Low DPS, Poor performance

[trance 0]

Just started raiding again after a long (since WotLK) break, did some LFR/Flex raids, farmed my legendary cloak and joined a raiding guild. That said, this was my first raiding (normal) night and I was pretty surprised by the DPS difference/Amount of CBs/Incinerates, SBs, etc. between me and other locks.

 

I would greatly appreciate it if you could take a look at these logs and help me find the issue(s) I'm facing. I do understand that I'm behind in gear level/set, trinkets and weapon, however considering the almost 100k dps gap makes me believe that there's something wrong with my performance.

 

Spoils :

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/egc3pa4h2ng6cuyt/sum/damageDone/?s=9555&e=9973

 

 

 

General Nazgrim :

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/egc3pa4h2ng6cuyt/sum/damageDone/?s=7050&e=7428

 

 

 

Malkorok :

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/egc3pa4h2ng6cuyt/sum/damageDone/?s=8566&e=8807

 

 

 

Armory :

 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/Sylvanas/Tranc%C3%A9/advanced

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2013 by trance

[Oldtrout 7]

I wouldn't beat yourself up too much if it's your first time in a normal mode raid. The guys you are comparing yourself to not only have 10 ilvls on you (with significantly better trinkets) but also a ton more experience. Flex =/= normal and you're never going to get the best out of yourself on a fight until you've done it a lot.

 

Looking at all the logs, I can see a few common errors. Firstly you don't seem to be consistent with when you use dark soul. You should use it immediately on pull. Afterwards, you should save it for when trinkets proc. Lots of the logs show you using it while nothing is up, and then your trinkets proc when dark soul is finished. You also seem to be using your potion at strange times - on Malkorok you look like you missed pre-pot which can happen, but in the others you seem to be using your second potion for no particular reason (on Spoils it could be because of the particular box you opened, though). Immolate uptime on Malkorok is ok, and obviously harder to gauge in multi-add fights like Nazgrim and Spoils, but can probably be higher in all situations. Same with havoc - you used it pretty often, but you can easily get more in.

 

Particularly on Spoils:

That many shadowburns means you are swimming in embers. Either your chaos bolt damage should be higher or your incinerate through FnB. From experience, on that fight there are so many situations where you shouldn't even think about anything other than RoF and chaos bolt. Otherwise, FnB your heart away (you don't seem to have cast it all for the second half of the fight, though I'm not sure how many boxes your tank was opening).

 

If anything, I think you are probably focusing TOO much on shadowburn. This is bad for 2 reasons: 1) padding, and 2) you can be sucked into "waiting" for execute range and doing nothing in the meantime, meaning a dps loss. On Spoils in particular, stuff is going to die before you can shadowburn it and you should really spend more time focusing on AoE in places where adds are clumped together, or on focusing bigger mobs which have more health. If you have lots of embers you should always open your FnB with an immolate.

 

Nazgrim: 

This fight can always be a bit of a skew on dps meters I've found. Bad luck with procs during defensive stance etc. You seemed to do okay here. Maybe somebody else can analyse if there's anything big you need to do here - personally I never really focus too much on Nazgrim logs.

 

Malkorok:

You used AD here? Your chaos bolt numbers are similar to the other locks but you cast a lot less incinerates. Sometimes the inexperience of fel-flame filler, or just the RNG of the fight, can really screw you over if you use AD. I think you'd probably have done a lot more dps here with KJC. Especially if you aren't using DS optimally like I mentioned earlier, AD doesn't become worth it.

 

Overall you don't seem to be doing a lot wrong though. Once you get set-bonuses and better trinkets, as well as more normal experience, you should be producing similar or better results than the other locks in your guild.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Oldtrout

[Kazistrasz 216]

AD is a valid choice, I just don't like it.

 

Your numbers are looking good. Work on your opener a little bit is about the only thing I can say. For where your gear is, maybe you could get a little bit more out, but you're hurting bad with not having PBI/KTT out of normal mode, a normal mode weapon, or your 4pc.

[trance 0]

Thank you for your very thorough and informative response. 

 

- Yes, I used AD and missed pre-pot on Malkorok because he was ninjapulled, felflamed during pools and blood rage when I had to move. 

 

- How should I take advantage of the first yu'lon's buffs full duration  when I can hardly cast more than 2 CBs (including x3 Backdraft) before the buff is gone? Thanks to its 115 sec cooldown and due to the fact that it procs at the very beginning of every fight I find it hard to regenerate enough embers and land another 3rd CB.

 

- pre-pot > DS > Incinerate [yu'lon procs][~Kardis procs] > Immolate > Conflagx2 > CB > 3/4x Incinerate > CB > 3x Incinerate = not enough time for 3rd CB.

 

- Should I be farming LFR version of Purified Bindings?

 

- On spoils : basically, there was not enough adds stacked together.

 

- You're 100% correct on Shadowburn usage, I believe I was focusing too much on landing SBs than casting Incinerates. So, If tank opens a big box with two other smaller ones and I have one ember, Should I do this rotation :

 

pre-pot > tank opens boxes - > DS  > 1x Conflag > [YB's buff] > havoc smaller add > CB > immolate > 1x Conflag followed by another CB on the big add.

 

or

 

pre-pot > tank opens boxes - > DS > immolate the big add > [YB's buff] > 1x Conflag > havoc smaller add > CB ...

 

Is it worth using  2nd potion when :

- I have more than 3.5 embers

- Jade spirit is up

- Lightweave embroidery is up

- Legendary meta gem's buff is up

- Yu'lon's Bites on CD ?

Edited November 29, 2013 by trance

[Oldtrout 7]

- As Kazi says, AD is a valid choice, but you have to use it correctly. Without aiming to criticize your use of it, I do think you'd probably see better numbers were you to try that fight again and use KJC. Everything just feels so much smoother and there's less room for errors in both getting your spells off at the right time and in not dying to things on the floor. Look at all the great locks and you'll see they run KJC for the majority, if not all, fights in SoO.

 

- I admit I've never used the Yu'lon trinket, but 20 seconds is the same as PBI, and I can fit 3-4 chaos bolts in with my first PBI proc on pull, which also overlaps with pre-pot and dark soul - if anything the crit bonus of the proc should see you generating more embers than I do.Overall I'd just say you're better off not worrying about this and get yourself PBI asap. This is also all under the assumption that yu'lon procs at a similar rate to PBI.

 

- You shouldn't be consuming backdrafts for chaos bolt, unless the use of ONE (never two) is necessary to get it in before a proc falls off (most likely your KTT). Ideal opener should be: 

3 seconds to pull > Pre-pot > incinerate > dark soul > conflag x2 > immolate > incinerate to 2 embers* > chaos bolt > incinerate to 1 ember > chaos bolt > etc.

 

Some people will argue for an earlier immolate (and even dark soul before the first incin) but I remember seeing Zagam post on here that he tries to use the first few casts to get haste procs up before he immolates, and personally I think it's the best way of doing it.

 

- Yes. If you don't get the normal / heroic version after your first raid of the week, jump into a flex to try and get it. Then jump into an LFR. It is miles better than yu'lon.

 

- I've reached insane numbers on attempts on which we've eventually wiped because our tanks opened way too many boxes. On fights that aren't much trouble you shouldn't be worried about low dps if it's not your own performance causing it. 

 

- Again, don't consume backdraft with chaos bolts unless absolutely necessary. With practice you'll get better at havoc sniping shadowburns for effective dps, and that's what I recommend you keep trying to do even if it results in a bit of a loss right now rather than the "easy" route of havoc + CB. Mastering havoc is pretty much the biggest difference between the good destro locks and the great ones. I realise this kind of contradicts what I said earlier but I think it's better advice than "don't shadowburn so much" - unless of course you have no havoc and are shadowburning purely for the sake of padding meters.

 

Just remember: havoc lasts a while. It's not the end of the world if you cast havoc on a target and then don't make use of it for 10 seconds. This is why you should pretty much always havoc the boss because he won't die while an unused havoc sits on him.

 

As for working out the best "opening" for spoils, it's not a fight where the opening makes that much of a difference really. Don't worry about it.

 

- 2nd potion, just like dark soul, should be saved for big procs. The reason you bank embers is for trinket procs, not for potion or dark soul, and definitely not for lightweave, jade spirit and LMG. You just need to have that little switch that flicks in the back of your mind when a big trinket proc pops, and you can use both dark soul and your potion. If the fight never aligns the way you want it to, save your potion for burn phase. 

 

The casting of a chaos bolt on 3.5 ember rule is just to avoid capping at 4. It's not something you aim to reach then blow all your chaos bolts and cooldowns. 

Edited November 29, 2013 by Oldtrout

[trance 0]

As you so rightfully pointed out and by considering the fact that the average felflames CRIT damage is approximately equal to incinerates average NORMAL damage, seems like those 18 "wasted" GCDs (for fel flames) could've been used for 18 incinerates with KJC and result in better overall performance compared to poor usage of second DS with AD. 

 

I'm gonna be working on landing Havoc/SB-CBs combos in different kind of ways (such as mouse-over SBing adds to avoid unnecessary target-switching, etc) and hopefully will perform better in near future. 

 

Also, thanks for the advice on second potion and ember management. Duly noted.

[Omaric 246]

It should be noted that you can get more than 18 Fel Flames in the same amount of time it takes for you to get off 18 Incinerates.  That said, I would definitely still stick to Incinerate as much as possible.