Non hit-capped Aff lock on Elegon

[Boradan 17]

I decided to try out Affliction non hit-capped after running simulationcraft on my warlock and getting these odd stat weights:

Int 3.62

Haste: 1.88

Mastery 1.55

Hit 1.37

Crit: 1.08

Doing the reforges gave me:

Hit: 6.73%

Spellpower: 20906

Haste: 14.04%

Mastery: 53.05%

Crit: 10.53%

Heres an armory link for my character:

http://eu.battle.net...oradan/advanced

Using this setup ranked me 98th on wowprogress. Heres the breakdown:

http://www.worldoflo.../?s=6316&e=6852

128k dps isnt too shabby with a boss miss rate of 8.27%

With not having to stop and do a Combat rez, and people not screwing up on the last adds, I can probably push it up another 12k to get top 15.

Seems that is a viable build to go for after all.....

[kyoto1874 0]

will the missed dot screwed up ur rotation ?

i wanna try non hit capped build but ima bit scared of full of "misses"

[Zagam 1,982]

As a hit capped Aff Warlock, I went into P3 at 120k so with the huge damage buff, no more running, and a pure execute phase, I would have pushed 160+ and I should find out tonight after we down him.

I also disagree with your Haste push. You could have done much more DPS with a heavier Mastery build because after you are passed the 3049 rating, you get no extra benefit from haste.

[Kellhound99 0]

I bet that Wand has a lot to do with your crazy DPS. Gratz on that pull.

I have to say I've raided with quite a few different classes. Each expansion i've done something new. and I give props to any Loc that's able to maintain that sort of DPS through the difficult mechanics.

The Loc is by far the most complicated class (affliction speaking) that I have played. Shard management and watching proc's while taking care of fight mechanics is no joke.

Reading this site I have picked up over 20k DPS, though I still struggle with managing dots on some of the more complex fights.

[Zagam 1,982]

On a side note, nice job pushing that DPS and carrying 3 of your DPS. You, the Spriest, and your Hunter should let the others know that Elegon wouldn't die if you performed like they did. I hope to compete with your log tonight. See what you can do with a non-hit capped Aff on Will of the Emp and I'll see what I can do hit capped.

[Boradan 17]

On a side note, nice job pushing that DPS and carrying 3 of your DPS. You, the Spriest, and your Hunter should let the others know that Elegon wouldn't die if you performed like they did. I hope to compete with your log tonight. See what you can do with a non-hit capped Aff on Will of the Emp and I'll see what I can do hit capped.

I think I was non hit-capped on our emperor kill, but the parse wont really make any sense.

The Shadow priest decided to punt a marmot and accidentally started the encounter. Unfortunately, at the time, our off-tank (druid) was afk and hadnt been rezzed after we wiped on our first attempt.

We screwed around for about 2.5 to 3 minutes before he came back - not bothering to focus adds or anything... just generally killing stuff, but not even trying with the priority.

He came back and got rezzed and someone suggested that we should keep trying just to get used to all the mechanics of the fight. We ended up killing him !

We cleared the rest of the raid on the wednesday night, then killed emperor in 2 attempts (our first time there). Man, that was booooring till the next reset yesterday....

This week, we are on HCs, so I wont have any other 10-man normal parses until next monday.

On a side note, you still DO get benefits from haste over the soft haste cap.

You dont get any more ticks from MG or DS per channel but the duration of the channels is decreased so Haste is still an effective DPS increase over the soft cap.

As an example:

Lets say you have a boss fight, and during that fight you cast Malefic Grasp 100 times.

Malefic Grasp is, by default, a 4 second channel. Does 4 ticks for X damage and each tick causes your DoTs to tick for 50% of their normal damage. In a perfect scenario, over 100 casts, you would get 400 ticks of malefic grasp and the time spent casting the spell would be 400 seconds.

With 8.59% Haste, Malefic grasp lasts 3.68 seconds and does a tick every 0.92 seconds.In the same 400 seconds, you now get to cast Malefic Grasp 108.7 times for a total of 434 ticks. Thats an extra 8.7% damage from MG and from the DoT bonus.

The same thing holds true for Drain Soul.

Also, @Kellhound. I got the wand from that kill though. Didnt have it FOR the kill ;)

[Boradan 17]

Just got our first Stoneguard HC kill tonight and I got a glove upgrade.

Ran simulationcraft again and now mastery is starting to edge past haste for me.

New stats are :

Int 3.79

SP: 3.10

Mastery: 1.93

Haste: 1.90

Hit: 1.55

Crit 1.25

Reforge time for me....

Wont link the logs though as I was on Tile duty so only did 95k :(

Edited October 26, 2012 by Boradan

[Zagam 1,982]

Here are the logs for a hit capped Warlock. Need I say more?

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/0q40a1qw63681umb/sum/damageDone/?s=7491&e=8053

[Vortex 3]

Just got our first Stoneguard HC kill tonight and I got a glove upgrade.

Ran simulationcraft again and now mastery is starting to edge past haste for me.

New stats are :

Int 3.79

SP: 3.10

Mastery: 1.93

Haste: 1.90

Hit: 1.55

Crit 1.25

Reforge time for me....

Wont link the logs though as I was on Tile duty so only did 95k

On 25 men all ranged need to be on tiles, and I did 160k. It's a complicated fight until you understand how it goes. Just put your dots on the "active" bosses. Use KJ here to help you on dps whenever you're on tile duty.

Zagam, a hit cap lock it's a lock without stresses, but yesterday I some sims and the most strong for me was 4,759 haste rating since I can't reach closely to 4717 without sacrifce mastery and 13,41% hit rating.

1º simulation

Hit Rating-15%

Haste rating- 4759( 11,20%)

Mastery-4400

79566k dps

2º simulation

Hit Rating- 13,41%

Haste-4759 (11,20%)

Mastery- 5000

79217k dps

The 1st simulation put me with 300+ dps ahead then the 2nd simulation.

[Boradan 17]

Here are the logs for a hit capped Warlock. Need I say more?

http://www.worldoflo.../?s=7491&e=8053

Yes, you do.

Your current gear is 483 ilvl, mine was 474 ilvl on the kill.

9 ilvls is a significant dps gain

On 25 men all ranged need to be on tiles, and I did 160k. It's a complicated fight until you understand how it goes. Just put your dots on the "active" bosses. Use KJ here to help you on dps whenever you're on tile duty.

Zagam, a hit cap lock it's a lock without stresses, but yesterday I some sims and the most strong for me was 4,759 haste rating since I can't reach closely to 4717 without sacrifce mastery and 13,41% hit rating.

1º simulation

Hit Rating-15%

Haste rating- 4759( 11,20%)

Mastery-4400

79566k dps

2º simulation

Hit Rating- 13,41%

Haste-4759 (11,20%)

Mastery- 5000

79217k dps

The 1st simulation put me with 300+ dps ahead then the 2nd simulation.

300dps is negligible tbh. a 0.37% difference isnt worth the paper its written on I would just stick with the hit-cap in that scenario.

Unfortunately, due to the tanking positions, I am quite often out of range of the 2 active bosses (since we do the single swap method). Also, what AoE do you do to make KJC necessary?

25 man and 10 man are 2 different beasts. If you have all ranged on tiles, then at most, they would need to do one set of tiles each powerdown. I am doing 3-4 as we only have 2 people on tiles. Thats a significant amount of time not on the bosses. Still did top damage of the non-tanks though ;)

Edited October 26, 2012 by Boradan

[Vortex 3]

On 25 or you need do light up 1-2 waves of tiles on each powerdown.

You miss understand/read KJC it's the move spell, while casting.

MF it's the AOE. I'm using KJC when I need to light up tiles, to dont let the dots fades and cast MG.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Vortex

[Zagam 1,982]

9 ilvls isn't going to make a 30-40k DPS difference. There are so many things you can do on this fight that if you missed, your DPS would take a serious hit. Knowing nothing will miss allows you to not have to double check things to make sure your DoTs are running on everything possible.

As for not hit capping for a 300 DPS gain when talking about 72000 (0.5%), would you really still do that considering the following?

Not hit capping = 300 more DPS whem simulating 1000, maybe 10000 iterations.

Hit capping = guaranteed application of all spells, especially when it matters. Missing a Haunt during execute would neuter your DPS and healing done

Hit capping = no failure when applying SB:SoC on all the energy orbs to help other raid member guarantee their orb goes down.

Hit capping = no failure of DoT application when multi-dotting pylons for shorter Stage 2

Hit capping = no failure of DoT application when dotting up Celestial Defenders

It's just a no brainer anymore. You can simulate a DPS gain without hit capping all you want, but no human reacts to a miss like a computer. A computer simulation will INSTANTLY know if a spell missed and go on to reapply it on the next global. You just don't have that ability as a human. Just cap your hit rating or come super duper close (I'm at 14.97% - 5091 rating).

[Boradan 17]

On 25 or you need do light up 1-2 waves of tiles on each powerdown.

You miss understand/read KJC it's the move spell, while casting.

MF it's the AOE. I'm using KJC when I need to light up tiles, to dont let the dots fades and cast MG.

My bad. I did indeed misread. No idea why.

[Nikalia 1]

Madmoos (In Post Mortem on Kilgore realm) talks with me/ mentors me about lock stats since he is always #1 dps in his 25m. He and his lock buddies ever since beta and on have been running tests and sims etc etc.... and they found that about 12.1% hit is a good spot to sit at.

So many locks I see in higher end guilds are doing this -- until they get gear with so much hit they just can't get rid of it all -- and I personally am doing it and it works out wonderfully. I'm only 473 ilvl and running 12.9% hit and I hardly miss. I have yet to miss a haunt *knock on wood* and if a dot doesn't apply it has yet to mess with any part of my rotation.

The extra mastery and int you get from not having that hit is so helpful!!!! I apologize for not having any hard math to back this... just word of mouth and experience. :(

Edited October 26, 2012 by Nikalia

[Boradan 17]

It's just a no brainer anymore. You can simulate a DPS gain without hit capping all you want, but no human reacts to a miss like a computer. A computer simulation will INSTANTLY know if a spell missed and go on to reapply it on the next global. You just don't have that ability as a human. Just cap your hit rating or come super duper close (I'm at 14.97% - 5091 rating).

You are basically stating that all fights are robot fights that require instantaneous reactions to misses though, and they arent.

If you are reapplying a dot with 10 seconds to go, you dont NEED to react in the next GCD to reapply it. All you need to do is to reapply before it runs out. That gives you 10 seconds to react.. not a GCD.

If MG misses, its extremely easy to reapply within the GCD as your finger is still over the button.

As long as you arent clipping your dots just before it expires (which you shouldnt be anyways), then the instant-reaction doesnt come into it.

The only time it MAY come into things is when reapplying dots with under a second left on your procs. Missing then sux. Agreed.

With important spells like SoC on elegon as the adds spawn etc, a 5% miss chance means the odds are STILL in your favour that your spell is going to land... by a long way. 5% miss means that your spell has a 19/20 chance of landing. Good odds in my book ;)

TBH though, getting the hit cap is more dependant on the value of haste you use after the Soft Cap.

If you give haste no value after this cap, then, with my gear, I end up with 14.37% hit chance anyways.

If you still give haste a value after this cap, THEN and only then will you see your hit rating drop in favour of haste and mastery.

[Zagam 1,982]

Hey, by all means if you like gambling with a 5% miss chance, go for it. I don't like missing and scored a 22nd ranking on Elegon. Out of the top 22 of us, 21 of us are within 1% of hit cap. Take that with a grain of salt. Missing isn't just reapplying a DoT...what about missing on an initial application? That costs mana + time. A missed DoT application might induce an additional Life Tap that would be DPS later on. Malefic Grasp has a <4 second channel. At what point are you trying to reapply it only to miss and get to reapply it without it falling? You'd have to try to reapply it after two ticks giving you 1.5ish seconds to react to a miss. Seeing your global being at about 1.4 seconds, you can't possibly vouch for reapplying Malefic Grasp in that window reliably while worrying about other mechanics in a fight. I had a Haunt do 503k damage...what if that missed? Because of the travel time, I won't know until it hits Elegon...but does it matter? I lost the Soul Shard anyways. Bye bye 25% damage buff. Now we're talking about a miss that costs another global if you have another Soul Shard meaning you'll miss out on 500k damage + 1 tick of each DoT from MG. If you don't have a Soul Shard, it costs you the 500k hit, 25% damage buff, 1 tick of each DoT, and possibly a close kill on an enrage mechanic.

Implying robot fights? Not sure how you got that. What I'm saying is when you go to Soul Swap: Soulburn, one or more DoTs can miss. If you're like me, you SS:SB, then immediately go into MG. If you start to channel MG and one of your DoTs aren't there, that's lost DPS due to not being hit capped. The value of your MG drops because you're only generating two DoTs, not three. Now you'd have to stop your MG cast, reapply one of the DoTs you missed, then go back to MG. If you're a computer simulation, it knows IMMEDIATELY that it missed and reapplies the DoT. Only a computer can perceive things in time less that .03 seconds. That's just knowledge of human biometrics and ergonomics. I will vouch for hit capping until the day I get embarrassed by my DPS with someone not hit capping.

[Boradan 17]

I think we are talking at cross-odds here.

I DO actually agree with you that being hit capped is preferential. I probably didnt make that clear. I was just saying that it isnt quite as big a deal as you are making it out to be if you arent hit capped. Yes - non hit capped brings more rng into the game, but it has potential to out DPS a standard build. It also has the potential to do significantly less.

Being hit capped means you will do consistently well. Non hit capped means you can do AMAZING or amazingly badly. but generally it will be in and around the same area as a standard build.

Regarding your argument about the missing. Yes. I agree with them. All equally valid and true. BUT. Simming shows that even taking these factors into consideration, non hit capped still has the potential to out DPS hit capped.

If in a sim the cast is SB:SS, the next spell will immediately be a MG. There is a lag setting in Simulationcraft, and setting this above 0 means that the machine HAS to wait a GCD + the lag before reacting. Because of that, it falls into human abilities to react. Again, with SB:SS the instant you cast, you can see if a DoT has failed. It will be GCD before MG is cast, so theres still a 1.4 sec window to react. Not 0.03 secs.

The mana cost and time cost you mentioned are taken into account in the sims. There is NO circumstance in which you only have .03 seconds to react. The CGD is, as you say 1.4 seconds. THAT is the time you have to react to a miss. Unless its UA which misses as this has a cast time longer than the CGD, but that only applies if you are manually casting your first MG on the target and not SB:SS. If its a re-application, you can still reapply it befre it runs out.

The majority of your argument relies upon the intiial application of DoTs. That happens ONCE per mob. On boss fights with no Adds, that is the first SECOND of a fight. after that, you only have to worry about haunts missing and causing a DPS loss as everything else will be a reapplication, not an initial application. Again, this is factored into the sims.

Hit capped is going to be preferential for 90% of warlocks (or more), but non hit capped is still viable.

[Zauxst 1]

Just in case you haven't yet noticed, most of the adds are lvl 92, so when multi dotting in heroic raids it's good to have a minimum for lvl 92 hit cap.

Addons like "Tell Me When" or "Power Auras" will ensure that when you will miss on a boss, you will react in time. Besides. You don't have to react in 0.3 seconds when you have a global cooldown (as a tip).

[Boradan 17]

Just in case you haven't yet noticed, most of the adds are lvl 92, so when multi dotting in heroic raids it's good to have a minimum for lvl 92 hit cap.

Addons like "Tell Me When" or "Power Auras" will ensure that when you will miss on a boss, you will react in time. Besides. You don't have to react in 0.3 seconds when you have a global cooldown (as a tip).

I use Forte Xorcist for that.... biiiig timer on top of the target frame lets me know immediately when a spell misses, even if its a re-application of a DoT

[Vortex 3]

I will vouch for hit capping until the day I get embarrassed by my DPS with someone not hit capping.

That's why I bashing my head against a wall all the time. The lock from my guild it's always on top 1 and he have around 11% and one some his items, he reforge hit-mastery/ hit-haste. That's why!

He is always the number 1 on meters with 11% hit rating!!!

You can check logs: http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/9357

However Im not sure if I go with 4198 or 4717 since my item level it's 478...

He have 4400 haste rating and 11% hit rating! And he pawn meters... He dont care too much about stats tbh... It's sloopy the way how he reforge is gear.

Edited October 29, 2012 by Vortex

[Zagam 1,982]

Everyone who raids seriously and has progression raids based on their own preference. I prefer hit capping because on top of all the things I have to worry about as a Warlock, I also have to lead my raiders, manage cooldowns, and call other things out. My plate truly is full. It helps to remove one worry, even if it's a minor (<1%) DPS loss. Any raider who gets to focus only on his DPS, survival, and responsibilities will be given more leniency in their stat management with less negative consequence.

[Zauxst 1]

Hello Zagam, while I do understand half of your 'frustration' (methaforic), in a proper enviroment anyone can be his own leader. I guess this subject will be discussed in a different post.

I have runned some sims and depending on gear to gear the scales are different. Such as if you have Relic of Yu'long and the Elegon trinket (care-name) the dps increase would be coresponding as with all the proper procs and cd's, corruption, agony and unstable affliction damage will be arround 250k (on tooltip, and tested on Garajal hc) because of the increase mastery and haste that you will have from neglecting the hit.

The only true problem regarding -hit% is that you will have issues with haunt maintainance. If you renew your corruption durring bloodlust (and if you pop Demon Soul) you will get 4 shards guarantee during this 'wrecking' phase.

EDIT: I have runned multiple tests with various gear (on simcraft, and the gear was build with the help of askmrrobot.com) and the difference seems rather low, between a hit-caped lock and a non-hit. As a rather confirmation I'd suggest to actually go hit-caped.

Edited October 31, 2012 by Zauxst