Warlock Simple Questions Thread: Cataclysm Edition - Page 3

Vicieus · 12/13/10, 2:45 AM

Originally Posted by Onorvele

This seems like a reasonable suggestion. There are two issues, however:
[list=1][*]Statistical Net DPS Loss. My preferred mode would be to cast Soul Fire as soon as Soulburn is off CD. By binding Soulburn to a filler ability, I am delaying my cast of Soul Fire by at least one GCD, if not more. This will result in a DPS loss over time, as some fights that I would have been able to use instant Soul Fire twice I only get to use it once.

Any other thoughts on how to bypass these issues?

/cast Soulburn
/stopcast
/cast Soul fire

CD timer to use everytime its up, and a separate keybind or numeric key to use regular soulfire (for times where soulburn is coming off cd, and you dont want to use instant soulfire at that exact moment. i.e. saving it for when you know you have to move soon.)

On another note, has any other lock been getting error messages when using soulburn+soulfire or soulfire in general? Theres times where I pop SB+SF and I get "Spell is not ready yet" error messages. I cannot cast soulfire while the duration of the soulburn is up, and its really pissing me off.

EDIT: For whatever reason the above macro doesn't work while moving, but works perfectly (one GCD) when not moving...

krilz · 12/13/10, 3:43 AM

Originally Posted by Vicieus

On another note, has any other lock been getting error messages when using soulburn+soulfire or soulfire in general? Theres times where I pop SB+SF and I get "Spell is not ready yet" error messages. I cannot cast soulfire while the duration of the soulburn is up, and its really pissing me off.

Yes, I also got this a few times last night. Highly annoying. I have no fix, but cancelling the Soulburn buff could fix it, although it's a lousy "fix".

KeckWH · 12/13/10, 5:34 AM

I've been experimenting with this since the changes that have been made to macros, and the best solution I've found is:

/castrandom Soulburn
/cast Soul Fire

As long as the /castrandom modifier is on top, it works more often than not ... but then again, I've also the experienced "Spell is not ready yet" error with Soul Fire a few times. It seems to work almost flawlessly for trinkets or profession talents like Lifeblood, but I still keep a normal button for the skill I'm trying to proc on a castbar under the macro.

Enuowm · 12/13/10, 9:24 AM

As far as the Soul Fire bug goes I'm not sure exactly what causes it although I've seen a post saying that if you get any sort of error while you activate soulburn (Out of Range, Target must be in front of you etc.) It will bug out, however I've noticed it happening when I Soulburn and try to cast a Soul Fire instantly after Soulburn not even after the GCD of casting soulburn...if that make sense.

Tickles Lightly · 12/13/10, 12:47 PM

Now that peole have had more time to play does anyone have tips on what we should do for AOE? SoC seems to be super slow, RoF seems to be weak. I read somewhere that blue was going to be pulling the self dmg off of Hellfire but haven't seen that happen so I haven't tried it (plus the fact that standing in the middle of an AOE pull scares me). I'm pulling around 8K on single tgt as destro but can't quite eek out anymore than 4K on AOE no matter what I try.

Demi9OD · 12/13/10, 1:57 PM

Blizzard has been making some changes to instant Soul Fires quietly in the background. No longer will a Empowered Imp proc be consumed if a Soul Fire cast is already in progress. No longer will the Soul Burn buff be consumed when both Empowered Imp and Soul burn are active, and an instant Soul Fire is cast. Both of these are positive changes, but they have clearly introduced a sporadic bug with Soul Burned Soul Fires in the process.

Tickles, as far as AOE is concerned, in most situations you are best off using Shadowflame on cooldown, and keeping Immolate up on all mobs. If that's completed you can either also corruption all mobs, or just single target one down.

Tickles Lightly · 12/13/10, 3:14 PM

For destro folks, what are people's thoughts on using SF when Soulburn is on CD for the 15% spell haste? In other words, is it best to prioritize SF for the haste proc when Soulburn is on CD or forego it until Soulburn is available?

Darkdep · 12/13/10, 3:20 PM

For best DPS you should keep this buff up as much as possible. I hit my Soulburn key out of habit before I Soul Fire and if it's ready great, if not the cast time is still worth it to keep the buff up.

Onorvele · 12/13/10, 4:07 PM

Having been spending some time on my shammy and DK, I came back to my warlock and tried to continue contributing to damage mitigation by interrupting targets. But I'm having some trouble, it may be my brain isn't working completely. Overall, do we have any actual interrupts, in the sense of abilities that will interrupt even if the target is immune to the primary effect of the ability?

I can't remember if FG Intercept did interrupt on targets that were stun-immune, but have confirmed that Axe Toss does not. The glyphed HoG effect doesn't interrupt either, as far as I can tell. The fear and horror effects are similarly confined to targets that are not fear-immune. Whiplash?

turturin · 12/13/10, 5:16 PM

Originally Posted by Darkdep

For best DPS you should keep this buff up as much as possible. I hit my Soulburn key out of habit before I Soul Fire and if it's ready great, if not the cast time is still worth it to keep the buff up.

In my limited cata raid experience, I'll say that it's a fight-dependent answer, but generally 3 types of fights:
1. Fights with adds with low health (e.g. poison bombs on ODS). Use soulburn: soulfire on cooldown, i.e. every other time you need to refresh. Use shadowburn to get back the shards you need and you can do this the whole fight.

2. Fights with single target dps'ing, relatively uninterrupted (e.g. Argolath, name from recollection so may be a slightly off. Apologies.) In cases like this you can soul burn soulfire on cooldown if you want to, unless raid mechanics are causing you loss of uptime, in which case save your soulburns for when you need to "restart" the ISF buff.

3. Fights with downtime between swaps (e.g. Conclave of the Winds). On these fights, save your soulburn exclusively for when you need to "restart" the buff, as it will fall off multiple times during the fight. Depending on your assignment on a fight like conclave, you may have opportunities to replenish your shards through shadowburn as well.

Osakaa · 12/13/10, 10:03 PM

Originally Posted by Onorvele

Having been spending some time on my shammy and DK, I came back to my warlock and tried to continue contributing to damage mitigation by interrupting targets. But I'm having some trouble, it may be my brain isn't working completely. Overall, do we have any actual interrupts, in the sense of abilities that will interrupt even if the target is immune to the primary effect of the ability?

I can't remember if FG Intercept did interrupt on targets that were stun-immune, but have confirmed that Axe Toss does not. The glyphed HoG effect doesn't interrupt either, as far as I can tell. The fear and horror effects are similarly confined to targets that are not fear-immune. Whiplash?

Seems like you're Demonology, but in any case, Affliction locks have the Felhunter's Spell Lock. Works most of the time (if not always).

Unknowndiv · 12/14/10, 4:09 AM

Originally Posted by Tickles Lightly

Now that peole have had more time to play does anyone have tips on what we should do for AOE? SoC seems to be super slow, RoF seems to be weak. I read somewhere that blue was going to be pulling the self dmg off of Hellfire but haven't seen that happen so I haven't tried it (plus the fact that standing in the middle of an AOE pull scares me). I'm pulling around 8K on single tgt as destro but can't quite eek out anymore than 4K on AOE no matter what I try.

As destro I do not use AoE abilities (RoF costs 12k mana! and has no talants to power it up), just Immolating everyone. As affliction I use Soulburn+SoC - thats about 5k AoE damage on crit (+15% crit from talants), 7k mana and lots of free corruption

In addition I spam UA and shadowflame. On trash I get about 13k dps, on single target fights I get the same dps

Vremenno · 12/14/10, 4:46 AM

DoTs. How do they work now? What's refreshed when? I was under the impression this changed, but it seems to work like before.

I was playing with a dummy, and thought I had it figured out, when I had Darkmoon Card: Volcano proc. And the damage of my corruption went up. Without recasting, or haunt. But with Gale of Shadows' stacking SP proc, nothing happens until a recast/haunt. And when the buff expired, the damage decreased again.

As far as I've tested, debuffs are taken into account every tick. Except the DMF trinket so far. Spellpower and percentage buffs (Demon Soul) are only taken into account on cast, and held throughout the rest of the spell. I've been led to believe crit and haste work the same way too?

krilz · 12/14/10, 6:04 AM

Originally Posted by Vremenno

DoTs. How do they work now? What's refreshed when? I was under the impression this changed, but it seems to work like before.

I was playing with a dummy, and thought I had it figured out, when I had Darkmoon Card: Volcano proc. And the damage of my corruption went up. Without recasting, or haunt. But with Gale of Shadows' stacking SP proc, nothing happens until a recast/haunt. And when the buff expired, the damage decreased again.

As far as I've tested, debuffs are taken into account every tick. Except the DMF trinket so far. Spellpower and percentage buffs (Demon Soul) are only taken into account on cast, and held throughout the rest of the spell. I've been led to believe crit and haste work the same way too?

As far as I know (other people may fill in for me here as I'm not 100% sure of all of this), debuffs are accounted for every tick. Sp/haste/crit values are updated on refresh, whether you're hard casting it or refreshing it through other means (Haunt, Drain soul etc). The only exception to this is Fel Flame. It will refresh the dot with it's current values.

Also, don't forget that if you refresh/recast a dot before the last tick is finished, it will be immediately applied on the refreshed one in the start. The only dot you don't want to do this with is BoA because of the mechanic of stronger ticks at the end.

Jmickey · 12/14/10, 8:55 AM

Originally Posted by krilz

As far as I know (other people may fill in for me here as I'm not 100% sure of all of this), debuffs are accounted for every tick. Sp/haste/crit values are updated on refresh, whether you're hard casting it or refreshing it through other means (Haunt, Drain soul etc). The only exception to this is Fel Flame. It will refresh the dot with it's current values.

The main thing to look for here is the difference between a refresh and adding to the duration. Fel Flame does not refresh the DoT, so it does not recalculate the numbers, simply extends the duration of the DoT in it's current state. Unlike Haunt/Drain Soul/HoG, which all refresh, as if it had been recast.