What is my warlock doing wrong?

[.Nensec]

Hey there!

I am the guild and raid leader of my guild and I got a question about one of my raiders.
His damage is quite a bit lower than our other DPS, while his gear is not top notch I feel he is lacking behind for other reasons.

I've only started logging recently but here are some logs:

Yor'sahj Heroic: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=5724&e=6307
Hagara heroic: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/r...?s=1923&e=2274

And his armory:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...alock/advanced

Any advise is welcome!

[kai zayin]

He's Demo and using Rain of Fire.. he should be using Hellfire. Not the entirety of the problem, but def a major issue on an aoe fight like H Yor'sahj.

Looking a little more on Yor'sahj he used Incinerate 104 times, and Shadowbolt 6 times. In addition he got 16 Molten Core procs for the entire fight. Molten Core reduces the cast time and increases the damage of Incinerate and you should only use Incinerate when Molten Core is procced, at most he should have used Incinerate 48 times in that fight. He is over double that figure.

Found his armory, he's missing Power Torrent. He has zero reforges, he's not hit capped (1742 hit), he doesn't have a belt buckle, he shouldn't gem for the socket bonus in Seal of the Grand Architect (just go straight int). He's Demo and he's gemming for haste indicating that he doesn't understand what stats are best for him. As Demo Generally Int>Hit to cap>Mastery>Haste>Crit. There are excellent guides on these forums that he could probably benefit greatly from, go ahead and have him start with this one,
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...uide-%284-2%29

Also Ti'tahk is terrible, and he should replace that piece of garbage asap.

[Shiekyerbooty]

his haste is at 2180 and his crit is 16-something.....while his mastery is only 14

if he's going demo he doent need to worry about haste until his itlem lvl is around 397.for now he needs to get to 20 mastery and forget about haste and crit until his gear catches up

also tell them to watch youtube vid of 4.3 demo rotation

[Deleted]

He's Demo and using Rain of Fire.. he should be using Hellfire. Not the entirety of the problem, but def a major issue on an aoe fight like H Yor'sahj.

Looking a little more on Yor'sahj he used Incinerate 104 times, and Shadowbolt 6 times. In addition he got 16 Molten Core procs for the entire fight. Molten Core reduces the cast time and increases the damage of Incinerate and you should only use Incinerate when Molten Core is procced, at most he should have used Incinerate 48 times in that fight. He is over double that figure.

I thought Incinerate became the main Demo filler? Or am I missing something?

[Yayorelay]

Does your lock ever use meta form? I don't see any Immulation Aura ticks either in the log, but as Kai said I saw rain of fire as well as seed of corruption casts; but no hellfire.

Does he cast his doom guard during the pull or lust? Is he using Infernal on the adds for H Yor'sahj?

Beyond that he is not hit capped and he does not have any reforges on his gear, also missing his belt buckle for an extra gem.

Tell him to put his toon through askmrrobot or a similar optimization program and direct him to the warlock class guides you can find in this forum or the more advanced ones on elitistjerks. From the small example of that log and his armory he is missing out on a significant amount of his possible dps if he is not using all the tools he has at his disposal as a demonology warlock.

[fizzbob]

I thought Incinerate became the main Demo filler? Or am I missing something?

shadowbolt is, you use incinerate when molten core procs

[clintok]

He's Demo and using Rain of Fire.. he should be using Hellfire. Not the entirety of the problem, but def a major issue on an aoe fight like H Yor'sahj.

Looking a little more on Yor'sahj he used Incinerate 104 times, and Shadowbolt 6 times. In addition he got 16 Molten Core procs for the entire fight. Molten Core reduces the cast time and increases the damage of Incinerate and you should only use Incinerate when Molten Core is procced, at most he should have used Incinerate 48 times in that fight. He is over double that figure.

This is incorrect. His spec is single target. He wouldn't be using Shadow Bolt at all. He didn't use Immolation Aura once on Yor'sahj. That's a major dps loss. He had a drain soul in there. 76% uptime on immolate, 63 on corruption, 69 on bane of doom. He cast Seed of Corruption 5 times. The very simple answer is that your lock is bad. Rain of Fire would have been the first sign. Not a single Hellfire cast. He's doing everything wrong really.

[fizzbob]

meta is all about taking advantage of shittily designed clunky mechanics. snapshotting your mastery then swapping gear sets, pet twisting, etc

it's garbage and if played normally, it is not on par with other specs on single target fights. the people who get those big numbers are doing all that crap that isn't fun, isn't even really supposed to be part of the game and are basically neglected mechanics

it's like how hunters looked like they were doing better than they were because of creative pet summoning before/during fights.

those are broken mechanics and stuff the average player won't/can't do and will never have fun doing. i got sick of it on my lock and just parked his ass. playing my spriest is silky smooth other htan having to roll new dots to match buffs and procs throughout the fight. on a lock it feels like i'm pushing a buggy with an egg-shaped wheel.

it's why people don't like locks. they feel like garbage

---------- Post added 2012-04-30 at 02:31 PM ----------

This is incorrect. His spec is single target. He wouldn't be using Shadow Bolt at all. He didn't use Immolation Aura once on Yor'sahj. That's a major dps loss. He had a drain soul in there. 76% uptime on immolate, 63 on corruption, 69 on bane of doom. He cast Seed of Corruption 5 times. The very simple answer is that your lock is bad. Rain of Fire would have been the first sign. Not a single Hellfire cast. He's doing everything wrong really.

i did'nt see glyph of incinerate

[Deathdealr]

Yeah looking at his armory he has not raided in Cata this whole exp until DS. He really needs to hit up Youtube on some 4.3 videos and check out some sites like Askmrrobot.com for some reforging tips becuase he has a long way to go to catch up but its not impossible. Most importantly he needs to understand his class and what spells to use. His 4 set wouldn't hurt either.

[Inactivity]

Ask Mr. Robot is wrong. Use WowReforge or ReforgeLite with the following settings:

Hit - 25
Haste - 19
Mastery - 17
Crit - 11
Hit > 1742 - 0
Haste > 1993 - 16

I really, really dislike Demo on Yor'sahj (prefer affliction) but for Demo I would just single-target rotation on boss while saving Temporal Ruin and Meta/DS for black adds, at which point I pop them and then immo aura, shadowflame, hellfire. If there are no adds up, I personally wouldn't bother saving meta and would just use it to hit the boss - hence the reason I dislike Demo, I feel it is too dependent on getting adds when your CD's are up.


[Hagara]

His DoT uptime on Hagara is terrible. See if he can't get a DoT tracking addon (I use NeedToKnow and am converting, albeit slowly, to WeakAuras).

[Gear]

He doesn't know how to reforge. Have him use the tools and settings I gave above. While not a DPS increase strictly, Master's Spellthread (+55 stamina) is better than Sanctified (+55 spirit). You can never go wrong with more health, while spirit is absolutely useless for anything. He needs a belt buckle and Power Torrent on weapon is huge. Also, the socket bonus is fine on Seal of the Grand Architect; +25 stats is comparable to +15 int and Seal is not BiS.

[Yor'sahj]

His DoT uptime is garbage. He's using Rain of Fire instead of Hellfire. He is not using Shadowflame on CD (MASSIVE dps loss) and is not using it on the adds (MASSIVE dps loss). He isn't using his pets very smart, it looks as though he would get more simply using Felhunter than from using Felguard although optimally he should swap pets.

[Summary]

Your lock needs too much improvement to put in one thread. If you like him and don't want to boot his ass out, which most raiding guilds would do, the gap he needs to close to be somewhat competitive is probably too large to do in one sitting. That said, in order, these changes should give him the biggest DPS increase with proportion to amount of effort required:

1) Reforge and enchant properly. First do Power Torrent, Belt Buckle, and Lavawalker. Then run my reforge tools with my settings given above. This gives "free DPS" for no effort in raid.

2) Invest in a DoT tracker addon. NeedToKnow, ForteXorcist, WeakAuras, DoTimer, are all usable. In my opinion NeedToKnow does the most with least amount of setup time. He needs to keep all DoTs up as much as possible.

3) Shadowflame and HoG on cooldown. This will ensure on single target, immolate never drops. He should get OmniCC if he doesn't have it already. Shadowflame is the best AoE ability to use on both Tombs and Forgotten Ones, then Hellfire. He should never use Rain of Fire*

4) Use Felhunter instead of Felguard for single target. When in doubt, just use Felhunter if you don't know how to pet switch for max AoE and DPS.

5) He should spec out of 3/3 Bane and into 3/3 Improved Corruption. He should take Seed of Corruption*, Shadow Bolt and Rain of Fire* off his bars. The priority is quite simple: Incinerate, Soul Fire if below 25%, but Incinerate if MC is up no matter what. All this is secondary to DoTs, Hand of Gul'dan, and Shadowflame.

See if these five changes give him a good return. Updated logs would be nice to see what else he can work on/fine-tune.

*save one instance, which he shouldn't be seeing for a long, long time.

[Scathbais]

His demo build is set for Shadow Bolt as filler, yet he is using Incinerate. This is a dps loss. He should get rid of 3/3 Bane and go 3/3 Imp Corruption if he plans to use Incin as his filler. As others said, no Hellfire (why is he using Rain of Fire and Seed of Corruption). He needs to reforge for Hit and then all Crit and haste above 1993 gets reforged to Mastery.

Lousy uptimes on his dots.
I don't see any Doomguard or Infernal summons in the log. It is on a 6 min CD so there is no excuse for not using it at some point in the fight.

Looks like he used Meta and Demon Soul together, but he should try to time use with Foul Gift of Demon Lord proc (or better yet with Moon Well Chalice from Molten Front Dailies.)

TL;DR: Your warlock is failing on his rotation, his stats are not nearly optimized for demo (+no excuse for being so far below hit cap), and his talent build or glyph needs to be modified.

[.Nensec]

Thank you very much everyone for your helpful input.
Sadly booting his ass is not so much an option I am willing to consider with our guild at this point nor would I do that without atleast giving him a chance to better himself : )

[Zoldor]

As others have said he is doing a lot wrong, but it can be fixed. Follow others on reforge, enchants and stats. Same as any other class hit cap is a must, raiding without hit cap is like pvp with out resil. Rotation I can help a bit with. Elitistjerks will give you the incinerate build.

Simplify the spec and move to an incinerate build. This keeps from having to swap between SB and Incinerate. That is a simple fix, that will keep his brain from deciding which of the two to cast. Hand of Guldan and Shadowflame on CD. If he is having trouble pet swapping then just use the felhunter, unless its Yor, then use the Felguard if he can remember to whirlwind. Tell him to remove Seed and Rain of fire from his bar, they are never to be used by demo. He can be fixed in a session or two if he will just listen. DoTs gotta stay up Doom, Corrupt, Immo always running in a single target. Spam Incinerate, switch to soulfire sub 25%. That basic stuff alone should give him an increase. Meta with all CDs then drop your Doomguard (early in the fight unless the boss has a specific time of extra damage: Hagara, Zonozz). Once he gets savy he can start pet twisting. Basically you bring your felgaurd out and do Cds + Meta + doomgaurd while felguard whirlwinds. After whirlwind soulburn summon felhunter and resume normal shit.

Demo isn't hard, but it can be if you have zero idea as to what to do. He doesn't, his priority is way off and he's trying to sow in shit that doesn't belong. Removing SB, Seed, and Rain will make his life easier because he won't be thinking about using those spells. Thought = less dps, Muscle memory = High DPS.

[Inactivity]

Thank you very much everyone for your helpful input.
Sadly booting his ass is not so much an option I am willing to consider with our guild at this point nor would I do that without atleast giving him a chance to better himself : )

I said it kind of roughly, but it's the same idea as the above poster.

Best to take improvements one step at a time focusing on the biggest issues. When I said to remove things from bars, I didn't mean it in jest - it actually will help a lot to simply your train of thought by removing unnecessary/esoteric abilities to focus on the main rotation. Focus on getting the bare bones rotation down at first, to be honest, you really need to be able to do it "with your eyes shut" before figuring out the harder aspects (procs, cooldown/DoT management, pet twisting, fight-specific tricks, etc.)

Super Basic Priority for Single-Target: Keep up Corruption, Immolate, Bane of Doom when they are about to fall off (Less than roughly 2.5 seconds remaining, or less than 15 for Bane of Doom is the refresh window). Use Hand of Gul'dan and Shadowflame on cooldown. Fill with Incinerate and Soul Fire if the target is less than 25% health and you have Decimation up.

Super Basic Priority for up to 3-Target AoE: Keep up Immolate and Corruption on 2 targets and use the single-target on the main target. DoTs on secondary targets are prioritized over filler on the main target. Shadowflame is prioritized as high as main DoTs.

Super Basic Priority for 4+ Target AoE: Shadowflame > Hellfire. Use Immolation Aura if you have Metamorphosis popped.

[clintok]

I said it kind of roughly, but it's the same idea as the above poster.

Best to take improvements one step at a time focusing on the biggest issues. When I said to remove things from bars, I didn't mean it in jest - it actually will help a lot to simply your train of thought by removing unnecessary/esoteric abilities to focus on the main rotation. Focus on getting the bare bones rotation down at first, to be honest, you really need to be able to do it "with your eyes shut" before figuring out the harder aspects (procs, cooldown/DoT management, pet twisting, fight-specific tricks, etc.)

Super Basic Priority for Single-Target: Keep up Corruption, Immolate, Bane of Doom when they are about to fall off (Less than roughly 2.5 seconds remaining, or less than 15 for Bane of Doom is the refresh window). Use Hand of Gul'dan and Shadowflame on cooldown. Fill with Incinerate and Soul Fire if the target is less than 25% health and you have Decimation up.

Super Basic Priority for up to 3-Target AoE: Keep up Immolate and Corruption on 2 targets and use the single-target on the main target. DoTs on secondary targets are prioritized over filler on the main target. Shadowflame is prioritized as high as main DoTs.

Super Basic Priority for 4+ Target AoE: Shadowflame > Hellfire. Use Immolation Aura if you have Metamorphosis popped.

Locks have arguably the most difficult spell priorities atm. This is why the class is getting such a huge overhaul for the next expansion. Based on his gearing, gemming, enchanting, reforging I wouldn't have recruited him in the first place. I don't want to sound mean but he has A LOT to learn and it doesn't seem like he's made an effort at all. I could see if he was making an effort but there's just so many gearing flaws that I can't imagine he's looked into a single Warlock resource. If you're really intent on keeping him, even if he starts making an effort, it's gonna take him awhile to learn to play the class. You really should discuss his performance with the rest of the guild or at least a portion because at this point he's being carried and it's not fair at all to your other raiders.

[Inactivity]

^^ it's pretty bad when he doesn't know what a reforger or hit cap (something from WRATH) is.

I'd highly advise one of the general guides here or on EJ. It isn't 100% accurate but will definitely lead to a lot of improvement over what he is doing now; even if you can/can't fit him into your roster, it is helping him out as a raider. Being somewhat new to this game myself, I think he should have the chance to read and fix; perhaps not for heroic raids, but to start off in a guild.

[.Nensec]

Once again thanks all for the help. I had a chat with the guy last night and he went to work right away fixing the most important things with his gear and adjusting his UI/action bars.
I'll see if I can remember to reply with a new log sunday to show his improvement

[woly]

he would do alot better as another class tbh right now warlocks are really complex and clunky mechanic/rotation wise and do less dps than every other class in the game currently but if he takes alot of the good information out of this thread and gives it his all and pays close attention he will do way better than what hes doing now

Locks may be one of the most complex classes to play but they definitely aren't the worst dps, not even close, if you know how to play you can be pretty high in dps.

[Kinjin]

I think that is kinda the point in this thread. This Warlock really doesn't know what he is doing. He is being carried through heroic raid content and isn't even hit capped. That is why most of the suggestions were for him to use single target Demo on multi target fights. That's a straight dps loss over Demos multi target spec. But I think the people suggesting it didn't want to overwhelm him.
There have been some really good suggestions so far in the thread. I would say help him as much as you can. But he/she has to help themselves as well. They need to research thier class. Use the tools that other have suggested here and apply them. Even if he gets hit capped, gemmed, reforged, and learns his spell priorities he will still have to execute it. A problem for many Warlocks this expansion. I wouldn't recommend him rolling a different class. But Warlocks have a pretty high learning curve at the moment.