Warlocks & Alysrazor - where is our niche?

[Deleted]

So hey, we're at Alys now and I gotta say I have no idea where on the fight would lock be most useful and comfortable. For now (we just wiped twice for the heck of it cause some people needed to sleep) boomkin and I are put on the fly mode.

Specs I use are demo and destro. I went destro for this one and:

1. Is the spec even a right choice?
2. Should I be flying or should I stay down?

If a flying lock is a good choice... can someone please help me get a grip on this? o.O I was genuinely confused. It's pretty chaotic looking at it from 2-wipe perspective. The flight seems to be very fast, even faster than Alys (numlock pew pewing is out then...).

And I gotta catch these circles. And avoid some clouds. So while I'm trying to avoid the clouds, fly into circles, stay face-to-boss, not fly too high, not fly too low and not catch too many circles so that boomkin had something left... How am I supposed to maintain the rotation that is some 10 buttons or something with cooldowns and DoTs? Imp is going to be gone too, no? So my DPS by default would drop by several thousand. I replaced Glyph of Imp with Incinerate, but I've no idea if that makes any sense.

I guess it's actually all way more simple than it looks because people seem to like this boss and 1-shot it so I'm looking for some advice and clarification :P

Thanks!

[toshax]

I don't think your Imp will be doing anything during the air phase if you're flying. This is pretty much a non-issue however as the haste and crit buff you receive more than make up for it. The only class I've seen outperform a warlock in the air is a fire mage.

Honestly, I prefer affliction for this fight. DoTs get extra ticks and hit very hard once you get the Alysra's Razor buff. I ended up pulling 50k by the end of the fight. Using WoL as a reference, this is 10k higher than the best ranked destro lock on this fight.

Additionally, rings are not a "one-use" thing. They simply have a limited duration and then disappear. If he's missing rings, it's because he's not getting to them quickly enough.

My suggestion is to go affliction, start your normal opener when she's molting at the beginning and demon soul immediately before you start flying. I had an issue with my felhunter despawning while i was in the air. Once you're up, Haunt on CD, BoA, keep UA up, and all that good stuff. Your haste gets so insane that SB cast times are faster than the GCD. For the tornado phase, try to hit a ring just before the burn phase so you have the buffs as long as possible. Rinse, Repeat.

[Harsesis]

One of you might end up coming down. I can't say for your guild but for our kills we've had to have a "floater" on the ground dpsing hatchlings to make sure they died by phase 2. With that it takes us 3 burn phases to kill her. If we had a second person up top we probably could do it in 2 but that's not an option right now. As far a spec goes for the air affliction is probably the best due to the instants it has. While casting while moving is cool it can be annoying depending on the hotkeys you use for movement and spells. More instants means being able to focus more on hitting rings and not worrying about casting.

[Sabaka]

destro is prob the best spec for this fight.. id stay on the ground unless u dont have any competent dps to go up in the air, if ur destro ur imp will still do decent dps (unlike ur felhunter since u wont have dots up on the adds on the bottom)

if ur on the ground boh the boss and keep immo/corrup on the adds on the ground, destro also has a lot more burst than afflic so is better for the burn phase

[Micke]

demo would have best burst for the burn phase with meta and doomguard, might average out with destro though if you boh the boss dunno

this is if you're staying on the ground fulltime

[Deleted]

I honestly can't see why you wouldn't want to play Affliction on this boss. You can get an absurd amount of haste (+200%) and +75% critical strike chance when you got your 25 rings together. Dots are the only spells which scale pretty well beyond the GCD cap (ticks just getting faster and faster) so if you can't/wont't play Affliction you might want to pass for a second owl/shadowpriest.

[Prez-]

If you're playing destro, once you get 15ish stacks, replace Incinerate filler with Soul Fire, since of GCD, and Imp will despawn. And dont worry about taking rings, because it stays up for 3 sec after the first person flies through the ring. Also going through rings aren't difficult, they often spawn in the same general area behind the boss, so lets say 4 rings spawn same place before it changes, just keep to that side.

Also, just use Soulburn Imp to get the Imp back in burnphases.

[Deleted]

Yah, there I come again

I failed miserably and I don't know why and it annoys me. The only failure I'm willing to accept is the one I understand. Like if I haven't learnt an failed the exam or didn't get to be a model cause I'm too short. Whatever. So.

We killed Alysrazor but I didn't do nearly enough DPS in the air and I really want to know why.

I tried going up both as Affliction and Destruction. With a rogue as the 2nd person. The only problem I've noticed was that circles didn't stack nicely on me - not only the moment I had to wait in each of them, but also sometimes they'd just puff away without giving a buff stack at all - rogue had no such problems. My latency is fine and I was running through the circles, not only touching their brims. That's one.

The other thing is, that even with say 10 stacks, my DPS was equal or lower to the one on the ground. According to logs, as Affliction DPS should be at least 40k. Mine was 15-18k tops. Which is plain bad.

Affliction, I kept the DoTs up (UA, BoA, Corr) and spammed Shadowbolt and Haunt on CD while refreshing the DoTs fairly often to have them account for the haste buff.

As Destro, Immo, Corr, BoA and SoulFire filler. After a while left BoH on one of the birds down there.

To no avail.

Wondering if I'm missing some trick? My gear is certainly not nearly bad enough for this much of a fail.

Grateful for your replies. Click the sign for armory if anything





Also, while at it... Majordomo is Affliction, eh? Is there any fight in FL where Destro is triumphant or should I just switch for good and trample the meters happily? What with the new SoulSwap nerf and all, was thinking Shannox or something? I has a confuse.

[Jahrastafari]

DPSing while flying and trying to zip through rings is the most migraine-inducing mechanic ever introduced in this game. I wanted to jam a knife through my ears by the time we got this boss down.

[Harsesis]

Even on ground duty I grab a feather to cast while moving and it's really just something you have to get used to.

[Tasttey]

DPSing while flying and trying to zip through rings is the most migraine-inducing mechanic ever introduced in this game. I wanted to jam a knife through my ears by the time we got this boss down.

Honestly the whole 3 axis movement thing just bugs the hell out of me. I couldn't do it for shit on my resto shaman on Dreamwalker either. So I sit on the ground and multi dot the hell out of some adds.

[Deleted]

Dont worry at all about your dps when you first start grabbing fire rings matey, I had the same thoughts as you.

I started the fight as Destruction along with a Boomkin taking the flying job. he was sat at 24k and rising whereas I was at around 16k. Because you do not have your imp you lose a significant portion of your dps and it will take a lot of haste to make up for it. I would say as Destro you would only start seeing real dps when you hit 22-23 stacks.

I switched to Affliction soon after and that made a massive improvement. Despite not having the massive crits from my felpup the dps was much higher than destro, that amount of haste increase just scales much better with affliction than it does with destruction. And as soon as you hit 25% you can drain soul while moving and even keep it going during the final tornado phase as you don't need to face her.

Make sure to soulburn pop your felpup just after the tornados finish (both tornado phases) to get the maximum dps during burn phases.

Also, while at it... Majordomo is Affliction, eh? Is there any fight in FL where Destro is triumphant or should I just switch for good and trample the meters happily? What with the new SoulSwap nerf and all, was thinking Shannox or something? I has a confuse.

I've found Ragnaros a bit tricky as affliction as you lose out on burst dmg and shadowfury which is much better to have during the transitions

[Lidenbok]

Affliction is definitely the best if your forced to fly but I wouldn't recommend a warlock flying if it can be avoided.

Boomkin/Mage/Hunter and even Rogues are ahead of us in DPS at this current point in time so having one of those instead of a Warlock is more benefical for the raid to begin with, let alone warlocks won't shine until 20+ stacks which is a good amount of time into the encounter which is a good chunk of health lost.

It's just easier for everyone to have one of the above, not to mention trying to keep your dots up, making sure you hit the rings and avoiding everything is absolutely fucking horrible experience. When I first did Alysrazor progression I must of dropped to my death a good 5 times and even rage quit at one stage because I was so angry with myself hahaha, silly I know but I don't like fucking up. (Even though we where wiping because of another reason)

[Asuza]

Any/All specs you should be down because someone can do it better.

Except for rhyolith, this tier is very absent of fights that a warlock can really excel in.

[Szemere]

Flying, I suggest hanging still in the fire circles for about a sec, until you see your buff refreshed to 39 seconds (debuff). Also, it only stacks to 25 or something. Even without much lag, it can still but out a lot, and flying too fast through some, or not arriving a lot ahead of time before they despawn, might cost you some stacks, and with bad luck even cause you to drop. Placing a demonic portal down to portal to if you happen to drop a lot, so you don't die, might help out in that case.

Personally, I tried Destro and Demo, Demo outperformed Destro by a whole lot, simply because you don't get GCD locked that fast, while still doing your normal rotation. Even though Conflagrate benefits a whole lot from this haste buff, I found it hard to keep up my full max-dps rotation while also flying and hanging still in every circle, and finding the circle when they switch positions after every 3-4...

We only had 1 person flying (me), due to a tiny lack of DPS on ground, but we managed to kill him before he hits his soft enrage right after the 3rd burnphase. Popping BL/hero at the start of the fight as well as in the 3rd burnphase helped us getting that last bit of DPS in. Perhaps our way of killing it was a bit slow, but as soon as everyone knew every mechanic, it went down smoothly

Completely off-topic, how is Baleroc that easy-_- After clearing Alysrazor with average effort put in, we "took a look at it", even with our healers having issues healing the shards, we got it down in no-time lal.

---------- Post added 2011-07-12 at 01:38 AM ----------

Any/All specs you should be down because someone can do it better.

Except for rhyolith, this tier is very absent of fights that a warlock can really excel in.

Beth'tilac, multi-dot spinners and drones m8, multi-dot spinners and drones. (not worth going Demo on 10man, maybe on 25?)

[Asuza]

Flying, I suggest hanging still in the fire circles for about a sec, until you see your buff refreshed to 39 seconds (debuff). Also, it only stacks to 25 or something. Even without much lag, it can still but out a lot, and flying too fast through some, or not arriving a lot ahead of time before they despawn, might cost you some stacks, and with bad luck even cause you to drop. Placing a demonic portal down to portal to if you happen to drop a lot, so you don't die, might help out in that case.

Personally, I tried Destro and Demo, Demo outperformed Destro by a whole lot, simply because you don't get GCD locked that fast, while still doing your normal rotation. Even though Conflagrate benefits a whole lot from this haste buff, I found it hard to keep up my full max-dps rotation while also flying and hanging still in every circle, and finding the circle when they switch positions after every 3-4...

We only had 1 person flying (me), due to a tiny lack of DPS on ground, but we managed to kill him before he hits his soft enrage right after the 3rd burnphase. Popping BL/hero at the start of the fight as well as in the 3rd burnphase helped us getting that last bit of DPS in. Perhaps our way of killing it was a bit slow, but as soon as everyone knew every mechanic, it went down smoothly

Completely off-topic, how is Baleroc that easy-_- After clearing Alysrazor with average effort put in, we "took a look at it", even with our healers having issues healing the shards, we got it down in no-time lal.

---------- Post added 2011-07-12 at 01:38 AM ----------



Beth'tilac, multi-dot spinners and drones m8, multi-dot spinners and drones. (not worth going Demo on 10man, maybe on 25?)

Multi-dotting on beth'tilac does little to no good because spinners should be dying close to instantly. If you have to multi-dot drones, your rDPS is behind. You should be demo for beth'tilac, at least on 25N 25HM.

The only "small niche" warlocks have on the encounter is being able to teleport up to beth'tilac to load her up with dots and going back down, that's it.

An argument for Alysrazor could be made as well after you get a feather because of the birds/initiates/Alysrazor, and the large burn phase at the end.

[Lidenbok]

They need to add reforgers inside raids lol all these multi-spec encounters are fun but it's annoying having to reforge each time. Doesn't help Reforgesaver has been outdated since the introduction of 4.2 either ;;

Off topic : Does anyone know an alternative of Reforgesaver? (I'd love you forever)