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February 05, 2009, 03:28 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK (NOT Finished)
Table of Contents
Your gear is your identity in World of Warcraft. You are judged almost entirely on your gear, which is often synonymously interchanged with skill. Someone who understands how to gear, spec, gem and enchant correctly already have the advantage over 75% of other players. Your performance in any aspect of the game relies heavily on your gear. In short, gear almost singlehandedly can determine what you experience in World of Warcraft. Wrath of the Lich King has come before us and with it comes many changes to our talents, game mechanics and spells. We're all slowly getting adjusted to everything new with the expansion, and while I leave it up to you to explore the new intricacies of the expansion, a new gear guide is my attempt to help with effective gearing strategies and compiling easy-to-read lists with commentary. The BC version of Gearing Your Warlock received over a million views because of all your guys' support. I got a ton of messages and tells in game saying they liked the format of the latest version of the guide, so I'm following a similar format. As always, keep in mind that this is strictly a PvE guide helping you maximize your DPS because 1) PvP gearing is pretty self-explanatory and simple compared to PvE gearing AND 2) there are lots of other things besides gear that determine performance in PvP. This guide's main focus and goal is to gear you up effectively at level 80, as there are few times before the level cap where gear is all that important. The way I do this is by listing the top items of every slot so you know which items are better than others for warlocks, and more importantly, by what margin. I have done this by using point system called DPS points which is a very accurate way to measure and compare stats. This system also made it a lot easier to analyze gems and enchants, making the analysis more quantitative. More on the DPS Points in the DPS Point System section below. In addition to ranking the top items, you'll also find commentary at the top of most of the pages with my suggestions on the logical way to progress your gear starting from a pre-raiding level, from all the way to the high end raid instances. There will also be a few miscellaneous lists which more clearly highlight which items truly maximize your gear setup for the content your are doing. It's still really early in the expansion, but I will do my best to continually update the lists. If you think I have missed an item, have a messed up link or spelling, please inform me of the mistake in a post. Part of the reason why the lists are so complete is because the users are so adamant about making sure I didn't oversee anything. The old guide is still there for leveling warlocks, but know that I have not focused on that for this guide, as it was much more important and a pretty big task already to add and rank all the new items. It still is pretty useful though, but there's just so much in this expansion that I have to focus my attention on that. DPS Point System (DP) With the help of Leulier's (now Bakka's) spreadsheet, I have created a pretty accurate model of exactly how much DPS one point of a stat will compare to another point. I compare items using this system called DPS points (DP). To model DP, I use a specific set of stats and spec. For Wrath, I am modeling Affliction 56/0/15 since that has been the tried and true raiding spec. I had thoughts about including a point value system for Destruction, but the variety of different builds (0/20/51, 0/41/30, 2/13/56, etc) has made it hard to keep things consistent on that front. I used the following benchmark stats for DP - consider this all raid buffed: 2500 spell power, 30% crit, 20% haste and 16% hit (so we can assign a value to hit). The stats may seem a bit high, but remember that you factor in more things than consumables, like buffs (factoring heroism into a fight is why haste is so high) and trinket uptimes, etc. I also tried to make the benchmark stats higher than typical entry-level stats so the numbers don't become obsolete when Ulduar hits. Since I know some will be curious, the way I did this was I found a point where one point of a stat gave me exactly one DPS increase, set that value to equal 100 DP, and then figured out the values that an increase for a point of other relevant DPS stats gave. From there I reset the values and noted the DPS increase from one point of spell damage, haste, and crit. For those raiding as a different spec aside from Affliction, there are a few differences in stat values to account for. Affliction benefits much more from spell power than other specs because of the high spell coefficients that DoTs have. Hit, while still very important for an Affliction lock, matters a little less becaues on average you are casting spells with a shorter cast time, meaning the penalty is less harsh than a Destruction spec for missing (however, a missed DoT application can mess up a rotation for Affliction pretty badly). The same notion holds true for spell haste. Since Affliction's spells take less time to cast on average than a Destruction spec, spell haste is a little less useful. Spell crit, while a lot more useful now that Corruption and UA benefit from crit, still isn't ideal since Siphon Life and Curse of Agony doesn't crit, and our spell coefficient on our primary nuke, Shadow Bolt, isn't juiced up with a talent like Shadow and Flame. This table is essential for knowing how to compare one stat to another, so get familiarized with it. Later I will slightly touch upon each stat including those not included in DPS points. Here is the DPS point value chart. DPS Point Values Destruction/Affliction:I did not assign a value to stamina because, although while a valuable stat to have, does not increase your DPS. As a warlock, you will have naturally high health and generally will never have to worry about your health, so there's not much reason to take stamina into account when deciding between gear. The final thing to note is that I assigned a value of 2900 to a meta gem slot, which was derived from the spreadsheet. The meta gem that you should be using is the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. As a little disclaimer, remember that although pretty accurate, this is still just one quantitative way of ranking items and DPSing. 90% of the complaints disregard that. Values can and will change somewhat as your gear level increases/decreases. However, if I changed the basis of the values, the gear rankings would have no merit since I'm comparing the items in different terms. Gear 101 What kind of stats should I be looking for? There are 5 major stats: Strength, Agility, Spirit, Stamina, and Intellect. Strength and agility are more suited to non-casters and have no use to us. Spirit is related to mana regeneration and used to be rather useless to warlocks, but now Fel Armor and Life Tap makes use of spirit by converting 30% (or 39% with Demonic Aegis) of it into spell power. Each point of Stamina gives 10HP, and each point of Intellect gives 15 mana points. Also, 166.6 points of Intellect is equivalent to 1% spell crit chance at level 80. One big mistake a lot of people assume is that since we have Life Tap, that means our mana pool is our health pool and that there is no distinction between the two since they are "shared." While this statement is true in most regards, Stamina is not as useful from a DPS standpoint for a few reasons. First of all, Stamina does not make us deal more damage in any way. It doesn't modify our spell power, crit, any of that stuff. Second, warlocks already have naturally high health pools so we don't need much more health (if you're higher than the mages/priests, you're ok). In raids when you Life Tap, you will almost always get healed back by a healer or by your own accord such as through Siphon Life or Soul Leech. This means that the amount of stamina doesn't matter because it does not affect your DPS when factoring in Life Tap. Basically if you're good at avoiding unnecessary damage in PvE, Stamina becomes less and less uselses. In order of importance: Spirit ► Intellect ►► StaminaWhat about othder stats/effects? There are also other effects gear can have like added spell power, critical strike, spell penetration, hit, resilience, haste, etc. There are a few more, but these are the important ones that are related to warlocks. Spell power - Spell power directly affects how hard our spells hit for. Spell power increases all schools of magic. I'll explain how exactly this works in the next question How does spell power work? Spell power is extra damage added on to spells. However, often times you don't get the exact amount of damage added on because there is a spell coefficient that modifies that damage rewarded. For casted spells, the formula is cast time/3.5 second. For example, Shadow Bolt would be 3/3.5 = .857. You would get roughly 85.7% of your spell damage added on to the base damage. So if your Shadow Bolt did 100 damage and you had 100 spell damage on your gear, you would do 100 + 100(.857) = 185.7 damage per cast. Staff vs. 1H weapon + offhand? A common question that warlocks have is to equip either a two-hand staff or a one-handed dagger or sword and and off-hand item. The correct answer is whichever combination gives you the most favorable stats. To generalize though, I tend to favor the 1H weapon + off-hand combo because in most cases you can get a fair bit more spell power without sacrificing too many stats. In PvP however, you might want to load up on Stamina, which staffs usually have a good amount of. What about resistance? Resistance is an important stat for some raid fights, but resistance gear usually isn't the best for doing the most damage, so resistance will be pretty much ignored. I've heard the terms Tier 1/Dungeon Set 2, etc. related to gear? What's that about? Dungeon sets and tier sets are powerful endgame item sets that are meant to be for a specific class. There are a few differences between dungeon sets and tier sets. Pieces of the Dungeon sets drop in endgame 5 man dungeons (and UBRS). Pieces of the Tier sets drop in raid instances. Also, items in dungeon sets are not restricted to be worn by a sole class, while in the tiered sets, the specific class can only wear the set.
Make sure you familiarize yourself with the DP table I listed above that assigned values to each stat. Now how do you know whether it's worth the cost in mats to go for a particular item I suggested? How do you know which upgrades are better than others, and which ones you should prioritize? The way I started doing this using my point system was by working out some simple percentages. Say you had some boots worth 1600 point, and you saw that I recommended boots of the same slot that were worth 1900 point. To figure out the percentage difference, divide 1900 by 1600 (1900/1600) and you get an 18.75% difference. Now what's that mean? That's what this next table is for. For a level 70 PvE warlock: 0-3% - side-grade, don't put too much effort to get this itemUsing these percentages, it is easier to compare individual upgrades because you are not just calculating the difference between the DPS points, but the relative size of the upgrade. Does emphasis on stats change while I'm leveling? Absolutely. If you are leveling a warlock, it's much simpler. You want to focus on spell power, stamina, and intellect in that order. Spell crit and spell hit are pretty insignificant until you get to level 70. You'll see examples of gear to get while leveling later. Conclusion and Sources Well there you have it, all you need to know about gear. Hopefully everyone is able to gain something from this guide. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to say what's on your mind and share what you know. The guide still has lots of room for improvement and I will be updating it regularly. As a small sidenote, please don't whisper me in-game with questions about gear. Not only do I like when I'm in game to spend the time how I like, but I can answer your question more in-depth on the forums. I would like to thank and credit the following sources:
C-pimp 
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February 05, 2009, 03:29 AM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Levels 20-29 Note: Throughout the guide, you'll sometimes see an arrow by the item. Although I recommend all the gear that I list, the items with an arrow mean that either they are significantly better than most other items of that kind in the level range while still being fairly easy to obtain and that I highly recommend those specific items. If you don't want all the items that I listed or just want the best ones, look for the items with an asterisk. I decided this would be a good place to start, since you don't really need to be too focused on acquiring gear before level 20. For the most part, always keep your eye on "of the Eagle" gear. This gear is always going to have Stamina, Intellect or both. Of the Eagle gear from 20-30 ► Head: Shadow Hood, tailoringLevels 30-39 During the 30s, you will notice that there is a big increase in the quality of items in the 20s. You can also start to wear pieces of the Shadoweave set, made by tailors. There will be a little section on that later, but this section will exclude Shadoweave items. Head: Whitemane's Chapeau, SM cathedral boss dropShadoweave Set The Shadoweave set is the best early game set for Warlocks. I highly recommend going for this set, as it is cheaply made by tailors and provides an awesome boost in damage. You should be able to buy the mats from the AH for all six pieces for under 10g, or you can farm them yourself. The increase in shadow damage at that level is pretty significant and noticeable. Tailors can buy the Shadoweave patterns in Stormwind or Undercity. They're well worth the investment. The 6 piece set consists of a mask, shoulders, a robe, gloves, pants and boots. All in all it gives: 13 Stamina 15 Intellect 17 spirit 114 shadow damage This is going to make your shadowbolt hit for at least 25% harder, not to mention your DoTs ticking for a lot more too. This set should not be overlooked, as most of these items will last you through the entire 40s. Check the link to see what levels you can start wearing each piece at. Levels 40-49 During the 40s you should be pretty comfortable wearing your Shadoweave set. Most of the gear here is actually worse or only slightly better than the shadoweave set. Some people argue that the Dreamweave set made by tailors is better than Shadoweave, but this for the most part untrue for warlocks. Shadoweave has more damage and Stamina, which is pretty much all we're concerned about at this point. Dreamweave is loaded with Spirit, which is near useless for us locks. Make acquiring and wearing the whole Shadoweave set your goal by level 45. I will still point out though that the Dreamweave Gloves and Dreamweave Robes are very, very slight upgrades, but I didn't include it since Dreamweave costs a bit more. For those that want other options from Tailoring and those slots not covered by the Shadoweave set, here you are. Head: Bad Mojo Mask, ZF boss dropLevels 50-59 The 50s is generally when you start looking for as much spell damage as possible. There is an abundance of spell damage items in instances, so that's where most of the items come from. A lot of the better items in this level range come from high level instances like UBRS, Scholomance, and Stratholme. I'm going to stay away from these zones because since TBurning Crusade is out, there isn't too much demand to run these instances. BRD, Dire Maul, and LBRS are the instances I'll be looking at for gear. Also note that even though you can start Outland quests at level 58, I won't list any Burning Crusade quest rewards in this section. Note that tailors can make two more sets that are useful to warlocks. There is the Cindercloth set, which is a great fire damage set, however at this point in time Shadow is clearly the way to go and the Cindercloth set is higher on stats like Spirit and Intellect, not Stamina. There is also the Felcloth set, which is a slight upgrade from the Shadoweave set. However, the set isn't great because it is very low on Stamina, it's a little expensive to make and you will need a 300 tailor with extra Demonic Runes (a BoP mat needed). All in all, one piece is pretty good; the Felcloth Robe. Head: Crown of the Ogre King, Dire Maul North boss dropLevels 60-69 Well you finally made it to Outland. That's great, but no longer can you skimp on gear. The enemies are harder in this zone, and you're going to need some good gear. Luckily enough, Outland is full of good gear from quest rewards to instances. I'm going to ignore all level 60 raid gear since it would be fairly hard to acquire now that rarely anybody runs the old raid dungeons. Also keep in mind that Outland has TONS of great gear, so one doesn't have to be too picky about certain gear at this stage. A few less spell crit chance point isn't going to kill you. In this section, I'm just going to list quest rewards and three cheap, but good crafted items. None of these items requires you to run an instance or costs a lot of money, and aside from the three craftables, all of them you should be able to get at level 67 or lower. All of them are fairly easy quests chains, nothing extensive. Don't waste your time running dungeons over and over for gear if you don't want to. Outlands has plenty of quests to do, there's little pure grinding and instancing you need to do. As always, click on the link if you're interested in an item to find out more on how to get it. Head: Junior Technician 3rd Grade Goggles, Netherstorm quest rewardNetherweave Set As for tailoring, the Netherweave set is awesome for a mid-60 warlock. The 6 piece set (you can't wear the robe and the tunic at the same time) gives you 190 spell damage and 204 Stamina. The set is rather cheap to make also. Once again, don't fret too much about gear choice now, but if you have any shoddy pieces in your gear arrangement, the Netherweave set is an ideal warlock set with the high Stamina and damage to fill in the gaps. You're almost at 70, when you'll be completely revamping your wardrobe. It's no Shadoweave, but it's still damn good. Level 70 After level 70, gear becomes the most important factor in determining the strength of a character. Gear is the only way to progress after 70. There are two ways to acquire better gear - through PvP and PvE. Since we're not covering PvP gear, the way to get the best gear is through raiding. Before one attempts to raid, he needs a set of gear that will contribute to the group. Let's take a look at two top end pre-raid dungeon sets. Dungeon Set 3 The Dreadmist Raiment, the warlock Dungeon Set 1 was acquired through level 60 endgame instances. It could be updated to Dungeon Set 2 through a quest chain. At level 70, Blizzard has given us two, five-piece Dungeon Set 3 sets spread throughout endgame instances. The Oblivion Raiment is generally for affliction locks who want spell damage, Stamina and spell hit. The 45 mana your pet gains every 5 seconds also benefits locks with Dark Pact. The Mana-etched Regalia is not specifically tuned for warlocks, but this is a great set for destruction locks who focus on crit chance at the sacrifice of a little spell damage and Stamina. A good general rule on which set to focus on is to see if you have Ruin, the 21 point Destruction talent, or not. If you don't, the Oblivion Raiment is better. Locks with Ruin will also do fine with the Oblivion Raiment, but they won't go wrong with the Mana-Etched Regalia set either. However, the Mana-Etched Regalia is harder to obtain because 4 of the 5 pieces drop in Heroic instances. Aeonus - The Black Morass - HeadIn comparison, here is where the Oblivion Raiment drops. Harbringer Skyriss - The Arcatraz - HeadAs you can see, the Oblivion Raiment is easier to get. The stats pretty much equal themselves out, so if one set is worth the effort, it is the Oblivion Raiment. Levels 70-80 Back on the leveling grind once again. Remember that while leveling, your goal isn't to be the best geared with top end enchants. Worry about that stuff at 80, however, it does not hurt to prepare for gearing up at 80. Akasha has made a very complete list on pretty much every non-raid item you can get in the expansion through questing, instancing and professions. \ Check out the guide. I am going to highlight a few things though that you should definitely get on your trek to 80. |
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February 05, 2009, 03:29 AM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Gems The way one gems is a good indicator of how well they understand their class. When you gem an item, first look at the socket bonus, and how many gems are needed to get to the socket bonus. Next, take note of what stats you need to work on, especially if you are not hit capped through stats on gear only. If you are not hit capped, the best way to gem is by putting pure spell hit gems into sockets in this order of preference. Yellow - always put pure spell hit gems in UNLESS you are hit cappedBlue sockets are generally the worst socket for DPS, but we need two of them to activate the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond meta gem. Sometimes blue sockets aren't so bad, such as in the Belt of Blasting where you won't lose a lot of DPS by socketing a purple gem in the blue socket and getting the socket bonus. If you are hit capped just through stats on your gear, you will want to put either spell haste/damage gems, spell crit/damage gems, or pure spell damage gems in pretty much every one of your sockets for maximum DPS with Destruction raiding. Here are two simple examples:
Red socket
The meta gem that you should be using is the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond, and I am assuming a DP value of 5000. This gem requires a combination of at least 2 blue/purple/green gems throughout your other sockets to be active. |
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February 05, 2009, 03:30 AM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
1H Weapon Pre-raiding/Heroics: The absolute best weapons outside of raiding comes from arena, however those weapons require an 1900+ rating, so that may or may not be in your range. Unfortunately, we don't have any other great option when it comes to a 1H weapon. Any one of the blue heroic daggers work fine, as is the Kirin Tor revered dagger (which you can get without running heroics). Tier 7 raiding: In both the 10 and 25 man versions, Kel'thuzad drops the premier caster weapon of the instance. If using DKP, it is well worth saving for this item instead of settling for the other caster weapons. Enchant: Mighty Spellpower - DP: 3456 Exceptional Spellpower - DP: 2560 |
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February 05, 2009, 03:32 AM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Off-hand Pre-raiding/heroics: No question about it, you will want to get the Ward of the Violet Citadel as one of your first emblem rewards, as there's really only one clear-cut upgrade from Naxx 25. Tier 7 raiding: The Surplus Limb of Patchwerk in Naxx 25 is the only offhand worth chasing. Everything else is a sidegrade or worse than the emblem reward.
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February 05, 2009, 03:32 AM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
2H Weapon Pre-raiding/heroics: Again, the PvP staffs are really good, but require rating. The Staff of Draconic Combat out of heroic Oculus is pretty nice, but I find that one of the blue weapons plus the emblem off-hand still comes out a little over this staff. It's still not a bad option though. Tier 7 raiding: Malygos drops pretty much the only staff worth using as an alternative to a Tier 7 level 1H + OH. Anything other than that staff should not be a high priority. Enchant: Mighty Spellpower - DP: 3456 |
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February 05, 2009, 03:34 AM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Wand Pre-raiding/heroics: The wand slot doesn't give a whole lot of DP points, so don't worry if you don't have the best wand when you start raiding. You'll get a good one eventually. You can acquire a decent wand though from heroic Utgarde Keep or heroic Azjol-Nerub. Those wands should tide you over until Tier 8 raiding. Tier 7 raiding: Anub'rekhan's wand is the best wand by a good margin, but even still the wand slot has such a minute effect on your overall DPS that it doesn't matter too much.
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February 05, 2009, 03:34 AM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Head Pre-raiding/heroics: There's honestly not too much choice to prepare for raiding. There are a couple level 80 blue helms that are around Tier 6/Sunwell level. Hat of Wintry Doom is rather cheap and can be made by tailors - it isn't a bad option if you are hard-pressed to get one of the level 80 blue helms. Tier 7 raiding: Tier 7 off Kel'thuzad is probably idealbecause of the set bonus, but Heroic Malygos drops a very nice headpiece if you are min-maxing. Enchant: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries - DP: 1152 |
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February 05, 2009, 03:35 AM
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#9 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Neck Pre-raiding/heroics: Again, it's difficult to find a standout neckpiece that competes with Tier 7 level gear. The Titanium Spellshock Necklace is probably the best you can do, but it is extremely expensive for a simple neckpiece, likely upwards of 2500g in mats. The badge necklace is also disappointing. My suggestion is to put this slot on the backburner until you get into Tier 7 content. The necklace isn't a major DP slot. Tier 7 raiding: There's a wealth of good necklaces in Tier 7 level content. In both 10 and 25 mans, the Malygos' quest item reward is your best bet. Other good options come from Sartharion for 10 mans, and Sapphiron for 25 mans.
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February 05, 2009, 03:36 AM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Kobekid 80 Human Warlock Kilrogg US PvE Guild: Good With Ketchup Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: Gearing Your Warlock in WoTLK
Shoulders Pre-raiding/heroics: The Dark Runic Mantle seems to be the best pre-raid shoulders, so if you can pick one up off the AH (it's a random BoE blue), it's gold well invested. A slightly worse alternative comes from a quest reward in Storm Peaks. Tier 7 raiding: Both Tier 7 shoulders are good and what you should be aiming for assuming you want the set bonuses. You can also buy T7 shoulders with emblems of valor, so keep that in mind. Enchant: Greater Inscription of the Storm - DP: 1872 Lesser Inscription of the Storm - DP: 1848 |
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