Peppermort,

Your post was very interesting because this issue came up in discussion between a demon lock guild member and myself, an elemental shaman. My demon lock friend has gearing exceeding 2800 SP and is in the neighborhood of 3000-3200 SP. He raised the issue of whether it would be useful for me to utilize something other than ToW due to the non-stacking nature of DP and ToW. I did an examination of the issue from the perspective of an elemental shaman and came to the conclusion that because DP does not have a 100% up time, that ToW should continue to be dropped for the benefit of the raid during those periods of DP down time where ToW bonus of 280 SP is up.

One of the questions is whether the 3% crit is also overwritten when DP is up and the answer to that is no. The boss is targeted with the totem debuff even when DP is up and ToW is down. So, even when DP is up, the raid benefits from the 3% crit from ToW which is another reason besides the fact that DP is not up 100% to have ToW up. I confirmed that the crit buff remains up as a debuff while DP is up and ToW is down in an Ulduar raid on more than one boss after the discussion below took place.

From the perspective of a demon lock, I note the variance between first crit and second crit. But, in my opinion, what is important is whether the demon lock's spell power exceeds 2800. If the demon lock has greater than 2800 SP, then the raid benefits more from DP than from ToW and you would not want to cancel your aura. Instead, you would want it up so all members of the raid obtain the 10% of SP increase which after 2800 SP should be greater than the 280 SP buff from ToW. And, if the demon lock has less than 2800 SP, then, as I understand it, DP would not proc nor take down ToW. Therefore, it would not need to be taken down. In other words, I don't see an instance where you would want or need to use your macro. Whether you would want this talent when you have less than 2800 SP and raid with an elemental shaman is an entirely different question since the talent will be of no use while ToW is up.

I was going to link the analysis but it's accessible to guild members only. So, I'm cutting and pasting it here:

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Pro brought a very interesting issue to my attention the other day regarding Demonic Pact and its effect upon Totem of Wrath. Both talents provide a raid wide buff. DP provides a increase in spell power amounting to 10% of the lock's spell power. The effect lasts for 12 seconds however, theory-crafters opine the effect is up approximately 50 to 95% of the time. ToW provides 280 spell power and a 3% crit increase. It is up 100% of the time.

The two talents do not stack and once a lock exceeds 2800 spell power, ToW is overwritten by DP. It is unclear whether the 3% critical is over written as well however, in the last U25 run, I noticed ToW not being shown as a buff when DP was functioning which suggests to me that the ToW effects are entirely removed including the 3% crit.

That leaves the question of whether a Elemental Shammy should be dropping something other than ToW when in a raid with a 2800+ sp lock to increase personal dps. Options include the flame elemental every 5 minutes - something I don't like in raids because of lack of pet control and the possibility of accidental aggro or CC break and another option of searing totem or magma totem. Magma totem is a close range AOE totem and is very useful for substantial increases in dps however, it requires close drop to mobs and it lasts for a very short period of time. Searing totem is supposed to provide between 375 to 400 dps but it is generally regarded a useless totem.

This thread probably has the best discussion on the subject:
Demonic Pact and rDPS vs Personal DPS

This post has an interesting analysis:
Demonic Pact and rDPS vs Personal DPS

Overall, I suspect that Blizzard did not consider that the upgrades in gear could result in this conflict and I suspect at at some point in time, a patch will address any conflict between the two talents. My current view from limited raid experience is that DP is not up enough for the ToW effect to be eliminated entirely. One poster in the above thread noted between a 50-95% uptime. My recollection is simply this - DP was not up 100% of the time and ToW was up during portions of an encounter. Therefore, I shall continue to drop this totem for the benefit of the raid.

Any thoughts or links are welcome on the subject.

Sapthire

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The crit provided by ToW is sort of a unique coding that allows it to stack with Moonkin Aura or Elemental oath. The Totem of Wrath actually adds a debuff to hostile targets within range of it that increases crit chance of spells cast on THAT TARGET by 3% (I believe this also stacks with Improved Shadowbolt, Improved Scorch, and other such buffs on hostile targets.) On allies, it is rolled into the spellpower buff from ToW (from what I've seen) for an increase in heal crit chance. So, it seems, dropping ToW will continue to increase crit against hostile targets (you can look at boss's debuffs to confrim this) but if ToW is truly being overwritten by Demonic Pact on allies, healers are losing 3% crit, which can be an issue for some healing classes.

Merel

This crit doesn't stack with Heart of the Crusader/Master Poisoner.

The amount of buffed SP (excluding that provided by DP itself) should be significantly more than 2800 to make it worthwhile when you factor in that it is not up 100% and the lock has a personal DPS loss for having this talent.

The point about using /cancelAura though is to remove the DP buff from the lock only. It will not remove it from the rest of the raid.

If your lock has 3500 SP when buffed, including the buff from Totem of Wrath, then when DP procs everyone gets 350 SP bonus. However, this is only a gain of 70 SP as 280 is lost from ToW. Also, since the ToW buff has gone from the DP lock (replaced by DP) the amount of SP provided by DP if it is refreshed would be ((3500 - 280) / 10) = 322 (as DP can't buff itself). Therefore by removing the DP buff from themselves with /cancelAura the lock drops back to ToW and DP will refresh for 350 again. The loss in doing this is that the lock will be sitting at 3500 rather than 3570, he would be sacrificing 70 SP from himself to provide 28 SP to everyone else while DP is up. Depending on the raid setup this may or may not be worthwhile.

Obviously the figures above are only for illustration.

I'm trying to work out the validity of using a DP spec over a higher personal DPS spec in Crusader's Coliseum. In order to do that I am hoping for any fellow warlocks that have run it with demonology to share their Demonic Pact uptimes as I do not trust simulated values (simcraft gives me 95%+ uptime which just isn't realistic).

For one clear of CC 25 normal I had the following uptimes with 0/56/17 (using felguard):

Northern Beasts	78.4%
Lord Jaraxxus	80.1%
Faction Champions	90.3%
Twin Val'kyr	87.8%
Anub'arak	62.6%

Note, on the Anub kill I died to spikes and was later battle resurrected and had to resummon the felguard.

Furthermore, I'd appreciate if someone could confirm this napkin math to be valid: (my_buffed_sp * 0.1 * uptime) - totem_sp = sp_gain

Edit: changed the math thing on the last line

Looking over my wws parses from last night, on jarraxus, faction champions and twin valks I had about 94% uptime. Northrend beasts and Anub'arak are bad measures of uptime, because there are long periods where there aren't any targets to attack.

EDIT: WWS - World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Northern Beasts	88.6%
Lord Jaraxxus	97.8%
Faction Champions	97.1%
Twin Val'kyr	95.0%
Anub'arak	50.8%

These are my uptimes from WorldofLogs for last week's ToC25 normal. The overall difference is likely due to having T9 2pc which is amazing for increasing uptime. I think something weird happened on Anub'arak because it seems DP wasn't given out at all during the first half of the fight. I can't remember anything that would cause this but it was a week ago and perhaps there was a reason that I just can't recall.

As Ios said, fights with phase transitions (Beasts being one such) mean that DP uptime becomes less meaningful as there is downtime during the transitions but no one was DPSing anyway so it doesn't matter. Uptime on fights like Jaraxxus and Twins is much more useful as a measure. And even then, 97.8% uptime on Jaraxxus represents it being applied < 3 seconds after the fight started (intercept crit) and then never falling off throughout the fight.

Does anyone know a way of capturing information about how large the Demonic Pact bonus given out is/was? I think the average bonus given out as well as the peak (especially if it's a controllable peak) would be a useful measure to look at as gear improves.

The numbers people have posted are encouraging, thanks everyone! As for doubting simcraft, well, it gives me an uptime of 97% which is not something I've ever come close to, even on Patchwerk-like fights (Lord Jaraxxus in this case). However, something must indeed have gone wrong on that fight considering I only reached 80% uptime despite my intent being having the felguard on Jaraxxus throughout the fight.

I'm wondering if I was plagued by the prayer of spirit bug (which came to my attention only after that run). Menestheus, perhaps that was also your problem on Anub.

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

YouTube - Anub'arak World 2nd Kill by Stars

Also many top guilds by the end of TBC weren't using classes that did increase raid dps, for example many weren't using expose armor vs sunder armor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?