T15 Warlock Style - Normal & Heroic

[Zagam 1,982]

- Yes. That's what I've been doing for a while now.

Regarding Burning Rush, I find it useful on Megaera if I have to run from the Frost Beam and want to cast at the same time, on Ji-Kun if I'm running from one nest spawn to another and need to be there faster, on Durumu if I take the ranged maze and want to continue casting and on Lei Shen, if I have to get to my quarter really quick to avoid placing an Overload in some quarter. Taking that damage and having the healers healing it up (or healing it up yourself, depending on the situation) isn't that big of a deal, or at least I haven't found it to be, because I always either have a huge SL shield up on me, or there is nothing else for healers to heal during the time I am using it.

All good and well said. However, I can counter each point. On Megaera, you can outrun the Frost Beam while having two stacks of Kil'Jaeden's Cunning. If you can do it at 70% speed, why hurt yourself by out running it? On Ji-Kun, you should be flying to nests, not running. If you find yourself running across the platform, that can be handled by pre-planning where you need to be in between nest spawns. On Durumu, there's no reason to take the ranged path. The melee path is always available and requires far less movement. On Lei Shen, you set your Gateway from one side to the middle of your quadrant. You set your teleport to one side and hover near the middle. This makes it so you can effectively cover double the ground. On Lei Shen, Unbound Will also removes the stun you get if someone squeezes you and you get stunned. I know the Imp can do it, but sacrificing an Imp is sacrificing a survival CD.

[Zagam 1,982]

And how about guardians? I noticed they do benefit from the pool while standing in them, but is it worth it using it in a pool before 20% boss HP?

When we didn't have enough DPS (read: no legendary meta gems), I could line the guardian up with the fourth pool while the boss was below 20%, but now, we get Jinrok below 20% right after the third pool.

So I was wondering whether to pop the guardian on the first pool or during <20%, I'd try an educated guess and say "during first pool"; or lined up with third pool + <20% when we get there.

If your group is doing what most do and using Bloodlust on the first puddle, I'd use him there. You should be stacking your CDs anyways, and since he scales with your increased Mastery, this is likely where you'll get the biggest bang for your buck.

[Nikthas 6]

All good and well said. However, I can counter each point. On Megaera, you can outrun the Frost Beam while having two stacks of Kil'Jaeden's Cunning. If you can do it at 70% speed, why hurt yourself by out running it? On Ji-Kun, you should be flying to nests, not running. If you find yourself running across the platform, that can be handled by pre-planning where you need to be in between nest spawns. On Durumu, there's no reason to take the ranged path. The melee path is always available and requires far less movement. On Lei Shen, you set your Gateway from one side to the middle of your quadrant. You set your teleport to one side and hover near the middle. This makes it so you can effectively cover double the ground. On Lei Shen, Unbound Will also removes the stun you get if someone squeezes you and you get stunned. I know the Imp can do it, but sacrificing an Imp is sacrificing a survival CD.

- On Megaera - what if I am in a middle of a Chaos Bolt cast, with procs/DS up, that I would have to interrupt / jeopardize due to movement? Better wait another 1.5 seconds, then pop Burning Rush for like 2 seconds to pull myself out of the gutter.

- I actually forgot to mention that I use Burning Rush to counter the Down Draft on Ji-Kun, to actually continue normal casting while it's going on. I also have to help on nest #7 if things go bad, so I sprint there from nest #8 (where I already landed to wait) if required.

- My guild's been having terrible issues with the path on Durumu so we kinda just noob it and take the ranged path. I just can't even be bothered ordering people to take the melee path when it doesn't even show up half the time for us (and they said they supposedly fixed this, it's bs).

- Lei Shen fight also requires the catching of the balls on platforms in at least one transition. My BR has helped quite a lot in catching those, then running back to someone to take the Shock or to run into an Overload while having 30% less MS due to KJC.

The fact you haven't found a use for your Burning Rush is maybe because you haven't played with it that much. I didn't play around with UW, as I never really thought I was missing that dispel. I even had to help dispelling on Horridon heroic progression, using Fel Imp's Singe Magic on G1 when we were still trying to 2-heal it and had terrible damage (so the Wastewalkers stayed alive too long). I am quite used to dispelling myself with the Imp when I'm in trouble and I also had fun in the previous tier, kiting Empress heroic adds (one of the smaller ones) because our tanks took too much damage - so this is where Burning Rush came in handy on several occasions. I suppose you rely on pre-organized teleport positions, pre-calculated pathways, uses of gateways... I, on the other hand, don't have the energy to pay much attention to that and I love that on-demand sprint that just saves my skin when I mess things up a bit. My point being - it's all a matter of personal preference which talent you pick and what kind of strategy you intend to use.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Nikthas

[Omaric 246]

I'm not sure what strat everyone uses for Dark Animus, but we use the strat where everyone tanks a small robot while the tanks bring them in to the middle to be killed one at a time to fuel the massive golems. Once both massives are filled we bring out the Dark Animus. I've found, as Demonology, grabbing the Dark Apotheosis glyph makes this really easy for healers. I just spread some Corruption love to the surrounding little robots for DF, then I use that DF for Fury Ward, weaving in Sacrificial Pact as well. My damage intake is extremely low. Whenever I get an Unerring proc I'll swap to the real demon form and throw out a Doom or 2 at both or one of the massives and then swap back to DA once the demon form CD is done. That way I'm still generating fury for when we actually start fighting the Dark Animus.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Omaric

[Zagam 1,982]

Heroic Megaera and Heroic Primoridius down this week. I'm up to 8/13H. I took a vacation day tomorrow, so I'll be updating the guide to give some insight into what to do.

[Zagam 1,982]

Updated for Heroic Megaera, Ji-Kun, Primordius, and Iron Qon.

[Narga 0]

On magaera, normal at least. Isit beneficial to use havoc with chaos bolt on cd, or should you wait untill you got some sort of proc to buff it?

[Zagam 1,982]

On Megaera, you should NEVER be using Havoc with Chaos Bolt to hit another head. This is padding and provides no effective DPS. What you should be doing is using Havoc to have Incinerate hit an additional target 3 times to generate more Embers to give you more Chaos Bolts or Shadowburns on your kill target. I don't vouch for padding meters in this method until the fight is absolutely on farm mode.

[Narga 0]

Ah, ok. Great, thanks! =D

[Cruzan 71]

Wouldn't it be worth mentioning the Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion (affl specific) and Life Tap for H Tortos?

I've only had a few attempts at Tortos with 1 kill on normal, but I was forced in to affliction solely for the 70% slow. Soulburn + Curse of Exh makes life pretty nice for that fight, unless your DPS isn't high enough to burn the turtles/bats before 15s is up and the curse needs to be reapplied making the 10s cooldown problematic. Makes the bat kite strategy a good option as well I would think, though we didn't get a chance to try it.

Situational based on raid comp I'm sure, but would more than likely be a staple for most groups until it becomes farm status. We didn't need me as affliction for normal since the turtles melted and conflag slows were enough to make life easy.

Life Tap seems like a mandatory glyph for H, even though you say you shouldn't need to use the crystals, you'll probably get yelled at for not having the buff rolling and its not hurting anything if you do smack the crystal at the correct times.

Edited May 6, 2013 by Cruzan

[Zagam 1,982]

Glyph of Life Tap is anything BUT mandatory. Mandatory means something is required, and I have never used it nor come close to dying at all on this fight. Warlocks' design doesn't allow them to die on this fight unless you aren't paying attention. You will constantly have an absorption effect that won't wear off unless you stand in the circles on the ground or position yourself so that you don't get hit by the Whirl Turtles.

That said, if you're having issues surviving, then swapping in the Life Tap glyph may be beneficial to you. As Demonology, I use periods of time in Metamorphosis to regenerate mana and don't have to Life Tap more than 2 or 3 times. Sure, your health bar will be around 40-50%, but this actually benefits you if you have a Resto Shaman in your group as the healing absorption effect on you will be even higher with his buffed healing on you. Being at 40-50% HP doesn't really matter to you since you'll always have AT LEAST a 500k absorption shield. If you get hit by something, you have Unending Resolve and Sacrificial Pact to help you even further. Soul Leech and the Siphon Life glyph make it so that dying as a Warlock on this fight is inexcusable.

As for being forced to play Affliction, that's a decision on your raid leader and group composition. We use our Resto Shaman's totem to slow the turtles until our Fire Mage gets some slows on them. They're not out long anyways with our Boomkin and Fire Mage nuking them down. Our group uses raid awareness and spreads out moderately so that when the Whirl Turtles focus one person, only one person has to move, not a whole group of people. If your group has a Shaman, Hunter, or Mage of any type, then you should be free to play the spec you want. If you're comfortable with Affliction, then just roll DoTs everywhere and do your job of keeping Whirl Turtles slowed.

As for being yelled at for not using the buff...if you're not taking damage and still being yelled at, well...that's your deal to deal with. Raid leaders should be happy to have players who find ways to manipulate their class into surviving just about everything. The problem with using the Crystal each time is you become every other class which degrades your value on this fight. Hit the crystal one time when you're at 100% HP and you won't take a point of damage the rest of the fight. Disregard your HP pool, it does not matter unless you like taking unnecessary damage.

[Vestion 8]

For Tortos I use MF for demo because of hellfire. Its really good for dpsing turtles and bats, and then just pick off a turtle with soulfire.

For Megaera, im thinking AV would be good as you dont need to move at all apart from when there are no heads to dps. Also using it on rampage could get some more damage off for nothing.

[Zagam 1,982]

Updated for Heroic Durumu.

[Omaric 246]

For Tortos I use MF for demo because of hellfire. Its really good for dpsing turtles and bats, and then just pick off a turtle with soulfire.

For Megaera, im thinking AV would be good as you dont need to move at all apart from when there are no heads to dps. Also using it on rampage could get some more damage off for nothing.

You don't need to move when you're targetted by the fire debuff or being chased by an ice laser? o_O

[jtta073 1]

Progressing on HC Council and switched to Demo after getting TF UVoL last week :) (replacing LFR Wush, and still using LFR Breath T_T) and was wondering how ppl keep track of empowered/normal Doom on 4 targets?

Do you just remember? Affdots?

[Omaric 246]

Affdots puts a "c" next to your Doom power level when it's affected by UVoLS.

As for 4 targets, go go memory!

[Skyrge 9]

Is GoSac still the way to go on Ji-Kun or have they fixed the pets despawning yet? We're starting the bird on heroic this week and I'm finally gonna get to fly. I have been staying on the platform and using GoSup as Destro. It seems like Destro would be my spec of choice over Demo for this fight but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm also wondering how Jin'rok's pools work with DoTs now that he matters. Until now on Jin I've just been sitting on my keyboard and shifting my weight around while watching Game of Thrones. :/

Finally, I have an interesting problem with gemming. I have Parkinson's Disease and it causes me to miss a few globals and fumble-finger here and there. Actually missing globals isn't quite accurate, but I can't spam very fast at all, so I feel like I'm losing fractions of seconds between some casts costing me a few Incinerates over the course of a fight. This makes me wonder about losing Int in order to gem full haste.I have simmed my toon both ways and I don't see much difference on my trinket uptime under full haste while my direct damage spells are slightly greater in number but hit noticably softer. This makes me wonder if I should just focus on making the most out of the ones that I do get off. I know it's an impossible question to answer but any theorys from this great community are welcome. I also know it's a tiny difference but our first heroic kills are going to be close and that 2% wipe will make me feel like shit. Here's my armory but unfortunately our 10man doesn't have anyone logging (maybe I should start )

http://us.battle.net...ljaeden/Skýrge/

<sigh>Sha-Skin Mantle...so sad

Edited May 11, 2013 by Skyrge

[Zagam 1,982]

Is GoSac still the way to go on Ji-Kun or have they fixed the pets despawning yet? We're starting the bird on heroic this week and I'm finally gonna get to fly. I have been staying on the platform and using GoSup as Destro. It seems like Destro would be my spec of choice over Demo for this fight but please correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm also wondering how Jin'rok's pools work with DoTs now that he matters. Until now on Jin I've just been sitting on my keyboard and shifting my weight around while watching Game of Thrones. :/

Finally, I have an interesting problem with gemming. I have Parkinson's Disease and it causes me to miss a few globals and fumble-finger here and there. Actually missing globals isn't quite accurate, but I can't spam very fast at all, so I feel like I'm losing fractions of seconds between some casts costing me a few Incinerates over the course of a fight. This makes me wonder about losing Int in order to gem full haste.I have simmed my toon both ways and I don't see much difference on my trinket uptime under full haste while my direct damage spells are slightly greater in number but hit noticably softer. This makes me wonder if I should just focus on making the most out of the ones that I do get off. I know it's an impossible question to answer but any theorys from this great community are welcome. I also know it's a tiny difference but our first heroic kills are going to be close and that 2% wipe will make me feel like shit. Here's my armory but unfortunately our 10man doesn't have anyone logging (maybe I should start )

http://us.battle.net...ljaeden/Skýrge/

<sigh>Sha-Skin Mantle...so sad

First off, sorry to hear about your condition. Not sure how to theorycraft around that type of affect on raiding, but I don't think reforging full Haste is a good idea. If it's likely you can't spam, then going full Haste will only make your problem worse. If you're having issues pressing button's quickly, then slow up your play and put more into Mastery so that they hit harder. It should even out your time delays.

Yes, Ji'kun still despawns pets. So does Durumu. Both of them force me to use Grim of Sacrifice because I will NOT resummon a pet in the middle of combat.

DoTs snapshot with buffs and such, so applying things in pools helps. It sounds like your group is like mine though where Heroic Jin dies by the 2nd puddle and changing things for it isn't worth the time or effort.

[Vestion 8]

You don't need to move when you're targetted by the fire debuff or being chased by an ice laser? o_O

Use meta if you have to move, if your in another spec then...meh, all the other classes put up with it xD

[Skyrge 9]

Thanks as always Zagam. Makes sense that as the pools give you a buff, the snapshotting mechanic on DoT's applies. I hadn't noticed a difference on Affdots upon stepping into the pool before, any idea if it accounts for the buff from the pools?

Unfortunately we didn't put the time in to get our first H-Jin'rokh kill this week as we still need to push a full clear in 2 nights. We gave it an hour and weren't progressing through storms (seemed like it was as much healing through the AoE as it was the occasional Darwinian lightning ball attrition). I've been doing the fight as Destro w/GoSac, and we've been killing him on normal ridiculously fast. Seems like I remember DS lining up well with pools though, possibly making Demo w/GoSac a good choice as we shift to killing him on heroic, or are the Wild Imps not being buffed by pools too much of a loss?

[jtta073 1]

Finally, I have an interesting problem with gemming. I have Parkinson's Disease and it causes me to miss a few globals and fumble-finger here and there. Actually missing globals isn't quite accurate, but I can't spam very fast at all, so I feel like I'm losing fractions of seconds between some casts costing me a few Incinerates over the course of a fight.

You could use something like AutoHotkey so you can just hold the key down. However, it can be used to bot, so if you tried to ask a GM or a blue about its legality you won't get a straight answer.

[Zagam 1,982]

Thanks as always Zagam. Makes sense that as the pools give you a buff, the snapshotting mechanic on DoT's applies. I hadn't noticed a difference on Affdots upon stepping into the pool before, any idea if it accounts for the buff from the pools?

Unfortunately we didn't put the time in to get our first H-Jin'rokh kill this week as we still need to push a full clear in 2 nights. We gave it an hour and weren't progressing through storms (seemed like it was as much healing through the AoE as it was the occasional Darwinian lightning ball attrition). I've been doing the fight as Destro w/GoSac, and we've been killing him on normal ridiculously fast. Seems like I remember DS lining up well with pools though, possibly making Demo w/GoSac a good choice as we shift to killing him on heroic, or are the Wild Imps not being buffed by pools too much of a loss?

Any of the Imps that spawn while you're standing somehwere in the pool will receive the buff. It's just difficult to time them being there unless you're using Imp Swarm. Either or, whatever spec you're comfortable with, as long as you don't die on that fight, it's pretty easy. By dying, I mean fail at Ionization, Focused Lightning, or fail to dance during Thunderstorm.

[jtta073 1]

Anyone tried Soul Link with pet on constant AOE fights?

Here's a log where I tried it on Iron Qon HC:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/onhazybcaleiqjek/sum/damageTaken/?s=5909&e=6513

It felt better than using SacPac from previous kills but probably didn't use it as much as I could have.

[Zagam 1,982]

Looks like a good option. Probably comes down to preference since Warlocks are invincible anyways.

[Omaric 246]

My guild has recently adopted a strat on Primordius where we all stand in a circle in the middle and don't kill any oozes. Most boring fight in existence and we all do crap damage. /seppuku