HC spine non demo tips?

[Deleted]

The previous threads on HC spine are all discussing demo tips and its superiority. Is there anyone that has any tips for destro or affliction for this fight?

[ThatInternet]

Other than a respec?

get all your buffs rolling right before the plate lifts, hit the tendon with a shadowbolt(or incinerate) for S&F then apply dots, do not waste a GCD on curse of elements let a boomkin or UH DK take care of it. Use agony for affliction, havoc for destro( dotting some of the adds becore hand will increase the dps through havoc on the tendon if your group can afford it) and nuke.

[noaim]

For aff, put CoE on a mob that is nearby the tendon so u get Jinx on the tendon before it is exposed, use soul swap on the amalgamation before it dies so you can apply all 3 dots with 1 gcd, pop cd´s before u apply them...dunno if there is much else to it really.

[Deleted]

For aff, put CoE on a mob that is nearby the tendon so u get Jinx on the tendon before it is exposed,.

Will that work? What is the timing? Put CoE on mob during exploding timebar or just after?

[noaim]

Not on the amalgamation, but a nearby blood or corruption.

[Deleted]

What about Shadowfury? How many do you have time to cast between tendons?

[Deleted]

I am currently in a 10 man guild. We cleared HC DS a couple of weeks ago.
For this fight i went for the Demo spec, needing to reach a minimum of 3.5 mil dmg on the tendons, which was already the lowest tendon damage out of my raid. Yet through WOL the best that the majority of demo locks could reach.
Anyother spec would make that damage lower due to lack of burst on the tendons.
So anyway i was demo for the kill.

Next time i tryed Afflic and got ranked like 34th or something.. Now i don't know about tendon damage as it's the end of this content and cba to look :P But i assume it was lower on the tendons than demo.

My point is locks are supposed to be terrible on spine, it is one of our worse fights in DS. But i believe this only true for destro and demo.
Afflic you can reach quite high dps wise.

Soul swap just as the amalgamation is about to explode, and as has been said quickly DoT up a nearby blood with CoE during the casting time of the amalg - Make sure it doesn't die ofc

Via that just make sure you are using corruption and BoA on most mobs, Though be careful by the 3rd 4th amalg as you really don't want aggro or to kill to many bloods.

As for shadowfury? Take it off your bars for this fight!

[klogaroth]

I remember seeing a few tips regarding Aff tendon dps:

- Soul swap off the amalgamation onto the tendon, this one's pretty obvious
- When the amalgamation is low or is casting nuclear blast cast drain life on something to fish for a nightfall proc
- If you get said nightfall proc you can open with CoE (if needed), instant shadowbolt, haunt, demon soul, soul shard, soul swap, begin dps rotation.
- Don't bother using instant Soul Fire if the tendon is below 25% - Drain Soul does more damage and will give you back the shard anyway.
- Will of Unbinding paired with Bottled Wishes is the most reliable trinket combo here. If you get exceptionally lucky Insignia of the Corrupted Mind might proc on several tendons, but it's not likely.


Haven't tried Destro at all here, but Shadowfury may prove useful if you need help to stun the bloods while kiting. Tendon DPS should be alright, but most likely won't be topping any meters. Nether Ward will negate a ton of damage here.

[gakpad]

Other than a respec?

get all your buffs rolling right before the plate lifts, hit the tendon with a shadowbolt(or incinerate) for S&F then apply dots, do not waste a GCD on curse of elements let a boomkin or UH DK take care of it. Use agony for affliction, havoc for destro( dotting some of the adds becore hand will increase the dps through havoc on the tendon if your group can afford it) and nuke.

Affliction, use BoD on the first lift of each tendon and BoA on the second lift - have full dots on the amalg before it explodes and soul swap them onto the tendon as soon as it's up. Haunt, proceed with normal rotation.

Don't use havoc for destro, and don't dot up bloods before you go into it. Havod damage from immolate alone is going to be awful. Havoc only affects damage done to other targets and there's no reason you should be targeting anything other than the tendon when it's up. The tendon also clears debuffs so you're not doing anything to it with havoc while you're outside of lifts. Immolate, BoD (for the first lift of each tendon - ignore curse for the second), conflag, corruption (if it's going to be up for more than ~12 seconds), soul fire (instant from the soul burn you used before your immolate) and continue your normal rotation leaving out dot refreshes

---------- Post added 2012-04-08 at 04:15 PM ----------

I remember seeing a few tips regarding Aff tendon dps:

- Soul swap off the amalgamation onto the tendon, this one's pretty obvious
- When the amalgamation is low or is casting nuclear blast cast drain life on something to fish for a nightfall proc
- If you get said nightfall proc you can open with CoE (if needed), instant shadowbolt, haunt, demon soul, soul shard, soul swap, begin dps rotation.
- Don't bother using instant Soul Fire if the tendon is below 25% - Drain Soul does more damage and will give you back the shard anyway.
- Will of Unbinding paired with Bottled Wishes is the most reliable trinket combo here. If you get exceptionally lucky Insignia of the Corrupted Mind might proc on several tendons, but it's not likely.


Haven't tried Destro at all here, but Shadowfury may prove useful if you need help to stun the bloods while kiting. Tendon DPS should be alright, but most likely won't be topping any meters. Nether Ward will negate a ton of damage here.

As long as you don't have a warrior tank this is true. They can hit diminishing returns on stuns all by themselves so there's no use for shadowfury there if they're playing right. I ended up around 5 mil on tendons by the end of the third tendon as destro so it's not HORRIBLE by any means. Definitely doesn't compare to demo though

You should also be soulburning before you soul swap exhale your dots onto the target, and an instant soul fire still does more DPET than DS sub 25%.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure the bloods are not stunable - But can't say i'd go destro here :P

[Deleted]

For destruction (or any spec really) I use this:

/cleartarget
/tar boss2
/stopmacro [noexists]
/use Gloves of the Faceless Shroud
/cast Demon Soul
/use Volcanic Potion
/cast Soulburn
/castsequence reset=10 Curse of the Elements, Soul Fire, Bane of Doom
/petattack

Some explaining;
Gloves of the Faceless Shroud is because I'm an engineer. So my trinkets are WoU and CotC, which is a poor choice but... our damage was fine so I wasn't too fussed.
The rest is rather obvious imo..... You could remove the Volcanic Potion, I don't really agree with it being there, now that I think about it.
The castsequence is because I'm focussing intensely on other stuff / spamming my buttons so hard, I often end up casting 2x CoE by spamming the above macro too hard, without having the castsequence.

Pretty sure the bloods are not stunable - But can't say i'd go destro here :P

Oh but they are. Just not slowable.