Getting furious over my lackluster dps

[SephirothStrife]

Started raiding with this pretty decent guild and i was pushing 11-12k dps wearing all blues and some 333's with even a 318 now over half my gear is epic and it just seems that my dps is lowering with every upgrade I get. Last week on our Cho'gall attemps i was hitting 12-13k dps last night we downed cho-gall and I never broke 12k dps on any of the attempts, I even downloaded a few addons to help me keep track of my improved soul fire so the uptime would be more but I'm not really noticing a different at all with it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I should be doing much better than I am. Thanks for looking.

From our downing of cho'gall.

www .worldofogs.com/reports/rt-rc9b8zocsgwvtawl/details/5/?s=7384&e=7906

Our downing of Conclave of the wind from the same night.

www .worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-rc9b8zocsgwvtawl/details/5/?s=112&e=434[/url]

Thanks again for looking

[andr0id]

Well, I'm not to raiding level with my warlock, but I'm seeing your point.
I've got an 84 warlock and an 84 Death Knight that I've been leveling. For the warlock, I have to pull out the stops, watch every DoT and hit everything exactly on time to get 5-6K dps.

For the DK, I can roll my face on the keyboard while eating a chili dog and talking on the cell phone and still get 8K.

Yes, we're being shafted.

[Prez-]

Armory would be useful too.

After a quick look at the logs, I can see you're not keeping Improved Soul Fire up close to 100%, this is one issue. And no Bane of Havoc used, it's very useful when you jump away from a platform on Conclave, since it has unlimited range after it's applied. And putting it on Cho'gall when going on adds.

[SephirothStrife]

oh so sorry about that, here ya go.

us .battle.net/wow/en/character/thaurissan/darkaeris/simple

Didn't know that bane of havoc had unlimited range i'll keep that in mind for the next time we do conclave of wind, as for using it on cho'gall usually the only time I do a lot of damage on adds is when he spawns the 4th add and 20 slimes come to the raid, every other time our aoe dps usually nuke the adds before one of my rain of fires finish channelling on them. Would it still be worth it to put havoc on then instead of bane of doom?

[Prez-]

If you can do everything pretty much perfect on the adds, you should be able to have 45 sec uptime on BoD on Cho'gall before the next add respawns, so you only lose one tick. And keep it up on him until you're done killing / AoEing the adds.

Gear seems good, slightly overcapped on hit, but wouldn't make a huge differense.

Other than that, I can't find any other flaws that I haven't mentioned already. Just be sure to keep ISF up close to 100%, hardcast it if you have to.

[Seezer]

Put proper links up. They aren't working. Also, not sure because I can't see the logs, but Cho'gall is an awesome fight for shadowflame. You're stacking close to cho'gall most of the fight.

[Greyarea]

He can't due to being a new member, do the easy thing and remove the spaces when you cut and paste and they work.

[JackalopeSpam]

Put proper links up. They aren't working. Also, not sure because I can't see the logs, but Cho'gall is an awesome fight for shadowflame. You're stacking close to cho'gall most of the fight.

New posters can't post links until 10 or more posts (I think).

Back to topic... a lot of it is going to come down learning the fight and being completely comfortable in it. IE, know mechanics but also plan ahead. The aforementioned 45 seconds of BoDoom and then 15 of BoHavoc is big. But also, when are you using CD's? Are you possibly losing a use of one because you delayed it? So plan out when you want to use them for the most benefit. Cho'gall especially is fairly rigid in timing to allow for a decent time line to be planned. If you aren't needed on adds so much, then consider if the raid needs you to switch or if you could rock out Single Target on Cho'Gall. Otherwise, make sure to maximize movement portions of the fight.

[Seclorum]

Chogal is a royal pain as a lock, no matter the spec.

The adds force you to sacrifice 1 tick of doom damage every cycle, also the time it takes to establish a new dot load and rotation on the add, and move out of the swirling shadow crashes, and then AOE the blood adds down asap, then get back on the boss and establish a new rotation only to have it cycle to another big add....

The best ive ever done for this guy was 18k. Perfect execution of rotation on boss/add. Perfect execute range damage with no tentacles targeting me ever. Perfect Bloodlust/Cooldown timing. I was beaten by the rogue who lol spammed 24k dps. He has 5 pieces of epic whereas im only missing epic offhand and wand.

Most of the time your going to have a Worship mess you up at the wrong time, or a tank move the big add too far, or the little adds too spread out and near impossible to kill fast. On average ive gotten around 15-16K on this guy.

Now a fight that shows what your better at, try Nef. Burst ony until nef lands. Fire off havoc on Ony and switch to nef. Regenerate your shards on ony when it comes time to kill her. Teleport up to the ledge above the close platform then jump down to avoid ALL lava damage. Havoc the add on your pillar and keep on nef. Regenerate your shards from the add on your pillar when he dies. SoulShatter your aggro when nef lands (Im typicaly 95-105% when the transition happens.) Then stand still and Lol dps nef. Dont forget to try and time your nether wards to eat electrocute damage. Your healers will love you for this. Im always 4-5k Ahead of anyone else here and can easily break 20k.

[Notnicebb]

I know this has been said before but i can't stand the fact we have to use a spell like Bane of Havok to do competitive dps in raids. Just seems like blizzard didn't have much time to work on Warlocks so they gave us this lackluster spell. I could go on but w/e, dead horse is dead.

[Seclorum]

I know this has been said before but i can't stand the fact we have to use a spell like Bane of Havok to do competitive dps in raids. Just seems like blizzard didn't have much time to work on Warlocks so they gave us this lackluster spell. I could go on but w/e, dead horse is dead.

Havoc isnt "BAD" its just annoying in what it does. Its a "Cleave" spell which is the weakest form of AOE. My opinion would be to improve overall DPS for that spec by the 15% amount and transform havoc into something Like DnD. Rain of fire is preaty weak (Getting better in 4.1) and adding something we can cast then move on would be ideal for our AOE priority.

[Jenerena]

Chogal is a royal pain as a lock, no matter the spec.

I agree, at least shadowfury makes me feel somewhat useful on this fight. Apart from that pretty much every mechanic this fight offers goes against what destro offers. We have a moonkin and hunter that can load way more aoe dps on the adds than myself (I normally only switch on the last wave) and BoH is hardly worth it for the add with the time it takes to kill it.

[Seclorum]

I agree, at least shadowfury makes me feel somewhat useful on this fight. Apart from that pretty much every mechanic this fight offers goes against what destro offers. We have a moonkin and hunter that can load way more aoe dps on the adds than myself (I normally only switch on the last wave) and BoH is hardly worth it for the add with the time it takes to kill it.

Yea our Arangement is Me, Hunter, and ele shaman. Hunter uses entrapment on the frontmost pack of bloods so when they spawn they get trapped. Then just when they start leaving the area of its effect the shaman knocks em back. Ill then shadowfury them to get em in a nice solid pack. After that it gets a bit hairy but thats just the nature of the fight. (Cant forget we still are hitting em with earthquake, Rain, and Multishot.)

[SephirothStrife]

We haven't attempted nefarion yet so i'll look at the video then look at your strategy and try to work it out, sounds like that is a more warlock friendly fight than cho'gall. Even when i focus entirely on keeping improved soul fire up i don't see a huge increase in dps from it since it's such a long casting spell I think. Should i try to refresh it at 2-3 seconds left? Or wait for it to fall off then hard cast it if I have to? Just baffles me than missing a tick or two or just bad fight mechanics nukes my dps so much. Still think i have to be doing something horribly wrong for my dps to be so low. Sorry about the spaces in the links, it's the only way i could post them. Is destro still the best dps spec? Perhaps I should look into going affliction?

[Seclorum]

We haven't attempted nefarion yet so i'll look at the video then look at your strategy and try to work it out, sounds like that is a more warlock friendly fight than cho'gall. Even when i focus entirely on keeping improved soul fire up i don't see a huge increase in dps from it since it's such a long casting spell I think. Should i try to refresh it at 2-3 seconds left? Or wait for it to fall off then hard cast it if I have to? Just baffles me than missing a tick or two or just bad fight mechanics nukes my dps so much. Still think i have to be doing something horribly wrong for my dps to be so low. Sorry about the spaces in the links, it's the only way i could post them. Is destro still the best dps spec? Perhaps I should look into going affliction?

Soul Fire,
You gotta learn this one by feel. There is no Hard and fast rule about it that doesnt have loads of exceptions on a fight by fight basis.

Try and keep it up as much as possible and only cast dots or refresh dots when it is up. If that means it falls off just after getting your stuff like Bane, Immo, and corruption refreshed then thats whats gotta happen. Keep it up before you use filler spells like Chaos or Incinerate. Hard cast it whenever you dont have a soul shard available. If you have a movement phase coming up, make sure you refresh everything before letting SF fall off then keep everything else alive until you can stop and cast it again. The Time to recast it is when it has 5 or fewer seconds left on the buff and Everything else has longer till refresh, but you can push it to 2-3 seconds if you feel comfortable fitting in an incinerate/chaos.

Spec,
Right now Destro is tops. Easy to execute (Relatively) and quick to get into filler casting. 4.1 (Next Patch) Affliction takes back the tops according to preliminary sims. Get Familiar with both specs because things may change and they may not. Who knows what 4.2 may bring in terms of alterations, maybe even Demo as tops?

Nefarion,
Theres alot of little things ive left out of the strategy. Plus it was what my group has worked out works best for us. We only need 1 guy (Hunter) going 1/2 on ony and my Havoc damage to bring ony down to 100k by the time Nef is casting his 2nd Electrocute. This means i Shadowburn her and she just about dies instantly. Ive also gotten shifted to the Southern pillar because I can use Teleport and nether ward to avoid all damage for a few seconds giving healers time to get onto the platform and stabilize. Also ive been chosen to stay on nef the whole time because it lets me do TONS more damage whereas the hunter has good DPS no matter what hes hitting. The way we do phase 3 has us pile against the extreme north side of the circle on the far side of the boss from the center so we dont trail fire. Its nice there because we generaly dont have to move at all and can just focus purely on maximum damage.

[Deleted]

Destro is the best for most fights yeah.

On Nef a good lock will always come out on top. If you are on nef.. in p1.. faceroll. Might have to work harder if on ony. Locks are also on top on Ascendant Council and quite high on Valliona.

[Seclorum]

Oh man, Once i learned how to properly abuse havoc in those 2 fights I love em.

Nef or ony, either one is cake so long as you can hit the other with Havoc. Ony may be tricky if you have to slow down early but its not too bad.

Demo is a BEAST for H.Halfus. We did that guy last week and 128k Dps Spikes for the begining of the fight were common for me. Averaged 48k+ at the end. That was the first time I got ranked by WoL at 188th. My groups Paladins had to keep Salv on me for the first 60 Seconds + my own Soulshatter.

That hard mode is honestly more fun than normal mode. More Predictable too because you know its crazy at the start.

[Oneirophobia]

I notice stuff like that too, its not just you or warlocks.
On my hunter who isn't geared for heroics yet, I hit 11k with ease.
On my shadow priest, I have to struggle to hit 12k and she has a 353 iLvL (no not in healing gear lolz).
Makes me a little sad.

[Deleted]

Oh man, Once i learned how to properly abuse havoc in those 2 fights I love em.

Nef or ony, either one is cake so long as you can hit the other with Havoc. Ony may be tricky if you have to slow down early but its not too bad.

Demo is a BEAST for H.Halfus. We did that guy last week and 128k Dps Spikes for the begining of the fight were common for me. Averaged 48k+ at the end. That was the first time I got ranked by WoL at 188th. My groups Paladins had to keep Salv on me for the first 60 Seconds + my own Soulshatter.

That hard mode is honestly more fun than normal mode. More Predictable too because you know its crazy at the start.

On heroic halfus what's your rotation like? Currently im doing (pre pot + orc racial) HoG, Meta, Leap, immo auro, felstorm and hellfire. I see in some places the leap is a waste and some saying we should multi dot. Thoughts?

I spike at like 75ish k and settle around 45. Finish at 30 Something.

[Seclorum]

Im selected to activate (Nether Drake?) So I Prepot, Teleport, Felstorm+Meta, Immo aura + Demon leap if ive got the space to use it, Shadowflame, Infernal, Shadowfury, Hellfire until Shadowflame comes up, then hellfire some more. Usualy by this time all the whelps are dead and I switch to a single target style rotation.

Key points are to keep the felguard felstorming (Or as I love to call it, Brostorm) and to pop Meta whenever it comes back up. Shadowflame should be used as much as possible with emphasis on hitting multiple targets with it. Whenever you meta try and Leap into the dragon pack with Immo aura going and hellfire while moving to any position you need to go to. Having a macro to cast hellfire and cancel it on command is essential.