T15 Warlock Style - Normal & Heroic

[Zagam 1,982]

Similar to the T14 thread, this will be for T15 fights. Please keep this topic discussion focused on Warlock specific tips as Icy-Veins already covers strategies for each fight. For entire fight strategy tips and situations, please refer to the raid section of Icy-Veins and comment there.

***Take the Sacrificial Pact talent instead of Dark Bargain. Sacrificial Pact has been buffed to give an incredible shield with a vastly superior uptime and utilization.

(DESTRO) EXTREMELY awesome Havoc macro useful in various fights (noted below):

/target focus

/cast Havoc

/targetlasttarget

This will allow you to remain on your target while applying Havoc to your focus. Concepts per fight explained in boss fights below.

Jin'rokh

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for the Focused Lightning and Lightning Storm

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - provides great mitigation from the Focused Lightning singular attack

-Rank 4 Talent: Unbound Will - necessary for Heroic mode

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of Sacrifice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(ALL) - set your Teleport spell in the center of the room where your raid will be stacking for Lightning Storm

(ALL) - set your Gateway from the location of the center of the room to where the 4th pool will be. This will help at least (insert number of Warlocks in raid) x 5 members get from the 4th pool to the stack point super fast during the end of the fight if your raid takes this long to kill him.

(ALL) - use Mortal Coil pre-emptively to taking a hit from the Focused Lightning. Soul Leech should provide a good buffer that will allow your healers to forget they need to heal you

-activate Burning Rush to get out of the waters when they become electrified

-drop a 2nd Soulwell during the 3rd Lightning Storm. Notify your raiders to replenish their cookies

(ALL) - use Grimoire of Sacrifice as pets do not benefit from the pools mostly because they are meleeing the boss. Exception: Imp. Even still, having to manually move him into pools (not sure if he benefits anyways) would take time and be a DPS loss. Using Sacrifice gives you the passive health regen helpful for this fight as well as buffing your stacked CDs while in a pool.

(DESTRO) - Pool Burning Embers until you are inside of a pool (see what I did there?)

(DESTRO) - Use Dark Soul:Instability only when empowered by the pool

(DEMO) - Use Meta only when standing inside empowering pool

(AFFLIC) - Save Soul Shards for as much Haunt uptime as possible while in empowering pool

We didn't even see a 3rd pool. We killed him in 4 minutes...this fight is super trivial...I would venture to say if you can get people to stack during Lightning Storm and move out of the waters with Focused Lightning, you could PuG this.

HEROIC JIN'ROKH

For Heroic mode, you'll need to make absolutely sure you have the following talents: Unbound Will, Sacrificial Pact. There are essentially three mini-phases to worry about as a Warlock. Before the fight starts, set your Gateway up according to your raid's strategy. For example, if you face Jin coming into the room, consider the room as a clock with the door to the room being 6:00. Going clockwise, to the left of the boss would be 9:00, behind the boss is 12:00, and to the right of the boss is 3:00. For our strat, we had the tanks get thrown to 7:30 (half way between 6 and 9) so I set my Gateway to go from 9:00 to 3:00 (I'll explain later).

P1 - When no puddle is up until new puddle is up

During this time, you'll perform your standard rotation. Try to be somewhat near where your tank will land, but not close enough to get stunned. As soon as the tank lands, stand in it and benefit from the 40% damage buff. The only thing you need to watch for during this phase is Focused Lightning. If you get it, take it away to a wall and drop it there. It doesn't hit hard, so save defensive CDs.

P2 - Puddle is up until Thunderstorm

During this time, you'll be standing in the puddle doing 40% increased damage. The exception comes with Ionization. Ionization is a deadly debuff that must be held with utmost importance. When your raid leader or you observe that there is about 5 seconds left until Ionization, you need to get out of the puddle and use Sacrificial Pact on yourself. As soon as you have the Ionization debuff and no one is within 4 yards of you, use Unbound Will. You will take approximately 100k damage if you are using a pet to Sac Pact or 0 damage if you are using Grim of Sacrifice's Sac Pact. As soon as you dispel Ionization, get back in the puddle and do your increased damage watching only for Focused Lightning. When there is about 2 to 3 seconds before Thunderstorm, use your Gateway to get to the opposite side of the room where your raid will be stacking up.

P3 - Thunderstorm

During Thunderstorm, continue your DPS rotation while dancing around the balls of lightning. They are RNG'ish and can destroy you if you're not prepared. Continuing to DPS the boss will proc Soul Leech which will mitigate some damage. Save Unending Resolve for when you are trapped and know you will get hit by the balls of lightning. They do approximately 100k EACH so if you get hit 2 simultaneously, you'll be hurting. Don't forget to throw in Mortal Coil during this phase to alleviate damage on yourself. When Thunderstorm ends, use your Gateway to get back over to the opposite side where the tank will be thrown next. This will increase your puddle uptime.

After the 2nd Thunderstorm, you won't be using your Gateway again as its pathing will take you back to electrified waters. Your movement requirement will be much lower to that the Gateway won't be necessary. Adjust the Gateway to assist you in movement as moving and DPS'ing is necessary and KJC's debuff will have you running at 70% speed. Do NOT use Burning Rush as you will need Unbound Will, and it is selfish and irresponsible to use a healer's dispel needed elsewhere when you can do it yourself.

Horridon

-preferred spec: Destruction

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for the various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - provides great mitigation from various damage sources

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of Supremacy or Sacrifice - if Supremacy, leave Imp on Horridon full-time except have him attack the Venom Priests and War Bears. If Sacrifice, use Shadowburn every chance you get

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(DEMO) - Hand of Guldan on groups of adds + Felstorm is the way to go.

(DEMO) - Keep Doom up on Horridon for the entire fight. This will be passive Demonic Fury generation as well as extra Wild Imps

(ALL) - Use Doomguard after Horridon has his 4th stacking debuff (200%+ damage taken)

(ALL) - Use Shadowfury to stun groups of adds

(DEMO) - don't bother putting Doom up on the little adds...just apply Hand of Guldan -> Shadowflame, Felstorm, and Immo Aura + Void Ray.

(DESTRO) - Use Fire and Brimstone to AoE the adds while keeping Rain of Fire up 100%

(DESTRO) - Use Havoc Macro - set Horridon as focus and time for 3 Shadowburns instead of 1 Chaos Bolt

(AFFLIC) - Use Soulburn:Seed of Corruption on the add waves

Relatively easy fight. Focus adds full time. If there are no adds, then get on Horridon. Once you knock down the 4 doors, the secondary boss melts with Bloodlust. From there, just finish Horridon off with his 200% increased damage taken debuff.

25 Man First Kill Log: http://www.worldoflo.../?s=4383&e=5010

HEROIC HORRIDON

Only two real noticeable differences...typical upgrades in heroic modes (harder adds, harder ground effects, more adds, etc) and a special add. As a Warlock, you'll have various things to pay attention to in order to succeed.

1) Create the following macro and find a nice place on your binds for it:

/target Direhorn Spirit

/cast Fel Flame

/targetlasttarget

Tip suggested by Calcoolus:

Replace Fel Flame with Corruption to save mana. Corruption works! Seed of Corruption on adds and even SB:CoE work on the pink dino as well. Even a better idea is to use GoSup with an imp and 2 macros:

/petpassive

/petattack [target=Direhorn Spirit]

/petassist

When the dino is close use the 1st. When it is far away use the 2nd. These macros will make your life much easier.

The Direhorn Spirit is an annoying, stupid Red Rhino that only you can see. If it gets to you, you will die, but hitting it will knock it back about 15 yards. It walks slowly, but you will have to manage this from the time it spawns until the end of the fight. With the above macro, you should be able to never switch to target it yet still knock it back. If you notice it's close, perform that macro a couple of times. Otherwise, do it every 15 or so seconds to keep it pushed back. It has 412M HP, so you ain't killing it

2) Shadowburn and Rain of Fire. There are SO many adds in this fight that you'll be responsible for executing them quickly. Your raid will set up DPS priorities on adds, but your job will be to keep Rain of Fire up so that you can Shadowburn infinitely (more than the 4 times alloted). Rain of Fire will generate Embers so fast you won't know what to do with them other than mega-execute adds. Use your Havoc macro to cleave damage onto Horridon. You will almost never target Horridon as there will almost always be an add up which is a priority target over Horridon. Mannoroth's Fury shouldn't be necessary as the adds should be clumped up on a tank. KJC is very useful for moving and casting at the same time to avoid green poison and sand traps.

If you care about min/maxing, I recommend going full Mastery and Crit on this fight. A majority of your damage should be from Shadowburn and Haste affects the casting of this ability about none. You'll want mega-nukes on adds, so be prepared to reforge a bit. Your choice between Sacrifice and Supremacy is yours. I chose to leave my Imp on Horridon and have him switch when needed (Venom Priests/War Bears/Ice Lords).

Council of Elders

-preferred spec: Affliction/Demonology

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for the various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Shadowfury - good to stun the adds of the Priestess

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - provides great mitigation from attacks

-Rank 4 Talent: Unbound Will - useful if caught in a Sandtrap. Removes the snare

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(ALL) - use Sacrificial Pact if out of position and taking unnecessary damage or during Sandstorm

(ALL) - use Unending Resolve to mitigate damage during AoE effects

(ALL) - use Doomguard on an elder when they drop below 20% HP

(DEMO) - Hand of Guldan, Shadowfury, and Axe Toss are all means to slow/stun the add that focuses a boss to heal or player to kill

(ALL) - use tons of AoE abilities when the Sandstorm adds pop...they put a lot of pressure on your healers and tanks

(ALL) - Multi-dot all the bosses...no reason not to. Boosts overall DPS, shortens fight, gives more procs. Regardless of spec, throw DoTs everywhere.

(DESTRO) - Conflagrate the add to slow it. Use Fire and Brimstone:Conflagrate to slow all the sand adds

(DESTRO) - Use Bane of Havoc focus macro on CD. Apply it to one of the bosses not targeted and slap a Chaos Bolt in the face of your focus target until Shadowburn is available.

(DEMO) - Keep Doom up on all 4 bosses (HUGE if you have Unerring Vision of Lei Shen)

(AFFLIC) - Keep DoTs rolling everywhere

(AFFLIC) - Use Curse of Exhaustion on add to slow it down if needed

Fun fight...just a lot of chaos going on as with most council fights. Getting DPS to switch to the adds, not standing in the black charge line, stacking appropriately for the ice debuff, and switching to the buffed boss are the keys to victory.

HEROIC COUNCIL OF ELDERS

This fight is about putting the right amount of damage at the right place at the right time. As a Demonology Warlock, your job is to do as much damage to everything as possible. Demo Warlocks are EXTREMELY strong at this fight. When the fight opens, you'll want to use your Unerring Vision proc along with Glyph of Everlasting Affliction to get 90 second, 100% Crit Dooms on all 4 bosses. After you do this, immediately turn your attention to Sul. From this point on, your job will be to avoid taking damage and doing what you are assigned to. My assignment was the busiest, and this is how we did things.

I opened around 500k DPS with Doom procs coming everywhere, especially with the pre-pot, Dark Soul, Bloodlust, Troll Berserking, Jade Spirit, and Lightweaving. Once you do this, you're fueling the burst needed to drop Sul quickly. Me and a Boomkin dealt with the Spirits of Loa. They travel MUCH faster in Heroic and need to be stunned and knocked back. Shadowfury + Carrion Swarm (unglyphed) provides excellent utility for this. The Loa's have high HP, but when you attack them for 2 or 3 seconds, your Imps will turn their attention to the Loas and decimate them. I had upwards of 20 Imps out during the first 90 seconds of the fight. Your imps will change targets based on your current target as if they are on "Assist" mode. Keep Doom running on all targets and do your best to make sure they're the 100% Crit Dooms. When Princess is empowered, you'll deal with two other special adds called Twisted Fate. These adds will pick 1 ranged and 1 melee. The ranged chosen is always the furthest from the boss. A Mage is best suited to handle this mechanic by blinking out, but if you don't raid with a Mage, set up your Gateway and time teleporting out correctly to ensure the add is at max range. It is very easy to kill with snares, slows, and knockbacks. If you don't do these correctly and the adds meet, it's a wipe.

Handling the Frostbite damage can be done in two ways. Your ranged group can stack and spread the damage or you can spread out and rotate through CDs to stay alive. We chose the 2nd path and found it much easier after trying the other. If you get selected, immediately open up with Sacrificial Pact. If you're using Grim of Sacrifice (you should be), you'll give yourself a 550k+ absorption effect. When this wears off, pop Shadow Bulwark and chase it with a Healthstone. After you start taking spikes, use Unending Resolve. With heals coming in, this should be no problem.

To summarize, play Demonology and use Grimoire of Sacrifice, use the Shadowfury talent and the Everlasting Affliction glyph. Get as many empowered Dooms up as possible then proceed to single target. If assigned to adds, use Shadowfury and Carrion Swarm to knock them back. Use cooldowns to survive Frostbite. Don't stand in the Sand Traps and don't get hit by unnecessary stuff. Very rewarding fight, and VERY awesome for Demonology Warlocks.

Tortos

-preferred spec: Destruction/Demonology

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice appropriate to spec

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning

-use AoE on the bats. Ranged should handle the bats with ease.

-if assigned to kick turtle shells, position yourself appropriately by using KJC to move and cast

(DESTRO) - Use Fire and Brimstone to apply Immolate to bats. Keep Rain of Fire on them 100%

(DESTRO) - Unload Chaos Bolts when boss takes 25% increased damage post shell kicking

(DESTRO) - Use Havoc macro by setting Tortos as your focus. Use this with Shadowburn on the bats to transfer nice damage.

(DEMO) - Keep Shadowflame on bats...keep Felguard/Wrathguard on them as well

(DEMO) - Keep Doom on Tortos while DPSing adds

(AFFLIC) - DoT every single turtle up with SB:SS

(AFFLIC) - SB:SoC on bats. Drain Soul on a bat to recover all shards (turtles don't "die")

(AFFLIC) - Keep 100% Haunt uptime during Tortos 25% increased damage taken debuff (post shell kick)

HEROIC TORTOS

As a Warlock, Heroic Tortos doesn't really add any challenge to how you will play your class regardless of spec. I feel that Demonology and Destruction perform quite well on this fight, but depending on your job, all three specs could be employed with great results. First off, I'll mention that Crystal Shell buff you get from clicking a crystal...it's completely unnecessary, and actually can hurt you in the long run if you make a mistake dodging damage.

With Soul Leech and Sacrificial Pact, you're not going to need the Crystal Shell buff like other classes will. As long as you do a proper job of avoiding all other forms of damage (Whirl Turtles bouncing around and stalagtites falling), your Soul Leech will build to its maximum which just HAPPENS to be the amount of damage Quake Stomp does. If, for some reason you don't like Soul Leech, get used to it in this fight. It's an incredible talent that makes use of damage on a brief cooldown that you can completely mitigate. For times when you make a mistake and get hit by something you shouldn't have, use Sacrificial Pact (~250k absorb without Grim of Sac, ~550k absorb with Grim of Sac) to buffer the damage. If you REALLY messed up, pop a Healthstone, Unending Resolve, Shadow Bulwark, or actually use the buff that the fight asks you to use. Using the buff can have a negative impact for Warlocks as Demonology or Affliction. If you top yourself off early in the fight and grab the Crystal Shell buff, you'll have a debuff that will put a shield on you much like Spirit Shield. Any heals you receive will not recover HP, but will instead stack that absorption shield. With Soul Leech and other absorption effects, you will almost never lose your first crystal buff. This means that as the fight progresses, each time you are required to Life Tap, you will lose HP and be unable to recover from it. This happened to me last night, and I spent a majority of the fight under 30% HP but with almost 1,000,000 in absorption effects on me. This might confuse your healers, but kindly remind them that you're invincible. There is a benefit of this, and it's if you raid with a Resto Shaman. Resto Shaman's Mastery increases healing based on the HP you're missing. A Resto Shaman would EASILY be able to top off your absorption effect if you remain low at HP. The downside to choosing this route is IF you make a mistake and lose your absorption effect, you are going to be in a world of hurt. If you are going to take the Crystal absorption buff, make sure you're at 100% HP and avoid all unnecessary damage. You'll only need to grab this one time as your absorption effects and healing received will keep the buff going permanently. If you find yourself dying or taking a lot of unnecessary damage, consider taking the Glyph of Life Tap which will absorb some of the incoming healing you receive from your raid healers and Siphon Life. This will eat away from your absorption shield, but it might comfort you and your healers to not see your HP at 50% even though your effective HP will actually be somewhere in the neighboorhood of 250-275% of your max HP.

With that said about surviving the fight, dealing damage is absolutely no different than in normal mode. You still have to kill Whirl Turtles. Some strats involve kiting bats which puts all DPS focus on Tortos and his turtles. We elected to kill the bats. For this task, we put the melee AoE and my AoE as Demonology. Because of this assignment, I took Grimoire of Service and partitioned my cooldowns to make sure bats melted like butter on a hot summer day. For the first set of bats, I popped Dark Soul, weaved a Hand of Guldan, hit Tortos with a Soulfire or two, put another Hand of Guldan on the bats then popped into Meta, fired up Immolation Aura, used Felstorm, and spammed Void Ray. For the second set of bats, I used Hand of Guldan followed by Service:Felguard, Felstorm, Immo Aura, and Void Ray spam. I had no CDs for the third set, so they went down a bit slower, but they still died before the 4th set came down. The bats are very close to a 45 second CD, so Felstorm will be available for each of them. Just be sure to continue keeping Doom on Tortos, especially the 100% Crit version. You can also put a 100% Crit Doom on any of the Whirl Turtles roaming around and even the 'dead' ones waiting to be kicked. You might lose out if your kickers kick the one you picked, but the GCD to apply it will be worth it if you get 1 tick off and spawn a Wild Imp. The same principles of the fight exist if you are not on bats. Put your back into Whirl Turtles and Tortos, avoid damage, and the fight shouldn't be much different for you. If playing Affliction, SB:SoC the bats and use the massive number of Soul Shard procs to keep Haunt uptime high on Tortos. Destruction would focus on keeping Rain of Fire on the bats for ember generation and spamming Chaos Bolt on Tortos. Destro could also Havoc Shadowburns from the bats onto Tortos. Regardless of spec, Warlocks are monsters for Heroic Tortos. Enjoy the essentially no different fight.

Megaera

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage from Rampage

-Rank 4 Talent: Unbound Will - dispel fire debuff on your own when in a safe place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

-council type fight; when one head dies, the other(s) regenerate their entire HP pool.

-use Unbound Will to cleanse your own fire debuff appropriately

-use DB, UR, and/or a Healthstone during Rampage (all three heads up)

-use portal to escape stacked group with fire debuff

(DESTRO) - Use Havoc on CD on your non-kill target to build Embers faster buffing single target DPS and the effectiveness of Soul Leech

(DESTRO) - while padding meters is frowned upon, you can Havoc Shadowburns to look awesome.

(DESTRO) - with proper positioning, you can get Rain of Fire to hit two adjacent heads. With Mannoroth's Fury, this is done easier.

(DEMO) - apply Doom to other heads for higher Imp uptime and DF generation

(AFFLIC) - apply Corruption to other heads for higher Haunt uptime

25 Man First Kill Log: http://www.worldoflo.../?s=4676&e=5192 (I died near the end along with everyone but one of our Hunters, damage should be way higher in future runs)

HEROIC MEGAERA

All three specs are fine on this fight. Based on World of Logs, Affliction and Destruction are performing better than Demonology, but I suspect it has to do with some padding on those logs. In terms of completing the encounter, great single target DPS is crucial to survival.

In Heroic, there are two major differences. Rampage hurts REALLY bad. You'll be utilizing your defensive CDs to their maximum. Your raid leader will designate CD usage and line them up with raid CDs. You should be using Sacrificial Pact on every single Rampage. When non-powerful raid CDs are being utilized, use Shadow Bulwark (if using Grim of Sacrifice), Unending Resolve, and Healthstones. Your job should be to survive each Rampage every time.

The second element of Heroic mode added relevant to Warlocks are the adds created by Nether Tear and the new Arcane head. These adds will be handled in a way particular to your group. For us, we stack them up during Rampage and AoE them down. This is why I played Demonology...I lined up Chaos Wave along with Immolation Aura to decimate the adds. Shadowfury is a useful talent for all 3 specs to help prevent these adds from stunning people during the deadly Rampage.

Aside from that, the fight is pretty normal. We chose to do Blue -> Red -> Purple -> Blue -> Red -> Purple -> Blue. This made it so we didn't deal with any Poison Bombs. As a Warlock, you can place a Gateway going from the back of the room towards the front. This will be utilized during the Frost Beam attack. Whoever is afflicted with this will run in a roundabout way towards the back portal and port towards the front. That's really all there is to know on this one. It's just tighter on DPS, harder on the healers, and the mechanics must be executed perfectly.

Ji'kun

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful during Downwind

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of Sacrifice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

-if not on eggs/nests, just do single target rotation

-if on eggs, use burst AoE (Seed of Corruption, Fire and Brimstone, Hellfire/Meta)

-use Teleport halfway through Downwind to avoid falling off platform

-use Sacrifical Pact to negate Quills completely

-pets tend to despawn when flying for buff or going nest to nest. Sacrifice and forget it.

-use Feathers to get Primal Nutrient buff...100% increased damage for 30 seconds. Line this up with CDs (don't get buff if you have no CDs running) since you can't obtain this buff and maintain for 100% uptime.

(DEMO) - use Demonic Leap to negate Downwind

HEROIC JI'KUN

Nothing really changes for Warlocks from normal to heroic here. You're basically going to do whatever nests you're assigned to while doing everything else the same. Just remember Sacrificial Pact to negate each and every Quills. All three specializations perform pretty well on this fight, so just do whatever you're most comfortable with.

Durumu

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage and Drain Life damage. Great during beam phase

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful while running beams or getting around during Purple crap phase

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

-use Burning Rush to find Crimson Fogs faster

-some issue causes melee pets (Observer/Felguard/Wrathguard) to despawn. Until fixed, consider using the Imp for ranged positioning

-use Burning Rush + defensive CD to avoid Disintegration Beam

(DESTRO) - use Havoc macro on Durumu (focus) and DPS Crimson adds (Shadowburn to gain an Ember)

(AFFLIC) - leave DoTs on Durumu and assist with Crimson adds (Replenish Soul Shards with Drain Soul)

HEROIC DURUMU

This fight is a kindergartner's nightmare with color management. A few things specific to us Warlocks...

Mannoroth's Fury. Time to get unused to moving and casting. Dust off that Fel Flame spell. Spec into Demonology. Your goal here is to contribute a significant portion of your raid's damage on the Heroic-only Ice Walls. If you're comfortable with Demonology, then this fight is set up just right for you. For the first two minutes, you're going to unload everything you've got onto the boss. You should be Bloodlusting, so literally dump everything. Approximately two minutes into the fight, you'll get your first set of Ice Walls followed quickly by Disintegration Beam. This means the Ice Walls have to be ripped apart for your raid to be able to move around safely. As soon as the Ice Wall forms, pop Dark Soul, Imp Swarm, Hand of Guldan twice, pop into Metamorphosis, fire up Immolation Aura, and get right under the boss. Use Carrion Swarm and Void Ray to do maximum damage to the walls immediately to your right in case you need to move that way. You should be able to spike up to 1.25M DPS here and literally melt those walls. Shadowflame and Immo Aura will do a majority of the damage on the walls.

Aside from that, the fight really isn't much different for Warlocks. You must switch to the Amber adds during the color wheel phase if they spawn (special Yellow adds in Heroic mode) and handle Drain Life to perfection in order to win. I haven't tried Destruction on this fight, but I would imagine that Rain of Fire and Fire and Brimstone would be pretty good on the walls. I just don't see it competing with Demonology here. I'm still having issues with my Felguard/Wrathguard despawning on the fight. Until this bug is fixed, I'm forced to go Sacrifice. I feel that Supr/Serv would be good for the walls, but I can't deal with him despawning all the time. Sacrificies' 2% HP every 5 sec is quite nice, anyways.

Primordius (Yor'sahj mixed with a little General Vexaz and a sprinkle of Amber Shaper Un'sok)

-preferred spec: Destruction

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of Sacrifice/Service

-Rank 6 Talent: Mannoroth's Fury

-Warlocks are great to be assigned to adds full time

(DESTRO) - use Havoc on CD and snipe KBs with Shadowburn for high Ember regen

(DESTRO) - keep Rain of Fire up everywhere...this will make Ember generation through the roof so you can spam Chaos Bolts on adds

(AFFLIC) - DoT EVERYTHING

HEROIC PRIMORDIUS

Strats defer for Warlocks here, but the way we did it made it so that I played Destruction and focused purely on adds until the boss hit 10%. As Destruction, your primary objective is to keep Rain of Fire rolling while using Fire and Brimstone Immolate and Incinerate and Shadowburn to kill as many oozes as possible. You'll want to use Mannoroth's Fury to ensure you hit everything. Keeping a ton of adds dying will fuel the rest of your raid to be permanently buffed with fully mutated. Aside from that, nothing really changes. There will be a bigger ooze that you MAY be assigned to, but if you're doing the smaller oozes, it's better for someone else to focus the bigger add. You can switch to it to Shadowburn it. Use your defensive cooldowns to stay alive during the boss's AoE attacks, and this fight shouldn't change dramatically for you between normal and heroic.

Dark Animus

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(DESTRO) - use Shadowburn to execute small adds quickly

HEROIC DARK ANIMUS

This fight sucks, but you've got a couple of options. This fight plays deeply into Demonology's hands with UVoLS trinket with all those targets to hit. You'll also take a lot less damage while tanking your golem in Metamorphosis. Open the fight by picking up aggro on your assigned golem and place your 100% Crit Doom on that golem and 3 of the Large Golems available. You won't be killing them, so now they are effectively Wild Imp factories and assembly lines. Every time you get an Unerring proc, slap 100% Doom on anything still alive (except things you don't want to die immediately). I'm not going to get into the fight strategy, but as long as your golem is dead and all the smaller golems are dead by 2:00, you're golden. Your only job from here on out is to nuke the boss with your army of Imps, dodge Anima Font, survive Interrupting Jolts, and benefit your raid via Matter Swap. As a Warlock with a plethora of CDs at your disposal, you'll want to be always be the furthest person from Dark Animus. This will ensure you are always the Matter Swap partner. Soul Leech is enough to warrant you always being this target. I'd suggest Grim of Sacrifice to buff your Imps, Sacrificial Pact to negate every other Disrupting Jolt, and Kil'Jaeden's Cunning to prevent cast interruptions when avoiding Anima Font.

Iron Qon

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Unbound Will - removes stuns placed on you

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

-use portal as a stacking point when your group is to stack for Phase 1

-use Gateway as a method of movement from tornadoes in P2. Allows 5 people who are challenged with mechanics to bypass running the tornadoes

HEROIC IRON QON

This fight on Heroic mode doesn't present very much of a challenge for us Warlocks. Phases 1, 2, and 3 primarily stay the same. Use your Gateway just like you do in normal. Note that you have to keep watch for Thunderstorm debuff (the one you click off of a teammate) through all 3 phases, not just phase 2, like in normal mode. The only playstyle change made in Heroic mode is to time your CDs during P2 so that you only endure 1 Windstorm and time your next set of CDs for the beginning of P4 when you fight the boss and the 3 Quillens together. Use your defensive CDs liberally on this fight as everything hits a bit harder. Nothing crucially different from normal mode.

Twin Consorts

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(DESTRO) - use Havoc for P3 when both bosses are out

(AFFLIC) - multi DoT in P3 with both bosses out

(DEMO) - apply Doom to both targets during P3

HEROIC TWINS

Nothing special for Warlocks here. You're literally doing nothing different. Take the opportunity to DoT up Suen when she comes out briefly in P1. This will help the moderately tight enrage timer.

Lei Shen

-preferred spec: any

-Rank 1 Talent: Soul Leech - provides active healing/mitigation for various damage sources

-Rank 2 Talent: Mortal Coil - provides good healing on 45 second intervals

-Rank 3 Talent: Sacrificial Pact - use to mitigate AoE damage

-Rank 4 Talent: Burning Rush - useful if caught out of place during the knockback in last phase

-Rank 5 Talent: Grimoire of choice

-Rank 6 Talent: Kil'Jaeden's Cunning - no need for improved AoE or return damage. AV can be used if Demonology and you time movement with Metamorphosis

(DESTRO) - Havoc small adds during main phases

(DESTRO) - Fire and Brimstone stacked adds and snipe killing blows with Shadowburn. Havoc Shadowburns onto boss

HEROIC LEI SHEN

Preferred Spec: Demonology

As a Warlock, there are a few things you can do that greatly help your team out. Being Demonology is one of them.

P1: You'll be doing as much damage as possible to push him to 65% and into the first transition. Use Demonic Leap to maximize your distance from Thunderstruck (AC/DC) and minimize the incoming damage. Aside from that, not much to care about. Lay a Gateway from one platform to the opposite to help players get to the far platform in preparation for the transition.

Transitions: Get to your assigned platform and set your Teleport somewhat near the icon on the platform indicating what ability Lei Shen uses then move away from your teammates. Stack on others for Static Shock, absorb Bouncing Bolts, and use Axe Toss and Shadowfury to stun the adds that come out and fixate on players. Sacrificial Pact is huge for Static Shock. If you get Helm of Command, you have a plethora of options to not fall off. This includes Demonic Leap, Burning Rush (ill-advised, but ok if you have a healer), and your teleport. In 25 man settings, you'll likely have a bunch of Gateways. Use as applicable. Falling off or dying to Helm of Command as a Warlock is unforgivable.

P2: As you transition, prepare your mega burst. About 10 seconds after you go into P2, you'll be dealing with Lightning Balls as well as any unkilled adds from the transition. Pool some Demonic Fury, line your pet up, pop your Imps, Dark Soul, Fel/Wrathstorm, Metamorphosis, Immo Aura, Chaos Wave x 2, glyphed Carrion Swarm (no knockback), then spam Void Ray until everything is dead. Immediately after, or during if your DPS is slow at AoE, you'll have a Lightning Whip to avoid. Laugh at how easy it is to avoid and carry on. During this phase, you will always use Immo Aura, Fel/Wrathstorm, Chaos Wave, and Void Ray on the stacked Lightning Balls. As a Demonology Warlock, it's your job to obliterate those Lightning Balls, especially in 10 man. In 25 man, you likely will have several good AoE specs and won't be relied on so much. P2 is easier than P1 in that you're just avoiding Lightning Whip and AoE'ing Lightning Balls.

P3: Depending on your group's strategy, the strategy here is to literally just survive. We used Bloodlust as soon as P3 started. A Gateway was established from one platform to the adjacent platform. The raid went back and forth while keeping healers and ranged DPS at range for AC/DC. When AC/DC happened, healers took the Gateway while me, the Hunter, and the Mage used our mobility to get away from AC/DC (Demonic Leap, Teleport). Immediately after AC/DC was the Ball Lightnings. Commence AoE. Use Unending Resolve, Sac Pact, and Healthstones to help your healers. The longer P3 lasts, the harder it's going to get.

HEROIC RA-DEN

Ra-den is a joke. Play any spec, it doesn't matter. The fight is VERY undertuned since you have to fight Lei Shen to get here. As a Warlock, it really doesn't matter what spec you play. Be in the right place for your Unstable Vita rotation, switch to the Red Orbs based on your group's strategy (we killed #1, 2, and 3, let 4 hit, killed 5, and then went into P2). When Ra-den hits 40%, you quit having to deal with Vita and anything else. Just Bloodlust and kill him. Granted, our group's item level when we got to Ra-den was about 536ish, so we may have just overpowered him. Our healers were underwhelmed having still had all their healing CDs available. Our Monk tank did 350k DPS and 150k HPS. We had 2 DPS around the 200k mark and did P2 with a DK DPS dead the entire time with no worries at all during P2. Disappointing 'extra' boss, but hey, he drops lots of our BiS items!

[Zagam 1,982]

Jin'rokh is puggable. He's very very easy. Log of kill: http://www.worldoflo...ne/?s=533&e=774

Horridon is really fun for AoE: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-c602emf2q51glc87/sum/damageDone/?s=4383&e=5010

[Gravyspasm 70]

Got to try Jin'rokh-10 last night. only got up to 3 puddles. Dark bargain was a godsend for when i got the focused lightning just as we were supposed to stack (and it seemed he always picked me for that one)

felt weird playing destro (that's generally the spec i use to do dailies and 5 mans, so i at least was a bit familiar with it). Lotta ooomph for when you get in those puddles and pop cooldowns. i like it. (now i just need to teach myself how to play Demo again)

[Adam 0]

I did 7 bosses yesterday and switched between meta and affliction for bosses. If you have any questions about them ask. I should finish clearing the rest of the instance tonight.

[mediocregatsby 18]

My semi-hardcore raiding group got the first 2 bosses down last night (spent a stupid amount of time on the "bridge boss" ). I stayed affliction for both fights, while another warlock tried destruction; we had a third warlock who was planning to do demonology but he was benched.

Jin'rokh: pulled 149.5k DPS over 303 seconds as affliction ilvl 497. We 2 shot this and I wasn't even in the pools for the maximum possible time. If you really want to squeeze maximum DPS out, you need to get into the pools as soon as they form so get ready to move as soon as tank gets thrown, and then stay in the pools for as long as possible (and hopefully not get randomly targeted for lightning). Beat the destruction warlock by a significant margin, not sure what happened there.

Horridon: pulled 182.8k DPS over 669 seconds as affliction ilvl 497. Took a bunch of attempts as the raid took a while learning to deal with poison adds. Even though I was top DPS in the group, I consider my DPS quite low as I remember on our kill attempt I let DOTs fall off Horridon repeatedly during add phases, and had a stupid moment where I was running away with add aggro so I missed out on a lot of AOE. I was also not keeping DOTs on Horridon when War-God Jalak came out due to insanely dry nightfall streak and just progression pressure :). It is possible to have 2 bloodlusts on this fight if your raid DPS is low like ours, but we ended up only using the 1 bloodlust for Jalak. The destruction warlock ended up #2 on the meter in the end, spending the entire add phase in 3rd to 5th, and catching up quickly after add phase.

Edited March 7, 2013 by mediocregatsby

[Sifon 25]

My guild got 2/12 down yesterday. I played affliction on Jin'rokh(I could have played demo but I felt more comfortable with affliction), that boss way too easy even our new 25man team got it on 2nd or 3rd try, I did 150k ish dps because I died on lightning storm.

I was demo for horridon. Demo is amazing for that fight, I tried to use my fury as much as possible on adds but try to pool like 700 before one gate is closed. Then I go on to boss and do an amazing burst until new gate is opened/ran out of fury. We killed this one after 1-2 seconds of enrage and I managed to pull 220k dps(logs bugged :/), I recommend demo for this fight.

We had some tries at council I was affliction, seems like a fun fight, demo can keep doom on all four targets and for affliction, is it better to stay on 1 target(or 2 with focus frame) or multi dot all the things?

[Zagam 1,982]

I don't think Elders is intended for multi-dotting...your primary focus should be getting the currently empowered elder through 25% of his/her HP pool. Doom will last longer but you've already spent the global applying it, so that should be sufficient. DPS on almost all of these fights are gimmicks of class comp and strategy. For example, on Horridon, if you're playing with Survival Hunters and Frost DKs, they're going to knock you out of the water in AoE if played properly. Jin'rokh shouldn't even be a fight...it's horribly undertuned. Never thought I would say this...but Morchok had more complexity as an entry level boss.

As far as I've seen, the first 2 fights are gear pinatas. Elders is a good check for raid awareness, but they already hotnerfed the Sand slimes 15%. Tortos is a gimmick fight that is super easy if you have one person who rocks the turtle kicking. Megaera is frighteningly accessible. We darn near 1 shot her without any idea of how the fight would go (changed from PTR) and easily 2 shot it. Ji is giving us some issues, but it's because we didn't understand how the feathers should be used. Now we get it...should be able to 1 shot it tonight.

[mediocregatsby 18]

Got Council and Tortos down tonight. Again, stayed affliction the whole night. 2 other warlocks played demo and destro alongside me.

Council: 152.k DPS as ilvl 501 affliction over 506 seconds. Convenient fight as affliction since you can DOT all 4 of them and get free soul shard refill on every add spawn. Just be careful putting DOTs on the Priestess if your raid doesn't have a tank for her, because if you pull aggro you're going to find it annoying to be taking her hits and having to lifetap.

Tortos: 199.4k DPS as ilvl 501 affliction over 502 seconds. Crazy ass fight, lots of multi-dotting and constant soul shard refills from the bats. Extremely movement AND AOE heavy, just make sure the tank has aggro on bats before you go nuts. Possible to AOE the bats by SOCing off the boss if the tank brings the bats close enough. Our raid DPS was low enough that keeping adds down to manageable numbers was a challenge, so I didn't get much sustained DPS on the boss aside from just trying to keep them on him whenever I had a spare SB:SS. Lots of room for improvement with timing DPS on the boss right after a turtle kick.

Can't really comment much on the performance vs demo/destro. For council, the destro lock pulled only 95k which I can't explain, and the demo was benched. For Tortos, the destro was on kicking duty so his DPS was below everyone else's (did an amazing job kicking though) and the demo did 133k.

[Nikima 3]

Affliction on Council can slow the Loa Spirit (with the glyph) with Exhaustion very well. Combined with Shadowfury you can pretty much solo the 'control' aspect of that mob, leaving everyone else able to pump out the damage.

I kept dots rolling on all four targets during the first rotation of Gara'jal Empowerment. When Sul got empowered I stopped and focused solely on him, since those adds will detract alot of dps away from him. By the 2nd rotation damage on the bosses was more important so I went to single target there. I used Infernal on the 2nd Sandstorm, for us it really was the only difficult empowerment.

By the time the 3rd rotation of Empowerment they were all below 20%, so I resumed the multi-dotting as the 25% damage requirement is interrupted by their deaths.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Nikima

[Zagam 1,982]

I modified the first post to reflect this, but I found that Sacrificial Pact should be a staple raiding talent. The tooltip says that it sacrifices 25% of your pet's health and gives you an absoprtion effect of 400% of that health. Combined with Glyph of Demon Training (Felguard HP+20%), my Sacrificial Pact as Demo was giving me a 300k absorption shield on a 60 second CD...THIS IS INCREDIBLE! Combined with Soul Leech's absorption field, on any fight with any type of burst, you can negate it completely.

I did the same effect with Affliction and Grim of Sac enabled...it sacrifices 25% of your HP pool to give you an absorption of 100% of your HP pool. Yes, that's right...a 500k+ absorb on a 60 second CD.

This little gem is likely not well known, but I am begging all Warlocks to take this over Dark Bargain. There will never be a reason to take Dark Bargain again with this talent. In fact, it's so good that as I write this, I worry that all Warlocks WILL take it and it will be nerfed as the mandatory talent. It is that good...far better than Warrior's Second Wind ability. TAKE THIS TALENT.

[Omaric 246]

^^^

Haha, yea I was confused as fuck why you had DB for pretty much every fight. I've been using SP forever because the CD is so convenient.

I was making my raid members cry with my million+ effective HP. Shadow bulwark + SP = Lawl.

Edited March 8, 2013 by Omaric

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah it's pretty baller. Didn't realize that they doubled the benefit and cut in half the penalty. Missed patch note with all the other shit I read/evaluate/simulate. Blah.

[Omaric 246]

Yeah it's pretty baller. Didn't realize that they doubled the benefit and cut in half the penalty. Missed patch note with all the other shit I read/evaluate/simulate. Blah.

Well the shield strength didn't change at all. It just looks like that because they halved the amount of health it takes. Even when it chomped 50% of my HP I was happy because the shield was stupidly powerful.

That said, myself aside, if anyone is still using sacrifice it's important that your HP is near full to begin with to gain the most benefit from the shield. Going demo now it's a non-issue because pets rarely take damage anyway. (yay)

Edited March 8, 2013 by Omaric

[Azazoth 1]

Sacrificial Pact for Tortos is way better than Dark Bargain. In this fight there is so much AOE damage that every 1 minute a 259k shield is OP. your healers m will thank you for using it

[Zagam 1,982]

Added logs of each kill I did this week. Didn't do the guild's kill on Twins nor any attempts on Lei Shen. That will be updated soon.

[SandyDandy 1]

^^^

Haha, yea I was confused as fuck why you had DB for pretty much every fight. I've been using SP forever because the CD is so convenient.

I was making my raid members cry with my million+ effective HP. Shadow bulwark + SP = Lawl.

dont forget about soul leech which caps at 463k absorption shield

shadow bulwark + sacrificial pact gives me a 600k shield and im left with 500k health which means 1.6 million effective hp!

realistically you're never gonna stack soul leech that high but its still pretty amazing

[Zagam 1,982]

The change to Soul Leech in a raiding environment is that your overhealing from the mechanic is GREATLY reduced. Before when it did passive healing, most of it went to overhealing. Now you're diverting healers away from you because instead of having them heal you.

Old Soul Leech: Take 50k damage. Soul Leech would heal you to max before next incoming damage, but a healer tops you off making Soul Leech overheal 80% of the time.

New Soul Leech: Take 50k damage, but absorb all of it. Soul Leech then begins to build another stack thus not having your healers react to you at all increasing their direct output.

During Ji-kun progression, I was being yelled at by a Holy Paladin demanding I stack up for Quills. I kindly told her I wasn't stacking because of Sacrificial Pact and she goes 'you're not getting spot healed unless you stack.' I replied 'that's fine, also don't BoP me.' I took 0 damage from Quills. The absorption effects are worth more than you can possibly think...the best part? Sacrificial Pact isn't on the GCD! You can pop it between spells AND EVEN WHEN YOU'RE STUNNED! This ability is mega awesome. During heavy sustained AoE damage, Soul Leech is just as valuable as the heal, but during non-sustained AoE and burst AoE, Soul Leech is now the bee's knees.

[SandyDandy 1]

Ya you can use it while stunned or mind controlled, so back when it sacced 50% you could break yourself out on vizier instantly. Warlocks op!

[Omaric 246]

OMG Destruction is amazing for Horridon! So fun!!!

[Zagam 1,982]

OMG Destruction is amazing for Horridon! So fun!!!

Getting to Shadowburn all those adds and Havoc them onto Horridon? Destro is pretty sick for most cleave fights with adds thrown about (Heroic Tsulong comes to mind). Were you using Sacrifice or pets?

[Omaric 246]

Getting to Shadowburn all those adds and Havoc them onto Horridon? Destro is pretty sick for most cleave fights with adds thrown about (Heroic Tsulong comes to mind). Were you using Sacrifice or pets?

I just sat my Observer on Horridon the entire time. I was swapping adds too often for "assist" to get any work done. He did alright for himself:

http://worldoflogs.c.../?s=6673&e=7345

Our monk tank's damage looks ridiculous because our frost DK died to adds on the last door, prolonging the fight.

I'm not exactly a pro destro player yet or anything; the first time I picked it up was to do Kanrethad. =P

Edit: Also, empowered Dooms on the troll council = hilarium. It appears that Affliction is already pulling ahead on the meters though. Sure didn't take long, haha.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Omaric

[SandyDandy 1]

These are some of my thoughts on week 1:

Jinrok - is this even a boss? the trash is way harder

Horridon - I thought it was easy but apparently it was overtuned on 10m because the add health pools don't scale (patched for wk2). Don't go affliction if you have good burst aoe in your group because your dots won't have time to tick. I will test out destro w/ observer on this fight next week for sure.

Council - Overtuned on 10m because dmg and health wasn't scaling (health patched for wk2). Go affliction, multi dot and channel on the shadowy one. No reason not to multi dot because your dmg sticks if you do your job on the healing loa adds. Also corruption gives you soul shards and you get a higher chance to proc trinkets by multi-dotting. Go curse of exhaustion glyph and you can basically solo the loa add so your raid can focus on shadowy boss and break him out before energy gets too high. Go felhunter (sac or sup) so you can help interrupt marli's wrath of loa and sul's sandbolt.

Toros - Curse of exhaustion glyph is good here again. Hit the turtles with a soulbourn:coe as they come out and it will make it extremely easy for your raid to dodge them. Volunteer to kick turtles because you're a warlock, and that makes you the best player in the raid. Also because with KJC you won't lose dmg moving around to kick them. Eventually you will have extra turtles to kick, not to interrupt the boss, but because when they hit other turtles, bats, or the boss all of those targets take more damage. Try and line up these "extra" kicks with your dmg cd's.

Megayra - We had to pug a few healer spots so idk if this fight is overtuned, or if the healing requirement is just really high and our pugs were bad. We did the red-green only strat, which in hindsight I advise against. If your raid is coordinated (prolly no pugs) you're going to want to do the normal (blue-red-green) strat, just make sure to lay ice way near the back. If you find yourself getting alot of soul shards, it might be worth it to multi-dot with a soul shard because of the trinket procs and corruption chance to proc more shards. Otherwise, just keep corruption up on the off-target, and burn the target head in your raid's rotation. Sac your voidwalker for shadow bulwark and use it w/ sacrificial pact. It's a healer fight so as a warlock try and make it as easy on them as possible.

Ji-Kun - This fight is very easy on 10m, I heard it was harder on 25. Use eye of killrog glyph so you can place your demonic circle on the boss before the pull. You're going to want that up for down draft. Might be worth it to line up your dmg cd's w/ primal nutrient buff depending on your role. Shadow bulwark w/ sacrificial pact again for quills, let your healers worry about others.

We went 6/12 in week 1, which is what kind of what I expected. We normally raid 2 days a week, but spent a little time extra on cleanup because its week 1. I'm glad the fights are challenging, but it seems like some of the earlier bosses are harder on 10m, and some of the later bosses are harder on 25 (iron qon comes to mind). Consistency would be nice, looks like they're making a lot of changes for week 2.

Edited March 12, 2013 by SandyDandy

[Zagam 1,982]

I really don't think this raid is hard on normal modes. My guild cleared 12/12 with about 25 hours of work. Each fight has mechanics that are difficult but no real DPS check other than killing things before your healers go OOM. Hopefully the Heroics are some challenge...I think we're doing one more normal clear then doing full progression...we'll see how it goes.

[SandyDandy 1]

I don't think they're hard, just not consistent. Ticks me off when I have to read posts like this -

Thunderforged items are less about getting 10 man raid groups to switch to 25 man than they are about rewarding 25 man groups for the increased complexity.

not to mention the whole tier token fiasco

and then they backpedal and nerf a few 10 mans 1 week later because of this -

But this is a topic for another thread, sorry.

Edited March 12, 2013 by SandyDandy

[Cruzan 71]

So my friend has been asking me tons of questions about affliction and he just got in to a ToT raiding guild. He asked if casting Haunt on to Horridon with full DoTs rolling during the gate phases was a good idea or not.

From my limited experience, about 4 runs of LFR you have an excess of shards and the adds are terribly tanked so that AoE rotations get f'ed up. I couldn't definitively say that casting a haunt onto Horridon would be a waste. My answer was to only consider it if the dots rolling on Horridon are fairly well empowered, otherwise its a waste like usual, but I didn't want to try and math it out to see if the time spent casting a Haunt would be a loss over just focusing/AoEing adds. I would guess that when tanked better and AoE could be done more effectively that turning towards Horridon to cast a haunt would end up being a loss until about the 3rd or 4th gate.

Any thoughts? I realize its kind of a 'cheesing for more personal DPS' type of question, but my curiosity got piqued.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Cruzan