so about killing the puppy...

[Ischade]

Originally Posted by doogless

Give your tanks more lead-time before you start DPS will help with your threat problems so that you can Soul Shatter later into the fight. You absolutely should not be Soul Shattering before P2 on Prince because it will leave you capped again before the fight is over.

If you want I can make a graph to explain what I mean.

I understand what you're saying. What you suggest is what I found with trial and error.

What I do right now is this (fire specced last few weeks):

Let tank get 6k up on threat then CoE, Immolate, Incin....wait for it...immolate, incin, incin...wait for it...etc till phase 2

Phase 2 keep going as phase one till about half way, then shatter and drop the hammer. Hopefully I don't threat cap again before the end of phase 3.

What I don't understand is this:

If I sacrifice my imp (or succy when I was shadow) my damage is 15% higher but I am tapping regularly (GCD). If I sacrifice the puppy my damage is my flat spelldamage but I pretty much don't tap at all and don't run out (just drop 1 or 2 pots). In the end my total damage per encounter comes out about the same so net wash right?

Unless this is a strategy discussion that I don't understand yet. For example, on prince is the idea to not do as much damage to him (as a warlock) until he hits mid/late phase 2 then unload on him and be dry at the end? Does this mean you are doing less overall damage in the fight? Or is this where that 15% comes in and you just time it to unload all of that gross damage in a shorter window?

I guess I just don't understand if damage=threat and total encounter damage = total damage done, how sacrificing the imp/succy is making a big difference because of the GCD. I mean I understand it must be doing so or people wouldn't be doing it right?

My raid stats usually are: 1100 fire damage, 24% tooltip crit (boomkin almost always), capped hit. If I run shadow then the numbers are almost the same but subtract 80 spelldamage.

me = confused

[Gritz]

The introduction of WWS increased raid healing by approx 1000% in my guild :P

[Nostiger]

I keep the puppy sacked 99% of the time. I do so much more damage at the end of a raid then with succy sacked. The down time from life tapping just isn't worth it. And I never run out of mana cept during like illhoof where seeds just cost way 2 damn much mana. To me its just the better way i get in a hell of a lot more sb's then during which means my t4 set procs more often, my chest piece procs more often so I end up with way more damage over all then +15% but got to stop every few spells to life tap so i don't have to stop fro 10 secs to life tap all my mana back.

[doogless]

When you sac an Imp/Succubus, are you using Super Mana Pots every cooldown?

[sonte]

Most of the time also I run with a pally tank and/or healer. So blessing of salvation is always on us(20%threat reduction). During trash I never life tap. I usually have enough mana to get me through individual pulls, and at the end I will life tap back to full mana. In fact this is what my group tells me to do because its faster for me to life tap, get a heal, and then keep going than to stop and eat. Sometimes if a pull goes bad and the healer is eating then I will tap my self till my health and mana are equal and just eat from there so that i am back up faster(mage biscuits FTW).

Now on to boss fights for kara at least.For the regular spank and tank fights (Attunmen, Moroes, and Maiden) I will throw up curse of shadow and then followed but 3-6 sbolts(depending on threat) and then life tap. My healer throws a iHoT on me that will have me fully healed by the time I am ready to life tap again. I will pop my trinkets when the boss gets past 50% health.

On Nightbane with charred earth and fear you are usually running around a bit, so i life tap then. Also, if you have a pally tank for rain of bones, let them drop and run away. Wait about 3-5 seconds for the consecrate to get good aggro and then spam seed. Make sure your group knows that you are doing this and have your secondary tank is ready to pick up any that run at you. With this we have around 8-10 seconds after the bones go down till nightbane comes back. I Life tap myself to full mana and get a heal.

On Curator I have actually found that searing pain with the Improved searing pain talent (39% crit chance) is better dps for the sparks. Since those use a lot less mana then sbolts and have a faster cast time, I can life tap every few sparks and keep my mana up very easily. I can get 2-3 searing pains off on a spark compaired to 1 maybe 2 sbolts. Also, Make sure you have some type of boss timers mod so that you can throw up curse of doom when he is 58 seconds away from evocate. Once he evocates, I pop my +damage trinket and go all out. After that I keep my mana up with life taps in between sparks.

During Illhoof ,since I am seeding, the group knows that its a very mana intensive cast. So, I ussually life tap right after the demon chains go down, and the healers know to look for this. This is another fight that I will use searing pain. On the chains I have found it is better dps. I can get 1-2 searing pains off compaired to maybe 1 shadow bolt. I do not like using shadow burn for this fight because I will loose the shard no matter what.

Shade is a more mobile fight so I life tap when I am running usually that works fine. When the elementals pop, I am the only warlock, so I am on banish and fear duty. Which severely drops my dps, but my group knows this and does not expect big dps from me on this fight.

I meant to say Netherspite in my previous post. I will sac the puppy for this fight to help out the healers. Works great.

Prince i hold off on dps at the begining a bit. With life taps i keep myself close to full mana and health as possible. Once phase 2 hits our shammy healer pops heroism, and bam I hit soul shatter and unload. 1.9 sec cast shadow bolts + blow both trinkets + shammy 101 damage totem. After I run out of mana, I will start chugging some pots, but it is usually only 2.

[Trickedy]

Only encounter i have ever used it on really was illhoof. made a huge diff to me on there and meant that i could pretty much go the whole fight with no spriest and zero taps, finished up with around 3-5k mana.

[Izanami]

The Ds/destro build is the highest end game build because of the succy sac (as you all most likely know). IF you don't sac the succy, you are probably much better off with a 41/+/+ build and dark pact. Only fight I sac puppy at is Illhoof and other soc-spam fights.

I might have incredible healers, as someone else mentioned, but I always seem to get thrown a HoT once in a while, even when I'm not life tapping. They see my mana bar is low and HoT me up. Hell, even the pallies FoL me once in a while.

And of course I pop pots and healthstones when I know the healers are strained, as on Zul'Jin p3 etc.

[Ischade]

Yea pretty much what I was expecting to hear. On Gruul last night I tried it both ways and there was no comparisson. The sacrifice for damage beat the sacrifice for mana.

I think what I'm noticing is that on farm content being able to just straight dps and not tap seems to be equal but with the gruul fight being so long the damage sacrifice just flat outpaces it.

Now if I could figure out how to stop going OOM. At the end when he has 10+ grows it's hard for me to get a heal from anywhere hehe.

[cdnVerbal]

Just thought id comment about the prince strategy for not going OOM, basically i just saty around the 70% threat mark on my tank for the entire phase 1, throw up CoD on him at about 68% HP, mana tap to full mana and drain tank at 62%. That way when he hits 60% I'm at full mana, full health and 70% threat and I'm able to unload, shatter and repeat. My doom hitting in P2 helps the group on the hardest part of the fight. The other lock does CoW so the healers dont have to try as ahrd on the tank.

I love my healers, even when I ask them not to for their sake they still hit me with a HoT

[Lurker37]

We're a DPS class with a pet. Saccing a pet means we lose their DPS. Many boss fights are DPS races.

Unless you already have the current instance on farm, it's usually best to go for a sacrifice that allows you to DPS harder rather than longer - the latter can also be achieved with pots, taps and/or heals. ( In my experience Healers assigned to spot healing often assume the warlocks will be lifetapping and slap a HoT on them pre-emptively. )