Dark Intent: Mind Flay, Mind Sear and Fire Mages

[Deleted]

Ok so there's been some discussion in our guild about who to give Dark Intent to. We usually have 2 warlocks, 2 Fire Mages and 1-2 Shadow Priests (and 2 hunters....) that want the buff. So far I've always gotten DI because I'm usually in the top5 of the dps meters and because I have the legendary staff.

However last night I lost my DI to a Fire Mage while progressing on Yor'sahj heroic 25. I don't really mind too much if giving it too him is the better choice, but I'm not sure if it is.

One of the arguments for giving it to a Fire Mage (and a survival hunter according to our gm) is that DI boosts their aoe damage while Mind Sear doesn't benefit from it. Is this true? I know Mind Sear benefits from Empowered Shadows but does it also benefit from the 3% dmg bonus from DI? What about Mind Flay and Improved Devouring Plague? I tried searching for this but never really got a decent answer so I'm hoping to get one here .

In general, do you guys think that DI should go to a spriest or a fmage?

[Arlee]

MS does count as a DoT in the same way that MF does. Imp DP is completely unaffected by DI. MF is a DoT even though we channel it and it is affected by DI... Basically a Fire Mage is only the better choice if you can't manage decent uptimes on your DoTs and the Fire Mage pretty much plays perfectly all the time.

---------- Post added 2012-01-03 at 11:35 AM ----------

Oh did your GM happen to say where he was getting that info from? I had a similar conversation with my raid team last week and all I got was "I read it somewhere".

[Therdin]

On heroic Yor, if you are having trouble with the adds. Giving DI to the mage will help more, since we hit 2 buttons and spread all our dots to all those adds. But even as a mage myself I dont really count on getting DI ever.

Or are they trying to give it to the mage full time now? if that is the case then they are wrong, sadly SP still gain more from it then mages will from most fights

[Deleted]

I have an sp and a fire mage, and killed yorsahj heroic i get di on my sp and apart from the fact we have a higher % of dot dmg haste is also the best secondary stat. Uptime is best for shadow priests aswell along with boomers. Mind sear benefits from DI. Furthermore Warlocks casting DI on themselves and Hunters wanting it should be instant g kick; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uTrOc0lfXY proof of average hunter here. Also on yorsahj i VT all the adds as there coming up and keep ES up and all dots on the boss then i MS and the other aoe more or less anihilates em quick. Sure mages can do double dmg of already impressive aoe on adds every minute or so for 8 sec. But is it really worth gimping your dps for a small increase. Passing 1 DI isnt going to make you kill the boss any easier.

[cabibi64]

raidDPS (shadowpriest) > personalDPS(firemage)

if you guild needs a mage to do 50% of the aoe dmg then 12 to 15 of your other DPS are failing (25man)

it is unfortunate that we have to count on a buff to boost our DPS so much but that is the game.

it is not 3% dmg boost also, it is a 3% haste increase which usually accounts for 1500 to 2500 DPS for myself in my gear.

[Deleted]

I don't really have the math for it, but I doubt the 3 % haste gives an additional combustion tick for the mages, whereas it's a direct 3 % increase to our mind sear aoe.
Also, shadowflame and whatever warlock spell will probably ensure 3 stacks of DI anyway no matter what, so DI uptime doesn't really matter in the black phase (because I don't think mind sear gives DI stacks, never really tested it properly, I've just observed it doesn't).

[omniscience]

I don't really have the math for it, but I doubt the 3 % haste gives an additional combustion tick for the mages, whereas it's a direct 3 % increase to our mind sear aoe.
Also, shadowflame and whatever warlock spell will probably ensure 3 stacks of DI anyway no matter what, so DI uptime doesn't really matter in the black phase (because I don't think mind sear gives DI stacks, never really tested it properly, I've just observed it doesn't).

This. At 1505 haste (assuming 2pt13) haste becomes more or less useless since the next breakpoint is far away. The percent dmg is allways nice for any1 with dots, but your raids damage will increase more if you hand it over to the sp I think.

[Yvaelle]

Your GM is wrong, it does benefit a spriest during Sear (and Flay, since they count as dots to the game). A fire mage does gain an almost comparable amount of dps from DI as a shadowpriest, but giving it a fire mage costs the warlock dps because only shadowpriests and boomkins have 100% DI uptime - when you take that into account it should Never go to a fire mage (obvious caveat to follow before someone thinks they are clever).

Unless your spriest is Significantly less geared or less skilled than your mage And your mage is Very geared and skilled - it should always go to the spriest (or boomkin), without question. A fire mage needs to play Flawlessly to get anywhere near good uptime on DI, a spriest pretty much just has to press any old button since Flay ticks so fast (it's like the equivalent of 3 dots by itself) so even the math that says "it should always, always go to a spriest or boomkin over a fire mage" isn't telling the whole story - what its really saying is "if you are Paragon - it should always, always go to spriest or boomkin over a fire mage - if you are anyone less than perfect - it should always, always, always go to spriest or boomkin over a fire mage".

What I'm saying is, in practice the raid dps lost by giving it to a fire mage is Worse than even the parses demonstrate, and since all those parses are only single target scenarios - and spriests scale Better than fire on pretty much all multi-target fights (as do boomkins) it's again - even worse still.

TL;DR - if anyone ever tells you to give DI to a fire mage over a spriest or boomkin, they are a (selfish) fire mage.

Edit: I did give my DI to our fire mage when he got his legendary and we got him on the top 10 world dps parses for Alysrazor, but to be fair we stacked rogues and disc priests to funnel Power Infusions and Tricks of the Trade into him during that attempt too, so it's not like we were worried about getting the bird down. Let mages have it for their epeen sometimes - but not when dps is an issue on progression.

[Deleted]

MS does count as a DoT in the same way that MF does. Imp DP is completely unaffected by DI. MF is a DoT even though we channel it and it is affected by DI... Basically a Fire Mage is only the better choice if you can't manage decent uptimes on your DoTs and the Fire Mage pretty much plays perfectly all the time.

---------- Post added 2012-01-03 at 11:35 AM ----------

Oh did your GM happen to say where he was getting that info from? I had a similar conversation with my raid team last week and all I got was "I read it somewhere".

Thanks for the answers . And no, our gm/hunter didn't read it somewhere, it's something he thought of himself. His line of thinking was that we need aoe dps, and that survival hunters do insane aoe dps thanks to Serpent Sting spreading everywhere. However when I looked at WoL SS only did 10-11% of his damage, Improved Serpent Sting did a lot more but afaik that isn't buffed by Dark Intent.

[Yvaelle]

Thanks for the answers . And no, our gm/hunter didn't read it somewhere, it's something he thought of himself. His line of thinking was that we need aoe dps, and that survival hunters do insane aoe dps thanks to Serpent Sting spreading everywhere. However when I looked at WoL SS only did 10-11% of his damage, Improved Serpent Sting did a lot more but afaik that isn't buffed by Dark Intent.

Like Imp. Devouring Plague - Imp. Serpent Sting is not affected by DI, don't give it to hunters.