The Warlocks Den - WoW Warlock Discussions

Do Warlocks really benefit from Spirit?
Yes, but not as much as some make it out to be. Whether it benefits you personally also depends on your play style and talent build. Let's have a more in-depth look into the different areas it now affects. Spirit has a tri-fecta of importance for warlocks:

1. 30% of spirit is added to spell power
2. Increase HP regeneration
3. Increase HP regeneration which can be translated into more Mana via Lifetap.

So, spirit is more important than it used to be, but not all that high up on the food chain. The general consensus is to not go out of your way to stack or obtain spirit, however as you level up and enter the higher end game play, you will inevitably end up with more spirit, which is not a bad thing. As stated however, there is no definitive answer to whether or not this stat is important. There are just way too many factors that come into play, so you need to decided if it's something that improves you depending on how you play.


Spirit and Life Tap
The benefit from spirit has way less to do with additional spell power and far more to do with the amount of health to mana conversion you do with each life tap.

Pre Patch 3.0.2: Your life tap spell was based off 'x' amount of health getting converted to 'x' amount of mana. The higher your spell power, the more health you burned, meaning the more mana you got (as Life Tap is a spell, which, if you've ever tried, you will find you can't use it while silenced).

Post Patch 3.0.2: Your spell power no longer has any bearing on how much health you burn into mana. The amount of health you burn into mana is solely calculated on the base amount of the rank you are using, PLUS your spirit multiplied by 3. If you look at the tool tip for the rank you are using (for example, rank 8) it shows: Converts [1490 + SPI * 3] health into [1490 + SPI * 3] mana. Spirit increases quantity of health converted.

Using the example rank above, the base amount lost is 1490 health, converting into 1490 mana. This means that 1490 healthplus three times your spirit is being converted into equivalent amount of mana. With +200 Spirit however, the conversion is 1490+(200*3) = 2090 health into 2090 mana. Basically you are converting more health to mana each time, requiring you to hit the life tap key less to gain the same amount. Now, the tricky part is, do you want that larger return for less life taps? Or, do you want less return, but the ability to life tap more times?

The Solo player bouncing between mobs:
If you like to solo, and are often found fighting multiple mobs at once, you have to ask yourself if those larger chunks of health being taken out of you are going to cause you any trouble. What happens if you are fighting two, three or 10 mobs and you run out of mana. You life tap, only because you have stacked on the spirit, the life tap takes a huge chunk of your health, coupled with the mobs already beating on you and you die. Alternatively, if you didn't stack the spirit, you could life tap periodically to regain your mana, while also retaining the most health.

The Raider with aggravated healers:
Another scenario is while instancing or raiding. Here you have to consider more than just you. Putting ourselves first, the more you can convert per hit, the less time away from DPSing. That's a good thing. But, the more health you are converting, the more the Healers may have to pay attention to you, and if you life tap at the wrong time, you could end up nothing more than a stain on the floor, which leaves you doing no DPS. That's a bad thing.

Unfortunately, the contribution to Life Tap has yet to be truly tested in endgame.

Affliction Warlocks - Remember your Haunt!
Haunt should generally keep up with Life Tap. You should always Life Tap (if you're going to at all) right before Haunt returns and heals you. Add in putting Siphon Life up on the boss as part of your rotation and you should generally never have mana issues as affliction.

(I generally Life Tap every other Haunt rotation. Or about once every 16 seconds. The only time that I have trouble keeping my mana up are during fights where I'm taking a lot of AoE damage and it's not safe to Life Tap.) ~ Xavron


Spirit and Spell Power

100 Spirit = 33 Spell power (44 with Demonic Aegis). That doesn't include the life tap bonus, just pure spell power converstion.

To work out your spirit to spell power conversion, take your spirit and multiply by 0.3 if you are not specced into Demonic Aegis, or 0.39 if you are.

That said, spirit should never be taken over pure spell power. What you can do however, is look at an item that already has your spell power on it, and convert the spirit over to add on top.


Gearing for Spirit?
Spirit should be viewed as a positive on any piece of gear, but I'm not convinced it should be geared for at the expense of some of our more direct DPS stats. The good news? When you look at the gear we are getting at level 80, has spirit in equal portions to stamina and intellect with a few exceptions so we will be receiving the benefit no matter what. Prior to being in reach of the level 80 'covers everything' gear however, you should not be sacrificing any current spell power for spirit.

Important: You should never take a spirit heavy item over a Healer if there is one in your group that could benefit from the piece. They receive a far larger boost from Spirit. As RelaxMan puts it, play with courtesy, and play with common sense. If there is a piece of gear that's heavy +int, +spirit, spell power and maybe some haste, and the healer needs it - pass. Your healer gives you an infinite source of mana and is a critical part of the group.

Recommended Trinket
Recommended by Froshaka: Valonforth's Remembrance
Reward from Quest: Parting Thoughts (Alliance) or Funding the War Effort (Horde)

This thing procs ALL the time considering the number of DoTs that I have hitting targets. Provided you didn't already skip it as a quest reward, I would recommend grabbing this as that its worth over 70 spell damage. ~ Froshaka


Stat Order
So, which order should you be picking your stats? Well, firstly, a lot of it depends on your build or what you eventually want your overall build to become.

Leveling
Spell Power ~> Stamina ~> Crit ~> Spirit ~> Hit

Instances and Raiding
Hit ~> Spell Power ~> Haste ~> Crit ~> Spirit ~> Stamina -- if you are not hit capped.
Spell Power ~> Haste ~> Crit ~> Spirit ~> Stamina -- if you are hit capped, slotting in Hit where you see fit depending on your current total.
Note: Destruction Warlocks may desire Crit over Haste

PvP
Spell Power ~> Stamina ~> Crit ~> Spirit ~> Hit

Why is Stamina rated so low in instances and raids. Isn't stamina important?
Well yes and no. It's important if you die on encounters. Warlocks tend to have quite enough stamina, specially with the Tier 1 & 2 Demonology talents (which the 2 valid Wrath of the Lich King specs include (Deep fire & Metamorphosis with 100% crit)) So the need for stamina reflects how often you die, and how good you are at avoiding the damage on encounters). The importance of Stamina also depends on your current health. If you're pushing 15,000 health, then no, you're probably not going to be as worried about Stamina.


Gems and Gear Enhancements?
So you finally figure out if you do or don't want to take a piece of equipment with Spirit on it, but what happens when you can socket or enchant it? Which one do you take?

• Enchanting your gear - Recommended Warlock Enchants (Please note it does need to be updated with Wrath of the Lich King info, it's on my list)
• Socketing Guide (Again, it does need to be updated with Wrath of the Lich King info)

Information Sources:

• Warlocks and Spirit - The Big Discussion! - The Warlocks Den Forums
• Warlock: Simple Questions/Simple Answers - Page 6 - Elitist Jerks
• Thankyou to pyrnon, Tragik, Lurker37, Kiralyn, Kyzael, Thorgar, Ghorogoth, XavronMG, Sita, RelaxMan and froshaka for their contributions to the guide above.

__________________