Yes, I am a warlock

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

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)

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

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

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

even more new stuff

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

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