Really Need Straight Answer

[Mordralis 0]

I've been playing WoW for quite a while, since just before BC came out in fact - so I'm not a noob and understand a lot about the game. I've read posts until my eyes gave up, and my brainpan more confussed than when I started. I really need some straight advice! Please, yelling, bitchin, name calling, attitude dealing responses...I get enough of that already if I want it! If you can't refrain from it then I'd rather just not hear your 'advice'. Just someone that will be civil and understanding and help me.

Now, that said, here's the problem.

I have a lvl 90 gnome lock, aff spec. He's geared faily good at ilvl 485 (as of this post). My talents are as follow:

• 3-1-3-1-2-1

For (Major) Glyphs I use:

• Conflagerate
• Healthstone
• Fear

Stats:

• Int - 12,345
• Mastery - 67.91%
• Spell Power - 18,148
• Haste - 12.12%
• Hit - 12.06%
• Crit - 11.22%
• Health - 424,493
• Mana - 315k

The problem is that my DPS really sux! I'm currently lucky to do 35k in LFRs, and constantly yelled at to up my DPS. As I said, I've read a vast majority of the posts here, as well as other sites. I have my toon set-up as per suggested by askmrrobot.com. I've changed my specs numerous times to try different combinations. Yet, I can't seem to hit that magic number like other locks in aff.

I know that DPS is gonna vary from instance to instance, and no 2 bosses will use the same rotations or give a consistant DPS, as there are far to many varitables. And I know there is no cookiecutter copy & paste to give you 100k+ DPS. But if someone could help me with whatever it is that I am missing to get my deeps up, I would GREATLY love it! Not because of everyone else yelling at me; not because of competition to outperform other locks...but to be able to do what I feel comfortable with in giving a fair share of damage in fights.

So, anyone up for the challenge to give me solid advice and help?

Thanks

[Auyssaelre 5]

#1 thing: Don't EVER count your dps in lfr. I just learned that out from figuring my dps rotation. There is too many people who are way too overgeared and just don't know what their doing. Since than i tested my dps on a dummy. It's way better :)

[Vladamyr 169]

#1 thing: Don't EVER count your dps in lfr. I just learned that out from figuring my dps rotation. There is too many people who are way too overgeared and just don't know what their doing. Since than i tested my dps on a dummy. It's way better

Actually, it may be one of the best places to count your dps. Just don't compare yourself to everyone else in there. Use it as a guide for measuring yourself with respect to your own gear level. Now if you need to work on rotation, then go hit a training dummy.

For OP: start here http://www.icy-veins...downs-abilities

Rotation and uptime affect dps more than anything you can do. Once you are exceptionally comfortable with the rotation then move on to any posts Zagam has to offer. He has posted in depth threads for each of the warlock specs. For Affliction see: http://www.icy-veins...on-tips-quirks/.

Post some raid or even LFR logs if you want a breakdown of how to improve. Zagam has a post on how to do that as well: http://www.icy-veins...ehensive-guide/

I'm sure many of the Locks in the community would be more than happy to way in on your parse and give some helpful suggestions.

[Reichstein 1]

I noticed your glyphs right off the bat. I would ditch the Fear and Conflagerate and go with Soul Swap and Unstable Affliction, definitely Soul Swap. It comes in handy. IDK if Grimoire of Sacrifice is still the go to in this tier, I have always used Superiority, but everything I have read has Griomoire of Service the weakest talent among these three. I Would dump some Crit into your Hit and get it closer to 15%. I gem and enchant according to the recommendations I found here and I got my rotation from here too. Always pop your CoE at the start of a fight apply your DOTS with the handy dandy Macro that can be found here, Pop DS: Misery every chance you get, use your Inferno/Abyssal/Terrorguard when you can get the max ticks out of the them. Keep your DOTS up at all times and Haunt as much as possible. I use AffDots and OmniCC addons to help manage my DOTS.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Reichstein

[Cruzan 71]

Everything you need to know is going to come from what Vlad has linked. There is so much info here for locks and with how good affliction was in 5.1 there is a ton of discussion about it in various threads here, all of which still applies for the most part.

I would highly recommend rethinking your talent/glyph choices. There is a general talent build for affliction that works well for almost all fights and that is 2-2-2-3-1-2. Go Here to learn more detail about their uses and their situational alternatives. As far as glyphs go you listed Conflagrate which I'm sure is just a leftover from swapping from destruction since you don't have that spell as Affliction. Siphon Life is a good choice. Soul Swap is very situational and not recommended. For single target it would be a big hinderance.

Glyphs and Talents are likely not what is causing you to be underperforming and without specifics of your playstyle we can't do to much to help you.

Can you post us a link to your armory? I found a lock named Mordralis on Fenrir. Is that you?

Logs of your fights are an extremely useful tool for breaking down what you are doing and help us understand what aspects of your playstyle need to be tweaked.

Zagam's thread has a ton of useful information that is a great supplement to Icy Veins' Affliction guide. Check it out! Make sure to read up on section 11 with regard to empowered DoTs as that will be an area which will greatly help you out, but definitely read it all if you are interested in improving your output!

[Gravyspasm 70]

personally, i've found when i'm looking for straight answers it helps people when you at the very least provide a link to your toon.

based on your forum name here, there is one character over level 10 i can see the armory of.

then looking at the guild roster, there's a handful of players that share the exact same amount of achievement points.

here's a gnome lock http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/fenris/Myrddinemrys/advanced

grats on the new bracers.

also, you made 3 locks?

[obleak 10]

As mentioned before conflac does nothing for you in affliction spec so please look into Glyph of Soul Swap and Glyph of Unstable affliction.. these will be a dps boost right there.

With the way everything is grim of suprm will be easier for you as it is one less cooldown to manage.. you really should reforge your mastery into haste especially if you have any trinket that directly deals with RPM proc rates..

Some affliction locks don't care too much but 15% hit is a must for me in all specs.. missing a haunt and being out of shards during a big snap shotted dot set its serious so i would first get 15% hit then reforge all to haste > mastery

Hope this helps some

For future please link logs, relevant links, character link to help us really pick out how to help you :)

- this helps us help you!!

Edited April 21, 2013 by obleak

[Mordralis 0]

Thanks to everyone for your great advice and help. It is much easier to drill down to a specific resolution and see a pattern this way, than to pour over hundreds of posts/threads, deciphering variations and differences. Even though some of you had varying opinions, they still fell into a pattern overall that is starting to make sense.

I apologize for not linking my toon - I had intended to, but by the time I got to the end forgot. One of the 'perks' of old age, I guess! So here is the link to my toon:

http://us.battle.net...dinemrys/simple

Yes, I do have 3 locks! Trial & error process of finding the race that I liked best. IMHO, and just MY opinion, worgen locks bite the big one! But are good fighters. Human are ok, but lack the 'umph' and extra mana. While gnomes are foot-fodder, they seem to pack more of a wallop as locks & mages! Plus, locks as so much more enjoyable to level than most any other class.

Totally missed the confag glyph, and you're right - carry over from another spec. Thanks on that catch! As for the recommendation of ditching the fear...question on that. I love the capability to fear an opponent will I take out another. A good example is the mines in the beast pens. Fear the slaves while you take out the slaver, then the slave will assist in taking out other slavers. Plus, using the fear in place ensures they will not run away, aggroing their buddies to come back and help them. So, that being said...would you still advise against using it?

Thanks, again, to everyone for your help. I will continue to read comments posted, if anyone else has suggestions, now that you have my link.

One thing I want to clarify though...several of you stated comments about haste & hit at 15%. While I am inclined to agree on increased H/H, in following the guides of both Mr Robot & Icy Veins, only 7.5% is recommended and the cap. unless I misunderstood that. I understand that Mr Robot is only a 'basic guide', but I've used it to model my lock where it is identical (with 2 'minor' exceptions). So before I go in and modify/reforge stats from mast->hit/haste, con someone please clarify on this? Just what is the cap for hit/haste?

Thanks, again, guys for the great help.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Mordralis

[Vladamyr 169]

One thing I want to clarify though...several of you stated comments about haste & hit at 15%. While I am inclined to agree on increased H/H, in following the guides of both Mr Robot & Icy Veins, only 7.5% is recommended and the cap. unless I misunderstood that. I understand that Mr Robot is only a 'basic guide', but I've used it to model my lock where it is identical (with 2 'minor' exceptions). So before I go in and modify/reforge stats from mast->hit/haste, con someone please clarify on this? Just what is the cap for hit/haste?

Not sure where you are reading that at? Both sites recommend hit capping at 15%. For that matter, all dps spell casters hit cap at 15%.

[Cruzan 71]

Hey,

So I guess we might be talking about different things here. Most of the glyph/talent suggestions you will be getting are for raiding situations. In general, fears are not recommended for raiding. There are certain fights where a fear might be useful for CC (Lei Shi in ToES comes to mind) but as a general rule of thumb you won't be using your fears. In most raiding situations where you will want to CC an add, Shadowfury, your tier 2 talent will be the #1 go-to choice. instant, AoE CC.

Now if you want Aff-specific tips/builds for questing and dailies then there really isn't a wrong way to go since you are on your own time. Just make sure you are using your voidlord (or voidwalker if you dont take supremacy) and you can take on the world. That guy will tank just about anything and not die. If you are worried about adds and what not, just order him to go in first and get aggro then unload on your target with your spells. Use Sacrificial Pact liberally when an add does focus you and you won't find yourself ever losing health when combined with Soul Leech. Replace Glyph of Fear with Glyph of Soul Consumption and you'll likely be very pleased . Glyph of Unstable Aff is more PvP oriented as with any reasonable amount of Haste you won't me noticing much of a gain in reducing the cast time of UA.

Thanks for the link to your armory! Some suggestions:

Swap out your Meta gem on your helm for a Burning Primal Diamond if you can afford it. I would also recommend enchanting Windsong on to your staff (or Jade Spirit if you're rich). Try to put a red or orange gem in to your shoulders that will allow you to get the +60 intellect socket bonus (Artful Vermilion is a good choice).

For gearing up priority try to replace your trinkets asap and focus on getting your Tier 14 gear. Use your elder charms on bosses that drop Tier tokens or a trinket (Trinkets off of Elegon and Sha of Fear are good starting points). Make your next valor purchase the Volatile Talsiman from the Shado-Pan Assault. If you can get your hands on a dagger from LFR that would be awesome as it will compliment your gnome racial (Gnomes ftw!).

Still need some specifics on your gameplay, preferably in a raiding scenario. What is your single-target opening sequence? Do you have any DoT tracking addons such as Affdots? When are you using Haunt? What are you doing when the boss is under 20% HP?

Adjusting your gameplay will be the largest source of DPS improvement over gear and reforging.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Cruzan

[Zagam 1,982]

Adjusting your gameplay will be the largest source of DPS improvement over gear and reforging.

Can I quote you on this? PLEASE? I feel like everyone looks at me like I'm crazy for saying this!

[Cruzan 71]

You can quote me on it, but you'd really just be quoting yourself

[Ilion 8]

Sup,

Best advice would be: practice your rotation on a dummy, if you spend 30 minutes doing a perfect rotation there, chances are you'll get the hang of it.

That will affect your dps more than any legendary meta, gear or reforge.

Anyway, do you have any WoL you could share with us? That would help quite a lot.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Ilion

[obleak 10]

Your trinkets are really holding you back though. Yes adjusting gameplay is a big part, but some gear would really help you!

Edited April 23, 2013 by obleak