Demonic Pact and rDPS vs Personal DPS - Page 10

• Zakalwe · 09/17/09, 9:04 AM

Originally Posted by Fecys

Can any one explain me why no top guilds use a demon lock then?

Well, we're top50-ish, and I'm permanently 0/56/15 these days. But yeah, I realize that's not typical.

The lack of general usage of DP locks probably has to do with the enjoyment factor - many locks seem to much prefer the destro playstyle - plus the fact that the viability of DP is a moving target. Only with Ulduar hardmode or Coliseum-25 gear does DP overtake ToW to such a degree that it's worth bringing the former if you already have the latter.

Another very real factor is the level of melee stacking that top guilds do when going for the hardest DPS-check kills. If the only fights you do where DPS really matters involve bringing at least 4 DKs and 4 rogues and a very limited number of caster DPS, why bother worrying about maximizing your caster buffs?

As an example, we recently grabbed the top Algalon parse, and the charts make it pretty clear how marginalized caster DPS has become these days.

I do think a lot of people are underestimating how good DP is for healers, though.

Naforce · 09/17/09, 9:13 AM

I've been meta permanently for two months or so and my guild is top 20-ish. I noticed instantly as I went meta that the raid dps was improved severely. How much the healers gains doesn't show up on healing meters but have no doubt, bringing a meta lock in to a 25-man where there are a few other casters will be worth it. Not really sure about the cutoff but any regular raid setup really should bring a meta lock.
I think many of the top guilds are starting to use meta locks as the sp gain from ToW is too much to be ignored.

Vegatork · 09/17/09, 9:34 AM

I've raided Wraith pretty exclusively with Deep Destro or Afflication. I made the switch last night for our 25 man Heroic ToC encounter. We had gone over a week with attempts and getting close but were still unsuccessful. When I switched to Deep Demo for Demonic Pact it helped push us over the edge. I've got 4 piece T9 (ilevel 245) gear and after full raid buffs to me and my pet, I was over 4025 spell power with Life Tap triggered. That gave over 400 spell damage to all our casters. The uptime was over 80%.

The overall raid dps definitely showed on the meters. The biggest challenge besides learning a new rotation was having to swallow my pride. I was always top 3 dps every attempt. My personal dps dropped quite a bit, but the overall raid damage increase was worth it.

If you have a lock to spare, I'd suggest every guild roll with one deep demo lock for the Demonic Pact buff.

mwaf · 09/17/09, 3:32 PM

I insisted upon our priest buffing me with Divine Spirit for tonight's raid. My faith in simcraft's DP uptime numbers have been restored.

Northern Beasts	80.1%
Lord Jaraxxus	97.2%
Faction Champions	91.7%
Twin Val'kyr	97.0%
Anub'arak	93.5%

Gear was still 4pT8 for this run, I'm expecting the numbers to go up slightly when I get 2pT9.

kaib · 09/19/09, 2:00 AM

I think you are underestimating the amount of high end guilds using demon locks, it's silly not to use one. But if you just look at the current kill screenshots from the top guilds, which are from anub25, then yes, you won't see demon locks there. Locks are fucked enough as it is for that fight, but demon is just barely playable. Our ele shaman DCed and I went demon before he got back, full mana 30%, oom before 20%, demon is just a silly mana hungry spec and without being able to life tap, there's not much you can do really.
In addition to that that fight asks for an ele shaman anyway due to the 3% crit on the 4 adds while it also asks for melee stacking, mainly warriors, rogues and DKs so the improved sp buff is not all that critical.

• Zakalwe · 09/19/09, 3:28 AM

Who says you can't life tap after 30%? Demonology is actually a pretty good spec for that fight, because its AoE is so strong. The only reason not to bring a DP lock would be excessive melee stacking, which really isn't as important on that fight as many people are claiming.

scaffold · 09/19/09, 8:24 AM

Originally Posted by kaib

But if you just look at the current kill screenshots from the top guilds, which are from anub25, then yes, you won't see demon locks there.

You might want to check the STARS movie from world 2nd Anub Heroic kill.

Originally Posted by Zakalwe

Who says you can't life tap after 30%?

Since you are sitting between 1000 and 2000 HP the entire phase 3, it will take some downranking magic to be able to life tap there.

kaib · 09/19/09, 10:26 AM

If healers give you pwd shield and a heal, you can life tap but without serious effort it just isn't working. Demon is also a stupidly mana wasting spec, you life tap a LOT more then both other specs. Obviously it's possilbe, did a few attempts as demon myself, but it seemed really shit and I am not buying that you can aoe all thsoe 3-4 minutes if you don't put in some serious effort to allow for some life tapping.
If there's no elemental shaman in the raid, sure, otherwise I somehow doubt it's worth it. In general the best warlock/hunter/dps shaman spot for that fight has got to be the good old bench anyway.

Mystearica · 09/19/09, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by scaffold

You might want to check the STARS movie from world 2nd Anub Heroic kill.

Since you are sitting between 1000 and 2000 HP the entire phase 3, it will take some downranking magic to be able to life tap there.

It's not exactly hard to use a HS & Tap, use a Mana Pot, , BE Racial, or even just ask on Vent for a heal when the healers have a chance so you can Tap. I personally haven't seen HM P3 on 25man yet, but on 10man I try to be at full mana heading into P3 then tap early & often before my HP gets low. I assume the fight drags out a bit longer on 25man than 10, but I don't see Mana management being that huge of an issue.

Kambing · 09/19/09, 1:07 PM

Originally Posted by Mystearica

It's not exactly hard to use a HS & Tap, use a Mana Pot, , BE Racial, or even just ask on Vent for a heal when the healers have a chance so you can Tap. I personally haven't seen HM P3 on 25man yet, but on 10man I try to be at full mana heading into P3 then tap early & often before my HP gets low. I assume the fight drags out a bit longer on 25man than 10, but I don't see Mana management being that huge of an issue.

It was a huge issue for me. Life tap and demo mana efficiency become a very real liability in p3 since you have to sit in sub-life tap health range for ~3-5 minutes, and your healers are busy keeping other people alive. HS/pot are also risky propositions as you need them to avoid freezing cold gibs.

I think in a perfect world I would rather run affliction for that fight to get the big p3 dps in without the risk of burning out prematurely. But to be fair, demonic pact can definitely simplify your roster choices for a first kill.

• Zakalwe · 09/19/09, 5:43 PM

As long as there's good communication with healers I don't see the big issue. Life tap is a good thing on this fight, because it lets you dump excess health immediately without contributing to Anub's health pool.

Of course in general the DP spec is plagued by poor mana efficiency compared to the other specs, but a lot of that can be mitigated by gearing appropriately. I run with ~1k spirit raid buffed, and the huge life taps really help.

Kambing · 09/19/09, 6:33 PM

Dumping health with life tap is a good thing if you are constantly being healed over the threshhold. However, if your raid healing strategy is maintaining people at the threshhold then tapping is less ideal.

In theory it's still not a problem since you should always be able to get a quick flash/fol/lhw. Practically speaking, you're taking away a gcd and attention from a healer in a very healing-intensive fight (in terms of focus, not output). It's definitely not a game-breaker but, for me at least, it became a real issue I had to deal with via gear and using different ranks of life tap rather than putting the burden on the healers.

Nnayr · 09/19/09, 11:03 PM

Say you are among the top5 dps in your guild. Yet you have the highest sp out of your locks. I want too do something too increase the raid dps. Is me losing the dps worth the net gain of the raid. Minus me it would be 7 casters. So the other casters would need too gain 300dps from me switching specs. I just don't know if its the right decision.

Ios · 09/20/09, 12:54 AM

Originally Posted by Nnayr

Say you are among the top5 dps in your guild. Yet you have the highest sp out of your locks. I want too do something too increase the raid dps. Is me losing the dps worth the net gain of the raid. Minus me it would be 7 casters. So the other casters would need too gain 300dps from me switching specs. I just don't know if its the right decision.

As a destruction warlock, I have 4027 spellpower buffed. I easily do the most dps in my raids. I've recently switched to demonology in my raids, and our elemental shaman has switched to enhancement. Switching specs is a net dps gain for the raids I'm in, for several reasons:

1: Enhancement shamans generally scale better with gear than elemental shamans do. While this may not be the case for all guilds, our elemental shaman has a very nice enhancement set, which allows him to do about 1k more dps than he usually would as elemental.

2: Demonic Pact provides vastly more spellpower to our casters than Totem of Wrath does. I give about 120 spellpower more than ToW does, and that number will increase as I become more geared. For the majority of classes, spellpower is usually worth about 1.5 dps per point, meaning that 120 extra spellpower would give about 180 extra dps per person. For 7 other casters, this is a 1260 dps gain. Don't forget that DP also gives your healers bigger heals, which can make a big difference on healing intensive fights, such as H Jaraxxus.

There's another reason you might want to try demonology, though this isn't dps related: Demonology is a harder spec to play effectively. Unlike the facerolling you can do with destruction, demonology involves managing cooldowns, a pet, effectively using abilities like immolate, and properly weaving. It's much more complex than destruction, and while it's very rare that you'll ever do as much dps as demonology as you would as destruction, you can absolutely pull good numbers. On fights like northrend beasts where I can regularly pull 7k as destro, with effort I can pull 6-6.5k as demo. It's a bigger challenge, and doing well becomes more rewarding when no one expects you to.

seraphthrone · 09/24/09, 7:55 PM

After I got my 2 piece T9 I did some testing on org dummies. It seems the impact on DP uptime is little to nothing when using a felguard due to the fact that the bonus only affects cleaves.

So I went nuts and grabbed an imp glyph and spec'ed imp imp and imp firebolt. The uptime is 100% for all tests I've run. The demonic empowerment, tier 9 set bonus, imp shadowbolt and other various crit talents in demonology pushes my imp's crit rate up to 70%.

Now here comes the question, since imp has already higher DP uptime, and both pets yield about the same amount of spell power.

Can an imp do just as much damage as a felguard with the new tiers? Or if not, is the lose on pet dps worth the DP uptime? Also things to remember is, imp gives 5% damage/crit to fire damage, so immolate and soulfire will certainly hit for more.

Here's something I want to consider:

What is firebolt's spell coefficient? I've heard things from 1.5 to 2.5, I cannot really make sure, wish someone can clarify that please.

What buffs affect imp's dps? Generally whatever affects casters will affect imp, such as DP itself, and of course AI, moonkin aura, etc.

What buffs affect felguard's dps? Things like sunder and windfury.

After fully raid buffed, which set of buffs wins out.

Also even if imp loses, is the soulfire dps able to offset the difference?