2) use a mod/macro to cut lag out of your sb casts
Any suggestions for such a mod? I played around with a stopcast macro and there was a significant difference, so it'd be nice to have a mod that took out some of the guesswork.
Ive been end game raiding for about 2 months. and ive been messing around with DOT rotations and arguements about if i should immolate or not. some people say i should with a certain amount of base spell damage. others say not to to save up a spot for the 40 debuffs. i was wondering if anyone could give me advice about that
this is my armory site i appreciate any advice or tips
Ok, so I looked at why my DPS was so subpar compared to a lot of the people here, and while part of the reason is gear, the major reason I found is that I'm wasting lifetaps/dark pacts by either having less of a mana defecit than either returns or dark pacting when my pet is too low on mana. This leads to a need for increased usage of those 2 spells, which can sort of snowball.
Is there a mod that can pop a warning on my screen when it's an appropriate time to use one of those spells? I know DrDamage can tell how much your spells will hit for based on your current buffs, and ScrollingCombatText can tell how much mana I have, so I think it should be possible (the limitation would be whether or not the Blizzard coding system allows checking of pet stats). Has anybody bothered to put together a mod like this?
Ok, so I looked at why my DPS was so subpar compared to a lot of the people here, and while part of the reason is gear, the major reason I found is that I'm wasting lifetaps/dark pacts by either having less of a mana defecit than either returns or dark pacting when my pet is too low on mana. This leads to a need for increased usage of those 2 spells, which can sort of snowball.
Is there a mod that can pop a warning on my screen when it's an appropriate time to use one of those spells? I know DrDamage can tell how much your spells will hit for based on your current buffs, and ScrollingCombatText can tell how much mana I have, so I think it should be possible (the limitation would be whether or not the Blizzard coding system allows checking of pet stats). Has anybody bothered to put together a mod like this?
The mod is called unit frames that don't suck. The default Blizzard UI is terrible because it's really hard to look at your HP and mana in-combat because of where your portrait gets positioned, not to mention the font they use for HP/mana numbers is hard to read. Either get a HUD or just some different unit frames (and stick the frames for you and your pet right near the center of the screen) and you shouldn't have a problem.
Ok, so I looked at why my DPS was so subpar compared to a lot of the people here, and while part of the reason is gear, the major reason I found is that I'm wasting lifetaps/dark pacts by either having less of a mana defecit than either returns or dark pacting when my pet is too low on mana. This leads to a need for increased usage of those 2 spells, which can sort of snowball.
Is there a mod that can pop a warning on my screen when it's an appropriate time to use one of those spells? I know DrDamage can tell how much your spells will hit for based on your current buffs, and ScrollingCombatText can tell how much mana I have, so I think it should be possible (the limitation would be whether or not the Blizzard coding system allows checking of pet stats). Has anybody bothered to put together a mod like this?
I think someone mentioned earlier to pact only when your imp got more then 50% mana - and it's very good general guideline. All in all, as an affliction lock I try to keep balance between pacting and tapping, giving imp time to regenerate. So I tap when imp is below 50% mana and try to switch to pact only when he is close to the full or at least over 50%.
If you are starting your raiding and you are not one of those damn tailors that use equivalent of tier 5, first set bonus on Oblivion set (you need only 2 parts for that) is quite awesome for you. Also, always be sure that your imp is fully raid buffed - especially that it got BoW on it.
In the end though, it all depends on fight and the group you are in. Some encounters are less straining for healers, so you can just lifetap most of the time and ignore the pact. In others, usually when you learn the stuff, dark pact becomes more and more useful.
Another neat trick is never ever being at 100% HP to maximize Siphon Life effect. When you see that you are at 100% Hp for too long, it means it's time to lifetap. Staying at 80% of HP or so still means you have effective HP of over 8k most of the time, so you don't risk that much here. At the same time, your regeneration of combined HP/mana bar gets nice boost. Also, there is a chance that some bored healer will drop HoT on you. It is even more true with tailoring set bonus and/or shadow priest in group.
Worst thing you can do as an affliction lock is staying at 100% HP (with SL ticks being wasted) and just go SB-pew-pew mode, draining your mana bar.
I wouldn't say it's always a bad thing to be DPSing even while at 100% hp. Take the Al'ar fight for example- I don't lifetap or dark pact at all in phase 1 until he flies from 1 platform to another, and I need to run to him to keep DPSing. You have ~30 seconds to DPS at each platform, and the amount of mana you expend in that time can pretty easily be recoverd by 3-4 total lifetaps/dark pacts, and then you'll be back at full health and your imp will have most of it's mana back when it is time to move again. So, while a good deal of siphon life healing gets wasted, you do more overall DPS because you're not spending time lifetapping when you could be shadow bolting.
I'll second the "buff your imp" sentiments though. Imps have low mana on their own, and while their regen is quite nice, BoWisdom is great for them. Getting an int and wisdom on your imp gives you significantly more potential dark pacts, which is especially great on fights where there's a risk of taking large amounts of damage.
I like to go dark pact, life tap, life tap, dark pact. With full buffs my imp often spirit regens almost to 50% after the first dark pact in the time it takes me to life tap 2-3 times. This is in situations where I burn my mana to zero then have to refill. For instance, seed of corruption spam on Illhoof.
Sometimes, if I'm really desperate for fast mana (i.e. nightbane air phase going rough) I'll pop a trinket prior to tap/pact to get extra mana out of it.
One thing to note about casting rotations that I haven't seen mentioned is this method.
If you are on a support curse (CoE / CoS)
CoS then UA, Imo, Cor, SL, SB.
If you are on CoA or CoD
UA, Imo, Cor, CoA, SL
Reason I really like this dot rotation is that you get your 2 non GCD spells chained together followed by the "GCD Mashers" as I call them. For me it gives a nice flow to the rotation. Plus to top it off, assuming you had a full rotation of dots without resists they typically fade in order so you can maintain that casting time (there will be a extra second w. out Imo, but I personally prefer UA to be up).
As for using DP over LT, a good rule of thumb is make note of how much you actually pull from a DP and make sure that you never DP for less than that. DP'ing for 700 mana just is not worth it and you should have LT'ed.
As for ~850 damage, the main thing I can suggest is to have him go into tailoring. As it has been mentioned in the thread, the tailored pieces far outweigh just about any piece of gear up to and including some T5.
One thing to note about casting rotations that I haven't seen mentioned is this method.
If you are on a support curse (CoE / CoS)
CoS then UA, Imo, Cor, SL, SB.
If you are on CoA or CoD
UA, Imo, Cor, CoA, SL
.
Hmmm thats certainly different than what was posted earlier
Originally Posted by ReverendSin
If I'm curse bitch CoE/CoS, if not Amp CoD or CoA, UA-Corruption, Immolate-Siphon Life, shadowbolt, shadowbolt then lifetap/DP and refresh as necessary. I prefer putting UA and Corruption up together as they have the same DoT time and can then be refreshed together indefinitely. The more you stagger your dots the less time you're going to have to do other stuff as one will always be down at an odd time and as time goes on you'll end up doing less DPS.
I tried the CoD/CoA ->UA->Corruption-> Immolate -> Siphon Life and it seemed to work well. All the dots seem to fade out with just enough time between them to recast but I did notice that the recast order wasn't the same. SL stays on at least two rotations of UA and Imo and if I recall Corrupt.
So off the top of my head I think I used CoA-> UA -> Corr -> Immo -> SL -> Bolt -> Bolt -> UA -> Corr -> Immo -> Life tap -> life tap -> Dark pact -> dark pact -> SB restart cast rotation.
Disclaimer: I am not a lock. I have not tested this. However, I found it on some other forums and I figured this might help. Supposedly it's the highest possible order for casting/dps. It's ugly, hard to read, and doesn't take into account latency afaik.
Obviously real time combat never works like this. It may give some good ideas to some people who are lacking seriously in dps/rotation/whatever such as the OP's guild mates.
You'd have to ask the guy who made it. Like I said, I pulled it off another forum. I actually think the best advice on it is the quote that the guy gives on the side about letting your last tick of your dots go off and refreshing ASAP afterwards.
I know this is key to DPS and mana efficiency on a shadow priest, and I'd assume it's especially true for an affliction lock.
A pre determined rotation will never work out perfectly in a fight for any extended period of time for whatever reason, latency, fight requirements, resists, etc.. Some people like to have a rotation to fall back on when they get in a groove. I just figured this would be a good starting spot for the OP if his locks are doing crap DPS it's probably due to a poor rotation or not being able to keep their dots up 100% of the time.
As for ~850 damage, the main thing I can suggest is to have him go into tailoring. As it has been mentioned in the thread, the tailored pieces far outweigh just about any piece of gear up to and including some T5.
Tailoring isn't all that great anymore. The boots, and that is it for frozen shadowweave. For pants/helm you don't need to be a tailor to use them.
That is using approximate dps weights for stats, and giving a little weight to stamina too (with 5 stam = 1 +dam). Its set for affliction spec not yet hit capped. Just swap out to +9 spell damage gems when you get hit capped (16% total).
For destruction, crit is worth more, but hit is even more valuable.
As you can see, T4 and Arena shoulders both beat frozen shadoweave. T4 and Frozen Shadowweave are similar quality for the robes. The boots are amazing however.
Yet, its really Girdle of Ruination and Spellstrike, all BoE, that rise above. Spellstrike, with the set bonus as a tailor especially.
Personally though, I'm going to keep rolling the die and pass up the huge gold cost to switch to tailoring and go for items that are pve specialties and get the well rounded stuff. My undergeared self still manages to beat the tailor 'locks in dps, and I have tons of actual upgrades to look forward to.
How do you do on more movement heavy fights like mag? I would like to try 21/40 but the amount of interuption/movement on mag and gruul make it a hard choice.
That's largly due to your rating 5 stam = 1 dmg for PvE when in fact infinite stam = 0 dmg for PvE.
Just conjecture, but if they are upping the damage output of raid bosses as a way to encourage people to value stam on gear, stam may be worth consideration. At least when looking between FSW and t4.
That's largly due to your rating 5 stam = 1 dmg for PvE when in fact infinite stam = 0 dmg for PvE.
No, its largely because 37 damage + 14 spell hit kicks 50 shadow damage's butt.
50 shadow damage is roughly as good as the 32 damage, 12 hit on the gladiator shoulders.
(10 shadow damage is worth 9 spell damage, so frozen sw is 45 spell damage equivalent, 12 hit rating is roughly 13.5 spell damage equivalent, to gladiators dps total is 45.5 +damage equivalent).
Did you even bother to run the numbers again with stam = 0? No? I have, it doesn't change the order on much of anything. In the case of the shoulders, the extra stam is giving T4 shoulders a whopping 5 extra stam or +1 damage bonus in the scoring system.
That is using approximate dps weights for stats, and giving a little weight to stamina too (with 5 stam = 1 +dam). Its set for affliction spec not yet hit capped. Just swap out to +9 spell damage gems when you get hit capped (16% total).
For destruction, crit is worth more, but hit is even more valuable.
As you can see, T4 and Arena shoulders both beat frozen shadoweave. T4 and Frozen Shadowweave are similar quality for the robes. The boots are amazing however.
Yet, its really Girdle of Ruination and Spellstrike, all BoE, that rise above. Spellstrike, with the set bonus as a tailor especially.
Personally though, I'm going to keep rolling the die and pass up the huge gold cost to switch to tailoring and go for items that are pve specialties and get the well rounded stuff. My undergeared self still manages to beat the tailor 'locks in dps, and I have tons of actual upgrades to look forward to.
Well, high +STA rating in your setup was already metioned as big problem.
Main issue is not really that though. Think about it this way - mayority of the people that got problems with keeping up high DPS are not people that kill bosses deep in SSC or TK. They are fresh locks that are moving through the Karazhan (possibly having problems with Nightbane/Prince still), maybe killing Maulgar, but struggling with Gruul/Mag.
For those guys, stating that "there are better items then tailoring stuff" is plain wrong. There is not much, especially after the alchemy nerf, that can affect caster DPS as much as having whole tailoring BoP set on your back coupled with Spellstrike and filled up with rare and better gems. It's comparable to entering MC for the first time to kill Lucifron, wearing 5 pieces of Tier II set.
What 2.1 changed is that it's now easier to catch up with tailors by gearing up with improved raid loot - but tailoring is still giving you significant headstart, especially in average guild. And now you actually see the light in this tunnel - that at some point you will be able to actually get comparable gear, instead of being always behind.
No, its largely because 37 damage + 14 spell hit kicks 50 shadow damage's butt.
50 shadow damage is roughly as good as the 32 damage, 12 hit on the gladiator shoulders.
(10 shadow damage is worth 9 spell damage, so frozen sw is 45 spell damage equivalent, 12 hit rating is roughly 13.5 spell damage equivalent, to gladiators dps total is 45.5 +damage equivalent).
Did you even bother to run the numbers again with stam = 0? No? I have, it doesn't change the order on much of anything. In the case of the shoulders, the extra stam is giving T4 shoulders a whopping 5 extra stam or +1 damage bonus in the scoring system.
Actually yes, I have, only when I ran the numbers I used an affliction build. In an affliction build +hit rating is actually worth less, point for point, than +dmg for straight DPS. Without the extra +damage from the rating system comming from extra stam FSW is definitively better for raid DPS in an affliction build than galdiator's.
In a destruction build where hit IS actually worth more than +dmg then yes, gladiator's would come out ahead, but I don't recall ever suggesting FSW was good gear for a destruction lock.
Last edited by tetracycloide : 06/12/07 at 9:31 AM.
Actually yes, I have, only when I ran the numbers I used an affliction build. In an affliction build +hit rating is actually worth less, point for point, than +dmg for straight DPS. Without the extra +damage from the rating system comming from extra stam FSW is definitively better for raid DPS in an affliction build than galdiator's.
In a destruction build where hit IS actually worth more than +dmg then yes, gladiator's would come out ahead, but I don't recall ever suggesting FSW was good gear for a destruction lock.
Actually, for an affliction lock, once you get around 1100 +shadow, hit becomes more important unless you're above 6%. The dps spreadsheet gave me this data under many circumstances and setups.
Actually, for an affliction lock, once you get around 1100 +shadow, hit becomes more important unless you're above 6%.
You're right, I simply never considered that some people might have 1100+ shadow damage and still not have hit capped DoTs.
Still less than 6% hit without the shoulder slot is deplorably low for raiding period IMO and the gladiator shoulders are still much stronger in a destruction build than affliction.
Actually, for an affliction lock, once you get around 1100 +shadow, hit becomes more important unless you're above 6%. The dps spreadsheet gave me this data under many circumstances and setups.
I don't even see how it is really possible to get 1100dmg and be at less than 6% hit. Almost every decent epic in the game has a smattering of hit unless you are gearing exclusively for crit, which no Warlock should do, including destro.
I don't even see how it is really possible to get 1100dmg and be at less than 6% hit. Almost every decent epic in the game has a smattering of hit unless you are gearing exclusively for crit, which no Warlock should do, including destro.
There you go, pay attention to my buffs and those I don't have. It's highly possible as im hitting 1200 self-buffed and once I'm done theorycrafting on my new gem choices, I'll be over 1200 by a decent margin.
Time to swap in your scryer trinket on boss fights. I had to do that for quite awhile as Attumen wouldn't drop his gloves and at the time the +hit gems were limited.
06/10/07, 9:10 PM
It is even more true with tailoring set bonus and/or shadow priest in group.
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