Destro Lock - Warcraftlog Comparison Aid

[Fel 42]

Hi Icy Veins crew,

 

I'm scratching my head over something here. I've been under-performing my personal expectations for my DPS on single target fights. I'm a reasonably competent warcraftlogs user, and looked into what other people were doing to see what I might be doing wrong... I came up empty.

 

I conducted a few tests and couldnt find anything, but then I lucked out and got a direct competitor in a heroic HM PuG run. I do hope he/she isnt unhappy with my referencing him/her here. 

 

This is me: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/malganis/Felturd/advanced- ilvl 659

This is him: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/blackrock/Reina/advanced- ilvl 650

 

Trinkets are similar, neither of us have weapon enchants. By any metric, his gear is worse than mine. He has a teeny bit more crit less haste, less mastery.

 

Here is the logs link: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/3TkHCZD1Ac8Fvh9t/#fight=6&type=damage-done

 

On butcher, as linked, he topped me by over 1k dps. I made no errors that I am aware of. I had my circle down and was porting back immediately at each bounding cleave. We used our DS:I and trinkets and potions at virtually the same times. His chaos bolt and incinerates do less average damage than mine. The ONLY discrepancy I can find, is that he completed a significant number of casts more than I did. I have no idea how.

 

Can someone smarter than me please tell me what is going on? I even watched both of us casting via the reply function on warcraftlogs, expecting to find that I had some kind of latency delay between my casts or something. But no, theyre back to back. 

 

I'm stumped. Help!

 

Thank you in advance for your time IV crew.

 

Kind Regards,

Felturd

 

 

[Paracel 165]

*Sigh*and some more Destro logs. I should get paid for it or something...
Seriously, guys, there are 2 specs more and they are cool...
Nevermind. Couldn't get sleep and feeling whiney.

You both used DS at slightly different times. "Virtually" isn't the word you want.

Your second Proc was a bit off CD. But you didn't hold your DS.
Other warlock didn't get this issue. He also covered his first proc/pot with second DS(questionable though)
I can also see some of your Backdrafts being spent on Chaosbolts. That's not good - a DPS loss, in fact. Your opponent was casting Incies - that's where more casts come from.

And two words.
Immo. ......
I think you know the second. 
Your 90% into his 94%. 

Never panic. There always is somebody who will best you.
Game is hard. And you should play it hard.

Hope that helps. 
Good luck!

[Fel 42]

Gotcha. the # of casts differential is because he's spending all his Backdraft procs on Incinerate. Horribly embarrassing but I.. did not know that that was a DPS loss. In fact, I had thought the opposite and was making every attempt TO use Backdraft on Chaos bolts :S.

 

Before you throw me (deservingly) under a bus, I did a TON of reading when the xpac first hit and I was warlocking as main. Somewhere in between there and my forced switch back to Holy Paladin, I must've forgotten/misremembered that piece of information. Unless that actually changed at some point in the last 6 weeks, in which case, hooray, I am vindicated. 

 

Regardless, thank you very much for your input and advice, I shall apply it and hopefully my numbers will come up.

 

Other tidbits

Yeah I disregarded the specificity of the proc + CDs alignment because at the end of the day, even if he did do that better than I did, it didn't give him a higher average spell damage per spell than me, so it couldn't be accounting for his overall higher DPS. The symptom of the issue had to be the discrepancy in the number of casts. 

 

I saw the immolate difference as well, that's my bad for being sloppy, but again, I checked the totals and his did 690k, vs mine at 720k (including cast and DoT damage). Accurate criticism, just nothing to do with the heart of the issue. 

 

Wrapup + Future advice

For my knowledge, when using Havoc on Chaosbolt, is it a dps loss to consume backdraft then as well? I use it on shadownburns when possible of course, but on high health adds, or fights like twin ogron.

 

Thanks again!

-Fel

[Fel 42]

Er... So I chastised myself for failing to read, and went to brush up on it, and I actually found the bit on info that had me using Chaos Bolts on Backdraft. It's in the Icy Veins guide. ><

 

 

 Chaos Bolt deals a lot more damage than  Incinerate, so you should not hesitate to consume charges of Backdraft with Chaos Bolt, when you want to cast several Chaos Bolts in a short period of time. The rest of the time, simply consume your procs of Backdraft with Incinerate.

 

So that should either get an update, or the info provided by Paracel is incorrect. I'll do my own testing to see what's right ( I have a pretty solid feeling Para is right, it makes sense), but perhaps the guide should get a small update or note of some kind, if this is proven theory crafting :D

 

No criticism of the guides, they're great, just giving you all a heads up.

 

Thanks,

Fel

[Paracel 165]

Fel,
No bus shenanigans involved.
There is a guild that would need you one day for summons and healthstones because you have potential as DPS player and gear.

He did get more critical hits from Immo ticks = more embers, though, if we talk it. 

For your question - generally don't. It will result in the same issue - less casts overall.
Why on earth you would play Destro on fights like Twins>? 

It's not like guide is providing invalid info or something...
But, honestly, it wasn't the case for Backdrafting CBs. 
There are such cases, I agree. 
But in this exact fight, you've followed the guide, not your experience/intuition/spider sense.  You know the result.

[Fel 42]

Hahah, Affliction was my passion and my main spec back when I locked in late Cata/early MoP. I went Destro for WoD because I didn't like the affliction changes, and also because I was going to trial in my friend's guild and Destro at the start of WoD looked like the strongest spec. Sadly, I didnt get to stay on the lock, or I'd like be fulltime affliction now. As it stand, Destro is all I have my bars (and brain) configured for so far this xpac.

 

I tried affliction for Twins in an LFR once a few weeks ago, I need a few days of practice to even start to perform. Just dont have the time *tsunami of tears*. One day... one day.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Read the passage you quoted again. The guide is correct.

If you want to dump a fast chaos bolt then using backdraft stacks is fine. The rest of the time you should spend them on Incinerate, which is what the guide actually states!

[Wolland 1]

It's OK to use a Backdraft charge with Chaos Bolt when you want to squeeze one Chaos Bolt just when your procs are about to fall off, when otherwise a regular CB cast would not make the timer.

 

I believe that is what the guide is trying to say.

[Eddie 16]

The main thing to realize about Backdraft is it only makes you cast Chaos Bolt faster, it does not increase the damage. So if procs are going to fall off before you can cast a normal bolt, but you can squeeze it out if you use backdraft, then its a DPS gain to use backdraft on Chaos Bolt. If you have no procs up, or you have plenty of time on your procs, just use backdraft on incinerate.

[Paracel 165]

Half an hour writing a response, and tab is closed when im getting to the very end. Once again.

I don't want to press on @Fel's performance anymore, but in given log, there was no need for squeezing. It is a very good example for this topic.
That's a subject I would like to talk about, as it a pretty darn significant part of our Destro gameplay.

Gotta leave now, so I'll reserve this exact comment to edit in later and show exactly where Backdrafting CB wasn't needed.
Then probably get a read of other warlock's log from this fight, as his numbers were better, and compare.

Stop me if it is not needed and I'm going crazy trying to prove my point.

 

Edited January 16, 2015 by Paracel

[Liquidsteel 279]

I don't think it's worth too much more thought. Don't use CB with backdraft stacks unless you absolutely have to.

[Fel 42]

 

 

I don't think it's worth too much more thought. Don't use CB with backdraft stacks unless you absolutely have to.

This is the crux of it. Regarding your earlier comment, I can see what you mean in the guide, but I suppose it could be construed as ambiguous (in the sense that it implies that faster chaos bolts are good). You are correct however, I carried that assumption  further than the guide implied, entirely my error. Thankfully, there are these awesome forums to come and check yourself on :D

 

It'd be interesting to know how the math shapes up on this. I supposed you'd be comparing how much of an extra Chaos Bolt 3 Backdraft-hasted Incinerates buys you, against an unmodified Chaos bolt's damage. Then you'd just need to know the % increase in damage via crit or spellpower your Chaos Bolts have with your various procs so you could make a quick decision about whether or not to burn a backdraft on a CB before those procs run out. Seems to complex to bother really, but maybe I'll tinker with it later on and see what comes up.

 

Thanks for your input all :)

-Fel

[Liquidsteel 279]

It's quite simple. Say you have trinket procs up, and you have to move. You cast a conflagrate followed by a rain of fire as you run. When you stop moving, your cooldowns have 2 seconds remaining and you have 3 stacks of backdraft.

 

Here it is logical to consume the 3 stacks of backdraft to get out that Chaos Bolt.

 

If you had 4 seconds remaining, you would first cast one incinerate followed by the Chaos Bolt.

 

You never actively cast conflagrate to subsequently benefit from the haste buff to Chaos Bolt, but sometimes it is unavoidable.