This is currently not possible. Maybe in 2.4.

I'm destro, so I just spam CoA on pulls (using tab target, or MT list, as has been suggested) and throw SBs after. During the 1.5 seconds of GCD you should be able to pick up a new good target.

Even with 20k HP on the tanks blood pact simply helps *that* much. Maybe not enough for a T6 warlock to switch to affliction, but when combined with the incredible shadow embrace and the fact some of the DPS loss is made up for with malediction makes affliction more than worth it at any gear level when you want to maximize your chance to down the boss. When you already have absolutely no chance to wipe to tank death, though (which means you have everything in the game on farm for quite a while now so it doesn't really matter), you could just go for max dps to farm content in speed records... For anything else - 1 affliction warlock in the raid is pretty much a requirement if you care at all about optimizing for easiest boss kills.

DoTimer and some sort of MT Assist mod (I, sadly, still just pull out tank frames and assist them during GCDs) simplifies the ability to keep dots up on all tanked mobs. I usually UA/Corr/CoS the raid focused target and immediately switch to other targets to get 10 stacks of Crusade as quick as possible. I tend to just DPS independently of everyone else as long as dots are ticking and the shadowlovers get their maledicted CoS.

Phase 2 on Illidan, I keep the secondary infernal focused, with the primary infernal targeted and both fully dotted. Considering our FR tanks rely a lot on MD's to get early threat to hold down the nukers, I enjoy being able to maintain relatively high DPS, self preservation (siphon life x 2, t6 2pc bonus x2 = lots of healing coming in). It's easy to tab target during GCD so that you never lose DPS time fidgeting targets.

ImprovedCamera2 and zooming out til you're a dot on the screen also trivializes the ability to target things.

From the latest PTR build:

Lifetap changes have been reverted back to 2.3 original values.
Rank 1 to 7 - Converts 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 health into 20/65/130/210/300/420/580 mana

Question for the experts:

Currently my (affliction) warlock is using Quagmirran's Eye. The spell damage is very good for me, while the haste has always seemed fairly worthless. Of course this changes with 2.4, where haste now has the effect of acting on the global cooldown. This means that the Eye's haste proc can still be useful to me, even if I'm in the midst of re-applying DoTs.

But where my confusion comes in is judging just HOW useful this effect is. 2.4's latest changes include an improved Alchemist's stone which provides +63 spell damage.

So, to sum it up, is a +360 haste for 6 sec proc worth more or less than a static +26 spell damage?

Thanks for any help.

26 spell damage is better, since haste even buffed in 2.4 is not the that great of a stat for Affliction. I think 0.6 for haste with spell damage 1 is about right at Tier 4-5 level.

Try playing around with the Warlock DPS Spreadsheet, should be easy enough to find the threshold there.

As far as theorycrafting goes, you have to be extremely well-geared for Ruin to truly out-dps UA. But the in-practice extra damage from ruin vs an extra 18 second castable dot is simply that much more. You're doing more damage at the end of the fight and all throughout unless it's a highly mobile fight. The actual numbers are something like 1500 shadow damage/30ish crit.

I'd love some assistance from you all on where to focus. My armory currently has me in PVP gear, so Ill just run down where I'm at. I'm a 0/21/40 build. My guild is clearing Leo, Lurker, and Hydross in SSC. We are currently working on Fathomlord and Tidewalker. I've been gearing for balance, trying to find items that had solid damage, crit, and hit. I currently gear for boss fights and end up (raid buffed) at:

203 Hit (gonna regem at some point to get that 1 point back)
31% Crit (actually 26% pure crit, but +5% from Devestation for Destruction) (I also raid with a Moonie making it effectively 36% assuming I'm not running out of aura range
1400 Shadow damage (that or thereabouts)

I tend to hit 900 to 1100 DPS (according to WOW Web Info) depending on the fights (*thats including trash...I keep meaning to run it only on bosses but havent)

So, I feel kinda stuck. I have the spreadsheets and its starting to look like crit is worth more then damage, but I'm not sure how much stock to put into that, and how high I should be trying to get my crit. Are my numbers what I should expect for my point in progression?

And it still (sadly) scales with +shadow damage. My PTR Fire build has about 100 (180 with flamecap) extra fire damage.

Even with Incinerate using less mana than Shadow Bolt?

About Fire vs. Shadow in 2.4...

The new 0/21/40: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Watch out!

That being said, the differences between Fire/Shadow in 2.4 are these:

Shadow Bolt:
+10% from Shadow Weaving
+20% from ISB (depends on how often it's up)
85.7% of +damage Coefficient before Shadow & Flame.
572 average damage base

Incinerate:
+15% from Scorch
+10% damage from Emberstorm
+10% haste from Emberstorm
71.4% of +damage Coefficient before Shadow & Flame.
598.5 average damage base (with Immolate)

Overall, they're strikingly similar. Shadow Bolt gets 5% less via SW than Incinerate gets from Scorch, but makes up for it with the higher +damage coefficient. Incinerate gets a flat 20% DPS increase via Emberstorm, but Shadow Bolt gets almost 20% from ISB (since it's not always up), but helps the raid too and does not require Immolate (which with all the fire talents, might actually be higher DPCT anyway for an Incinerate build).

As far as personal DPS, they will compete. As far as raid DPS, 1 or 2 Shadow Destruction Warlocks are necessary to keep ISB up 50-60% of the time. Additional Warlocks doing that won't really help that much since more often than not, they will be replacing each other's charges and adding minimal uptime (observe this effect via WOW ISB Uptime Simulator).

Imagine you have infinite Destruction Warlocks with 30% crit and 10% haste (about right for BT/Hyjal). Imagine you have two fixed Shadow Priests (again, about right for BT/Hyjal).

1 Warlock: 50.6% ISB uptime (50.6% increase over 0, 10.12% shadow DPS increase)
2 Warlocks: 59.07% ISB uptime (8.47% increase, 1.69% shadow DPS increase over 1 Warlock)
3 Warlocks: 64.1% ISB uptime (5.03% increase, 1.01% shadow DPS increase over 2 Warlocks)

Notice that with each Warlock you add, the ISB uptime increase is smaller. 1 Warlock responsible for ISB is the largest effect. Each additional Warlock past 1 Shadow adds a minute amount of ISB uptime and % increase to Shadow DPS. This effect is caused by overwriting ISB's; the more Warlocks you have doing it, the more ISB charges you will be overwriting. A single Warlock maximizes ISB usage and efficiency.

Bottom line: The ideal is likely going to be 1 or 2 Shadow Destruction, the rest Fire.

The World of Warcraft Armory

Hello everyone, I am looking for feedback on how to improve my guy for overall performance. I have been looking for the dr on crit and when to switch to spell dam ect.. If you have any tips at all for gear or whatever please reply below!!

I do run with 201 spell hit just for some reason wowamory is not updating

The original post on this thread has some really great info, I suggest reading it from top to bottom. You may find you learn so much you could provide your own feedback! Scanning through some of the pages on this thread would also let you know that the spreadsheet has the most accurate gear-related answers to your inquiries.

Depends what you consider extremely well-geared. Up to T4 Affliction wins due to hit not being so easy to get if you run destro. T5 and certainly T6+ Destro wins and with haste the gap will be even further come 2.4.

I don't think he's comparing affliction to destro as much as UA toRuin for a malediction/SE build.

The effect is undeniable, however. The more Warlocks you add, the less each additional Warlock contributes to the overall uptime of ISB. Whether my hypothetical scenario fits yours or not is irrelevant; the effect exists.

The real question is whether Fire is higher personal DPS in 2.4 than Shadow. I feel that it will be, and in that case, the DPS difference will eclipse the added DPS from 1% increased Shadow DPS via another Shadow Warlock.

How big a difference is a "fire" lock using Cataclysm versus not having Cataclysm? If a "fire" warlock picks up ISB along with the other supporting fire talents (Emberstorm, Imp. Incinerate) they could conceivably switch between shadow and fire depending on what's available for the raid (or even the encounter, although I don't know of any encounter that would force you to make such a switch based strictly off elemental damage type). If one of the shadow destruction warlocks doesn't show up, it's just a simple as a matter as switching to shadow bolt over incinerate. I don't really see a big difference in specs (except supporting talents) to force you to really block yourself into one of the specific paths.

Cataclysm, by "talent standards", is a very weak talent. It is, however, an undeniable DPS increase. Look at the spreadsheet for exact values.

Cataclysm is really for min/maxing as Fire. If you want to remain flexible and free of respec costs, then yes, you could swap Cataclysm and ISB.

I am also as eager as Pyralissa to see how much of a difference it would make for a warlock to pick up Catalysm but not Improved Immolate: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft, as opposed to pick up Improved Immolate but not Catalysm: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft.

If you're already casting immolate, improving it seems to be significantly more dps than cataclysm. Granted I only looked at one spec and gear setup but the dps difference was quite big to make it require you to take it to some extreme for cataclysm to be better than improved immolate if you're casting immolate. If you're not casting immolate obviously imroving immolate gives 0 dps (although if it turns it into worth casting it could be somewhere in between).