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LinkBack (1336) | Thread Tools |
12/02/08, 10:47 AM
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 #1
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Von Kaiser
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Dots and you: The Affliction Warlock Thread
Abstract:
This thread will be dedicated to affliction warlock theory. This post which I will update frequently contains - stat comparison - raid talent specs - gear/gem/glyph/enchant choices - playing style tips for a level 80 raiding affliction warlock. I'm constantly (desperately?) trying to improve this thread while keeping it readable. If you find errors or want to contribute parts, post them or send me a private message!
[top]General informationAn affliction warlock's damage is based on several spells with very high damage per cast time which can't be "spammed" because they are dots. He will use the formerly "normal" warlock damage spell shadow bolt only as a so-called "filler" in between those spells and has a very high amount of self healing as part of his normal spell repertoire. He's lacking burst abilities. [top]Key StatsYour interest is damage, and lots of it. While surviving is important in raids, it is usually based on what you do rather than what your equip is like as long as you are not the tank. The stats that influence your damage output are: Hit Rating Spell Power Haste Rating Spirit (via fel armor & Glyph of Life Tap & Life Tap itself) Crit Rating Intellect (via crit rating) I ignore MP5 as it has nearly no effect on warlocks. For a Naxxramas starter gear / Ulduar Starter Gear , the stat-to-dps ratios of these are: 10 hit rating = 11.11 dps -> 16.32 dps 10 spell power = 13.05 dps -> 14.05 dps 10 haste rating = 6.44 dps -> 8.98 dps 10 crit rating = 4.96 dps -> 6.95 dps 10 spirit = 6.66 dps -> 7.17 dps 10 int = 1.50 dps -> 2.11 dps (Source: Math part, second post of this thread) The most important stat is hit rating as long as you do not reach the hit cap. Afterwards, spell power is by far the strongest stat. Haste and crit rating come next. Due to Fel Armor, Glyph of Lifetap and finally the way Lifetap itself scales, Spirit has become a very strong stat as well, even beating crit rating on a point by point base. Intellect is still inferior to all other dps stats as it's only benefit is a slight increase of your crit rating. A short note on hit rating: A miss will not only cost you considerable damage, it will also screw up your "rotation". Reaching the hit cap is highly recommended (as it has been recommended at level 60 and 70 as well). As you see above, it is the best dps stat anyway. [top]Common specsVisit the PvE Spec discussion for a more detailed discussion. 53/0/15 +3: The base spec covering everything really important looks like this. The two points in Suppression could have been in Improved Drain Soul or Improved Life Tap as well, depending on gear and personal preference. There are several ideas how to spend the remaining 3 points as well, Demonic Power or Fel Synergy for your pet, 10% more range, less aggro, Suppression/Improved Drain Soul/Improved Life Tap, whatever you like. It will not affect dps by a large amount. [top]Key talentsThe most important talents of affliction specs are covered here. [top]AfflictionImproved Curse of Agony: As long as you don't have to place another Curse, this one is a good one. Soul Siphon: Drain Soul is the new finisher, and this is the only talent directly improving it, and it improves it a lot. Improved Corruption 5/5 / Empowered Corruption 3/3: Both give a huge boost to your 100%-Uptime-Dot. Shadow Embrace 5/5: As ~50% of your damage comes from dots, this one is definitely worth it. Eradication: The talent gives an average 1.3% haste per talent point, see math part. Contagion 5/5: Increases Damage from Corruption and CoA and is needed for UA anyway. Unstable Affliction: Another Dot. Pandemic 1/1: Makes Corr/UA scale with crit. Everlasting Affliction 5/5: Full points -> never cast Corruption again as long as you cast haunt often enough. The Spell damage coefficient part is misleading.This talent adds a total 25% spell power coefficient to UA and 30% to Corruption (equals 5% per tick). This is a very huge amount and makes this talent the center of your dot damage. Malediction 3/3: +3% damage as well as a boost to your crit dots? Sure. Shadow Mastery: As all of your damage is shadow damage, this is a 15% damage boost. Note that CoD does not profit from SM although it is shadow damage. [top]DestructionBane 5/5: Makes your filler spell significantly faster. Improved Shadow Bolt: Finally (3.1) an easy to understand damage buff, combined with some raid utility if your mages went on vacation (or arcane). Ruin 5/5: Makes Shadow Bolt hit significantly harder. [top]Nice to haveImproved Life Tap: With Glyph of Life Tap you will use Life Tap roughly every 20s, resulting in a healthy mana pool all the time. With good gear, the talent becomes obsolete then. Grim Reach / Destructive Reach: Range does not give DPS. While not being totally useless, range simply has no priority for us. Suppression: If you need more hit rating, this is where you get it. However, under normal circumstances you are hitcapped or nearly hitcapped already when buffed up, so use this only if you can't solve the hit problem another way. Nightfall: I personally like it and it does surely improve your DPS, but not as much as you would think (see math part). Death's Embrace: +12% damage for roughly one third of the fight, so about 4% overall damage for three talent points. Not a sure take, but still good. Dark Pact / Improved Life tap: At current state, Life Tap, even without the talent above, will give more mana per use and is therefore preferable as long as your health is not critical. Nevertheless, some people like the option of dark pact in critical situations. When you use Glyph of Life Tap and want to keep the buff up all the time, the talent becomes useless. Amplify Curse: If you use Curse of Elements, this one's not that good. Using CoA, however, it's definitely worth it. The Curse no longer benefits from haste, so this talent has diminishing returns: It will save you less time the better your equip becomes. At the current state, it is still worth its point, even with high-end equip. Improved Drain Soul: 10% aggro reduce from affliction results in roughly 5-6% aggro reduce total. While this is not exciting and aggro is not an issue in many fights anymore, it might save you from death (or even damage stops!) in some fights. Improved Fel hunter: More Spirit doesn't hurt the raid. More pet mana neither. Still, your raid and pet are fine without this. The "real" sprit buff will overwrite it anyway, and as long as Dark Pact is as useless as it is now, your pet does not need even more mana. Furthermore, good old fel hunter ranks behind succubus and doom guard in dps now. Frailty: Makes your CoW the best AP debuff in the game, but you want to use CoA, don't you? Demonic Power: Improves your Succubus' damage slightly. [top]PetsDPS: Infernal > Doomguard > Succubus> Fel Hunter > Imp The normal DPS pet is the Succubus. She deals slightly more damage than the Fel Hunter, but has less survivability. Her DPS can be improved by the Destruction Talent Demonic Power. The Fel Hunter deals considerable damage. Furthermore it adds a spirit and intellect buff to the raid group if your priest/mage is missing. It has very high magic resistances supporting its survivability. The Imp's damage cannot compete with the other two and it is quite squishy. The Doomguard and Infernal are not jokes anymore but a heavy dps increase: The Doomguard can be summoned without anyone dying now, simply despawns instead of running around killing people, and does impressive dps. However, it takes 15s and 5 people to summon him and you can summon him only every 30 minutes. He despawns after 15 minutes. When the cooldown is ready, this pet should be your first choice. The Infernal does even more damage. The summon itself stuns enemies, so you could even help out critical aoe situations with this. It disappears after 60s, so the best point to summon it is 60s before a fight ends (to minimize the time without pet). It also does not need to be enslaved anymore and will not run around killing your raid members whatever happens. It also has a high cooldown (30 minutes). See the Pet Usage Thread in this forum for more information on warlock pets. [top]SpellsIn a normal tank and spank scenario, these spells will be used:
[top]Gems, Gear, Glyphs and Enchants[top]How does it work?Take [Agonal Sash] as an example. Ignoring armor and stamina (no dps increase), it has the following stats:
These results base on some given stats (Naxx starter gear/Ulduar starter gear) and the given damage model. This is just a rough guideline, nothing more. It is based on the stats and the model derived in the next post. It will almost certainly NOT match your stats, your talents and your raid situation. It contains wrong assumptions making the computation easier. It probably contains errors as well. If you want better data, fill out a spreadsheet. This thread does not nearly match the accuracy of a good spreadsheet, and never will. [top]GemsI did only include rare quality gems. First of all, if you socket low quality gems into epic gear, you should die in fire. Second, if the rare hit gem is better than the rare spell power gem, the same is true for the lower quality ones. I did not include gems that make no sense for warlocks, like hit+mp5 when hit+spirit of the same color is available, or green gems except for spirit/hit and so on. Meta: [Bracing Earthsiege Diamond] 32.63 / 35.13 dps + less threat [Ember Skyflare Diamond] 32.63 / 35.13 dps +2% Intellect [Tireless Skyflare Diamond] 32.63 / 35.13 dps + Run Speed [Trenchant Earthsiege Diamond] 32.63 / 35.13 dps + Stun Resist [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] 10.42 / 14.60 dps + 3% higher crits [Beaming Earthsiege Diamond] 10.42 / 14.60 dps + 2% mana [Destructive Skyflare Diamond] 10.42 / 14.60 dps + 1% spell reflect [Enigmatic Skyflare Diamond] 10.42 / 14.60 dps + Snare/Root reduce Note: The [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond]'s special effect increases the damage coefficients for critical hits from 150%/200% to 154.5%/209%. This also affects DoT crits, increasing our DPS by 50.37 / 79.98. So, the effect itself completely outdamages every other Meta Gem, making CSD a clear choice. As a side note, the +2% Intellect of the Ember Skyflare Diamond are in fact a dps increase, but a small one: E.g. with 1000 Intellect buffed, it would only give ~4.2 dps. There is some discussion about using the run speed Meta because Death Knights do not give the raidwide runspeed increase anymore, but the feet enchant seems a more reasonable choice if you decide you need the extra speed: The whole Icewalker Enchant is worth 29.2 dps, less than half of the Meta Gem effect. Red: [Runed Scarlet Ruby] 24.80 / 26.67 dps Blue: [Sparkling Sky Sapphire] 10.66 / 11.47 dps Yellow: [Rigid Autumn's Glow] 17.78 / 26.11 dps [Quick Autumn's Glow] 10.30 / 14.37 dps [Smooth Autumn's Glow] 7.94 / 11.12 dps Purple: [Purified Twilight Opal] 17.07 / 18.79 dps Green: [Shining Forest Emerald] 11.75 / 16.30 dps Orange: [Veiled Monarch Topaz] 20.63 / 25.70 dps [Reckless Monarch Topaz] 16.90 / 19.83 dps [top]Gems summaryAs a meta gem, use the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. Period. For a red slot, use [Runed Scarlet Ruby]. For a blue slot, use a [Purified Twilight Opal]. If you are not hit capped: For a yellow slot, use [Veiled Monarch Topaz]. If you are hit capped: For a yellow slot, use a [Reckless Monarch Topaz]. If you do not care about a socket bonus, always use [Runed Scarlet Ruby]. [top]GearI will give some Lootrank links here as well as a list of the most interesting items. Link for Naxxramas Starter Gear: Loot Rank Same ignoring hit: Loot Rank Link for Ulduar Starter Gear: Loot Rank Same ignoring hit:Loot Rank Empty sockets are expected to be filled with the best gem available, even socketing the wrong color if the result gives more dps. Set boni are not included. There is a dps estimation about the set boni in the math part. As hit rating is capped, always consider the best non-hit items as well. Use the above links to track them down. The following lists contain roughly the same information as the above links. I will no longer give the dps values, you can get them in the above links, there's no need to copy&paste them. [top]HeadEnchants: [Arcanum of Burning Mysteries] (best)
[top]Neck
[top]ShouldersEnchants: Master's Inscription of the Storm (best for Inscribers) [Greater Inscription of the Storm ] (best for others) [Inscription of Dominance] [Lesser Inscription of the Storm ]
[top]CloaksEnchants: Lightweave Embroidery ~40 dps Greater Speed 21 dps Speed 13 dps Wisdom 7 dps + effect
[top]ChestEnchants: Major Spirit 11 dps Powerful Stats 9 dps Super Stats 7 dps
[top]WristEnchants: Superior Spell power (best) Greater Spell power Major Spirit Greater Stats Exceptional Intellect Note: Interestingly, the Unsullied Cuffs are still the best (known) hitless bracers.
[top]HandsEnchants: Exceptional Spell power 39 dps Precision 33 dps Greater Blasting 11 dps
[top]WaistEnchants: [Eternal Belt Buckle] Note: Both of the new Ulduar craftables are best in slot (hit, nonhit).
[top]LegsEnchants: [Brilliant Spellthread] (best) [Sapphire Spellthread] [Shining Spellthread] [Azure Spellthread]
[top]FeetEnchants: Icewalker 25 dps Greater Spirit 13 dps Tuskarr's Vitality 0* dps *Being faster does not improve dps directly, but is, in my opinion, the best choice (very rough estimation: 30 dps).
[top]RingsEnchant: Greater Spellpower
[top]TrinketsThe main trinket thread in this forum is a good source of information. I have not been able to compute the dps of the new trinkets for myself yet, this is just the copy from lootrank. However, the list seems reasonable: The hit trinkets dominate, the spell power trinkets come right after. Note that [Flare of the Heavens] had its stats changed, it is now a better version of the Sundial, not a better version of the Extract.
[top]WeaponsEnchants: Greater Spellpower 114 dps Superior Spellpower 88 dps Exceptional Spellpower 70 dps Accuracy 58 dps Exceptional Spirit 32 dps Black Magic ~23 dps The choice between 1H+OH and 2H has become more difficult. The new enchant and many good staves from Ulduar close the former gap.Tthe [Staff of Endless Winter] makes the first place among the non-hit staves while [Intensity] is the number one hit staff. [Starshard Edge] + [Ironmender] make the best weapon-offhand combination overall. [top]2h-Weapons
[top]1h-Weapons
[top]Offhands
[top]Wands
[top]GlyphsThe computation is based on the model used in the second post. Some comments on the glyphs are found there, too. More on the individual glyph is found there or in the Glyph Discussion Thread. The clear choices here are Life Tap, Haunt and CoA. Glyph of Life Tap 79.36 -> 144.53 dps Glyph of Haunt 41.81 -> 56.42 dps Glyph of Curse of Agony 30.51 -> 37.04 dps Glyph of Corruption 12.49 dps -> 19.47 dps Glyph of Shadow Bolt 10.94 dps -> 14.14 dps Glyph of Unstable Affliction 0 dps -> 0 dps [top]Glyph of Life TapThe Glyph of Life Tap is considered to be the best affliction warlock glyph available (and the best glyph for most other specs as well). In this thread's simulation, you would life tap at least three times a minute anyway, so the glyph means a flat spell power increase (roughly 100 spell power in high end T7 gear). The interesting question is: Should I life tap even if I don't need the mana? The answer is no. When comparing the dps value of three GCDs (needed to maintain the buff for one minute) to the dps value of 100 spell power for one minute, the GCDs win by a small margin (about 34 dps). So tapping just for the buff is in fact a dps loss. This result does not change even if you have 4pT7 equipped, and simulationcraft comes to the same conclusion. So there is no reason to life tap for the buff, you should still life tap for the mana, with two side notes: You have the option of tapping for the buff right before the fight starts (Rank 1 recommended) or when you are moving and have no other instants available, and you should try not to tap twice in a row as this will "clip" a possible bufftime. [top]What is the optimal T7 equip for me?It's not enough to take all the "best in slot" items and be done because of the hit cap and the set boni from T7. So first decide whether or not those set boni are worth it to you. From my calculation, the 2p bonus is worth ~35 dps and the 4p bonus ~100 dps. Probably, the 4p is weaker in reality as you lifetap less than I computed and do not always benefit from its buff. So I just estimate the 4p as ~65 dps, meaning every T7 piece is actually 25 dps higher except for the fifth - If this does NOT lead to 4 T7 pieces, change the bonus to 18 dps per piece for the first two of them. If that does not lead to two pieces equipped, ignore the set boni and just take "best in slot" everywhere. The above made me equip all the best in slot pieces plus T7 head, shoulders, chest and hands. Now you're over the hit cap. To solve this, search for a piece giving less hit while losing as few dps as possible. Replace it. Repeat this until you reach your preferred hit rating. See this post for some similar results with a different approach. Example: My first replacement was [Cincture of Polarity]->[Leash of Heedless Magic]. 43 hit rating less, 21 dps less. Second was [Signet of the Malevolent] -> [Band of Channeled Magic]. 49 less hit, 31 less dps. Third was [Boots of Impetuous Ideals] -> [Arcanic Tramplers]. 37 hit less, 28 less dps. All of these replacements are quite logical as they replace a hit item with a non-hit item of a higher item level. This brought me down to 334 hit rating (12.78%). As I am Alliance and was aiming for 13%, this should be my dream gear. Of course, if you think different about the T7 boni, are horde, for some reason want to spec the hit talents or just can't get an elemental shaman or balance druid for your raid, your perfect equip will look different, but the way to find it is the same. [top]What is the optimal T8 equip for me?First of all, not all loot is known yet, so this question cannot be answered once and for all. When trying to find the best T7 equip, I suggested taking all the best in slot items, taking the T7 set boni into account and smoothing out the hit rating afterwards. With the new loot tables, there are too many hit items and most of them give very high amounts of hit rating (ranging from 50 to 100), so it seems reasonable to do it the other way around: Choose the best nonhit items, then replace some of them by hit items. Next to that, the T8 set boni are considered as 160 dps for 2p and 80 dps for 4p. As the T8 items are among the best items even without the set boni, this makes 4pT8 a clear choice. [Conqueror's Deathbringer Leggings] best in slot, clear choice. [Conqueror's Deathbringer Hood] 44 dps below the best in slot helm [Crown of Luminescence]. [Conqueror's Deathbringer Shoulderpads] 44 dps below [Amice of Inconceivable Horror]. [Conqueror's Deathbringer Robe] 43 dps below [Raiments of the Iron Council], but giving 73 additional hit. [Conqueror's Deathbringer Gloves] 123 dps below [Pharos Gloves], but giving 65 hit. So when ignoring hit and aiming for 4pT8, we'll leave out the gloves first. If they prove to be a very good hit item (they won't), they'll have their comeback. Choosing best in slot nonhit plus 4pT8 leads to Head: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Hood] Neck: [Sapphire Amulet of Renewal] Shoulder: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Shoulderpads] (+4 hit socket bonus) Back: [Sunglimmer Cloak] Chest: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Robe] (+73 hit) Wrist: [Grasps of Reason] Hands: [Pharos Gloves] Waist: [Pattern: Cord of the White Dawn] Legs: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Leggings] Feet: [Boots of Fiery Resolution] Finger: [Conductive Seal]t & [Nebula Band] Trinket: [Flare of the Heavens] & [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] Weapon: [Starshard Edge] (+39 hit) + [Ironmender] Wand: [Petrified Ivy Sprig] (+29 hit) Next, I choose the hit rating I want to reach with my equip. As I plan to take the hit talents, this would be 288.55 (giving 11% hit). From the above items I already get 141 hit and a 4-hit socket bonus, leaving 143.55 points. To find out which items give a lot of hit without losing too many other stats, I increase the value of hit dynamically until the best hit items pop up among the best nonhit items. 1 hit = 0.1 dps changes nothing, neither does 1 hit = 0.2 dps or 1 hit = 0.3 dps. When I reach 1 hit = 0.4 dps the [Leggings of the Enslaved Idol] become the best in slot legs but I don't want to ruin the 4pT8 bonus and the gloves are still too weak. I increase the value of hit to 1 hit = 0.5 dps, nothing changes. At 1 hit = 0.6 dps, the [Sash of Ancient Power] becomes the best waist item. +43 hit, 100.55 to go. 1 hit = 0.7 dps makes [Pendant of Fiery Havoc] appear among the best in slot items. I substitute the old amulet and get another 46 hit. Still 54.55 hit missing, but [Cosmos] becomes the best offhand. There are still 3.55 hit rating missing, but that does not call for another item change (you could exchange a gem if you really want to reach 100%), so I'm done now. This results in the following gear: Head: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Hood] Neck: [Pendant of Fiery Havoc] Shoulder: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Shoulderpads] (+4) Back: [Sunglimmer Cloak] Chest: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Robe] (+73) Wrist: [Grasps of Reason] Hands: [Pharos Gloves] Waist: [Sash of Ancient Power] (+43) Legs: [Conqueror's Deathbringer Leggings] Feet: [Boots of Fiery Resolution] Finger: [Conductive Seal]t & [Nebula Band] Trinket: [Flare of the Heavens] & [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] Weapon: [Starshard Edge] + [Cosmos] (+80) Wand: [Petrified Ivy Sprig] (+29 hit) If you cannot obtain any of the items above and/or aim for more hit rating or don't like the 4pT8 or whatever, just adapt this method to your gear style. E.g. leaving out Algalon loot would change: Weapon: [Staff of Endless Winter] (-80 hit) Back: [Drape of Mortal Downfall] (+43 hit) Hands: [Handwraps of the Vigilant] (no change) and one of the rings becomes [Shimmering Seal] (+42 hit). [top]General playing tips[top]How much hit rating is best?See here for the main discussion. The short version is: Basically, you need +17% hit. As 26.232 points of hit rating give 1% at level 80, that is 445.94 Hit Rating. In a 25-man raid, there is most likely a debuff placed upon the boss that gives another 3% hit rate. That leaves 14% (367.25 rating) up to you. If you happen to be an alliance player and a draenei is in your group, you also get their racial, leaving you with 13% (341.02 rating). It is your choice whether to use Suppression to reduce the amount by another 1-3%. You can improve your hit rating by food. As long as you need the hit rating, this is the best choice for the food buff. [top]Casting SequenceAs many classes, we do not have a rotation anymore but rather a priority system. There is no fixed sequence (or rather: the fixed sequence would be very long) because of different timers, some of them having random elements (like haste procs, Nightfall etc.). The general rule of thumb is: Highest DPCT first. No matter what your equip looks like, your DPCT list will always look like this:
Haunt has the lowest DPCT, but casting haunt reapplies Corruption. So consider Haunt as "I'm reapplying Corruption and do some direct damage and apply / refresh two very important debuffs", making it the best DPCT spell. When you begin a fight or completely change the target, you might want to cast a Shadow Bolt after the first Haunt to apply two stacks of Shadow Embrace immediately. In my opinion, casting Haunt is way more important (+25% damage in 1.5s) than this sole Shadow Bolt (+5% damage in 2.5s), so I personally stick to the list above. This list is the beginning of solid DPS, not the end. There are many tricks and traps to it. [top]I reach 100% uptime just by clipping my dots, right?"Clipping" a dot means reapplying it before its last tick. Although this increases your uptime (no more dot gaps), this ist VERY bad for your dps. Why? Imagine a dot ticking every 3s. If you reapply it in the moment of its last tick, it is like resetting it's tick counter, meaning there will be a gap of 6s between two ticks instead of 3s. That is as bad as not reapplying it for 3s. Actually, it is even worse: You shortened its duration by one tick, meaning you have to reapply it more often, losing even more dps. So don't clip dots. There are exceptions: If you know your target will be unreachable within a few seconds (e.g. Noth in Naxxramas porting to the other group), reapplying all dots is actually a good idea. If you are running around unable to cast anything but instants, clipping dots will save you time when you stand still again, and so on. [top]I could cast a Shadow Bolt, but CoA has only 1s left, what to do?Situations like that will happen all the time during fights. The general rule is: You should always be casting. Always. If you are able to fill gaps like that with a clever Life Tap, fine. But there is nothing wrong about dots ticking for the last time while you are casting a shadow bolt. Remember that while the dots have very high DPCT, they don't have high dps. Applying them a second later won't hurt. Not casting anything for one second will reduce your damage by the dps of shadow bolt. That will hurt. [top]What about temporary buffs/debuffs and dots?When a dot is applied, it will check all of your buffs and stats and all of the bosses' buffs and debuffs. They will not be checked again while your dot ticks, so applying dots before getting important selfbuffs or boss debuffs is a slight dps loss. When Haunt refreshes your corruption, the same thing happens, but there is one exception: Your own debuffs will not be checked again. Normally, debuffs won't improve your dps, so this is nothing to worry about, but there are special cases: For example, the damage increase in the Thaddius fight in Naxxramas is a debuff. This will only be taken into account when you cast a spell, not when a dot ticks. So waiting for this debuff before applying new dots makes a huge difference in dps. However, this is a very special mechanic (a personal debuff giving a huge damage buff), but knowing it might be useful. [top]What is the optimal start?The opening sequence found most often ist Haunt->Shadow Bolt->Corruption->Unstable Affliction->Curse of Agony. There is nothing wrong with it. Starting with Corruption makes no sense when you want to cast Haunt right afterwards, and casting Haunt later applies the debuffs too late, meaning you more or less have to start with Haunt. I am not convinced that casting the SB before the dots is better than afterwards, but nevermind. As a side note, of course you should start with the dots when you have to move into the fight, like Heigan in Naxxramas. [top]Can I have too much haste?The reason for this question being asked many times by affliction warlocks is the following: Most of your spells (all of them except shadow bolt and drain soul) have a 1.5s casting time or are instant casts, meaning they have a 1.5s global cooldown following the cast. Haste reduces both in the same way. But there is a hard cap, neither the casting time of a spell nor the GCD can be reduced below 1s (In fact, the casting time can be reduced below 1s, but this triggers a short GCD, extending it to 1s). This means that the majority of your spells won't benefit from haste anymore if you reach this cap. The first question should be: Can I actually reach that cap with "normal" gear? The formula for is: Real Casting Time = Original Casting time /(1+Haste in percent). As an example, 100% haste would change a two second cast to a one second cast ("100% faster"). To reduce a 1.5s cast to 1s, you would need 50% haste. Haste is multiplicative while haste rating is not. In a raid situation, there are probably an elemental totem (+5% haste) and a moonkin aura or a retribution aura (+3% haste). Those add (or rather multiply) up to 1.05*1.03=1.0815 -> 8.15%. To get 50% haste, you would need 1.50/1.0815 = 1.387 -> 38.7% haste from haste rating, which would be 1268.97 rating points. Simply unreachable, even when you did not forget to apply your spellstone. However, there are effects like Bloodlust/Heroism and Eradication increasing your haste by a large amount. When Eradication procs, you would only need 1.50/(1.0815*1.20) -> 15.6% haste or 511.5 haste rating. I would consider this to be the "very soft" cap. When Bloodlust hits, it's only 1.50/(1.0815*1.30) -> 6.7% haste or 219.3 haste rating. Obviously, when both hit at the same time, you'll need nothing: 1.50/(1.0815*1.30*1.20) -> -11.1%, so you're already way over the cap. Does this mean we're haste capped? Not really. Most of the damage haste brings comes from casting faster shadow bolts, not from casting faster dots. In my simulation, the dps per point in haste went down to 6.04 from 7.61 when I reached the point where 1.5s casts become 1.0s casts. That's a 20% decrease in the value of haste and does not devalue haste in general as you won't have eradication/bl/heroism up all the time and even if you had, haste would still be better than crit rating. Just don't throw your haste pot when bloodlust hits and eradication is up, and you'll be fine. [top]The proper use of Drain SoulFirst of all, Drain Soul does not "recheck" the percentage of the target. This means that if you start casting it when the mob is at 26%, you won't get the 4x damage bonus for the whole casting time. If the mob heals itself after you applied drain soul, it WILL do 4x the damage for the whole casting time (have fun in the arena!). So start casting when the mob is definitely below 25%. The main problem about Drain Soul is its channeling time: Within 15s (or whatever it is after your haste is applied), your dots will probably need a recast. Every dot has a higher dpct and does contribute to the damage of Drain Soul by the Talent "Soul Siphon". The Shadow Embrace effect from Haunt and SB also improves Drain Soul's damage. This means that you have to reapply dots and haunt almost immediately when they fade off / don't have a CD left. This forces you to clip your Drain Soul cast most of the time. Now...
[top]The value of 2pT7 and 4pT72pT7 procs Demonic Soul. The proc chance seems to be 15%, it has no internal cooldown. The question here is: How much "real" crit rate is this for our shadow bolts? Within a minute, there are 20 Corruption ticks and rougly 18 Immolation ticks (90% uptime). So, this should proc 5.7 times per minute. According to the simulation, you will cast rougly 16-18 shadow bolts in a minute, depending on haste and so on. So assuming the buff is always used (never fades, never procs again before a shadow bolt is fired), roughly one third of your shadow bolts will benefit. So, the bonus is in fact like "increases the crit chance of your shadow bolt spell by 3.3%". This is worth roughly 23.85 / 35.93dps, which is nice, but not overwhelming. 4pT7 procs Spirit of the Damned after each Life Tap (not stacking, of course). According to the dps model, 300 Spirit increase your dps by ~130. The more difficult question is how much uptime the buff will have. There are, of course, fights where you don't Life Tap, where you Life Tap only in non-dps situations and so on - but ignoring these, in our model you use 5.7 Life Taps per minute to restore your mana. If you place the Life Taps ideally distributed, that means the buff is up 57 out of 60 seconds, which is basically all the time. Thus, the damage increase would be ~120 dps. With high end T7 equip, you would only need about 4 Life Taps per minute, meaning the buff is up for about 2/3 of the time, equaling roughly 100 dps. This amount is reduced by anything that improves your mana-regeneration, for example Replenishing buffs from Shadow Priests. So when it comes to equip comparison, keep in mind that Tier7-pieces have a built-in ~25 dps each if you use your Life Taps correctly. But also keep in mind that better equip means fewer Life Taps, meaning the value of 4pT7 is high when you start in naxx, but will be significantly lower when you leave naxx. Side note: Someone pointed out that using Life Tap twice may still be an option as the second one benefits from the buff. I won't compute anything about it, my guess it that it doesn't work out to throw away about 8s of buff time just to get some extra mana. Prove me wrong! Someone else pointed out that a good warlock tries to be oom when the boss hits 0%, meaning you won't Life Tap in the last minute of the fight. This, of course, makes the buff weaker, especially for short fights. (Three minute fight -> buff loses 1/3 of its value). So as a general rule: The T7 pieces are not bad on themselves, and the set boni increase their value. But neither the 2p- nor the 4p- bonus seems to be mandatory. If you can replace your T7 pieces with best-in-slot pieces, e.g. the few iLevel 226 items, it is definitely worth considering. Nevertheless, do not underestimate how easy you can get the T7 pieces as they come from tokens and basically drop "all the time". [top]The value of 2pT8 and 4pT82pT8 increases the damage done by Unstable Affliction by a huge 20%. This gives a huge dps boost of 159.85 dps, making the 2pT8 the best set bonus so far. 4pT8 increases Shadow Bolt's crit chance by 5%, giving solid 77.48 dps. Both of these boni will scale, especially the 2pT8 will scale very well. [top]Is movement speed worth it?Post 3.1 there is no longer any raidwide movement speed buff available. This leads to the question whether or not enchanting movement speed on your boots or socketing the movement speed meta (these do NOT stack, don't do both) is helping you. First of all, the crit meta gem effect gives just too much dps to ignore, so unless you simply cannot use it for some strange reason, we're talking about the boot enchant here, the meta is untouchable. Obviously, if you stand still from start to finish, movement speed is useless. But most encounters force you to move, at least from time to time. To get a dps estimation of movement speed, I just calculated how much dps I would loose when casting half a second less shadow bolts within a whole minute (dots still ticking). The result is 29.95 dps. While this is not game breaking, it is actually pretty much for a boot enchant, and saving half a second per minute seems to be a reasonable, small value - on some encounters, the enchant will probably bring a lot more dps as you move "all the time". [top]ProfessionsAlchemy: Mixology will increase the spell power gained from your Flask of the Frost Wyrm by 37. Additionally, you are able to use Crazy Alchemist's Potion which can have any potion effect (from +500 haste to +1200 armor ...) and your flasks/elixiers will be active twice as long. Blacksmithing: Blacksmiths can socket Bracers and Gloves with an extra gem slot, giving 2x19 spell power (as this is the gem of choice). When there will be epic gems available for everyone, this will actually be the best profession dps-wise by a small margin. Enchanting: Enchanters can improve both of their rings with Greater Spellpower, giving 2x19 spell power. Engineering: Engineers can improve their Gloves with Hyperspeed Accelerators. Although the tooltip says otherwise, it seems to have an 60s cooldown. Unfortunately, this will overwrite an existing enchant, so the average 340/6 = 56.66 haste rating have to be compared to the 28 spell power enchant, which would be a 2.27 / 13.36 dps increase. They also get Springy Arachnoweave, a spell power enchant for their cloaks, which is slightly better than the normal haste enchant. Summed up, the profession seems okay now. Herbalism: Herbalism offers Lifeblood, which will not help you when raiding in 99.99% of the situations. Inscription: Inscribers/Inscriptors/Inscription-Users get an own Shoulder Enchant that is definitely better (36 more spell power) than the epic one from the Sons of Hodir (and saves you many, many duells with frost wyrms). Jewelcrafting: Jewelcrafter can socket [Runed Dragon's Eye] three times, which is 3x13=39 spell power more than the rare quality gems would give. Of course, this profession only helps when you have at least three gem slots available, which should more or less always be the case. When there will be epic gems available for everyone, this profession will slightly loose dps gain (as the difference between the JC special gems and the normal gems becomes smaller). Leatherworking: Leatherworkers have no drums anymore at level 80, but gain Fur Lining instead. This is 37 more spell power than the best possible enchant. Mining: Miners are pretty tough, but this does not really help when raiding as a warlock. Skinning: Skinners become Masters of Anatomy. 32 crit rating is of course weaker than the "usual" 37/38 spell power from other professions. Tailoring: Tailors can enchant their cloaks with Lightweave Embroidery. I have not calculated the dps yet. Summary: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Inscription, Tailoring and Jewelcrafting are fine. Skinning and Engineering are okay, but not optimal. Mining and Herbalism are useless. [top]Useful addonsNecrosis LdC Although it is a little outdated, it has some nice features, like sound announcement of Shadowtrance, Mini-Popups for spells you don't want to hotkey (like Summoning spells) and a Dottimer. It has some minor issues (e.g. you can't turn off some parts of it), but all in all it's a helpful addon and I just like the sound of "Shadowtrance!". DoTimer Configurable Timers. I personally do not use this, but most warlocks would never go without it. ForteXorcist Timers, Raid Announcements, Warning sounds. Many ways to configure each and every aspect. Most of the provided information is not important enough to be on your screen in my opinion (like a ritual of summoning mod for example), but there are some nice ones. TellMeWhen Freely configurable buttons for fading debuffs, cooldowns, item cooldowns. Easily configurable. I found this to be exactly what I was looking for for situations where you just don't want to stare at timers. DrainSoulTimer Offers a sound and raidwarning when the target reaches the 25% mark and a sound warning every time Drain Soul ticks, making the clipping a little easier. Every aspect can be turned off for itself. Definitely a helpful and light-weighted addon. [top]Short Q&A from the math part
Last edited by Namnalia : 06/29/09 at 6:51 AM. |
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12/02/08, 10:50 AM
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Von Kaiser
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The math part
This post is dedicated to the computation of concrete dps/dpct values for a normal raid situation, considering first-visit-gear, e.g. optimal blue/heroic gear as well as Ulduar Starter Gear, and a normal raid situation (tank&spank boss, one target, all raid buffs possible).
[top]Base statsunbuffed:
This should be more or less what your stats could look like when you step into Naxxramas for the first time. This should be more or less what your stats could look like when you step into Ulduar for the first time. An optimal raid setup (and almost all setups are nearly optimal now) gives you: [top]Raidbuffs
[top]Self buffs
[top]Debuffs
This changes the stats fully raid-buffed to:
[top]TalentsThe base spec covers all talents interesting for dps. I assume 3 points in suppression for the naxx starter set and zero points for the ulduar starter spec as this fits the test equip best.
[top]Boss scenarioI won't handle the whole "Does patchwerk dps matter?" discussion here. In my humble opinion, it does. When you can't deal damage in a Tank&Spank scenario, you won't deal damage anywhere else. The opposite might not be true, but that depends on you, not your class or talents. [top]Glyphs & Meta GemI currently assume Glyph of Curse of Agony, Glyph of Haunt and Glyph of Life Tap as they are all clear choices. Not using Glyph of Life Tap affects the value of spirit drastically. As a meta I assume Chaotic Skyflare Diamond which now affects Corruption and UA crits and thus has become the best available Meta Gem. [top]DPS and DPCT spell by spell[top]General rule of thumbDamage done = Absolute Coefficients * (base damage + ( (spell power coefficents) * Spelldamage))*Hit chance * (1+Crit chance) Note that the coefficients from talents (like Contagion and Shadow Mastery) are additive. I handled the way hit affects the damage of dots with a different approach suggested by Kalle: When you don't hit with a DoT, you will have to recast it. This increases the casting time of the dot and decreases the uptime of the dot. [top]CorruptionAbsolute coefficients: +0.15 (Shadow Mastery) +0.10 (Improved Corruption) +0.05 (Contagion) +0.05 (Siphon Life) 1+0.23*hit chance (Haunt) 1.10 (Shadow Embracex2) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.01 (Spellstone) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) (1+0.12*0.35) (Death's Embrace) Spell power coefficients: 1.2 Base Coefficient +0.36 (Empowered Corruption) +0.30 (Everlasting Affliction) Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit chance: 0.23 / 0.268 base +0.09 (Malediction) +Meta Gem effect Haste: 0.254 / 0.341 base Damage done: (1+0.15(Shadow Mastery)+0.10(Improved Corruption)+0.05(Contagion)+0.05(Siphon Life))*(1+0.23*hit chance)(Haunt)*1.1(Shadow Embrace)*1.13(CoE)*1.01(Spellstone)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(1+0.12*0.35) (Death's Embrace)*(1740(base damage) + ((1.2(Base Coeff)+0.36(Emp Corr)+0.30(Everl. Affl.))*(spell power)))* (1+1.03*crit chance) = 15104 / 21022 cast time: (1/hit chance)*1.5s*(1/(1+haste)) = 1.21s / 1.14s damage / second = 839 / 1167 damage / cast time = 12505 / 18509 (or infinite with haunt) damage / tick =2517 / 3503 [top]Curse of AgonyAbsolute coefficients: +0.15 (Shadow Mastery) +0.10 (Improved CoA) +0.05 (Contagion) 1.10 (Shadow Embracex2) 1+0.2*hit chance (Haunt) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.01 (Spellstone) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) (1+0.12*0.35) (Death's Embrace) Spell power coefficients: 1.20 Base Coefficient Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit chance: CoA can't crit. Haste: Amplify Curse sets casting time to 1.0. Glyph: Glyph of CoA assumed, increasing base damage and duration of the dot. Damage done: (1.0+0.15(Shadow Mastery)+0.10(Improved CoA)+0.05(Contagion))*(1+0.23*hit chance)(Haunt)*1.13(CoE)*1.10(Shadow Embrace)*1.01(Spellstone)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(1+0.12*0.35)(Death's Embrace)*( 1740(Base) + 389*2 (Glyph) + (((1.20(Base))+0.2(Glyph))*2000) = 12010 / 14908 cast time: (1/hit chance)*1.0s = 1.00s / 1.01s damage / second = 428 / 532 damage / cast time = 11890 / 14684 damage / tick =1501 / 1863 [top]Curse of DoomAbsolute coefficients: 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) CoD does not get a bonus from Shadow Mastery although it is clearly shadow damage. It doesn't get the bonus from Death's Embrace, neither. Sad story, it's such a warlockish spell. Spell power coefficients: 2.00 Base Coefficient Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit chance: CoD can't crit. Really. It just can't. Haste: Amplify Curse sets casting time to 1.0. Damage done: 1.13(CoE)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*( 7300(base) + (2.00*2000)*0.99* = 12794 / 14932 cast time: (1/hit chance)*1.0s = 1.00s1.01s damage / second = 213 / 248 damage / cast time = 12794 / 14857 [top]Unstable AfflictionAbsolute coefficients: +0.15 (Shadow Mastery) +0.05 (Siphon Life) 1.10 (Shadow Embracex2) 1+0.23*hit chance (Haunt) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.01 (Spellstone) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) (1+0.12*0.35) (Death's Embrace) Spell power coefficients: 1.00 Base Coefficient +0.25 (Everlasting Affliction) Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit chance: 0.23 / 0.268 base +0.09 (Malediction) +Meta Gem effect Haste: 0.254 / 0.341 base Damage done: (1+0.15(Shadow Mastery)+0.05(Siphon Life))*1.1(Shadow Embrace)*(1+0.23*hit chance)(Haunt)*1.13(CoE)*1.01(Spellstone)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(1+0.12*0.35)(Death's Embrace)*( 1150(base) + ((1.20+0.25(Everlasting Affliction))*spell power)* crit chance = 10176 / 13744 cast time: (1/hit chance)*1.5s*(1/(1+haste)) = 1.20s1.02s damage / second = 565 / 763 damage / cast time = 8425 / 12101 damage / tick =2035 / 2748 [top]Hauntabsolute coefficients: +0.15 (Shadow Mastery) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) (1+0.12*0.35) (Death's Embrace) Spell power coefficients: 1.5/3.5 base coefficient Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit Chance: 0.23 / 0.268 base +Meta Gem effect Haste: 0.254 / 0.341 base Damage done: (1+0.15(Shadow Mastery))*1.13(CoE)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(1+0.12*0.35)(Death's Embrace)*( (645+753)/2(base) + ((1.5/3.5*spell power))*0.99*(1+0.5*(base crit chance+0.10(scorch)+0.03(Heart of the Crusader)) =2526 / 3204 cast time: 1.5s*(1/(1+Haste)) = 1.5*(1/1+0.15+0.0421+0.0183) = 1.20s / 1.12s damage / cast time = 2112 / 2864 [top]Shadow BoltAbsolute coefficients: 1.15 (Shadow Mastery) +0.05 (Improved Shadow Bolt) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) (1+0.12*0.10) (Death's Embrace) Spell power coefficients: 3.00/3.5 base coefficient Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit chance: 0.23 / 0.268 base +0.09 (Malediction) +Meta Gem effect +Crits do double damage (Ruin) Haste: 0.254 / 0.341 base Damage done: (1.15(Shadow Mastery)+0.05(ISB))*1.13(CoE)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(1+0.12*0.10)(Death's Embrace)*((690+770)/2(base) + ((3.00/3.5) * spell power))* hit chance *(base crit +0.03 (Seal of the Crusader)+0.10(Scorch)) =4594 / 6222 cast time: (3.0s-0.5s(Bane))*(1/(1+haste)) = 1.991.86 damage / cast time = damage / second = 2305 / 3337 [top]Drain Soulabsolute coefficients: +0.15 (Shadow Mastery) +0.60 (Soul Siphon) 1.13 (CoE/Earth&Moon/Ebon Plague) 1.1 (Shadow Embrace) 1.03 (Malediction) 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) 4.00 (Target below 25%) (1+0.12) (Death's Embrace) (additive to Target below 25%-effect) Note: The +60% are depending on the raid setup, you need at least 2 more warlocks with at least one of them affliction (and knowing what he does). Drain Soul is still worth it if you are the only warlock, but I'm calculating with an optimal raid situation. Spell power coefficients: 2.14 base coefficient Hit chance: 0.99 / 0.985 Crit Chance: Drain Soul can't crit (Hell, just imagine that!). Haste: 0.254 / 0.341 base Damage done: (1+0.15(Shadow Mastery)+0.60(Soul Siphon))*1.13(CoE)*(1.1)(Shadow Embrace)*1.03(Malediction)*1.03(Sanctified Retribution)*(4(Target below 25%+0.12)(Death's Embrace))*( 710(base) + (2.14*spell power)) * hit chance = 38176 / 52663 cast time: 15s*(1/(1+haste)) = 11.96s11.19s damage / cast time = damage / second = 3192 / 4707 damage / tick =7635 / 10532 Note that this is based on 3 of your affliction debuffs on the target and a target below 25%. [top]Life TapBase: 345 / 585 spirit Improved Life Tap: +20% Mana generated Mana generated: 1.2*(spirit*3.0 + 1460) = 2484 / 3858 cast time = 1.24s / 1.12s [top]DPCT-Charts
[top]DPS-Charts
Conclusion: Every single DoT is worth being kept up as long as possible, even during the <25% phase. The only reason to cast shadow bolt is having nothing else to do. [top]Computing the DPSLet's look at a whole minute mid-fight: Corruption will be up from start to finish. A recast will only be needed when a haunt misses. CoA,Unstable Affliction and Siphon Life will be refreshed as often as possible. I consider an uptime of 95% minus the cast time of the dot (Meaning 0.95*60s - (# of Casts * DoT cast time) is the uptime of the DoT during one minute). The cast time of the dot includes the possibility of a miss - assuming you immediately recast that dot as fast as possible when it misses. This is (roughly) how the lacking of hit rating affects dots: more cast time, lower uptime. I ignore the additional mana usage when a dot misses as the effect is very, very small. Haunt will be refreshed as often as needed. I assume casting Haunt about every 10s, and an DoT Uptime of 95% (except for Corruption, of course). Let's first fill in all the dots. Their accumulated cast times after one minute are (according to the above model): CoA: 1.79s -> 1.89s UA: 3.92s -> 3.49s Haunt: 7.172s -> 6.99s NF procs: 0.96s -> 0.93s Corr: 0.00s -> 0.02s Replenishment: Assuming ~18k Mana and an uptime of 75%, you regain 2025 Mana per Minute. Including the mp5 and replenishment for the whole minute, so far 3521 / 3540 Mana have been used, resulting in 1.06 / 0.83 Life Taps (1.26s / 0.92s). The rest of the time (44.67s / 45.73s) is used for shadow bolts / drain souls. To compensate the mana use of the shadow bolts, I calculate "0 mana shadow bolts" by adding a small percentage of the GCD to their casting time. The 0 mana shadow bolt has a casting time of 2.25s / 2.06s (SB casting time + Life Tap casting time * (SB mana cost / Life Tap mana regeneration). So, the rest of the minute is filled with 19.81 / 22.25 0-mana-shadow bolts. This only applies to 75% of the fight's length. In the last 25%, I will substitute Shadow Bolt by Drain Soul as it has significantly higher DPCT. I kept using the NF-procs in the simulation below 25% as their DPCT is still in the "ok-zone". In the remaining time, you can cast 3.67 / 4.03 0-Mana-DS. This sums up to 223690 / 317924 dpm or 3728 / 5298 dps including complete mana regeneration. [top]Known errors of this model
[top]How much haste is EradicationEradication has a 6% proc chance per Corruption tick to increase your haste by 20% for 10s. It has no ICD anymore. Assume Corruption is up all the time on one target. If we are somewhere in between two corruption ticks (and we always are) then there is a chance of 6% that the last tick gave the buff. If it didn't (94%), there is a chance of 94%*6% that the one before gave it, and if it didn't, there's a 94%*94%*6% chance that the one before did. If we are less than one second from the last corruption tick (this is the case 1/3 of the time) we have to take even one more tick into account (94%*94%*94%*6%). This sums up to So the uptime is about 18.6% giving an average haste multiplier of 18.6%*20% = 3.72%. [top]How often does Nightfall proc?Let's assume corruption is up 100% of the time (on one target). The chance of a NF proc is 4% every 3 seconds. Let's further assume that you will use every NF proc immediately, so you never "lose" any procs. Then you will just have an average 0.80 NF procs per minute. Of course, you can have two in a row, but normally, you won't. The proc reduces the casting time of one sb to your gcd, so it saves about a second, meaning this will save you an average 0.80 seconds per minute. By the way, this DOES stack with Glyph of Corruption, giving 2x 4% proc chance. [top]CoA or CoD?Switching from CoA to CoD in the above scenario loses 11978.28 / 15811.31 damage, but saves you 1.50s / 1.51s. In this time, you can cast 0.75/0.81 more shadow bolts, dealing 2247.71 /3270.13 damage, which is simply not enough to compensate. So, as a result: Do not use CoD if you want to max out your dps. You can explain it to yourself like that: Using CoD saves time. But although CoD has the higher DPCT, it has lower DPS. So you win time, but lose damage instead. And you are not able to compensate this damage loss within the given time, so using CoA is the better choice. [top]Should I use Drain Soul when the mob is below 25%?In short: Yes, you should. Drain Soul deals almost 75% more damage than Shadow Bolt does when the mob's HP are below 25%. This is a very decent dps increase. The only drawback is: With a good ten second channel duration after haste, the spell will make it rather difficult to reapply dots in time without clipping it. So clip it! The perfect moment to clip it is right after a tick, there is a huge discussion atm how to support this difficult timing with addon timers. In general, as long as you don't clip it right before a tick, your dps will be fine. [top]How much damage is Death's Embrace?If the hit points of the boss go down linearly (meaning it takes the same amount of time to go from 60% to 50% that it takes to go from 20% to 10%) the talent will apply to exactly 35% of the fight. Although in reality the linearity is not given (for example because of talents like Death's Embrace!), I'll stick to it because it's the best model I have. So, for all shadow spells, it will do 0.35*12% more damage. Well, actually not for all the shadow spells, because you will use Drain Soul only below 25% and you will stop using Shadow Bolt then (except for NF-Procs). So Shadow Bolt gets only 0.10*12% (Between 35% and 25% percent) bonus while Drain Soul gets the full 12%. [top]Which potion should I use?There are three dps choices here: Wild Magic, Speed and Mana. Alternatively, there is the Alchemist's variant and a Heal Potion. As usual, I take a look at a whole minute midfight. In Ulduar Starter Gear, the Wild Magic Potion increases the dps by 105.44 for the minute (meaning it gives about 400 extra dps while active). The mana savings from Runic Mana Potion give 67.26 dps, but assume that you actually need mana. This might not be true if you already Life Tap every 20s for your Glyph of Life Tap. The Potion of Speed comes in third with a 40.02 dps increase (160 dps while active). So when it comes to pure dps burst, the Wild Magic Potion is clearly the best choice. For survival, there is no real alternative to the Runic Healing Potion except for very situational uses. Alchemist are in an unclear situation: Their Crazy Alchemist Potion can be the best potion if they get the right effect, but also turn out as as a useless armor increase. As you cannot rely on anything but the heal/mana part, it probably has to be considered as a cheap rejuvenation pot with a mostly small side effect. [top]Equip comparisonI computed the dps with slight changes in the unbuffed stats. This gives a very good estimation of the change in dps when you, for example, get some more spell power. The more accurate the above dps calculation becomes, the more accurate these ratings will be. So far, I computed: 10 hit rating = 10.79 dps -> 15.83 dps (Simcraft: always assuming 100% hit) 10 spell power = 12.76 dps -> 13.72 dps (Simcraft: 15.6) 10 haste rating = 6.22 dps -> 8.67 dps (Simcraft: 9.80) 10 crit rating = 4.70 dps -> 6.58 dps (Simcraft: 8.0) 10 spirit = 6.51 dps -> 7.00 dps (Simcraft: 7.8) 10 int = 1.42 dps -> 1.99 dps (Simcraft: 3.0) The item comparison is based on this alone. As you can see, the results are roughly ten percent below Simcraft, which assumes better gear than I did and includes some other buffs I ignore, like Bloodlust/Heroism. The relative values are roughly the same except for intellect (I do not know enough about simcraft to give any reason for that). In my opinion, this means that the results of the math part are a good base for equip comparison. [top]Glyph comparisonGlyph of Life Tap 79.36 -> 144.53 dps The new best glyph, probably for every single warlock spec. According to my simulation, you would life tap three times a minute anyway, so there is no drawback and the glyph is a straight spell power increase, giving more than 100 extra spell power for almost no cost, resulting in a huge dps increase. For the simulation I assumed a 90% uptime of the buff (same as for the dots except Corruption). As a side effect, the impact of this glyph makes spirit an even better damage stat. Glyph of Haunt 41.81 -> 56.42 dps Increasing the Haunt effect by 3% is an 2.5% increase to all your dots and results in about 1.2% overall damage increase, which is quite good for a single glyph. Glyph of Curse of Agony 30.51 -> 37.04 dps There are two more heavy ticks when you use this glyph. The damage amount coming from spell power does NOT change per tick (but of course the DPCT changes). The damage plus from the additional ticks is constant and can be computed like this: base dps unglyphed = 1740/24s = 72.5 dps. base dps glyphed = (1740 + 2x389)/(24+4)s = 89.93 dps. So the glyph gives a constant 17.43 dps increase here. Furthermore, you gain (60/24 - 60/28)s = 0.358s per minute because you have to recast CoA less often. In this time, you can cast your filler spell, giving you another 784.6 / 1176.3 dpm or 13.08 / 19.61 dps. Glyph of Corruption 12.49 dps -> 19.47 dps This glyph increases the proc chance of Nightfall by 4% (or by 3.96% if it really is multiplicative and you have talent points in Nightfall - it does not make a measurable difference and none will ever know). The effect is not very good dps-wise. As a side note, this means that the talent Nightfall is not very good dps-wise, either. Glyph of Shadow Bolt 10.94 dps -> 14.14 dps Decreases the casting time of the 0-mana-shadow bolt in the simulation (or decreases the mana cost of the normal shadow bolt in reality). This is quite weak - mana cost is just not really important to a warlock. Glyph of Unstable Affliction 0 dps -> 0 dps Decrease Base Casting time of UA by 0.2s (before haste. This works like the talent bane for sb/immo.) Unfortunately, it does not lower the GCD for Unstable Affliction. Your cast will be followed by a 0.2s GCD and so, the Glyph will not give any DPS increase. [top]Special items, set boni and procsChaotic Skyflare Diamond This increases the crit multipliers of Haunt, Shadow Bolt, Unstable Affliction and Corruption from 150% / 200% to 153% / 203%. According to my simulation, the effect itself increases the dps by 50.37 / 79.98 dps, easily making it the best Meta Gem. [top]Trinkets(still 3.08) These are the trinkets probably interesting for affliction warlocks: [Dying Curse] 78 / 115 dps + proc(+158.9 / 174.7 dps!) [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] 0 dps + effect(+232.2 / 255.2 dps!) [Embrace of the Spider] 114 / 125 dps + proc(+55.5 / 78.5 dps) [Extract of Necromantic Power] 35 / 52 dps + proc(+60 dps) [Sundial of the Exiled] 31 / 46 dps + proc(+110.8 / 121.9 dps) [The Skull of Gul'dan] 107 dps + use(+17.9 dps) [The Egg of Mortal Essence] 113 / 125 dps [Battlemaster's Bravery] 129 / 142 dps [Je'Tze's Bell] 123 / 135 dps [Mercurial Alchemist Stone] 99 / 119 dps + effect (not very important) [Discerning Eye of the Beast] 96 / 96 dps + effect (not important) [Darkmoon Card: Death] 32 / 47 dps + proc(? dps) [Darkmoon Card: Illusion] 116 / 127 dps + effect(not important) I'll handle a cooldown like it is used immediately when it is up (as I think that is the best way to use cooldowns most of the time). For the procs, I calculate a medium proc rate by the internal cooldown (estimated) and the proc rate (estimated). For the "on cast" procs, I assume 34 casts per minute as this is what my damage model gives. Haste would benefit proc rates, but the effect is small. All the proc rates and internal cooldowns are guesses. Generally, the computation looks like this: The average proc time is ICD + average proc time when no ICD is up. The "average proc time when no ICD is up" is (time of first proc chance) * (proc rate) + (time of second proc chance) * (proc rate) * (1-proc rate) + (time of third proc chance) * (proc rate) * (1-proc rate) * (1-proc rate) + (time of fourth proc chance) * (proc rate) * (1-proc rate) * (1-proc rate) * (1 - proc rate) and so on and so on. The "time of n-th proc rate" is just (n-0.5)*average casting time. You can be lucky and hit a spell the moment the ICD is gone and get a proc, or on the next spell, or the one after that, and so on. The "0.5" helps to get an "average" moment. For example, a 15% proc chance gives an average time of 10.88s between procs (if there is no internal cooldown present). [Dying Curse]: ICD: 45s Procrate: 15%, basically procs of everything, even creating bandages. 765 spell power for 10s every (45s+10.88s) means an average 136.9 spell power, which is just insanely good. (+158.9 / 174.7 dps!) [Illustration of the Dragon Soul]: This is just 200 spell power all the time. You can use Health Funnel or Underwater Breathing to keep the stacks during combat breaks. Even if you don't, the stacks will be up almost all the time. (+232.2 / 255.2 dps!) [Embrace of the Spider]: ICD: 45s, proc rate: 15%, basically procs of everything, even creating bandages. 505 haste for 10s every (45s + 10.88s) means an average 90.37 haste rating, which is quite good. (+55.5 / 78.5 dps) [Extract of Necromantic Power]: The ICD seems to be something around 15s. The effect can crit and seems to scale with some talents, much like the Lvl 70 version [Timbal's Focusing Crystal]. However, I don't compute any dps here, I just datamined it. From WWS-stats, the trinket does an average 50-60 dps. So it's an okay trinket, but (surprisingly for me) not the best one around, not even close. (+60 dps) [Sundial of the Exiled]: ICD 45s, proc rate: 10% -> average 16.76s+ICD between procs. 590 spell power for 10s every (45s+16.76s) means an average 95.5 spell power. (+110.8 / 121.9 dps) [The Skull of Gul'dan]: First of all, it is of course the coolest item ever. Being black/green and evil every 2 minutes is priceless. Using the cd every time it is up gives: 175 haste rating * 20s / 120s = average 29.18 haste rating. (+17.9 dps) [top]Ulduar Starter GearTo start the computation again, I need some baseline gear for the next content patch. I'll use this. It is not optimal, but it is probably good enough to go to Ulduar. The stats are:
Last edited by Namnalia : 06/02/09 at 4:38 AM. |
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12/02/08, 10:52 AM
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#3 |
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Von Kaiser
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List of versions and changes
12/02/08: Version 1.0 Start
12/03/08: First version of the dps/dpct calculation and an overall dps estimation. 12/10/08: First version of Item Charts (Gems & Head pieces). 12/16/08: Lots of changes to formula and values. Added more text to many parts. Included playing tips from Fallenmen (thx for these). Included mana into the calculation. The results should be more or less accurate now for the given stats. 01/13/09: Finished the Item comparison. Changed some parts of the dps computation (thx to Kalle). 01/26/09: Changed how hit affects dots. Added computation for High End T7 Gear. 02/10/09: Added Addon-Part and started Talent Choice part (still under construction) 02/19/09: Corrected a severe error (CoA damage was missing in the dps calculation). Added glyphs to "green" computation. 04/16/09: started the 3.1 update 05/08/09: finished 3.1 item update & computation update & most of the math part update Last edited by Namnalia : 05/08/09 at 9:28 AM. |
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12/02/08, 11:17 AM
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#5 |
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Glass Joe
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Affliciton and gear
OK.. being new to 80 but having raided into BT in Burning crusade I have a question as it relates to Afflcition Spec'd Warlocks.
Being previously raid-spec'd and desto/demo build the new Affliciton build for level 80 are a little more confusing.... Looking at other sites and plugging the numbers in everything I see shows hit rating even with 3 points in Suppression seems to need to be in the neighborhood of +360-460 to hit. I understand the mechanics of the % on to hit... .... But haste seems to be more common and valuable for gear rather than + to hit Which is more important for and Affliction 56 / 0 / 15 ruin build Warlock? 1) Haste and Damage 2) Haste and crit 3) + to hit and Damage Almost every piece of gear I look at seems to be all about haste.... What gives? |
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12/02/08, 11:22 AM
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#6 | |
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Glass Joe
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12/02/08, 11:25 AM
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#7 | |
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Piston Honda
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It is also worth noting the optimal way to get your spells on a target, then after they are up its just dot juggling. (Curse) SB -> Haunt -> UA -> Immo -> (CoA) -> Corr -> SL Important to always cast UA/Immo together (just makes your life more easy). Also update the post to say that DP is worthless and is barely worth the points anymore. Life Tap scales too well to justify using DP during a fight unless you cant even do damage. |
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12/02/08, 11:40 AM
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#8 | |
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Glass Joe
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12/02/08, 11:44 AM
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#9 | ||
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palpably superior comprehension
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(Curse) Haunt -> UA -> Corruption -> (CoA) -> SL -> SB -> Immolate That gets your best mainline DPS spells ticking as soon as possible. Immolate's fairly weak and doesn't interact at all with any Affliction talents, so I prefer to leave it until last. Of course that could be because until recently I just wasn't using it at all, and it fits most easily on the end of my established rotation.
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12/02/08, 12:11 PM
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#11 |
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Piston Honda
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The modeling tool lots of people have been using (SimulationCraft) has some scaling numbers they have been using.
SampleOutput - simulationcraft - Google Code Not sure how 'set in stone' they are, but prove to be a good base so far. |
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12/02/08, 12:50 PM
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#12 |
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Banned
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Things I've found through my experiences (currently hitting 4k dps consistently on Patchwerk with pretty piss-poor gear):
- Clipping DoT's, ANY DOT, is bad. A lot of warlocks stupidly think that the only DoT that shouldn't be clipped is Curse of Agony, because it's dmg scales with time. I've found that my DPS is usually higher just by letting every DoT take it's full course. Usually I'll be re-applying UA and Immolate once UA's timer hits about a second. It's purely due to the opportunity cost. You could take that 1.5 seconds to cast Siphon Life early, or you could get 60% through a shadow-bolt cast. Shadowbolt is usually better considering that the other DoT is going to deal dmg by doing nothing. Optimal opening rotation Shadow Bolt --> Trinket Haunt --> Shadow Bolt --> UA --> Immolate --> Corruption --> CoA --> Siphon Life --> Haunt I've tested this out several several times. The key is to make sure that your projectiles have actually hit the boss before your DoT's get applied, and that the server has time to get both the Shadow Embrace stack AND the Haunt effect. This rotation will start applying DoT's when shadow embrace is up twice and haunt is up, and it won't let Haunt fall off either. Trinket should hit every spell. 25% optimal rotation: - Cast Haunt --> Siphon Life --> UA --> Curse of Agony - Cast Drain Soul for 1 tick - Cast Haunt (if you're having trouble clipping DoT's, I just hit Haunt about a second after the CD is done) - Cast Drain Soul for 3 ticks - Cast Haunt --> Lifetap --> Unstable Affliction [note, you can wait a bit here to not clip the last tick. If you have a lot of Haste, it's probably worth clipping the last tick] - Cast Haunt - Cast Drain Soul for 3 ticks - REPEAT  Time - CoA - UA - SL - Haunt CD/Time Left 0 / / / 0/0 -- Start 1.5 / / / 6.5/10.5 -- Cast Haunt 3 / / 30 5/9 -- Cast SL 4.5 / 18 28.5 3.5/7.5 -- Cast UA 6 28 16.5 27 2/6 -- Cast CoA 9* 25 13.5 24 0/3 -- Cast Drain Soul (1 tick) 10.5 23.5 12 22.5 8/12 -- Cast Haunt 19.5* 14.5 3 13.5 0/3 -- Cast Drain Soul (3 ticks) 21 13 1.5 12 8/12 -- Cast Haunt 24 10 18 9 5/9 -- Cast Lifetap --> UA 33 1 9 0 0/0 -- Cast Drain Soul (3 ticks) Repeat - (Nightfall if it's up) And yes, I have it memorized. "openner --> short drain --> haunt --> long drain --> haunt --> quick up --> long drain" Last edited by Blacksen : 12/02/08 at 12:58 PM. |
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12/02/08, 1:40 PM
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#13 |
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Glass Joe
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As far as key talents are concerned, i think Soul Siphon and Death's embrace are definitely important aspects to an affliction spec, these allow DS at 25% to tick upwards of 8k (i'm closing on 9 with roughly 2k SP). Personally, I also still find imp drain soul to be necessary, with decent tanks I'm riding about 70-80% threat, with the talent, and the way I see it, the lower you're threat, the better. Also, 5/5 ruin is not really that important, SB does come out as the highest damage dealing ability, but the points can be better spent, seeing as the bulk of aff lock's dmg is still from dots.
here is my current spec: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft I find it works very well for entrance level raiding (I was easily topping naxx 10 against similarly geared dps), although certain points may need to be tweaked as gear improves, for example hit talents, or perhaps moving into 5/5 ruin as crit increases. Or DP...the fact that it doesn't take health is nice, but easily remedied by simply lifetapping just before refreshing haunt in order to catch the returning heal. |
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12/02/08, 1:44 PM
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#14 | |
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probably drunk
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For example, go to a target dummy, and cast corruption. Let it tick twice, then cast a shadowbolt. As soon as the shadowbolt hits and the shadow embrace debuff is applied, all remaining corruption ticks will increase in damage from the shadow embrace debuff, so long as the debuff remains up. So, effectively, DoTs increase and decrease their damage "on the fly" dynamically with debuffs as they go on and off the target.  So, while you may cast SB, Haunt, and then say Corruption or CoA, the debuff of haunt and 2x SE will be up by the time the first tick of Corruption occurs, even if you had corruption up before Haunt actually landed on the target. |
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12/02/08, 2:26 PM
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#16 |
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Glass Joe
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This may have been answered in another thread and I apologize in advance if it has for my laziness. This may also be a stupid question, but I just want to make sure what I'm thinking is correct.
When your target is below 25% health and you begin to cast Drain Soul over Shadowbolt, is it essential to not let Haunt run it's full duration? Haunt has a 12 second effect as does Shadow Embrace. With the cast time of Haunt, you'll lose any accumulated Shadow Embrace stacks, assuming you let Haunt run it's full duration, correct? So would it be correct to basically cast Haunt every time the CD is up during the last 25%? |
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12/02/08, 2:34 PM
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#17 | |
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Von Kaiser
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Last edited by taybul : 12/02/08 at 2:40 PM. |
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12/02/08, 2:46 PM
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#18 |
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Nothing Offensive
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My starting rotation is UA > Haunt > Corr > CoA > SL > bolt
UA then Haunt makes sure no second of Haunt is wasted, UA will benefit from it, corr applied soon as possible.No bolt for SE before dots. I'd rather have Corr up asap, -5% less for that tick, but it ticks earlier! |
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12/02/08, 3:58 PM
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#19 |
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Bald Bull
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I suspect the DS thing is a common question so it should probably be added to the guide.
You do not need to let DS run its full 15-second duration. Do not treat it as a 15-second channel. Treat it as 5 3-second channels. I know we've drilled into your head previously never to interrupt a spellcast before, but that's because we were dealing with casted spells, not channeled spells. Shadowpriests already know, and we're finding out, that the reason you don't interrupt a casted spell is that you lose the *entire* cast, and there is no spell whose DPCT is worth it when you add a 0.5s deadtime to the beginning of it, which is basically what you're doing when you cancel (or wait for a duration/cooldown, which is the same thing). This logic does not apply to channeled spells, because if you cancel it early you still get some of the spell. Your mana efficiency goes down, but don't actually lose DPS or DPCT. With Drain Soul it's imperative to cut it as close as you can to the ticks, since three seconds between ticks is a long time (longer than shadowbolt). But remember, DS is only better than shadowbolt, not any other affliction spells in your rotation, so if you can interrupt it with no* damage loss you should. *Ok fine, lifetap time. If you're a smart warlock you'll have tapped to full and be ready for 25%. |
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12/02/08, 4:15 PM
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#20 | |
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Eternal Optimist
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12/02/08, 4:58 PM
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#21 | |
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Glass Joe
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Fel Armor - Spell - World of Warcraft If you're going to take the time to put up an 'informative' post, PLEASE at least make sure your information is correct! |
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12/03/08, 4:19 AM
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#22 | |
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Von Kaiser
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My next plan is to do the calculation of dps/dpct of all the spells used with the stats used above (and naxx10-stats and naxx-25-stats as well) and give a good estimation of "normal" dps. I can then easily derive the values of hit, spelldamage, crit and haste and start to rate equip and gems based on that (a little bit like the "Gearing your warlock" system from canadiangimp). I'll also add some of the specs from the spec-discussion-thread. |
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12/03/08, 6:21 AM
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#23 |
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Von Kaiser
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MaxDPS.com - Affliction Warlock DPS Gear Rankings
Can be used as a rough guide on the pieces of interest to Affliction and Locks in general. |
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12/03/08, 7:48 AM
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#24 | |
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Don Flamenco
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Stop thinking with your nuts and start thinking with the black and bitter ball of hatred buried in your chest
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12/03/08, 8:25 AM
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#25 |
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Von Kaiser
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Hence the "rough" part. I can imagine many people lack the interest/time/devotion to maintain a spreadsheet, so just to get a basic picture of what loot they should be aiming on acquiring, the MaxDPS list is sufficient. I'm just trying to prevent any future "whats best gear setup" spam followed by "use the spreadsheet".
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