Since Leulier has not yet been updated for WotLK, I decided to create a brand new DPS calculator to figure out what the best stat is after hit and spell damage. IE, the age old question: Crit, Haste, (and now) Spirit?

But most importantly, I created this because I wanted something that is user-friendly: both simple and easy-to-use. (As well, make the math extremely easy to follow for those of you interested.)

Here is the link:

Vux DPS Calculator.xls

Please check it out and see if my math is correct. And of course plug in your stats and see which is the next best stat

We are not worthy! We are not worthy!

That said, I'm pumped to have some form of a spreadsheet again, but I'm curious about some things:
There is a lack of benefit shown for spirit outside of the damage gain, the spirit is calculated purely at 30% the value of damage as far as DPS gain, I think this is a fallacy. Of course, I'm sure you intend on updating it as time comes along to factor more complex variables like that, and to add more inputs for hit (I see it assumes hit is at 100%, I figure that is because you'd want to be hit capped before getting other stats, but some tradeoffs may be worth it.)

But that will come with time, I'm sure. Otherwise, nice work.

To users out there, I'd use it more as a general guide of what to gear for instead of a hard fast rule of what to do for maxx DPS.

Does it factor in any raid buffs?

Nice work. I"m still checking it out more thoroughly, but it seems like you forgot to include spell haste on instant spells to reduce the GCD. With 20% spell haste, all instant casts would be reduced to a 1.2 second GCD. If spell haste still works the same that it did as of 2.4, the GCD can't get lower than 1 second, meaning CoA wouldn't be affected if you had Amplify Curse.

I realize that Spirit lowers the number of global cooldowns for Life Tap over the course of a long fight. However, at least for the initial version, I didn't want to get into calculating the mana usage per spell towards how much mana each rotation uses, especially with complex variables that may vary from Warlock to Warlock such as having access to Replenishment, Judgement of Wisdom, Improved Water Elemental, Mana Tide, Mana Spring Totem, and double-tapping with 4 piece T7. I thought it would be best to keep things simple and say 2 Life Taps per minute. KISS (: (If anyone wishes to change that, just modify the first cell to the right of "Life Tap".) (Keep things simple -- at least for the first version anyway!)

As far as the DPS gain from Spirit, the calculation there is a simple 30% of the DPS gain from the Spell Power one. However, if I add another section just for adding 10 Spirit (or 3 damage), the result would be the same. For all intents and purposes in terms of how Spirit affects the damage output of spellls, 10 spirit = 3 damage. This can be verified by changing the +10 Spell Power in Sheet 2 cell C2 to +3. The DPS gain from this 3 Spell Power will be the same as what the +10 Spirit calculation was reporting before.

In terms of Hit, yes this is assuming that the Warlock is hit capped. Most of the Warlocks who would use a spreadsheet like this are either already at the hit cap, or know the importance of getting themselves it. I can add a calculation for it though just for reference.

For raid buffs, I took the same approach of simplicity as before in that one of my goals was to make this spreadsheet user-friendly. I didn't want people to have to click click a dozen or two buffs/debuffs on or off. The beauty is that anyone can just plug in 3 numbers (Spell Power/Crit/Haste) and bam, done. Just plug in numbers at raid-buffed levels and all the math will be reflected accurately. I might look into adding this functionality in the future, but for the first version I just wanted to focus on the math and make sure the foundation is stable before adding the floors.

Thank you for the kind words (:

This is a tricky situation. I was reluctant to include haste's effect on global cooldowns for the simple fact that if you shaved 0.03 seconds off the global cooldown, most people really aren't going to cast their dots 0.03 seconds faster. But for the purposes of accuracy, I will include it in the next version.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you guys are liking it. (: This is a work in progress and as always, feedback is much appreciated.

Actually, the one thing I'm most interested in getting from a spreadsheet is the relative value of hit and spellpower when below the affliction hit cap. The importance of hit-capping is, believe it or not, debatable. I know for mages it's not worth it until over 1500 spellpower or so, and I think affliction cares about it less than just about any spec (even account for haunt).

The thing I'm second-most-interested in is finding out if demonic aegis is as bad as I think it is, but changing spirit from .3 to .39 of spellpower isn't too hard to do manually.

Updated 12-11:

Added Hit Calculations
Added Haste to GCD Calculations
Added DPCT Column on right side for reference
Switched Glyph of CoA to Glyph of Immolate
Added Molten Core
Updated Talent Build
Added parenthesis in math column around Haunt/Shadow Embrace, Glyphs and MC/ISB multipliers for readability

Check out the new version; I added hit calculations! After playing around with it a bit, if my math is right it looks like Hit is better than Spell Power as long as you have over 1500 Spell Power or so? That seems to be the break even point. If anyone wants to comment on that more, or point out any errors, please feel free.

Anyway, 758 downloads on the first version! Thanks everyone! As always, comments and feedback appreciated.

Leulier's isnt fully working or accurate right now.

Then help get it accurate. The spreadsheet posted in this thread isn't any more accurate itself. Why are we replacing something just because it's a little off instead of telling the people who made it how to fix it? There are 500 posts saying "it's off" and I have yet to see a single one say WHY or HOW it is "off". Post some concrete data please and I'm sure the creators of the main dps spreadsheet out there will update it post haste.

It's a perfectly functioning basis for theorycrafting and we shouldn't just abandon it for no good reason. I really don't want to spend all the time helping some random new person develop their spreadsheet when we could just help the same old awesome excel wizards fix whatever may be broken in theirs.

And Leulier's is fully working right now if you know how to use Excel. It works quite well for me, so I'd love to hear where it's broken.

I posted in the thread some initial things to fix already. I'll continue to do so after each revision is posted. I'm all for good resources too, but I'm not going to tell someone to stop developing their product. If they both tell us the same thing, then that means we worked out the math right. If they are showing different things then that just shows that we have more work to do.

That's definitely a valid point, however wouldn't the resources of the individuals capable of excel work best be spent corroborating on one project rather than "competing" on several just so that we can "see what comes out of it"?

Monopolies are always better than Capitalism right? ^_^

I have been working on my spreadsheet for the past few weeks, since Leulier's had not been updated for a month. I posted mine days ago when we had no idea when the next update of Leulier's would be.

Finally, it was updated today, ironic timing, but after all the hard work I did, I'm not just going to throw it out without a second thought. Coming in here after I spent so long on this and telling me to just stop is a bit insulting.

In any case, our spreadsheets have different uses; for example, the math in mine is clear and easy to read. If I want to make corrections and updates to my spreadsheet, I will. Plus, there's nothing wrong with having options. [=

works fine in Open Office 2.4

Unfortunately, you're math is off.

For a spec as complicated as affliction, spell hit can't be calculated with your simple (finaldps = dps x (.83 + hitchance)) calculation. That works for sac/destro shadowbolt spam, but not this spec.

For instance, if CoA misses, I dont lose CoA's dps for the next 28 seconds. I just cast it again. All I lose is 3/5ths of a shadowbolt and CoA's dps for the GCD.
Likewise, if haunt misses, I dont just lose the haunt damage, I lose 20% dot damage for the next 10 seconds.

Since the value of hit vs spell power is just about the most relevant piece of information an afflic lock is gonna get from a spread sheet, it really needs to be modeled accurately for the spreadsheet to be of any value.

I think this kind of goes to further add to the point that we should be working on getting any issues with Leulier's resolved, since that spreadsheet is much further along. Efforts are appreciated, but there's no need for everyone to be doing twice the work when we already have a spreadsheet that is working correctly for the most part.

That would only make the value of hit more valuable than it already is. And hit is already the highest valued stat on the spreadsheet. This is why I was reluctant to add the hit calculation in the first place; we all know the important of hit. The main focus is the difference between Crit, Haste, Spell Power, and Spirit.

Please, enough of these worthless posts. They contribute nothing of value.

Vux definitely like the spreadsheet especially since I've seen your initial post in regards in regards to dpct with affliction. Two questions for you.

1) When I changed the time value (something I know we are really not supposed to do) the number really get messed up. So for example. I plug in 300 sec for fight duration and the weight of the various stats goes into negative numbers.

Now it could be that your spread sheet is set up currently so that time cannot be changed but time really should be a variable that the user can change simply because the value of the different specs will obviously change based on duration of fight (haste's value will go go down).

2) It looks to me that the number of cast's is based solely on the cast time divided into fight time. Thus during a fight it is possible to cast a noninteger value. I don't know excel that well but I am assuming there is a way for mat your cells so that they create a step integer function (For example 17/6 would equal 2) thus mimicking the fact that you can only have whole number casts.

Again, great spread sheet. Keep up the great work.

Incorrect, this actually lowers the value of hit. It certainly can't raise it, because otherwise you wouldn't play in that manner. This decrease is most of the reason why we suspect hit may not be as valuable for affliction spec. The effect of hit on DoT uptime on DoT damage is actually reduced to a factor of about GCD/duration than what you're calculating, at the cost of some filler, which is inherently lower DPS. Again, we're interested in the conversion ratio because many of us believe that the value of hit is more contentious than you do, and I personally don't like dogmatic "of course it's better" answers without verification. (FYI Hit was not by best stat in early TBC either)

The general approximation is that the DoT does the same damage, but for a hit chance of miss chance of x, the cast time is GCD/(1-x) and the duration is extended by GCD(1/(1-x) -1). The 1/(1-x) term is the solution to a geometric series representing the expectation of successive misses. This is an approximation because it ignores the increase of DoT collision when recasting, and any other effect it might have on your cycle.

any affliction spell that misses is promptly reapplied, increasing its duration by one cooldown without increasing its damage proportionately. if a 30s dot like SL gets resisted, you recast and it ticks to t=31.5, resulting in 4.76% dps loss. and that is for 50% affliction miss rate. for shorter dots like UA, 50% miss rate results in 9.09% dps loss. 50% miss rate on the good old 21/40 sb spam would result in 50% dps loss.

im sure you see how the very fundamentals of dot spells have innate resistance to dps loss from spell misses. couple that with the superior sp dmg scaling compared to direct dmg spells, and you have a build/rotation that values spell damage over hit at all levels of spell damage.

Just to let you know, (I can link yet more math/charts/etc which I have done repeatedly in the beta forums to support various things), Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft is not the optimal raid build assuming you are @ 14% hit.

It's actually a rather poorly constructed, silly build. I'm referring to post 6 from World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> [3.0/WotLK] Vux's Guide to Affliction

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft would be optimal for max single target dps assuming you are at 14% hit. If you are above that hit level you can probably either regear to optimize (which is recommended since none of the lower tier talents the above build has available will up dps).

Hit has diminishing returns when you start looking at it in regards to destruction spells in an affliction build. I wouldn't, for instance, go voluntarily past 14% hit for destro (aka not speccing cataclysm) in an affliction build.

Good points about those builds. But I do have 2 questions about yours quick.

I would actually consider fel concentration a higher dps increase considering spell pushback, than the 6% mana savings from suppression. On your average fight, suppression will save you one lifetap (so, 1 GCD) at best. Yes/no?

Also, with points 2 and 3 filled in eradication, which only give another 1.6% increase in spell haste, I would think that another 2 points in molten core would be better. It would increase the MC uptime from 39% to 78%, almost doubling the DPS increase gain on immolate. With your average afflock having immolate be around 9% of their DPS, I could see that being a greater increase over an additional 1.6% haste. But again, your thoughts?

Well, right now I'm not exactly getting spell pushback on any fight. I can't think of a single fight I actually am right now.

I did the eradication vs. molten core iterations and found that eradication slightly edged out molten core for the allocation of those two points. I'm going to do more iterations of those two with a few new assumptions just to take care of a couple of edge cases.

Maybe I'm coming up with more pushback in my mind than I'm actually suffering from. I'll have to make a better note this week on it.


Thanks for the info. I look forward to seeing what you come up if you do any further checking between the two. If you don't mind me asking, do you recall how much difference there was between the two? Also, in your iterations, I presume you are dropping immolate from the rotation once the boss is below 35%?