Warlock

From xenowiki

1 Must Read
2 Spell Rotations
3 Coefficients
4 Calculations
5 Useful resources

Must Read

Spell Rotations

AFFLICTION AND STATS
Spell Rotation
There is no such a thing as the best spell rotation. It is a myth and there has been no math yet to prove any sequence as the BEST. The rule of the thumb is - renew your dots 0.5 seconds after the last tick, If you have a dot and it is not on the boss you're losing dps. The spells you will use for this build in any sequence that you are the most comfortable with:
1) Unstable Affliction
2) Corruption
3) Siphon Life
4) Immolate (It has lower DPS than Shadow Bolt, but it has higher DPCT (Damage Per Cast Time) and as such is more effective to have it in the rotation)
5) Curse of Shadow / Elements / DOOM (Not a curse of agony, COD has slightly lower DPS than CoA, but because of the GCDs you end up having 1 COD + 1 Shadow Bolt = 3 CoA in terms of time spent casting and in terms of damage the latter is lower)
6) Shadow Bolt, not an incinerate. Shadow Bolt for this spec is considered to be a filler spell, which means you cast it only when your dots are fully on and are not expired.

There is a little trick that a lot of players do not realize: Pairing up dots to do 2 spell casts in one GCD, for example you can cast Immolate and Corruption in a single GCD thus saving time. Basically a spell with a cast time should be followed by a spell with instant cast.

Stats rating (based on 900 shadow dmg, 5% hit and 12% crit)

+1 shadow dmg = 0.57
+1 fire dmg = 0.06
+1 dmg = 0.63
+1 hit rating = 0.58
+1 crit rating = 0.30
+1 haste rating = 0.24

Based on that in order of importance you will have:

SPELL DMG > SPELL HIT > SPELL CRIT > SPELL HASTE

This is contradictory to the common belief that spell hit is always more important than anything else. The reason behind it is a soft cap on spell hit being at 76 spell hit, provided you have 5/5 in suppression talent. DOTs are hit capped at that point and only the Shadow Bolts will have a 10% chance to be resisted, however Shadow Bolts comprise a maximum of 50% of an afflicton warlock's DPS which basically means that spell his past 76 is only half as important to an affliction lock as compared to the destro lock.

DEMONOLOGY AND STATS

There are a few ways to play the demonology, however majority goes with the felguard. <a href="http://www.wowmb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=17405" target="_blank">This</a> is one of the best discussions and descriptions of the spec and what comes with it. 6/44/11 is pretty much the default spec for aspiring Felguard Users.
Spell Rotation

There are 4 spells you will be using here:
1) Immolate
2) Corruption
3) Curse of Shadows / Elements / Doom
4) Shadow Bolt (once againt a filler spec)
Now in terms of the stats that you need for that spec, based on average of 1100 shadow damage 23% crit the following occurs and if your spell hit is below 202:
+1 shadow dmg = 0.53

+1 fire dmg = 0.07
+1 dmg = 0.60
+1 hit rating = 0.66
+1 crit rating = 0.29
+1 haste rating = 0.42

SPELL HIT > SPELL DAMAGE > SPELL HASTE > SPELL CRIT

Basically, as many times mentioned you should cap your spell hit before proceeding to go for any other stats. Do keep in mind though that giving up 100 spell damage for 5 spell hit isn't worth it either.
DESTRUCTION AND STATS

Commonly accepted as a Tier 6 or equivalent raiding spec.

The typical examples are listed <a href="http://www.wowmb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=18089" target="_blank">here</a>, the most effective of them is a shadow DS / Destro build - 0/21/40

My personal favourite is the example 3 listed there.
Spell Rotation

Shadow Bolt only.

This spec benefits the shadow damage tremendously (provided you DS a succy), the shadow damage scaling is a lot higher than fire damage. Based on that the immolate will actually reduce your overall DPS by approximately 1%.

Confraglate is generally assumed to be the worst spell in warlock's arsenal when it comes to sustaining overall DPS. There are more details on that in the EJ forums, if you wish to find out more indepth info on that please check out the math listed out in the compendium i've linked at the beginning of this thread.
To even start out as a destro lock you should fulfill the first and the most important requirement - CAPPED SPELL HIT at 202. Whenever anyone goes into the math behind the 0/21/40 spec they normally assume that you're capped in terms of your spell hit. If you are not capped, and your spell hit is in 100-200 gap, you will be able to put out a higher amount of DPS being demo spec.
Now lets have a look at the value of the stats, assuming an average of 202 spell hit, 1200 shadow damage and 27% to crit (inclusive of talents) the values will look like this:
+1 shadow dmg = 0.81

+1 fire dmg = 0.00
+1 dmg = 0.81
+1 hit rating = 0.00
+1 crit rating = 0.73
+1 haste rating = 0.77
Which translates into:

SPELL DMG > SPELL HASTE > SPELL CRIT
Spell damage is more valuable than anything else simply because the spell damage scaling coefficient for 0/21/40 spec is mad - 105.7% (according to EJ).

However there is an interesting factor to take in consideration here - there is a spell damage barrier, after which the value of the stats changes order. This is a very volatile number to determine and varies in different circumstances.

- If you are in the raid, and there are other warlocks with the ISB debuff, the breaking point will be 1350 spell damage.

- If you are soloing / doing 5 men and you are the only ISB debuff provider the breaking point will be at 1450-1550 spell damage.

Here's what happens:

If you are in the raid with one more warlock that provides ISB debuff and has 27% crit rating you will have:
+1 shadow dmg = 0.83

+1 fire dmg = 0.00
+1 dmg = 0.83
+1 hit rating = 0.00
+1 crit rating = 0.67
+1 haste rating = 0.85
Which translates to:
SPELL HASTE > SPELL DAMAGE > SPELL CRIT

As you can see the spell haste and spell damage changed their positions. However please do note that the actual values are very near - 0.83 and 0.85. As you go higher with your spell damage the value of spell damage will not change while the value of spell haste will increase. 1350 spell damage might sound as a very unacheivable number, however it is not your spell damage that is in consideration here, it is the FULLY RAID BUFFED SPELL DAMAGE that we are talking about. Thinks like flasks, spell dmg food, oils, totems, etc etc are all added up to your total spell damage and thus produce a number which could possibly be as high as 1500-1600 spell dmg. At which point you will benefit from spell haste quite a fair bit.

P.S.

Taken from wowmb.net

[edit]

Coefficients

Spell Name	Spell Damage/Healing Coefficient
Damage over Time Abilities
Curse of Agony	120.0%
Curse of Doom	200.0%
Corruption	93.6% (129.6% with Empowered Corruption)
Immolate	65.0%
Seed of Corruption	150.0%
Siphon Life	100.0%
Unstable Affliction	120%
Direct Damage Abilities
Conflagrate	42.86%
Death Coil	22.0%
Immolate	20.0%
Incinerate	71.43% (91.43% with Shadow and Flame)
Searing Pain	42.86%
Seed of Corruption	22.0%
Shadow Bolt	85.71% (105.71% with Shadow and Flame)
Shadowburn	42.86%
Shadowfury	19.5%
Soul Fire	115%
Unstable Affliction	180%
Channeled Abilities
Drain Life	71.43%
Drain Mana	0.0%
Drain Soul	214.3%
Health Funnel (healing)	285.7%
Hellfire (to enemies)	214.29%
Hellfire (to self)	142.86%
Rain of Fire	95.2%
Other Abilities
Dark Pact	96.0%
Life Tap (life cost and mana gain)	80.0%