First and foremost, you should gauge the needs of your group. When learning raid fights or playing with undergeared healers, they should always come first. When you hit enrage timers or wipe because the boss has a burn phase you didn't complete - this is when to consider applying it to DPS classes. I'll leave this up to you.
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Healer Ranking:
Unfortunately, healing is relative to the encounter and the ability of the people in the group to not take damage. Exact numbers cannot be given, but here is the ranking based on number of crits per minute for healers:
******TO DO: HEALING NUMBERS
1) Restoration Druid
2) Holy Priest (Raid Healing)
3) Restoration Shaman
4) Holy Priest (Tank Healing)
5) Discipline Priest**
6) Holy Paladins***
** Some discipline priests will forego Renew entirely, meaning they have much fewer hots than you would expect
*** Only have a HOT via Glyphing, so you are basically only providing 3% haste to them.
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DPS Ranking:
TLDR: Dark Intent the Shadow Priest first, and Balance druids second, Fire Mages third
All of the numbers in this guide were obtained using BIS T11 gear (iLVL 372) and 4.2 BIS Profiles & Mechanics
Ranking by RAID DPS GAIN (Caster is Affliction w/ Drain Life)
Code:
Class DPS GAIN
1) Shadow Priest 2620
2) Balance Druid 2483
3) Fire Mage 2295
4) Elemental Shaman 2083
5) Frost Mage 2050
6) Arcane Mage 1818
7) Feral Druid (Hit Cap) 1806
8) Feral Druid 1778
9) Survival Hunter 1683
10) Retribution Paladin 1628
11) Combat Rogue 1579
12) Marksman Hunter 1567
13) Unholy DK (2H) 1550
14) Enhancement Shaman 1548
15) Unholy DK (1H) 1543
16) Frost DK (2H) 1533
17) Assassination Rogue 1523
18) Frost DK (1H) 1469
19) Beast Mastery Hunter 1464
Ranking by RAID DPS GAIN (Caster is Affliction w/ Shadow Bolt)
Code:
Class DPS GAIN
1) Shadow Priest 2471
2) Balance Druid 2313
3) Fire Mage 2125
4) Elemental Shaman 1949
5) Frost Mage 1848
6) Arcane Mage 1681
7) Feral Druid (Hit Cap) 1617
8) Feral Druid 1610
9) Survival Hunter 1550
10) Retribution Paladin 1410
11) Combat Rogue 1405
12) Enhancement Shaman 1371
13) Marksman Hunter 1354
14) Assassination Rogue 1339
15) Frost DK (1H) 1323
16) Frost DK (2H) 1311
17) Unholy DK (2H) 1303
18) Beast Mastery Hunter 1284
19) Unholy DK (1H) 1252
Ranking by RAID DPS GAIN (Caster is Demonology)
Code:
Class DPS GAIN
1) Shadow Priest 2162
2) Balance Druid 1936
3) Fire Mage 1848
4) Elemental Shaman 1603
5) Frost Mage 1480
6) Feral Druid 1257
7) Arcane Mage 1224
8) Feral Druid (Hit Cap) 1224
9) Survival Hunter 1162
10) Retribution Paladin 1160
11) Combat Rogue 1031
12) Assassination Rogue 1014
13) Enhancement Shaman 1009
14) Frost DK (1H) 983
15) Frost DK (2H) 982
16) Beast Mastery Hunter 960
17) Unholy DK (1H) 941
18) Unholy DK (2H) 938
19) Marksman Hunter 871
Ranking by RAID DPS GAIN (Caster is Destruction)
Code:
Class DPS GAIN
1) Shadow Priest 2214
2) Balance Druid 2011
3) Fire Mage 1898
4) Elemental Shaman 1678
5) Frost Mage 1532
6) Arcane Mage 1343
7) Feral Druid 1309
8) Feral Druid (Hit Cap) 1308
9) Survival Hunter 1256
10) Retribution Paladin 1171
11) Combat Rogue 1155
12) Unholy DK (2H) 1102
13) Assassination Rogue 1087
14) Frost DK (2H) 1081
15) Marksman Hunter 1070
16) Beast Mastery Hunter 1058
17) Enhancement Shaman 1032
18) Frost DK (1H) 1018
19) Unholy DK (1H) 995
Ranking by PERSONAL DARK INTENT UPTIME
Code:
Class Up Time
1) Balance Druid 99%
2) Shadow Priest 98%
3) Survival Hunter 98%
4) Feral Druid 95%
5) Feral Druid (Hit Cap) 93%
6) Fire Mage 88%
7) Frost Mage 82%
8) Assassination Rogue 76%
9) Elemental Shaman 74%
10) Unholy DK (1H) 72%
11) Beast Mastery Hunter 69%
12) Combat Rogue 66%
13) Arcane Mage 62%
14) Unholy DK (2H) 60%
15) Marksman Hunter 57%
16) Enhancement Shaman 55%
17) Retribution Paladin 46%
18) Frost DK (2H) 41%
19) Frost DK (1H) 40%
A few things to cover:
1) There may be glitches where certain abilities do not proc Dark Intent on Critical Strike. This will lower that class' ranking.
2) Some AOE is affected by Dark Intent. Demonology Warlocks and Balance Druids on Maloriak are insane.
3) Class ranking is based on both Total DPS and dot Crit Rating. Classes with high dot crits (Frost Mages) will rank higher than classes with larger % Damage from DoTs due to the mechanic and benefit to the lock.
4) This is very much gear and skill based. For example, a Demonology Warlock has a 92.8% uptime of 3 stacks on their partner. If he only has 15% crit, this drops to 78% uptime. If he has pathetic uptime on his DoT's (lets say 70% uptime) and only 15% crit, this drops again to 65% uptime. A note for selfish locks: THIS DOES NOT MEAN CIRCLE JERK YOUR BUFF JUST BECAUSE THE SHADOW PRIEST IS BAD. DO THE MATH PROPERLY.
5) This calculation doesn't take into account some class' inability to stack the buff to 3. However, the ones with low enough proc rates to worry about are so low on the tree that this is inconsequential in a normal raid. I am working to improve my calculations for future updates.
6) If you skip the Shadow Priests to buff a Balance Druid/Survival Hunter for a pathetic 1% uptime gain over a 1100+ raid dps loss, and I find out you used this post to justify it, I will find you and punch you in the junk.
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The Warlock Circle Jerk, and when its appropriate:
THIS SECTION IS OUTDATED. WILL UPDATE LATER.
TEMPORARY ANSWER IS "IF THEY CAN GET AN EXTRA TICK OUT OF IMMOLATE THROUGH THIS AND THERE IS NO SPRIEST, THEN YES."
On second thought, why are they destro in 4.1 or 4.2?
First off, it is never appropriate for an Affliction or Demonology Warlock to receive it from another Warlock. The gains simply are not there. The only thing you gain in this situation is 3% Haste for an approximate 600 dps. That doesn't even register on the gains any other class or healer would have. The only situation this might work is 2 Paladin Healers, 2 Death Knight Tanks, 4 Warriors and 2 Warlocks, but if you joined this raid then God have mercy on your soul shards.
The conditions for this situation are very precise:
Two Destruction warlocks who, with 1 Dark Intent each, sit at exactly 26.2233% Haste raid buffed. This means that with a second Dark Intent they will be at 30.01% for the extra Immolate tick and Conflagrate damage, with zero extra haste wasted due to passing this "soft cap". The .01 is important because sometimes Blizzard rounds funny, and we want to play it safe.
VS
Two Destruction Warlocks + Any Two Other Raiders
26.2233% / 3% DI / 5% Raid Aura = 16.71% from gear = 2140 Rating.
First, lets run the profile through SimCraft, adjusted to have 2140 Haste Rating.
No DI: 23178
1 DI: 24272
Copy paste of SimCraft stats for Haste: Spell Haste 26.22% Raid Buffed, 2140 Gear Rating
Now lets give them a second DI (increase spell haste rating to 2590 - the 30.01% haste cap.)
New DPS: 25294
Gain: 1022 DPS.
That's fairly substantial, lets add it all up:
Destruction Warlock 1 Gain from First DI: 1094
Destruction Warlock 1 Gain from Second DI: 1022 (Haste Only)
Destruction Warlock 2 Gain from First DI: 1094
Destruction Warlock 2 Gain from Second DI: 1022 (Haste Only)
Raid DPS gain: 4232
Look at the Destruction ranking charts for your particular guild.
Take the two highest ranked classes you have and add them together.
Is the total above 4232?
YES: Circle jerking is bad
NO: Enjoy the self love
The question will remain: does this apply to your guild and your players? Most of the time, yes. Players of similar skill levels tend to play together, but not always. However, I would like to make one thing very clear: a badly played Shadow Priest will still equal if not out-perform Dual Destruction. This is because they are so far ahead of everyone else in terms of the 9% buff. If your Priest is so bad that Dual Destruction is better, then I encourage you to rethink inviting this person to your raid in the first place.
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A note to non-warlocks: We will (should) pick our targets based on personal gain and the needs of the raid. This means picking the best target (inclusive of skill) for DPS or Healing, whichever is required. Hell, we may even pick a tank to increase aoe threat maintenance.
However, should you want to know how much we will proc Dark Intent on your behalf, I provide you with the following numbers. To calculate it for yourself, you need to know your haste scale factors, and either your total dps of DoT's OR your total dps and the percentage of that number your dots.
Total DPS + Percentage from DoT's
(387.2 x HASTE SCALE FACTOR) + (TOTAL DPS * % OF DAMAGE FROM DOTS * (1 + Percentage below)) = TOTAL SELF GAIN
Total DPS From Dots
(387.2 x HASTE SCALE FACTOR) + (TOTAL DPS FROM DOTS * (1 + Percentage below)) = TOTAL SELF GAIN
Lastly, you should know that this is entirely gear and skill dependant. For example, below you see a Demonology lock with 92.8% uptime. If he only has 15% crit, this drops to 78% uptime. If he has pathetic uptime on his DoT's (lets say 70% uptime) and only 15% crit, this drops again to 65% uptime.
Rankings by spec for uptime
Affliction (35% Crit): 99.3% Uptime (8.937% DPS)
Demonology (27% Crit): 90.8% Uptime (8.171% DPS)
Destruction (26% Crit): 90.0% Uptime (8.097% DPS)
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You can do this in simcraft now, which is how I obtained these numbers. Instructions forthcoming.