lock buff?

[harky]

It's nice that you're doing decently, but encouraging people to use sub-optimal glyphs is still not going to help when trying to get people to take you seriously. The LT glyph isn't worth 80 DPS. It's worth more than double that even with LT being used around 30 seconds on average and even if every tap requires you to stop DPS. You get 90%+ uptime on the glyph without any interruption to DPS time on Festergut due to frequency of movement unless your guild has you in melee. The assertion that it takes perfect use for LT to beat Immolate is silly. LT is 60-70% better than Immolate so even if you're letting it drop you'll have better results.

The main reason people see these DPS gaps with logs and wonder why they haven't been able to make up that gap when they're doing every very well is that RNG still governs the majority of what happens in game. It's not just crit chance, but damage ranges as well. Most of my best DPS postings have been because I happened to crit 4-5% higher than I should on average, or my nukes hit above the curve. It does feel nice to outperform simcraft's average DPS, but you're just as likely to come in under it and after sweating over a parse for hours not understand what you did wrong. Fact is, you might not have done anything wrong. RNG said no, so the answer was no. There are a lot of things that can happen that if lined up perfectly in the RNG will result in lots of fractions of DPS that can pile up over the course of a fight. Look at the DPS distribution in simcraft sometime to see how it works out. The reason Afflic seems so much better than Destro right now is that while yes, it does work out higher on average and it's theoretical maximum DPS is higher, the DPS range is also slimmer.

[Modez]

Gherkin just asked what I did. This works for me. My parses over the last month have all been similar, so I do not fully buy the argument of 'getting lucky' for that entire time. When I had the Immolate glyph (as I have the whole time at 80) before, other locks still weren't keeping up back in Ulduar and ToC/ToGC. Nobody has to follow what I do in any way, shape, or form.

Also, I have to have ISL for my 10s anyway, so the LT glyph will never be desirable to me.

I expect destruction to be faring higher than affliction once more people have the T10 4pc. I am still a week and a half away from it myself. We will gain full 15% when it is up, whereas affliction will lose some of that bonus just due to how the spec mechanics work.

[harky]

Destruction still has more scaling issues and the manner in which the 4p works is still unknown. It's very unlikely that it will make up for the gap we're seeing between Destro and Afflic now as gear improves. If it brings Destro up to par I'll be happy, but with the recent news regarding universal Warlock buffs and Afflic/Demo getting larger buffs than Destro I don't see it happening. It also depends on how the proc works as depending on the implementation it will be a much larger buff to Afflic than Destro due to manual DoT refreshing and subsequently rolling a +10% damage Corruption with 65%+ crit. The mechanic is still untested, but if it works anything like other percent damage increases it will favor Afflic, not Destro due to nuke's striking just after the proc's expiration costing you effective uptime.

[gherkin]

Thanks for the info Modez, I'm pretty sure the difference is in how much you stand still vs me, but I'll have to give it a shot for a bit to see. My 10 man has a shadow priest so we never need replenishment, but I should get closer to you than before.

How often do you run into issues where the mob dies during your cast or during cast travel time? I seem to notice this a lot, but I might just be paying too much attention to little things.

[Modez]

Thanks for the info Modez, I'm pretty sure the difference is in how much you stand still vs me, but I'll have to give it a shot for a bit to see. My 10 man has a shadow priest so we never need replenishment, but I should get closer to you than before.

How often do you run into issues where the mob dies during your cast or during cast travel time? I seem to notice this a lot, but I might just be paying too much attention to little things.

I'm assuming you are referring to trash, but it also does apply to Sourpuss's blood beasts. If I know my last spell won't land, I won't even start to cast it. Generally I swap to the next target if the mob is at 15-10% hp left. I hit tab while my last spell that I know will land is still in the middle of its cast time to the next target I will want to DPS so I can immediately jam the next key to keep on truckin'.

On trash (not blood beasts), I generally stay 7-12 yds away as a maximum. When the tanks move up, so do I staying just out of melee range (so I can out threat the tanks and not die). This has been a habit I have had since vanilla to ensure that last shadow bolt lands (and therefore getting the last bit of damage over other ranged and overall winning the meters), so it is very natural to me - but unnerving to others at first. This raises my chances of spells landing in the sub-15% range to a very high rate. This allows for tabbing tot he next mob when:

~15-10% you queue up a cast
Cast starts (1.75s cast time)

-TAB- (sometimes I will hit TAB 2-3 times here real fast until I get on the next target - you could also click the target from the MT windows while this cast is going off)

Queue appropriate cast for next mob (immolate, whatever)



The bottom line is, and this is something I am trying to impress upon our new raiders or low DPS raiders:

As a caster your hands should ALWAYS be glowing. Either by casting an instant or cast time spell. Always have your hands glowing. 0 down time. That is the job of a caster DPS and you hands still glow if you dispell or battle res.

[purebalance]

On the subject of specs in ICC:

Affliction will win in full ICC gear as everything currently stands.

Lifetap glyph is going to phase out with full ICC gear, BUT you can keep it if you run spr on your offset pieces(you can hit cap with suppression if you use crafted boots, tier pants, tier gloves, exalted ring, and 1 sp/hit gem). I wouldn't advise picking up a single piece of heroic gear with SPR tho and once you get halfway through heroic being on farm, drop the LT glyph completely since it's getting phased out or changed with 4.0 or whatever the patch before Cata is. More than likely, fel armor and lifetap glyph will get changed to INT or something or be normalized into talents(or have LT glyph give a % of your current SP).

Destro is currently better on the first 4 bosses except flexibility on Gunship since on gunship an affliction lock can get full dots on all adds and maintain haunt on one and sb with isb and shadow embrace on a couple of others(also aoe on marines). Destro is better than affliction in Crimson Halls due to target swapping on the princes and the standstill nature you can potentially pull off on blood queen. Affliction is better on Plagueworks due to the high level of movement and being able to maintain a set of dots on the boss in Prof P while only slightly lowering your add dps. Also being affliction on Rotface and Festergut is going to help your healers out a lot more since it's controlled healing rather than soul leech procs in destro.

ISL is the crap sandwich of replenishment so I would only use that in your 10 mans if you're the only person capable of replenishment other than a mage(theirs isn't bad it's just tied to a bad spec). Even a hunter should be forced to spec it before a lock. Every other class has essentially a 100% chance to aplly it to the raid during their normal rotation. If you do get the chance to do that, you'd free up space for much more desirable talents like shadowfury, soul link, and Suppression. Shadowfury pretty much enables 4 people to each solo the adds on Saurfang on 25 man without getting hit since buying 3 seconds on non movement on spawn for all 4 is pretty beastly and doesn't take anything but a gcd from you.

Demo is a just a glorified destro since it will never be allowed to do higher than the other 2 specs. Even on Anub heroic, an equally geared affliction lock who knows what they are doing will do more dps on adds than a demo lock(corruption on 3 adds, normal rot on anub, and soc the remaining add with portential or inevitable eradication procs).

As far as the OP which has been detracted from by a lot, they said in the blue post they were not hotfixing the changes(curently proposed is making shadow embrace stack a third time, but the 3 stacks will still add up to the same "healing ms", increased imp damage from empowered imp and MAYBE conflag dot being longer to equal 100% damage between the conflag dot and the conflag hit to a full immolate, and increasing the personal spell damage increase for demonic pact talent in demo). It will be in a patch and HOPEFULLY the patch that opens LK in 2 weeks.

[Modez]

My 10s consists of the same 10 every week.

Ele Shammy
Moonkin
Destro Lock (me)
Rogue
Blood/Unholy DK
Holy Paladin
Resto Druid
Disc Priest
Prot Pally
Blood (tank) DK

All of these people can be found on that parse I linked. Basically it is the highest of each one of these classes in the list.

[purebalance]

Sucks but yeah you're boned I guess. If you have the gold, I'd just swap specs for 25 mans if you do them(assuming your dual spec is an affliction or demo spec you'd use for 10/25 man).

[harky]

Not sure what the issue is now that 13/58 has been shown to scale better than 18/53. I'd be Destro for my 10s group as well if we didn't have a Shadow Priest.

@Purebalance: Your comment on the Life Tap glyph is misleading. The BiS setups all use it still at 264 and will have more spirit at 277. If you have very specific gear and are Destro then there is a point where it becomes questionable (you need less than 70 spirit on your gear). As Afflic there is no point where anything surpasses LT as if you have 0 spirit on your gear, but do have proper gems and enchants it's already better than the other options. The same goes for rDPS as Demo, which is what you should be aiming for... so LT is 'phased out' for only one possible spec and only with very specific gear. You're also off-base in regard to Demo on Anub since Seed is hitting 5 targets and those target should be living <12 seconds you'd need an absolutely massive amount of haste for multi-dotting to be a DPS gain and it would invariably be a DPS loss on Anub himself, which is much more important. I do agree, however, that Demo will likely never be allowed to compete directly with Destro and Afflic on personal DPS.

[purebalance]

There is 0 spirit on tier gear.

You will lose spirit as you migrate to t10.

The offset pieces(rings, necks, bracers, etc) are close in the lower ilvl, but once in heroic you want to use the crit/haste/spell power version with no spirit on them because they are MUCH more dps than the spirit you'd get on the other piece. Therefore in heroic you drop the glyph for something else until Blizz decides to overhaul how it works. You will have 0 spirit in BiS gear.

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/c...ps/wrl/8/0/3/0

Says I'm correct about Anub thanks. Out of the top 20 dps on Heroic Anub listed on WMO, only 3 were demo. All 17 others were affliction.

[Modez]

While we can craft things all day long, personal, actual, real-time numbers often differ. What works on paper does not always work in reality.

[harky]

My point was that what you described was a DPS loss. It was poor wording on my half.

In regards to T10, again, you only need +70 spirit from gear besides the standard 2 blue gems and +10 stats chest enchant. BiS Destro list right now shows +68 from gear and at least 3 blue gems. That means +78 spirit and beyond the threshold where LT is better for Destro. For raid DPS as Demo and for all Afflic specs you need 0 spirit on your gear for LT to be superior. Additionally since the BiS gear for raid DPS as Demo has +392 spirit on it even if it had a threshold like Destro it would be far over it due to preferring spirit off-set pieces.

[gherkin]

While I already do the max-glowing hands thing, I think I need to pay more attention. Thank you for the continued clarification!

[Krazyjoe]

Lock and buff in the same sentence? LOL

[Modez]

While I already do the max-glowing hands thing, I think I need to pay more attention. Thank you for the continued clarification!

I figured you did. You would be surprised how many people have sent me tells on my server asking me stuff and when I tell them that a light bulb goes off. Most people don't realize how much DPS they move by either slightly delaying their casts or moving too much. If there is fire [or DnD] I get out of it, but I'm only in-game inches from the edge.

[gherkin]

I figured you did. You would be surprised how many people have sent me tells on my server asking me stuff and when I tell them that a light bulb goes off. Most people don't realize how much DPS they move by either slightly delaying their casts or moving too much. If there is fire [or DnD] I get out of it, but I'm only in-game inches from the edge.

I do this already, and I thought I was doing it well, but if that much of a difference between you and me exists then obviously I need to pay more attention than I did before.

/cruisecontrol off

[purebalance]

My point was that what you described was a DPS loss. It was poor wording on my half.

In regards to T10, again, you only need +70 spirit from gear besides the standard 2 blue gems and +10 stats chest enchant. BiS Destro list right now shows +68 from gear and at least 3 blue gems. That means +78 spirit and beyond the threshold where LT is better for Destro. For raid DPS as Demo and for all Afflic specs you need 0 spirit on your gear for LT to be superior. Additionally since the BiS gear for raid DPS as Demo has +392 spirit on it even if it had a threshold like Destro it would be far over it due to preferring spirit off-set pieces.

Show me 1 piece of gear where the spirit on it outweighs the haste and crit on it combined. You sacrifice usually 70 or so haste or crit on most pieces for the spirit. Belts for example, crushing coldwraith belt is superior in dps to lingering illness. 80 haste is better than 80 spirit anywhere you look. I dont know why you would ever gem anything that doesn't have sp, so if you're saying that 100 spirit warrants glyph of lifetap, you're out of your mind. 20 spell power from lifetapping is not worth more than immolate glyph. It's also arguably not worth more than Curse of Agony glyph or hell even corruption glyph I would bet if RNjesus loves you. BiS gear for any caster is going to have 0 spirit on it in full Heroic ICC gear. The reason behind that is Blizz did the migration of stats before they removed our want of it. So when the patch before Cataclysm hits, they assume most people will not have spirit on their gear other than a healer.

[gherkin]

Show me 1 piece of gear where the spirit on it outweighs the haste and crit on it combined.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=14451 ?

[harky]

There is no crit + haste wrist item in ICC. There is excessive hit, however, which makes Death Surgeon's Sleeves the top wrists in ICC. That puts you at only need 10 (264) or 2 (277) additional spirit. That's one blue socket with a decent socket bonus.

Also, you're not dealing with 100 spirit. Using a Blood Elf as an example, you will have a minimum of: 164 (base spirit), +10 for chest enchant, +20 to activate meta, +80 from buffs. That's 274 before kings. With the Sleeves that's 334. Checking optimal gemming on the BiS lists and you'll find they're using 4 blue gems, which is another +20 spirit. You're now at 354. That's 389 with kings. 100 spirit isn't possible as a Lock. Absolute bare minimum raid buffed is over 300. With optimal gear it's just under 400. That's for 56/0/15 and 0/13/58 only as both under-value spirit. If you're running Demo, or 55/0/16 you'll value Spirit more and the sets change accordingly. Particularly Demo, which in BiS at 264 will have somewhere around 750 spirit.

[Galith]

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=14451 ?

3 + 6 = 10


10 = 10


RAWR!


(l33t math)