2.4, Fire, warlock specs, raiding

[Kyth]

Starting Tuesday I'm going to run as fire in raids unless anyone has objections, because I want to try this out for real.

The data is incomplete, but......:


Summary:

The 'best' (most flexible) warlock spec now is a hybrid shadow/fire spec (basically, skip cataclysm, get ISB, pick up the fire talents. conflag or not is up to you, I skipped it and grabbed 1/3 soul leech instead.) Taking cataclysm over ISB is a better choice, but means you'd have to respec if you're doing shadow.

This is because when we have three locks in a raid, someone should be doing fire. Possibly two someone's (see footnote). In some cases (only one spriest), maybe three someone's.

When we have two locks, the ideal curses are CoE/CoR, not CoS/CoR, and one lock should be fire. Not sure about the second.

Note: By switching to the hybrid fire/shadow spec, casting immolate is now a dps *gain* again, so Timbal's becomes a viable second trinket until you get the good pair. (and you have something else to do other than just SB.)



Details:

Fire destro is +100 dps from shadow with current gear. +130 if you're using flamecaps on every cooldown (very reasonable for a lock since healthstones are less important to us than mana gems are to a mage.) Add +15 if you go a pure fire spec.

More than two destruction locks do not increase ISB uptime in raids.[1]

CoE is more raid DPS than CoS is if you have 3 lock+mage versus 3 lock+spriest.

If a spriest doesn't have CoS, the warlocks lose ~10 dps per lock due to the decreased mana regen.



[1]Slake in <Advent Fury> actually thinks you don't want more than one -- I haven't tested his results in detail (it's based off of a simulation he wrote.)

[Draxyl]

Regarding the concept of only having 1 Shadow Destruction Warlock, I believe this idea is based around the fact that you have X% of ISB uptime with 1 Shadow warlock, and then when you add the second Shadow Warlock you have that same X% with an additional 3% to 5% added uptime. I'm basing this on alot of the statistics that I've looked at on EJ boards as well as alot of the math that I have done personally. I can also tell you that based on almost 100% of the statistical information that I have looked at regarding having more than 2 shadow destruction warlocks, ISB generally decreases in uptime after 2 warlocks. Obviously, it wont decrease past the uptime of having one shadow warlock, and will sit somewhere inbetween the uptime of having 1 shadow lock and 2 shadow locks. Posting from work right now, otherwise I'd include my data here.

As far as Fire goes, here is our Brutallus WWS with a comparison of my DPS vs Durcyn's DPS: http://wowwebstats.com/j21j36kogxnsi?s=10683-11017

As you can see in that report, there is only a 20 DPS difference between us, in addition to his adding ISB to the rest of the shadow casters. Also note that he was using CoR, not CoD. I suppose you can also take into account that my gear is still the old BT/MH stuff with the exception of Pantaloons of Growing Strife and I do not have Sunflare (w/e the enchant is). I was not "chugging" Flame Cap since I needed to have my Healthstone available incase of Burn or emergency health recovery after soaking MS hits. Durcyn does not use -any- +Haste gear except for one of his rings. I'm not too certain how much more SW gear is going to impact Fire vs Shadow, I suppose time will tell.

Also note that my current cast time for Incinerate is 2 seconds.

[Rottenapple]

I actually prefer shadow, so its fine with me. I don't want herbs taking up my healthstone CD dammit!

[Kyth]

It doesn't decrease after adding more locks Drax, it just doesn't increase that much. A new lock adds more ISB uptime, but you start talking things like "0.4%" which are just totally meaningless.

The interesting data is from Slake whose simulation suggests that even the second doesn't add extra ISB uptime -- the problem is his simulation doesn't aggree with the approximation on Leulier's sheet, but, well, his is a simulation, so it's more likely to be accurate.

If he's right, then with three locks, you actually ideally would go two fire, one shadow.

If it's always only 20 dps between you and a shadow lock, that actually argues against fire, since otherwise you might as well get that 0.4% increase in ISB. The spreadsheet and simulations both say that you should see more dps out of fire though, so maybe you just had to move more or something.


Rotten: either way . I've just been shadow destro since, ummm, well, it was sometime before the 2.1 patch (we were running out of debuff slots, SOMEONE had to switch), so I'm clawing my eyes out to at least try *something* new for a few weeks. I'm fine being shadow too, just going crazy to try something new for a while.

If you're willing to consider the hybrid spec (not sure your current spec), that's helpful just due to flexibility, not to mention that extra people keeping immolate up helps anyone who is fire (otherwise about 20% of your incinerates land without immolate up, so you lose dps. yay for sharing immolate.)

When I looked on Leulier's, the hybrid fire/shadow spec and the pure shadow spec were basically the same DPS, and with all the mana coming in etc., the hybrid spec actually pulled ahead slightly (when you are casting immolate + SB.)

[Rottenapple]

A shadow hybrid build with fire talents and immolate is super IMO. I prefer having big immolates for trash tbh and just doing *anything* else in my rotation.

[Kyth]

Hybrid spec means immolate is good on bosses too since it's a dps increase for you personally (and also the fire locks since it's like sharing the scorch stack.)

[Kyth]

Woo -- my task for today was to plug in the various numbers and look at the dps effect but apparently waiting pays off, someone already did the work.


Conclusion: The highest dps composition is running with two fire locks, one shadow lock, and all three locks keeping immolate up (higher personal and raid dps both for immolate.)

If only one T6 warlock goes shadow, he can sustain a 50% ISB uptime for 2 sp, instead of 65% with 3 shadow warlock.
that's only a ~2.73% dps nerf for 2 sp and a warlock (even if in fact the priest are less nerfed, and the warlock is more).
For 2 * 1400dps sp, it's a 80dps loss, and for a 2100 dps shadow wl, it's a 60dps loss

The 2 others walrock can go fire, which increase their dps by 5.5 to 6% (120dps for each one) if the spreadsheet is correct, and assuming they have the stuff/enchants for fire.

The total gain is 100dps.

So if you have 3 warlock, having one shadow and the others fire seem to be the most optimal way to go.

This is also true even when you take into account the less-than-10 dps nerf to the locks for the spriests doing slightly less dps.

More details in http://elitistjerks.com/696113-post599.html

[Barbasol]

I be flexible. Just tell me which spec to go. No complaints here

[Rottenapple]

Empirical observation tells me that my spec sucks and immolate will not increase my dps. My mana efficiency last night was terrible.

Edit: PS on all the Brutallus WWS's I have yet to see a fire lock do nearly as much dmg as the shadow ones.

[Kyth]

We had no spriest. Sucked for all of us .

But if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work -- don't take the dps loss just for another immolate caster, I can't imagine that being worth it especially with 3 locks (with two fire.)

I think the difference was the spriest though. If you remove mana regen from the Leulier sheet, suddenly casting immo or not as shadow becomes close to a wash.


Barb -- if you're flexible on specs, just look up either me or rotten, we both have the hybrid shadow/fire spec.