Quick question:
How are existing DOTs affected by the spark aura on malygos? How about during Thaddius? Just want to know if they automatically scale with the aura mid-duration or if I need to refresh them for the effect to kick in, and if so, is it worth it to clip them with a fresh cast?

DoT damage is calculated at the time of cast and does not scale dynamically. So no, when you gain some sort of dmg buff your dots will not start ticking for more until you recast them.

I expect the buff to only be placed during refreshing on the actual buff. If this is true it's also a very clear disadvantage off DoTs. Buffs should always affect the current ones, imo.

"1901 damage per tick boost from Soul Siphon or roughly 272 DpT per effect" as calculated by LordVarbaro on Wowhead.

Source

I added some values for the dps of soul siphon. They're very high, assuming there are 15 affliction debuffs on the target. I've not yet tested if the damage coefficient is really additive - If it's not, that would change the numbers (but not the whole picture). As it seems, Soul Siphon is what makes Drain Soul hit really hard, so 2/2 is more or less a must (except for Malygos maybe^^).

I was thinking about posting this a while ago.

The increased damage debuff while fighting Thaddius behaves strangely with Haunt/Corr. Normally, any damage modifiers that are up when casting Haunt will be translated to the following Corruption ticks, but this is not the case here. Rather, you will have to recast Corruption with the stacked debuff and even then, it will sometimes show "a more powerful spell is already active", if some sore of spelldamage-buff (trinkets, etc) was up on the initial cast of corruption. So it seems that the calculation of Corruption's damage when being refreshed (or rather, prolonged) by Haunt is not factoring the debuff, which might actually be a bug(?) On the other hand, people could test if it is influenced by "50% less magical damage done" debuffs or anything similar. Otherwise, it might mean that only the current amount of spellpower is used whenever Corruption's duration is prolonged by Haunt and no modifying debuffs are taken into account.

I have not tested this on Malygos yet, but I have observed this strange behaviour several times on Thaddius.

As for the other DoTs, just cast them whenever you have the stacked / spark debuff up and don't cast them when you don't have it. (well, cast them anyways on Malygos before you have the spark debuff, but you get the point)

You seem to assume that this glyph also decreases the global CD by 0.2s. The GetSpellCooldown function from WoW's API returns identical values with and without glyph. Did you just assume that it has to reduce the CD because otherwise the glyph would be horrible? Or did you/somebody test this?

Namnalia, is the DPS you list for Soul Siphon taking into account that SS is only used when 25% health is left on the boss? [Removed the math, because Namnalia confirmed that the 25% SS duration is included in the DPS]

Either way, for those of us that need the 6 points in +hit talents, it looks clear that Nightfall should be sacrificed before SS, if you’re wanting the threat reduction from IDS. This remains true even if you have less than 3 warlocks in the raid.

So, this means that the total DPS loss for taking 3 in Suppression and 3 in Cataclysm is 2 * 8.99 (Night Fall) + ~0 DPS (Fel Concentration) + 3 * 18.43 (ISB) = 73.27 DPS loss. This number will help on determining when it’s time to respec. Thank you! NOTE: The above formula assumes 2 points in IDS for threat reduction. If that is not a concern, Nightfall DPS would not be included.

errr, right, I did not test this - if the base cast time is reduced but the GCD for the spell is not, The glyph would give 0 dps - anybody out there who tested that?

@radh

Yes, that is included - only one quarter of the filler time is actually filled with drain soul in the model, the rest of it is shadow bolt. I'll take over the hit to non-hit comparison, that's actually a nice conclusion of the chapter.

I would disagree about tailoring not being the "smartest profession" to take. The greatest differential between Lightweave and the +23 Haste enchant was something like 25DPS (the thread won't scroll back far enough now), which amounts to less that 1% of [my] total DPS, which to be honest is probably obscured by variance in the RNG anyway.

I personally run Enchanting/Tailoring, but not because I have any great love for Tailoring. My point is: the value differences between professions are extremely small, as they were no doubt intended to be, and I think people should keep that in mind before spending a fortune changing professions.

As far as professions go I see JC being the most appealing since it gives +39 spell dmg (if you are replacing 19 dmg gems with the 32 dmg gems) It also gives the luxury of manipulating socket bonus', which I think is a huge benefit. For example if you look at Pennant Cloak ( [Pennant Cloak] ). With a 32 spell dmg gem in this it would put you at 101 dmg just on a cloak.

Best second proff which I think gets overlooked quite a bit is alchemy. I ALWAYS have a flask on (why not it is free dmg for only a few gold/farm time) As an alchemist you get about 62 xtra dmg from the flask and the flask lasts for 4 hours. That is a whole naxx run with only the use of 1 flask and the 62 dmg easily makes it the strongest buff from any proff.