When DS is up, Soulfire > ToC > Non-Meta, right?

[Deleted]

Hi fellow locks,

I'm having little troubles to spend my DS time most efficient. I generally try not to delay it too long, so often chain it with a trinketprocc, even though I'm only at 600 fury and 5-6 MC charges. This is dumb, right? I mean, in multiple ways.

Is this correct: ToC in DS is only an effective furyspending when you have an additional procc somewhere, right? So if DS is active for 6-7 more seconds, I'm running out of MC charges, got 400 fury left but nothing else, I have to suck it up and realise a misplay, right? Hoping for a procc somewhere to dump the remaining fury with DS and ToCs.

Secondly: In theory, casting 8 Soulfires, Reapply Doom and an eventual movement will result in roughly 20. Would you recommend reapplying HoG while a burn phase? Or strictly try to time it to the beginning and then let it drop?

Thirdly: Do you What's your impression how quickly MC stacks are generated? I know there's a lot of randomness involved but I find it hard to find an average at all right now (685, 10/10 HC) and struggly with estimating buildup-times. To be precise: Close to capping, how many can I spend before my DS is up in 30s.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[SpikeySquad]

In a hurry so will not answer everything

Do you have a timer for the cooldown on DS? (Somewhere near the centre of your screen). That way you can plan ahead and make sure on entering your burn phase you have 8 MC procs and over 800 fury. Aye, sometimes you do not get the MC procs but I don't think it is possible to not cap fury in 2 minutes as I have to bleed between burns and I am slightly less geared than you are (though rather haste heavy).

Reapplying Doom during DS is also wasting your strongest proc.

Really can't give a time on MC procs as it is random. It's something you have to intuitively get with time I think and then cross your fingers for some luck as well.

Good luck.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the reply, I've got the DS CD in front of me but I'm always a little hesitant to pull the trigger on the 2nd DS when I'm only at 5-6 MCs but 800+ fury. Right now, in this situation I'd switch to Meta after the 2nd HoG apply, redot Doom, refresh Corruption with two ToCs, cast DS and hope for more MC proccs while bursting.

In bad cases, and I feel like those are often, though, I end up with 350-400 fury and no MC stack left but 7-8s on DS. I feel bad when staying in meta, spamming ToC but I also feel bad if switching to caster form again.

I guess playing around DS involves more focus on MC stacks than on my fury, right? Should I be pooling longer for MC stacks and better have 10 than 6 before using DS, even if I just had a trinketprocc? These clutch decision makings are my crux at the moment.

[Hammerbeard]

I could be mistaken, but I believe Chaos Wave becomes worth casting single-target under he effects of DS so if you run out of MC procs with leftover Fury, casting CW will give you at least one more MC to use.

[MycantrumX]

I've had a similar issue where I have too much fury and not enough MC charges, but from what I've learned more recently, a good solution is to be spending occasional chaos waves which will slow your fury gen and give you additional MC charges. That being said you'll be walking the razor's edge since you can overspend your CWs and end up with 10 charges and little fury. This is where you have to gauge the worth based on how much fury you have, the procs you have up, how many MC charges you have, and how close to your next DS dump you are. Try using CW more in this manner, and it should resolve your issue by giving you more MC stacks if you do it correctly.

Also be sure to use CW in your DS dump too as it is a gain here, especially if you have other procs up.

[Deleted]

I think that's going to help and relief somewhat of the pressure while balancing. I somehow never thought of using the guaranteed MC stack from CW as a balancing tool for fury/mc stacks, but that makes perfectly sense.

I'm going to figure what the difference in a CW w/ DS vs a full 2SF dot cycle are but I guess it's still worth the extra time in meta and the +MC anyways.

Do you agree that spending an occassional CW with a BMC or Weapon procc would be worth dropping a HoG charge? Please say yes, because that'll close one of the last gaps I'm still spending time to think of in fights. An occasional CW (that's a fantastic term btw.) sounds perfect for a double procc, getting rid of some fury and getting an MC stack.

[MycantrumX]

Yes to the BMC proc (with 18-20 stacks hopefully), but I wouldn't if its only a weapon proc. You aren't going to be using a CW every time a trinket procs though. Make sure there's a reason to use it because if you use it too much, you'll lose a lot more than you'll gain. Also I didn't mention this in my previous post, but its pretty necessary that you have the Demo 4pc.

[Deleted]

I've got the 4pc and I'm aware I just have to use a CW, at max, for balancing Fury / MC at great discrepancies. I played some hours last night to get my head around and it worked out better than expected.

I wonder, though, do you add the extra CW in your opener for the MC procc and burn all stacks still in the first DS? Or do you pool for the ultimative 2nd DS phase with 8/800?

In my opener, I usually keep HoG refreshed (instead of adding an CW) and am switching to meta in between the 3rd refresh to squeeze out an eventual SF as long as my opener DS is up. This leaves me quite blank, no fury, no stacks. From then on a fairly long buildphase starts (around 01:25min), just to get to the 7+ MC stacks.

Would you recommend leaving out the opener SF, adding one or two CWs and being able to cast your 2nd DS burst 20-30s earlier already? Because that's what I roughly came up with after testing. My 2nd burst is already at 45-50s (instead of 01:25), but is the "full burst" keeping up with the "openerburst", when everything was procced?

[MycantrumX]

Furty (Warlock in Midwinter) went over all of this in the workshop he did on Saturday. I recommend watching it when you have the time.

http://www.twitch.tv/furtyirl/c/6372048

[Deleted]

I most definetly will take the time, thanks a lot!

[burek]

i'm not sure your line of thinking in the op is correct. the general rule to maximize dps is to line up all the procs and cds at the same time, thus you don't want to use DS in 30s when it will come off the cd, but when you have your other procs up. the archimonde talent helps a lot with that, as well as the glyph (depending on your trinkets)

[Deleted]

I'm having little troubles to spend my DS time most efficient. I generally try not to delay it too long, so often chain it with a trinketprocc, even though I'm only at 600 fury and 5-6 MC charges. This is dumb, right? I mean, in multiple ways.

If you play with GoServ, you should use DS during your 25 second of Grimoire, so every 2 minutes. The only situation where you can delay it is when you know you won't be able to use another Grimoire of Service in the fight (if you know the exact duration of the fight, you can anticipate and delay earlier Grimoire, but this is quite risky).

Is this correct: ToC in DS is only an effective furyspending when you have an additional procc somewhere, right? So if DS is active for 6-7 more seconds, I'm running out of MC charges, got 400 fury left but nothing else, I have to suck it up and realise a misplay, right? Hoping for a procc somewhere to dump the remaining fury with DS and ToCs.

ToC and Soulfire are very close in value. The problem with ToC is that you only spend 46 fury / second, so you will have fury left when DS fades, which is not an optimal use of this cooldown. The misplay is not about the fury you spent with ToC, because ToC is fine, but about the additional fury you could have spent with Soulfire. If you run out of MC stacks, you can cast a CW which will give you a guaranteed MC stack (only when it hits so you must cast a ToC inbetween : CW -> ToC -> Soulfire).

Secondly: In theory, casting 8 Soulfires, Reapply Doom and an eventual movement will result in roughly 20. Would you recommend reapplying HoG while a burn phase? Or strictly try to time it to the beginning and then let it drop?

You should not reapply Doom during DS. As DoT scale dynamically with stats, they should not be refreshed during burst phase (however don't let them drop, especially corruption, use ToC if you have to).
About reapplying HoG during DS, it is not worth doing as it get little benefit from DS. The only exception would be at pull when your fury is very limited and you cannot get 20 seconds of meta.

Thirdly: Do you What's your impression how quickly MC stacks are generated? I know there's a lot of randomness involved but I find it hard to find an average at all right now (685, 10/10 HC) and struggly with estimating buildup-times. To be precise: Close to capping, how many can I spend before my DS is up in 30s.

You have to check some logs, I would say 8-10 stacks a minute maybe. If you have several targets you get them a lot faster through HoG and Doom. If DS is in 30 second you should keep something like 4 stacks.