Improved Demo shout and you!

Improved Demo shout and you!
Ok, so recently nobler had me pick up improved demoralizing shout to use on bosses that we are getting to that hit rather hard, IE: azgalor, archimonde and so on. After doing some reading tonight it seems that the Imp demo shout cap is 2/5 in talent without using CoR. However, I've also come across a few other things that I think would be worth trying if its not a drain dps wise on the other classes. Ok so, 2/5 improved demo shout is the cap on reducing a mob/bosses ap without any buffs, this leaves room for one of our warlocks to keep up Curse of Recklessness, which adds 135ap, however, for this to work in conjunction while keeping maximum reduces ap we need one of our hunters to pick up a pet with the screech ability. So 2/5 imp demo, + screech + CoR keeps the maximum amount of ap reduction on the boss while also giving 800 additional armor penetration improving all physical dps, hunters, hunter pets, tanks, and melee dps. So I'd like to ask if one of our warlocks would like to volunteer to have max talented (if its even a talent im not sure) CoR and for one of our hunters (possibly contrail since he's survival and pet dps isnt as much of an issue as BM) pick up a pet with screech, bat/bird or whichever has the ability and its highest rank. Also on fights where nobler has to run in and take damage while healers are still running i'd like to ask one of our warlocks to throw on a preliminary Curse of Weakness and then switch to normal curse once positioned to give me time to get Demo shout up, after reading some, CoW does not create any threat and can be applied without worry before nobler gets to the boss (unless this has changed recently). the above suggestion requires 3 warlocks in raid, one for CoR, one for CoE, and one for CoS. when we dont have 3 warlocks not having CoR up isn't an issue because the 2/5 imp demo talent will cover max ap reduction by itself.

Ok, I am a bit confused. You correctly state that CoR adds Attack Power, but still think we need it on hard-hitting bosses? The base +135AP does not seem like much, but my understanding is that some bosses have a multiplier that makes this extra AP really hurt. I know I speak for all of our raiding locks when I say we are happy to use whatever curse helps the raid the most. We should just make sure this is the right call for hard hitting bosses. Also, in the area of damage reduction: I have stayed affliction when everyone else has gone destruction for 2 main reasons. The first is Malediction. This adds 3% extra damage to CoE or CoS. This could be somewhat compensated by greater Improved Shadow Bolt debuff uptime, but the 2 are not the same. The other is the one that has merit in this conversation. That is Shadow Embrace. I am now speccing 5/5 in this talent, which causes a 5% reduction in physical damage caused as long as I have CoA, Corr, or SL (or SoC, but that isn't for bosses) up. On a 20k hit this would reduce it to 19k. My main point is though, it seems counter-productive to have CoR up on a hard-hitting boss unless we are having problems beating an enrage timer. Even then, there would have to be a lot of physical DPS to make it worthwhile. Thoughts?

So I'd like to ask if one of our warlocks would like to volunteer to have max talented (if its even a talent im not sure) CoR It does not. There is no way to improve Curse of Recklessness that I know of. Also on fights where nobler has to run in and take damage while healers are still running i'd like to ask one of our warlocks to throw on a preliminary Curse of Weakness and then switch to normal curse once positioned to give me time to get Demo shout up, after reading some, CoW does not create any threat and can be applied without worry before nobler gets to the boss (unless this has changed recently). You'd have to show me the source of the information you found that CoW causes no threat. I vividly remember pulling aggro on the High King by putting Curse of Weakness on him before his tank could swing at him; I pulled aggro from my pet this morning with CoW. The amount of aggro is small but real. I think the only time it could be safely used, would often coincide with the moment demo shout could be safely used. My main point is though, it seems counter-productive to have CoR up on a hard-hitting boss unless we are having problems beating an enrage timer. Even then, there would have to be a lot of physical DPS to make it worthwhile. Thoughts? The issue here is that on any boss, there is a limit on the amount of Attack Power reduction we can inflict. That means if Talliara picked up the fully improved Demoralizing Shout, some of the debuff would be wasted. What Talliara was suggesting is to put an additional AP reduction debuff to compensate for the AP increase, so that we can benefit from CoR an still remain at the AP reduction cap.

I'm sorry I wasn't more clear. With myself having 2/5 improved demo shout talent, and a hunter having a pet with screech, the ap gain the boss gets from CoR is negated, and the boss still gets the cap'd amount of AP reduction that is allowed. Thus we are able to do more damage to the boss while still keeping his damage down. As an example of how effective this is, Teron Gorefiend hits nobler for 8.5-9.3k dmg without imp demo shout up, and with imp demo shout up, he hits nobler for 5.8-6.5k, a big differece. Being able to do both would be a nice thing, but communication is really key, if for some reason I die, or demo shout is about to fade it needs to be called out so nobler or whoever is tanking at the time doesn't start taking more damage without warning. in which case, CoR can either be replaced, or a CoW can be thrown up until I am able to re apply the imp demo shout.

The key to this is the Armor Mitigation Formula: Damage Reduction % = Armor / (Armor + 400 + 85*(5.5*Level-265.5) For a lv 70 mob: Damage Reduction % = Armor / (Armor + 10,557.5) For a lv 73 mob (boss) Damage Reduction % = Armor / Armor + 11,960) Using the values for a boss we get the following relative mitigation percentages: 7000: 36.92% 6000: 33.41% (3.51%) 5000: 29.48% (3.93%) 4000: 25.06% (4.42%) 3000: 20.05% (5.01%) 2000: 14.33% (5.73%) 1000: 7.72% (6.61%) 0: 0% (7.72%) What you see is going from 7000 to 0 AC each 1000 AC reduction is worth more If you assume a 1000 damage unmitigated hit: 0 AC - 1000 1000 - 923 2000 - 857 3000 - 799 4000 - 749 5000 - 705 6000 - 666 7000 - 630 Now Raid Bosses have the following approximate Armor Values (Lurker has 7685 so 7700 vs 7685... not material) Serpentshrine Cavern: Hydross the Unstable: 7700 The Lurker Below: 7700 Leotheras the Blind: 7700 Fathom-Lord Karathress 6200 Morogrim Tidewalker: 7700 Lady Vashj: 6200 Tempest Keep: Void Reaver: 8800 High Astromancer Solarian: 6200 Al'ar: 7700 Kael'thas Sunstrider: 6200 Hyjal Summit: Rage Winterchill: 6200 Anetheron: 6200 Kaz'rogal: 6200 Azgalor: 6200 Archimonde: 6200 Black Temple: High Warlord Naj'entus: 7700 Supremus: 7700 Shade of Akama: 7700 Teron Gorefiend: 6200 Gurtogg Bloodboil: 7700 Reliquary of Souls: - Essence of Suffering: 0 - Essence of Desire: 7700 - Essence of Anger: 7700 Mother Shahraz: 6200 Illidari Council: - Gathios the Shatterer: 6200 Illidan Stormrage: 7700 So taking the majority of raid bosses that have 7700, we apply raid buffs: -Sunder - 2600 -Faerie Fire - 610 -CoR - 800 Which gives us a total of 4010, taking boss AC down to 3690, which is 23.58% mitigation. Now if you take your T6 set for rogues, which has -350 armor on it (Gloves + Shoulders), you get to 21.83% mitigation. So, if we start at 21.83% mitigation which is where most T6 rogues will end up, an additional 175 Armor Penetration takes that down to 20.93, which is a .9% decrease in mitigation. This means that if you have a Sinister Strike the would hit for 1000 unmitigated: 21.83% - 781.7 20.93% - 790.7 790.7 - 781.7 = 9 Damage = 1.15% increase If you take the same rogue, but Hemo Spec, you gain 560 armor penetration from Serrated Blades, so you now have base armor of 2780 with 18.86% mitigation, if you add the same 175 Armor Penetration you get 2605 armor with 17.89% mitigation. 18.86% - 811.4 17.89% - 821.1 821.4 - 811.4 = 10 Damage = 1.20% increase While not significant in and of itself, what happens when you stack it becomes far more impressive. With an ideal gear set, a Hemo rogue can get 728 Passive -Armor, with -1000 from Warp Spring on Proc, -300 from Madness on Proc, and - 840 from Executioner on proc. When you look at the debuffed AC of 3690, take out 728 from gear, 560 from talents you are at 2402, if all procs happen at the same time you can get the boss down to 462 (could wear the -armor legs/neck to get to 112 AC). Now 462 + 175 = 637 637 - 5.06% 462 - 3.72% You get a 1.4% increase from the same 175 -Armor if it is the last 175 -Armor, which means that Armor Penetration stacking can increase the value of the same amount of -armor by up to 22%. If you compare it to a boss with no debuffs compared to one full debuffed the value is up to 56% more. Now you may be wonder, how this compares to other sources of damage increases: Based on what I have seen and read, 175 Armor Penetration costs the same as 17-27 of one other stat (most of the -armor items tend to be poorly itemized) so if you assume you could get 20 Agi, Hit, Crit etc. 20 Hit (Generally the most valuable DPS Stat) is 20/15.8 =1.27% increase to hit, which is a 1.27% increase to white damage which is about a .8% increase in total damage done, compared to 175 -Armor increasing DPS 0.9% on a undebuffed mob. NOTE - Percentage Gains from Armor Penetration should all be multiplied by ~.9 as ~10% of Boss DPS is from Rupture and Deadly Poison which is not mitigated by armor.

taking the values above you can see where the extra armor penetration from CoR would help a good deal on top of the armor penetration we already have going on which is. Sunder armor: 2600 for 5 stack which is up 100% of the time. Bod's Improved Faerie Fire: 600 which I also believe is up 100% Add CoR to this equation and we get a total of 4000 armor penetration, which drops quite a lot of bosses down to the 2200 armor area, plus the armor penetration from gear and exec procs (if you have it) I end up with almost 1200 armor penetration when executioner procs, so I'm looking at ~1000 armor when everything is up, which increases dps quite considerably as you can see dps % goes up as armor pen scales.

Great, sounds good. Being a clothie such things are not in my realm of expertise. If I am whacking on a boss, things have already gone horribly, horribly wrong anyway. And if a boss is whacking on me, well lets just say a few more or less AP won't matter much. So, it looks like lock #3 gets to do CoR, at least with Tallaria in the raid. That is, of course if we only have 2 locks and 2 mages and several melee, then it might make sense to do CoS and CoR and skip CoE...

from what i read tonight, no mob has over 320ap, 2/5 improved demo reduces AP by 348, CoR gives 135ap to its target, 320-348 = -28 + 135 = 107 - 210ap (screech) = ap reducation still cap'd while giving an additional 800 armor penetration. the additional 800 armor penetratoin should give an increase in damage of approximately 1% over what we normally do, and althought this seems trivial, with no drawbacks and extra 1% dps per physical dps is a good thing. not only does it boost physical dps (hunter, hunter pets, melee, and tanks) it also increases the amount of threat that is able to be generated by the tanks. and the approximate dps gain is based on a boss with around 7000 armor, bosses with 6200 or less the dps gain is even higher since armor reduction dps increases scale as armor is reduced more and more. So maximum boss AP = 320 + 135 from CoR = 455 0/5 Demo Shout = -300 1/5 Demo Shout = -324 2/5 Demo Shout = -348 3/5 Demo Shout = -372 4/5 Demo Shout = -396 5/5 Demo Shout = -420 Screech = -210 So with Demo Shout (with any talents) and Screech up, any boss, even with CoR, will be at capped AP reduction. There are 2 categories of bosses though: Those that can gib the tank unexpectedly (call them type A), and those that can't (call them type B). On Type A bosses, you want to keep capped AP reduction at all times. This means at least 1/5 Imp Demo Shout and no CoR, or CoR + Demo Shout + Screech. On these bosses, having a pet with Screech present increases physical DPS by whatever Talliara calculated above, until the pet dies - at which time, CoR has to be removed. So we can further divide type A bosses into type A1, which will kill pets, and type A2, which won't. On Type B bosses, it's not crucial to keep AP reduction capped. With a 5/5 Imp Demo Shout and CoR, the boss would only be 35 AP higher than the AP cap - and CoR can stay up the whole fight witout serious risk to the tank. I have a carrion bird (although an owl would be a little better) with screech that's leveled up and stabled, and I could bring him to raids if that's desired. Switching from Nuzzles to it will be a loss of probably 50-75 of my own DPS, but would increase raid dps slightly on type A1 bosses and significantly on type A2 bosses. It would also increase risk to the MT on type A1 bosses, for a few seconds after the pet dies and CoR needs to be replaced. On trash, screech won't really do anything, because Demo Shout will already be getting trash mobs close to the AP reduction cap (and no trash is type A). The closest stable master to *any* raid instance is Telredor from SSC, so it's never practical to switch pets for a different boss, unless we're taking a significant break, so if I bring a screech pet, I'm stuck with it the whole night. I'll also have to juggle inventory space, which is already a pain (WTB fel mana injectors), to keep meat on hand. Nuzzles eats mage food, and I love him for it. Also, would the third warlock regularly be using a different curse (curse of doom?)? If so, then we also lose that DPS by going to CoR+Screech.

I love the fact that people are thinking about how to improve raid dps in addition to their own dps. Right now the barrior to progression continues to be execution. But we will get to those fights where it is straight out dps or hps (like Brutallius) and it is good for us to do some thinking and then some -*test*-('")ing ahead of time to see what really works for our guild/raid make up. We should probably pick a boss or 2 next week to try this out on. Lets think about it.

800 Armor Penetration is HUGE for melee dps. It would be equivalent to nearly 325AP. Melee's dps would go up a lot more than the dps given by CoD

if we only have 2 warlocks orios, it wouldn't be a good decision to give up CoS or CoE to use CoR, we don't actually have quite enouhg physical dps to make up for the loss the casters would see from this. it would only be a good idea if we had 3 warlocks, so we dont gimp the casters, which are the majority of our raid makeup. as contrail said on boss types, we would have to decide the risk to the pet (which im sure contrail knows :) ) and make sure to communicate so that if the pet were to die CoR can be replaced with a CoD or other curse to keep the boss at max ap reduction. as averly said, there hasn't been a place yet that we have had to have extra dps or healing, everyone is doing great and it would only just be as i said earlier, extra dps with no drawback. The most useful places for this would obviously be the fights where its a dps race, teron, kaz rogal, last 10% of archimonde etc.

First, excellent research Tall. I'd been toying with rotating CoR in to help physical dps myself, but mainly on trash. As for bosses, according to my spreadsheet not casting CoD is a loss of approximately 150 personal dps. So the question is this: Will the additional physical dps from CoR plus the additional raidwide dps from having a higher aggro ceiling be greater than the ~200 lost from not casting doom and having Contrail change pets?

The "third" warlocks (usually Demetra and sometimes Marlucia, depending if Orios is present) normally use Curse of Doom. 800 Armor Penetration is HUGE for melee dps. It would be equivalent to nearly 325AP the additional 800 armor penetratoin should give an increase in damage of approximately 1% over what we normally do, and althought this seems trivial, with no drawbacks and extra 1% dps per physical dps is a good thing. Is it a 1% increase or a HUGE increase? Considering this switch would cost at least 50dps to the hunter who has to switch pets (according to Contrail) and 150 dps to the warlock who casts it; if it is a 1% dps increase, that means melee (and hunters) would have to do overall 20K dps (unbuffed by CoR) just to cut even - quite unlikely. Not to mention CoD keeps ticking even during special fight dynamics (Naj'entus' bubble, the "running" phase of Supremus, running to your spot when Shadow of Death'd, etc.), contrary to most physical dps. Having never really played a melee physical class, I have no idea what 325 AP represents in DPS terms, however.

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