PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 126

LockApologist · 05/27/08, 1:31 PM

Originally Posted by 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)

..snip..

Conclusion![/b]
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.

Your conclusion is flawed in that you assume:

a.) a 200 dps curse is 1/3 a lock's dps
b.) all caster do the same dps
c.) you have 2 Malediction casters
d.) that the Aff lock's CoD > Destro. This is only true when Amp is applied, and Amp should not be in any raiding Aff build.

Your blog is a cut/paste of the post you made. I fail to see any additional detail.

It's interesting that you go to all the trouble to make these calculations, but don't actually work out the Aff CoA/CoD vs Destro CoA/CoD. The whole premise assumes that a dmg curse is 30% of the caster's DPS, which is highly unlikely.

Torq · 05/27/08, 2:08 PM

Originally Posted by 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%.

Actually, this is not nearly true.

The other day, I was farming basilisks, just chain sb + drain soul for a few shards. After a number of kills (15-ish) I realized I hadn't seen very many big numbers, meaning I hadn't crit much. I run with 24.58% tooltip crit, so 29.58% destro crit. Thankfully, I had just reset my recount, so I pulled up the detail window for my dps, and specifically Shadowbolt. After a few more kills, I had totalled 40 shadowbolts with 3 crits. That's a meager 7.5% critrate. I kept killing and got a few crits in a row, and before I left, I think I had totalled 60 shadowbolts and ~10 crits, or about 17% crit.

So obviously, you can have very bad crit streaks. A long boss fight should see this approach your tooltip crit, but it's entirely within the realm of probability to have a bad crit streak for the entire bossfight, and end with 10% effective crit rate.

I'm also seen the opposite happen, on an Illidan kill recently, when I was in SR gear. Considerably lower critrate, and yet I was topping the dps for the first phase because I couldn't get anything but crits (seemingly, anyway). I think I ended that phase with roughly 50% crits.

So it obviously goes both ways, and is entirely possible to go one way for an entire fight. Just the rules (odds?) of chance.

rutiene · 05/27/08, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by rutiene

Over a long boss fight, your actual crit % will not differ from your stat by more than 1%.

Neither of your scenarios contradicted my above statement. I do not believe you understood my reasoning for why I stated what I did in terms of how random numbers are generated by programs. There's always a cycle, due to the very nature of the algorithm, thus it is almost impossible for the theoretical crit % to differ greatly from the actual crit % over a long boss fight.

Your reasoning is akin to saying that proof of micro-evolution is enough evidence to prove the existence of macro-evolution. (Not to say I don't believe in macro-evolution, but that is an entirely different topic.)

Flamingcloud · 05/27/08, 2:31 PM

Well I have done Brutallus plenty of times and almost always I am not even close to within 1% of the expected value. There is no boss in the game that is so long and filled with so many shadow bolts that you will always return to near the expected value of crit. Sure if I shot 2000000 shadowbolts I would almost certainly be within 1% of the expected value but the sample size is far too small on any actual encounter(council is probably the only one over 200 bolts).

Nonrelent · 05/27/08, 3:03 PM

Your conclusion is flawed in that you assume:

a.) a 200 dps curse is 1/3 a lock's dps
b.) all caster do the same dps
c.) you have 2 Malediction casters
d.) that the Aff lock's CoD > Destro. This is only true when Amp is applied, and Amp should not be in any raiding Aff build.

It's interesting that you go to all the trouble to make these calculations, but don't actually work out the Aff CoA/CoD vs Destro CoA/CoD. The whole premise assumes that a dmg curse is 30% of the caster's DPS, which is highly unlikely.

A ) 250 DPS is doable at a realistic gear level with the talents into it.
B ) I specifically mentioned I used similiar DPS for ease of calculation. If you'd like to do a more accurate analysis as with a greater number of variables I'd love to see your numbers
C ) Since there's only 2 curses that benefit from it, that's a reasonable assumption. Whether you do the analysis for curse of shadows or elements, the orginal thesis that the total benefit of 3% to each beneficiary should outweigh the loss in DPS remains accurate regardless of who the beneficiary is. More than 2 would be a waste of talent points
D ) I disagree sir. All affliction builds listed on this site include it. Combine with doom, it adds ~ 5000 dmg per cooldown, or about 30 total DPS fightlong, and scales with gear. There's plenty of points to spend from your 3rd or 5th tier points to spare 1 point in amplify. Particularly if my original thesis is correct in not needing malediction, then one of those points could go into it. It particularly comes into it's own if you use your amplified doom as you use the various cooldowns being discussed simlultaneously in this thread (destruction potions, trinkets, etc).

I appreciate the criticism, but if the numbers are wrong, I'd love to see the correct numbers in their place. Feel free to correct anywhere I was off.

Flamingcloud · 05/27/08, 3:18 PM

Originally Posted by Nonrelent

A ) 250 DPS is doable at a realistic gear level with the talents into it.
B ) I specifically mentioned I used similiar DPS for ease of calculation. If you'd like to do a more accurate analysis as with a greater number of variables I'd love to see your numbers
C ) Since there's only 2 curses that benefit from it, that's a reasonable assumption. Whether you do the analysis for curse of shadows or elements, the orginal thesis that the total benefit of 3% to each beneficiary should outweigh the loss in DPS remains accurate regardless of who the beneficiary is. More than 2 would be a waste of talent points
D ) I disagree sir. All affliction builds listed on this site include it. Combine with doom, it adds ~ 5000 dmg per cooldown, or about 30 total DPS fightlong, and scales with gear. There's plenty of points to spend from your 3rd or 5th tier points to spare 1 point in amplify. Particularly if my original thesis is correct in not needing malediction, then one of those points could go into it. It particularly comes into it's own if you use your amplified doom as you use the various cooldowns being discussed simlultaneously in this thread (destruction potions, trinkets, etc).

I appreciate the criticism, but if the numbers are wrong, I'd love to see the correct numbers in their place. Feel free to correct anywhere I was off.

Have you ever played affliction before? Amp Curse of Doom does not hit 5000 harder only the base damage gets amplified. On top of that CoD doesn't get affected by Shadow Mastery last time I checked(and according to the spreadsheet) and none of the affliction talents modify it, and destruction has a +15% shadow modifier. Amp is only in builds because there is nothing else. Regardless an aff lock doing a damage curse should be atleast 1800-2000dps so 10% coming from curses is alot more reasonable. At +1700 shadow and amplify curse in the spec the spreadsheet has CoD at 196dps, as destro it is listed at 209dps.

13% CoS added on my destro build adds 73 dps, if you had 2 destro locks, 1 aff lock, and 2 spriests that would be WAY over 200dps plus extra mp5/healing. The question is not whether to get malediction as affliction, it is whether the overall raid dps loss is worth shadowembrace/imp for tank and multiple debuff slots. Not to mention you will only be doing a damage curse if you have 4 warlocks (or 0/1 mage but lets not get into that) which makes the aff lock being on CoS an even stronger arguement.

LockApologist · 05/27/08, 3:36 PM

Originally Posted by Nonrelent

A ) 250 DPS is doable at a realistic gear level with the talents into it.
B ) I specifically mentioned I used similiar DPS for ease of calculation. If you'd like to do a more accurate analysis as with a greater number of variables I'd love to see your numbers
C ) Since there's only 2 curses that benefit from it, that's a reasonable assumption. Whether you do the analysis for curse of shadows or elements, the orginal thesis that the total benefit of 3% to each beneficiary should outweigh the loss in DPS remains accurate regardless of who the beneficiary is. More than 2 would be a waste of talent points
D ) I disagree sir. All affliction builds listed on this site include it. Combine with doom, it adds ~ 5000 dmg per cooldown, or about 30 total DPS fightlong, and scales with gear. There's plenty of points to spend from your 3rd or 5th tier points to spare 1 point in amplify. Particularly if my original thesis is correct in not needing malediction, then one of those points could go into it. It particularly comes into it's own if you use your amplified doom as you use the various cooldowns being discussed simlultaneously in this thread (destruction potions, trinkets, etc).

I appreciate the criticism, but if the numbers are wrong, I'd love to see the correct numbers in their place. Feel free to correct anywhere I was off.

1.) 250 dps requires 1967 + dmg. If you assume you get total 10% from ISB, it requires 1685. In my gear (not the best, but pretty damn good. 5/8 T6, Sunfire robe/neck, tempest, etc), I sit at ~1570 fully raid buffed. Throw a totem on there, and it's in the range required. But, I don't think that's realistic gear level, more like top end. Regardless, that's not 30% of anyone's dps, thus your premise is flawed to start with.
2. ) That's fine, but it's not true to real world numbers, thus your results are not true to real world results. Taking a shortcut here and saying your results are accurate don't work together.
3.) You bring an Aff lock for SE, thus having more than 1 is a waste. Malediction is just a bonus.
4.) Amp only applies to base damage, thus it's 2100 per cooldown, or 700 dmg per CoD. And destro gets 15% to shadow, vs that 700 dmg per cast (SM does not apply to CoD). So, anything over 4700 CoD (i.e. essentially any non-naked cast) will be stronger for destro (or demo, for that matter) than Aff. The one cast in 3 will be slightly higher for Aff, generally.

To prove that an Aff lock is better off casting a dmg curse vs a destro lock, you have to prove that the Aff locks dmg curse + destro CoS > Destro locks dmg curse vs CoS + extra Maledicted rdps. I'll give you a head start. Aff locks get + 25% to CoA from talents (0% CoD) and Destro get 15% to CoA and CoD, With the fact that extra GCD cost of recasting CoA makes it pretty much a wash w/ CoD, most dmg curses will be CoD, which gives destro a huge advantage.

PSGarak · 05/27/08, 4:20 PM

Originally Posted by rutiene

Neither of your scenarios contradicted my above statement. I do not believe you understood my reasoning for why I stated what I did in terms of how random numbers are generated by programs. There's always a cycle, due to the very nature of the algorithm, thus it is almost impossible for the theoretical crit % to differ greatly from the actual crit % over a long boss fight.

Your reasoning is akin to saying that proof of micro-evolution is enough evidence to prove the existence of macro-evolution. (Not to say I don't believe in macro-evolution, but that is an entirely different topic.)

a) Your character does not have his own PRNG seed. It is shared by, at the least, the whole instance's combat mechanics. Quite possibly the entire server, for both combat and loot. You are sampling a PRNG at effectively random times, meaning you're actually dealing with a truely random variable.
b) Any PRNG worth using has a period well in excess of the number of particles in the visible universe. You are not going to cycle through in one 6-minute boss fight. Nor is the entire server.

Arelenda · 05/28/08, 4:32 AM

Originally Posted by Nonrelent

I believe the malediction assessments here to be mildly flawed
(snip)

Conclusion!
It requires 10 total shadow users before the benefits from malediction outweigh the cost of losing an affliction warlock's DPS curses.[/b] 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.

uh, what?

First off, unless you have a very weird raid setup (i.e. no mages, or no physical dps), CoE/CoS/CoR will be the curses of choice. So I'm assuming you're bringing 4 warlocks, and have to decide between 13% CoS + destro damage curse and destro CoS and affliction damage curse.

Scenario A: Malediction + destro CoD
Malediction with 4 warlocks and a Shadow priest (assuming a low 7700 shadow/arcane dps) results in 7700/1.10*1.13 = 7910 dps. So Malediction gives 210 EXTRA raid dps.

Given 1500 spellpower, destro CoD hits for 7200 base, multiplied by 15% DS, 13% CoS, 10% SW, 5% Misery (ignoring ISB)= 10800.

Scenario B: No Malediction + affliction CoD (amped)

Given 1500 spellpower, affliction CoD hits for 7200 base, 10% CoS, 10% SW, 5% Misery = 9150 (ignoring ISB). Amped it hits for 11800. It hits for _less_ than the destruction CoD on average, even with the 3 minute amp included.

For comparison, to outdamage scenario A, affliction CoD needs to hit hard enough to outdamage both Malediction and Destro CoD. This translates to 60*210+10800 = 23400 on average. This would require about 7k spellpower.

It's true that for high geared affliction locks, CoA does more damage. But you'd need to 390 dps with it (not counting ISB or time lost to extra casts per minute). Note that you'll still amp doom when AC is available.

I consider this one thoroughly debunked.

siberian · 05/28/08, 6:17 AM

I'm working with incernerate spec and just want to know what would be preferred for talent points in destruction between conflagurate and soul leach I can put 1 point in either. I don't conflag on bosses since I think it's dps decrease using up the global cooldown. With enough crit it probably could be a dps increase.
does anyone know the math of what would be more dps?
sitting at 28% crit unbuffed atm with about 1111 spell dmg.

Madlax · 05/28/08, 8:59 AM

Originally Posted by siberian

I'm working with incernerate spec and just want to know what would be preferred for talent points in destruction between conflagurate and soul leach I can put 1 point in either. I don't conflag on bosses since I think it's dps decrease using up the global cooldown. With enough crit it probably could be a dps increase.
does anyone know the math of what would be more dps?
sitting at 28% crit unbuffed atm with about 1111 spell dmg.

Depending on your instances and progress I would say put your spare points into Nether Prot like: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
But at your current gear level you will probably gain some slight benefits if you do like:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Arelenda · 05/28/08, 9:10 AM

Originally Posted by siberian

I'm working with incernerate spec and just want to know what would be preferred for talent points in destruction between conflagurate and soul leach I can put 1 point in either. I don't conflag on bosses since I think it's dps decrease using up the global cooldown. With enough crit it probably could be a dps increase.
does anyone know the math of what would be more dps?
sitting at 28% crit unbuffed atm with about 1111 spell dmg.

Conflagrate is a dps increase on bosses only if you're naked.

It's an instant spell, it scales horribly with spellpower. It's true that it scales better with crit, but no matter what your crit chance is, all your other spells will be better.

Greedo · 05/28/08, 10:35 AM

I would like to ask a little advice on gems in my gear. Current gear of mine is here.
The Leulier spreadsheet says, that my dps will increase, if i change all my yellow gems to [Reckless Noble Topaz]. Does it worth to change them? Also any other ideas for gemming/upgrade welcome. (My guild is at the beginning of TK only.)

Thanahtos · 05/28/08, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

uh, what?

Scenario B: No Malediction + affliction CoD (amped)

Given 1500 spellpower, affliction CoD hits for 7200 base, 10% CoS, 10% SW, 5% Misery = 9150 (ignoring ISB). Amped it hits for 11800. It hits for _less_ than the destruction CoD on average, even with the 3 minute amp included.

For comparison, to outdamage scenario A, affliction CoD needs to hit hard enough to outdamage both Malediction and Destro CoD. This translates to 60*210+10800 = 23400 on average. This would require about 7k spellpower.

It's true that for high geared affliction locks, CoA does more damage. But you'd need to 390 dps with it (not counting ISB or time lost to extra casts per minute). Note that you'll still amp doom when AC is available.

I consider this one thoroughly debunked.

Aren't you missing Shadow Mastery? edit: Doh, I should actually do some research before shooting my mouth off, it seems that some people say that it doesn't affect Curse of Doom.

Originally Posted by Greedo

I would like to ask a little advice on gems in my gear. Current gear of mine is here.
The Leulier spreadsheet says, that my dps will increase, if i change all my yellow gems to [Reckless Noble Topaz]. Does it worth to change them? Also any other ideas for gemming/upgrade welcome. (My guild is at the beginning of TK only.)

It's only "worth" it to change them if you don't mind spending the gold. Overall your gear seems good for your level. Hood of Hexing, Blade of Twisted Visions and Hex Shrunken Head are all possible upgrades for you though.

koalachan · 05/28/08, 12:56 PM

Better to put the point in Soul Leech, or Nether Protection. It never gets interesting enough to use Conflagrate. It's not worth its global cooldown ever.

siberian · 05/28/08, 6:48 PM

cool, thanks guys i'll probably go with soul leach then =)

XStoliX · 05/28/08, 7:58 PM

Hi there,

Currently im Specced 40/0/21 in Sunwell so that the tanks get an IMP, aswell as the Debuffs (Malediction, 5% less dmg).
My Classleader has argued that the following rotations:
Rotation1: SB -> Corr -> SB -> SL -> x SB
Rotation2: SB -> COR -> SL -> X SB.

I have wondered how that is supposed to be possible so i did some work:

Sorry for not adding a legend i was quick when doing this in Photoshop so heres a quick summary:
The Yellow background is just for enhanced visualization of your Timeline.
The Red Blocks represent a 2.5 Second shadowbolt cast.
The Blue Blocks represent one Global Cooldown of 1.5 Seconds.
The Vertical Turquoise lines represent an Initiated cast or a Global Cooldown start (quite logical when viewing)
The Green line above the Yellow box Represents an 18 Second Corruption duration.
The Orange line above the Yellow box Represents a 30 Second Siphon Life duration.

Assuming your main goal is to get off as much shadowbolts between reapplying CORR/SL you will end up with the exact same amount of SBS for both rotations, which in this case is 7 SBS for Rotation 1 and 7 SBS for Rotation 2 BEFORE you have to reapply corruption.

Now i might be getting something wrong here as im sure my class leader wouldnt say that Rotation 1 is superior to Rotation 2.

Might somebody please correct my analysis and point out where im wrong, or if my perspective/analysis has nothing to do with whether rot1 > Rot 2 and its superior for other reasons, i thought long about it and i cant come up with anything different.

And before somebody asks: Yes im assuming you have 0 Haste (in this scenario here) and you play with 0 Lag and you manage to time everything perfectly without moving and an Infinite Mana pool.

I would greatly appreciate anybody pointing me in the correct direction or stating where my analysis is flawed/wrong and or why my class leader is right about the rotation 1 being superior.

Thanks,
Stoli

Titanstrider · 05/28/08, 10:40 PM

Hello all, while it's my first post I've been a reader for some time, and find the discussions outstanding. Regarding the benefit of Malediction's 3 talent points over the affliction curse's dps, maybe I'm the only one needing the comments restated, but just in case it would benefit others:

The goal is to determine if Malediction 3/3 is worth that affliction warlock giving up their improved curse of agony or doom, when a non-affliction lock could put up a normal CoS instead, since their dps curse is weaker. So, is Malediction's extra 3% to shadow damage worth more dps than the affliction warlock's CoA/CoD?

So the question boils down to figuring out what 3% of your raid's shadow dps is, and comparing that to the curse your affliction warlock is giving up if I'm not mistaken? Or am I just restating the wrong question?

Arelenda · 05/28/08, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by Titanstrider

Hello all, while it's my first post I've been a reader for some time, and find the discussions outstanding. Regarding the benefit of Malediction's 3 talent points over the affliction curse's dps, maybe I'm the only one needing the comments restated, but just in case it would benefit others:

The goal is to determine if Malediction 3/3 is worth that affliction warlock giving up their improved curse of agony or doom, when a non-affliction lock could put up a normal CoS instead, since their dps curse is weaker. So, is Malediction's extra 3% to shadow damage worth more dps than the affliction warlock's CoA/CoD?

So the question boils down to figuring out what 3% of your raid's shadow dps is, and comparing that to the curse your affliction warlock is giving up if I'm not mistaken? Or am I just restating the wrong question?

Scroll up a bit. My earlier post has some calculations about it. You'll see that the destro lock's CoD is better than the affliction one, making this all very moot. Affliction can do CoA, but it's nowhere near beating Malediction + CoD.

Originally Posted by XStoliX

Hi there,

Currently im Specced 40/0/21 in Sunwell so that the tanks get an IMP, aswell as the Debuffs (Malediction, 5% less dmg).
My Classleader has argued that the following rotations:
Rotation1: SB -> Corr -> SB -> SL -> x SB
Rotation2: SB -> COR -> SL -> X SB.

In my experience, stringing instant spells together gave better results, since when spamming SB I could anticipate lag better and lose less casting time. Mixing instants and SB didn't give me the same results.

Other than that, I don't see a significant difference in these fixed rotations.

Titanstrider · 05/29/08, 12:07 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

Scroll up a bit. My earlier post has some calculations about it. You'll see that the destro lock's CoD is better than the affliction one, making this all very moot. Affliction can do CoA, but it's nowhere near beating Malediction + CoD.

Thanks, I just realized my mistake as there will be a CoS up from 1 warlock no matter what, so Malediction provides more raid dps once your arcane/shadow dps exceeds like 500 for the entire raid.

Fafhrd · 05/29/08, 5:51 AM

Arelanda, you might want to add to the compendium that Nether Protection is good not only on Brutallus, but also on Eredar Twins (and above all it's awesome for a certain end boss, but that might be against the forum policy)

Latas · 05/29/08, 6:32 AM

Though i don't think the lock tank on the twins can have it, or am i mistaken?

Arelenda · 05/29/08, 7:33 AM

Originally Posted by Latas

Though i don't think the lock tank on the twins can have it, or am i mistaken?

No, but the fight involves lots of shadow and fire aoe.

(is what I'm assuming, I have not done Twin Eredars myself)

rochan · 05/29/08, 8:12 AM

Does it work on any of these Muru abilities?
-random shadow lightning
-void pulses
-void spawn shadow novas
-p2 orbs/darkness

Latas · 05/29/08, 9:28 AM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

No, but the fight involves lots of shadow and fire aoe.

(is what I'm assuming, I have not done Twin Eredars myself)

Yeah it does, but the way we run if a fight needs a lock tank, all our locks should be prepared to be called to tank it.