TapTapPewPew

All Official Like...

2008-09-15T09:45:00.001-07:00

Sweeeet...

Wow

2008-09-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Coolest Set EVER! Thanks to MMO Champion.

Randomness

2008-08-22T11:06:00.000-07:00

Wow... I fail, I meant to link this ages ago - Rhoelyn, who has taken great delight in keeping us hanging on with her wonderfully emotive mini-comic strip posts here and here, has made a World of Warcraft Meme post. She describes exactly what a "meme" is in detail, basically its an art thing - think "mime", minus the desire to punch someone in the face and giggle maniacally. Go show her some love and hopefully we'll see more of her work in the future.

I've seen a few people posting around the place naming theme songs for their toons (one of the more recent shared topics suggested by the good people over at Blog Azeroth); the first thing that comes to mind for me is the climax of Karmina Burana by Carl Orff - one word, EPIC. Yes, I do understand how many cool points I lose for that, so let me make it up by linking my favourite version when it was used in a Carlton Draught advertisement. My priest has a much more laid-back look on life, and would probably be better suited with something like this (WARNING: once that song gets into your head, the only way to remove it is with a fork; say what you like about them, the Finnish know how to get down.)

Lastly, I've been asked a couple of times now about my thoughts on WotLK talents and what-not. As I said in a round-about way in the comments of Bristinie's post here, as it currently stands today, I think the new Destruction tree is a little messed up so I'll reserve any in-depth review for now. I do get what they're trying to do, but I'm willing to bet my lunch money there are going to be some subtle yet telling changes to a few talents there before D-Day. I am thrilled at the possibility of moving away from standard SB spam, but the talents need to mesh a little better before I think too heavily about them. Once it feels a little more complete to me, I'll be all over it. Playing the beta holds no interest for me however; pleasure-delaying is a personal hobby of mine. Oh, this, however, excites more than I'm comfortable admitting... (wowhead link here, but its only the pattern, they don't seem to have the item in their database as yet). Engineering was the first profession I took on my first toon and I've never been sorry, my fingers start twitching every time I see a new doo-hickey to build.

Edit: Double fail, this was another post I had been saving to put up - my favourite mage's ideas for new achievements.

Appetite for Destruction

2008-08-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Recently during the course of a heated, emote-filled in-game discussion, someone had the gall to utter the following in my presence...

"But everyone knows that Destruction locks are terrible for farming right?"

Pfft hardly - this is a very common misconception, its one of those statements that needs a "relatively" inserted at a crucial juncture there somewhere. I think the Affliction lock is probably the best mana-based farmer there is, with Dark Pact and judicious use of well timed drains and taps, you can seriously farm for days on end without ever needing to stop for a break, and I don't pretend we can reach those heights. Demonology builds are no slouches in the ezy-mode farming stakes either, having an axe-wielding maniac by your side certainly has its advantages. In my (not-so) humble opinion however, the Destruction lock - played correctly, utilising our strengths to allow for our weaknesses like all good players should - absolutely gives most other mana users a serious run for their money, and in a majority of cases will out-perform most mages on an even playing field for pure longevity.

Right, so farming is the repetitious killing of certain (usually) non-elite mobs within a location, for some kind of pre-set goal; maybe involving some kind of drop, reputation gain, daily quests completion, whatever. The point is that its not raiding, its not 5-manning, and it is most certainly NOT difficult - your dps maximization abilities play second string importance to economy of killing. Being a competent farmer means you are able to spend a maximum time killing the desired mobs, and a minimal time on your butt eating and drinking. Farming can be tedious enough without needing to sit and drink every 5 minutes; it is the chore portion of the game. In essence, its about stretching that mana pool as far as it will possibly go.

There are 3 basic methods to keep your mana pool overflowing:

Mana regeneration - Requiring Spirit or mp5 gear, both of which lock gear inevitably epic fails at. Additionally, lacking a talent that allows mana regeneration while we cast, this aint the method of choice for us, so I'll leave it be.
Mana replenishment - Either through some spell or talent for regen mana, such as Evocation, Dark Pact, Imp Drain Soul or yes, Life Tap, or through the consumption of pots and mana gems. We do have some definite possibilities in this arena...
Mana conservation - The best way to preserve mana is also the most obvious: not needing to use it in the first place. This is the biggest advantage of the destruction lock, our potential for mana conservation by needing a minimum of casts to achieve our ends (Peace! Thru superior fire powah!.

The easiest way to take care of your mana woes if you're a destruction lock that isn't spec'ed shadow mage, is the wonderful talent Improved Drain Soul. This talent is 10 shades of awesomeness, and as long as you remember to make every kill with your Drain Soul, you are on the proverbial Ezy Street. The kills may not be as fast as going all guns blazing, but it is a continual stream of killing until you just... can't... take... eet... any... mo...

For the rest of us that are spec'ed 21/40, life is not quite as simple, but still manageable. The talent that allows us to keep extending farming life is (obviously) Life Tap, the second is that wondrous talent I keep coming referring to as the most unappreciated talent we have - Soul Leech. Whether for raiding or farming, this talent is gold. So many people spec away from it these days, and all I can do is sadly shake my head. The secret to this talent is making sure you are ready to use it - you never know when its going to proc, so tap regularly, never be at 100% health, and retroactively make use of it. Every proc of Soul Leech that you don't use is wasted mana. If you add a Death Coil every 2 minutes (no, you don't have to be in PvP to use it), and we're talking some very decent mana regen - I haven't even mentioned life drain or mana drain, and personally its very, very rare I'd use the drains while farming, they're kind of useless while you're getting beat on and fear is just wasted mana and time imo (remember we're only talking about farming here, right?).

Its hard to quantify or put some theory-crafting behind all this, so I'll go with a real world example. I've been clocking my 10 dailies out on the Isle lately, and my lock's best time is just under 40 minutes without really pushing, and the worst a (metric) smidge over 50 (a good portion of which is just wasted trying to get those damn keys to drop from the snake-heads). The Wretched rarely last more than 2 sb's; if they are still on their feet, a light wanding cures them of verticality. Nothing else lasts more than 3, maybe 4 sb's for the occasional Myrmidon. Nothing gets close enough to do any real damage, so running with a low health pool isn't an issue. During this time, its rare I'd sit and drink or bandage more than once.

Just to be clear, this isn't a measuring contest - all I really want to do is outline that just because you're destruction doesn't mean you can't farm; you can actually farm far more efficiently than most. No, we don't compete with some builds that are more suitably equipped such as an Affliction lock (and I'm not even going to talk about hunters), but we are on at least an even playing field with any other mana user out there.

Edit: Having a read through the comments and the general consensus is that sac'ing your VW is another key to mana efficient farming, and this is something I agree with and really should have put in the post. Personally, in keeping with my laws of mana conservation and basically just to be contrary, I usually farm with my imp out - its gives me another life tap's worth of health (no, not really, but at least most of a life tap), and its like having a double wand going, often saving me one more sb on various mobs. However, as usual, test it out see what works - if it makes you feel good, do it!

Bristinie's Corner

2008-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

You may remember Bristinie from such posts as l2demo part 1 and l2demo part 2 on my blog, where he selflessly gave of his knowledge for the betterment of demonology locks every where; well, he finally took the plunge and created his own little corner of the web right over here. His first real post is about some of the love you can expect to see for Demonology locks in WotLK, and how it looks like its going to benefit your raid. Head on over and read between the lines for some barely concealed innuendo about a man and the unquestioning love he has for his nasty ass demon.

Touching... So, so touching.

Threat 101; Raiding-style

2008-08-11T10:53:00.000-07:00

As an end-game raiding Shadow Mage, life is generally pretty easy... We have very little to worry us in terms of cast rotations (sprinkle liberally with shadowbolt, with just a pinch of Immolate for flavor); our mana conservation will rarely give us issues in a good raid group; we are the least squishy of all the squishies; and lastly it should be obvious to anyone that has spent even a small amount of time watching us weave our magic, we have sex appeal out the wazoo.

The trade-off is our threat production - give us a nice little run of crits and there is no class that can match the raw threat production capabilities we have at our disposal. Every Shadow Mage worth their soulshards will live life continually on the edge of the threat list, constantly taking personal time out to ensure we don't pull agro.

Generally speaking, the threat rules are the same in 5 man, 10 man and 25 man groups, with one significant difference in 25 man raids (and the occasional 10 man) - if you use Soulshatter after you have pulled agro from a tank, you used it too late. There is the obvious reason that most end-game raid bosses will one shot any clothy, so a little lag or a resist (yes, Soulshatter can and will be resisted) means you just wasted a soulshard and you have a repair bill... There is the secondary reason that upsetting your tanks by challenging their virility is never smart. The main issue however deals directly with game mechanics, and the good of the raid in general.

To pull agro off your tanks you must:

Be within melee range and do more than 110% of the tank's threat.
Be outside of melee range and do more than 130% of the tank's threat.

Using my raid group as an example, there will be 2 other locks and at least one more mage riding the threat wave well over the 110% mark, all standing around in a nice little group. A well-timed Soulshatter if I pull agro may very well save me, but I run the very real chance of having just condemned one of those others around me who may be within melee range now that the boss has moved. With the relatively minuscule number of other things we have to manage in our standard boss fight, there is no excuse - Soulshatter early, this not only removes your risk of living on the edge for a while and lets you be free with your dps for a much longer time period, but it also means on most boss fights that you will have the opportunity to shatter again later in the fight once your cd has finished.

Bottom line is once you are raiding 25-man content, you should no longer think of your Soulshatter as a "get out of jail free" card; by now, it is a "you may lay down smack longer" button and it should be treated as such.

Summertime Blues

2008-07-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is a slight sideways shift from my general posting topics, based on a couple of discussions I've been having in game with different people over the past couple of weeks regarding guilds, discussions which feel eerily similar to ones I was having this time last year, and the year before that...

News flash - during Summer, your guild attendance will fall to an all time low. At least for US based servers, it happens to every guild, every year, its the way of things. If you're looking for an excuse to leave your guild, this is the perfect time to find that excuse. Raids will be canceled, tempers will fray, raiders will move on to "greener" pastures. It happens every year.

Anyway, this is a post to encourage those of you sitting on the fence, still considering moving on to another guild due to your current guild having some number issues, to exercise as much patience as you can before taking that plunge. Remember, you're not the only one that is missing raiding, and if you can wait it out another few weeks it will almost certainly return to normal. Yes, some raiders will move on and you will probably lose a few people; other people will leave their guilds and perhaps find a home in yours. Some people that will "upgrade" to a bigger raiding guild will find that once the Summer is over, they're having a hard time getting a start all of a sudden - mainly because even the bigger guilds will lose people through the Summer, only to have them come back once things return to normal.

The bottom line is just think it through, and don't make a rash decision simply due to some raids being canceled over a handful of weeks. In most cases this is going to be a temporary situation, and things will return to normal before you know it.

Of course, this isn't a blanket answer that is going to be the correct choice for everyone - I mainly just wanted to make it clear, especially for people that might be in their first year of the game and may not have been through this before - that this is business as usual, the sky isn't falling, if you've been happy where you are until now then you should seriously consider just grinning and baring with things just a little longer. I say go get a tan while the getting is good :)

l33t

2008-07-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

wowguidance.com got hacked. Yep, some hacker actually thought a) taking down a blogger would prove beyond all reasonable doubt that their testosterone production facilities far exceeded that of your average nobody and b) it was such an accomplishment to do so that they should advertise this fact to the world.

Personally, I think this deserves all the bragging rights of bank robbers holding up some girl scouts going door-to-door selling cookies, but that's just me. I hope the guys at wg bounce back.

STOP THE INTERNET!

2008-07-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

We have a winner! Thanks to everyone for trying, but, well, you failed. Better luck next time.

Now that its all over, all you people down LA way head down to the Museum of Natural Arts and tell me how awesome this is when you're seeing it live. /totally jealous

Edit: Umm... Yeh, I don't even know where to start...

Destructive Peach

2008-07-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

Saresa is awesome because...

a) She is Australian
b) She guest-starred in the latest Epic Dolls podcast and did a fantastic job of flying the destruction flag
c) While doing b she actually gave me a mini-shout-out but was too nervous to remember the name of my blog correctly /roflmao - much love, it was definitely funnier that way anyway ;-)
d) She supports the (proven inferior) New South Wales rugby league team

Hint: It sure as hell aint (d)...

/doubleThumpChest
Represent!!

Great job Saresa, enjoyed listening to you straighten out those that are spec impaired, encore! :)

Macro Madness

2008-07-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

In the before times, I made a post about warlock crowd control and included what is my favorite macro, the Seduction Macro. This macro single-handedly, overnight, turns a 15 second one-shot wonder into a veritable crowd controlling machine. For the uninitiated, here it is in all its glory, and if you want to read more about it check out that old post here.

#show Seduction
/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/petstay
/petfollow
/stopcasting
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,exists,harm] Seduction; Seduction

Three times in just over a week I've had variation of this macro pointed out to me as a replacement; I have seen it before, but someone must have posted it somewhere important recently because its rearing its not-quite-ugly-but-definitely-of-questionable-appeal head again.

To be clear (and yes, I will post the macro in a second), there is a place for this macro. It doesn't use focus targets, so in select situations this could actually be a preferred macro, as it leaves your focus target free to use on, say, a banish or a fear target. However, and this is where my major concern is - if your Seduce breaks early, which it will, repeatedly, you're screwed. This macro is an addition to your arsenal for select use at times when you may need to be crowd controlling more than one target; you absolutely should not replace your existing seduce macro with this for general use, unless you are seriously asking for trouble.

Right, hopefully that's clear enough, so here's your alternate seduce macro -

#show Seduction
/assist pet
/petstay
/petfollow
/stopcasting
/cast Seduction
/targetlasttarget

The problem is with the "assist pet" line to get your seduce target. If your seduce breaks early, or you get distracted and aren't on the ball with renewing it before it goes down, your pet will drop its target and you will need to manually find your target and re-seduce it; this is a wipe in the making if you are seducing an important mob.

WotLK Talent Tree?

2008-07-10T08:18:00.000-07:00

Umm... yeh, apparently enough is known by the good folks over at wowhead for there to now be a fully working talent tree... I'm with the cat.

Strictly for the purposes of post-padding, let me also state that Avatar is total eye-crack... I finally got around to getting the entire series a few days ago and haven't had a full night sleep since - learn from my mistakes people... "Its only another 20-some minutes for another episode" is a dangerous line of thinking that only ends in tears.

Edit: New site that appears to be an alternative to Imba - Wow-heroes. Seems to be better laid out and looks little slicker than Be.Imba, without a couple of the extra bits of functionality. Its very early days for the however, I'll be keeping an eye on them to see where they take their app. Thanks to BBB for the heads-up.

Edit: Frakkin' Toasters

Friends Don't Let Friends Cast Conflagrate

2008-07-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

In my final (HAH! Third time I've said that) post on cast rotations for the gentle Destruction Lock, I've been asked about what Conflagrate does and whether its worth including in your cast cycle. Conflag is one of those spells that looks amazing on paper - use up one tick of a DoT that is about to expire to do some nice burst damage with an insta-cast spell; in practice though it is a different story, with the GCD being the great equalizer once again. The answer to the question is a definitive no - conflag will only ever lower your dps when included in a regular cast rotation. There is a caveat or two to this statement that I will cover later, but I'll cover off the numbers first before confusing the issue.

I'll use the same basics that I've used in my other casting examples that started here, but the basics are +1000 dmg from gear, with a Fire Mage and Shadow Priest in tow (check out that original post if you would like a refresher on all the set up behind the casting). Conflagrate is an instant cast spell, but it does still invoke the GCD, so for DPCT I'll be using 1.5 secs.

Conflagrate

Direct Dmg: 710
Direct Dmg Gear Bonus: 1000 x 42.86% = 429
Total Damage = (Direct Dmg Base + Gear Bonus) x CoE x Crit x Misery x Imp Scorch
Total Damage = (710 + 429) x 1.1 x 1.25 x 1.05 x 1.15 = 1891

Note that this time however, we have to take into account that you use up a portion of the damage you would have done with your Immolate DOT; in perfect casting conditions I'll assume it was only the last tick of the DOT. Again taking numbers from my original post here, the dot component of Immolate does 1681 in total. Damage is inflicted every 3 seconds over 15 seconds duration, so...

Immolate Damage per Tick: 1681 / 5 = 336

Conflag Total Damage: 1891 - 336 = 1555
Conflag DPCT: 1555 / 1.5 = 1037

As you can see if you compare with my SB DPCT values in my post here (1309 if you just want to take my word for it), the dpct for Conflag falls well behind, and has the added disadvantage of doing nothing to keep your ISB debuff up.

It must be said that there are uses for Conflag - in my experience for a pvp destruction build where burst damage is where its at, it is gold (hassle Megan if you'd like some more information there, I'm going from feel only and PvP is not my forte so I'm open to being proven wrong). Also for trash clearing, when a mob is almost dead and your Immolate is not going to get to run its full course, then it makes sense to conflag if you have spec'ed that way. Of course by no means should you spec for Conflag just for trash dps, but if you have it anyway then use it.

Bottom line is that there are some extremely valuable if under-rated talents around the same level that will serve you far better in any raiding PvE build than Conflag (eg Soul Leech, possibly the most under-utilised talent in the destruction lock's arsenal). As always, if you have any questions or have an issue with my maths, let me know :)

Oh and lastly, apologies for the lack of posts of late and for taking so long responding to this question - real life ftl. Should hopefully be back to a regular posting schedule again now.

Edit: In an issue very similar to one I discussed with Nibs a while ago on one of her posts, I've found two separate values for Conflagrate base damage values. Wowwiki.com reports the damage as 632 - 788; wowhead.com reports it as 579 - 721. I've gone with the figures from wowwiki.com until I get in-game and can check it out for myself, so my damage values for Conflag above may even be a little high if wowhead are reporting the correct damage values. If I'm wrong then the result is even more against Conflag, so I'll leave this post up regardless.

2.4.3 PTR Patch Notes - Death of CoS?

2008-06-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Wow... The latest ptr patch notes have some very interesting changes, but the one that grabs the eye for me at least is the removal of CoS, with the benefits being moved to CoE (ie CoS and CoE merged into one curse, CoE). I'm a little taken aback - no question it is a Very Good Thing, but... umm... why? How is/was this ever an issue? *shrug* Guess I'll just say "thanks Blizz", smile and move on, sitting here looking a little bewildered.

On a slightly lesser note, Summon Felsteed is now going to be available at level 30. Yup, 10 levels earlier than everyone else (except Pali's, who have the same change forth-coming for Summon Warhorse). I can almost taste the salty tears already, especially in the level 39 twinksville bgs.

Edit: Thanks to Brendan for correcting my grave oversight and pointing out that mounts are now going to be available to everyone at 30. I blame low caffeine levels, new resolution: no more posts before 10am. Actually, no more thoughts, period.

For a more in depth look at everything, go check out Horn's review.

Yeh, I know, a lot of these things never make it past the PTR, but speculating is good for the soul (procrastination IS king, after all). Besides, it did give me a valid reason to put up a post using that cool rearing horse pic... Now if only I could remember where I got that thing from >.<.

Edit: Thanks anonymous, that pic is from the cover of Talisman of Death

Warlock Bloglist

2008-06-17T07:54:00.000-07:00

For those not viewing this in a reader, you may notice I've revamped my bloglist over on the right hand side there (as per the pic). For starters I've split it into two, warlocks and wish-they-were-warlocks, and for the warlock list I'm using the new blogspot blog-list functionality, which I'm pretty happy with. It will only display how many I set it to at any given time, and I'm ordering it by time of their last post (the alternative choice is alphabetical - no manual ordering which may be an issue for some). I can also choose to include the title of their most recent post, and a snippet if I choose (for the moment I'm just going with the title, the snippet blew out the size of the list a little too much for my liking). If you click on the "show all" link underneath, the bottom slides down to reveal everyone in the list without reposting the page - pretty neat implementation.

Now, as it does only display a certain number of blog links until you hit the "show all" link at the bottom, that leaves me in the nice position of no longer worrying too much about how many people I have on there. Warlocks - if you're not on that list (or you know someone that isn't) let me know, come one, come all. Admittedly I haven't gone through my feed-reader list to make sure I've copied everyone over (hey, I was just testing it out), so there are no doubt many of you out there that I do read regularly that I haven't put on there yet :)

Shout-Outs

2008-06-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

Malsorian - All you affliction locks out there that are looking for some 25 man raiding advice, this is your site. I stumbled over this blog only 4 or 5 weeks ago when she was apparently having a break from posting, and assumed I'd discovered her too late... Just today I noticed her feed delivering me some love again, so head over there and check it out. Yes there are a lot of raiding guides around, but the closer you get to the end game the rarer becomes the gentle affliction lock, so if that's your thing head over and ask questions of one of the few that keeps that flag flying.

World of Warcraft Macros - Full of great macro information, and personally I'd love to see this become the one-stop shop for all your macro wants. Head over and check it out, and let them know if you have any goodies to share.

Outlandish - Ok... I mentioned Twisted Nether and The Instance last week, both very good and well respected podcasts that have some very thought provoking content, while still keeping things light hearted and entertaining. Outlandish is something.... ummm... different. Special. As in the "Special School" or "Special Bus" kind of special. They're not for everyone. If you didn't "get" the donkey show in Clerks 2 (or Kevin Smith in general), look elsewhere. They are annoying, they can go on and on and on with total crap, and more than once I've just wanted to yell at them to shut the hell up but... I... just... can't... stop... listening! I get the mental image of a bunch of stoners sitting around amusing the hell out of each other while keeping a general WoW-kinda theme, who just happen to be recording at the same time. Bottom line, its a bunch of goofy guys hanging out having fun, and at least a couple of times a show I've found myself LoL'ing in real life despite myself... Yes, its *that* kind of show - you have been warned, don't blame me.

CoA vs CoD

2008-06-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

There always seems to be something more to say about cursing... Not quite true on this occasion as I have written about this before, but it is something I was asked about in-game and a topic I've wanted to give its own post for a while now, as it can be a little confusing for NubLocks*.

Like I said, I have spoken about this before, in Part II of Bristinie's post about l2demonology here - I'll be using the same example as it does seem to highlight the difference very well, and doesn't need much deeper theory-crafting than simple cast times.

CoD - Instant cast, with a one minute cd. In two minutes worth of fight, that's two casts, total overhead for casting is just the gcd which is 2 x 1.5 seconds, 3 seconds in total.

CoA - Instant cast, with a 24 sec DoT. It is vital to remember that CoA damage increases the longer it is active, doing fully half of its damage in its last 4 ticks, or in the last 8 seconds that it is active. Its always best left to run its full course to get full value for casting. Over a 2 minute fight you can cast 5 full CoA's; insta-cast means the cast time is again on the gcd, so 5 x 1.5 secs, or 7.5 secs

So, the difference in time spent casting between the two curses over just a 2 minute fight is already 4.5 secs - that's 1.8 additional shadow bolts you could have cast. Using the average Shadow Bolt damage figure we worked out here, that's 1.8 x 3273 = 5,891 potential damage gone begging.

Now, to throw some numbers into the mix... For our 2 min fight and using my usual +1000 dmg figures -

Total Dmg with CoA:
Total Dmg = 5 x (CoA + Dmg x Spell Coefficient) x CoS x ISB x Succy Sac x Misery x Shadow Weaving
Total Dmg = 5 x (1356 + 1000 x 120%) x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.15 x 1.05 x 1.1
Total Dmg = 20,540

Total Dmg with CoD:
Total Dmg = 2 x (CoD + Dmg x Spell Coefficient) x CoS x ISB x Succy Sac x Misery x Shadow Weaving
Total Dmg = 2 x (4200 + 1000 x 200%) x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.15 x 1.05 x 1.1
Total Dmg = 19,927
If we include the extra shadow bolt damage...
Total Dmg = 19,927 + 5891
Total Dmg = 25,818

So the numbers are pretty clear - while CoA does have a slightly higher dps, its shorter duration will actually cost you in a longer fight. On the other hand though of course, if a mob/boss isn't going to last a minute then you get absolute zero value for casting CoD. Use your judgment, and for close calls its probably better to err on the side of CoA - at least then you will still be doing some damage even if you misjudge how long the mob will live.

Edit: As Rubella correctly points out in the comments, my numbers are done from a very destruction-based point of view, and the numbers will vary if you're Affliction spec with Shadow Mastery. I *believe* the numbers will still swing in the favor of CoD but not as heavily as they look above; I'll come back and update the calculations as soon as I get a little time (hopefully overnight), check back soon.

Edit: Again thanks to Rubella, I've updated the figures above to include all the goodies (sac'ed succy, CoS, etc) I talked about in my last theory crafting session. It complicated things a little more, but I feel better about it now at least.

The Affliction Addendum

Normally I leave affliction out of my calculations - as I've said before, I roll destruction these days even if I am a demonologist at heart, and these are the two specs I know well and try to focus on; there are many more Affliction lovers around the place that know how to roll with that spec far better than I could pretend to. On this occasion however, after further thought and some telling corrections from Rubella, I'm going to rework my numbers based on Affliction, simply because it does quite significantly change the outcome of my little example.

I'm going to assume an Affliction spec with Imp CoA, Shadow Mastery and lacking Ruin and Sacrifice, but still keeping Imp SB. This makes a large difference with CoA dmg, and reduces the damage for Shadow Bolt (note I'm not going to redo the shadow bolt maths here, if you want to check my calculations go to my Imm post here and making the value for crit 1.125 instead of 1.25 - without ruin the crit damage is halved, and remove the Succy Sac. The value for SB becomes 2817 per cast.).

Total Dmg with CoA:
Total Dmg = 5 x (CoA + Dmg x Spell Coefficient) x CoS x ISB x Misery x Shadow Weaving x Imp CoA x SM
Total Dmg = 5 x (1356 + 1000 x 120%) x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.05 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1
Total Dmg = 21,611

Total Dmg with CoD:
Total Dmg = 2 x (CoD + Dmg x Spell Coefficient) x CoS x ISB x Misery x Shadow Weaving
Total Dmg = 2 x (4200 + 1000 x 200%) x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.05 x 1.1
Total Dmg = 17,330
If we include the extra shadow bolt damage...
Total Dmg = 17,330 + 5071
Total Dmg = 22,401

As you can see, for an Affliction spec the difference is MUCH closer - it becomes very much a line ball decision. Personally I'd still lean towards CoD for the fire-and-forget factor (yes, the longer I live without dots the lazier I become), but I couldn't fault anyone for sticking with CoA. Rubella does also say in the comments that CoA scales better as your gear improves, so as always its worth your time to substitute in your own numbers and see how things add up.

*taps foot waiting for Rubella to confirm/deny calculations*

* Note that "NubLock" is a term of endearment... You're all just so cute in your fledgling state, starting to cause the odd grimace of frustration in those around you that will one day develop into fully fledged tears of jealousy and bitter disappointment in their obviously inferior choice of class *sigh*. These are the good times, enjoy them while they last.

** Note also that the irony of having a reference to "Nublock" on my most error-prone post is not lost on me. Haters!

The Ultimate Warlock Gear Guide

2008-06-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the past couple of months as I've started to get a few more regular readers, I've had several comments on posts and emails asking me to give my thoughts on gear direction, especially for those coming out of Karazhan and ready to face the world of 25 man raiding. This is something I've put a lot of thought towards, I've been working on a post about it for what feels like FOREVER, and still didn't really see the end coming any time soon - the grand total of my efforts are pages of notes (yes I am that big a geek, thanks for noticing) and bookmarks spread across 3 separate computers, and a complete lack of anything resembling a grand overview plan on how to present it all - well, nothing that is any more cutting edge than a big ass list with legion explanations along the way... Its not just about the gear, its about how to make suggestions taking into account all the different specs and conditions you might run into, and whether that cool head piece is still worth saving for if you get the opportunity to get your grubby lil hands on that ring of "in yo face" first.

In the time honored procrastinator's tradition of "if you wait long enough someone else will do it for you", I have been well and truly beaten to the post, and in grand style. Canadianpimp (yes, that's his real fake name) has constructed an amazing ultimate gear guide post over at the Warlock's Den. Seriously, this is it, the one you've all been waiting for, he's put it together intelligently and logically, and each piece has even been given a rating so you can compare among them. Seeing it done like this after the fact just makes it all seem so simple, but don't be fooled - take it from someone that has tried to do something similar, there is one HELL of a lot of work and forethought gone into this. Any lock worth the salty tears we farm from those around us should know this guide, I don't care what your level of progression is. I'll have a link over the side there as soon as I can figure out where it belongs to do it justice.

Note: You may not necessarily agree with every single ordering, rating and decision he's made with the lists, and as you read through the responses on the forum there you see a lot of people getting carried away with nit-picking bits and pieces. This is not meant to be the bible, its meant to be a guide, take it as such and be grateful someone took the time to cut down on so much of your homework. Personally, I'm just glad I can forget about that post now and move on to more mundane, bite size posts - I could feel the weight lifting the longer I spent reading that guide; and at least my research did help me update my spell hit gear list along the way :).

Edit: Ewps, thanks to our Friendly Neighbourhood Therapist for initially leading me towards the light.

ROFL-OOH-HMM-ZOMG

2008-06-06T10:05:00.001-07:00

Gold

Entertaining

Worth a Look

Best Site Ever

Edit: Real Life Rage Timer Blues

Twisted Nether Goodness

2008-06-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

So I finally had the time to check out the latest podcast doing the rounds - Twisted Nether by Breana and Fimlys. Very entertaining stuff, major kudos team! Really enjoying being able to put a voice to some of my favorite bloggers around the place, and there are some more big names coming up soon so make sure you check it out - they have direct links for signing up via iTunes or Zune. Keep up the good work, looking forward to hearing more, I recommend giving them a listen.

While we're on podcasts, The Instance is another podcast I definitely recommend, those guys are just plain entertaining. They've been around a while, they have their format down and are great background entertainment for long days in the office.

The Haste Effect

2008-06-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

This post is what I believe will be the last in the series on getting value for cast time vs damage for a Shadow Mage, this time addressing the haste factor. In the first post here, the numbers showed that with +1000 Dmg and 25% crit (fairly standard, kara-geared, decent shadow mage base kind of numbers), Immolate will produce such an increase in damage per cast time versus Shadow Bolt that it is definitely worthwhile including in your cast rotation. In the second post here, it shows that Corruption with a 2 sec cast, while still doing decent numbers, isn't up to the numbers produced by Immolate and with the mechanics of the ISB debuff being taken into account shouldn't be included in your regular cast rotation except under unusual circumstances (eg beginning a boss fight or in a fight where mobility is key).

So, the question put to me in comments on Part I is (paraphrased):

I was wondering about how haste would affect this. Not like a tiny bit here and there but when your gcd is 1 sec and immo is 1 sec and your bolt is 2. When bloodlust is up for example. How does it change it?

The short answer is - alone, haste makes very little difference at all to the results for dpct comparison. Haste only changes the speed at which you can cast, not the actual damage done - it will change the values for dpct, but it will have little impact on the difference in dpct between Imm and SB. I'll do a little theorycrafting below to try to show how this works.

Before I put any numbers down, we have to be clear about exactly what the results so far mean - with 1000 dmg and 25% crit, it is worth casting Immolate in most circumstances to improve your damage. If you read some of the comments in the first post, we discussed how as your gear improves, and if like a lot of locks you have more shadow damage than your plain magic damage on your gear, the numbers change and tend to favor SB. The better geared you become, the closer the difference becomes. For me personally, with roughly +1400 Shadow damage, +1300 magic damage and around 33% crit, from a dps point of view its not really worth casting Immolate unless my target has the full Improved Scorch debuff up. If your numbers vary, its worth taking the time to plug them in to the formula and see how things work out for you. By the time you have enough haste to get your gcd down to 1 sec, I'm guessing you should have already reached or passed the point gear-wise where you tip the balance in favor of SB.

Right then, on with the show.

As per usual if theory-crafting makes you want to poke plastic forks into soft parts of your anatomy, you can skip to the conclusion where I'll wrap things up. This time however, its a fairly simple process if you just ignore the weird formula for calculating haste to begin with.

/theorycrafting on

Spell Haste is a stat that will reduce both your casting time and your gcd (the reduction in gcd is capped at 1 sec - ie your gcd will never be lower than 1 sec, effectively meaning this is also the cap for your spell casting). Wowwiki has a fantastic article covering the details, or you can trawl through the forums at Elitist Jerks and get more info than your brain can comfortably handle.

For starters, the formula for cast time (directly from wowwiki) is:

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))

Base Casting Time is the cast time for any spell or ability, after talents are applied - this means for Shadow Bolt we use 2.5 secs after Imp SB is taken into account, not the 3 sec cast time base.

Step 1: How much haste rating do we need to reduce the GCD to 1 sec?

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))
1 sec = 1.5 sec / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))
Spell Haste Rating = 785

ie You need 785 haste rating to reduce the GCD to 1 sec.

Step 2: What cast time will Immolate have with enough haste rating to reduce the GCD to 1 sec?

Immolate has the same cast cast time as the gcd, so the calculation is the same - with 785 haste rating, the cast time for Immolate is reduced to 1 sec.

Step 3: What cast time will Shadow Bolt have with enough haste rating to reduce the GCD to 1 sec?

New Casting Time = Base Casting Time / (1 + (Spell Haste Rating/1570))
New Casting Time = 2.5 / (1 + (785/1570))
New Casting Time = 2.5 / 1.5
New Casting Time = 1.6667 secs

Step 4: Plug in the new cast time numbers to the formulas from the original Mythbuster post here

Note that we only change the cast time with Haste, not the damage, so I'm not going to reproduce the whole formula, just the punchlines.

Shadow Bolt DPCT = Total Damage / Cast Time
Shadow Bolt DPCT = 3273 / 1.6667
Shadow Bolt DPCT = 1964

Immolate DPCT = 2556 / 1
Immolate DPCT = 2556

/theorycrafting off

Conclusion:
So as you can see, adding haste alone doesn't change the result *that* much - the values are definitely higher, but the difference between them still leans just as heavily in favor of including Immolate in your cast rotation. At this point however, Immolate is capped. For SB to match the dpct of Imm, its cast time has to be reduced to 1.28 seconds. Using the formula above for haste, that means you need 1496 haste rating - way beyond the means of most toons.

Corruptive Influence

2008-05-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

This is an addendum to my previous post, this time doing the numbers for Corruption for a standard Shadow Mage destruction build to see how it stacks up against Immolate (my last post showed how casting Immolate was worthwhile even for a non-dot loving, sb spamming shadow mage). We're talking about a build that will not have Improved Corruption, so if you're a standard destruction build these numbers will be very different for you.

Note: Just like last post with Immolate, if you're not a Shadow Mage there is absolutely no question, Corruption should always, always, always be up. I've ranted before about how there is only one build with an excuse for not having insta-cast Corruption, and we cry ourselves to sleep regularly lamenting that fact.

Corruption

Corr Damage Base: 900
Bonus Damage from Gear: 1000 x 93.6% = 936
Succy Sac'ed = 15% bonus to Dmg
CoS = 10% Dmg Bonus
Improved Shadow Bolt Average = 10% Bonus
Cast Time = 2.0 secs

Total Damage = (Base + Bonus From Gear) x Succy Sac x CoS x ISB Avg x Shadow Weaving x Misery
Total Damage = (900 + 936) x 1.15 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.05
Total Damage = 2950

Total DPCT = 1475

Now here is one of the best examples of where theory-crafting and real world just don't meet. Or perhaps just an example of where my substituting in a flat 10% for Improved Shadow Bolt comes back to bite me in the butt. Whatever, the results are the same...

The numbers for Corruption *may* in fact be higher than the numbers for Shadowbolt on paper (although it is still pretty close), but that doesn't mean you should be including it in your cast rotation - I would strongly advise against it in fact. As a shadow mage, your number 1 goal in life is to do stupidly large amounts of damage; a close second is to keep the Improve Shadow Bolt debuff up as much as is possible. That debuff is not only for you, but also for that crit deprived Affliction lock, the dps mad Demo lock that you know is yelling obscenities at his monitor and has spittle running down his chin while he plays, and your friendly neighbourhood Mana Battery Bitch. In the example I've been using, with 25% crit rate, that means that on average 1 in 4 casts will be a crit - in optimal conditions, this works out nicely; the debuff lasts for 4 sources of shadow damage or 12 seconds (which is 4 shadow bolts and change). Casting one non-sb can be allowed for in perfect casting conditions; casting 2 and you're allowing actually planning on having your ISB debuff down which is something we don't want to allow to happen.

Now I was talking about perfect casting conditions - that means conditions in which you are the only one using your ISB debuff, and you are getting your crit every 4th cast to keep it active. Not very realistic, a purely theoretical "in a vacuum" example. In practice, you are going to have other locks, a shadow priest or two and that annoying mage that likes to use his damn shadow wand when he runs out of mana all eating up your debuff before you barely get a chance to use it. For the good of the raid you need to be casting as many sb's as possible to try to keep it active; the best part of the process is that our biggest nuke also provides our raid buff. With the serious difference between the damage of Immolate and SB, casting Immolate becomes something that can't be ignored for maximising our dps; casting Corruption is such a small increase as well as an interruption in the ISB routine that imo it simply isn't worth it. At least, not until they make insta-cast Corruption a class skill, then *maybe* we'd have some serious decisions to make.

Edit: One final thing I should point out is that Corruption also doesn't scale anywhere near as well as SB for a Shadow Mage - it is a dot, so can't crit, and actually receives slightly less bonus from your damage gear than does SB. In the long run, it would have a much shorter life span that Immolate. By the time you're sporting t5 gear, the gap between Corruption dpct and SB dpct is almost gone, and it only gets better for SB.

Edit: Like Megan correctly points out in the comments, casting Corruption at the start of a fight while you're waiting for the tanks to get a good agro lead is definitely an acceptable policy, especially when the alternative is just standing around waiting to start the fireworks. Being a dot it can't crit like SB or even Imm, so there's very, very little danger of pulling agro. My argument is only that there's no real place for it in your regular dps cast rotation. Other times I've found it useful are in boss fights where mobility may be key - the best example off the top of my head is about halfway through Phase 3 on Vashj when you're running around trying to avoid the green goo spam (and you're not going to be able to just and cast sb's). At times like this, remembering to put your dots up can be a Very Good Thing; it keeps your damage ticking over while you relocate yourself, and the cast times are shorter than SB so you're a bigger chance of getting it off before needing to hoof it again.

Mythbuster: The Great Immolate Debate

2008-05-22T17:04:00.000-07:00

Myth: Including Immolate in your cast sequence increases your DPS?

Let me start by stating this up front - if you're not a warlock, move along, there's nothing to see here.

Still here? Ok, if you are any spec other than Shadow Mage, the answer is and always has been a definitive yes, you should always include Immolate in your cast rotation. The only spec that this is a question for should be the shadow mage, and I've touched on this before - only the shadow mage should have questions about whether casting something outside of shadow damage is worthwhile. Still, if you want some basis for that statement, read on, the numbers are coming, but understand that result would be even more so for you.

Right then, this is a topic that seems to come up every couple of days in the official warlock forums (or some unrelated thread gets hijacked and forced into that zone), and they all look very similar, something like...

Lock A: destruction is just about shadowbolt spamming
Lock B: *sigh* not again - if you're not including immolate you are nerfing your dmg, l2play nublet
Lock C: but i cast immolate once and my dog died
Lock B: well i cast immolate and one-shot most trash
Lock A: i one-shot your mother
Mage : we suck, nerf locks

etc etc etc

Warning - I am going to do some light theorycrafting here - just enough to make the point, not enough to take every calculation into account. Sorry, but it has to happen - if this causes your brain to slowly melt, then feel free to just jump down to the "Conclusion" section at the bottom, you're really not going to miss much, I just want to be thorough.

Setting the Scene:

Straight up, I'm going to ignore spell hit - I'm assuming we're all capped, and that 1% resist isn't enough to sway the figures one way or another. Secondly, I'm going to assume that Improved Shadow Bolt will on average give you a 10% damage increase overall. Due to the nature of how it works, its very hard to put an exact number on it, but 10% seems to get used widely around the web (and its a nice round number). I'll assume this example is in a raid with a fire mage and shadow priest for damage buffs.

In the spirit of keeping things simple, I'll assume 1000 spell damage through gear, and counting talents you have 25% crit. I'll also set this up as a raid environment with an accomplished Fire Mage (one that can keep the Improved Scorch debuff up) and a Shadow Priest (to keep Shadow Weaving and Misery up).

Lastly, spell damage coefficients - each spell you cast has an assigned multiplier applied to your total spell damage, according to a whacky formula. I'm just going to cheat and steal it directly from wowwiki here. All Shadow Mages must have Shadow and Flame Rank 5.

Shadow Bolt

SB Average Damage Base: 572
Bonus Damage from Gear: 1000 x 105.71% = 1057
Succy Sac'ed = 15% bonus to Dmg
CoS = 10% Dmg Bonus
Improved Shadow Bolt Average = 10% Bonus
Cast Time = 2.5 secs

Total Damage = (SB Average + Bonus From Gear) x Succy Sac x CoS x ISB Avg x Crit x Shadow Weaving x Misery
Total Damage = (572 + 1057) x 1.15 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.25 x 1.1 x 1.05
Total Damage (average) = 3273

Total Shadow Bolt DPCT = 3273 / 2.5 = 1309

Immolate

Direct Dmg Base: 327
Direct Dmg Gear Bonus: 1000 x 20% = 200
CoE: 10% Dmg Bonus
Total Direct Damage = (Direct Dmg Base + Gear Bonus) x CoE x Crit x Misery x Imp Scorch
Total Direct Damage = (327 + 200) x 1.1 x 1.25 x 1.05 x 1.15 = 875

DoT Dmg Base: 615
DoT Dmg Gear Bonus: 1000 x 65% = 650
CoE: 10% Dmg Bonus
Total DoT Dmg: (DoT Dmg Base + Gear Bonus) x CoE x Misery x Imp Scorch
Total DoT Dmg: (615 + 650) x 1.1 x 1.05 x 1.15 = 1681

Total Dmg: 875 + 1681 = 2556
Cast Time: 1.5 sec
Total Immolate DPCT: 2556 / 1.5 = 1704

Lets pretend for the sake of argument that you're the only lock in the raid so there's no CoE, and your only mage is a frosty. The maths still looks like this:
((327 + 200)x1.25+1265) x 1.05 = 2020
Total DPS: 2020 / 1.5 = 1346 dpct

Conclusion: Myth Confirmed!

The numbers speak for themselves - casting Immolate in a full raid buffed environment and letting its DoT component run the full length results in 1704 dpct, compared to Shadow Bolt's 1309 dpct. It is worth noting the difference in not having CoE and Improved Scorch up - 1346 dpct vs 1309 dpct; in which case its a very close call (meaning - make sure you give your mage the time to get their Improved Scorch debuffs up first, don't start your cast rotation with this).

Note that Shadow Mage cookie cutter builds don't have Improved Immolate or Emberstorm - both of these talents will skew the results even more in favor of Immolate. Also note that the Shadow Mage build is based around crits, and some nights you'll have the dice give you different results to other nights, but over a long enough period of time this should reflect your findings.

Addendum: I know there are many better theory-crafters than I out there, I am at best a rank amateur - if you see some issue with my maths, please let me know.

Bandwagon on the Banhammer Discussion

2008-05-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

Yep, I know you've read all about it. Its everywhere, and if the cool kids are doing it then I want in too - but to be clear, instead of linking to the post that started the flood, I'm going to link first to the post that outlines my thoughts on the situation far better than I would express it. BBB has come to the rescue again, and I'm totally on board with his stance on things. I don't know the player in question that started the whole deal, but I do believe Blizzard need to improve their customer service in this area to help out anybody that gets caught in their mass bans unfairly. You can't ask Blizzard to always be right, but you can ask them to do their best to make correcting the situation as painless as possible. My deep abiding love of all things Blizzard makes me want to believe its simply a matter of the poor support staff being overwhelmed with responses seeing as this is still such a recent event, however like BBB outlines, this isn't the first time their customer service reputation has come under some harsh scrutiny and been found wanting. Time will tell, here's hoping anyone that has been unfairly treated in this process finds their way through the red tape as painlessly as possible.

Edit: Rats wrap up is a close second to BBB's imo.

Just in case you are that person that hasn't see the article that started it all, TJ posted it over here. I also found a lot to like in Kurt's article here, especially his ideas for possibly improving the process when Blizzard do this again in the future (note also that Kurt posted an apology for any ruffled feathers he may have created in the comments on TJ's article).

I'm totally on board with getting the process of appeals to Blizzard fixed, not just for the one individual case in question but for anyone and everyone that feels they've been incorrectly victimized in this process. Provided that's what we're all about, I'm all for joining the march and picketing Blizz HQ. I'll even bring the keg (byo plastic cups).

Oh and lastly - majorly big time kudos to Aetherial Circle for pulling together so hard to help out a guildmate; you've all proven beyond doubt that you're definitely a good group of people to be guilded with, and you should all be thoroughly commended *double thumps chest* Respect!

WotLK Early Talents Info

2008-05-20T17:35:00.000-07:00

Huh, two hitch-hiking content posts in a row, that might be a record around here... New content tomorrow, promise!

Anyways, rather than steal some of the glory from my blogging brethren, here's two mighty wrap-ups on some early leaked talents from the upcoming expansion over at YAWN (who's newly renovated site is full of win, but who's comments are broken so we can't directly tell him so - Edit: Looks like it was a very temporary problem over at YAWN with the comments, or my imagination, neither would surprise me) and our friendly neighborhood Therapist. Kudos team!

My favorite bit about what I'm seeing so far are the awesome naming conventions being used for these new warlocks talents - DECIMATE! ATROCITY! METAMORPHOSIS! LOVE STRUCK!? er wut?

For the chance to catch some of this info and much, much more, head on over to the WotLK unofficial leak wiki here. For Deathknight specific info, here's the place to see.

Edit: For some nice overview goodness without needing to trawl thru the wiki, bbr's done the hard work for you here and here.