T15 Warlock Style - Normal & Heroic

[Zagam 1,982]

1) Demo is ok. Doom alone isn't going to break this fight open. Squeezing Doom in on Iron Qon during each Quillen transition is highly recommended. Your Doom will do about 2% of the Quillen's total HP. If you get an Unerring proc right before it flies off, however, that's a different story because it'll be an Imp battery for you to buff your single target damage on the next Quillen/Iron Qon.

2) Move to get into position to be able to DPS during Dead Zone phases. If you can't, avoid casting anything as it's a waste of time. Use this opportunity to Life Tap or drop a new Soulwell.

3) Unless someone has been able to do it better than me, anytime I jump or leap over any of those lines, I get the associated debuff.

[Omaric 246]

1) Demo is ok. Doom alone isn't going to break this fight open. Squeezing Doom in on Iron Qon during each Quillen transition is highly recommended. Your Doom will do about 2% of the Quillen's total HP. If you get an Unerring proc right before it flies off, however, that's a different story because it'll be an Imp battery for you to buff your single target damage on the next Quillen/Iron Qon.

2) Move to get into position to be able to DPS during Dead Zone phases. If you can't, avoid casting anything as it's a waste of time. Use this opportunity to Life Tap or drop a new Soulwell.

3) Unless someone has been able to do it better than me, anytime I jump or leap over any of those lines, I get the associated debuff.

I bet a Goblin could use demonic leap to fly straight up and then use rocket jump in the air to bypass it. Overkill.

Edit: I'M IN THERE WITH THE ASIANS ERMAHGERDDDDDDD!!!

I'd like to thank Cheez-Its, blankets and the robed owl that whispers into my ear.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Throne_of_Thunder/Horridon/25H/Demonology_Warlock/?page=4

Demo on Horridon is happy times. Getting an early pink dino = win for imps. We snuck in our kill with 2 mages ice blocking the berserked direcall and an ele shaman ankh'ing after it. They just kited him around to finish off the last 30 million HP. Pretty epic.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Omaric

[gahhda 95]

The z axis is almost never considered when regarding ground effects. The only mechanic that I've found that you can entirely negate via demonic leap is jumping straight up to dodge the rings on lei shen.

[Zagam 1,982]

Heroic Dark Animus down. Strat coming tomorrow, but I personally didn't like how I was used. I'll probably have two different strats.

[Zagam 1,982]

Heroic Dark Animus and Heroic Twins updated (nothing to note for Twins). Put some attempts into Heroic Lei Shen last night. Pretty fun fight as Demonology. Hopefully next week I'll have tips for more than P1 and P2.

[obleak 10]

Hello, I was wondering if going demo wouldn't actually be better for heroic iron qwon. since dogs dont die till the end you can apply the super long dooms on them and the guy. also on the rest phase (the one with the shields) its much easier to dps the boss with the dots. And i was wondering, is it possible to jump over the lines (fire,ice,thunder) with demonic leap?

I'm pretty sure Demo is parsing higher then affliction on Herioc Iron Quon.. idk.. i go affliction, but only got him to 1%..... been busy so not been able to play much.. these tornados keep ripping through my area and it's like a duck and run fest every night for past week or two...

Play what feels good. we have 2 warlocks now so 2 portals make moving on that fight a joke. >_>

[obleak 10]

Probaly worth mentioning on Lei shen that double felstorm and two chaos waves to the face will insta-kill the small adds.

This is true.. i would like to mention i just about considering taking affliction on this fight.. our shaman/hunter kill the adds SO FAST i barely have time to click a global or two

I beat them both still on overall dps and boss damage.. i just stopped worrying about aoe because i can't seem to do much (even with destro) I think if i'm going to stand a chance with the aoe i may just wanna go DEMO.. i wish i could get my trinket for that boss, but not once has it dropped for our group (or rolled...many times)

Edited June 1, 2013 by obleak

[Scoggleon 1]

Any Destro locks rolling Mannoroth's Fury on Horridon? I have been thinking about it, the adds sometimes get really spread out, namely on the amani door with the Flame-Caster's. Would be nice to drop a ROF on all of them, maybe a F+B immo and conflag too. Mix that in with Shadowburn cleave I feel as though it'd be a big boost over KJC. Let me know if you have done this whether it is good or bad, because dropping KJC is not something I tend to do lightly.

Edited June 4, 2013 by Scoggleon

[Omaric 246]

Kalemaste Horridon!

Do you feel you're regularly low on embers? I find that I need to move too much for MF to be useful on this fight and between proper use of Shadowburn I'm never really getting ember dry-spells. I'd say to try it out if you think it may benefit you. :)

[Zagam 1,982]

It goes without saying that you do what you can that most benefits your playstyle. You can't just reach out and ask if someone else does it to validate you using it, too. It's about what is best for the fight in terms of your mechanics. You also don't mention if it's normal mode or Heroic, as this would make a big factor in the decision on which to roll with.

In Heroic, things on the ground are very deadly. Charge happens to randomly players (less likely in 25 man, more likely in 10 man) and you have the shitty dinosaur to look out for. Losing movement while casting in this fight as Destruction would be a pretty large penalty on yourself just to make Rain of Fire hit more targets.

In terms of fight mechanics, you shouldn't be switching your playstyle to fix someone else's issue. Here, you talk about the adds being spread out. This is a tanking mechanic failure, and you're trying to compensate by penalizing yourself. This is one of those situations where you're putting a bandaid on something that needs stitches. Discuss why your tanks are having issues with threat and correct that. Once they are tightly packed, you won't need the extra range on Rain of Fire AND you can move and cast. The opportunity cost for you to drop KJC for MF due to a personal failure rather than a mechanics manipulation is too great.

[Soulzar 42]

I am going to toss my 2c in here as I don't overly agree with the above that KJC is better on Horridon. It is very hard to get used to playing without KJC and I think a lot of locks (myself included) passover the advantages of the talent because they've become spoiled with KJC. I understand there is a lot of movement and its the type of fight that can really use the tallent, but the benefits of Mannoroths on this fight IMO far far out weigh the negatives.

I went into Heroic Horridon attempts knowing Mannoroths was best, but went back to KJC since my dps dropped a lot due to losing cast time on movement, however after some more face bashing on the fight I decided I needed to force myself to use it as it was clearly generating significantly more embers than without. You can almost always guarantee 3 targets in your AoE with Horridon and your pink Dino of Hell.

After practice you will get better at using F&B conflags and CoE's while repositioning, and with Mannoroths ember generation, you will be capped and able to use F&B liberally while stil being able to chain cast CB's on priority targets. Also with the fixating adds, you will get a lot of backlash procs which are good to fire out with F&B while moving. Between Conflag's cooldown and RoF duration, you shoudl be casting spells you can do while on the move every efw seconds anwyways, so its just dicipline and practice to get used to adjusting your positioning while using these fillers.

One of the bestt advantages IMO is the added AoE range lets you knock back the dino with F&B and makes it a lot easier to maintain effective add dps while keeping him in check. After the 2 adds drop, shortly after you have dinomancer and a new wave, thats 4-6 targets you can always drop a F&B immolate on, which will fuel a ton of embers. The added AoE range means you will get much higher cleave dmg on horridon while AoEing theadds down.

We are ranged, poison and sand traps should never be a problem, ever. This is the melee headache fight, ranged have it easy. KJC also has a very bad side effect, your snared when you need to move for charge, often having charges on you be less than optimal, forcing other raid memebrs to move, dropping their dmg in the process. I really do highly advise learning the fight with Mannoroths, even if at first like me, your dps goes down do to cancelled casts from moving.

[Omaric 246]

We are ranged, poison and sand traps should never be a problem, ever. This is the melee headache fight, ranged have it easy. KJC also has a very bad side effect, your snared when you need to move for charge, often having charges on you be less than optimal, forcing other raid memebrs to move, dropping their dmg in the process. I really do highly advise learning the fight with Mannoroths, even if at first like me, your dps goes down do to cancelled casts from moving.

That's why I use burning rush. On Heroic you should always know where Horridon will be for each door. Drop a teleport in a safe spot if movement is an issue. That said, I'm not saying *don't* use MF. :D

[Cruzan 71]

Its tough to switch out of KJC if you don't do it on a regular basis. If a player can train their brain to adjust on a fight-to-fight basis like that then more power to them! It's definitely hard to pin down the dps advantages of using MF over KJC as it will vary drastically from person to person based solely on how well they can adapt to not having KJC. Personally being able to move while casting is so ingrained that I can't make the switch and that probably makes me a baddie .

Burning Rush and Tele have always been my go to moves for dealing with the reduced move speed from KJC in a pinch.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Cruzan

[obleak 10]

Any Destro locks rolling Mannoroth's Fury on Horridon? I have been thinking about it, the adds sometimes get really spread out, namely on the amani door with the Flame-Caster's. Would be nice to drop a ROF on all of them, maybe a F+B immo and conflag too. Mix that in with Shadowburn cleave I feel as though it'd be a big boost over KJC. Let me know if you have done this whether it is good or bad, because dropping KJC is not something I tend to do lightly.

I use MF on Heroic Horridon and do fine. I find the extra range is a great DPS increase since it makes APPLYING immolate/incen's to horridon as well as pew pewing the adds and keeping RAIN OF FIRE on everything

Since you have RoF on everything your ember generation is amazingly high and you'll find yourself easily spamming CB more then you can and capped embers more often than naught. FnB spamming spells help so much for the adds because you burst down so much damage as well as keeping your annoying pink dino easily managed

----

Mind you if you can't play without moving/casting i must incist you learn.. you never know when blizzard will have a great new idea and take that ability out and we're back to where we was.... If anyone needed the move/casting ability a shadow priest should have it

Get rid of our MG ability and give us a dot or two more to manage.. i hate channeled spells.. only one i enjoy is drain soul and that's because its a staple to our class and has been for a long while.

Edited June 9, 2013 by obleak

[Skyrge 9]

Well I had one week to get my feet wet with Affliction (thanks for the help on that topic Zagam, Cruzan and others) and now I've got my soon to be 530 UVoLS , so I've decided to go Demo (of course) and Affliction. My plan is to keep the same trinkets for both specs (UVoLS & Breath, but I do have 530 Wush in the bag). What I'm wondering is which spec to use for our progression fights. We've got H-Jin'rok and H-Ji-Kun down which I've done as Destro and now Affliciton. Which spec would be better on Heroic modes of Iron Qon, Tortos (on turtles ), and Horridon. My initial thought looking at these fights makes me think affliciton will be best for all 5 heroics, but I'd love to hear the community's opinions/suggestions and tips. Also as demo on which fights is GoSac superior to GoServ (or GoSup for that matter).

No need to post logs from this week, we just face-rolled through our 2nd night when we lost our MT to the internet boss, but heres my armory http://us.battle.net...n/Skýrge/simple

Oh yeah!!! That reminds me, I had one of the most embarrassing pulls on Ji-Kun(normal). I drew the second nest to get my feather and nuke the boss, the one right behind the landing. I could not hit the thing! Someone said it requires a speed boost? On Heroic I go 1st, 3rd and then up top and have never had a problem. Hopefully we never have to do normal again but if I get assigned the 2nd nest for some reason do I just need to perfect my timing?

Edited June 10, 2013 by Skyrge

[Omaric 246]

Oh yeah!!! That reminds me, I had one of the most embarrassing pulls on Ji-Kun(normal). I drew the second nest to get my feather and nuke the boss, the one right behind the landing. I could not hit the thing! Someone said it requires a speed boost? On Heroic I go 1st, 3rd and then up top and have never had a problem. Hopefully we never have to do normal again but if I get assigned the 2nd nest for some reason do I just need to perfect my timing?

Just pick up Burning Rush. You don't need the other talents in that tier for Ji-Kun.

[Cruzan 71]

Hehe ya if you dont have any stacks of KJC snare when you go to run and jump you wont need any speed boost, but you'll barely make it. With burning rush you'll make it regardless. Good talent to pick up for that fight.

[Skyrge 9]

Yeah I always forget about burning rush. Seems like I've never really needed it. Thanks Omaric, good call.

[Vestion 8]

Would using sac on horridon be a good choice if your group is fine on adds but having trouble in the last nuke phase? the extra 200% damage taken should go very nicely with sac in this fight. I would say this is even more relevent in HC as you NEED to kill the warlord, meaning after to need to nuke horridon even faster after. Of course, if your raid is stuck on adds take service and get a wonderful dps spike every 2 mins.

[Typecast 16]

For those doing Heroic Dark Animus on 10 man, may I suggest using Mortal Coil/Soul Link/Fel Imp (GoSup) for matter swaps. This explanation is a little long winded but hopefully it'll help some of you.

Soul Link Matter Swap Soaking

When active, soul link will cap your damage taken to 50% while your swap partner will take no damage. Healers no longer have to dispel in this fight and all swap damage will be concentrated to 1 target, the soul linked warlock. This means less mana spent on healing the entire raid on matter swaps and more gcd's spent healing the tanks (and not dispelling). The only concerns your tanks should have is to stagger the release of the massive golems so matter swaps do not become synchronized. Synchronized matter swaps can often lead to the raid taking unnecessary damage and the occasional double matter swap with interrupting jolt trifecta that wipes raids.

Single Lock Raid Comp

Positioning-wise for the fight, you want to be on the grates at the top of the steps on one side of the room and you want to position your gateway to be opposite of the room as a spot where those that have the matter swap debuff can go. The rest of the raid can gather around star and you'll need one dps that can stand near diamond to be your swap target whenever you get the matter swap debuff.

As the warlock soaking swaps, you have 3 priorities for surviving this fight.

• If you are are the matter swap source (the one with the dispellable debuff), you must dispel yourself with your imp as quickly as possible. The faster you dispel yourself, the less damage your swap target will take.

• If you are the matter swap target, you should be ready to gateway back to your spot when swapped. The person swapping with you will not take damage on the swap since they allow the matter swap to expire on themselves (no healer dispels here) and you again only take damage to half your health (thanks soul link).

• If you are ever swapped during the fight where a jolt is about to or has happened, be ready to mortal coil/dark regen/healthstone your first source of significant damage. If you are running with a disc priest, its helpful to have them always ensure you have a shield for each jolt and they can shield you for swaps to minimize damage. If shielding, make sure your disc priest knows its more important to have that shield up for the jolt+swap combos than it is to have a shield for a single swap.

Two Lock Comps

This setup requires no dispelling by either lock as long as tanks properly stagger the massive golem activation, but we kept our imps just in case we needed an emergency dispel because of a dead priest and upcoming jolt. Positioning is a mirrored version of the single lock setup. Surviving the swaps is pretty much the same as well except if a lock has the matter swap debuff. The lock with the debuff should move to the gateway closest to them on the lower floor before dispelling themselves. This change addresses the issue we were having with matter swaps max range, when both locks were positioning on the upper floor grates. The healers and dps collected themselves loosely between the gateways on the lower floor and moved to one of the gateways whenever they were matter swap debuffed. Since there is no difference in damage taken, we found it better to use the one lock as redundancy, in case the soaking lock ever died, and have our raid gather on one specified gateway on the lower floor for swaps.

Annoyances

Matter swap has a max range associated with it (feels like ~100 yards) so you have to make sure that you and your swap partner are within range, otherwise the game will choose another target at the last second (usually a tank).

The jolt+swap combo hits your pet hard, so be ready to resummon a pet if its health drops low. This fight is more about surviving than it is about dps.

Until the tanks have filled their massives, you need to be mindful to position yourself appropriately for swaps. If they are still in the corners near where the massives start from, then its better to dispel yourself at the closest gateway on the lower floor as usual so your swap partner is the furthest (on the grates opposite of the room). If they are closer to the entrance, you probably want to move yourself behind them and be ready to be swapped or dispel yourself. You really have to think how triangles form between yourself, your swap partner, and the massive tanks.

Edited June 11, 2013 by Typecast

[Typecast 16]

Would using sac on horridon be a good choice if your group is fine on adds but having trouble in the last nuke phase? the extra 200% damage taken should go very nicely with sac in this fight. I would say this is even more relevent in HC as you NEED to kill the warlord, meaning after to need to nuke horridon even faster after. Of course, if your raid is stuck on adds take service and get a wonderful dps spike every 2 mins.

On normal, sac seems like a fine choice as long as you are burning through your adds. For heroic, it depends on what your guild asks you to do. My guild assigns me the task of mass dispelling on the first door and interrupting on the 2nd door, so I go Supremacy and usually keep my fel imp out for most of the fight (observer door 2). Since the fel imp is also amazing at dealing with the direhorn spirit from dire call, having macros to switch between focus (direhorn spirit) and boss1 (horridon) is very helpful. As far as damage during the last portion of the fight, I prefer either destruction or affliction for horridon because of the executions (shadowburn/drain soul) coupled with the damage multiplier. I position my pet to pin the spirit to the wall until War Lord Jalak spawns then have my imp help dps that target. When Jalak dies, put my pet back on the spirit and pin it again before I have it help dps horridon. As far as macros, I use specific macros for this fight:

Corruption/UA/Agony

#showtooltip/cast [@boss1,mod:alt] Corruption; [nomod] corruption

Direhorn Spirit Pet Swap

/stopcasting [mod:alt]/cast [@focus,mod:alt] Corruption/petattack [@focus,mod:alt][@boss1,nomod]

FelImp-Observer Swap Macro

#showtooltip/cast [pet:fel imp] Summon Observer; [] Summon Fel Imp

Edited June 11, 2013 by Typecast

[Soulzar 42]

Would using sac on horridon be a good choice if your group is fine on adds but having trouble in the last nuke phase? the extra 200% damage taken should go very nicely with sac in this fight. I would say this is even more relevent in HC as you NEED to kill the warlord, meaning after to need to nuke horridon even faster after. Of course, if your raid is stuck on adds take service and get a wonderful dps spike every 2 mins.

IMO if you are fine on adds and wiping on final Horridon burn...stay GoSup, put your pet passive, and let him tunnel the boss. Your pet will do a significant amount of dps to Horridonover the course of the fight, especially once the dmg debuff gets up there on the later doors.

I find that I am pooling Ember for War God, and by the time I am on Horridon full time I am dry on embers and not able to generate a significant number of embers in the final push to make sac worth more.

I went sac while learning the fight to shift more personal dmg to help burn the adds, but once it was farm I swapped to GoSup and let my pet pad the meters for me.

[Soulzar 42]

For those doing Heroic Dark Animus on 10 man, may I suggest using Mortal Coil/Soul Link/Fel Imp (GoSup) for matter swaps. This explanation is a little long winded but hopefully it'll help some of you.

Awesome write up! Not quite on this guy yet but will be sure to implement this once we are. Thanks!

[gahhda 95]

After raid tonight I'm going to post a right up on heroic dark animus that will blow all of your minds, and then some...zerg strat :D

[Zagam 1,982]

HEROIC LEI SHEN DOWN! And I got Heroic Unerring. Not bad. Ra-Den coming right up!