A question of secondary stats

[Duneczan 0]

Okay, this is going to sound stupid coming from someone who's played a warlock since late Vanilla. Why is it, when I switch between Demonology and Affliction, there's an rather crazy change in mastery?

 

Clearly there's basic difference between the two, because in Demo I get a base level of 6% mastery and in Afflic I get a base of 24.8%

 

When I put my gear on, in Demo I get an increase of 5.25%, while in Afflic I get an increase of 20.66%.

 

What exactly is working behind the scenes that I do not know about?

[Zagam 1,982]

Mastery scales differently on specs because of WHAT Mastery does.

 

Destruction - boosts damage of Incinerate and Conflagrate by a small bit.  Boosts Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn by a large amount.  This means it doesn't modify pet damage or Immolate meaning it doesn't affect everything, so its percentage can be higher.

 

Demonology - boosts ALL damage done in caster form by x% and boosts ALL damage done in Metamorphosis form by a larger percentage.  Also affects all pets.  This percentage is smaller than Destruction and Afflictions because it is all-inclusive damage making it affect more things.

 

Affliction - boosts Unstable Affliction, Corruption, and Agony damage by x%.  This doesn't affect Drain Soul or Haunt, so its percentage is higher.

 

Also, percentages are used to augment abilities with their coefficients in order to balance specs.  There's a lot of math in it, but that's the answer to your question.

 

You could also read the tooltip to Mastery.  That would help you understand why.

[Duneczan 0]

In the back of my mind I had a feeling that's what it was, but I wasn't exactly sure. Though I've played a warlock as my main since, as I said, late Vanilla (we're talking really late Vanilla. 2.0 Vanilla. Before the Storm Vanilla, so late Vanilla it's actually Burning Crusade without the Burning or the Crusading), the mechanics and mathematics of the class have never been important to me. It was always to have fun, play what I felt was comfortable, etc. Admittedly I'm doing a bit more raiding than I ever really did before so I probably should care but we're still a casual guild doing casual things.

 

I just prefer demonology over the others. Over destruction so much that I almost break out into hives at the mere thought of speccing into it.

[Zagam 1,982]

Over destruction so much that I almost break out into hives at the mere thought of speccing into it.

You should get that checked out.