Post Patch DPS and Rotation assistance thread.

[Akasha]

Seems like there's a lot of threads popping up with "my dps sucks now, what rotation should I use?". Instead of having everyone create their own thread and trying to get assistance, how about we gather everyone together (those seeking and those giving help) into one area and discuss. It might even attract the mathematicians too, who are probably skipping the current "halp" threads. Yes, that's how someone spelt Help recently...

Suggested by Vaell:

[Talent Build Link]

[Spec Link]

Content / environment - tried / used in (Dr Boom, Dummies, Kara, BT...)

Then a rotation with some reasoning why it works, doesn't work and perhaps a WWS link. Then people can either use it as a platform to ask for help with the rotation or share what works for them so those needing help can take it away with them.

[Lylie]

(sorry if it's the wrong place wasn't QUITE sure where to put this)

Anyways, I have been messing around on the PTR with casting rotations that would be efficient. However, now that we're proc based it makes it a lot more difficult (thank goodness). Has anyone else come up with an effective cast rotation as of yet.

Another thing that I was seeing is in end tier 6 gear there is no way possible with the amount of procs to be able to use them to the fullest ability switching back and forth from fire to shadow.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Malboro]

Guess your talking about destruction ah? (when you talk about switching back and forth from fire to shadow...).

Anyway, for affliction, i got this:

Phase 1: Curse of Elements --> Corruption
Phase 2: Siphon life
Phase 3: Immolate --> Unstable Affliction --> Haunt --> Dark Pact --> Shadow bolt

Phase 1 is only casted once because shadow bolt renews corruption. Siphon Life is recasted whenever it wear off, usually instead of a shadow bolt.
The real cast sequence comes with Imm/UA/Haunt.

[Geckothan]

If you're talking about destruction, I've been doing a bit of testing over the last couple of days on the dummies (in Theramore of course, the ones in cities are all 80 now >.>) and thus far the rotation I like the most is essentially:

Opening with Imp autoattack -> Curse -> Chaos Bolt -> Corruption -> Immolate -> spamming Incinerate until Chaos Bolt comes off cooldown -> Chaos Bolt -> Corruption -> Immolate and repeating, refreshing Corruption and Immolate when neccessary, turning the Imp off to regen his mana whenever he's close to going oom and using Chaos Bolt whenever it's availible.

I was doing this with a build something along the lines of: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?warl...00000000000000

I've tried other rotations that involve using both SB and Incinerate (one rotation I tried was along the lines of Immolate -> Incinerate -> Conflag -> SB * 3, both with Corruption kept up and without), mixing Conflag into my current favorite rotation (tried using it before Immolate expired and every time it came off cooldown), and this one seems to be the least awkward to play, it also seems to end up with the most DPS on average after 5 minutes of nuking, it also seems the most mana efficient.

I've been travelling back and forth between IF and Theramore multiple times a day and been standing there hitting dummies for hours a day so I've got a feel for every possible rotation and consistantly this one seems to turn out the best in terms of DPS, mana efficiency and ease of play. It's not the most stable rotation as it's constantly changing due to differences in cooldowns and the durations of Immolate/Corruption, but despite this it seems to feel smoother than others to play. You make the most of your Molten Core procs with this build too, as it'll only be proccing from Corruption and all other damage you are dealing is fire based.

You can try adding Conflag/Backdraft into the rotation if you like but it's almost certainly a DPS loss, makes you burn your mana faster and doesn't really net you any extra DPS as the damage lost by using Conflag isn't really made up for by Backdraft from what I've observed.

[Reubicant]

Thank you for the report Geckothan. That's pretty disheartening news about conflag. Why is Backdraft there if not to make it worth putting in your rotation? It doesn't look like it's designed to be a pvp ability. I hope they mess with the numbers until that's the case.

[Geckothan]

I'm sure Blizzard will make it worthwhile, considering that it's one of the "centerpieces" of destruction in Wrath of the Lich King it seems, but if we don't get changed at all between now and 3.0.2 being deployed on live servers, the whole Conflag/Backdraft thing doesn't seem worth it.

[Lylie]

Thanks for you input Geck, I was trying something along the lines of Imp > Corruption > Immolate > Conflag > Immolate > SB > SB > Corruption > Conflag > Immolate

Throwing in Incin whenever MC was up just seemed like a lot because I was losing either ISB or MC either way I guess it's the same dps loss (10%) but with a higher coefficient on ISB I would think it would be better.

[Gzrad]

To Geck's point on Backdraft, I also found it a DPS loss unless i had ISB and followed the Backdraft with SBx3 in which case I usually netted about 7% increase.

My cast sequence was:

Curse of Agony, Corruption, Chaos Bolt, Immolate, Incinerate,Incinerate, Incinerate, Incinerate, Life Tap, Chaos Bolt, Conflagrate, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Life Tap

I found 5pts in ISB to be better than 5 pts in F&B so far.

[Frazzle001]

I seem to have trouble maintaining my dps now in raids - I suspect half of it is because mob and boss' have had a big nerf in health. However that being said and not being too experienced as a lock I would like to ask some of you experienced locks out there what would be the optimal rotation at this early stage and why?

I would appreciate your thoughts - I really really don't want to go back to my hunter or shammy - I have been enjoying the lock too much but am too inexperienced to determine if the patch is good or bad and I feel my rotations are causing me issues.

[Dethcaller]

I just started raiding affliction last night too and believe me it took some getting used to, to get back into it. I think the shadow bolt spamming of destro pre-patch made me lazy. I've been doing curse, corruption, haunt, unstable affliction, siphon life, shadow bolt spam until haunt is about up, repeating with doing siphon life every other rotation, and of course corruption doesn't need to be renewed unless you have to stop the rotation to move or something. Curse wise I volunteered to do CoE because I was the only affliction warlock in the raid so I haven't played around with the damage curses.

Is CoD still the best damage curse for bosses compared to Curse of Agony?

Dethcaller