Struggling to play a warlock after 100 days played

[Zhaine]

My Warlock was my main up until Black Temple, but I've just started playing it again and I'm really confused to how destruction works, obviously playing a Warlock in Burning Crusade alot has changed, the class is basically unrecognisable to an old school player.

I've looked up the rotation and stuff but its confusing and just wanted to clarify a few things

This is how I understand the rotation, correct me if I'm wrong because I probably am.

1. I need to keep up Immolate and Rain of Fire constantly.

2. I use conflagrate twice to give me 6 stacks of backdraft

3. I cast Incinerate 4 times (I assume this it to generate embers, and I assume I should only cast it until I have 4 embers, depending on if it crits, is that correct?)

4. I use all my Trinkets and CD's (Beserking, Dark Soul)

5. I cast Chaos Bolt until I run out of embers and then go back to step 2 and repeat?

Questions

Does the terrorguard and abyssal share cooldowns? If so should I wait until the boss is at 20% to summon the terrorguard?

Should I use Shadowburn when the boss is below 20%? or stick to my normal rotation since chaos bolt is 100% crit chance

Do I spam Opitcal Blast off CD?

From a min/max point of view, is Troll better than Orc, both currently and in 5.4?

I read somewhere that chaos bolt also benefits from backdraft, but the tooltip says its only incinerate, did I get the wrong information or is that just out of date?

Regards

[Destroxo]

With the upcoming patch Destro is looking horrible /sadface.

You might find Demo more fun *Coming from a lock who played Destro from BC-Cata and despised Demo* it is actually a very fun spec to play now.

***
Edit

Troll is better currently, but with the nerf to haste and RPPM trinkets + Not all beast fight I would strongly pick Orc as being the best Race.

3 stacks of Backdraft = 1 chaos bolt cast 30% faster (Using this is a dps loss)

Optical blast yes, spam it on CD bind it to something as there is really only 1 fight in ToT where you will interrupt (Horridon)

Shadowburn is a dps increase due to no cast time Shadowburn>Chaos bolt when below 20%
Only ever use Backdrafts for Incinerate.

[Zhaine]

Troll is better currently, but with the nerf to haste and RPPM trinkets + Not all beast fight I would strongly pick Orc as being the best Race.

Damn, I liked the tusks I saw that none of the bosses in Siege are beasts, so Blood Fury + Command outweighs Beserk? Is that for every spec including affliction?

at the moment I'm Destro/Demo, I always played as affliction in BC, I was the strider kiter on Lady Vashj, brings back memories aha, This is only an alt now but most of the abilities I'm used to are either gone or changed dramatically, I logged on the other day and was thinking where the hell is lifetap? then I saw what they did to it -.-

Its disappointing what you said about destruction, I was actually looking forward to playing it, It seems alot more indepth than TBC when It was Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt, I was reading abit of the Warlock 5.4 discussion thread and it was information overload haha, but Demo does look incredibly fun so I may change my Destro spec to Affliction instead and learn those two specs, thanks for the advice

[Destroxo]

Damn, I liked the tusks I saw that none of the bosses in Siege are beasts, so Blood Fury + Command outweighs Beserk? Is that for every spec including affliction?

at the moment I'm Destro/Demo, I always played as affliction in BC, I was the strider kiter on Lady Vashj, brings back memories aha, This is only an alt now but most of the abilities I'm used to are either gone or changed dramatically, I logged on the other day and was thinking where the hell is lifetap? then I saw what they did to it -.-

Its disappointing what you said about destruction, I was actually looking forward to playing it, It seems alot more indepth than TBC when It was Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt, I was reading abit of the Warlock 5.4 discussion thread and it was information overload haha, but Demo does look incredibly fun so I may change my Destro spec to Affliction instead and learn those two specs, thanks for the advice

Demo has a lot more skill imo, as much as I love destro to bits they have oversimplified it, It was great during WotLK because you had to focus on 2 dot timers/minmaxing with your Conflag CD and watching the CD on your chaos bolt all at once, was so fun.

Now though due to the whole charges system it removes that whole level of playstyle basically the rotation is.

1. CoE
2. Immolate
3. Conflag/conflag
4. RoF (If the target will be in it the whole duration) ----> They are nerfing the ember regen heavily so it'll be useless single target in SoO (Also reduces the amount of Chaos bolts we get and the actual damage from RoF was around 10%+ of our damage during fights)
5. Incinerate
6. Chaos bolt when above 3.5 embers and no more than 2 Backdraft stacks
7. Shadowburn is below 20%

It's just quite a boring rotation now :/

But seriously try demo, it is really really fun, a lot of min/maxing in it, maintaining dots and switching up rotations.

[Cebel]

Damn, I liked the tusks I saw that none of the bosses in Siege are beasts, so Blood Fury + Command outweighs Beserk? Is that for every spec including affliction?

at the moment I'm Destro/Demo, I always played as affliction in BC, I was the strider kiter on Lady Vashj, brings back memories aha, This is only an alt now but most of the abilities I'm used to are either gone or changed dramatically, I logged on the other day and was thinking where the hell is lifetap? then I saw what they did to it -.-

Its disappointing what you said about destruction, I was actually looking forward to playing it, It seems alot more indepth than TBC when It was Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt Shadow Bolt, I was reading abit of the Warlock 5.4 discussion thread and it was information overload haha, but Demo does look incredibly fun so I may change my Destro spec to Affliction instead and learn those two specs, thanks for the advice

Troll is the best race regardless of whether the boss is a beast or not, especially for demo and affliction ( destro their about even still slightly favoring berserking imo ).

[Hugginz]

3 stacks of Backdraft = 1 chaos bolt cast 30% faster (Using this is a dps loss)

In general.

If you have a trinket proc though (like the council trinket, or whatever) that has about 2 or 3 seconds left on it, a super charged Chaos Bolt using your backdraft is better than 3x incinerates.

I'm thinking of when you have about 9 stacks of the Council trinket (can't think of the name) and need to get that last Chaos Bolt out.

But yeah, demo is a *better* damage spec, in that it scales better. Affliction is still pretty godly too if you have a lot of haste (15k ish) and can abuse the Lei Shen trinket/soul swap thing, or not even.

Destro still good on a few fights... for now. (RaDen, Dumumu, Horridon). Everything else Demo/Aff is better with Lei Shen seeming to be exclusively Demo.

[Deleted]

All (warlock) specs are more complicated than just 5 steps. There are alot of variables you need to take into consideration, particularly once you start having temporary buffs of the internal cooldown or random proc per min kind.

A single chaos bolt can consume 3 stacks of backdraft for a cast speed gain, doing this is a dps loss, but can be used to great effect on some encounters. Like Ra-den, where you need a quick burst of damage on an add, here you can save up your embers and 2 conflagrates to quickly get 2 chaos bolts out when the add spawns (6x Backdraft).

Orc was slightly ahead previous tier and I assume they will be next tier again. Particularly since bosses will no longer be beasts.

Terrorguard and Abyssal share cooldown, the rule of thumb is to never use Abyssal. Terrorguard is best popped either at the start of the fight (where all your procs will come up, thus buff him) or at the end, where he will deal additional damage to the target below 20%.

Shadowburn > Chaos Bolt.

Stay on 3 embers if you have no procs running, then when you get procs you spend them. Depending on your procs you can hold back and wait for stronger ones etc... Also depending on your cooldowns and how the encounter itself needs your output.


Lastly, yes, TBC was a completely different game and that's a good thing. Tank and spank spamming one ability just isn't as appealing anymore.

[Zhaine]

I'm not really liking what affliction has become now, I used to like keeping my dots up and using shadow bolt as a filler, but with malefic grasp it makes the class look like a glorified shadow priest.

I'm sure that's just my opinion though!

[EvreliaGaming]

My Warlock was my main up until Black Temple, but I've just started playing it again and I'm really confused to how destruction works, obviously playing a Warlock in Burning Crusade alot has changed, the class is basically unrecognisable to an old school player.

I've looked up the rotation and stuff but its confusing and just wanted to clarify a few things

This is how I understand the rotation, correct me if I'm wrong because I probably am.

1. I need to keep up Immolate and Rain of Fire constantly.

2. I use conflagrate twice to give me 6 stacks of backdraft

3. I cast Incinerate 4 times (I assume this it to generate embers, and I assume I should only cast it until I have 4 embers, depending on if it crits, is that correct?)

4. I use all my Trinkets and CD's (Beserking, Dark Soul)

5. I cast Chaos Bolt until I run out of embers and then go back to step 2 and repeat?

Questions

Does the terrorguard and abyssal share cooldowns? If so should I wait until the boss is at 20% to summon the terrorguard?

Should I use Shadowburn when the boss is below 20%? or stick to my normal rotation since chaos bolt is 100% crit chance

Do I spam Opitcal Blast off CD?

From a min/max point of view, is Troll better than Orc, both currently and in 5.4?

I read somewhere that chaos bolt also benefits from backdraft, but the tooltip says its only incinerate, did I get the wrong information or is that just out of date?

Regards

[Pandorox]

-SNIP-

Great vid. Helped me understand a few things. Like if we cast RoF full time or when to use Doomguard.

Was very helpful. Cheers!

[Deleted]

- Destro rotation is changing in 5.4 (it's still not known what the action priority list will be) so prepare to learn again in a week or 2.
- If you want to do high dps you absolutely need to track the temporary buffs (obviously bloodlust but also crit banner & so forth) & procs such as trinket procs engineering procs metagem procs lighweave embroidery,probably with an addon such as tellmewhen or weak auras, and only cast chaos bolt when it is buffed, unless of course you already have about 3.4 embers in which case you cast chaos bolt anyway.
- Shadowburn is on top of the list. Prepare to have 4 embers when the boss is getting 20%.
- Havoc whenever possible and if possible use 3 shadow burns or 1 chaos bolt with the havoc.
- Brusalk's post is superb, read it as many times as you need. You can also Watch his videos and analyse when he does what.
- Ditto with Sparkuggs he has a good videos on youtube.

[Deleted]

Int procs that gives you more then 5.4k int provides more chaos bolt dmg than skullbanner afaik