Iron Jugg heroic advise and starting affli

[Deamux 4]

Hi fellow warlock lovers

 

I have 2 issues/questions today :D

 

1. Iron jugg heroic

We've been stuck on him for 2 weeks now, It seems that the healers are struggling and some ppl dont dodge enough shit on the ground. We are doing the 'go chill in the back' tactic. But not successfully it seems. Are there any specific warlock tips for this fight to help out? I'm popping 1 mine with dark bargain to help out, using all my def cd's when needed...

 

Or do you guys recon we'd best skip Iron jugg and Shamans if the healers keep struggling?

 

2. I'm gonna start running with affli. I'm playing destro for progression fights, but i really want to master it =D. I still have some gameplay issues but i need to work out those myself. But i'd like some advise on multidotting. I'm looking for an addon for multidotting, like protectors. I tried forte, but can't get it configured nicely :(

 

 

Greetings :)

[Zagam 1,982]

1. You can't fix other's defiencies by trying to overcompensate with your own abilities.  First - don't take Dark Bargain.  The backlash from that damage only overcomplicates your poor healers' lives.  Sacrificial Pact is MORE than enough mitigation.  Also, for the mines, you're the least suitable candidate since the mines deal PURE physical damage.  If you have a Paladin in your group, receiving a Hand of Protection can be useful to help with mines.  If you're consistently having to deal with mines, your raid needs better positioning and your tanks need to execute better.

 

If you're struggling on Heroic IJ, you're going to hate your life on Heroic Dark Shamans.  You will be dropping to 2 healers and they will have a lot to worry about.

 

2. Multidotting isn't a huge issue on many fights.  Literally, Protectors is the only one that you're going to excel at over Destruction.  Destruction is also much easier to play in progression since its simplicity allows you to focus on your mechanics.  Play what you like, but remember that Affliction will look good comparitively if you're wiping early in the boss due to Affliction's strong opening phase.

[Belloc 6]

You're using the "chill in the back" strat. Are you all stacked up or spread out? If you are stacked up, that is going to get you killed on a regular basis, so make sure you're spread. The reason for this is because the boss has an ability that targets multiple players and hits them with an AOE. If you're stacked up, the whole raid gets hit with it 2-3 times, which is guaranteed enough to kill people. Yes, the boss uses this during both phases and it's not one of the big aoe circles on the ground.

 

Two things about warlocks soaking mines. One, I've seen at least one warlock say that they've been able to juke the mine damage by using teleport at a certain point. I've never been able to figure it out, though, which leads to... Two, I've soaked the odd mine and find it a pretty safe thing to do. The trick? Sacrifice your voidwalker for this fight and use your command demon ability BEFORE popping Sacrificial Pact. The health increase ensures that your SacPact shield will be even bigger than usual and you'll barely feel the mine damage. Use your teleport to avoid falling damage.

 

As far as SacPact goes on this fight, you're basically safe to use it once during the regular phase and once during the siege phase. When I was part of the mine rotation, I always soaked on the second set of mines. SacPact was back up and ready to use for the third Shock Blast (or maybe earlier). Aside from times when I failed or played bad, those moments were key for SacPact.

 

If your tanks are having issues with mines, remember that mines spawn and run towards player positions. If the mines are all over the place, that means that your players are all over the place. This fight does require spreading, but not so much that tanks can't reach the mines. If you have priests, they can lifegrip tanks to mines that are far away (we use this tactic regularly on 25-man).

 

You've probably got people getting hit by sawblades, right? Just in case you or your raid aren't aware, the sawblades will target a person when it comes out, move towards them, target another person, move towards them, and the move towards the boss. If your ranged/healers are standing in a line, this is going to make the sawblade him them every time, so make sure they're positioned so that if a sawblade goes from one player to another, there's no one else in the path. Also remember that you can see the sawblade coming well in advance and move out of the way. I found that the saw is pretty easy to dodge on 10-man as long as you're actually watching for it.

Edited February 24, 2014 by Belloc

[Strife 6]

You can soak a mine taking no damage with teleport, you basically have to spam your teleport button right when you click on the mine though as you're jumping on to it, if you do it correctly you pretty much teleport right when you touch the mine. That being said it's not 100% reliable and I wouldn't count on it. There are much better classes to soak, usually the tank should get all 3 if they are positioned well, if not we usually had our hunter or mage grab whichever one the tank called out in 10M. In 25M it's never an issue because a ton of people can grab them. 

 

As far as H IJ, I think Aff is a much better spec, especially if you use the progression strat of staying back in P2. For 1, you can spec KJC and pretty much lose no dps while avoiding all of the avoidable stuff in P1, I found that as Destro you have to break your C. Bolts sometimes or don't get optimal trinket casts because your moving from red circles, blades, and/or borer drill. Also the timing of Assault Phase means your 2 min trinkets/cooldowns are going to proc right when he goes into it, if you're Aff you can snapshot dots right before the push and run back and re-apply dots in between shock pulses after the mines come out.

 

I found that soul link with a pet as Aff worked the best for me as well, one of the hardest parts of P2 is the constant damage and the healers having to heal back up in between pulses. UR, Healthstone, and using the imp heal already gave me enough to deal with the damage from the pulses, and I found the damage reduction from soul link seemed to help the most to help reduce the damage outside of shock pulses. Note that you'll need to resummon your pet after the 2nd or 3rd shock pulse since it will die which is fine since you're not doing anything back there anyways. 

 

I personally haven't seen any Destro locks beat Aff locks in any of my raids using the hang back P2 strat, and that's across multiple guilds on my lock and also my 574 hunter whose in a different 25M raid. Most of them I see pretty much just run Aff nowadays. 

 

As far as multi-dotting like on protectors, I just use tidyplates and don't really have a problem. 

[Deamux 4]

Thanks guys for the fast responses guys :)

 

As for popping the mines, i'll use sac part + void cd instead of dark bargain next time. And in the future i might not be taking any mines any longer, since we have a hunter in our team since a few days. Yay! =D

 

Also its not that our tanks have issues reaching the mines, but sometimes our healers can't heal em up in time to let them pop the next mine when they get there.

 

As for affliction, i'm using it now for the bosses we are farming, i'm not ready to play in on progression fights just yet.

 

People get hit by alot of stuff, borer drills and sawblades mostly. Ever on occasion by the cannon.

 

Before the 1st shock pulse hits we stack, and a DK pops his anti magic zone. Then at the back, we spread out for 5 (or 6) yards, and the one with the laser runs out. When the shock pulse is going to hit we stack up again for our second anti magic zone (yes we had 2 deathknights, now 1 has quit and we have a huntarddd =D) And for the 3th shock pulse we pop devotion aura and rallying cry.

[kitsu 55]

Also its not that our tanks have issues reaching the mines, but sometimes our healers can't heal em up in time to let them pop the next mine when they get there.

 

what heal comp are you running? pala / disc 2 heal? one cast from a shaman or a holy priest should be the majority of a tanks lifebar. it's kind of a 3 heal cd fight, so resto shaman ftw.

[Deamux 4]

what heal comp are you running? pala / disc 2 heal? one cast from a shaman or a holy priest should be the majority of a tanks lifebar. it's kind of a 3 heal cd fight, so resto shaman ftw.

 

We have a druid, pala & monk. 3 healers. But we we decided that we are gonna merge with our team 2 and start 25 man. So back to normal ='(. Me wantz 10 man heroic, but only officer that wants that =(

[Astherion 4]

As a warlock, you have only 4 jobs to do - give people healthstones, give them stamina, dps and move out of aoe :)

 

Some other advices for the raid:

 

On 10 it's definitely a 3 healing fight. The fight is based on 1 premise - you have to be stacked up to enable the heals and get mines conveniently close to each other (tanks can handle them easily if the mines are not too far from each other) but you can't be stacked up too much because then you start taking too much damage from aoe on the floor and ricochet.

 

During the 2nd phase - you need people topped before the first shock pulse and you need a healing rotation for the shock pulses (every shock pulse handled by a strong healer cooldown, e.g. tranquility). It's very helpful to also set up a rotation for damage reductions - devotion aura, smoke bombs. They will help a lot if applied before the shock pulse. Personal damage reductions are also important (shock pulse is magical (natural) damage). Otherwise, the 2nd phase shouldn't be difficult if you can keep out of the tar and laser is kited correctly. The same stacking up tactics apply - don't stack too much, don't spread too much. Tanks should be handling mines. The druid should explode his/her mushroom just before the next shock pulse.

 

I remember doing 25 normal with my old guild. The IJ encounter was just painful. 25 encounters are usually much easier than 10 and the loot is better distributed (you won't be disenchanting so much) . However, while it's is possible to find 10 good players, on most realms it's almost impossible to find 25 good players who are always available on the raid days. With 25 you have a much greater probability that 1-10 players in your raid group will suck. Give 25 some tries, it can be really an epic experience - but if the raids start being bad, get back on 10 or your raid group (or even guild) will break up. Bad raids always break the guilds.

Edited February 27, 2014 by Astherion

[Deamux 4]

So we are starting 25 man normal next week. As for the raid comp;

 

There are 3 warlocks, 3 mages in the group. I don't like this. I'm probably selfish and greedy but, isn't that just too much. Not even talking about trinkets/rings here...

 

2 warlocks and 2 mages seems like a better idea to me. Anyone with guildleading advise on this?

 

Sorry for going offtopic with this... :)

[Lockybalboa 618]

Need one mage for food and crit, past that doesn't add anything to the raid. Mages are super weak on a few fights this tier and are not overly strong on any fights.

If I had the option to bring less mages, I would.

Warlocks aren't in the same boat. There us no fight we do badly at and a lot of fights we're amazing on. The only issue is gear. Right now in my ten man we run two warlocks, this works fine because we formed this guild after we were 95% done with heroic gear. The few items I need the other warlock already has and the rest is just HWF upgrades that do not matter to much.

Three warlocks for gearing is going to suck a bit, but coins are so much better in 25 that it won't be the end of the world for you or them.

Still, I rather max out at two. I would take three if they all were awesome though.

[Deamux 4]

Well big thanks to everyone who helped me with this. 

 

The heroic iron jugg won't be an issue again soon i'm afraid. Still gotta clear normal on 25 man first. Seems like a good time to run affli now.

 

As for the raid composition, i'm kinda losing interest by all the discussions so i'm probably gonna settle on 2 mages and 2 or 3 warlocks (depends how good the third one is). Too bad 10 man heroic will  be gone in warlords but hey nothing to do about it.

 

I'm just gonna kick back for a while and see what happens..

Edited February 28, 2014 by Deamux

[Strife 6]

So we are starting 25 man normal next week. As for the raid comp;

 

There are 3 warlocks, 3 mages in the group. I don't like this. I'm probably selfish and greedy but, isn't that just too much. Not even talking about trinkets/rings here...

 

2 warlocks and 2 mages seems like a better idea to me. Anyone with guildleading advise on this?

 

Sorry for going offtopic with this...

 

My 25M runs 2 mages, 3 locks, 1 spriest. 

 

My other 25M raid that my 574 hunter is in runs 1 mage, 3 locks only for dps cloth, but we have 4 hunters lol. Just depends really on the people you have and if they know how to play their class. 

 

All 3 mages in my 2 raid groups are all really good and some of the best mages I've ever played with, they rank and are top 7 dps on many of the fights in our raids. Really depends on the player.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Strife

[Kazistrasz 216]

My last two 25-mans had 5 warlocks and 1 or 2 mages.

 

Not saying that's optimal, but things died just the same. Really sucked though because we stole each others' DPS.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Kazistrasz

[Zagam 1,982]

Bring the player, not the class.

 

If you have 5 good Warlocks and 5 mediocre Mages, I'd bring 5 Warlocks and 1 Mage instead of 3 each.  Your emphasis while raiding should NEVER be about gear.  It should be about killing stuff.  Warlocks excel at this.  You should be excited to have more Warlocks in your raid - it pushes you to be the best, you have guildies you can consult with on each fight, and gear will come when you kill bosses. 

 

Loot is a means to progress more as a group, not as an individual.  You'd be surprised how often loot mentalities create drama in guilds.  Don't be like that.

[Deamux 4]

I see its a pretty common 'issue'. Thank you for making me realise how narrow my vision was. Yesterday i've decided to let the matter go, and see how the final lock and mage is soon. I'm just hoping to get into heroic fast. :D

 

So much gratitude to all! :D 

(This topic may be closed, i guess? :) )

[Liquidsteel 279]

My guild had 5 warlocks, one of whom failed his trial and was replaced with another warlock, and myself who decided to leave only recently to do 10 man with old friends. 

 

Honestly, you can't go wrong with locks this expansion!

[fordfiesta 1]

25 man drops more loot, so having people to compete with isn't a big deal, it's really all about just killing stuff anyway ... loot really isn't that important.

 

My warlock is using a flex garrosh trinket and a trinket from ToT still, we've never seen any trinkets drop from bosses at all, ever (this includes strength trinkets, tank, healers are using horridon trinket and timeless isle, etc), and we're going to kill heroic paragons this week and start working on garrosh soon.

 

However, I might be concerned about having so many mages.  I used to main a mage, and ranked quite often on it, pretty much every week, but it's still so weak in comparison to many other classes that I benched my 575 mage in favor of my far less geared hunter (and warlock, of course) for better progression (I had to play hunter for h thok / siege for progression).

 

Mages are just not very good for much in SoO unfortunately.  Tell your rl to trade 2 of those 3 mages for 2 more warlocks!!