So i am playing as a Warlock in classic atm and was wondering if shadow damage is overall better or worse than Int and Spirit. For example i have a pair of shoulders with 7 int and 7 spirit but i also have shoulders that add 11 to shadow damage. after testing it out i found that the shadow damage made my corruption do 2 dmg more per tick, however i lose some base mana and some regen. Any Imput would be amazing.
For a Warlock, given somewhat equivalent stat weighting, +Shadow damage is more valuable than +INT/+SPI because of Lifetap.
For Shadow Priests, it can be more of a toss-up because of no Lifetap.
Shadow damage gear is ideal for warlocks. You can get to a couple hundred wearing wrath gear and you really start to melt. I had +310 shadow damage on my 39 twink. Leveling to 60 was an absolute breeze. I could just tab dot and everything would die.
The int and spirit are a non issue because of life tap and draining. You only need enough hps to take a few hits.
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The stat priority for warlocks is a bit odd, but I really like it. It basically goes like this:
Spell Hit > Spell Power >= Spell Crit > Int > Stam > Spirit
Spirit is actually a really weak stat all because of lifetap. Don’t forget more spell power means bigger life taps!
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Warlocks don’t care about spirit
I don’t even bother carrying water with me.
Just life tap and eat
Keep in mind at earlier levels your shadow bolt does less damage then your wands, so you’re combo should be
Ignite, CoA, Corruption, wand till dead
+Shadow damage only increases the TOTAL overall damage of your dots, not each tick.
+Shadow is mostly used at 60 when you finally start spamming shadowbolt in raids
+Spell damage>stamina=int>spirit
Spirit isn’t really used for locks
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IMO, depends.
Spirit > all for leveling specifically.
After 60, anything But spirit.
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Spirit is pretty useless for locks. Mages and Priests get some amount of mana regen while casting…warlocks dont. There’s a reason we have a talent to increase our stam at the cost of spirit. A warlock’s mana bar is green.
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i figured that the shadow damage was better my only problem is that the healer i run with atm is lazy/ not experienced and almost refuses to heal anyone but the tank in a group making life tap dangerous for me. also i feel like drain life is semi weak
You do realize you can’t actually get 310+ let alone below 56 right? Even if you have full greens with maximum rolled SP you wouldn’t get that.
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Where i dont see something being considered is 60.6 int = 1%crit, if you were to replace an item with say 17intellect 10stam for an item with +shadow damage, depending on where your intellect currently is , could make you lose 1%crit which is a juicy stat for ruin locks
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For leveling, +shadow/sp is the best stat period. It increases your overall damage, your uptime (via better health drain then tap into mana), and stronger life tap saving you some GCDs (you’ll learn to down rank life tap to not kill yourself).
Intellect is not a good stat because most of your damage while leveling is from dots which cannot crit. Spirit is only useful if you have Imp Drain Soul but you have to play around with the 5 seconds rule to capitalize its effectiveness. It was such a hassle that I skipped it entirely.
At 60, spell hit/crit plays a much bigger role. At lower gear level, spell crit is actually better due to Imp. Shadowbolt until a point that your warlock team in the raid can maintain its uptime decently. Since spell hit/crit is a flat percentage so it depends on how much SP/shadow you’re losing for it to be worthwhile (Exp: Vectus neck +20 shadow is better than star of mystaria +1% spell hit).
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As a lock, for leveling, your principal stats are Stam and Int. Spirit is good for mana and health regen. A damage piece is useful, but not if you have another better piece with your primary stats.
You will need +7% hit to raid effectively.
i guess what im saying is for lvl 60 ,nit lving, intellect shouldnt be thrown out the window at first sight on shadow damage gear , am i correct on this?
depends on spec.
aff int does literally nothing but give u mroe mana. We dont use the crit benefit.
If your destro then int has a benefit.
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Actually, sp/shadow should be prioritize over intellect. It takes too much just to get 1% crit. There’s a reason why +41 shadow helm, +21 cloak/bracers, and +30 shoulder/boots are our BiS for phase 1 (they go for outrageous amount of gold on AH). I’ll take a +20 shadow over 17 int/10 Stam (and over 1% crit/hit) piece any day of the week. If I see a warlock with over 4k unbuffed mp without full raid gears, his damage will be bottom of the barrel. Intellect is good to enchant your gears with like on bracers, leg, and helm since there’s no other options as of yet that can improve your damage.
alright, i guess the dilemma i have atm is replacing my chest piece with the 34 shadow damage one would reduce my crit by 1% but i do have plenty of shadow damage gear as is and am normally top of the charts, i suppose i will buy rhe item and give it a go o appreciate your input
Dont nearly every warlock run dest though due to debuff counter?
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no.
not every raid follows the common view.
and not all ppl live to raid.
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If you’re not a tailor to make Robe of the Void, you should be aiming for Robe of the Winter Night (+12 int, +40 shadow) assuming you’re level 60 of course.
Unless your chest has 60 intellect on it, you won’t really lose 1% crit (even then 34 shadow is better than 1% crit).
Imp drain soul…it actually very useful and nets about 6-12% mana after 10 secs depending on spirit and Mana bar. Extremely useful and it’s better here than pservers cause it required zero pet management. A serverly overlooked talent for lvling.