Attn non-depressive Warlocks

I was all excited when I read this from you...and then we got to

and my heart sank.

Basically we are back to...

and...

and...

etc.

Doom, we are playing similar content on these toons (not raiding). Rather than you narrowly focusing on just Amod I'm going to suggest/ask the following for solo/heroic content.

Are you at 85k amod? (I know Lare suggested 100k and since I'm not there yet I'm not suggesting you be either with relatively similar gear).

Are you at 200 casting speed give or take a few points? If more, reforge out of it!

Are you at 100 reuse? No less but also no more as those points do exactly nothing beyond 100.

Are you at 60ish recovery? ( A bard will push you up towards the 100 cap in groups and in solo it's meh in my opinion).

Are you at 600+ dps mod? Why not? Wands matter!

Are you at 200 attack speed? Why not? Wands matter! If more, reforge out of it as needed.

Are you at 118 MA? Why not? Wands matter! If more, reforge out of it as needed.

Do you have any open white adornment slots? Why? Nothing wrong with throwing a dps mod adorn on your belt, etc.

And finally, where are you at on AE auto? 100 is the hard cap. Do what you can via gear and purples.

We say, get your dps mod up, get your Amod up, get your cast down, get your reuse down and you reply with...ok...I'll see what I can do about my ab mod. It ALL matters. Procs matter too. There are some HUGE procs in ToT that will significantly contribute to your total dps output.

Finally, as Lare said, if you aren't running ACT you really have no idea of where you are at relative to your group. You might feel like you are pushing buttons like a madman and all is going well and then you find out that the inquisitor, fury, bard, or chanter is actually doing significantly more dps than you are. I'm not even saying there is anything necessarily wrong with that particularly if you are solo but if you are actually looking to improve your dps, it matters.

I still recommend a full and clean sweep of your reforging on every piece. Then, when you think you are done, if you have more than maybe 5ish pieces untouched, you probably have more work to do yet. After all that is done, you fine tune with the various individual gear questions you have also been posing. My 2cp.

Just skimming through this thread RQ it seems like you expect DoomDrake to hit autoattack soft caps while also pushing 85-100k AB mod? I also gathered that Doom is mostly in AS gear?....

350 casting speed is absurd and it hurts my soul reading that, even more so on excessive reuse. Also consider temporary adornments.

Most important melee stats to soft cap first is AE auto and haste, cuz weapon procs is the new hemo. Lacerator+Lacerator+Slip+Blues makes ****** players look decent this xpac. I know you can't use that as a lock, but it's an example.

Get AB mod on every piece but pay attention on what you reforge out of. You can drop your cast speed below 200 if need be to hit other soft caps, just don't go below 100 and ur fine.

In short, reforge into Ab mod wherever you can, but know the autoattack soft caps and reforge smart. I suppose this is what they have been trying to explain here and I apologize that I couldn't bother to read this whole thread.

What if he/she loves 100% double cast with more casting speed without to have an illy for TW?

Yep, and I know it's possible because my alt lock is at those soft caps sitting in a combination of mastercrafted, AS, and a smattering of heroic gear. He's also at 97.5 DC when using the soulsiphon wrist and 88k mod. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your comments but not sure everyone else is on board with the 100% AE thing so I didn't want to emphasize it. It is definitely one of the things I did though.

Bah! There will be no shenanigans or Devil's advocatery (I do so like making up words) in this thread! Good Day!

There are 3 types of warlocks: The Haves, the Have-Nots, and everyone else.

The Haves are skilled players with either Essense of Duality, the Ire Hammer, or the Ethereal reset rune.

The Have-Nots are skilled players without the above. (this is me, stupid ethereal RNG).

Everyone else is just trying to figure out the class, which seems to change every expac. Doom is about 3 expacs behind. ToT is about melee and early advantage. Very easy in solo ToT gear to have at a minimum 85k AB, 600k DPS, 116MA, 100% AE Auto, 70%+ flurry, 80%+DC (well over 100 with soulthirst). Reforge is king. If you are not hitting these stats in solo ToT gear, then you are doing something wrong. It takes a little more work but hitting 1k DPS mod is also not hard.

I used to use Unda quite a bit in AoM. I could and have critted Unda for 425m during a TW, but in ToT I spec'd out of it so that I could have SWDB. Melee damage is that important in ToT. I am in a raiding guild but I think I have 1 piece of gear that comes from raids and everything else is Heroic, collection, key gear, or solo gear.

I will likely never be a the top end of warlocks like Morgrim and some others, but I pay attention and play my class as best as I can. There is another warlock that raids in my guild with the Duality and while we are similarly geared, his parse is consistently 10-15% above mine. The reset is that powerful.

Doom, just stop trying to figure spell order and any of that other stuff out and reforge your gear to the correct stats. Strive to be at least a Have-Not and not just another everyone else.

Folks - I go reforge, I really am ... For the question where the hell came number in my spell cast speed over 300 - well lol .. its mostly from adornments. I just realized that almost every single piece (where is possible) for the white adorns been +10% spell casting speed and on top of it 2 purple +20% spell casting speed.. I did reforge out extra spell casting speed (where is possible to get AMOD) I started replacement of my purple adorns with something better then spell casting speed - runes of power comes to mind first
Now I AM at 85k AMOD (actually 86) .. and no I am not exhausted just yet my ability to squeeze may be 4-5k more (still playing with reforge)
About other soft cap - I am at about 300 attack speed (and still about 300 spell cast speed but this will go away once I get adorns in order)
Reuse ability just above 100
Recovery about 86 (will drop down to 66 once I replace my purple casting sigil with power sigil)
Double cast - 77.1 - hitting 80 would not pose terrible challenge - just need fabled cloak, belt and probably will replace my green adorns with behemoth rage spirit stone (in the end 2% double cast on each x3 - 7% health increase also side bonus)
DPS is kind of .. meh lol around 200-260 or so
As for wand itself- I am hitting religiously KP to get Rend (eventually I will farm enough keys to get that elusive mythical) or buy it .. but so far no luck
I have about 34% flurry (which I guess way to low)
Experts can someone give some input on what become of Molten Detonation after beefing up? - now it 1.7M proc everything (targets seems unlimited) within 10m of primary target. Here is scenario I am curious
AoE wand attack - say Molten proc .. does it proc on single target on every target?
Mult/Flurryi wand attack - same question does proc will go single time or can (will) go multiple times

yeah no can I suggest not using the 2% sda green adorns, I see Mandoblast has done the same and he has 106 SDA which means hes lost nearly 60 SWDB for no benefit at present. You want about 100 SWDB and the best way to get this is via these plus 3 cloth bits.

best way to see the effects is your track it on ACT. I tend to avoid most damage procs other than the lacerator atm. Is that proc off a charm?

also maybe change your food and drink to Stormborn and Monsong if you can afforded it. (though I have mine turned off normally when i'm not raiding these days.

I still do best hit last xpac was a 595m sadly don't see them anymore. Played with a non unda spec but until I can change out my cloak jewel to DPS one I'm still hesistant to change.

Lare.

Molten detonation is by far most common proc of the weapons (widest choices). It use to be crappy (like 349k PBAoE from target) - basically all it did in the past helped you pull entire room with single spell ... Last patch Daybreak beefed up this proc almost 5x time - now it proc 1.7M PBAoE with radius 10m - procing out of 4-6 targets in same time (in the pack) easy could give PBAoE hit in 7-10M. I was thinking along lines - while I am in hunt for Early Advantage (lacerator) and Essencelich (Rend) - why not use beefed up Molten? - the only draw back -0 it will mass pull everything within 10m of target.
Price for food not an issue .. I just hate food with duration 30 minutes - so I got next best choice with duration 5 hours - but yes it might squeeze a bit more in DPS. Anyway I am saving plat in my coffers for weapon/runes upgrade in mass

Folks, OP here--I've been following this as best I can, but I'm running into a similar problem to what I suspect is one of Doom's issues, and that is that anything I have with Casting Speed on it has one of the other stats I need already, thus thwarting effective reforging. I'm beginning to suspect I've made some abysmally poor gear choices as a result. Can anyone take a fresh look at my 'lock and give some advice for rectifying this?

So, my warlock, Hulda, just hit 97 and I'm about to the point where I have to start considering her stats, gear, and casting order (note that she's in crap right now, but has a bunch of level 100 gear ready to go, and I'm waiting until she's 100 to actually start the whole reforging and adorning stuff). I'm down with following AA choices by Mogrim and Jokirr.

So, since folks have complained about the stat suggestions at the TOT Class Optimization page, can you correct the numbers to show what you think they should be instead? I've gone back through this thread and tried to round up what folks have said, but I'm trying to get it all in one place. Recapping suggestions from earlier in the thread:

Lare suggested:
ABMod 100K+
Casting Speed <297
DPS Mod 600
AOE Auto 100

Lare also suggested:
Casting Speed 350 way too much due to diminishing returns
SDA 60 (is that spell doubleattack or SWDB?)

Lare said later:
Casting Speed 175
Reuse 80
Multiattack 120

Azian said:
Hit the soft caps on melee stats

Azian further suggested:
ABMod >85K
Casting Speed 200
Reuse 100
Recovery ~60
DPS Mod 600+
Multiattack 118
AE Auto 100

Mandoblast suggested:
ABMod 85K
DPS Mod 600K
Multiattack 116
AE Auto 100
Flurry 70+
Doublecast 80

Taking these into account, does the following look like a useful Heroic build for a warlock? I started from the page linked above and made changes based on suggestions in this thread:

Max HP -- 1.7M

Resistances -- 210K+

Crit Chance (CC) -- 1700

Crit Bonus (CB) -- 1200 (hard cap = 3000)

Potency (POT) -- 1500

Ability Modifier (ABMod) -- 85K+ (100K+ preferred) (up to 50% of max damage)

Reuse Speed -- 80 to 100 (hard cap = 100)

Recovery Speed -- 60 to 100 (hard cap = 100)

Casting Speed -- 175 to 200 (soft cap = 100)

Doublecast -- 60 to 80

DPS Modifier (DPS) -- 600+ (soft cap = 600)

Haste (AKA Attack Speed) -- 200 (soft cap = 200)

Multi-Attack (MA) -- 116 to 120 (soft cap = 200)

AE Auto -- 100 (hard cap = 100)

Flurry -- 70+

(S)WDB -- 100 (hard cap = 300)

Cool beans. That at least gives newer 'locks a starting point to aim for statswise.

Using as little math as but providing as much 'oomph' as possible, but providing supporting information if interested.

Prioritize white adorns in the following order

Disruption (-) > Casting speed (120) > Primary Stat* (-) > DPS (91) > Reuse (75) > stuff that sucks

*at very high stats, primary stat will move above casting speed

Generalization supported by Census Point Values

Opt for "Crit Bonus" whenever given the option between Crit Bonus vs. Potency @ comparable rates

e.g. Crit Bonus Whites > Potency Whites, Crit Bonus Purples > Power Purples > Potency Purples, Uplifting Criticals > Uplifting Soul, etc.

Generalization supported by either of the KAC charts

Purples: B. Attributes > Winds > Spirits > Magnitude > R. Conviction (remember when I mentioned that the proc chance matters @ stupid high potency? We're at that point now).

Opt for 600 DPS, 200 MA, 200 Haste, 100 AE Auto then put everything else into ability modifier. This number should be at least 90k+, if it isn't, revisit reforge NPC and start over.

Generalization supported by AA Calculator spreadsheet

Opt for 100 Casting/Reuse/Recovery speed post Temporary Adorns (+15 to each x2, affordable from ToT status merchant).

Doublecast is a brokenly strong stat. If it has DC on it, there is a pretty good chance it competes for BIS.

List of solid budget items that are incredibly powerful for how easy they are to obtain

WDB Head/Shoulder/Hands/Toes Patterns - AS/Quested Gear

Other Patterns - AS/Quested Gear

EV Charm - AS Drop

Early Adv. Staff - AS Drop

Finisher Earring - MC

Furious Barrage Earring - AS Drop

Firm Stance Ring x2 - Quest Reward

Uplifting Criticals Wrist x2 - MC

Uplifting Fury Necklace - Achievement Reward

A warlock with those items/recommendations should fall in the heroic 30-50m ZW range with a half decent casting order, although the fighter has just as much (if not more) influence on this as you do. Slightly harder to obtain, but otherwise great, items include: Kera Charms (Attributes/CB), Impartial Engagement (130 P) wrist, Underfoot rings (6CB24P rw), All for One Cloak (DC), Deception Belt (DC) but this is a great starting point.

Koko, Question,


Does your calculations factor in the following difference in mage classes because your blanking optimising is borked for a warlock and doesn't fit in with Real life play for say a necro coercer or conjie

Stacking Temp buffs and charms clickies buffing CB & POT and FC? (because you are looking at dps over time and not spike damage on very short fights which would skew any of your modeling. Why EV is not as good a charm as you think! Most raiders opt for temp ones or like the charm Hand of Thule or the Salvo charms why.

Spike damage (locks esp ) As most fights last less than 30 secs and refreshing happens between name fights?

Increments on warlock spells

The cap on CB? and FC?

No mention of DPS mod and cloak jewel which changes this option and effectiveness. Same reason why most raiders with the jewel go DPS mod over Pot or Crit

Haste you fail to even comment on the benefits of more flurry with it 200 is not optimal is down right wrong.

SDA is more complicated than you think for a lot of the above reasons and it not always BIS item especalily for locks with illies in there grp you can get away with less than 100 and do more DPS due to the above reasons!

I never said EV was a good charm, I said it was a good budget charm. Similarly, I don't expect a budget character to arrive anywhere near the CB cap nor have access to RCx4 adornments. All other questions can be answered through the spreadsheets, except for illusionists.

I dislike illusionists, which is a polite way of saying illusionists are bad. Not quite beastlord tier bad, but bad.

I will answer this one directly as it is a popular topic.

@ 200 haste, one flurry from the conversion requires 14.7 haste or 29.41 reforge points or 588.23 ability modifier. Or, in order for haste to be superior, the damage from haste must surpass 588.23 ability mod.

@ 200 S.WDB*, a ranged weapon rating of 243.32, 16k int, & 2k weapon skills, the expected pre-critical EncDPS return of 1 flurry is 53.94 EncDPS. I expect the 'real' value to be much less than this, as warlocks typically don't have 200+ S.WDB (i.e. return < 53.94).

For ability modifier to be inferior to this choice, ability modifier must provide less than 53.94 EncDPS. This is not a promising scenario, as it implies more than 10 out of 11 spells must be capped on ability modifier (assuming one spell cast / second) for it to be the inferior choice.

tl;dr: Spec'ing excess haste, for the flurry conversion, over ability modifier on a warlock is a great way to have a bad time.

I dislike illys because I don't understand what role they perform. It is fairly easy to obtain 100 doublecast without them with dropping a single item slot.

Belt (+19.8)

Cloak (+19.8)

G.Adorn x3 (+6)

P.Adorn (+6)

RC Adorn (+5)

Ach. Neck (+16.8)

Wrist Clicky Toggle (+24*)

=97.4

Potions are better at providing power. Warlocks themselves are better "utility" (buffs, transfer, %DR temp). So I dislike illys because I don't know what they're supposed to "do". Everyone else does what illys do better than illys. Kinda like beastlords, who also suck at everything because someone else does it better. I only hold illys in higher regard because they don't have to jump through hoops to be bad, they're reliably bad.

Well 'shiney' let's be BAD guys then.

This seems too low. I expect amod to remain correct, but I will check this number later today.