Trickykid

Yeah, dropping everything for hit isn't a good idea. There were points in my upgrade path where I was able to do more damage with +12% hit due to items without hit giving more DPS.

Use the spreadsheet and do the math (or get Pawn to do the math for you) to see if an item is an upgrade.

 

rochan

Hmm, looking forward to Sunwell, it would probably be advantageous to have an Aff lock for SE (+5% tank HP, guaranteed Imp) for hard hitting bosses. However, it would be less DPS to have a Dest lock spec Aff, because the DPS difference between the two specs outweighs Malediction.

This is one 'flaw' in our class that no Devs seem to notice as there have been no significant PVE changes to our talents in the past year. 40/41 demo can be great if the pet can live, however Affliction is just terrible late game. Probably 95% of Illidan-farming, non-PVP spec warlocks are 0/21/40.

 

awakened

So we are working on Vashj now and I get to help kill the elementals plus I am on DoT duty for the elites/striders as they show up (I'm deep affliction spec). I'm in a group of 3 on the north side, grouped with a resto druid and a DPS warrior. Now if I focus on the task of killing elementals, all is good on our side. But if I take off to locate and DoT the elites/strider, the warrior and druid get overrun with elementals. Basically I'm usually way out of range of the elites/strider when the call for DoTs comes, so I have to get in range. Is there some macro or whatnot I can be using to make it easier to target the elites/strider? Tabbing only seems to grab the elementals because they are closest to me. I figure there must be a trick to this because right now it's just plain chaos.

 

• Emolate

You are not likely to put +40 spellpower on the Greatsword. You would be more likely to put +40 or Soulfrost on the Magus Blade.

70 spelldamage difference in the Magus Blade and the Greatsword.

Magus Blade gives crit instead of hit.

Would you rather have 12 hit, or 70 spelldamage?

Their current spellhit is 131. I didn't take time to model the gems, but it is likely they could get 20 more spellhit and still retain socket bonuses (which are frequently spellhit for FSW pieces).

So would I rather see a lock show up to a raid with 151 hit, or 131? Even if they have another 110 spelldamage from Magus Blade and +40 spelldamage enchant?

On the other hand, I just checked their enchants on gear and they're needing a tune-up, in my opinion. Get spellstrike on the gloves, for example. That would allow you to get 4 more spellhit and start using the Magus Blade.

They can use the Magus Blade if they have it. They don't. The Greatsword helps them more, at this point, IMO. The good news is that it is easy to fix most of the problems.

Right now that Warlock has medicore spellhit, needs a serious re-gemming and optimized enchantments on their gear.

The only piece of Warlock T4 I wear is the shoulders. The rest is replaced easily in Karazhan and Badge rewards with better stats than T4 gives you.

 

• Emolate

Can you give us an example, please?

 

Trickykid

If +hit is only worth 1.1-1.3 spell power, the statement "cap hit before you worry about anything else" is silly, particularly for an affliction lock who can subsidize lack of hit with spare talent points into suppression.

You should always be checking the value of the item rather than following a rule of thumb like hit>all. When I was in t4ish gear, using t4 gloves/shoulders for the set bonus was better than using the attumen gloves even though I dropped about 40 hit rating. I remember being at 12% hit for some time even though I could have reached 202 since I was gaining enough other stats to make it worthwhile.

 

Stran

Without a doubt 70 damage.

Look at the spreadsheet, if you want to theorycraft please use the tools we all do. At my gear levels, which are significantly higher than the original posters, 1 hit is worth 1.75 spell damage. Hit scales very well with +damage and + crit that is why it's so important to max. However, you should not sacrifice too much for it. 12 hit rating would be worth 20 damage for me. For him likely even less. If he has suppression and that maxes his hit for affliction, even less.

Even if he were to put +40 spell damage on his GoHD it would not be as good as the Magus Blade.

 

• Emolate

Okay, thank you. I have a very hard time modeling hit versus spelldamage for some reason. For whatever reason when I am using The Spreadsheet, I am seeing much higher returns on spellhit than on spelldamage.

Knowing 12/20 for you helps me find that point of diminishing return. I will try to model this for myself instead of trying to stay at 200 no matter what. What really kills me is that I have an affliction lock with no points in Suppression doing more damage than me, as well as missing less with Shadow Bolt. It is driving me batshit.

So clearly I am missing something critical, and I thank you guys for calling it out.

 

galzohar

When I look at the spreadsheet, using 18% crit 1400 shadow 1200 fire 6% hit from gear I get 1 hit rating equivalent to 0.9 spell dmg... If you're close to the hit cap it even goes down to 0.85 spell dmg. So as affliction once you have 6% hit from gear there is pretty much no reason to gem for hit (unless the socket bonuses are actually worth it, which is not the case for frozen shadoweave and spellstrike). Some items with hit will be good anyway due to the very low value of crit and many items having either crit or hit on them, but it doesn't mean hit is important for affliction.
Not to mention fights with movement, multi-dotting, non-boss mobs etc can shift it even more against hit.

For destruction hit is so powerful you stack it regardless of how useful it's going to be, as even if it's not helping you full time it's still pretty damn strong that it's worth capping. For affliction it's the opposite - not only it's weak it's not even useful all the time anyway. at best evaluate hit for affliction at 0.9 dmg at or whatever the spreadhseet tells you. Same goes for destruction - as in the spreadsheet value for hit is the *maximum* value of it and in reality it's less because of adds.

 

weet

Have to agree that prioritising hit as affliction is not really a smart thing, past 6% at low gear levels. Shadow Bolt/Immolate is around 40% of your damage, so past 6% from gear is really diminished value that point for point damage is alot stronger. Examples of upgrades that are good are say Moroes cape --> Prince Cape (-6dmg +18 hit). Example of a bad upgrade that someone taking the advice to 'prioritise hit cap before all else' as affliction, would be Orb of the Soul Eater ---> Netherspite Offhand.

Yes soulshatter can be related to this discussion, but is really not a huge thing at the gear level we are talking about.

Perhaps some discussion of this should be included in the OP?

 

Arelenda

You mean, more than it is already mentioned? Sure, feel free to rewrite it so I can improve on it.

 

weet

Ok, well you could just add in something like:

'Due to Suppression being able to be taken without losing core raiding talents, unlike Destruction and Demonology builds, the value of spell hit for affliction builds is lower once 6% from gear is reached. Shadowbolt and Immolate are roughly 40% of an affliction builds dps on a single target. Therefore while working towards the hit cap on all spells is ideal, +dmg should be focused on moreso.'

and in the basic gear choices:

Spell hit (to cap with suppression) > Spell damage > Spell hit (to cap without suppression) > Spell Haste & Crit

 

Anthraxx

Thanks for feedback guys. Having utility in 1 hand and dmg in an other I just asked tank how does he feel about taking 5% more beating and he said he could probably handle.

So... I went destro yesterday to say hello to Kaz'rogal and Azgalor and... LOL... 1-button-smashy-smashy stand there chain throwing these 8k bolts and topping meters o_O I never considered wow pve to require much skill and brain (lets say, compared to w3) but this is hilarious :P

Yes, I'll stay destro, yes I love these big numbers but come on..., this shouldn't be that easy...

 

Phantasie

And you did it on 2 horrile destro fights! Silence and extra taps from mana drain just lowers your dmg. Go get you some Gorefiend. Oh and watch out for that P2 RoS *wink*


Haste is a good stat, if they itemized it a little more evenly with the other stats. As of right now its kind of silly to get more than, say 80ish passive haste, because you start falling under the +hit cap and take a big hit in +dmg. If they threw some sockets on the existing haste items I wouldn't complain. Also even with the new spell queueing thing they implemented not too long ago, I notice the still existing need for stopcasting when i use drums of battle + skull of gul'dan or heroism. Seems to get worse the faster my shadowbolts are flying :/



That brings me to another topic. Not sure if warlock professions has been discussed in a while (besides omgfrozenshadowweave). I recently dropped alchemy for Leatherworking. Has any other end game locks done so? Right now I'm rocking ring enchants and [Drums of Battle]. Nice boost for myself and my group. Heroism+[The Skull of Gul'dan]+Drums= 1.66 sec shadowbolts (according to my old drdmg), add in the icon or ZA trinket for extra pew. Just skull+drums is 2.15 sec bolts. Drums last 30seconds, however use a global cooldown to cast (which the only downside).

http://armory.mmo-champion.com.nyud....it&s4=&s5=&v=2

 

Stran

Considered it, but decided against it. Rumor mill has it that there will be another wave of "Best at slot" tailoring items. I leave the drums to our elemental shamans. I have been meaning to switch to enchanting for the 24 spell damage but ... I keep hoping engineering will become more than just flavor proffesion. Granted, the goggles are serving me well having not seen a T5 helm drop or VR helm drop.

 

Krazen

There is a good chance sunwell will have some sort of BoP tailored item. I plan to craft it, then dump tailoring.

 

Triper

Sorry to break up the current train of thought here, but I'm in need of assistance from the warlock community. I'm the DPS Theorycrafter of my guild so to speak.

I'm trying to work with one warlock of mine, who has been putting out poor numbers, and last night I suggested he go affliction (seeing that with Suppression he'd be hit capped with affliction spells) and told him that using a UA -> Immo -> Corr -> SL then spamming shadow bolts until DoTs needed to be refreshed would net more dps than his former drain life spam. I also stressed how clipping off the last tick of his DoTs would be worse than a second of DoT downtime. I also gave him a macro to use his +dmg trinkets in conjunction with him casting UA, so he would get the benefit on his DoTs every time he refreshed them (and the trinket was up)

Now his gear... he was a little confused as to what he was going for. His staff isn't enchanted and his trinkets aren't good for affliction. I've told him some good upgrades for those slots and to fully enchant his gear.

He's a nice guy, and seems to like raiding. But even after this long chat he was still putting out abysmal numbers (although he did improve a bit). He went from approximately 300-350 dps to 420-475 dps. Shouldn't a warlock with his gear be putting out better numbers than that?

Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

P.S. - Don't have any WWS parses with him in them, sorry guys.

 

rochan

Just have him spec 0/21/40 and tell him to spam SB. If he still sucks then cut him loose.

He should be doing more like 700-1000 dps.

 

Stran

Having a WWS would go a LONG way as if he is putting out such low numbers his problem is with his play style.

Simplifying him to a 0/21/40 would go a long way as it's one spell + curse. Getting Quartz so he can account for his latency and start casting as soon as his cast is in "the red" would net about 10% to 30% dps increase depending on his latency numbers (this is anecdotal from my personal experiences).

With his gear and no additional buffs (consumables, shaman) assuming a SP in the raid he should be putting out 950 DPS in the 0/21/40 build spamming SB and being on CoE duty (no damage curse)

With CoD he could hit 1080

Affliction is a more difficult playstyle. On a single target, in his gear he should be hitting 980 dps. He would also be providing additional utility in the form of SE and Malediction. This is assuming good dot uptime, which requires anticipating UA running out and starting a cast preemptively, and using taps/dark pacts when a SB cast would cause a dot to run out for over a second.

 

Triper

Hurm... Granted I've never played a warlock at 70, but I can see how the destro spec would be alot simpler for him to handle (as he's never done these 25 mans before)

I guess I'm putting myself into his shoes too much, I can handle multiple things going on at the same time, seeing as I'm probably the only one in my guild having done this content before. (albeit on a healer).

And I know I'll be shot for this, but we don't currently have ANY raiding shadow priests... Yeah... That's right...

I'll forward him some more tips, I guess I'll just pick up his respec for this time, seeing as I suggested the last one.

P.S. - I'll see if I can get a WWS soon.

 

Arelenda

I'm going to assume that you want to keep this guy, despite him sucking. There is nothing wrong with that.

As people have suggested: either make him the raid support slave (Malediction, Shadow Embrace, Imp Blood pact) and live with his crappy dps, or have him spec 0/21/40. The latter is by far the easiest build to play.

Arelenda's little guide for warlocks (that suck)
- get Omen
- get Quartz
- get a damage meter
- spec 0/21/40
- gearwise: hit = crit = damage (= haste, but that's probably not really worth mentioning)
- spam Shadowbolt. Lifetap per 3-5 bolts. Don't string multiple taps together.
- learn how to time bolts so you don't lose time to lag

 

Stran

Just to expand

- tap while moving if fight requires movement (most do)
- don't tap during DPS race portions of a fight, use pots if necesary as they do not trigger a GCD

 

rochan

That's huge...16% less damage from warlocks, 5% less from all other casters. Recruit!

 

Necrostar

Just curious. Has anybody put together a "wish list" of gear that would put out the most dps as 0/21/40 ? I would think that 4pc T6 has to be in the equation given that it contributes 6% more to shadowbolts. The piece that you wouldn't use is something I've pondered. There are 2 items with a [151] rating , Robes of Rhonin & Cowl of The Illidari High Lord that I would consider as replacements to that 5th T6 item. Also Zhar'doom vs Tempest of Chaos + Chronicle of Dark Secrets.

 

Stran

Zhar'doom wins by a small margin in DPS. As far as the 5th T6 piece, I find Legging of the Chaneled Elements to be the best at slot.

Take a look at this. Best At Slot is my wish list of sorts, Staff is the same list with just staff subbed in.

Stran - Character - World of Warcraft - WoWDigger