Im a druid, it seems I know very little about locks sadly. But I also lead raids so I need to know more >.<

I keep seeing references to locks doing 900+ DPS on Gruul. Yet our locks arent anywhere near the top of the DPS charts even with a shadowpriest.

I can't help but think they are doing something wrong in PVE DPS. I don't think it's gear with them having 1000 +dmg or approaching that. They are all Affliction afaik. So can someone tell me what it is that locks use as a high sustained DPS attack style? Is it timing on DOTs? Combo moves? Special talents?

Can some really good DPS locks give me a rundown on their attack method please?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Drain Life spam.

Sadly, I'm not joking.

My last Gruul kill offered approximately 850dps with neither CoS nor priest debuffs removing 30% spell damage.

The first trick to warlock DPS is having all available curses up, curses as I recall tick for approximately 400-500 dps with 150dps coming from curse of doom or agony. Gruul is a fight offering much movement and stunning, these dots are going to have an effect in a fight where people are immobilized.

Keep up every dot, throw in shadowbolts while everything is ticking (get DoTimer) and you've maximized warlock dps.

I would say dots over immobilization, and +30% damage. possibly heroism, SP totems and whatnot will cause extreme metre readings.

For reference this is with 1500 spell damage 10% hit +6% affliction (obtainable from crafted and heroics) wet (1210 + 150(flask) + 65(shadowP) + 35(G. arcane) + 40(oil)). When 100 fel armor, a 101 totem, 30-40 imp spirit, 95 spellstrike, and 150 icon are added things die quickly... then multiply it by 10% (CoS), 5% (misery), and 15% (shadow vuln) while everyone's stunned this simply cannot be beat.

The point of all the peak trinket damage throughout the fight is a warlock can trinket, hit +2000 spell damage, then apply all their dots over a short period of time

edit - with item changes, a favored group setup and select positioning a warlock in pre-25man gear can hit over 1000dps over the course of gruul while running an accessory curse (moonkin shadow priest shaman)

He's being funny, don't tell them to drain life =p

Have them use an addon like DoTimer, which will show them the duration on all of their DOTs. They should be re-applying them all the instant they drop for max DPS. You fill in the rest of the time with Shadow Bolts, and Lifetap/Darkpact when needed. Even as full affliction warlocks, they should still be using immolate in their rotations.

If you only have 2 warlocks present, they'll likely be using Curse of Shadows and Curse of Elements, which will make their DPS suffer a bit. Every warlock beyond the 2nd will be able to use Curse of Doom and/or Curse of Agony, which results in a noticeable DPS increase over the first 2 warlocks.

Also, DPS on Gruul can vary greatly depending on where you get to stand. If you're at a spot on or behind a rock, while still in range of Gruul, you can essentially DPS the entire fight. If you're in a place where you have to be standing on the ground in order to be in range, you'll spend a lot of time running around after each ground slam.

The only other idea I have would be to post their armory links to see if gear might be the issue. If they aren't tailors, Frozen Shadoweave and Spellstrike will be quite a DPS boost, even with other armor getting buffed in 2.1.

I'm dead serious. My GM has been trying it out for a couple weeks. I think he just refreshes DOTs and Drain Life spams. He typically gets 700-800 dps without pots, breaking past 900 and once or twice 1000 dps fully potted (a long Gruul attempt was one of those 1k dps occasions).

It's ridiculous considering he's healing himself for over 1000 hps at the same time.

Drain Life will never out damage Shadowbolt spamming, so in just about every situation, more damage will be done my Shadowbolt. However, in fights where there is a constant AoE tick (Netherspite comes to mind) and the Warlock in question doesn't have Intensity, Drain Life becomes a better staple attack.

Shadow bolt does more damage than drain life. To repeat: shadow bolt does more damage than drain life.


The only reason you'd ever drain is

-) You want the health back for some reason.
-) You want to get only a few ticks in and there's no time for a shadow bolt, and you're comfortable with throwing away the mana cost of the spell.


Unless the raid is taking a lot of damage, drain should almost never be necessary to replenish your mana pool as well. If you're draining for damage, you likely have Siphon and Dark Pact as well. These two alone will sustain you nearly indefinitely with good gear.

(By the way, always put BoW on your imp. It's like putting BoW on yourself with dark pact, minus the time saved with GCD!).

Drain is GREAT when you need to heal a few thousand damage, and there's a temporary %increase to damage on the boss (Imp SB proc, Mag is banished, etc), and it's great at getting a spell up there instantly if you Imp SB Proc and you want it for yourself. Let me therefore close with my opener:

Shadow bolt does more damage than drain life.

Siphon Life is all the healing affliction warlocks need to be self-sustaining for almost ever fight. It's his choice, but it's an unnecesary loss of DPS.

Draining life for dps is not the way to go. Affliction already has the best sustainability from dark pact and siphon life. Especially on fights where there is an enrage timer mechanic you don't want to hold back. The idea that "it seemed to work for him" is fallacious because it simply means other raid members will be forced to pick up the slack.

As far as the original question: it's all a matter of refreshing dots and throwing out some bolts when possible. I wouldn't call warlock dps terribly complicated, even as affliction. If they are reasonably geared with a shadow priest with a few pots, the only reason I can think that they wouldn't be pushing 900 dps *easily* is that you have too many debuffs on gruul, and the lock dots are getting knocked off.

Like others have stated, make sure they're using DoTimer. If any raiding warlock doesn't have some method of seeing the duration of their DoTs I question them being on raid to begin with, so hopefully that is obvious.. It may be good to note that over-dotting is bad. If they aren't watching their DoTimer close and re-apply corruption/coa/sl/ua before it has ran it's full duration you lose 1) GCD 2) probably cancels a tick of your dot. Each time a DoT is applied it starts a fresh timer before it begins to tick. So if you cast corruption on the mob, 3 seconds later it actually ticks for the first time. If a corruption was already on the target and has only run half the duration, if you apply a fresh corruption .1 sec before it is about to tick that tick of damage is pushed off another 3 seconds. If a DoT is down to 3 seconds, go ahead and cast that extra SB. Don't wait around for the DoT to tick off, re-apply immediately after SB.

Also for those who might forget about trinkets occassionally. They could create a macro for their corruption or COA with:
/use XxxxTrinketxxx
/use XxxxTrinket2xxx
/cast Corruption

I'm consistently around 1,000 dps on Gruul, no consumables (possibly food at most). 1124 base shadow (1254 with fel armor). Testing out a weird spec currently 30/21/10 which is hoss dps. Normally 43/0/19. Unfortunately don't have any parses from 43/0/19 saved, but It's probably just a bit below my current spec.

You can still be self-sustaining without Drain Life spam between DoTs (you may need a few Drain Lifes, but mostly use Shadow Bolt). Even without Bane, Shadow Bolt will out dps Drain Life even with 12 debuffs on the target.


The answer to the question is get hit gear, spec UA/Bane, get DoTimer and recast *after* the DoTs have hit 0:00 on the mob, and cast Shadow Bolt between you DoTs.