1. #1
    Stood in the Fire Kagecamia's Avatar
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    PVE: How are we really doing in the MoP raids?

    Hello everyone.

    I am new to the MMO Champion forums but I often visit the website and the lock forums in particular a few times a day or so.

    While I haven't leveled up to 90 on live due to school demands, I've been keeping myself informed on the changes and the fight mechanics by looking at plenty of Youtube videos, blogs posts, strategy guides and most importantly WoL Parses to see how we are doing.

    For the most part, I am kinda neutral about what I see. I am seeing a lot of logs from US players, EU players etc, that show locks doing great. Elegon, Garajal and Will of Emp are great fights for us to just name a few.

    However I am seeing a lot of logs where locks are struggling to keep up. One of the most recent things I've seen is locks being between 10% to 30% in some extreme cases behind fire mages on the Terrace bosses and fights such as Wind Lord, Amber shaper, and Empress.

    What I find very odd, is that a few weeks ago locks had a great advantage on some of these fights. However I am seeing fewer and fewer locks on the top of the meters.



    Some of the logs I pay particular attention to are logs from Sparkuggz, Zumzum, and Jessicka to just name a few.

    Since I don't want this to get too long and wordy, my concerns can be summarized is this question:

    Do we have the tools to be competitive and viable? And, if so, can we expect to top meters or get pretty damn close as we gear up, or will we be middle of the pack?


    Thank you all very much for your time!

    Kagecamia- Freelance Mercs Khaz Modan-US PVE

  2. #2

  3. #3
    Stood in the Fire Kagecamia's Avatar
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    While simcraft is a good guide, I find it to not be 100% true most of the time. Close to it but still some variation.

    Trust me: If didn't have any concerns, I wouldn't be here asking from the best of the best

  4. #4
    I'll give you a breakdown of all bosses in HoF 10M HC as well as the ones we've done in ToES so far.

    First here's our DPS classes for comparison:

    2x Mages (Fire/Frost)
    1x Frost DK
    1x Boomkin
    1x Spriest
    1x Hunter (BM/Surv)
    1x Lock (me)


    Zor'lok: I'm usually in the top with the mages. Affli is great because you can channel during dances with KJC. Demo is great because you can just go Meta and spam ToC while dancing.

    Blade Lord: This is pretty much tank/spank. Since we don't rely as much as mages on damage during cooldowns I think we pull ahead of them slightly here. Our DK is even with me here though. Both Affli and Demo do well on this fight

    Garalon: Here we are pretty shit. We do good damage while kiting with pheromones but don't benefit much from standing under legs. Our mages and our DK usually beat me and everyone else are even with me. Both Affli and Demo do well here as well.

    Mel'jarak: Affli does a really good job here but it's not mainly on damage beters. I used Observer on the boss to dispel him and kept dots on everything. Our execute is great as well to take down a set of adds. Good focus damage but not the best AoE. Only played Demo here once and I was kind of confused and not used how to properly played it so I did poorly. Locks are good here but not the best. Mages pull ahead by a lot and our other classes seem to be about even with us, maybe slightly behind not sure.

    Un'sok: The DPS here is not that important. Good burst on ambers is necessary otherwise it's just a mechanic fight. Demo used to get a boost from Meta while in construct but it's been fixed. Both Demo and Affli do well on nuking down ambers and people who are in constructs. It's a good fight for us but most other classes can do the same job.

    Shek'zeer: During boss nuke phases we are on top along mages. I rarely get beaten on boss damage. Mages pull ahead on add damage though. Our other classes I think are about the same. Overall I'd say it's not a great lock fight but certainly not bad. We haven't killed her yet but I'm pretty sure I'll be top 2-3 on the overall damage done when we get her down because our strong single target, decent AoE and awesome execute from Affliction.

    Protectors: At first I was on add duty because our Spriest wasn't there and it's alright for first phase as Affli but later on it's hard to keep up and be able to get good burst on all of them and it becomes a waste of DPS. Now we just stack up on me and the mage in the beginning and we're pretty much even on the damage since it's just single target nuke for us. We provide good slows and interrupts if we play Affli so it's a great fight to bring a lock.

    Tsulong: Night phases are pretty good for us. Damage on adds are too random though depending if we can spam SoC or not and I think it's a bit too RNG to make us reliable. This harms the single target damage too. If the rest of the raid can handle the adds almost by themselves it's great for Affli, otherwise not so great. During day phases we're good at killing the unstable sha adds as well as helping out with the big elemental adds and can provide stuns from shadowfury on the small ones that spawn from the elementals. Soulburning Exhaustion/Enfeeblement can come handy too. Other classes bring some good utility here too but I wouldn't say any other class in our raid are better than warlocks and I'm pretty sure I'll top the meters when we finally get our kill.

    Lei Shi (normal): Well it's a BS fight DPS wise. Banish is good to remove one of the adds. KJC is good for the get away phase. I guess we are strong here but it's hard to compare with other classes.

    Sha of Fear (normal): A great fight for Affliction. Multidot the adds and Sha, port back right in time for fears. Run and channel on the platforms and keep channeling during death blossom while hiding behind pillars. We should top meters with mages here.


    Overall I'd say that HoF and ToES are not as amazing for warlocks as MSV was but we're still in the top on most fights and bring pretty good utility with curses, CC's and healthstones. Not having a lock in your raid will usually be a really bad choice.

    Hope that helped!

  5. #5
    Deleted
    well you need to take into account that those simcrafts take place on a tank and spank fight with just you and a target, and there arent that many of those kind of fights, so you shouldnt take simcrafts too seriously when it comes to multidotting fights etc.

    well in current tier locks certainly have the tools to be competative and viable and we will do very well on most fights and be in the top half of the meters, but this is only 1 tier, and things tend to change tier by tier.

  6. #6
    Pretty much from the logs and from my experience... a *LOT* of mages are topping the meters outright. A few shadow priests are pretty high... and what few Warlocks there are and are playing Affliction are also doing *OK* on certain fights. Overall though and by a long shot Fire Mages (especially in 5.1) seem to be out doing mostly everyone. They seem to be outscaling everything by a significant margin. Arcane mages seem generally fine as does frost (they are not in the same league as Fire is right now PVE wise). I do pretty good as a Demonology Warlock and frankly both Demonology and to a somewhat greater extend Destruction Warlocks need some fixes/buffs. Fire mages especially needs some significant nerfs. Shadow priests and moonkins could use some slight nerfs as well.

    Just my observations as it stands now.
    And yes... SimCraft results do not equal reality... in reality Fire mages are the true kings of PVE DPS right now. No contest. The damage Fire Mages (or in general really, but that has always been the case) can do is much more easily accomplished and as it stands right now that one spec is better in more fights than all of the specs combined with Warlocks.

  7. #7
    Fire Mages do especially well on Amber Shaper and Protectors due to free cleave. On Protectors that damage is meaningless. Finally, Fire top 100 logs are always skewed due to RNG. If you rank Fire as 1A for Casters, then Warlocks are 1B at worse.

    Edit: We're a lot better than SPriests and Boomkins by any measure. http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Scor...14/60/default/

  8. #8
    Stood in the Fire Kagecamia's Avatar
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    Thank you everyone for the input. I really apprcieate the info!

    I would agree that fire mages need to be tuned down a bit. I think the bug or buff or w/e to combustion that was brought in with 5.1 needs to be checked or else the difference between mages, and everyone will get bigger and bigger. And frankly, that just makes for a hard time for eveyone who is trying their hardest but still not being as competitive as a mage.

    Anyways I digress. GameMaster, could u send me a link to your logs about demo? When i first started in cata i leveled in demo and i loved it so I raided in DS with it. I would like to at least try it out in the raids sicne i heard aoe is pretty damn good.

    Have you noticed any loss in dps or damage since the melee was removed and then doom was buffed? i did some math and it turns out we are still behind without the melee :S I might be wrong though.

    ---------- Post added 2012-11-30 at 07:41 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Rustjive View Post
    Fire Mages do especially well on Amber Shaper and Protectors due to free cleave. On Protectors that damage is meaningless. Finally, Fire top 100 logs are always skewed due to RNG. If you rank Fire as 1A for Casters, then Warlocks are 1B at worse.

    Edit: We're a lot better than SPriests and Boomkins by any measure.
    I am unfamiliar with the 1A and 1B classification you used. By those do u mean that once you take out the free cleaves from fire, locks and mages are about equal?

  9. #9
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bonkura View Post
    Garalon: Here we are pretty shit. We do good damage while kiting with pheromones but don't benefit much from standing under legs. Our mages and our DK usually beat me and everyone else are even with me. Both Affli and Demo do well here as well.
    Just a quick note here, I tend to do really well as Destro on Garalon obviously due to the more bursty nature of the damage. Chasing legs and havoc-cleave pretty much. I've never done it as Demo (since I hate the spec) but I do much better as Destro than Aff at least.

    Apart from that I agree with the last statement, I really feel that we are good and locks are a very welcome addition to any raid.

  10. #10
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    We're freaking damn fine.

    I never enjoyed playing my warlock so much in PVE (all 3 specs, even though affliction seems dull).

  11. #11
    The Unstoppable Force Jessicka's Avatar
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    http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Overall_D...14/60/default/ - data from real parses, not sims.

    Pretty well I'd say. Affliction is overall the #2 spec so when you consider most players are going to be using this spec; the fact that the other two specs are pretty comfortably keeping up with the rest of the pack says a lot about those as well.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Kagecamia View Post
    I am unfamiliar with the 1A and 1B classification you used. By those do u mean that once you take out the free cleaves from fire, locks and mages are about equal?
    I mean that the two specs/classes are really close in real world performance when taken as a whole.

  13. #13
    Immortal hellhamster's Avatar
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    At the moment we are easily in the top 2, top 3 at the worst (depending on your gear, the higher your ilvl the better you get compared to most other classes as their ilvl increases equally). The only class we can't really beat are mages, and those seem overpowered beyond comprehension, especially after 5.1.

    Also, it may seem from raidbots, simcraft, WOL or from locks you talk to that overall affliction is the only spec to play for max dps. While it may be a bit better than the other 2 specs on pure single target, you can go demo or destro and do the same dps or even more than affliction depending how good you are with each spec. People play affliction more because it is the easiest spec of the 3 at the moment, and that needs to be taken into account as well.

  14. #14
    I usually am top 1-3 in my raid team...and I've been ranking pretty consistently on every 10M fight in HoF. We're in a great place for all three specs, to be honest. Affliction is obviously the biggest DPS spec for us, but the others are perfectly viable.

  15. #15
    Stood in the Fire Kagecamia's Avatar
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    Thank you everyone for responding. You have answered any questions I have. For that I am very happy

    I plan on raiding in afflic but I've always loved demo since i first started playing in cata. What are the stat priorities for Demo/afflic and destro?

    I remember seeing mastery being first prio for both destro and afflic?

    I've seen locks such as Shinafae from Blood Legion using both, but finding a happy medium between hit. mastery and haste to do well in both specs.

  16. #16
    We're good really.
    Mages may have it a little better due to many fights mechanics and cleave fights but really there is not much to complain about compared to other classes.

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