I've suggested it myself to remove Shadowflame from the Destro rotation, but note down the DPS increase if able to use, because it is not practicable for a warlock to be in melee range generally.
There is a reason Warlocks are casters, aka ranged damage dealers - its to avoid movement in many cases.
Sure, if you want a perfect DPS scenario, stand in melee and have your fun - but that will not happen frequently or rather not often at all.

Take random boss fights now as example.
Deathwhisper, no-go. Saurfang, ye if you don't have to deal with adds surely. Festergut, possible but worse than ranged. Putricide, possible but has its downsides. Sindragosa, worse than being ranged with a decent port. LK, just bad.

Thinking in a perfect assumption of a fight is ok, but it doesn't reflect a real boss fight in the long run.

I've been raiding as Demo and the only fights I don't stand in melee are Festergut, and Rotface. Heroic Lich King requires a lot of movement, but that applies to ranged just as much as melee. When we have to move we have BoD, Corruption, Life Tap, or even Hellfire to fill the gaps, and ensure no DPS downtime. Does anyone on the Beta's know how often we have to Life Tap during raids at 85? Depending on the Life Tap frequency the movement arguement might not even be applicable.

The reason hit scales so much worse vs int when compared to hit vs int on lvl 80 is the inflated hit numbers and each 1 rating giving you so much less, I suppose?
For affliction just looking at those numbers it seems you don't want to hit cap yourself any more and instead gem/enchant for int while hoping that haunt doesn't miss. Or am I on the wrong path here?

Destro doesn't life tap at all at level 85. The idea behind removing shadowflame from the rotation was that it's too marginal a dps increase to be worth the trouble, whereas for demo the dps increase from standing in melee range is big enough to be worth it.

Looking at the latest numbers, being in melee range is a 3% increase for destro and a 6% increase for demo, which is less of a difference than I'd thought, so I'll consider adding shadowflame back to destro's rotation next time I update the thread.

I'll likely also add hardcasting of soul fire back in to the affliction rotation, since it's starting to look too late for them to fix the issue before the expansion hits.

Yes. At level 85, ratings are devalued to 1/4 while damage (spell base + spell power scaling) are only about doubled compared Naxxramas gear. That means that the value of hit (or any rating) is only about half of what it was at 80, and that it takes a good amount of spell power for hit rating to break even with SP/intellect.

For affliction and DoT heavy specs, hit has a lowered value. If you miss a nuke spell, you lose all of its damage. If you miss a DoT spell, you don't lose all of its damage. You recast it, so you lose 1 GCD which is 60% of a shadow bolt and much less than 100% of your DoT. It of course more complicated, but that's the essence of why hit is more powerful for Destruction than Afflication (DoTs) and likely Demonology (pet hit cap).
Your conclusion is slightly off though, you do want to gem/enchant for intellect but get your hit rating through gear/reforging instead of hoping.

Forgive me if I'm missing something but why is 2/2 Searing Pain still being used for the Level 85 Destruction profile?

Not that changing it will affect a Patchwerk-style-fight's numbers but I would think Bane of Havoc and Shadowburn would be superior in fights with adds/frequent target switches.

If simcraft can handle a simulation where adds come and go, it would be interesting to find out the effects of these spells and whether or not it's worth even casting BoH under certain situations.

I'm a first time poster on here so apologies if i've made a mistake here. I read through the last 20 pages on here and then wanted to post a reply regarding the 4.0.1 destro build, the site didn't let me post this for 24 hours and now i can't load it up. Assuming it was the same as it was yesterday and nothing has changed, i'm unsure about some of the gem/reforge choices. As far as i can see, if hit and haste are capped, we boost int as high as possible while reforging crit to mastery?

If this is the case isn't it best to sub out the +20 hit gems for purple gems, + 10 int/ +10 hit, then reforge some crit to hit instead of mastery. I think there was 4 +20 hit gems on the profile, if you can sub those out fundamentally you are swapping 40 mastery for 40 int which according to the "next point values" gives a bigger increase in dps?

Again i've missed something i'm sorry and i love the thread and the work done on it.

This one I dont understand. If we don't have the need to life tap at 85 and from what I'm seeing in Imps mana gain is that he contantly has overflowing mana thus never running out (unless I missed something), why have is destruction specced into Mana Feed instead of talents like Doom and Gloom?

Mana Feed is the *reason* destro doesn't life tap at all.

Hey, i'm a new poster so sorry if i am wrong but i couldn't help realizing that in the affliction output there are "soul_fire Count= 34.6" while only "improved_soul_fire : start=17.1" which is close to half only. Any particular reason ?

ISF doesn't stack with BL.