Shadow Bolt vs Incinerate Post - WotLK . With the release of Wrath of the Lich King , Incinerate has become the best option for deep Destruction specs , while Shadow Bolt has remained the best option for deep Affliction specs . Shadow Bolt is also the best option for deep Demonology and Affliction / Demonology hybrid specs , as they don ' t have enough spare talent points to access the Destruction talents which specifically improve Incinerate or fire spells . For hybrid specs , the question is about how many points must be invested in Destruction before Incinerate out damages Shadow Bolt . Shadow Bolt and Incinerate deal fairly similar DPS , and before the effects of talents , the DPS of both spells scales at the same rate with spell power . The tier 1 Destruction talents Bane and Improved Shadow Bolt combine to increase Shadow Bolt ' s DPS by 26 % when maxed out , while maxing out the tier 6 Destruction talent Emberstorm increases Incinerate ' s DPS by nearly 28 % , 4 ranks of Emberstorm increase Incinerate ' s DPS by slightly under 22 % , placing the tipping point firmly at 30 points in Destruction for Demonology / Destruction hybrids . Affliction ' s tier 6 talent Shadow Mastery increases shadow damage by 15 % when maxed out , when combined with Bane , this adds up to a 38 % DPS boost for Shadow Bolt , making Shadow Bolt a better option for Affliction / Destruction hybrids ( although Affliction / Destruction hybrid builds are not recommended due to lack of synergy between the two talent trees ) . Obviously , immunities , resistance s and absorption can change things . Less obviously , Immolate is generally not a significant factor , as Incinerate ' s conditional damage does not scale with spell power . Molten Core in Patch 3 . 3 . 0 . As of PTR build 10623 , Molten Core has been redesigned . Among its ' other effects , it gives each Corruption tick a 4 % / 8 % / 12 % chance per tick to make the next three casts of Incinerate deal 6 % / 12 % / 18 % more damage and reduce their cast time by 10 % / 20 % / 30 % . At rank 1 , this translates to a roughly 17 . 8 % DPS increase for Incinerate . At rank 2 , this translates to a 40 % DPS increase for Incinerate . At rank 3 , this translates to a roughly 68 . 6 % DPS increase for Incinerate . This makes Incinerate better than Shadow Bolt for deep Demonology and Demonology hybrid specs while the Molten Core buff is active . Pre - WotLK . Prior to Wrath of the Lich King , a common debate among Destruction warlocks is which is better , Fire or Shadow ? It boils down to simple Mathematics . First we must ask ourselves " What are we concerned with ? " for the topic of this debate . Let ' s consider sustained DPS in raid situations . Math . Common Bonuses . Common Bonuses are things that both spells receive the same bonus from and add multiplicatively with the rest of the equation . That ' s it ! Everything else impacts the equations used to determine damage differently . Incinerate data . Incinerate Deals 479 damage on average Deals 599 damage on average with immolate present 2 . 5 cast time ( talents to 2 . 25 ) receives 2 . 5 / 3 . 5 percent of spell damage ( talents to . 2 + 2 . 5 / 3 . 5 ) so an equation modeling Incinerate ' s DPS would look Something like This ( where S is spell damage and C is Crit % represented as a number between 1 and 0 ) formula _ 1 Where ( 1 + C ) is the damage increase caused by your crit rate , C . The 1 . XX are the total damage multipliers . These multipliers are then each multiplied against the quantity of the average damage plus the talented spell power coefficient of incinerate times the spell power , ( 599 + ( . 2 + 2 . 5 / 3 . 5 ) S ) , in order to find the average damage of a hit . The average damage is then divided by casting time to find the dps . Shadow Bolt data . Shadow Bolt Deals 572 damage on average 3 cast time ( talents to 2 . 5 ) receives 3 / 3 . 5 percent of spell damage ( talents to 1 . 2 * 3 / 3 . 5 ) so an equation modeling Shadow Bolt ' s DPS would look Something like This ( where S is spell damage and C is Crit % represented as a number between 1 and 0 ) formula _ 3 Where ( 1 + C ) is the damage increase caused by your crit rate , C . The 1 . XX are the total damage multipliers while the multiplier for ISB is ( 1 + 0 . 2 ( - C ^ 4 + 4C ^ 3 + - 6C ^ 2 + 4C ) . These multipliers are then each multiplied against the quantity of the average damage plus the talented spell power coefficient of Shadowbolt times the spell power , ( 572 + ( . 2 + 3 / 3 . 5 ) S ) , in order to find the average damage of a hit . The average damage is then divided by casting time to find the dps . Spell Compare . We know Shadow Bolt starts out lower and that if it ever passes Incinerate there must exist an intercept thus any value of Spell Damage / Crit that exceeds the value at which the interception occurs would be the values at which Shadow Bolt is better than Incinerate . First set the equations equal to each other . Then simplify the multipliers except ISB since it includes crit . The 1 + C is common among both so it can be eliminated . I like not having fractions so multiply the speed of SB on both sides to eliminate it , from this we verify that the faster cast rate of incinerate increases it ' s dps . I also simplified the spell damage coefficients . Then just multiply the multipliers against the average damage to find the buffed average damage and the buffed spell damage coefficient . Using the result from the last section we have : Then substitute the crit in using C = . 35 . Simplify the multiplier of ISB . Multiply ISB throughout the SB equation . Find the difference of the spell power coefficients times S and set it equal to the difference in buffed average hit . Solve for S . Conclusions . Incinerate is better for sustained personal dps given that immolate is applied for you ( until you have 1 . 3k spell damage ) . A good candidate for keeping immolate up is the designated support warlock who has 5 / 5 Shadow Embrace , 3 / 3 Malediction , on imp duty and / or has the least spell damage .