So im doing the SL/Nightfall build and I was doing some reading on gear and what to get. I saw that it said +shadow dmg was more beneficial then +spell or even int/spirit/stam. I know spirit isnt needed but I tried something out. Maybe im wrong.
I have on Omnicast boots now. +9 int (blah stam) and +22 dmg with spells. I got Elegant boots of shadow wrath, +27 shadow dmg.
Since there are no training dummies, I went to winterspring where I was questing, pick a mob at level 55, and cast just agony and just corruption.
Both instances, same exact dmg numbers. I did not count seconds on how long between ticks or what have you or how many ticks, maybe this is where I am wrong, but the damage was the same numbers between both boots.
Sp coefficient on dots is pretty low so you won’t really see a difference when you’re only comparing a difference of 5sp. If you get enough though you’ll see a difference
It’s more of that there are a number of +Shadow only gear that has higher numbers than +Spell damage gear.
For example, there is a +14 shadow damage wand, but the highest +spell damage wand is +11. There’s also a +20 shadow damage neck and you won’t find anything similar (outside of raiding that is). There’s also a lot of gear with “Shadow Wrath” on it which have +Shadow damage higher than most blues/epics.
Note though that +Shadow does not affect Immolate, Rain of Fire, Hellfire, Soul Fire, and Conflagrate.
none of what im seeing, have I read or seen on other forums/posts. Maybe im confused or read the wrong things but I read that +spell doesnt effect dots? Still confused, maybe moreso now.
Most dots are 100% spell power over the entire duration. So it’s closer to 8-16% per tick depending on the dot. So 5 spell power is hard to read since it’s less then 1 dmg per tick.
Currently I would keep them both. You will want to have a good shadow damage piece and a spell damage piece for each slot. This will allow you to adjust your shadow dmg to spell dmg ratio to your preferred play style.
Since most of the skills a warlock will normally use deal shadow damage, +shadow dmg will be you preferred stat as it will do more damage than +spell will. The other reason why +shadow is so good is it allows you to life tap for more health. This allow you to spend more time casting and less time life taping.
This being said having some +spell gear on the side will be important. The main reason being is +spell will greatly benefit your non-shadow abilities while also increasing the strength of you recovery abilities (might stack with HS but don’t quote me on this one).
Outside of these two stats there is one more key stat that you will want above all else as a warlock and sorry to break this to you but it is “STAMINA”. I can’t emphasize enough on how important this state is to warlocks especially if you are using a Soul Link build. For warlocks our health pool is are ace in the hole it not only protects us, it is our secondary mana bar.
Your stat priority will mostly look something like this.
Shadow+ >= spell+ > stam >= int > fire+ > spirit
Small note on spell hit and spell crit. I am not going to go over these, but it would be a good idea to keep some gear with these stats on them. Spell hit is especially important if you want to do any raids.
Spell damage is exactly the same as shadow damage but spell damage applies to all schools. Other than that they work exactly the same.
To expand on this, the two are itemized differently. Two items with the same iLevel will have different amounts of +shadow vs +spell. For example, you might get +30 shadow damage on one item but +25 spell damage on another - even though they have the same iLevel. This doesn’t mean that shadow damage is more or less powerful than spell damage, just that +spell affects multiple schools so the item budget reflects this.
No reason to use shadow damage+ if you can find spell damage+ with a higher number
Also spell damage+ is usually “spell damage and healing” so I think that might boost drain life/siphon life even more. Not sure at all about that one though
IM sure theres better spell co-ef spells out there and I bet theres worse.100% spell power on corruption would split that 5 damage between all 5 ticks resulting in a much lower impact per tick.
Shadowbolt (if it’s 100%) would show it as a flat 5 damage increase.so your Sb would go from say 100 damage to 105.
OP: While shadow wrath gear in alot of cases is BiS I would strongly advise against stacking too many pieces of it from a survival perspective. You need health to work with as a warlock and certain mechanics in raid or other players burst is going to ruin your day.
Theres nothing wrong with sacking alittle damage for a larger health pool and more mana.
If you haven’t already, I’d suggest joining the classic warlock discord.
They will provide you the resources you need and if you are having any trouble, there are always some big brains available for you to question directly.
Yes, I understand how dots work, I was replying to some one who said that corruption had a low sp coefficient when that is false. Corruptions damage will increase by 100% of your spellpower. The total of that is split over the dots ticks, but it still increases the total damage of that corruption by 100% of your spellpower. You can look at single tick damage if you’d like, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the sp coefficient for the spell is 100% and I was correcting some one who said that was “low.”
You have to look at DPET (damage per execution time) not per tick. If I press shadowbolt, I only use 86% of my +shadow/sp. I will use all 100% of my +shadow/sp when I press one of the dots.
In a raid you’ll only be spaming SB, so u want as much +dam as possible,. SB multiplyer is 0.87 dam per 1 so. It’s very strong and u want as much as possible.
+Shadow dam has higher numbers compared to +spell dam, allowing for overall increase in DPS.
In raid your a glass cannon Crit machine,
But you won’t be using dots unless assigned by a raid lead, so +dot dam doesn’t matter that much