Akj

Due to the shadow embrace bug & debuff slot issues we are thinking of running with 1 affliction & 2-3 fire destro locks in sunwell tonight. Most of the destruction builds rely on a good chunk of dps from the imp and I'm not entirely sure if the little fella can live through all the raid damage (it should be fine on Brutallus & M'uru). I'd like to hear what other locks think about pet survivability in sunwell.

 

• KingSpeedy

I agree with you about Brut and M'uru, but I have worries about the others. Stacking arcane debuffs on Kalecgos would be pretty much playing the RNG game to see if the little guy avoids the later hits before your part in the portal rotation goes up. Same goes for Felmyst with Encapsulate. You'd have to have great reaction time to order him on follow and hope he gets away in time, on top of taking the constant 1k/tick from her aura. As for Twins (reverse), I guess you could just position him off to the side away from the raid to avoid the shadow nova and conflag.

 

Sydane

With 80% avoidance and damage reduction, the imp shouldn't get insta-gibbed in any situation. If you're in a position to catch chain heals or CoH, he'll probably get topped off and be fine. But don't be afraid to heal him yourself, it should only take a few seconds of channelling to push him back to full health and that's far better than having him die and lose buffs and have to be resummoned.

Empathy does not imply approval.

 

Bonestorm

Anyone have any idea on the dps of raid-buffed, untalented succubus vs imp vs new felhunter? I'm wondering what pet affliction will be using in pet friendly fights at 70.

 

Beerguzzler

Just looking through the talent calculator and trying to put a build together, I was curious as to the usefulness of Intensity. Not having done any raiding on the ptr/beta and with the new pushback mechanic, are these 2 talent points even necessary anymore?

 

Tehehe

Has your chart been updated for the level 70 specs you just edited in (as opposed to some that were 80?

Also, I'm curious as to if taking Ruin in a 70 demo build (over Metamorphosis and Demonic Pact) will be a DPS increase or not... I suspect it will be (or at least be very close). Would you be interested in simulating such a build? e.g.:
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...21500135031200


edit: and your "Demonology_Metamorph" simulation is still using a level 80 build.

 

• KingSpeedy

His chart is accurate. I set up simcraft and plugged in my own data and am getting similar numbers. The three destro builds are close to 2000, but Haunt is a solid 200-250dps above them, even in my current haste-heavy gear.

 

Fireye

My base demo build was supposed to be Felguard/Ruin. I'm failing today at managing my changes. I've changed my "Demonology" build to be Felguard/Ruin as I intended.

Regarding your spec, I can't imagine building a felguard spec without Fel Synergy and Demonic Resilience (at least in PvE encounters). I can simulate it for you if you like, but I don't think a Felguard would last through some encounters without those key talents.

Updated the original post with the proper demo (felguard) build, and added in an affliction (no SE) build. Moved points from SE to Amp Curse/CoEx/Cataclysm.

 

Tehehe

Regarding Fel Synergy: I think with the huge amount of AOE heals going around and pets not taking damage from a lot of the AoEs (Burn, Fire Bloom, etc) it should be fine - but it is certainly something that will require testing. Perhaps 1 point in Fel Synergy will make things more stable.

And don't worry about simulating the minor differences between my Felguard/Ruin spec and yours, it should be minor.

Just to confirm, the visual chart has been updated, correct? And thanks again for all your effort and information, regardless of any errors.


edit: looks like Demonology_Metamorphosis is still using 0/53/18 (level 80 build), but I could be mistaken.

 

◊ Kyth

I'm not sure simcraft reflects the fact that Pandemic doesn't (currently) work with the +13% crit you get via mages and paladins as debuffs on the mob.

That will hurt affliction's numbers if it doesn't.

Officer of <Fusion>
http://www.stratfu.com/ - StratFu: Strategies, Guides, Movies, and Tips for Wrath Raiding

 

Sydane

Demonic Resilience is entirely worthless in PvE encounters with the change to avoidance. If people are going to keep imps alive without Fel Synergy, then the Felguard who has three times as much HP should have no problems without it. Not only that, but melee tends to get more chain heals than ranged does anyway. I'm only speccing Fel Synergy at 70 because there's nowhere better to put the points, if I find I don't need it I'll put them elsewhere. I can't imagine that the points in ISB and Cataclysm are worth more than points in Improved Demonic Tactics and Demonic Empathy, you're especially hurting your Demonic Pact uptime by taking points out of Tactics. You only need one point in Mana Feed to maintain the Felguard's cleave indefinitely in a raid environment even without replenishment.

Here's the Metamorphosis build I plan to use tonight: 0/56/5

Empathy does not imply approval.

 

Edana

I tried adding a few more specs to your config file and found that a non-BD build was consistently above your other destruction builds by 10-15 dps, though it's still a good 200-250 dps behind the Haunt builds. If intensity is actually important with the pushback changes, it's easy enough to take a point out of FB without a big change in dps.

For pure SB spam I found something like this performed reasonably well, but it's still a 200ish dps loss over the better destro builds. For a month's worth of raiding though it might be worth the dps sacrifice just to not have to deal with changes until the expansion.

 

Desaix

Re your demonology builds.

1. I have read this thread and the WOTLK Warlock thread but can't see why you would use firestone over spellstone with a demo build with no ruin.

2. If you're gonna compare these demo builds with a destro/aff build, shouldn't the demo builds, all things being equal, have higher spell damage due to DK?

3. Possible bad question: do all the simulations ignore the possibility of GOA/WF for the melee pets?

4. I don't believe the felguard glyph is available at 70 due to herb requirements.

This is great stuff. Thanks for doing it.

 

Fireye

1/2) Good ideas, I'll work on getting them in the profile.
3) Extremely doubtful, I'll try adding in an eleshaman to see if it boosts numbers, or if there's a specific buff for GoA/Windfury I can grant the Felguard pet. All buffs for the felguard are currently:
4) This has been remedied already, I turned all glyphs off until I have a chance to sort 'em out.

Thanks for the thanks, all credit goes to dedmonwakeen and his SimulationCraft program, keep up the good work dedmon!

 

◊ Melbuframa

what is the rotation you are using for the Haunt Spec?

 

Nerielle

You can sort of tell what rotation was used from this site; http://hinome.net/wow/wotlk/warlock_comparison.html I was wondering the same thing. Also; haunt, curse_of_agony, corruption, unstable_affliction, siphon_life, shadow_bolt, shadow_trance=1, immolate, shadow_bolt, dark_pact, looks about right.

 

• KingSpeedy

Did some messing around with simcraft and found 2/3/56 to be the second highest Chaos Bolt spec short of ChaosBolt_NoFB (but only about 5 dps behind). I think this might be the best choice given the much easier rotation without having to worry about Backdraft.

 

Woggle

Having read both the WOTLK-preview and this thread (completely) for a long time, I found it would finally be time for a post.

I just recently made a post in my guild's forum concerning the specs to take when 3.0.2 goes live, as there are several reasons to coordinate it (debuffslots and the shadow-embrace bug being already mentioned in both threads). There, I summarized the thoughts I had to all three trees (though in German), and I will try doing that here too. We are a guild that just cleared Sunwell a month ago and all my thoughts will be from the point of view of an almost fully geared level 70 warlock (which I certainly am not, due to a long inactivity period).

First of all, I believe that with 3.0.2, any spec without the 51-point talent will not be able to compete with those that have it. One exclusion might be Metamorphosis, but the only reason to go to demonology is, imho, Demonic Pact and having put 50 points in demonology, the last point will not bring any major dps-increase in any of the other two trees, leaving Metamorphosis as the most viable solution. Now, I think that Demonic Pact is somewhat underestimated by most people at level 70 high-end-raiding. Spellpowervalues around 1800 should be easily obtainable with Demonic Knowledge and Sunwell-gear. That's 180 spellpower for the raid at an uptime of roughly 80%, which is highly superior to the shaman totem. Anyways, back to 51-pointers, Haunt is incredibly good and by far superior to Ruin for an affliction build, Chaos Bolt is not that good, but most 10-15 point talents in other trees are rather weak compared to Ruin.

Now, I have tried to optimize the builds for most possible dps and I have come up with some for each tree, though destruction is still quite a mess and some builds might have a point or two moved between some talents. Generally, what I have observed is that people tend to hesitate taking talents they cannot max. In my opinion, a lot of times 3/5 or 4/5 points in one talent is highly valid and you will see choices like that quite often in those specs.

1. Affliction: 56/0/5
   I do believe that 56/0/5 will be the most superior spec in dps with 51/0/10 being close. One thing to consider might be 55/0/6 - see the thought on Eradication below. Some other thoughts:
   • Talents increasing hit are basically worthless in Sunwell gear and because they do not affect Soulshatter. Has been addressed multiple times before.
   • Grim Reach is unnecessary without Destructive Reach and thus not taken.
   • 1 point is free in that spec. I put it into Soul Siphon for now and was hoping that Drain Soul might be unbugged on the live version. Then, a second point there would be necessary, which could be taken from Fel Concentration, or, depending on aggro limitations, Improved Drain Soul. Otherwise, that one point from Soul Siphon might as well go to Dark Pact - depending on the spirit values on gear, Dark Pact might be worthwile for now.
   • Generally, depending on aggro, the two points in Improved Drain Soul might be freed up. Not much use anywhere though, maybe 2/2 Soul Siphon and 1/1 Dark Pact.
   • CoA is talented, assuming that there will be a Moonkin in the raid. This assumption is, in my opinion, quite valid, given the support and dps they now provide. Otherwise, CoA does not need to be talented (and neither does Amplify Curse have to be taken) and CoE would have to applied.
   • Glyphs of choice would be Corruption and Shadow Bolt (remember, this is for level 70)
   • One point from Eradication might go to Improved Shadow Bolt, as the last point in Eradication gives the least benefit. Has anyone tried modelling that?
   • If the Shadow Embrace bug does not get fixed, all other warlocks should go for a spec along the lines of 54/0/7 with the 5 points in Shadow Embrace used in 2/2 Grim Reach, 2/2 Soul Siphon (as fillers..) and 2/5 Improved Shadow Bolt.
2. Demonology: 4/52/5
   That spec might look very weird at first glance, but there are reasons behind most choices. I would accept the point that Improved Demonic Tactics would increase Demonic Pact uptime and thus bring a larger benefit to the raid. The thing is that 3 talent points there give the pet about 3-4% more crit, which does not increase the uptime significantly. That is what I think at least, I'm not exactly sure how many swings a felguard takes in 12 seconds when fully raidbuffed, someone more into the math might be able exactly how the uptime changes with those three points. Some more thoughts:
   • Many people (including me) might underestimate the value of Improved Shadow Bolt for a Demonology Warlock. At critrates of about 40% raidbuffed (which is quite realistic), the uptime is above 80% by a good margin, leading to a straight increase of Shadow Bolt damage by more than 8% with 5/5 ISB. And a Demonology Warlock will see the larger part of his dps come from Shadow Bolts. So, alternatively, the 4 points from Affliction might be taken over to ISB leading to 0/52/9. Bane still stays superior.
   • Both Demonic Empowerment and Demonic Sacrifice are purely taken as fillers. While Demonic Empowerment is almost never worth the gcd, Demonic Sacrifice might get useful for encounters where you cannot use a pet, though only Archimonde comes to mind. The point in Demonic Empowerment might go to Demonic Resilience, but, as has been stated before, that is not necessary in a raidsetting.
   • Metamorphosis in its current form might be a nice spell to use when Bloodlust etc is up.
   • I would see 2/2 Improved CoA as superior to 4/5 Improved Corruption, if ISB does not prove to be valuable.
   • Glyphs - probably Corruption and Shadow Bolt. The others are not accessible...
3. Destruction
   I am not linking any spec at the beginning here on purpose. A multitude of specs was linked in both threads and most of them have pros and cons. The most important debate is whether to include the Conflagrate/Backdraft-Chain or the Soul Leech/Improved Soul Leech Chain, or both. Basically, all specs include the following: 3 points in Improved Imp. Those are fixed. 51 points in Destruction going down to Chaos Bolt. Some alternative routes possible there, which I will discuss later on. Now, anything between 0 and 7 points is possible in the Afflictiontree. I think, that at least 2 should go in Improved CoA, not only because more than 56 points in Destruction do not contribute to raid dps, but also because 10% for 2 points is a huge increase (and better than using those points for Improved Corruption). Then, the choice comes down to the following points:
   • 7/3/51 with Backdraft: the live version will show, if JoW is still bugged or not. If that is the case, the 2 points in Improved Life Tap are not necessary in a raidsetting and might as well be moved to Improved Corruption and 5/5 Fire & Brimstone. This would lead to 6/3/52 (very odd numbers, but imho very viable if LT is not needed!) or 5/3/53 specs. Alternatively, the 4 points from Conflagrate and Backdraft can be moved to Soul Leech and Improved Soul Leech.
   • 0/3/58: I have seen this spec been mentioned quite often. I think, that two points should go to Imp CoA from Shadowborn and Cataclysm. This leads to a possibly very competitive 2/3/56 spec.
   • You will notice that no of my builds include 3/3 Cataclysm. In my opinion, the hit is not needed, the mana cost reduction not worth the last point. 2 points have to go there as fillers, I would rather keep the last one. In terms of absolutely pure dps and no other concerns, taking 3/3 Cataclysm and 0/3 Soul Leech is superior to 2/3 Cataclysm and 1/3 Soul Leech. This can only be done, when not using the Improved Soul Leech chain, obviously (i.e. spec 1).
   • Not taking F&B might be valid, as stated above. That would allow both Backdraft and Improved Soul Leech.
     
     Some other thoughts:
   • Enchanting sunfire might be worthwile. :P
   • The rotation would be (as has been addressed previously): Start out with Corr/CoA/Immo - go for a CB/Incin x X (depending on haste)/Conflag cycle. Reapply Immo immediately and start over with the cycle, reapplying dots and lifetapping along the way. Without Backdraft, this obviously simplifies to CB/Incin x X cycles (though sticking CB to the end here might be useful to prevent any Incinerate casts from not getting the Immolate benefit).
   • All specs depend on those cycles, dots for Molten Core uptime and Imp dps. Could become somewhat awkward in some situations. I have not seen any convincing models for Backdraft vs. Improved Soul Leech yet, but I will be happy to be pointed to something.
   • Imp dps is necessary all the time. If I recall it correctly, it seems to be superior to let the imp go empty, then order him inactive to reg some mana and repeat that cycle. Obviously, if the fight is going to an end, managing the imp's mana so that it is at zero when the fight ends is most efficient. Min-maxers might want to try to keep the imp in the margin of the 10 casters with the lowest percentage of mana, so that he gains more from replenishment. This might have a negative effect on raid performance though...
   • Mana - depending on JoW and other Raidbuffs, it will be the same old problem, just that Life Taps will return ridiculously low amounts of mana. The restriction to one manapot per fight does not help and might actually turn that to favor a Destruction Pot during Bloodlust/Heroism and Trinkets and tapping to full mana in advance - I do not know if anyone has modelled that, I know the Destruction Pot is already superior at a very high amount of haste.
   • Glyphs - Corruption and Imp, imo.

Generally, taking spirit gems into blue slots should be considered, just as a +15 spirit enchant to the chest. In terms of pure dps, both should be superior to any alternatives. I would be happy about any sort of experience from the U.S. live servers and criticism/improvement suggestions for the specs and thoughts.

edit: concerning Demonic Pact: has anyone tried, if the spellpower coming from the totem is factored into the spellpower resulting from the Demonic Pact buff? I know that the spellpower from Demonic Pact itself does not, but that might be solely due to trying to prevent infinite scaling.

edit 2: I don't know if it has been mentioned, but the ChaosBolt - no F&B spec seems to be a little strange to me. might as well go with this one: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

 

◊ Melbuframa

I must be doing something very wrong, because im not able to get over 1200 DPS on a target dummy as any Aff with any rotation.

 

Aaryndon

Great post Woggle, though you should note that it's been shown several times on here that you can Conflag WHILE an Incinerate is "in flight" (in crawl?) and you still get the bonus immolate damage on the nuke.

Immolate status is checked on completion of cast, not on hit, so Conflagging right out of an incinerate is fine, and in my experience the best way to set up a rotation.

Also, Affliction does great DPS on dummies but from Sunwell today things die so fast it might not be practical with all the nerfed lvl 70 raid content. Obviously you can get rolling on the bosses themselves, but you'll hate life during trash. Depending how much you care about your overall contribution, you might not like affliction. It does fine on bosses though, IF you can actually keep your dots up efficiently. More on that after I've had a few tries.

EDIT: I just noticed I misread your post Woggle, but since this is handy info that people often miss, I figure it's good to leave it up here.

 

Zed

Regarding Demonic Pact: level 70 ToW is 140 spellpower so 80% uptime on a 180 spellpower buff is not exactly highly superior, though useful. At least we have an Elemental Shaman, I'm not sure if their dps is viable in 3.0 though I don't think you will need an optimum raid to down these nerfed bosses.
In the other thread someone replied to my question that Demonic Pact bonus is calculated before any spellpower buffs of the same type. It was never "infinite scaling" though (not sure what you mean by that) just a constant sum of a geometric series, still might cause calculation problems, programmers might know better.


Regarding Soulshatter and spell hit talents: since people keep repeating this, I too will post my counter-argument again -

- threat generation is getting much better in the expansion, according to reports. you also have a pet now to share threat with.

- there are new tools to manage spiking threat (Salvation, Intervene)

- even if you have say 10% more tps than your tank, the average chance to miss Soulshatter with Cataclysm is 3%, so the expected damage loss from not having Demo hitcapped is 0.3%. It's likely that you would get a better return gearing for other stats than those last 3% of hit.

- you can swap in some pieces for those few encounters if you are really desperate

 

Akj

We did 5 sunwell bosses tonight and the fights are such a joke now that finding the optimal spec at 70 really isnt that important. We ran with 4 locks (56/0/5, 0/18/43, 7/3/51 & 6/3/52) & all of us were within 300 dps (2400-2700) of each other on Brutallus. Threat is a complete non factor now & I didnt have to soulshatter even once during the entire night so you do not have to worry about being hit capped for soul shatter.

I made sure that all locks had a spriest in their group for VE & the Imp never came close to dying on any of the fights.

 

Woggle

Maybe, highly superior was somewhat exaggerated. It is arguably better though. By infinite scaling, I meant the scaling it would receive when factoring spellpower buffs. If it was scaling by its own spellpower buff and if the pet's critrate was high enough, each buff of Demonic Power would return more spellpower, leading to 'infinite scaling'. As that is not the case, it should not be discussed any more, I guess.

I do see your point, but I for myself cannot even go below 203 Hit-Rating with my current gear without sacrificing dps. Swapping T6-robe to the Badges robe could remove some, but that is basically countered by the new misery. Meaning that Cataclysm does not have any effect in terms of Hit Rating for more than 90% (that is a wild guess) of Sunwell raiding warlocks.



The above stated specs can imho be easily upgraded to level 80 without many drawbacks. Maybe, the Hit talents will become useful then, but I guess Affliction will go something along the lines of 56/0/15, Demonology anything between 4/52/15 and 0/56/15 and Destruction will be somewhat weird, as it has to be figured out how the mana return will work out (and if Improved Soul Leech/Improved Life Tap is necessary). Generally, 7/13/51 or 5/13/53 sound like decent specs.

 

Fireye

Dummies are not really valid for testing DPS, at least as an affliction warlock.

1) They're lv70 (The heroic dummy STILL acts as a level83 monster, even though there are no lv80's in the zone )
2) Pandemic and Siphon Life do NOT work properly with Target Dummies. If you look at your combatlog, you'll see them do only 1 damage, if I remember correctly.

Your armory profile is in PVP gear, so I'm not sure if that's your PvE gear set. You could try running simulationcraft with your stats and see what it turns up.

 

◊ Melbuframa

I thought I loged out in PVE gear yesterday.

I’m in basically best in slot pre KJ kill, with the exception of my chest cause sunfire/M’uru chests won’t drop. Something like 1425 SplDmg 24% Crit and 250 Haste, Ill run the sim when I get home from work.