KZ/Heroic stats?Follow

Hey, all. I was hoping for some help from some more-experiences warlocks.

I'm trying to get myself geared up for KZ (my little guild is finally getting enough 70s to attempt it), and I'm a bit confused on what stats I should aim for. An officer posted a thread on our guild site giving stats for all the different classes, but the Warlock section was a bit vague:


I knew that +crit varies by build, being more important to Destro than to Affliction. However, I didn't know that +spell damage varied by spec as well.

I'm also uncertain of how Supression interacts with +spell hit. Is 5/5 Supression equal to 5% spell hit?

He also put this link to warlock pre-raid gear, so I have a pretty good idea about what gear I need to get and where to get it. I'm just unsure of the actual stats I'm aiming for.

My character, although it seems to not be showing up at present (an ongoing problem; it seems like if I've just logged off Armory won't show up). I'm using a cookie-cutter 41/2/18 with 2/5 Supression (and stupidly only 1 point in Impr. Life Tap, which will be corrected next time I respec).

Comments? Input? Flameage?

get as much +hit as possible and not till 76 like schthingyguy said. it's till 202 (that's the hit cap for warlocks. regardless of spec. do not rely on the suppression talent) after that. +dmg, then +crit. the best way for you to improve your gear for kara is through hit. socket for the 4hit, 5dmg gems and get +hit gear.

Supression is filler at best. By the time you're ready for Karazhan and getting far, you should be damn close to Hit Cap. Suppression is a waste of points which could be going into far better talents, because it ONLY EFFECTS AFFLICTION SPELLS. Soulshatter, Immolate, Shadow Bolt spam, all of these get no benefit from Supression's Hit. Those two nukes will make up ~50% of your DPS even as Affliction, and Soulshatter is our classes only active threat reducer. A Soulshatter resist means you'll either have to totally stop DPS (not a good thing for a Warlock!) or wipe the raid.



This rings true for a Shadow Priest: almost all of your DPS spells are in the Shadow School and so affected or effected as the case may be by your +10% Hit Talent (in fact, I think they all are...) but an Affliction Warlock relies heavily on Destruction spells.



I think they're Glowing Shadow Draenites (the Uncommon Version) and Glowing Nightseyes (Rare), both Red/Blue gems.

Note also that Stamina is a LOT more important than your Warrior Friend would have you believe. 8500 HP, 7500 Mana sounds a lot more realistic to me: Warlock gear is stacked full of Stamina, and with good reason: many boss fights end up having you take heavy damage: Illhoof, Aran and Prince (though everybody else is taking hits too) just in Karazhan, and a Warlock damage-taker is required in almost every raid thereafter.

Edited, Jan 3rd 2008 4:03am by ecirphsoj

Yes, that's exactly my point. Soulshatter (Demonology) and Shadow Bolts and Immolate (Destruction) majorly contribute to your damage, and resists on them are understandably bad.

Spec with 5/5 demonic embrace and improved imp this boosts your health pool substantially allowing you to take gear with more focus on +hit and +dmg.

Most gear at the level you are operating will usually have split sta/int and just +spell dmg or +shadow dmg, so try to use items with yellow sockets into which you can put +hit gems, also put the spell hit enchant on your gloves.

Best advice is to make a list of 2 or 3 items for each slot and try to prioritise which offers the best upgrade for the least work or time.

For example theres a small quest in netherstorm, (big slime elite) who drops a 'start quest' item, the reward is a +22 spell hit trinket.

Try to get hold of a s1 or s2 spell blade and team it up with the shadow damage badge reward offhand.

Take the PVP bracers and put a hit gem in them.

In reality you only need over 10k hit points for stuff like doomwalker, focus on maximising your damage and dont be afraid of using items with little or no stamina on them.

I'd strive towards 1k shadow damage, 8k+ health unbuffed, 180+ spell hit, crit less important but will come later with higher lvl gear.

Dont neglect +hit and it will account for a lot of lost damage on your shadow bolt spamming and allow you to reduce/remove points in supression.

That's one upgrade everyone should get before Karazhan. It's the best pre-raid trinket I know of for pure Spell Hit (excepting the Scryer's Bloodgem), where most are either Spell Damage or Crit Rating. If it's there when your group arrives it's less than 10 minutes work.



That's definitely optimal and possible, but it's total overkill for early Karazhan (up to the Curator). Attumen could probably be downed in full blues, no Epics if you really had to (I know we 8-manned him in meh gear with a Pallie tank)

We're progressing in early Karazhan (Maiden at 25%) and our Warlock Class Leader (guess who? =P) is at about 850 Shadow Damage, 202 Hit and 11K when buffed up for bosses.

(sorry for capitalizing stat names in my quotes, I'm a freaky bastid like that)