How good are you at timing Drain Soul?

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

Kind of an open-ended thread, just curious how people approach timing their Drain Souls.

Specifically speaking for situations with many mobs that die at varying speeds, how good are you at nabbing that last second tick with Drain Soul to restore shards and resume your multi-dotting? How do you gauge how fast a mob is expected to die, and hence when you're supposed to stop MGing and start DSing, or are you good enough (or have fast enough latency and frame-rate) to only start at 20% or less every single time no matter how fast a mob will die? Any particularly unpredictable fights or mobs where you have slightly more difficulty timing it perfectly on, and how do you handle/compensate?



On H_Will, i think the Emperor's Rages are the mobs I always time the most poorly it seems; either causing me to keep channeling Drain Soul longer than ideal or missing the shard refresh. I'm guessing the scattered reactionary nature of the fight causes a larger discrepancy in speed-of-death than most fights. On the same fight the Courages always die extremely fast, and usually require absolutely no MG at all (SB:SW->Haunt->DS).

On H_Windlord i find myself aiming for a Drain Soul kill at around 3% of the mob's shared health pool.

[adezero]

pretty sure you can start channeling drain soul before 20% and you'll still get the execute damage increase when it goes below 20%. makes it a lot easier.

obviously depends on how fast the mob is dying and how much hp it has where you'll want to judge when to start drain souling at either 30% (mobs in a heroic dungeon) or 21% (raid boss)

[Pooutine]

I use an addon called Drain Souler. There is a siren that goes off when the mob is sub 20% so i smack the DS bind right away seem to work really well for me.

[Harsesis]

pretty sure you can start channeling drain soul before 20% and you'll still get the execute damage increase when it goes below 20%. makes it a lot easier.

Nope. Mob health checks for Drain Soul occurs at cast and not per tick.

[Xandy]

Nope. Mob health checks for Drain Soul occurs at cast and not per tick.

Do you have something to back that up?

"If the target is at or below 20% health when Drain Soul deals damage, it deals 100% additional damage..."

It doesn't say when cast, it says when it deals damage. Which would be per tick.

[xskarma]

Nope. Mob health checks for Drain Soul occurs at cast and not per tick.

This was changed, it now dynamically checks health on tick. Been that way since beta.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty bad at using it on the main targets... Always going back to MG after refreshing Haunt during execute

[Shadence]

On adds that generally die soon after hitting 20% I put drain soul on around 30-50% depending on how long they are up. Contrary to what you might think, just casting Drain Soul on a target just before it dies usually isn't enough, and there are many times where I put it on too late and I don't get shards back.

When it comes to Bosses there really isn't a problem, takes awhile to hit 20% and I'm ready for when it happens.

[Xandy]

I find that if the target dies within the GCD I don't get my shards back

[a little Kappa]

On bosses I like to start channeling at 21% if we got heroism up and I got my procs.

If the boss is dropping very quickly I do it even before. But on bosses like garalon HC/blade lord HC I usually wait for 20%.

Just a tip: Use soulburn before you drain soul under 20%, and spam 4 haunts before you drain again. Use the one soulburn to apply a new row of dots. Does amazing dmg :P

[Deleted]

Nope. Mob health checks for Drain Soul occurs at cast and not per tick.

I know from experience that this has not been true since MoP. Start casting above 20%, first tick at <20% and you get the increased damage.

[Deleted]

I sometimes forget so I made a weakaura string with a big ass drain soul icon to remind me to win the dps.

[Scathbais]

I use power auras to moan at me when sub 20%. Also I added stopcasting to my DS macro to make sure it goes up immediately. Helps a lot on quick dying adds.