• GokieKS

The rest of T6 offers both stamina and spell hit in large quantities. But the difference is that there's never a point where extra stamina is worthless, while the same isn't true for spell hit. As such, in any situation where the choice is between hit and stamina/int, the latter is always preferable (as long as you stay near/above the spell hit cap).

You're right on the Supremus belt though, I was thinking for some reason that it had sockets. It doesn't and as such is pretty much worthless, as the fact that all the ones which have dropped for us has been DEed will attest.

The rest of your argument is based on this assertion, but it's not one that I agree with. In my gear/spec at least, 1 crit rating is not even close to being equivalent to 1 damage - 0.64 based on unbuffed stats according to v1.18 of the Leulier/Piztai spreadsheet. Using 0.65 as a rounded easy number, a Pyrestone is only worth 9.25 spell damage, and in turns means a YYB+5 setup will only yield 29.5 spell damage equivalent, 6.5 short of using Crimson Spinels. On the other hand, a YB+4 setup yields 19.25 spell damage, 4.75 short of using Crimson Spinels.

 

Krazen

I can't view your armory so I'll accept your numbers. But consider the following:

1. I'm not sure why you are putting in unbuffed numbers, when the 200-300 spellpower added by buffs boosts the relative value of crit.
2. Increased ISB uptime boosts the relative value of crit to the raid, which leulier doesn't account for. There's been a bunch of discussion in this thread as to how much...I'll just say it is some positive value.
3. Even by your calculations, you have to divide the benefit by the number of spinels (after all, you could swap gemming 2 YYB items for 3 YB items). A YYB gets 2.17 dmg/spinel by your numbers, while a YB gets 2.375 dmg/spinel.

Obviously the metagem requirement are a problem for now, but that will be changed.

 

Hausnfranz

I just recently got my Frozen shadoweave and battlecast pieces together for my lock. I would like some advice about proper gearing in regards to hit VS spell damage at low level raiding and farming levels.

I am farming quite a bit for gold (epic mount) and season one gear in BG. I am not going to gem anything for pvp until I actually get the season one gear, so I would disregard that area. I will be doing Heroics in order to get into Karazhan, and expect to be doing the near raid bosses after that.

I would like to know if spell dmg is greater then hit in this case because I will be doing little boss fighting, save for those I find in Heroics, Kharazan, and beyond. Is it reasonable to gem for all spell damage now, and then re-gem when I am doing more boss encounters (where would I draw the line)? Or should I get a bit of hit (certainly the cap is not needed, maybe just 5/5 supression?) and then gem the rest for spell damage?

 

Johnneke

As for early raiding gear I'd try to get at least 76 spell hit and spec 41/0/19 or one of the likes. With 5/5 Suppression some spreadsheets show then 1 spell dmg will give you a greater dps increase then 1 spell hit after you acquired 76 spell hit to get your affliction tree hit capped. Obviously when you start recieving better gear I would aim for more spell hit none the less but at entry level affliction locks hit isnt that big a issue. Also I made the mistake myself to get the Battlecast set when I started out raiding early tbc. However Spellstrike is ALOT better. You will loose some stamina which you will not really need till venturing in in BT/MH, even alot of early BT/MH raiders still wear Spellstrike

 

Arelenda

CoA gets 120% of spellpower per cast, but you cast it 2.5 times per CoD. CoD isn't affected by Shadow Mastery. Therefore, what is better depends on your spec and spellpower.

Usually you go for CoS / CoE / CoR and only then can you consider personal dps curses.

CoA spam still wins on offtanked trash, though.

 

KuruQan

Thanks,but I know pretty well what curses to go for.What I wanted to say is that your statement,CoA>CoD if you have more than 1250 spelldmg,is flawed.Havent really done the mats,always thought it was pretty obvious.Well i have done it now(Ampd Curse incl) :P. In 10 min long fight(1500 shadowdmg) the dmg of CoD is 82800-138DPS.CoA is 96592.5-160DPS.The difference is ~13k dmg for 10 min.Now you have used (25-10)*1.5=22.5 sec more for casting CoA.Turn this into SBs and CoD turns better in the end(maybe on shorter fights CoA is better thou).Also most of the locks who are in bt/hyjal are destro,so for them CoD is definitely better.
p.s.Why SM not affecting CoD hasnt been fixed?This is a bug imo.

 

• GokieKS

My stats for boss fights, including Fel Armor, is 1340 +shadow, 15.62% +spell hit (I usually try to get as close to 16% as possible w/o going too much over, and in my current gear I can't hit 16% w/o going over by quite a bit), 29.64% crit (including Devastation). I'd like to know, however, how you're gaining anywhere close to 300 +damage from raid buffs. If I'm going using consumables on a fight, I would gain 70 from Flask (because I'm lazy/cheap and prefer using Shattrath Flasks), 42 from Superior Wizard Oil (because I'm lazy/cheap and don't have any Brilliant Wizard Oil), 23 from food, and roughly 23 from Improved Divine Spirit after MotW/BoK (and I can't actually always count on Imp DS), for a total of another 158 +damage, bringing my total to 1498. At that level, 1 crit rating is worth 0.75 spell damage. A little better, sure, but still not enough to bring it to parity with pure +damage.

Regarding #2, I was under the impression that it does model, or at least attempt to, the effect of ISB. It's been a long time since I've last really looked into it though, but it does have a section devoted to settings for ISB calculations, so I'm taking it at face value that it does take it into account.

As for #3, I'm not completely sure what you're suggesting. Because the main problem here is that I want to use as few Crimson Spinels as possible while minimizing the loss of DPS by using Pyrestones and Shadowsong Amethysts instead. And as there are a lot more YB+X socketed items than YYB+X socketed items (the only one of the latter I have is the Malefic Robe), I don't really see what my alternative is short of just not using Runed Crimson Spinels altogether - I just have the 3 in the Robe, while all other items use Potent Pyrestones and/or Glowing Shadowsong Amethysts.

And yes, I'm very glad the CSD gem requirements is getting changed. I was very annoyed that I had to replace the 6 damage/6 stamina blue gem (reward from Nightbane quest) in my Engineering goggles (MB+5 sockets) with a Runed Living Ruby in order to keep the CSD active after I had a temporary brain lapse and put another blue gem in my T6 shoulders. Nothing like spending 50g to lose 6 stamina and 2 damage because of a stupid meta requirement.

 

Krazen

Wrath of air totem adds another 101 spell damage on top of the 158 you mentioned. I wasn't sure whether 'unbuffed' for you included Fel Armor or not.

The way I see it, the most common t6 geared player has 2 YYB items (Legs and Robe). All I'm saying is that first items to Spinel should be [Mantle of the Malefic] and [Slippers of the Seacaller] for the best value per gem. Going for the socket bonus on [Leggings of Channeled Elements] is no worse IMO than doing it on the above 2 items, because you 'save' 3 gems instead of 2.

The problem is that blue sockets are useless, and YYB items compensate with a higher socket bonus than YB items do.

 

xruin

Hey, guys. I had a question about gear/spec and after reading a lot in this thread I still wanted to ask a question. How would a 40 point destruction perform with imp corruption, imp life tap, nightfall, grim reach and empowered corruption IF I had 18% crit without talents/buffs, 1050 shadow damage with just fel armor (unbuffed otherwise), ~180+ spell hit and 4/5 Tier 5 (4-piece bonus)?

I started raiding as 41/0/20 and it proved to be a great spec for a while and I usually found myself at the top of the DPS charts or very close to it. Until recently. Destruction locks and hunters really surpass me now to the point where I'm realizing that my build is not keeping up anymore. I find myself 4th, 5th or even 6th behind our two destruction warlocks, two BM hunters and occasionally a fire mage.

I've been collecting gear to try a destruction build and I knew 0/21/40 was the cookie cutter one. After putting together my set I wanted to see what other viable builds were out there. I saw some debate on the 21/0/40 spec and how it was deemed to not be a min/max build and something that would decrease overall DPS by 15% due to lack of DS.

I guess my final question is the 4-piece T5 bonus with imp and emp corruption, along with nightfall, an alternative to 0/21/40 for the time being? Will probably pick up DS when T6 starts droppping and my 4-piece T5 bonus is broken. Any advice at all would be greatly, greatly appreciated - thanks!!

 

galzohar

While I hadn't done the math myself, I'm pretty sure I've seen it mentioned already on these forums that 21/0/40 just doesn't do the same dps 0/21/40 does, although it's not a terrible spec at all there's simply no reason to use it as it does less dps for more debuff slots and actually requires more skill to play on top of it - and while i like a spec requiring skill I don't like a spec that after requiring skill still doesn't perform as well.

 

Idk

I've found the damage to be right about even with 41/0/15 + x on both the leulier spreadsheet as well as my own damage simulator at my current gear level (1350 shadow, 25ish crit, 16% hit, 4.5ish haste).

It's just a different toolset. Over destruction you gain blood pact, self-sufficiency with siphon life, and a little bit of potential damage on the move with insta SL and Co. You lose health from DE, extra healing from DA, and the damage hit from not having DS. You contribute less to ISB uptime than a destro lock but more than a UA lock. You get less out of crit and haste than a destro lock but more than UA gets.

Depending on what you're working on it can be a decent spec.. admittedly it pairs very well with the 4-piece T4 and the CSD meta in the helm... add on the fact that you can boost the damage of immolate quite a bit between 4-T4, 4/5 imp immo, and 5/5 emberstorm (at the cost of cataclysm and nether protection). But don't delude yourself, the damage will not outpace 0/21/40.

I'll see what I can do about producing some numbers to compare the specs at your gear level.

 

Idk

I should add that I really don't believe this spec requires much more skill. You have two instant cast dots to maintain. You simply recast them after they expire, probably at the end of the shadowbolt that's being cast when the dot expires. With a spec like this, even a moderate amount of downtime between dots doesn't have a huge impact on overall dps because the difference in dpct of shadowbolt and the dots isn't nearly as wide as the dpct difference for UA.

I just can't believe that maintaining two instant cast dots requires any more skill than chain casting shadowbolts.

 

Arelenda

Compendium mentions CoA being better than unamped CoD. If you have amp, you probably want to amp CoD and use CoA in between.

Compendium also mentions that CoD isn't affected and that we don't know why.

Compendium also mentions that it's only for affliction locks.

Please read the compendium before stating that it is wrong, please.

 

xruin

Ok, well I'm just looking for advice on how to spec for destruction without doing 0/21/40 pretty much. I'd like to have more versatility, but still be as, or more, effective in terms of DPS as my UA build. Is it possible to eclipse UA, but just be short of the 0/21/40 build?

 

Idk

I'd say DT/Ruin is your best choice (0/40/21) assuming you want something that's close to 0/21/40 but that isn't the cookie cutter destro build. Felguard (either 7/41/10+x or 0/41/18+x) is also a good option. Both require much more attention and are much more sensitive to the encounter. On top of that, I'm not sure how much more utility you get out of those builds over a destro build.

 

Idk

I took your stat numbers (1050 damage, 18% unbuffed crit, 180 hit rating) and made a few other raid assumptions (no shadowpriest in your group, 4-piece T4, CSD meta, you providing CoS, no other warlocks in the raid, 0% haste, no CoE, no imp scorch, .1s lag, no movement).

For about 150 combat simulations per spec with my simulator, I'm getting the following numbers:

0/21/40 no immolate, no corruption: 1152
43/0/18 w/ immolate: 1125
21/0/40 w/ immolate: 1116
43/0/18 no immolate: 1104
21/0/40 no immolate: 1082

Which is to say.. at your gear level nothing beats shadow destro for raw damage. It's probably even more damage with adding the untalented corruption assuming you have the 4-piece T4. If you want utility, run a UA spec that includes immolate. 21/0/40 is close to the damage of UA but I can't imagine why you'd run it over UA.. you don't provide shadow's embrace for the raid and you don't provide malediction.

Of course, you can figure out all of this on your own with the warlock spreadsheet linked in the OP.

 

Arelenda

Variations are already mentioned. Basically those 21 points in demo are just for 15% extra shadow damage (and 30 spellpower). There are several tradeoffs you can make that will get you respectable dps with other perks. If you find something original that is not mentioned, list it here and it'll be discussed and added.

 

xruin

Are you talking about the spreadsheet at WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet by Leulier ? I didn't notice how it took Nightfall into account. Need to look at it more closely.

 

PSGarak

If corruption is in your cast cycle and nightfall is selected, it reduces the average casting time of your shadowbolt. Last I saw it didn't account for nightfall with drain life--it's difficult because shadowbolt isn't your filler at that point.

It turns out nightfall isn't really that great of a sustained DPS talent because it doesn't proc very often and only saves you 1s of cast time (less, with haste). It's an awesome solo and PvP talent because it redistributes the short-term damage by 2.5s in addition to the long-term effect, it increases mobility, and it's burst damage that isn't affected by resilience, but as far as raiding goes it's more like the best filler at that point than a must-have talent.

The 21/0/40 spec as a whole just doesn't gain much from the affliction tree. The first 21 points into it are more for soloing and other non-raid functions, and it's not until points 26-38 and 41 that there's enough damage bonuses going on to make it a workhorse raid tree.

@idk: while I agree that managing two DoTs isn't particularly skill-intensive, I do think that the modicum of skill (or "skill" if you prefer) it requires is somewhat more than that of just mashing shadowbolts.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Garak.png

 

• GokieKS

Regarding WoA, we don't have enough Shaman to give the DPS casters group(s) one, so I really never get it. We do run probably the most melee heavy raid in the world though. =/

And maybe it's just us, but the pants off Kaz'rogal has been exceedingly rare. We've had something like 10 [Leggings of the Forgotten Conqueror] drop, compared to 2 [Leggings of Channeled Elements].

If you put Crimson Spinels in the shoulders/boots and Pyrestones/Shadowsong Amethyst in the Kaz pants, you end up with 10 crit rating, 71 damage (12*4+6*3+5), and 7 stamina at a cost of 4 Crimson Spinels, whereas if you put Crimson Spinels in the Kaz pants and Pyrestones/Shadowsong Amethysts in the shoulders/boots you get 10 crit rating, 68 damage (12*3+6*4+4*2), and 14 stamina at a cost of 3 Crimson Spinels. To me, it's pretty clear that 3 damage for 7 stamina is a trade off I'm willing to make for the sake of saving a Crimson Spinel.

 

Gumibear

Have you considered just doing a waiting list for Crimson Spinels instead of suboptimally gemming? You may be short on Crimson Spinels right now, but your guild will eventually have a surplus as people gear up. Before we killed Illidan, our Crimson Spinels would be going to use as soon as they dropped. Now that we've been farming awhile, Crimson Spinel demand isn't so high. We had a nearly equal demand for Pyrestones from our melee, and our healers love Shadowsong Amethysts, so it did not seem worthwhile to use epic gems I didn't really want and wanted to eventually replace.

 

awakened

I'm a 41/7/11 build lock who is currently raiding SSC/TK (we are at the final bosses in both). I'm concerned that I may not be getting the kind of DPS that I should or could be. My spec has some wasted talents in that I no longer get to cast CoA/CoD in a raid setting... I'm stuck on CoS/CoE duty since most the other locks don't have Malediction. Fully buffed etc, I can hover at around 1320 spell damage, but it seems like most of that is wasted since the bulk of my casts are SB and I just don't have the crit or spell hit rating to take advantage of it. Don't get me wrong, I can keep my own among the other locks, even surpass them at times, it's just that I don't seem to be able to compete all that much with the other DPS classes. I know that there are those classes that will consistently top the DPS charts, but I'd like to consistently hit number 5 instead of just peaking occasionally at number 5. Do any locks stay Afflic once they move on to BT/MH or do they all go demo/destr? Would dumping UA for Ruin improve my DPS or merely highlight the fact that I have no crit or spell hit? Any comments welcome.

 

Krazen

Presumably that's what they do. I suppose one could stick with temporary blue gems while we wait, but my guild at least already has a surplus of Pyrestones. By the time we have that many Spinels, we'll have a large excess of other gems as well.

 

Arelenda

Classes that consistently top DPS charts? You mean, other than warlocks?

In my experience, at your progression and gear level, only the best equipped rogues can keep up with destrolocks.

All specs (affliction, demo and destro) have their fans, but they all do solid dps and should be hovering near the top. Even the Malediction warlock should be able to hold their own. If you're outdpsing another warlock while providing talented CoS, then something is definitely wrong with guy.

Make sure to have at the very least enough hit rating to be capped on trash (5% or 60ish), more is better. Check your dot selection (is Immolate worth it for you?) and uptime: are you refreshing too early? too late?

 

KuruQan

How many aff lock dont have Amped curse.It should be included in any math done about aff locks.But do you know whats the sad thing?After doing some math,it turns out you are right.Even amping CoD is a waste if you have>1250shadowdmg.I cant believe that CoA could be better.
And I am just surprised,that Blizz havent fixed such an obvious bug,although we are talking about a company unable to fix a range bug for more than 2 years.
And this last sentence was just thinking that if a lock has 1300+ shadowdmg,he will most likely be destro .