#0 - Jan. 29, 2008, 11:39 a.m.
Succubus Sacrificed, Curse + Shadow Bolt Spec
Is there a minimum requirement for speccing 0/21/40 (DS/SnF)?
The misconception about 0/21/40 is its a crit build. Indeed it does crit very high, and is very nice DPS when it does - but crit is a very unrelable stat, especially for warlocks. 30% crit will 'in theory' allow you as a solo lock to keep improved shadowbolt up 100% of the time, in reality this really doesnt happen.
Some recent boss fights i've ended up with with just over 15% indicated (recount) crit, when i'm geared for 31% crit (raid buffed), it can be that inaccurate. Therefore your stats should be prioritised like:
1. Spell Hit - Your max +hit is 202 (16%), bosses have a 17% chance to resist your spells and you unfortunatly can't get rid of that last 1%. You don't want to have more than a 2% chance to resist to keep your DPS at maximum (about 185) so aim for above that. When your non crit Shadow Bolts damage for 3.5-4.0k you can imagine how much DPS you will lose from just one resist.
2. Spell Damage - This is your second most important stat. If you can't rely on getting your crit rate for bosses, then the next reliable thing to go for is to keep your non crit Shadow Bolts doing constant high damage. Stack that spell damage. You'll want to have over 1000 spell damage (or just shadow damage) to make speccing destruction worth while. This is totally down to talents:
Shadow and Flame - Your Shadow Bolt and Incinerate spells gain an additional 20% of your bonus spell damage effects
Shadow Mastery - Increases the damage dealt or life drained by your Shadow spells by 10%.
Ignoring the fact one is 20% and one is 10%, and noting the fact that Shadow Mastery's 10% is added on after accounting for spell damage - you'll notice that Shadow and Flame scales better with the more spell damage you recieve due to it affecting your Spell Damage and not actual damage. This is the main reason why you see mostly destro warlocks in endgame instances (BT/MH).
SnF starts overtaking SM in respects of Shadow Bolt damage at about 750spelldamage, but the effect is noticable at 1000 spell damage.
3. Spell Crit - As noted above, this stat seems very unreliable for an endgame destro lock, since with ruin the difference between us critting and not critting is massive for our overall dps. Therefor its a stat you need to keep ISB up, and not so much for overall dps, that should be left to your shadow damage..
Just to round things off, once you hit the following stats you'll find that 0/21/40 will start doing more DPS than affliction builds:
Mimimum 0/21/40 specs
Spell Hit: 180
Spell Damage: 1000 (with Fel Armour)
Spell Crit: 20% (not including Devastation)
Then aim to get your stats as show below then only focus on getting more spell damage:
Ideal 0/21/40 specs
Spell Hit: 202
Spell Damage: 1000+
Spell Crit: 25% (Not including Devastation).
I hope this has helped some of you decide which PvE spec is best for your current gear.
