So what now?

[otelma]

Hey guys, thanks also to the great suggestions and tips from this site, I have finally made it to the 70s...
No biggies at all, i must say (you just lose the xp bar.... no celebrations, no big ding, nothing... bahhh) but I bought the ugliest flying mount available (ebony griffon) and harassed my guildies, who out of despair brought me to tempest keep.

It is there, that for the very first time I have been told by an otherwise good friend "otelma, what's up... you're doing less damage than the tank...." My justification was that I was still specced for levelling (41/19/0) but regardless my dps was at best 280.... I am not sure this is great - I guess this is just plain dull....

So my set sucks (you can see the armory profile - I do not even have a frozen shadoweave set - YET), I respecced to affli/destruction (thank you for the very useful posts) and did mana tombs with non-70s. And even there, my dps was slightly better (over 320 some times, most of the times in the 300 region) but I guess this is not satisfactory...

Can some other 'normal' lock help me out on the real to do list for rising my DPS to a level where I will no longer be seen as a 'funny looking gnome but no dps...' and as a useful contributor for my very first (hopefully) kara run?

the below are some of my desiderata (of course this is a preliminary list).

(i) most useful spells to use, which curses to use (for instance, I find that CODoom is maybe more efficient but few mobs last more than a minute, particularly in the non heroic instances) - bear in mind I never specced destruction before. Am particularly interested in whether you use fel armour before fights, if you use imps/succy/felhunters etc

(ii) which set to acquire first (am tailor, will do shadowcloth asap, but it takes 32 days to finish all my shadowcloth for the complete set....)

(iii) any particular quest/rep grinding that will help me out with a particular drop?

(iv) worthwhile doing arena/bg - especially since I love doing pve and instances more than being ganked by rogues ;-)

(v) etc etc

Thanks a lot to everybody for any types of replies (even links are welcome - even though I would selfishly expect a tailored reply ;-). I know I am asking a lot, but so far i've seen people going the extra mile on all sorts of request, so i said let's give it a try...

ciao,
ale

[Izanami]

Hi mate.

Don't worry. Most of us have felt the same way you do at the moment; freshly dinged, unsure what curses to use and when, and doing a rather low dps. Or it was the same for me, anyway. This has a lot to do with gear and of course spec. 41/19/0 isn't really a pve build, as it lacks bane (as I'm sure you have read, as you have respecced). Being successful has most do with being genuinly interested in your class, as you probably are by now as you found your way here!

i) Yes, you use fel armor all the time. Curses: as affliction, you should have all your dots up on the boss at all times. Download and install some dot-timer (Nature Enemy CastBar is good, but there are tons of them). On trash mobs, however, just put up UA and Corr and SB spam, as they won't survive for long anyway. That is about it. I'm no expert on affliction, so read the other posts concerning dot's spell cycle (or rather lack thereof) and other affli posts.

ii) The Frozen Shadoweave Set is amazing and will last you a long long time. Get it made as fast as possible. Then spellstrike, which as FSW will last you just as long. Those are your main priorities. Thereafter, you can get hold of Girdle of Ruination, and just fill in heroic/kara gear when you can. Also, the vindicator bracers from pvp are godly.

iii) Grind rep with cenarion circle for the ashyen's gift. Very good ring. Also grind rep in Caverns of Time for the blade, or with Thrallmar for the epic exhalted blade (although that will take a bit longer). If you are scryer, the scryer bloodgem is also very nice. There are probably loads more, but those are the one I can pull out of the top of my head. Oh, and the quest in SMV to get your headpiece. It is a rather long questline which starts with some spectreless-quest. The end reward is rather nice.

iv) Yes, for the gladiator spellblade/war staff and the vindicator bracers. Absolutely.

Good luck, mate. I'm sure you will spank good and well in a bit of time! Just takes some gear and a little practice, and you'll be there. Hopefully some other guys will fill in what I've missed.!

-Iza

[otelma]

Thx for this quick reply (and the encouragement), mate. I am sure I will have a great time, even though I may subscribe to other people's views that this is now a very different game from before.

the DPS issue is quite disturbing... not sure how much of it is noob and how much of it is bad sets...

can you pls give me more tips (or links maybe) on the rep quests? and possibly a priority (given the crappy equip I have) order -also considering the difficulty/need for other people in the group?

any quick way of farming stuff for the FSW set? Am i wrong in assuming that It will take ages to finish this?

why am i feeling so useless ;-)

[Izanami]

Kaliban's Class Loot Lists: Warlock

That should cover the gear.

As for the FSW: Grind the water elementals in Skettis in Terrokar forest. They will provide you with the Primal Water you need, and even more. I remember spending quite a bit of money on buying shadowcloth as well as making them myself, as I found it way faster. If you have quests left, do them as they give tons of cash and will help speeding up the FSW-making. I don't think I spent much more than 2-3 weeks on the whole set, given you spend some cash on it as well. When you got it made, fill every gem slot with the veiled noble topaz, the orange ones. When you got the FSW made and gemmed up, spend some time in heroics and battlegrounds and buy the Orb of the Soul Eater with the badges and the gladiator's spellblade from battlegrounds. Your +damage should then be pretty good. The upgrades are pretty simple but will boost your damage significantly.

[otelma]

Iza, thx for the help!
as a term of reference, what could be considered a decent DPS once well geared (and with affli/destro spec like myself)?
Last question, I used the addon which shows the % increase for Sta/damage for every piece of gear i have, and so far I have been goping with +damage. was I right in doing so?

[Kilmir]

[quote=otelma;164015]
(i) With an aff build like yours it varies with the group and the mobs which spells you can use. Generally it's a good idea to do corr -> immo -> bolts -> shadowburn finisher. But if mobs live longer you can use UA before the corr and if they live even longer Curse of Agony before the rest. In normal instances almost nothing lives long enough for SL except bosses.
On Bosses use CoDoom and every other dot you have and keep them up. Bolt when all dots are running.

Learning which dots/nukes to use and when is what you should get a feeling for as soon as possible. Doing a lot of (normal) instance runs helps a lot by simply building experience.

As for pets, take imp and dark pact it's mana whenever you need some. And yes, use Fel Armour 100% of the time after you dinged 62. Just remove Demon Armor from your hotbars because no sane person ever uses it for whatever reason.


(ii)(iii) Gear, well, get the full Shadoweave set asap. Trade your mooncloths for shadowcloths from other tailors and bribe guildies to use their timers for you as well. Same with Spellcloths for the Spellstrike set. You can also perhaps borrow cloths from other tailors and repay them in cloths over the coming weeks. If you're dedicated and have a nice guild you might walk around with full Shadoweave within a week or two.
There is more to gain from tailoring; Bracers of Havok, Cloak of the Black Void and Girdle of Ruination are great items to boost your dps significantly.

You're revered with Scryer I see so get the spellhit trinket from the scryer quartermaster and grind rep with them to get the ring as well (the trinket you will probably use till halfway in SSC/TK, the ring you can take all the way to MH/BT).

Do the Sethhek Halls quest for the offhand.

For your weapon, well, there are random green weapon drops with 95 spelldamage which is already better then yours. Aside from that there are a few weapons in several instances with 125 spelldamage. Shadow Labyrinth's final boss drops a 133 spelldamage sword.
Revered reward from Caverns of Time has 125 if I recall correctly, the exhalted reward from Thrallmar/Honor Hold has 150 spelldamage and is the best you can get till you start doing Kara (or PvP).

Cenarion Expedition exalted has a very nice ring with hitrating. CE exalted is pretty easy to get, it's the only "heroic" reputation which has a repeatable turn-in all the way to exalted (Coilfang Armaments).

I never looked at necklaces really. I had the one from Ragnaros till I replaced it with the trashdrop one in Karazahn. I think there were a few quests with decent ones, but you'll have to look for yourself heh.

After you have the basics down described here above, you can start farming heroics for the Icon of Silver Crescent, Studious Handwraps (hugely overpowered gloves, rivaling Tier 6 gloves as the best gloves in game for sheer dps) and Orb of the Soul-Eater.

After you have those 3 you can use badges for the bracers, pants and other stuff from the badge vendor, but those aren't as long lasting as the first 3.


(iv) There are some rewards in PvP that are very good. It's a good idea to at least do the daily Battleground every day to get some honor, but you can live without it. Some of the PvP rewards are great though, and possibly easier to get then farming instances or badges. But those pieces tend to be full of stamina and resilience and have a lot less spelldam, spellhit and spellcrit; the stats you want for PvE dps.

Oh a level 60 AV reward offhand has 34 shadow damage. I had it since level 60, but the only item that really is better outside raids (and arena stuff I think) is the badge reward. Considering you'll be burning badges on the icon and handwraps first you might want to consider doing a bunch of av's once in a while to grab this one.


(v) To be quite honest, most of this you could have found out within about half an hour looking at profiles of warlocks just starting on Kara, looking at what the reputation vendors are selling and looking at a site like wowhead for the blue/epic tailoring patterns.
If you look for it yourself you can see other items as well and get an idea what is around. You might even stumble on some great items that are missed by most.

[DeeDay]

Hi Otelma,

The general vibe in the world is that for us locks, Spell hit is your number one goal in raids. I'm GM of a guild and am constantly surprised at some of my locks who are obsessing over +Spell damage and Crit when their Spell hit is very low - sometimes 10-30!!!

As you're freshly dinged 70, you probably have lots of quests still open to you - Netherstorm? Shadowmoon Valley? If you want a practical suggestion, I'd put raiding on hold for a bit and solo/group where necessary as many quests as possible. This will put you in areas where you can grind motes of Fire, water and mana while also earning you shedloads of cash. Use the aforementioned cash to buy the shadowcloth off the AH - as soon as you start down the FSW road, you'll be able to earn more cash faster and therefore buy more cloth. Also check your guild - maybe there are some guildies whose cooldowns you can use? For instance I have 16 Shadowcloth in my bank as I no longer need it myself so just trade this for the mats for any guildies who are freshly dinged

To save buying the netherweave cloth you'll need, head over to Warmaul Hill and kill some ogres - those guys have a "shoot on sight" order out for my toon due to the amount of them I've killed

These suggestions might set your raid career back 2-3 weeks, but I can almost guarantee that you'll have lots of cash, much better gear and have had opportunity to practice your spell rotations until you're pumping out good steady DPS.

Hope this helps

[otelma]

kilmir, thanks for the big help. I hope I can proceed forward asap.
re. your replies, I would still be looking for clarifications:
(i) will use your suggested spell chain - even though (maybe an issue with my guildies dps) most of my mobs require two rounds or even more of Curse of Agony, corr, sl, ua, immo and drain life to be down - again, that may boil down to my issues with dps;
(ii) will try and buy the scryer stuff asap, and will ask around among guildies re. shadowcloth. re. spellstrike, good idea. Any view of sockets (i see socketing guide here does not work...)
(iii) thanks for looking at my equip (and seeing it actually sucks...). was i right in sharding everything that was not accretive in terms of +damage/+crit? or should I also consider +sta? re. those recipes, will see where they drop, cause robe fo black void sell for a ridiculous price on my ah in hakkar...

re. (v) you have correctly pointed out i am a complete noob when it comes to gearing up my toon, so any help from you guys is highly appreciated.

thanks again, and keep the new comments/suggestions coming...

ciao,
ale

[otelma]

thx Deeday... a shame we are on the opposite side of the fence (and on different servers...).

I was actually looking to attune for kara asap, so to be in the position to get better gear, but happy top stand back if needed and gear up in such a way to be more useful (afraid people will be advancing and ther will be less room for me to catch up....)

[Bodhisage]

most of my mobs require two rounds or even more of coa, corr, sl, ua, immo and drain life to be down - again, that may boil down to my issues with dps;

This just got me thinking regarding your DPS. You said you recently respec'd right? Did you make sure to train all your skills again and are you using the highest ranking spell on your hotkeys? I have respec'ed many times and forgot to train before taking an AV pop or something, and all the while was wondering why my shadowburn was hitting for so low, and then realizing I was using rank 1 UA and Shadowburn!!!

Make sure you train everytime you respec, and also see if you have all your pets grimores trained as well.