Krathis

I know this was a few pages back but I went over your WWS reports and you guys are probably pushing each other's dots off. It looks like you use 5 affliction 'locks on most fights and a shadow priest. Even the warlocks that aren't using UA are using Siphon Life. With three affliction 'locks and one shadow priest we hit the debuff cap in our raid.

In my opinion taking more then two affliction 'locks isn't good for raid dps. The other three of you should respec to either less dot heavy builds or dotless builds period. I know there's a lot of people that will tell you not to go destruction until later in the game but this is one of those situations were having some of you respec to it would benefit everyone.

 

clavarnway

Thanks for the advice. Currently in our guild we have 2 Destruction warlocks, a Demonology warlock, and 2 Affliction warlocks. I believe one of those Destro locks was Affliction on the WWS you saw, but he respecced Destro pretty soon after. I don't think he did it because of debuff issues, but that might have worked out pretty well.

I recently got new frames so I can better see if we are hitting the debuff limit..I never thought about it before, but 40 really isn't that many spots when some classes by themselves can take up 7-8 debuffs.

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/sig.php/1424974uXyta.png

 

Nas

Would it be worth adding [Hex Shrunken Head] to the list of trinkets, as well as [The Skull of Gul'dan] ? I'm looking through a couple of threads to find out which would be better - even though in the end, one would ideally want to use both.

 

Jimad

I have just a couple of questions regarding the ISB proc, for which I haven't been able to find direct answers.

1) Once ISB procs, and we have 12 seconds or 4 non periodic sources of shadow damage until it expires, does it affect DoTs already applied to the target? Keeping things simple, assume each *unmodified* tick of my Corruption spell is 100 damage. The second ISB is applied to the target, will an already active Corruption then begin to tick for 120, or must a new Corruption be applied in order to benefit from ISB?

2) Suppose there are two warlocks in a raid. If warlock #1 procs an ISB, will warlock #2's ISB proc : a) refresh the original ISB; 2) consume one of the four ISB charges, and not refresh the original ISB; or 3) stack.

My apologies if this has been clearly covered. After a bit of searching I simply couldn't find those answers. I'm also quite new to raiding, so excuse me if this is "common knowledge". Thanks.

 

Nas

1: Yes, all active dots will be affected, not just ones you apply after ISB is put up.

2: (a)

 

Jimad

Thank you, good sir. I didn't put a whole lot of thought into ISB until I began raiding, and it turns out its even better than I thought.

 

Arelenda

Usually about a second after a crit the ISB debuff is applied. I stacks multiplicative with other damage multipliers (as in, it'll increase damage by 20% regardless of whether CoS, Misery, Shadow Weaving Debuff is up).

While it is up, it will affect all dot tics and Shadow spells. Note that it will affect all Shadow Bolts that are cast while the debuff is up, including those still traveling to their target when the debuff is removed.


ShadowSeer and ISB:
The ISB debuff is called Shadow Vulnerability. Shadow Priest's talent Shadow Weaving (which increases damage by 10%) is also called Shadow Vulnerability. To make matters even more confusing, debuffs events are only sent to players who are relatively close to the mob being debuffed. While it is possible to increase the range of damage events, there is no such equivalent for debuff event. This is also why WWS logs are screwy regarding debuffs.

Right now ShadowSeer is, in my opinion, the most reliable way of measuring ISBs, as long as you stay relatively close to your target (which I guess is around 25 yards). Any further than that and ShadowSeer simply doesn't receive the information it needs to be accurate. There are a few workarounds possible, but most of them will require other tradeoffs, and I don't think it is worth it.

Because of this I've decided to stop working on ShadowSeer until Blizzard fixes their mess of a combat system, which is sheduled for 2.4.

 

deneba

Demonology spec question - I am a warlock in a raid that is approaching Leo in SSC where I will be the designated warlock tank. I've been demonology in the past so I am comfortable with the change! I understand that a minimum will be soul-linking with a felhunter. Beyond that, I'm not sure how to go.

I have the Void Star Talisman but only 1/5 T5, though hopefully that changes with Leo getting killed! I've currently spec'd 0/41/20 to keep the felguard out. Why? Well I figured that with my new trinket he'd be more useful in raids, however it really does seem that I need the 2-piece T5 bonus for that to happen. Is it reasonable to say that untli I have this bonus, the felguard isn't too useful in SSC and TK fights if I can't guarantee him support from our healers?

I guess what I'm wondering is whether it would make more sense to be 0/40/21 to get Ruin and stick with that as my "Leo tanking" spec -until- I get a second T5 piece... at which time I could switch back to 0/41/21 and use the felguard in raids more often.

If it helps, I basically only do raids and daily quests.

 

Arelenda

0/40/21 relies on Succubus, don't go there without 2p T5.

My advice: spec Soul Link for learning the fight, and ditch it afterwards. Or get 2p T5 and spec 0/40/21 or x/41/x according to personal taste, that'll allow you to still have Soul Link and offtank.

Or get a druid offtank. It's very viable to have just one tank for Leotheras these days, but two will probably help when learning.

 

• frmorrison

Soul link is only helpful for healers learning how to deal with a Warlock tank.


Anyway, I would use 1/41/19 (1 point so corruption is more usable), and keep the Felhunter out for tanking. The 2 Piece is very useful to make FG better, but assuming you had a Ret Pally there is no excuse not to have Judgment of Light up.

GL with the gloves!

 

Jimad

Is it permissible for me to post a WWS link of a recent Fathom~Lord kill in this thread? My damage output really seems to have taken a nosedive over the past few weeks, and I am truly lost as to why. I'd really like to have a little analysis done on my performance. This "condition" has gotten bad enough to where I am on the verge of voluntarily giving up my raid spot, although I certainly don't want this to happen. I trust the warlock community on EJ, and would really like some guidance.

If this is not the appropriate thread for this, where might I go?

 

galzohar

Once you already show your gear (via armory etc) I don't really see much use in WWS compared to a video. I mean while WWS can help you improve your DPS since we can compare what you did to what other people did, and for example tell you you weren't casting enough, but nobody can tell you when you weren't casting when you should have or anything like that.
I think a video should show enough of how you screw up, as it easily shows unnescessary DPS downtimes, slow target switching, messing up DoTs (assuming proper addons are being used) etc, which are very hard to impossible to see on WWS.
I don't know why noone came up with it before, I suppose making and uploading it is a big deal but it's really the only way to help someone do more dps other than telling him "you're not casting enough shadowbolts" or "work on your gear" or "your DoTs are falling off", which he should be able to see by himself after reading these threads...

Note this isn't specific to the above poster but rather to everyone trying to get their DPS improved by posting here...

 

Cohren

A WWS won't necessarily show whats wrong. Two changes came with 2.3 that will have an affect on your DPS in relationship to others. The first being the coefficient fix for Mages and the second being the removal of the need for /stop casting macros. I know the second one seems kind of silly as all casters should of been using them but trust me, there was a mage in my guild who has been there since the start who never used them and rarely finished in the top 10 on DPS and now with both of those changes and no gear improvements, gets in the top 5 consistently.

I see that your Affliction, has there been a recent change in your raid composition? Addition of another Affliction lock? S Priest? Evaluate any new class additions and see if they are eating up debuff slots. Also get Forte Warlock because I don't think DoTimer shows when your DoT's get knocked off because your over the 40 slot limit. \

Did your Hunters respec Beast Mastery? Has it been a long while since you got loot but others have gotten things recently?

 

Kobal

Sorry for the late response, but if you are interested...

I basically pieced together my own spreadsheet from various other spreadsheets floating around these forums, and then went on to refine it. It is far from finished, but the current version can be found here.

 

Bandoer

Modeling ISB -

Here is how I model ISB: I count every crit that I do as an additional X damage attributable to me in raid. If each of the charges is eaten up by a 2.5k direct damage spell that is 2000 extra damage. Factors that increase this number is dot ticks. Factors that decrease this are overlapping ISB procs.

If charge 1 or charge 2 is eaten by a shadowbolt crit, you "lose" some backend charges. If Charge #1 is eaten by a Ruin crit, you lose the effect of charge #3 and #4. The damage you would have gotten from Charge #2 is made up for by the fact that #1 was a crit.

So,
Charge 1 getting eaten by a SB crit is a "loss" of 2 charges.
Charge 2 equals loss a of 1 charge
Charge 3 is a wash
Charge 4 is a gain of 1 charge

My fudge factoring says to equal out the dot ticks and the loss of charges. It is a huge fudge factor I won't dispute that. Of course I post this to see if this approach could be refined.

This modeling is obviously not perfect but what it is does give me is a number for comparing a crit rating against other stats. If I do 3k shadowbolts in raid and damage attibutable to ISB is 2500, that makes 1 crit rating pretty much on par with 1 hit rating.

btw - SM/Ruin (40/0/21) is not listed as one of the viable raid specs and I much prefer it to UA with over say 22% crit.

 

Cronjob

If you are gonna run an FG raiding spec try this one..

07/44/10 - Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I run this from time to time I dont have 2 piece but do have voidstar and I sometimes get into a Shadow sissy group which keeps the pet up for sure. There is a lot of pet management invovled but for some fights, especially now that the pet will make an effort to stand behind the target really does shine if you manage the pet correctly.

For me the biggest headache it not getting the pet healed but getting him buffed. I have to beg for buffs sometimes although lately it has been better especially since we have two a max of 2 FG locks (self included) so I think they are getting used to it. At first it was horrible and not having him buffed does hurt dps.

 

Xelopheris

40/0/21 only becomes viable after hitcapping and getting a decent amount of crit. But when you do reach that point, 0/21/40 also becomes not only viable, but a better spec than 40/0/21. All you gain from 40/0/21 is instant corruption, improved lifetap, and shadow mastery (as far as raiding goes). 0/21/40 gets 5% more shadow damage, bigger SB coefficient, more crit, improved fel armor, and you can fit in improved healthstones.

 

Bandoer

I only mentioned it because there's stuff like fire specs and whatnot on the compendium. I don't really see 0/21/40 doing significantly better than other specs in the high dps parses on WWS and you lose Shadow Embrace, Imp, and Malediction. 39/1/21 is fine too for the odd healthstone.

 

rochan

Maybe you forgot to take off your FR gear

 

rochan

You're forgetting other things that 40/0/21 brings like Shadow Embrace, Malediction, Siphon Life, CoEX, Imp HoT, extra range on both trees. You can even fit in an Imp HS if you skip Imp Howl. It's an excellent build really, suited for people who don't want to watch as many DoT timers, plus it has more ISB uptime than a UA build.

Honestly if I was forced to be malediction bitch, I'd choose 40/0/21 over 41/0/20.

 

hellenkeller

A few quick questions. My guild is currently 5/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT, yet I get the feeling our warlocks are specced improperly or just do poor dps. In comparing our guilds' WWSes with other guilds at similar progression levels, our warlock dps seems notably behind the other warlocks in those other guilds. I spoke with them today to figure some of it out. 2 of the 3 active raiders are now destro because I kept telling them affliction sucks, and the last one is still affliction. The destros saw an immediate jump in DPS.

We bring 3 locks per night, and two shadow priests. CoE, CoR, and CoS are applied. Should our affliction lock have Malediction? he says it will hurt his personal dps to spec it.

I assume the "ideal" raid setup is 2 destros and an afflict with malediction, am I wrong? Can any BT clear warlocks comment on this?

 

galzohar

I think all those people just starting raiding and seeing a DPS jump when they switch to destruction isn't becuase it's a better spec, especially not for them and their gear level, but rather that they're incapable of putting up dots in the appropriate times while shadowbolt spam is simple enough for them...

 

hellenkeller

If a guild doing Essence of Souls third phase needs to maximize their DPS, and brings three warlocks to the raid, should the one affliction lock have malediction? And should the other two be destro? What is ideal for this specific scenario? (3 locks, 2 spriests, CoS CoE CoR on boss)

 

Pentamorfi

No, it doesn't. It has bigger crits, you don't crit more often than you would with a 41/0/20 build. Unless you mean saving time from UA casts for shadowbolt casts instead, which could easily lead to even less uptime if you don't crit.

 

Pentamorfi

Ideally, yes. Your affliction lock should realise he's there to provide raid support rather than personal DPS. Also, you can spec for Malediction and take all DPS enhancing talents, you don't really lose any personal DPS - in fact, if you only apply the 3 curses you mention, his DPS will go up by 3%.