Heroic Dragon Soul - Warlock Style

[Zagam 1,982]

I'll be providing a detailed, yet simplified guide for Warlocks in Heroic Dragon Soul. My character's armory can be found on the Mal'Ganis server and the name Zagam. Warlocks seem to have a difficult time competing with other classes in terms of DPS and I'm going to do my part to help fledging Warlocks contribute to their guild to their maximum potential!

EDIT: Revamped to reflect Patch 5.0.4

Basic Tips - If playing Demonology, take Grimoire of Service. If playing Affliction, take Grimoire of Sacrifice. Try to avoid Destruction as it doesn't play to the standards of Demonology or Affliction.

Morchok - Demonology/Affliction

Affliction - Perform your rotation as you would normally on your primary target. Use Soulburn: Soul Swap to instantly place all 3 DoTs on the boss you are not assigned to and apply your DoTs one by one on your primary, assigned target. Nothing else fancy here.

Demonology - Perform your rotation as you would normally on your primary target. Have your Felguard(s) Felstorm on cooldown and try to time every 3 of their Felstorms with your new Demon Soul cooldown that grants Mastery rating. If a Stomp comes and you're in Meta form, feel free to take a double share...you'll take less than the tank.

Yor'sahj - Demonology preferred

Overall Warlock Tips: Use your Infernal during a Black Ooze combination. If coupled with the Demonology strat detailed below, you can darn near solo all of the adds. Remember to use Life Tap ONLY after the Mana Void has taken everyone's mana. Since your raid will be dealing with the Purple Ooze a lot, you don't want to put yourself in the bad eyes of your healers. Tap once and only once...your mana will be restored when the Void pops or when your Demon crits.

Demonology - Demonology has no competition on this fight if 1 single Black Ooze comes in contact with Yor'sahj. For any AoE situation, tell the rest of your raid to focus on Yor'sahj while you melt the adds as if you were a torch flame and the adds were like warm butter on a hot summer day. Simply enter Metamorphosis form, use Grimoire of Service to summon out a 2nd Felguard, use Hand of Guldan on Yor'sahj, apply Immolation Aura with Hellfire, use 2x Felstorm, and use Void Ray for about 6 seconds. Enjoy your stay at the top of the meters and pray for more black phases. If a black phase comes and you don't have Service off CD, simply use your Infernal in place of Service.

Zon'ozz - Affliction/Demonology

This fight change greatly depending on assignment, but you will likely be assigned to kill Eyes and Flails. Due to Destruction's ranged pet, on-demand burst, and Nether Protection, you will most benefit your raid as a Destruction Warlock. If you are assigned to stay on the boss, you can go Demonology (bonus if your raid leader puts you in the melee group).

Affliction - Multidotting Eyes and Flails will boost your DPS, but it will add strain to the healers unless you are not assigned to kill a particular set of Eyes/Flails. To do the best burst as Affliction, use Soul Swap to take out the first Eye/Flail you are assigned to. Be prepared for MONSTER Drain Soul ticks when Zon'ozz is below 25%. Time your Grimoire of Sacrifice for when you are performing your execute of Zon'ozz (sub 25%)

Demonology - Offer to kill adds, but let your raid leader know your DPS will be significantly higher if left on the boss. Your Felguards should never have to travel from add to add, so keep them on the boss. Either get teamed up with a high burst DPS for adds or just wittle away at yours for a while. Use Felstorm on CD and perform your normal rotation.

Hagara - Affliction/Destruction

Your success on Hagara depends on your ability to switch targets fast and get your DoTs up faster.

Affliction - Affliction's new Soulburn: Soul Swap is incredible for quickly applying DoTs to Hagara during Feedback and getting the Ice Crystals down ASAP. For mind-blowing numbers, as soon as the 4th Ice Crystal dies, use your Grimoire of Sacrifice, Soulburn: Soul Swap your 3 DoTs on Hagara, and begin channeling Malefic Grasp...try to contain your excitement of huge yellow numbers popping up on your screen.

Demonology - Perform your normal rotation. Time Grimoire of Service when Hagara suffers Feedback. Two Felguards recklessly shredding Hagara's face at double damage will make you perform quite well. Popping Meta and getting into the fray will likely draw an Ice Lance attachment your way, so be prepared to call out for an intercept or use someone standing still as a human shield for a few seconds.

Ultraxion - All specs viable.

Perform your basic rotation no matter what spec. Just don't die to Fading Light. You can now successfully eat an Hour of Twilight with Dark Bargain. You'll require a bit of TLC after Dark Bargain wears off, but it's nothing your healers should automatically deal with since they will be spamming AoE heals.

Warmaster - Affliction

Any other spec used here is a hindrance to your raid. DoT every target alive (both drakes as they pass over) and both ground adds. Prioritize drakes over anything else, but always DoT up every possible target. Ignore Sappers; they are not your problem. During Phase 2, keep your DoTs on Warmaster while you DPS Gorianna to 85%. Once she lands, keep UA, Corruption, and Agony on Gorianna and Warmaster. Once Gorianna is gone, simply avoid Shockwaves and finish the big Tauren.

Spine - Demonology

Any other spec used here is a hindrance to your raid. If you are assigned to dealing with Fiery Grip, make sure you have a pre-casted Hand of Guldan queued to hit the Corruption just as it begins the Fiery Grip. Keep Shadowflame on the building number of oozes throughout the entire fight.

During the Burning Tendon phase, you will want to pop Metamorphosis 3-4 seconds before the Tendon is exposed. Also, make sure your Felguard is out. Make sure your Immolation Aura is on, Demon Soul is used. Open up with Curse of Elements unless you have an Unholy DK or Boomkin in your group. Rotation should be:

Curse of Elements > Grimoire of Service > (Felstorm x 2) Doom > Immolate > Corruption > Hand of Guldan > Shadowflame > Touch of Chaos

1st Tendon 1st Burn - Meta, Demon Soul, Service

1st Tendon 2nd Burn - Meta, execute phase

2nd Tendon, 1st Burn - Meta, Potion, Service, Demon Soul

2nd Tendon, 2nd Burn - Meta, execute phase

3rd Tendon, 1st Burn - Meta, Demon Soul, Service, Bloodlust

3rd Tendon, 2nd Burn - Meta, execute

In order to help the tank keep the number of adds in check, feel free to use Hellfire a few times to kill a few of the oozes on the 2nd and 3rd plate. Don't kill too many...each one does physical damage to the whole raid upon dying.

Madness - Affliction

If you felt gimped as a Warlock on Spine, be prepared to take over the meters on Madness. Nothing really changes from normal mode except everything is alive longer and you have the new parasite to deal with. Damage it based on your raid leader's instructions, and keep everything else the same. When Hemorrage happens, begin putting Unstable Affliction on each of them. I hope you have a good graphics card for the amount of yellow numbers you will see at this point. During his Cataclysm cast, Drain Soul will be doing some of the biggest spell hits you've ever seen on your Warlock to date.

When single targetting the Corruptor Tentacles when the Arm or Wing hits 70/40%, apply your DoTs to as many of the tentacles as you can. You're not great here, but that's ok. Repeat this for the 4 platforms.

During Phase 2, you will need to carefully watch your dots so that you don't push Deathwing to a new threshold based on your raid leader's assignments. Putting Deathwing at the 15%, 10%, and 5% marks on demand allows your healers and DPS to prepare for the mechanics at hand. Having a Doom crit tick for 200k can and will cause a wipe if no one is prepared for the bloods (self-taught lesson). Your role here is to DoT the Fragments and Terrors while focusing on the focused Terror. Nothing changes from normal mode in that perspective. Where the fight changes is every time Deathwing loses 5% of his life, he summons Congealing Bloods. If one blood gets to him, it will likely cause a wipe. When DW hits those threshold percentages, look for the forming spots of orange to indicate where these bloods will form. All forms of slows and snares should be used to AoE these down super fast. If they are not snared, they will run towards DW with alarming speed. Hopefully you have a Chillblains Frost DK, Assassination Rogue, Hunter, or other good snaring class to assist you. Your best ability to use on the Congealing Bloods is Rain of Fire. Each specific hit has a chance to proc Spellweave, and it will give you the greatest burst potential. If you are low on life, you can use Harvest Life, but my initial testing shows Rain of Fire far and above Harvest Life.Once called for the burn, execute your Drain Soul set up and enjoy your achievement!

If any of you have specific questions about this raid, feel free to contact me. I have done each fight as each spec and offer insight on every aspect of this raid as a Warlock. Hope this provided help for someone!

Edited August 31, 2012 by Zagam

[MadMonk 154]

Really nice guide, shame I don't have a warlock but I can't be arsed leveling characters anymore.

Just a few things I'd like to add as a noob non-warlock.

Basic Tips - If you are Demonology, only use the 3/31/7 spec (Incinerate) on Ultraxion and Spine. Otherwise, use the 0/31/10 spec (Shadowbolt). For Destruction, take Nether Ward.

You might want to add a link to these specific specs? Unless they are the specs found in the icy veins demonology guide? in which case the specs would be:

0/31/10

3/31/7

Also, a link to your armory would be great, since you don't specify whether you're on the North American or on the European servers.

[Zagam 1,982]

Really nice guide, shame I don't have a warlock but I can't be arsed leveling characters anymore.

Just a few things I'd like to add as a noob non-warlock.

You might want to add a link to these specific specs? Unless they are the specs found in the icy veins demonology guide? in which case the specs would be:

0/31/10

3/31/7

Also, a link to your armory would be great, since you don't specify whether you're on the North American or on the European servers.

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I'm at work with no battle.net access, so I'm limited at best haha...I'm on the US realms. I'll post a link when I get home. I didn't even think about linking back to the Icy-Veins class guides. I just assumed if a Warlock was reading the guide on Heroic Modes, he/she knew the differences between the two specs and was simply looking for pointers on each fight. With permission and encouragement, I'd like to keep a list of Warlock specific strategies heading into MoP. I figured this would be a good way to start and help people finish content if they're struggling. =D

[MadMonk 154]

Ah, thanks for clarifying. I'm at work with no battle.net access, so I'm limited at best haha...I'm on the US realms. I'll post a link when I get home. I didn't even think about linking back to the Icy-Veins class guides. I just assumed if a Warlock was reading the guide on Heroic Modes, he/she knew the differences between the two specs and was simply looking for pointers on each fight. With permission and encouragement, I'd like to keep a list of Warlock specific strategies heading into MoP. I figured this would be a good way to start and help people finish content if they're struggling. =D

I don't see a problem with that, if you put them up early enough and update/make a new one for normal/heroic each tier, that would be great. We could even sticky that, probably when class specific sub-forums are added in due time.

[Damien 1,514]

This is the sort of contributions we wanted to have on the forums for every class, this is really good content!

[Boodizz 10]

Great guide!

If I were to make any suggestion, it would be to add a section of when the best time to use Doomguard/Infernal is, and to include that Shadow Ward can be used to help mitigate damage (as there are a lot of shadow damage abilities in DS) in a few fights:

- crystal on Mor

- black phase on Zon

- purple ooze/void bolt dmg/black ooze on Yor

- throughout the fight on Ultra

- use for void zone on Warmaster

I may have missed some other abilities, as I am not too into raiding, but they are a few I have noticed where you can help your healers out by mitigating damage.

A few other tips that could be added:

- set a port for Mor before the fight, for the black blood phase, so you can get LoS asap and continue to damage

- set a port where the ranged stack Zon, so you can get back in position asap after black phase

- set a port in range of Hagara to get back to DPS her as soon as her 'stunned' phase begins

I know these are mostly small, possibly unnoticeable pointers, but they can help your raid as a whole.

[ThrIronMustache 8]

I know on madness our lock is pulling about 60-70k with affliction and it makes me cringe

[Zagam 1,982]

I know on madness our lock is pulling about 60-70k with affliction and it makes me cringe

Two things can make a Warlock underperform on Heroic Madness...if everyone else is amazing at AoE and gets to earn Spellweave while he dabbles behind. That's not entirely his fault, although he does have methods to boost his numbers, although it's mostly an artificial inflating unless you're dying to the bloods not going down fast enough which I HIGHLY doubt. To combat this, he should prepare a Soulburn: Seed of Corruption the second that the adds spawn. This benefit is twofold: one, he's got dots rolling on the adds for when they need to be cleaved down; and two, he's got Corruption running on 6 adds, each with a chance to proc Eradication or instant Shadowbolts. Win & Win. The other...propose he swap out the Glyph of Unstable Affliction for Glyph of Agony. With the 20% haste being present for all platforms except the 4th, UA's cast time will be well under 1.0 sec. With all the adds floating around on this fight, why not put Agony up for an additional 4 seconds? He also needs to be timing his Demon Soul for when you get the 100% increased damage on DW's limb. If he's using it on CD, he's likely using it without maximizing it's benefit.

Great guide!

If I were to make any suggestion, it would be to add a section of when the best time to use Doomguard/Infernal is, and to include that Shadow Ward can be used to help mitigate damage (as there are a lot of shadow damage abilities in DS) in a few fights:

- crystal on Mor

- black phase on Zon

- purple ooze/void bolt dmg/black ooze on Yor

- throughout the fight on Ultra

- use for void zone on Warmaster

I may have missed some other abilities, as I am not too into raiding, but they are a few I have noticed where you can help your healers out by mitigating damage.

A few other tips that could be added:

- set a port for Mor before the fight, for the black blood phase, so you can get LoS asap and continue to damage

- set a port where the ranged stack Zon, so you can get back in position asap after black phase

- set a port in range of Hagara to get back to DPS her as soon as her 'stunned' phase begins

I know these are mostly small, possibly unnoticeable pointers, but they can help your raid as a whole.

I've yet to use a port in the raids just because it uses a global and I'd rather use that global while running and casting Fel Fire. Other Warlocks may prefer that style, but I'm stingy with my GCDs... =) The porting is an absolutely phenomonal idea during Hagara, however, because Fel Fire just doesn't do the trick when she's taking 100% extra damage. I may employ that trick on my own!

I do have to disagree about Shadow Ward/Nether Ward. Using this ability on CD (30 sec) would take a dramatic effect on your overall damage contribution while providing minimal healing assistance to healers who shouldn't and probably don't need your assistance at all. Your healing assistance comes through Fel Armor and Soul Link. You're already taking 20/25% less damage than everyone else in your raid...no need to make it even better. If you were to use the Wards on CD in a 5 minute fight, you're using 10 GCDs when you could be casting 6-10 spells that would result in anywhere from 150k-350k damage. The only time it's applicable to use Shadow Ward is prior to eating an Hour of Twilight. Nether Ward has many more useful applications (prior to the Bolt hitting on Madness, when the single-target tendons come out on Madness, Spine when a DPS GCD isn't needed, etc).

Of course, if your healers require you to use your wards, you should point them towards the healing guides here at Icy-Veins. =D

[Leoric 2]

nice guide and would like to see melee classes guide somewhat like this way

[Boodizz 10]

I've yet to use a port in the raids just because it uses a global and I'd rather use that global while running and casting Fel Fire. Other Warlocks may prefer that style, but I'm stingy with my GCDs... =) The porting is an absolutely phenomonal idea during Hagara, however, because Fel Fire just doesn't do the trick when she's taking 100% extra damage. I may employ that trick on my own!

I do have to disagree about Shadow Ward/Nether Ward. Using this ability on CD (30 sec) would take a dramatic effect on your overall damage contribution while providing minimal healing assistance to healers who shouldn't and probably don't need your assistance at all. Your healing assistance comes through Fel Armor and Soul Link. You're already taking 20/25% less damage than everyone else in your raid...no need to make it even better. If you were to use the Wards on CD in a 5 minute fight, you're using 10 GCDs when you could be casting 6-10 spells that would result in anywhere from 150k-350k damage. The only time it's applicable to use Shadow Ward is prior to eating an Hour of Twilight. Nether Ward has many more useful applications (prior to the Bolt hitting on Madness, when the single-target tendons come out on Madness, Spine when a DPS GCD isn't needed, etc).

Of course, if your healers require you to use your wards, you should point them towards the healing guides here at Icy-Veins. =D

Yes, I 100% agree if we are looking at this from a ultimate DPS stand point. I guess my posts are a little out of date seeming how easy content is at the moment. They were more suggestions for people who are still progressing/small tricks warlocks may not have known they had available in the fights.

In regards to shadow ward, I agree it should not be used on cooldown. As above, just thought it may be helpful to some who want to know what abilities could be useful in each situation.

Once again though, a great guide, keep it up!

[ThrIronMustache 8]

very good information!! Thanks a heap Zagam!

[Damien 1,514]

For Mists of Pandaria, we hope to have similar threads with tips, tricks, and general advice for each class. Naturally, everyone will be able to contribute ;)

[Zagam 1,982]

Guide is edited for 5.0.4. I haven't fully tested it yet, and I will make the necessary changes once I blow through the raid next Tuesday.

[Anunaki 3]

Nice guide,

Cheers mate

[Furgg 5]

I'm excited to give Heroic a try! Thank you for the guide, it will be used ;)!

[Zagam 1,982]

I'll periodicially update this guide to accomodate changes/nerfs/buffs etc. I'll be posting specific strats for Warlocks as Icy-Veins appropriately handles all dungeon guides in general. I'll just be here to help other Warlocks see the fun and neat tricks we can develop in MoP! I'm super glad this guide is helping people!