The Fix-My-DPS thread (Warlords Edition) [READ FIRST POST]

[Deleted]

Yes, you underperform - you are barely using Shadowburn. On encounters such as Mythic Assault anything less than 60 Shadowburn hits is poor play, I can see the same pattern with other encounters - you don't use Shadowburn enough and don't cleave it enough, which results in you missing insane amount of easy damage done from that plus losing all the potential embers generated, which result in more Chaos Bolts and Shadowburns.

Set your nameplates addon whichever you use to highlight enemies with sub 20% - your basic task is to roll Shadowburn into every such target around if it is about to die AND to cleave as much of those Shadowburns onto other targets - if you will start doing this properly you can move on and optimize other things in your gameplay (like proper F&B usage - you are not terrific there either).

Immolate uptime is cute, but it is really not where Destruction is. If you can't master Shadowburn and Havoc - you will be at the bottom forever no matter how good you Immolate uptime is or any other fluff.


P.S. Just to clarify I am not talking about specifically Assault - it was just the most obvious example. Take your every log for every encounter with adds and I can promise you that you can multiply your Shadowburn casts and hits there by 2 and that is the number you should be really gunning for. Of course I am talking about Shadowburns which either go on adds or are cleaved, don't go and Shadowburn bosses single target just to make the quote, unless you can cleave that off onto something else.

Thank you I will start focusing on that.

[Zerach8]

Help please. I do pretty well on almost every fight but Arch. I have all of the trinkets that I could possibly use besides GSR Mythic and SoD Mythic and CSR. I know I have a few issues that won't be shown in these logs like mouse of SB isn't always casting for some reason. Macro I am using is below. Please see the link to my logs. It has one arch attempt but the issue with there is pretty consistent between my attempts, other logs are in the directory however. It also has Manny before it which was just bad for some reason. And it shitty Fellord just showing how bad I am with afflic (def not ready to switch to afflic). I will try to post a SS of my UI later. Thanks in advance.


#showtooltip Shadowburn
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Shadowburn;Shadowburn

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/1TwGJzPFLdKhfDkQ/

one thing that i always look 1st is immolate and your uptime is lowish...dont dismiss immolate, if it ticks at least once it will do more damage than incinerate which is better to cast in case u are swimming in embers (because it might not generate any embers compared to at least 3 from incinerate) which u likely are on archimonde if u shadowburn everything, in p1 dont forget to cast havoc on cooldown or at least pay attention to deathcaller and doomfire timers and cast it 10-15 seconds before they spawn so u can guarantee u can get two uses of havoc on that one doomfire/deathcaller.
Make sure to bank up conflagrate stacks if u know ull need to move in the next few seconds...delaying conflag for a bit isnt such a big deal it used to be before CR because now, u can generate a lot of embers quickly...if nothing else, cast Rain of fire, while the damage is sad, it still gives u something to do.

Also i use this macro for shadowburning:

#showtooltip Shadowburn
/stopcasting
/cleartarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [@target] Shadowburn
/targetlasttarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]

ive been using it since SoO so its an old macro which was made to counter the bug havoc had back then... still works perfectly

[Styxxa]

Hello everyone.

I am quite new to the warlock class (leveled my first one a month ago) and I would like to get an idea of how I am performing before I let bad habits sink in. I recently joined a casual guild who are 13/13 hc and about to move onto mythics. The guild has two other warlocks, one of whom has the same ilvl and the other out gears me significantly. Neither of them seem to perform at a good level so I can't compare myself to them or confer with them regarding my performance.

I see my main issues being use of havoc/F&B and use of DS. I am trying to get off as many SB as possible but with a lot of the guild members outgearing me I sometimes struggle to utilize this and general aoe.

I also used affliction for a couple of fights. I know where I am going wrong on them in general (dots not the best uptime etc.

My armoury: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...apillon/simple

Two logs:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/kJXw7gDNqptTmPd1
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/C1rVnADv7XzdbHpR

I appreciate any advice you can give, feel free to be brutal as I really want to up my game and master the spec as much as possible ready for mythics.

Your post kind of got burried but I wanted to dig it out and respond a bit. You seem to be doing ok for your ilvl/gear/xp. I'm going to take a look at 2 of your logs: Xhul Heroic for Destro; and Zakuun normal for Affliction. I think for you to improve the best thing to do would be to check out the top parse for each encounter/spec in your iLvl bracket and compare the differences.

Xhul Heroic - Destro

Top Parse - Exchange (69,201)

The difference is really easy to point out here. His highest damaging spell is F&B CB. He cast it 24 times for 109 hits totaling 9.19M damage! Pretty amazing. You cast yours 5 times for 16 hits for a puny 1.22M damage To me this seems like an ember management issue (he was using T17 4pc so the damage is skewed a bit, but it's the number of casts that is the main concern). Exchange is clearly ensuring that he has 3+ embers for every imp spawn and is able to get off at least 1 F&B CB for every one. Comparing ST CB damage he cast 28 for 36 hits; You cast 37 for 43 hits. It's pretty comparable here, but again, he's saving his embers for F&B CB and you're using more on ST CB. And even though you cast 2x as many Havocs as him throughout the encounter, I think you get the idea of where Destro does its damage on this fight. He had 43 SBs compared to your 24 - very big difference again - could be an ember management issue where he's always making sure he has at least 1 ember so he can SB snipe all dying adds.

Zakuun Normal - Affliction

Top Parse - Veloxl (66,970)

His encounter was about a minute shorter and they used BL on pull. His uptimes on his DoTs and even on HS were very comparable to yours. The major difference was really the opener and the insane amount of damage he pulled on it, which carried through to the end of the fight because it was a shorter encounter than yours. Even still, his Sign of Darkstar proc'd 5 times for a 51% uptime compared to your 3 times for 24%. You might find that trying to save 2 charges of DS for whenever your group used BL to be a bit of an increase. Maybe not the best parse to compare you to, but I think if you focused on 100% uptime on HS, 99% uptime on your 3 dots, and cover BL with DS, you'll see an improvement for sure.

Anyway, you're doing ok. I think you understand the theory and where you need to improve. Just keep working on it and get back here if you have any more questions or need further advice.

[OneBigNewbie]

Hello. I change to warlock before 2 weeks. Read all what i can find for rotation and talents but look like i make something wrong. My dps is fine on some bosses but on another is very bad. I do very low dps on Archimond HC. Here is my logs from last night and my armory. Hope you can help me improve myself.
I cant post link or something bcs this is my first post ever. My char name is Ranjydots on Silvermoon EU. The log is at warcraftlogs - guild Trojans the date is 28 September. Its only Archimond HC.

[Deleted]

Hey everyone,

First time posting on a Fix my DPS thread, I'm a bit embarrassed. I've recently swap back to being warlock, started 3 weeks ago massively under geared, and was fed some loot by the guilds, but mostly scraps. With this in mind, my gear setup isn't great: no legendary ring, no 4 set, using DHellfire Assault chest (vers + multi), trinkets are DSI Mythic and Everbloom's last boss mythic warforged (int + multi proc). Still, despite the gear disadvantage compared to the other dpsers in the guild, I feel like I'm doing something wrong.

Yesterday I was in for Zakuun mythic progress (mostly because there was no one else), and I was feeling really soul shard starved, my Haunting Spirits up time is really low, hoovering the 70%, some times lower. I think my DS uptime is not great but decent, around 60%, and my dot's uptime are also not a problem, usually 99%+, except for a couple of tries where they fell off because I died or something.

My opening rotation is: (we don't do 23 sec pull timer, so we have to try to be lucky to get the extra shard)-[15,20]:SB; -2.5: Haunt; -0.5: UA; 0: SB:SS; +GCD: Dark Soul, Drain Soul ad eternum. I don't know if the reason for my soul shard starvation is me using SB:SS on the pull, but the rotation feels more fluid using it, and my pull burst dps is (obviously) greater with it.

Anyway, does anyone have any comments regarding the logs I'm posting below?

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...nowin/advanced
Logs (only sub 10% wipes): 1 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1
2 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1
3 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1
4 - https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...-done&source=1

[Zerach8]

To not be shardstarved u either need Class trinket or more haste than u already have...ofc u can be lucky and swim in shards but thats unlikely. Dont use SB:SS on the pull, u dont really gain anything from doing that because u just loose a shard that u could use later on to keep Haunting spirits up or extra haunt for more dmg during burst.

[Orecenda]

Hey everyone i believe that the gear that i am currently in i should be able to hit 50k dps, but im struggling to break out of the 40k on affliction. Here is my logs from blackhand that i ran today.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/XGyF78Tb6JHdW9kA/

And here is my armory

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...3%A1n/advanced

I think my dot uptimes are fine, all are above 90% but my drainsoul is very low, and im not sure how to correct that. I don't refresh my dots unless they are within the 2-3 sec range, sometimes i will refresh unstable around the 5 second mark.

All help is appreciated.

[Styxxa]

Hey everyone i believe that the gear that i am currently in i should be able to hit 50k dps, but im struggling to break out of the 40k on affliction. Here is my logs from blackhand that i ran today.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/XGyF78Tb6JHdW9kA/

And here is my armory

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...3%A1n/advanced

I think my dot uptimes are fine, all are above 90% but my drainsoul is very low, and im not sure how to correct that. I don't refresh my dots unless they are within the 2-3 sec range, sometimes i will refresh unstable around the 5 second mark.

All help is appreciated.

It's not your Drain Soul uptime that's an issue, it's your Haunting Spirits uptime (76%) that's causing the major problem. That should be as close to 100% as possible.

You'd do better with a Mastery enchant on your weapon. You didn't do any damage to the Siegemakers and I'd recommend having 2 charges of Dark Soul ready with your Doomguard for BL in the final phase. Some helpful trinket procs would make a difference too.

[misha4ever]

Hello everybody

I had to make an account because I'm getting desperate. My DPS is super low after the patch and I can't keep it high and stable the entire fight as before. It can go from 60k to 30k and I always end last.

I'm mostly destro but I read that for some fights it's better Affli, the thing is, I'm worse with Affli because I can't keep curses on 3 mobs at the same time and dpsing one. I feel like from being a really good player in the past, now I'm so bad and low to learning the new methods



edit: oh I can't post links... damn it.

[kurgen1]

Help needed. What am I missing (destro)?

On Mannoroth and Archimonde, I am struggling to maintain 40K dps when I should be 50K+

Couple things of note, esp on Mannoroth, there is a hunter and warrior that AOE like crazy on the imps. This means if I don't precast my F&B CB at the right time, or we aren't grouped up right for the imps, that turns into lost DPS.

However, I think my biggest problems lie in
1- moving and disrupting casting (when I don't have to move)
2- Late fight ember management
3- not Havoc'in Shadowburn on Adds

On Archimonde, I noticed last night, I was about 50K (on Skada) on a couple of the pulls going into Phase3, but DPS dropped after. Any advice on what I am doing wrong in the later part of Archi would be awesome. I also switch trinkets between a couple of the pulls to be able to compare. I started with descrated shadowmoon insignia(705) and switched to the unblinking gaze of sethe (710).


Battlenet link
us.battle.net/wow/en/character/lightninghoof/Thekurlock/simple

Warcraft logs:
warcraftlogs.com/reports/tPpjV1DkarWQmncM/

AskMrRobot (additional logs/info):
askmrrobot.com/wow/player/us/lightninghoof/thekurlock
(my guild logs on askmrrobot)

Thanks again!
Robert

[Deleted]

snip

Regarding Archi...

The same thing as always with Destro.
Havoc usage is terrible, even worse when you get the infernals out which is probably the most reliable point for a 3xSB Havoc.

You missed a use of DS (assuming you are using AD)
DS was not lined up with the Ring at all which is strange since they share the same downtime.

Trinket choice is also off.
DSI is thee best trinket for Destro. What you pair with it depends on the encounter.
(Fragment of the Dark Star is awful for Archi)
If you do not have Mythic GSR then use your uGoS over Fragment.

You didnt even have 40% uptime on the Flamelicked buff on Archi. :P


Also immo uptime seems low too.


Fix these and i suspect a good swing in DPS in the positive direction.

[Tikishock]

Hello everybody! I've recently started a Warlock and just began raiding for the first time since MC in Vanilla!

Cutting to the chase: I feel like right now I am doing terribly as a Warlock--to the point that I feel like I should find an "easier" class to dps with. I'm starting to get frustrated as well as disheartened at my lack of dps considering my gear ilvl. My guild keeps telling me that I need to wait for my tier set bonuses but I feel like even without those or a viable trinket that I should be doing better dps.

Here is my most recent log from HFC Heroic (of these fights I didn't know the mechanics very well in Iskar and Socrethar):
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...t=22&source=23

I don't know what specific page I should link in WCL so I hope this one is ok.

Look it over--make suggestions...and a suggestion to role an easier class is completely viable considering how I feel right now :-)

[Styxxa]

Hello everybody!

Hey Tiki, I would suggest to start with the Destruction and Affliction guides that are stickied here at the Warlock forum. You should really consider having an Affliction offspec because it is superior on several encounters. I would recommend playing Affliction on Iron Reaver, Komrok, High Council, Socrethar (if you're not on Ghost duty), Vehlari, Zakuun, and Mannoroth. You could even squeeze it in on a few more if you like it.

But even with Destruction, you really should just start with the basics because I noticed in your Iskar kill you failed to cast Fire & Brimstone. That's a pretty useful ability on that fight with all the adds spawning. Also on your Kilrogg kill I noticed you used Havoc a little bit but you should really try to Havoc Chaos Bolts or Shadowburns, rather than any of your other abilities.

Your trinkets aren't terrible but don't underestimate how much power a good weapon and the set bonuses will garner. If you haven't already, set up a mouseover macro for Shadowburn and Havoc and adjust your nameplates so that they highlight mobs that are <20% HP.

With a new spec and some new knowledge, just queue up LFR over and over and put it to practice.

[Tikishock]

Hey Tiki, I would suggest to start with the Destruction and Affliction guides that are stickied here at the Warlock forum. You should really consider having an Affliction offspec because it is superior on several encounters. I would recommend playing Affliction on Iron Reaver, Komrok, High Council, Socrethar (if you're not on Ghost duty), Vehlari, Zakuun, and Mannoroth. You could even squeeze it in on a few more if you like it.

But even with Destruction, you really should just start with the basics because I noticed in your Iskar kill you failed to cast Fire & Brimstone. That's a pretty useful ability on that fight with all the adds spawning. Also on your Kilrogg kill I noticed you used Havoc a little bit but you should really try to Havoc Chaos Bolts or Shadowburns, rather than any of your other abilities.

Your trinkets aren't terrible but don't underestimate how much power a good weapon and the set bonuses will garner. If you haven't already, set up a mouseover macro for Shadowburn and Havoc and adjust your nameplates so that they highlight mobs that are <20% HP.

With a new spec and some new knowledge, just queue up LFR over and over and put it to practice.

Thanks for the feedback Axxym! I really appreciate it. I do have an Affliction offspec but haven't played it as much because I've been trying to focus more on playing Destro and getting the rotation down a bit better. Also, with Affliction I found it very difficult to juggle the DoTs on 3+ targets even with Boss Frames, etc.

I do have a mouseover macro for Havoc that has been extremely helpful. Do you only use Havoc for SB or CB or do you sometimes use it to generate embers more quickly--or isn't that even a thing? I will look into making a mouseover macro for Shadowburn. I will also work more on trying to incorporate F&B when the case arises. For Iskar, it was a new fight for me so I was really more worried about the strange mechanics and because of that I was really really bad at DPS!

Again, I appreciate you taking a look at my logs and trying to help me out!

[Styxxa]

Thanks for the feedback Axxym!

No problem. Totally understandable. Guilds should appreciate players who focus on mechanics and not dying rather than whoring dps anyway The nameplates showing low health targets with the mouseover shadowburns will be a huge help.

And yes, you want to save Havocs for CB and SB in almost all cases. If you don't have the embers during a Havoc opportunity you'll need to manage them better - which comes with experience on each encounter. An example is Kilrogg - you want to try to have 3 embers when the big add is dying and Havoc 3x SB onto the boss. Just try to never have below 1 ember and never cap embers. And try to plan for 3 when you need them (3x SB or F&B CB).

And re: Affliction on HHC - even a shitty job of DoT application (again, using mouseover macros on boss frames) will net you better DPS than playing Destruction in my opinion.

[Tikishock]

Hi Axxym,

I just want to say that I did have some good damage last night during our alt Normal run. People were commenting especially on my damage during Council and that was when I took your suggestion and switched over to Affliction--SO THANK YOU!

[Supercowmaster]

This is my first time posting something like this, very new to warlock i capped him like 3-4 weeks ago and i also have been only healing for the past 2 expansions so i am new to that dynamic. So i know first of all i totally missed a charge of DS during p2 i could have poped one and had 4 in the fight at least, i am in Group 2 for banish and group 3 (sacrifice group ). Im not totally sure how to handle the movement better for destro and felt like i didn't have much time to pump out more FnB chaos bolts in p2 but still tried to get some, also think i may have had not great enough class trinket uptime on arch and could have contributed to my lack of dps. So i guess my question is open, tips on improving on this fight plz!

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

i usually pride myself on doing great add damage but i didn't even feel like i did that well with adds this time around :/

thank you in advance

[Styxxa]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Hey Supercow. On Archi you really need a few more F&B CB - 2 casts for 9 hits is not really cutting it. Make sure you have 3 embers for those add spawns, get as many F&B CB casts as you can off and then snipe anything you can with SB to re-generate embers (don't forget to Havoc). 6 Havocs in almost 7 mins of an add-heavy encounter is also not cutting it. I mean you can have almost 6 Havocs in the first phase on Doomfires only. You can try to pre-cast Havoc before an add spawns so you can then Havoc CB when the add first arrives, then reapply Havoc when it's off cd and get a SB or two on the dying add. A bit more of an advanced tactic - but you should be using Havoc on this encounter almost on cooldown.

Here's the top ranked Destro lock on HC Archimonde in your iLvl

He cast 13 Havocs in 4:50 as oppposed to your 9 in 6:50. He cleaved 13 Shadowburns and 7 Chaos Bolts as opposed to your 1 SB and 5 CB.

As you mentioned, your Dark Soul use wasn't optimal. As for movement, depending on where your raid moves, pre-place your Demonic Circle and your Gateway to help with that. Also, you can save a charge or two of Conflagrate when you know you have to move.

Regarding class trinket, it's really not recommended on this encounter - you'd be far better off having some sort of buff on yourself - GSR or even Sandman's - than trying to keep that debuff stacked on targets.

[Supercowmaster]

Thanks ill try these out and post my logs, should be killing him again tuesday

[TheCookieGod]

Hey all, my guild has for the most part got Mythic Iron Reaver down, but we have monthly raid performance evals, and it was noted that my parses for this particular fight are subpar where I'm usually at the high end on most other fights. So while we as a group don't have any particular problems, I figure why not be even better?


Link to logs for last week's win:

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...done&source=23

Thanks very much, I appreciate any advice you have. =)