PVE Spec Discussion - Page 2

Batuk · 11/23/08, 7:58 PM

I've done both naxx 10man and 25man, and for me atleast affliction is king. Going full affliction/destro (with imp shadowbolt and +hit) seems very powerfull.

Rookz · 11/23/08, 9:55 PM

Hey Guys!

Even though i'm not new to EJ, it's my first post here

Naughty's Post made me think a little bit more about a PVE-Raid-Spec. I think that 0/20/51 is a pretty strong destro-spec for PvE-Raids as long as you have a good amount of INT & WILL on your gear (min. casting-downtime due to high amount of mana and a strong life-tap). One thing I wasn't thinking about regarding this spec are the 13 points for the Imp. If it's true that your Imp's lifetime is pretty short in several bossfights while raiding Naxx i.e. why not going back to TBC-Roots? Maybe you guys already imagine what I'm aiming for ... I'm thinking about the sacrifice option again.

What do you think about a 0/21/50 spec?

It's an almost unbuffed Imp-Spec. The big pain in the bud are 5 points into 'unholy power'. According to the calculator you have to have 5 points there to get 'demonic sacrifice'. Would be way better if we could get 2 points into 'master summoner' and maybe 2 points into 'improved imp' but ... yeah, whatever.

So, as for the next step, I would like to introduce a possible rotation for this spec. First of all, with such a spec you are the No. 1 WL for CoE. I mean, not necessarily but it fit's pretty well into the following rotation. Ok, let's say we sacrificed the Imp and casting CoE right at the beginning of the fight. Next step would be to cast Immolate directly followed by Corruption (casting corruption only for MC to procc). I propose exactly this casting sequence because the other way around (Corruption in front of Immolate) we would have to care about the gcd from Corruption which slow's our overall casting time and therefore the whole rotation. Furthermore "tick-times" of Immo and Corr are pretty close together so that we can easily cast Immo & Corr again right after Conflag. Done with the dots we start casting Incinerate until there are like 3 sec. left on Immolate. Now it's time for Conflag to start all over again with Immo/Corr.

So, basically the rotation looks like this: [CoE] / Immolate / Corruption / Incinerate (x 3,4,5 ...) / Conflagrate

Well ... pls discuss. I'm not able to try this spec in a raid environment at the moment but maybe someone else want's to give it a try. Just keep in mind that DPS and overall damage will be way different between a dummy and a raid situation where you're moving, interrupting casts and whatever else.

Looking forward to feedback

Rookz

Blaktose · 11/24/08, 1:47 AM

Yah, I agree I want to see how 0/20/51 does. I came up with that spec then noticed that it wasn't really talked about much in this forum. If someone could test it out that would be great.

Sorry I saw the 0/21/50 and thought it was 0/20/51....I want to see that spec with empowered Imp, if anyone could get a parse on that or a test

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...h=000000000000

Maalakai · 11/24/08, 1:48 AM

Here's a parse of me as Affliction on Patchwerk during our 2nd 25-man Naxx run for those that want to see the numbers:

Patchwerk

I didn't have some of the gear I have now, as I've gained several major upgrades since then. I also didn't use Drain Soul sub-25% like I should have (still need to get into the habit of doing it). I fully expect to easily break 5k or more next go around. If not, I'll just blame RNG like I usually do. :P

By the way, I'm not sure how much it impacts our dps for those of us with the t7 2-piece bonus, but it appears to be bugged and procs off of everything (all dot ticks, all nukes, all drain ticks, etc). I reported this on Beta but it was never fixed.

The rest of our parses can be found here:

Raid History

The latest entry is our Sartharion 25-man kill with all 3 Drakes still alive. It doesn't parse right due to people going in and out of the portals.

Alithia · 11/24/08, 3:30 AM

Hi guys,

long-time reader but first-time poster and no native speaker, so please forgive me.

We had our first Patchwerk-10 kill yesterday and I was topping the meters with 2400 which pales in comparison to the numbers that you guys are pulling off. Now I am a little sceptical towards my spec and rotation, so maybe you could help me out?

My char is called Alîthia on Khaz'Goroth EU, guild is Primo victoria.

My gear consists of 4pT6 (3 Sunwell + shoulders), Illidan cowl, sunfire robe and gloves, Faerlina sword and offhand, new heroic badges neck, heroic Halls of lightning pants, Skull and ZA trinket. I have 2.2K spellpower raidbuffed, gemmed for hit and am 3% under the cap.

My spec is 0/41/30 Felguard/Emberstorm, which I like a lot and would love to keep, but of course I would spec into the most DPS spec. There is one question concerning the spec: I have put 2 points in Fel synergy and only 3/5 in Demonic tactics. Mistake?

My rotation was: [CoD - Corr (glyphed) - Immo - Inc - SB procs] which leads me to my next question: Without the 2p-T7-Bonus (I am saving heroic badges just in case) should I use CoA (seems that nobody can create the glyph on my server), Corr or both? I really don't know.

Our setup was:
- Me, 0/41/30 warlock
- Frostfire Mage (T6)
- Moonkin

- Prot warrior
- Prot paladin

- Fury warrior
- Combat rogue (who used tricks of the trade on me)

- Holy priest
- Restoration druid
- Holy paladin

The druid has only specced 1/3 Fairy fire, so I had no replenishment, no bloodlust, no misery, no totems. I used a runic mana pot.

To summarize all this: Can our group composition, my gear and my rotation be blamed for the relatively low dps or do I simply suck?

Thanks to anybody who would be so kind and help me out,

Alithia
<Primo victoria>

Drakh · 11/24/08, 3:37 AM

Whats about :

9/3/59
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...h=131202020605

Very High MC Uptime, but no Aegis. At Patchwerk 10 I got the highest DPS (200 DPS more than 2nd).
I don't know the math, so could it be that Aegis is still much more better than skilled CoA / Corr ?
What is the best rotation do you think ?
Mine is : CoA-Corr-CB - Immo- Confl- Immo
then Inc and refresh debuffs, Conflag after 12secs Immo (only cap the last tick), and keep CB on CD.

kaib · 11/24/08, 3:47 AM

Originally Posted by Zacara

0/31/40
Spells used were: CoA, Corr, Immolate, Incinerate
The highest nuke spec that I could find, probably because of the simplicity in the rotation leading to no GCD clipping, I don't know why I got higher numbers with this than with the deep destruction spec. I blame my own inability to play destruction to the fullest when I did these tests even if I thought I got the rotation right. Maybe the lag caused problems or I just sucked. Anyway, I got to roughly 2300-2400 DPS on the dummies using this. It had alot bigger mana issues than the other specs I tried but that should be better with replenishment and JoW.

That has nothing to do with your inability to play. It's blizzards inability to make worthwhile high destro talents. The gains from empowered imp, backdraft and chaos bolt are just lower then what going 30 or 40 into demonolgy offers you. The main problem I had with 30 demon/41 destro, which was the spec I played most on beta and used for the first live raids, is that my stupid imp goes oom, even with JoW on.
I am quite happy with felguard and 41 demon/30 destro atm. Only issue are fights where you cannot keep it alive, but still, just having a phase shifted imp is not too bad as it provides you with 5% fire and 15% crit. But losing the 600-1000 pet dps obviously sucks.
Welcome to playing a pet based class, I guess.

Kabale · 11/24/08, 4:40 AM

Here's the parse for Felguard/Emberstorm: Wow Web Stats

As with Maalakai, several upgrades since but I did have 2pT7 at the time. The total number of proccs was 40 and in total I cast 50 Incinerates. The strange thing is, the critrate for Incinerate is the same as my Immolate which would not have benefitted from the set bonus. Is it not only proccing off anything, but also affecting everything and only being consumed with Incinerate/Shadowbolt?

It's good to see Affliction doing well, however I'm suffering massive FPS issues at the moment and I doubt I'll have more success than with Felguard until I figure out how to make WoW run smoothly in 25mans.

mocnor · 11/24/08, 4:51 AM

I am a tailor and am wondering if I should go with Ebonweave or spellweave gear in the long run pre Nax. Anyone know? Right now I am speced 0/30/41 and just wasnt sure if I should go ebon for the hit or go spell for more dps?

Anthraxx · 11/24/08, 5:00 AM

Originally Posted by Kabale

Here's the parse for Felguard/Emberstorm: Wow Web Stats

As with Maalakai, several upgrades since but I did have 2pT7 at the time. The total number of proccs was 40 and in total I cast 50 Incinerates. The strange thing is, the critrate for Incinerate is the same as my Immolate which would not have benefitted from the set bonus. Is it not only proccing off anything, but also affecting everything and only being consumed with Incinerate/Shadowbolt?

Why don't you use demonic empowerment? Seems like a must-have talent to me...

Batuk · 11/24/08, 5:46 AM

Can anyone post some numbers with the latest number of the spreadsheet? I know it's not 100% updated, but I'd love to see the value of a crit/hit/haste/spelldmg it produces, and I dont have windows or office, and openoffice cant read it unfortunatly.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft This is the spec I got atm, I'm hit capped, with 334 crit rating and 1967 spelldmg buffed.

All corruption/unstable affliction/shadow bolt and haunt are affected by crit. Which is 50% of my dmg, which leads me to believe crit is far more worth as affliction than I previously though it'd be.

Lorelai · 11/24/08, 6:28 AM

I spent an hour or so yesterday testing some different specs as well, and I can just pretty much confirm Zacaras post above.

These were just 4 minute nuke tests on the "Heroic" lvl 80 dummies in IF with no other buffs then my own, so I guess it's slightly skewed from a proper raid scenario where specs like the Felguard might scale better with full raid buffs, but still. Current gear is T6/SWP left overs and some blues/heroic/badge/Naxx10 like alot of people have atm.

Specs tried was 56/0/15, 0/41/30 Felguard and 7/13/51 Aegis and deep Affliction just leaves the other specs way behind. Affliction averaged at 2300 or so, with the Fire Destro just reaching the 2k mark at one of the attempt. Felguard/Emberstorm was even further behind at around 1800. While I haven't raided that much as Destro and might have been abit rusty on the rotations I dont feel I did _that_ bad.

And remember that this is vs the Affliction-unfriendly mechanical dummies where Pandemic ticks for 1 and you dont gain any life back from Siphon Life.

I have done some Nax10 raids and I seem to do really well with it, dont have any problems maintaining the dots unless there is some major movement involved. To me it seems like you currently get rewarded for being able to keep everything up, which I like. It does seem to be abit of "skill" involved as well, since I have played with a few other Affliction locks in raid that seem to use about the same spells but do less damage, even though it's roughly the same gear. My best guess this is from clipping dots and leaving them off for too long?

One thing that is still up for debate for me is Immo or no Immo. It's the lowest on my priority list and the first thing I drop if I have to, and I dont keep it up during execute range. My theory is that with 5/5 ISB I should gain more from trying to get one more SB in instead of an Immolate in most scenarios. Or maybe cast SB if Shadow Mastery (ISB) is active, else Immo? I guess there is some point in crit% where SB will be higher avg DPCT than Immo with ISB, I'll see what I'll find. Have to dig through the two mega-threads.

Namnalia · 11/24/08, 6:45 AM

I'm in BT and Sunwell gear still, so I guess that should be the usual stats a naxx starter gear has. According to the spreadsheets, Immolate has 4.3k dpsc while sb has only 2.3k if hardcast and 3.8k with a nf proc. Therefore, I guess immolate is a "must cast" for an affliction warlock, although it's your weakest dot, it's still a lot better than your filler.
I dont think you can overcome this easily as the difference is so huge. Maybe with the next tier, but t7 wont suffice: Even if I increase spelldamage to 2.5k, hit max, crit 40% and 20% haste, immolate is still superior. It scales a bit worse, but the break even point is far away.

Kabale · 11/24/08, 6:47 AM

With the 2pT7 proc you'll probably want to cast Immolate.

Anthraxx, the lack of Demonic Empowerment was from testing with Demonic Sacrifice to see whether or not sacced Felguard and summoned Doomguard would do any decent DPS. It turned out to be worse than simply having the Felguard out, and I've completely neglected to respec. Thanks for the reminder

Cigaras · 11/24/08, 8:02 AM

What about Shadow Mastery? It doesn't affect Immolate.

And if Immolate is better than Shadowbolt shouldn't we then drop ISB and take Molten Core instead?