[6.0] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock Guide

[Tramzh]

For CMs I started out trying them with Servitude/GoSup but the more I did them I realised that the reason warlocks get brought to CMs is for the Aoe, havoc and shadowburn and imo those are the abilities you want to enhance as much as possible, that's why you want to go with GoSac and Cataclysm (no other choice anyway in last talent tier tbh if you pick GoSac).

GoSup + Demonic Servitude could work too but the pet is very clunky a lot of the time. Currently in certain dungeons the pets have a really bad habit of randomly dying or running off for no reason. The only dungeon I'd consider to pick Demonic Servitude in is Auchindoun if you don't have a druid or another really good way to CC the infernal on the last boss (oh shit i might look like a retard here if banish actually work, didn't try it). Even then it's a lot weaker because you lose out on a big part of your dps on the last boss and the packs leading up there are all rather big pulls which favors Cataclysm.

AD vs MF are close but AD provides a lot more flexibility, IE pop 2 DS right at the start, wait 4 mins and pop 2 again if you so wish. Without AD you are pretty much limited to popping DS every 2 minutes which is not ideal in many dungeons.

[Count Zero]

I did my first WoD CM yesterday (shadowmoon burial grounds) and the doomguard had the nasty habit of dying.

My Terrorguard's been getting chewed up just in heroics

[Novx]

I did my first WoD CM yesterday (shadowmoon burial grounds) and the doomguard had the nasty habit of dying.

Welcome to World of PetOhGodGetOutOfTheFireYouFuckingIdiotDoomguardcraft.


Its funny to think they just did a hotfix that made the DG/Abyssal more survivable.

[Deleted]

I feel weird coming in here and saying I've not had any problems with per survivability in CMs.

Been running them daily for the epic drops (not that they've been very nice, double necks and redundant helms), and I think my pet has died once or twice.
GoSup Serv terrorguard for anyone wondering.

Not going to argue it's the right choice, since I really haven't experimented much with Cata which I'm sure is a strong contender, but I've certainly not had any problems with survivability in CMs, which seems an odd clash to what people are saying.

That said, I certainly think pets are squishy as hell - even in open world content they seem to get whacked down quickly if you try tanking anything with them, but CM's have been somewhere where it's never seemed to be an issue.

[Deleted]

Are we still using rain of fire in our single target rotation? And i've seen alot of lock going with MF, at which times are MF better than AD?

[PickleballAce]

Even though the pets have avoidance, they're still having trouble properly flagging certain effects as "AoE".

[Zynx]

I've found that my pets never die in dungeons really. I find the complaints surprising. Pets in the world are God awful. Can't even tank one mob. I can keep them up if I channel Health Funnel into them 24/7, but of course, losing that ability was supposed to make the game better... Somehow. Meanwhile Tap heals my pet for like 100 Heath.

[Brusalk]

I've found that my pets never die in dungeons really. I find the complaints surprising. Pets in the world are God awful. Can't even tank one mob. I can keep them up if I channel Health Funnel into them 24/7, but of course, losing that ability was supposed to make the game better... Somehow. Meanwhile Tap heals my pet for like 100 Heath.

My pets never die in the world. GoSup/Demon Trained Voidlord has tanked everything for me from quest mobs to group quest mobs to rares without coming close to dying.

My pets do die to standing in AoE fire though, which sucks.

[Junichi]

Would anyone mind adding me to real ID like learning hands on what I am doing wrong so I need someone to basicly do a workshop with me. Junified#1545.

[Tramzh]

My pets never die in the world. GoSup/Demon Trained Voidlord has tanked everything for me from quest mobs to group quest mobs to rares without coming close to dying.

Well, if you are happy with warlock pets I guess you never tried a hunter pet, 10 times easier to manage and they seem way stronger.

[PickleballAce]

This is a useless throwaway post, but man I fucking love how rewarding and visceral Cataclysm is when you get it off.

[Rayaleith]

So, I know that 5 mans are not much but this is what we got now.

I am doing CMs (last cm was last night, UBRS silver) and most of the time I use GoSup/Servitude. I stopped using MF with this build since with charges of AD, I can spend one to enpowered F&B Incinerates which is really strong. I have a second spec with GoSac/Cataclys which destroys large packs. But most of the times at boss fight, even with cleave capabilities, the amount of movement to avoid shit almost forces me to use the Terrorguard.

Well, nothing new here. Just saying my things. Oh and WW monks are OP. By far the most OP class atm.

[Deleted]

My Terrorguard's been getting chewed up just in heroics

My bad, I meant Terrorguard, I always mix up the names. It's been dying many times in CM Shadowmoon Burial Grounds.

- - - Updated - - -

My pets never die in the world. GoSup/Demon Trained Voidlord has tanked everything for me from quest mobs to group quest mobs to rares without coming close to dying.

My pets do die to standing in AoE fire though, which sucks.

I've had to resummon the voidlord at least 5 times for a big animal in Nagrand that took me 5-10 minutes to solokill. I think it was a big dinausor. I was probably about 600 ilv at the time, haven't tried again in 630 gear.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, if you are happy with warlock pets I guess you never tried a hunter pet, 10 times easier to manage and they seem way stronger.

Absolutely the difference is stunning. In MoP we were blessed with hunter-like pets but that's not the case in WoD.
Some solos depend on the voidlord not dying more than once a minute as we can't heal it anymore u what a super dumb design decision.

[Gravityx]

For CMs I started out trying them with Servitude/GoSup but the more I did them I realised that the reason warlocks get brought to CMs is for the Aoe, havoc and shadowburn and imo those are the abilities you want to enhance as much as possible, that's why you want to go with GoSac and Cataclysm (no other choice anyway in last talent tier tbh if you pick GoSac).

GoSup + Demonic Servitude could work too but the pet is very clunky a lot of the time. Currently in certain dungeons the pets have a really bad habit of randomly dying or running off for no reason. The only dungeon I'd consider to pick Demonic Servitude in is Auchindoun if you don't have a druid or another really good way to CC the infernal on the last boss (oh shit i might look like a retard here if banish actually work, didn't try it). Even then it's a lot weaker because you lose out on a big part of your dps on the last boss and the packs leading up there are all rather big pulls which favors Cataclysm.

AD vs MF are close but AD provides a lot more flexibility, IE pop 2 DS right at the start, wait 4 mins and pop 2 again if you so wish. Without AD you are pretty much limited to popping DS every 2 minutes which is not ideal in many dungeons.

Is there any reason you arent taking the glyph for dark soul? I always use that as its amazing to have the 1 minute CD for dungeons.

[Tramzh]

Is there any reason you arent taking the glyph for dark soul? I always use that as its amazing to have the 1 minute CD for dungeons.

Basically, packs or bosses for that matter very rarely dies within 10 seconds and in most of the dungeons it's very difficult to get ember starved (about 30%+ of my total damage usually is from shadowburn). The glyph will not allow you to fit enough spells into it for it to become efficient and it will force you into the same problem you will discover if you decide to not pick AD; you will be forced to pop DS at sub optimal situations to not stay CD capped. I wouldn't say it's terrible but I can't come up with a certain situation or specific dungeon right now that I would consider using it.

[Deleted]

First of all - sry for my bad english, i'am not a native speeker and struggle finding the right terms of words often enough

Is there any reason you arent taking the glyph for dark soul? I always use that as its amazing to have the 1 minute CD for dungeons.

Well - in Dungeons (CM's) the glyph might perform well, but the longer the fights last, the worse it (possibly) can get - due to the lower overall uptime of DS (depending on fight length)

Here is some math to back it up:

- understand every X for 10sec with no DS up

- understand every O for 10sec with Ds up

Example 1

without glyph or AV


7 min fight:

OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX ||

you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 8/42 = 19% - so basicly you can bypass the expected 1/6 uptime for certain fight lengths


Example 2

with glyph no AV

7min fight:

OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX ||

you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 7/42 = 16.6% - thats a ~12,3% lower DS uptime

As you can see, this depends on the fight length - if the fight would take 7:59(8min) your uptime would be the same (in both cases 1/6 or 8/48), if its longer then 8:21 you'd lose uptime again (due to the fact that without the glyph you add 20sec every 2min instead of 10sec every 1min)

Lets check this for a 8 min fight:

without glyph:

OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX

you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 8/48 = 16.67% (or 20/120sec = 1/6) - just as exptected

with glyph:

OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX


you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 8/48 = 16.67% - just as exptected


Thats ONE reason the glyph doesn't sim higher in the APL, because it takes fight from ranges from 6 to 8 minutes (i believe). Ofc that does NOT factor in any procs or mana issues (you can't just save embers from 0 to 4 - you WILL run oom doing so single target). It's just an example for better understanding why the glyph MIGHT be a dps-decrease in some circumstances.


Now lets to the same, but this time with Archimond's V. Lets asume you will use the 2nd charge with procs, lets say 1min after the fight started


Example 3

without glyph but WITH AV

7min fight:

OOXXXX || OOXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX || XXXXXX || OOXXXX ||

you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 10/42 = 23,8%


Example 4

with glyph but WITH AV

7min fight:

OOXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX || OXXXXX ||

you can see the uptime is (O/X+O) = 8/42 = 19% or a whooping 20% loss in uptime !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hugginz]

Unlike MoP cms, you have the option of pickin different methods based on you group comps. I think if you're working with mage/hunter/lock you have more of a burden because you have the option of being not as reliant on CDs for pulls compared to your teammates making AD very strong. Mages and Hunters don't do a lot of damage on large packs when they don't have their CDs up but as a warlock with AD, you have some flexibility where you can use CDs wherever you feel like.

It seems that in CMs that if you take GoSac/AD/Cataclysm, then you're relying on your compadres picking up the slack on boss fights. Cata is just godawful for single target, and even worse on movement fights where your doomguard can just stand there and cast unmolested Doom Bolts for the entire fight while you run around non-dying.

I think it really depends on the comp and your groups personal DPS. I'm still under the impression that you could probably do better with GoSup/AD/Demonic Servitude, but if you're going for gold and pullling big packs, Cata will surely pull ahead.

[jaymzkerten]

snip

While the uptime of DS always ends up being lower with the glyph, the significance is that it allows you to utilize all of DS's duration at each cast for ember spenders only, rather than 1/2 for ember spenders, 3/8 trying to build more embers, and the last 1/8 squeezing in another spender (even if it means using a backdraft CB). So for example if you are fully loaded on embers and pop AD w/ glyph, you will spend the entire duration dumping the embers into CBs (in a non-existent 0 haste 0 latency situation). The end result is lower uptime but higher ember spent per second of uptime.

If you figure my (probably very skewed) numbers above, per 20 seconds you spend 5 embers:

5/20 = 1 ember per 4 seconds of uptime

Now borrowing your example 3:
7 minute duration = 100 seconds of DS / 4 = 25 embers spent under DS

Now you put the glyph in and now you only spend 4 embers but in a 10 second duration each time:

4/10 = 1 ember per 2.5 seconds of uptime

Now borrowing your example 4:
7 minute duration = 80 seconds of DS / 2.5 = 32 embers spent under DS

So with the glyph in a 7 minute fight we have 20 seconds less uptime (20% less as you stated), however we were able to spend 7 more embers during DS's duration (~22% more embers)!

(For shits and giggles on the 8 minute example it would push w/ glyph even further ahead, 36 embers in 90 seconds, so a 30.6% increase in embers spent)

[Deleted]

Getting to cast 4 back to back chaos bolts every minute isn't going to be that easy though!

KJC will likely become a staple for progress to allow consistent damage between pulls.

[jaymzkerten]

Unless there are fights which require you to run across the entire room on a regular basis while also having a tight dps check I don't see KJC being that beneficial. Most mechanics that have you move around only require you to move just far enough to out-range it or sidestep it.

Also even if you don't have the ability to regularly cast 4 back to back CBs (say you usually get 3 in a 10 second span), that just means it will break even with non-glyphed DS, and any opportunities that you manage to get all 4 CBs will be the glyph pulling ahead.