Looking for some dps tips to push to the next level

[Fastpasta]

Not sure why there are no answers coming on the "Fix my DPS" sticky...perhaps it isn't being maintained these days? Anyway...I am cutting and pasting a post I put up there a few days ago in the hopes that some of you more experienced locks will see something that I am missing. If nothing else, I hope to generate some discussion on what I may want to try to eek out another thousand or so dps per encounter. Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Ok...long time reader, pretty much first time poster. I have been working diligently at improving my play on my warlock since cata came out, and have made some progress, but for the most part the progress is slow. I have only been playing a warlock for about 6 months, so perhaps I simply need more time/muscle memory/etc to master it...but I can't understand why I can't break 90% class efficieny on a simply fight like Algaloth.

I guess I don't really expect to rank every time out, as there are locks a plenty out there who outgear me (our guild is only just starting to work on heoric modes).

Here is my armory *us.battle.net/wow/en/character/draka/greekomikron/simple

And here is a BH10 pug parse from earlier today *ww.worldoflogs.com/reports/31y56rdx50di8iy9/sum/damageDone/?enc=bosses&boss=47120

My uptimes seem decent, and the run kill shot felt pretty clean (other than missing my pre-pot, and missing BL with my Infernal). It's too bad we had a healer fail on the 2nd attempt, as that one was much cleaner for me.

Not properly flasked (wrath flask), missing perhaps one or two raid buffs, and had to DI a fire mage...but I still expect to be putting up 20k on this fight based on my simcraft.

Can you guys spot anything I should be working on?

Apprecaite the help.

-G-

Edit: It won't let me post links...so I removed a portion...hopefully you can decipher = )

[Seclorum]

Whelp,

Flask should help some. Huge difference between wrath and cata flask performance.

Simcraft does not take into account chaos factors. Even know quantity ones.

Argaloth is a split fight between standing there going to town and moving around to stay out of fire. The movement is whats killing you here imho. Theres not much you can do to stop this from happening. Fel-Flame is a good stopgap but it cant replace chaos bolt or incinerates.

Dont take Simcraft as the be all end all of dps numbers you HAVE to attain. Its a good target and your easily close to it.

[Deleted]

Meh, I only pull around 16 - 17k on Algaloth. 20k is a bit over the top, as you probably don't have a really good raid setup like you'd normally do for raids.

[Spoiledkid]

Just a little advice about your gemming... Use JC gem only in your chest's and legs' red sockets and go for socket bonuses. And then you could put the third JC gem on your boots. 19.5k+ is something you should get without prepots etc. It seems you aren't using Shadowburn at all and not that many Shadowflames. You can stay at melee range during Fel storms.

[Fastpasta]

Just a little advice about your gemming... Use JC gem only in your chest's and legs' red sockets and go for socket bonuses. And then you could put the third JC gem on your boots. 19.5k+ is something you should get without prepots etc. It seems you aren't using Shadowburn at all and not that many Shadowflames. You can stay at melee range during Fel storms.

I thought socket bonus was a dps loss if < 30 int? I understand your point re: Shadowflame on this encounter as you are in melee range the entire time anyway...will add a PA to tell me when the cooldown is up...but I have never thought about using Shadowburn on cooldown for the last 20%...is it really worth the GCD? I wouldn't think its DPET puts it above anything in the standard rotation...but perhaps I am wrong...

[Cluck]

I thought socket bonus was a dps loss if < 30 int? I understand your point re: Shadowflame on this encounter as you are in melee range the entire time anyway...will add a PA to tell me when the cooldown is up...but I have never thought about using Shadowburn on cooldown for the last 20%...is it really worth the GCD? I wouldn't think its DPET puts it above anything in the standard rotation...but perhaps I am wrong...

Shadowburn should be outdamaging Incinerate, despite it doing shadow damage.

[Greyarea]

Having only done this fight on 25 man as demo I can't help you regarding destro rotation specifics cos I dislike the spec and off spec aff, but I can help you out with some advice for teh 66% and 33% fel storm parts of the fight.

As you run in pre-pot etc, apply dots running in and fel flame if they are all up, drop a circle once in position.

Once the boss hits 66% run out to the left or right of the group your standing with and DPS like mad, as your running out refresh dots and throw out fel flames or tap if needed. Once you get to a safe spot light it up like a christmas tree. If you get flamed, move only a few steps out tot eh left or right, making sure your in range for shadowflame to hit the boss (it's got a deceptivly long 'range').

Once the flame phase is over, port back tot he spot ontop of your tank (hopefully no-one failed and dropped fire there) and rinse and repeat.

The trick to maximising your DPS on this fight is keeping your dots up at all times, even during the storm phase. If you cant stop moving cos of flames and immo is about to drop, fel flame it and keep moving. In that case the refresh via felflame is a DPS gain cos you could die refreshing with a hard cast, in fire.

The highest DPS ive done on that fight was just over 23k as demo, mind I'm much better geared than you currently are, so aiming for 20-21k doesnt sound unreasonable, especially with a pre-pot and cata flask if your going on from there to BoT or BWD/Throne.

Good luck and hope this helped you a tad.

[Veriu]

I thought socket bonus was a dps loss if < 30 int? I understand your point re: Shadowflame on this encounter as you are in melee range the entire time anyway...will add a PA to tell me when the cooldown is up...but I have never thought about using Shadowburn on cooldown for the last 20%...is it really worth the GCD? I wouldn't think its DPET puts it above anything in the standard rotation...but perhaps I am wrong...

...no, it's not <30 int, it's < 20 int, or <30 of hit/mastery/haste/crit...

if you have a socket bonus of 20 int, then you can put in a 20 int/20 haste or 20 int/20 hit...which means you'd still get 40 int just like if you put in a brilliant, and you get 20 haste or 20 hit above that.

to put it another way,
with straight brilliant gem, you get 40 int
with a 20 int/haste w/ 20 int bonus, you get 40 int AND 20 haste...see, dps increase....

the 30 of any other secondary stat is a good rule of thumb, but isn't always true...you should simcraft your own scale factors, as they change with your gear, at certain points in gear, its quite possible for a 30 bonus to mastery ending up as not worth the loss of 20 int.

i.e. currently, my scale factors are:
int 2.4377 sp 1.9586 hit 1.5652 crit.8736 haste1.1094 mastery .7952
my helm has a 30 mastery socket bonus and a yellow socket
so, with 20 int/20 haste I end up with 20*2.4377+20*1.1094+30*.7952 = 94.798
with just 40 int, I end up with 40*2.4377 =97.508

[Agallochh]

I thought socket bonus was a dps loss if < 30 int? I understand your point re: Shadowflame on this encounter as you are in melee range the entire time anyway...will add a PA to tell me when the cooldown is up...but I have never thought about using Shadowburn on cooldown for the last 20%...is it really worth the GCD? I wouldn't think its DPET puts it above anything in the standard rotation...but perhaps I am wrong...

A socket bonus of 20+ int is worth getting. Anything less than that and a +40 int gem outweighs it.

Using Shadowburn on cooldown sub-20% is a DPS increase. Well worth the 4 or 5 GCD's spent casting it. That being said, it prioritizes only over Incinerate, meaning ISF, Conflag, Chaos Bolt, and DoT's should be on cooldown/refreshed before Shadowburning.

[Fastpasta]

...no, it's not <30 int, it's < 20 int, or <30 of hit/mastery/haste/crit...

if you have a socket bonus of 20 int, then you can put in a 20 int/20 haste or 20 int/20 hit...which means you'd still get 40 int just like if you put in a brilliant, and you get 20 haste or 20 hit above that.

to put it another way,
with straight brilliant gem, you get 40 int
with a 20 int/haste w/ 20 int bonus, you get 40 int AND 20 haste...see, dps increase....

the 30 of any other secondary stat is a good rule of thumb, but isn't always true...you should simcraft your own scale factors, as they change with your gear, at certain points in gear, its quite possible for a 30 bonus to mastery ending up as not worth the loss of 20 int.

i.e. currently, my scale factors are:
int 2.4377 sp 1.9586 hit 1.5652 crit.8736 haste1.1094 mastery .7952
my helm has a 30 mastery socket bonus and a yellow socket
so, with 20 int/20 haste I end up with 20*2.4377+20*1.1094+30*.7952 = 94.798
with just 40 int, I end up with 40*2.4377 =97.508

omg I fail at math...yep...I get it now and thanks for the explaination...will re-gem asap.

---------- Post added 2011-03-12 at 11:22 PM ----------

A socket bonus of 20+ int is worth getting. Anything less than that and a +40 int gem outweighs it.

Using Shadowburn on cooldown sub-20% is a DPS increase. Well worth the 4 or 5 GCD's spent casting it. That being said, it prioritizes only over Incinerate, meaning ISF, Conflag, Chaos Bolt, and DoT's should be on cooldown/refreshed before Shadowburning.

Understood. I have built a PA for Shadowburn cooldown and intend to use it from now on. Thanks.

[nilnar]

Meh, I only pull around 16 - 17k on Algaloth. 20k is a bit over the top, as you probably don't have a really good raid setup like you'd normally do for raids.

Looking at the WoL parse, his raid should give him every buff. However, wrath of air totem (5% spell haste) doesnt seem to have been used. Aside from that, he has his 10% spellpower buff (most of the time, 6% for a short while), 3% damage, 5% crit, 8% damage taken.

You could use some extra haste on your gear for sure. I'm at 2 lower item level, but I manage to get over the 2438 haste threshold for an extra immolate tick and I'm doing over 21k on argaloth with full raid buffs (minus flask). Looking at your buff/debuff uptimes, its hard to say where the extra damage should come from though (aside from gear).

[Fastpasta]

Looking at the WoL parse, his raid should give him every buff. However, wrath of air totem (5% spell haste) doesnt seem to have been used. Aside from that, he has his 10% spellpower buff (most of the time, 6% for a short while), 3% damage, 5% crit, 8% damage taken.

You could use some extra haste on your gear for sure. I'm at 2 lower item level, but I manage to get over the 2438 haste threshold for an extra immolate tick and I'm doing over 21k on argaloth with full raid buffs (minus flask). Looking at your buff/debuff uptimes, its hard to say where the extra damage should come from though (aside from gear).

The spell haste was a noticable absence...and I just realized that I did not CoE either and should have. It is nice to hear that my issue may be more gear related than skill related...although, I already have 2 or 3 things to do better next time = )

Thanks for posting.

[nilnar]

Don't worry about CoE. I thought that was a problem at first, but you had an assassination rogue bringing that debuff.

[Dethh]

You really don't have to move much during the felstorm phase. If you are porting or running around you will lose a lot of dps.

[drinoff]

get moar haste.. give it a try...... dont sacrifice intellect for haste... find a solution to get haste.. at least around 1.9-2k.

---------- Post added 2011-03-13 at 07:15 AM ----------

just checked WoL you complaining when you did 18k on 10 man?
Common .. that is absulutely fine dps.

[nilnar]

get moar haste.. give it a try...... dont sacrifice intellect for haste... find a solution to get haste.. at least around 1.9-2k.

---------- Post added 2011-03-13 at 07:15 AM ----------

just checked WoL you complaining when you did 18k on 10 man?
Common .. that is absulutely fine dps.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to improve when there's room for it.

[Jenerena]

I think 18k is pretty respectable considering you were missing 5% haste and using a wrath flask. What worked for me was improving my shadowflame uptime - you're at 2.9% when you should be at about 45% uptime. By improving this I saw myself over 22k for both destro and demo.

[Fastpasta]

I think 18k is pretty respectable considering you were missing 5% haste and using a wrath flask. What worked for me was improving my shadowflame uptime - you're at 2.9% when you should be at about 45% uptime. By improving this I saw myself over 22k for both destro and demo.

I keep hearing that and I will certainly hammer this key on cooldown next tiime out...I am at melee range for the whole fight anyway. Thanks for the post.

[Jenerena]

Just remember that Shadowflame has a higher priority than chaos bolt and empowered imp procs; really getting your priorities right will get the high numbers. The only thing I find quite difficult with destro is when you're say, 0.5-1 seconds away from conflag being ready and you cast incinerate with no backdraft. Trying to make those cooldowns tight is quite hard imo and seperates the good from the excellent.

[Fastpasta]

Just remember that Shadowflame has a higher priority than chaos bolt and empowered imp procs; really getting your priorities right will get the high numbers. The only thing I find quite difficult with destro is when you're say, 0.5-1 seconds away from conflag being ready and you cast incinerate with no backdraft. Trying to make those cooldowns tight is quite hard imo and seperates the good from the excellent.

If you are hitting Shadowflame on cooldown, and putting it above CB then you are potenitally not bringing any Replenishment to the raid...so you would have to make sure it is coming from elsewhere and just LT as you need to yes?