Locks Fire vs Locks Shadow

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Post by Dolby109

Post by Dunsinane

I have a question.
Does the Imp Shadowbolt debuff give 20% to all shadow damage until 4 non-periodic damages consume it, or only +20% to non-periodic?

I am asking because my class leader is trying to make me go shadow saying I am not contributing to the raid (which is BS, I sac a Felhunter so I don't strain the healers, unlike the other locks). I was sceptical at first given that a warlock can ALWAYS consume his own debuff before its time expires but then I read and it looks like it improves dot damage while its up...so it makes more sense. Then he told me it does not improve DOT dps...which puts it back to not making much sense.

So how exactly does this debuff work?

Please, please, please... DON'T yank up a six-month-dead thread to ask a question. There's a new topic button on the main page for a reason.

That said: ISB affects both periodic and non-periodic shadow damage done while it is active on the target. Only non-periodic damage removes the charges.

Oh, and don't sacrifice felhunters in raids. If your healers are having a hard time keeping up with your life taps, the raid has a lot bigger concerns than your mana pool. The 15% damage bonus will benefit the raid far more by burning down the bosses faster and thereby making your healers spend less mana keeping the tanks alive.

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Post by Dunsinane

Post by Dolby109

Well by saccing a puppy I still keep up in dmg with better geared warlocks because I don't have to lifetap much or at all.

In fact I am most often top in damage done (not necessarily dps) in 25 mans, esp if I do fire damage.

Also our guild has far more fire mages than shadowpriests, and NO affliction locks.

The other thing that a lot of people seem to overlook is the diminishing returns on Imp Shadowbolt debuff the more warlocks are in the raid. The more locks there are the quicker they consume it each time that its up. Well its more likely to go up with more locks but its also more likely to overwrite one on the second hit.
The more locks there are the more time it will be up, but each lock does not increase its uptime by their crit.

If I knew I would buff raid dps I would go all shadow.

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Post by Dunsinane

Yeah, though its personal. My guild is seriously lacking in holy priests and swimming in shadow priests right now, so I've been riding them about the whole "become a healbot, see Mt Hyjal" thing. ;-)

Post by Celdhyrean

Post by Chinky

I understand it as if you were to pop your trinket. By that i mean: If there are currently shadow DoTs up, it won't affect them, but if you were to reapply your shadow DoTs while imp shadowbolt is up, it will affect the current DoTS. It is also consumed whenever 4 non-periodic shadow spells hit it. So if there is one or more warlock in the raid or a Spriest that keeps mind blast on CD, it will run out pretty fast.Incorrect. ISB is a debuff on the target, making it vulnerable to shadow effects, not a buff on the warlock casting.

And any raiding shadow priest that uses mind blast is epic fail... and given how they have worse threat control than warlocks do, he's probably getting a really high repair bill.

I dont know what SPriests you are raiding with, but I use mind blast AND sw:d in my spell rotations even while not in raids. I do NOT have problems with aggro, even with omen turned off. What's probably going on is your SPriests do not have their aggro talents (thus making them rather ineffective), attacking too early, attacking the wrong target, using VT and not laying back a little bit fom start of pull, or out gears the tank buy a wapping amount. Im going to go with the last due to experiance with this.

As for Fire & Shadow destruction, I would stick with shadow for the simple fact that most lock spells are shadow based, and over all making you more effective; ie; Life Tap, mana drain (gl with this), shadowburn, ect.

Post by Dolby109

If I knew I would buff raid dps I would go all shadow.Honestly, that sounds to me like you really don't think shadow buffs raid damage and you don't want to go there and are only looking for arguments fitting your PoV here.

It has already been said that additional ISB uptime buffs ALL shadow damage done on the boss.
Also, the number of mages in your raids has strictly no impact : firelocks get buffed by mages (and one mage is enough) but don't provide the raid with anything a shadowlock couldn't bring.

I'm not sure you read my entire post or not.
But in most raids we have 0 shadowpriests, and all of our locks are destro...so theres maybe 2 curses of agony to buff...thats it.

I dont want to loose 15+% of my damage to give 20% more damage 20% of the time (read 4%) to 2 other peoples curse of agony. (I have more than 20% crit, a third lock will only add 10-20% uptime on ISB)

Post by Celdhyrean

I read this : Also our guild has far more fire mages than shadowpriests, and NO affliction locks. which to me meant that you had 1 at least which is enough to get all the debuffs that up your shadow dps (the number of firemages beyond the first is irrelevant as i said), and to maje your personal dps the same be it fire or shadow.
I can't give a definite answer since i don't have the data, i'm only trying to provide the tools so that you can do it.

I don't quite understand why you say that your contribution to ISB would only boost the CoA from the other warlocks though. They should be shadow (since you are saying that your contribution to ISB will be small) and thus your 10-20% contribution to ISB will boost 100% of their damage, ie you provide both of them a boost of 4% of their total dps.
(and they should be using CoR or CoD and not CoA)

Post by asakawa

i agree with Celdhyrean, it really sounds like you're trying to find reasons to support the decision you've already made.

if you're serious about raid synergy then you should go shadow. if your raid isn't currently working on anything they don't have on farm then there's no reason to optimise but if you're progressing through raid content then don't fool yourself into thinking that fire is best for the raid.

Post by Gistireyn

If you have 0 shadow priests at all times then going shadow when you already have shadow warlocks would actually be pointless. If you take 1 shadow warlock and have him infinitely dps a boss then his uptime averages around 76% and no matter how many more shadow warlocks you add its going to stay the same 76% average because of debuff overlapping and being eaten at higher rates. So only if you have another source of shadow damage ie shadow priest (which I am shocked you don't have at least 1 of) does adding more shadow warlocks increase uptime.