Deathwing

It is REALLY easy to kill the imp through soul link.

 

rochan

It really doesn't matter, the Imp will die on pretty much every BT/MH fight & trash pull.

Not to mention its damage hardly scales at all. In full Sunwell gear when you are doing 3000 DPS, your imp will still be doing 150.

The spreadsheet models it effectively enough, and common sense will dictate that it's not worth using.

 

Goedel

Rochan, do you have any idea what "hardly scales at all" means? Numbers are helpful (or symbolic math). If you cannot provide the spell coefficients, what is your justification for asserting it is not worth using? I was under the impression this was a board where quantitative reasoning was preferred over unsupported "common sense". Moreover, common sense tends to lag well behind precise understanding (if it ever matches at all). The game changes fairly often. If Blizzard released a patch with the note "spell damage coefficient for Imp's Firebolt increased by 10%", would you know how to even begin evaluating that? Maybe you would, but you have said nothing to indicate it. Personally, I'd rather know how to compute the value of different possibilities at any time than memorize (and relearn whenever applicable) a list of conclusions somebody else has derived without being able to check that derivation.

And, again, I am aware of the imp's fragility. Those who do have the numbers to fill in, consider it purely an academic exercise, if nothing else, and indulge my curiosity for figuring out exactly what its dps would be if that were not a concern.

 

Trickykid

Considerable work has been put into the spreadsheet to estimate pet DPS as well as its dependencies on your gear. So your curiosity can be indulged with currently available tools.

 

Morwen

The numbers in the Leulier spreadsheet are:
- Pets get 15% of your +dmg
- Firebolts get 45% of the pet's spell damage coefficient
- Miss rate is fixed, pets do not get +hit
- Crit rate is 5% before talents, pets do not get your +crit

And it results, in the best case, in Sacrifice beating the imp by a factor of 3 to 1.

 

galzohar

Raiding with imp
Even if your crazy idea could work, you're giving up shadow embrace, which is quite more important than having an imp out. The only viable spec that has shadow embrace is 43/0/17 +1 (or with extreme gear 38/0/21 +2) and both keep an imp out anyway. While it's easier to see the benefit of extra HP on the tank, the fact is -5% of boss' melee damage is that much more important, not to mention you can simply have both. Bottom line is if your DPS is worth gimping to get an imp out, it is most definitely worth gimping to get shadow embrace!

So the ansewer to "can an imp-dps demonology spec work?" is "even if it worked it's not worth it as full affliction is better if you want to support your tank and destruction is better for DPS". Not to mention that most likely the dps loss of shadow embrace spec over your spec will provide more survavability per dps lost than your spec provides over a destruction spec, if affliction even loses dps compared to your spec in the firstplace.

Haste diminishing returns
I said this before and I'll say it again, if you have any mana regen, the more haste you gain the less #DPS you gain, however the effect is extremely slight. Compared to spell damage, which (if ignoring extra mana from lifetaps which will cause tiny *increasing* returns on spell damage) would give a fixed amount of #DPS no matter how much you have, keeping other stats constant. This effect (on both stats) is extremely tiny, though - you can check it yourself on the spreadsheet.

fire specs and raid dps support
While buffing raid DPS is nice and all, dealing more damage yourself is also more beneficial. You cannot argue warlcoks should be shadow "to support raid DPS" just like you can't argue moonkins "becuase they have good synergy" (and while I won't go into moonkin viability, we all know how many raids acccept moonkins). Due to the fire buff you will have to look at the DPS your raid will lose VS the personal DPS you will gain if you switch to fire, which is, as said many times already, depends on your actual raid composition.

conflag with fire spec
Not every movement that doesn't include a life tap should have a conflag. Remember it has a mana cost and makes you lose the DPS from immolate ticks. Optimally you would know exactly how much time you have left on moving and assuming conflag is worth the time to reapply immolate you'd conflag 1.5s before stopping to move, but often you don't know how much longer you'll be moving and thus on average you will probably lose more DPS from conflagging than you'd gain.
This is very hard to accurately calculate, though, as you can't even determine the chance for you to stop moving within less than 1.5s and how much before that etc.
Just keep in mind that mindlessly casting conflag according to the "script" (in post 2041) can definitely cause you to lose dps.

 

taybul

Conflag should really be used only if it's the last mob and it's about to die. If it's one mob of many, let that immolate tick off and put a new one on the next mob. If the next mob is sheeped, you're better off lifetapping or applying curses.

 

galzohar

Obviously if it's a "mob is almost dead issue" and there's another mob, DPS other mob rather than conflag - you'll deal more dps even without taking mana cost into account.

 

Seir

I personally, as a rule of thumb, only conflag on trash if it'll do the same or more damage then the remaining ticks and it won't delay a new incinerate.

I don't think it's ever of use during boss encounters because most times you might be able to gain from conflag it's probably better to just lifetap in the long run.

 

Nas

Has anyone done the maths of the [Icon of the Silver Crescent] vs [Timbal's Focusing Crystal] for an Affliction Warlock? And does the proc on the trinket consume ISB at all?

 

Jaydedspirit

Doing alot of looking around I haven't been able to find any proof of this but my current raid leader mentioned to me that spell haste now works for our dots, making them tick faster needing a refresh cast sooner. I was really wanting to know if this true considering that if this is true an affliction locks dps would increase quiet a bit if they knew how to properly control there dots and timings.

 

Amathal

I haven't heard anything about that. Spell Haste does affect the global cooldown now, maybe that is what he meant?

 

armitageiii

Alright. I have read through about 40 pages of this thread to find a clear answer. I've downloaded the spread sheet etc.

My question.

With warlocks geared such as this:
One
(In pvp gear at the time i posted this)

In a raid with 2 warlocks and 2 shadow priests. What spec would increase the over all dps in the raid. 0/21/40 Shadowbolt or Incinerate. This is assuming both locks are ISB. And also assuming there is a scorch mage in the raid. On say a fight like brutallus or something.

I would really enjoy a mathematical proof or something straight forward.

Thanks in advanced!

 

Darkwand3r3r

A simple fact is that ISB does increase the raid dps of your shadow users. The fire spec does not improve the raid dps of others at all. So therefore i would say, without calculations, that shadow would be better for the overall raid dps.
Fire might be more dps for yourself right now, with the new emberstorm, but the raid will loose some dps because of the lack of ISB debuff.
I can do some easy maths a bit later today to clarify. And prove my point i hope, or not ofcourse.

-----
For the above 2 posters about haste with dots. Haste does not make your dots tick faster. Only the global cooldown is affected for dotting. So it is a small increase in dps perhaps, but nothing major.

 

Anthraxx

Has anyone already worked out 2.4 best gear setup for a destruction warlock?

Which 4 of the T6 pieces?

On the other note: [Quick Lionseye]/[Runed Crimson Spinel]/[Reckless Pyrestone] look just about the same dpswise to me (assuming 1 haste = 1.2 dmg in t6 lvl gear), but what about dimnishing value of haste?

 

ninielin

With the massive lack of hit on sunwell armor I don't think you ll need to socket those gems , veiled pyrestone all the way Unless there a quite a few items not known yet.

 

Kobal

According to my own spreadsheet it is very close - less than a 5 DPS difference - as long as at least one of the warlocks is shadow specced. This was calculated with warlocks and shadow priests in good BT/Hyjal gear (including 4pc T6), but should stay roughly the same on lower gear levely. It also matters surprisingly little if the fight allows the shadow priests to use SW: D.

However, I tried out the fire spec for the first time yesterday in Hyjal, and in my subjective impression I did not observe the individual DPS gain that I should have observed according to the spreadsheets. This may be due to unfamiliarity with the spec, or due to the fact that I still have soulfrost on my weapon (I was just experimenting after all ), but I have a gut feeling that for some unknown reason theory and practice differ here. What did other destruction warlocks observe?

 

dydoe

hi, I just need some advise regarding stats, as well as the new patch has added haste on the new items, btw I have some doubts before patch, just to clarify, about improvement on which items should I choose, to keep the same or better stats.

first, I'm 0/21/40 spec., you can also check my stats on the armory, but if you're lazzy I can say I have 203 hit, 1054 spelldamage unbuffed and 21% crit without bane.

I'm using lot of pvp stuff, cause I'm not a taylor, and I'm only raiding kara, gruul, magtheridon, 3 bosses from ssc and 1 of TK.

I always like to look for my own stuff via badges or heroics, cause sometimes is hard to get a neat loot when you're with +25 members, even when at least 10 are clothies.

I always test my stats browsing some sites for maximizing dps, so when I fill the blank with 202 hit so the better stuff appears to be the +crit ones. It seems that I have to improve crit, maintaining hit, isn't it? so, usually specific items are used to have +crit or +hit, but in theory, sometimes is better for example to equip legs with +crit than ones with +hit. Am I wrong?

I have noticed the best way to improve crit is to equip stuff with +crit, (at least is better than gemming it with crit gems), but at the same time I have noticed some patterns about items for each bodypart, If i'm not wrong, tier robes has no crit, idem with some other stuff.

the question is, if I have to choose between crit or hit, in stuff like robes, do I have to get the +crit one? If the robe has slots too, is not easier to get the one with crit, and gem it with +hit? or is better to choose the one with +hit and gem it with crit?

In other hand, regarding haste, do we have to gear ourselves using now hit>haste>damage>crit?

I have read crit rating should scale equally with damage, does anyone know a kind of "rule" to follow it? (for example, exagerating; if you have 6000 damage so 10% crit is too low, or if you have 50% crit then 600 damage is too low)

to finish, I'm now using 2 t4 pieces, to get the bonus, but is it really good? or should I get tehe robe and take another helm? even being a pvp helm?

I'm sorry if i'm bothering someone, but there's a lot of stuff on the web, and I came here cause this web seems to be the better one.

(I'm not a native english speaker as well :p)

 

Darkwand3r3r

@Dydoe.

Yes you have to maintain a high lvl of hit rating at almost any cost. I'm not sure if you should stay capped at 202 or a bit over or lower. Depends on how many side the dice has, does it roll for 1-100 to calculate the percentage, or does it roll 1-10000 and takes every 0.01% chance into the roll? But that doesnt change the fact that hit is extremely important for a 0/21/40 lock, or any spec for that matter.

If you use the spreedsheat you can see the value of every next stat and you can decide on what to get from there. It is usualy something like this, if hit capped:
Spell dmg +1
Crit bit lower than 1, but this depends on your own stats allot and the raid setup if enabled.
Haste rating 1.3
Hit rating is the most important stat up to the cap.

On the robe choice, it really doens't matter. Just make sure you're hit is near/on/over the cap.

You can't really classify 1 stat better than the others. It's relative, meaning 30 spelldmg is allot more important if you have 500 spell dmg than 30 crit rating. Again, use the spreadsheet to determine how the stats are valued and decide according to that. Also note that even if people say get this and that, you possibly don't have acces to all items, be it on higher raid levels or them just not dropping.
The same thing with the dmg vs crit rule. There is non. It depends on your current stats.

So to summarise, keep your hit high enough, use the spreadsheet which is located in this topic. And just go with the gear you can actually get or have.

I found 0/21/40 not to work that well in early T5 instances, Affliction was still gear then. It became better during late T5 instances. Might consider speccing Affliction aswell. But do what you find most fun ofcourse. At that raiding level not optimizing your spec to your raid enviroment won't really make a ground breaking difference.

Hope I could be of any help to you.

@Kobal

You can only really compare the 2 "specs" with each other either by theory or by testing it for a very lengthy period of time. With a game that almost runs on chances, the rule of large numbers applies, this means the large the amount of result you have from testing the more accurate it is. So all in all if the theory says it does more dps, believe in that. But there might be variables that the spreadsheet does not take into account, though i don't know what, since all the data gathered is based on testing, which again doesn't have to be accurate because it is also based on chances.
If 50 warlocks try the new spec the results will varie from really crap to extremely overpowered. From a non mathematical aproach to the 2 specs, the dps should be about equel now. But that's just guessing.

 

dydoe

Darkwandered, thank you very much, I always had in mind if I want to be 21/40 then I have to be hit cap. I don't believe the sheet could help me that much, (and due to my language seems to be impossible to fully understand it), btw I feel the best way to improve is to equip the most +hit stuff of each part, cause then I can gem the slots with +damage and crit can comes with some other stuff, even with that ones with +hit and +crit.

In fact, I have got a green trinkete with +26 hit, and thinking in change the enchant of my gloves from 15 hit to 20 damage, (my actual trinkete seems to be nerfed, now that nexxus horn is not that better, so i dont care in replace it, and for pulls I use the one you get with skyward exalted, getting +80 damage between one kill) I'm working on getting the crusader mooncard, but, it will take a lot in a low quantity of players server. I'm using the icon too, and is ok.

I have never played affli, in fact I leveled being demo, till FG, and mixed FG-affli, and FG-destru, then tried 0/40/21, this one was great for 5 man in my opinion, even more when you usually have to use your succi and not your FG, and the damage you gain with SL and DK is pretty good.

now with destro I feel better.

I'll keep an eye on this forum, just to know how is going with the new patch, and to know if haste is that good.

again, thank u.

 

Trickykid

That conclusion doesn't follow. If Fire_DPS > Shadow_DPS + Increased_Raid_DPS(from ISB), then fire wins. Other non-DPS factors like the fact that increasing SP dps further increases the DPS of his group via VT could be considered on Shadow's side as well.

 

clavarnway

On the spreadsheet for me haste shows as about 1.3-1.4 worth as +damage and crit. However haste doesn't help with ISB...so for a raiding warlock with 2-4 Warlocks and 1-2 spriest per raid, is crit worth as much as haste, or more?

http://sigs.guildlaunch.net/sig.php/1424974uXyta.png

 

rochan

If you actually looked hard you would see it is in the spreadsheet.
Raid TNS = 1 means it accounts for ISB from your crit/hit/haste. You can set other warlocks/sps in the Raid ISB tab.

I see crit worth slightly less than haste (1.4 vs 1.5 compared to 1.1 vs 1.45 without Raid TNS) with 3 locks/2 sp although it will depend how you set up the Raid ISB sheet.

 

cynics

I am a raiding Warlock up to illidan, i am spec'd destro and i am a fairly competent player.


There are a few things i want to know:
1. How does +haste and +dmg compare to each other? (meaning is +haste better than +dmg and at what point is one better than the other?)

2. I plan on replacing the gems in my chest with Reckless Pyrestone as i am over the hit cap.

2a. Should i also repalce +crit/+dmg gems with Reckless Pyrestone or even Reckless Noble Topaz aswell?
2b. Any other thoughts on my gemming choice? (typically we dont give out Epic gems for items that will be upgraded quickly and we don't give out spinnels fro anything short of T6 or equivalent)

3. i know that i should be going for 4pc T6 but due to DKP this is a ways off for me, should i replace any of the T6 slot items with non-T6 in the meantime (e.g. gloves, pants, chest, shoulders, or Helm)?

4. I hear a lot about fire build and it seems feasible if raid makeup is right but typically we typically have 1 mage in raids, and for the most part they are a wasted spot. i'd assume this would mean fire isn't as viable as Shadow in our mage makeup, is that a correct assumption?

Edit: Removed my profile link cause im a noob and didn't know it was built in to my account, Epic FAIL! GG on the infraction!

 

LockApologist

@cynics:

1. spreadsheet

2. spreadsheet and generally, if you already have an epic gem, it is not worth replacing, unless you have a glut of pyrestones/want to farm all the badges. the difference between 5 crit and 5 haste is minuscule.

3. I'm not sure what you would replace any of those with that was not T6 (minus getting Vashj robe or shoulders from Gurtogg/Aneth). Outside T6, your first upgrade should be the neck and wand, as both of those are not that great.

4. If you run more spriests than fire mages, it's probably better to stay shadow. But, if you run light on locks/spriest and heavy on mages (like my guild), fire is appealing.