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March 26, 2008, 07:40 PM
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Character Info
Aloysiah 70 Blood Elf Warlock Shadowsong US PvE Guild: Excessive Obscenity Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/21/40 |
Writing a Raiding Guide for Guildies - Would like Input!
Thanks for taking the time to read this! I was not sure exactly where I should post this, and I apologize if it is in the wrong spot... I am writing a raiding guide for the affliction warlocks of my guild (though not many). We seem to be growing in amount of warlocks, and I've been asked just how to raid affliction, and if afflictions is right for them, etc. SO, I decided to write my own "guide" for my guild to read so that I could be lazy and just direct them to there.... |
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August 06, 2008, 11:02 PM
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#20 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Thrale 70 Undead Warlock Blackrock US PvP Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/21/40 |
Re: Writing a Raiding Guide for Guildies - Would like Input!
I've copy and pasted the one I wrote for the locks in my guild as there class leader (removing names and tidied abit) feel free to use what you want: So its raid night, and your wondering what you need to be doing. This post is to help newbie locks with expectations of a raiding lock and also help locks organise themselves if one of the class leaders isn't available. I. ESSENTIALS 1. Read the important raid posts regarding minimum stats, DKP etc. 2. Mods: Omen and Deadly Boss Mods (or Bigwigs) are mandatory - you don't have, you don't raid - quite simple and there are no excuses. 3. Affliction locks should have: DoTimer and XPerl frames 4. Optional Mod: ShardAce (announces summons which is handy). II. BEFORE THE RAID - best to do the night before 1. Have a stack of 20 x +23 spell damage food 2. Have 1+ x Superior Wizard Oil with 5 charges 3. Have 2+ x Flask of Pure Death (or Flask of Supreme Power) - particularly use Flasks for progression content - elixirs are ok for farm content 4. Have a 30+ shards in your inventory (yes even though you can get shards during the raid, it is best to have them before hand - get these whilst farming food) 5. Have 50g on your character to cover a night of repairs. 6. Have a stack of bandages. 7. For progression content, bring either 10 x Super Mana Pots; 10 x Mad Alchemist Pots (Must be Alchemist to use these); or 10 x Super Rejuvenation Pots. III. SIGN INTO CHANNEL /join xxxxxxocks always AND SIGN INTO VENT once your receive an invitation This is having a password for now on cause hunters are jealous of us and want to join our channel Password: IV. INVITATION PRIORITIES 1. For progression content (i.e. T5 and T6) I will always try to optimise locks contribution to raid damage, therefore I will invite the highest ranked locks (For Sure have preference) 2. For farm content, I will try to rotate locks (or use first signed up basis) without nerfing raid damage too much (Raiders and For Sure). 3. For T4 content (Gruuls, Mags) I will always try to get the least geared T4 locks without making the encounters impossible (forgoing even myself) (Guild Members/Raiders). IV. IDEAL WARLOCKS IN RAID 1. 1 x "Full Affliction UA Utility" lock (it is best for the least geared T4 lock - this lock will always be 0/2 Healthstone to optimise their utility potential). 2. 3 x Shadow Destro locks (at T5 we should hope to keep an ISB uptime of about 60%) 3. excess locks can be Fire Destro locks (higher personal damage with no significant return on ISB uptime). Note: Remember always raid damage > personal damage - it is very easy to become narrowminded. V. RAIDING SPECS, NOTES AND EXPECTATIONS 1. Once we know who is going, spec to your raid spec - 20min before raid S/T ideally. Shadow Destro Spec this if you have >1k unbuffed shadow damage AND you have >15% paper doll crit (i.e. from gear) AND you are hitcapped. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Note: Interchange your Improved HS points and say Imp VW to achieve your allocated HS assignment (e.g. 0/2, 1/2, 2/2) Note: Do your assigned curse then spam Shadow bolts. UA Affliction Full Utility - for hitcapped raiders We will always have 1 utility lock. Spec this if you are hitcapped. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Key talents here are: 5/5 Shadow Embrace; 3/3 Malediction; 3/3 Improve Imp Note: Utility lock goes into the tank group, if your not with the tanks speak up. Note: Tips for Utility locks are below UA Affliction Full Utility - for low gear Spec this if you have only minimal hit rating. Idea is to "top up" your hit rating % to 16% using Suppression talent. Sacrafice Soul Siphon and Fel Concentration, the worst case is: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Key talents here are: 5/5 Shadow Embrace; 3/3 Malediction; 3/3 Improve Imp Note: Utility lock goes into the tank group, if your not with the tanks speak up. Note: Tips for Utility locks are below Fire Destro - Rarely Spec this if you have >1k unbuffed spell/fire damage AND you have >15% paper doll crit AND you are hitcapped AND there are 3 Shadow Destro locks. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Don't ever use Conflagrate in a rotation - its for trash only, and barely even worth that. Hybrid builds - should rarely need to have these specs. These builds are good when your crit isn't quite at a Shadow Destro levels yet (i.e. <10% crit with gear). UA with damage Emphasis - Boss orientated - has advantages over destro in certain situations - BEST DPS AGAINST BOSSES UNTIL YOU'RE RDY FOR FULL DESTRO. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Note: despite multi-tanked dotting being the best dps for this build, we actually prefer focus fire that reduces damage done to raid. Note: so unless you're utility role, you should focus fire like everyone else. Contagion/Ruin (with DP) - Boss and AoE orientated Spec this if you have between 10% and 15% paper doll crit (i.e. from gear). Not as good as UA above for bosses, but trash is easier. Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Note: Very nice for AoE fights (Hyjal). Points in Supression can be rebalanced as required. 30/21/10 - Trash orientated Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft Note: Sacrafice succubus, watch threat from Shadow bolts. VI. CURSE OF RECKLESSNESS 1. If a boss doesn't have massive physical dps AND there are >3 descent physical dpsers, assign one of the lower ranked locks or Fire Destro locks (but NOT the utility lock) to apply Curse of Recklessness. Note: this curse increases the damage of all physical sources: rogues, warriors, ret pallies, feral druids, hunters by upto 6% each. This adds up to ALOT of raid damage. Note: this curse increases the threat generated by the tanks meaning more dps. If there are only two locks, then Curse of Recklessness and Elements are the two curses to use. Note: Yes you will lose some damage meter glory, but the raid will progress further and downing the boss is your priority. Note: If you hear that the healers or tanks are struggling, then quickly switch it to a CoD/Curse of Agony. Note: If you are the only lock AND there are more tanks+physical dps then casters, then use CoR over even CoElements. VII. 10 COMMANDMENTS FOR BEING A PROFESSIONAL WARLOCK RAIDER Organising a raid is a difficult job. You can help by being a professional raider. 1. Read up about the encounter and loot - bosskillers.com - before the raid. Know what your upgrades are, be ready to bid dkp; 2. Use examplelocks channel if you're in doubt about anything - pay attention to your curse assignments; 3. Be prepared, be on time waiting for invites, be ready to summon players; 4. Whisper me (or another warlock/officer) if you're in doubt about anything - Don't whisper the raid leader. 5. Expect to wipe - don't be a cry baby if we wipe - wipes happen so part of preparation is having some gold to cover the costs for the night; 6. Don't ever talk to NPCs - they might start an unstoppable event wiping everyone. 7. Dying = zero dps. Play smart, survive to contribute - even if this means lower damage. Watch Omen, don't pull aggro, wait 5 second to DoT and 10 seconds before nuking hard. 8. Put the raid before yourself - this means raid dps > personal dps; 9. Listen and pay attention - if the utility lock dies, take over their curse assignment, summon people quickly. 10. Don't post damage reports in raid or guild channels - keep it to yourself. Note: Officers are measuring contribution to raid performance, taking all considerations including utility, delays, how often death results in delays (uber dps costing us another 5mins delay due to having to rez and buff - your damage meter means nothing about your contribution, don't succumb to delusions of grandeur). I look for sustained damage over raid progression time (not combat time) as a dps highlight of a successful raid. VIII. OPTIMISING YOUR DAMAGE SMARTLY - LIFETAP, THREAT, OMEN, HIT RATING AND SUSTAINED DPS Being a pro means knowing your class. These tips are to help you optimise your damage output. Mods: highly recommend Xperl (so that you can target switch), Omen is mandatory 1. Survive. 2. Manage your threat cap and importance of spell hit rating 3. Life tap at optimal time 4. Always be doing something. 1. Survive Ok, sometimes the healers are underpressure (i.e. tanks > dps for healer priorities always), or they are out of range. This means that you need to look after yourself: out-of-combat? - eat & drink. not in immediate danger of damage? - bandage up. can't bandage? - drain life. oh noes! - healthstone/pots 2. Managing your threat cap First thing: Hit rating is the bread and butter of locks. Affliction has some leeway, but don't kid yourself otherwise - get hitcapped, think it, gem it, enchant it. See below for why this is important for threat. Second: use damage abilities that have lower threat per damage - this is very important if you are forced to ride the threat cap. For destro, this means forgoing Affliction dots such as corruption, Curse of Agony and CoD. Third: be careful of CoD and SB crits - especially if shatter is on CD. Fourth: if you hit threat cap - STOP DPS! Dying is bad for dps, why do it? At the threat cap, you can do 3 things: 1) Soul shatter; 2) Switch to another tanked target; 3) Wait for threat credits. Shatter at ideal time: this is when threat capped (e.g. 20% over tank on Omen), ideally when boss is at about 70-80% health - this should hopefully give you enough threat credit to be capped again at bosses death. Why is being hitcapped so important? - 202 Spell Hit Rating This stat has the largest affect on your damage to a boss. Aside from being probably the most important raid stat for damage, being hit capped has another very specific advantage - threat management. We have one spell to reduce threat by 50%, it is on a 5min cooldown. You do not want this spell resisted (there is always a 1% chance but that is bad luck). 3. Life tap at optimal time One of the most important things for a warlock to learn. Life tap take a global cooldown (1.5second - or over half a shadowbolt) so life tap only: 1) when safe to do so, 2) when moving, 3) when threat capped, 4) out of mana, or 5) encounter will last another 2mins AND your have a HoT on you AND your mana won't last the encounter. 99% of the time a healer will drop a HoT on you - these are our friends. Take this oportunity to life tap up with the mana necessary to finish the encounter. Take abit of practise to know how much mana you need. It's even better when you're threat capped when doing it... 4. Always be doing something Ok, you are OOM, healthstone and pots are on CD, its too dangerous to lifetap, your life is already at 60% and you haven't received a heal ... what do you do? Start wanding - you may as well get some damage in while waiting for a heal. Your threat capped on trash and you want to save your shatter cooldown for the boss ... what do you do? Switch to another tanked target for 10 seconds - always try to be doing something. Doing nothing contributes nothing, avoid tunnel vision. Note: Using Mana, Rejuventation, Mad Alchemist pots whenever possible can increase dps (this can be expensive to do however). Tip for Rejuv/MAP's, lifetap twice then use MAP. IX. NOTE FOR UA "FULL" UTILITY Lock ONLY - dealing with trash: Keep in mind that your not going to top dps charts, so don't try or get concerned about it. You will however add more to the raid then any other lock (and most other classes) and you will rarely get recognised for it. Not glorious, but all other locks understand the job that you do. Note: Extra mandatory mods: DoTimer and XPerl unit frames. DoTimer is self explanatory. XPerl unit frame is so that you have the Main Tank window open to see what each tank is targeting so that you can multi-target dot. Priorities: 1. Curse of Elements the current burn down target irrespective of anything else (unless CoR is more valuble); 2. If the mob is melee AND the tank is a pally AND there is no warrior/druid in the near vicinity - cast Curse of Weakness; 3. If the mob is a caster AND the mob isn't immune - cast Curse of Tongues - if its a channel spell then its probably not a big help; 4. Despite what guild leader says, I want you to dot anything that is tanked (UA, Corruption, SiLi) - Immolate only if you have time/safe to do so. Note: This will reduce melee damage by 5% (5/5 Shadow Embrace), which is good for the tanks/healers and raid progression - and allows you to dps efficiently. 5. Once you have all tanked mobs dealt with, switch to the current burn down target and help focus down. Note: if a mob lives 12secs or less, just nuke down with Shadow bolts, don't bother dotting (Curse of Elements only) as its a waste of mana and lowers your dps. Last edited by Thralock; August 06, 2008 at 11:07 PM.. |
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