Lol noep

[Tollo 0]

.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Tollo

[Lockybalboa 618]

I count four major game play/factual errors.

[Tollo 0]

And what would those be?

[Zagam 1,982]

If you want to post something informational, do you have insight to provide ADDITIONAL information on top of the plethora of guides we already have, both the Icy-Veins guide as well as the forum guides?  Specific points would be great.

[Gnar 26]

That opener is missing quite a bit. You are losing some major crit ember regen by popping DS that late.  If you pop DS towards the start you can get quite a few more embers and at the same time pop the 4 piece to then reapply Immolate with almost a 75%ish crit chance.  Then you use Chaos Bolts.  Only deviation from that really is multitarget opener with havoc or and AoE opener. 

[Tollo 0]

I have run this by several top end, well-established locks. I disagree anything is wrong in there.

I actually already had this written as per request of my gm.. just posted it here. Thought maybe it would help someone learn something. If you want to delete this, feel free. I will cut it to info not already scattered across the forums if there is anything.

I'm also in no way claiming to be R1 or anything. I can always learn new things but there are definitely not major class play problems haha.

[Lockybalboa 618]

And what would those be?

 

 

Not my guide. Find the problems yourself. Any warlock that knows their class should see them right off the bat though.

[Tollo 0]

That opener is missing quite a bit. You are losing some major crit ember regen by popping DS that late.  If you pop DS towards the start you can get quite a few more embers and at the same time pop the 4 piece to then reapply Immolate with almost a 75%ish crit chance.  Then you use Chaos Bolts.  Only deviation from that really is multitarget opener with havoc or and AoE opener.

I don't agree. I try to squeeze every ounce out of my cb's. My rotation takes the rng out of getting perfect trinkets. I used to use that Strat and I've had it happen where Expanded Mind does not proc till after DS rolls off.

[Zagam 1,982]

As a bonus, I'd like to scrutinize one of your logs.  Here is your latest Malkorok kill: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/gB7MYWPtHKDCxAb8#type=damage-done&fight=38&source=11

 

1. Immolate uptime of 80%.  This is pretty bad for single target. 

2. 391k in a 25 man with a 587 item level is pretty low.  It puts you below the 75th percentile.

3. 4 Shadowburns in a 25 man seems awfully low considering the plethora of slimes you have.  4 would be low if you ONLY cast it on Malkorok.

4. KTT contributed only 3.8% of your DPS when the theoretical amount would be over 5.5%.  In your guide, you site KTT being the ABSOLUTE best, even over BBoY.  This is flawed logic as the RNG of KTT can put you behind controlled use of BBoY.

5. http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/gB7MYWPtHKDCxAb8#type=casts&fight=38&source=11&pins=0%24Separate%24%23244F4B%24auras-gained%240%240.0.0.Any%240.0.0.Any%24true%24105694216.0.0.Warlock%24false%24113858^0%24Separate%24%23909049%24auras-gained%240%240.0.0.Any%240.0.0.Any%24true%24105694216.0.0.Warlock%24false%24146046^0%24Separate%24%23a04D8A%24auras-gained%240%240.0.0.Any%240.0.0.Any%24true%24105694216.0.0.Warlock%24false%24148906&ability=116858 this link shows your Chaos Bolt usage with your procs.  You did ok, but you had a lot of missed opportunities, namely casting 2 Chaos Bolts at 2:45, when you would have been better off holding at least one of those for the next proc you popped up.

 

There are some flaws in your gameplay, so while we appreciate some additional information and points of view, you have to be able to stand behind your performance when you're going to try to give others insight to what you think is the proper strategy for Destruction.

[Zagam 1,982]

Hope you're a fan of Breaking Bad, because you're on my turf now...

 

[Liquidsteel 279]

1. STATS

Stat Weighting: Int > Hit (15%) > Mastery > Haste(10437) > Crit > Haste

The 10437 gives you an extra Immolation tick during Heroism/Legendary Meta Gem.

Int will always have a higher weight 1:1 than Secondary stats (Meaning a WF non-BiS item is better than Non-WF BiS item), BUT, All secondary stats are worth more than half of what Int is worth so getting double the secondary stat makes it better.

This mostly comes into play in gemming..

It is always better to gem Hit than reforge into Hit. This is because of stat weighting. If Non-Red Gems gave 100 or more Intellect, that would always be better. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

 

Whilst I am a fan of 10437 Haste (myself and Crisius came to this conclusion as an overall one size fits all build back when we were raiding together), I don't think it's fair to call it the absolute BiS way to build your warlock.

 

Haste doesn't necessarily lose value after 10437, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with going in the other direction and fully maximizing Crit, either.

 

It comes down to personal preference and the fight at hand. My personal, anecdotal evidence, is that Crit shines in any fight where Shadowburn makes up a large portion of your damage, and where you aren't necessarily using FnB 100% of the time. I think this applies more to 10 man where you can easily get the lion's share of add snipes, but stuff like Galakras/Spoil/Thok have always been most successful when I've ran a Crit build.

 

 

 

3. ROTATION

I will now go through each Rotation for Destruction.

[sINGLE TARGET]

On a 10 Second Timer,

@ -2.5 Seconds - Pop Pre-Pot

@ -1.5 Seconds, Precast Incinerate

Cast Curse of the Elements (If no one else is)

Cast Immolate

Double Cast Conflagrate

Incinerate until both trinket proc

Pop Darksoul + Synapse Springs w/ Trinket Procs

Use AS MANY Chaos Bolts as you can with Trinket Buffs

Once you are out of embers, Reapply Immolate with a stronger DoT line.

Once Trinket Procs end, Begin Filler Rotation

Keep Immolate on ~100% Uptime

Use Conflagrate and consume Backdraft with Incinerate

Repeat Chaos Bolt spam on next Trinket Proc.

As others have mentioned, delaying Dark Soul really isn't advised. Don't forget that KTT/BBoY will always proc immediately, and that the proc they provide is equal or greater than the PBI proc. You also delay generating your second ember and proccing 4pc by doing it this way. If you blindly incinerate, I predict you will miss out on 2x Chaos Bolt in the first 10 seconds, and getting up that monster Immolate snapshot with all trinkets/haste/crit buffs.

 

 

 

[HAVOC ]

Havoc is a huge portion of cleave rotation. You should be using Havoc on practically cooldown (Unless you have your trinket coming off Cooldown within 25 seconds). With a 2-Minute ICD, you can cast Havoc on Cooldown 4 times.

Shadowburn is also very important with Havoc. Because Havoc has three charges and Shadowburn only uses 1 charge (versus Chaos Bolt’s 3) you should always try to Havoc/Shadowburn.

Here is a basic priority for Havoc: Shadowburn (w/ Trinkets) > Shadowburn > Chaos Bolt (w/ Trinkets) > Chaos Bolt

Another important note to make is Shadowburn Sniping. With a macro I will post below, you have the ability to quickly pick off small adds (Like small adds on Sha of Pride). With the macro you can continue targeting the main target but mouseover shadowburn small adds for Ember Generation and added Damage.

**Note to make about this: Currently, Mouseover Shadowburn does not trigger Havoc charges so if you want to Havoc/Shadowburn small adds, you need to actually target the small adds (You can alternatively Mouseover: Havoc the boss and keep the adds targeted)

You have completely neglected to mention one of the most important uses for Havoc - ember generation.

 

On fights like Klaxxi and Garrosh, you *should* (unless your guild kills weapons) be using Havoc for Immolate/Conflag/Incinerate to boost your single target damage through higher ember generation.

 

You also seem to have missed the memo about the Havoc/Mouseover Shadowburn work around macro. I will list it below for you here:

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cleartarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]
/use [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Shadowburn
/targetlasttarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]

There are some fight specific nuances with Havoc that you've failed to mention, but I'll point those out when I get there.

 

 

 

[NORUSHEN]

Soul Link - For Passive Mitigation

Grimoire of Sacrifice - If your guild can handle interrupts and stuns on adds, take Voidwalker GoSac for the Defensive. If they cannot, take Fel Hunter GoSac.

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - Lots of movement due to Cutter Beam

Norushen actually doesn't require a lot of movement if you just place your personal portal down at the stack point. Just side step when it come near and portal yourself over to the other side. 

 

 

 

[sHA OF PRIDE]

Dark Bargain - For Swelling Pride

Unbound Will - Allows you to cleanse your own Debuff (Mark of Arrogance)

Grimoire of Sacrifice - GoSac Fel Hunter for Big Add Interrupts

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - For obvious reasons, this fight has you running all over the room.

Dark Bargain is a terrible talent that has no place on this fight. You can just run SacPact and it will be up for every single Swelling Pride.

 

Also don't forget your personal portal on your prison lock, and gateway to help your allies.

 

 

 

[iRON JUGGERNAUT]

Dark Bargain - Completely absorbs one of the three knockbacks during Phase 2

Grimoire of Sacrifice - No Adds - No need for Pet. GoSac Voidwalker for Defensive

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - Allows you to continue casting during Borer Drills

 

Again, Dark Bargain is completely unnecessary when we have SacPact as an option.

You've missed out two important fight specific tips here.

Firstly, you can Havoc the mines (or the boss) and copy incinerates. This is a minimum of 3 extra ember bits with a chance at the extra 15%. This is possible because you gain embers as incinerate leaves your hand, regardless if the enemy is immune or not.

 

Also there is a technique to maintaining 100% activity on the boss.

 

First Shock Pulse - Portal

Second Shock Pulse - Glider

Third Shock Pulse - Portal.

 

Keeps you on boss 100% of the time, and means you don't waste Gateway charges that your raiders can use.

 

 

 

Dark Bargain - Use this to soak Iron Prison, as well as Unending Resolve. Sacrificial Pact is viable as well. Just don't pick Soul Link!

Grimoire of Sacrifice - While add damage is nice, it’s irrelevant to actual boss damage and should be considered secondary. With that in mind, GoSac will be better for single-target boss damage on this fight.

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - There is too much movement in this fight to use Archimonde’s Darkness.

Considering that SacPact is up for EVERY single Iron Prison (because yes, you can get it 3 times back to back), there is absolutely no way you can recommend Dark Bargain.

 

 

 

[GENERAL NAZGRIM]

Sacrificial Pact - Enough absorb to help with Assassins

Grimoire of Sacrifice - GoSac will provide a large damage boost to Shadowburn and with the amount of Shadowburn available on this fight, it will significantly increase your damage. (Just be quick on those Shadowburn snipes!)

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - The shockwave causes a lot of movement.

I feel you should mention AD here. There really isn't all that much movement. Shockwave only forces 2 GCD's max to get out of it which can be easily covered by Fel Flame.

 

 

 

[MALKOROK]

Mortal Coil* - This option is not necessary. It just provides a 15% health gain if your healers are having trouble.

Dark Bargain - This allows you to soak orbs throughout the room.

Grimoire of Sacrifice - Use GoSac Voidwalker for the defensive. It can help in situations with low shield and you have to soak a puddle.

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - This is a must on this fight. With the level of environmental AoE damage, you can’t skip this one. (Unless your team is letting you tunnel and nuke - Then you should use Affliction!)

Again, Dark Bargain is kind of useless. You can still soak puddles without it. Also Soul Link with GoSac means you have a bigger shield for healers to stack on you.

 

Also what do you mean by "unless your team is letting you tunnel and nuke". Aside from Affliction being better anyway for the single target damage, how would Affliction be better at tunneling and nuking? Affliction loses less from forced movement than Destruction. 

 

 

 

[GARROSH HELLSCREAM]

Dark Regeneration - I combo this with other defensives to help with one of the Empowered Whirling Corruptions.

Dark Bargain - Use this on Empowered Whirling Corruption and if you have to help soak Malice during Bombardment.

Grimoire of Sacrifice - This is MOSTLY a single target fight. Don’t waste it on a little extra add damage in Phase 1 by taking Grimoire of Supremacy. Make sure to GoSac Fel Hunter for the Interrupt on Temple of the Jade Serpent adds!

Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning - With usually being in the weapon group, warlocks are constantly on the move in this fight.

Glyph of Unending Resolve - Shortens the Cooldown, allowing you to use twice between mid-p2 and p3.

Glyph of Healthstone - Great glyph for self-healing. Just don’t forget you have this on and expect instant heals!!

I think Soul Leech is too strong in general here but to each his own.

Dark Bargain once again is a very poor recommendation. SacPact is a one minute cooldown that creates close to a 900k shield. It is extremely strong.

Not only that, but due to Garrosh not doing much damage before Whirling Corruption, you can actually use it 15 seconds before, and it will be up again for the next one! Take no damage from either Whirling Corruption, and also have a 1 minute CD that can be used in the transition no problem and still be back up again for any Whirlings.

Unending Resolve (for the aforementioned usage of SacPact) is kind of overkill on this fight. I'd rather just take the passive 10% reduction, but it's not a huge deal.

You could also have written about optimal Havoc usage.

 

Thok the Bloodthirsty

 

You missed him out for some reason so I'll add him in for you.

 

Glyphs of Unending Resolve and Havoc are mandatory.

The former gives you a reduced cooldown on your interrupt immunity, allowing a higher uptime on freecasting. This can be used before your guild starts its chain of Devotion Auras, just make sure to not use at the same time. Glyphing it means it is up for both p1 and the bats.

Havoc allows you to cleave 2 Chaos Bolts from Thok to the Jailer, and is up again to allow you to copy 6 Shadowburns from Bats to Boss for insane damage. Very powerful glyph on this fight.

 

Dark Bargain

 

The only fight where Dark Bargain is ok on is Paragons if you want another solo soaker. You should, however, use a /cancelaura macro for Dark Bargain so as to not randomly start taking huge ticks of damage.

/cancelaura Dark Bargain
/cast Dark Bargain
/cast Twilight Ward

So yeah. You did ask about what flaws there could be, and I've tried to list as many as I could find. I think this is ok for a beginner's guide, but really you could just end up teaching them bad habits or making them think a particular way of gearing is the ONLY viable option.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Liquidsteel

[Desos 18]

I looked  through your guild´s official forum and found this:
http://churchguild.org/showthread.php?14847-Warlock-Thread-2-0!

 

If some non-Warlock(I believe your pala MT) wants to try to help their warlocks, I assume they find their wl´s a little bit lackluster (my personal impression).

 

In the mentioned thread you actually manage to accept criticism, so why not here?

[Soulzar 42]

I don't want to pile on or anything, but I have never seen such extensive use of Dark Bargain ever!

 

I don't think there is a single fight where Dark bargain is a better option than Sac Pact.  Sac Pact lets you completely absorb just about any mechanic that produces predictable burst.  

 

Why Soak 50% of the dmg of two whirling corruptions when you can soak 90% of all of them?  Sure you can Solo Soak Aim with the fancy Dark bargain/UR combo, but you have just burned two 3 min DR on an ability that is used every ~30 seconds.  

 

Sac Pact is actually a poor "Oh Shit" button, but completely trivializes most burst dmg mechanics

[Zagam 1,982]

His guild takes Simcraft for gospel (pun intended), says that Demonology is terrible (WRONG), and argues about secondary stats and how important it is to gain 1500 DPS (lol @ sub 0.5% gains).  I already dived into their forums when they sent me somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-5 recruiting requests.  The state of their Warlock forums/theorycrafting put me in mental pain. 

[Lockybalboa 618]

This is what they are saying: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=

 

[Severan 0]

On a serious note. What would you all do without your WoW crackpipe. So much energy spent on solving fantasy pixel problems. Too bad the 7 million wow subscribers didn't spend there 20-40 hours of wow fantasy time on solving real issues in the world. Think of what that would be accomplished!

 

http://www.recovery.org/topics/about-the-online-gamers-anonymous-12-step-recovery-program/

[Liquidsteel 279]

Think of what that would be accomplished!

Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

 

Nice attempt to troll, but perhaps you should have spent a bit more time on your English studies, and less time thinking up ways to annoy us 'nerds'.

 

On topic - I'd be playing different games. Go figure.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Liquidsteel

[Zagam 1,982]

On a serious note. What would you all do without your WoW crackpipe. So much energy spent on solving fantasy pixel problems. Too bad the 7 million wow subscribers didn't spend there 20-40 hours of wow fantasy time on solving real issues in the world. Think of what that would be accomplished!

 

http://www.recovery.org/topics/about-the-online-gamers-anonymous-12-step-recovery-program/

A little derogatory in your claim here that we all don't contribute to the real world.  Let me fact check you real hard.

 

My job title is "Contract Analyst."  What that means is I analyze contracts between health insurance companies and the hospital system I work for.  I use numerical analysis, risk factoring, and negotiation to augment deals that create reimbursement structures for the hospital and the physicians in my healthcare network. 

 

On top of those responsibilities, I also analyze healthcare data of about 250,000 people which is used to analyze trends in healthcare, identify care gaps such as people driving too far to get to their doctor, and looking at days spent between treatments to see if their A1C tests are being done for diabetes or if their medications are being picked up every 30 days as depicted in their treatment plan. 

 

I analyze cost trends of medicines, identify new drugs coming in, look at cost vs benefit ratios, plan budgets for several multi-million dollar hospitals using financial analytical tools and prediction models, and plan out what our employees pay for health care in terms of premiums, deductibles, copays, and coinsurance payments.

 

At the end of the day, I'm analyzing BILLIONS of dollars in one of the most complicated industries out there which is always evolving.  In order to stay on top of it, I have to be adaptable, intelligent, and driven.  Those skills translate into my ability to manipulate, explain, and make sense of the numerical data from Blizzard, particularly with Warlocks.  Just because it looks like we devote a lot of attention into game analysis doesn't mean we aren't saving the world in some other fashion.  My skills are transferrable between my career and my hobby.  There is no "WoW crackpipe" - there is just me being fucking awesome.

[Zagam 1,982]

[Lockybalboa 618]

[Soulzar 42]

On a serious note. What would you all do without your WoW crackpipe. 

 

I'd find another drug.

[Kazistrasz 216]

As someone who successfully wrote a comprehensive spec guide in a time when there was already a guide of repute (the resto guide and in our druid forums), let me tell you what I can.

 

If you want to publish a guide late into a tier, you have to have something no one else has, and you have to do it better than everyone that's already doing it. In my case, I began very simply with writing out and explaining the approach and philosophy I use as a healer. Guides don't generally do that, but it helps set the frame of mind. Most healing guides explain "rotation" in terms of light, moderate, and heavy raid damage. Since I find those terms to be kind of arbitrary, I wrote based on how the damage feels and how much effort everything takes. Those are things other healing guides don't do, and it was part of why it went over well. I also went with a section on how to handle running out of mana, because most guides just assume that won't happen, or just assume you're boned if it does. What you've given here is nothing that isn't already out there (and by "out there", I mean "right here in this very forum section").

 

Another key is that whatever you say has to be demonstrably accurate and optimal. It means you have to be able to show that what you're saying is correct. The work you're doing in raids should match what you're advising, and it should be high-quality work. Math and theory are great, and I certainly worked on some modeling in spreadsheets and the like with my rdruid guide, but I made sure that everything I put out matched the way I play my resto druid. As a healer, you can't say that anything is perfect, but I could show that I was healing through 14/14H (or 13/14H at the time with Garrosh progression) and keeping up with my other healer at a 568 item level, considerably undergeared compared to most healers that were still working at that level of play. Despite having considerably better gear than most warlocks, most of your parses for non-AoE fights are low for the fact that you're doing 25-man, which means that something about what you're doing and advocating isn't working well. I'm not saying you have to be 98th percentile on every fight, but to write a guide mostly concerned with single target I'd expect you to at least consistently be 95th for those styles of fights.

 

Then, of course, there's formatting. Content issues aside (which many have pointed out, and some still remain that, like Locky, I believe you should be left to figure out for yourself), it looks ugly. It's a big wall of mono-font, white text. There are no icons, no tables, no bolding, not italicizing, no anything to break up the enormous monotony of your post.

 

Oh, and of course, the last part that is almost as important: when you write and publish something like this, you are submitting yourself and your work to the rest of the community for peer review. In doing so, you have to be able to handle those reviews well. Your first post in defense was to say that you had it reviewed by "several top end, well-established locks." Who? When I wrote the self-help boomkin guide in our druid forums, I went to very high-quality boomkins that play in top end guilds, but I then name them. It gives them proper thanks in helping me put it forward, and also lends credibility. It's the same thing Icy Veins does with all of their official class guides. When you just say you had it looked at by high quality players without giving any names or reference, it makes it look like you didn't actually pick anyone of merit and just asked someone in a guild on your server who not even main their warlock (not saying that's the case, but I'm saying that it just hurts your credibility and calls your sources into question).

 

Then you deny that anything is wrong. Later, you simply say "well I do this because that other thing doesn't work." This again goes back to having to be able to show that what you're doing works. In my case, if someone questions something I have written, I hear them out then provide a thoroughly-reasoned response that involves the results I see and has the same mathematical backing as what I originally posted. If they make a valid point, I simply acknowledge it and consider including it in my guide (there are several points I've added since release because they were simply good points to add) and thank them for helping to improve the overall quality. I never flat deny the possibility that anything is wrong, and I never give a wishy-washy reasoning to something, especially if that something is inconsistent with the practice of the vast majority of the class.

 

Try again another time. Cheers, mate.

[Gnar 26]

Yes, I'm hella useless to society. Just a pixel perfectionist. Next time ya post, this of the electronic you are using and the wafer inside of it. Now, imagine how those are made and the billion dollar industry of nano polishing that makes that possible. I do research to make sure that chemical mechanical planarization is possible so wafers can do more with less. What do you do?

Side note to the not trolls, I used a mix of Sac Pact with either UR or Void Shield and was easily able to solo soak multiple times a fight. Basically, never fucking Dark Bargain, it's just not good.

[Pattymayo 16]

On a serious note. What would you all do without your WoW crackpipe. So much energy spent on solving fantasy pixel problems. Too bad the 7 million wow subscribers didn't spend there 20-40 hours of wow fantasy time on solving real issues in the world. Think of what that would be accomplished!

 

This is a bold accusation. Personally, I find time for video games because it is a stress reliever. Being good at a video game does not mean you are bad at real life. I'm in medical school and still find time to enjoy my hobbies. 

[Hurtlocker 11]

If only this week's challenge for "Waiting for WoD Warlock Style" was to create a warlock guide to see how many Semi Respectable moderators you could get to dismantle it, 3 points to Tollo. 

Edited July 17, 2014 by Hurtlocker