Reroll (with previous lock experience) needs to optimize DPS

[Vindican 2]

The last time I competively raided on my warlock was in the glory days of Black Temple and Sunwell, but I am not ignorant of the class in MoP, either (having LFRed on my lock in T14/15, etc.). I recently mainchanged from a ret pally to my lock for raid utility and (eventually) much better DPS output while not hindering our raid with an overbundance of melee. However, my DPS downright sucks.

Half of it is a gear issue, without question. Yet, I *know* I could be doing more DPS. I feel I have a good grasp on the current theory and priorities for destro, and a lot of my issues stem from the recent class switch and being unfamiliar with the ebb and flow of the fights in SoO from a ranged, specifically lock, perspective. Things like Havoc cheesing on fights with adds, to proper cooldown management and CB use.

Some problems I ran into last night involved overwriting mega-buffed immolates with lesser-buffed immolates inside the 7-second refresh period, capping on embers while focusing on mechanics (I've yet to get comfortable to the point where I can do both seamlessly, and that just comes with more practice), using Conflag immediately to the point where I either waste Backdraft stacks via being "forced" to cast CB with >3 stacks of Backdraft, or capping on embers to get Backdraft stacks down, and absolutely poor Havoc use (wrong targets, wasting on targets with too little health, not using on CD regularly, etc.) I also didn't game Shadowburn spamming (pooling up Embers pre-execute phase to combine with Dark Soul, etc.) Again, these things should smooth out with practice, which I plan on doing a lot of in LFR, Flex, and on dummies.

I use WeakAuras to track emberbits, CoE, Immo, Conflag, Backdraft stacks, including the ideal time to CB (programmatically set up to request a CB between 30 and 35 emberbits and with <3 stacks of Backdraft to prevent capping - otherwise I try to cast them when I have procs up), and Dark Soul. I also have a dynamic group that tracks procs and buffs (potions, trinkets, skull banner, stormlash totem, profession perks, dark soul, etc.). I have NOT yet added auras for T16 2- and 4-pc, which I need to do.

 

While talents and glyphs change from fight to fight, my "baseline" choices are GoSac and AD.

Since I came into the raid undergeared, I did not have 2-pc until after Nazgrim, and gained a couple other items along the way. Have at me please, I need to improve, and quickly.

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rovil/advanced
Logs: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/9jxqXNrwD1taPQV4

[Zagam 1,982]

In regards to gear

 

1) You have a lot of gear that you have to reforge to Mastery on.  This hurts a bit.  I see you at 11k Mastery and 10k Haste.  Mastery is much more valuable than Haste and your DPS will suffer due to the itemization you have going on.

 

2) It's hard to compare your DPS when you're rolling against others who have the legendary cloak.  You also are missing the LMG, but that's of little consequence to Destruction. 

 

3) Yu'lon's Bite is a pretty awful trinket.  I won't say 'go acquire trinkets' because I know how that is.  If you have access to any 522+ trinkets out of ToT or any LFR+ quality trinkets from SoO aside from the Frenzied Crystal of Rage, you'll want to replace Yulon's Bite with it.

 

4) You have the 2 set which is worth almost nothing.  The 4pc will be a large gain in DPS - it's equivalent to almost passive 5% Crit, but when utilized, its value goes up even more.

 

Being a re-roll means you are set back at least a month or two in regards to being able to provide competitive DPS.  The cloak is just too big of an upgrade and you're toting a 528 around, which is 80 item levels lower without the consideration of the extra secondary stats, gem socket, and proc on it.  If your Paladin has the cloak, I suggest you use your Paladin on fights to not hold your guild back until your Warlock is sufficiently caught up. 

 

In regards to logs

 

1) Protectors

-your Immolate uptime is 66%.  66% when there are 3 targets is a critical gameplay mistake.  This hurts your Ember generation and your overall damage substantially.

-Doomguard only got 7 casts off - this is an error in utilization of your Doomguard.  He either needs to be used at the start of the fight or at the end of the fight with sufficient time to get all 17 casts off

-you casted Curse of the Elements 17 times.  This is absurdly high.  Either glyph it or figure something out so you're not constantly recasting it.  If it was glyphed, it would have required 2 casts for the 3 bosses, 2 for the Embodied Anguish, and 2 for whatever Embodied add you were on for a total of 6.  You lost 11 globals to CoE.

-Chaos Bolt casts are off on timing and you're using Backdraft on them

 

 

On this graph, the highlighted green and yellow sections indicate Dark Soul and your PBI proc.  Of your 14 Chaos Bolt casts, 8 were buffed by something and 6 were not.  More troublesome are the 4 that consumed 12 charges of Backdraft indicated by the small cast bars colored purple.  Just before your 2nd Dark Soul, you dumped 2 Chaos Bolts, one that consumed Backdraft.  If you had held onto them just a bit longer, the 2nd one would have been buffed significantly.  You casted another just as that Dark Soul fell off.  At 19:59:00, you casted two Chaos Bolts, got Dark Soul AND PBI up, and you managed to only capture one CB in that window frame.

 

You can go through the rest of your logs in a similar fashion as to what I just did with Protectors to see your fatal flaws.  Compare them against the F.A.Q. I provide.  There is a trend in people who are just learning their Warlocks - they say they understand that they need to keep Immolate up, use Shadowburn, and time Chaos Bolts with procs.  Then they link their logs, and like yours, shows some promise but shows some glaring mistakes.  You already know a majority of your own, so you're leaning on the Warlock With Promise side.  You can't just swap to a new toon and master it - so don't take my critique harsh as I'm an equal opportunity critiquer with anyone who brings logs.  I saw similar issues on some of the other fights which is why I don't break them down.  If you need more specific help, post here and either myself or one of my lackeys will be delighted to help you.

 

Welcome to the Dark Side.  Let the Chaos Bolts flow.

[Guest garmeth06]

The last time I competively raided on my warlock was in the glory days of Black Temple and Sunwell, but I am not ignorant of the class in MoP, either (having LFRed on my lock in T14/15, etc.). I recently mainchanged from a ret pally to my lock for raid utility and (eventually) much better DPS output while not hindering our raid with an overbundance of melee. However, my DPS downright sucks.

Half of it is a gear issue, without question. Yet, I *know* I could be doing more DPS. I feel I have a good grasp on the current theory and priorities for destro, and a lot of my issues stem from the recent class switch and being unfamiliar with the ebb and flow of the fights in SoO from a ranged, specifically lock, perspective. Things like Havoc cheesing on fights with adds, to proper cooldown management and CB use.

Some problems I ran into last night involved overwriting mega-buffed immolates with lesser-buffed immolates inside the 7-second refresh period, capping on embers while focusing on mechanics (I've yet to get comfortable to the point where I can do both seamlessly, and that just comes with more practice), using Conflag immediately to the point where I either waste Backdraft stacks via being "forced" to cast CB with >3 stacks of Backdraft, or capping on embers to get Backdraft stacks down, and absolutely poor Havoc use (wrong targets, wasting on targets with too little health, not using on CD regularly, etc.) I also didn't game Shadowburn spamming (pooling up Embers pre-execute phase to combine with Dark Soul, etc.) Again, these things should smooth out with practice, which I plan on doing a lot of in LFR, Flex, and on dummies.

I use WeakAuras to track emberbits, CoE, Immo, Conflag, Backdraft stacks, including the ideal time to CB (programmatically set up to request a CB between 30 and 35 emberbits and with <3 stacks of Backdraft to prevent capping - otherwise I try to cast them when I have procs up), and Dark Soul. I also have a dynamic group that tracks procs and buffs (potions, trinkets, skull banner, stormlash totem, profession perks, dark soul, etc.). I have NOT yet added auras for T16 2- and 4-pc, which I need to do.

 

While talents and glyphs change from fight to fight, my "baseline" choices are GoSac and AD.

Since I came into the raid undergeared, I did not have 2-pc until after Nazgrim, and gained a couple other items along the way. Have at me please, I need to improve, and quickly.

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...rovil/advanced

Logs: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/9jxqXNrwD1taPQV4

 

I feel as if I'm qualified to comment on your Iron Juggernaut fight.

 

1. You didn't use Dark soul until like 30 seconds into the fight after both your yuolon's bite and more importantly your PBI proc wore off. As sparkuggz says, the opener is everything, and although you can't pull a mega opener with your current gear and specifically lack of trinkets and 4 piece, you simply CAN NOT afford to use dark soul after your initial trinkets proc.

 

2. I looked at the replay option to see your positioning, you had to run back into range of the boss after every shock pulse, you absolutely cannot afford to do this. You got two siege phases, this is possible another 10 incinerates you missed out on (and maybe some immolate uptime). You need to find something to place your back against depending on where your tank faces the boss. There is a good fence where you can do this at

 

3. If you don't have KTT or a PPM trinket, 100% ditch Archimonde's darkness. Locky and Zagam and others already hate the use of arhcimonde's darkness, but its essentially useless without a trinket that operates on PPM. If you had the random, cruel RNG mistress of ktt, you can get random intellect procs in the middle of the fight and that extra charge on dark soul can give you some good mid-fight dps bursts. Without a random trinket, your int procs are on a 120 ICD, meaning, even without archimonde's darkness, you're going to be able to effectively stack both dark soul and your trinket procs. Having AD isn't doing anything for you without KTT, and even then, AD is only better if you feel like you are a MASTER at minimizing movement. It appears as if you were fixated by the laser on this fight, even if you had KTT and stacked it with the extra AD charge, KJC would have been a dps gain. In 10 man on Iron juggernaut, your chances of getting shot at by the laser are too high to not take kil'jaeden's cunning.

 

4. You used twilight ward on IJ? Is there even any shadow damage

 

5. You used spell lock once

 

6. Your opener was conflag,conflag, immolate, incinerate x10, then one chaos bolt??? You absolutely CANNOT afford to use only one chaos bolt in the first 30 seconds of the fight. Watch this video and read the stickied posts on this forum

 

 

7. Remove stormlash totem an your weak aurus IMO. That is an extreme level of min maxing and you're missing huge big picture things

 

8. I wouldn't track t16 2 piece for a very, very long time. Its almost worthless

 

9. Focus on the basics, get off a few huge chaos bolts in the opener, run LFR, flex, and normal to get a non useless trinket ( preferably KTT, but BBoY will do), ASAP, and then fire some more chaos bolts when they proc

 

10. AD is 100% out of the question until you get a PPM trinket

 

11. supremacy should out do sacrifice at your mastery levels , esp since your chaos bolts don't hit very hard

 

 

Hope this helps, I would try to go for 200k dps for iron juggernaut on your next attempt. Its possible

 

Edit: Zagam beat me to it

Edited March 7, 2014 by garmeth06

[Lockybalboa 618]

Some problems I ran into last night involved overwriting mega-buffed immolates with lesser-buffed immolates inside the 7-second refresh period, capping on embers while focusing on mechanics (I've yet to get comfortable to the point where I can do both seamlessly, and that just comes with more practice), using Conflag immediately to the point where I either waste Backdraft stacks via being "forced" to cast CB with >3 stacks of Backdraft, or capping on embers to get Backdraft stacks down, and absolutely poor Havoc use (wrong targets, wasting on targets with too little health, not using on CD regularly, etc.) I also didn't game Shadowburn spamming (pooling up Embers pre-execute phase to combine with Dark Soul, etc.) Again, these things should smooth out with practice, which I plan on doing a lot of in LFR, Flex, and on dummies.

 

 

You're looking at 90-95% max DPS gains when you're failing to meet 80% like snapping CB correctly. Worry less about gaming SB or havocing perfectly and more on the core things like CB, not blowing Backdraft, etc.

 

 

I use WeakAuras to track emberbits, CoE, Immo, Conflag, Backdraft stacks, including the ideal time to CB (programmatically set up to request a CB between 30 and 35 emberbits and with <3 stacks of Backdraft to prevent capping - otherwise I try to cast them when I have procs up), and Dark Soul. I also have a dynamic group that tracks procs and buffs (potions, trinkets, skull banner, stormlash totem, profession perks, dark soul, etc.). I have NOT yet added auras for T16 2- and 4-pc, which I need to do.

 

No need to have Stormlash or T16 2pc. 4pc I string, 2pc isn't worth my time for destro, I WA it for demo and aff but not destro. You don't have a UI link so I don't know how you have your strings set up but I hope you're not using up half your screen with it and letting it impair your vision for fight mechanics, it sounds like you have a LOT of stuff showing.

 

 

Zag hit the other things I saw.

[Vindican 2]

Thanks Zagam.  Recasting CoE is one of the things I have always suffered from, and perhaps different bindings might help me (CoE is in a relatively prominent position, and should be relegated rightfully somewhere for things that are only casted every 5m).

Throughout the entire night I knew I was struggling on Backdraft/CB/Ember management.  Much like an arcane mage blowing their load and forgetting to Evo, capping embers is a huge DPS loss and something that's easy to occur if I get distracted with a mechanic or my role in the raid (I mark smashes on Malorok, for example).

Coming from the twitch, blow-everything-as-soon-as-you-get-it retribution pally playstyle (only compounded by 4-pc set procs), I think my issues might be summed up as me needing to slow down and be more methodical... things like pooling Embers for upcoming CDs, planning Dark Soul use to ideally coincide with trinket/gear procs, holding off on Conflag if I'm getting close to capping embers, using Immo smarter and ensuring it's uptime, etc.  

After posting this (but before you responded), I also read your Quick Fixes guide to lock DPS, and quite a bit of it rang true for me.  I have full access to Flex clears (and LFR, obviously), and are definitely shooting for a KTT and other upgrades.  I am on secrets now, and also keeping an eye out for 4-pc.

[Guest garmeth06]

Thanks Zagam.  Recasting CoE is one of the things I have always suffered from, and perhaps different bindings might help me (CoE is in a relatively prominent position, and should be relegated rightfully somewhere for things that are only casted every 5m).

Throughout the entire night I knew I was struggling on Backdraft/CB/Ember management.  Much like an arcane mage blowing their load and forgetting to Evo, capping embers is a huge DPS loss and something that's easy to occur if I get distracted with a mechanic or my role in the raid (I mark smashes on Malorok, for example).

Coming from the twitch, blow-everything-as-soon-as-you-get-it retribution pally playstyle (only compounded by 4-pc set procs), I think my issues might be summed up as me needing to slow down and be more methodical... things like pooling Embers for upcoming CDs, planning Dark Soul use to ideally coincide with trinket/gear procs, holding off on Conflag if I'm getting close to capping embers, using Immo smarter and ensuring it's uptime, etc.  

After posting this (but before you responded), I also read your Quick Fixes guide to lock DPS, and quite a bit of it rang true for me.  I have full access to Flex clears (and LFR, obviously), and are definitely shooting for a KTT and other upgrades.  I am on secrets now, and also keeping an eye out for 4-pc.

I wish you luck on the secrets :P. Sacrifice your paladin to RnGesus, its the only way.

[Vindican 2]

General question:  How do you guys recommend the handling of racials and synapse springs?  Seperately, in some sort of burst macro, macroed into DS (or some other ability)?  I tend to blow everything at once, but need to take the time to line up CDs and buffs for maximum burst.  Any helpful tips for that?

 

I feel as if I'm qualified to comment on your Iron Juggernaut fight.

 

1. You didn't use Dark soul until like 30 seconds into the fight after both your yuolon's bite and more importantly your PBI proc wore off. As sparkuggz says, the opener is everything, and although you can't pull a mega opener with your current gear and specifically lack of trinkets and 4 piece, you simply CAN NOT afford to use dark soul after your initial trinkets proc.

 

2. I looked at the replay option to see your positioning, you had to run back into range of the boss after every shock pulse, you absolutely cannot afford to do this. You got two siege phases, this is possible another 10 incinerates you missed out on (and maybe some immolate uptime). You need to find something to place your back against depending on where your tank faces the boss. There is a good fence where you can do this at

 

3. If you don't have KTT or a PPM trinket, 100% ditch Archimonde's darkness. Locky and Zagam and others already hate the use of arhcimonde's darkness, but its essentially useless without a trinket that operates on PPM. If you had the random, cruel RNG mistress of ktt, you can get random intellect procs in the middle of the fight and that extra charge on dark soul can give you some good mid-fight dps bursts. Without a random trinket, your int procs are on a 120 ICD, meaning, even without archimonde's darkness, you're going to be able to effectively stack both dark soul and your trinket procs. Having AD isn't doing anything for you without KTT, and even then, AD is only better if you feel like you are a MASTER at minimizing movement. It appears as if you were fixated by the laser on this fight, even if you had KTT and stacked it with the extra AD charge, KJC would have been a dps gain. In 10 man on Iron juggernaut, your chances of getting shot at by the laser are too high to not take kil'jaeden's cunning.

 

4. You used twilight ward on IJ? Is there even any shadow damage

 

5. You used spell lock once

 

6. Your opener was conflag,conflag, immolate, incinerate x10, then one chaos bolt??? You absolutely CANNOT afford to use only one chaos bolt in the first 30 seconds of the fight. Watch this video and read the stickied posts on this forum

 

 

7. Remove stormlash totem an your weak aurus IMO. That is an extreme level of min maxing and you're missing huge big picture things

 

8. I wouldn't track t16 2 piece for a very, very long time. Its almost worthless

 

9. Focus on the basics, get off a few huge chaos bolts in the opener, run LFR, flex, and normal to get a non useless trinket ( preferably KTT, but BBoY will due), ASAP, and then fire some more chaos bolts when they proc

 

10. AD is 100% out of the question until you get a PPM trinket

 

11. supremacy should out do sacrifice at your mastery levels , esp since your chaos bolts don't hit very hard

 

 

Hope this helps, I would try to go for 200k dps for iron juggernaut on your next attempt. Its possible

 

Edit: Zagam beat me to it

 

1. Noted, see 6.

2. Will definitely look for a place to jam my back up against.

3. I have been trying different talents to get a feel for them, without having much experience or practical knowledge as to why one might be better than the other aside from various guides (some of which assume BiS gear as well).  You gave me some excellent advice as to why AD just plain isn't worth it right now, so back to KJC I go. 

4. TW was a fat finger.

5. See 4.

6. That's a badass video and I'm perusing the rest of the lock forum (including stickies) today (last night was my first night back on my warlock in months).

7. Fair enough.  Recommended to track just trinkets, profs, pots, DS, 4-pc and skull banner?

8. After reading up on it after originally posting, agreed. 

9. Looking forward to doing this for the rest of the week, can't wait to apply some of the insights gained!

10. Noted, see 3.

11. Might be fun to go back to having a pet for a time.  :)

 

Thanks for the analysis, Garmeth! 

 

You're looking at 90-95% max DPS gains when you're failing to meet 80% like snapping CB correctly. Worry less about gaming SB or havocing perfectly and more on the core things like CB, not blowing Backdraft, etc.

 

No need to have Stormlash or T16 2pc. 4pc I string, 2pc isn't worth my time for destro, I WA it for demo and aff but not destro. You don't have a UI link so I don't know how you have your strings set up but I hope you're not using up half your screen with it and letting it impair your vision for fight mechanics, it sounds like you have a LOT of stuff showing.

 

Zag hit the other things I saw.

 

"You're looking at 90-95% max DPS gains when you're failing to meet 80% like snapping CB correctly."

 

Can you rephrase?  I took this to mean I stand to gain more of an increase from practicing proper single target CB and Conflag use than diving into the nuances of Havoc and SB cleaving.  Craft a foundation, and then build from it, in other words.  Is this correct?

 

As far as my WA setup - I'm a very minimalistic person, and have a tidy little clump of icons on top of an emberbits bar, with procs that dynamically show up on top of those when they go off, all nestled nicely in between my player and target frames.  Mechanics aren't an issue (and I don't want to compromise on them while I get settled into destro, either!).

 

I likely do need to adjust my boss frames for more efficient multi-dotting though (for ember generation, as previously mentioned). 

 

Thanks for the help!

[Lockybalboa 618]

General question:  How do you guys recommend the handling of racials and synapse springs?  Seperately, in some sort of burst macro, macroed into DS (or some other ability)?  I tend to blow everything at once, but need to take the time to line up CDs and buffs for maximum burst.  Any helpful tips for that?

 

I macro all of my racials in to DS, Orc blood Fury lines up perfectly with DS and PBI so it's a good one to macro in.

 

Synapse Springs I macro a few places, potion, CB, and DS all have a /use 10 built in. It's on a 60 second CD so it's up for almost everything major. It's a big enough gain that I put in all those places for good up time, it's small enough that I don't WA it or track it in any way because it's not worth it to me to micro manage it.

 

For fights were DPS is very close or I need to burst something hard then I swap out my macros for hard spells and just use my keybind for SS, think Blackfuse Belts, or any adds early progression. For farm or general progression I don't micro manage it.

 

 

Can you rephrase?  I took this to mean I stand to gain more of an increase from practicing proper single target CB and Conflag use than diving into the nuances of Havoc and SB cleaving.  Craft a foundation, and then build from it, in other words.  Is this correct?

 

Yes, build basics first then worry about the advance stuff.

[Vindican 2]

Synapse Springs I macro a few places, potion, CB, and DS all have a /use 10 built in. It's on a 60 second CD so it's up for almost everything major. It's a big enough gain that I put in all those places for good up time, it's small enough that I don't WA it or track it in any way because it's not worth it to me to micro manage it.

 

That's solid.  Doing this tonight (I don't do belts anymore since the class swap).  Will keep the hard-use in mind for when burst is of utmost importance.  Thanks again!

[Zagam 1,982]

Basic Destruction

1) Use Dark Soul on CD or when needed

2) Use Chaos Bolt with procs

3) Use Havoc a lot

4) Keep Immolate applied at all times

5) Use Shadowburn when possible

6) Don't cap Burning Embers

 

Intermediate Destruction

1) Havoc Shadowburns onto primary target using low HP mobs

2) Get 2 Chaos Bolts in first 10 seconds, at least 3 in first 20 seconds

3) Consume Backdraft with Chaos Bolt to ensure trinket proc-empowered Chaos Bolt

4) Track CDs of PBI and Dark Soul to try to come close to capping Embers just before they proc

5) Use Rain of Fire on two targets

 

Expert Destruction

1) Time Chaos Bolts between trinket procs with 4pc bonus - never cast an unempowered Chaos Bolt

2) Time Shadowburns between trinket procs with 4pc bonus - never cast an unempowered Shadowburn

3) Snapshot Immolate properly - this needs to be a last concern for Destruction - master Basic and Intermediate first

4) React to Tempus Repit with Rain of Fire as only a slightly higher priority than Incinerate - rest of rotation remains

 

Basic will get you 90% of your theoretical max if you master all of those steps.

Intermediate will get you up to 95-97% of theoretical max.

Expert will get you into the top percentiles, even against better geared Warlocks.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Do any of you guys use berserking without Dark Soul?

 

I prefer the extra haste when chunking out chaos bolts, though I'm unsure if losing a use or two throughout the fight would balance itself through 2-3 more chaos bolts overall.

[Kazistrasz 216]

Liquid, I do. Haste is so minor for Destro that it doesn't do anything (I've found) to save for DS. The only reason I won't hit it when it comes up is if I know I'm going to need to burst something hard or that there will be good AoE right after. For Synapse Springs, I essentially use them immediately unless a similar situation that I know won't interfere with having it for DS. Good example: Sha of Pride in the 25-man I used to be in that had a lot of people not doing a lot to adds.

 

When the fight starts, I've hit everything and I'm exploding on the boss. After that first opener the reflections come out and I drop Rain to get some embers back to hit the boss more. Every minute into the fight, CD's will come up (Synapse Springs every minute, DS/PBI second minute, Berserking third, DS/PBI fourth, DS/PBI/Berserking 6th if you get there). The first time they come up, they will be a few seconds before Reflections spawn. Since I needed to crank the damage on them, I would just wait those ten seconds out before using them. If PBI proc'd early, I'd go ahead and hit the DS, but my goal would be to dump all but one ember into the boss first and then have RoF and F&B Conflag ready to go when those things spawned.

 

Vindican, if you find your current proc tracking isn't adequate but you still want minimalistic, considering making different colored-text WA strings. That way you can always tell precisely how much time is left (sometimes that second CB only makes it during KTT by 0.1 sec) and you'll just know which is which. In my case, I go with a little less minimalistic and have progress bars with timers in them, unlabeled except by color, that are always in sync (that is, 10sec left on PBI's 20sec is the same length on the screen as a full KTT's 10sec). It lets me visually see how lined up they are.

 

If you're having trouble keeping track of whether you need to apply CoE to a target, I have similar Weak Auras for my druid to track when I need to Faerie Fire a boss. Add my Battle Tag (ICritMyPants#1502) and I can quickly doctor them to work for spell vulnerability and link them to you. They show up and flash with the FF icon (in this case, would be CoE icon) and the boss's name whenever it doesn't have CoE. If there are multiple bosses (such as Protectors), it'll even show you each boss if multiple are missing. On a boss like Galakras, though, where the NPC allies show in the boss frames, it'll still show them for you. I may be able to look at getting that to not happen.

[Lothrandir 12]

Intermediate Destruction

4) Track CDs of PBI and Dark Soul to try to come close to capping Embers just before they proc

 

Any good recommendation on this? Proculas or WA perhaps?

 

Thanks

[Zagam 1,982]

I use ElvUI so my Ember bar is neatly positioned above my HP bar in the lower left center of my screen on my UI - it's very easy to react to.  I also have Affdots loaded and it tracks your Burning Embers in pieces (max = 40), so between two sources, I never worry about Ember capping.

[Lothrandir 12]

I use ElvUI so my Ember bar is neatly positioned above my HP bar in the lower left center of my screen on my UI - it's very easy to react to.  I also have Affdots loaded and it tracks your Burning Embers in pieces (max = 40), so between two sources, I never worry about Ember capping.

 

I have much the same setup, but wasn't referring to ember capping :) Sorry, this wasn't clear at all.

 

I was referring to monitoring the (I)CD of specifically PBI and KTT.

[Zagam 1,982]

Ah, both are WeakAuras.  I don't have my strings, but I used the exact ones from MMO-Champion.  Should be able to google MMO-Champ Warlock Weak Auras and it'll take you right to the source.  TONS of shit there.

[Vindican 2]

Ah, both are WeakAuras.  I don't have my strings, but I used the exact ones from MMO-Champion.  Should be able to google MMO-Champ Warlock Weak Auras and it'll take you right to the source.  TONS of shit there.

 

I want to say that's where I got the initial versions of mine from (since tweaked, additions made and subtractions deleted, etc.).

 

I employed all of the advice from this thread last night, in addition to further tweaking my WA notifications so they mesh with the playstyle a bit better (still some refinements to make) and saw a damn near 30% increase in my output, with a very solid showing on the first couple pulls of a Flex Garrosh.  To clarify, some of the major changes were:  Changed to GoSup w/ Observer, went back to KJC, practiced the opener (a lot), and adjusted keybindings so I casted CoE only when necessary.

 

My opener is fairly solid now, and after spending an hour or so at the dummies, running that Flex and some LFRs, I am able to get off 3-4 buffed CBs in the first 30s of the fight, and have been working damn hard to keep from capping on embers.

 

I notice that it's still easy for me to get distracted, particularly during AOE or heavy movement (like Phase 1 Garrosh) to where I can cap embers too fast due to emberbit generation (or using Conflag a bit too often, resulting in capping and having too many Backdraft stacks).  I believe that can be solved by again, slowing things down and adjusting my notifications to make Backdraft stacks and current ember count more apparent.

 

I know it is bad, and something I am still working on avoiding (and probably will be for a while, though I am improving!), but for the sake of argument during this learning process, let's assume a destro lock is at 6 stacks of Backdraft and maxed on embers, with no procs up.  What's the best course of action to take to get back on track?

 

1) Spam Incin to drop Backdraft down to <3, hopefully get a proc, and cast buffed CB(s) to reduce embers, or

2) Eat Backdraft stacks with an unbuffed CB to reduce embers, and clear the rest with Incin casts?

 

Additional question, which I'm having trouble narrowing down...

 

Lockybalboa mentioned that Synapse Springs were a minor enough thing that he doesn't micromanage it, which leads me to believe that those types of buffs, unless combined, wouldn't warrant casting a CB if ONLY one of them were proc'ed at that time. 

 

My current thought process, that I am unable to determine at the moment due to lack of experience, both personal and otherwise, is wondering what is best between:

 

1) Only casting CB when either (1 or more) trinket procs/on-use are active, and/or (2 or more) profession/enchant-based procs are active; or

2) Casting CB whenever a proc, regardless of type (trinket, prof, enchant, etc.) is active.

 

Use of DS:I and potions, when available (and stacked with either of the two choices above) is assumed.

 

Choice 1 would result in fewer CBs cast, but they would be much more powerful, whereas Choice 2 would result in more CBs cast, but with lesser overall impact, compared bolt-to-bolt.

 

Simply stated, "What constitutes a 'buffed' Chaos Bolt?"

Edited March 7, 2014 by Vindican

[Zagam 1,982]

Ah, I see a confusing point that needs corrected.

 

"Never cap Burning Embers" is a good piece of advice for single targets.  For AoE, cap away as long as the number of targets you're hitting with Incinerate/Conflagrate justifies the skipping of using Chaos Bolt.

 

For example, it requires a fair number of targets to maintain Fire and Brimstone.  Each Incinerate generates 0.1 Emberbits, 0.2 if it crits.  You COULD sustain FnB with just 5 mobs if each spell crit or worst case scenario, require 10 to sustain AoE.  Rain of Fire and Immolate ticks assist keeping FnB rolling.  In the case that you're sustaining AoE, don't stop with FnB to cast Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn.  As you're AoEing, the magic target number I shoot for is 5.  If I'm hitting 5 targets, I keep on AoEing.  If it drops down to 4, I start picking them off with Shadowburn or using a Havoc Chaos Bolt. 

 

"Buffed" or "empowered" as I like to call it is the application of one or more buffs that are meaningful.  Meaningful buffs include Dark Soul, KTT's proc, PBI's proc, FCoR's proc, or BBoY's proc.  Less meaningful buffs include potions, Jade Spirit, Tempus Repit, etc.  You want to always use Chaos Bolt during meaningful buffs.  The RNG of trinkets means you can't set up burn and conserve phases - you have to react when shit happens to get the most damage out possible.  This comes with time and will soon be second nature.

 

Try to avoid, at all costs, getting to 6 stacks of Backdraft with 4 Burning Embers.  This would only result as a consequence of bad game play.  For example, you could be capped if you didn't follow the rule of using Chaos Bolt when you get to 3.5 Burning Embers.  Also, if you killed something with Shadowburn and topped off on Burning Embers, your first new spell on something should NOT be Conflagrate. 

 

I'm not an engineer (likely one of the very few top end players that doesn't do engineering even though I'm an engineer IRL), but the buff is only ~1800 Intellect, or half of a potion.  It's worth using all the time, but it's not worth fretting over.  Bind it to something you use frequently to ensure it's used on CD.  It is a good idea to stack it with Dark Soul, but you should be using your Synapse Springs more than every 120 seconds.

[Lothrandir 12]

Simply stated, "What constitutes a 'buffed' Chaos Bolt?"

 

Good question ... in my view, and practice, it is only trinket procs and DS (plus ofc avoiding reaching 40), which warrant ember dumping through CB. I'm sure some can micro-dissect this into non-optimal behavior, but it's easy, and it gets me where I want to be in my raid group :)

 

As a side note, AffDots has a neat little display which shows your 'current power' - it's mainly for dots, and it is always relative to your current dot, but it could be an indication for you in certain situations. In any case, it's fairly nice for Immolate alone, altho it's main value is for affliction locks.

[Lothrandir 12]

and it is always relative to your current dot

 

Yes, replying to myself .... but I just remembered that there is a setting for whether the figure shown should be relative to your dot or based on a fixed 'magic number', which you can define. You might be able to get some value out of this 'base number'.

[Kazistrasz 216]

You should be tracking your trinket procs to know when you get them, along with their ICDs (for ICD trinkets).

 

The basic version is this: Do you have a trinket proc? If yes, dump embers into Chaos Bolt. If no, save embers and cast Chaos Bolt when you reach 3.5.

 

The slightly more advanced version is to not fully dump if you know your PBI is about to come off ICD to pop with DS so you can go into that with three Chaos Bolts ready to go if possible.

 

The even more advanced version is to start getting your Chaos Bolts off with your 4-piece proc (requires tracking the ICD and such) when you don't have trinkets.

[Vindican 2]

Sounds simple enough.  I've already noticed a massive increase in my output by applying the information in this thread, and my "rotation" (if you can call it that) has smoothed out considerably.  No longer making those double-Conflag at 3 embers mistakes and such anymore, and have prioritized my proc watching to hold off on CBs until meaningful procs are up or I'm at 3.0-3.5 embers (still need to get into the habit of waiting until 3.5, but in order to not cap, have been giving myself some leeway so I can ease into that).

 

Looking forward to parsing strong tonight and posting logs for further analysis.  Thanks!

[Vindican 2]

Just some logs as an update - if Zag or others want to take a quick peek and point out anything glaring I still need to improve on, please let me know (name is Unlivingston now - I did a race change).

 

Otherwise, those tips are working WONDERFULLY.  Still getting used to some things and still find myself capping from time to time, but more and more those times are unavoidable (AOE situations like reflections on Sha, etc.).  Thanks again for all the help, guys!

 

After a quick glance I realize I need to work on my Immo uptime, so that's what I'm going to focus on this week.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Vindican

[Guest garmeth06]

Glad you're seeing improvement, whats your gear look like now for reference?

 

Quick glance at shaman, you can get some extreme numbers even with low gear, when the slimes come out switch to them immediately, you build a lot of embers and obviously do a ton of AOE damage.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I like to stun the first 5-6 slimes. Keeps the pack bunched up better.