Destro performing better than Demo??

[spaztom]

So I finally got my legendary a few weeks ago (yay) and expected some really good dps increases but really didn't see much. This was in demo. I switched over to Afflic and did worse which I kind of expected since I haven't played afflic in several months. I should mention, I like to think I play fairly well. I'm properly enchanted, reforged, etc as I should be. I have all the rotations down and use buttontimers to make sure all my dots are refreshed when needed...blah blah blah. I practiced quite a bit on dummies then tried LFR again with afflic. Was not doing as well as expected again...hmm. I did notice, however, the #1 dps was a lock using destro. I checked out his gear and his stuff was almost exactly the same as mine bar some heroics that I don't have.

Switched to destro and took a few days running instances and testing dummies since I hadn't played destro since Lich King. Long story short, went to LFR and freakin rocked the place. #1 DPS by a LARGE margin. Then raided with my guild (25 man) and kicked ass in there too!! What I don't get...I play demo much better than either destro or afflic since I've been playing it for ages. If so, why is destro outperforming demo?? The legendary, according to recount, only procs ~ 2% in destro compared to ~6% while demo. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (here, EJ, Warlocks Den, etc), I've read says that this should not be the case. All I can boil it down to is that I'm better at destro than demo (don't believe it for a second though).

Anyone else experience this? Is this working as intended? For what it's worth, I pulled 36.5K on Ultraxion as demo and 38.5K as destro. Shouldn't it be the other freak'in way around?

Any insight would be appreciated. Cheers.

[dhrakho]

not sure about the legendary, but we have 3 locks in our guild, me and the other destro do alot better than the aff / demo, unless hes multidotting. at the moment destro is doing more dmg than both, i think

[Deleted]

You can't read legendary procs off recount as it only shows the staff dmg from extra "dot" ticks. Extra incinerate and so on, simply gets added as the spell, meaning 1x incin is then 2x incinerates. The staff itself is indeed depressing these days, it's only around 1500-2000 DPS increase from HC DS weapons.

On the the issue of Demo vs Destro, what bosses are we talking about? But yea, destruction is a really top spec atm and does good on all bosses nearly. The main issue is the lack of AOE.

Affliction isn't worth it imo unless you have H: CoC... Im personally' running WoU + H: IOTC simply because we've had 1 CoC drop. With these trinkets its just way better to play destruction then Affliction.

Ultraxion:
About world of logs, the highest WOL parse is done by a Destruction Warlock right now and one of the reasons is that demonology asfaik (still) don't get the Hand of Gul'dan debuff on the boss. I havn't played demo here since progress, so don't sue me if it was changed.

Overall, Destruction is a neat and good DPS spec with nearly any gear. Same goes for demonology, but it's simply to boring to play and it gets really dull the more you play it...

P.S. Made a list in my DS 25 HC guide, where i told my personal prefered spec and the highest WOL specs. It will give a slight insight in what does "best" as of now. Simcraft can only do so little!

[spaztom]

Just read this again:

"Once you reach 2589 haste, it is still a good stat until 2681. Any haste that lets you reach 2681 haste from 2589 haste is just about in line with crit or mastery (whichever one is better for your gear level). Note that if you can't reach 2681 haste quite yet, don't bother going for it - just reforge into crit or mastery until you will be able to reach 2681 haste."

My haste is at 2790..well above the 2681 threshold mentioned above. So now what? It's a bit confusing...or at least it is to me. Should I go ahead and drop haste back to 2681 and put the rest into either crit or mastery? If so, stupid question coming up.

Where the Hell in Simcraft do you find your stat weights? I've looked around and can't find them ANYWHERE. Sure, I can find my dps and all that good stuff but stat weights are MIA. HELP!!

[randa]

You need to tell simcraft to calculate those, this is done by pressing check boxes for haste, crit, mastery and intellect, in simcraft options. While you are there, don`t forget to enable dark intent too, as this is turned off by default.

[Deleted]

Haste above 2681 gets a lesser value then mastery or crit. If you want to find the specific stat weights for your own gear, what randa said is true. It's set up in simcraft to calculate those values, but don't go above 2681 haste as destruction. Stay at 2681, after that go for mastery over crit.

http://www.simulationcraft.org/432/Warlock.html

Here are the stat weights for the official BIS lists...

[spaztom]

Perfect. Thanks a ton.

[Orange Joe]

So I finally got my legendary a few weeks ago (yay) and expected some really good dps increases but really didn't see much. This was in demo. I switched over to Afflic and did worse which I kind of expected since I haven't played afflic in several months. I should mention, I like to think I play fairly well. I'm properly enchanted, reforged, etc as I should be. I have all the rotations down and use buttontimers to make sure all my dots are refreshed when needed...blah blah blah. I practiced quite a bit on dummies then tried LFR again with afflic. Was not doing as well as expected again...hmm. I did notice, however, the #1 dps was a lock using destro. I checked out his gear and his stuff was almost exactly the same as mine bar some heroics that I don't have.

Switched to destro and took a few days running instances and testing dummies since I hadn't played destro since Lich King. Long story short, went to LFR and freakin rocked the place. #1 DPS by a LARGE margin. Then raided with my guild (25 man) and kicked ass in there too!! What I don't get...I play demo much better than either destro or afflic since I've been playing it for ages. If so, why is destro outperforming demo?? The legendary, according to recount, only procs ~ 2% in destro compared to ~6% while demo. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING (here, EJ, Warlocks Den, etc), I've read says that this should not be the case. All I can boil it down to is that I'm better at destro than demo (don't believe it for a second though).

Anyone else experience this? Is this working as intended? For what it's worth, I pulled 36.5K on Ultraxion as demo and 38.5K as destro. Shouldn't it be the other freak'in way around?

Any insight would be appreciated. Cheers.

If you were able to just switch over to destro, it sounds to me like you weren't gearing for demo right. As demo you should have massive amounts of mastery. enough that to play other specs you will most likely need to have a second set of gear. It could also be you just play destro better. People seem to forget personal skill does play a role in your dps.

[Azgraal]

If you were able to just switch over to destro, it sounds to me like you weren't gearing for demo right. As demo you should have massive amounts of mastery. enough that to play other specs you will most likely need to have a second set of gear. It could also be you just play destro better. People seem to forget personal skill does play a role in your dps.

That's exactly the reason why im staying with demo until MoP...

That and my 10man raiding group is counting on my 10%sp buff from demo... ^^''

[Gohzerlock]

Still see demo outperforming destro on pretty much every fight including ultraxion in heroic 10 man... You can't judge dps by 1 lfr instance that nuts, some fights are better as destro for utility on hard modes like z'nozz for getting adds down... depends on your raid comp.

More likely you weren't gearing right for demo as above mentioned.

[spaztom]

Naah..sorry guys. Not a noob here. When I'm demo I max out mastery, have macros set up to use all trinks, demon soul, etc when needed, switch out one trink to MWC, switch pets when needed, pre-pot, get out DG when all procs are out (most of the time). Believe me, my gear is forged/chanted as it should be as is my rotation barring any RNG.

As far as destro, I take off MWC, put back on Insignia, reforge everything out of mastery to haste/crit as the case may be.

Should also mention this isn't a once or twice thing. This is three weeks! Guild is now trying heroics but 25s are a bitch and we've only gotten H Malrok (sp?) down twice...wasn't there either time too..bugger :P

You guys are pretty much saying the same thing I am..I should NOT be doing better damage as destro. I agree. Not working out that way though.

I will say one thing though, my rotation for destro is now on par with demo. Think I like it better

[Deleted]

Remember after 2681 haste, mastery is the best stat for destruction spaz! That being set, demo isn't "superior" it's only ahead on a stand still fight with everything working as intended in BIS gear.

[spaztom]

I ran simcraft earlier today and found that my crit/haste/mastery were sooo close that they were effectively the same. Either way, my mastery is 1100ish while my crit is half that so looks like I'm following what you're saying.

Here, have a look: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...erous/advanced

Crap, I'm missing a chimera's eye...grrr.

[Orange Joe]

Naah..sorry guys. Not a noob here. When I'm demo I max out mastery, have macros set up to use all trinks, demon soul, etc when needed, switch out one trink to MWC, switch pets when needed, pre-pot, get out DG when all procs are out (most of the time). Believe me, my gear is forged/chanted as it should be as is my rotation barring any RNG.

As far as destro, I take off MWC, put back on Insignia, reforge everything out of mastery to haste/crit as the case may be.

Should also mention this isn't a once or twice thing. This is three weeks! Guild is now trying heroics but 25s are a bitch and we've only gotten H Malrok (sp?) down twice...wasn't there either time too..bugger :P

You guys are pretty much saying the same thing I am..I should NOT be doing better damage as destro. I agree. Not working out that way though.

I will say one thing though, my rotation for destro is now on par with demo. Think I like it better

If you say it wasn't gear, the only thing left would be your skill. Now I'm not saying you are bad. All I'm saying is you play destro better than demonology.

I'm all for people playing the spec they enjoy rather than the best dps spec.

[Deleted]

Morchok is rather fun as Destro because you can Havoc Morchok. Unless your raid goes for close range to allow multidots Destro locks should be on top of the dps list there.

The heroic bosses all seem to favour one spec over the other two. There is no definite spec that outdpses all others. For instance doing Yog HM as Destro will make you feel bad, but as Demon you can really go nuts on the AE. Warmaster is an affliction dream with half the fight 4 targets to multidot and the 2nd part mostly 2 targets.

All things being equal (or close enough) like on Ultraxion it all comes down to flawlessly executing rotations and just plain being lucky on procs. I think I saw some WoL's where the Demonlock had 5 Metas in a 5 min fight. It's completely possible, but highly unlikely.

[AlSuwaidi]

well all i can say it depends on Fight type and the movment as well.

[Okaystopdots]

I personally think that destro outperforms demo, but maybe that is because I suck at demo. Yeah, that might be it.

---------- Post added 2012-02-21 at 10:12 AM ----------

But yeah, it really depends on the fight. In a stand-still fight like Ultraxion, demo should be on top, but the HoG bug prevents that. Destro is king on H Morchok because of Havoc, and its really quite good on Yor'sahj for the same reason if your raid doesn't need the help for the AoE on the adds. Affliction is god on H Blackhorn and also does well on Madness because of the benefit from all the haste. It really comes down to personal playstyle and preference. Sure there will be fights where one spec does better on average than others, but if you hate playing that spec, then why do it?