Advice on Havoc cleaving

[Zilthy 36]

So what should I reforge to for bigger Havoc cleaves, crit or haste?

 

Okay, with that out of the way...

 

I set up my UI to facilitate trying to cleave with Havoc and snipe as many Shadowburns as I could.

 

ELVUI takes care of a lot of that, with name plates, and a couple of macros like:

 

Havoc:

/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [@focus,harm,nodead] Havoc

 

Shadowburn:

/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [] Shadowburn

 

And, for the mouseovers, the _Cursor addon, making it easier to find my cursor if it gets lost.  (I love that addon).

 

First: Technical question, do most of you mouseover shadoburn, or hard target?

 

Second: How do you choose which to havoc adds on to boss?  For me, I seem to be finding that trying to Havoc a Shadowburn on to the boss from something like a Desecrated Weapon, Large Sha add, etc. is a lost cause, too much chance of getting the shadowburn sniped and better off going with a Havoc'd Chaos Bolt.  Currently mostly shadowburning/havoc large groups of small adds (H Immerseus, Sha of Fear, Phase 1 Garrosh, etc...) *much* better chance of getting 2 - 3 shadowburns there.

 

Third: This perplexes me the most so far, is how to deal with three.  Four, easy.... FnB + RoF keeps me going, but 3....  like with Galakras, where with 5 adds, you get two ranged, and they end up in split groups (In *my* perfect world, the melee would get pulled on top of the ranged, but, I apparently do not live in my perfect world) so... 

 

RoF is a given, they're stacked.  If I'm low on embers (<2 embers) I'll havoc immo/conflag/incinerate.  Full on embers, havoc / chaos bolt.  Not sure if this is a good approach or not....

 

Similar concept applies to a few of the boss fights:  Protectors, Shaman, Klaxxi (Although, anything not on kill target with Klaxxi is wasted dps, I use for resource generation only).  In these cases, do you focus on opener, or work on resource generation, to get to the higher sustainable dps more quickly?

 

Fourth (and finally):  I *think* this is what I need to figure out to go to the next level in DPS.  The 'Fix your DPS' FAQ is great.  I keep my immo up at > 90% (*most* of the time)  I don't hit 4 embers, I use them.  And for the most part, dump them on KTT/BBoY or PBI procs (usually my CB's average > 1.2 million) and I normally don't let conflagrate hit 2 charges, use and unload incinerate.

 

Granted, there are a lot of things that can line up, or not, that influence, but this is one area, where I feel that I am missing something, and looking for some advice/opinions.

 

Thank you!!

[Lockybalboa 618]

So what should I reforge to for bigger Havoc cleaves, crit or haste?

 

Mastery>crit>haste.

 

Mastery makes everything hit harder, crit makes things crit more or in the case of CB make it do a little more damage, haste just makes things faster.

 

 

First: Technical question, do most of you mouseover shadoburn, or hard target?

 

Second: How do you choose which to havoc adds on to boss?  For me, I seem to be finding that trying to Havoc a Shadowburn on to the boss from something like a Desecrated Weapon, Large Sha add, etc. is a lost cause, too much chance of getting the shadowburn sniped and better off going with a Havoc'd Chaos Bolt.  Currently mostly shadowburning/havoc large groups of small adds (H Immerseus, Sha of Fear, Phase 1 Garrosh, etc...) *much* better chance of getting 2 - 3 shadowburns there.

 

Third: This perplexes me the most so far, is how to deal with three.  Four, easy.... FnB + RoF keeps me going, but 3....  like with Galakras, where with 5 adds, you get two ranged, and they end up in split groups (In *my* perfect world, the melee would get pulled on top of the ranged, but, I apparently do not live in my perfect world) so... 

 

RoF is a given, they're stacked.  If I'm low on embers (<2 embers) I'll havoc immo/conflag/incinerate.  Full on embers, havoc / chaos bolt.  Not sure if this is a good approach or not....

 

Similar concept applies to a few of the boss fights:  Protectors, Shaman, Klaxxi (Although, anything not on kill target with Klaxxi is wasted dps, I use for resource generation only).  In these cases, do you focus on opener, or work on resource generation, to get to the higher sustainable dps more quickly?

 

Fourth (and finally):  I *think* this is what I need to figure out to go to the next level in DPS.  The 'Fix your DPS' FAQ is great.  I keep my immo up at > 90% (*most* of the time)  I don't hit 4 embers, I use them.  And for the most part, dump them on KTT/BBoY or PBI procs (usually my CB's average > 1.2 million) and I normally don't let conflagrate hit 2 charges, use and unload incinerate.

 

Granted, there are a lot of things that can line up, or not, that influence, but this is one area, where I feel that I am missing something, and looking for some advice/opinions.

 

Thank you!!

 

 

One: Hard target.

 

Two: Havoc boss, SB/CB/Inncin add.

 

Three: Depends on your crit and your luck. If you have high crit and some luck you can F&B on the three, if not then you're just havocing and single targeting as much as you can. Keep RoF down, anything more then two should have RoF on them.

 

Four: Do it better. That's it. Just keep on doing it better and better. Pick a fight each week that you want to stomp and just focus on putting a beat down on that fight, think of every mechanic, think of every talent, every glyph, try to think outside the box. Do that enough times and it will become easier every time.

[Zilthy 36]

Mastery>crit>haste.

 

Mastery makes everything hit harder, crit makes things crit more or in the case of CB make it do a little more damage, haste just makes things faster.

 

 

 

 

One: Hard target.

 

Two: Havoc boss, SB/CB/Inncin add.

 

Three: Depends on your crit and your luck. If you have high crit and some luck you can F&B on the three, if not then you're just havocing and single targeting as much as you can. Keep RoF down, anything more then two should have RoF on them.

 

Four: Do it better. That's it. Just keep on doing it better and better. Pick a fight each week that you want to stomp and just focus on putting a beat down on that fight, think of every mechanic, think of every talent, every glyph, try to think outside the box. Do that enough times and it will become easier every time.

 

Thanks for the answer, but I think you missed my joke there. :)

 

1) I might have to try hard targeting.

 

2) yeah, got that... my question is *how* do you choose to CB or SB?

 

3) Thank you!!

 

4) Yeah, I guess that is the point.  But, in a way, that is the point of this question, I am not trying to re-invent the wheel, and learn by what others have found worked for them. :)

[Lockybalboa 618]

I never use CB with havoc unless Im 1) capped or close to capping on embers 2) have mad procs up 3) one of the targets needs to DIE and needs to DIE now. Otherwise I use havoc for Incinerate for the ember gen or use it with SB for damage and ember proc.

[Omaric 246]

What Locky said.  Unless you have a lot of procs running, use Havoc to keep Immolate applied or with Incinerate for Ember generation.

[Zilthy 36]

Well, it seems like the rules for Havoc and CB are similar to rules for CB (close to capping, mad procs, or target needs to die now) but... I did switch it up a bit tonight, trying things out (ie, using it more often for immo, incinerate, although I kept nailing some conflags with it also)

 

The results of which, was raising my dps by 100k on Sha of Pride.  Although, that should sound impressive, it really isn't, since I was *so* low compared to where I should have been.  Now, to extrapolate to other fights.

 

I also, sat down at target dummies, and started studying just how havoc works.... and had another lightbuld moment (or total blonde moment) but realized, if I havoc current target, and keep attacking that target, it does not clear havoc charges.  *doh*  (I know, to everyone else, that would seem obvious, but, I'm me)

 

So, change of playstyle example, on Sha of Pride:

 

Before, target sha of pride and focus sha.  Treat as single target, when adds came, would target add, RoF, FnB, havoc focus (sha) for shadowburn...  when manifestation/corrupted came up, havoc focus chaos bolt.  General idea there....

 

Tonight: Target sha of pride, put on focus (same).  Treat as single target.  When adds came up, left sha as target, did RoF, when enough were close enough to sha, then did FnB.  Havoc'd target (sha) and did same mouseover shadowburns on small adds in range.  (This let me keep either pumping FnB or attacks on Sha without wasting havocs, awesome!)  When large add came up, did havoc, immolate (down to 2 charges) chaos bolt (won't use havoc charge, since only 2) then incinerate, and could likely at that time pop a shadowburn instead of incinerate.

 

I dunno, as I said, it's probably pretty dumb, this light bulb moment for me is obviously quite obvious to others, but I am pretty excited!!! It opened up a whole new world for me.  I have thought of the thee specs like this:  Affliction (chess, planning, plotting) Destruction (Twitch) and Demo (Blend of plotting/twitch) and tonight opened up my eyes in a new way. And while I am far off from being a top player, I feel that I took a couple of big steps forward.

 

Then again, maybe it was just regemming/reforging 4k crit to 4k haste.  *giggle*  (yeah, that is probably not it)

 

Anyway, thank you all, off I go tromping in to a whole new world... :D

[Lockybalboa 618]

and had another lightbuld moment (or total blonde moment)

 

 

This is meant to make you feel better about your play skills; friend of mine is working on Heroic Garrosh (25man ally side) he plays an ele shaman but there are two warlocks in the raid and he was wondering why their damage looked odd (very low on boss, medium on adds) so he asked Zag and I to look at some logs and find the issues.

 

Mostly the unnamed warlocks, for the moment lets call them Dumb and Dumber, were not using havoc enough and were not shadowburning enough. That's mostly what their issues came down to. So we hand our friend some tips that he could pass on to Dumb and Dumber.

 

Last night (or the night before I dont really remember) they were doing more pulls on Garrosh and my friend passes the information to Dumb and Dumber. After a conversation with them it turns out that the reason Dumb and Dumber's Shadow burn and Havoc uses were so low was because they did not know they could Havoc with Shadow Burn. They did not know they could use havoc and shadow burn. After 12 heroic bosses. 

 

At least you know to seek wisdom of others and are working to better yourself. There are others out there that are lost in a sea of their own ignorance, unable and unwilling to seek the light to lead them on the path of victory. 

[Zagam 1,982]

Havoc is wonderful.  Perhaps when I write about Havoc in guides, it needs bigger font.  It's literally one of Destruction's signature moves but is left so neglected and unknown about, even on players almost finished with a heroic tier.  Baffles me to my core.

[Omaric 246]

What's a havuk?

[Strife 6]

Btw anyone ever notice havoc acting a bit strange, not sure if it's visual with affdots or what...

 

But occasionally I'll havoc something, it will proc my cooldown, the 3 havoc charges will show up on the affdots tracker, but I won't actually see my havocs being used and affdots will stay at 3 charges (and no I don't have fnb on, happens usually when I shadowburn).

 

I do have a mouseover stopcasting macro for shadowburn which I spam, not sure if that's the issue if I havoc then using the shadowburn macro too quickly?

 

Anyone ever experience that?

[Liquidsteel 279]

Yes strife, there is a bug when you use havoc combined with a mouseover macro for shadowburn that causes havoc to not copy across if you are still targetting your havoc target. Think it was discovered in ToT.

 

#showtooltip

/stopcasting

/cleartarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]

/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Shadowburn

/targetlasttarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]

 

Use this to work around it. (Credits go to Brusalk, I think)

[Strife 6]

Gotcha, thanks.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Strife

[Zilthy 36]

Awesome info and thank you for the macro!

Edited January 17, 2014 by Zilthy

[EddyG17 2]

You guys use havoc on the little adds on sha? I guess you could (I shall try this)... I have always saved it for the big add.

My advise to you with regards getting more milage out of havoc is to look carefully at which figths you want to glyph Havoc. For Galakras, if you glyph havoc, it wont be up for the start of the next wave and if you plan to use it with SBs only... thats SIX SBs that you are going to try to get out in time, which maybe a little unrealistic. Shamans (normal) on the other hand, there is no reason not to glyph it.

[Vipples 5]

Does anyone know off the top of their head if either TidyPlates or Elvui offer any dynamic scaling options depending on mob health? I have the hardest time sniping adds with SB on fights with larger grouping/numbers of adds. I use the mouseover macro from above, but spamming the macro while hovering over the group doesn't always seem to work. And trying to tab or actually find the adds that are getting low with all those nameplates jumpin around typically ends up in wasted DPS time (for me at least). 

[Zilthy 36]

Even playing around with the new macro, I am starting to think there is something to be said for hard targeting adds for shadowburn cleaves. :/

[Liquidsteel 279]

Vipples. Set the nameplate to colour by health and set the low health threshold to 20%. Nameplates will turn red and thats when you shadowburn.

[Zilthy 36]

And ELVUI will color plates (and add a red glow) when < 20% health.

[Kazistrasz 216]

That's actually turned on in Elv by default.

[Vipples 5]

I found my scaling solution the other night when I was trying to fix another bug with tidy plates. With the latest update to TP, my Health percentages disappeared on me. As I was scrolling through the options I found that there's an option to scale based on HP % as well. So I changed the threshold to 20% and now when they're ready to be SB'd, they pop up nice and big so I can see 'em. Immerseus was the most annoying to SB on because of the shear number of adds, so we'll see how this plays out on that fight tonight. On a funny note, the first time I tried this I had it set to nearly 300% by accident; needless to say when an add dropped to 20% there was a nameplate across about 60% of my screen haha.

 

For those interested, I believe its called Scale Spotlight under the Tidy Plates: Damage section. 

[Lockybalboa 618]

For those interested, I believe its called Scale Spotlight under the Tidy Plates: Damage section. 

 

 

Hmm...I think I like this. Thank you.

 

I set my low HP to 22% though, I want to know a little before hand so I can target swap.

[Seraphira 0]

This will probably make the heroic warlocks /twitch uncomfortably, but if you're really struggling to use Havoc enough or feel like you're fumbling back and forth between targets then you might find that integrating this into your play-style is better than not using Havoc often enough or smoothly enough.

 

Either keybind two Havocs, or put one on your bars with a nice simple modifier:

 

Method 1: Two Havocs on your bars

This is untidy but might help you think about what you're doing

 

Step 1. Put regular Havoc on your bars

Step 2. Put a Havoc focus macro on your bars

 

#showtooltip Havoc

/use [@focus] Havoc

 

Method 2: A slightly neater Havoc macro

 

#showtooltip Havoc

/use [mod:alt][@focus] Havoc;[nomod][@target] Havoc

 

This macro will cast Havoc on your focus-target if you hold down alt, but will cast Havoc at your current target if you use it without any modifier keys.

 

In either case, you might want to try setting the main boss as your focus. Then when an add comes, simply target the add, use the focus macro (or part of the macro) and it will automatically put Havoc on your focus (the boss) without you losing your current add target, and you can then cast whatever you want at the add and have it copied to the boss.

 

Bosses make good focus targets (and thus good Havoc dumps when you're not trying to do anything especially clever) as they're persistent throughout the fight. Stick the boss on focus before combat starts and you don't have to worry about it, just find an add, use your Havoc focus macro and carry on dps-ing the add.

 

Obviously there are plenty of times when the focus macro will be non-optimal for using Havoc (just off the top of my head, Siegecrafter Blackfuse when he's below 20% is a great boss to throw Shadowburns at, having previously stuck Havoc on say a shredder, or a bombling), but I just thought I'd chip in here because I've been trying to get one or two of my warlock friends to use Havoc more and these strategies have taken them from "maybe once a fight" to something approaching a useful amount.

 

PS: New poster here, I've always been quite a solitary warlock, just playing with the SimC and WoL, but I've been reading this forum for several months now and have learned so much from the community here, thank you!

[Kazistrasz 216]

Seraphira, that macro is essentially the same think I use when I'm pew pewing bosses. It definitely works. But, I think more locks with Havoc issues really need a good Weak Aura for it more than anything.  Most with Havoc issues just don't use the thing.

[PhilColins 9]

Obviously there are plenty of times when the focus macro will be non-optimal for using Havoc (just off the top of my head, Siegecrafter Blackfuse when he's below 20% is a great boss to throw Shadowburns at, having previously stuck Havoc on say a shredder, or a bombling), but I just thought I'd chip in here because I've been trying to get one or two of my warlock friends to use Havoc more and these strategies have taken them from "maybe once a fight" to something approaching a useful amount.

 

PS: New poster here, I've always been quite a solitary warlock, just playing with the SimC and WoL, but I've been reading this forum for several months now and have learned so much from the community here, thank you!

Thanks and welcome! Tell your fellow warlock buddies to post some stuff. We love hearing from others!

[EddyG17 2]

Seraphira, I pretty much have that macro as well. I also have a similar macro for inci, immolate, etc.

Sometimes I have the big add on seige crafter (10N) targeted so I can watch its cast bar for "death from above" in order to try to cheat meters.