When to use chaos wave?

[Deleted]

It seems that chaos wave benefitted greatly from the recent mastery buff, so i'm wondering when it's worth it to use your gul'dan charges for chaos wave instead of hand of gul'dan?
Tried it out on twins and didn't see much of a difference in either direction (using chaos wave x2 with cds when possible)
It's defo worth it on tectus it seems, but is there a rule to go by? i know that you're supposed to use it if the mobs don't live very long, but after the mastery buff it deals so much damage, i'm questioning whether it's worth it in every situation where you can buff it and hit multiple targets(2+) ?

[dawawe]

My general rules are:
Target will die before full shadowflame dot or
In meta charges capped and will be in long enough for to get that charge back.

After the buffs demonbolt is better for twins so prolly never there. On tectus on CD on the 8 split

[JV Chequer]

For any situation when you have more than 1 target to hit.

[Deleted]

For any situation when you have more than 1 target to hit.

Does this apply to DB spec as well? wondering about whether or not you'll be fine without the extra fury gain from hand of gul'dan

[Gremory1]

Does this apply to DB spec as well? wondering about whether or not you'll be fine without the extra fury gain from hand of gul'dan

Typically fights where you're using demonbolt with multiple targets (Ogrons, Brackenspore) you're going to have more fury than usual because of the multiple targets. Furthermore, the fourth demonbolt is only marginally better than other demonic fury uses so missing out on an occasional 4th demonbolt to chaos wave 2+ targets is worthwhile.

[Zevoa]

For any situation when you have more than 1 target to hit.

Do this if you want to have terrible damage.

[sickestnerdchills]

Do this if you want to have terrible damage.

At what point does it become beneficial? I notice all the top Mythic Tectus kills have no more than a couple HoGs and the rest Chaos Wave.

[Novx]

At what point does it become beneficial? I notice all the top Mythic Tectus kills have no more than a couple HoGs and the rest Chaos Wave.

No. If you are going to state something as fact at least do some research beforehand.

The current #1 parse - 11 HoGs, 2 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&source=134

The current #2 parse - 12 HoGs, 1 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=12

--

For pre-patch reference here is my own personal parse that was #4 (lol it's like 120 now) and I have 11 HoG's and 3 CW's.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=15

--

At no point, now or before, during progression has CW been a cleave ability. It is to be used with ~5-6+ targets. Even now with the buff the only encounter it will be used on is Tectus and not fights like Ogron or Brackenspore.

For any situation when you have more than 1 target to hit.

This is wrong, don't do this.

[Deleted]

If HoG is better than Chaos Wave on one target, then it's better than CW on 4/8 targets, considering that the HoG dot scales with additional targets perfectly.
And no, even on Tectus you don't have so much extra fury to burn that chaos wave spam is worth it, considering that a lot of your extra fury comes from having the HoG dot on 4/8 targets.

[JV Chequer]

No. If you are going to state something as fact at least do some research beforehand.

The current #1 parse - 11 HoGs, 2 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&source=134

The current #2 parse - 12 HoGs, 1 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=12

--

For pre-patch reference here is my own personal parse that was #4 (lol it's like 120 now) and I have 11 HoG's and 3 CW's.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=15

--

At no point, now or before, during progression has CW been a cleave ability. It is to be used with ~5-6+ targets. Even now with the buff the only encounter it will be used on is Tectus and not fights like Ogron or Brackenspore.



This is wrong, don't do this.

Sorry, Gahddo said that on Icy-veins and I believe it :-/

[kamuii]

I can't help but think that when the stars align with Dark Soul + Demonic Synergy=better to use chaos wave than HoG. Looking at top parses right now there's a fair amount of people using chaos wave and fair amount of people using HoG on mythic tectus.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Just to list a few.

[zvvl]

At no point, now or before, during progression has CW been a cleave ability. It is to be used with ~5-6+ targets. Even now with the buff the only encounter it will be used on is Tectus and not fights like Ogron or Brackenspore.

I've used it on Koragh adds but don't know if that's optimal

[Zevoa]

It ultimately comes down to how long the DoT duration ticks for and how many targets you're hitting with each charge.

If you're able to hit all 8 targets for the full duration of the DoT it's superior to Chaos Wave.

This is not taking in to account other factors such as temporary buffs. If you have limited time remaining on a proc then sure Chaos Wave could potentially be better in the short term.

[Nyang]

Since CW scales with meta mastery, it deals much more damage than HoG at higher gear levels and/or during DS.
SP coefficients for both:

HoG - 132% main damage + 103,68% DoT
CW - 200% damage

Since you can roll HoG into 2 stacks, the true value for the dot is around 155,52% SP, since you get 3 stacks of the DoT for every 2 casts, more or less depending on how close you roll the stacks together. Assuming you have 0 mastery rating, the values for both are:

Normal
HoG - 287,52*1,08=310,5216
CW - 200*1,2528=250,56

With Dark Soul
HoG - 287,52*1,38=396,7776
CW - 200*2,4288=485,76

So even without mastery, CW deals more damage than CW during DS. However, since HoG gives fury, it's still better for single target. But for multiple targets, the extra damage compensates the loss in fury because CW becomes by far the most damaging spell on our arsenal.

This simulation is with 2 targets, using CW only during dark soul:


For demonbolt, the CW profile is tied with the HoG one, but it isn't optimized for use with procs. So you'll still probably get more mileage out of CW even with DB. It's a clear gain to use it with cataclysm, though.

[sickestnerdchills]

No. If you are going to state something as fact at least do some research beforehand.

The current #1 parse - 11 HoGs, 2 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&source=134

The current #2 parse - 12 HoGs, 1 CW's:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=12

--

For pre-patch reference here is my own personal parse that was #4 (lol it's like 120 now) and I have 11 HoG's and 3 CW's.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=15

--

At no point, now or before, during progression has CW been a cleave ability. It is to be used with ~5-6+ targets. Even now with the buff the only encounter it will be used on is Tectus and not fights like Ogron or Brackenspore.



This is wrong, don't do this.

Please don't cherry pick the top 2 parses and say it's wrong.

#3 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done 11 CW 2 HoG
#5 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done 10 CW 3 HoG

And there are various other parses with 4-5 CWs and more HoGs. I was wrong in stating that ALL the top parses but plenty have more than just 3 Chaos Waves regardless of how long the adds will live.

[Novx]

Please don't cherry pick the top 2 parses and say it's wrong.

#3 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done 11 CW 2 HoG
#5 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done 10 CW 3 HoG

And there are various other parses with 4-5 CWs and more HoGs. I was wrong in stating that ALL the top parses but plenty have more than just 3 Chaos Waves regardless of how long the adds will live.

Cherry pick? I clicked the top 2 and both proved you wrong. I didn't both to look past that because it doesn't matter. You stated as a fact that all the top warlock were doing it so I looked at the top warlock and the one warlock below him and both did the exact opposite.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1 - 4 CW/8HoG
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...one&source=643 - 4 CW/9HoG
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=7 - 5 CW/9HoG
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=13 - 3 CW/12HoG
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=18 - 2 CW/12HoG

Those are the remaining 5 from the current 10 that haven't been mentioned. 8 of the top 10 are using significantly more HoG's as compared to CWs. I'm not saying that CW is trash, it isn't, but to say that it is better than HoG on CLEAVE is wrong.

[Brahmss]

Kargath - Never go up so I don't have a reason to use it
Butcher - no
Tectus - I like using 2 at the very end after landing cata, with decent results (49.5k parse, could be better)
Brackenspore - no real reason to use it, maybe if the spore shooters magically all spawn under the boss while a big add is up
Twins - not rly, hog ticks on cleave are too nice for fury
Koragh - I prefer HoGing the adds for the df to do more demonbolts, but if you wanna cheese wclogs you can cata/chaos wave like that one guy did
Imperator - again, if you want to cheese adds maybe, but I think that's impractical... Might as well abuse havoc/shadowburn and actually do effective dmg

[Deleted]

So even without mastery, CW deals more damage than CW during DS. However, since HoG gives fury, it's still better for single target. But for multiple targets, the extra damage compensates the loss in fury because CW becomes by far the most damaging spell on our arsenal.

Please explain to me what is the difference between single target and multiple targets.
If on single target, it's not worth it to trade the amount of fury you lose for the extra damage, then why is it worth it to trade 4 times as much fury for 4 times as much extra damage? If the HoG dot hits multiple targets, you get fury from each of them.

[Novx]

Please explain to me what is the difference between single target and multiple targets.
If on single target, it's not worth it to trade the amount of fury you lose for the extra damage, then why is it worth it to trade 4 times as much fury for 4 times as much extra damage? If the HoG dot hits multiple targets, you get fury from each of them.

It depends on the encounter type. The reason CWave is so strong in the final phase of Tectus is because you are going in with almost being at Fury cap and you just spent 10 seconds bombing as much fury as humanly imaginable into 8 adds. You don't need to recoup that fury because the boss will be dead and therefore the direct damage of the ability outweighs it.

[Gaidax]

All of the above proves really that as a whole it does not really matter much what you use in AoE situations, really. Chaos Wave gives you straight up damage at expense of Fury, while HoG gives you Fury generation that you can then put towards more damage with other spells.

Which basically means that:

1. If you are Fury capped (or close to that) - spam Chaos Wave, else, spam HoG.
2. Chaos Wave is straight out more damaging than HoG, but it wastes Fury, while HoG generates Fury which you can use to compensate and surpass CW.

Edit: well maybe it means that this does matter... but not to the extent where it is truly critical, IMO.