PVE Raiding Compendium - Page 268

haldol · 11/11/08, 7:20 PM

Originally Posted by turturin

Meta dps boost: 30 second uptime every 3 mins = 1/6. 20% damage increase.
20/6 = 3.67% dmg increase + the ability to stack cooldowns

You are essentially arguing that:
3.67% dmg increase + the ability to stack cooldowns > dmg increase from 5% crit.

While this might be true, it very well might not be as well. I don’t think its been proven either way.

I would agree Meta is more useful overall, but by overall I take it to mean grinding/soloing, or for a little BG pvp every once in a while.

I have to agree with Sydane here, Turturin. If going 50 points into Demo, MM > 5% crit for dps, and utility.

First off, your assumption that MM is only up 1/6 of the time is only valid fore very long fights. . If you have a 4 minute boss fight, You can have MM up for 1 min/4, increasing your averaged dps increase to 20/4= 5%. The longer the fight, the closer the averaged damage increase approaches your 3.67% tho. I do concede tho, that if you are maximizing MM uptime by using it as soon as it's off CD every time, there is a chance you will miss your chance to stack it with BL.

Also, MM stacked with Bloodlust (it's not called heroism, not sure why ppl say that), Trinkets, and potions is going to be a lot of damage, turning into much more than 20% averaged over the 3 min cooldown.

Also, lets remember the point brought up earlier. +5% Crit (with ruin) = 5% dps increase ONLY when one is at 0% crit. 5% more crit on top of the ~50% crit rating a demo lock with raid buffs will be smaller than 5% dps increase.

The second half of your post was right on.

The Haldol

turturin · 11/11/08, 8:06 PM

I wasn't arguing with him really =). I was only pointing out that I don't think the choice is so clear cut. You actually alluded to some of the reasons and circumstances that could make either talent (meta or devastation) better, depending on circumstance. Length of fight, current crit chance, ability to use immolation, etc...all make a difference

Also, while 5% crit is not strictly 5% more dmg....don't forget that isb and meta-gems can change the math here significantly.

I'm sure someone smarter than me will eventually "prove" one is better than the other, and I do think that meta is probably better, but i don't think its either proven or obviously so at this point. I woudn't be surprised if we found out that devastation is better early on but that meta catches it fairly quickly as the warlock's crit chance improves (b/c of diminishing returns to isb uptime increase and dps increase per % crit).

turturin · 11/11/08, 8:13 PM

Originally Posted by Roywyn

Has anyone tested how the strength of Demonic Pact is calculated with Totem of Wrath?

Imagine you had 2000 spell power and Totem of Wrath adds 140 for 2140 total.
When your pet crits, does Demonic Pact then add 200 or 214 spell power? Would you end up with 2200 or 2214 spell power?

I could only test that if you have 1000 + 100 spell with Demonic Pact and your pet crits again, your Demonic Pact stays at 200 spell power. It doesn't increase to 110 or do anything else odd.

It would determine the point where Demonic Pact outscales Totem of Wrath.
If Demonic Pact adds 214 spell power in the first example, that point can be reached in very late T7 or early T8.
If it adds only 200 spell power in the first example it takes a bit more, but is likely reached in late T8.

The propect of being locked into "Spinel Spam 3.0" because all other stats pale besides Spell Power isn't exactly exciting though.

I've tested it. DP is calculated based on inclusion of all consumables and raid buffs except for ToW. In your example with 2140 (or 2280 at lvl 80), your DP buff would be 200, giving you 2200 total. And no, you don't get it to increase by refreshing the buff.

TeKniciaN · 11/11/08, 8:53 PM

I believe there are a couple non-quantifiable in terms of DPS advantages to demo:

Debuff slots
As we can see from the other thread on this forum debuff slots it appears we will be hitting the debuff cap very quickly on bosses. Demonology is the least debuff intensive spec for warlock, needing only really corruption and perhaps a curse of doom/agony up on the target since ISB is now a self buff. This is a great asset to the raid and other classes more dependent on debuff slots including raid damage boosting and boss damage output reducing debuffs.

This advantage is a real advantage for the raid, but not quantifiable in DPS numbers (at least not easily maybe some math/econ whizkid can figure something out)

Simple rotation/raid awareness/consistency
Personally, i found affliction and destro a chore to maintain perfect rotations, i found myself in deep trance-like tunnel-vision trying to maintain my rotation which seemed to easily get screwed up. This led to huge dps number sin some fights when i hit it spot on, and lackluster numbers in other fights when i lost uptime on a dot, or haunt, or incinerate, or missed a chaos bolt cooldown, etc etc etc. Also my raid awareness sharply declined, i found myself standing in fire for seconds longer than usual, before i realized what was going on, and found it nearly impossible to watch out for others and shout warnings or asses the situation (which i normally do as a leadership member of our guild)

The advantage of the demo spec is that i can divert my attention to these things without messing up my rotation, meanwhile keeping up consistent DPS numbers from fight to fight.

Just these two things i feel make a strong case for demo. I agree that scaling looks like an issue, and i havent been able to pull the same top end number si hit with destro, but it is competitive, consistent, easier to manage, and in my humble opinion, overall better for the raid as a whole.

Some may say that pet management is an issue, i do not have this problem, pets are fire and forget now, they barely take hits from AoE and have alot more HP. I am running 0/40/21 right now at 70 with succubus and fel domination so in the cases where she dies, i pop another immediately, and have not yet had 2 die in one boss fight.

fallenman · 11/12/08, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by turturin

The buff to DT is essentially 5% crit for the master and 6.67% crit for the demon (assuming imp DT would be taken for a meta raiding build). How did you determine that this is roughly equivalent to the melee dps nerf in armor mitigation. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. It certainly seems like the buff would outweigh the nerf substantially. I'd be interested to see math here if anyone's done it.

We'll also have to see at live 80 (since this build wasn't available on PTR), but with the buffs, I expect 0/41/30 will do some very competetive dps, especially at early gear levels in T7 where crit will be lacking and the effect of 15% from talents will be magnified. Of course, since it doesn't bring the DP buff, it has to at least equal, and probably surpass afflic and destro (since its total dps will be reliant on a pet without fel synergy talents) to be worth it.

I should clarify, it wasn't an exact buff/nerf match. Yes dps will go up a little bit with the buff, but a large part of what it could have gone up by was negated due to the melee nerf. Especially since the Felguard is such a huge part of a demo locks dps at 80 compared to level 70.

Chupavida · 11/12/08, 12:47 PM

I guess I missed something in the last 20 pages or so, but was Chaos Bolt never a part of the ideal backdraft rotation? The timing on the cooldown doesn't line up perfectly with immo/conflag rotations, but it's close enough that I've been using it fairly effectively for a couple weeks.

DiamondTear · 11/13/08, 7:51 PM

Does rain of fire do more damage than hellfire now that it can crit? How does seed of corruption compare to them in 5-mans?