Imp Swarm Diacussion

[Cardio33 3]

I've gone through this serval times via napkin math and I cannot understand how glyph of imp swarm is not a DPS gain. Am I crazy? All these top end raiding warlocks can't be wrong right? I. Also running shards + beast lord mythic trinket, that's a lot of haste.

Let me just brainstorm some thoughts:

Generating imps via passive demonic calling every 20 sec and doom crits. We cannot alter doom crits regardless of glyph so I'll ignore that for this discussion.

No glyph - 6 imps per min, you can't change, alter, or outplay this.

Glyph - 5 imps per min, cast shadowbolt + glyph

Won't 5 imps on the opener already beat out no glyph bc it lines up with cool downs so well?

Haste effects kicker - if I always use imp swarm with haste effect, my CD on imp swarm is less than 1 1/2min. This means no glyph @ 6 min I would have a total of 18 imps. With glyph @ 6 min I have 20 imps.

[Fennalie 1]

Passive wild imp cooldown is affected by haste so its not every 20 seconds flat anymore. 

[Alkeir 1]

From my limited understanding of Imp Swarm usage, if your guild can't kill it in less than 4 minutes (or maybe it was 3?), Imp Swarm is not a DPS gain. This statement is only from my fuzzy memory of the few times I've seen people talking about Imp swarm, and may be entirely false. I have no idea, nor do I even know how to figure out if there is any math to support that. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can give it a shot.

[Cardio33 3]

So I just thought of an interesting way to use imp swarm glyph.  What if you only use it when you need it?  Otherwise let it run passively.

 

Example - Blackhand

 

I would use it on the opener and in execute phase when bloodlust just wore off and I don't have the fury for MC spam.

[Cardio33 3]

Another way to use it would be to only pop imps at execute phase.  Essentially anytime the fight has less than 1 min to go in the fight.  You could only possibly field 3 imps at that point so might as well pull 4.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Yes but that would not offset the loss of imps throughout the fight.

[Cardio33 3]

Alright let's says I use the glyph on pull and haste trinket procs or just plain SON.

That puts the passive effect on cd for 1 min. After that time you get a passive imp every 20 sec correct,0? The passive effect only disabled when glyph on Cd.

This would yield an imp gain on pull and for the entire encounter. If you only use glyph on pull.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Read the tooltip on the glyph. It adds 4 seconds onto the cooldown of Wild Imps (the passive).

[Cardio33 3]

Even with the additional 4 sec CD the glyph still wins on a 6 min encounter.  Let me use an example:

 

 

Blackhand ~ 6 min encounter

 

 

non-glyph = 18 imps

 

glyph = 19~20 imps

 

first 3 min = 10 imps

 

let it run passive till execute ~ 2 to 2 1/2 min 5~6 imps

 

pop swarm w/ less than 1 min left = 4 imps

[Cardio33 3]

It's not just an issue of total imp count, its about having them when you need it, so you don't have to fish for SF procs on opener and so you have extra fury for execute.

[Liquidsteel 279]

There's still more to consider. If you lust on pull you miss out on more imps. The cooldown is reduced by haste. So you probably get a lot more imps in the first minute than you are accounting for.

 

I don't think simple equations can work here.

 

The glyph is probably really good when you can get 2 uses out in a short period, something like Blackhand p3 I can see it being useful.