PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 136

zanaris · 07/01/08, 2:23 PM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

At that stage of progress, you simply don't use corruption. Affliction warlocks might see some us out of it, especially if they bother with dotting multiple trash mobs.

You can get 73.3 spellpower out of it under the best circumstances (except dotting multiple mobs, which will favor the AToC). Icon yields 68.9 spellpower under worst circumstances (fights that last exactly two minutes or a multiple thereof, no heroism/bloodlust or other tricks to combine it with).

Given the lack of control the thing has, and the meager potential benefits, the Icon is simply better. I'm all for stuff that gives you power at a price, but in this case I wouldn't make the bet.

I realize you dont use Corruption, because of dps/threat/mana/isb issues. I was trying to get a convincing argument for explaining why scrubs use this trinket.

Corruption is a loss for dps.

Corruptions higher damage per threat

Corruption's lower DPM

Using Corruption results in a loss of isb uptime.

Any flaws in these statements?

EDIT: I know Icon is clearly better, but what about quag's eye? Does anyone feel if it's worth it to start using corruption to use this trinket over quag's eye? If so please explain.

PSGarak · 07/01/08, 2:46 PM

Point 4 is only situationally true, and I think you may be under the false impression that corruption consumes ISB procs, which it does not. If all of your warlocks have the same crit chance and your shadow priests don't nuke, having one warlock nuke less often because of corruption does not affect your ISB uptime. If your crit chance is significantly lower than the raid-average, using less shadowbolts will actually increase ISB uptime, since you consume more procs than you generate. The standard situation for a destruction warlock is that your crit chance is as high or higher than the other shadow nukes so more shadowbolts means more ISB, although if the other shadow casters have similar crit rates the difference may be small.

zanaris · 07/01/08, 8:25 PM

Hmmm thanks, honestly when i was first evaluating the trinket i really didn't consider ISB at all, it was actually another T Cer in our guild that pointed it out. We understand that corruption ticks dont consume isb procs but our shadowpriests do generally use mindblas/SW

eath.

I guess the loss would be minimal still I really appreciate the input thanks!

EDIT i didnt mean to put a smily face there, but that's what happens when you type SW : Death >.<

Skêith · 07/02/08, 1:25 AM

I'm a raiding AFF lock and have been looking through meta gems to see which would be he best. While I was looking through them I saw [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] and wondered if it procs off dot ticks. Does anyone know?

Faldrath · 07/02/08, 1:08 PM

Originally Posted by Skêith

I'm a raiding AFF lock and have been looking through meta gems to see which would be he best. While I was looking through them I saw [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] and wondered if it procs off dot ticks. Does anyone know?

No. As far as I remember (it's been a while since I last had a MSD), it can proc from the initial application of the dot, but not from subsequent ticks.

Darkwand3r3r · 07/02/08, 9:18 PM

Originally Posted by Faldrath

No. As far as I remember (it's been a while since I last had a MSD), it can proc from the initial application of the dot, but not from subsequent ticks.

Spell Focus Trigger - Spell - World of Warcraft
It shows that it only procs of actual casts, and a dot tick clearly is not.
Since the nerf this gem is not really good for basicaly anyone. I would use the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond in most/all cases.

Scarletsnow · 07/03/08, 4:41 PM

Our guild has four mages, one boomkin, and two warlocks who raid regularly. One of the warlocks, by request, should be affliction specced because of the benefits to the raid overall. The only limitations I've been given within affliction are to have my imp out and have Malediction talent.

When I calculated total damage increased by malediction on bosses (taken from this WWS report) the difference was only 186,293.31 damage total.

The difference in damage between myself, the affliction warlock, and the destruction warlock equaled about that amount of damage. The destruction warlock will not switch to affliction despite being less geared and I wish to switch to destruction because damage I do would make up for lost damage from Malediction.

Is the damage difference enough to switch from Affliction to Destruction and justify the lack of Malediction?

Arnath · 07/03/08, 5:15 PM

At the high end (Sunwell), the reason for an Affliction warlock is much more Shadow Embrace than Malediction. Strictly DPS-wise, Malediction is not worth it beyond a certain level of gear.

Zasz · 07/03/08, 9:16 PM

If you can play as affliction, then you end up being something like a shadow priest. Your dmg is limited but you have good support for your group and raid. Real good afllictions with t6 end up with 1.600 dps roughly, similar to shadow priests so the dps difference is mostly 400 to a destruction specced warlock.

Darkwand3r3r · 07/03/08, 11:22 PM

We have never used an affliction lock since we killed Illidan a couple of times. I always was the imp boy and did far less dmg than the destruction locks. A good thing about destruction warlocks is that they can use a curse without losing too much dps. An affliction warlock will lose a lot of dmg by using COS/E instead of COA. I do not believe that the extra 3% dmg done will be worth the loss of say 400+ dps from the aff lock speccing destro. Also note the ISB uptime you will have with another destro lock.

When i specced destro i went from about 1400 dps(this was half a year ago so can't remember excactly) maximum to aneasy 1800. And I can imagine the gap in dps becoming much bigger in sunwell gear where we get 2200-2500 dps steady on nuke fights.

Having 1 affliction lock is absolutely not a necessity. On fights where dps really matters, brutallus is the only one i can think of, we even have issues with debuffs getting pushed off without an aff lock. So imagine it being worse with even more dots on it.

Looking at your WWS I'm quite suprised at the dps chart. You 2 destro locks should be able to do a lot more dmg than the 900 average i saw. But that's kinda offpoint i guess. Looking at your gear 1400+ should be manageable with a decent group. Might be a group setup issue? And your hit is kinda low, more hit less haste

Sharrash · 07/04/08, 7:07 AM

I'm trying to understand the specs given for Demonology and I don't understand the various standard points distribution.

Standard 1/44/16 : Why the 1 point in Affliction ? It seems useless to me.
Succubus 1/39/21 : same question.

Any advice ?

Arelenda · 07/04/08, 8:03 AM

Originally Posted by Sharrash

I'm trying to understand the specs given for Demonology and I don't understand the various standard points distribution.

Standard 1/44/16 : Why the 1 point in Affliction ? It seems useless to me.
Succubus 1/39/21 : same question.

Any advice ?

In case you're still using corruption (which is gear/spec dependent, although 1/44/16 will probably always use it), you'll gain 0.4 seconds per 18-20 seconds, or the equivalent of roughly 2.2% haste through one talent point. Extra points won't gain you more since you'll be limited by GCD.

Originally Posted by Scarletsnow

Is the damage difference enough to switch from Affliction to Destruction and justify the lack of Malediction?

No, never. Affliction is for Shadow Embrace. The minor blood pact bonus is almost negligible, and Malediction dps won't make up for being in a gimped tree. 400-500dps loss for affliction at end gear level is a reasonable estimate. Malediction will not make up for that, you'd need around 18k shadow dps. Warlocks do around 2k each, usually.

I recommend one warlock for Shadow Embrace (by no means necessary, but it is optimal). To get that, you have to be affliction and you might as well pick up Malediction and two points in blood pact in that case.

in short:
- affliction without shadow embrace is a waste of a warlock.
- always use CoS/CoE over any damage curse. Usually CoR too, unless you're worried about the damage increase.
- if CoS/CoE/CoR is up and there are still warlocks available, have destro's use CoD, unless they're threat capped.

Flamingcloud · 07/04/08, 12:15 PM

Originally Posted by Arelenda

In case you're still using corruption (which is gear/spec dependent, although 1/44/16 will probably always use it), you'll gain 0.4 seconds per 18-20 seconds, or the equivalent of roughly 2.2% haste through one talent point. Extra points won't gain you more since you'll be limited by GCD.

No, never. Affliction is for Shadow Embrace. The minor blood pact bonus is almost negligible, and Malediction dps won't make up for being in a gimped tree. 400-500dps loss for affliction at end gear level is a reasonable estimate. Malediction will not make up for that, you'd need around 18k shadow dps. Warlocks do around 2k each, usually.

I recommend one warlock for Shadow Embrace (by no means necessary, but it is optimal). To get that, you have to be affliction and you might as well pick up Malediction and two points in blood pact in that case.

in short:
- affliction without shadow embrace is a waste of a warlock.
- always use CoS/CoE over any damage curse. Usually CoR too, unless you're worried about the damage increase.
- if CoS/CoE/CoR is up and there are still warlocks available, have destro's use CoD, unless they're threat capped.

There are a few things I have issue with here.

The second point in corruption has atleast some benefit not no benefit since you aren't at the global yet, it does not do [nothing].

"Warlocks do 2k each usually" at levels where warlocks do 2k dps affliction isn't 500 dps worse unless you put the aff lock in the tank group, in which case it isn't a fair comparison at all. I have no trouble at all being in the 2600-2900dps range now, at this gear level affliction might actually be the 500 dps loss but I don't know since every time we have a afflock it ends up in the tank group, the spreadsheet has it at 450 theoretical dps less. Not to mention it is probably gemmed/

CoS and CoE are being merged, and 18k raid magic dps is 540dps + mp5 granted by spriests, which is not even in the 400-500 dps range you provided. My last brutallus raid had 15.6k raid dps with a very balanced 3 lock, 2 mage, 2 spriest, and 2 enh shaman flames, that is 468 dps and 3% mp5 from spriests. A stacked caster raid will definitely benefit more from a malediction lock in the future than a destro lock, and an average raid will gain shadowembrace for

While a non-amped CoD from a aff lock is worse than from a destro lock, an amped, or a regular improved CoA is better than the destro locks, just putting it out there that destro lock CoD is not the best damage curse. Not that this has any practical application/

Arelenda · 07/04/08, 1:34 PM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

There are a few things I have issue with here.

The second point in corruption has atleast some benefit not no benefit since you aren't at the global yet, it does not do [nothing].

"Warlocks do 2k each usually" at levels where warlocks do 2k dps affliction isn't 500 dps worse unless you put the aff lock in the tank group, in which case it isn't a fair comparison at all. I have no trouble at all being in the 2600-2900dps range now, at this gear level affliction might actually be the 500 dps loss but I don't know since every time we have a afflock it ends up in the tank group, the spreadsheet has it at 450 theoretical dps less. Not to mention it is probably gemmed/

CoS and CoE are being merged, and 18k raid magic dps is 540dps + mp5 granted by spriests, which is not even in the 400-500 dps range you provided. My last brutallus raid had 15.6k raid dps with a very balanced 3 lock, 2 mage, 2 spriest, and 2 enh shaman flames, that is 468 dps and 3% mp5 from spriests. A stacked caster raid will definitely benefit more from a malediction lock in the future than a destro lock, and an average raid will gain shadowembrace for

While a non-amped CoD from a aff lock is worse than from a destro lock, an amped, or a regular improved CoA is better than the destro locks, just putting it out there that destro lock CoD is not the best damage curse. Not that this has any practical application/

Some minor nitpicks about this.

You're right about corruption, I was merely pointing out that the first talent point gains you the most benefit. Not that extra points are wasted, but you'd be giving up 3-5% crit to make your corruption instant with 1/44/16 vs 5/44/11.

Malediction increases the 10% modifier to 13%. This gives you a 1.13/1.10 = 2.727% increase. 18k * 2.727% = 490 so you'd need over 18k shadow/arcane dps to gain 500dps from Malediction.

You're right about Malediction when the curses are merged. 18k magic dps is achievable with a normal setup. I doubt it will surpass destro's raw power under most circumstances, but the point will be moot. Affliction will still have Shadow Embrace and imp, sealing the deal.

I haven't done the math on improved CoA vs destro CoD, but as you point out: no practical application.

PSGarak · 07/04/08, 2:33 PM

With merged CoE, Malediction on its own is almost a wash compared to the affliction lock's output, but there might also be a minor negative impact on the raid ISB uptime. An affliction warlock loses 3% crit from backlash, and possibly some more from regemming although they might have the same optimal gear set. The ISB uptime change from 3% crit is almost microscopic, but it's about the same order as the difference between affliction and destro when accounting for merged malediction. But, as we've said, the point is not malediction, malediction just lets you make up some of the loss you take for getting Shadow Embrace.

If I remember right, one single amped CoD is better than a destro CoD, but the average over time of affliction CoD with Amp Curse (ie one amped and two regular) is not. You're comparing 16.7% base damage to 15% base damage and 15% spell damage, destro wins because DS is the only thing that effects CoD's scaling.

Flamingcloud · 07/04/08, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

With merged CoE, Malediction on its own is almost a wash compared to the affliction lock's output, but there might also be a minor negative impact on the raid ISB uptime. An affliction warlock loses 3% crit from backlash, and possibly some more from regemming although they might have the same optimal gear set. The ISB uptime change from 3% crit is almost microscopic, but it's about the same order as the difference between affliction and destro when accounting for merged malediction. But, as we've said, the point is not malediction, malediction just lets you make up some of the loss you take for getting Shadow Embrace.

If I remember right, one single amped CoD is better than a destro CoD, but the average over time of affliction CoD with Amp Curse (ie one amped and two regular) is not. You're comparing 16.7% base damage to 15% base damage and 15% spell damage, destro wins because DS is the only thing that effects CoD's scaling.

From what I can tell at my gear level as affliction there would be nothing I would change with my gear not gems or items.. +12dmg still best red, +6dmg +5haste is still the best yellow, and the socket bonuses are always worth going for.

Zasz · 07/05/08, 4:26 PM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

From what I can tell at my gear level as affliction there would be nothing I would change with my gear not gems or items.. +12dmg still best red, +6dmg +5haste is still the best yellow, and the socket bonuses are always worth going for.

Agreed on the gem choice. The socket bonuses are not always worth going for. For example T6 hands and legs: No need to gem with yellow if you are already hitcapped. If its a spell damage bonus, take it. Personally I would not take bonuses like crit (MH shoulders) or stamina (MH bracers), I would stick in reds there. But thats just me.

Flamingcloud · 07/05/08, 9:09 PM

Well all items past the two t6 items with hit bonuses are +dmg bonuses.

Ammanas · 07/06/08, 4:43 PM

Yeah, they did a good job with the SW gear in that all the bonuses are worth getting and there aren't blue sockets on every single thing. Pretty simple to just gem 12 in reds and haste/damage in yellows with the two stam gems for meta.

Arelenda · 07/06/08, 4:49 PM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

If I remember right, one single amped CoD is better than a destro CoD, but the average over time of affliction CoD with Amp Curse (ie one amped and two regular) is not. You're comparing 16.7% base damage to 15% base damage and 15% spell damage, destro wins because DS is the only thing that effects CoD's scaling.

The problem is that "affliction CoD dps" vs "Destro CoD dps" is irrelevant.

You want to compare "affliction SB spam + destro with CoD" vs "affliction with CoA + destro SB spam". I don't bother filling that stuff in the spreadsheet, since it's all hypothetical anyway. You have one affliction for Malediction, everyone else will be destro.

locutiz · 07/07/08, 4:57 AM

Its hard to find a definitive answer on this one, and the wording in the tooltip is a little ambiguous, so I'm asking the experts. Can anyone confirm whether the +3% crit effect of 3/3 Backlash is passive or whether it only applies whilst Backlash is active? The tooltip says:

Increases your critical strike chance with spells by an additional 1% and gives you a 8% chance when hit by a physical attack to reduce the cast time of your next Shadow Bolt or Incinerate spell by 100%. This effect lasts 8 sec and will not occur more than once every 8 seconds.

which could be interpreted as only giving the +3% crit when the "effect" is active. If it were indeed a passive effect, I would have expected this to appear in my character tab, but this is not the case. Looking at a recent WWS result, this 3% doesn't seem to be incorporated into my SB crit rate. Could it be that the +3% crit from Backlash only occurs when Backlash is active?

Apologies if this has already been explored.

Arelenda · 07/07/08, 6:50 AM

Originally Posted by locutiz

Its hard to find a definitive answer on this one, and the wording in the tooltip is a little ambiguous, so I'm asking the experts. Can anyone confirm whether the +3% crit effect of 3/3 Backlash is passive or whether it only applies whilst Backlash is active?

It is always active and even shows up on your character pane's chance to crit. Unlike devastation which only works for destro spells.

Razumikhin · 07/07/08, 6:04 PM

In the latest Leulier spreadsheet, I noticed that the dmg value of an additional 1 spell crit rating was only 0.80 for me as a 0/21/40 warlock with BT/MH gear, whereas in the previous version it was about 1. Did anyone else observe this, and if so do you know why the difference is so great?

Arnath · 07/08/08, 10:16 AM

I'd assume that Raid TNS used to be checked and isn't anymore. It's the only way you'd get crit valued as > spell damage.

VictorZ · 07/08/08, 10:49 AM

Having recently respecced to destro for more dps (1100-->1500), I'm having regrets as my current raid core warlocks have no affliction locks. Is affliction locks viable in end-game, is the loss in damage worth the gains from malediction, shadow embrace and an imp on the MT group? I would really like to hear from anyone who has an affliction lock in their BT/MH raids and how useful they are.

Also, I remembered that they were merging CoS and CoE. Is that still going to happen?