Warlocks - Fire or Shadow (please don't troll)

[Nezoia]

The real question is, why would you ever play with fire as a warlock.

You're a WARLOCK ! Evil overlords that master powerfull shadow magic and control furious demons.

Fire is just playing a mage, ie. the good guys. So fire-locks must be emo's for sure.
Real evil warlocks spec shadow-desto!

[Shoggy]

Yeah Uzu, that simulator is very accurate... the only problem with it is that since it's actual simulation, your results can vary kind of broadly. I think the main thing for people to take from that simulator though is that pretty much no matter how many shadow warlocks you have, you're not looking at 100% ISB uptime

Even with a 100 warlocks casting at a world boss you wouldn't have a 100% uptime, the point is in terms of additional dps your going to see a roughly exponential decrease per warlock extra you bring if you are solely looking at the isb.

More important than the number of warlocks is what those warlocks' crit chance is at, and even with the best-geared warlocks in the game you're still not looking at close to 100% uptime; you're very lucky to see over 70%. So, to the multitude of people I see frequently saying "Well as long as you have 2 or 3 shadow warlocks the rest can go fire because ISB will be up 100% of the time anyway," check the actual stats.

If each warlock adds less dps through isb following an exponential curve the additional warlocks are really doing very little for raid dps, if they can put out more through fire then so be it.

As to your specific numbers, Uzu... a couple things. First off, I'd run the sim more than 10 times... 100 would be much better xD.

Ten times does seem rather low but logic tells us that the results are roughly what they should be.

Really, the takeaway message is that ISB uptime can vary broadly depending on the encounter, the number of locks, those locks' crit %, etc. I personally don't think there's ever a reason for locks to go fire... even if they make up for the raid DPS loss with their personal DPS, they can't make up for the mana regen and healing that the raid's shadowpriests are losing due to the decreased ISB uptime.

This last point really depends how many shadow priests you raid with and how much you value mana regen:

if you say raided with 3 shadowpriests (lets keep it simple) who pulled a measly 1000dps out the bag (lets keep it all really simple) and you have 5 locks, you add a 6th, this lock adds a 1% uptime increase according to the simulator (lets stick with this), the priests are each returning 750mp5 (3750mp5 for the whole party) before the additional lock arrives the ISB buff uptime goes from 66% to 67% so how do we see the change?:

1000Dps = (Dps without ISB) * (1+ (0.2 * 0.66))
Dps before ISB is thus 883.4.

New values

883.4 * (1+ (0.2 * 0.67)) = 1001.7 - ronunded to 1002

2 extra dps per shadow priest so 6 between 3 = a total of 4.5 mp5 back for your whole raid - that compared to 200 dps.

Point being that if fire does more damage than shadow theres a break even point where fire locks extra dps should outweigh the extra ISB uptime - this mainly depends on the number of shadow priests you run with.

[Uzu]

The real question is, why would you ever play with fire as a warlock.

You're a WARLOCK ! Evil overlords that master powerfull shadow magic and control furious demons.

Fire is just playing a mage, ie. the good guys. So fire-locks must be emo's for sure.
Real evil warlocks spec shadow-desto!

Because one day blizzard will listen to us and make our fire spells green! Then who will be the coolest lock

On a side note I took Sholtar's advice and entered in Method's locks and spriests stats into the ISB sim and reran it 100 times each and guess what.....

ISB uptime went down when the sixth shadow lock was added! Basically I don't think you are guarunteed ANY more ISB up time and so if a 6th lock comes along and says hey guys I can add 100 dps if i go fire OR I can maybe add some ISB uptime (a few % more at most, and possibly LESS), then I see no problem with him going fire.

In conclusion, ISB is nice and while these numbers may not actualy prove which is better, I think it at least shows that you cannot say shadow is better than fire in every situation.

-edit because I fail at quoting

[Sholtar]

Shoggy, if you're going to keep it simple, at least keep it the right kind of simple. 1500 is a simple number, and it's a hell of a lot closer to the DPS any decent shadowpriest will be doing. Secondly, VE is just as important as VT in Sunwell, so you're missing part of the picture if you're only looking at the mana return.

Uzu: The reason you got the results you did with their locks is that they have some locks under 25% crit. The only way for the average uptime to go down upon the addition of a lock if that lock has less than 25% crit, it's a statistical fact. Again, as I said in my last post, it all varies broadly depending on the number of locks and more importantly the stats of said locks. So in your example of a sixth lock coming along and saying "I can go fire or shadow, what do you want," it's really a simple matter of looking at the gear he has and going from there to determine which way he should spec. From what I've seen, if he's itemized more heavily for crit, he'd make a much more beneficial raid contribution by going shadow. If he's itemized more heavily for haste at the cost of crit, perhaps he'd be better off fire simply because he wouldn't be helping as shadow. Again, all about the 25% mark... if they're below that point, they're really not contributing if the raid already has an adequate number of shadow warlocks. If they're above that point, especially if they're substantially above that point, the raid is much, much better off having them spec for shadow.

[RealPjotr]

Secondly, 33% crit rate is high. Look at the five warlocks that Method killed KJ with (according to the news post on this site)... the highest is at 27%. Yes, you can get higher than that, but most endgame locks do not do so.

Armory, like the character pane in-game, doesn't show the +5% crit for destruction spells that Devastation gives you. Thus, you are looking at a 32% warlock. Add a few % extra for any elemental shammy or moonkin druid and possible raid buffs, if that wasn't included.

[Sholtar]

Armory, like the character pane in-game, doesn't show the +5% crit for destruction spells that Devastation gives you. Thus, you are looking at a 32% warlock. Add a few % extra for any elemental shammy or moonkin druid and possible raid buffs, if that wasn't included.

Good point, that did slip my mind. Thanks for the correction.

[Cocidius]

Basically you are shadow to keep the Shadow Vulnerability debuff up, this will keep Shadow Priests happy and when Shadow Priests are happy, mana users in the Shadow Priests group are happy.

So, lets say YOU do more personal DPS as fire, the raid will do lower DPS overall.

This have been stated hundreds of times and im sorry if that is what you would count as trolling..

haven't read past page one so excuse me if I'm repeating someone.

negate this reply as for the reason (theorycraft) why affliction becomes way less viable end game is because it boosts the raid dps by 100, but as destro he would do 400-600 dps more.
On top of that, Scortch. So shadow and fire both have their up & down sides

[Uzu]

Uzu: The reason you got the results you did with their locks is that they have some locks under 25% crit. The only way for the average uptime to go down upon the addition of a lock if that lock has less than 25% crit, it's a statistical fact. Again, as I said in my last post, it all varies broadly depending on the number of locks and more importantly the stats of said locks. So in your example of a sixth lock coming along and saying "I can go fire or shadow, what do you want," it's really a simple matter of looking at the gear he has and going from there to determine which way he should spec. From what I've seen, if he's itemized more heavily for crit, he'd make a much more beneficial raid contribution by going shadow. If he's itemized more heavily for haste at the cost of crit, perhaps he'd be better off fire simply because he wouldn't be helping as shadow. Again, all about the 25% mark... if they're below that point, they're really not contributing if the raid already has an adequate number of shadow warlocks. If they're above that point, especially if they're substantially above that point, the raid is much, much better off having them spec for shadow.

Let me correct what I wrote before, I didn't use all of their locks stats, I just picked one and used 27% for all 6 lccks(I didn't add in dev either >< ) so even if it you're above 25%, you could possibly be lowering the ISB uptime. But I do agree that it depends on what you got rather than something working for every raid make up.

But anyways it seems like the general opinion I'm getting from these last couple of posts is that there can be a place for fire locks and they are not all noobs :P

[Shoggy]

Shoggy, if you're going to keep it simple, at least keep it the right kind of simple. 1500 is a simple number, and it's a hell of a lot closer to the DPS any decent shadowpriest will be doing. Secondly, VE is just as important as VT in Sunwell, so you're missing part of the picture if you're only looking at the mana return.

Fair enough multiply by 1.5 = 6.75mp5 between all priests over all players.

For hp simply multiply by 5 = 33.75hp5 between all priests over all players.

Then again having 5 warlocks and 3 shadow priests is probably not the most likely raid composition - simply because this sort of thing interests me (yes i'm a boring person) i'll go through when i get the time and "model" it in excel and see if i can get some numbers out as to what the increases are per shadow priest with so many warlocks - though however this is on the basis that fire is higher personal dps if specced for it and imp scorch is applied though many people have pointed this out i must have missed the part where people linked me to a WWS parse or even better a calculation involving the various debuffs.

[Krypt]

one thing thats gone unnoticed is the raid tools with the shadowspec im useing: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZRxczIbzZEx0tr0khhi

Cataclysm: did this fairly quickly but with no spell haste:

6 Shadow bolts = 399*6 = 2394 mana (15 seconds of casting)

1 immolate + 7 incinerate = 445 + 355*7 = 2930 mana ( 15.5 seconds of casting)

so you save yourself a large amount of mana by useing shadow.

( dont DARE say that locks have no mana issues, the gcd involved with lifetapping is a loss of dps, hence mana pot > destro pot in almost all boss fights. if you have 'unable to dps moments' in a fight long enough so that you can tap and not lose any dps uptime this changes.)


Nether Protection! :

you will take less damage on a lot of fights, looking at sunwell: less damage from bolts/curses in kalecgos, immunity to to lashes in brutallus, less damage in twins from the various fire/shadow shit and so on.

Soul leech:

this is usually overhealing, hence 2/3 in it, but it is a lot of passive healing which can makes healing easier in general.


Incinerate with haste! :

with haste on your incinerate there is a point where you will be left with not enough time to cast a incinerate and keep immolate up, but renewing immolate will overlap the last tick = loss of damage if you reapply or cast an unimmolated incin.


PS feel free to flame me or correct me if i made any mistake (its late)

[Eyl]

Incinerate has a passive 10% faster cast speed. This means that your Incinerate will always have .25 seconds faster cast speed than your Shadow Bolt.

My example mob exists for 2 minutes.

- In 2 minutes you get to cast either: 50 Shadow Bolts or 55 Incinerates. (your Shadow Bolt is easier to interrupt since it requires more time to cast)

- Scorch is up 100% of the time. ISB isn't.

- Fire locks can use Flame Cap.

- Fire locks get 5 more casts.

- Incinerate has more DPM (Damage Per Mana) (more casts before needing to life tap, if needed)

I'd say that these factors show that fire is just as viable as shadow for dps. For trash it is ALOT better.

But yes, having 2-3 warlocks staying shadow to keep up ISB is a pretty good idea if you want the extra bit of regen from Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch from shadow priests.

[Nezoia]

no

[Rambobarbq]

@Keiea: First off, grow up, extreme expressions happens, it ain't making anyone a retard, and the fact that people like you eagerly flame others just makes this forum less appealing to other users. Shame, isn't it?

Second, learn to get facts before posting anything. Stop taking numbers straight out of the air. How can you ever claim that fire is 200 dps greater than shadow, that's just ridiculolus and I expressed myself very simple, simply because I am _VERY_ convinced that shadow is so much better than fire. Why bother writing a long reply to the 876321234567'st thread going like "hi is fire better than shadow just wondering lol"? Google it, man, go ahead already! (no really, don't do it, I did it for you, so keep reading).

3: it's not "my" math, I didn't do it, but granted, I should've posted something to convince the guy asking, even though it's cba since you can EASILY dig it up on the web (as stated before). I'm not gonna post any weird, long math formulas, you can do that yourself if you are so convinced that Fire is better. a^2+b^2=c^2=shadow is betterLol!

Anyways, here goes:
(this is copypasted by the way, why re-invent the wheel)

a lot of people are claiming that Incinerate is better then Shadow Bolts for the warlocks dps, the problem is that if we switch to Incinerate we will gimp the rest of the raid. Shadow priests wont be getting ISB on the boss, which leads to them doing 20% less dps, giving their group 20% less mana etc.

Shadow Bolt is 2,5 sec cast specced, it gives 15% more spelldamage benefit compared to Incinerate, it adds Improved Shadow Bolt debuff that gives 20% Shadow Damage taken and lasts for 4 charges and isn't consumed by DoT's and channeled spells. (even though DoT's DO benefit from the ISB while it's up).

Incinerate is 2,25 sec cast specced, it got a 10% multiplier from talents and gains 5% more damage from Mages Scorch, it doesn't boost any other class but the warlocks, Immolate is required to be up to maximize the dps from it. The pro part with this is that it doesn't require a shard to Sac a Imp compared to a Succubus.

Ok, now i've stated what i think about our main dps abilities, lets go to CoD/CoA, If you're using CoD and ISB is up on the target when it proccs, it does 35% more damage as a shadow warlock compared to a fire one. (ISB+Sacced succu).

And when it comes to haste gear (which you gain from the new sunwell loot):
1% haste on Shadow Bolt reduces the cast time by 0.03 sec compared to Incinerate which is only 0.025. So lets say you got 10% later on in your final gear setup, your Shadow Bolt cast time would be 2.20 vs Incinerate thats 2.00 sec.

Edit: Im not counting BL because it simply increases the warlocks dps by 30% no mather what spell you cast.

So my conclusion: Shadow Bolt does 5% more damage then Incinerate + it gets 15% more spelldamage gained per bolt AND CoD does 35% more compared to fire specc, and what do you gain with fire specc? YES! 10% faster Incinerates with 10% more fire dmg to them.

first off scorch is 15% improved fire dmg not 5% your theory crafter doesnt even know how the debuff work for fire and say sahdow is better which isnt surprise me.

second dont think as if the fire warlock is the only one in raid ISB will be there, and he will benefit from it while benefiting from scroch debuff from mage too.

recalculate that and plz put maths in that crap taht you copy paste without even knowing if its ok.

[tremulant]

By the way, Keiea mentions something about a 40/0/21 spec, I need to comment on this: Get outta here man.. everyone knows that UA > Ruin, so it should be 41/0/20 rather than a Contagion/Ruin build. How much do you really know about warlocks?

I disagree, I think that in end game gear the debate is not as one sided as you presented it.
I'm well aware that in early gear stages UA > Ruin by far.
but in the current end game gear where everything is stacked with haste/crit and considering the 4 set bonus, Ruin becomes very viable if your raid demands malediction or shadow embrace.
Especially when all your locks are probably geared, gemmed(meta'd) and enchanted for destruction and probably only go affliction on encounters where your tank survivability depends on an imp and shadow embrace... in that case Ruin is definitely something to look into.

but this is all for another thread.




so back on topic... fire will produce more personal dps.. but shadow all the way for raid dps.. if you've got more than 3 locks, let one go fire if he'd like.

[Ntrails]

Incinerate has a passive 10% faster cast speed. This means that your Incinerate will always have .25 seconds faster cast speed than your Shadow Bolt.

My example mob exists for 2 minutes.

- In 2 minutes you get to cast either: 50 Shadow Bolts or 55 Incinerates. (your Shadow Bolt is easier to interrupt since it requires more time to cast)

- Scorch is up 100% of the time. ISB isn't.

- Fire locks can use Flame Cap.

- Fire locks get 5 more casts.

- Incinerate has more DPM (Damage Per Mana) (more casts before needing to life tap, if needed)

I'd say that these factors show that fire is just as viable as shadow for dps. For trash it is ALOT better.

As you gain haste the actual time difference between the two spells is not constant. Haste is a %.

What on earth does interruptability have to do with anything?

5 more casts does not mean more damage. It is a valueless point. Shadowbolt does not hit for the same as incinerate.

Scorch is up after the first 5 seconds, so not all the time, not for all your casts, minor nit picking but on quick trash it is relevant.

Incinerate has more DPM is a claim I would like to double check, though I thought immolate was also used? An example above puts the contrary point accross.

3-4 locks, 1-2 Shadow priests seems fairly standard in my experience. World firsts may stack, normal guilds tend not to as much. The first 3 locks provide significant ISB uptime increase by the modeller as I recall. That means at least 2 warlocks will NEED to be shadow for the raid DPS.

Play the game.

[Eyl]

As you gain haste the actual time difference between the two spells is not constant. Haste is a %.

What on earth does interruptability have to do with anything?

5 more casts does not mean more damage. It is a valueless point. Shadowbolt does not hit for the same as incinerate.

Scorch is up after the first 5 seconds, so not all the time, not for all your casts, minor nit picking but on quick trash it is relevant.

Incinerate has more DPM is a claim I would like to double check, though I thought immolate was also used? An example above puts the contrary point accross.

3-4 locks, 1-2 Shadow priests seems fairly standard in my experience. World firsts may stack, normal guilds tend not to as much. The first 3 locks provide significant ISB uptime increase by the modeller as I recall. That means at least 2 warlocks will NEED to be shadow for the raid DPS.

Play the game.

That's true, but Incinerate will always have a shorter cast time due to the talent is what I mean.

Interruptability has lots do do with dps, when you have to move and you don't have time to cast a 2.5s cast you could have squeezed out a 2.25s cast spell. (to name one thing)

What I mean is the same as the above statement, basically.

Even if you start dps'ing RIGHT away as a fire lock your first Incinerate won't hit till 5 scorches are already up. Since you'll be casting both a curse and an Immolate and the fact that Incinerate has travel time. (+ waiting a second or two is probably a good idea unless your tank has about 2k tps)

Incinerate has more dpm than Shadow Bolt, atleast judging from the base cost/dmg ratio. Although you are correct that casting Immolate aswell may lower your DPM.

What I'm trying to say is that even though Incinerate has a lower spell damage coefficient, it's not lower dps (let alone overall damage done to a boss). You can't simply claim something like that from number crunching. These factors I posted, along with some more I didn't post, are enough for ME to believe that fire is a viable end-game spec.

I do play the game, and a warlock at that. (fire and shadow, depending on the situation)

Don't just blindly follow the mainstream and believe what everyone says, try it out and make your own experiences.

[Shoggy]

one thing thats gone unnoticed is the raid tools with the shadowspec im useing: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZRxczIbzZEx0tr0khhi

Cataclysm: did this fairly quickly but with no spell haste:

6 Shadow bolts = 399*6 = 2394 mana (15 seconds of casting)

1 immolate + 7 incinerate = 445 + 355*7 = 2930 mana ( 15.5 seconds of casting)

so you save yourself a large amount of mana by useing shadow.

Your spec there presents only a casting speed increase for shadow bolt so where those numbers come from i don't know:

5x Shdow Bolt (1.5seconds) does indeed = 15 seconds of casting

1 X immolate = 1.5 Seconds of casting
7 x Incinerate = 17.5 seconds of casting

a more reasonable cycle would be:

1 x immolate 6 x incinerate = 16.5 seconds total (is the immolate effect on incinerate taken from when it casts or when travel time ends - that would have an effect on this.) - This is 2575 Mana over 16.5 seconds

156 Mana per second - for 1x immolate 6x incinerate.
160 Mana per second - for 6x shadow bolt.


because the numbers are offset form each other you'd probably want to look at it over a longer time frame.

[Krypt]

Your spec there presents only a casting speed increase for shadow bolt so where those numbers come from i don't know:

5x Shdow Bolt (1.5seconds) does indeed = 15 seconds of casting

1 X immolate = 1.5 Seconds of casting
7 x Incinerate = 17.5 seconds of casting

a more reasonable cycle would be:

1 x immolate 6 x incinerate = 16.5 seconds total (is the immolate effect on incinerate taken from when it casts or when travel time ends - that would have an effect on this.) - This is 2575 Mana over 16.5 seconds

156 Mana per second - for 1x immolate 6x incinerate.
160 Mana per second - for 6x shadow bolt.


because the numbers are offset form each other you'd probably want to look at it over a longer time frame.

well, if you were going fire i assume you wouldnt use cataclysm and would have 5/5 emberstorm, leaving a 2.25 second cast time on incin (i used 2 before, noooob)

so 1 immolate = 445 & 1.5 secs of casting

and 6 incins = 335*6 = 2010 & 2.25*6 = 13.5 secs of casting

giving a total of 2455 and 15 seconds of casting
or 163 mana per second

[Utal]

Play what you want, it's your game.