Shadowburn vs Chaosbolt

[dyzzl]

There was a recent discussion in another thread, hoping someone can explain like i'm 5 about when to use SB and when to use CB under 20%. If the boss is under 20%, in a "patchwerk" style fight, how would your rotation look now?

Example
If you have 3 shards up, boss just hit 20%. Do you spam 3x cbs now? How do you go about the rotation?

Any insight is appreciated.

[Mhyroth]

As far as I remember from that post was only use Shadowburn with Havoc.
Also Chaos Bolt always crits, while SB does not always, so better spend resources.

If anyone has more info or things to add/change, please do so.

[Void666]

Use shadowburn with havoc. Chaos Bolt does more consistent damage, if you have trinket procs etc that heavily boost crit then shadowburn is viable on a boss to an extent. Only time is always use shadowburn on a boss if he is almost dead and i dont have enough time to cast CB lol :P

[sasofrass]

I thought shadowburn was stronger if you were near full mana since it doesn't give regen anymore. think brusalk made a spreadsheet about it somewhere on these forums

[Void666]

Did he, ill need to check it out

- - - Updated - - -

A lot will change once i get a better weapon and throw the Thunderlord enchant on it, the uptime on it is crazy

[dyzzl]

So i guess my 2nd question would be,

How would you execute a 20% phase? Assuming SB is not used,

Do i spam CB's until i have no shards and then follow the normal rotation, or keep it at 3.5 stacks always and SB at the couple of seconds.

[Void666]

never cap on 4 embers and it depends on when my trinkets are coming off cooldown etc. Weak Auras is your friend

[Arganis]

I usually do cb because it's a guaranteed crit unlike sb. That is unless you can't get the cb's off easily, then I use sb. Also, on smaller mobs I use cb and try to time it right so my final touch, so to speak, is sb to get the ember back.

[Hakii]

So, If i have the 640 DM trinket proc. is it better to SB or CB will be still better?!
Also, i know Crit >= Mastery for destro. but why do warlocks from top guilds go with Mastery enchants and gems mainly?!
is it because we have 1-2 single fight only?

[Void666]

Mastery is an across the board buff pretty much, personal preference i guess. im stacking Crit/Mastery till i get better gear

[Gohzerlock]

Havoc shadowburn, cast on the move, if the boss / target is just about to die.. i'd assume if you had trinket/darksoul and not enough time to get off a chaos bolt but a shadowburn it'd be worth it?

[Gihelle]

Shadowburn when:
- You need to move for an extended period of time (don't spam it)
- Boss is about to die and you won't be able to generate extra embers before his death
- Havoc is up

For all other situations, Chaos Bolt.

[Taalyn]

My understanding as far as Havoc and SB is that only when you can use all 3 stacks on SB otherwise Chaos Bolt with Havoc.

[Pungchow]

Only way i use shadow is with my crit trinket proc and darksoul otherwise it is worthless and hits for 30k with procs it hits for 60 to 70k no problems

[Grizelda]

Will this change as our gear improves and SB crits more? Does SB just hit for that low now?

[Brusalk]

Just to get out ahead (behind) of a misconception about Shadowburn vs Chaos Bolt and this whole debate.

Shadowburn + Incinerate does more damage on average when accounting for ember generation than Chaos Bolt in execute phase

The part that muddies the waters is that Chaos Bolt lets us generate mana, and makes it so that it is slightly better in extremely long single target execute phases where going OoM is a possibility. When you don't consider mana, Shadowburn + Incinerate is a better use of the casting time under 20% than Chaos Bolt.

Here is a spreadsheet which includes the 8% damage hotfixes I put together to check my reasoning on Shadowburn vs Chaos Bolt: Chaos Bolt vs. Shadowburn in Execute Range


To the people who are talking about how Chaos Bolt is more consistent damage, you are correct in that all non-crit Shadowburns is lower overall damage than all Chaos Bolts, however that is not how math works. When determining what's optimal you need to consider the average case, and on average Shadowburn will crit equal to your crit percentage. Tossing away that potential and not at the same time removing the crit bonus multiplier on Chaos Bolt yields flawed results and a flawed conclusion that Shadowburn sucks due to not always critting. That's just not the case.

[Grizelda]

Thank you, that makes it much clearer.

I imaging buffing SB is a tricky thing to do considering the way we cleave.

[Deleted]

Brusalk in "Cast Time" section i see that Shadowburn has 1s but if i'm not wrong Shadowburn has a 1.5s GCD, that will leave you with 1s to cover. That's 50% of Incinerate dmg instead of 73%.

[Deleted]

Brusalk in "Cast Time" section i see that Shadowburn has 1s but if i'm not wrong Shadowburn has a 1.5s GCD, that will leave you with 1s to cover. That's 50% of Incinerate dmg instead of 73%.

i think Destro has only 1 sec GCD (not sure where it is mentioned ingame though)

Edit:
@Brusalk Spreadsheet:
not sure you can make the assumption
SB+Inc dmg = SBdmg + ((INCdmg/INCcasttime)*(CBcasttime-1sec)) + Embergeneration*SBdmg

i think RED needs to be replaced with something like this:
SBdmg*Embergeneration-(INCdmg/INCcasttime)

(you could add the embergeneration of the alternative Inc too but it would go infinite and only change a few digits)
taking the damage difference of a Filler and the SB into account
this only lowers the "Difference" by like 30% and has no effect on the point, that SB>CB

Edit2: ahh someone noticed that too, so i am not crazy

[Nianif]

Brusalk, I fear you have to think again about your Emberbit damage calculation.

It's only a resource - no pure damage that needs no casttime.
You cann't simply multiply the damage of shadowburn ( & a part of Incinerate? ) with the number ob Ember.