Raiding: Best gear before T6 raiding

[mdawgkill]

Character Name: Mdawgkill
Armory Link: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...al&n=Mdawgkill
Talent Build: 0/21/40 (I just respecced out of PvP so armory might not be updated)

Quick Info
Health: 9455
Mana: 9280
+Damage: 1139
+Hit: 155 (I swap out Scryer's Bloodgem and Ash's Gift on boss fights to achieve hit cap)
+Crit: 21.85%
Have you read the gearing guide? Extensively

Items/Slots in need of immediate upgrade:

• Neck, Hood, Shoulders

Upgrades you are currently working on:

Neck - Grinding honor and marks for the S4 neckpiece when it comes out!
Hood/Shoulders - Been trying to run ZA and TK for Hood of Hexing/Loot Reavers hood and shoulders.


All about you:
I feel like my gear is pretty decent. I've followed the guide pretty well, but I feel like I could be doing a lot more for where I am and where my guild is. One warlock in my guild is absolutely disgusting in DPS. At least 10% higher than everyone always. However, there is another lock who always seems to do better than me... he is the same exact specc, only his gear is a lot less. His armory is here: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...l&n=Dracodeath
I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. My usually rotation for things is: CoS, SB SB SB SB SB SB SB, soulshatter when I pull aggro and such. I feel like I am having a lot of gem issues too. I feel like I'm doing that incorrectly. I have pretty much every piece of gear I can get, so I'm wandering what anyone would consider to be upgrades from where I'm at. My guild just started Black Temple on sunday. 5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK kara gruuls all the like. I'm just basically at a standstill right now and can't seem to figure out how to get any better from where I'm at. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Theleb]

If Dracodeath is beating you on the meters, you seriously need to pick up your game I'm afraid.

The first glaring error is that you've gemmed for crit. A lot of crit. Its really not worthwhile to do so. What I'd initially do is to slap +20 damage on your gloves and then re-gem with +hit/+damage gems until you get closer to the cap - you also need Subtlety on cloak, and to remove that +crit/pen gem in your Belt of Blasting.

There's nothing wrong with your rotation although you might like to check with WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet to see if its worth including immolate (at a guess I'd say its a small DPS gain at that gear level).

You can definately hit cap IF you choose to go with more straight +hit gems so thats not an issue and you definately seem to have chosen the most immediately accessible sources of upgrades. The Scryers Blade of Focus is (sadly considering its cost) sub-par
to the S2 Spellblade so I would definately try to grind honour for that - the +hit is far more valuable than the sheer +damage on the SBOF.

What you could end up with is something like this:

chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a

[mdawgkill]

Thanks a ton! What about my cloak? I just had that in there by accident I think. Is the Cloak of the Betrayed worth getting for the hit? I also have the ZA Shadowcaster cloak. I gemmed for crit because I was reading that a 25% crit was the best to aim at w/ destro, but man I was losing a ton of spell damage. Keep in mind I have a lot of other gear I can swap in instead of things. Would it be worth it to regem for the hit cap instead of swapping the Ring of Recurrence for Ashen's Gift or something? Also... I hate that Scryer blade! When vendor came out, I just saw OOOOO SPELL DAMAGE and grabbed it haha. I was a decent upgrade at the time, but I was also affliction. Is the S2 blade better for me than either blade from ZA? Before I grind out all those badges and gold for the epic gems, I wanna make sure I have absolutely the best set up I can get. I can't thank you enough though for taking the time out to help me. It's so hard to wrap my head around some of this stuff by myself

edit:
Wouldn't that set up give me an overcapped hit rating of 238?

[Affinity]

just remember it takes 22.1 points of spell crit to get 1% spell crit and 12.1 points of spell hit to get 1% spellhit. I used to be around you stat level..except i was stacking straight up damage and was at 19% and like 130 hit and when i went back and regemmed for hit and stuff and got 202 hit i was doing roughly 2.5 times the damage and twice the dps..and as the gear progresses gems for hit slowly go away..i think atm i have only 1 +8 spell hit gem on me

[Theleb]

It depends what you choose to pick up, that model was only an example based on achieveable upgrades

Wubs hexblade would be superb if it drops - definately get that and remember that you pick up 8% crit from talents if you go 21/40 so you only need 17% or so from gear. Basically, you get a little leeway in what items you choose to use so my very best advice to you is to download the spreadsheet at WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet and use that to examine your options, or perhapse use chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a for the same thing.

Hitcapped with around 1100 spell damage, and 20% Tooltip crit (the 3% from Backlash is shown there, the 5% from devastation isn't) should see you do some very decent DPS.

[mdawgkill]

Hey,
I was just freaking lucky enough to get the Nethervoid Cloak to drop from Hyjal today. Could you explain gemming to me? I just can't seem to understand. Yellow = pure hit unless capped? and then whats good after that? the spell damage and spell crit ones? and what about blue slots? I'm looking at that page now and don't you have too much hit? 238? Basically, if you wouldn't mind putting together a planner like the other one only with the spellstrike hood, but add the Nethervoid and I could probably get Wubs hexblade. and ohhh wow I didnt even think about that.so my crit should only be about 17 then?I would I gem to get the highest possible DPS like you did on the other page/

[Theleb]

As I said - if you REALLY want to understand how your character works then I very strongly advise you DL the Spreadsheet and input your gear into it. I never mind helping people out but if I continue to tell you what you need to do for your character you're missing out on a very important component of playing a warlock

Gemming is usually +hit until capped, then feel free to gem for damage and/or haste...this is where the spreadsheet comes in. It will tell you exactly how much DPS 1 point of damage, or crit, or haste is worth in terms of DPS and you can make decisions based on that - its never normally worthwhile to gem for crit.....

Read through this:

Gearing Your Warlock (2.4 Edition) - The Warlocks Den Forums

If a socket bonus involves some +damage, its normally worth picking up. If it doesn't that simply go for gems with this highest DP value (The ones giving most dps per point).

According to chardev your hit sits at 15.75% without the Nethervoid cloak. If I add that then of course it goes WAY over and you can re-gem some other items. This link is what I personally would do:

chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a

There are almost certainly some sub-par gem choices in that template so I again urge you to DL the spreadsheet and experiment with gear/gem choices until you get the maxiumum possible DPS from the gear you have - I've also used epic gems throughout and you might not have free access to them which again would affect your personal choice.

If the whole spreadsheet seems intimidating, there is a version 2.4 out now and a guide here on the Den. As with advice about gemming your character its definately worth your while to search rather than being told the answers.

Last thing - regarding crit. 17% from gear is around the minimum you'll need to see good returns from the build (it outperforms Unstable Affliction with lower levels of crit, but you want a significant difference, not a minor one) and any gear you get that increases your crit from that point is a good thing - just don't gem for it.

[mdawgkill]

My bad, I didn't know there was a spreadsheet guide here. I've been there several times and just don't understand it at all. I've checked the elitistjerks forums about it, still it makes no sense. I've also read over that gearing your warlock guide about 1,000 times. Butttttttttt, I'm gonna look more on here about the spreadsheet. Thanks a ton for the advice

*** Information added 142 Minutes and 40 Seconds later... ***

So I checked out the spreadsheet and it was really helpful. I assume I want the gear that gives me the highest DPS. I swapped a bunch of gear I have and came up with this set up:

http://www.warcrafter.net/sandbox/76162

according to the spreadsheet, I get 1737 buffed. as opposed to my 1684 DPS with my gear now.

HOWEVER,
it also says my stats are 1413 shadow damage, 30% crit, 206 hit and 3% haste. when I plug in all my gear into warcrafter, this is not the case. Am I doing something wrong w/ the spreadsheet or what? Regardless, do you think this set up is worth switching to? I'd have to spend a little time/money on mats and gems, so I wanna know your input. idk if like 70 plus DPS is hugely significant or what?

[Necronomis]

Quick thoughts: Gemming for crit while you're way under hitcap is full of fail. Voidhart crown sucks for pure damage. use spellstrike hood and pants and put Veiled Noble Topaz in them both until hitcapped. Anything with a red or yellow socket should have a veiled noble topaz in it, and anything with a blue socket should have a glowing nightseye in it (ONLY if the socket bonus is +damage). This means belt of blasting and T4 shoulders should both have glowing nightseye in the blue socket and veiled topaz in the yellows.

Since you're SB spamming get soulfrost on your main hand and forget about fire.

Use warcrafter to plan your sockets out. If you gem all the yellows and reds with veiled noble topaz, and you're over hitcap, you can start replacing them for runed living rubies in spellstrike hood/pants because the socket bonus for those pieces is crap.

[mdawgkill]

My bad with that link, I didn't realize I didn't have my rings/trinkets swapped for the hit cap. I think that's the same build though, only replace ring of reccurence with Ash's Gift and the Icon w/ Scryer's Bloodgem. I have that green gem in there for the +3 hit, it caps exactly at 202 with it. I could put a Veiled Noble Topaz, but for the price, I don't think +1 spell damage will make THAT big of a difference ya know? I'll actually replace those trinkets and update that link when I get home. Thanks again