supplicium

Preface

This is an UPDATED version of the PVE raiding compendium designed to Organize all Current information.

For Now, this will be focused on Transitioning all you raiding locks FROM naxx TO Ulduar, this is not the "How do I raid thread" nor is it the "What blues should I use to kill yogg".

There will be several specs discussed here, They are as following, Highest DPS, a hybrid destro/demo build, a Deep Affliction build and a deep destro build; Highest Raid Dps (will be listed as rDPS) and lastly The best replenishment specs.


Ground Rules:
Things this thread should not be used for
Don't post your unfounded untested spec.
Don't post your wws asking whats wrong.
Don't post your gear asking what item is better.
Don't post about what addons make you raid better, this isn't a UI thread, and it will never become one.
Don't ask basic questions, there are many other threads designed to answered very detailed spec questions. This thread is a compendium of said knowledge base and represents findings from those threads


Things this thread should be used for
Posting your wws showing a new and or different spec and how surprisingly it may have done (on the high side, not the low)
Posting an interesting amalgam of gear that seems to provide a high dps.
Debating info brought up in other threads comparing one spec from 1 thread to another spec from a different thread. Between The demo, Destro and Aff thread as well as simcraft we have a lot of sources of information, this is the thread to tie them together.




Before we begin, I'd like to thank every one who has been helping in the Demonic pact thread and the simcraft thread, and a special thanks to bartolimu for keeping our forum one of the best around.

 

Contents

1Spec 1. Personal Dps Deep Destro v1 1.1Key Talents 1.2Destruction 1.3Ideal Gear Sets 1.4Glyphs 1.5Spells and Rotation 1.6Simcraft Charts and Graphs 2Spec 2. Personal Dps Deep Affliction 2.1Key Talents 2.2Destruction 2.3Gear 2.4Glyphs 2.5Spells and Rotation 2.6The Basic Rotation 2.7The "close" Rotation 2.8The "Far" Rotation 2.9SimCraft Charts and Numbers 3Spec 3. Destruction 3.1Key Talents 3.2Demonology 3.3Destruction 3.4Gear Choices 3.5Glyphs 3.6Rotation 3.7Simcraft Charts and Numbers 4Spec 4. rDps 4.1Background Info 4.2Gearing for Demonic Pact 4.3Glyphs 4.4Rotations and Pets 4.5Simcraft Charts and Graphs 4.6Gear Choices 4.7Glyphs 4.8Rotation 4.9Simcraft Charts and Graphs 5 Warlocks In general 5.1Firestone VS Spellstone 5.2Gear Choices 5.3Non Tier Set items 5.4Professions 5.5Jewel Crafting 5.6Tailoring 5.7Enchanting 5.8Alchemy 5.9Inscription 5.10Blacksmithing 5.11Leatherworking 5.12Engineering 6Ulduar Gear an early Look 6.1Preface 6.20-40-31 6.3Head 6.4Neck 6.5Shoulder 6.6Back 6.7Chest 6.8Bracers 6.9Gloves 6.10Belt 6.11Legs 6.12Feet 6.13Finger 6.14Trinket 6.15Wands 6.162H 6.17MH 6.18OH 7Warlock UI Information

[top]Spec 1. Personal Dps Deep Destro v1

0-13-58

[top]Key Talents

==Demonology==

• Improved Imp Self explanatory but as you will see this tree is as much about buffing our pet as it is about improving our own DPS.
• Demonic Aegis This is an obivius talent but it buffs everything from our glyphs to our Tier bonus.

[top]Destruction

• Aftermath This is one of the first of many of the Immolate buffing talents, Immolate is the key around which our dps is built.
• Ruin Not much explaining is needed here.
• Emberstorm Pretty self explanatory.
• Conflagrate This spell had a massive change in it's use and as such becomes a major part of our rotation.
• Pyroclasm This old talent has been refurbished to provide a nice dps boost on Conflag crits.
• Shadow and Flame More scaling for incinerate
• Backdraft This is a really nice talent that adds a significant amount of haste to 3 spells every 10 seconds.
• Empowered Imp This is not only a nice buff for our imp but more importantly increases our over all chance to crit.
• Fire and Brimmstone This not only adds additional chance to crit on at least 1/3 of all conflags as well as scaling both immolate AND conflag damage as a result.
• Chaos Bolt This is a damage boost to our normal rotation as well as being a nice extra ability.

[top]Ideal Gear Sets

Take a look at our scale factors before we get going:

Stat	Weight
intellect	0..58
spirit	0.74
crit rating	1.04
spell power	1.54
haste rating	1.56

14% hit Horde set
13% hit Alliance set

There may be one or 2 pieces in both of these that could be mix and matched around to possibly squeeze a bit more dps out as well.

[top]Glyphs

• Glyph of Incinerate Incinerate scaling is very high in this spec, add in ISL and you life tap very little making the LT glyph worth far less.
• Glyph of Conflagrate Add in this to the new Conflag glyph is self explanatory.
• Glyph of Immolate It boosts immolate's damage, as well as conflag's, double win!

[top]Spells and Rotation

Curse of Doom -> Immolate -> Conflag [backdraft starts] -> Choas bolt -> incin -> incin [backdraft ends] It's a simple enough rotation with many complexities as many of the cooldowns/dot durations float over each other.

[top]Simcraft Charts and Graphs

Haven't had time to Run these yet, Feel free to PM me url links to the google graphs.

[top]Spec 2. Personal Dps Deep Affliction

53-0-18
by ruthlessmind

[top]Key Talents

==Affliction==

• Improved Curse of Agony: This is your highest DPET spell (excluding Corruption) and a good place to put points
• Suppresion: If you’re lacking hit in your gear this is the place to get it.
• Improved Corruption: This is the spell with your highest uptime and a major source of your damage
• Soul Siphon: This is a big improvement for your Drain Soul finisher
• Empowered Corruption: Another increase for this spell
• Shadow Embrace: Talent increasing all your DoT damage
• Siphon Life: No longer an additional spell to cast this talent now heals you for a percent of Corruption damage done and also increases damage to Corruption and Unstable Affliction
• Shadow Mastery: Shadow damage accounts for all of affliction damage now and this is a 15% increase
• Eradication: Talent giving you a haste proc
• Contagion: Increases damage from Curse of Agony and Corruption
• Malediction: DoTs now crit and this increases that chance by 9% for both Unstable Affliction and Corruption on top of giving a 3% increased spell damage
• Death’s Embrace: Increases shadow damage when target gets below 35%
• Unstable Affliction: Gives you one of your DoTs
• Pandemic: Gives Unstable Affliction and Corruption the ability to crit
• Everlasting Affliction: Gives you increased damage to Corruption and Unstable Affliction and allows Corruption to be auto refreshed
• Haunt: Direct damage and increases damage done by all DoTs

[top]Destruction

• Improved Shadow Bolt: Now a direct 5% increase to your main nuke and provides a crit debuff on the target
• Bane: Reduces cast time on Shadow Bolt
• Ruin: Gives you the big crits

[top]Gear

Here are the scale factors to look at:

Stat	Weight
intellect	0.23
spirit	0.79
crit rating	0.85
haste rating	0.93
spell power	1.45

So a few things to note, one the hit cap is 3% lower on these specs than the previous so we get a new set. That means 11% for horde 10% for alliance. Haste is always good and crit is decent too.


Horde 11% hit cap
Alliance 10% hit cap

[top]Glyphs

• Glyph of Life Tap: Default lock glyph giving big dps boost
• Glyph of Haunt: Increases damage bonus from Haunt
• Glyph of Curse of Agony: Increases duration and DPET for CoA

[top]Spells and Rotation

There are several ways to look at the affliction rotation.

[top]The Basic Rotation

Life Tap>Shadow Bolt>Haunt>Corruption>Unstable Affliction >Curse of Agony

Start with Life Tap to activate glyph. Follow with Shadow Bolt to apply the first stack of Shadow Embrace and then Haunt to provide the second stack as well as give the damage modifier to DoTs. Then put up your DoTs. After that you will be using Shadow Bolt as filler ensuring to refresh your DoTs as needed as well as casting Life Tap to keep up the buff.

Under 25% you will be in execute phase and will replace Shadow Bolt with Drain Soul as your filler spell.

[top]The "close" Rotation

Close in this situation refers to distance to the boss, and also the way that missile spells travel to said boss. In this case we will look at a boss like patchwerk, Some things to look at to determine what boss type he is. 1) you can stand relatively close (with in the 130% aggro pull) and a semi small hit box, also missile spells travel to his stomach and not his head, though both are in line and not very far apart from each other. With a boss like this, you can pull a rotation like this:

Life Tap>Shadow Bolt>Corruption>Haunt>Unstable Affliction >Curse of Agony

This rotation allows you to have corruption tick after haunt lands & shadow embrace has hit 2 stacks, which improves your dps ever so slightly. So a list of events looks like this

1. Shadow bolt cast
2. Corruption cast
3. SB lands (SE triggered stack 1)
4. Haunt cast
5. Begin casting ua
6. Haunt lands (haunt effect applied as well as Se stack 2 applied)
7. Corruption ticks

Other things to note; You basically want to cast haunt with 1.5 seconds left before it expires rather than on CD.

[top]The "Far" Rotation

Ok, so this is for bosses you are at max range from and/or heave a very long missile flight time. Lets look at a boss like saphron. Her hit box is huge, missile flight time goes to the head instead of the center of the body, and the head is no where near the center of the body. In the

1. Shadow Bolt cast
2. Haunt Cast
3. Shadow bolt hits (SE triggers stack 1)
4. Corruption Cast
5. Begin Casting UA
6. Haunt Hits (SE triggers stack 2 Haunt effect applied
7. Corruption ticks

Other things to note; You want to cast haunt on CD, as the missile travel time takes a long, long time.

[top]SimCraft Charts and Numbers

First off is the DPET to help us with spell priority. Notice how low Haunt is on the list. This is based on the direct damage of the spell and should be your highest priority due to the debuff it provides on the target increasing all of your other DoT spells.



Here we can look at our Overall damaging abilities, this shows how much corruption does though it doesn't appear properly on the DpE graph.




Here is the DPS shown over the course of the fight. It still starts off a little slow due to the application of DoTs but with less DoTs to apply it is not as bad as before. You start to see an increase in damage at 35% due to the Death's Embrace talent and again at 25% when you enter Drain Soul execute phase.



Here are uptimes shown for buffs. Take note of the Life Tap uptime. This chart is based off a 300s fight with 14 uses of Life Tap it is giving an uptime of 87%. You also need to be aware of when Eradication procs as the haste buff can cause you to clip your DoTs if you are not taking the reduced cast time into consideration.



Finally let's look at mana usage. The spikes you see are due to keeping Life Tap up during the fight and with the other mana returns received in the raid you will not have any issues with mana as affliction.

[/quote]

[top]Spec 3. Destruction

3-13-55

[top]Key Talents

==Affliction==

• Suppression 3% more hit from talents mean you can focus on other stats!

[top]Demonology

• Improved Imp
• Demonic Aegis

[top]Destruction

• Aftermath This is one of the first of many of the Immolate buffing talents, Immolate is the key around which our dps is built.
• Ruin Not much explaining is needed here.
• Backlash
• Emberstorm Pretty self explanatory.
• Conflagrate This spell had a massive change in it's use and as such becomes a major part of our rotation.
• Pyroclasm This old talent has been refurbished to provide a nice dps boost on Conflag crits.
• Shadow and Flame More scaling for incinerate
• Backdraft This is a really nice talent that adds a significant amount of haste to 3 spells every 10 seconds.
• Empowered Imp This is not only a nice buff for our imp but more importantly increases our over all chance to crit.
• Fire and Brimmstone This not only adds additional chance to crit on at least 1/3 of all conflags as well as scaling both immolate AND conflag damage as a result.
• Chaos Bolt This is a damage boost to our normal rotation as well as being a nice extra ability.

This spec has 2 free talent points to be placed some where in the destro tree (or even possibly in Improved Healthstone) Where those 2 points go, is truly up to you. The authors Choice is 1 more point in Destructive Reach, and Shadowfury but it's up to you.

[top]Gear Choices

Stat	Weight
intellect	0..27
spirit	0.86
crit rating	0.87
haste rating	0.90
spell power	1.34

These are the same sets (coincidently enough) from the affliction set, that being said, the hit cap is at 11% and 10% for horde and alliance respectively.

Horde 11% hit cap
Alliance 10% hit cap

[top]Glyphs

We use the same glyphs as 0/40/31

• Glyph of Life Tap This new glyph massively boosts our dps and gets worked into our cycle.
• Glyph of Conflagrate Add in this to the new Conflag glyph is self explanatory.
• Glyph of Immolate It boosts immolate's damage, as well as conflag's, double win!

use Glyph of Incinerate until you can attain Glyph of Lifetap.

[top]Rotation

The rotation for Deep destro builds revolves around cooldowns, buffs and dots, the following list is a priority list.

1. Glyph of Life Tap 20 seconds
2. Immolate 15 seconds
3. Conflagrate 10 seconds
4. Choasbolt 12 seconds+cast time
5. Curse of Doom 60 seconds
6. Backdraft 15 seconds/3 charges

So basically, the first cycle of rotation goes like this.

Lifetap rank 1 ->Curse of Doom -> Immolate -> Conflag [backdraft starts] -> Choas bolt -> incin -> incin [backdraft ends]

Then you just rinse and repeat, try and squeeze chaos bolt through backdraft if you can keep up LT, and Conflag on cd. When the boss has less than 60 seconds to live switch to CoA.

[top]Simcraft Charts and Numbers

Here is our Damage per Execute chart. Take a look at what we have, CoD is our top DpE and immolate and conflag are both very handy as well.


And our uptime, backdraft is up a whole lot, and pyroclasm is up a decent amount as well.


Now if we look at our overall damage, Incinerate is the main factor with conflag not far behind.



Unlike aff and deep demo, Destro has a higher over all dps, but no execute.




And lastly our mana issues are similar to other specs with the slow spiky climb down.

[top]Spec 4. rDps

0-56-15

[top]Background Info

Currently Totem of Wrath provides 280 Spellpower to all raid members with in range. Warlocks now have the ability to surpass the spellpower gain and or be a replacement for lack of a totem. The basic Idea, is if you don't have an ele shaman a Demonic Pact is a massive dps increase over anything else. That being said if you do have an ele shaman, bringing in a DP warlock once said warlock gets to a certain spellpower can be better than ToW.

Here's What Was brought up in the demonic pact thread.

Assuming the average raid brings say 8 dps casters, if each one scales 1 dps per spelldmage than we would need to generate an addition 62.5 average spelldamage (note average not actual do to the fact that up time is not 100%) to increase the over all raid dps to the point at which we lost dps.

The average+dmg scale factor from sim craft for all casters (excluding enh shaman) is 1.45 which would yield an average of 43.1 spelldamage to increase raid dps to compensate for loosing our personal dps. In other words On top of this chart

UP Time	Spell Power
90%	3111
85%	3295
80%	3500
75%	3734
65%	4320
50%	5600

We would need to add an additional 431 spellpower to each number. This would give you:

UP Time	Spell Power
90%	3542
85%	3726
80%	3931
75%	4165
65%	4751
50%	6031

One thing this assumes is your shaman will keep ToW down to keep uptime of any +spelldmg buff up 100% as well as the aoe 3% crit buff instead of the 3% from rogues/retpallies. If your shaman Replaces his ToW with a Searing totem and assuming the shaman gains 400 dps from a searing totem instead then there is a mere 100 dps difference that we may need to overcome (this is at current naxx gear levels and may change later) but as such we only need 8.6 spelldamage per person and there by must achieve a mere 86 spelldamage to over come the deficit.

which yields this table:

UP Time	Spell Power
90%	3197
85%	3381
80%	3586
75%	3820
65%	4406
50%	5686

Note: DP is up usually above 90% of the time. That being said it also falls off at time when the pet A) can't attack. B) Is being protected/resummoned. 90% flat rate is a good base to work off of, as anything over that is just frosting on the cake.

[top]Gearing for Demonic Pact

Here are our scale factors for DP

Stat	Weight
intellect	0..29
crit rating	0.73
spirit	0.82
haste rating	0.76
spell power	1.16

As you can see, unlike 40-31 the dps per scale factor is less for everything all around. But this spec isn't about you, it's about the raid. Mind you the worse you do on dps, the more you need to provide the raid in every one's dps. The idea though is definitly to stack SP, the more +dmg you bring the more the raid dps goes up. You still need the same hit as 40/31.

[top]Glyphs

• Glyph of Life Tap This new glyph massively boosts our dps and gets worked into our cycle.
• Glyph of Felgaurd Increases the dps from your Fg by a good margin.
• Glyph of Immolate It boosts immolate's damage.

[top]Rotations and Pets

This spec is 100% reliant on you keeping your FG alive. Remember just because you have Soul Link, doesn't mean you should use it. If your FG dies, it's priority #1 to get it back up.

You have some nice cooldowns to use as this spec, between meta, and Demonic Empowerment you can really churn out the dps. Time your meta for heroism, if you can set up your portal, and charge the boss, immolate and port back, it's a high amount of dps.

Your basic rotation consists of Immolate CoD, Corr SB spam, and then doing the weave below 35% And don't forget to Lifetap ever 20 seconds!


From above:

Begin Casting SB1
finish cast SB 1
begin cast of SB 2
SB 1 hits Decimate procs
finish cast of SB 2
Cast soulfire 1
finish casting soulfire 1 decimate clears
SB 2 hits decimate procs
Cast SB 3
cast soulfire 2

So you start 2xiSB 1x sf 1x SB 1x sf repeat 1:1 rotation.

[top]Simcraft Charts and Graphs

And take a look at our buff uptimes.



As you can see the sim runs a 94% uptime for DP, which is near as perfect as you are going to get. Also note that MC is down significantly for this spec but CoD provides so added dps here over CoA so we use that. If the fight switches to a duration of less than 60 seconds move to CoA.

Here we look at our damage Sources, as you can see our felgaurd is a significant portion of our dps.




Our resources chart gets a little scattered when so many things start to happen at once in the middle of the fight, though on an average fight this may level out a bit more.

[top]Gear Choices

Stat	Weight
intellect	0..27
spirit	0.86
crit rating	0.87
haste rating	0.90
spell power	1.34

13%/14% hit needed for this build.

14% hit Horde set
13% hit Alliance set

[top]Glyphs

We use the same glyphs as 0/40/31

• Glyph of Life Tap This new glyph massively boosts our dps and gets worked into our cycle.
• Glyph of Conflagrate Add in this to the new Conflag glyph is self explanatory.
• Glyph of Immolate It boosts immolate's damage, as well as conflag's, double win!

use Glyph of Incinerate until you can attain Glyph of Lifetap.

[top]Rotation

The rotation for Deep destro builds revolves around cooldowns, buffs and dots, the following list is a priority list.

1. Glyph of Life Tap 20 seconds
2. Immolate 15 seconds
3. Conflagrate 10 seconds
4. Choasbolt 12 seconds+cast time
5. Curse of Doom 60 seconds
6. Backdraft 15 seconds/3 charges

So basically, the first cycle of rotation goes like this.

Lifetap rank 1 ->Curse of Doom -> Immolate -> Conflag [backdraft starts] -> Choas bolt -> incin -> incin [backdraft ends]

Then you just rinse and repeat, try and squeeze chaos bolt through backdraft if you can keep up LT, and Conflag on cd. When the boss has less than 60 seconds to live switch to CoA.

[top]Simcraft Charts and Graphs

[top] Warlocks In general

[top]Firestone VS Spellstone

In every, single possible spec, do to the renurf of firestone buff (down from 300% inculding the +dmg multiplier) Spellstone is best for all classes!

[top]Gear Choices

==4 piece t7==

The 4 ideal t7 pieces are
[Valorous Plagueheart Circlet]
[Valorous Plagueheart Shoulderpads]
[Valorous Plagueheart Robe]
[Valorous Plagueheart Gloves]
In conjunction with
[Leggings of the Wanton Spellcaster]

If you don't have those legs than
[Valorous Plagueheart Leggings] with [Gown of the Spell-Weaver]

The math behind 4pc t7 spell conversion reads as such assuming we lifetap every 20sec

(300*.39+300*.2)/2 or 88.5 spellpower which is 116.82 dps.

This also means UNTIL you get Glyph of Life Tap you want to use your highest dps items preserving 2pc t7, but 4pc isn't worth it.

[top]Non Tier Set items

Some Items may be switched around, the following are the top few choices for each slot that doesn't have a tier piece for it.


Neck
[Wyrmrest Necklace of Power]
[Chain of the Ancient Wyrm]
[Thunderstorm Amulet]

Back
[Pennant Cloak]
[Cape of the Unworthy Wizard]
[Deathchill Cloak]

Bracers
[Unsullied Cuffs]
[Bindings of the Expansive Mind]
[Bands of Impurity]

Belt
[Cincture of Polarity]
[Leash of Heedless Magic]

Rings
[Signet of Manifested Pain]
[Band of Channeled Magic]
[Signet of the Kirin Tor] (note this is the Inscribed version which isn't linkable until 3.1 is released.
[Signet of the Malevolent]
[Lost Jewel]

Boots
[Arcanic Tramplers]
[Boots of Impetuous Ideals]
[Slippers of the Holy Light]


MH Weapons
[The Turning Tide]
[Life and Death]
[Haunting Call]

OH Weapons
[Matriarch's Spawn]
[Surplus Limb]
[Accursed Spine]

Wands
[Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians]
[Wand of the Archlich]

[top]Professions

Professions are a large part of min maxing, gathering professions aren't very helpful but the main crafting ones are. Also don't forget to level your fishing for the new epic UE gems!

[top]Jewel Crafting

Jewel crafting still stands as THE best profession for warlocks. The functionality of prismatic gems is amazing. Lets look at the math:

All warlocks will be running [Chaotic Skyflare Diamond] in 3.1. To satisfy these you need atleast 2 blue gems. the best option for a blue gem is [Purified Twilight Opal] which yields 12 spelldmg (assuming demonic aegis..

Assuming all other gems would be [Runed Scarlet Ruby] which is 19 spelldmg.

So We have 32*3-(19+12+12) which is 53 spelldmg + the option to choose the best socket bonuses to use, which is a min of 67 dps increase using the 40-31 scale factors

[top]Tailoring

The new Lightweave Embroidery reads

"Embroiders a subtle pattern of light into your cloak, giving you a chance to increase your spell power by 250 for 15 sec when casting a spell."
w
It has a 45second ICD, and procs roughly 60% of the time it's not up. So we can assume it will proc every 50 seconds. So what value does that give us?

250spelldmg*15 seconds /50 seconds = an average of 75 of static dmg. Now if we look at the 040-31 scale factors, spelldmg is 1.32 dps and haste is 1.03

so the Lightweave is 99 dps and the haste is 23.69 dps. so that gives us a total of 75.31 dps increase over the usual.

[top]Enchanting

Enchanting has the ability to use 2 ring enchants that add a total of 38 spellpower and replace nothing. Which ends up being about a 50.92 dps increase.

[top]Alchemy

Mixology is a nice bonus, you gain both 39 spellpower when using YOUR OWN flask and they are double length so for the thriftier of us it's very nice and yields 51.48 dps.

[top]Inscription

Inscription has it's own shoulder enchant: Master's Inscription of the Storm

So thats (once again using to 40-31 scale factors) 93.14dps vs
the Hodir exalted enchant [Greater Inscription of the Storm ] which is 43.26dps

So the net dps you gain is 49.88 dps.

[top]Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing isn't a front runner by any means in it's bonus, yet! Well that is to say at the moment it's no better than say, enchanting, you gain 2 bonus sockets from Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves so that's 2x19 sp, or 38 total spellpower, or (once again from 40-31 scale factors) 50.92 dps. Now when ever epic gems are released the bonus of these two sockets will scale, for example if (note this is based of 0 information) the epic gems are say 23 sp, you would gain a total of 46 spell power or 60.72 dps.

[top]Leatherworking

Leatherworking, while no longer providing the amazing drums from sunwell days, does provide a unique bracer enchant: Fur Lining - Spell Power which is a 37 spellpower increase over the default 30 spellpower, which as you can see is right in line with all the other bonuses, and increased dps by just over 50 for 40-31

[top]Engineering

This pvp oriented profession brings a good hand enchant: Hyperspeed Accelerators Which yields 56.67 average haste if you were to use it every min. Which is 58.367 dps subtract the standard 37 dps of the 28 spellpower gloves and you get +20.8 dps upgrade

[top]Ulduar Gear an early Look

Written by ruthlessmind

[top]Preface

• All gear is rated based on SimCraft scaling factors.
• All gem slots assume Runed Scarlet Ruby is used
• Meta gems are not factored into ratings
• Trinket proc values are calculated using:
  • stat_gained*duration/(internal_cooldown+frequency/proc_chance)
  • stat_gained*duration/(45+1.5/0.1)
• Set bonuses are not factored into set piece values
• Full hit rating is used for all pieces
• This list is compiled with known Ulduar loot and is not a complete list until all loot has been discovered

[top]0-40-31

[list]

[top]Head

• 456 Collar of the Wyrmhunter
• 441 Cowl of Icy Breaths
• 362 Hood of Rationality
• 347 Conqueror's Deathbringer Hood
• 342 Lifespark Visage
• 326 Valorous Plagueheart Circlet
• 324 Valorous Deathbringer Hood
• 319 Cowl of Vanity
• 315 Enamored Cowl
• 290 Heroes' Plagueheart Circlet

[top]Neck

• 337 Pendant of Fiery Havoc
• 290 Pendant of Focused Energies
• 285 Wyrmrest Necklace of Power
• 256 Chain of the Ancient Wyrm
• 241 Watchful Eye
• 238 Chain of Latent Energies
• 230 Thunderstorm Amulet
• 223 Evoker's Charm
• 211 Unblinking Eye
• 210 Circle of Arcane Streams

[top]Shoulder

• 377 Soot-covered Mantle
• 331 Valorous Plagueheart Shoulderpads
• 325 Mantle of the Corrupted
• 317 Mantle of the Fatigued Sage
• 305 Conqueror's Deathbringer Shoulderpads
• 296 Mantle of Wavering Calm
• 292 Heroe's Plagueheart Shoulderpads
• 286 Mantle of the Unknowing
• 285 Underworld Mantle
• 285 Valorous Deathbringer Shoulderpads
• 277 Mantle of Dissemination
• 275 Mantle of the Locusts
• 257 Mantle of the Preserver
• 256 Iceshear Mantle

[top]Back

• 312 Drape of Mortal Downfall
• 226 Pennant Cloak
• 215 Dark Shroud of the Scourge
• 212 Cape of the Unworthy Wizard
• 211 Asimov's Drape
• 200 Disguise of the Kumiho
• 193 Drape of the Spellweaver
• 185 Shawl of the Old Maid
• 185 Shroud of Luminosity
• 185 Deathchill Cloak

[top]Chest

• 529 Conqueror's Deathbringer Robe
• 496 Valorous Deathbringer Robe
• 493 Raiments of the Corrupted
• 462 Gown of the Spell-Weaver
• 440 Valorous Plagueheart Robe
• 437 Heigan's Putrid Vestments
• 408 Raiments of the Iron Council
• 399 Robes of the Umbral Brute
• 377 Heroe's Plagueheart Robe
• 368 The Sanctum's Flowing Vestments
• 347 Vestments of the Piercing Light

[top]Bracers

• 281 Bracers of Unleashed Magic
• 271 Grips of Chaos
• 252 Combustion Bracers
• 232 Wraps of the Astral Traveler
• 229 Bindings of the Expansive Mind
• 227 Unsullied Cuffs
• 225 Preceptor's Bindings
• 212 Shackles of the Odalisque
• 199 Punctilious Bindings
• 195 Bands of Impurity
• 191 Runetouch Handwraps

[top]Gloves

• 406 Conqueror's Deathbringer Gloves
• 376 Valorous Deathbringer Gloves
• 362 Static Charge Handwraps
• 350 Handwraps of the Vigilant
• 300 Gloves of Grandeur
• 298 Handwraps of Plentiful Recovery
• 294 Touch of the Occult
• 292 Gloves of the Fallen Wizard
• 280 Ebonweave Gloves
• 278 Constructor's Handwraps
• 270 Handwraps of Resonance
• 268 Gloves of Dark Gestures
• 259 Valorous Plagueheart Gloves
• 259 Gloves of Token Respect
• 231 Heroes' Plagueheart Gloves

[top]Belt

• 387 Belt of the Darkspeaker
• 381 Sash of Ancient Power
• 335 Cincture of Polarity
• 302 Leash of Heedless Magic
• 296 Cord of the White Dawn
• 294 Embrace of the Leviathan
• 292 Plush Sash of Guzbah
• 271 Sash of Potent Incantations
• 264 Binding of the Dragon Matriarch
• 259 Conductive Cord
• 246 Belt of False Dignity

[top]Legs

• 532 Leggings of the Wanton Spellcaster
• 530 Overlord Legwraps
• 429 Legwraps of the Defeated Dragon
• 421 Conqueror's Deathbringer Leggings
• 409 Leggings of Atrophy
• 401 Leggings of Lost Love
• 397 Valorous Deathbringer Leggings
• 392 Legwraps of the Master Conjurer
• 385 Leggings of Mortal Arrogance
• 364 Valorous Plagueheart Leggings
• 338 Leggings of Unstable Discharge
• 332 Leggings of Sapphiron
• 328 Heroes' Plagueheart Leggings

[top]Feet

• 377 Sandals of Rash Temperament
• 369 Boots of Fiery Resolution
• 323 Xintor's Expeditionary Boots
• 323 Boots of Impetious Ideals
• 314 Spellslinger's Slippers
• 311 Boots of the Servant
• 297 Savior's Slippers
• 292 Arcanic Tramplers
• 277 Sandals of the Ancient Keeper
• 270 Boots of Forlorn Wishes
• 255 Boots of Persuasion

[top]Finger

• 297 Frozen Loop
• 296 Shimmering Seal
• 284 Ring of the Vacant Eye
• 256 Emerald Signet Ring
• 255 Signet of the Malevolent
• 216 Pyrelight Circle
• 215 Signet of Manifested Pain
• 207 Glowing Ring of Reclamation
• 207 Lady Maye's Sapphire Ring
• 197 Band of Channeled Magic
• 196 Inscribed Signet of the Kirin Tor
• 186 Lost Jewel

[top]Trinket

• 534 Living Flame
• 413 Elemental Focus Stone
• 378 Dying Curse
• 304 Illustration of the Dragon Soul
• 302 Scale of Fates
• 260 Eye of the Broodmother
• 249 Pandora's Plea
• 245 Flare of the Heavens
• 245 Embrace of the Spider
• 217 Sundial of the Exiled

[top]Wands

• 173 Quartz Crystal Wand
• 140 Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians
• 130 Scepter of Lost Souls
• 117 Sceptor of Creation
• 111 Wand of the Archlich
• 111 Nurturing Touch
• 104 Plague Igniter

[top]2H

• 1283 Intensity
• 1170 Staff of Endless Winter
• 1162 Unraveling Reach
• 1106 The Lifebinder
• 1069 Rapture
• 1038 Icecore Staff
• 919 Pillar of Fortitude

[top]MH

• 935 Runescribed Blade
• 897 The Turning Tide
• 886 Firesoul
• 859 Haunting Call
• 848 Stormtip
• 838 The Soulblade
• 830 Plasma Foil
• 789 Life and Death
• 747 Titansteel Spellblade

[top]OH

• 282 Overcharged Fuel Rod
• 252 Suplus Limb
• 229 Ward of the Violet Citadel
• 219 Ironmender
• 214 Watchful Eye
• 196 Matriarch's Spawn
• 183 Accursed Spine

[top]Warlock UI Information

Before we get started, there are some ground rules, A) do not discuss your UI here, don't post pics, or links or ask questions about warlock mods. This is a simple compromise to a problem, the UI thread is terrible, but here is a list of some of the major helper mods to get you on your way. If you have an issue with one of the mods or want to add another one, PM myself or Splot

Function	Mod Name	Description
Boss Info	DeadlyBossMods (Version 4.13-r1019)	Shows you Warnings, Timers, Range Checks and much more during BossFights
DS warning	DrainSoulTimer (Version 2.0)	Afflictions Execute Warning ... gives you audio drainsoul ticks and execute warning
Toolset	Forte Xorcist (Version 1.08)	Spell- & Cooldowntimer, Dot timer, bars, ultilities
Toolset	Necrosis LdC (Version 3.0 r221)	Maybe the best known WL-Addon around. Highly adjustable for your own needs.
Raid Info	oRA2	Raid Assist Addon (MT Targets i.e.)
Unit Frames	Pitbull Unit Frames 4.0 (Version ---)	Unit Frames Addon
Utility	DrDamage - Addons - Curse	Shows damage ranges/average on spell icons
Utility	ShardAce WotLK	It handles summons, stones of all types, and pets (think Necrosis without the bloat).
Utility	Classtimers	for DoTs
Cooldown	TellMeWhen	for cooldowns
Cooldown	DoTimer	Shows time to live for dots and cooldowns
Utility	Pol Monitor	It allows the setup of icons for the spells choosen on which it will show if in range, mana, and if already on a mob it will show the duration
Buffs	Satrina Buff Frames	Shows buffs and is customisable.
Utility	qNightLight	It allows you to switch on upto 4 different sound triggers for when Nightfall procs - one at the start, one halfway through the proc, one 3 seconds from the end, and one at the end if it drops off before you use it.
Buffs	Power Auras Classic	Configurable aura gain/loss tool
Debuff	Auracle (De)Buff Monitor	Debuff/buff monitor
Buffs	Cork	One click buffs and reminder
Buffs	ButtonTimers	Visual timer and button for buffs/dots
Trigger	MikScrollingBattleText	Gives a text warning and/or sound upon a very customizable variety of events. (Essentially, anything you can think of that would show up on the combat log). In one addon, it can completely replace the what DS Warning does, as well as what Power Auras does (although, it doesn't execute it as graphically) or Buff Watcher, etcetc.
Dots	EventHorizon	It shows DoT's and casts with tics over each bar to show the end of each tick.
Dot	Debuff Filter	Debuff and dot management tool

____________________________________________________
Note until I finish the other 2 specs, the wiki formatting my be a bit... awry.



Need helps:
Simcraft has kind of pooped out on me, I'd really apreciate scale factors/graphs for the replenishment spec if you can!
Any corrections you see (minor things) pm me, major issues post in the thread.

 

• Heeno

Wouldn't tailoring be "THE profession for warlocks" after 3.1? As you mentioned, it has a higher dps value than jewelcrafting. Also don't forget to add Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, they also give a 38-39 spellpower increase, equal to enchanting and inscription.

Is it a dps increase to drop corruption below 35%? I had seen this mentioned previously, curious if this has been disproved or you had forgotten to mention it.

 

supplicium

Changed

 

Bergtau

I don't think 40/31 is really as good as it seems. The data on it is assuming you can always maintain a 1:1 rotation, which will not be the case in Ulduar, at least, from what I can tell. I think Affliction is still a strong bet for #1 in consistent DPS, since not every fight is a Patchwerk fight.

 

naotom

I agree with the gnome, and would much rather see this thread stay similar to the layout of its predecessor rather than stating 'this is the one max DPS spec'. More work I know but undoubtedly worth it to many in the end.

 

Indaria

I don't think it's fair to exclude BS from the discussion. With the future release of epic gems Blacksmithing would actually prove more valuable than, say, enchanting (which it is at the same level as now)? Or have i missed out on something fundamental here?

 

wow2k6

Then it all comes down to what instants you have...and how much burst damage you can dish out.
Even without 1:1 weaving 0/40/31 will be ahead because it has more instants (CoA, Corr, Confl) and has much more burst potential.

Affliction loses much of its dps if the encounter design doesn't allow to keep up Haunt all the time because of movement or something like this...

 

Madlax

@ Ideal Gear Sets
I would switch the boot enchant to 18 Spirit when you're above 14.46(thats 12 hit rating)% to hit.
18 spirit > 12 crit

 

Weerea

I agree with this - currently BS is equal to enchanting, but gives much more flexibility and more room for future improvement with the (assumed) introduction of epic quality gems.

 

• fallenman

This isn't wholly accurate. Historically (looking at dps parses and wws reports, or wowmeter), the mechanics of a fight have little impact on the overall "rank" of a spec in terms of dps, with only rare exceptions. If a spec is a top performer on a stand and fight encounter such as patchwerk, then it will also be a top performer on most every other encounter as well. If a spec is mediocre on a patchwerk fight, then it will remain mediocre for most other encounters too.

While the 0/40/31 spec doesn't have the "ramp up" time that affliction has, it also can't do as much damage while moving as affliction can, so in reality it evens out.

In terms of supplicium's guide, I don't think it is accurate to say that 0/40/31 is the only top personal dps spec, based upon the testing we've seen on the PTR fights. See some examples here: World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> PTR Patchwerk Test Results While simcraft indicates this spec is the top dps, we can't take simcraft as fact, as there are parses even in the thread I linked, where warlocks got higher numbers for a spec than what simcraft's "perfect conditions" theoretical maximums were. An example here: Patchwerk (PTR DPS Test) : Rydya Both the chaos bolt warlock and the 0/40/31 warlock had over 7000dps with shirts of uber, but no heroism. And they were within a few dps of each other.

 

HordakIC

My intention isn't to debate the merit of Supplicum's post, but to point out that Simcraft averages thousands of iterations of fights so there were results among the averaged result set that came out higher than the aggregate. When people claim higher dps than the sim predicts it could be a fault of the sim or well within the range of outcomes the sim predicted possible. We don't know for fact which is the case here, but please (everyone) keep in mind that the purpose of the sim isn't to tell you what the most dps you can do is, it's to tell you what your average dps should be over thousands of stand-and-nuke fights.

 

Warlocomotif

I think probably the best use of simcraft is to see what effect certain changes to the game will have on your spec.

For example; lets say you have 3.0.9 affli, lets say Blizzard *only* changed Pandemic. Simcraft could give you a really good idea of what that would do for you. When you start looking at really big changes I still think Simcraft will give you very decent numbers- but I don't think it should be used as the bible of talent spec comparisons, I think the real world will do just fine in that regard.

The mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's open.

 

supplicium

On, Which spec produces higher dps:

The Idea behind this post is using the data available to give information to those who want it on what we see as the highest dps spec at the moment for our gear levels etc. Once we hit ulduar (either next week or the week after) and we start seeing the wws parses and it becomes either very clear that the weaving ration either does or doesn't work well and perhaps another spec becomes more favorable then I will post those as well. I have allready decided to do another section for Affliction because it has been pointed out once every 30 min a doomgaurd will be superior dps when combined with that spec that 40-31.

I would like to also point out I have raidied on nearly every testing night in either 10 or 25 man ulduar, I have a good idea of the numbers I can porduce of fights with a lot of movement (hodir) or little movement (Iron Council/ignis) and I have tried multiple specs, both deep destro, and affliction, as well as the defacto 40-31. And of all of them, 40-31 always seems to do higher dps for me. Though deep destro works very well also and affliction does well too. Once we have a more agragate data set from multiple people using wws, we can start to gauge a skill level/difficulty cap on how hard it is to pull off a 40/31 build but even with only periodicly using soulfire it still ends up a huge dps boost.

The massive amounts of +haste that build runs with is a huge advantage, I my self will be close to 900 haste when 3.1 hits live and raiding with easily more than 3k spellpower, and I'm no where closet to full BiS.

On BS and LW, I will add them, it won't take much extra time, I just don't know a single warlock who is either proffesion, and as this thread title states this is currently (though I plan on updating it) meant for 3.1, and as such there are no real epic gems, and thus we don't see a massive gain from BS over more helpful professions for a warlock like Enchanting or insc, and in a purely min/max situation all warlock should probably roll JC/Tailor to get the most from their professions.

I want to finish the Demnic pact and replenishment write up today, then I'll take a crack at affliction. If any one would like to start that write up thats fine they can PM me, and I will give you credit. Note though this doesn't need to be as detailed as the affliction thread, just the finer points of spec, and glyphs like the post for 40-31, if some one wants to know how to play affliction and why you only need 292 hit then let them read the thread about that spec.

 

Arnath

Arguing that Simcraft is wrong because you've seen parses where people do better than it predicts is fallacious. As Hordak said, the sim gives averages over a range of what's possible. If you, for example, get really lucky with crits, you're going to have much higher DPS than what Simcraft says. The Chaos bolt parse linked had a 70% crit rate on their Conflag and a 47% crit rate on their Incinerates. While 47% may not be THAT much above your raid buffed crit rate, it's still getting pretty lucky and 70% is pretty ridiculous.

Also, while I agree that 0/40/31 does require Decimate weaving to be optimal, there have been some sims run without weaving that only lose 100-200 dps (as far as I can remember). The point is, every spec has cases where it doesn't behave optimally. Obviously you have to balance the dps of the spec versus the amount of time you can actually run that rotation but I don't feel like 0/40/31 suffers versus Affliction in this respect.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, how are the scale factors listed in the original post generated? Are they just the ones for 0/40/31?

 

Brodisk

I very much appreciate this post. If you aren't intrested in this specc, then be patient and wait for more on aff or dest speccs to become available. I for one am very much leaning towards this specc, although i do hate being a hybrid. And as the poster commented, some fights have extreme moving times and some less, which is why practice makes perfect in the real raid. You will just have to practice on each boss with whatever specc to get your max dps and knowing when to cast what.

 

HordakIC

Something that I was hoping Blizzard would do, and didn't, is change how Destro played with the deeper talents. That is to say, Affliction has Haunt which becomes their new top priority, Demo has Demonic Pact and a strong DPS cooldown which can change some stat prioritization or at least where your DPS is coming from (the casters you're benefiting), yet Destro only gets a non-primary nuke that comes in at a lower priority than several of their other spells. I dunno, it felt meh to me in 3.0 and it feels meh now. 40/31 feels like more of a Destro spec than Destro to me. It has a new mechanic that's fire based (SF execute), strong fire synergy which was supposed to be the hallmark of Destro, and Imp synergy, another supposed Destro hallmark. So while it's technically a hybrid spec, I feel that it represents the spirit of the pure Destro spec better than pure Destro.

Just this man's opinion, but I actually look forward to playing it.

 

Demi9OD

I've looked at all the simcraft results from a movement perspective and the Globals Per Second of a spec should have a great deal of bearing when considering mobility. You will not always have the opportunity or need to move during a global, but your chances of "Free Movement" increase with more time spent on GCD. There are of course other factors to consider such as filler cast speed, DPCT, and ramp up time. 40/31 has the highest GPS of any spec due to it's use of Conflag, Corruption, and un-glyphed Agony. Below is a rough GPS table I made just by adding up the total number of globals used in a given simcraft result, and the assumption that Life Tap is used every 20 seconds.

GPS _ build

.217 _ 40/31
.154 _ 3/13/55
.126 _ 41/30
.115 _ 0/56/15
.089 _ 53/0/18

 

supplicium

Good points Demi, I think people really don't grasp the concept of how movement friendly 40-31 actually can be. It's also very nice with multiple targets, if you don't get the last SF off on target 1, but still have decimation, you can lead off on target 2 with a SF. Also, with a combined 4 instants that we use regularly; conflag, Corr, Agony and LT. We have something to do while moving, and having the shortest cast times of any spec (incin is shorter than SB and Soul fires are shorter than incin), it is very conducive to keeping on the move. Also, you don't need to keep up a perfect weave of incin/sf to gain dps from decimation as long as you are getting off a majority of your soulfires you will be doing pretty well.


Update
LW and BS added to proffesions.

 

• fallenman

The crit rates were actually about right for this warlock's WWS parse.

The 70% on conflag is around 7-8% higher than what it should have been (a small dps increase, since it's only conflag), but the 47% was pretty much spot on. I think you're forgetting about raid buffs (13%), shirt of uber (another 3% roughly), 5% devastation, and 2pc T7 bonus. And conflag will have a much higher crit rate because of fire and brimstone. An RNG-skewed parse would have been higher than the 7k dps this warlock achieved. In fact, in order for this same warlock to get the "average" simcraft gives it at 6500 dps, RNG would have screw over the warlock, and drop the crit rates a fair amount below what the gear/buffs/talents dictate.

 

• fallenman

I, too, have done just about every PTR raid, and used the entire arsenal of specs available. And my personal experience differs from yours. But our personal experiences and opinions mean little when trying to provide people with the best information possible. There are many WWS parses and data available from the PTR, and I linked you to where you can find several that refute your position. Do you have a larger sampling of data you can provide that supports your statement that 40/31 is the top dps spec, aside from personal anecdote?

A quick note in your guide that your assumption of 0/40/31 being a superior spec based on simcraft numbers and requires use of decimation weaving would improve the quality of your PVE compendium.

 

HordakIC

The shirt of uber changes the character stats rather dramatically from what the sim was using (T7 setup I believe) which could easily account for the discrepancy.

EDIT: I'm not saying that the sim is infallible, but an apples to apples comparison should be used before saying that it's wrong.

EDIT 2: Not a warlock thing, but did you see the Enhance Shaman in that parse? 8451 dps...that just an anomoly?

 

Drasil

The best spec really depends on what buffs the raid needs. By labeling 0/56/15 the "rDPS" spec, you're implying that it's the highest rDPS spec, which isn't always true. It depends on what the raid needs:

0/40/31 - health
53/0/18 - health or int/spirit, spell crit
3/13/55 - health, replenishment
0/56/15 - spellpower, spell crit

I'm going to dual-spec to get a nice cross-section of the raid buffs I'll likely need. Probably 0/56/15 and 0/40/31 or 3/13/55.

 

supplicium

Fallen man, you and I and those wws' are all relatively anecdotal as these are all fresh specs changing I'm going to make a more level headed comparison when we have a broader data set.

Also in Ryda's wws that you posted his fellow warlock running 40-31 Sayia only gets off 18 decimates in a total of roughly 80 seconds of sub 35%. which assuming both incin and soulfire are 1.3 seconds each (which they shouldn't be) that would be about 26 total soufire casts with the addition of all the gcd's and immolates factoring in, so he's essentially 8 casts short of getting the most out of his execute, as well as mssing 20 ticks of immolate 30+ of corruption.

 

• fallenman

The shirt of uber adds 8% to stats like intellect and stamina, and adds 130 rating to things like crit and haste. While this will increase the DPS, we must also remember that no heroism was used in that parse.

 

HordakIC

@fallenman

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I guess I'm also not sure what you're trying to debunk with that parse. If it's simcraft's expected dps values then I'd offer the following. I can't say for certain, because I don't know, if simcraft uses bloodlust/heroism, but if it does not then the discrepancy is only 200 dps or so for the 40/31 player which 8% spirit, stam, and int + 130 crit and haste rating would eaily cover if not point directly at underperformance by the 40/31 player. The destro player seemed far closer to optimal in their play and covered a larger dps gap from the sim. Makes sense to me.

If you're trying to debunk simcraft's ordering of dps spec power then it's appropriate to point out flawed play on either/both players' parts.

EDIT: For the first part, if the sim does use bloodlust/heroism then I have no idea