|
Re: Tips to Maximize DPS (Destruction Warlock)
Note: I was just gonna make a quick post, then started rambling and editing. Forgive me. Here's all the tips I can think of right now. Not all of it is totally obvious.
Frankly, the locks in our guild found the problem with breaking the dps barriers is threat. The problem for us is pumping out that much dps without pulling aggro. This meant having wisdom on your cloak and if you're lucky, getting Vigilance from a protwar, and having love between your pallies so they can make macros for all the locks ( /tar Nim, /cast Hand of Salvation). We've found that maxing dps really does require some good team work. Our locks ask for Hand of Salvation over vent mid-fight when we're about 300k-400k on threat, wait for it to drop our threat whilst continuing to nuke, then shattering when we finally catch the tank again at 500k-600k. This is contingent on waiting till the tank gets 75k-100k threat to start. Throw your dots up to start, then wait for the 100k, then chain cast your *** off. All this helps, but really, it only works if you've got a really skilled tank.
Professions: Try to dump your money makers on an alt, go with something that buffs your damage, like JC/ench. Only cost me 3k to drop eng/mining and gain 77 spellpower (prismatics are changing now, watch out). This seems pretty psycho, but it's worth it if you wanna really max your dps.
Raid buffs: Are all your raid buffs covered? We try to have almost one of every spec that stacks raid buffs. Feral druids with boomkins, one of each type of shammy, one lock specced for raid buffs, arms and fury wars, scorch buff mages, making sure we've got replenishment up 100% of the time (lock, hunter, pally), etc. This makes a MASSIVE difference in dps. Although you'll be fought tooth and nail, try to get your mages to hit your locks with focus magic. They'll be pissed off like nuts at first, but if you explain that it procs off dot crits too, they'll understand that it's better for everyone if they give it to you (threaten to drop imp soul leech, that scares 'em). Mega raid buffs make all the difference. I ran a pug the other night in EoE and couldn't break 5.2k dps cause there wasn't a single elemental shaman, boomkin, or generous mage.
Stats: Are your stats appropriate? Make sure you've got your hit cap. Try the addon Dr. Damage. It will lay out in your tooltips your exact hit %, crit %, and a hundred other things you might wanna check (takes into account, all gear bonuses, talents, and buffs). I find this helps a lot keeping myself hit capped depending on whether I'm affliction spec for self heals or Mimiron P3 tanking, or destruction for pure dps. Very useful if you switch gear for more crit or more haste. Make sure you stack as much spellpower you can over every other stat save making sure you are hit capped. Drop crit and haste gems (here's hoping they buff spell penetration like they did armor penetration, finally something to put in all those blue slots they give us...). For upgrades I go by the rule that spellpower is worth more than 2x haste/crit, so if you're faced with an extra 20 SP or an extra 20 haste, go with the spellpower every time.
I hope this little rant helps. Basically, go over every aspect of your dps every now and again and try to make it as tweaked as possible. I regularly respec to add or drop imp healthstones or Curse of Agony or some other minor spell that doesn't seem that important, but a 100 dps increase is an increase. Just try not to get bogged down assuming your build is the best. Blizz always changes shit on us, and we've got to tweak like mofos to stay on top of the charts.
Seriously though, threat is the only reason I can't break 7k myself, so maybe there's something to look into there. Also, if you can pump 5-6k as affliction, try full destro, you should break 7k.
__________________
What does "DPS" mean?
Last edited by Nimitz; June 28, 2009 at 07:20 PM..
|