I assume you mean Pandemic as Eradication is our haste talent, but yes and no. It's currently bugged and doesn't give the correct modifier, but that's one of the specific bugs being addressed in 3.0.8 as I recall. Even with the bug you will see a definite increase in pandemic procs, and spamming SB would be a definite dps loss.

Yes I meant pandemic hehe. Thanks for the info.

I am glad to find this post I finding the same exact issue. In the matter of a week I went from being able to rotate all dots without any concerns + spam sbolts when free to do so to now having to hold back dots and definitely picking my spots with sbolts. I have seen this issue with every kind of tank, from warrior to DKs, all of them very well geared and very pro. As a fairly standard specced Aflic lock what can I do to mitigate this threat outside of the meta gem, soulshatter once every 5? Very basic question but what spells cause the most threat? I understand the need to be thoughtful with threat however I feel that my damage is being nerfed because I have to watch aggro so much. I was excited to get 1900+ SP, 300 hit, etc. and I want to use it!

You are running into exactly the issue I am. At low gear levels and low dps it was never an issue, but as I gear up I find myself at threat levels only a fury warrior doing 9k dps can match. I got some data tonight and I hope to get some screen shots in Naxx tomorrow to confirm. But from my research tonight I can say our threat is out of line even if you assume 0.5 tps from life tap mana returns, haunt/sl healing/fel armor, and not having a threat reduction talent for destro. I don't know where the scaling is broken, but from the numbers I ran tonight it is not right. I wound up with a theoretical tps/dps ratio of 0.95 (which is still very high) to an actual of 1.1. And while I'm not sure, I thought lifetap and sl were supposed to have no threat from healing?

Basically, if you have to blow you soulshatter early for any reason you can end up hosed unless your tank is very good.

Based on my admittedly limited experience, I'm pretty sure that 1900 +damage does not indicate a threat issue on the part of the warlock...

I have a few questions regarding AE which seems to have drastically increased across the board as the premiere damage type except on bosses (5 mans and pretty much every trash pull). I run into the problem where I am either trying to decide on the best spell for AE and whether or not AE is even a good option.

My questions are: which is the best AE spell given a 2 pull, a 3 pull, and a multiple pull for each spec (affliction, meta, and 40+ destro)? How do I unsure maximum ticks of rain of fire on the targets (especially given ramp up time and the wave nature where mobs might die or move before ticks and where knockbacks are rampant)? And finally, how do I ensure molten core uptime if rain of fire is the AE of choice for destruction?

The reason I ask is because warlocks have a peculiar situation when AEing in that seed hits one less target (read, not as useful on 3 or less pulls) and needs outside damage to proc if it is being spamed. The obvious thing to do would be to switch to RoF but I find myself even more baffled by that spell when it is completely left by the wayside for 2/3 of our deep specs in favor of shadow damage and seed use. Worse, even as deep destro I found seed to be consistantly better because of molten core being fickle (often a waste of time trying to proc it with shadowfury which is high threat).

P.S. - When playing my DK I find damage simple in that Howling Blast is both a rediculously good single target spell and AE (2, 3 or multiple pulls even). It is instant, has a large range, can crit (usually 70%+), hits ALL targets (DKs do massive damage on adds during bosses by saving a Howling Blast for when adds spawn and hiting 3+ mobs all for 9k+ easily inflating their damage on bosses like Sarth, Maex, and Faerlina), and scales crazy well with buffs and gear.

I've been curious about the AoE stuff too, mostly for timed mount strat runs as this is really the only time I care about doing good AoE dps.

I'm a 0/30/41 hybrid and i generally throw a CoA on a mob and then either 1) shadowfury if im close or 2) RoF

does this seem to be the right route to go? i seem to be doing horrible dps on these timed strat runs for my gear level and am wanting to up it so i dont get laughed at on vent.

I attribute most of my dps loss to the fact taht i cant roffle the zombies. Is this a correct assumption?

If you have any spec with Emberstorm, you really shouldn't bother with Seeding. The ticks come in every second, the damage is roughly comparable, and if you (and your tanks) place it right you should be able to get most/all ticks to hit the pack. Place it like you would a Blizzard, with the pack as close to the 'back' of the circle as possible in case some break your way.

If you *don't* have Emberstorm, SoC is fine on large packs and RoF on small ones. If you want to make up for the 'lost target', you can either a) drop Haunt/CoA/Siphon as the pull starts and then move right into chain-seeds on the MT target or b) TAB-target seeds to spread the 'damage hole' around.

Fully raid-buffed that number can be over 2700, meaning you're in the range of doing over 5k dps if you play well. As I've stressed before, it's generally not an issue outside of particular fights. The point I've been making is somewhere the math isn't adding up with regards to threat generated and damage done.

Are you counting healing done?

His theoretical top is 2400 not counting trinkets/procs, unless I'm missing something that isn't ToW (which I doubt he has judging by his guild shaman, so more likely 2100ish...). If so, his threat's squirrelly at a damage level that raid-geared tanks really should be able to handle. Not enough information here, just anecdotes.

If you have some hard data that threat is not correct based on a mob test, though, I know it would be interesting reading (perhaps in its own thread?) There are various factors like FA heal threat, Haunt, so on that should probably be checked on the PTR, where FA is (supposedly) threatless...

I just did some tests: 2 locks without Fel Armor engage in a duel. Lock B body-pulls a mob, Lock A (with <100% hp) pulls it off with a curse. Lock A casts Haunt on Lock B, when the heal activates, the mob will aggro onto Lock B due to the healing aggro. Therefore, Haunt produces no additional, meaningful threat for the caster, only for the target.

I hadn't bothered to check his armory, at his gear level bad tanks are the likely answer. A good warrior will always hold threat anyway, they just may have to taunt/intervene a lot. I was subjected to a Naxx lagfest that tanked my dps tonight, so I'll have to wait for Thurs and try to get numbers off Sapphiron/KT/Sarth on Thursday.

This is good to know. I'm not sure if my dps ratio for destro was quite right, but given my numbers that should lead to a ratio around 0.94. Which is still rather annoying given our talents/abilities for mitigating threat are so paltry. No fun being #2 on the snack list if the MT goes down and gets a battle res.

Hi there, I've lurked a fair bit but I think this is technically my first post. Let's hope it isn't an incredibly dumb one.

Illustration of the Dragon Soul Is currently shown as the best in slot for affliction locks (afaik), but it is planned to be nerfed to 20 Spell Power based on the PTR. How drastically will this effect Illustration, and how will it compare to other trinkets at level 80?

The Plagueheart sets give the Four Piece Bonus that increases spirit by 300 for 10s whenever you life tap. I've read a little bit into The Value of 4t7 and it suggests that the buff is decent, but keeping it up constantly is a waste of damage time and making room for 4 pieces of tier gear can be adverse to your damage output.

Assuming you have both the trinket and the set bonus, you can easily keep (unless incapacitated) both the 100 spirit (~129SP) and the trinket (200SP) buffs up at all times. Would this be a viable and useful strategy or is t7.5 too inferior to non-tier items? As well, the GCD from life tapping every 10s would cut into a lot of DPS time.



As well, I am sitting at just under 2200 SP, 16.5% crit, just below hit cap (with a Shadow Priest in the raid) as affliction spec and I have been having problems with pulling aggro on some bosses in Naxx, Malygos, and VoA. I've respecced to drop hit talents and took threat reduction, and am going to get the threat reduction meta gem once I find a JC'er. Malygos I can just stop dps when I teleport out of the whirlwind, but the other fights I just create too much threat off the get go. Any suggestions to what I can change, preferably other than just doing less damage?

You should be doing something every gcd, so keeping the Illustration up shouldn't be a problem, and it was proven elsewhere lifetapping just to use the 4t7 buff was a net dps loss.

As far as threat, try to let your threat build up as high as possible before soulshattering, otherwise there's not much you can do other than get a better tank or ramp up your dps a little slower. If you're having problems during the opening phase where a couple early crits can spike your threat try throwing up your instant cast dots first, or just let your tank have a few seconds to build a solid aggro buffer before you go in. Naxx also has a few fights with aggro wipes, so as a dot class we're inherently screwed if the tank is slow on picking him up again.

Ok, I thought as much for the aggro situation. As for my tanks, I was forced to reroll recently, so they're much more geared compared to me at this point.

I'm going to read more into the 4T7 thread though since I can potentially get the bonus, and I will be lifetapping, although not solely to keep the buff up.

Thanks for the the input.

Salvation and Soul Shatter work, too! If you're comfortable, try to get as close to pulling as you can before shattering as well as waiting as long into the fight as possible. If I recall correctly, DL creates healing threat, which ends up being worse Threat/Damage ratio than casting fewer nukes.

For fights where you just can not keep your pet alive is it better for demonology locks to have a phase shifted imp for Master Demo and Demonic Knowledge or to sacrifice a Felguard/Succubus?

When I was running 31/40 I kept imp phased for those fights. +5%damage/crit and DK buff is better than the 10% damage from an imp sac

Is there a list of best-in-slot gear anywhere? I considered making a new thread, but didn't want to get yet another "useless post" warning.

I ask as the belt from Malygos 25 dropped and I mistakenly passed on it thinking it had less spell damage than mine. Turns out the 19 spell power gem in my belt buckle was throwing off RatingBuster and it was a big upgrade. /cry

If I had a "these are the items you want above all else" list, it'd be much easier for me to not fuck up again.

Warlock - WotLK Loot

Thanks, but that's a long list and I can (usually) tell what's an upgrade or not. I already have a similar list from just browsing through AtlasLoot looking for upgrades.

What I'm looking for is if you could have one item, any item in the game, for each slot, what would it be? i.e. the items that will provide the best DPS for a Destruction warlock based on the math. The ideal gear.

I'm trying to avoid wasting getting a loot (we try to spread the loot evenly) on item A when I'll replace it later with item B which I want to just hold out for. I'm not in major need of upgrades, so I'm trying to make loot I receive really count (i.e. no replacing it until 3.1).