Equipment and Quests Index

[Akasha]

Equipment Sticky

** Please note this thread is currently a work in progress - so will change over the course of time. It may also look "all over the place" and unpolished for a bit. Please bear with me. **

F.A.Q.
There tends to be certain things that get asked over and over (and over!) again. I thought it might be handy to fill in a F.A.Q. section. If you can think of anything that should be added here, please post a reply with both the question and the answer.

Q) How much +Spell Hit should I have?
A) ... anyone care to answer? Or link me to a detailed answer for it?


Gear Guides

• Gearing Your Warlock
  Everything you need to know about Warlock Equipment.

• Maximizing Your Crit With Obtainable Gear
  A 'mini guide' of sorts to help all the destruction heavy Warlocks obtain some very nice crit gear!

• Enchanting your gear - Recommended Warlock Enchants
  Enchants are a way to improve your character without having to do instances or raids. They are also a way to improve any weak points in your armor or stats as well as increasing already strong elements. This guide highlights the enchants that Warlocks tend to aim for for each piece of armor. Please consult this list before starting a "what enchant should I get" thread.

• PvE Demonology "Shopping List"
  This guide is solely aimed at PvE, while some PvP items will be listed the intention of this guide is to supply a "loot list" that's tailored to demonology warlocks that are raiding ZA, tier 5 and tier 6 instances.

Other Equipment Threads:

• Warlock BC Set Extravaganza
• Nice Quest Rewards for us in BC (list)

• The final debate – Robe, Staff or Trinket?
  Although the staff and robe rewards for the level 50 quest are no longer items you would use for any extended period of time - especially with BC, there were still a lot of threads popping up asking "which reward should I take?" I decided to end all these threads with one final discussion, this is it. Please use this thread for ANY question or discussion relating to the three rewards and which one is considered the best choice.

Gem Help

• Socket Guide
  With the release of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, a new way to improve your armor pieces was introduced - socketed items. A socketed item is like any other item, except that it can be upgraded by attaching magical gemstones into the item itself. This imbues the item with additional powers similar to an enchantment. A question that is raised a lot is "what gems should I use for xxx item?" - this guide is here to help solve those questions!

• Single Stat Gems Vs Combo Stat Gems
  2 x Runed Living Ruby's which provides +18 Damage, vs the 2 x Glowing Nightseye which produces +10 Spell Damage with the added bonus of +12 Stamina. What's the better choice? Is sacrificing +8 Damage worth it for the stamina increase? Etc...

• What to put in a Red Socket?
  Lists all the gems Warlocks would go for that can be placed in a red socket. This will be the final "what gem do I get" thread if it's for a red socket. ALL questions, assistance and discussions for gems in red sockets is to go in this thread please.

• What to put in a Yellow Socket?
  Lists all the gems Warlocks would go for that can be placed in a yellow socket. This will be the final "what gem do I get" thread if it's for a yellow socket. ALL questions, assistance and discussions for gems in yellow sockets is to go in this thread please.

• What to put in a Blue Socket?
  Lists all the gems Warlocks would go for that can be placed in a blue socket. This will be the final "what gem do I get" thread if it's for a blue socket. ALL questions, assistance and discussions for gems in blue sockets is to go in this thread please.

• What to put in a Meta socket?
  Coming soon...

• What gems should I socket my Spellstrike set with?
  For Warlocks with the Spellstrike set wanting assistance with what gems they should choose.

• Socket Recommendation
  If, after reading through the Socketing Guide, the "what to put in X colour socket" threads and all the other information available on the site, you still can't figure out for yourself what gems you want - post a reply to this thread outlining the gear piece you have to socket, any current sockets you have previously filled, your stats and what you primarily spend your time doing. Please do not start a new thread.

+ Spell Damage
Spell damage is an attribute granted by buffs, talents, and equipment that raises the base damage that your spells do. For example, if you have a spell that normally does an average of 1000 damage then having 500 spell damage will increase the damage of that spell to 1500 (excluding the random factor). Since critical spell damage is based off of base spell damage, then increase spell damage will also increase the damage that your spells do when they score a critical hit.

Please also see reply #3 for further information...

• About +Damage Gear
  ... Coming soon - see the Guide Competition thread.

• How do I get 1000+ spell damage?
  • Please also see the section 'How to get 1000 spell damage without stepping foot in a raid' of Canadianpimp's guide - Gearing Your Warlock

External Links:

• Spell damage coefficient
  A Spell damage coefficient is an intrinsic property of a spell that determines how much bonus damage or healing it gets from the spell damage and healing attribute accumulated from gear, buffs and talents. In most cases, the spell damage coefficient is fixed for a spell; in other cases the coefficient is changed by talents, such as various "empowered" talents available to some caster classes. This wowwiki page shows exactly how much your spells benefit from +damage.

+ Hit
+hit is an essential stat for raiding warlocks. Your spells have a 17% chance to "miss" raid bosses. With enough +hit you can overcome 16% of this miss chance for a total of 99% chance to hit the boss with your spells. Hit is different than spell penetration which is a largely useless stat for raiding (although useful to some degree in pvp).

• +HIT question
• + hit Rating (How much), spell penetration

Spellstrike Vs Battlecast
There are A LOT of threads that question the Spellstrike or Battlecast discussion. Before yet another thread is created on this topic, please do an advanced search - type in Spellstrike or Battlecast, and select 'Search Titles Only' from the drop down option underneath. Below are also some links to other threads that discuss these armor pieces...

• Spellstrike Armor Set Info

• Battlecast Armor Set Info

• Battlecast - is the stamina buff worth it?

• What gems should I socket my Spellstrike set with?

• Trial Fire Trousers Vs Spellstrike Pants

• Proper tip for Spellstrike?
  Enlisting another players help can sometimes come at a price, this thread brings the discussion to the table - how much do you tip/pay another player to craft your Spellstrike?

Outside Links
There's nothing worse than seeing a link to a helpful website, only to not be able to find it again. Well here they are! Please post any other links that you think should be included here.

• DPS Caster Gems
  Not too sure when this first popped up, if someone would like to provide some info about it, please reply to this thread.

• World of Warcraft Gem Finder
  The gem finder allows you to easily find World of Warcraft socketable items by any criteria. Filters are stackable: use [+] or [-] to build custom queries.

[Akasha]

Updated. If anyone can help out with the orange sections, please post as a reply. If anyone can think of any other threads that should be added, please let me know.

[Aimealamort]

“Spell damage is an attribute granted by buffs, talents, and equipment that increases the effect of spells.” (wowwiki.com)

The more spell damage a character has, the more damage that character's spells do.


Items in WoW have either +spell damage, + spell damage and healing, or spell damage related to just a particular school of magic, for example +shadow damage. Any bonus to a particular school of magic, only applies to that kind of spell.


Sometimes you will see the statement “Increases damage and healing done by spells and effects by up to...”
The ambiguity in how much spell damage is actually applied depends on the spell you're casting, and its duration and cast time. The amount of spell damage applied to a certain spell is its 'coefficient.'


The common rules for spell damage coefficients are as follows:
notes: all cast times should be calculated before talents. Instant cast spells are treated as having a 1.5 second cast time.


Standard Direct Damage Spells (all of the damage is applied in one hit, like a Shadow Bolt)
((Cast time of spell)/3.5)
-spells with a cast time of more than 7 seconds are capped at a 200% coefficient
-an exception is Soul Fire at 115%


Over Time Spells (the damage is applied over a fixed amount of time)
((Duration of Spell)/15)
-exceptions are Corruption 93%, and can be increased to 129% through the Affliction talent Empowered Corruption; Curse of Agony 120%, and Curse of Doom 200%


Combined Direct Damage and Over Time Spells (a spell such as Immolate, applies direct damage on the initial hit, then damage over time)
For the over time portion (Duration / 15) / ((Duration / 15) + (Cast Time of Spell / 3.5))
For the direct damage portion (1 - Portion to Over Time)
After those calculations, you need to add the time parameters.
For the direct damage ((Cast Time of Spell / 3.5) * Portion to Standard)
Over time ((Duration / 15) * Portion to Over Time)


Channeled Spells (Hellfire, Drain Life, Drain Mana, Drain Soul)
(Cast Time of Spell / 3.5)

Area of Effect Spells (the damage is applied in a certain area such as Rain of Fire)
((Cast Time of Spell / 3.5) / 3)

Coefficients of some common warlock spells (cause who likes to do math? =P)
(more info can be found at Spell damage coefficient - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft)
Corruption-93.6%, can be increased to 129% with Empowered Corruption
Unstable Affliction-110%
Siphon Life-100%
Curse of Agony-120%
Immolate- 35% to initial hit, 65% to damage over time portion
Shadow Bolt- 85.71%
Shadow Burn- 42.86%
Soul Fire- 115%
Incinerate- 71.43%
Conflagrate- 42.86%

So...what does this all mean? It's easy, to find out how much of your +spell damage will contribute to a certain spell, just multiply the percentage coefficient by the amount of spell damage.
Example: Unstable Affliction (base damage of 1050), with 1000 spell damage = (1.10 *1000)=1100
so, you would add 1100 to the total damage of the spell, making that spell hit for a total of 2050.

In summary, spell damage is just one of the many, many ways to improve your character in World of Warcraft. For most dps casters, it is considered themost important stat, we're damage dealers at heart, and increasing your spell damage will generally increase your damage output. There are many other important stats to keep in mind such as spell hit, spell penetration, stamina, intellect....the list goes on; however, we cast spells, and generally spell damage is the stat for us.

~Information taken from wowwiki.com, and tweaked to my standards =P

[Akasha]

Sticky updated! Wooo it's getting long! Mostly the Gems stuff added. Thankyou very much to those who replied with corrections and info. If anyone else can think of something that should be added, please let me know.

I'd also reeeally like to get some "Equipment F.A.Q." bits up the top. Since we've been complaining, er I mean commenting , on all the duplicate threads asking the same things lately - perhaps we could find some Q and A's to include?

[otelma]

minor suggestion - would replace link on the gearing your warlock with the new and improved 2.4 version

[Akasha]

Oops, I had on the front page one... I'll do that here. Thanks

Note to self: Update the "About +damage gear" link.

[deidriana]

is there a guide for gearing an afflic lock? or should i just go with destruction gear?

[Kyriel]

Q) How much +Spell Hit should I have?
A) Simple Answer: 202 Spell hit.

From WoWwiki:
Increasing spell hit

Chance to hit can be increased by talents or gear with spell hit rating up to a cap of 99%. Spell hit rating is a stat found on gear that increases spell hit chance by a certain percent per point, based on level. At level 70, 12.6 spell hit rating is equivalent to 1% spell hit. Because the highest level mob currently present is level 73 (all BC raid bosses, for instance), a level 70 caster has an effective spell hit rating cap of 202, assuming no other spell hit sources.
Aside from gear with spell hit rating, chance to hit can also be increased through some buffs and spells. Draenei casters give an additional 1% spell hit to their group with Inspiring Presence. The following table lists some talents that also increase a caster's chance to hit with spells. Taking these effects into consideration lowers the effective spell hit rating cap.

Spell hit - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft

[greenowl]

Will there be any changes to this gear list with the new WoLK expansion?

[Akasha]

Apart from the fact, yes give me a chance please. Wrath of the Lich King has been out less than 24 hours. This isn't a 'gear list', it's a sticky thread that links to other threads so people can find them easier.