T16 Warlock Style - Heroic & Mythic

[Nyanchan 2]

We hade more than enough DPS for adds in both P1 and P2 on Immerseus. I was topping single target damage on the boss and thanks to SB:CoEx i could always slow a cluster of adds in P2 which helped buying extra time for strong cleavers to move there.

I agree on Affliction for Protectors as it is much more reliable damage.

For both these fights Twilight Ward is a godsend. Almost all damage from Immerseus is shadow so pop it on cooldown the entire fight, and on Protectors you can have it up for every Calamity which, together with your Leech shield pretty much negates it completely. This way you can save UR for Garrote.

are you doing it 25 man? because our dps on adds was rather lacking until i went demo

[Zagam 1,982]

We hade more than enough DPS for adds in both P1 and P2 on Immerseus. I was topping single target damage on the boss and thanks to SB:CoEx i could always slow a cluster of adds in P2 which helped buying extra time for strong cleavers to move there.

I agree on Affliction for Protectors as it is much more reliable damage.

For both these fights Twilight Ward is a godsend. Almost all damage from Immerseus is shadow so pop it on cooldown the entire fight, and on Protectors you can have it up for every Calamity which, together with your Leech shield pretty much negates it completely. This way you can save UR for Garrote.

Your UR should be saved for He's Desperate Measures when you get focused.  If you don't have a CD here, you'll die or you'll throw it to someone else without warning and put them in a bind.

 

Also, while Affliction does great damage, Demo is also great here.  Demo has the advantage DEFENSIVELY because Metamorphosis provides passive protection against physical attacks.  You constantly take less from Garrote because of Meta's increased armor.  RNG is RNG for UVLS, but sometimes damage isn't the only thing to take into consideration.  Being at the bottom of the damage taken log is nice, too.

[Vile 9]

I guess I should clarify, yes I play 25 man so we have dedicated DPS on P1 adds (1 destro lock and 2 DKs) which is why they aren't a problem. If adds are an issue I imagine both demo and destro being really good.

Regarding desperate measures we have a rogue blow a cooldown and we just ship it over to him right away, so no UR needed there. I can't remember taking any physical damage on that fight to make armor beneficial, am I forgetting something?

edit: aaaaand I need to work on reading comprehension, guess my brain skipped the Garrote part in your post. I do agree that if Garrote is putting too much of a strain on your healers the armor would be of great help. The difference in damage is quite large (at least between our affli and demo locks) and since the enrage timer isn't very forgiving it's a trade off one has to figure out in their respective team.

Edited September 19, 2013 by sallyboo

[Zagam 1,982]

It's not necessarily the 'strain on healers' because that's subjective to the skill of your healers.  There is absolutely no denying that Garrote will be the highest source of damage for your raid.  Lessening the highest source of damage = winning.  I didn't NEED to be Demonology, but I was expecting more than 4-5 attempts on it to have to adjust DPS.  We had just enough multi-dotting to take down the enrage timer, but it pretty much was just me and the Arcane Mage dotting things up.  The Rogue, Hunter, and Ele Shaman toolkit doesn't accomodate that well.  If you have more multi-dotters, enrage shouldn't be an issue.

[Twona 1]

We couldn't get passed enrage on protectors last night with hunter, ret, rogue, mage, aff lock. I was pumping out 300-400k dps with UVLS as affliction but even that wasn't enough. Going to have to make some kind of drastic change to be able to kill them. We were about 20% off. It's rough. Maybe next week's gear will help.

I highly recommend aff for it if you don't have healing issues. We run 2 pallies so we didn't have much trouble with garrote because of BoPs

[Zagam 1,982]

You did 300-400k and were off by 20%?  Surely you don't have DPS under 200k...if you do, tell them to step their game up.  If theyre 540+, being under 200k is unacceptable for heroic progression.

[Twona 1]

Yeah, this is our log from our berserk attempt. Ret died about a minute before berserk, but I don't think it would have made much of a difference.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-55ex5gsuthz39km2/sum/damageDone/?s=7978&e=8592

We have a moonkin in reserve who does pretty decent dps as well, just sucks at mechanics. I'll grab her next week and we should land a kill.

Did you get Norushen down last night Zagam? Anyone know which is easier between Galakras and Iron Juggernaut? Juggernaut seems so easy and might push that after Protectors because I foresee enrage problems on Norushen as well.

[Zagam 1,982]

Norushen is rough on the timer.  It's intense...we got it to 8% 5 times....always hit the same wall.  We basically ran out of time for more tweaks.  I'm more than sure the gear we pick up this week will make up that small gap we were dealing with.  It wasn't a gear issue...we were just doing something wrong.  Rogue picked up his CD trinket, our UH DK picked up his, I now have my 4pc, Blood DK got a weapon, and we still have 6 bosses to kill. 

 

According to Locky, Galakras requires intensive god-like healers.  I know he got Iron Jugg down last night as well....I think he said it took him 3 hours. 

[Rakupenda 15]

Sha was pretty scripted. If everyone soaks the rifts, you get the pacman people out in a reasonable time, release prisons and (depending on your strat) stack titans when needed...it dies. The usual "do your job, don't die, and the boss will go down". If you get titans, use imp's AoE dispell. Twilight Ward (seems to get forgotten) to assist in for soaking rifts/the bosses AoE - it is shadow damage. Gateways if you're stacking Titans and/or for general movement around the room to aid in prisons/rifts.

 

Anyone else get held up with the Galakras double-gate boss? Blew over two hours before the GM's came fixed it for us :\ Took only two pulls once we could actually access the towers and do the fight. I was on adds. If you're allowed to pad everything (and have two piece ) you'll top meters as Aff/Demo dotting up everything. Shadowflame the large group of adds topped the Demo lock's damage done.

 

According to Locky, Galakras requires intensive god-like healers.  I know he got Iron Jugg down last night as well....I think he said it took him 3 hours. 

Iron Jug was a joke, two attempts? Same as normal, just more damage (seems like a lot of the bosses are characterized that way) Just don't stand in fire. Ignored ricochet.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Rakupenda

[Zagam 1,982]

Good to hear.  Seems IJ may be the 3rd easiest heroic.  Norushen feels like a heavy DPS check, much like Council and Durumu were the first two weeks.  I keep hearing Sha isn't difficult, so it may be 3rd/4th.  Watching top guilds progress, 10 man wall looks like Spoils while Thok held most of the 25 man guilds back a bit.

[Rakupenda 15]

They downed the first three pre-scheduled raid time, so I didn't get to see them. Work, y'know.

But so far the fights don't feel like true "heroics". Mostly "Same as normal, except this thing will one-shot you now. So don't get hit by it like you should've been doing already, and press your buttons a little harder."

Edited September 19, 2013 by Rakupenda

[Lockybalboa 618]

Heroic Iron Jug: The guy is a cakewalk if you have gear. Sadly, my guild is rocking something like the 80th best geared ten man and doing top 5 progression. The damage from Iron Jug was a pain in the ass to deal with, lot of CDs, lot of careful planing, lot of personals. The mechanics of the fight are a cakewalk, pure numbers game. Fun fact, we killed this 8 seconds past enrage timer and with everyone other than our rogue dead. Rouge pop'd CDs and solo'd the last 200k HP (with Spriest and warlock dots helping)

 

I can't talk about Dark Sham much since there is about 17 of us world wide that are stuck on him. Simple put the guy is a massive prick that was poorly designed and ignored during testing. There are 3 major bugs/glitches in the fight that I personally reported on PTR that weren't fixed, the numbers of his damage is fairly painful but can be dealt with, the mechanics would be okay to handle IF the boss didn't have the most moronically designed room.

 

TL;DR Heroic Dark Sham, skip it. Wait for some baller gear and some kill videos.

[Vreivai 0]

- jailer replenishes Soul Shards...use this to your advantage

 

Jailer actually does not replenish soul shards.

[Zagam 1,982]

noted, thanks.  I'm playing Demo on that fight, so I just assumed.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Ya, Dark sham is a dick. Ended up spending the fight as destro focusing on the adds and adds only. Not much to it, KJC, spam fire. The end. You NEED KJC with all the movment you have to do and dodging all the crap that wants to kill you.

 

Heroic Gen. Naz: super easy, it's normal with a slight tank twist. Tanks have to be on their game and that's it. Ran Aff and just DoTed all the things, made macros to quick target the Arcweaver and drop Curse of Enfeeblment and another for the Assassin to do Curse of Exhaustion. You can get full shards from ALL of the adds AND from the banner.

 

Heroic Malk next, god help us.

[Nyanchan 2]

For heroic protectors, killed it last night, and i couldnt help to notice how beautifully MF lines up with each desperate measures, its a huge dps increase in my opinion specially if used while rook's or sun's.

[Zagam 1,982]

That's based more on your group's DPS than the actual flow of the fight.  For Sun's, this would be huge.  I think I used KJC for our first kill just so I didn't have to worry about needing to move.  Knowing the fight next week, I'll for sure be toting MF.

[Rakupenda 15]

Ya, Dark sham is a dick. Ended up spending the fight as destro focusing on the adds and adds only. Not much to it, KJC, spam fire. The end. You NEED KJC with all the movment you have to do and dodging all the crap that wants to kill you.

 

Heroic Gen. Naz: super easy, it's normal with a slight tank twist. Tanks have to be on their game and that's it. Ran Aff and just DoTed all the things, made macros to quick target the Arcweaver and drop Curse of Enfeeblment and another for the Assassin to do Curse of Exhaustion. You can get full shards from ALL of the adds AND from the banner.

I was Affliction and Demo for Shamans. The uneven ground tends to hide a lot of the AoE, pay attention. Started as Affliction and swapped mid pulls to demo when I noticed another lock doing much more single target to the boss(even though there's a bit of padding on the adds, but the fury generated on them turns into more meta on the boss). If you have four piece, GO DEMO. Only HoG the adds and focused boss. Stay in meta as they die to generate more fury. They spawn every 30 seconds? So you should have both charges up and ready for 'em. Recommend GoService so you can doom all four targets at the start - really helps with fury. For Demo also recommend Dark Soul talent. Affliction you just ignore the adds and burn the boss (use 'em to replenish soul shards), KJC is a must. Observer for pet. Gateways really help the raid getting around the storms/falling ash, put your demonic circle near the starting position so you can get through all the storms when you loop back around. Dark Bargain+TW to help healers with tomb damage; don't activate it until one or two seconds before it ticks so you don't suck in mist, ash, or other unpleasent damage in addition to the two million or so from tomb. Mortal Coil for extra healing. Soul Leech - preventing = better than restoring. Burning Rush (though use sparingly, if you use it to get out of/through falling ash, you may not be topped off when it hits). 

 

Naz: Was Affliction: Think you get shards from totems, too. Not much point dotting up the banner - it dies within two or three globals, maybe SBSS and drain soul at most. Set circle out of raid 'case you get stuck dead center of the ground effect. Gateways to help get out of the raid with sniper and/or face it the right direction. Shadowfury! Stun those adds. May also want observer for interrupts if needed; I used imp for target swaps. I was lagging pretty bad...hard to dot effectively while playing two seconds behind real-time, lol. 

 

Malk on Sunday! Circles...circles...circles... Think we're starting a few hours early to make up for the time lost staring at the double gate on Galakras...heheh

[mediocregatsby 18]

are you guys having any trouble seeing twilight ward usage on WOL? i know i use it VERY frequently on certain 5.4 fights but doing a full search of our WOL parses gives me very buggy data. i've been looking for it in both the "buffs gained/cast" sections for specific warlocks as well as just typing in the manual query in the log browser.

[Zagam 1,982]

Healing tab.  It's tracked under healing/absorbs.  It tracks uptime there.

[mediocregatsby 18]

yeah it's bugged out there as well. i know i spam the shit out of twilight ward every time it's up during garrosh and somehow WOL tracked only 1 occurrence the whole night, and it wasn't on a garrosh attempt.

[Rakupenda 15]

yeah it's bugged out there as well. i know i spam the shit out of twilight ward every time it's up during garrosh and somehow WOL tracked only 1 occurrence the whole night, and it wasn't on a garrosh attempt.

It was practically on cooldown for Sha, lol. I'm glad this tier has a lot of shadow damage.

[Vile 9]

I'm returning to Norushen HC this sunday after a few sub 5% wipes last raid. Someone heard that imps aren't affected by the Corruption which pretty much makes demonology mandatory for the fight. Does this hold any truth? I've been scouring WOL and have seen parses of warlocks doing as much if not more damage as affliction which is why I'm puzzled. I don't think they've been cleansed because the damage is too low for that.

 

So can I roll with affliction or should I stick to demonology?

[Lockybalboa 618]

You can roll aff just fine, I did 255k DPS as aff. The trick to aff is to keep your phat dots on the boss and then use him to SS off of on to the adds, that way you're throwing dots around at full stack rather than waiting for stacks to build. Make sure to get off a DS on anything that moves for the shards, haunt spam is fun and does loads of damage.

[Muoric 3]

Locky, did you do it the zerg tactic or actual mechanics. Based on your post I'd assume the actual mechanics since There's a total of 5 adds with the zerg tactic and doing 255k dps would be insane with the debuff.

 

For actual mechanics affli is totally viable and possibly better (ofc debatable), but for the zerg I'd def go demo. Interesting to see how the fight changes for next week though.

 

edit: after checking your logs, you weren't in on the kill at all? There's quite a difference in corruption gained per add on normal and heroic. Would just reiterate that affliction should be fine for actual tactics, but for zerging demo should do better.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Muoric