Well, with great gear comes great responsibility. That responsibility is in the form of gemming and enchanting your gear. Being an enchanter m'self, I've always tried to have the best 'chants on. I may not always grab the exorbitantly priced epic gems, but I will have the good enchants, by the Light. Or Shadow, in my case.
Since I'm sure everyone else is experiencing the same Maximum Gear Flow that I am, I figured I'd make a handy little list here for reference. So without further ado...
[Edit: I will update these for level 85 eventually, but for now they mostly hold true at 80 and for leveling]
Affliction Warlock Enchantment List (remember, spirit is useless)
- Head - Arcanum of Burning Mysteries (Kirin Tor rep item)
- Shoulder - Greater Inscription of the Storm (Hodir rep item)
- Chest - Powerful Stats
- Pants - Sanctified Spellthread (if you're a tailor) or Brilliant Spellthread (tailoring item)
- Boots - Icewalker or Tuskarr's Vitality (for the run speed)
- Bracers - Superior Spellpower
- Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower (if you're hit capped) or Precision (if you're not capped)
- Ring - Greater Spellpower (if you're an enchanter)
- Cloak - Lightweave Embroidery (if you're a tailor) or Greater Speed
- Weapon - Mighty Spellpower or Black Magic
- Head - Arcanum of Torment (Ebon Blade rep item)
- Shoulder - Greater Inscription of the Axe (Hodir rep item)
- Chest - Powerful Stats
- Pants - Icescale Leg Armor (leatherworking item)
- Boots - Greater Assault
- Bracers - Expertise (unless capped) or Greater Assault
- Gloves - Precision (if you're not melee capped), Expertise (unless capped), or Crusher
- Ring - Stats (if you're an enchanter)
- Cloak (can now stack engineering and enchants) - Greater Speed
- Weapon - Rune of Fallen Crusader on one and Rune of Razorice (if you're Frost) on the other
- Head - Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (Argent Crusade rep item)
- Shoulder - Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle (Hodir rep item)
- Chest - Greater Defense
- Pants -Frosthide Leg Armor (leatherworking item)
- Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality
- Bracers - Major Defense (unless capped), Expertise (unless capped) or Major Stamina
- Gloves - Precision (if you're not melee capped), Expertise (unless capped), or Armsman
- Ring - Stats (if you're an enchanter)
- Cloak - Titanweave or Mighty Armor
- Weapon - Rune of the Nerubian Carapace on both
Not necessarily an enchant, but you can get a belt buckle and gem it.
ReplyDeleteWow-Heroes.com will also provide a score for each of your current enchants and suggest more powerful ones (including the belt buckle).
There are very strong arguments in recent times for raiders to use Tuskarr's Vitality on boots instead of Icewalker. Considering how much time you spend moving out of fire in raids, the extra run speed from Tuskarr's makes a significant difference.
ReplyDeleteAlso Black Magic appears to be the best weapon enchant for affliction locks as well, due to the fact that haste is VERY useful for affliction since the last couple of patches.
Just a couple of suggestions that you might want to look at and maybe try out?
Do you have any links about these? I would like to read the arguments.
ReplyDeleteRe: Tuskarr's Vitality. I hear what you're saying with the run speed, but stamina is pretty much wasted as a lock. Crit and hit are both stellar stats. Even when I'm hit capped, I would almost rather go with the spirit enchant over stam. You could get run speed from a meta gem too, but honestly I don't spend a lot of time moving out of the fires. I mean, you usually just take a few steps and you're fine. I would think reaction time is more relevant than run speed. Still, I'd love to read the arguments about this as it's certainly a personal opinion.
RE: Black Magic. I had heard the rumblings about this enchant. Has someone done the math? Last I'd read, it was still up in the air. It's hard to beat 63 SP, though the haste is 250 for 10 secs every 45 secs it looks like. What I'm looking at in the comment on wowhead indicate it's equivalent to 71 haste (full time)... so it would be worth it if that is correct. I'd love to have a second source though.
In any case... yes <3 haste. It's like crack for locks :-).
EJ is blocked at work so I can't link the discussion directly, but I have found some interesting comments on this blog post:
ReplyDeletehttp://pugnaciouspriest.com/2009/09/30/boot-enchanting-for-raiding/
It looks as though there is a lot of personal preference involved, and I much prefer the extra movement speed to the 0.3% crit chance for a number of reasons. Fights like NR beasts and the first two bosses in ICC (haven't seen the third yet) have a lot of movement, and I've also switched to affliction from Destro since the patch, and I'm still getting used to the shorter range of my spells.
If you're looking for a great resource for warlocks, check out the thread in the somethingawful.com WoW forum. The moderator of the EJ warlock forum posts there and I find it's a great place to get the distilled and concentrated versions of the theorycrafting without giving myself a headache :)
Thanks for the link... I'm definitely going to add it to my list because it's certainly a valid option. I may actually toy with it myself since who doesn't like moving faster? That and I'm sick of my paladin wife always running circles around me with her auras and stuff... not that it'll beat a Pally's auras, but at least I won't feel as slow. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think I'll go with black magic on my *next* weapon too. Crazy.
Nice post, but with the dk tanking enchants you should add the Greater Inscription of the Gladiator, IMO it's better for a dk past the defense cap.
ReplyDeletePowerfull stats is a good alternative for the chest enchant.
Enchant cloak mighty armor should be included.
For gloves go with armsman.
On the weapon you missed out Rune of the stoneskin gargoyle.
Enchant boots Greater Fortitude is good to have for non movement fights such as saurfang (though if you dont have the luxury of two good sets of boots or the money to swap enchants for one fight Tuskarr's wins).
Major stamina enchant for bracers is really the only option, if you need def better to get it on a different slot.
For DPS Death Knight, specially Unholy, the 15 strength gloves enchant would be better. It comes out at a bit lower attack power than crusher. But due to the fact that the Ghoul benefits from our strength, not ap, makes it better. (And cheaper)
ReplyDelete-ik
Even more so for melee than casters, fights often require running out of aoe et cetera, hence tuskarr's vitality/cat's swiftness will be obvious choice for a dps DK as well, especially if the tanks have it.
ReplyDeleteyou totally forgot the engineering enchants the sp back enchant is awesome and i love my nitro boots gives me that extra speed when i need it plus some crit. im also using the haste on gloves one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you forgot the Inscription-only warlock shoulder enchant, BIS if you are a scribe.
ReplyDelete+4 stats on rings as a DPS DK? Really? As blood I'd probably just go straight with the +40 AP on each, +8 stats on two rings isn't worth it compared to 80AP.
ReplyDeleteArmsman just flat-out sucks for tanking. The Parry is miniscule, and if 2% threat actually makes a difference in your ability to do your job, get out of the tanking business. If I'm pulling 10k threat with a M/D or ToT or some nonsense, that's an extra 200 tps. Which does not amount to much.
ReplyDeleteAgility on the cloak grants non-DR dodge, armor, and melee crit. Over some DR defense.
The PvP shoulder enchant (+30 Stam and some Res) is competitive with, if not superior to, the Hodir enchant.
Defense on the chest sucks. +275 hp for outright health or +10 stats. +8 stats if you're cheap and/or it's not going to make a difference at your level of content.
Tuskarr's Vitality is highly debatable. Honestly, if a minor run speed increase is going to help me that much, I could also pay more attention and think a step ahead, and then move a tenth of a second sooner.
Precision and Expertise over raw stam? Really? I tank with a little under 200 hit and about 4% expertise. I'd like more expertise (Bryntroll killed me), but the hit I couldn't care about.
You are a tank. Everything is second to survival. If you can't hold aggro on a boss in ICC, you need to look at your talents, glyphing, and rotation before you start prioritizing threat stats over staying alive.
A hunter can always M/D and Feign. A Rogue can ToT and Feint and Vanish. A Warlock can Soulshatter. But you are a tank, and you have no button to correct the fact that you are dead.
For warlocks, +15 spirit to chest is actually (very slightly) better DPS than +10 stats. Combine that with the fact that the mats are much cheaper & +15 spirit really is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so now that I'm back... lots of comments. All are great arguments and definitely a lot of valid alternatives. However, I'm going to stand by this list as it stands as my opinion until I'm bludgeoned into believing otherwise.
ReplyDeleteHere's some short answers that aren't meant to be rebuttals, but just a few thoughts:
Hit and Expertise are great tanking stats. I can't tell you how much Fuu's Avenger's shield missing causes DPS headaches cuz of impatience. And missing on a SS if you're trying to set up diseases really borks up my rotation. I like having the hit and exp to decrease ensure that the hits I want to land, land. It's that simple. If it's not a problem for you, there are other great enchants as pointed out.
15 spirit may be great for personal DPS, but don't forget about the nice increase to the other stats that affect mana and health pools. While not great DPS boosts, they can nonetheless be valid stats. I like to use this a bit of a balancer since 15 spirit really isn't that much of a bonus and some survivability is good now and then. However, this is again a personal opinion. I would choose the +4 stats for DPS DK rings for this same reason. Plus, if you look at stat valuations from simulationcrafts... AP is rated very poorly, but again may be a raw DPS decrease for other priorities like surviving. Maybe, maybe not.
Sometimes a couple hundred extra TPS can make a difference. Not usually, but it can. *shrug*
I'm not the expert on all crafts... if you know of a craft-specific BiS enchant (like the scribe thingy mentioned)... please comment a link or just the full name so I can wowhead it and add it. I'm afraid I just don't know 'em all off hand and while this was more of a personal list, I'd love to include them to help others.
Finally, please don't be discouraged if I didn't add your suggestion. It's not that I don't believe you, it's more that I'm stubborn/lazy and need a lot to make me budge on an opinion. Thank you for all the feedback!
"Decrease ensure" is latin for "ensure"... or something like that.
ReplyDelete