Dots and you: The Affliction Warlock Thread - Page 54

Drasil · 03/22/09, 1:29 PM

I would only refresh haunt if it will fall off before the mob dies.

tuberqlosis · 03/23/09, 1:24 PM

I was just messing around on the PTR talents for ourselves and I came up with 53/0/15 spec with 3 points left. Note that I have 16.24% hit (yes, that could be made more exact, I already know that), so I have only placed 1 point in Suppression. I also prefer to be self-hitcapped so I'm not reliant on anyone. Anyways, even with 2 more points in Suppression, I have 1-3 points left in my spec, with very little in the ways of improvement. Assuming I don't want to buff my pet through either improved imp or demonic power, i think my best options are spell pushback reductions (fel concentration for affl and intensity for destro). With the "wonderful" simplification coming to affl, I wonder if intensity would be a better option than fel concentration, as it appears we'll be seeing more sbolt spamming. With my 3 points I could even max intensity and put 1 into fel concentration, achieving 54/0/17. Any thoughts?

duhwhat · 03/23/09, 1:45 PM

Originally Posted by tuberqlosis

I was just messing around on the PTR talents for ourselves and I came up with 53/0/15 spec with 3 points left. Note that I have 16.24% hit (yes, that could be made more exact, I already know that), so I have only placed 1 point in Suppression. I also prefer to be self-hitcapped so I'm not reliant on anyone. Anyways, even with 2 more points in Suppression, I have 1-3 points left in my spec, with very little in the ways of improvement. Assuming I don't want to buff my pet through either improved imp or demonic power, i think my best options are spell pushback reductions (fel concentration for affl and intensity for destro). With the "wonderful" simplification coming to affl, I wonder if intensity would be a better option than fel concentration, as it appears we'll be seeing more sbolt spamming. With my 3 points I could even max intensity and put 1 into fel concentration, achieving 54/0/17. Any thoughts?

I think not relying on a hit debuff when considering a build is a mistake if we're talking about an optimal raid (which is what is going to be assembled for progression). That said, hit is only going to become more of a commodity on gear as tiers progress, so the consideration will become where to put the points from Suppression. What are your reasons for not including Demonic Power? Previously it's been shown that the DPS gain from the mana conservation aspect of Suppression and Cataclysm are negligible, so I agree with your reasoning for going with pushback talents. I don't think Improved Drain Soul is necessary and would favor more points in Fel Concentration. As you spec out of Suppression and into Fel Concentration, and assuming Demonic Power is taken, I feel a single point in Intensity is the best bet, rather than taking a point in Cataclysm as is shown in the default Affliction build. If the BiS setup for Ulduar gear happens to include 11/12% hit, pushback protection is probably going to be superior in practice to the dps gain from mana conservation.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

tuberqlosis · 03/23/09, 6:23 PM

Chopping your post to parts I will be commenting on...

Originally Posted by duhwhat

What are your reasons for not including Demonic Power?

I don't think Improved Drain Soul is necessary and would favor more points in Fel Concentration.

As you spec out of Suppression and into Fel Concentration, and assuming Demonic Power is taken, I feel a single point in Intensity is the best bet, rather than taking a point in Cataclysm as is shown in the default Affliction build.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

I am not sure whether push back reduction or a slightly faster imp fireball is better, and I personally would rather improve myself over my pet as affl(considering DP would be the ONLY pet buff I went for, unlike demo or destro). If DP is more of a DPS increase, then that is where the points would go.

The reason I take Imp DS is that I am threat capped as affl now. My gear is a mix 200/213, but I have even had significant threat problems in 25s. The most notable is Maly, where I ride the tank REAL hard. The argument could be made as sbolt spam increases that Destructive Reach, the destro equivalent, returns more overall threat reduction, but I feel locks generate enough threat to mandate the reduction.

I do agree with you that cataclysm, especially with the hit removal, is damn near worthless (even when looking at destro I hate its 2nd tier talents).

Going with 53/0/15, I have 3 points left, but I've already maxed out affl pushback. With these last 3 points I'm looking at some combo of Imp improvement via Demonic Power and/or Improved Imp, threat reduction via Imp DS and/or Destructive Reach, or destro pushback via Intensity and 1 point in the previous fields. However, I've heard the succi's DPS beats the imp's, so unless I hear otherwise I'm probably going to avoid Imp Imp. With these thoughts, my considerations and questions are as follows:

1. With the decreased CD on DG, he will obviously see more action. As his presence increases, is it worth buffing the decreasing presence of my "normal" pet?
2. With the increase in sbolt spam, should I prioritize threat/pushback on destro spells over their affliction counterparts?
3. With my limited 3 points, will the imp surpass the succi in dps (assuming as affl I'm not devoting a glyph slot to a pet and that the succi does in fact currently surpass the imp)?

Heeno · 03/23/09, 6:42 PM

1. Remember now that Ulduar is here you will be wiping, and your doomguard is only good for one attempt. The average guild does one attempt every five minutes, so your doomguard would be up one out of every six attempts.

2. Even still with all of the changes to affliction, the affliction portion of the rotation still does more damage than the destruction portion, meaning you should prioritize threat reduction for affliction. However, affliction is composed of of DoTs and high DPCT spells, which do not benefit as much from spell pushback like a filler, shadow bolt does.

3. The best way you could deal with those three points is to move two points out of fel concentration into suppression, use a point to finish off suppression, pick up demonic power, and drop 3% hit from your gear for more spellpower.

cjwprostar · 03/24/09, 11:47 AM

Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, but since Pandemic now makes 2 of our dots crit in 3.1 and I believe we will be casting more sbolts due to the removal of siphon life and immolate from our rotaion, would it be worth it to use a [Grand Firestone] instead of a [Grand Spellstone]? I've done some limited testing on the PTR but with mixed results. If anyone has done the math that would be great.

gherkin · 03/24/09, 12:16 PM

Originally Posted by cjwprostar

Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, but since Pandemic now makes 2 of our dots crit in 3.1 and I believe we will be casting more sbolts due to the removal of siphon life and immolate from our rotaion, would it be worth it to use a [Grand Firestone] instead of a [Grand Spellstone]? I've done some limited testing on the PTR but with mixed results. If anyone has done the math that would be great.

Shadowbolt will need to comprise more than 50% of your total DPS to justify the firestone. Run a rotation test - my Sbolt ends up being ~35% of my damage done, with Corruption/Agony/UA/Haunt/DS making up the other 65%.

1% of 65% > 1% of 35%, regardless of combat ratings.

Shayo · 03/24/09, 12:50 PM

Follow up: after upgrading to the newest version of simulationcraft and running the tests properly (no demonic pact warlock in one raid and not in the other), I'm consistently showing spell stone to be a 21-26 dps gain over fire stone.

DPS Ranking:
26786 100.0% Raid
6871 25.6% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_SP_DG
6845 25.5% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_FS_DG
6562 24.5% Warlock_T8_53_00_18
6541 24.4% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_fs

cjwprostar · 03/24/09, 1:51 PM

Originally Posted by gherkin

Shadowbolt will need to comprise more than 50% of your total DPS to justify the firestone. Run a rotation test - my Sbolt ends up being ~35% of my damage done, with Corruption/Agony/UA/Haunt/DS making up the other 65%.

1% of 65% > 1% of 35%, regardless of combat ratings.

Well that's one reason I couldn't figure it out. My sbolt makes up 41.7% of my damage and I would think Haunt counts as a direct damage spell when it comes to the firestone and that was 5.4% of my damage, making my total direct damage ~47.1%.

Originally Posted by Shayo

10k Iterations w/firestone: (weird % numbers here were because I simply included the other warlock builds)
6955 13.0% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_DG
6644 12.4% Warlock_T8_53_00_18

10k Iterations w/spellstone:
DPS Ranking:
6869 51.2% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_DG
6558 48.8% Warlock_T8_53_00_18

So it looks like the spellstone wins out but only by ~85dps. Thanks for the help

Galanna · 03/24/09, 2:49 PM

Originally Posted by Shayo

10k Iterations w/firestone: (weird % numbers here were because I simply included the other warlock builds)
6955 13.0% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_DG
6644 12.4% Warlock_T8_53_00_18

10k Iterations w/spellstone:
DPS Ranking:
6869 51.2% Warlock_T8_53_00_18_DG
6558 48.8% Warlock_T8_53_00_18

Exactly, with those tests the spellstone is losing by ~85 dps, but they were not done with the same raid, maybe causing synergy that increased firestone DPS, synergy that spellstone DPS did not received.

Kabale · 03/25/09, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by Galanna

Exactly, with those tests the spellstone is losing by ~85 dps, but they were not done with the same raid, maybe causing synergy that increased firestone DPS, synergy that spellstone DPS did not received.

:|

SimulationCraft models a perfect raid setting in which all possible buffs are present. The results from Shayo's testing show that under ideal conditions, the firestone will yield 85~ more DPS than the spellstone for the specs tested.

Shayo · 03/25/09, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by Kabale

:|

SimulationCraft models a perfect raid setting in which all possible buffs are present. The results from Shayo's testing show that under ideal conditions, the firestone will yield 85~ more DPS than the spellstone for the specs tested.

And again I want to point out the follow up I did with a more recent version of the sim shows the spellstone with 20 dps higher. I'll edit the original and take that portion out since it's just confusing people.

• Zakalwe · 03/25/09, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by Kabale

:|

SimulationCraft models a perfect raid setting in which all possible buffs are present. The results from Shayo's testing show that under ideal conditions, the firestone will yield 85~ more DPS than the spellstone for the specs tested.

The problem is that the "perfect raid" simulated by setting optimal_raid=1 assumes a Totem of Wrath but no Demonic Pact. One of his tests included a deep demo warlock actor with DP while the other did not. DP + ToW is currently quite a bit better than just ToW, due to trinkets and other procs putting the DP buff at over 280 for significant portions of the fight.

Bottom line, Spellstone is (obviously) the best choice for affliction.

shauno · 03/30/09, 6:37 PM

Moving away from PTR discussion right now.
I've been working on an application to calculate a full overall set of gear to conform to 289 hit rating while having the highest DPS score based on the following stat weights:

        
        float weight_Int = 0.16f;
        float weight_Spi = 0.34f;
        float weight_Hste = 0.41f;
        float weight_Crit = 0.25f;
        float weight_SP = 0.66f;

Obviously hit rating no longer needs to have a weight as every gear combination will be tested and if the hit rating is below 289 it is not suitable, if the hit rating is above 289 it will find the set with the highest DPS score based on the above weights.

The enchants stay the same as the highest DPS score for each enchant is obvious except in the case of Boots and Gloves (Icewalker & Precision) it will test with these enchants too. The app will also gem gear and test if the socket bonus is worth it and apply the appropriate coloured gem (whichever has the highest DPS score for that socket colour), if not it will just load up the sockets with Runed Scarlet Rubies.

I haven't added any weights on T7 2/4pc bonuses, nor trinkets at this time, right now it assumes Dying Curse/Illustration of the Dragon Soul as static trinkets. I also haven't added the 2 hit gems I want to yet (+16 hit and +8 hit/haste) as another possibility, much like the hit rating enchants, since you never know.. (highly unlikely) but that'll come soon.

Right now it is just grabbing for each slot (other than trinkets) a list of items from Wowhead based on the criteria of having iLvl 213-226, having no melee stats and at least either > 0 DPS score or > 0 hit rating. Based on this we get about 1.4 trillion different gear combinations, the algorithm is slightly optimized so we only test about 1/3 of that. On my work E4400 2.0ghz Dual core CPU this took about 24-30 hours and only needed to test 550 billion combinations.

Anyway, that's the brief explanation, I hope to add weights in for T7 bonuses, the hit rating gems and weights for trinkets soon, without further adieu, here is the latest gear combination it gave me... thoughts/suggestions for all this?

chardev.org v6 ~ a World of Warcraft character planner

Once Ulduar comes out I will easily be able to reconfigure the stat weights, any other weights, any new gems and socket bonuses and to get the new lists of gear.

angaroth · 03/30/09, 7:10 PM

Interesting. You might want to add 3 tweaks -

1) Another run where you set the hit cap at 368 and see what the gear cost is, compared to 3 talent points that might be worth more, depending on your spec.

2) Allow for the Ring of the Malevolent. A 200 ring, sure, but lots of hit.

3) Force 4pcT7 in each slot. (i.e. a run for 4pc t7 except head, then except for shoulder, then except for ...) It is certainly worth something at the moment, and even more once the Glyph of Life Tap becomes available.