[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[xskarma]

If you're pvp, PvE wisdom doesn't really hold true so I can't really help you there.

im PVE and i wrote up my issue, pls help me Brusalk ^^

Secondary Stats are in an odd place for Destro atm. I thought it was one way, but as it turns out that may be very specific to the simc profile I used to generate the results. As of right now I can't tell you which one is better, and I probably can't until late Tuesday as I have like 15 end of term projects to turn in, so I can't get to work on analyzing the stats further until then.

Education > theorycrafting for entertainment purposes. We'll wait till you have time. Anybody really interested is better of simming their own gear anyway.

[Brusalk]

So I was rewatching my Lei-shen kill video posted on the last phase, and I think I realized another stealth-buff related to shadowburn.


I believe that Havoc'd shadowburns can now return 2 embers when the havoc'd target dies. This wasn't the case before as the debuff wasn't put onto the havoc'd target, but I believe that around 8:50 I get 2 embers from killing one of the orb adds and the only thing I cast on it were Havoc'd shadowburns.

(LINK)

Watch the target I havoc and pour three shadowburns into. When it dies I get 2 embers.

[Deleted]

I believe that Havoc'd shadowburns can now return 2 embers when the havoc'd target dies. This wasn't the case before as the debuff wasn't put onto the havoc'd target, but I believe that around 8:50 I get 2 embers from killing one of the orb adds and the only thing I cast on it were Havoc'd shadowburns.

Just tried it while questing, I had 1 Ember, Havoced it to kill 2 mobs and ended up with 4 Embers That's nice.

If you haven't seen my previous question, I saw you have Lei Shen's trinket, have you been able to test it a bit ? We haven't killed Lei Shen yet, I'm sitll wondering if I will ask for the trinket (if it drops).

[Brusalk]

Just tried it while questing, I had 1 Ember, Havoced it to kill 2 mobs and ended up with 4 Embers That's nice.

If you haven't seen my previous question, I saw you have Lei Shen's trinket, have you been able to test it a bit ? We haven't killed Lei Shen yet, I'm sitll wondering if I will ask for the trinket (if it drops).

I haven't had time to test it as Destro, but I know it's completely and utterly amazing for Demonology. If I can get a lot of stuff done today I might try and do some simcrafting with the trinket as destro to try it out.

---------- Post added 2013-03-08 at 06:54 PM ----------

I have some somewhat new information regarding stats. (The below is a demonstration of what I'm going to be doing more in depth on Tuesday. These are all using my character with Sup/Obs, with LotC instead of Lei-shen's trinket)

I'll start with the plots, and then explain them:

The above is a reforge plot of Crit-Haste-Mastery where the color goes warmer as the DPS increases. The two images are the same plot but from different angles.

As we can see with the general trend of cooler to warmer, we lose dps (colors go cooler) as we gain mastery at the expense of haste and crit. The warmest colors are on the boundary of +2000 crit. This plot is useful because it tells me that in general, I would gain DPS as I lost mastery and gained crit. It's also useful because it shows me that there is a symbiotic relationship between haste and crit. DPS stays the around the same as I gain crit at the expense of haste, and the same is true as I gain haste at the expense of crit (ALL WHILE LOSING MASTERY).

Basically the conclusions I can draw from the above plot (NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ANYTHING BUT MY OWN CURRENT GEAR) are as follows:

• Haste vs Crit doesn't matter.
• Mastery is the worst stat to gain, and the best stat to lose for haste/crit.
• My scale factors for gaining/losing stats are basically:
  
  Crit >= Haste >> Mastery

I'm not going to update the OP as of yet, because this is a low iteration run on my character only. I need to do a lot more simming to see if this holds true for others.

(Plots made with gnuplot + pm3d)

[Aruotnof]

Brusalk,

Sorry for the delay to tell my feedback, but I had a lot of tasks in my job!

I did a lot of simulations with my gear (+/-495) and did many real tests in the game!

In simcraft, all the time it shows me to go with Crit>=Haste>Mastery. I reforged my gear in first time with Haste==Mastery>Crit and gave some tries. After that, I reforged to Crit>Haste>Mastery and I got better results!

So, my conclusion... With my LOW GEAR, Crit>=Haste>Mastery is better than Haste==Mastery>Crit with GoSup.

I got amazing results playing with destro in trashs and bosses of HoF and Terrace. Unfortunately I can´t test in Throne of Thunder yet, due to lack of some players.

Thanks!

[Sinj]

I haven't had time to test it as Destro, but I know it's completely and utterly amazing for Demonology. If I can get a lot of stuff done today I might try and do some simcrafting with the trinket as destro to try it out.

---------- Post added 2013-03-08 at 06:54 PM ----------

I have some somewhat new information regarding stats. (The below is a demonstration of what I'm going to be doing more in depth on Tuesday. These are all using my character with Sup/Obs, with LotC instead of Lei-shen's trinket)

I'll start with the plots, and then explain them:

*snip*

The above is a reforge plot of Crit-Haste-Mastery where the color goes warmer as the DPS increases. The two images are the same plot but from different angles.

As we can see with the general trend of cooler to warmer, we lose dps (colors go cooler) as we gain mastery at the expense of haste and crit. The warmest colors are on the boundary of +2000 crit. This plot is useful because it tells me that in general, I would gain DPS as I lost mastery and gained crit. It's also useful because it shows me that there is a symbiotic relationship between haste and crit. DPS stays the around the same as I gain crit at the expense of haste, and the same is true as I gain haste at the expense of crit (ALL WHILE LOSING MASTERY).

Basically the conclusions I can draw from the above plot (NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ANYTHING BUT MY OWN CURRENT GEAR) are as follows:

• Haste vs Crit doesn't matter.
• Mastery is the worst stat to gain, and the best stat to lose for haste/crit.
• My scale factors for gaining/losing stats are basically:
  
  Crit >= Haste >> Mastery

I'm not going to update the OP as of yet, because this is a low iteration run on my character only. I need to do a lot more simming to see if this holds true for others.

(Plots made with gnuplot + pm3d)

Yep, that's pretty much what my sims told me too (for people just joining the discussion I've made a somewhat similar analysis some posts above )

I ran some plots (not reforge plots, just regular plots - not figured here or in the posts above) and it showed the same, basically: Crit >~ Haste > Mastery.

We need to run some more sims, with different characters and different stat allocation-sets in order to be 100% sure. But so far I haven't seen any proof that mastery > haste >> crit like the T15HC scale factors suggest (see my posts for an explanation as to why this is misleading). After getting a bit more results (to be sure), next we have to find out if Crit (>)= Haste > Mastery is better for cleave situations and AoE.

[Bladeface]

wait i am confused... how should i be reforing exactly? because 1st post says one thing then another post says another then that one up there says another ><

[Sinj]

wait i am confused... how should i be reforing exactly? because 1st post says one thing then another post says another then that one up there says another ><

We're still in the process of figuring that out However, we can now tentatively say that for single target and for our gear level (495-510 ilvl) it's something like Crit >= Haste > Mastery - but we still need to do some more tests in order to confirm this.

But don't fret - the difference between a mastery > haste > crit-reforge and a crit > haste > mastery-reforge is not that great (maybe 1-2k dps), so it's not like you're completely gimping yourself by going one way over the other, hehe.

[Myzou]

I'll probably always use sacrifice - it's just how I see my destruction warlock. I understand it's a DPS loss to grab it, but screw Ghostcrawler trying to control me. :P Plus, I don't raid, so dungeon and LFR players can bite me. :P

As such, I assume Mastery > Crit = Haste is still the stat priority for sacrifice?

I understand you guys are still looking at supremacy stat weights, but just seeing if the sac ones have changed at all with the new gear levels?

[Micke]

You have to keep in mind that while mastery might be the lowest stat on singletarget, in aoe or fights you can abuse shadowburns and havocs the value will increase. And so will the value of Sac.

Edit: From my testings of Destro+lei-shen trinket: Nothing special, will be competing with the other trinkets available, same story for Aff.

[Deleted]

Yeah I reforge to Haste > Crit > Mastery right now and it works well. Fast ember regen!

But I'm thinking of going Master > Crit > Haste with GoSup since I wont loose much damage and with the main point beign i can just switch to Demonology without changing reforge.

[Aruotnof]

After getting a bit more results (to be sure), next we have to find out if Crit (>)= Haste > Mastery is better for cleave situations and AoE.

I believe in cleave situations, mastery will be better than crit! But I didn't do any simulations with cleave, 2 targets or aoe yet!

Perhaps these stats go together and the difference between them is negligible.

[Sinj]

I believe in cleave situations, mastery will be better than crit! But I didn't do any simulations with cleave, 2 targets or aoe yet!

Perhaps these stats go together and the difference between them is negligible.

I'm running those sims as we speak I'll post my results shortly.


Edit: Results are in

Right, so...some more data. This sim is with my own character (509 ilvl with a crit > haste > mastery-reforge). First one is a 2 target-sim, the next is an aoe (8 target-sim).

First for the 2 target-sim:


From the top chart we can see that in a 2 target fight Haste > Crit

In the middle chart we can see that Crit >= Mastery (Technically, we can get a 40 dps increase by going for slightly more mastery than crit, but since it's only 40 dps and since the curve breaks again farther to left, it would hardly be correct to say that Mastery > crit)

In the bottom chart we can see that Haste > Mastery.

So, for 2 target fights the stat priority (according to my results) is: Haste > Crit >(=) Mastery


Next up is the 8 target-sim:



In the top chart we can see that Haste > Crit (though the curve does seem to drastically go down to the left it seems like haste is generally preferable)

In the middle chart we can see that Mastery >>> Crit

In the bottom chart we can see that Mastery >>> Haste

So, for 8 target fights the stat priority is: Mastery >>> Haste > Crit.


Conclusion:

From my findings (as well as Brusalk's) it would seem that the stat priority would be:

Single target fights: Crit >= Haste > Mastery (Haste becomes better than crit at higher ilvls)

Two-target fights: Haste > Crit >(=) Mastery

AoE fights (8 targets throughout the entire fight): Mastery >>> Haste > Crit

What this means is that, yes, mastery will be great for AoE fights, but only if there's constantly 8 targets we can AoE. For the most part and in most encounters mastery won't be great. I think the reason mastery is so much better for the 8 target sim than in the single target/2-target sim is that mastery affects FnB - not particularly because of havoc + SB/CB - since if that was the case mastery would be better for 2 target sims too, which isn't the case in the results.

Based on these results, I probably wouldn't recommend dropping mastery entirely, since that'd hit us (somewhat) hard when we're aoeing. However, it would be suboptimal (imo) to go full-out mastery since it's very rare we have fights with extended 8-target AoE.

It all depends what you use Destro for, in my opinion: Do you use Destro as your main spec and for every single fight? Then I'd probably go with Crit > Haste >= Mastery. Do you only use Destro for AoE fights or fights where AoE-dps is important? Then I'd definitely would want to keep all three stats more balanced.


EDIT: THESE RESULTS ARE NOT FINAL - IT'S TOO SOON TO SAY THAT THESE RESULTS WILL APPLY TO EVERYONE AT ALL TIMES IN ALL SORTS OF GEAR. WE NEED MORE DATA.

[Aruotnof]

But I'm thinking of going Master > Crit > Haste with GoSup since I wont loose much damage and with the main point beign i can just switch to Demonology without changing reforge.

For me (considering my gear level), with demo spec my stats are very close! Haste==crit==mastery! So in my case, I can switch between destro and demo using any destro reforge without any headache!

[Micke]

From my findings (as well as Brusalk's) it would seem that the stat priority would be:

Single target fights: Crit >= Haste > Mastery (Haste becomes better than crit at higher ilvls)

Two-target fights: Haste > Crit >(=) Mastery

AoE fights (8 targets throughout the entire fight): Mastery >>> Haste > Crit

What this means is that, yes, mastery will be great for AoE fights, but only if there's constantly 8 targets we can AoE. I think the reason mastery is so much better for the 8 target sim than in the single target/2-target sim is that mastery affects FnB - not particularly because of havoc + SB/CB - since if that was the case mastery would be better for 2 target sims too, which isn't the case in the results.

Based on these results, I probably wouldn't recommend dropping mastery entirely, since that'd hit us (somewhat) hard when we're aoeing. However, it would be suboptimal (imo) to go full-out mastery since it's very rare we have fights with extended 8-target AoE.

It all depends what you use Destro for, in my opinion: Do you use Destro as your main spec and for every single fight? Then I'd probably go with Crit > Haste >= Mastery. Do you only use Destro for AoE fights or fights where AoE-dps is important? Then I'd definitely would want to keep all three stats more balanced.

Whatabout fights where your damage breakdown will be 70% or so CB/SB damage due to massive shadowburn ember generation on low health adds? What is the worth of mastery there? How high would the breakdown percentage have to be to scale mastery above crit or haste? In a normal singletarget fight we can see the breakdown is around 33% CB/SB as a reference.

[Sinj]

Whatabout fights where your damage breakdown will be 70% or so CB/SB damage due to massive shadowburn ember generation on low health adds? What is the worth of mastery there? How high would the breakdown percentage have to be to scale mastery above crit or haste? In a normal singletarget fight we can see the breakdown is around 33% CB/SB as a reference.

This is a very good question and something I've wondered about for a long, long time (and something I addressed briefly in an earlier post)
There are two things Simulationcraft doesn't take into account:

The first thing is what you mentioned - fights where we have the opportunity to finish off multiple adds and use SB much, much more than what is currently shown in simulations.

The second thing is related to that - killing adds with SB will grant you lots and lots and lots of embers. In fact, in fights with multiple low-HP adds I reckon we get more embers from SBing mobs than from our ordinary ember-generating sources. This means that a lot of what makes haste and crit so valuable in the sims is almost completely irrelevant since a lot of our ember-generation will now come from having embers refunded from SBing mobs.

Unfortunately, this is beyond my capabilities with simulationcraft - we would need to tinker with SimC itself, either by emulating adds entering the fight and dying, or make it so we can see exactly how certain spells (Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn) are affected by certain stats (that is, "spell-scaling" if you will).

Intuitively, I would agree with you: Mastery would most likely be better than what is currently shown in the results above. How much better? I don't know, and to my knowledge, neither does anyone else (well, maybe blizzard ). The problem is that we cannot tell exactly how much better it would be - if it would be worth stacking mastery over crit/haste etc.

I would have to say, at this point, I'm very tempted to go for a straight-up 1:1:1 Mastery:Haste:Crit-priority, lol. The more you know, the less you know and all that, hehe.

[Aruotnof]

Sinj,

Thanks for your information!

IMO, the problem is a real fight condition! We have during raids, cleave, AoE and single target situations! Maybe the pathway is balance all 3 stats to get better results in all possible conditions!

The difference between Crit>Mastery and Mastery>Crit in single target is very small. Maybe the better choice will be Mastery==Haste>=Crit to reach more favorable condition during a fight... But it´s hard to say now! hehehe!

I will do more tests today!

[Sinj]

Sinj,

Thanks for your information!

IMO, the problem is a real fight condition! We have during raids, cleave, AoE and single target situations! Maybe the pathway is balance all 3 stats to get better results in all possible conditions!

The difference between Crit>Mastery and Mastery>Crit in single target is very small. Maybe the better choice will be Mastery==Haste>=Crit to reach more favorable condition during a fight... But it´s hard to say now! hehehe!

I will do more tests today!

Yeah, I'm sorta leaning towards a perfect balance at the moment, hehe. And I think you're right: the single target dps difference between reforges is currently so small it's almost insignificant. If we were to opt for a 1:1:1 priority I believe ( and maybe this is just my desperation talking because I can't seem to get to a reliable conclusion) that there's more to be gained from cleave (most likely) and aoe than what's lost from the minimal dps single target dps loss.

I'll have to think about this some more =/

[Deleted]

For me (considering my gear level), with demo spec my stats are very close! Haste==crit==mastery! So in my case, I can switch between destro and demo using any destro reforge without any headache!

Yeah might be for me too, I don't know really. I don't do any simcrafting on a regular basis so I just take what other people say as somewhat the truth for my char too.

[Micke]

Unfortunately, this is beyond my capabilities with simulationcraft - we would need to tinker with SimC itself, either by emulating adds entering the fight and dying, or make it so we can see exactly how certain spells (Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn) are affected by certain stats (that is, "spell-scaling" if you will).

Intuitively, I would agree with you: Mastery would most likely be better than what is currently shown in the results above. How much better? I don't know, and to my knowledge, neither does anyone else (well, maybe blizzard ). The problem is that we cannot tell exactly how much better it would be - if it would be worth stacking mastery over crit/haste etc.

I would have to say, at this point, I'm very tempted to go for a straight-up 1:1:1 Mastery:Haste:Crit-priority, lol. The more you know, the less you know and all that, hehe.

Would it be possible to adjust the amount of emberbits your embergenerators are producing in the sim? All we have to do is basically put more embers into it to scale the CB/SB %. Of course this leads to more CBs than possibly otherwise, but in turn you could also increase the execute health percentage to 30-40%?

Testing this out with Sac too would be good.