At my wits end...

[Malfeaseance]

Hey all, you may remember my post a little while back about sucking as an affliction lock. I got a little better over time, but seemed to be stuck in the rut of mediocre damage. So I got some hit gear and went destro. We had our first raid last night (we are farming gruul/mag and kara; last night was gruul/mag) since I changed specs, and I still blew chunks. Not as bad as when I was affliction but still I was in the low to mid 700s on the boss fights. I just do not know what I'm doing wrong. Here is my armory link (I know those pants are terrible I was counting on the T4 pants last night as I was in line to get them but they didn't drop; those would have hit capped me)
The World of Warcraft Armory

I was using Curse of Doom, immolate, SB spam and then using conflag when immolate was about to run out. If I had the WWS logs to put up I would, but the person who used to do it has taken a break and no one has stepped up (maybe I should).


I have read through the gearing guide multiple times, I have searched and read everything I can on strategy...the only thing I have come up with is that I may be wasting my time with immolate/conflag. I know my crit is low for destro but should it make that big of difference? According to maxdps.com I should be somewhere around 950-1000 with my current stats, is that correct? I am just so flabbergasted I love my lock but I hate sucking as much as I do.

[Lolia]

Conflag is a huge waste. I'd try dropping immolate, too. As for gems - replace the +9 with a hit/damage one in your robe to get closer to cap - if I remember right, anything under 190ish is just not enough. CoD, sbolt spam, and try and life tap only once per cycle (ie: sb sb sb lt sb sb sb lt, not sb sb sb sb sb lt lt lt ) too, and see how that works.

edit - Exalted CD has a GREAT +hit ring, too!

[Barclande]

Your gear isn't bad, though you really don't have enough crit for Destro to work as well as it should. You should be able to do more than that though. Try switching to Curse of Agony, if there isn't a Warlock putting up CoS, or CoS instead of Doom, it can do more damage without having Amplify Curse. Also put Corruption into your rotation, leave Immo but frop Conflag unless you are in motion when Immo has less than 1 second on the timer.

Curse, Corr, Immo, SB spam until DoTs need refresh, Life Tap inbetween DoTs if you have time or instead of SBs if needed, just make sure the 3 DoTs are up at all times and SB/Life Tap the rest of the time and you should do better.

Also, looking at your spec, you may want to drop Emberstorm, as most of your damage should be from SB Spam, it's the meat of a Destro Build, unless your Fire Destro. Put 2 more points in Backlash for the Crit% and then Cataclysm maybe. Unless of course you want to go Fire Destro.

[Carlinda]

I'm a T5 raiding afflic lock... but I do know that the destro locks in my guild pretty much spam shadowbolt and that's it. You may see an occasional CoAgony or CoElements (I'm malediction, so I take care of the CoShadows). Are you also saccing your succubus before fights for the bonus damage? Are you raiding with full consumables (ie - Spell Damage/Spell Crit buff food, Wizard Oil and elixirs/flasks)?

I probably would have gone for the hit cap before speccing destro, and probably increased my crit as well. Another thing that really improved my dps a LOT is not listening to my casting bar for shadowbolts. I can actually start casting a new SBolt about 2/3 of the way into the cast bar - but this will all depend on your own personal lag/compy situation. I believe there is an add-on that will calculate the lag delay and visually let you know when you can begin to cast your next spell, but I cannot remember what it's called.

Do not get discouraged; when you are able to get hit-capped and raise your crit a bit you will start seeing so really good numbers!

[Malfeaseance]

Originally Posted by Lolia

Conflag is a huge waste. I'd try dropping immolate, too. As for gems - replace the +9 with a hit/damage one in your robe to get closer to cap - if I remember right, anything under 190ish is just not enough. CoD, sbolt spam, and try and life tap only once per cycle (ie: sb sb sb lt sb sb sb lt, not sb sb sb sb sb lt lt lt ) too, and see how that works.

edit - Exalted CD has a GREAT +hit ring, too!

Yeah my current gemming was counting on getting the t4 pants to cap me, which didn't happen much to my chagrin. I'm up to get them the next time they drop though.

[Theleb]

Immolate is normally worth casting until you get 4pts T6 but I would definately look at Leulier's spreadsheet to determine if its worth casting for you personally.

Couple of observations:

1) Conflag is a proven DPS loss - not worth the talent point.
2) Remove Cataclysm, go 3/3 Backlash, 5/5 emberstorm and pick up Shadowburn (Don't use it as part of a rotation, its just a nice burst as a mob is about to die)
3) Dreadweave Cuffs aren't as good as Silk Cuffs, and then you can throw in a Veiled Pyrestone to get closer to your hit cap as well as improving your crit rating (which is a little on the low side).
4) Replace the Metagem in your T4 head with the Chaotic Skyfire Diamond.
5) There are several, better cloaks that are easily obtainable compared to the one you're currently using: Gearing Your Warlock (2.4 Edition) - Page 2 - The Warlocks Den Forums
6) Gemming for crit is subpar compared to gemming for damage/hit. Crit will come with gear (see below).
7) Get the spellstrike pants. The T4 really aren't worth it in comparison, especially for destruction. Compared with the stats on the Spellstrike, the sockets give you the ability and flexibility to address key issues and will not only blow you over the hit cap, they'll give you a nice chunk of crit and spell damage as well.

Crit is actually one of your issues, as well as lowish spell damage. You are clearly right on the cusp on hitting the "minimal" stats for Destruction so I'd maximise your gear where possible and then see where that puts you. Aim for 20% Tooltip Crit (pre Devastation) as well as hit cap and 1000 shadow damage....its easily within your reach

Edit:

Do NOT cast Corruption as Destruction. Ever. Its a total waste of mana as its DPCT (Damage per cast time) is woefully low as a non-instant cast.

[Malfeaseance]

Originally Posted by Carlinda

I'm a T5 raiding afflic lock... but I do know that the destro locks in my guild pretty much spam shadowbolt and that's it. You may see an occasional CoAgony or CoElements (I'm malediction, so I take care of the CoShadows). Are you also saccing your succubus before fights for the bonus damage? Are you raiding with full consumables (ie - Spell Damage/Spell Crit buff food, Wizard Oil and elixirs/flasks)?

I probably would have gone for the hit cap before speccing destro, and probably increased my crit as well. Another thing that really improved my dps a LOT is not listening to my casting bar for shadowbolts. I can actually start casting a new SBolt about 2/3 of the way into the cast bar - but this will all depend on your own personal lag/compy situation. I believe there is an add-on that will calculate the lag delay and visually let you know when you can begin to cast your next spell, but I cannot remember what it's called.

Do not get discouraged; when you are able to get hit-capped and raise your crit a bit you will start seeming so really good numbers!

To answer your question, I did flask and oil...didn't have the damage food food cause the AH was devoid of them around raid time (I wept) and yes I have been saccing the succy to get that damage.

The /stopcast macro actually makes that big of a difference? I have the cast bar that shows me the space and it usually isn't very big, but I suppose I can try that.

[Theleb]

/stopcasting isn't needed since a couple of patches ago. By all means however use quartz to monitor your latency so that you are able to work out exactly when you can start casting the next spell.

[Carlinda]

Originally Posted by Malfeaseance

The /stopcast macro actually makes that big of a difference? I have the cast bar that shows me the space and it usually isn't very big, but I suppose I can try that.

I think it's worth a shot. When I first started raiding I could apply all of my dots and then cast 3 shadowbolts before having to re-apply. Then I realized that my casting bar was lying to me (duh!) and I can now usually cast 5 shadowbolts before I have to start reapplying dots. So I would imagine that in a destro situation, where you're casting shadowbolts for more extended periods of time you'd improve your dps greatly.

[Barclande]

The add-on that shows you when you can cast is Quartz.

Also, with his Crit chance at his point, wouldn't Corr be a DPS increase, have to check that on Leluiers to be sure, but I'm pretty sure at his Crit/Dam levels it would be an increase.