On this topic of "Is CoE better for personal DPS"
So I was writing this long exuberent post about CoE vs Agony and then I realized, you know what this post needs more of. GRAPHS

Thats right, It's simcraft time boys and girls, Lets gather round for SCIENCE



The following is the result of Pure Simcraft with 1000 iteration testing based on the "Simcraft Naxx set" aka the numbers that come WITH simcraft.

using this spec Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
with Glyph of agony, immolate and conflag. This is what I theorized as the best spec on page 14, and has the highest chance of comming out on top when I ran simcraft in more than a total of 100,000 iterations over the span of my testing pre 3.0.8 It would stand to note that nothing of the warlock class has changed in relevance to this test as of yet.

This is assuming you are the only warlock in the raid, there are no other casters at all, no mages no druids nothing basicly you are in a mele group, we've all been there be it a 5man or a 10 man.

Now that being said, lets look at what happens!









So some things to note

MC has an 80% uptime, giving immolate a 4649 DPCt CB a 4041 DPCt and incin a 2894 DPCT

CoA represents 7% of the dps, the lack of other caster synergies really hurts here and we have fewer crits than normal allowing dots to appear better than they are in a raid situation.

Now Lets look at Curse of elements.









Now Lets look at some things

FIRSTLY Dps is Higher, by about 200, so there is a clear difference.

Second

Molten core is down to 46% uptime, Demonic soul is down by nearly half. But the flat 10% increase in damage is better than keeping up your own synergies.

So CoE> CoA in a vacuum warlock is the only caster situation, let alone warlock is the only +dmg caster situation.

It is a very very large dps loss if we are not though.

Any how, I have to go grab some salt and some garlic as It appears I will be putting my foot in my mouth. Hope this stops the fighting.

If you have any questions about my results feel free to ask here, or if you must PM me.


P.S. Sorry if any one read this before it was finished, preview changes/save changes mix up.

also credit to the science picture goes to the delightfully hilarious XKCD

I don't follow this line. As shown by your graphs the only time CoE is not a dps loss over CoA is if you can't get someone else to keep the buff up, either another warlock, an unholy dk, or a balance druid... is this what you meant? Otherwise CoE is always a gain over CoA apparently, even though I myself thought it wouldn't be a gain for fire builds when factoring in MC uptime + CoAs damage.

Everything else is going to scale. So even if you can't get someone else to put the buff up, say there's no moonkin, no other warlock, and no unholy dk, you, the sole warlock, are losing dps by casting CoA over CoE (not to mention costing the whole raid dps). This isn't going to change if you're getting other caster buffs because caster buffs are going to scale up all of your damage, mostly proportionately but the in-proportionate part is going to favor CoE because unlike CoA it does scale with crit and scales better with haste because it's a direct increase to all your other damage and this other damage will scale with those stats.

Maybe I misunderstood this line from your post. But it seems like either it's saying these numbers I just produced aren't correct when you factor in other caster buffs (aside from CoE type buffs) or it's saying if someone else is putting up CoE or a comparative buff then you should cast CoA instead of CoE... but I think the later is common sense and really could have just been said that way to prevent confusion.

The question was:
If I am the only one getting profit from CoE and there is nobody else to supply that debufftype, shall I cast CoE or CoA.
That has been answered strongly in favor of CoE.

"It is a very very large dps loss if we are not though." just means that CoE duty for a Destro 'lock is a huge handicap.
CoE duty priority should be something along this:
1. Deep Affliction
2. Meta Ruin builds
3. anyone relying on Molten Core (30+ in Destro)

Sorry for the confusion on what I was saying

COE is a horrible horrible debuff that should be removed from the warlock bar unless in dire situations outside of raids.

basically CoE for any spec is a massive dps loss.

Demo benefits the least from CoA assuming they are going the ISB meta builds that I see destroying meters.

affliction does have the 13% version of CoE but CoA is an even higher DpCT for aff then it is destro, and for destro the added synergy is huge.

Basically CoE is a massive sacrifice and if there are other people in your raid that CAN apply it, they should, DK's and Boomkins loose the least amount of dps by applying their debuffs.

Also on the later is common sense, as much as I don't wish to cater to the lowest common denominator, alas there are people who do not know that there are others that can share our debuffs, but none of those people are reading this.... right...

Any how quick recap: CoE always better than CoA unless you can get a boomkin/Sp or if it's between you and a Demo warlock let the demo warlock take the burden, and you and an AFF warlock (assuming you are the only two casters) you probably need to roll on that to see who creates the highest dps while loosing CoA.

I want to help out one of my locks. I'm pretty sure he can do it...he beat me often enough in T6 content. Anyway, I've been running 41/30, so I don't really have any experience to help him out. His spec and gear are good, but he comes out at sub-4k very often.

His DPS time is always over 95%, and everything looks good to me, so my questions are mostly about how often chaos bolt and conflag should be cast. In the OP, it says they both should be cast as often as possible. On a near 3 min patch kill he cast chaos bolt 8 times and conflag 9. Simple math shows he should be able to get off 15 chaos bolts and 18 conflags in 3 minutes. Is this where he's probably coming up short?

Again these first two lines are misleading, I'm sorry to be so anal about this but you're using double speak. CoE is not a DPS loss for any spec. It doesn't stack with other CoE type debuffs so if you can get someone else to put it up then you should use CoA instead. It's better to have a CoE effect up then to not. It's a dps gain to have spell damage increase on the target even if you're the only warlock and even if you have to sacrifice CoA to put it up. I believe you're looking at this backwards. The gain from CoE if you're the only one using it and the only one that can put it up is 10% - CoAs average damage % contribution + whatever time you gain to nuke more over the course of the fight, if that average contribution is less then 10% + gained nuke time CoE is always a gain. You are not losing dps casting it if someone else isn't and to say it should never be on your bar assumes that you'll never be in a raid situation where someone else can't keep the debuff up for you. This is especially important to consider in 10 man raiding.

As to the last part of your argument, most Affliction warlocks will have Malediction even if they never plan to cast CoE simply because it's a selfless buffer talent and there's really no better spot for those talent points(1% damage increase per talent point). Because of this if it's between a Destruction 'lock and an Affliction Warlock the Affliction 'lock should put up CoE assuming the two of them are putting out comparative dps otherwise even if they're the only two casters in the raid because the Destruction Warlock will be doing 13% more damage and the Affliction warlock will be doing 3-5% more damage (assuming CoA equals 8-10% of the Affliction Warlock's damage otherwise). If they're not the only two casters in the raid CoE should be put up by the Affliction Warlock hands down.

Wow Web Stats

I am having a terrible time and feel like I am getting smoked by the other lock in our guild with what I believe to be inferior gear as far as DPS goes. I feel with my build and rotation that I should be doing A LOT more DPS than I currently am...hopefully you can take a peek at this and tell me what I am doing wrong...

I am using Glyph of Conflag, Immolate and Imp. I was using CoA but I wanted to experiment with the Imp glyph and was pleasantly suprised to see (according to my recount) little Gartip's DPS was over 700. I have logged out in different gear than is currently showing on my armory (the robe changed Gown of the Spell-Weaver - Item - World of Warcraft, and the gloves changed Gloves of the Fallen Wizard - Item - World of Warcraft). I have decided that I would like to go for the 4 piece T7 bonus so I plan on replacing the pants as soon as I can. I am desprate to try about anything to up my DPS and have been terribly disappointed as of late.

My current rotation is CoA, Corr, Immolate, Conflag, CB and Immolate repeat. I don't think that there is really anything fundamentally wrong with my rotation, unless you can spot something that I may be missing. I am rapidly getting frustrated with my character and don't really want to spec into a FG/Ruin build because it seems to "noob-lock" to me (no offense to anybody that is specced like that, I just would rather not spec that way) and I like to be a factor on trash and bosses and don't really currently enjoy the Affliction playstyle right now.

So...TL/DR version...what would you spec into and what would you change on this current set of gear that I have that would help me regain my past glories of Meter Rockin in BT, SSC and Hyjal?

Thanks in advance.

The World of Warcraft Armory

PS. I do have Life and Death, Dying Curse and Matriarch's Spawn in my bags if that helps.

PPS...if this is in the wrong forum, I apologize. Should it be moved to the WWS thread?

@ Beveline

The first thing I noticed when looking was that your crit % was very, very low. So I went over to the 1 mage in the raid: Arcane. So, from the start you're missing 10% crit right there.
You have atleast 1 Ele shammy and you were getting rampage, so that's alright.
I dont see corruption on your damage done, start using it.
Curse of agony and immolate uptime is around 70%, that needs to go up.
It looks like you did not use a potion.
You're using a wrong meta gem.
You've got much more hit rating than you should need.

You should till be critting more, I'm not sure why you're not.

It could be moved but I'll answer you here.

Drop down to 290 hit (as horde) aka 11%, boost your crit to around 17% if you can and then stack dmg and haste. You have way too much hit for destro and way to little crit, Now the days of stacking crit for destro are over but that being said you should have a base amount of around 17-19%


Also at warlockmotif when comparing His dps to the other warlocks the lack of a mage putting up scorch doesn't matter though you are right if there is only one mage he needs to be scorch spec. Every thing else he said was right.

I definitely disagree that you'd need 17% crit for destruction, there's simply nothing in destruction that in any way makes you 'need crit'. It's nothing but another DPS stat, and not a very good one at that.

You're right that in a direct comparison improved scorch won't have a big impact (It will still have some impact because it effects a greater part of your total damage output), I was more-so just getting a general anwser for why your DPS was low.

Well, i had a similar problem. Dont believe that gear or minor tweaks in your talent points or crit will make a huge different.

I was able to make a huge improvement in DPS by doing a couple simple things.

First - make a clean, function Raid specific UI. Get rid of all the junk!!! THIS IS KEY
You need a spell timer and a cool down timer. It needs to be right in front of you. You have to know exactly when your CoA, Imm are up (AND DONT CLIP). You need to know exactly when your BD and CB are up. Always hit your cool downs when they are up. Not missing a cool down is key - and if you dont have a great UI - it aint gonna happen. I use Fortexorist. I cleaned up my buttons and spell bar with Dominos.

Second - control for server lag. Spam the crap out of your buttons. It helps a lot.

Third: Use WWS and compare fight between you and other warlock. Are they casting more Inc than you in the same time period? Do they have more ticks of COA/Imm than you?

Fourth: Soulfire is cute - but only when Heroism and BD are both up. Otherwise ignore.

Fifth: Always be casting. Are you being shot up in the air? Hit Corr. Are you running - LF/Corr/COA - even deathcoil. Just dont ever not cast. MAKE SURE you are getting whatever raid debuffs are out there. Stand in the sparks. If there are two - better be standing in both. Is your imp buffed - it better be. Make sure you arent phase shifted during buffs.

This is not BC - Skill rules WOTLK. Most of the talk in this thread are minor tweaks in DPS. The major tweaks are your skill. 90% of what is discussed here is for those that have it down cold. And in my opinion - 95% of warlocks dont have it down cold. I am constantly amazed how much more dps I can tweak out of myself because constantly am getting better at these tasks.

Right, since you don't want to prove yourself, I will:
2/13/56
Caster_T7_Base
gear_intellect=750

3% visible, 5% hidden crit from talents.
166.6667 = 1%, so 750 / 166.6667 = 5.35% crit from int (4.5% before AI/BoK).
Respectively you need 437 crit rating to reach 17% crit.

Using the default Simcraft files, with only difference being:
gear_crit_rating=437

And using 10.000 iteration, we get:
Reducing crit by 100 and adding 100 haste gives us:
Again, there is no need for crit at all, in fact if you exchanged all crit rating for haste you'd probably still do better DPS:
There is no benefit from critical strike rating other than DPS, as such there is no need for any particular amount of crit. The cloest you can get is that past a certain amount of haste you'll come to a point where you benefit more from other stats. That kind of gear however does not exist in the game as of right now.

Thanks for the input...I was under the impression that I should stay around 14% hit for max DPS so I will lose some of the hit and see how that goes. Should I replace the Embrace of the Spider - Item - World of Warcraft with Sundial of the Exiled - Item - World of Warcraft then? I always thought the pure spell damage was a better choice but if crit is what I need then crit is what I will do...I also have Leggings of Atrophy - Item - World of Warcraft but that would add more useless hit but juicy crit and I could quit chasing my T7.5 pants I guess...although the 4 piece proc sounds nice....should I regem for crit then? Perhaps crit and spell damage gems?

Don't gem for crit, ever. Gem for spellpower, hit (until hit capped), and haste, whichever of those will fulfill the socket bonuses and meta you're after.

I just want to make this abundantly clear to anyone confused by this mix up because two different mechanics were combined here.

Hit:
Improved Faerie Fire (Rank 3) - Your Faerie Fire spell also increases the chance the target will be hit by spell attacks by 3%, and increases the critical strike chance of your damage spells by 3% on targets afflicted by Faerie Fire.
Misery (Rank 3) - Your Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay and Vampiric Touch spells also increase the chance for harmful spells to hit by 3% lasting 24 sec, and increases the damage of your Mind Blast, Mind Flay and Mind Sear spells by an amount equal to 15% of your spell power.

Increase spell damage:
Earth and Moon (Rank 3) - Your Wrath and Starfire spells have a 100% chance to apply the Earth and Moon effect, which increases spell damage taken by 13% for 12 sec. Also increases your spell damage by 3%.
Ebon Plaguebringer (Rank 3) - Your Crypt Fever morphs into Ebon Plague, which increases magic damage taken by 13% in addition to increasing disease damage taken. Improves your critical strike chance with weapons and spells by 3% at all times.
Curse of the Elements (Rank 5) - Curses the target for 5 min, reducing Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow resistances by 165 and increasing magic damage taken by 10%. Only one Curse per Warlock can be active on any one target.
Malediction (Rank 3) - Increases the damage bonus effect of your Curse of the Elements spell by an additional 3%, and increases your spell damage by 3%.

Now, for an affliction Warlock, the reason to spec into Malediction is for the "increases your spell damage by 3%" portion regardless of whether you use CotE or not.

If you are not affliction spec and there is no unholy DK with EP or Moonkin, then you still give all other magic damage a boost of 10% by using CotE.

Im trying to help a guildmember with stat weights for Distruction/demo build. Is there a posting for stat weights anyone can point out to me? TY.

Thanks but what about the stat weight values to put into her Pawn addon? talkin numbers, if there is any out there.

Stat weight values change dynamically with the cchanging gear compilations, therefore only a crude relative weighting is appropriate for an addon like Pawn. The spreadsheet will have to be used to determine definitively which pieces are upgrades as it always considers the current stats of the gear compilation. The weighting I would use for destro would be hit to cap > spell damage (1.0) > haste (0.75) >> crit ~ spirit (0.5)(for DA builds) >> int (0.15). For affliction, hit to cap > spell damage (1.0) >> haste ~ crit ~ spirit (.45) >> int (0.15). MP5 is worse than int, but is still a theoretical dps increase.

I find CoE to give good results with meta/sb build while in fire/ember it is a dps loss.
Ups, i was thinkni i was in demonology thread =X

The quickest way for a quite weightings values is SampleOutputCaster - simulationcraft - Google Code .

Just scroll down to the "DPS Scale Factors (dps increase per unit stat)" section. However you need to be aware that the default gear set has 2000 sp 290 hit 500 haste and 500 crit so that will effect the weightings compared to someone with less gear.

The 0.2 dps difference per point haste/crit can be found in post 1 of this thread and is due to the % per point ratio difference.
Exchanging 500 crit with 500 haste in simcraft therefor yields a dps increase, 30 less than expected just looking at the statrating probably due to the fact that 20% haste means 20% more mana consumption while 20% crit don't.
If you'd exchange the stats on a % basis, crit would probably come out ahead for that simple reason.

While I ate a lot of foot from what Motif posted, you can't compare percent stats like that.

You are correct in saying that it is more mana used, but you are still going to use the same ration of casts/lifetap, though the cast time per lifetap is admittedly shifting do to the fact that haste scales, longer spell benefit more than a gcd.

Though you are right Crit % vs Haste % are probably much more equal stats, crit and haste are not and as such there is very very few items that increase crit percentage as most of these items would scale far to well. Most crit percent increases are either talents or tier bonuses. The problem simply is crit and haste are weighted PER POINT very equally on gear stats, and there in lies the problem and is one of the reasons haste is still good.

The decay over time of stats is evident here, while crit was an original Vanilla stat, and there by decayed in value from 60-70, haste was introduced at 70 in roughly the same amount/value as crit was at 60, the decay is nearly exponential, so the 60-70 gap wasn't nearly as large as the 70-80 gap for crit and haste.

It is hard to argue that crit is worthless, but it is equally hard to argue that it should be stacked or even that there should be a base value a player should hit for crit. And since haste is both abundant and neither makes nor breaks your talents, in the way that never ever critting with destruction spells would end badly for a destro warlock, it is essentially a stat that can only cap and has no base amount.

Perhaps the 3.1 changes will weight crit more heavily, or ulduar gear will have crit valued cheaper and there by it will be more abundant, but this is neither here nor there.