Well, i have not read anything in this thread, but i just was wondering, why all the deep damo build and the base build base on shadowbolt and not on firedamange (immolate, incinerate).
I'm thinking on trying out this spec:
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Warlock -> Talent Calculator

I tried an deep damo build like linked in the first post, but i wasn't impressed, my feeling is, that it's bader then my last 0/41/30

You linked a 0/41/15 spec.

Great way to enter a discussion ;-) If you would have read the thread, you would have noticed that Incinerate without Emberstorm is lower dps than shadow bolt. As you can't have deep demo with Emberstorm, there's your reason.

In 0/55/16 i have only one dilemma: Molten Core 1/3 or Cataclysm 1/3.
Spreadsheet shows that Molten Core have 50% uptime, two WWS reports shows that real uptime is max. 25%.
And where is the true?

About stones: after approximatelly 350 haste on gear, firestone becomes better than spellstone. And if your ping as bad as mine, firestone are better in any case.

Metamorph only buffs shadow dmg, so you have to use SB.

Depends what Dots your using, CoA only and u lower the uptime to 50/60%, CoA+Corr = 80% CoD+Corr = ~50% etc.

Stones question is personal preference, both add around the same dps wise, i get around 600 shaste mark with spellstone not really ran a comparison between the both, cant expect it would be that much.

Bessa meta increases all dmg by 20% not just shadow.

Meriana you use SB as deep demo because incinerate scales worse then SB unless you have emberstorm which you wont have as deep demo.

Thanks for the correction, i tried the spec this week in naxx and didnt like the dps i was seeing from it, maybe was just my playstyle or lack of time with the spec but i see alot bigger numbers on all bosses with 41/30 rather than huge numbers on a few bosses with Meta.

I had some problems with Demonic Pact last time I tried meta/ruin build on Patchwerk. The wws showed a total uptime of 46 seconds for Demonic Pact and that it was applied and fell off 4 times. At the same time it shows that my FG crit 26 times. Could it be stasiscl that doesn't see the buff properly, or some other buff interfering, or maybe because my FG went into the slime at one point? Would be great if someone else could fill in.

edit: post was old

Lebuff, If you just look at the buffs gained you can be mistaken because this chart do not show the refreshment of a buff that is already active.

In order to calculate such an uptime, you should analyse your combat log and search fo the application and fade of the said buff.


(Forgive my english...)

At this point in the game that really depends on rather or not you're running with an Elemental Shaman because current gear levels aren't really out scaling totem of wrath once you factor in the spell power you get from spirit not being applied.

You could push it if you gemmed red in every socket and used a spellpower meta but even then you're talking maybe a 20-40 spell power gain for the raid (when it's up). This is of course assuming you have the gear set up to break 3k to begin with (I can do it in mine but 200 of it comes from Illustration of the Dragon Soul), flask and food buff every boss fight, and have two professions that give you extra spell power. That's a lot of ifs.

Now if you're not running with an Elemental Shaman then speccing into Demonic Pact is a lot more viable at more realistic gear values. Even at 2k spell power you're looking at a substantial increase to raid dps.

To the personal glory comment.. I'm going to have to disagree as well. Affliction is still king if you want to top meters but the play style isn't for everyone. If there's a second best dps spec in the game right now it's probably felguard/emberstorm. Simulation Craft shows it just under destruction but it's grossly underestimating how much damage the felguard is putting out. I can't say it's destruction numbers aren't off but I'm guessing they're not off by 200+ dps.

What makes you say this? Do you have a recent version of Simulationcraft?

Tested out Meta/Ruin on dummies. So far Meta/Ruin has spiked at 3.2k, surpassing the 3k that Felguard/Emberstorm put out for me (although FG/ES remains at 3k relatively constantly, while Meta/Ruin sometimes drops to 2.8-2.9k when my trinkets are down and have no procs at all). I hit 3.2k when my trinkets (Dying Curse and Embrace) proc'd aliong with demonic empathy and demonic pact, and I did not use Meta for any of the trials I tested as Meta/Ruin. Only Fel Armor and firestone.

Is Felguard/Emberstorm the definite second best spec? I personally believe that it puts out great DPS for its simplicity (rotation wise and attention wise), but I'm more and more impressed by Meta/Ruin every moment I'm spec'd it. Entering the new raid week later today, so I'm hoping to test out how this does on Patch.

Farkuw, you were right about the power of this spec, I hit 4.3k DPS during a BL/Meta pop with myself being the only ranged person in the 10 man group on Patchwerk. I floated at around 3k most of the night, but got a chance to spike about a good 1k from BL/Meta. Not to mention that immolation aura itself with just Fel Armor is roughly 850 DPS for me on dummies. I'm hitting 3k fairly easily without popping Meta. The only thing I'm a bit curious about is why my shadowbolts seem to only crit for about 9k average, when your in-raid SB hit for 14k max. Any particular debuff that would do that besides ISB? I don't recall if I was checking my SB damage during Meta or not, though.

Come to think of it, the max my Incin ever hit on boss fights that didn't amplify player damage is probably around 12k, close to 13k. Anyone seeing much higher crits on shadowbolt? If so, it must be a fearsome thing to have it Meta'd and bloodlusted.

This was confirmed to be a bug (Source) which when fixed will make it a bit easier to get competitive Spell Power from DP but with the current gear the benefit will be marginal and the uptime still less than 100%.

I'm afraid the following statement will remain true even after the bug is fixed:
If an Ele. shaman is readily available, skipping this 5pt talent is probably best. In the end, you're not help the "The Raid" by bringing a redundant buff at the cost of personal performance.

Ive gotten better gear and gave a go to meta once again, and i dont know what im doing wrong but it is still bellow fg/ember by a good chunk, while in meta it sure goes crazy but those 3 minutes cooldown fg/ember catches up.
I know this is higly dependent on raid setup, timing etc..

I tried different combinations with coa cod and coe spellstone and firestone on heroic boss DUMMY.

Self Buffed
FG/ember averages 1.6-2.6k- Total average 2k.
Meta/ruin averages of 1.4k-2k with luck in procs up to 2.4k without using meta. Total average around 1.8k.
With meta on 1.8k-2.9k Total average 2.3k.


On patchwerk I got 2.5k with fg/ember and meta/ruin 2.4k.

So I still dont get it, much harder to play and the performance stays at best the same =|

I got 2130 sp 355 hit 21%crit 240 haste without stone but with fel armor.

Is the gear not good enough and will get better once i get top gear?

Also how well does the affliction thread gear work on fg/ember Meta or destro builds? Ive been basing my gear choices on it largely.

FG/ES is fairly constant DPS. Meta/Ruin is heavy dependent on overall raid gear and your own gear to increase proc uptimes and make best use of the % increases during Meta and BL.

Thanks for your input.
So how well does the affliction thread gear work on fg/ember or Meta builds? Ive been basing my gear choices on it largely.

Here are the scale factors that I got when I ran that 100k iteration previously in the thread. Should help with gear levels.. I would still stack spell power and haste before anything else with this build. You need to hit cap through gear a little more than some other builds because the lack of +hit talents.

intellect=0.32
spirit=0.50
spell_power=1.05
hit_rating=1.70
crit_rating=0.49
haste_rating=0.71

According to the latest version of Lluelier's spreadsheet which he made a LOT of improvements on for demo spec (updated felguard dps a LOT) its saying Haste pot is 4 dps more than Wild Magic which is 4 dps more than Runic Mana for me. So I tend to use Haste Unless we're bloodlusted and my Embrace of the Spider procs then I'd use Wild Magic.

I've actually seen the spreadsheet give me better scaling off crit for affliction then for deep demo builds, I'm guessing this is in part to already having so much crit from DT and in part to pandemic. The difference wasn't a lot and crit still weighed in as one of the weakest stats for both specs.

As far as my simulation craft comments. The code when you google it says it's been updated for 3.08 and going by the baseline simulations it shows the felguard's damage per execute times run 800-900 which appear really low to me when you look at current parses. I'm guessing it's not factoring in melee damage raid buffs.

To my felguard/emberstorm comments. We're looking at 5% more crit, 15% more damage, and .25 second casting speed reduction on our second best nuke plus another 8% or so from molten core. In comparison to Meta (assuming you have an elemental shaman) you're trading all of the above basically for one talent because the top of the demonology tree provides very little gains in dps aside from it (Demonic Empathy, Improved Demonic Tactics both coming in at less then 1% damage increase per talent point.) In comparison to deep destro we're basically trading 10% crit, 5% damage, and a pet that does 200-600 more then the imp (assuming a deep destro build), for chaos bolt and backdraft.

I will say that what full Meta builds lack in damage compared to FG/ES it makes up for in utility. Fel Synergy means you spend less time watching your pets health bar and need fewer emergency health funnels to keep him up. Immolation Aura is great for AoE and being in Meta form effectively makes you defense capped (so you can take some serious hits while aoeing and not worry about getting killed by a lucky crit). And Demonic Pact is great... if you don't have an elemental shaman in the raid.

To be honest, i haven't been able to replicate a 14k crit since that WWS as meta/ruin.

I think that 14k crit was a matter of everything lining up during meta/bl. I think at that time i was running the 4pc bonus, And just before popping meta i always make sure to lifetap to near full so would have had the ~120 SP from the 4pc at that time as well as dying curse proccing while ISB was up.

However i often see 13 - 13.8k crits on most bosses during meta. And around 11k crits without meta.

So i downloaded the lastest Leulier spread sheet since it now gives the FG the proper dps and its telling me 0/55/15 is 200 dps higher then 0/41/30. I dont think thats right.

Good news, the Demonic Pact/Fel Armor bug has been acknowledged. Hopefully we'll see it fixed before the next major patch.

It was in the 3.08 patch notes as being fixed already but never made it onto the test realms or into live.

My guess would be it won't be fixed until 3.1 when the talent itself hopefully gets adjusted (there's been a few comments recently about five point talents that are proc based and have no selfless buffer attribute to them being looked at and I'm guessing that's a reference to DP among other talents). Also 3.1 is when they're planning to make larger changes to our class.

In other words I wouldn't hold my breath for a bug fix before then. The bug has been around since the talent went live in 3.0 and I imagine blizzard has known about it all this time.