SimC 4.3 with 12H gear; Demo tops by 1k

[Jessicka]

I never said I wasn't. Your argument is that demonology doesn't have anything in its rotation that can be cast while moving. I'm saying you are wrong.

I obviously wasn't clear - my supposition was that it has fewer and uses them less frequently than Affliction; I thought that would have been obvious by our use of Corruption and Doom which can also be used while moving even at range.

Demonology does Life tap. We also have the ability to Life tap during movement. If we don't need to tap, if our Bane is ticking, if Corruption is up and Shadowflame is on cooldown or out of reach, we Fel Flame. You should be doing the exact same thing as an Affliction Warlock. The suppostition that Demonology never has to Lifetap is absurd to begin with.

The difference is the huge and obvious disparity in necessity between the specs.

[Gobuchul]

The suppostition that Demonology never has to Lifetap is absurd to begin with.

No, unless your pet spends a lot of time off target or has an insanely unlucky string of no crits, you really never have to life tap as demo at current gear levels. Even if those cases (pet off target and/or no crits) are what you're referring to, it's just a stupid statement in the context of the current discussion, since it's immediately obvious that affliction in any situation does a *lot* more life tapping than demo does.

[bobsmith06]

ok, im sorry i have to intervene this is just becoming a im right you are wrong thing so im going to pose this question towards you,
you are on heroic rag with 2 warlocks same gear in each slot, p3 comes out the demo lock pops meta and gets combustion on him forcing him to kite the fire unless he wants to stand in it during his meta.
warlock number two who plays affliction has the same thing happen to him.
in all honesty who is going to suffer more? warlock number 1 or 2?
warlock number one pops his doom because he needs to burn p3, but since he was standing in fire he died and lost his doom, warlock number two dies but finishes the fight higher overall the warlock number one until that point.
And it is true demo does lifetap less they have mana feed, which gives back 4% of their mana everytime the demon attacks.

I hold no bias to either argruement and you want in game scenarios i just gave you one.

[Deleted]

What is considered in this simulation ?
Class changes ? because i dont understand why assassination rogues would suddenly be superior to the other 2 rogue speccs.

[Jahrastafari]

I obviously wasn't clear - my supposition was that it has fewer and uses them less frequently than Affliction; I thought that would have been obvious by our use of Corruption and Doom which can also be used while moving even at range.

The difference is the huge and obvious disparity in necessity between the specs.

Holy forest for the trees, Batman!

I'm done with this discussion, I feel like I'm trying to teach statistics to my dog at this point. Feel free to PM me if you break down those raidbot parses and feel you've found something conclusive one way or the other.

[Deleted]

For demo to top meters they would need to:
1. Stand still
2. Stand in melee range
even though they show up high on simcraft i doubt that they are gonna be that high in a real raid.

[Coldkil]

the amount of movement required in the Demon Soul looks like HELL

I expected this kind of results, after the announced buffs. Anyway it's a dummy fight, and movement can skew a lot the results.

I think that the classes at the bottom are the ones who suffer less from movement, also can muti-dot. I think we will have a good situation, with a mix of melee and ranged at the top of recount in the new raid.

[Gobuchul]

The whole argument is very stupid. It's clear from simulations that if there is frequent movement spread evenly thoughout the fight, demo loses more than affliction. It's also clear that the difference between the two specs in this regard is probably smaller than most people believe: Even in the extreme heavy movement simulation, which spends 4 seconds out of every 10 seconds moving, affliction does 89% of its potential max DPS while demo does 86%. This means demo beats affliction in the simulator even when the warlocks spend 40% of their time moving, so how people can claim demo is only best when there's zero movement is beyond me.

[Faradin]

I'll start with the affliction<->demonology discusson by saying that demonology beats affliction when meter-padding on the dogs is taken out of the equation. However, Affliction does a near-equal or greater amount of damage than demonology on all other fights (I am saying all of this while assuming one does not possess a legendary staff, which would benefit Affliction more than Demonology [a good chunk of the top 100 parses most likely include legendary staves]). In theory, demonology might be able to beat affliction on Baleroc and Beth'tilac as well (Beth'tilac depends on average spinner life-span).

While both specs seem similar at a glance with the amount of options they have for mobile filler, let's take an in-depth look at the regular sims to see how much time is being spent on instant casts over the course of the fight (though I'm skeptical on some of these counts, I'm assuming that both specs have been modified in a similar manner):

Demonology: 41.8s (Shadowflame) + 31.9s (Corruption) + .1s (Life Tap) + 5.2s (Instant Felhunter) + 1s (Doomguard)
+ 4.7s (Immolation Aura) + 13.6s (Bane of Doom) + 10.14s (Nightfall Shadowbolts)= 108.44s

Affliction: 30.4s (Shadowflame) + 1.2s (Corruption) + 10.4s (Life Tap) + 4.7s (Instant Soul Fire) + 1.2s (Doomguard)
+ 7.9s (Bane of Doom) + 19.92s (Nightfall Shadowbolts)= 75.72s

I find these results just a little odd, though it is worth pointing out that affliction's instant casts have a lot more discretion as to when you want to use them (for instance, life taps, nightfall procs, and improved soul fires can be saved up specifically for movement phases), while multi-target fights also benefit affliction mobility. On the other hand, full-blown AoE portions increase demonology mobility by opening up hellfire and demon leap as viable dps abilities.

It is also worth pointing out that the movement sims show a greater dps loss for demonology, though I do not have the time right now to analyse how the sims are handling the movement. There is a chance that the movement being simulated is not an accurate representation of what is encountered in actual raids and/or the spell priority lists are not optimized for movement.

Anyway, if the PTR balance stays the way it is now, it's looking like all non-staff warlocks will be demonology for most fights (a 4k dps lead is nothing to scoff at). In fact, demonology might still be the spec of choice for warlocks in possession of a staff, though I have yet to sim the specs against each other with staves myself. With any luck, we'll have a lot more information in the coming weeks when they finish up class balancing and start enabling some of the raid content on PTR.

[Xorn]

How about you tell me what's making Affliction so strong? Ceraintly padding on Shannox and flying on Alysrazor give it an advantage there; but the other fights?

I will say this about "padding" on Shannox: it is a dps increase for an affliction lock to have corruption rolling on as many targets as possible due to Eradication and Nightfall procs, and is not in fact padding. If you ONLY put corruption on the dogs then you aren't padding but rather are maximizing your Eradication uptime while dpsing Shannox.

[Moggie]

It's still so early in the PTR to realistically declare which spec will be tops. And take Sims with a grain of salt especially since it nearly always has a different outcome in game. It's like Affliction vs. Destro. Sim could show it 100dps apart (and it has multiple times), yet the in game actuality turns that gap into a huge canyon between the two.

TLDR; The PTR's will be getting a ton more updates in the coming weeks, including buffs and nerfs to various specs.

[nocturnus]

For the people who haven't read all replies: No one here is claiming demo is 'bad' when you need to move. We're simply saying demo suffers more on heavy movement, that's all. How did we come to this conclusion? Well, it's pretty simple actually, we've found in both simcraft as actual parses that the evidence is conclusive. Though simcraft is a tool and should always be put into context, it does give a correct portrait of how certain mechanics influence ones output.

Now if it's unclear why movement affects demo more than aff, simply ask. Don't attack anyone disagreeing with you. Also, don't expect us to do the math for you. If you disagree with months of simulation craft and statistical value, feel free to make your own calculations proving your point. Don't ask us to do it for you after we've shown you our sources. You say simcraft is wrong and the statistical information provided on the various websites is inaccurate, fine, prove it with facts if you want to sway other readers. Don't just assume we take your word for it just because your means of communication are more agressive.

[ashin]

Aren't these sims making a mistake?

The melee are getting a 10% buff in order to compensate for high movement fights. But the sims are based on Patchwerk. So the results are naturally going to show melee far higher than they will be in practice.

Also, why does Balance sim as one of the lowest in the game in 4.3? Nothing has been changed, and it is currently one of the highest in the game. The same can be said for Shadow, actually. These results do not make sense.

[Sylvre]

Aren't these sims making a mistake?

The melee are getting a 10% buff in order to compensate for high movement fights. But the sims are based on Patchwerk. So the results are naturally going to show melee far higher than they will be in practice.

Also, why does Balance sim as one of the lowest in the game in 4.3? Nothing has been changed, and it is currently one of the highest in the game. The same can be said for Shadow, actually. These results do not make sense.

They are simmed without DI.

[ashin]

They are simmed without DI.

That is not enough to make them go from best-in-game to dead last.

[Deleted]

There's only one thought to be had : wait for live to QQ about nerfs/buffs, this is work in progress, stop being paranoïd.