Ask the Spoon: Need more spell damage!
I recently got an email from a Warlock.
Damnit Spoon - I can’t get higher than 697 spell damage buffed up with priest, druids, and pallys. Crap, I wanna get 800 bud - get me some spell damage.
Like ur site too 
-Fearz
I’m not much of a Warlock expert but I do know somebody that has played the class for over 2 years as his one and only character and the guy is damn scary with his knowledge of the class. We sat down together and checked out your armory page and we worked up the following. I hope it helps
Thanks for the letter bud, here’s what I got for you.
Right off the bat before getting into gear and talents and such, we can take advantage of really cheap and easy ways to buff up your damage. First off I’d say some Blackened Basilisk food would help out. There are thousands of Basilisks all over Outland and one of their meats can make one of the buff food. It’s cheap as all hell and the added 23 spell damage is not too shabby for such little investment. As well kicking out some Elixer of Major Shadow Power which at the cost of only 1 Ancient Lichen and 1 Nightmare Vine is also cheap and quick to make. That adds 55 shadow damage which essential is 99% of your damage type.
Now to the nitty gritty. You’re an affliction spec warlock so I’m going to assume that you’re digging that play style and are used to it so let’s not mess with that at all. Looking at your gear I can see a pretty common problem a lot of warlocks have with gear, getting confused with spell hit vs spell penetration and mage gear.
A new wand would help a great deal and the best you can get your hands on right now (and keep for a long time) would be the badge vendor Carved Witch Doctor’s Stick. 25 Heroic badges and you got yourself a great wand you can put some spell damage gem into. Spell damage + Stamina gem would be best. Getting new pants is a must too, there are tons of gear out there for badges but the pants can come out of Kara for you. Trial Fire Trousers are amazing for warlocks and can make a huge difference.
Some of your gear seems to be mage gear that has spell crit and spirit on it like the encanter’s pants and the mana etched crown etc. your stuff can also be mistaken for shadow priest gear. The big kicker is the spirit. Warlocks in no way, shape, or form should have spirit since they regen their mana with life tap instead of normal regen. Life tap until you’re full then drain life or siphon life or hell even bandage yourself; but spirit is really wasted and should be avoided all together.
You got a lot of spell penetration which isn’t that bad really. But that’s more for big blast kind of attacks like shadow bolt spamming and PVP. Right now you have way too much penetration and could put those blue sockets to use with spell dmg and stamina gems. Again, badge loot could really help fill out the empty spaces with some really badass stuff and badges nowadays are really easy to come by.
The frozen shadowweave set is a big step in the right direction, so are the gloves you’re using. With affliction though you really want to stack more spell dmg rather than anything else since your damage is completely spread out over a long time (the duration of your dots) so the more dmg you stack on the more those dots are going to tick for. Try and score some spell HIT rating instead of penetration. A warlock only really needs 80 spell hit rating and he will be capped. That 80 rating means 6% chance for your stuff to hit and that covers you completely. Remember, dots use spell hit not penetration.
Keep in mind that affliction is meant more for long fights or PVP where the stacking damage can really bring somebody down letting another big hitting class wipe them out with 1 or 2 hits. Spell crit isn’t a big deal as your dots are just pouring damage not so much blasting all in one second.
Went ahead and also made this mock-up talent build that you can modify to fit your play style. It takes the best of the trees and still leaves you with plenty of freedom to change things up.
I hope that this was even slightly informative and it was actually pretty fun to write. I enjoy learning about other classes from guru’s because I then use that information to make myself a better gamer.
Any tips, tricks, questions, or hate mail please use the Contact Form on the side bar and I’ll get back to you Just remember to leave me a valid email address I can send a reply to else I won’t be able to thank you!
Loading ...
May 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I disagree with a couple things of the author’s response.
This guy is short on dmg, for one like the author mentioned, gems and enchants the warlock in question chose, and his quality of gear. When you first ding 70, your not going to be a 1300 shadow dmg lock.
It takes alot of time. I agree with many things the author said however.
Spell Penetration:
Spell penetration is great for pvp, but not so useful in pve. In pvp, other classes with have talents, spec, or gear that could have shadow resistence on it. (Pally shadow aura, etc). Spell penetration
helps eat throught that resistence and helps alot. Go find a pally friend and duel him and throw corruption only on him, then let him put on shadow resist aura, and see how much less your dot ticks for.
Pretty amazing. For pve, it kinda ticks me off watching my dots tick and seeing this:
“Your corruption does 228 dmg to Lady Vashj (315 resisted)”
Its almost as bad as being shadow destro fully hit capped and still seeing one of your spells resist. lol I personally have spell penetration enchant on my cloak for this reason. 120 armor means nothing
for PVE and I couldnt warrant subtelty cause our tank does really well at making threat generation. But even with that being said, most bosses dont much of anything for shadow resistance. And usually a
curse of shadows on the target will do the trick if you have a shadow destro lock in your raid, or multiple affliction locks. The lock with the most dps should be on agaony, anf the least dps should go with
CoS.
Spirit:
Totally agreed with author. Absolutely useless for a warlock. But that doesnt mean to turn your eyes away from a piece of gear because it has spirit on it. If its a better peice (Even with ignoring the
spirit stat), pick it up. Even though it doesnt help us in pvp or pve, its still just a tad more +dmg if a priest in your guild has specced improved divine spirit in the discipline tree.
Spell hit:
The author was partially correct on this. You need 6% (80 hit rating) to cap your AFFLICTION spells against a target of skull level (Level 73). I guess it comes down to what the warlock in question’s
interests are. For pvp, you only technically need 3% to hit to be capped (40 hit rating) for any non affliction spells you cast, affliction spells are covered by the spell supression in the first tier of
the affliction tree, if youve chosen it. However, if your doing some PVE content, you will, or should I say should be, using shadowbolt in your spell rotation, even as full specced affliction. And since
supression only apply’s to your affliction spells, your destro spells with still be 10% away from being capped, if you attained your 6% hit for your afflliction spells. That is something to consider, and
can really help your dps in a raid situatuation, since shadowbolt can proc improved shadowbolt if it crits, not to mention nightfall procs you will use.
‘
The spec that was linked has some flaws in it in my opinion. In the warlocks first letter to you guys, he was saying he cant reach his desired spell dmg with priests pally and druid buffs. This would
suggest to me he is involved in some pve content, or at the least, heroics. In these sitations, there are many other better specs. Nightfall being the first taht was left out. Like the author said when he
stated,
“Keep in mind that affliction is meant more for long fights or PVP where the stacking damage can really bring somebody down letting another big hitting class wipe them out with 1 or 2 hits.”
This is true as well. And these 1 or 2 hits could be an instant cast shadowbolt, or a searing pain hit or 2. Also in PVE, you can achieve considerable more dps with letting an instant cast shadowbolt cast,
especially if it crits and gives the 4 shadow dots you have on the target tick for a whopping 20% more dmg! Curse of exhaustion is strictly pvp, or only used on specific raid encounters. Also with demonic
embrace, its really a toss up. Stamina is always good for pvp, and alot of times for pve as well, considering your short alot if you wear the frozen shadoweave set that offers great dps. But for both pvp
and pve, the points in my opinion should be spent in destro. Blizzard made the warlock class very well. Since we have many ways to heal ourselves (FSW set bonus, drain life, siphon life, death coil) its
not as important for us to stack stamina as it is say a mage. And you think about it, the more +shadow dmg you have, the more your going to heal yourself. Warlock in pvp is about controlling the target
over a period of time, and allowing your dots to do there work, and coming out on top over your opponent. When you engage a warlock in pvp, if they are playing correctly using all these spells and abilities
that heal themself, your not fighting a warlock with 8K health, your fighting a warlock with over 10K! Just alot of things to consider.
Great article overall. Good to see some warlock discussions going on. Feel free to check out my character on the US Thall server, his name is Yvansu. Keep in mind I might have alot of different gear on
depending on what I was doing. Including recently hearthing with my ruby slippers.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
The formatting in your reply is killing me, but thanks for the feedback.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
No problem.
I was reading back over it, and I dont know why it did that, I copy and pasted it from notepad where I wrote it. Admins feel free to edit it, as I dont know how to fix that.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Ahh yeah I’ll go into it and try to fix the breaks. Yeah notepad has word wrap built in so if you directly copy+paste then it can sometimes screw up where the sentences stop and start especially if you broke it down yourself into paragraphs. Great writeup though
Nov 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
help me go back in time
Nov 4th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
to save the president? to fall in love!? SARAH WHAT HAPPEND!?