Warlock discussion

[arx]

If someone press on you, you can also just said you will get answer as soon we have time for it.

There is really not need in calling someone bitch, etc.

Well just in consideration for further issues like that.
If you are best in something doesn't mean you don't have to be an ass... towards others.

BEHAVE and be "idol" for others.

I do agree. We left the answer as is though, because it was obviously not entirely serious, even if quite straight to the point.

Answering questions here isn't something that members aren't obliged to do, and it certainly isn't something we're paid to do. Nevertheless we usually do try to be polite and answer in a timely manner. When that isn't possible, it can cause frustration in some people. That frustration can again cause the same in our people, who are voluntarily spending their free time answering others' questions. This is pretty much a case of you reap what you sow; the other party is being somewhat unreasonable, which yields an answer that is slightly out of line.

Perhaps there's a learning point for everyone here.

- arx, the PR manager of doom

P.S. If you want to continue the discussion, please do it in PMs. This thread doesn't need further derailing.

[Dottbott]

First of all i'd like to thank you guys for the opportunity to post at the chance of being responded to and I understand you guys are busy so if my post gets any consideration it's much appreciated.

I recently rerolled warlock to fit the needs of my guild. I've done a lot of reading up, mainly on EJ, but i'm still curious about a few things as i haven't, as of yet, found any encounter specific guidance for warlocks.

Is the affliction spec only better on boss fights when their is 2 main boss targets (Omnotron/Valiona fight/Council etc) or does it just become better once you hit a certain level of haste. I've checked a lot of high end warlocks specs and it's a mix between destruction and affliction. Is this for specific fights? if so which do you guys think it's the better option for and if not, at what point is it better.

Valiona/Theralion HC - We're currently progressing on Valiona/Theralion hc (10 man) and affliction is of course great damage and dps for it. I've been soul swapping (using Bane of Agony on both targets) to double dot. At the minute i soul swap after i have to refresh UA on the main target (corruption and BoA doesnt need refreshed at this point on the other dragon). Was just wondering if you guys think this is the best way of doing it or is there some way of using BoD/is it better to use focus cast macros for each dot to hit the other dragon.

Long winded post, i apologize - I hope you guys have time to read it.

Thanks, Dottbott

[Jubeto]

First of all i'd like to thank you guys for the opportunity to post at the chance of being responded to and I understand you guys are busy so if my post gets any consideration it's much appreciated.

I recently rerolled warlock to fit the needs of my guild. I've done a lot of reading up, mainly on EJ, but i'm still curious about a few things as i haven't, as of yet, found any encounter specific guidance for warlocks.

Is the affliction spec only better on boss fights when their is 2 main boss targets (Omnotron/Valiona fight/Council etc) or does it just become better once you hit a certain level of haste. I've checked a lot of high end warlocks specs and it's a mix between destruction and affliction. Is this for specific fights? if so which do you guys think it's the better option for and if not, at what point is it better.

Valiona/Theralion HC - We're currently progressing on Valiona/Theralion hc (10 man) and affliction is of course great damage and dps for it. I've been soul swapping (using Bane of Agony on both targets) to double dot. At the minute i soul swap after i have to refresh UA on the main target (corruption and BoA doesnt need refreshed at this point on the other dragon). Was just wondering if you guys think this is the best way of doing it or is there some way of using BoD/is it better to use focus cast macros for each dot to hit the other dragon.

Long winded post, i apologize - I hope you guys have time to read it.

Thanks, Dottbott

The dps is quite equal between destro and affli on 2 targets, or at least at V&T. I'd choose the spec for the fight depending on your group buffs you get.

Bod is better than boa and you don't really lose anything except a gcd in the pull because you can't just soul swap everything to the second target, but you win that gcd back and gain many more later in the fight thanks to doom's duration. You won't be able to soul swap when valiona flies by breathing, so you'll have to cast ua and corr (or haunt to keep SE running). You'll lose soul swap exhale damage which is 3.5-4k 8k if it crits, but if you used agony instead you'd refresh it on half duration and you wouldn't see the bigger ticks towards the end which pretty much makes the situation equal. I don't honestly see many reasons why to skip doom really. Probably the biggest problem would be unable to refresh both SE (with haunt) and UA when valiona flies over, casting 2 non-instant spells during that is quite difficult but not impossible. If you have problems with shadow embrace you can start using boa after the doom from earlier phase has expired, remember to swap back to doom when you're done with the fly phase but let the boa tick its damage before you swap back to bod.

With my gear 1 BoD does 9k more damage than 2 BoAs, sure that is just 56s of boa but still you save one gcd per minute on other stuff.

Edit: I was probably having some brainfart when I was thinking this out, I completely ignored the fact that I'd have to refresh BoA on the secondary target if I used doom. In fact with BoD you would be having 1 GCD less in a minute than a soul swapper, so the situation would be equal. However there was another thing I quite didn't consider. Instead of spending a GCD on corruption you can refresh it with drain life. So the BoD guy does more dps worth 3s of drain life. The target doesn't have haunt up so no extra 23% damage from that and a recent hotfix nerfed drain life by 25%. There is a lot of room for human error when using doom, soul swap looks like an efficient and easy way out.

[Dottbott]

Tbh it was just for convenience that i could soul swap instead of trying to keep up with 2 dot timers (which tbh isn't really an issue) but it was just that i hadn't raided much on lock and was getting used to the class.

I'll be honest, if your saying their equal and i'm comfortable with destro (which i am) i'll probably just use it, because as you've rightfully mentioned when Valiona does the breath it'll be hard to keep dots up, however if i have BoH on Valiona then surely the damage is still dealt. So i have, in my opinion, an easier fight on terms of doing damage which allows me to focus more on my surroundings.

Cheers for the input. What i'll do is test the affliction with BoD (i.e. stop being lazy with soul swap) and also test destro and see what numbers i'm getting. On a side note, the dps with BoA instead of BoD wasn't at all bad tbh in comparison.

[JamayK]

Helou everyone; yet another demo question. If you have time, I'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

So my char is this http://chardev.org/?profile=101626 and I play demo full time now. It does have 2002 haste (so gets the 1993 corruption thick), and it's also 16.87 hit, close enough to cap. And it stays on 14.96 mastery!

Then I did this profile: http://chardev.org/?profile=101292, that is a redirection from haste to mastery. Yet I get the hit, 19.2 mastery and 1198 haste.

I know my gear might look strange because of the valor points trinket (i do like to time it with demo and demon soul @ once and also save it for demo + demon soul + pot while heroism, I do have other 2 trinkets in bag... but none HC) or dunno what else could be strange... I want to talk about HASTE vs MASTERY, only.

So I simcrafted the 2 profiles, and the mastery one wins by 70 dps; on demo profile, I did 40 40 intel on belt (instead of 40 20 + hit), so that 70 dps might actually come from the gem change. This might leave me equal dps on both profiles, while simcrafting.

So, making abstraction of all the other stats, I would say the simcraft conclusion was:
14.96 mastery + 1993 haste = 19.2 mastery + 1198 haste

I do read this forum and also this page constant, and I do remember one answer from Jubeto, when he stated that being just over 1993 haste it feels as a boost, especially @ multi dotting.

Now the question is... did anyone (perhaps Jubeto) tried to go deep into mastery (like 20%)? Was those results worst than with 1993 haste? While i do follow your logs also, and I see what Jubeto get from his "poor" warlock (well, sometime I think it's 2 much, I'd say he's not human... but I wait for paragon members 2 confirm this :P ), it just makes me wonder if going max mastery (especially with the high end gear that players from paragon have access on)... will make it better, worst.

Once again, on my char... I shall test myself the mastery profile into one raid, and have my own answer (maybe some bad/good RNG will influence the results), but I'd like to know this about the 272/279 gear.

Thank ya very much and take your time; I don't need it like "help" but it was more curious than helpless :)

Congratz for your progress and best luck in Firelands progress,
JamayK

PS: last time I was troololing on your forums, I was stalking Manni... but since I went demo 2 months ago, don't take it personal, but I keep the eye more on Jubeto now; no hard feelings! Still 2 many no 1/2 ranks for Jubeto as demo, does he drink Dr. Pepper? :)

PPS: the char really exists, http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/vashj/jamayk/advanced :) I used chardev, because wow armory have a problem with the "random enchants" on the throne of the 4 drops, like the ring that I have.

[Perne]

First off, congrats on your progression. Thanks for taking the time read and/or respond to my post. My question is probably just like others you get on a regular basis: How can I improve my damage/dps? Here's my armory:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/u ... e/advanced

Given the mechanics of the fight, I normally open with CoEle, Immo, Corr, BoD, Conflag, Chaos, Shadowflame if I'm in range, Incin as filler, Chaos and Conflag off CD. I refresh Immo when less than 2 sec left, refresh Corr when less than 1 sec left. That's my typical dps burn priority. Obviously fights with lots of movement or adds have some variations. My problem is that I normally do around 14k-17k dps. I'm usually in the top 3 caster dps, but melee and hunters almost always seems to pull ahead. Any tips, tricks, or advice are greatly appreciated. Thanks again for taking time to read my post.

[Jubeto]

I'd like to know if you ran only 1000 iterations and what vary length % did you use when you simmed those profiles, even with 10 000 the margin between runs can be 10-50 dps (or maybe even more). And yes that int gem definitely makes up for some of the dps gained, try replacing the 20 int 20 hit gem with pure int, int is approximately 1 dps gain per point over hit. It is a mystery to me (if you really ran with 10 000 literations and vl 20%) why the mastery stacking would be better, since the scale values at low haste values favors haste over mastery on single target fights.

I ran two tests, with my usual gear and a gear with haste reforged/gemmed to mastery.
http://chardev.org/?profile=101721 vs http://chardev.org/?profile=68922 (edit: haste profile: http://chardev.org/?profile=101788 )

The difference between mastery and original gear was ~60 dps favoring my current itemization. The damage per execution for corruption is 3600 higher which means ~200 dps increase over mastery profile in a 2 targets fight, obviously mastery has some advantages in 2 target fight too. If we assume both targets could be cleaved with fel guard, I'm not honestly sure which profile would do better. I'll have to check that later, as far as I know simcraft doesn't support aoe situations really well so I'm not actually sure if I can even sim that out properly, but we'll see.

Edit: Making some comparisions on single target, 2 and 3 targets so we can see a bit how much the stats scale in different situations. Added haste profile. You should note that my mastery profile has 8 less hit rating thanks to: http://www.wowhead.com/item=60232 I could've swapped the cloak to something better to make the calculations more equal, but I didn't notice that early and I really cba to do the simming again, anyway the dps gain would be around 10 or so.

Single target:
Mastery Profile: 26904 dps
Original Profile: 26945 dps
Haste profile: 26905 dps

Now I've gotten some 2 targets results, simming felstorm and cleave seems to work properly:
Mastery profile with FG: 29816 dps Succubus: 27792 dps
Original profile with FG: 29866 dps Succubus: 27844 dps
Haste profile with FG: 29824 dps Succubus: 27804 dps

3 Targets with FG:
Mastery profile: 34929 dps
Original profile: 34785 dps
Haste profile: 34649 dps

I just noticed that my simcraft version doesn't calculate legion strike damage properly, The damage done to secondary targets doesn't diminish at all in the sim, making legion strike appear much stronger than what it really is. I did some testing on dummies (1,2 and 3 targets) and the damage diminishes for each target the pet hits. The damage it dealt to 1 target: ~5500, 2 targets: 2x4k, 3 targets: 3x3500. Unfortunately this makes the FG tests inaccurate and I'll probably download a newer version and redo these sims later. But as mastery becomes less important due to legion strike not being that strong, we can make a conclusion that the 1993 haste profile is superior in all these situations. (maybe excluding 3 targets)

Obviously these sims are still vacuum patchwerk fights so there is really no comparison which profile suffers from movement the most etc. (that would be haste most likely)

[JamayK]

Thank you very much for your detailed and well organized reply, Jubeto.
My tests were 1000-20%, but idd... there are variations from one from another, especially to the 1k one.

So in fights like halfus or maloriak, mastery could get in front of the 1993 profile... other than that it's 1993 FTW!
And idd, in high movement fights and basiclly depending on fight mechanic and role (for example @ atramedes hc I'm a banging the gong, and it's being a real pain a dps loss, but it's good for the raid :P) , numbers could be different.

This is one dilemma solved for me; thought I just realised I could have simmed your gear, or BiS gear by myself (lazy warlock) and get the numbers, it wouldn't had been the same like asking you :)

Once again, thank you for your time and good luck pew-pew,ing into the Firelands.

I shall be back trolling this page, as soon as I have other questions ahaha.

JamayK

[JamayK]

UPDATE: I just wanted to pass by and let you know I tested my own mastery profile in some raids, since all I did be4 was sims.

After 4.1 the forums got full of OMG, go deep mastery (demo), felhunter will crit for milions... that's the key! I managed to get a few deep mastery profiles that simmed very close to the 1993 haste one and I went fwd to test that in raid. I used the profiles all week (10 man normals + halfus/magm/chimi/atra/maloriak HC kill).

Stats were 21 mastery - 8% haste AND 19 mastery - 8 haste (But theralion's miror instead of one of the mastery trinkets)

I wouldn't say it was bad; but neither that I liked it. It's not much haste loss but I can feel it when casting and even if it was a little dps increase (which it wasnt for me btw)... I still don't like staying that low haste.

There's some logs from tuesday http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-cr5npto20afbuyk2/
Considering I'm kinda low geared and compared to the guilds that farm 13/13 (or @ least 12/13) on HC this bosses now, my mastery profile did decent; and could have done way batter but I blame RNG (in fact it's me, failed in some fights).

Overall, +- 100-200 dps, I will redo the mastery profile into 1993 haste + mastery what's left. In the end, for that little difference, you get to choose the profile that suits your gameplay better... and casting with 8% base haste, I don't like it :)

==========

QQ part; is it me or the "Mana Feed now restores more mana (four times as much) when the warlock is using a Felguard or Felhunter." it didn't happent; I get the feeling that it was better(mana pov) with succy that felpuppy?

Cheers

[Phurie]

Hello and thank you for taking time out of your personal life to consider my post. I recently started playing my affliction lock again and I have a few question that I'm having a hard time finding an answer to.

I was wondering if due to the fact that dots are affected by haste only when they are first cast is it a dps gain to recast dots such as Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Haunt during haste procs. Also with the felhunter being the pet of choice at this time is it better to channel drain life during Demon Soul or just keep spamming Shadow Bolt. The last question I have is that as an affliction lock what is the best use for Soulburn during an encounter.

Once again thank you for taking the time to consider my post.