Beginner’s Guide

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• Warlock_DPS_Spreadsheet

A Beginner’s Guide to using the Warlock DPS Spreadsheet

Leulier’s Spreadsheet for Warlock DPS is a popular item on the Elitist Jerks Forum, initally used to calculate average DPS for different spell choices and talent selections. Since the warlock class hasn’t undergone any major changes in the last few months, there’s no longer much serious discussion about the best talent/spell choices at various gear levels. For more information about these, check out the user-friendly guides at The Warlock’s Den. The spreadsheet now allows users to examine the DPS contributions of individual pieces of gear, so it’s of interest to any warlock who is interested in upgrading his or her equipment.

As a beginner, the important thing to know about this spreadsheet is that you probably aren’t going to be entering numbers into any cells. Instead, you’ll choose items from pull-down menus inside certain cells, and letting the spreadsheet calculate numbers for you.

Getting the Spreadsheet to Open Properly

Before downloading the spreadsheet, make sure that you are ready to use it. If you are using MS Excel, make sure that the macro security is set at a low enough level for Leulier’s sheet to work. In MS Excel 2007, use the Tools Menu, select “Macros” and click on “Security”. Set it to “Medium”. Excel is set up to work with VisualBasic enabled, so if you have disabled it, you need to turn it back on again. Instead of MS Excel, I use OpenOffice Calc 2.4, which is set to medium-macro-security as a default.

Download the Warlock DPS spreadsheet from Warlock DPS Spreadsheet and open it. You’ll have to choose “Enable” when the Excel or Calc asks about whether to run macros.

Configuring the Spreadsheet

There are multiple worksheets in here: I recommend starting with "ArmoryInfo", followed by "Talents", "DPS", "Glyphs" and finally “Gear_Buffs”. The screen shot below shows the "Gear_Buffs" tab selected

First go to the "ArmoryInfo" tab and fill in your character's name and server. This will allow you to automatically import the gear you were wearing when you last logged out and updated the armory (since the armory does not always update reliably this may or may not be exactly what you last logged out in but if you try to log out in your PVE raiding gear each night it should be close).

Next go to the "Talents" tab and click the "Load Talents From Armory" button. This will use the information you entered on the "ArmoryInfo" tab to go out to the armory and locate your character and load your PRIMARY talent spec into the spreadsheet on the "Talents" tab.

Next go to the "DPS" tab. Beneath the listing of talents is a drop down box. This box contains a number of popular talent specs as well as a "Load from Talents" option. If you have updated your "Talents" tab and want to see how your current spec will perform then choose the "Load from Talents" option and then press the load button beside this drop down. Loading any of the options will automatically populate the Talents list above based on the spec you choose to load. For one of the given specs, it will also have the added benefit of updating other settings on this tab such as Filler Spell, Casted Curse, Pet, and the used option of the spells listed on the lower part of the screen. These will be updated to the accepted typical options for the spec you selected. However if you selected "Load From Talents" it will only fill in your talents for you and you will need to set these other options yourself based on your preferences. Even if you use a preset spec you may want to play around with these options in order to see how they affect your dps. You may of course manually adjust any setting on this screen if you do not want to load from talents or use the presets (that are not filled in by formulas at least).

Once you have set up the "DPS" tab the next step is the "Glyphs" tab. This is where you will select which major glyphs you intend to use. Just remember that you are only allowed 3 glyphs active at any one time. The spreadsheet does not currently prohibit you from selecting more than 3 so it is possible to accidentally activate more than 3 at once and throw off your calculations so pay attention and make sure you only have 3 active.

Finally you are ready to work on the “Gear_Buffs” tab, First thing to do is set the character’s race. Click on “gnome” in cell D5 and a menu button will appear on the right of the cell. Click on that to pull down the menu and choose your character’s race.

Once that is done you will notice a button at the top of the tab called "Load Gear From Armory". Pressing this button will once again use the information that you stored on the "ArmoryInfo" tab to go out to the armory and pull up your character and load in the gear you are currently wearing. I find this to be a good starting point. I like to first know what my current setup's maximum best case numbers are and then work from there determining upgrades and spec adjustments.

So once you have your current gear set up, next go down to Buffs section and make sure you fill out which buffs you can expect to have in a typical raid. Which flasks, foods and pots you plan to use, etc.

Once you have done all of this you should see your current potential. Now you can start selecting gear replacements from the drop down lists in each slot and determine what items will be upgrades for you and how to combine them with other items to maximize your potential. The stat values of each item are stored "Items" tab and when selected from the drop down are automatically filled in for you. You will notice a slot called 'Custom Item' in each box. If you select this item because the item you are looking for is missing from the list then you will need to go to the "Items" tab and locate the Custom Item listing for that slot and manually enter the items stats. You want to enter them on the "Items" tab and not simpy into the "Gear_Buffs" tab because if you enter them into the "Gear_Buffs" tab you will overwrite the formulas that are stored there and break the spreadsheet.

Finally you will notice at the top of the screen is a drop down box that usually starts out saying "Custom Set 1" Once you have loaded your current gear, I would recommend selecting Custom Set 1 and clicking the "Save Item Set" button. This will store your current gear as an item set on the 'Item_Sets" tab. You cannot rename the sets on the "Gear_Buffs". It only shows the 4 "named" sets that are on the "Item_Sets" tab. Once you've saved your current set you can feel free to go to the "Item_Sets" tab and change the name of it to "Current Gear" or something that would be easy for you to recognize later.

You will also notice a "Load Item Set" button. Selecting a set from the list box and then clicking this button will load the set that is stored under this name on the "Item_Sets" tab. The spreadsheet generally opens with 3 levels of gear stored in the 3 sets. You can play around with those or create your own sets as much as you want. Saving them and loading them as often as you want to compare different combinations.

This spreadsheet is geared to show your maximum potential in a typical tank n’ spank single-target fight in which the warlock is not tanking, kiting, experiencing random attacks or AoE, or even fighting to survive, just focused on DPS. This spreadsheet deals with maximizing AoE and the only health loss involves is Life Tap. If your actual talents, spell rotation, or pet choice for such a fight is different from Leulier’s recommendations, you may want to think about why. One nice feature that you may want to stop and look at is “The Next Stat” box in yellow starting on row 46. If you are hit-capped, ignore “+1 hit rating”, but otherwise, the box will tell you how much a point of crit, spell haste, etc. is worth compared to a point of spell damage with your current build and gear. These numbers will determine the relative value of potential upgrades.

Interpreting your Results

So what are those upgrades? Click on the “Items” worksheet to find out. Basically, this is a collection of the pull-down lists for every slot, with all of their stats, but also with a calculation of how much each item could contribute to your DPS in columns S and you. One column, S, factors in +spell hit. If you are struggling to reach or to stay at the spell hit cap, then this is the column to sort by. If you have BT on farm and more +spell hit than you know what to do with, sort items ignoring hit! Your current gear has a relative value of 0.0 (in blue). Upgrades have their DPS difference marked in green. It’s a pile of work to look them all up, but if you’ve been reading your raid guides anyways, you know roughly what the upcoming loot tables look like and you can compare the items on them to this spreadsheet.

N.B.: This is the master sheet for item stats. If you find an error and you are feeling brave, you can correct those numbers directly in these cells. For example, the Merciless Gladiator’s Spellblade has 225 +spell damage, not 247.

Other fun things to do with this spreadsheet include: Trying out the different sample talent builds (compare potential DPS for “Affli/Ruin” to that for “UA” for any gear set) and spell choices in the DPS worksheet Fiddling with pet DPS Experimenting with different raid make-ups in the “Raid ISB” worksheet (for shadow users) and in the buffs section of the “Gear_Buffs” worksheet (for buffers like boomkins, shamans, etc.) Comparing the effect of different pieces of gear/flasks/food/etc. on your DPS in cell B1 of the “Gear_Buffs” worksheet