________5.321%
9______7.80%________5.80%__________6.0%________5.988%
10____8.67%_______6.67%________6.7%______6.655%
11_____9.53%________7.53%__________7.3%________7.321%
12_____10.40%_______8.40%__________8.0%________7.988%
13_____11.27%_______9.27%__________8.7%________8.655%

Conclusion!
It requires 10 total shadow users before the benefits from malediction outweigh the cost of losing an affliction warlock's DPS curses. To make it worth speccing for using Curse of Elements requires the same 10 total fire/frost users. This means that except in extremely unusual raiding conditions, your destruction warlocks should be the ones putting out Curse of shadows and elements, and your affliction warlocks should always be using agony/amplified doom. If there are not enough destruction warlocks to do this, the affliction warlocks could sacrifice DPS to reduce resists, but from a pure DPS perspective should STILL not be casting curse of shadows/elements. To justify 2 malediction warlocks a raid would need 10+ shadow/arcane AND 10+fire/ice DPSers, which is not feasable in a 25man raid. Malediction makes out much better in 40 mans, but is simply not worth using in a 25man.
Most of these calculations are mentioned on my blog Theorycraft: December 2007 in a bit more detail.

 

Arelenda

Interesting, I stand corrected. Thank you.

 

Zasz

It proccs for me shortly after the cd is gone. Thats why I´m looking for some numbers.

Imagine it does proc exactly every 45sec in brutallus for example. Thats a 6min fight, the trinket can proc 8 times and the skull can be used 4 times. Thats 2560 haste (320*8) for 48sec vs 700 haste (175*4) for 1min 20sec to sum it up in this extreme example. Without manareg or stuff you can spam 120 SBs (300/2,5).

Eye gives 19.9% increase afaik so casttime is down to 2,085sec. 48/2,085=23 SB casts instead of 19.
252sec normal cast time and 48sec casttime with haste. 300-48=252/2,5=100. 48/2,085=23
100+23=123
4 SB gained

Skull gives 11,1%, thats 2,25sec SB casttime. 80/2,25=35 SB casts instead of 32.
220sec normal cast time and 80sec casttime with haste. 300-80=220/2,5=88 80/2,25=35
88+35=123
3 SB gained

I´m not a math genius and someone plz check if I got it right.

 

Flamingcloud

What is the point of comparing eye proc vs gul'dan on use exactly? One gives +37dmg the other 55dmg 25hit.

Uh, what? Those curses cap out at like 200-225 dps so we have affliction warlocks doing 600-1000 total dps?



Can we try and keep discussion in the thread meaningful and intelligent?

 

Zasz

The point is that I have the eye and want to know if its worth dropping it for the skull. I´m hitcapped during raids and the 18dmg dont convince me yet.

 

Trippy

You've got a hit gem in your bracers, that's a DPS increase right there with the Skull if you'd regem.

Also, if you're playing decently you'll know to stack trinkets with other buffs: Flame Cap, Destruction Potion, Blood Fury, Bloodlust. The Skull having a use effect allows for maximum stacking.

 

Flamingcloud

*sigh*.. Anyways if you look back to the discussion on Quag's Eye maybe 15 pages back you will see that the best case scenario (depending on the amount of haste you have) is Quag giving the equivalent of 37 haste. Gul'dan gives 29 haste if averaged out. So you are comparing (in the most ridiculously slanted scenario towards Quag) 18dmg vs 8 haste. 18dmg is significantly better than 8 haste. Not to mention all the time quag's eye procs when you aren't chain casting and gets wasted or partially wasted(like when I curse brutallus it procs and thats a GCD gone)

I could give you more gearing advice but I looked at your armory and you aren't even close to hit capped unless you get a ele shaman all the time. For someone who apparently likes haste more than damage, you have a funny way of socketing.

 

Zasz

I dont use flamecaps as shadowdestru nor am I an orc, destruction potions only if I dont have to use mana potions and shamanbuff is only every 10mins. But that doesnt answer my question in any way.

What you see in the armory is not what I wear in raids. As I said before, I´m hitcapped during raids and if you would look closer, you would notice that I´m missing t6 shoulders otherwise I would socket in a different way.

 

Flamingcloud

I hardly think that's a justifiable reason to socket everything +12dmg and ignore all socket bonuses.

 

deadlights

He answered your question as does the spreadsheet. Under ideal conditions the 8 haste you would net from perfectly timed procs does not outweigh the 18 passive damage. Moreoever if you have hit gems in your gear the +25 hit on the skull allows you to regem or change other pieces of gear to increase their respective slots' dps. Switching two veiled pyrestones to two reckless pyrestones gives you 10 passive haste which with combined with Skull's on use haste gives you ~2 haste more over the course of the fight in addition to the extra passive damage (purely an example as I haven't looked at your armory). It's really not that difficult to understand. Using eye over the skull is just voluntarily opting to restrict your gear choices in other slots and lowering yoru DPS cap. We don't play in a vacuum. 6 seconds is an incredibly short proc time with great potential to whiff on the dps increase. For example like on Najentus when the shield goes up. Many of your procs will simply be wasted where with the skull you get to control when you get the extra burst for when you actually need it and minimize the waste.

 

Morwen

Nonrelent:

The calculations are a bit flawed because you are making too many assumptions that don't hold up in a real raid scenario. As pointed out a damage curse doesn't make for anywhere close to 1/3 of affliction dps (or to be more precise, affliction dps does not drop by 1/3 just because they don't cast CoA/CoD). Also, shadow users certainly do not all do the same dps, there is a pretty wide gap between shadow priests and destruction locks.

Realistically you shouldn't look at the number of shadow/arcane users, but their net dps output in your raid. There are also more complex factors in play: an affliction warlock will generally be placed in a tank group instead of a caster group, causing a cascading effect in raid makeup that impacts everyone whose group buffs change because of this.

Zasz:

It is actually kind of a silly exercise to calculate the discrete number of extra bolts you will be able to cast over 6 minutes. This seems to have been discussed to death in the last few pages of the thread in fact, but unless the time window is extremely small you should just look at the average expected case, which has already been approximated by the spreadsheet.

 

Deathnotes

So I never got an answer to a previous question, about Life Tap. To increase my DPS is it better to KEEP my mana up? Or should I wait to get to liek 10% pot + life tap and continue DPSing or what should I do here? I feel this is having a big impact on my DPS per fight

 

rutiene

Also, to add to this, even though we say that we have a 40% crit 'chance', we also have to remember that this crit chance is funneled through a mathematical algorithm and that in code nothing is actually by chance. Over a long boss fight, your actual crit % will not differ from your stat by more than 1%.

This question was answered when someone replied that if you potted / LT'd before 25% mana, then you would be losing DPS. But note that sometimes it is better for the raid if you're not always at 100% HP for LT purposes due to the fact that Affliction locks have Siphon Life and Destruction locks have Soul Leech, so it would make use of those healing talents/spells.

 

Faldrath

About lifetap, it's always a DPS loss, so you want to do it when you can minimize that loss (usually, while repositioning). You also want to have enough mana so you don't have to lifetap during important temporary buffs (bloodlust, trinkets, etc.), and you want to aim to have close to 0 mana at the end of the fight.

Of course, it all depends a lot on group composition and the fight, so there's no hard rule (for instance, lifetap while moving in Council is usually stupid, because if you're moving it means you're taking damage, or trying to be close to 0 mana in Kaz'rogal is dangerous). You just have to practice and see what works better for you.