Trinket choice

[Deleted]

Up until a week ago I've been a Destro and Affliction lock with 6/13 heroic progress so far. A week ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on a thunderforged UVLS and tried out Demo for the first time this tier. Maybe it's just because I'm new to it but I'm really tempted to go back to Destro, I need to keep my Affliction spec for Tortos really. Some of the time I can pull off nice numbers with Demo, but trash seems much more of a PITA compared to Destro, Primordius isn't as fun, I can't snipe low health adds and I'm always at the mercy of UVLS proccing or my DPS isn't great. I currently have the following trinkets:


536 Wushoolay's Final Choice
536 Unerring Vision of Lei Shen
530 Breath of the Hydra


I've run plenty of sims (imported from AskMrRobot) with a 13,737 breakpoint and 9,778 breakpoint, putting the rest into mastery to see the HelterSkelter numbers which are as follows:


Breath & UVLS - 13,737

Mastery: 8460
Hit: 5113
Crit: 3813
Haste: 13745

Affliction: 185,782 DPS
Demo: 185,957 DPS
Destro: 182,919 DPS


Breath & UVLS - 9,778

Mastery: 11704
Hit: 5142
Crit: 4431
Haste: 9854

Affliction: 181,044 DPS
Demo: 182,398 DPS
Destro: 181,002 DPS


Breath & Wushoolay's - 13,737

Mastery: 9292
Hit: 5137
Crit: 4503
Haste: 13871

Affliction: 181,122 DPS
Demo: 170,087 DPS
Destro: 178,731 DPS


Breath & Wushoolay's - 9,778

Mastery: 12602
Hit: 5137
Crit: 5148
Haste: 9916

Affliction: 176,313 DPS
Demo: 167,812 DPS
Destro: 177,387 DPS


Wushoolay's & UVLS - 13,737

Mastery: 7992
Hit: 4977
Crit: 4503
Haste: 13750

Affliction: 184,569 DPS
Demo: 185,314 DPS
Destro: 182,894 DPS


Wushoolay's & UVLS - 9,778

Mastery: 12030
Hit: 5213
Crit: 4107
Haste: 9812

Affliction: 180,466 DPS
Demo: 185,136 DPS
Destro – 181,132 DPS


If I went back to Destro my gut feeling, ease of use and from what I've read here the better trinket combination would be Breath and Wooshulay's as they both have a large proc window and easier to make use of with Destro but the numbers above show it to not pull the same numbers as the others with 25,000 iterations on SimCraft 530-4. We're progressing on Council at the moment (just got Sul down so shouldn't be long) so I can get my hands on a heroic Wooshulay's eventually but that's still only 1,500 DPS more from the sims I've done.

I'm currently 541 ilevel, have the legendary meta, cape and 2 piece, I can't post my armory link as I haven't made enough posts here yet.

Has anyone else been in the same situation and can offer some insight please?

[Deleted]

If you want to play Destro, definitely go for Wush+Breath.

As you can see by the numbers, at this point in your gear it's really a matter of preference. If you feel a lot more comfortable with Destruction (like it seems from your post), it will give you more dps most likely. Keep in mind though that it does get out-scaled by the other 2.

My recommendation: don't go for Demo until you get to Lei Shen HC. Your rate of progress will suffer from learning a new spec way more than it's worth.

[Deleted]

I did start off mainspeccing Destro this tier but since Affliction scaling has caught up and just overtaken Destro by roughly 3,000 DPS single target I generally play Affliction for most fights, with Destro on trash, Horridon, Ji-Kun and Primordius. In my week of testing Demo I pulled the same or better numbers on Horridon, possibly a bit lower on Ji-Kun and well over 100,000 lower on Primordius.

A lot of it is likely my skill level with Demo, but at the moment I'm not sure what to do. The loss of 4,500 DPS from swapping UVLS for Wooshulay's for Affliction does sound like a lot but I'm not sure how much faith to put into the sim numbers.

[Deleted]

I really don't think you should trust the sim on that. Playing affliction with UVLS is risky at best, I don't think you will find any good player recommend it over Breath+Wushoolay. This is coming from 13/13 warlock that played Affliction on most fights.

Affliction is definitely a better choice than Destruction if you're capable with both. Again, I don't think it's worth learning Demo, it's a small gain that you will likely not see until progress is over... Maybe for Lei Shen you should consider it, but until you are 11/13 I would definitely stick with Affliction/Destruction if I were you.

[Deleted]

well breath+wush will give you a more stable result over all where uvls+wush/breath(uvls+breath is great on openers due to proccing at the same time) will fluctuate up and down but when the stars align uvls+wush/breath will out dmg any other combo. also remember that UVLS is an extremely good trinket for afflic bcoz of snapshotting. afflic dont just get a 4 sec value of it, if you're fast enough you can get fully pandemic dots, meaning that you have atleast 21-36 secs worth of 100% critting dots thats a hell of a lot of dmg, so if you want a very stable result from yout trinkets pick the wush+breath, if you want to gamble pick wush+uvls and if you want something inbetween pick breath+uvls, from what ive seen, the high-end locks uses breath+UVLS.

[myrlock]

I've run plenty of sims (imported from AskMrRobot) with a 13,737 breakpoint and 9,778 breakpoint, putting the rest into mastery to see the HelterSkelter numbers which are as follows:

I can't help you with destro or afflic, I am kinda addicted to my demo - but I can see a couple things you sim the wrong way for demo.
You need to sim with Everlasting afflic glyph (If using UVLS), which means you also need to update your haste points.
The haste points worth testing are additional doom ticks, or shadowflame ticks *with* everlasting affliction glyphed. (Fourth tab in this spreadsheet). Personally I can't go above or below a doom threshold in my gear, but shadowflame ticks are about 2% dps gain for me.

That said, for me, the ideal haste rating has very little to do with those breakpoints, and both my damage and stat value of haste sit pretty consistent from 10k haste up to 13k haste - for my current trinket/meta/etc combination. When I was using shadowpan trinket, they shifted around more than they do now with magaera trinket.

Link slightly modified, cause apparently I can't post links.
docs.google dot com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsDL8HE-bGDVdFFVWlIzbzQ5RFJJZGFyQ25xZmFYa0E#gid=33

[Lysakers]

Up until a week ago I've been a Destro and Affliction lock with 6/13 heroic progress so far. A week ago I was lucky enough to get my hands on a thunderforged UVLS and tried out Demo for the first time this tier. Maybe it's just because I'm new to it but I'm really tempted to go back to Destro, I need to keep my Affliction spec for Tortos really. Some of the time I can pull off nice numbers with Demo, but trash seems much more of a PITA compared to Destro, Primordius isn't as fun, I can't snipe low health adds and I'm always at the mercy of UVLS proccing or my DPS isn't great.

I am in the same boat as use (almost).
I have only played destro in ToT up until getting UVLS, and only now learning to play demo.

When it comes to trash, i am bit of a rollercoaster on the meters. Some trash pulls i can crush everyone, and on other you would think i was AFK and my dog was button smashing the keyboard. But i think that really just comes down to learning when what is best to do, and be "lucky" with UVLS procs on adds that live longer than 5 sec.

On Primordius i do decent dps as demo, smacking corruptions and UVLS dooms on anything that moves and just meta+immo aura. Though i never see the same numbers as i do as Destro ,even though i almost never snipe shadowburns at all. Going Mannoroth and having RoF on adds gives me more embers that i can dream about and i can just smack the boss with endless amounts of CB.

As for all the other bosses in ToT, i try to go demo. We have all the normal bosses on farm, so me messing up and donig shit dps dosnt matter for the kill. And i see my numbers steady climb each week, as i get more secure and comfortable with the spec.
I feel there are more things to think about when going demo, but the potential is far greater.

[Deleted]

6/13 hc so far, but you havent killed Council, so youve got

Jin'rokh, Horridon, Tortos, Ji'kun, Primordius, Iron Qon killed?

Im wondering why you *need* to be affliction for Tortos, but if youre the only one capable of slowing the turtles I guess that's a reason (remember that a 50% slow is more than enough tbh). It's really is a question of what your raid *requires* you to do. If they cant do without your turtle-slowing, keep affl/demo, if they cant do without your destro damage on Primo - keep demo/destro. Your only real concern should be which boss youre progressing on next - and as you said it was Council you definitely need to be Demo. Demo just demolishes all competition on that fight.

One of the previous posters was also spot on - make sure to sim with ~8100 haste (think its 8097) and rest dumped into mastery + Everlasting Affl glyph to get the 'true' value of demo dps.

Oh yea, affliction can do some crazy damage on primo as well if your job is to kill oozes, so keep that in mind. If youre simply using destro for CB spam into the boss for bossdamage then no, neither affl nor demo will come close.

On a semirelated note we just managed to kill ra-den with me as demo, so starting next reset i'll be doing a demo/affl build which should be fun. For me personally destro has been the most useful on primo and ra-den, but in no way 'mandatory' - especially considering your high ilvl and current progress. So my suggestion would definitely be to play affl/demo - this from someone who has progressed this whole tier as destro because I just a few days ago got ahold of my first UVLS that wasnt lfr quality.

[Deleted]

Nothing stops you from playing all 3 specs. I use an addon called Action Swap to store my actionbar and glyph settings, which allows me to easily swap between the 3. But if you're keen on playing only 2 specs, you'd probably get away with affliction/destro, with the exception of lei shen 25 hc. That said, i highly encourage every lock to practice and play their 3 specs, as our specs are quite balanced atm and all have their niche fights.

As for trinks & specs, this is what i do, and it allows me to switch between specs with minimum reforging and no regemming:

Aff: 9778 haste, rest into mastery, with Wush + Breath
Demo: 8100 haste, rest into mastery, with Wush + UVLS
Destro: mastery > haste > crit, which puts me at about 8k haste, with Wush + Breath

gemming is pure mastery for all specs.

[bennafflock]

Nothing stops you from playing all 3 specs. I use an addon called Action Swap to store my actionbar and glyph settings, which allows me to easily swap between the 3. But if you're keen on playing only 2 specs, you'd probably get away with affliction/destro, with the exception of lei shen 25 hc. That said, i highly encourage every lock to practice and play their 3 specs, as our specs are quite balanced atm and all have their niche fights.

As for trinks & specs, this is what i do, and it allows me to switch between specs with minimum reforging and no regemming:

Aff: 9778 haste, rest into mastery, with Wush + Breath
Demo: 8100 haste, rest into mastery, with Wush + UVLS
Destro: mastery > haste > crit, which puts me at about 8k haste, with Wush + Breath

gemming is pure mastery for all specs.

^^^^^this, just all of this