DPS efficiency: sacrifice Succy or keep her?

[cdubaldo]

From a pure DPS standpoint, what's more efficient: keeping your succubus around or sacrifice her?

Keeping the succubus active means +10% damage from master demonologist and an improved damage equal to 15% of the succubus (stamina + intelligence).

On the other hand, if you sacrifice her, you get +15% (shadow) damage.

I'm not taking into consideration any other factor such as the fact that it's sometimes impossible to find a safe spot where to park her. I'm also assuming that all my spells will be shadow based which is fair enough considering a 0/40/21 build.

[gyagyagya]

Keeping the succubus alive is 10% from MD and 5% from Soul Link plus Demonic Knowledge plus the succubus' 100-200+dps.

Sacrificing it is 15% shadow.

Why would you ever think about sacrificing 20-30% of your DPS plus all the damage buffs?

You only sacrifice anything if you are 0/21/40. Keeping your succubus alive and DPSing is what you should strive to achieve. If you are incapable of that, respeccing should be considered.

[Canadianpimp]

Don't forget Demonic Knowledge too. DS is interesting in that way...it's less appealing the more points you have in Demo.

[xdiesp]

Imho this is like comparing two cars and say you want to buy one over the other because the second goes at 200 km/h speed while the first can only reach 100 km/h speed: simply, in town you can only achieve 50 km/h speed (at least, in Italy).

The aggro\damage you can generate is a finite amount: you upgrade your damage with the succubus and you reach the roof of X damage faster by 10%, but if you lower your threat with an imp, you deal X+20% damage upon reaching the same roof.

Now, if pets were always instant-summonable, I would think about swapping them often during the same fight... but this is not the case.

[cdubaldo]

I hear what the two first replies are saying, but can someone help me do the calculations using the following assumptions:
- Boss with AOE capabilities, eg. shadow labyrinth end boss -> Succubus parked in a safe spot and will not help DPS
- no talent point in soul link.
- full master demonologist points (+10% damage) and full demonic tactics points (damage upped by 15% of pet's stamina+intelligence).
- fell intellect and fell stamina maxxed

With the above assumptions, I guess it boils down to whether 5% more damage without an active pet is greater than the added damage amount given by 15% of the succubus stamina + intelligence (both improved through fell intellect and fell stamina).

[Cyphyllis]

keep her alive
you can also use soul link to mitigate20% of your damage taken. staying alive 20% longer = 20% more DPS ( lots of assumptions here !)

[cdubaldo]

Again, let's assume I don't have soul link. I've zero talent point invested in soul link as I felt that my low HP succubus would be very quickly out of the picture if she was to take 20% of all damage received.

I know casters aren't supposed to take damage but sometimes you can't prevent it, eg. Gruul's cave in or when chanelling cubes with Magtheridon.

[gyagyagya]

Why no talent point in soul link? It is 5% extra damage for 1 point! If you find soul link kills your pet too fast, you can always turn it off for select fights.

You can nuke and keep your pet running in and out during murmur's aoe's. If its about to die, you can DS at that point. If the problem you're facing is you can't react or keep the pet alive, it might serve you better to use a phased imp, get blood pact for the tank and have a passive threat reduction. If you're ever sacrificing it, maybe you should change to a 0/21/40.

@ xdiesp: the threat cap is your tank and it is infinite in theory as long as the tank stays alive. The ThreatPerSsecond he generates is also presumably infinite capped by his gear. If your DPS at range is under 130% of his TPS and with all the threat management available to a warlock, there is no reason why you can't hit top speed. If you can't, get another tank.

If people could only drive at town roads speed, why would anyone bother making faster and faster cars. I prefer driving on the freeway or a racetrack sometimes.

[Canadianpimp]

Two words: Demonic Knowledge

This is another 8-10% DPS tacked on. It's basically like another Fel Armor.

[cdubaldo]

I'll make the simple check when I connect tonight and compare my SB DPS with my succi out and the DPS I get if I sacrifice her;

If Canadianpimp is right, ie that DK alone with Succi out translates into 8 to 10% additionnal damage, depending on your base +damage, then DSing the succubus is not worth it EXCEPT if you seize that opportunity to enslave a lone demon (therefore receiving bonuses from DS, DK, DT and potentially Soul Link).