Raid Dps Please Help.

[Cycotic]

Hello Fellow warlocks.

Ok a little background i have played a lock since release of warcraft, due to personal reason i had to leave right after The Burning Crusade was released. i was a full hardcore raider and enjoy raiding ALOT i was in a full clear naxx guild cleared aq40 bwl mc all of it PRE-BC.

However coming back over the past few months and started raiding karazhan, Gruul,Mag. Alot has changed in the game with damage, specs, Stats needed etc. seems alot more intricate to me. i feel i have pretty good gear and should be able to do some good dps. however i am not number one on dps and am not living up to my expectations that i want to be at in raids. i have read all the guides on this site many others and still feel like im missing something here.

i have returned to my old guildmates who are now in BT and MH and wish to maximize my dps to maybe not compete with them persay beacuse they way out gear me in T5 and T6 raids, but im running pugs in kara,gruul and mag and getting out dps'd by people who SEEM to be less geared then me.

I am only willing to play a Affliction warlock its what i enjoy playing and feel i should be able to get the best dps in raids and boss fights as affliction.

Here is a link to my armory. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...anis&n=Cycotic


Now im sitting unbuffed

Bonus damage: 765 Shadow damage: 873

Hit Rating: 111

Crit chance: 13.74%

I have very bad latency at my new house for the moment and normally run on my Quartz cast bar anywhere from 200-500 latency in a raid.

I do know i need to cap my hit at 202

I do know i need 1k plus bonus damage also

I do know crit will help my SB proc but without the hit and bonus damage up there it dosent need to be my primary focus.


My spell rotation for trash is this

Corruption>UA>SB

Rotation for bosses is

im assigned CoS So

Cos>(trinket if up)Corruption>UA>Siphon Life>Immolate>SB

Beacuse i am not hit capped i run a surpresion build once i hit 202 i will spend the points elsewhere.

I almost have enough badges to replace that Toep trinket with icon of the silver cresent.

i am 375 shadowweave tailor and 375 enchater with pretty much every enchant in the game.

I Gem with veiled noble topaz and blue ones i use glowing nightseye

I have every chant that boosts damage only one i do not have the best of is the aldor shoulder chant i am aldor.

I flask with flask of pure death use superior wizard oil and eat crunchy serpent at EVERY RAID. now keep in mind i do not afk i make sure i damage every damn mob wether it is trash or a boss im always dpsing.

I am not a clicker i keybind EVERYTHING.

I am NOT a keyboard turner.

i am just at my end here and want to reach the MAX dps i can to atleast not be out damaged by a tank in SSC albeit he is a almost full T6 tank but that still should not happen.

i do not know if i need to scrap the T4 i have and go all FSW gear with spellstrike hood.

i just do not know what i am doing wrong and the guild im in is laughing at me at the moment in dps when i go to SSC and TK with them. i WILL eventually get T5 gear from ssc and TK and that will help me out alot.

I have ran kara and gruul non stop for 6 months of being back every week i am in there not once have i seen a main hand drop off prince or gruul, or even LEo for that fact.I am still trying to get one of those main hands and will chant it with soulfrost or +40 damage.

Like i said tho i am in a top notch guild have always been known to be a top damage warlock pre bc. and i expect myself to do top notch damage in Kara gruul mag with pugs with people seeminly less geared then myself.

So i guess what i am asking is how can i achieve the dps that i want so i am not atleast laughed at by my old friends on vent during a raid.

How can i achieve 1k spell damage unbuffed 202 spell hit and as much crit as i can possibly get.

I feel my spell rotation is right on, i feel i have the latency issue under control since i am using quartz.

But apparently i am doing something WAY wrong and am asking your alls help.am i gemmed wrong is my rotation wrong is my gear SHIT. let me know what i can do to make myself a better player and help me get up there in dps. i am looking for serious help.

I was out dpsed by a warlock with these specs.

Talents 45/5/11

Bonus damage: 804 Shadow damage:855

Spell hit:66

Crit chance: 10.81%

This lock is focused on PVP i only want to PVE i hate arenas i hate BG's. so i figure this lock shouldnt come into the one area i am focused on and completley crush my dps.

now that warlock did 200k more damage then me in a kara run and went afk like i said i do not afk i try every single mob as hard as i possibly can i do not slack.

i feel that statwise i out gear this person and i try very very hard so i shoulda been number one in this pug kara over them with my gear and how hard i try to do my very best.

this lock has compared to me.

+39 bonus damage

-18 Shadow damage.

-45 spell hit

-2.93% crit chance then me.

So everywhere i look i have more then this lock, i do not feel like a lock with such POOR stats should be out dpsing me. the meter i use for raids is recount and i had flask of pure death crunchy serpent well feed buff and Superior wizard on the ENTIRE time.

i Just cannot put my finger on what the hell i am doing wrong like i said i have played since release of WoW except for a cple months away. and i am just STRUGGELING in raids ever since i came back and that used to never be the case.


So please help me give me some advice let me know what i can do to improve and get my dps up where i am not ashamed of playing a warlock.

Anyway i think i gave you guys all the info i can if anything else is needed let me know and ty in advance for helping me out.

[WannaSPOON]

It may be the latency, but I doubt it. Is this from the overall raid -- trash included -- or just from bosses?

[Cycotic]

That is the whole raid according to recount i was 3.5 million dps for the whole kara run we did all bosses in 2 and a half hours. she was at 3.7 million at the end of the raid.

Now i did just respec because i realized i was at 18%+ on hit rating with all my gems and 5/5 surpresion. but that still isnt going to matter much as the points didnt go into anything that would boost my damage. so maybe i shoulda kept 5/5 surpresion and re gemmed some of my sockets with +damage only gems.

[Deathcoilnub]

O.k, youve got a really good start there.
the drop in overall DPS could be something really simple. sure, your net may be a little squirrely (mine is, i feel your pain) but that shouldnt put you below someone whos undergeared, not since the recent patch anyhow.
Are you using CoD on EVERY boss? not just curator?
Are you dotting up ALL available targets? (including those that are being offtanked)
and why are you using CoS?
sure its GREAT if there are 7 or more arcane or shadow casters... which i find really hard to believe their is in your kara group. IF there are more than 7 casters, SURE go ahead and use it, if not, the total RAID dps drops. and drops by about 9K a minute, in a 10 minute boss fight, thats 90,000 damage you PERSONALLY would have done with 1 curse. (this is of course, between amped and non amped)
over the course of that 10 minute boss fight, i severly doubt that between 2 or 3 shadow/ arcane casters, the curse could add THAT much extra damage.
This may sound like "oh guys, screw you i want to top the meters" but in fact, your helping the raid to the best of your ability.
i had to point out those numbers to my own guild before they would believe me, now, theyre fine with it in 10 mans, in 25 mans though, SOMEONE is assigned CoS IF there are more than 7-8 shadow/arcane users

[Cycotic]

yeah there was a little confucion there i use COS only in 25's i use CoD on every boss in 10 mans and Curse of Agony on trash if i can fit it in rotation depends how much dps we had that night

[Rizob]

-Separate trash from boss data when looking at damage output. Affliction dps on trash can lag behind if things die too fast but can fare better on long fights. Need to separate the 'sustained' vs 'burst' dps data to get a better idea of what's going on. Plus boss fight dps matters more.

It would be helpful to provide an example of your sustained dps (like a 5min dps cycle on Dr. Boom) or what your dps is on gruul.

-Wow web stats is a good tool to use in order to measure your dps and compare it with others. You can see how the other lock beat you in damage. For example, did he have a higher dot uptime, did they tick for more, was he doing Curse of Agony/CoD while you're on CoS/oE duty, etc? WWS compiles all combat data from your combat log (just /combatlog and it'll record everything into a combat log file in your wow folder). You can post this record online for free at WWS's site and it'll help to analyze your problem.

Nothing sounds wrong with cast order though might need to shadowbolt more on trash if corruption/UA isnt ticking for long. Also, perhaps you dont lifetap/darkpact enough and you go oom early (dps time should be 95-100% generally for aff locks) or drain life too much? Hard to tell--WWS reports really help with this.

As far as gear goes:

-Pick up a pvp weapon if prince isnt dropping one. Use your arena points on S2 weapon--better than prince/gruul 1h anyways.

-FSW and spellstrike set is basically t5 quality without the sta/int. They're really good at damage stat allocation. T4 is still decent but you'd probably have more damage with the tailor stuff (not sure how much and if it's even worth the monetary/time costs though and might not be worth the upgrade).

-Get trinkets with base +damage + damage uses--the green quest +damage trinkets from outlands are better than ToEP. The +shadow offhand is better for you as well.

-http://www.leulier.com/
Gives a decent idea of what your dps could be if 100% perfect with spell casts and can give you an idea of how much each stat is worth towards you dps. Basically:

Affliction scales mostly from +damage. Suppression can cap out hit early on so hit doesnt scale so well afterwards. Only 30-40% of your dps comes from shadowbolt anyways and thats the only damage spell to benefit from +hit after suppression capped. You will have a higher chance at soul shatter resists but with low dps you probably dont have to worry about threat right now. +hit still has a value though so you should still consider it when choosing upgrades and gemming.

-At starting gear levels, should try to go after 1000+damage (no fel armor); gear guide on this site lists stuff to get. I dont think it's even possible to have 202 hit rating AND 1000dmg unbuffed in early kara-type raid gear. There's just not enough early gear with an abundance of both stats and the tradeoff is substantial. Hit gets much easier to obtain later on in t5 and t6 zones.


edit: Not sure how badly high latency now affects instant/1.5s casts considering the GCD. A 500ms lag on dot casts can be brutal but 2.3 was supposed to alleviate the client-server casting delays (quartz with stopcasting macros are not necessary in 2.3, button mashing is ok now).

[Theleb]

All of the above is good advice, but no-one's mentioned Initial Spell Order - its commonly accepted that in order to take advantage of GCD's then there is a certain order to throw DoTs up onto a target. Now of course there's never a firm rotation after that given the differering spell durations but browsing through the articles here seems to show that on trash:

UA > Corr > SB (On slightly tougher trash I go UA > Corr > SiLi > SB)

On Boss fights:

*assigned curse* Trinket > UA > Corr > Immo > SiLi > SB Spam until refresh. If that means you have chance to use CoD then the order should be something along the lines of:

*amp curse* Trinket > CoD > UA > Corr > Immo > SiLi > Spam.

Regarding gear.

In terms of pure +damage gear there are a number of good guides showing you where to pick up the best (I'm also a tailor and used 3 parts Shadoweave with 2 parts T4 (the 2 Part T4 Bonus is @35dps) for ages)) so you could well end up grinding a lot of mats in order to get your items made, or seeking out people with the patterns if they don't drop for you.

Run heroics. Some of the badge rewards are well worth getting, and as noted do some PvP - even if its just a couple of thousand honour a day to get the S1 Spellblade (I'm sure you can put up with that if you're so concerned about raid performance) and ensure that every single +damage enchant is in place on your gear (I don't see the need for +4 stats on bracers).

Basically I don't think there's much you're doing wrong - just need a little work on fine-tuning.

[Malevevely]

FSW is superior to the chest/shoulders. I am going to pick up the 2 piece T4 from head and gloves, while the FSW will be much better then anything else in the given slots until T5 (Robe of hateful, Corr better chest/Corr shoulders/boots last well into endgame(unless you need hit then go nightmare boots)). Another option if you need more spell hit is to pick up attunmen's gloves or the ones off mag. The badge offhand and trinket are really invaluble, the belt is good but yours is superior. Pick up the VR headpiece when it drops also the badge/shade wand would be a nice upgrade pve. CE exalted ring is amazing and would be an awsome upgrade.

Just a few gear suggestions :D I wouldnt waste a lot on craftables if your getting into SSC/TK regularly. The other thing is as the above poster mentioned using the Curse>UA>Corr>Immo>SiLi rotation will help. On trash if you are really concerned about dps use only spells that will run their full duration. If trash is going down very fast 3 shadowbolts over an immo/Corr rotation is going to be very much superior.

Affliction is a boss spec we will always fall behind in trash but in a 25 man like gruuls or mag we run the damage metre. Change up the rotation a bit and gear will come with time esp if you have a good guild.

[Theleb]

I said UA > Corr > SB Spam on trash ;p The full rotation you mentioned is the way to start a Boss fight IMO.

UA as tank is puilling (GCD takes up part of the cating time so you get UA and Corr landing straight after each other) SP Spam until Mob hits the floor.

Or even go with Corr and SB Spam to trigger Nightfall procs.

[Malevevely]

I personally don't care about trash all that much but depending on your tank or the speed at which you pull. UA>Corr can be a waste of mana. If the mob lasts the duration its great but in my case lazy 25 man guild that should be way past farming kara stuff dies too fast for it to be worth it i use SB>inst cast its usually all I have time for.