Chaos Bolt @ 2 or 5 Shards?

[benjaminandjen]

I've seen varying opinions, one suggests casting chaos bolt when available, the other only with 5 shards. Just looking for feedback. Thanks!

[Gaidax]

Do not get to 5 shards, as this will give potential for wasting shards with overflowing shard getting lost while you are capped.

On the other hand, I don't see much sense in casting it at 2 shards either, unless you need some quick burst at something.

[moonsterr]

Only reason i can see for casting CB on 2 shards is like gaidax said quick burst or you have some sort of proc that are about to expire.

[Koloss]

If you pick Eradication it's better to time a second CB after CB. As it's been told holding 5 SS is dangerous as you can lose potential Immolate tick SSs, but for example if you have 3 and 1 Conflag charge ready you can just go CB+Conflag+CB, or just simply CB+CB on 4 shards. If you stay at 4 SS it's unlikely you would get 2 until your first CB cast finishes unless you have Immolate on more targets.

[Scroff]

Because Eradication's duration is reset when a new chaos bolt arrives, I'm finding that it's better to time your next chaos bolt to clip eradication and therefore increasing its uptime. Tho if shards are plentiful there is less need to worry about this compared to overcapping

[Gaidax]

The way to do this properly is like said above my post.

If you have around 25% haste, then you can do CB > Incinerate > Incinerate > CB and the CB will clip Eradication last moment. If you have less haste, then CB > Incinerate > Conflag/Immolate > CB also works similarly.

This will maximize Eradication uptime, while make sure more CBs benefit from Eradication - that is if you play your cards right.

[Koloss]

Yeah i was screwing up in my comment, the best possible is if you time your 2nd CB to land in the last possible moment. Also if you run Channel Demonfire it's good to do it while Eradication is active on the target, but you shouldn't wait for anything if it's off CD.

Btw don't believe the Icy Veins guide, Demonfire is actually better than Soul Conduit i think. What SC does is basically your CBs lead to more CBs, but why would you want more CBs if Demonfire has more DPET (Damage per execute time) than CB (even with Eradication bonus damage counted).

[Deleted]

Yeah i was screwing up in my comment, the best possible is if you time your 2nd CB to land in the last possible moment. Also if you run Channel Demonfire it's good to do it while Eradication is active on the target, but you shouldn't wait for anything if it's off CD.

Btw don't believe the Icy Veins guide, Demonfire is actually better than Soul Conduit i think. What SC does is basically your CBs lead to more CBs, but why would you want more CBs if Demonfire has more DPET (Damage per execute time) than CB (even with Eradication bonus damage counted).

Is Demonfire's DPET even higher? CB is 330 but always crits, so it's 660.. crit chance increase it's damage so if you have 50% Crit it's 990%.
Demonfire is 630% and with 50% crit chance it's basically 50% more damage too, so it's 945%. (and has a higher cast time due to Entropy)

Not even counting Eradication or Artifact traits here.
Am I missing something?

The only benefit Demonfire offers is that it doesn't cost shards, so it's basically a somewhat weaker free Chaosbolt every 15 seconds.
Sadly, it seems like it doesn't work with Havoc and even if it did, it would be weaker in a 2 target scenario unless you choose to cast immolate on 1 target.

Afaik, whether Soulconduit is stronger than Demonfire depends on how many CBs/Shards you can spend in 15 seconds. In a scenerio where you have unlimited amounts of shards, you always want to cast CB and never, not even once, Demonfire.

[benjaminandjen]

So essentially chaos bolt is just a means to keep erradication up at all times? If that's the case, I'll make a WA that lets me know when erradication is about to expire

[Turturin the Warlock]

No, chaos bolt is a spell that does a shit ton of damage. Uptime on eradication is a way to get more out of the (limited) number of chaos bolts you'll be able to cast.

And no, you won't be able to keep eradication up 100% of the time

[xpose]

No, chaos bolt is a spell that does a shit ton of damage. Uptime on eradication is a way to get more out of the (limited) number of chaos bolts you'll be able to cast.

And no, you won't be able to keep eradication up 100% of the time

Right, but playstyle is going to change based on whether or not you are running eradication or not correct? Instead of waiting for 4 shards wouldn't you want to maximize your damage by now casting it with 2 and weaving conflags in to keep the uptime?

[benjaminandjen]

Right, but playstyle is going to change based on whether or not you are running eradication or not correct? Instead of waiting for 4 shards wouldn't you want to maximize your damage by now casting it with 2 and weaving conflags in to keep the uptime?

That's what I though too. I completely understand why you don't want to wait for 5 shards. That makes sense. But I don't get why casting CB with 2 shards is bad? I thought casting CB was my number one priority after immolate and conflag

[xpose]

I also know if you run roaring blaze and eradication you want to try and time the Eradication to proc right when immolate is about to expire so I know there is some flexibility that needs to happen but I always assumed 2-3 shards with eradication and 3-4 without unless someone that has done far more content then I can chime in and correct me.

[Fallensaint]

Yeah i was screwing up in my comment, the best possible is if you time your 2nd CB to land in the last possible moment. Also if you run Channel Demonfire it's good to do it while Eradication is active on the target, but you shouldn't wait for anything if it's off CD.

Btw don't believe the Icy Veins guide, Demonfire is actually better than Soul Conduit i think. What SC does is basically your CBs lead to more CBs, but why would you want more CBs if Demonfire has more DPET (Damage per execute time) than CB (even with Eradication bonus damage counted).

From what I've seen, from a lot of testing and simming, is that Channel Demonfire and Soul Conduit are extremely close on single-target DPS. CDF is a tiny bit stronger (maybe 2%) if you run it with Mana Tap.

However, the thing is that single-target DPS doesn't really matter all that much in PvE. Trash composition and boss strategies vary to the point where Patchwerk is the exception and not the rule. With that in mind, Soul Conduit is often the better choice because it's far more versatile since it's effective for multiple targets and for heavy movement. CDF does have a slight edge in providing reliable burst vs. Soul Conduit's RNG, but that's only really going to be valuable on one fight next tier.

[Arcrin]

i got to 4 shards, use havoc spam the bolts off. its a waste of havoc to do at 2 shards and 5 shards is potential waste of immolate tick. its all about dat havoc and eradication if specced into it.

[Koloss]

Is Demonfire's DPET even higher? CB is 330 but always crits, so it's 660.. crit chance increase it's damage so if you have 50% Crit it's 990%.
Demonfire is 630% and with 50% crit chance it's basically 50% more damage too, so it's 945%. (and has a higher cast time due to Entropy)

Not even counting Eradication or Artifact traits here.
Am I missing something?

The only benefit Demonfire offers is that it doesn't cost shards, so it's basically a somewhat weaker free Chaosbolt every 15 seconds.
Sadly, it seems like it doesn't work with Havoc and even if it did, it would be weaker in a 2 target scenario unless you choose to cast immolate on 1 target.

Afaik, whether Soulconduit is stronger than Demonfire depends on how many CBs/Shards you can spend in 15 seconds. In a scenerio where you have unlimited amounts of shards, you always want to cast CB and never, not even once, Demonfire.

I'm not 100% sure, but i think 330% SP is already the critical strike, this is what you're missing. I'm really not sure, but i did some math with my own stats at home which currently i don't have with me. And CDF's damage is also effected by crit (because it can crit!) not only Chaos Bolt's.

All Haste, Crit, Mastery and SP increase their damage in the same proportion so the proportion of their DPET doesn't change with gear. It's true that CDF doesn't have atrifact trait as it's a talent, so CB has an additional 7,5% from Chaotic Instability (so it's 118,25). So if i'm right in it:
CDF: 210 of SP/sec
CB: 118,2 of SP/sec.

It would be more complicated to calculate its DPET with Eradtication, but let's say it increases the damage of 2 Inci and 1 CB with nice haste + 1 Conflag right after. Then it's 170*0,12 + 170*0,12 + 330*0,12 + 204*0,12 = 104,8 of SP. But doing so means that the CB in the end of this sequence will only have 3 Incis in it and nothing else which is 61,2. During this if Immolate ticks 3 times it's 130*0,12 = 15,6 added to both numbers. But! If you have Eradication CDF can also be timed in that so here are the Eradication numbers:
CB: (330 + (120,4 + 76,8)/2) /3 = 142,8 of SP/sec
CDF: 210 or 235,2 of SP/sec (so somewhere between this two)


So it almost has double DPET without Eradication and even much more with it. So CB should be really much more frequent to be on par with it and 20% chance on all Souls Shard consuming is not enough for that.

- - - Updated - - -

From what I've seen, from a lot of testing and simming, is that Channel Demonfire and Soul Conduit are extremely close on single-target DPS. CDF is a tiny bit stronger (maybe 2%) if you run it with Mana Tap.

However, the thing is that single-target DPS doesn't really matter all that much in PvE. Trash composition and boss strategies vary to the point where Patchwerk is the exception and not the rule. With that in mind, Soul Conduit is often the better choice because it's far more versatile since it's effective for multiple targets and for heavy movement. CDF does have a slight edge in providing reliable burst vs. Soul Conduit's RNG, but that's only really going to be valuable on one fight next tier.

It's true, i only said that it shouldn't be overlooked like: "Doesn't worth it in any situation" as the IcyVeins guide said, because one target is already a situation. It's true that CDF's damage is not increased by the number of targets, but i don't agree that it's worse on movement and i'm telling you why:

If you do your job well, you don't waste any Conflag and Portal charges, don't trigger Soul Shards on 5 Soul Shard and don't let Immolate to drop. This is quite doable even on very heavy movement fights. So the only thing you do differently is how much Incinerates you're filling in.
So let's say you'd do 100 Incis on a fight but you do 50 instead because of mevement.
But if you have CDF let's say you'd cast 80 Incis and 12 CDFs. Then because of mevement you cast 30 Incis and 12CDFs (because you still do it on CD, maybe 1 less because you sometimes cannot instantly start casting it).
So the frequency of CDF compared to Incis is increased on heavymovement fights which makes CDF even better on heavy-movement encounters than on Pechwerk style (only speaking about 1 target). Soul Conduit does not do anything with heavy movement. Your SS generation and consumption shoudl remain the same on movement because the above reason.

But yeah, on AoE it's worse than Soul Conduit and on cleave it's worse than Wreak Havoc.

Edit: Sorry for the too much Off, but it guess it's ok as it kinda relates.

[Deleted]

The 330% is not the crit value (otherwise all spells would outdamage it and not be like... 70% weaker
and I included the crit in both spells.

I'll log in later and test it.
I can already say though, just from memory, that my incinerate does ~50k when it crits with the PvP set (base is something like 170% * 1.5 * 2 = 510%)
and my CBs crit for ~ 80k with ~ 20% crit and without eradication (damn mastery makes it impossible to determine how hard they hit exactly) 660%*1.2 = 792%

792/510 ~= 1.55

~50k*1.55 = 77,5k ~=80k

so Demonfire deals a little less damage, but doesn't cost shards, so it's better, but not as good as you think.

[benjaminandjen]

Non-scientific tests on a training dummy unbuffed:
Demonfire was a 5k loss
Using CB strictly to keep up erradication 1k loss
CB Inc Inc CB 1k loss
CB only at 4 shards 1K loss
CB when available = max dps

Useless test since not in raid?

[Deleted]

Non-scientific tests on a training dummy unbuffed:
Demonfire was a 5k loss
Using CB strictly to keep up erradication 1k loss
CB Inc Inc CB 1k loss
CB only at 4 shards 1K loss
CB when available = max dps

Useless test since not in raid?

Useless test because you don't specify duration of the encounters you tested on, what gear what trinkets, etc. Did u use imps, doomguard, level. Because the mastery is pure rng (As in at L100 1 conflag hit was 30k the other was 70k). Now this evens out over the duration of the fight, but its RNG nonetheless.

I'm still really hoping they will make demonfire an aoe ability that hits all targets with the 15 bolts if immolate is on the target. A man can dream the impossible...

[Deleted]

I'm still really hoping they will make demonfire an aoe ability that hits all targets with the 15 bolts if immolate is on the target. A man can dream the impossible...

It baffles me that they didn't go for that anyway, it looks like it's completely unintended to not work like that.
It would synergies with Cataclysm and give Destro a true AoE option.