Raiding: Utility lock (Aff) gives low dps in T5/T6 raid help!

[cattle]

Character Name: Cattle
Armory Link: The World of Warcraft Armory
Talent Build: 42/1/18

Quick Info
Health: 9580
Mana:9250
+Damage:1238 with fel armor
+Hit: 211
+Crit: 13.39
Have you read the gearing guide? yes

Items/Slots in need of immediate upgrade:

• I believe the Guardian's Pendant of Subjugation is what I need most now. Also I think I need to re-gem more +spell damage red gems. Now most of my gems are +spell hit ones, not sure which slots should be replaced by +12 spell damage gems.

Upgrades you are currently working on:
List any upgrades you are currently working on and where you are at. For example:

• None at the moment.

All about you:
My guild's doing MH/BT every week. I'm constantly the utility lock in raid (CoE). My DPS is around 900-1200 on boss. I'm "questioned" by someone in raid why my damage is low. I can do pretty well on trash, but never on boss. My casting sequence is always CoE -> UA -> Corr -> Siphon Life -> Immolate -> Sb *3 -> Repeat.

I know respec to destro is a quick solution, but I like to stay aff, and I wish to know what I can improve. Thanks for your time reading.

[Denzien]

I'm sure the experts will be along shortly to help you more but two things I notice right off the bat are, one your PvP trinket. Every little bit of extra damage you can get the better so there are certainly better options for that slot and two your cast sequence. If you're going to stick with that spell rotation, Immo ->Sl not the other way around. You're wasting 1.5 sec doing it that way.

[qwwerty]

I agree with denzien. I have just switch from affliction to destro. I was always top 2 in damage as affliction but with the opposite of you. I owned on bossed and bad on trash. The 3 most important question. Addons-do you have quartz? Do you have a dot timer? Most important what is your dot uptime. I tend to notice that many afflocs have a hard time keeping their dot uptime in the 90% or higher. Also you are undead so drop the pvp trinket and use will of the forsaken. It isnt as good but its better than nothing. You need to also make sure you use a macro to pop your trinkets on every available cast it does add significant gains to dps. If you are doing all of these things then you are just where yopu are meant to be at this stage.

BTW respeccing destro has upped my dps by about 400. However my overall damage has dropped. I am working on the threat and movement issues. But going destro doesn't make it all better. I had more fun as affliction just needed the dps for the guild so I respecced.

[Citamotua]

You're armory says you're at 220 hit rating. Re-gem those + hit gems to just + damage 9 or 12 and get down to 202. That's all you need. Anything more is just wasted damage points.

[Theleb]

Drop the +Hit down to 202 and look at picking up some gear with a possible aim towards a Male/Ruin build - 40/0/21 or 38/2/21. I wouldn't bother with the Pendant of Subjugation, but the Pendant of Conquest is definately suitable for that level of gear/progress.

Do you have any other items you use aside from the PvP trinket/ring?

[Lopennie]

What I would do is change your +hit gems in your shoulders to Veiled Noble Topaz(or Pyrestone). Change that +8 crit gem in your leggings to a +9 or +12 spell damage gem. Change the +spell hit/+stam gem in your belt to a Glowing Nightseye(or Shadowsong Amethyst).

Then like Theleb suggested switching to a Mal/Ruin spec, basicly take 1 point out of Shadow Embrace, Unstable Affliction, and Imp. Healthstone and put them into Intensity and Ruin. That will give you a bit of a damage/dps increase.

Also if you have a damage trinket to use instead of the pvp one, like the Icon of Silver Crescent from badges, that would help a lot. GL

[Faraday]

In my opinion, around 900-1200 DPS for affliction with your gear sounds about right really. Of course you're not going to omgwtfpwn the DPS meters, but that's because you have sacrificed DPS for utility. Yes, you do have too much +spell hit and you should re-gem for more spell-damage, but really I think your DPS output is OK. I might get flamed for saying so, but hey.

[evo171]

Gear wise:
As mentioned above, plan in your spreadsheet and if possible regem to veiled (Orange) or runed (red) or Glowing (purple). T5 2 set bonus is not that great (since most of the time you have imp phased) so since you are doing bt/mt hy, drop them once you can get t6 items.

If you got BOJ to burn, maybe change your boots to Boots of Incantations. What you lose in shadow damage you gain in spell damage and have more spell hits to play around with.

Maybe play around with the spreadsheet and consider downgrading to T4/Spell Strike combo? Like Spellstrike head/pants and T4 robe/shoulder or robe/glove? But then again, I;m not too updated with the new badge loots so they might be better as well.

Would you be getting your Band of the Eternal Sage soon? Possible to get Darkmoon Card: Crusade (good for aff as you can keep the 10 stacks up easily, if the boss fight allows)?

Below has nothing to do with dps but probably you can look at tweaking your tree abit to this. But if you are going to the way of Ruin then ignore that points below.

My views:
As utility aff, you can afford to take 1 pts out of devastation crit is not that critical to you.
Imo, SE should be 1/5 or 5/5, anything in between seems "falling short" then again, thats my view.
Can reduce Fel Con unless you are doing alot of drain tanking.
Since you are bringing 3/3 Maledication and 5/5 SE, maybe someone else can take 1/2 HS?

[Valimir]

Have you just switched guilds or are you still in Happy Rainbow? I only ask because I looked through the armory at some of the other locks and believe me, you are not the problem in that set-up. One of your locks has King's Defender (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28749) equipped! What made him do that? I'm not flaming for the sake of it, and some look like they've logged out in PVP gear but still I'd be surprised if they aren't under-performing.

As for you, I'd say you're doing as well as you can. Affliction DPS is naturally lower. I checked mine on the spreadsheet and currently with my 21/40 build it's 1797, with a respec to affliction this drops to just under 1300.

You could ditch some of your +hit gems but if you run BT/MH every week then sooner or later you'll get upgrades that don't have any hit at all so it depends how much you mind re-gemming. I always feel a bit bad about destorying epic gems I've invested in.

I'd also drop Siphon Life from your spell rotation for boss fights. It's negligible DPS and just a waste of the GCD.

And if your guild still think you're underperforming remind them you're there for utulity and point them to these forums to learn mroe about the different roles of warlocks.

[cattle]

Thanks for all your input.

LOL I wonder which lock in my guild equips King's Defender! Envy him!!! I want it for fun too!

1. I cannot afford to re-gem all at once. But definitely I'll re-gem some immediately (e.g. legs), and perhaps replace some epic gems with rare quality ones as interim solution.
2. At the beginning of this post, my spell hit was at 211. Recently I downgrade from Gloves of Malefic and Anetheron's Noose to Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips and Belt of Blasting, to sacrifice 1k hp+mana for more damage. After that, my spell hit becomes 230. After reading your suggestions, I may consider further reduce my spell hit to around 190-200, rather than cap at 202.
3. I'll try to get Boots of Incantations. :D Thanks for tips!
4. I usually equip Icon of Silver Crescent and Timbal's Focusing Crystal. I don't think I can afford the Darkmoon Card: Crusade. The PVP trinket is only for Archimonde encounter
5. I'm going to stick to UA build, rather than go male/ruin, because my crit is pretty low. Besides, my guild's working on Vashj / Archimonde, dots are more useful in these encounters.
6. About the spell rotation Siphon Life -> Immolate wasting 1.5 sec GCD. I deliberately do that, because I found my 3 dots (UA, Corr and Immolate) expire all at once with UA->Corr->Immolate->SL rotation. Switching the rotation and give me 1 second to refresh Immolate.
7. I link my trinket with UA, so I should utilitize the trinket 100% with every spell rotation.
8. Yesterday I tested at Dr. Boom with my spriest guildie and my dps is around 1150. My guildie found that there're 3 times in 5 mins I cannot keep all 4 dots (besides coe) up due to oom, and I have to LT/DP during T4 proc or trinket proc. That wastes the proc. How often do you LT/DP? Some suggest I should LT/DP twice whenever I'm around 5k mana. Some suggest I should always keep hp = mana.