The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

When people talk about spell damage, also known as +damage, they are usually referring to the buffs, talents and equipment pieces that state "Increases damage and healing done by spells and effects by ... " or similar. Many items will increase damage from all magical schools, while some items will only increase damage done by a particular school. These items can also increase your healing, but as Warlocks we are only interested in the damage portion. Players often refer to this attribute as simply +damage, or plus damage. For effects that target a specific school, it is similarly referred to by that school, such as +Shadow.

Examples:
Items with spell damage and healing have the following green "Equip:" text on the item, for example:

• "Equip: Increases damage and healing done by spells and effects by up to 42."
• "Equip: Increases healing done by up to 42 and damage done by 14 for all magical spells and effects."
• "Equip: Increases Fire damage done by spells and effects by up to 42."

Alternatively, certain item suffixes can carry spell damage and healing - items with names ending in "of Fiery Wrath" or "of the Invoker" being two examples. These appear as white text on the item with the rest of the attributes. The effect of these items is equivalent to those with the green Equip: text:

• "+42 Spell Damage and Healing"
• "+42 Healing Spells and +14 Damage Spells"
• "+42 Fire Spell Damage"

What's the difference?
One of the most asked questions to arise when talking about +damage gear, is "What's the difference between "Increases damage and healing done by spells and effects by up to 42" and "+42 Spell Damage and Healing"? The common misconception surrounding these bonuses is that the first description grants a random bonus between 1 and 42 for each spell cast. In actuality, each spell gets a fixed bonus that is determined by the spell type, casting time, target and/or way the spell is applied. The word "up to" is misleading: it is possible for that bonus to exceed the stated value when applied to certain spells. It does not imply that the bonus is random.

Question: What to do if you have two pieces of gear - one with "+10 spell damage and healing", yet the other with "+12 shadow damage"?
Since +Healing doesn't have any effect on Warlocks in any way, you are only looking at the two +damage portions. In the Warlock arsenal there are only 5 fire based spells (Immolation, Incinerate, Searing Pain, Rain of Fire and Hellfire) - two of these are completely situational and hardly used. The rest of our spells are all Shadow based. So, although the difference is minimal, you have to ask yourself if you want +10 damage to all your spells, or +12 to the most commonly used ones?

If you have any other questions, or need further help on this - please see the + shadow dmg vs + dmg & healing thread.

+ Healing:
Just to reiterate, +Healing DOES NOT affect warlock spells at all, not even Drain Life or Health Funnel. Instead, these spells benefit from +shadow damage, and in the case of Drain Life, for example, your +shadow points are split, half applied to damage taken by the target, half applied to the health that you gain (Drain Life - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft). Your +healing bonus doesn’t even apply to bandages, healing potions, or healing trinkets anymore!


Why Warlocks want it?
Since a large portion of the damage we deal comes via the spells we cast (the rest coming from our pets), anything that increases the amount of damage they do is something we want to get our hands on. After all, why would we choose to only do say 500 damage from one spell, when we can load up on +damage gear and do 750 damage from the same spell, for the same mana cost? Basically, the more +damage you have, the more damage you do!!


How much +damage do you need?
Short answer: As much as you can get your hands on!!

Providing you are balancing your +damage with your +hit and other general stats (stamina, int, etc), there is no such thing as having too much spell damage. The problem with high spell damage is of course your spells doing a lot more damage each time, and if you are grouped with a tank that struggles to keep aggro from you, you might need to tone down and watch how much you do.

How to reach 1000 Spell damage without setting foot in a raid!
Canadianpimp's original Gearing your Warlock guide has a section that shows how to get a very powerful set of gear without raiding, doing Heroic instances, relying on lucky drops and rolls, and all while keeping it cheap.

• Gearing your Warlock - Original version.
• Gearing Your Warlock (2.4 Edition) - New and Improved!

+damage Vs +Crit Vs +Hit - what to choose?
All three of these stats are of use to a warlock, but choosing which one to gearing up firstwith these depends a lot on what you are doing. There are three main areas of play - solo / 5 man instances, PvP, and raiding. Each of these activities value these three stats differently, and many warlocks will opt to have two or three sets of gear which are used specifically based on which of these three activities they are undertaking.

To further complicate the issue, your specific set of talents will also affect to a lesser degree how you value these stats. Example - Suppression. As a very general statement, heavy affliction or demonology warlocks will value +damage quite a bit more than +crit, whereas heavy destruction builds, while still valuing +damage over +crit, will find +crit much more useful.

Solo / 5 man instances
When soloing, +damage is generally the most effective. Most mobs you will be fighting aren't going to be 3+ levels above you, so your chance to land a spell on them is fairly good already. When soloing, the more +damage you have the better, as it makes your spells more mana efficient, and you kill quicker. Crit is usually less useful, as generally you're not using your nuke spells as much. Destruction builds will favour +crit more than other builds. +hit is useful, but to a much lesser degree.

damage > crit >> hit

PvP
When PvPing, +hit is nearly worthless, as players only have a 4% chance to miss other players. With the prevalence of resilience in the game now, +damage is by far the most useful of these three, although +crit is still valueable. When PvPing in arenas, especially in the higher rankings, resilience of your opponents is generally going to be at or near the cap, whereas in battlegrounds you're quite likely to come across people with no resilience. So, to summarise, PvPing primarily in battlegrounds will make +crit more useful than if you're playing mostly in arenas, but in all types of PvP, +damage is significantly the best of the three.

damage > crit >>> hit

Raiding
Raiding values +hit above all else, bearing in mind that you need to be sensible about it. Generally, you want a maintain a decent +damage base. e.g. 700 Having max +hit and 300 damage would be pointless. When raiding, much of the 'trash' is going to be 2+ levels higher than you, and all bosses are treated as 73+. Maximising your +hit will provide the greatest return in terms of personal dps. Have 1500 +damage but missing 16% of the time will hurt you a lot more than sitting at 202 +hit and +1000 damage.

hit > damage > crit

Technical side - How spell damage is applied to our spells?
The amount of the spell damage or healing bonus that is applied to the spell varies from spell to spell. This is called the spell damage coefficient, and it is mostly fixed for each spell. The coefficient can be determined by following some basic rules:

1. Calculate spell time using the base spell cast time before talents and gear.
2. Spells that take longer than 7.0 seconds to cast are treated as if their casting time was 7.0 seconds, and spells faster than 1.5 sec are treated as if their casting time was 1.5 seconds.
3. Damage benefits are applied before any talents or buffs that may otherwise increase your spell damage.

Different types of spells have their damage and healing bonuses calculated differently. There are three base types of spells: standard, over time or a combination. Area of Effect and Channeling spells also take different bonuses. After the proper bonus is calculated, penalties are calculated to achieve the final damage.

Standard spells
Standard spells are spells that apply all the damage or healing at one time. To determine the plus Healing or Damage benefit for these spells the following formula is used: ( (Cast Time of Spell) / 3.5) * your +damage

Over-time spells
Over Time spells apply healing or damage over a period of time in ticks: (Duration of Spell / 15) * your +damage = Total amount of +damage applied

To learn more, see here.

Warlock Spells and the spell damage coefficient:

Conflagrate 42.86%
Corruption 93.60%
Corruption with Emp. Corr up to 129.6%
Curse of Agony 120.00%
Curse of Doom 200.00%
Dark Pact 96.00%
Death Coil 22.00%
Drain Life 71.43%
Drain Mana 0.00%
Drain Soul 214.30%
Health Funnel (healing) 285.70%
Hellfire (to enemies) 214.29%
Hellfire (to self) 142.86%
Immolate 65.00%
Immolate 20.00%
Incinerate 71.43%
Incinerate with Shadow & Flame up to 91.43%
Life Tap (life cost and mana gain) 80.00%
Rain of Fire 95.20%
Searing Pain 42.86%
Seed of Corruption 22.00%
Seed of Corruption 150.00%
Shadow Bolt 85.71%
Shadow Bolt with Shadow & Flame up to 105.71%
Shadowburn 42.86%
Shadowfury 19.50%
Siphon Life 100.00%
Soul Fire 115%
Unstable Affliction 120%
Unstable Affliction 180%

Further Reading:

• WoWWiki - Spell Damage and Healing
• WoWWiki - Spell damage coefficient
• WoWWiki - Spell damage comparison

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