PSGarak

It's basically dependent on the ratio of shadow priests to total shadow casters, not the number of shadow casters overall. If you have no shadow priests, and enough warlocks that an ISB proc won't last the full 12 seconds anyways, uptime becomes extremely resilient to adding more warlocks: adding one with the raid-average crit has 0 effect, and adding one with lower crit chance will lower it. When you add in shadow priests, you now have shadow casters that eat more charges than they put up, so having more casters that put them up will actually affect uptime (this assumes they cast mind blast and shadow word: death).

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

 

jendead

99% lurker here, but I've been having a hard time figuring out how to adjust my gear (yes, I use the spreadsheet). So far, my biggest problem has been trying to balance around +hit, and a few little quirks here and there.

As my armory will point out, I'm still using a [Neltharion's Tear] and glove socket for hit.. I know this is bad. I have a few items in the bank that I can swap around: [Blue Suede Shoes], [Quagmirran's Eye], and a crapton of badges for an Icon or phase 3 stuff. The next few items in my future are: Malefic belt or boots, new Eng helm, or alc stone.

Anyway, my question is trinket related, because I think I can figure the other stuff out on my own.

A few pages back, someone posted how the Icon is known to be better than the Eye.. but in the spreadsheet, the Eye beats the Icon by 5dps, and the Alchemist stone by 11dps. Kind of disheartening, as I've been working on SSO rep but it doesn't even seem worth it. Why is the Icon better? Is it due to being able to control the click effect? Is the Stone seriously that inferior to the Eye? I don't know if I should just blindly follow the DPS number in the spreadsheet and pick the highest possible combination or not. I also haven't found a clear answer on how having 2 clickable trinkets will work (AFAIK, using one activates a CD on the other, but only for the duration of the effect?).

It seems like a really obvious thing that I should know, but I'd rather not buy the Icon and find out I can't use it.. or that I should have just switched the Eye in

Thanks for any advice, this thread is like my bible :p

:o

 

galzohar

When comparing items with procs I would carefully verify the proc is properly modeled. It had been tested on these forums (not by me!) already that quag's eye has a 45s hidden cooldown which isn't listed on wowhead. So if you just model it based on the wowhead data it'll look a lot more powerful than it's supposed to be. Unless there's some mistake here, the eye should lose out clearly (but not by a huge margin as far as I remember) to the icon and darkmoon card, not to mention hex shrunken head, so shoot for those 2 of those 3 trinkets until you can get your hands on a skull of gul'dan.

As for nelthalion's tear, it's so bad it's worth gemming hit just so you don't have to use it. It's at a similar level to a scryer's bloodgem - both of these items don't really need to be used due to how easy it is to gem hit insetad. The day you get a skull of gul'dan of course you can regem back to spell damage. Hopefully you don't have +12s in all your sockets yet

 

Carnate

Quagmirran's Eye shows up stronger due to the spread sheet adding ISB damage from the crit. Icon is better personal dps but may fall behind on raid dps. I would just save up for skull instead of going for Icon.

At your gear level you should not be using Tear or blue trinkets, as said already gemming for it is best. The reason you fall behind at hit is that big goose egg on the staff. But it is a good reason.

 

Arelenda

That's exactly how it works. I personally am looking for a second trinket that doesn't have an on use cause I find annoying. Currently using ZA trinket and the Icon. As far the advice, I'd definitely say the Icon is better, but also consider the new one from MGT, depending on your spec.

 

Nas

I am under the impression that the MGT trinket proc may consume ISBs, is that the case from your testing? If so, do you think it is still a good choice to have given the fact?

Secondly, my guild is going to be working on Brutallus for the first time tonight - we only have two Warlocks attending, one of which is going to be in the MT group as Affliction, and only 1 Shadow Priest, on the other side is two Fire Mages, which makes Fire Destro with CoE the obvious choice. To be honest this is the first time I've given Fire Destro a serious go in a raid since the Karazhan days, so I figured I would ask what other Fire Locks have been doing on Brutallus, have you been giving priority to Immolate over Incinerate and casting it whenver it's about to run out (this is assuming someone else is keeping up Immolate anyway, so the only reason you'd cast it is for its damage, not the boost it gives Incinirate) - or have you just been Incinerate spamming and refreshing Immolate whenever you felt it was falling off?

Hours of Dr Boom somehow gave me the impression that straight up Incinerate spamming with another lock keeping up Immolate is better DPS, but I thought I'd ask people who have actually put this into practice.

Another thing is what I have been hearing about Brutallus having high resistance to Fire - is it Resistant enough to make having Spell Penetration to cloak on my "fire cloak" a DPS boost? Thanks.

 

Krazen

Immo should be a superior dpct under most circumstances, or at least comparable. I would be very cautious not to clip it, but I would still cast it in your rotation.

 

Nas

Yeah that is what surprised me - I knew that Immo was better DPCT, however as I said I spent a fair bit of time on Dr. Boom and the results were in favor of Incinerate - maybe it was due to the DPM when I was not raid buffed at all, perhaps it has something to do with Incinerate's superior scaling with crit. I am sure I had 100% immolate uptime, without clipping any of them along with optimal lifetap timing, still Incinerate won in the end. Has anyone else noticed that? Or should I expect it to change with raid buffs (although I don't see how, more crit and damage would further favor Incinerate with Ruin and SnF).

 

jendead

Unfortunately, saving up for a Skull might not be an option for quite some time.. if at all. I don't know if we'll be going back to BT - everyone is completely burnt on it so attendance would be pretty rough. I'm hoping people will be open to the idea once Sunwell is a bit smoother. Hoping to down Brutallus tomorrow and start working on Felmyst.

Also, we use EPGP which is not conducive to saving up for a specific item.. not going to threadjack with my thoughts about it though. :o

Me getting a skull is practically a guild joke at this point.. we have bad luck with those things (popped 3, but 1 retired and 1 gquit already)

:o

 

Vazu

I realize with spreadsheets being available and so forth that I risk being stoned to death for asking this, but here goes.

We currently raid with 2 shadow Priests and on many nights 1 affliction Warlock and 3 destro Warlocks. With that much shadow damage being thrown around, between ISB uptime and so forth, I'm curious about the new gems. I have an opportunity to regem all of my gear very soon. I'm getting rid of the crit/spellpower stuff and I can't decide basically between 10 spell haste gems in all of my yellow slots or 5 haste/6 spellpower. The math says 10 haste, but I'm curious to hear from the community here. Is there a good arguement for either based on raid composition? Basically it's 110 spell haste or 66 spellpower/55 spell haste. Is the 110 option better for a raid with 2 shadow Priests, an affliction Warlock and 3 destro Warlocks?

(I also have a Skull of Gul'dan and I'm a LW with Drums of Battle. If that matters in terms of hitting the 1.5 second GCD wall for spamming Shadowbolt.)

 

Krazen

If you're putting 12 dmg in your red sockets, 5 haste/6 dmg is the logical choice for your yellows. Ultimately, 5 haste v 6 damage is close enough with most t6 gear sets that I would rather have the damage.

Sunwell loot has an abundance of haste rating, and not a whole lot more of +dmg. Haste does have some negative scaling, and I figure going for more haste = more lifetaps, and I'd rather avoid that.

Is it worth regemming everything? Probably wouldn't use guild gems, but if you have badges, knock yourself out.

 

Gumibear

I've seen that the difference between spell haste gems and damage gems is so close that gemming reds will make the spreadsheet tell you yellows are better, and gemming yellows will make the the spreadsheet say reds are better. I think this is one of the few times we can say go with personal preference.

 

• frmorrison

I am doing 5 haste 6 damage for yellows (on new gear, keeping the crit/damage ones I have now), I wouldn't do 10 haste because the increase in number of Life Taps, damage per mana is important as well.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Eph

Isn't it 1 second now?

 

Thanahtos

Yes, it is 1 second.

 

TommiHelm

Hi. I wasnt sure if I should post this in the spreadsheet thread or here, but I hope this is right. The questions are really more in general about haste and destruction.

I'm a regular 0/21/40 warlock and my gear is mostly mostly Karazhan (T4) level with a few SSC/TK pieces, like the T5 shoulders which is what my question is about. We got a couple of Mantle of Nimble Thought patterns when we tried farming some Hyjal trash tonight.

I plotted my gear into the spreadsheet (with gems and every buff I use in raids), and I was a bit surprised that the T5 shoulders came out at 4-5 DPS higher than the Hyjal pattern. I can see the pattern have less potential stats (less crit rating mainly, and of course 2 sockets less), but shouldnt that much haste rating be really good for a destruction warlock?

I assume the spreadsheet is right of course, but would it still be wise for the warlocks in the community to make these for the future? Will they be better once we start getting T6 quality gear in other slots? I always assumed Tier 6 would fill the shoulder slot eventually.

Cheers.

 

rochan

That about sums it up flamingcloud. I don't know why people are still adamant about fire spec, it is 100x more difficult to play due to both reasons you can and can't control.

Tommihelm the T5 shoulders are better because you need the +hit. Generally you'd only use Nimble thought once you are hitcapped, say trading the T5 or T6 shoulders for them (but really no one uses the shoulders of nimble thought).

 

TommiHelm

Ah of course. I entered the gear I use on trash, not what I use on bosses. I do have the gear to be hit capped on bosses even if I swap the shoulders for Nimble Thought. I tried that in the spreadsheet and get a 20 DPS increase from swapping to Nimble Thought actually now.

So then it is worth making them I guess? But you say noone really uses them? So the "optimal" way to go on T6 level is using haste in other slots instead?

Cheers.

 

Anedris

Basically, if your guild is planning ahead they will have noticed that they need 150 hearts of darkness to beat Shahraz (not literally, some people can get by with less than cap, or can scrounge a lot of greens, but that's a good mark to shoot for). This means that you won't have any spare hearts for a long time, and by the time you do t6 shoulders will be just around the corner (plus the ones from Anetheron will be available - unsure how they compare).

 

Arelenda

I have them, I learned the pattern when I misread them being bop. They're not bad but definitely not super either.

The only thing that will provide a major difference to you at your gear level is the 4p T6 set bonus. Anything else will be small upgrades (that combined make a difference, obviously). Unfortunately, the T6 piece in MH/BT aren't that good by themselves.

 

Thanahtos

Basically, if you can either procure your own Hearts or have your guild provide them, a 20 DPS increase is very nice. However, Hatefury Mantle (from Anetheron) is around equal to them and as Anedris said, you could use those Hearts for resist gear to get your tier 6 shoulders.

 

Flamingcloud

Well I have 165 haste atm, and I only lifetapped on our Brutallus kill 6 times, and it would have been less if my spriest didn't die at 20%.. Thats a bad reason for not doing 10haste.. Also lionseye are easier to get then pyrestone atm in my guild anyways.

 

Painton

I had two quick questions:

First about warlock spell rotation ( yes I read the former pages)

Today I found I got more dps as affliction by using Cos>UA>corr>immo>SL the entire raid rather than use CoA. Is this a poor choice? my spec can be found here :

The World of Warcraft Armory

too add, I don't have maxed hit, it's sitting at 155 atm. Would this also be a large part of the dps lost when using CoA? There was only one other destrolock in the raid.


Second, is there anyway I would be able to stay affliction going into endgame raids? Or does the gear scale too poorly with affliction? Thanks.

 

Arelenda

Your spec is a pvp spec, or somesuch. If you want to optimal raid performance, get 5/5 Shadow Embrace, and 3/3 Malediction. You're choosing the gimped dps tree, at least get the talents that are useful for the raid.

Affliction is viable, given those two talents.

Use 13% CoS on everything the raid is dpsing, CoA is ok on offtanked stuff if you like.

 

Parzifal

Thanks for the feedback. Crit is something that I'm starting to think about now. I plan on getting the Demonsoul Robes and Boots of Blasting, which will help that cause. My equipment improved over the weekend and I now have about 1470 shadow self-buffed (food, oil, fel armor).

According to the spreadsheet, UA spec is about a +5 dps change from 21/40... but that assumes perfect DoT timing and all DoTs going to the last tick, right? In practice, when I was UA specced, my dps just wasn't good at all -- and the spec isn't good for farming or PVP, imho.

I switched to 7/43/11 demo this weekend and was blown away by how superior the spec is for farming. I can literally send the felguard in, do the two instant cast DoTs while I'm looking for another target, repeat, and then clean up the loot after 3-4 creatures. For the first time in a long time, I need bigger bags for all the junk that drops! The raw dps isn't really that much better -- but my dots and pet are still doing damage while I'm looking for targets and cleaning up loot -- making the spec MUCH faster for farming. In fact, amusingly, I end up using Drain Life at times since it ticks for about the same as a netherweave bandage, and as such, keeps me from having to stop to heal after the fight.

It's about the same dps in an instance from what I've seen so far, though far better on trash and much easier to control threat with on bosses. The only disadvantage as noted here before is that micromanaging the pet is important -- but it's also fun (being a shadowbolt turret is only so entertaining).

The worst issue I have now with it is replenishing my demon's mana - the felguard goes through mana very quickly. Although I have 1/3 mana feed, he needs mana more often than I need to lifetap. Any suggestions?

As a final comedic note - it's amazing how people squirm after someone posts a dps meter to raid chat, isn't it?