The cloak enchant and IDS do not stack?

I would go for both (probably just 1 point in IDS when you are able to take points out of supp/cata)

I'm currently herbalism/alchemy

I'm starting to wonder if I should switch to Enchanting, so I can enchant my rings with more spellpower.
I see so many other warlocks have chosen that path.

I guess I would drop Herbalism? It's nice having the bonus on my flasks (double the time, 25% extra effect).

But what is the benefit of herbalism? in relation to DPS (please don't say the healing ability...)

Right now BS/LW/Inscription/Enchanting/JC are all good choices, the each offer 37-38 extra spellpower if I remember correctly. There is no benefit to herbalism or mining, and an inferior benefit to skinning because they are considered gathering professions.

I would say the top profession is JC for the dragon's eye gems, which can be placed into blue sockets to get the socket bonus as well as the same extra amount of spellpower as any other profession gives you.

I just finished a switch from herbalism to jewelcrafting. Since they nerfed [Fire Seed]'s and [Flame Cap]'s are useable by people without herbalism, there is no benefit for herbalism strictly speaking on terms of a PvE raid dps benefit.

The healing ability is useful, rarely and situationally. In my opinion, the ability is better suited to a tank or someone that takes damage constantly. It aids survivability and herbalism in general offers nothing that increases dps. Unless you consider the healing which can lead to you not dying and doing zero dps.

This may change in the future, but for now herbalism for a raiding warlock may be more useful on a gathering alt.

Alchemy on the other hand, gives you 162 spellpower from a flask and it lasts for 4 hours rather than a 125sp 2hr flask that non alchemists get. Obviously this is very valuable for maximizing your dps and aswell costs you half as much in the long run. Not to mention the fact you can make them yourself.
I just thought I would mention that. I'm sure you weren't considering dropping alchemy.

Simple Question:

Does the Sundial of the Exiled proc off of DoT ticks? I'd hope so. But I'd just like to confirm before dropping the badges for it.

It doesn't proc on ticks, in my experience--but if you don't have anything better, don't let that stop you. You're casting enough spells and refreshing enough things that the buff will come up as much as you'd think it should.

Someone didn't study their patchnotes I see:


From the 3.0.8 patchnotes.
The current ingame tooltip
The old ingame tooltip

In other words, it used to just give you 30% reduction, applied in the same way as bloodlust (ie, multiply by 1/1.30) . If your GCD without backdraft was 1.2 sec, it used to just multiply that, giving you a 0.92 sec cast on immolate, but leaving the GCD at the 1 sec hard cap.

Now, it actually reduced the GCD too, meaning your GCD can go below the usual hard cap. That is to say, a new minimum GCD of 1/1.30 = 0.77 seconds with backdraft.
Now, for backdraft you simply multiply your normal hasted GCD (still with the 1 sec "hard" cap) by ~0.77.
So, if you have excactly 50% haste = 1 sec base GCD, your backdraft GCD will be 0.77 sec. If you have over 50% haste, your base GCD will still remain 1 second (though your immolate cast time will be shorter), and your backdrafted GCD still 0.77 second (and your backdrafted immolate cast time even shorter).

Kinda hard to explain, but hope you get the gist of it.


If you've played a destro lock with a decent amount of haste (20% or so) pre-3.0.8, you would have noticed this when under bloodlust. This would give you a base cast of 1.19 seconds on Immo, giving you a backdrafted cast of 0.92 seconds, meaning for 0.08 seconds after an immolate, you are under the GCD. When chaining spells (by this i mean, if you try to cast a new spell in the last ~10% of the cast of the previous spell, it will auto-cast the new spell after the previous finishes), you would get a "this spell is not ready yet" error, kinda messing up your flow, and underutilizing your haste. And due to the new glyph of conflag, you will rarely cast immolate backdrafted, diminishing the problem with bloodlust+20% haste (a base cast that's lower than base GCD).

The consequence of this new way backdraft affects the GCD, is obviously that deep destro locks will enjoy haste a lot more. Not only has it always scaled better than crit when fully raidbuffed (ie, ~20% base+5% devastation+5% boomkin+3% wrath+10% imp scorch+8% 2-piece t7 setbonus average+7% Empowered Imp average ~= 58% crit average), but it no longer has that annoying "clipping" when using backdrafted immolate.

_Zexion

This is with Backdraft and my usual 591 haste = 18.02%

The first block is when the cast starts, and the dying curse being applied is when the actual cast finishes. Event 3 and 4 are when the spell lands and the next starts, due to network latency etc. (the 200 ms delay is also the reason immolate can't be followed immediately by Conflag it seems).

37.718-36.914 = 0.804 second cast
37.928-36.914 = 1.014 seconds from cast start to spell lands

Now, 1.5/1.1802/1.3 = 0.9777 seconds (WoW uses 4 significant digits afaik) This is somewhere between when I get the proc from actually casting the spell, and when the spell lands. Could it be a 40 ms network latency? Or does it delay debuff application by design? I believe this sample is not good enough to even make a hypothesis. Think I will pull aside a shaman to test with bloodlust, should give more conclusive evidence.
Also, I have to remind myself to test with Searing Pain, since that does not contain a debuff. Also, remind me to note the cast time listed in the tooltip.

The times in the combatlog file aren't that accurate, see this post. I suggest using GetSpellCooldown instead. API GetSpellCooldown - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft has details on its usage. Or look at more than one cast in the log.

I dont think you quite understand how the spell works. Backdraft is a 30% flat cast time reduction and not 30% haste like bloodlust so the cast time needs to be multiplied by 0.7. If backdraft were 30% haste then it wouldnt have caused clipping pre patch since haste reduces the GCD as well the cast time equally.

Pre patch backdraft with immolate
cast time = 1.5*0.7 = 1.05s
GCD = 1.5s
This caused clipping.

Post patch backdraft with a 1.5s spell
cast time = 1.5*0.7 = 1.05s
GCD = 1.5*0.7 = 1.05s
No clipping

The onus is on you to prove that GCD is not hardcapped at 1s. Keep in mind that unless you use APIs to test this, your results may be misleading due to lag and the server side buffer.

Edit: pulled for inaccuracy