Warlock Simple Questions Thread: Cataclysm Edition - Page 5

Osakaa · 12/16/10, 7:03 AM

Originally Posted by Jmickey

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.

Actually, I'm fairly sure that if you cast UA, then pop Demon Soul, then cast Fel Flame, UA gets its damage boosted for the remaining duration. At least it did last week when I tested it. I don't have an Affliction spec at the moment so I can't confirm right now.

EDIT:

Just tested with Immolate, Volcanic Potion and Fel Flame. Immolate damage did go up.

Originally Posted by RavenJet

Okay, reading through the affliction threads already posted the advice is to use either Succubus (with Lash of Pain glyph) or Imp (with glyph of Imp) as your pet for affliction. This despite the advantages the old fell puppy would otherwise have - because that is the one pet that doesn't have a damage boosting glyph.

But it seems that all of these were written from a not-yet-level-85 position ? Level 85 brings demon soul (Demon Soul - Spell - World of Warcraft) as a spell for all specs, and looking over the spell - it's clear that the best demon soul effect for affliction is from the fell puppy (which is to be expected since it's meant to be our signature demon after all). As it gives a major boost to shadow DoTs.

The catch is that it's a cooldown and it only lasts 20s. I am not at all sure that the effect won't be more than outdone by the constant effects of glyphs. More-over the Succubus's effect is actually not bad for affliction locks either - as it's a boost to shadow bolt.
Personally I went for the drain-life-filler rotation over the shadow-bolt-filler - I found damage to be comparable but in cataclysm survivability is at least as important as DPS and healer mana is much more limited so those major self-heals are a huge boon - I can actually tell my healers "never heal me unless I am low on health *and* out of mana".

So that makes the succubus's shadow bolt less than useful to me (and I suspect in time - most afflocks, everything I'm seeing suggests that draintanking is due for a major comeback in cataclysm). The imp effect however is entirely useless to affliction as it's literally a boost to destro spells only (and that means Bane of Agony and Fel Flame is the only spells we'll see an effect on and fel flame itself is mostly only useful to get an instant-cast renew on UA). In short - the imp has no real value with demon soul.

So the real question is - how much difference can we reasonably expect demon soul to make in a fight ? Enough to alter the existing considerations that lead to the suggestion of imp for drain-life and succubus for shadow bolt ? Is the change enough to let the puppy make a comeback ?
There is one other major advantage to the puppy - it gives warlocks an interrupting silence which has in the past proven incredibly useful (if situational) as a way to disrupt caster mobs. Not a primary consideration but a worthwhile one at least on fights where interrupts are known to be particularly valuable.

Do we have any data on the real effect of demon soul then ? Should I rethink my pet choices with it in mind ? Should I stick to the imp for drain life and just think of DS as a boost to BoA ?

The way I see it, Demon Soul is to be used as a "okay, we need to really get this thing down fast now"-kind of a spell, in which case Demon Soul + Felhunter really gives you out that extra bit of temporary dps that you need for a quick burn.

EDIT: Shit, sorry for double post.

Demi9OD · 12/16/10, 12:07 PM

For those asking about CC/pet management, I don't believe there is a hands free solution to this problem. You simply need to manage your pet with two macros.

/petattack
/petdefensive

and

/petfollow
/petpassive

On the pull, put your pet on passive. Fear your designated mob. Target the mob to be DPS'd and use the petattack macro once. As the HP of the DPS'd target gets low, target the next mob to be killed and issue the petattack command again. As long as you keep your pet busy attacking something it will not attack your CC target. In the case everything is CC'd as one mob dies, issue petpassive and wait for the tank to break a CC before reengaging your pet. I do not recommend macroing fear to petpassive, if you do so you will need to manually issue the petattack command every time you refresh your fear. If it's really a serious problem, a drastic measure would be to spec out of burning embers or just leave your pet passive on trash. Fear can always be reapplied on a short cooldown.

None of this interferes with adding /cast [target=pettarget]Firebolt on all of your spells to enable Firebolt queuing. If your pet is on passive it does not have a target and will not cast.

alhill · 12/16/10, 12:33 PM

Does the optimal affliction raiding spec use dark arts or does it use both of the destruction second tier soulfire talents?

Tickles Lightly · 12/16/10, 3:13 PM

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..

I noticed this last night. I noticed especially if I'm running while I cast soulburn that my soulfire button lights up as if it is available but I can't cast it at all. If I stand still and cast soulburn then I'm able to cast soulfire afterward. It's starting to piss me off too.

What are people's thoughts on who to use Dark Intent on? Given the issue with mana consumption by healers in heroics I've been reserving this for the healers only.

Ambz · 12/16/10, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by Tickles Lightly

What are people's thoughts on who to use Dark Intent on? Given the issue with mana consumption by healers in heroics I've been reserving this for the healers only.

Personally, a resto druid when an encounter requires high healing output; a survival hunter otherwise. A shadow priest is also a very good bet.

Tickles Lightly · 12/16/10, 4:51 PM

Originally Posted by uselessdk

Could someone please post some information regarding a what rotation they are using in Destro spec for instance groups?

For what's it's worth I stole a "rotation" from the warlock spreadsheet. I use the word "rotation" because I've found that it's more of a priority/situational system. Here are the buttons I have setup in my button timers (VERY useful addon for any DOT class, would be absolutely lost without it).

CoE (boss only), BoD, immo (macro'd with my Demon Soul, popping trinks and /petattack [target=pettarget,noexists]), Corr, Conflag, Chaos Bolt, Shadowflame (only if close to mob), Incin, Soulfire, Soulburn

Here is my "Priority"

CoE (boss only) followed by Soulburn + Soulfire ALWAYS when on CD followed by the rest of my buttons starting with BoD. Always prioritize instant cast incin's and soulfire's before anything and basically keep stuff ticking while using incin as your filler. I have FF (when moving), shadowfury (awesome stun, very powerful when used with howl, after the healer dies in a heroic you can save a group with this move provided they just need a little more time to dps), shadowburn (used mostly on adds for boss fights to get shards back), lifetap (mana nom nom nom), and soulshatter (oops) on my upper bar at my fingers reach. These are all very useful spells for situational purposes. One thing that I think has not gotten it's due is the usefulness of shadowburn. Feel free to check out my spec as I think some of this priority system is spec based (I.e. I prioritize Corr because I have improved).

Keep in mind I'm mostly running heroics at this point to gear up for raiding. I imagine this rotation may change as my gear gets better/stats change/respec etc. but it's what I use now and it seems to work out well for me. I'm mostly 333 gear (avg ilvl is 335 at this point) and see numbers of about 9-10K dps single tgt on a patchwerk style fight.

turturin · 12/16/10, 5:32 PM

Originally Posted by Demi9OD

Bane of Havoc and other incidentals such as Wandering plague do not set off the shields in this encounter, only direct attacks. It is useful to Bane and if you really want to push it, dot Toxitron's shield for the Expunge Poison damage.

I don't think this is true. I have a log from last night that shows Magmatron getting a shield at 21:25:16.320. Subsequently, Bane of Havoc from the other warlock in the raid hits magmatron and is shown as an absorb on the shield. This is same way all other dmg is reflected, so its hard to see that BoH damage is treated as a special case.

here is the link:
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Admittedly a less than optimal view of what I'm talking about, but for those good with WoL you will be able to filter and and see this effect (both where magmatron gets the shield as well as all the damage absorbs on the shield afterwards). 21:25:16.756 is a good example of the warlock (Shamaryk's) BoH hitting the shield.

I think what may be happening in top guilds is that they figure that Warlock's BoH's alone won't do enough dmg to break the shield, and since all other players can be trusted to switch, they allow the warlocks to take advantage of the BoH for extra damage. If someone has another explanation or if I'm interpreting the log incorrectly please educate me.

Jenster22 · 12/16/10, 6:52 PM

For demo:

If both Improved Soul Fire and Immolate are due to fall off, should we prioritise Soul Fire? By prioritising the buff, I often have to manually recast immolate. Also it is often not possible to refresh the buff perfectly due to the timing of casts and whilst soul fire is travelling to the target dots often have a couple of seconds of not being on the target due to me waiting for the buff to be active. Would 15% haste to a dot provide more damage than an extra tick due to me not delaying the dot refresh?

Jmickey · 12/17/10, 1:50 AM

Originally Posted by Osakaa

Actually, I'm fairly sure that if you cast UA, then pop Demon Soul, then cast Fel Flame, UA gets its damage boosted for the remaining duration. At least it did last week when I tested it. I don't have an Affliction spec at the moment so I can't confirm right now.

EDIT: Just tested with Immolate, Volcanic Potion and Fel Flame. Immolate damage did go up.

This is true for spell power and percentage based damage boosts, which I do actually believe update in real time and should not even require a Fel Flame (however, testing of this has come up with mixed results, god knows why), although, what I said should still hold true for Haste and Crit values.

Demi9OD · 12/17/10, 1:46 PM

Haste has drastic inflection points for Warlocks. Due to the shared damage of Immolate and Conflag, adding a tick increases both their DPCT (damage per cast time) significantly. Here are the haste ratings where an extra tick is added. All calculations assume Dark Intent and Improved Soul Fire are active, except in the Bloodlust scenarios where ISF is overwritten.

30% buffed haste - Go from 5 ticks to 6

580 haste rating (everyone has this much) with 5% raid buff
1249 haste rating (easily obtainable in blues) without 5% raid buff

50% buffed haste - Go from 6 ticks to 7

857 haste rating (everyone has this much) while Bloodlust is up, with 5% raid buff
1540 haste rating (obtainable in blues with reforging) while Bloodlust is up, without 5% raid buff
2639 haste rating (obtainable in epics with reforging) with 5% raid buff
3411 haste rating (unobtainable in tier 11) without 5% raid buff

70% buffed haste - Go from 7 ticks to 8

2679 haste rating (obtainable in epics with reforging) while Bloodlust is up, with 5% raid buff
This should be the absolute sweet spot to soft cap haste.

If doing so allows you to reach these ratings, you want to gem int/haste in red, haste in yellow, and haste/hit in blue, obtain socket bonuses.

Once these ratings are reached you want to maintain your desired haste rating while gemming int in every socket and ignore socket bonuses. Slight tweaking is possible, such as gemming red/blue sockets with int/int hit, if the socket bonus is also int.

Twinkielock · 12/17/10, 1:54 PM

Is the goblin rocket worth using in your normal rotation? I currently have mine bound with soulfire as they are both a 2min CD.

turturin · 12/17/10, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by Twinkielock

Is the goblin rocket worth using in your normal rotation? I currently have mine bound with soulfire as they are both a 2min CD.

The easiest way to determine this is to look at logs for at least a full night of raiding (for sample size purposes. Use more logs for more precise results). Use bosses only to ensure that buffs/debuffs which may affect the rockets are present. Take the total dmg divided by the number of casts, and then divide that by the lenght of your GCD (which is haste dependent). This will give you the Damage-per-cast-time (DPCT) of the goblin rocket, which you can then compare to the simcraft DPCT's of the rotational abilities to see if/where it fits into the priority list.

One thing to consider (I believe this is correct) is that the goblin jump and the rockets share a cooldown so depending on fight mechanics the positioning advantage of the goblin jump might actually allow for greater overall dps (because it gives you more total dps time on the encounter).

lefritz · 12/20/10, 11:18 PM

Originally Posted by Jmickey

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.

Assuming this is true Im wondering what kind of testing there has been on continually extending the duration of a very buffed unstable affliction (e.g. heroism+eradication+pot+demon soul, ect.) I realize that fel flames dpct is very low, but it almost seems worth using it to continually refresh an unstable affliction that has been buffed. Has anyone done any extensive testing on this? Or am I just misunderstanding how extending the duration works?

Saufsoldat · 12/21/10, 3:21 AM

Originally Posted by lefritz

Assuming this is true Im wondering what kind of testing there has been on continually extending the duration of a very buffed unstable affliction (e.g. heroism+eradication+pot+demon soul, ect.) I realize that fel flames dpct is very low, but it almost seems worth using it to continually refresh an unstable affliction that has been buffed. Has anyone done any extensive testing on this? Or am I just misunderstanding how extending the duration works?

If I'm not mistaken damage modifiers recalculate with every tick, only haste rolls for the entire duration of the dot, so we'd be talking about heroism+haste trinket (if you have one) only.

♦ Blacksen · 12/21/10, 3:49 AM

How often is it worth using glyphed Soul Swap as affliction? Or even more generally, is multi-target DPS optimal by applying DoT's to targets that won't have all buffs/debuffs?

Several of the introductory fights feature encounters with multiple targets that will endure full DoT durations (Halfus, Twins, Twilight Ascendents, Cho'gall, Omnitron, Maloriak, Nefarian, and Al'akir).

Twins is probably the best example. You've got the Dragon on the ground with the dragon in the air and a shared health pool. Is it worth using Soul Swap to keep the DoT's up on the other dragon? Should you try to keep a 3-stack of Shadow Embrace up on both targets? Should use drop Soul Swap completely and just manually refresh both?

Thanks in advance.