5.2 Warlock T15 Set Bonus & BiS List

[Mummer 1]

I personally don't break a set bonus until I obtain the 2pc of the next bonus. Up to you. Is your 4pc made out of 483 LFR gear or 509 heroic gear? You present an awfully loaded question...what spec are you talking about? Does your guild knock down lots of bosses for chances at other tier tokens? How well do you stack CDs with your current 80 sec DS versus if it was 120 sec?

What about 2pcT14? I have T14 Hands and Legs... Leggings of the Pulsing Blood I managed to get.

I'm pretty much decent with all three specs...

[Zagam 1,982]

The T14 2pc bonus increases overall damage by a consistent level. Increasing Incinerate/Shadowbolt/Corruption damage by a % is just a flat, small DPS gain. No gameplay changes, but effect is minimal.

Destro = 5% increase on Incinerate. At 509 ilvl, Incinerate averages about 33k DPS, so 5% of that is roughly 1500 DPS

Affliction = 10% increase on Corruption. At 509 ilvl, Corruption averages about 23k DPS, so 10% of that is roughly 2300 DPS.

Demonology = 10% increase on Corruption and 2% increase on Shadowbolt/Touch of Chaos. Corruption = 5k DPS, Shadowbolt = 12k DPS, Touch of Chaos = 20k DPS, so the total gain here is .1*5k + .02 * (12k+20k) or 500 + 600 = 1100 DPS. Note, these are all extremely rough measurements because I don't do math on rough estimates. :)

The T14 4pc bonus increases overall damage by allowing for extra Dark Soul uses. I've calculated this somewhere else, but the real gain is getting the extra uses. In a 5:30 fight, non-4pc Dark Soul uses will be 3. 4pc Dark Soul uses will be 5. DPS gain is variable and dependent on other procs and player's utilization of Dark Soul per spec.

The T15 2pc bonus increases burst potential during Dark Soul. For Destruction, you can squeeze out 5 Chaos Bolts instead of 4. This set bonus will be awesome for Destro giving it more Shadowburns during execute. For Affliction, you're going to see Haunt extended from 8 sec to 12 sec. What this will entail is lowering the number of Soul Shards required for 100% Haunt uptime during Dark Soul. Instead of 3 Haunts required previously, now you'll only need 2, and this will overlap to increase overall Haunt uptime. For Demonology, this will extend the duration you can be in Meta, but I don't see this set bonus being super useful for proper Metamorphosis utilization as you should already be getting the full duration of Dark Soul in Metamorphosis. The perk to this bonus is reduced usage of Demonic Fury so that you spend less time in Caster form after Meta. This will provide a slight lift in Metamorphosis uptime.

The T15 4pc bonus will focus on increasing overall damage by increasing resource generation during all forms and at all times to provide a sizeable lift in overall DPS. For Affliction, it's a rather dull 5% gain to MG and DS, so about a 4% overall gain. For Destruction, you're looking at about 1 out of 12 Incinerates generating double Embers. This would be compounded if this proc happened at the same time a critical strike happened generating 4/10 of an Ember. This would generate more Chaos Bolts which would be a DPS gain. Demonology's bonus would increase Metamorphosis uptime if used properly. Actual adjustment amounts can probably be simulated, but I've not dealt with that yet. I'm just going with the eyeball inspection that the T15 4pc bonus is very awesome...except for Affliction. It's awesome because it's a 4% gain, but it sucks in that you don't feel anything different.

[fastforward 0]

why u think it's a 4% dps push for affliction?

simple example:

MG+DS+extra ticks ... in best case about 45% of overall dmg ... about 2.25%

in non single target fights it's much lower. when u play with pet it's lower.

-----------------------------------------------------

and once more, why u think the 4sec crit procc of the lei shen trinket doesnt effect on affliction dots full runtime? i read posts of GC where he say's only shadow priests are a problem, and may balance druids.

[Zagam 1,982]

Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul bonuses affect the DoTs that proc off of them as well as the specific MG and DS damage. This amounts to a much larger portion of your DPS, although this will depend on random procs throughout a fight and your proper utilization of those buffs. As Affliction, you shouldn't be playing with a pet.

Using the T15H Simcraft profile, we see the following:

Agony_DS = 5955 DPS

Agony_MG = 23395 DPS

Corruption_DS = 3439 DPS

Corruption_MG = 13374 DPS

UA_DS = 5485 DPS

UA_MG = 21089 DPS

MG = 19083 DPS

DS = 9898 DPS

Sum of MG and DS effects = 101718 DPS

Total DPS = 209571

MG/DS component = 48.5%

This is during a Simcraft model, however, and I don't feel it snapshots stats as well as a great human player can. In that sense, I feel it can be modeled as a bigger set bonus, just like how I used to beat Simulated DPS values in T14 with sub-optimal gear. Snap-shotting stats is a very difficult thing to model, so the theoretical DPS gain of this set bonus is higher than modeled. This also doesn't account for what you do during Haunt uptime. Things can be swayed big time. I think the way this set bonus will play out is greatly skilled players will be in the 3-4% DPS gain while most players will see a 1-2% DPS gain.

I never said you couldn't snap shot the crit stats from Unerring Vision. I just said that the theoretical DPS gain from it isn't as great as it might seem. The problem is snap-shotting 100% crit of crappy DoTs may not be as effective as snap-shotting 13k Intellect buffed DoTs from Wushoolay's or Breath of the Hydra's proc. If you have no other procs up and only Unerring's Perfect Aim buff, then snap-shotting these DoTs and ignoring any other procs for the duration of say, Agony, will result in a DPS loss. Of course you COULD catch a break with RNG and have it proc with all your buffs live...this would create incredible DPS windows, but the uptime of this trinket is 6.3% which isn't ideal at all for snap-shotting high powered DoTs. Affliction doesn't gain any benefit from Crit aside from extra damage (Destro generates double Embers, for example).

The reason GC mentions Balance Druids and Shadow Priests is because they gain benefits from critical effects of their spells. Not sure on the specifics, but I'm pretty sure that Boomchickens could spam some powerful ability if each of their DoTs kept critting. Same deal with Spriests. Because Affliction gains no gameplay advantage to full crits on DoTs, there's no reason to balance the specialization around it.

[fastforward 0]

sry, no more sense for me to discuss this with you, because there are so much fails in what you write.

[Zagam 1,982]

Quite elaborate in your retort. You quote Ghostcrawler while I provide data. Thanks for your input, champ!

[fastforward 0]

just to show you how fail you are, champ! ^^

you say 4% overall DPS push ... when 5% (set bonus) = 4% overall DPS then u must get this bonus for 80% of your damage!

especially for you, mr. low-check-simcraft-pro: 100.000DPS, 4% = 4.000DPS, 50.000DPS (thats 50%), 5% (of those 50.000DPS) = 2.500DPS

hopefully may you understand now what kidds learn with about 10 years, simple math, champ!

[Zagam 1,982]

just to show you how fail you are, champ! ^^

you say 4% overall DPS push ... when 5% (set bonus) = 4% overall DPS then u must get this bonus for 80% of your damage!

especially for you, mr. low-check-simcraft-pro: 100.000DPS, 4% = 4.000DPS, 50.000DPS (thats 50%), 5% (of those 50.000DPS) = 2.500DPS

hopefully may you understand now what kidds learn with about 10 years, simple math, champ!

Alright, if you want to take the gloves off, it would help if you spelled things right and didn't abuse commas.

Simcraft doesn't allow for proper utilization of snap-shotting. Since you haven't provided any logs or other data other than using numbers that end in zeroes (likely doesn't cramp your brain), you probably don't understand how players can beat simulated DPS by using human reactions to procs and buffs that you can't model. With Wushoolay's trinket, in particular, you can snap-shot DoTs with an extra 13000 Intellect that might be missed in Simcraft if that proc didn't happen right as a DoT needed to be reapplied. When Simcraft told me in 5.1 that I could do 103k DPS in a single target fight and I did 125k, that showed that I could do significantly more with proper play.

The significant part is that snap-shotting buffs is for your DoTs, not the remainder part of your DPS. Snap-shotting will create a higher portion of your DPS from your DoTs, both proc'd from Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul as well as the DoTs actually ticking. Snap-shotting stats doesn't affect Haunt or your baseline MG and DS spells, so snap-shotting will make your DPS go up PURELY from the DoT perspective. Since this tier bonus buffs the DoT procs of MG and DS by 5%, you really could see a 4% gain especially with a high Haunt uptime (75%+).

TL;DR: YOU may only see 1-2% gain with the 4pc bonus but players who know what they're doing will see up to a 4% gain.

[fastforward 0]

u still just talk BS and thats all!

[Wolland 1]

Zagam, the BiS list seems to me that it is a bit Affli biased and possibly a bit outdated at the moment (i.e. we know more about trinkets), being this is a generic thread and all, thanks a bunch for all your help.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah, I'll update these a bit as things go on. I modeled it after Affliction before the patch went live because Affliction was far ahead of other specs. Hard to do the testing without personally testing trinkets. Breath of the Hydra doesn't need to be manually tested since it's just a superior version of Light of the Cosmos. Wush needs to be live tested by me before I pass judgment as well as Cha-Ye's. Manual testing of Unerring Vision has shown RIDICULOUS DPS gain potential, far and away above simulated results, so there lies my reasoning behind waiting to put up a BiS list. Not sure a BiS list even exists since secondary stat priorities change per fight and I know damn well I'm not putting a list together for every single fight. Wanting to get the Thunderforged copy will be a pain in the ass, too.

[Vile 9]

I acquired both Wush and Cha-Ye's this wednesday (finally some lucky drops!). Is there some way I can help you out with the testing, Zagam?

[Zagam 1,982]

A couple of things I'm looking for are the following:

Cha-Ye's

1) Does Chaos Bolt proc the trinket?

2) Does stacking Crit increase uptime of this trinket, and is it worth it?

*If you also have Unerring, could you test to see if the trinket procs off of the guaranteed critical spells in this 4 sec window? I know that's asking a lot, but I'm trying to cover all bases...for example, with each spec...

Destruction - guaranteed Immolate ticks...do they proc Cha-Ye's?

Demonology - guaranteed Doom/Corruption/Shadowflame ticks...do they proc Cha-Ye's?

Affliction - guaranteed criticals of all DoTs...proc Cha-Ye's?

Wushoolay's

Chaos Bolt's damage is calculated when the cast is finished, not when the spell lands; therefore, could you figure out the damage increase per stack of Wush's Lightning? You'd need to make sure all other buffs are not proc'd during this which I know would be a pain. For example:

Record damage at 3 stacks = approximately 350k

Record damage at 6 stacks = approximately 400k

Record damage at 9 stacks = approximately 450k

Replace the 'approximately' with your actual results. Then do the same thing but cast it with only Dark Soul up and no other procs. The jist here is to find out at what stacks you should unload your Chaos Bolts as if Dark Soul was live. This is to test when the optimal time to unload Embers is and whether you should start casting at 3,5,7,etc stacks of Wush's Lightning.

[Vile 9]

Cha-Ye's

1) Yes

2) I can't afford to regem my gear right now, sorry.

Wushoolay's

Chaos Bolt damage has a 15k~ discrepancy between Wush stacks with only Dark Intent up.

So with my setup I had approximately:

3 stacks = 300k~

6 stacks = 345k~

9 stacks = 390k~

With only Dark Intent and Dark Soul active the discrepancy between stacks were more or less the same.

3 stacks = 350k~

6 stacks = 400k~

9 stacks = 450k~

Edited April 5, 2013 by sallyboo

[Zagam 1,982]

So what does Chaos Bolt hit for with ONLY Dark Soul active? Then we can find the minimum stacks of Wush's Lightning to start casting CB. Thanks for the work!

[Vile 9]

With only Dark Soul up my Chaos Bolt hits for 315k~.

Here's a log from yesterdays raid with Cha-Ye's and Wushoolay's equipped (I was raiding as Affliction but the numbers might help anyway?). The respective buff names are Mastermind and Wushoolay's Lightning.

Unbuffed stats for this raid:

26091 SP

5945 haste

6192 crit

4571 mastery

Let me know if there's anything else I can help with!

Edited April 8, 2013 by sallyboo

[Zagam 1,982]

Help has been greatly appreciated, thank you.

[Zagam 1,982]

BiS profile updated for all specs as long as spec goes Haste > Mastery > Crit while hit capping. Improvements and suggestions are welcome!

[mediocregatsby 18]

Just had a raid night where I reforged haste instead of mastery. My paperdoll haste was 8336, my raid buffed haste was 25.59%. I still hit top DPS but I was getting 0.8s and 0.9s incinerate casts with a combination of procs up from backdraft, shado-pan trinket (8800 haste), and/or bloodlust, so that was some unfortunate overkill on the haste.

[gahhda 95]

Which is why I still recommend the mastery heavy build regardless of talent :P. Also, just did a big update to the warlock profiles for simc that should get reflected in the t15H raid output in an hour or so. Slightly better snapshotting for affliction, a bunch of destro snapshotting stuff, and the unerring-specific action lists are all but complete now.

Net result:

Demonology with unerring vision, now with 1.3x the wild imp opness.

(Grimoire of sacrifice is ~0.99% ahead of GoServ in full BiS :3)

[Zagam 1,982]

Also, there are rumors that the 5% "nerf" to Grimoire of Sacrifice to Demonology is a tooltip correction and not a balancing measure as they've said no balancing measures have happened for 5.3. Obviously I'm unsure of what is going on since tooltips have been wrong in the past. Since Grim of Sac for Demo incorporates so many of the abilities, I would see this as pretty close to a flat 5% nerf.

[gahhda 95]

On live its easy to test, spam fel flame a few times with no procs, sacrifice a pet, spam it a few more times, observe difference. The tooltip is correct on live, meaning it probably is a nerf on the ptr, though I haven't tested if it was ACTUALLY nerfed on the ptr, might have been datamining stuff.

A 5% nerf to sacrifice would net a 2.1538% dps loss for sacrifice, putting it at roughly ~1.5% behind service iirc. Still viable, and infact op with unerring vision cleave + some decent rng.

[jtta073 1]

522 Necklace of the Terra-Cotta Invoker

522 Home-Warding Slippers

drop from trash, so their HC 535 versions probably don't actually drop anywhere.

Going for a full haste build, you might consider Frostborn Wristwraps. The random enchantment can be 969 crit/hit/exp/mas/haste according to the comments.

[Zagam 1,982]

On live its easy to test, spam fel flame a few times with no procs, sacrifice a pet, spam it a few more times, observe difference. The tooltip is correct on live, meaning it probably is a nerf on the ptr, though I haven't tested if it was ACTUALLY nerfed on the ptr, might have been datamining stuff.

A 5% nerf to sacrifice would net a 2.1538% dps loss for sacrifice, putting it at roughly ~1.5% behind service iirc. Still viable, and infact op with unerring vision cleave + some decent rng.

Yeah, I think Unerring and Breath/Wush are Demo's BiS setup. Unerring is just too damn good. I think I'd prefer Breath's static ~8k proc for 20 seconds over Wush's 1500-15000 building proc. However, it is incredibly exciting to think about Wush's 7+ stacks lining up with Unerring. That shit will happen for some Warlock and he's going to see monster numbers. I think if I saw that, I'd pot regardless of the situation just because. 2.2% seems low for the amount of DPS that comes from the abilities buffed by Sacrifice. The only things not buffed by Sacrifice are Corruption and Doom. Not saying you're wrong...just feels on the low side. Regardless, yeah, still a good spec/grim choice.

522 Necklace of the Terra-Cotta Invoker

522 Home-Warding Slippers

drop from trash, so their HC 535 versions probably don't actually drop anywhere.

Going for a full haste build, you might consider Frostborn Wristwraps. The random enchantment can be 969 crit/hit/exp/mas/haste according to the comments.

Ah, I'm using loot tables that just pulled IDs and stats. Might be like how there were datamined heroic versions of the trash trinkets from MSV but they didn't exist. I'll find suitable replacements. Those bracers are terrible to try to go after. First you'd need the right enchants (we saw one drop that had 900 Expertise only) then you'd need it Thunderforged. Just a lot of variables.

[JvChequer 43]

I trade give away my 2TP from T14 for 1 gloves 522, i was with one 500~.

Kinda 3k dps increase for the new gloves, worth it the 10% - dmg from corruption ( kinda 2% dps increase ).