The Help My DPS Thread

[Vile 9]

I think you've taken a wrong turn somewhere, this is the warlock forum. Having said that maybe you're lucky and someone in here can help you anyway.

 

(A quick glance at your logs shows no Pot use at all, prepot and second pot in itself are massive DPS boosts.)

Edited January 7, 2015 by Vile

[Lockybalboa 618]

I think you've taken a wrong turn somewhere, this is the warlock forum. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Really though, if you repost in THIS forum Im sure they can help you.

[Stunlocked 8]

Hi all...

 

I've been an on and off occasional poster...

 

And while I never claimed to be a cutting edge Mythic raider I thought I was doing ok...but recent results have shown otherwise :-(

 

Any help would be appreciated.  I know obviously my DoT uptime is pretty bad.  Some of it of course is due to being unable to keep it up while moving or avoiding stuff like Crysalline Barrage: but even on Kargath and Butcher it looks kind of low, which means I'm just not refreshing it properly.

And my weapon is crap - it's a 630 heroic dungeon item and my lowest piece by item level.  

 

But...I'm behind the rest of my guild so any advice would be appreciated:

 

I didn't log it myself, but one of our raid leaders did and hopefully you can use it: 

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/MVHkQ4Cbh3GNLXqB#position=3390&type=damage-done&boss=-2&source=13

 

 

Thanks in advance. 

Edited January 8, 2015 by Stunlocked

[sammiah 0]

I'm trying to learn Affliction and don't really know how to push the dps.

 

Here is a log for butcher, Im 660 (gear isnt itemized well for affliction, im really just started on it) and managed 19k so i feel there is some room to improve.

 

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/yKpLh698fcMrgCvZ/#type=summary&hostility=1

 

Armory:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/Blackhand/sammiah/advanced

 

Things i have noticed i can improve on:

• no pots. it was a face pull so no prepot and i didnt think we were going to actually finish i so i didnt use the second. Should have used it anyway.
• UA was at 91% so that can come up
• No teleports
• I forgot my second charge of DS from AD

thanks for the help.

[Paracel 165]

bottom-to-top thread mass reply, Hooray!

@Sammiah, try out SB Haunt. Insane on butcher. Terrorguard when you BL at 20%.
Uptimes are fine.
Also I can't see DS buff in this log. At all.
Is it me? Or site?
...or You?

@Stunlocked,
Don't know how to read Destro aside from counting Shadoburns   So 0 clues about Karg/butch issues.
Bracken - more Shadoburns, plenty of adds and the big one.
Tectus - errr  let's pretend he doesn't exist, very random boss and hurts ur DPS in Destro as hell. Swap specs, anyone?
Twins. You died in flame. Don't do that. Please.
Koragh. You have many good aoe dps, so i won't hit on SB count. Uptimes and don't use Ember tap.

@The Locky,
10/10 GIF.   Right time, right place, right flavor!

@Minori
I admit myself guilt. 
I've played Shadow Priest.  

Checked your rotation log, seems fine. Just never skip the MB.
When you reach 4, not 5 orbs, you cast 1(one)Mindspike, apply dots. 
MB gets off CD.
Slam it and DP > Insanity twice. MB gets off cd. Repeat DP > double Insanity. Continue as usual.
Power Infusion is better than twist on one-target fights. It is possible not to get to execute at all these days 

@Clowneater,
Shadowburns.
Copeland+ DS are macroed, amirite? Hold them untill Nightmare Fire goes off every time.
KJC on Butcher? Been the balancer? Leave this honor to pesky hunters and use dat Demonic Circle when he knockback.
Surprisingly good Twins! GJ!  

@Cardio33,
Affli on Bracken doesn't do much. Snap bursts for teh adds and shadowburns, That's the deal here. You ramp dots on adds, spend shards...etc...etc... Meh!
Same is for Destro on Tectus. No real OP aoe. I Multidot as Aff(Cataclysm is very good) and I am dying to fire/aoe/running everywhere around feeling just fine. Reel bawses use Demo and skyrocking their mythic charts.
Probably.  


Whoa, took awhile to write this. Hope you can find your answer here and don't get lost in my markings 
P.S. Your gear made me cry, guys. I feel so inferior with no copelando/shards... 
...But I still do some DPS, got it going for me, which is nice %paste_meme_pic% 

 

[Lockybalboa 618]

@The Locky,

10/10 GIF.   Right time, right place, right flavor!

 

 

[Stunlocked 8]

bottom-to-top thread mass reply, Hooray!

@Sammiah, try out SB Haunt. Insane on butcher. Terrorguard when you BL at 20%.

Uptimes are fine.

Also I can't see DS buff in this log. At all.

Is it me? Or site?

...or You?

@Stunlocked,

Don't know how to read Destro aside from counting Shadoburns   So 0 clues about Karg/butch issues.

Bracken - more Shadoburns, plenty of adds and the big one.

Tectus - errr  let's pretend he doesn't exist, very random boss and hurts ur DPS in Destro as hell. Swap specs, anyone?

Twins. You died in flame. Don't do that. Please.

Koragh. You have many good aoe dps, so i won't hit on SB count. Uptimes and don't use Ember tap.

 

Thanks, I may try Affliction next time for Kargath/Butcher.  I've done both on Butcher and my DPS was I think slightly higher as Affliction.   

For Tectus - I hate Demonology and I was under the impression it's a horrible fight for Affliction.    But that is for Mythic, it may be fine on Heroic.  I possibly could have used Cataclysm instead of DS for the AoE/Cleave damage - but I also thought that with DS the Terrorguard would still be standing there shooting stuff while I was running around avoiding Crystalline Barrage.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Stunlocked

[sammiah 0]

@Paracel

It's not showing up on mine either. I have it macro'd to my trinket... So there must be an error there.

What a reasonable expectation for affliction damage on butcher at 660 ilevel? I feel im pretty far below it.

[eleguaMCS 0]

Hey fellow locks!

 

I am loving WoD and the return of Affliction as a viable spec...went destro in MOP but now I'm back to being an afflock.

 

I am running into frustration with my dps.  At ilvl 657 I'm barely able to break 20k on most normal and heroic HM fights and usually hover around 18k when I feel that my ilvl carries a lot more potential (let's hope this player does too!).

 

Til recently I was using Soulburn: Haunt but recently switched to Demonic Servitude and actually was surprised at the 2k+ in dps I picked up...I loved the play style of Soulburn: Haunt but I'm a slave to the numbers.

 

Here's my armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/lightnings-blade/Elegua/advanced

 

I have a guess I'm just not leet enough of a player to pwn the recount charts, but can y'all see anything else with gear or talents or glyphs that might help?

 

Also:  Do we have any haste or other stat threshholds we need to keep an eye on like we did in MOP?

 

I suspect my generous use of Dark Soul and Haunt everytime they are up contributes to the low numbers...looks like there's a concensus to save shards for more useful times.

 

Never have tried to link logs before, and this fight was with my guild before I tweaked talents and had a slightly lesser ilvl, but if this helps, this is for Ko'ragh: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/rNJ8kjgRmzdV1Hbx/#fight=10

 

Thanks Icy Veins for some great forums!  And to everyone who takes time to respond to this.

[Drkdragon 9]

Hello eleguaMCS

 

Your Agony, Corruption, and UA uptimes look good. When playing SB:Haunt I believe the main objective is to get as much uptime of Haunting Spirits as you can though. Of your 17 Haunts only 5 were SB resulting in a 40% uptime of HS. If you would have evened this up more you would have seen a lot more damage out of your dots.

[eleguaMCS 0]

Would one suggest SB: Haunt over Dem Serv if played right?

 

Also, going to sound like a noob question, but without Dem Serv we always have that added buff of pulling out one of the big baddies during a fight for a limited time, is this just completely taken away from us with Dem Serv?

 

Any other afflocks having a hard time with aoe?  Single target destro for me isn't superior to affliction, but Cataclysm while in Destro with Fire/Brim was awesome.  Sure I could take Cataclysm in affliction but it just isn't worth giving up another of the other same tier talents for it.

[Liquidsteel 279]

You don't pick Affliction if you want to AoE, period.

[sammiah 0]

You don't pick Affliction if you want to AoE, period.

Is soul swap viable at all now that it costs a shard.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Is soul swap viable at all now that it costs a shard.

No. Maybe on Margok for switching to the add but otherwise it's a trap. It costs a shard but only saves you 1 GCD and a 10 stack Agony.

[Paracel 165]

@Paracel

It's not showing up on mine either. I have it macro'd to my trinket... So there must be an error there.

What a reasonable expectation for affliction damage on butcher at 660 ilevel? I feel im pretty far below it.

I pack around 22-24k on Butcher with 655 gear, no shards/copelands and im pretty bad player.

You can deliver ~26+, i assume from your gear. 

Mythic can be more effective coz of free shards from adds, however.

[abudabu 0]

Tectus - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cqAJXLynzNx4Vphw/#fight=1&type=summary&source=41

Should I be dotting the small adds that come out? I feel like it's a dps loss when I do since they have to ramp up. Would draining them simply for the extra shard be beneficial?

 

Twins - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cqAJXLynzNx4Vphw/#fight=2&type=summary&source=41

This was a really bad encounter. At the start of the fight I realized my focus cast key wasn't working so I didn't multidot efficiently. Don't look too much into this one as I don't feel it's a good example of normal performance. 

 

Ko'ragh - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cqAJXLynzNx4Vphw/#fight=3&type=summary&source=41

Should I cast seed of corruption on the little anomalies or just keep focusing Ko? 

 

Imp - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/cqAJXLynzNx4Vphw/#type=summary&source=41

Should I respec to Kjc because there is a lot of movement with mines and novas? Should I be dotting the aberrations and seeding the little ones? Similar question to the ones above. 

 

 

Overall questions

1) Is there anything you see me doing wrong on a consistent basis across these fights?

 

2) Should I be saving my 2nd pot for when the boss is under 20% health for the benefit from drain soul or should I always pop it on lust?

 

3) Should I dark soul when lust is up or would this exceed the haste cap and make it inefficient?

 

4) What is the warlock haste cap?

 

5) Is my starting rotation good? I try to prepot - Pre cast haunt - UA - Corruption - Agony

 

6) When refreshing dots should I focus on one first if they are all reaching their pandemic levels around the same time? I feel like refreshing UA last is most beneficial because it is the one that needs refreshing the most often.

 

7) Would setting the terrorguard to "Attack" be more beneficial on fights that have multiple targets? As compared to assist.

 

Thanks!

[Paracel 165]

@abudabu,

Your logs seem fine to me. Damage buffs stacked and spiced with Drain Soul right, uptimes are good, bot sandman and clarity trinkets.

Numbers, however...  not explosive. I am puzzled. 

Don't really know about adds on Tectus. I raid HC with smaller group (around 15 bodies) so I am essentially forced to do so, even with losses. If you/your raidleader trust your other DPS (hunters, boomkins, mages, your other destro wlock who pulls a better fights), than just DS them for shard.
It's just a messy fight, don't chase meters here and win. 

Koragh - 

You don't pick Affliction if you want to AoE, period.

Singletarget dat megical orge.

Imp  - I feel KJC is better. Your DS usage are tied to Nightmare fire for maximum efficiency, so 2nd charge never really comes in handy this much.

Now, onwards to numbered questions! 

1)Dunno, told ya, logs looking fine to me. 

2)Mash it on Bloodlust IMO. Try to use your second DS charge if your trinkets are on cooldown. That implies taking AD on fights with non-standart bloodlust timing (Can only think of Koragh/Imp tho), no KJC can mess you up

3)There is no haste cap anymore, AFAIK. Enjoy your numbers.

4)The only cap that I've heard of is 5% unbuffed haste for Demo, but I'm not a Demo player. Neither are you.  

5)I use the same opening. Hooray! 
Starting with agony would be better, though.

6)I think refreshing UA first would be better. Easier to apply bonus time for pandemic. Corrupt, on its own, has no cast time (MVP of 2K15 moving rotation ) and lasts longer.

7)"Right Place, Right Time. Damaging The Right Guys" is a theorycraft essay I would probably write one day.

Terrorguard is a big ranged boy. He doesn't really cares whom to punch.
You should care, however...but that's an essay material. 

Goodluck!

 

[Crians 0]

I recently downed Heroic Imp with my guild, but I feel like I wasn't doing enough dps, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, can anyone help point me in the right direction?

 

Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/NwgzAHxRPaD8c1V3#fight=3&type=summary&source=8

[Paracel 165]

I recently downed Heroic Imp with my guild, but I feel like I wasn't doing enough dps, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, can anyone help point me in the right direction?

 

Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/NwgzAHxRPaD8c1V3#fight=3&type=summary&source=8

Shadowburns+havoc count is the only thing I can see improved besides Immo uptime. Keep it up!

You have a plentry of havocs and SB. Try to squeeze more, I think.

Most of op dps parses comes from AoEing small adds phase 4. And Locks ain't no good for it now, so don't really chase the top.

Congratz with Imp, though!

[Mikedawg 4]

If you really want to look good on the meters take Cataclysm for Imperator. I recently did 37k on normal imp with Grimsac+Cata. Grimsup is probably better, but I like that Grimsac scales with havoc and excess burning embers from FnB or shadowburns.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I recently downed Heroic Imp with my guild, but I feel like I wasn't doing enough dps, and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, can anyone help point me in the right direction?

 

Log: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/NwgzAHxRPaD8c1V3#fight=3&type=summary&source=8

 

Alright so I finally got a bit of time to sit down and actually go through some logs.

 

I'll be comparing you with my own log from my first kill in order to keep things fair. The kill times are about 20 seconds apart.

 

In your log you did 21.2k DPS with 661 ilvl, although I think you only just got that staff so perhaps you might have been lower? You don't have Copeland's Clarity and your Sandman's Pouch is still 1/3 upgraded. I presume you had a normal weapon.

 

In my log I did 28.4k DPS with 659 ilvl, at the time I had Copeland's and 2/3 Sandman's. I had the Normal Warforged version of the Wand from Ko'ragh at 661 ilvl.

 

Thus, the only real difference between us was that I had Copeland's. At best I'd chalk that up to a 2k DPS difference, and I'm being massively generous in your favour. So where did that extra 5k DPS come from?

 

Immolate uptime for you, 88.2%, for me, 90.4%. Not stellar, but the boss has a few transition phases. Anything above 90% is probably ok.

 

Chaos Bolt - I cast 45 Chaos Bolts for a total of 3.95M damage. You cast 29 Chaos Bolts for a total of 2.51M damage. Our average Chaos Bolt damage was only 4000 apart, so it wasn't just the trinket giving me higher damage during burn phases.

 

The issue then, is where did all those extra Chaos Bolts come from? The answer seems to lie in Shadowburn, and Havoc. Whilst Chaos Bolt might be the iconic Destruction spell for onlookers, a true Warlock knows Shadowburn and Havoc are his true friends.

 

I cast 35 Shadowburns with an extra 18 coming from Havoc. This totaled 3.05M damage. You cast 14 Shadowburns and didn't cleave a single one. Total damage 657.7K. That's nearly 500% efficiency in my favour, and it's not even that hard to pull off (more on this later). You also only cast Havoc 6 times whereas I managed to use 15 (and even missed one right at the end where I could have got another 3 shadowburns onto the boss - I watched my video back).

 

Not only did I get more damage from Shadowburn, but all those adds I sniped gave me double my ember return, and is where all those extra Chaos Bolts from earlier came from. Fail to do one and you lose the other, and it's a massive reason why so many people are struggling with Destruction DPS at the moment.

 

Next, let's take a look at cooldown management.

 

Here's how my cooldowns were used during the encounter, with the bottom chart showing my Havoc usage.

 

Now here's how you did...

 

Immediately we can see that you forgot about Dark Soul causing it and your Sandman's to fall out of sync for the rest of the fight, and we can see that you seemingly forgot about Havoc after the the 3 minute mark until you got one more cast off a bit later.

 

You also didn't do too well in maximising Chaos Bolt damage under procs. Here's a perfect example where you didn't even cast one during a full 20 second Sandman's proc.

 

Other small details come from me casting 19 more incinerates over the course of the fight and also cleaving more of both those and conflagrate via Havoc. I likely dealt with movement much better than you, but an extra 20ish incinerates is an extra 2-3 Chaos Bolts. 

 

Overall this is an open and shut case. You aren't utilising Shadowburn properly, you aren't utilising Havoc peroperly, and you aren't tracking your cooldowns properly.

 

My guess is you have a shit UI that doesn't display the following information:

 

 - Enemies that reach execute range - solution is to download and install TidyPlates addon, set to change colour based on HP percentage, and set low health threshold to 20%. Also add in condition to bring low HP adds to Spotlight scale, and make spotlight 150%. You will now be unable to miss when an add can be Shadowburned. Couple this with a mouseover shadowburn macro and you can casually wave your mouse in the general area of a pack of low HP mob and snipe each and every single one of them.

 

 - Cooldown and trinket tracking. You should have Weakauras to display EXACTLY when your Dark Soul is available, how long the buff is up for once you activate it, and how long remains on the cooldown until it becomes available. You should also have one to track when your Sandman's proc is active (I include a loud horn sound with my ICD auras to make extra sure I know when they've procced) and how long is left on the cooldown before it can proc again. You should also be tracking Havoc cooldown, as well conflagrate stacks and cooldown.

 

 - Burning embers and Immolate timers in easy to see locations.

 

Above all, you should have everything centered around your characters feet, neatly scattered around the middle of your screen. You should, under no circumstances, be looking in the top left for your embers, then to the bottom for your cooldowns, then to the top right for your buffs, then back to the middle to see you're standing in fire, before looking to the top left again to see that you're at 10% HP, before looking to the bottom to find both your portal and healthstone are on cooldown, before looking back to the middle then back to the top left to realise that you have died.

 

There is SO much more to reaching the top level of play than just "doing your rotation" and it really shows in logs. Please take this advice on board and fix your UI and fix your gameplay. You WILL reap the rewards if you take my advice on board, and I hope to see you back here in a month or two with orange percentiles on every single heroic encounter, because it IS possible and it really isn't that hard.

[Crians 0]

Wall of text

Thank you for your in-depth response. I had the feeling the issue was coming from things that I either didn't think about or didn't focus too much on. I think the kill I had was a sloppy fight from me which resulted in a lower havoc count, but that alone wouldn't count for as much as you pointed out. Thank you for giving suggestions on what to do to help fix it, such as add-ons and weakauras.

Edited January 11, 2015 by Crians

[Liquidsteel 279]

Thank you for your in-depth response. I had the feeling the issue was coming from things that I either didn't think about or didn't focus too much on. I think the kill I had was a sloppy fight from me which resulted in a lower havoc count, but that alone wouldn't count for as much as you pointed out. Thank you for giving suggestions on what to do to help fix it, such as add-ons and weakauras.

No problem, here's the kill video from my PoV. You can see how my UI is set up to provide all the information I need around the center of my screen.

 

Not perfect play, but decent all round.

 

[Stunlocked 8]

Liquid  thanks for the info about Tidyplates.  I had actually just downloaded it for different reasons: I wanted something to improve DoT tracking on multiple targets.  But your info will hopefully also improve my Shadownburn usage. 

[Paracel 165]

A stupid question that needs to be answered, however.

Warcraftlogs shows my soulshards gained only from Nightfall.
What about those from Drain Soul?