Demonic Pact and rDPS vs Personal DPS - Page 5

Evyle · 04/08/09, 5:32 PM

Thanks for the insight on to which would be better to swap out to get the 3% hit.

In response to Orgath. If you dropped IDT how much up time would you loose for the DP as that is the goal of this build. 30% of my crit with a demo build (in a raid buffed situation) would be about 9%. A 9% loss of crit would drop the demonic pact uptime (just not sure how much here).

Also for items, there budget, and getting to the hit cap you do have to make choices. If your talking about gems/enchants there is a nice 16 hit gem or a nicer 19 spell power gem that goes in the same slot. But, perhaps your able to get your 368 hit from gear alone. That additional spell hit took up part of that items budget. It may of been spirit, crit, haste or even spell power that was lowered to get that hit. Currently I use a trinket with 71 hit rating... its possible that I could swap that trinket out for one that gives a base spell power.

RabidSniper.. thanks for the input. I have been a haunt ruin spec for most all of wrath and pets never use any mana. I will have to test out to see how long a pet will last on a boss with replenish/judgement of wisdom.

So its still along the same discussion of trying to get as much raid benifit as possible (25 mans going into Uldar). After I get every talent that helps the raid benifit I will then fill in the ones to bump up my personal dps. Our typical raids have 1 ele shaman, 3 mages, 2 boomkins, 2 shadow priest, 1 lock (me), and 5 or so healers. Thats 13 of us with a good direct benifit besides the small benifit it gives to ret/prot pallies and however it helps DK's for the things they do.

Lephturn · 04/08/09, 6:21 PM

I've been Meta/Ruin since 3.01 dropped, and I can tell you a Felguard WILL run out of mana and be unable to cleave dramatically dropping his DPS. For an Afflock you might get away with no Mana Feed, but for a Felguard lock so far we have needed it.

Now with the changes to Replenishment etc. in 3.1, we'll have to work this out again. For questing, heroics, etc. I think I'll still need to snag a point for Mana Feed, but we'll have to find out. Since it's only a single point now, I plan to find a point for it, probably from Imp DT. Another 10% of my crit to my pet that does say 25% of my DPS doesn't sound like much of a talent to me. With Demonic Empathy now gone, it's even less attractive than it used to be.

PTR Locks, does your FG run out of mana with no Mana Feed talent?

Alkii · 04/09/09, 4:04 PM

If my raid has no Shaman, or only a resto shaman, will me being DP spec'd increase my personal DPS from a 41/30 spec (3.1)? I have 2600 SP with just Fel Armor and F/G out.

I have yet to see anything to explain to me that the 10% SP gain from DP with NO shaman is a personal DPS loss.

Anyone clarify?

Splot · 04/09/09, 9:19 PM

Originally Posted by Alkii

If my raid has no Shaman, or only a resto shaman, will me being DP spec'd increase my personal DPS from a 41/30 spec (3.1)? I have 2600 SP with just Fel Armor and F/G out.

I have yet to see anything to explain to me that the 10% SP gain from DP with NO shaman is a personal DPS loss.

Anyone clarify?

DP spec has a lower DPS showing in the simulator under the current patch and will also under 3.1. The mid tier fire damage increases are greater than the deep demo damage increases. The benefit of DP is based on two things, your spell power (minus the spirit contribution until 3.1) and the crit rating of your pet. You would need to calculate whether your loss is off set by the gain by all of the other casters (including healers) in your raid.

Sumbish · 04/10/09, 12:40 PM

No ele shaman, enh shaman drops flametongue, DP lock in raid
6667 4.0% Warlock_T8_00_40_31
6560 3.9% Warlock_T8_53_00_18
6511 3.9% Warlock_T8_00_41_30
6389 3.8% Warlock_T8_03_52_16
6375 3.8% Warlock_T8_03_13_55
6301 3.8% Warlock_T8_00_56_15 <--DP lock will not be lower than this regardless of shaman totem chosen
6231 3.7% Mage_T8_20_51_00
5289 3.2% Shaman_T8_16_55_00

No ele shaman, enh shaman drops flametongue, no DP lock
6381 4.0% Warlock_T8_00_40_31
6351 4.0% Warlock_T8_00_41_30
6337 4.0% Warlock_T8_53_00_18
6242 3.9% Warlock_T8_03_52_16
6097 3.9% Warlock_T8_03_13_55
5970 3.8% Mage_T8_20_51_00
5197 3.3% Shaman_T8_16_55_00

No ele shaman, Enh shaman drops magma, no DP lock - effectively no shaman in raid as far as casters are concerned
6190 4.0% Warlock_T8_00_41_30
6091 3.9% Warlock_T8_53_00_18
6084 3.9% Warlock_T8_03_52_16
6080 3.9% Warlock_T8_00_40_31
5808 3.7% Warlock_T8_03_13_55
5720 3.7% Mage_T8_20_51_00
5557 3.6% Shaman_T8_16_55_00

Simulationcraft 2072, using raid_t8, optimal_raid=0

How I see it, 56/15 = 40/31 with no wrath totem, but a 20/51 mage gains 260DPS and even the enh shaman is gaining 90DPS over a flametongue. Seems a no brainer to me. And if you have no shaman at all then DP is actually the highest DPS spec.

Just to add, there is no wrath of air totem in the above results, though you would expect it with a resto.

TheRabidSniper · 04/14/09, 1:42 AM

I tried searching through this thread and the SimCraft thread to see if this question was answered. Couldn't find one...

Would it be better for overall raid DPS if the Meta/Ruin DP-specced lock were to use the 3/3 Master Conjuror Firestone over the Spellstone? Note that the DoT/DD damage % modifier doesn't benefit from the talent.

Briio · 04/29/09, 2:48 PM

Originally Posted by TheRabidSniper

I tried searching through this thread and the SimCraft thread to see if this question was answered. Couldn't find one...

Would it be better for overall raid DPS if the Meta/Ruin DP-specced lock were to use the 3/3 Master Conjuror Firestone over the Spellstone? Note that the DoT/DD damage % modifier doesn't benefit from the talent.

Personally I would say that Master Conjuror Firestone would be better for the extra crit regardless of the DD (which is still pretty nice) especially if you dropped points into Improved Demonic Tactics it will help the uptime of Demonic Pact

Netfelix · 04/30/09, 6:16 AM

Originally Posted by Briio

Personally I would say that Master Conjuror Firestone would be better for the extra crit regardless of the DD (which is still pretty nice) especially if you dropped points into Improved Demonic Tactics it will help the uptime of Demonic Pact

I don't remember where, but, there was a simcraft run on it and every spec has spellstone>firestone. We just scale so much better with haste.

Lephturn · 04/30/09, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by Netfelix

I don't remember where, but, there was a simcraft run on it and every spec has spellstone>firestone. We just scale so much better with haste.

While this is correct, the measurement was personal DPS, not raid DPS.

The question is, does Firestone increase raid DPS at the expense of personal DPS. The increased personal crit if you have the Improved DT talent translates into improved pet crit, which increases Demonic Pact uptime. While this is true, DP uptime is high enough, and the talents reduce the added crit so much, that I believe you will see very diminishing returns on DP uptime by increasing personal crit rating by using the fire stone. The question becomes, how much does 196 crit for the firestone actually add to rDPS from DP?

If I do this right, it's 8.7% more crit from the firestone with 2/2 Master Conjuror. Imp DT passes 30% of that on to your demon so 2.6% increase in your demon's hit rating. I can't believe that's going to be worth a measurable amount of rDPS based on the current DP uptimes we already enjoy.

Warlocomotif · 04/30/09, 2:58 PM

I'm not sure how you're getting 8.7% crit for 196 crit rating, it's 45.91 crit rating per %.
196*0.3/45.91=1.2%.

The pet gets 5% crit from agi, 10% crit from demo tactics, 8% crit from raid buffs, and around 1.65% from critical strike rating on gear through improved demonic tactics. You also get Imp MotW and BoK, which results in 37*1.4*1.1/45.91=1.24% crit and 0.5% crit (through innate agility+kings) respectively. For a total of 26.39% crit.

The Felguard attacks every 2 seconds before haste, however gains 23% haste from raid buffs, reducing that to a 1.62 swing timer.Cleave is on a 8 second cooldown.

If I understand the melee combat table correctly, a crit can not be dodged, and lack of expertise should not reduce your chance to critical strikes. Every 15 seconds you perform on average 9.26 melee swings and 1.875 cleaves, resulting in 11.135 melee attacks per 15 seconds.

The likelyhood for Demonic Pact to not be up equals 100% - the likelyhood for there to have been 0 crits in the past 15 seconds. Or: 1-((1-0.2639)^11.135) = 96.7%

If we add the crit gained through the spellstone, we get:
1-((1-0.2759)^11.135) = 97.3%

In total we get + 0.55% more demonic pact uptime.
If we assume 320 spellpower through demonic pact- 8 spellpower dps, with an average 1.5 spellpower modifier, we get to a total raid benefit of:
0.0055*320*8*1.5=21.12 rDPS.

-- Someone please tell me if there's something horribly wrong with this math.

Impowitz · 04/30/09, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by Warlocomotif

The pet gets 5% crit from agi, 10% crit from demo tactics, 8% crit from raid buffs, and around 1.65% from critical strike rating on gear through improved demonic tactics. You also get Imp MotW and BoK, which results in 37*1.4*1.1/45.91=1.24% crit and 0.5% crit (through innate agility+kings) respectively. For a total of 26.39% crit.

-- Someone please tell me if there's something horribly wrong with this math.

The tooltip for improved Demonic tactics reads as % of your chance to crit, not % of your critical strike rating. Either you have underestimated the benefit of Imp DT by excluding your crit chance from int, DT, and 5% aura (e.g. moonkin aura), or the tooltip is inaccurate.

Warlocomotif · 04/30/09, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by Impowitz

The tooltip for improved Demonic tactics reads as % of your chance to crit, not % of your critical strike rating. Either you have underestimated the benefit of Imp DT by excluding your crit chance from int, DT, and 5% aura (e.g. moonkin aura), or the tooltip is inaccurate.

You're probably right about that, I'll re-runn the numbers again later, but the difference already was too little make the firestone worth while. With higher crit% before the fire stone it will only get worse.

Aberon · 05/03/09, 3:50 PM

About the mage, yes they still spec in imp scortch but they can swap to an other glyph and not worry about scorch in there rotation increasing there dps slightly.

Elemental shaman can use other totem like fire elem and such without worrying about raid loosing the +SP dmg

the crit part of the totem is covered like other said by the pally. it's rare you have multiple boss in a fight.

about the melee unfriendly fight, with Fel synergy and natural pet 75% avoidance, i can leave my pet in 99% of the time on every boss fight and not worry about him. I rarely have to resummon him.

I would say Demo in 10 man is not realy worth it. In 25 man if you have someone to cover the 3% crit, even if you have an elemental shaman if your lock has enoght SP to overcome the shaman +sp 1 Demo lock in the raid is more beneficial since your mage also gain from not having to keep scorch and can glyph out of scorch.

the exact dps gain/lost can't realy be calculated, it's more of a, will it benefit the raid enoght or not question.

hbalsack · 05/04/09, 11:36 AM

I am hoping you guys can help me figure something out, I have read the entire thread and you have convinced me to make the spec switch.

I have switched over to Meta/ruin for Rdps. I have notced that Demonic Pact on WWS is up anywhere from 50% to 95% of every boss fight. The FG crit is anywhere from 23% to 30% on each ability in any given attempt. How are you guys measuring the uptime of this ability. It's odd to me that i get to the expected 90% on a single attempt and then it drops to an unacceptable level the next attempt.

I played FG/destro thru MH and BT, and was just FG/ember until i swithced to Meta, so I know how to manage my felguard, and Demonic Empowerment abiltiy, so it isn't a question of pet control. My raid buffed spell damage is at around 3150 with the Dragon Soul trinket. Is fel Armor still being ignored? We have a ele shammy who continues to provide ToW until we can prove it's ok to drop it.

My only guess would be that on occasion i have no procs up (lifetap/dying curse/lightweave) and Demoinc Pact does not overwrite ToW due to Fel armor still not working with the buff.

Warlocomotif · 05/04/09, 11:39 AM

Originally Posted by hbalsack

I am hoping you guys can help me figure something out, I have read the entire thread and you have convinced me to make the spec switch.

I have switched over to Meta/ruin for Rdps. I have notced that Demonic Pact on WWS is up anywhere from 50% to 95% of every boss fight. The FG crit is anywhere from 23% to 30% on each ability in any given attempt. How are you guys measuring the uptime of this ability. It's odd to me that i get to the expected 90% on a single attempt and then it drops to an unacceptable level the next attempt.

I played FG/destro thru MH and BT, and was just FG/ember until i swithced to Meta, so I know how to manage my felguard, and Demonic Empowerment abiltiy, so it isn't a question of pet control. My raid buffed spell damage is at around 3150 with the Dragon Soul trinket. Is fel Armor still being ignored? We have a ele shammy who continues to provide ToW until we can prove it's ok to drop it.

My only guess would be that on occasion i have no procs up (lifetap/dying curse/lightweave) and Demoinc Pact does not overwrite ToW due to Fel armor still not working with the buff.

There's currently a somewhat awkward bug with demonic pact sometimes not critting, see the "warlock bugs" thread for some slightly more accurate but still vague information.

fallenman · 05/08/09, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by Netfelix

I don't remember where, but, there was a simcraft run on it and every spec has spellstone>firestone. We just scale so much better with haste.

The simcraft thread uses firestone for any deep destruction builds.

tusaki · 05/11/09, 7:06 PM

Just a quick question, I might have missed it in this thread, I apologize in advance.

If you have the 4pc t7 + lifetap glyph, does that work with (increase the spelldamage buffed by) demonic pact for the raid?

över · 05/18/09, 9:26 PM

The 30% spir=sp from Felarmor works with DP, but the extra sp from Demonic Aegis and Glyph of Life tap doesn't.

Peppermort · 05/28/09, 11:55 PM

I'm not much of a theorycrafter, but I'm going to have a go at this, and hopefully others can correct and build on it.

Inspired by the report of Lrac (from the compendium thread), I did some testing with an elemental shaman, and my conclusion, same as Lrac, is that when the demon crits, the DP buff is calculated from your current spell power minus your current DP buff, rather than your current spell power bonus category buff (including totems). That is, totems boost DP, but (obviously) DP does not feed off itself. The only buff that does not contribute to DP is DP itself (excluding bugs).

However, due to the non-stacking nature of totems and DP, when your demon crits, if DP is already up, the calculation arrives at a reduced value, because it subtracts the DP buff, and you don't have a totem buff anymore because DP replaces it. So you will notice that if you have a totem, when your demon first crits, your spell power will go up (assuming you have enough sp to beat the totem and get the DP buff), but when your demon crits again before DP fades, your spell power will go down by 10% of the totem (or possibly less if your DP buff without the totem is less than the totem, in which case the totem buff will replace the reduced DP buff).

I played with a /cancelaura Demonic Pact macro, and with this macro, I was able to keep the higher DP buff on my shaman friend always, at the cost to myself of the loss of the DP buff, dropping back to the totem.

Those were my observations, and I'd appreciate if someone with more experience in all this could verify my conclusions, since the rest of this theory depends on it.

With this macro'd to your main spells, you should be able to maintain an extra 28sp to the rest of the raid if you have an elemental shaman using ToW, at the cost to yourself of the difference between your unboosted DP and the totem. That loss will become larger as your spell power increases, but I think not large enough to outweigh the 28sp to the rest of the raid at currently attainable gear levels.

This thread has been using the metric of 8 casters multiplied by an average 1.5 dps increase to convert SP to rDPS. Using that maths, and assuming that one of the casters is the DP lock, the ToW boosted DP would be worth an additional (7 * 1.5 * 28) = 294 (call this bDPrDPS, for boosted DP raid DPS gain, to be used in calculations further down).

The cost to the DP lock is (ubDP - 280) * SPScaleFactor, where ubDP is the sp of your unboosted DP (ie. Your DP calculated without a totem). For the DP lock, the value of spell power seems to be less than 1.5, judging by the simcraft thread, which has sp scale factors for 3/52/16 of 0.99. I will use 1.0 for SPScaleFactor (is this a reasonable figure?). So to cancel out the benefit to the other casters, solve the formula:
bDPrDPS = (ubDP - 280) * 1.0
294 = (ubDP - 280) * 1.0
294 / 1.0 = ubDP - 280
(294 / 1.0) + 280 = ubDP
ubDP = 574
So 5740 sp (without totem and excluding DP bugs such as with demonic aegis and life tap glyph). At some more reasonable gear levels (again, without totems or demonic aegis or LT glyph), the net gain of this trick in terms of raid dps is:
ubDP = 3.0k SP: bDPrDPS - (ubDP - 280) * 1.0 = 294 - ((300 - 280) * 1.0) = 274
ubDP = 3.1k SP: bDPrDPS - (ubDP - 280) * 1.0 = 294 - ((310 - 280) * 1.0) = 264
ubDP = 3.2k SP: bDPrDPS - (ubDP - 280) * 1.0 = 294 - ((320 - 280) * 1.0) = 254
ubDP = 3.3k SP: bDPrDPS - (ubDP - 280) * 1.0 = 294 - ((330 - 280) * 1.0) = 244
ubDP = 3.4k SP: bDPrDPS - (ubDP - 280) * 1.0 = 294 - ((340 - 280) * 1.0) = 234

On the shamans side, this requires the use of ToW, which comes at the cost of any potential dps gain from the use of other damage totems, but does cover the small DP downtime, and covers the absence of a ret pally. If your elemental shaman can drop a damaging totem instead of ToW, then this trick may be nullified.

Also, if you do not have an elemental shaman, the numbers from flametongue, even talented, significantly reduce the value of this trick. With a talented 165 flametongue:
bDPrDPS = (7 * 1.5 * 16.5) = 173.25
bDPrDPS = (ubDP - 165) * SPScaleFactor
173.25 = (ubDP - 165) * 1.0
173.25 / 1.0 = ubDP - 165
(173.25 / 1.0) + 165 = ubDP
ubDP = 338.25
Or approximately 3.4k sp without totem and DP bugs to negate the raid dps gain from the extra 16.5 sp on DP with the personal dps loss. With an untalented 144 flametongue:
bDPrDPS = (7 * 1.5 * 14.4) = 151.2
bDPrDPS = (ubDP - 144) * SPScaleFactor
151.2 = (ubDP - 144) * 1.0
151.2 / 1.0 = ubDP - 144
(151.2 / 1.0) + 144 = ubDP
ubDP = 295.2
Or about 3k sp without totems and bugs - very achievable, and beyond that point, the trick becomes a raid dps loss.

The real gains depend, obviously, as with all this discussion, on your raid composition. And many of the numbers are vague. I haven't factored in DP uptime into these calculations, but since with this trick, DP downtime is covered by ToW, the difference will be small (DPDowntime * (DP - 280)). Also, there is, again, no mention of the gains of the extra 28 spell power for healing.

There used to be an addon, TankBuddy, that had the ability to remove BoP and salv on tanks immediately as soon as they were applied, I believe (never used it myself). It hasn't been updated for a long time and I don't know if it is still possible for an addon to do that, but if it is, that could help make sure you maintain the totem boosted DP.

Just don't forget to remove the /cancelaura macro if your elemental shaman is away

So, how did I go? Any errors or oversights? How useful in practice is this likely to be?

Warlocomotif · 05/29/09, 9:20 AM

That's a really interesting post, and you did well :p
A DPS totem would outweigh the benefit of this gain, however in a number of fights our Ele shammy is still dropping their totem due to DP uptime not working out quite as desired. In those fights this could be a worthwhile thing to do.

duffry · 08/17/09, 6:24 PM

Have built a DP calculator into the DPS spreadsheet and was wondering if anyone had run it through the mill at all?

[edit] Answered my own question, never mind. Would still be interested to know if anyone has found any issues with the DP calcs in the sheet in respects to the above though.

Evyle · 08/17/09, 8:52 PM

Very nice work.
First off my current gear puts me very close to the numbers already in your spreadsheet as my unbuffed spell power is within 5 of the listed values.

I was looking it over and had a few questions.

Is spell power total you came up with for figuring out DP correct? You have listed a total of 4055 from your gear, raid buffs, and life tap combined. Would the elemental totem add into it for 280 that was counted? Then on the DP calculator page your spell power is listed at 4455. I was thinking more along the lines of 4180 for total spell power (taking the 4055 base with totem and adding another 125 for what your dp exceeded the totem).

We did have a demonic pact lock in the raid the other day when we were on Mim hard mode. I remember it adding about 120~ spell power to my own. I was sitting at about 3925 total with pact going. If you then added the approx 269 from demonic knowledge that would put you right at the 4180 I came up with. Net result I think the calculator is double dipping from the totem at current setup.

Do you take into account molten core up time with use of cod over coe?

Also it seems the meta glyph on your spread sheet gives a lot more bonus than it had before (well at least in 3.1). The 3.1.2 simcraft has LT, Fel Guard (just as your spread sheet) and Immolate. I did swap in and out the glyphs on your spread sheet and they all point to meta being better than either coe, cor, immo.

I think you have an awesome tool there and I am just trying to point out some potential differences.

duffry · 08/18/09, 4:14 AM

Seems I'm actually letting Demonic Pact feed itself. Bummer. Will sort that out.

Please do feel free to continue challenging as much of the sheet as you can. It's through the reviewing you guys do that I move it forward as much as my own.

Malbrax · 08/26/09, 10:47 PM

Can someone care to explain if spellpower healers get is counted in this? and if not why isn't it being counted as any value?

• Zakalwe · 08/27/09, 5:08 AM

It does work for healers as well. It's not being counted because it's impossible to quantify its value when what we're discussing is DPS.

But I don't think there's any question that bringing a deep demo lock is worth doing these days - unless your raid is extremely melee/physical dps heavy, it'll be worth it even if you already have an elemental shaman.