Raiding: Worth losing T4 proc?

[Mithgaar]

Character Name: Mithgaar
Armory Link: The World of Warcraft Armory
Talent Build: 0/21/40

Quick Info
Health: 9.5K
Mana: 9.5k
+Damage: +1119 shadow
+Hit: 205
+Crit: 21% (without talents 29% with)
Have you read the gearing guide? Yes

Items/Slots in need of immediate upgrade:

• As a whole I think my gear is reasonably well balanced.

Upgrades you are currently working on:
List any upgrades you are currently working on and where you are at. For example:

• Completing badge gear

• T5 Shoulders
• Rage winterchills OH drop
• Nethervoid cloak

All about you:
I'm mainly a raid tho pvp sometimes (but will never sacrifice anything raid wise for pvp) I'm basicly looking at trying to get a full badge "set" I just finished regemming and re enchanting some of my gear due to some upgrades and trying to get my crit. My guild is currently starting SSC/TK/MH and have downed the first boss in each.

I'm currently bout to upgrade my voidheart gloves to the badge one and then going to either get the badge pants (crit ones) or the T5 shoulders if they drop. Any one of these upgrades will break the T4 2 piece set bonus and I'm unsure if its worth it.

The other problem I'm having is when to stop pushing my crit up. I have 21% untalented which is around 29% talented. Should I look at keeping my crit around the 30% and then start trying to stack more damage or just keep trying to stack crit and let the damage build by itself.

Anyway thanks in advance for all your help.

[Mithgaar]

Been talking to some guildies and they seem to think 30% crit is acceptable for a destro lock and shouldn't be pushed much further. Basicly stack more +damage while maintaining the 30% crit. Sound about right? plus any tips or upgrades would be great.

[Valimir]

If you have 21% crit without talents then you have 26% with talents (the 5% from Devastation does not show up on your character sheet but the 3% from Backlash does).

According to the spreadsheet it's not worth replacing the T4 shoulders with T5 if it will lose you the proc. If you plan to get rid of the T4 pants and gloves as well (and you should get rid of the gloves) then you might as well ditch the shoulders too.

The other big upgrade for you from the bosses you are doing would be the Cowl of the Grand Engineer from VR. I need it too but haven't been lucky yet :(

[Theleb]

Your crit is currently fine (27.9% with talents) but problematically you had to gem for +crit to get there. Gemming for crit is never as effective in terms of DPS as gemming for haste/damage once you're at the hit cap so you might wish to consider the possibilities of different items and definately DL the spreadsheet so you can play with the options to determine what gives you the best DPS upgrades:

WoW Warlock DPS Spreadsheet

For example:

The Spellstrike pants blow T4 completely out of the water, and the badge gloves are far superior to the T4 also....definately get the T5 shoulders if they drop and consider getting the S4 neck.

Spell Penetration isn't worthwhile for PvE - definately look into replacing those gems/enchant with something else (Subtlety on cloak, other gems dependant on your base stats).

Putting all your gear into a spreadsheet as it is I ended up with 1436 base dps.

After that I added in the Badge Gloves, Spellstrike Pants. Gemmed the gloves with a reckless noble topaz, dropped the same into your BoB to replace the Dawnstone, then added 3 more into the pants (Note, you'll get just as much mileage from simple +damage at this point, so I'll do another version that concentrates on that rather than getting a little haste in there).

At this point, the DPS increases to 1452.

From then on, you can juggle items around yourself (Don't drop TOO much crit immediately because you will need it for personal DPS and ISB Upkeep) but clearly with a modicum of thought and a litte re-gemming then you can break the 2 part bonus.

If you go with the corrupted soulcloth pantaloons you will need to re-gem for +hit but you can definately replace some of those crit/pen gems with hit/damage and you should end up even further ahead - certainly at 1470+

I can definately reccommend taking the time to play with the spreadsheet to plan your upgrades

[Mithgaar]

Ya been playing with the spreadsheet but just starting to play with destro so advice is great. Basicly I'm going to get the badge gloves then save badges up as soon as I get T5 shoulders spend the badges on the pants.

thanks for the advise guys

With the gemming, I gemmed alot of +crit cos I worked out my crit should be 25% on the spreadsheet but when I changed to destro it fell short (due to some talents no showing) basicly I'm gonna try keep my crit were it is and slowly re-gem to damage. Oh and with the spell pen I only put them in cos I had heaps laying in the bank lol.

[Valimir]

Originally Posted by Theleb

Your crit is currently fine (27.9% with talents)

On his Amrory atm he has an adept's elixir and is buffed with AI and MoW which are adding to his actual baseline crit. Agree with Theleb on the other stuff though, I didn't run through all the possibilties but basically if you have to keep either the T4 legs or gloves for now then keeping the shoulders for the 2-piece proc is higher dps than swapping to the T5 shoulders. I'm using the T4 helm now and swapping my T5 shoulders for the T4 is a good DPS increase, unfortunately I sharded my Voidheart Shoulders months ago now. However, it is better all round to get rid of all your T4 for badge+T5 gear.

[Theleb]

Hah, didn't see the buffs ;p

As I said, don't be in a hurry to re-gem until such time as your gear will provide the baseline stats and then you can tweak appropriately.