PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 140

Kobal · 03/28/08, 6:40 AM

Originally Posted by TangoDigital

I'll second that. IMO hit really is the primary stat you should go for until it's capped. Not only because of the DPS-value but also because of the massive trouble you can get yourself into when your spells are resisted. Soulshatter being the obvious... but you also lose quite a bit more DPS when that DoT is resisted just before you need to start moving around. You'll not only lose a GCD per se, but also the entire DPS-time lost until you can reapply. As said if that UA gets resisted and you need to move around for 5 seconds, that's 5 seconde of UA DPS lost to the lack of hit.
So yeah... it is that important.

While this statement in itself is correct, it should be noted that there are ways to circumvent these issues without sacrificing too many other DPS-Stats for hitrating.

The problem with soulshatter resists can at least be mitigated by having an alternative weapon/ranged set that focusses solely on hitrating, and that you swap in right before the soulshatter.

An affliction warlock needs a full 6% hit for his DoTs to be capped (5% if you regularly have a draenei in your group). The suppression talent is incerdibly helpful here, as it has been noted repeatedly before that there are no really essential alternatives where to put these points.

TangoDigital · 03/28/08, 7:08 AM

Originally Posted by Kobal

While this statement in itself is correct, it should be noted that there are ways to circumvent these issues without sacrificing too many other DPS-Stats for hitrating.

The problem with soulshatter resists can at least be mitigated by having an alternative weapon/ranged set that focusses solely on hitrating, and that you swap in right before the soulshatter.

I believe that swapping weapons out while the Boss turns around to chop your head off can get you killed. Doing the swap "in anticipation" of overaggro will cost you at least some more DPS than a simple soulshatter cast would.

An affliction warlock needs a full 6% hit for his DoTs to be capped (5% if you regularly have a draenei in your group). The suppression talent is incerdibly helpful here, as it has been noted repeatedly before that there are no really essential alternatives where to put these points.

Suppression doesn't hitcap shadowbolt, which in itself makes for more than 40% of your damage (not factoring ISB). Also, as you hitcap via gear you can take those 5 points and apply them to some really useful talents (fel concentration, malediction,...).

This is all sorta moot anyway since a lot of our gear comes with decent hit if you make the right choices. However, if left with the choice between spelldmg/crit/haste gems versus hit I'll always prefer hit unless I'm >=202.

evilhacker · 03/28/08, 10:12 AM

My problem with 202 as a primary stat goal for hit is that I've found very little difference between being hit capped and raiding with 100-150 hit. I generally raid as 0/21/40 with around a 155 rating. We don't have a moonkin and I rarely have access to an elemental shaman, and yet for the most part, I do not miss against raid bosses.

I assume a large part of it is that in a given fight, I don't cast a significant number of spells. I'm no statistician, but I'd figure you'd have to cast a very large number of spells in order to feel a difference between 10% to hit and 15%. In combat, I don't think I'd notice if 1 out of 20 miss unless I got a streak of misses.

I look at hit like any other stat - it's important and it adds to DPS. Given a choice between adding 1% to hit, 1% to crit, and 1% additional spell damage, I'd probably pick crit.

Cronjob · 03/28/08, 10:19 AM

Well at first I thought fire was the new hotness and rolling around doing world pvp it kinda is. I tested the last two nights on Brutallus and shadow wins every time. We had mostly mages on the first night and the second night we had a better mix with two shadow priest but no matter what shadow was winning out.

We had three locks two destro one affliction and it didnt matter whether both the destros went fire or if only one, shadow was winning. The spell rotation we each were using was immo then spam incin.

Anyone else testing out fire?

rochan · 03/28/08, 10:41 AM

I heard the spreadsheet tested out fire.

And evilhacker I'm not gonna sugar-coat it: what you wrote there is pretty stupid and I really hope no one takes your advice. You are just shooting yourself in the foot if you dont hit cap while destro. Hit rating is so strong, overpowered even, because you need much less rating for 1% hit than 1% crit, and spells use a 2 roll system, i.e. you have to hit in order to crit.

Cronjob · 03/28/08, 11:06 AM

Yeah Rochan the spreadsheet indicates fire should win out but thats not what we saw lastnight on Brut. We were even a lock short which would boost our DPS even more as shadow because ISB would be up more. But even with just me running shadow while the other destro lock did fire, I would win out.

Was hoping others were testing this out. I even went as far as removing soulfrost in favor of pure +40 spell damage on my weapon.

Mearis · 03/28/08, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by evilhacker

My problem with 202 as a primary stat goal for hit is that I've found very little difference between being hit capped and raiding with 100-150 hit. I generally raid as 0/21/40 with around a 155 rating. We don't have a moonkin and I rarely have access to an elemental shaman, and yet for the most part, I do not miss against raid bosses.

I assume a large part of it is that in a given fight, I don't cast a significant number of spells. I'm no statistician, but I'd figure you'd have to cast a very large number of spells in order to feel a difference between 10% to hit and 15%. In combat, I don't think I'd notice if 1 out of 20 miss unless I got a streak of misses.

I look at hit like any other stat - it's important and it adds to DPS. Given a choice between adding 1% to hit, 1% to crit, and 1% additional spell damage, I'd probably pick crit.

My problem with this post is that you are wrong.

Nurru · 03/28/08, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by evilhacker

My problem with 202 as a primary stat goal for hit is that I've found very little difference between being hit capped and raiding with 100-150 hit. I generally raid as 0/21/40 with around a 155 rating. We don't have a moonkin and I rarely have access to an elemental shaman, and yet for the most part, I do not miss against raid bosses.

I assume a large part of it is that in a given fight, I don't cast a significant number of spells. I'm no statistician, but I'd figure you'd have to cast a very large number of spells in order to feel a difference between 10% to hit and 15%. In combat, I don't think I'd notice if 1 out of 20 miss unless I got a streak of misses.

I look at hit like any other stat - it's important and it adds to DPS. Given a choice between adding 1% to hit, 1% to crit, and 1% additional spell damage, I'd probably pick crit.

Everything about this post is wrong. Please stop.

Necrostar · 03/28/08, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by evilhacker

My problem with 202 as a primary stat goal for hit is that I've found very little difference between being hit capped and raiding with 100-150 hit. I generally raid as 0/21/40 with around a 155 rating. We don't have a moonkin and I rarely have access to an elemental shaman, and yet for the most part, I do not miss against raid bosses.

I assume a large part of it is that in a given fight, I don't cast a significant number of spells. I'm no statistician, but I'd figure you'd have to cast a very large number of spells in order to feel a difference between 10% to hit and 15%. In combat, I don't think I'd notice if 1 out of 20 miss unless I got a streak of misses.

I look at hit like any other stat - it's important and it adds to DPS. Given a choice between adding 1% to hit, 1% to crit, and 1% additional spell damage, I'd probably pick crit.

HIT > FAILED logic

Kobal · 03/28/08, 11:47 AM

Originally Posted by TangoDigital

I believe that swapping weapons out while the Boss turns around to chop your head off can get you killed. Doing the swap "in anticipation" of overaggro will cost you at least some more DPS than a simple soulshatter cast would.

Waiting with Soulshatter until you actually do pull agrro is very suicidal in my book. Not only that some bossses need to be positioned very precisely, there is just so much that can go unnecessarily wrong with this practice.

Originally Posted by TangoDigital

Suppression doesn't hitcap shadowbolt, which in itself makes for more than 40% of your damage (not factoring ISB).

I never said hitrating was worthless, only worth less (sorry for the pun). I am sure you agree that if hitrating only affects 40% of your damage, it should be worth only 40% of what it would be worth if it would affect 100% of your damage, don't you?

Originally Posted by TangoDigital

Also, as you hitcap via gear you can take those 5 points and apply them to some really useful talents (fel concentration, malediction,...).

Amongst the first three tiers (= 15 points) of the affliction tree, there are only 9 points that are mandatory for an affliction warlock (in my humble opinion).
5/5 Improved Corruption
2/2 Improved Lifetap
2/2 Improved Drain Soul

The remaining talents are nice little gimmicks, but in no way necessary for a raiding warlock. People call these "filler". So putting 5 of those 6 points into suppression will not cost you any useful talent.

Originally Posted by TangoDigital

However, if left with the choice between spelldmg/crit/haste gems versus hit I'll always prefer hit unless I'm >=202.

This is personal preference then. Should I ever have to spec affliction myself, I would follow the advice of my spreadsheet and value hitrating about equal to spelldamage.

rochan · 03/28/08, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Cronjob

Yeah Rochan the spreadsheet indicates fire should win out but thats not what we saw lastnight on Brut. We were even a lock short which would boost our DPS even more as shadow because ISB would be up more. But even with just me running shadow while the other destro lock did fire, I would win out.

Was hoping others were testing this out. I even went as far as removing soulfrost in favor of pure +40 spell damage on my weapon.

Yeah the spreadsheet may say fire does more damage but in practice you'll get fucked over by Immolates wearing off/casting the wrong spell/mages forgetting about scorch/mistiming a lifetap/immolate etc. With shorter spells (immolate/IC), lag will have more of an effect. You may think you Quartz it perfectly, but there's always a little delay.

There are just a lot more things that can go wrong with fire vs pure spamming one button (shadowbolt) playstyle. With practice & perfect play the specs will probably be equal, but why go through all the extra hassle, and you don't even buff the other shadow users.

Thebeefe · 03/28/08, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Timbal's is better than Icon, assuming you always have a DoT on your target.

Timbal's proc does not eat imp SB, and its damage is affected by it.

Can you elaborate on this?

witchedwiz · 03/28/08, 12:53 PM

about timbal's proc... do those mini shadow bolt consume ImpSB? or are they affected by it?
Currently our raid is most likely 1-2 spriest, 3 (few times 2, but no lower then 2.. oftern it's rather 4 destro lock :P.. so 3 as a midline value) destru lock, 1 affli lock..
If timbal's proc consumes ISB, then it's pretty much worthless since the destru lock would have to compensate for spriest (no isb refresh)+ afflilock (low ISB refresh) + timbal's x3 (no ISB refresh), thus making it pretty useless since it would make pretty much hellish to mantain ISB up..
any help? :P (haven't dropped it so far, so i can't test firsthand..)

clavarnway · 03/28/08, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by witchedwiz

about timbal's proc... do those mini shadow bolt consume ImpSB? or are they affected by it?
Currently our raid is most likely 1-2 spriest, 3 (few times 2, but no lower then 2.. oftern it's rather 4 destro lock :P.. so 3 as a midline value) destru lock, 1 affli lock..
If timbal's proc consumes ISB, then it's pretty much worthless since the destru lock would have to compensate for spriest (no isb refresh)+ afflilock (low ISB refresh) + timbal's x3 (no ISB refresh), thus making it pretty useless since it would make pretty much hellish to mantain ISB up..
any help? :P (haven't dropped it so far, so i can't test firsthand..)

This was posted on the same page...scroll up.

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Timbal's is better than Icon, assuming you always have a DoT on your target.

Timbal's proc does not eat imp SB, and its damage is affected by it.

witchedwiz · 03/28/08, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by clavarnway

This was posted on the same page...scroll up.

didn't notice it, my bad :/
thanks for answering tough.