The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

Originally Posted by Koldfeat

So the only question as I see it is what gems to get. What gems give the best return not only now but tomorrow. Why say "don't stack haste until T6"? Since the only reasonable way to "stack" a stat is through gems, are you saying don't use haste gems until you get T6 gear? I disagree. You only get gear one piece at at a time and when you enter T6 content you are using T4, badge and T5 gear. So if you are saying don't gem T4, badge, and T5 gear with haste gems I disagree unless you enjoy regemming your gear alot. Gem hit till hit capped, them gem dam/haste in all yellow sockets and dam/haste or pure dam in red. Gem blues if you want the socket bonus, dam/haste or pure damage if not. Personally I'd say go dam/haste as much as possible since you are "hopefully" going to get to T6 and then the haste gemmed gear you have will mesh better with the haste gear you get as you acquire it.

Saying, "but its not enough to matter" doesn't make any sense to me. For a dest lock with a reasonable amount of stats (like everyone who is raiding has) its a flat dps increase. Its like saying "don't get that piece with 4 more damage, its not enough to matter." Might as well get haste gems, its a dps increase and will mesh better with the T6 gear you'll eventually get. Sure, you can come up with situations where haste may not be as useful as crit, like trash or bosses with short phases. But who cares? As I said above, noone can account for all the variables on all the bosses and who gives a crap about your trash dps? No smart guildmaster does, I can tell you that. Pound for pound dam/haste gems are the best gems to put in all your red and yellow (and maybe blue) sockets and will will serve you best in the most situations over the life of the piece of gear you are gemming.

Just a few other comments in general. These comments and those above are not aimed at any particular posters, its just stuff I see repeated often everywhere.


If you are already in all T6 gear your input about how to max dps once there is not really that helpful. Most people who want advice are not all in T6 gear, they want to know what to do "now" not "when you get all T6 gear". Discussions about the max possible dps with unlimited resources and ideal situations may be interesting to some, but its not that helpful to most. And most people who are in all T6 gear are not that responsive to whatever your advice is, after all they are in all T6 gear as well, why do they need your advice?


Why do people say "don't go dest until T5/T6/Maxed hit/ 20%crit/etc etc? Go dest as soon as it does more damage (damage not dps) against bosses than aff, period. The sooner you go dest the sooner you will be putting more ISB debuffs on the boss.


Gemming or "stacking" a stat to reduce threat is silly. Since threat comes from your damage you are saying to gem to reduce damage? Even if you have to hold back in some situations because of threat, so what? What about the situations where you don't have to? Its alot easier to miss a gcd and lose some threat than it is to to wish you hadn't gemmed/specced/itemized to reduce threat/damage.

Originally Posted by levinho

Here is the biggest issue I see with stacking haste as a player progressing though kara-t5:

Haste benefits you only if you aren't wasting any time being "idle". Every second of idle play that you could be casting and you are not is wasted benefit of haste. Even more so than from crit or damage because you can't get "lucky" with haste and in the way that you can make some damage up with a string of crits. If you waste 6 seconds in a fight that is all of 20 points of haste down the drain in a 150 cast fight as per my previous example.

Not to knock people who aren't in t6, but many of them are going to be of low to moderate experience in raids and won't have developed all the skills needed to achieve that maximum benefit that haste can provide.

All that said, a person progressing through that content isn't going to have access to pieces of haste gear that are very worthwhile over the classic pieces.

It is important to realize that even though haste is great things like crit and damage shouldn't be ignored (I know you basically said that.) Now if you can stack 50 or more haste without gimping your stats like crit and damage then by all means go for it; however, the returns on things like crit and damage will be better for someone who is still learning fights and more importantly correct positioning, movement, and timing.

Originally Posted by levinho

Here is the biggest issue I see with stacking haste as a player progressing though kara-t5:

Haste benefits you only if you aren't wasting any time being "idle". Every second of idle play that you could be casting and you are not is wasted benefit of haste. Even more so than from crit or damage because you can't get "lucky" with haste and in the way that you can make some damage up with a string of crits. If you waste 6 seconds in a fight that is all of 20 points of haste down the drain in a 150 cast fight as per my previous example.

Not to knock people who aren't in t6, but many of them are going to be of low to moderate experience in raids and won't have developed all the skills needed to achieve that maximum benefit that haste can provide.

All that said, a person progressing through that content isn't going to have access to pieces of haste gear that are very worthwhile over the classic pieces.

It is important to realize that even though haste is great things like crit and damage shouldn't be ignored (I know you basically said that.) Now if you can stack 50 or more haste without gimping your stats like crit and damage then by all means go for it; however, the returns on things like crit and damage will be better for someone who is still learning fights and more importantly correct positioning, movement, and timing.