Destrustion Warlock Stat explanation needed

[gahhda 95]

On that note, RPPM trinkets also inflate haste, and when you attempt a boss 50000 times, as simc does, the effect of haste on trinket uptime is very noticable. The truth being, no one I know has ever pulled 50000 bosses, period. The rng is muuuuch more unpredictable in game than in simulations, I hate relying on stat weights now because they're horribly skewed by these terribly designed trinkets. One council pull I got 2 in a 6 minute fight, the second beind 20 seconds before the boss died, the first being 20 seconds after we pulled. Then, last week I got 5 iirc.

[Zagam 1,982]

There has been so much debate over this and its getting a little old frankly. Haste IS NOT better than mastery single target. If you really want to get 1.16% more dps, running a stat that makes the rotation horrifying, and absolutely sucks completely on aoe/cleave, then go for it, and enjoy reforging between every fight. There isn't any justifyable reasoning for stacking haste that I can see. I'd also like to note that haste has an inflated value in simc because it has perfect RoF uptime, which means there is MUCH less mana capping than realistic in game.

Mastery >>>>>>> crit/haste on cleave and aoe.

I'd also like to see proof of the destruction action list 'not spending embers properly.'

GoSac isn't *better* for demo, that isn't to say its worse either. Even when it gets *better* single target than GoServ/GoSup, its less than 1% ahead, and when its behind, its less than 1% behind. The range is so tiny that, until 5.3, it doesn't really matter what talent you run. That being said, Unerring vision makes sacrifice stupidly op on cleaving because of the # of wild imp spawns. I say 5.3 because they saw this coming and already nerfed GoSac by 5% for demo :<.

Haste benefits for Demonology:

1) Faster casts = faster Demonic Fury generation

2) Improved pet attack speed if using pets

3) Improved trinket uptimes/proc rates

4) Increased DoT ticks for Doom, Shadowflame, Corruption

Mastery benefits for Demonology:

1) 1% DPS for pets and caster form every 600 rating

2) 1% DPS for Metamorphosis form every 200 rating

I understand your point about RNG...I, also, dislike the design of the trinkets. But we play with the cards we are dealt. Mastery affects some things, but Haste affects more things. Even moreso for Destruction. Because Grimoire of Sacrifice isn't very competitive in single target DPS, Mastery loses a lot of its value. Affliction lost some value with Mastery because of the nerf to Corruption. Basically every specialization that used to like Mastery also liked Haste, but now they all like Haste and Mastery, but Haste is valued just a touch higher.

About Destruction's Simulationcraft model, there are no code lines to react to buff procs. Notice in the new Demonology Simcraft model how it reacts to Perfect Aim to apply Doom and look what happened to its DPS...it went from 190k to 212k. Right now, my current gameplay has me flexing in and out of Meta to refresh Corruption, but I generally save Meta for when I'm close to capping on Demonic Fury or a proc happens like Jade Spirit. If I were to get Breath of the Hydra or Wushoolay's, there would be a new, better proc to watch for. Rather than Meta for 2 Touch of Chaos then flex back out, I would stay in Meta for the duration of the mega Intellect proc. Destruction's model has no lines reacting to anything except Perfect Aim. While this is good because you can always get 1 Chaos Bolt off during that proc, it doesn't watch for other things. This is why exceptional players will outperform simulation models...because human judgment and reaction to procs can't be modeled with high accuracy.

[Zagam 1,982]

On that note, RPPM trinkets also inflate haste, and when you attempt a boss 50000 times, as simc does, the effect of haste on trinket uptime is very noticable. The truth being, no one I know has ever pulled 50000 bosses, period. The rng is muuuuch more unpredictable in game than in simulations, I hate relying on stat weights now because they're horribly skewed by these terribly designed trinkets. One council pull I got 2 in a 6 minute fight, the second beind 20 seconds before the boss died, the first being 20 seconds after we pulled. Then, last week I got 5 iirc.

RNG is not as awful as you indicate because of a new fix that may not be modeled in Simcraft, but is showed by Simcraft via statistics and the volume of iterations. There is a protection formula somewhere that was released by Ghostcrawler that shows as time persists, the longer you go without a trinket proc increases your chance of your next trinket proc to the point that it's almost guaranteed to happen. This doesn't happen quickly, but it protects you from REALLY unlucky lengths of time. Because Simcraft models something thousands of times, it allows the AVERAGE uptime for certain buffs to come into line. Anyone with any statistical knowledge knows that you can always get statistical outliers and things won't always line up to the average. That's the beauty of math and statistics in games like this...no one will perform exactly the same way at any particular time. All we can do is equip ourselves with the best knowledge of what we can control (mechanics, spell priorities) and let RNG play itself out.

THIS IS WHY I'VE STRESSED THAT SECONDARY STATS DO NOT PLAY A HUGE PART IN YOUR DPS. YOU CAN PLAY ANY WAY YOU WANT AND SUCCEED JUST THE SAME AS LONG AS YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND YOUR ROTATION AND PRIORITY SPELLS.

You can play a Mastery stacked Demonology build that will have higher Imp damage but lower Demonic Fury generation that results in lower Metamorphosis uptime. That may benefit you on some fights but hurt you on others. Nothing is designed the same in this game, and you have to treat each situation uniquely. Is it viable or even realistic to expect people to reforge and regem for every single encounter? No. Just go with the best option that is suitable for all hands.

[gahhda 95]

I was refering to Destruction which is what I thought this thread was about o.o.

actions+=/shadowburn,if=ember_react&(burning_ember>3.5|mana.pct<=20|buff.dark_soul.up|target.time_to_die<20|buff.havoc.stack>=1|(trinket.has_proc.intellect&trinket.proc.intellect.react)|buff.perfect_aim.react)

actions+=/chaos_bolt,if=ember_react&target.health.pct>20&buff.perfect_aim.react&buff.perfect_aim.remains>cast_time

actions+=/chaos_bolt,if=ember_react&target.health.pct>20&(buff.backdraft.stack<3|level<86)&(burning_ember>(4.5-active_enemies)|buff.dark_soul.remains>cast_time|buff.skull_banner.remains>cast_time|(trinket.proc.intellect.react&trinket.proc.intellect.remains>cast_time))

^ Current ember usage lines.

They wouldn't let me commit trinket-specific action lists, so we had to come up with an ingenious way of hiding them as homogenous action list lines. Just so happens that got commited this morning, as I said in another thread, haven't figured out how to get these to work for wushoolays yet but.

As for the trinket stuff, yes, there is a formula to 'protect' you from rng. And yet, the RNG scale is still so horrifying in game that I dread to imagine what it would have been if they hadn't put that in. One of my dk friends said 'I love watching my dps swing by +/- 30k over the course of a night on a boss, simply because my trinket uptimes where twice or half what they were last pull.' Yes, haste makes the RNG less obnoxious by increasing the chance, all I'm saying is that it is over-hyped to rely on haste SOLEY because of RPPM mechanics.

[Zagam 1,982]

I agree with you. Like I said, I hate playing with the cards dealt, but sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. I've also experienced the horrid RNG of these trinkets. 2 procs of Perfect Aim in a 5:30 fight with Heroic Jin'rohk then 4 procs in 55 seconds on the next trash pull. I figured that these trinkets would be responsible for extremely high and outbalanced parses which would cause Blizzard to nerf/buff certain aspects of gameplay solely on their piss-poor decision to implement such high RNG in the trinkets.

Thanks for your work on Simcraft profile models. I didn't catch the buff proc line for Destruction. That should help it model better, but I understand, too, that it puts it at higher mercy of RNG on singular cases.

[gahhda 95]

I'd also like to point out that, via stat plots, mastery is technically better than crit. It just so happens that gearing haste > crit > mastery allows more haste/intellect from gear options, and therefore nets higher overall.

http://4.chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=lc&chf=bg,s,333333&chtt=DPS%20Scaling|Warlock_Destruction_T15H%20Damage%20Per%20Second&chts=dddddd,18&chs=550x300&chg=20,20&chxs=0,FFFFFF|1,FFFFFF&chd=t:170122,170957,171620,172296,172995,173731,174331,175103,175732,176395,177045,177665,178381,179120,179768,180396,181134,181782,182417,183204,183828,184519,185164,185870,186566,187216,187884,188593,189255,189891,190568,191263,191941,192616,193230,194001,194627,195362,196046,196667,197335,198009,198681,199450,200107,200779,201428,202083,202808,203548,204158,204908,205442,206285,206896,207558,208263,208936,209615,210288,211023|164207,165169,165994,166921,167856,168760,169840,170600,171469,172823,173738,174323,174986,175793,176596,177388,178125,179163,179940,180717,181519,182455,183268,184158,185077,185984,186842,187692,188459,189617,190568,191755,192505,193323,193985,194910,195716,196623,197384,198356,199154,200304,201343,202128,203011,203926,204660,205598,206322,207106,207936,208801,209643,210542,211345,212095,213195,213906,214820,215521,216403|167697,168416,169184,170029,170762,171461,172267,173043,173809,174534,175249,176015,176859,177633,178333,179141,179921,180662,181411,182248,182950,183696,184420,185227,185992,186731,187473,188270,189113,189853,190568,191279,192151,192832,193654,194404,195114,195892,196768,197447,198198,199005,199699,200533,201243,202076,202821,203538,204367,205028,205854,206601,207367,208133,208888,209657,210391,211074,211959,212707,213545&chds=164207,216403&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|-7500|-3750|0|%2b3750|%2b7500|1:|164207|190568|216403&chxp=0,0,24.5,50,74.5,100|1,1,51,100&chdl=Crit|Haste|Mastery&chdls=dddddd,12&chco=F58CBA,0070DE,FFF569&chg=1.6666,10,1,3&

[Allkindsofdots 0]

Ok, so i changed up my stats a bit tonight. We did 10 pulls on horridon. No kill for us yet. I went with more mastery then crit, and haste. I build embers like crazy i will admit. Dps was alright i suppose. Here is a link to the logs. This one being my best i think.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-dwe792ur13x3kds9/sum/damageDone/?s=1892&e=2346

Some pulls dps was bad for some of the group and some we wiped because of bad heals. We couldnt get one pull with everyone on point.

So please take a look at each of the pulls and tell me if i am where i should be with dps. I did notice from looking at some other logs that my shadowburn dps seems to be a bit low. That i am sure is because everytime i tried to havoc/shadowburn something, it would die before i could get the cast off. So i ended up with a lot of wasted havocs.

I am 504 ilvl and was using grmsac for most pulls. It did seem to work a little better for me.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Allkindsofdots

[gahhda 95]

Ok, so i changed up my stats a bit tonight. We did 10 pulls on horridon. No kill for us yet. I went with more mastery then crit, and haste. I build embers like crazy i will admit. Dps was alright i suppose. Here is a link to the logs. This one being my best i think.

http://www.worldoflo.../?s=1892&e=2346

Some pulls dps was bad for some of the group and some we wiped because of bad heals. We couldnt get one pull with everyone on point.

So please take a look at each of the pulls and tell me if i am where i should be with dps. I did notice from looking at some other logs that my shadowburn dps seems to be a bit low. That i am sure is because everytime i tried to havoc/shadowburn something, it would die before i could get the cast off. So i ended up with a lot of wasted havocs.

I am 504 ilvl and was using grmsac for most pulls. It did seem to work a little better for me.

Competing with a shadow priest for KBs is annoying. On normal things die so fast that I run into that issue a lot too. Not much you can do but sit there with your finger on your shadowburn bind spamming it :P. If you find the big adds are dying too quickly as well, havocing horridon isn't a bad thing, it just means you have to do less dps to him later in the fight. Most of the parses you see of shadowburn absolutely dominating are because they're havocing horridon and cleaving with the 50/100/150/200% damage debuff he gets, which, during progression, is padding in a sense because the adds really do have priority. Don't really have time to look at the parse in depths right now but I'll try to get around to it if someone else doesn't.

[Allkindsofdots 0]

Competing with a shadow priest for KBs is annoying. On normal things die so fast that I run into that issue a lot too. Not much you can do but sit there with your finger on your shadowburn bind spamming it :P. If you find the big adds are dying too quickly as well, havocing horridon isn't a bad thing, it just means you have to do less dps to him later in the fight. Most of the parses you see of shadowburn absolutely dominating are because they're havocing horridon and cleaving with the 50/100/150/200% damage debuff he gets, which, during progression, is padding in a sense because the adds really do have priority. Don't really have time to look at the parse in depths right now but I'll try to get around to it if someone else doesn't.

Well i decided that i would not be doing any havocs on horridon, unless i was down to the last spawned add. It helped get the adds down quicker.

[Zagam 1,982]

Competing with a shadow priest for KBs is annoying. On normal things die so fast that I run into that issue a lot too. Not much you can do but sit there with your finger on your shadowburn bind spamming it . If you find the big adds are dying too quickly as well, havocing horridon isn't a bad thing, it just means you have to do less dps to him later in the fight. Most of the parses you see of shadowburn absolutely dominating are because they're havocing horridon and cleaving with the 50/100/150/200% damage debuff he gets, which, during progression, is padding in a sense because the adds really do have priority. Don't really have time to look at the parse in depths right now but I'll try to get around to it if someone else doesn't.

It's not padding at all in progression, normal or heroic. The only adds that take priority with any meaningful health are the Wastewalkers, Venom Priests, Frozen Lords, and Shamans. If you're doing so much DPS to Horridon on normal that he's getting to 30% and you pull Jalak out before the 4th door is cleaned up, then you should be doing heroic progression on the boss. That won't happen in heroic, I guarantee it. You really want the AoE cleaving to take out the lesser, more irrelevant adds while putting primary focus on your major targets. Rain of Fire, Fire and Brimstone: Immolate, Hunters, Frost/UH DKs, Boomkins, Spriests...let those things focus on taking out the smaller adds while your primary focus is taking down the important add. Padding with Shadowburn is ignoring all add priorities and focusing only on sniping KBs with Shadowburn regardless of what is up. This happens a lot, so try not to compare your numbers to those who think having a #1 parse on gimmick mechanic fights is meaningful.

[Allkindsofdots 0]

well overall I thought for a rookie Destro Warlock, doing an average of 110k dps was fairly decent enough.

On a side note: WE WERE SO CLOSE TO KILLING THAT BASTARD LAST NIGHT IT MAKES ME SICK!!!!!!!

hheh, we had the war god down to 3% before it was burn boss time. Sigh...maybe next week....This is the part I hate, failing horribly on a boss for so long and finally figuring out what was gonna work for our group, only to run out of time this week and have to wait till next Sunday to try again! ugh.

Another question for someone. I like to record our encounters using FRAPS. I am curious if anyone knows how I can not only record the video but, also record our mumble conversation. FRAPS will allow me to only record MY voice. Not ideal. :)

Thoughts?

Edited April 9, 2013 by Allkindsofdots

[Liquidsteel 279]

Click on the Movies tab when fraps is open.

Go to sound capture settings and make sure 'Record Win7 sound' is enabled. I also have 'Record external input' ticked but with 'Only capture while pushing' also enabled.

Recorded both game and Teamspeak 3 sounds perfectly. I assume mumble works the same.

[Allkindsofdots 0]

Click on the Movies tab when fraps is open.

Go to sound capture settings and make sure 'Record Win7 sound' is enabled. I also have 'Record external input' ticked but with 'Only capture while pushing' also enabled.

Recorded both game and Teamspeak 3 sounds perfectly. I assume mumble works the same.

I haver tested those settings with mumble, and you can only hear me...odd that it works with ts3 though....

[Allkindsofdots 0]

Surely someone knows how this can be accomplished? I can not quite find exactly what i am looking for online. Closest I have come is finding Virtual Audio Cable. I am thinking this is what I will need to use but, I am curious if anyone can confirm this?

[Cruzan 71]

It's not padding at all in progression, normal or heroic. The only adds that take priority with any meaningful health are the Wastewalkers, Venom Priests, Frozen Lords, and Shamans. If you're doing so much DPS to Horridon on normal that he's getting to 30% and you pull Jalak out before the 4th door is cleaned up, then you should be doing heroic progression on the boss. That won't happen in heroic, I guarantee it. You really want the AoE cleaving to take out the lesser, more irrelevant adds while putting primary focus on your major targets. Rain of Fire, Fire and Brimstone: Immolate, Hunters, Frost/UH DKs, Boomkins, Spriests...let those things focus on taking out the smaller adds while your primary focus is taking down the important add. Padding with Shadowburn is ignoring all add priorities and focusing only on sniping KBs with Shadowburn regardless of what is up. This happens a lot, so try not to compare your numbers to those who think having a #1 parse on gimmick mechanic fights is meaningful.

This is something I've been curious about is if Recount/combatlogs factor in overkill to a players dps/overall damage. If overkill isn't being accounted for then it would be an even stronger case for doing what Zagam said which is pretty solid anyways.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Cruzan

[Omaric 246]

This is something I've been curious about is if Recount/combatlogs factor in overkill to a players dps/overall damage. If overkill isn't being accounted for then it would be an even stronger case for doing what Zagam said which is pretty solid anyways.

Well tonight on Tortos I was spamming the crap out of Havoc/Shadowburn on the bats. When they get low they don't have much HP. WoL is still showing my average hit around 250k so it must keep overkill.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Omaric

[Zagam 1,982]

Recount/Skada does record the overkill, but overkill is recorded for all classes. It's just exaggerated by Shadowburn because it hits so hard. The reason that using Havoc on Horridon ISN'T padding is because he does have a pretty tight enrage timer (heroic 25 man) and any cleave you do is beneficial. If you're using Havoc on something and deliver 3 Shadowburns, none of which kill the add you're Shadowburning, then you've fully utilized the damage. The padders on Horridon are the ones that ignore the add priority and pick off the smaller adds with 100k HP left at 10% but do 450k with a Shadowburn.

[gahhda 95]

Recount/Skada does record the overkill, but overkill is recorded for all classes. It's just exaggerated by Shadowburn because it hits so hard. The reason that using Havoc on Horridon ISN'T padding is because he does have a pretty tight enrage timer (heroic 25 man) and any cleave you do is beneficial. If you're using Havoc on something and deliver 3 Shadowburns, none of which kill the add you're Shadowburning, then you've fully utilized the damage. The padders on Horridon are the ones that ignore the add priority and pick off the smaller adds with 100k HP left at 10% but do 450k with a Shadowburn.

Wouldn't really call utilizing havoc to its fullest padding, for the cost of being off the primary target for a single global you get a shadowburn cleave to horridon/the primary. If I only ever shadowburned off the priority adds, I wouldn't do half the dps :3.

[Omaric 246]

If I had my way I'd get 3 Shadowburns off on 3 different lower priority mobs while using Havoc on a high priority mob. Then the high priority is in the DAYNJA ZONE so I could spam SB 3-4 more times. Poor Shadowburn key. =(

[gahhda 95]

If I had my way I'd get 3 Shadowburns off on 3 different lower priority mobs while using Havoc on a high priority mob. Then the high priority is in the DAYNJA ZONE so I could spam SB 3-4 more times. Poor Shadowburn key. =(

^ You're missing like 5 mote shadowburns in there somewhere.

[Omaric 246]

Yeah, probably. It's Shadowburn seizure town and I forget everything that happened like Hulk.

To be realistic though, I'll just Havoc Horridon for numbers. Guilty~

Edited April 10, 2013 by Omaric

[Cruzan 71]

Wouldn't really call utilizing havoc to its fullest padding, for the cost of being off the primary target for a single global you get a shadowburn cleave to horridon/the primary. If I only ever shadowburned off the priority adds, I wouldn't do half the dps :3.

I'd say a shadowburning a 50-150k hp lil add when a priority add/horridon is havoc'd wouldn't be considered padding either as the % of overkill is a lot less. Shadowburn spam on little adds that are going to die AND you're full on embers would be considered padding imo.

[Twinkielock 15]

There are so many threads and posts here (and on MMO-Champion) my brain is starting to hurt about all these stat weights. I know we're only talking about an extra 1-2% DPS, but I am a numbers nerd. So far I've seen arguments for stacking haste, stacking mastery, and to making all 3 equal.

Would it be possible to get a universal thread here? We currently have Destro tips, simcraft, Stats, and this thread.

[Zagam 1,982]

There are so many threads and posts here (and on MMO-Champion) my brain is starting to hurt about all these stat weights. I know we're only talking about an extra 1-2% DPS, but I am a numbers nerd. So far I've seen arguments for stacking haste, stacking mastery, and to making all 3 equal.

Would it be possible to get a universal thread here? We currently have Destro tips, simcraft, Stats, and this thread.

I also have a Demonology thread and an Affliction thread. And you said it yourself...1-2% DPS swing, and it's never the same. So many variables kick in to create variances in DPS that you'll see 1-5% swings doing the same exact thing one week to the next with no reforging changes or play changes. Pick the playstyle you find the most fun and go with that. Like big numbers as Destro? Go heavy Mastery. Like huge burst? Go Mastery for Demonology. Like playing like you're on cocaine like me? Stack dat Haste.

[Twinkielock 15]

Zagam,

For your destro spec what current stat weights are you using? Do you value haste more than int? Only reason why I ask is if I get really silly with haste I can push mine past 30%