The Mage Equivalent: The Destruction Warlock - Page 37

Aitheras · 01/27/09, 1:06 AM

Felguard is doing a lot more than 1200 dps.Tbh it did around 1450 for me last run as 41/30 and i am sure i 've seen parses with even more than that..

To the point though, recently i was thinking what Faldrath is saying,is there still a DR on crits?

That being said when i go to raid with some modified crit gear and i have 60% crit chance on the target, fully raid buffed plus debuffs etc etc, i will crit on a 60% ratio on those fights and not less.
Yes i know 60% crit chance is nothing to stare at and there may be dr's on 70-80% but still i think that if half of your spells crit, you will do more damage eventually than having a bit more haste.

I am starting to wonder if crit came on par with haste for warlocks.I think the fact that we had totally neglected crit on tbc got over us now in wotlk.I don't know if they changed anything intentionally.
They might be and thats why we are facing tons of haste on early raiding gear.Maybe as the end game raiding in tbc brought us haste, now the expansion will bring us a "revamped" crit?

I don't know if there is an extensive testing out there when it comes to wotlk but at least i haven't faced any DR's on crit as of now and i really see major differences on my damage when bringing in a lot of crit.
And no i am not neglecting anyone who is going to jump on me and say spl power>haste>spirit>crit .

Just thinking out loud ^^

Warlocomotif · 01/27/09, 1:46 AM

The way stats have deminishing returns is simple:

If you have a lot of 1 stat. The result is that your other stats become that much more valueable.
Go for 0-50% crit, every spellpower you get benefits from that 50% crit. At the same time every extra percent of crit you gain does not have any increased value.

At is, to my knowledge- the full extend of the DR on crit. It's also why cit has such a low value- we already get a ton of it from raid buffs and talents. Meaning the value of our other stats is already hugely inflated.

And before you say: "But we get a lot of spellpower too"-- you get 18% crit from raid buffs, that is 826 crit rating (Worth the item budget of 991 spellpower). We dont get anywhere near that amount of spellpower buffs.

achille · 01/27/09, 5:58 AM

People are not undervaluating crit. The value of crit is low because it's so expensive. Noone here is comparing 1% crit to 1% hit, but 1 crit rating to 1 hit rating.

IFF you needed the same amout of crit rating and hit rating to get 1%, or if they costed the same in terms of item budget if you prefer, crit would be valued as much as hit.

Another assumption of course would be that all of your spells could crit, since all of them can hit.

Even another assumption would be that crits deal 2x damage actually. Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Haunt don't do that.

So I don't get why you say that it was normal that crit was valued low in TBC, and shouldn't anymore. In TBC crit would buff all your offensive spells, just like hit. All those spells would deal 2x damage if they critted. This means that if in TBC 1 crit costed as much as 1 hit in terms of budget, they would have been identical (ignoring soulshatter resists and the likes). If anything, it's today that crit value is dropping with stuff like Immolate and Curse of Agony in each playstyle.

Faldrath · 01/27/09, 6:35 AM

I forgot about ISB when I mentioned crit pre-LK, yes. Even so, what changed now is that we can stack crit in a way that wasn't possible before - and, again, ignoring gear. 18% from raid buffs, as you said, 20%ish from spec, 10% from 2t7... suddenly you have very high crit with very little effort. And while crit indeed does not benefit CoA and Corr, we all know that those spells aren't cast for their DPS on a Demo/Destruction build anyway - they're there for MC uptime, and MC will benefit from high crit. Lastly, crit becomes more valuable the longer the fight goes - if you cast 20 incinerates in a fight, the difference between 50% and 30% crit isn't very significant (10 to 6). If you cast 60 incinerates, though, crit value increases (30 crits at 50% compared to 18 at 30%).

And yes, the Felguard is obviously more DPS than a point in Backlash. That was never the question - see my previous post, I don't use the Felguard because I usually lag too much to micromanage it successfully, so I prefer the fire-and-forget Imp. Again, I'm not claiming this is a top DPS spec - but it is competitive enough for people that might find it useful (people who lag a lot and/or simply want a very simple spec to play).

I do still stand by the theoretical points I made earlier, though. DK seems to be better than S'n'F, and we usually undervalue crit - I'm obviously not saying that crit is better than spell power, hit or haste, but it's not the throwaway stat many people seem to think it is - and it takes very little effort to achieve decent levels of crit, so why not do it?

• dragon12 · 01/27/09, 6:57 AM

Originally Posted by Faldrath

Lastly, crit becomes more valuable the longer the fight goes - if you cast 20 incinerates in a fight, the difference between 50% and 30% crit isn't very significant (10 to 6). If you cast 60 incinerates, though, crit value increases (30 crits at 50% compared to 18 at 30%).

What?

Crit averages out to a flat percentage dps increase regardless of how long the fight goes.

Faldrath · 01/27/09, 7:17 AM

Originally Posted by dragon12

What?

Crit averages out to a flat percentage dps increase regardless of how long the fight goes.

Right, disregard that. Absolute numbers are higher but the % is the same. Apologies, but I had just woken up!

achille · 01/27/09, 8:12 AM

Originally Posted by Faldrath

I forgot about ISB when I mentioned crit pre-LK, yes. Even so, what changed now is that we can stack crit in a way that wasn't possible before - and, again, ignoring gear. 18% from raid buffs, as you said, 20%ish from spec, 10% from 2t7... suddenly you have very high crit with very little effort. And while crit indeed does not benefit CoA and Corr, we all know that those spells aren't cast for their DPS on a Demo/Destruction build anyway - they're there for MC uptime, and MC will benefit from high crit. Lastly, crit becomes more valuable the longer the fight goes - if you cast 20 incinerates in a fight, the difference between 50% and 30% crit isn't very significant (10 to 6). If you cast 60 incinerates, though, crit value increases (30 crits at 50% compared to 18 at 30%).

I'm obviously not saying that crit is better than spell power, hit or haste, but it's not the throwaway stat many people seem to think it is - and it takes very little effort to achieve decent levels of crit, so why not do it?

Wait. The current high amount of crit that you get from raid buffs compared to the past, if anything, lowers the value of crit on your own gear, for the reason mentioned by Warlocomotif.

I also disagree with your view about non-nukers. Whilst the differences between a pure affliction and a demo/destro playstyle and stat choises is definitely there, they share something in common too. For both, the nuker is the worst spell. Take this post for example. Curse of Agony has a higher DPCT than incinerate, and factor that those incinerates are getting the molten core buff. Just like affliction, you are only using incinerate because you have to. From your post it looks like you are implying that casting CoA would be a dps loss if it weren't for molten core.

Also, we agree that crit is the worst stat. But the little effort to get crit is at the expense of other stats that would grant you better returns in exchange of it. Noone would pick a 45 damage 30 haste ring over a 45 damage 30 haste 25 crit ring here, you know what i mean

Faldrath · 01/27/09, 8:18 AM

Yes, but if you reread my previous posts you'll notice that I've been saying exactly that: do not *gear* for crit, get your crit from your spec/raid buffs. If you can get some crit from gear without sacrificing other stats, go for it... but it's usually foolish to choose a piece with crit on it over a haste one.

edit: and I never said casting CoA/Corr would be a DPS loss, although I can see why you'd get that impression (forgot a "mostly" there). The post you linked doesn't even mention Corruption, while I include it in my rotation.

krilz · 01/27/09, 9:45 AM

This might be a silly question (and already answered) but I remember some while ago a question asked about Firestone vs Spellstone but AFAIK there was no definitive answer. My gut tells me Firestone because of the amount of DD-spells you cast but the haste is certainly more valuable than the crit. Again, apologies if this has already been mentioned.

Dirich · 01/27/09, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Talimar

I disagree. CoA in any destro build without the CoA talents has always been 5-6% of my total damage. Imp consistently remains at 15-ish %.

And your imp crit numbers surely must be off. Maybe he doesn't inherit any of our personal crit rating but he does benefit from raidwide crit buffs.

I checked some WWS so I'm reposting the math but with the correct numbers. On average coa is in 4-5% range and imp in 10-15% of our dps, imp crit is around 20-21%. I'll account our imp for a 13% of our dps, coa for 5% and I'll consider the imp to have 20.5% chance to crit. This implies that our fire spell dps is 82%.
We'll use, for a better comparison, 120 seconds of casting (with no life taps).

Over 120 seconds we cast 5 coa, 8 immo and 12 conflagrate Time is expanded through our 15% haste (for the comparison to be serious, I need to use a serious haste value), which means we have 138 seconds of casting.
(138 - 1.5*(5+8+12))/2.25 = 44.6666.... casts of incinerate

The value to consider is 45 since over 120 seconds. 120 assumes we cast the first immo, coa and conflag all at the same time, so we need 2 more GCDs actually, and this would bring the number to over 45 (but lower than 46). With 45 we can keep in account some delay in suing cds I guess, so it seems a fair choice.

Casts capable of crit: 8 + 12 + 45 = 65

Number of Firebolts over 120 seconds: 60

Imp CoA + Emp Imp provides
+2.45% (+0.5% dps for imp coa +1.95% dps for emp imp)
+0.205*60*0.2/65 = +3.78% chance to crit

Master Demo 3/5
+2.46% dps
+3% crit

Which means Imp Coa + Emp Imp version is better than MD 3/5.
I checked my old counts and it seem that the problem was the same: I used a wrong crit chance for the imp, that's why I went for MD 3/5 over Emp Imp. With a proper crit chance the result is the opposite.

The MD version handles better the fights where the imp's life is in risk. But if the imp is safe, than I think 0.78% crit chance is better than 0.01% dps. In termn of pure dps.

All in all, I don't know if the imp coa + emp imp version is worth taking over the MD3/5, since the difference in dps doesn't seem so huge. And MD3/5 gives us passive bonus from imp and Demonic Sacrifice, thus allowing us much better dps if we wanna drop an Infernal or Doomguard or even if we just keep the imp phase shifted.

Shabaz · 01/27/09, 1:29 PM

Well, 40/31 perked my interest enough to try it last night. I tested on test dummies for 1 and 2 min durations using recount to watch DPS. Imp was out in both cases, and gear stayed the same. I did 6 "valid" tests per spec and per timeframe. (by valid, I threw out any tests that I felt I had personally messed up the rotation) I forgot my notes at home, but with approximate numbers, in the same gear on a boss test dummy looked like this:

28/43

SPow - 2040

Crit - 24.21 (32.21 with Fire Destro spells)

Hit - 380

Haste 405

DPS 3000 mean with a range of 2900 to 31000

40/31

SPow - 2221

Crit - 32.21 (42.21 with Fire Destro spells)

Hit 380

Haste 405

DPS 2700 mean with a range of 2600 to 2800

So...dispite my hope that a 40/31 might be an interesting way to cover for my newer gear it didnt turn out that way to me. Now, to be fair, I'm new to the 40/31 rotation, but I used my rotation for 31/40 with it....so except for user error (very possible) 28/43 was consistently stronger for me.

Hope this helps a little. (I know it's not as scientific as a WWS raid parse, but I felt like playing around a little)

wikkodemus · 01/27/09, 7:43 PM

Question about Incinerate/Immolate timing:

At what point does the damage boost to Incinerate from Immolate being up on the target get factored into the result? At the point that you start casting, at the point that it actually lands, or somewhere in between? Asked another way, if there's a few seconds left on Immolate but I know that my Incinerate cast time + travel time won't make it, should I clip a tick of Immolate it and refresh it early?

Xanzoken · 01/27/09, 9:21 PM

Originally Posted by wikkodemus

Question about Incinerate/Immolate timing:

At what point does the damage boost to Incinerate from Immolate being up on the target get factored into the result? At the point that you start casting, at the point that it actually lands, or somewhere in between? Asked another way, if there's a few seconds left on Immolate but I know that my Incinerate cast time + travel time won't make it, should I clip a tick of Immolate it and refresh it early?

If there's another immolate up on the target then don't refresh, otherwise refresh. Inicinerate takes the immolate into account that's on the current target as it lands, not when it's casted.

Kalku · 01/28/09, 12:26 AM

Originally Posted by Xanzoken

If there's another immolate up on the target then don't refresh, otherwise refresh. Inicinerate takes the immolate into account that's on the current target as it lands, not when it's casted.

I'm pretty sure the presence of Immolate it checked when the cast finishes, not when it lands. There have been a few posts in these forums about it, for example http://elitistjerks.com/922705-post3325.html.

Varalai · 01/28/09, 2:15 AM

Hello everyone, i've been a long time reader, first time poster. I've been following this thread, read up since page 1 and today i went to Noxrolumus 25 to try some thins Supplicium and his Simcrafts were showing.

Our raid doesnt carry neither a SP nor a Boomkin, so i have to gem/gear for a bit of hit, which fucks up my sp/crit/haste gemming.

Anyway, we went to Pachys and i tried my DPS for real tonight. I flasked, ate and got the Firegem Buff. I tried to use the rotation given by Supplicium and i got a 5K flat DPS. Our raid DPS is very lacking, we have people doing DPS as they should and we have a lot of carried people, so the fight lasted about 3:26. A long time for a guild that has cleared naxx for 10-11 weeks, which is sad.

The point is, casting Soulfire with BL + BD has some very nice results, cast times of about 2.3secs or something like that. Unfortunatly i coudnt get a WWS parse. We were having lag issues and i had to turn off all the addons i have. Including recount, so i coudnt save any report of what i did.

Anyway, the we went to Gluth and by this time the lag was cleared, so i logged off and turned on recount. I casted a very nice Soulfire on gluth as shown here:

I remember seeing a nearly 19k Soulfire once i casted vs 4H but my Laptop is shitty as hell so i didnt have any recount.

To note that i'm not showing a ninja pic taken from loathed or thaddius, here's a screenies of thaddius

(lol @ the people killing other players @ my guild by not moving from the opposite charge)

Anyway, keep up the good work. Very nice thread kept clean and i've always found my answers here.

On a sidenote, i've been watching different reports for the best in slot piece on chest, some say T7.5 and some say Gown of the Spellweaver. I have both and i'd like to know whats your personal opinion.

Thank you and sorry for the bad english (if i have any) english is my second language.

Edit: For some strange reason, both the WWS and Recount, dont let me see the damage from my pet as a percentage of my own. On recount i had the merge pet w/ owners tag on, when i took it off. I could see My imp's DPS, but when i merged it, it just added the DPS. Same happened to recount, it just keeps saying i'm doing 3k on dummies, but doesnt show my pet's attacks. Any idea why is this happening?