PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 23

Methadone · 12/10/07, 4:56 PM

I traded account and I just started raiding on my warlock. I have tried all the different specs people have talked about here and so far and I have found myself most comfortable with 0/21/40 Destruction. Kinda a n00b question, but what spells should I be using in my rotation, currently I am keeping corruption/CoD up and spamming shadowbolt...mana tapping when needed etc etc on bosses, and usually just CoA + Shadowbolts for trash. My gear is pretty decent wearing Spellstrike and similar gear. Thanks a lot!!

Nas · 12/10/07, 5:49 PM

Originally Posted by Methadone

I traded account and I just started raiding on my warlock. I have tried all the different specs people have talked about here and so far and I have found myself most comfortable with 0/21/40 Destruction. Kinda a n00b question, but what spells should I be using in my rotation, currently I am keeping corruption/CoD up and spamming shadowbolt...mana tapping when needed etc etc on bosses, and usually just CoA + Shadowbolts for trash. My gear is pretty decent wearing Spellstrike and similar gear. Thanks a lot!!

Curse + Shadowbolt is the gist of it, 2 second corruption is a DPS loss. Immolate is arguably a minor DPS increase when CoE/Scorches are up - but it boils down to preference as immolate is a bit taxing on mana which leads to more lifetaps.

Nas · 12/10/07, 5:52 PM

To warlocks that have completed the Illidari Council encounter:

Have you found that Affliction provides a significant DPS advantage over destruction at all, or is that not the case? At first glance it seemslike Affliction should be able to come on top due to the multiple target nature of this fight. However there are the issues of positioning/range/los, reflective shields and immunities (would require extra raid healing, which would not be optimal when learning the encounter) and the 30 second vanishes that may hinder such a large boost in practice. Wondering if any Warlocks that have tried both specs on this encounter would be able to shed some light on this.

SAViOR · 12/10/07, 6:35 PM

Originally Posted by Cohren

I don't understand why people go for the T6 legs/Robe of the Sea-Witch over T6 Robe/Leggings of Channeled Elements. The extra crit you receive from the T6 Legs/Sea-Witch is negligible in terms of ISB up-keep and DPS wise with the disparity in +dmg between both options, the extra crit will either make T6 legs/Sea-Witch on par(at best) or below T6 robe/Channeled Elements as according to leuliers +dmg>+crit.

What I wonder is where the new Heroic badge wand fits into all of this as with having a blue socket you won't need to re-socket as much to get 2 blue gems for the Chaotic Skyfire.

T6 Robe / Leggings of Channeled Elements:
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings:
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

I added 130 spelldmg (Fel Armor) and leulier's spreadsheet said:
T6 Robe/Leggings of Channeled Elements: 1933,21dps (without lifetap)
Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings: 1934,08dps (without lifetap)

Also I can't find a correct gem to reach 202 spellhit, I think that's the 1 dps difference^^

Methadone · 12/10/07, 7:40 PM

Another quick question, on the average boss fight when is the best time for me to soul shatter? I currently wait till I hit about 90-95% aggro then use it....is this the way it should be used?

Arelenda · 12/10/07, 8:01 PM

Originally Posted by Methadone

Another quick question, on the average boss fight when is the best time for me to soul shatter? I currently wait till I hit about 90-95% aggro then use it....is this the way it should be used?

Depends on the nature of the fight. Most bosses you can go to 130% before pulling aggro. Don't do this on prince, though.

Methadone · 12/10/07, 8:07 PM

Thanks for the answers ^_^

Cohren · 12/10/07, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by SAViOR

T6 Robe / Leggings of Channeled Elements:
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings:
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

I added 130 spelldmg (Fel Armor) and leulier's spreadsheet said:
T6 Robe/Leggings of Channeled Elements: 1933,21dps (without lifetap)
Sea Witch Robe / T6 Leggings: 1934,08dps (without lifetap)

Also I can't find a correct gem to reach 202 spellhit, I think that's the 1 dps difference^^

Cohren - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

fel armor+CoD

2005.99DPS

• frmorrison · 12/11/07, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Nas

To warlocks that have completed the Illidari Council encounter:

Have you found that Affliction provides a significant DPS advantage over destruction at all, or is that not the case?

I found Affliction better due to having buffed Drain Life, so I could help myself stay alive. If you had an excellent healing team, then Desto is better (just spam away on the Pally).

I only cast Siphon on the Priest (due to her sometimes having reflective shield up), and try to cast DoTs on Mage (sometimes he is immune, so not always a good idea) and Rogue (when not vanished).

Eph · 12/11/07, 12:57 AM

Originally Posted by Cohren

Cohren - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

fel armor+CoD

2005.99DPS

Get the Council Cloak?

PSGarak · 12/11/07, 3:01 AM

Originally Posted by Methadone

Another quick question, on the average boss fight when is the best time for me to soul shatter? I currently wait till I hit about 90-95% aggro then use it....is this the way it should be used?

It's best to do it as late as possible. Since soulshatter is percent-based, you get a greater absolute reduction the more threat you have. In fights where threat is a concern but deagroes are predictable I usually try to soulshatter as the shadowbolt is in the air that would have drawn agro, just to ride the line as tight as I can. It's gonna be hilarious when I get a resist and wipe the raid one day =X.
But yeah, 130% when not in melee range is the agro mechanic. Some abilities, like prince, work off of threat rather than agro--read up on a fight before going balls-out.

◊ Culok · 12/11/07, 3:01 AM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

Interesting. It looks like the simplifying assumption in the 1-(1-x)^4 model is that each incoming shadow spell is being modeled as identical independent events can lead to wrong conclusions, especially if the incoming shadow spells come in a predictable order. In a real-world case where they become desynchronized it tends away from your model but it's interesting to note that our previous calculation is really an upper bound on the average rather than a true average.
...
As far as whether or not you should stack all your crit on one warlock or not, I think the cutting-off point is four shadow casters

The simplification was that I just calculated crit rate on a small sample rather than total damage increase from ISB uptime over a long raid. From this, I showed that different crit allocations are not equal. Whether cast order or raid composition is optimal or not, a bad cast order gets more damage from more crit-driven ISB procs and a good cast order also gets more damage from more crit-driven ISB procs. You don't have to be able to comprehensively model ISB's total effect to make statements about what will help ISB.

The chance of ISB being up is the chance of someone (with ISB) in the raid getting a crit, So you can figure the odds of ISB having been proced by taking one minus the chance of no-one getting a crit on the Shadow Bolts they cast. I think you're making some comments about the fact that not everyone in the raid will cast Shadow Bolt but that doesn't affect how you figure out the chance for a proc for the people who did cast it.

While you can take 1,000 Shadow Bolt casts distributed among any number of casters and figure out how many you expect to have been crits under different crit distributions, you'll find is that the same crit distribution that produces more dps at 10 bolts also produces more dps at 100 and more dps at 1,000.

I though it was obvious that I wasn't discussing the case where different casters had different cast priorities. Your original post specifically stated that all the casters had equal cast orders which implies they have the same spec and cast spells in the same ratios. However, even with different specs, you can still calculate the odds the same process: count all the bolts each person casts over a set time, raise each caster's crit rate to that as an exponent, multiply the values for all the casters together and subtract all that from one.

Please show your math for why you believe that things change if there are more than four shadow casters.

SAViOR · 12/11/07, 8:40 AM

Originally Posted by Cohren

Cohren - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger

fel armor+CoD

2005.99DPS

when I use your stats (+130 spelldmg) it says 1945 hmm Oo
/edit: D'OH! forgot hasterating :/ sry
so I edited the sets once again.
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,33
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,30
ridiculous^^

Gruturistic · 12/11/07, 8:54 AM

Originally Posted by Methadone

Another quick question, on the average boss fight when is the best time for me to soul shatter? I currently wait till I hit about 90-95% aggro then use it....is this the way it should be used?

As others said, depends on many factors, but personally if the encounter is long enough to allow 2 shatters, even just barely (Gurtogg, VR if you're just starting T5) I do it as reasonably soon as possible (as long as it makes sense of course: halving 11k threat is quite a stupid thing to do in a 8 minute fight) and then again when the CD is up. If the encounter is *not* long enough (Rage, VR for a T6 guild), I'll do it just once, as late as possible (over 100% tank aggro, even over 120% if the boss doesn't have a deaggro). Of course waiting until the last possible moment to shatter is not needed if the encounter only has 1-2 minutes left and you would never come back on top by then - use it earlier in that case.

Anyway remember it has a limited range and it's resistable even if you're hit capped - have a backup plan for a resisted shatter (which could mean get ready to run to the boss and suicide before you cause a wipe, or have enough threat margin to be able to stop before running dots make you the new tank)

Furio · 12/11/07, 2:13 PM

Originally Posted by Nas

To warlocks that have completed the Illidari Council encounter:

Have you found that Affliction provides a significant DPS advantage over destruction at all, or is that not the case? At first glance it seemslike Affliction should be able to come on top due to the multiple target nature of this fight. However there are the issues of positioning/range/los, reflective shields and immunities (would require extra raid healing, which would not be optimal when learning the encounter) and the 30 second vanishes that may hinder such a large boost in practice. Wondering if any Warlocks that have tried both specs on this encounter would be able to shed some light on this.

Originally Posted by frmorrison

I found Affliction better due to having buffed Drain Life, so I could help myself stay alive. If you had an excellent healing team, then Desto is better (just spam away on the Pally).

I only cast Siphon on the Priest (due to her sometimes having reflective shield up), and try to cast DoTs on Mage (sometimes he is immune, so not always a good idea) and Rogue (when not vanished).

I'd argue the difference in the specs depends on where exactly your raid positions the mobs (and where you are alloweed to stand to DPS). If you can conveniently stand in an area where you are in range (or very nearly in range) of Zavious (the mage) and Gathios (the pally), then Affliction can certainly win. Tossing DOTs on Lady Malande (the priest) can be effective if you very carefully watch your timers to avoid reflective shields. Chances are good that Veras (the rogue) will be far out of your range for most of the fight.

For Destruction, I've found that my DPS improves significantly if I can switch SB spam from Gathios to Zavious whenever a) Zavious is not Spell Immune, and b) Gathios is using his spell resist aura. Depending on raid positioning strategy, that may not be possible for everyone.

rochan · 12/11/07, 2:22 PM

Originally Posted by SAViOR

when I use your stats (+130 spelldmg) it says 1945 hmm Oo
/edit: D'OH! forgot hasterating :/ sry
so I edited the sets once again.
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,33
Quza - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger 2009,30
ridiculous^^

Could you make an optimal DPS set for a character with a Totem of Wrath? (only need 12% hit for allaince/13% horde)

Krazen · 12/11/07, 2:44 PM

Originally Posted by Phantasie

Just for ez comparison sake, pulled this from my spreadsheet. Cowl and Channeled elements are pretty similar, yea you get little more crit and slight on dmg, but channeled has 2 extra sockets. Anywho, guess it really depends on what you do with your sockets and your spec. It's just sad that the T6 robe has that nice goose-egg for crit

..............................................Stam......Int......Hit....Crit......Dmg .....Sockets...................Socket Bonus
Gloves of the Malefic...................57........27......11.....19........46.......Yellow......... ............2 hit
Hood of the Malefic.....................55........36......16.....32........63.......Meta Yellow.............5 dmg
Vestments of the Sea-Witch.........28........28......27.....31........57.......Yellow Yellow Blue....5 dmg
Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.....13........46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg
Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.....37........62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit
................................................240......157.....94....132......274.. ....8 & Meta

Gloves of the Malefic...................57........27......11.......19......46.......Yellow......... ............2 hit
Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.......13......46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg
Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.......37......62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit
Robe of the Malefic.....................66........29......28........0.......63.......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg
Cowl of the Illidari High Lord........33........31......21.......47......64.......Meta Blue................5 dmg
................................................256.....153.....100.....116....281... ...8 & Meta

Gloves of the Malefic...................57.......27.......11......19.......46......Yellow.......... ............2 hit
Hood of the Malefic.....................55.......36.......16......32.......63......Meta Yellow..............5 dmg
Robe of the Malefic.....................66.......29.......28.......0........63......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg
Mantle of the Malefic...................45.......22.......21......13.......46......Blue Yellow...............4 dmg
Leggings of Channeled Elements..25.......28.......18......34.......59......Yellow Yellow Blue......5 dmg
...............................................248.....142......94.......98......277. ....10 & Meta

These are the values I got with socketing:

Helm: 100 hit, 121 crit, 368 dmg
Chest: 94 hit, 152 crit, 348 dmg
Legs: 94 hit, 118 crit, 375 dmg

How about substituting Studios Wraps in for the gloves?

..............................................Stam......Int......Hit....Crit......Dmg .....Sockets...................Socket Bonus
Studious Wraps..........................21........22......0.......25........40.......Red Blue.................4 dmg
Hood of the Malefic.....................55........36......16.....32........63.......Meta Yellow.............5 dmg
Robe of the Malefic.....................66.......29.......28.......0........63......Yellow Yellow Blue.....5 dmg
Mantle of the Malefic...................45........22......21.....13........46.......Blue Yellow..............4 dmg
Leggings of the Malefic................55........44......19.....37........62.......Yellow............ .........2 hit
................................................242......153.....84....107......274.. ....9 & Meta

Gloves: 84 hit, 117 crit, 371 dmg

Clearly a tad inferior to the other options, but doesn't rely on a t6 drop.

Eph · 12/11/07, 3:52 PM

Originally Posted by rochan

Could you make an optimal DPS set for a character with a Totem of Wrath? (only need 12% hit for allaince/13% horde)

oommw - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger
8 more hit than I would like for a Draenei'd Totem of Wrath, but shouldn't be too bad for horde this way.

PSGarak · 12/11/07, 9:30 PM

Originally Posted by Culok

Please show your math for why you believe that things change if there are more than four shadow casters.

If there are four or less shadow casters, synced, than any warlock's crit will benefit all four casters so a crit-heavy warlock will provide a large benefit. If there are less than four some get to double-dip from his crits but the buff overriding means you hit diminishing marginal utility. If you have exactly five then the crit-heavy warlock never benefits from his own crits but everyone else does, and this is basically okay because he saced a lot of damage to get that crit rate up so he wouldn't make good use of them anyways. If there are more than five each of his crits does not benefit the rest of the group but only part of them so you start seeing a drop-off.

Basically his contribution to the rest of the raid as a function of the number of raid shadow casters has a term of (4/x-1) where x-1 is the number of shadow casters who are not him. Any polynomial or exponential of this term is going to see qualitatively different behavior around x=5, and probability calculations involve polynomial and exponential terms. If you really want closed-form solutions I can be convinced to work them out but I bet they're ugly and I'd rather avoid it =P.

In any case it's good to be aware that synchronized and desynchronized nuking behaves different with respect to ISB uptime.

weet · 12/11/07, 10:36 PM

Seeing as people are posting their 'ideal' gear setups, thought I would share mine.. which seems to be superior than what I have seen other people posting.

weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger
Comes out as 2065 assuming I am using the same settings oom/eph have.

horde profile (no-draenei hit aura)
weetbix - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger
2057

One thing to note is that the Hyjal exalted ring is not modelled, so one can technically get higher numbers through Haste ring + Najentus ring but it will be lower once the proc is taken into account.

Gear-sets with Illidan staff will also scale better again once you take pots/wrath of air into account.

◊ Culok · 12/12/07, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by PSGarak

Basically his contribution to the rest of the raid as a function of the number of raid shadow casters has a term of (4/x-1) where x-1 is the number of shadow casters who are not him. Any polynomial or exponential of this term is going to see qualitatively different behavior around x=5, and probability calculations involve polynomial and exponential terms. If you really want closed-form solutions I can be convinced to work them out but I bet they're ugly and I'd rather avoid it =P.

Again, I didn't model ISB damage. All I'm asserting is that no matter what, more ISB uptime means more damage, ISB uptime is based on the odds of someone in the raid landing a crit, and different crit distributions do not produce equal odds of someone landing it. Each caster's chance of getting a crit is not affected by what other people do. Therefore, you can calculate the expected odds of there not having being an ISB proc by looking at the chance of every caster failing to get a crit. If you want to fully model how much crit affects raid damage, you need to look at how long ISB stays up but that doesn't change how you calculate the odds of there having been an ISB proc.

In math terms, I'm saying that damage from ISB increases monotonically for the odds of someone in raid getting a crit.

If you haven't worked out the math already, why are you sure you're right?

demonskye · 12/12/07, 8:52 PM

I need a quick bit of help. On the reliquary of souls fight would it be better to raid as affy / destro (43/0/18 ua spec w/ 12% crit) or 0/21/40 (with 17%crit after talents). I ask this for 2 reasons.
1. I couldn't find it answered elsewhere
2. The spell knockback in UA spec in phase 2 turns an imp SB's cast time from 2.5 seconds into about 7-9 seconds even with concentration aura / fel concentration. My idea is to mitigate the incoming spell knockback by increasing the burst damage rather than the periodic.

Hasty feedback would be highly appreciated. I will most likely post some 'recount' results in a separate thread next week. thanks.
DemonSkye.

Nas · 12/12/07, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by demonskye

I need a quick bit of help. On the reliquary of souls fight would it be better to raid as affy / destro (43/0/18 ua spec w/ 12% crit) or 0/21/40 (with 17%crit after talents). I ask this for 2 reasons.
1. I couldn't find it answered elsewhere
2. The spell knockback in UA spec in phase 2 turns an imp SB's cast time from 2.5 seconds into about 7-9 seconds even with concentration aura / fel concentration. My idea is to mitigate the incoming spell knockback by increasing the burst damage rather than the periodic.

Hasty feedback would be highly appreciated. I will most likely post some 'recount' results in a separate thread next week. thanks.
DemonSkye.

Well, in terms of DPS Destruction most definitely comes on top - and it is a fight with a fairly high DPS requirement so I would be leaning towards Destruction. That being said you may want a token Affliction for the fight, SE/Mal/BP are definitely useful there.

Phantasie · 12/13/07, 1:11 AM

as affliction in p2, just do corruption and shadowbolts (if you have a pally conc aura in your group) - if you add any more dots you'll get pushback out the ass like you said. corr for nightfalls.

As sac/destro the hard part of p2 is not killing yourself when a deaden hits.

Bandoer · 12/13/07, 1:18 AM

Originally Posted by demonskye

I need a quick bit of help. On the reliquary of souls fight would it be better to raid as affy / destro (43/0/18 ua spec w/ 12% crit) or 0/21/40 (with 17%crit after talents). I ask this for 2 reasons.
1. I couldn't find it answered elsewhere
2. The spell knockback in UA spec in phase 2 turns an imp SB's cast time from 2.5 seconds into about 7-9 seconds even with concentration aura / fel concentration. My idea is to mitigate the incoming spell knockback by increasing the burst damage rather than the periodic.

Hasty feedback would be highly appreciated. I will most likely post some 'recount' results in a separate thread next week. thanks.
DemonSkye.

I would recommend not casting UA, siphon, or immolate in phase 2. I found just corruption and shadowbolt was better if you're going in as affliction.