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December 03, 2009, 10:10 AM
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#1 (permalink) |
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A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
Greetings folks, my name is Pitstarter and I am the GM of Angry Aces on EU-Shadowsong. Looking to get some advice on how to help our guild's only raiding warlock get her dps up a fair bit in our 25 man raid content. We don't have anyone that has played a warlock in Wrath of the Lich King to ask for advice so I'm somewhat taking the initiative and asking here. Looking after the warlock(s) in the guild has fallen to me since I have an 80 warlock and that makes me the best choice by default, apparently. The fact that my warlock has done naxx once or something, and thats about all the raiding she has done wasn't taken into account! So, let's start with our subject: Armoury Profile The World of Warcraft Armory So a mix of T8 and a bit of T9 with some 245 other stuff thrown in. From my knowledge her hit rating is way over what is needed. She has 353 in the gear she logged out with, plus specced into Suppression 3/3. We normally raid with a shadowpriest and/or a Balance Druid, and have enough space goats to put one in every party. She has one hit type gem that could be replaced from what I can see. Am I right in thinking she can spec out of suppression without any detrimental effect? With regards to glyphs, what I have read around here is that with lower spirit levels the Immolate and Incinerate glyphs are quite close for dps benefit, but at her gear level should I be advising her to go with Incinerate? Rotation/Priority Once again, from my understanding a destruction warlock should be keeping Conflag & Chaos Bolt on cooldown as much as possible. Have Immolate up as much as possible as well, however avoid clipping when recasting. As said elsewhere, we normally have balance druids with us so she should be freed up to apply a Curse of Doom, trying to catch it with a Pyroclasm proc. And of course, Incinerate as the 'filler', and using Lifetap to grant the spirit to spellpower bonus. We tried the addon 'Destro for Dummies' to help her get the muscle memory and a feel for the timing of Immolate and so on. Examples & Reports I have a couple of logs from recent raids with her. What kind of things should I be looking out for in her spells cast, damage output and performance in general? WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay (this is an old spec) WoW Meters Online - Combatlog Replay (uses cookie cutter destro, I believe. Though it is 3/3 suppression) Where now? So here's the crux of the post, I need to go to her with changes and suggestions on what to do. As I have very basic knowledge of the warlock class, I'm a little out of my depth so I've turned to you folk to see if I can get any advice to pass on. For info our current raiding content (so you know what our sources of gear are) is TotC25, Ony25, UD25 (only heartbreaker hardmore, and no yogg kill yet). So if anyone has advice for me to pass on, I would be most grateful. Thank you for reading the slight wall of text. I'll probably need advice for my own little warlock but that's another day! |
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December 03, 2009, 10:27 AM
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#2 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Heathennyc 80 Human Warlock skywall US PvE Guild: Silence I Kill You Profile: WoW Rankings |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
I'm not really an endgamer, but here's my thoughts... she's gemming for bonuses and that's generally a nono. forget the +haste and +crit bonuses. if she has to color for the meta, then maybe squeeze in one of those odd bonuses, but generally just forget about them. you're usually better off just stacking the +SP gems. if you're sure about the shadow priest or balance druid always being around, yeah, she's 3% over hit and can safely get out of suppression with no negative effects. 368 is the hit cap if you have one of those two specs so she's right on if she dumps suppression. some would say she should go more imp heavy. take those 3 pts out of supression and fill out demonic power and empowered imp...(not sure what the current opinion on the imp glyph is). enchants look great. |
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December 03, 2009, 12:03 PM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
The best advice you could probably give her is to head to this site  Seriously - she could get a more standard build, and read all of the many, many tips on improving dps. Once she has the proper build, I'd have her get a couple of add-ons that are IMHO mandatory - Buttontimers and Quartz, Then go with her to a practice dummy, and work on muscle memory that way, rather than rely on a Destro for Dummies type of addon. I'm guessing she should easily sustain over 4k on the dummy once she gets it down, and that should translate to a very nice increase in raid. |
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December 03, 2009, 12:04 PM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Lustitia 85 Human Warlock Kul Tiras Euro PvE Guild: These Guys Look Legit Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Destruction |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
Her spec and gear seem fine, you're right about the hit rating, she has too much if she can always rely on a SP or Boomkin plus Draenie so she can either drop the points in suppression or drop her hit rating, either way is fine. Just looking at those logs, I chose Twin Valkyr as it's the closest to a 'Tank n Spank' you can get in TOTC (imo) I noticed she was casting Shadow bolt as much as she was casting incinerate on the first one, she seems to have dropped that for the second one though so maybe she's realised it's doing her no good. A few things that jumps out at me from the 2nd combat log are that she casts less Conflagrates than she does Immolates, considering you can get 2 conflags out of your first immolate alone that would suggest she isn't casting conflag as soon as it's off cooldown, also in a 4 minute fight she only cast CoD once. Her lifetap buff was only up for 2 minutes or so. She needs to work on keeping everything going, ask her if she has a dotimer addon or something that can monitor her buffs for her. EDIT: Just realised she somehow had ISL and Suppression, tell her to take the points out of SL/ISL and fill up Emberstorm and empowered imp, she may aswell use the last one to fill demonic power aswell. |
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December 03, 2009, 12:16 PM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Character Info
crewell 80 Human Warlock Sunstrider Euro PvP Guild: revenant Profile: Blizzard Armory |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
The build looks pretty standardish, but not totally what most of us would use, but yes, she can take the 3 points out of suppression and use them elsewere, though this will not really give any huge damage increase apart from in Emberstorm, plus a bit more utility, for example improved health stones- it's a question of what takes your fancy. Shadowfury can be very useful in ToC encounters. Some of the gems need tweaking- she needs to keep 2 of the purifed dreadstones to activate her meta and these are best used in items that will give some sort of scoket bonus, ideally a spell power bonus- you have to take 2 hybrid gems, so may as well get what you can from them. All other gems should really be pure spell power. Her enchants look ok. When self buffed with Fel Armour and the Glyph of LT activateed, she will have about 2500 spell power- add a flask, food and priest buffs on and that should got to about 2700ish. If her rotation is not slick, this is not going to kick out huge DPS TBH, but with a slick rotation, it should do pretty well and be over 4K in raids without trying too hard. A lot of Lock power comes form a slick rotation- we all know those nights where our fingers are not firing as accurately as normal and our DPS can drop significantly ( well mine does anyway :P) I feel the main way her damage is going to go up is with rotation practice and some gear upgrades- a good weapon will make a big difference. Practice on the target dummies with a basic Immolate, conflagrate, chaos bolt incinerate rotation- forget other spells, just get those ones slick as they are the meat of Destro Lock damage. Teach her to stand still in encounters and concentrate on the basci 4 spells then add stuff in as she gets slicker. Purely my humble opinion OFC Cheers Crewell Last edited by crewell; December 03, 2009 at 12:25 PM.. |
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December 03, 2009, 01:24 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
I will start whit her spec. She should either spec for 3/3 supresion or for Improved Soul Leech. She has both and now misses out on dps talents like Demonic power, Emberstorm and Empowered imp. I would take 3 points out supression and 2 points out of Destructive reach and max out the talents mentioned above. I personally would also not spec into Improved Soul Leech because in the content you raid is more then enough time to lifetap while moving or during downtime. If she does that she can lower her hit to 289 and thus higher her SP, haste etc. The points taken out of Improved Soul leech I would put in destructive reach and Demo talents like improved HS or demonic embrace. As glyph I suggest to take the incinerate glyph instead of the immolate glyph. The gemming and enchanting seems spot on. Only the +MP5 ring is bad because locks dont need that. The rotation is indeed like you said, keep up immolate and CoD, then keep CB and conflag on cooldown and spam incinerate in between. Dont worry about procs etc, just keep CB and conflag on cooldown. During movement she should lifetap or use corruption, or conflag if its of CD ofc. The rotation she uses seems to be the biggest issue. You dont use shadow bolt, only incinerate. Also dont use drain soul so much, only if you need shards, but she should gather those before the on a dummy. Last edited by Fecys; December 03, 2009 at 01:30 PM.. |
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December 03, 2009, 01:57 PM
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#7 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Borgette 70 Undead Warlock Terenas Euro PvE |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
quick cursory exam, as at work just now get her to use the 0/14/58 build, sure its listed somewhere, with full emberstorm and empowered imp, change the t8 legs for the t9 any version will give a 10% dps boost with empowered imp synergy there. change mithril pocketwatch for abyssal rune from toc normal, as current trinkets give the same buff so don't stack get some addon that list dot timers etc.(fortexorcist is nice with the extra splashs for cooldowns), and casting with latency (quartz). After that hit the dummies and practise the rotation, with someone standing next to them slap coe on the dummy and belt the dummy for the full duration including lifetap etc Pretty sure the incin glyph would be better for 5% to the major nuke over 10% to immo dot.
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AFFLICTION, n. An acclimatizing process preparing the soul for another and bitter world. - Ambrose Bierce |
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December 03, 2009, 05:12 PM
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#8 (permalink) |
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Character Info
shadowboxin 90 Worgen Warlock mannoroth US PvP Guild: /hug Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Affliction Demonology |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
looking at her meters, she should definitely never cast drain soul as destro. she should fill up on shards using the dummies outside the instance before hand. also, wow meters shows spell ranks, but doesn't have a rank for chaos bolt? is it possible she never trained to rank 4 CB? It wouldnt be the first time I have seen that lol And as someone else also said, its either 3/3 suppression OR 2/2 ISL. imo keep the points in suppression, and get the t8 or t9 shoulders. this would bring her right around 289 hit, which is the cap with talents and raid buffs, which you say are present. this would complete either 2pc t9 or 4pc t8, which shes missing out on. if she just bought the badge shoulders in the past week, try to get a ticket in for a badge refund
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December 04, 2009, 01:15 AM
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#9 (permalink) |
Status: Retired
Character Info
Cormanthor 85 Orc Warlock Undermine US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Tree: Demonology |
Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
Build: Here's a pretty standard 0/13/58 build she can use. It drops Suppression and Soul Link to pick up VITAL DPS talents like 5/5 Emberstorm, 3/3 Empowered Imp, etc. Her Glyphs are fine as is. Casting Priority: Open with Life Tap (rank 1 unless you need the mana), and maintain the buff 100%. Immolate should be next, requiring 100% uptime - most other spells depend on this. Conflag and Chaos Bolt are used every CD as soon as possible. Curse of Doom when you can (debate ensues on the best time for the first application).. Corruption (or Life Tap as needed) when moving. Incinerate when you have nothing else to do. Stats to aim for: Hit rating with a Space Goat and a Laser Chicken: 13% (342 hit rating) ... Hit rating as above w/ Suppression: 10% (263 hit rating) Haste rating: 500+ Crit is good, as it is. Keep it above 20%
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Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints. |
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December 04, 2009, 07:25 AM
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#10 (permalink) |
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Re: A GM looking for advice to give our guild's only raiding warlock
OMG, this warlock really is all over the place. The spec is so non standard with a lot of head scratchers. 1/3 empowered imp when that's a huge part of where we get our crit? And casting shadow bolts I would think she would do if she was speced into ISB as part of her nonstadard spec but there you go, no ISB but still casting Sbolts? It doesn't make a lot of sense. If you summarize anything for her to do, go with Cormanthor's post. The only thing I would adjust in his advice is that glyph of immolate should become glyph of incinerate if you are able to assume good raid buffs as her inate crit is high enough to make glyph of incinerate > glyph of immolate. Also, I'd offer that if she can run Naxx25's in her spare time, she should try to tuck away a Dying Curse trinket in case she is ever in a 10man or if SOMETIMES your 25man lacks the spriest/boomkin. Swapping a trinket to get back the hit that is needed is better than being 3% over hit nearly all the time. I keep dying curse in my bag for that reason. Dying Curse is the best +hit trinket, but if that is not attainable for her, Ulduar 10's elemental focus stone or Ulduar 25's Living Flame off Razor Scale are both reasonable ones. She needs to save her badges for tier gear and other upgrades, so I wouldn't waste her badges on the +hit triumph badge trinket. Also, Patch 3.3 is out possibly next week. Have her go here and just follow it cookie cutter style when the patch comes out: http://wowmb.net/forums/f9/37043-3_3...specs_preview/ |
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