Theorycraft

Yes, I am a warlock

2008-05-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

A question was asked of me recently why most of my posts seem "warlock centric". I play a warlock in a Tier 5-6 raiding guild. That means the majority of my interest is in that area. If you'd like to see specific analysis on any particular class, spec, gear, etc, feel free to drop a comment and I'll pull the numbers on it out.

Warlock Raid Curse assignments

2008-05-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

an analysis of Curse use in a raid:

Curse of Doom - at 1000 spelldamage, this does roughly 10K damage or 250-300 DPS. With Amplify curse, this is the single most potent attack a warlock has, and INCREDIBLY mana efficient. If amplify cooldown is up and at least a minute left on the boss, ALL warlocks in the raid should be casting amplify curse of doom, as this is the highest DPS curse we have. Without amplify it is strong, but may not outweigh shadows/elements/etc.
Curse of Agony- Roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of an affliction warlocks DPS. This is the default curse any affliction lock should be using when amplify is not available for an amplified curse of doom.
Curse of shadows- 10-13% buff for all shadow users. Since this means losing curse of agony, it means about a 20% drop in DPS for the warlock using it. This is only worthwhile for affliction if there are at LEAST 4 shadow users in the raid (warlocks & shadowpriests combined). Anytime there are at least 4 total warlocks+Shadowpriests, 1 warlock should have this curse up.
As a side note, curse of agony is only worth 9% of a destro lock's damage. (an optimized destro warlock will not be using it) That means that it is ALWAYS worth it for a destro lock to cast this even without malediction. Destro locks should use Curse of shadow on any bossfight, but not trashpulls. For more information on whether or not to use talented or untalented, see my previous post: http://theorycrafter.blogspot.com/2007/12/malediction.html
Curse of Elements As with Curse of shadows, only it doesnt benefit the caster, which means you need 4 fire users (fire mages usually) for this to be worth losing your curse of agony in terms of overall raid DPS.
as before, please note that a destro lock won't normally be using curses as part of his spell rotation, so it is only a minimal DPS loss for them to cast it, and easily worth it to overall raid DPS.
Curse of tongues- Most bosses are immune, so this is rarely an issue. For the few who can be, this is critical as it helps the interrupts hit correctly. The warlock to use it should EITHER be the lowest DPS warlock (least damage sacrificed) or a destro lock (he's not losing a curse, he wasnt using one)
Curse of Weakness- Reduces attack power by 350 (29 DPS). After tank mitigation this is barely 10DPS reduction on the boss' damage. Normally this amount is small enough to not justify the loss of over 150 DPS.
Curse of Recklessness- While this reduces armor by 800, the 125 increased AP on the boss can be bad idea. Should be used to turn off badly timed fears. Most guilds would agree that the armor pen is worth the increased AP, but be sure to check with your raid/tank leader before using this curse

In summary,

affliction locks should be rotating Amp doom/agony when amp is down.
if there are 10 total shadow/arcane, 1 malediction lock should have curse of shadows
if there are 10 total fire/frost users, 1 malediction lock should have curse of elements
Destro locks should pick elements or shadow and cast it
If the tank is geared enough that the additional attack power will not get them killed, a 3rd destro lock may cast recklessness
No other curses should be used unless specific boss requires it (curse of tongues for interrupts, etc)

2008-04-11T18:01:00.000-07:00

Fire Destro vs Shadow Destro

I'm not even going to pull numbers, or show proofs for this one. There are plenty of sites that show shadow usually beats out fire, and a few that show fire can keep up if you have mages.
The critical difference, is raid utility:
Shadow destro = ISB (improved Shadow bolt), a debuff causing 20% additional shadow damage to be done. Fire provides no such DPS boost to the raid. Shadow destro will cause affliction warlocks and shadowpriests' dots to do 20% more. Even if your fire destro lock can keep up in damage, there should be no question which is more raid viable. What is good for the raid, is good for the raider. Downing bosses > winning damage meters.

Warlock Trinket Optimization

2008-03-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

Found a website that lists exactly which trinkets do the most for which spec (for the most common raiding specs) for warlocks. Thought it might be helpful:

http://wiki.shadowpriest.com/index.php?title=SimulationCraft/Trinkets/Warlock

This website shows the optimization for warlocks for all trinkets. everything from Karazan and Tier 4 all the way through Tier 6 trinkets. It converts Trinket procs into actual DPS adjustments.

Trinkets+ Rankings for warlock_0_21_40

+damage	Trinket / Proc / Effect
106.3	Skull of Guldan (below 14% +hit)
86.0	Hex Shrunken Head
85.0	Mark of the Champion (vs Undead/Demon)
77.1	Darkmoon Crusade
75.3	Eye of Magtheridon (exactly 12% +hit)
75.1	Skull of Guldan (above 16% +hit)
74.7	Tier 6 4-Piece Set Bonus
69.6	Eye of Magtheridon (exactly 14% +hit)
64.0	Scryers Bloodgem (below 13.4% +hit)
63.2	Icon of the Silver Crescent
62.4	Neltharions Tear (below 14.7% +hit)
61.1	Quagmirrans Eye
60.1	Ashtongue Talisman
59.0	Essence of Sapphiron
56.8	Eye of Magtheridon (above 16% +hit)
56.7	Starkillers Bauble (below 14% +hit)
56.6	Arcanist Stone (below 14% +hit)
49.3	Band of the Eternal Sage (10sec proc, 35sec silent cooldown)
48.0	Rune of the Dawn (vs Undead)
46.2	Sextant of Unstable Currents
42.7	Ancient Crystal Talisman
40.6	Lightning Capacitor
39.8	Neltharions Tear (above 16% +hit)
38.9	Darkmoon Wrath
37.7	Glowing Crystal Insignia
36.5	Shiffars Nexus Horn
36.3	Terrokar Tablet of Vim (below 14.3% +hit)
35.5	Chaotic Skyfire Diamond (12 crit rating, 3% bigger crits)
35.4	Xiris Gift
32.4	Tier 5 4-Piece Set Bonus
32.3	Tier 4 4-Piece Set Bonus
32.0	Mark of Defiance
31.5	Vengeance of the Illidari
30.8	Arcanist Stone (above 16% +hit)
29.0	Briarwood Reed
26.5	Talisman of Ephemeral Power
25.7	Zandalarian Hero Charm
23.7	Scryers Bloodgem (above 16% +hit)
22.0	Tier 4 2-Piece Set Bonus
18.6	Spellstrike Set Bonus
18.6	Mystical Skyfire Diamond (consumed by channeled spells, 45sec cooldown)
17.5	Starkillers Bauble (above 16% +hit)
15.7	Talisman of Ascendance
11.8	Terrokar Tablet of Vim (above 16% +hit)
9.0	Bracing Earthstorm Diamond
0.0	Tier 6 2-Piece Set Bonus
0.0	Tier 5 2-Piece Set Bonus
-11.1	16% +hit reduced to 15% +hit
-36.2	16% +hit reduced to 14% +hit
-51.5	16% +hit reduced to 13% +hit
-67.8	16% +hit reduced to 12% +hit

Quagmirrans Eye goes up in value depending on your haste, but at certain intervals.

      -The first is at ~79 haste with 0 cast delay. The value it goes up for me was ~4 so value of          
    65.1.
   -The second is at 139 haste w/ a bloodlust. This made the value go up ~8 from the initial value,
    but only during bloodlusted proc, to 69.1. If you are not bloodlusted, the value remains at 65.1.
So w/ proper haste it can be worth more than Icon of the Silver Crescent.

Please note all credit for these numbers and compiling them goes to the folks
at the link

Away for a time

2008-02-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

As i get heavily involved in school I will have a few fewer posts for a time. Bear with me

even more new stuff

2008-01-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

Added the following during server downtime:
FuBar_AssistFu- Main assist targetting functionsFubar_emotefu2- No clue what it does, I'll find out
Fubar_performancefu- Tracks system performance
Fubar_Usage - Gives addon usage details
Fubar_Whisperfu- keeps track of whispers
Jumpcounter- displays the number of times you have jumped
Killingspree- Counts consecutive kills
Killingspree_UT2K4Female voice pack- errr, your a moron if you have to ask
LittleBlackBook- automatically discover's people's alts and logs them
MementoMori- Automatically takes screenshots when bosses die
PingPong- tells you who pinged the minimap
Prat- Chat stuff
Ratkiller- Tracks number of rats you've killed
RPhelper2- Automatically Roleplays
Gladiator- Provides info in arena
Talentshow 1.0- displays talents
Tattle- Displays armory dataTattle LFM- puts tattle data into LFG

Quick update

2008-01-08T05:58:00.000-08:00

For what it's worth, Tip buddy doesn't play nice with pitbull

addons

2008-01-06T06:00:00.001-08:00

I am a modding addict, and probably run more mods than is healthy. I will list below all the mods I have installed, and what they do:

ActionButtonColors- Reds Out of range skills, Blues OOM skills
Aloft- Customizes Nameplates of mobs
Alphamap- Semitransparent map alternative
Altinvite- lets you alt click a name to groupinvite
Aecheologist- Unitframes used by other programs
Arena Calculator- lets me see current rating in points, points per week, etc
Ash_communication - used by DoTimer
Ash_communication- DoTimer bars
Ash_core- used by Dotimer
Ash_Dotimer- privides bar timers for cooldowns/dot durations
Ash_notifications- used by Dotimer
Ash_PlayerAuras - Dotimer for buffs
Ash_prominence- prioritizes Dotimer bars
Atlas- Instance map browser
Atlas[Battlegrounds]- Atlas modular plugin
Atlas[Dungeon locs]-Atlas modular plugin
Atlas[Entrances]- Atlas modular plugin
Atlas[Flight Paths]- Atlas modular plugin
Atlas[Outdoor Raids]- Atlas modular plugin
Atlasloot Enhanced- Loot browser for instances, PvP rewards, etc
AtlasLoot_BCInstances- AtlasLoot Modular Plugin
AtlasLoot_OldInstances- AtlasLoot Modular Plugin
AtlasLoot_RepFactions- AtlasLoot Modular Plugin
AtlasLoot_SetsAndPVP- AtlasLoot Modular Plugin
AtlasLoot_WorldLoot- AtlasLoot Modular Plugin
Auc-Advanced (Core) - Auctioneer modular plugin
Auc:Filter:Basic- Auctioneer modular plugin
Auc:ScanData- Auctioneer modular plugin
Auc:stat:purchased stats- Auctioneer modular plugin
Auc:stat:simple- Auctioneer modular plugin
Auc:Stat:std deviation- Auctioneer modular plugin
Auctioneer- Ultimate Auctionhouse tool
Autoprofit V4.5- vendors grey stuff
ArcaneBar- Adds casting bar to playerframe
Bartender3 - Button manager. Replacing the spell buttons in game
BeanCounter- - Auctioneer modular plugin
Better Item Count - displays #s for items in stacks of over 99/999
BigBrother- tells me who broke CC(sheep/etc) and who is not flasked/fooded/etc
Bigwigs - Tons of boss info, timers, counters, warnings, etc
Bigwigs [Zul'Gurub] - Old world stuff isnt included in bigwigs. Had to manually add
BonusScanner- adds cumulative item bonuses to item tooltips
Bottom Scanner- - Auctioneer modular plugin
Cartographer- Lets your maps do SO much more
Cartographer [cleanup] - removes duplicate notes
Cartographer_fishing- adds fishing nodes to map
Cartographer_treasure- Adds treasurespawn points to map
Cast Time- adds text timer to casting bars
CensusPlus- takes an hour to get the name/guild/level of everyone on server, then let you sort/search. Nice mod, but memory HOG.
cgprofiler- Sends info to curse.com, and lets you profile other users
Characters Viwer 2.88- lets you check inventory/bank of any of your characters from anywhere
ChatEdit- lets you highlight/copy/paste to chat window
ChatScroll- lets you scroll chat with mousewheel
ChatTimeStamps- Adds timestamp to chat window
Chronos- Lets addons find out time and schedule things
Clock- Changes in game sun to a clock
CombatStats - Shows combat numbers extended. not all that useful.
ConsisTint- Channel colors saved by name
Critline 4.3- displays each time you crit, and what your all time records were for both crits and non-crits
CT_buffmod - CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_Core - CT_Raid has a boatton of features for raiding. Too many to list. Some overlap between CT_Raid, DBM, and Bigwigs.
CT_MailMod- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_Mapmod- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_raBossmods- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_Timer- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_Unitframes- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
CT_Viewport- CT_RaidAssist modular plugin
DebuffCount- shows a number over me for how many debuffs are on a mob. Remember the 40 debuff cap...
DetachedMiniButtons- removes the mapbuttons from the map and lets you move them anywhere! Requires some Customizeing work by you, i recommend for advanced users.
DurabilityStatus- gives me a tiny box with my durability on items as % and total repaircost
Earth- library used by other addons
EasyMail- lets me open 100s of mail at a time
eePanels2- lets me customize my UI. Purely cosmetic
Enchantrix- Auctioneer plugin to do a LOT with enchanting, numbers on values, etc.
EnchantrixBarker- used by enchantrix
EnhancedLFG- Lets me see spec on some people in the LFG channel
EnhTooltip- helps other addons play nice when changing tooltips
EquipCompare- anytime i check an item, it shows what i have equipped next to it
Equipment Evaluator- Calculate total stat gains/losses from items
Examiner- advanced tools when inspecting other players
FeatureFrame- no idea what it does, but needed for 3 other addons i have
Fire- Helps evaluate bugs
FireTree- XML library
FishingBuddy- Fishing trade helper.
FishingBuddy outfit frame- lets you make a fishing outfit
Fishingbuddy Tracking Frame - Tracks fishing catches
Fishingbuddy Merge Databases - Lets fishing buddy track fish cross-character
FluidFrames- lets you resize/move almost anything
FreeBagSlots- displays total # of empty bag slots
FriendsFacts- lets you store notes about other players
Fubar- addonspamfu- tracks memory usage of addons and their bandwidth use
fubar- Charmsfu- gives me raidicons to 1click a raidicon on mobs
Fubar - CTraidfu- move CT_raid to fubar instead of minimap
Fubar- fishinbuddyfu - move fishingbuddy to fubar instead of minimap
fubar- omenfu- move omen options to fubar instead of minimap
fubar- recountfu- move recount options to fubar instead of minimap
fubar - RLAassistfu- few options for use in raids on your fubar
fubar - SWSTATSfu- move swstats button to fubar instead of minimap
fubar - xperlfu - move xperl options to your fubar instead of minimap
fubar2.0 ace2 - lets ace2 use fubar stuff
fubar 3.0 A panel that other mods can plug into
gemcount- adds a gem counter to your character view screen, by color
Improved Error Frame- More info on errors, trackable
Informant- displays auctioneer data in tooltips
Khaos- HUGE addon package and helps sort/manage addons. Name of the Cosmos addon package
Lib:Ace2 - used by LOTS of addons. tool library
Lib:Chatthrottlelib- keeps addons from fighting for bandwidth
Lib:FubarPlugin-2.0 used by fubar
Localization- lets you used other languages, and their addons
manufac - ace2 - Makes your tradeskills a dropdown menu instead of a screen. has tools too
Mapnotes- lets you add notes to worldmap
Mcom- tools for making new addons
Metahud- a HeadsUpDisplay in screen center to let you see additional information on you/mobs health/mana/etc
MetaHudOptions- used by metahud
Minigames- TictacToe, othello, connect4, and more. Ingame
Minimap Zoom- lets you zoom minimap with mousewheel
MobHealth3- Estimats mobs healths, so you get #, not just a %
Mobile Minimap Buttons - Lets you move minimap buttons around the minimap to any location. Detached minimap is better, but this is still useful
MobInfo - adds tooltips on mob health/mana
Monitor Status- Shows additional situational information for fights
MyAddons- an addon manager
Notepad- exactly what it sounds like
Notes'U'Need- tracks friend notes cross character
Notes'U'Need backup- used by notesuneed
Ogri'lazy- makes the apexis crystal simon game easy
omen- Tracks your current threat. Superb addon
Opium- Tracks kills for PVP stuff
PartyQuests- lets me see how party members are coming on quests
PartyCastingBars- Adds party member casting bars to their unit frames
PopBar- configurable action bars
Proximo- shows name/health of enemies during arena matches
Quartz ace2- Ultimate casting bar. Helps determine latency, etc
Questlog Level Patch - adds level of quests to quests
Ratingbuster ace2- Item stats breakdown, analysis, and comparison
ReagentHelper- tells you in tooltip what profession uses it
Recount- HIGHLY informing damage meter
ReloadUI- makes reloading UI easier/faster
ReURL- Click URLs to paste them in editbox
RPGO CharacterProfiler- exports toon data to a few websites
Satelite- Tool to add slash commands
Scrolling Combat Text (aka SCT) - lets combat info scroll over you same way damage scrolls over mobs
Scrub- ElitistJerks analysis of anyone's spec, and things that are BAD(in red) or might be good/not depending on gearetc in yellow
SCT Options- Scrolling Combat Text Options
Sea- used by other addons, a library
Social Mods - makes it easier to send messages/pages to people
Solarian Alarm- prevents you from fucking up solarian. mostly
Stubby- library used by other addons
SW fixlogstrings- SWstats modular plugin
SW_Stats - Damage meter than synchronizes with other's to be more accurate in raids
Sw_Stats_profiles- exports SWstats info
SW_Unilog- exports swstats info
Swatter- Helps Debug addons
TasteTheNamebow- color coordinates names to make it easy to follow chat
Telepathy- interprets some languages in game
Telepathy Versions- helps telepathy
Telltrack - keeps separate track of all tells, and lets you browse them
Theorycraft 2 - Translates stats (1 str = 2 ap on warr. so item with 8 str = 16 str, etc)
Thottbot- sends info to thottbot to update their database
Tipbuddy- Helps adjust tooltips
Tooltips: Complete- Customizes tooltip prioritization
TradeJunkie V2.15.2 - Shows which tradeskill recipes you are missing and where to get them
UIPanel Options- Makes roll frame stacking easier
Wardrobe- AL - keeps track of outfits for quickswitches
Weapon Quickswap - quickswitch weapons during combat
Wearme- assists wardrobe
World Map Info- Adds player and cursor coordinates to worldmap
Xperl-customizes player, pet, target, focus, and party frames.
X-perl arcane bars- X-perl Grim Reaper- Helps diagnose what killed you
X-perl Options - options for Xperl
Xperl Party - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Pet - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl playerbuffs - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Player - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Raid admin - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Raid Helper - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Raid pets - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Raidframes - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Target by - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Tutorial - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xperl Unitframes core - Xperl Modular Plugin
Xloot- Changes builtin lootframe
XraidStatus- Small configurable window with raid status
DeadlyBossmods- (aka DBM) Helps with Timers, warnings, etc on bosses
Deadly Battleground mods - DBM modular plugin
Deadly Black Temple Bossmods- DBM modular plugin
Deadly boss mod api- DBM modular plugin
Deadly boss mod gui- DBM modular plugin
Deadly hyjal boss mod- DBM modular plugin
Deadly Karazhan boss mod- DBM modular plugin
Deadly serpentshrine cavern boss mod- DBM modular plugin
Deadly the eye boss mod- DBM modular plugin
Deadly Zul Aman Boss mod- DBM modular plugin
Misc Deadly boss mods- DBM modular plugin

ReceiptBox - Standalone program that lets me view my Auctioneer data offline, daily profits, who buys what, etc.

Installed but turned off:
BetterKeyBinding- A replacement interface for keybinding
CombatrCaller- tells nearby players when you OOM or low health
CT_ExpenseHistory- tracks spending. Came with CT_raid, i dont like it
CT_ Barmod- generic barmod. Not that great. Came with CT_raid
CT_BottomBar- part of CT Barmod
DamageMeters- Comes with the Cosmos pack, worst of the many damage meters out there. Also the most common. This is the one that often duplicates people.
groupcalendar- helps plan raids. our guild doesnt use it tho
guild event manager v2- helps plan raids. our guild doesnt use it though.
Gymnast- tooltip mod. I replaced it
Necrosis- Superb warlock addon. Used it for ages. Finally replaced it, but highly recommend for any lock.
Recap- a damage meter comparable to Recount.
Titanpanel- I had BUNCHES of titanpanel stuff, i decided i like fubar better and they don't play nice with each other. I had titan panel ammo, bag, clock, coords, fishing buddy, item bonuses, loottype, money, performance, regen, repair, rider, stancesets, and xp plugins.
Tinity- core mod for trinity bars
Trinity Bars- Highly customizible barmod comparable to bartender. I eventually went with bartender because it lets you resize buttons. Trinity has better keybind support though.

Omen Addon

2007-12-21T13:32:00.001-08:00

For all PvE Warcraft players Omen is simply a must-have. Omen threatmeter is one of the best addons in the game.
For those not familiar with Omen, or only familiar with KTM threatmeter, Omen tracks who has 'aggro' on all mobs (enemies) in PvE situations. It shows you graphically and numerically who the mob is currently going to attack, and how much dmg/healing you can do before the mob switches targets to you. It will only show this information for you and anyone else with omen or KTM installed, so in order for you to accurately calculate who is going to be the target, and when the tank will lose aggro, the entire party/raid must have this installed.
The only competition for it at all would be KTM/KLH threatmeters. I recommend Omen over these because the graphical interface is easier to use, it has options to turn on an alarm when you 'pull aggro' and it tracks each mob separately so switching targets it will still calculate accurately.
I can solidly give this addon a 10/10. It takes minimal resources, is incredibly user friendly, and prevents more raid deaths than any other addon. Every PvE player of any level should have this installed. It is hands down the single most important addon to install.

Malediction

2007-12-19T17:47:00.000-08:00

The oft-maligned talent malediction... Today I'll do a little theorycrafting on this World of Warcraft talent. At base, it takes your curse of shadows/elements, and makes it do 13% bonus damage instead of 10%, though it does not affect the -88 resist.

First, most warlocks don't like taking the talent. 3 talents near at the very bottom of the tree.

Having 2 locks fully specced into it, you get (X persons: X*0.13/15) = .866% incrase to overall Raid DPS per person affected.
3 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 2.6% raid dmg increase
6 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 5.2% raid dmg increase
9 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 7.8% raid dmg increase

The downside of this is that said warlocks are NOT using Curse of agony or curse of doom. This results in around a 30% loss of DPS to most warlocks (a little less at high gear levels or with a partial destro spec).

Figuring that there are 15 DPS in an average raid (3 tanks, 7 healers), this means that at an equal gear/dps level, you lose 30% of 1 person's DPS, or 2% of the raids DPS.

Only 3% of the 13% increase comes from talents. This means that to find the difference would be (.03% / 15 = .2%). This means the talents increase overall raid DPS by .2% per user of that particular curse (shadow/arcane for easy example). for a .2% per person increase to outweigh a 30% loss for one person requires a total of 60 shadow/arcane users in your 25 man raid (.2% * 60 > 30% * 1). The destruction warlock in question is losing a theoritical 1 Global cooldown per 5 minutes, or .012% of his damage, but in practice it is cast during the time while he is waiting for aggro anyway.

The raid increase to damage from a destruction warlock casting the same curse:
(X
Having 2 locks fully specced into it, you get (X persons: X*0.10/15) = .66% incrase to overall Raid DPS per person affected.
3 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 2% raid dmg increase
6 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 4% raid dmg increase
9 Frost/Fire/Shadow/Arcane users = 6% raid dmg increase

Now, for the telling comparison: (X is the number of people using the affected curse in your raid, shadow/arcane for curse of shadows, fire/frost for curse of elements)

X	Talented Base	Minus loss	Untalented Base	Minus loss
1	0.87%	-1.13%	0.7%	0.655%
2	1.73%	-0.27%	1.3%	1.321%
3	2.60%	0.60%	2.0%	1.988%
4	3.47%	1.47%	2.7%	2.655%
5	4.33%	2.33%	3.3%	3.321%
6	5.20%	3.20%	4.0%	3.988%
7	6.07%	4.07%	4.7%	4.655%
8	6.93%	4.93%	5.3%	5.321%
9	7.80%	5.80%	6.0%	5.988%
10	8.67%	6.67%	6.7%	6.655%
11	9.53%	7.53%	7.3%	7.321%
12	10.40%	8.40%	8.0%	7.988%
13	11.27%	9.27%	8.7%	8.655%

Conclusion!
It requires 10 total shadow users before the benefits from malediction outweigh the cost of losing an affliction warlock's DPS curses. This means that except in extremely unusual raiding conditions, your destruction warlocks should be the ones putting out Curse of shadows and elements, and your affliction warlocks should always be using agony/amplified doom. If there are not enough destruction warlocks to do this, the affliction warlocks could sacrifice DPS to reduce resists, but from a pure DPS perspective should STILL not be casting curse of shadows/elements.

Curse of Weakness

2007-12-19T17:18:00.000-08:00

It is well known that 14 AP (attack power) translates to 1 DPS. It is less known that AP increases are calculated before speed modifiers, so haste multipliers increase your AP proportionately. This means that while more AP increases youre base damage, haste will increase your damage exponentially.

The same applies to bosses as well. What this means for raidbosses, who get anywhere from 30-50% speed increase is that AP Debuffs are far more effective on raidbosses. You will get nearly 3-5x the return off Curse of weakness and the like as you will on regular mobs.

When considering the returns off Curse of Weakness, the base 350 attack power seems a bit low. This translates to about 29.1 DPS. Most people don't consider this worth wasting the curse on. Now look at the same returns with 50% haste rating (such as prince during phase 2). Total AP reduction now comes to 58.33 DPS. With 2.5 second attacks pre-haste, this means 150 dmg per hit. Over 30 seconds, this means you will prevent about 1750 dmg.

All in all, I can't recommend Curse of Weakness unless you are having extreme trouble keeping your tanks up. It simply doesn't mitigate enough to be worth the loss of DPS or the curse of elements/shadow

Threat

2007-12-19T17:16:00.000-08:00

This guide originally appeared on the official World of Warcraft community forum. It is an older guide that I believe was last updated during the last week of January. With that being said, this guide is AWESOME! It's not only a fantastic guide for Warriors but for anyone that wants to know how threat truly ticks in this game.
This guide should be consider a "classic guide" and probably will later on. Some warriors after reading this guide were able to increase their warrior skills by 100%. That has been said quite a few times by quite a few players! Anyway, it is kinda long but here it is!
It's often said that we will never be able to work out the way threat and hate lists and mobs' AI works, because it's too complicated and unknowable, that we'll only ever have crude approximations and guesses. I've conducted some decent, rigorous tests, and i have what i believe is a good list of hate values and explanations of gaining and losing aggro and the behaviour of taunt. I am also able to debunk a few myths about how threat works.
1) Definitions
We define "aggro" to be who the mob is attacking. We define "threat" to be a numeric value that each mob has towards each player on it's hate list. Note, as we shall soon see, even for a normal mob, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player on it's threat list with the most threat.
We define arbitratily that 1 point of unmodified damage gives 1 point of threat.
2) Gaining aggro on a mob Updated Jan 31
Suppose a mob is attacking player 1. In order for the mob to switch to player 2, he must do more than just exceed the threat of player 1. If he is in melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 110% of player 1's threat. If he is outside melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 130% of player 1's threat.
E.g. mob is attacking player x. x does 100 damage to mob, then stops. Player y starts hitting the mob. The mob will start attacking y when y does over 110 damage.
Proof: this is easy to demonstrate. Get two players both doing autoattack on a mob (not warriors of rogues; we'll see later they complicate things). Have player 1 do a certain amount of damage, then stop. Have player 2 keep attacking till he gets aggro. You have an upper and lower bound on the threat required to get aggro - 1 attack before he got aggro was not enough, but the attack that he got aggro was at least enough. With low damage attacks (i.e. fists only), you will get a very good value of 10%. Testing for the non-melee range value is the same. Just replace it with a low damage ability such as a low level wand.
If player 2 has exceeded 110% threat but not 130% threat, they will draw aggro immediately if they do a threat-generating ability within melee range of the mob, but proximity alone will not cause the mob to shift to them.
This is only a description of the normal mob targetting. Obviously there are mobs who will attack secondary targets with special abilities, ignoring their current threat / aggro.
3) Threat modifiers from Warrior Stances
In Battle Stance and Berserker Stance, all threat from a Warrior is multiplied by 80%. In defensive stance, the multiplier is 130%. With Defiance, it is 145%.
Proof: a simple modification of the above proof. Get a warrior to do, say, 1000 damage in defensive stance, without defiance. Get a non-warrior to take aggro with white damage. You will find it does not happen before 1430 damage. The warrior's 1000 damage caused 1300 threat in defensive stance, and the 10% barrier means you need more than 1430 to gain aggro.
4) Threat does not decay
Threat never, ever decays. Here is test data. Warrior does 83 damage on mob in battle stance, gains aggro. From above, we know it will take more than 83 * 0.8 * 1.1 = 73.04 threat to gain aggro. Warrior waits for 5 minutes getting beat on. Then mage starts attacking slowly. Mage does 73 damage, but does not gain aggro! Mage does another 2 damage, and does gain aggro. From the warrior's initial hit to losing aggro, the time taken was 496 seconds.
As an upper bound, assume maximal threat decay. i.e. the mage only needed 73.000000001 threat to gain aggro. Then the warrior's threat had decayed to 66.36363636, from 66.4. This means he went down to 99.945% threat in 496 seconds.
At this maximal rate of hate decay, the time taken for the warrior's threat to decay to 90% of the original value would be 26.5 hours. In fact, if a warrior logged in as soon as the server came online after the weekly reset and hit a mob, his threat would not decay to 50% before the server reset next week. I think this is enough to rule out threat decay.
5) Threat values for some warrior abilities Updated Jan 20
The following list is not exhaustive, but includes all the major tanking abilities.
Note: the following values are given in raw terms. In reality the warrior must have either a 1.3 or 0.8 or 1.45 modifier on these, depending on his stance and talents.
Note: * All abilities do not include threat generated by their damage. This will be discussed more later.
Sunder: 261 (260.95 - 261.15)Heroic Strike*: 145 (143.9 - 148.8)Revenge*: 315 (313.9 - 318.3)Revenge Stun: 25 (23.4 - 29.1)Shield Bash*: 180 (175.4 - 180.3)Shield Slam*: ?? 250 (estimated from Cop's data. More on that later)Shield Block: 0 (0 - 0. Can be higher - more on this later)Thunder Clap*: 130 (126.9 - 134.8)Demo Shout: 43 (42.8 - 43.8)
Note that debuffs associated with abilities are not connected to the threat they generate. Demoralizing shout generates the same amount of threat whether the debuff is on or not. Sunder armor generates the same threat after 5 debuffs are on as when there are 0.
6) Healing, "you gain x ___", etc
Each point of healing, when completely unmodified by talents, gives 0.5 threat. Replace the proof for (2) by the second person only healing.
Note: overhealing doesn't count, only the actual amount healed. This is easy to demonstrate.
Abilities that put "you gain x mana" in the combat log give 0.5 threat per point gained; life is the same. Examples would be drinking potions, but not natural regen, or the Shaman's mana spring totem.
Abilities that put "you gain x rage" in the combat log give 5 threat per point gained. However, this is not modified by warrior stance. Such abilities include bloodrage, improved blocking talent, unbridled wrath, and 5/8 Might.
Like healing, these only give threat if you are below the maximum.
7) Explaining Cop's 4.0 damage to heal ratio
Cop stated that in his tests, each point of damage by the warrior took approximately 4 points of healing by the priest, for the priest to get aggro. Here's how:
Warrior in defensive stance, with defiance: 1.45 multiplierGaining aggro from Warrior: 1.1 multiplierPriest with discipline: 80% threatHealing: each point gives 0.5 threat
Together, 1.45 * 1.1 / 0.8 / 0.5 = 3.9875. Pretty darn close to 4.
8) Threat from pulling? Updated Jan 19
There is no threat associated with pulling. The smallest amouts of threat we could generate drew aggro from a body pull, no matter how long we waited after the pull. However, there are advantages to having the tank pull, as explained in the next secion.
9) Taunt Updated Jan 19
Casting taunt causes three effects.A) The warrior is given as much threat as the person who currently has the mob's aggro. Obviously if the warrior has aggro, this will do nothing. Also, this effect will not lower the warriors threat. For example, if player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, a warrior could have 105 but not aggro; after taunt he would still be on 105 threat.
B) The mob recalculates its actual aggro target. If the warrior was on the mob's hatelist before the original aggro target, the mob's actual aggro target will switch to the warrior. Otherwise, the mob will remember it's original target.
C) The normal taunt debuff. The mob is forced to attack the warrior, even if the warrior is not its actual aggro target.
The threat that the warrior gains from (A) is permanent, regardless of the outcome of (B). Note that it will not necessarily give the warrior the equal highest threat on the mob. If player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, Player 2 has 109 threat but not aggro, and the warrior has 0 threat, then the warrior is given 100 threat, not 109, so he could easily lose aggro to Player 2 after taunting.
10) Implications Updated Jan 19. Updated Jan 21. Note this section is just my opinion.
a) Let the tank pull! Then he will be first on all the mobs' hatelists, and his taunts will always return aggro to him.
b) Given that targets at range will only draw aggro when they have more than 130% of the mob's target's current threat, it's important for a tank to keep the mobs well away from the casters. If a healer does draw aggro and you taunt it off him, make sure you also move it away.
c) Heroic Strike should not be used as a primary threat ability. Suppose you are tanking a level 62 mob. Let's give him 8,000 ac raw, and even assume he has 5 sunders stacked, for 5750 final ac, so he will take 48.89% of damage. A 15% crit rate is balanced by the 10% penalty to damage in defensive stance, and a 10% chance of a glancing blow chance for 50% damage. Then you can expect the 138 damage from Heroic Strike to contribute 67.5 damage on average, for a total of 212 unmodified threat. This is still only 82% of the threat a sunder would give. Even with a 1.3 speed weapon, you will still do 94% the threat of sunder per time interval.
Best practice is to spam sunder, and use HS in between to soak up excess rage.
d) Revenge ftw. You can expect to do about 345 unmodified threat with Revenge, including damage, against the mob in the example above, which is exceptional for the low rage cost, even throwing in 10 for a shield block. However, there is a rage cost of shield block, in that you will block more attacks, so take less damage, so gain less rage from damage. Two blocks for 180 damage and you can say goodbye to another 4 rage.
e) Demo Shout ftl. Demoralising shout does one sixth the threat of a sunder. Even spammed in defensive stance with defiance, you're doing no more threat than 42dps on each mob. Besides picking up whelps in Onyxia and tanking panthers in the Panther boss encounter in ZG, i can't see a compelling reason to use this.
f) Shield Slam ftl. Given the 6 second cooldown, there is no improvement in threat per second by using shield slam. With shield slam: 3 sunders and 1 shield slam every 6 seconds. About 212 threat per second, unmodified. With the 30 rage from the shield slam you can cast 1 sunder and about 1.2 heroic strikes, assuming you have the talents (which you would with any shield slam build), and are losing 3 rage per Heroic Strike from lost white damage rage (i.e. assuming 90 modified damage per hit). The 4 sunders and 1.2 heroic strikes every 6 seconds gives about 215 threat per second.
The only improvement is if you are spamming both sunder and HS, and want even more threat. Suppose we have a 2.0 speed weapon, HS spam and sunder spam. That's about 280 unmodified tps. Changing one sunder for a shield slam gives us 318 unmodified. However, the same effect would be achieved by changing to a 1.4 speed weapon and casting HS more often. And these values aren't taking into account autoattack damage, which makes the margins comparatively smaller.
g) There's no amazing super secret randomised blizzard aggro algorithm. The concepts are simple and the values can be fitted with nice numbers. Even formulas for threat-reducing knockbacks can conceivably be worked out, if threat values are carefully monitored.