Fair enough. I did run SimCraft and took out the food/pot/flask buffs and turned off Drain Soul at the end to mimic a fight against the dummy. Result: 16.6K. So, apparently I'm doing things right and my gear is the limitation.
By the way -- yet another question about demonology w/ felhunter's demon soul (+ dot dmg):
Would it make sense to pop demon soul 1/2 through metamorphosis? Refresh all the dots at the start of metamorphosis, then again after hitting demon soul.
The reason I say this is that currently, popping demon soul at the start gives me a total of 5 "buffed" doom ticks (refresh at the start of demonsoul/meta & again just before ds falls off). But, meta lasts for 36 seconds. So, if I go:
Apparently Demo is still the tops for dps even after the nerf (fix?) to the demons.
But I just am terrible. My gear isn't great, but it's not the worst, however I have a hell of a time breaking 10k on anything normal. On bosses when I blow cooldowns and such I can usually hit in the 15k range but it's not super sustainable.
I'm just talking the new dungeons here.
On trash its worse. I can barely ever break 10k at all unless it's a large-ish pack where I can go in and hellfire and have my felguard bladestorm. Even then though I feel like I'm significantly weaker than pre-4.3 but that really shouldn't be the case.
When there are fewer enemies I can hardly do a damn thing because there's a ramp up with dots and the enemies just die. I have tried just shadowbolt spam on single targets in trash but besides eating up my mana it still is super low dps.
I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong. If anything. I'm using immolate > corruption > BoD (usually use BoA on trash since there's not a 15s wait) then guldan then just spam SB until Molten Core procs then incinerate, pretty much how EJ lays it out. It takes so fucking long to get to decent DPS this way that as I said, most trash is already dead or damn near, and on bosses it just feels too slow and I simply cant keep up with anyone else without doing a rediculous amount of work.
I really feel like I'm doing something wrong or missing something because other warlocks in parties im in with other characters don't seem to have this issue, they're doing full dps damn near off the bat and don't have this serious ramp up issue I seem to have. Plus they are able to do a damn thing to trash which seems to totally allude me.
I'm considering going affliction but I'm not sure if that will solve any of my issues. I've never tried destro as it seemed too mage-ish, but if there's less ramp up and I don't feel like I'm constantly leeching in heroics then I don't even care. I'm up for anything at this point.
Ironically (?) the only other class I seem to have similar issues with is spriest, but my spriest gear is unbelievably bad so its more understandable there. Maybe dot classes just hate me. but I don't remember having this issue on my spriest in wotlk when she was decently geared.
Does anyone have any tips? I know its hard not watching me play or anything, but maybe someone who is actually good at this class might have some tips; even if it is to just change my spec or whatever.
Hey "Dude". I'll try and give some tips, but like you said without seeing you play/seeing some logs/etc it's tough.
1 -- The highest dps pet is the felhunter (dog), not the felguard. On bosses, if you want to maximize dmg, people (until 4 piece of the new raid gear) will do the following:
- use Moonwell Chalice
- enter metamorphosis (note, these are 2 distinct steps, don't macro them at the same time because it takes the server a moment to realize the mastery from the chalice)
- use demon soul: felguard & whirlwind
- immolation aura
- when whirlwind is over, soulburn + summon felhunter
(with 4piece T13, soul shards are used on cooldown with soulfire, so this strat will not be viable and we will just have the dog. If it's a really heavy aoe fight, the whirlwind is nice to use though).
2 -- With 4.3 now live, I believe our filler of choice is always incinerate. There is still debate/discussion about this and your strat of shadowbolt + incin on MC procs was correct in T12 (and may still be, I'm not 100% sure). ***Really, I don't know about this -- other locks please let me know if this is right/wrong***
3 -- On "burst" targets (trash), only use Immo+Corruption. Unless they're going to stay alive for a little while, Bane's aren't really worth it. You are correct in using Doom on bosses/Agony on bigger trash though. Always use Gul'dan, if nothing else because it looks cool (but it is much higher dps than sb/incin).
4 -- I have no idea how you're geared/glyphed. But, in < T13, it's Mastery >>>> Haste >> Crit. You only want enough haste to make sure Impending Doom brings your Metamorphosis cooldown to 2 minutes to line up with Moonwell Chalice. Always go into Metamorphosis with MWC used first (until you get the ridiculously sexy trinkets from DragonSoul).
5 -- Metamorphosis drives your damage. Use it on cooldown (with MWC as mentioned). Outside of meta, we are one of the weakest dps specs. Inside of Meta, we're the top(ie, in a fight that we could stay in Meta the entire time, everyone else would be hard pressed to beat us). It balances out to put us near the top with appropriate use of Meta.
6 -- While they did get nerfed a bit, the doomguard/infernal are HUGE sources of damage. Make sure to use them on boss fights AFTER you are in Metamorphosis & while the demon soul buff is still active.
7 -- Make sure you are managing dots correctly. Ie -- refresh them all just before they fall off. I personally use "TellMeWhen" as a dot/cooldown timer. There are a lot of good options out there (including some sick bastards that just use the default UI...shudder). But, make sure whatever you use that you do not let your dots fall off the boss (except in the case of a fully loaded up Bane of Doom...let that one fall off before refreshing it to get the full effect). If your other problem is with a shadowpriest, I suspect your dot management may be the key to success.
8 -- Finally, make sure you use Shadowflame (remember the low range). It's not enough to go from "my dps sucks" to "I'm a firebreathing god", but it is a dps increase over straight SB/Incin spam.
Good luck, I hope some of this makes a difference.
It's hard to evaluate what "my gear isn't great, but isn't the worst" actually means.
On trash, you can multi-dot Immolate and Corruption for pretty solid damage. Make sure you're using felstorm too, cause it's pretty ridiculous. Banes aren't really worth casting unless you're going to get the full duration out of them. Broadly though if trash is dying too quickly for you to ramp up properly, your dps doesn't really matter.
The key to dps as demo is managing metamorphosis correctly. You want to be popping meta pretty much as often as you're able, unless you're using the chalice (in which case, line them up. The chalice also has some weird impacts on stat priorities.) Haste is roughly even with mastery until 2000 rating or so, then they even out and mastery starts to pull ahead (especially true with the chalice; the reasons for this are kind of unintuitive but they make sense.)
I don't think there's a definitive answer at this point on incinerate vs shadowbolt as a filler nuke, although I'd be pretty surprised if incinerate pulls ahead outside of maybe some specialized situations. Shadowbolt's coefficient is a lot better and it has a longer cast time.
Stuff like pet twisting, micromanaging BoD and working in shadowflame/immolation aura are important, but they're marginal dps increases.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
My gear is currently a mishmash of 353, 365 and a handful of 378's. I finally got a useful staff so that's nice. I certainly couldn't raid in my gear but it is enough for the new dungeons which is all I'm doing on my lock. Maybe LFR, but having just done it on my warrior I might not bother. It's super easy just a lot of time for a redonkulously small chance at any loot. I suppose if I'm farming up VP I might as well though...
AAaannyway. Here is a link to my lock. Looking at him I have a few 358 pvp shit too I guess. Looking at him now it's actually pretty sad stuff. In general I don't have the best enchants because despite the gear being 378 I won't ever raid on this guy and I'm not about to drop 2k gold for an enchant (except power torrent). I know it's not a huge deal since I'm just doing heroics on this guy and not raiding, so as long as they're getting done; whatever...but it just frustrates me to no end that this is pretty much the only one of my characters (an 85 of every class) that I simply don't seem to "get".
How do you manage metamorphosis? It seems just like any other cooldown. I know there's a talent that gives a chance to reduce its cooldown but I don't see how you could possibly have it up even close to full time. I get it once a boss, tops (except Mannoroth because it takes forever), and I usually don't use it on trash because they die fast and I don't want it on cooldown for a boss.
After I got a couple more 378's last night I was able to do ~20k on bosses pretty consistantly (except the bullshit rogue boss in Twilight who's silence attack doesn't work as advertised), but trash I'm still sub 10k almost universally unless it's a large pack I can just hellfire on with my felguard using felstorm. I just don't know what to do. As mentioend there's no real reason to DoT up with the time it takes to do so vs them actually doing any damage on crap that dies. I mean, I guess if trash is still going down quick, whatever; I just feel like an idiot when I'm sitting there at 8k on trash and everyone else is 20k. I make up for it on bosses though I suppose.
I typically switch to the doggie during bosses.
I'll try that dot addon. I had forteexorcist but it was just too cumbersome. I liked that it tracked multiple mobs but it was just too much information and ended up not really being any more useful than just watching dots on default UI, since it only really mattered much on bosses.
If I can't seem to grasp the metamorphosis thing should I just give demo up? Go affliction or Destro? I used to be affliction way back when but have been demo forever and don't really know what to do in affliction anymore really. Plus it has a higher reliance on dots, so I'm worried I'd just be in a worse situation than now on dungeons.
If I can't seem to grasp the metamorphosis thing should I just give demo up? Go affliction or Destro? I used to be affliction way back when but have been demo forever and don't really know what to do in affliction anymore really. Plus it has a higher reliance on dots, so I'm worried I'd just be in a worse situation than now on dungeons.
Since Cataclysm, affliction has changed the least out of all three specs, and mostly the only changes are via the mechanics of dot refreshes. With 4.3, I think it is probably the least popular spec though.
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
If I can't seem to grasp the metamorphosis thing should I just give demo up? Go affliction or Destro? I used to be affliction way back when but have been demo forever and don't really know what to do in affliction anymore really. Plus it has a higher reliance on dots, so I'm worried I'd just be in a worse situation than now on dungeons.
Since Cataclysm, affliction has changed the least out of all three specs, and mostly the only changes are via the mechanics of dot refreshes. With 4.3, I think it is probably the least popular spec though.
Why? I have never tried destro, but when I go from Affl to Demo I get overwhelmed and forget things. (Admittedly, I have only ever leveled it and alt-raided as affl over the years.) I would think it wouldn't be a problem, since I have raided as a hunter for a few years.
If you're asking why it would suddenly be less popular, probably mostly because of the destruction and demo buffs (and various theorycrafting figures show improvement over affliction there)
I am still affliction though, and the numbers are supposed to be pretty close together, so it shouldn't make a big difference. I hope.
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
If you're doing 20k on bosses, what you have probably isn't a learn to play issue.
I'm having trouble thinking what trash doesn't live long enough for putting immo/corruption up on 2-3 mobs to be doable, but it might just be that you got some overgeared melee or something who can cleave everything to death.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I will say, I have encountered more of the silliest geese while on the (affliction) warlock. The ones who complain that I'm only doing 6-7k dps, when the trash dies in 15 seconds. But then on boss fights, I'm ~17k.
The only ones worse are the hunters who told me to be in charge of killing the ghosts on Jindo the Hakkar.
They put you, for no obvious reason, as the sole ghost killer. And it's entirely your fault if you don't kill them all despite them not doing anything but hitting the chains.
Handling the ghosts isn't something a lock can do well by themselves.
Of course the obvious answer to this situation is that anyone that can hit the ghosts should be killing the ghosts. They go down in seconds and if you'renot a tard and fighting them in the purple they're not that bad if the healer isn't ass.
But you get people who are so dead set on assigning one person to do them for no discernable reason. And good luck if you point out that its more important to keep the ghosts off the healer than tunnel vision the chains down.
They put you, for no obvious reason, as the sole ghost killer. And it's entirely your fault if you don't kill them all despite them not doing anything but hitting the chains.
Handling the ghosts isn't something a lock can do well by themselves.
Of course the obvious answer to this situation is that anyone that can hit the ghosts should be killing the ghosts. They go down in seconds and if you'renot a tard and fighting them in the purple they're not that bad if the healer isn't ass.
But you get people who are so dead set on assigning one person to do them for no discernable reason. And good luck if you point out that its more important to keep the ghosts off the healer than tunnel vision the chains down.
Posts
I've never found that to be all that enlightening, though
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
By the way -- yet another question about demonology w/ felhunter's demon soul (+ dot dmg):
Would it make sense to pop demon soul 1/2 through metamorphosis? Refresh all the dots at the start of metamorphosis, then again after hitting demon soul.
The reason I say this is that currently, popping demon soul at the start gives me a total of 5 "buffed" doom ticks (refresh at the start of demonsoul/meta & again just before ds falls off). But, meta lasts for 36 seconds. So, if I go:
Meta/ Refresh doom
....16 seconds [+1 doom tick @ +meta dmg]
Demon Soul / Refresh doom
...19 seconds [+1 doom tick @ +meta/ds dmg]
Refresh doom before ds/meta falls
+4 doom ticks @ +meta/ds dmg
Just a thought.
I need help.
Apparently Demo is still the tops for dps even after the nerf (fix?) to the demons.
But I just am terrible. My gear isn't great, but it's not the worst, however I have a hell of a time breaking 10k on anything normal. On bosses when I blow cooldowns and such I can usually hit in the 15k range but it's not super sustainable.
I'm just talking the new dungeons here.
On trash its worse. I can barely ever break 10k at all unless it's a large-ish pack where I can go in and hellfire and have my felguard bladestorm. Even then though I feel like I'm significantly weaker than pre-4.3 but that really shouldn't be the case.
When there are fewer enemies I can hardly do a damn thing because there's a ramp up with dots and the enemies just die. I have tried just shadowbolt spam on single targets in trash but besides eating up my mana it still is super low dps.
I just don't understand what I'm doing wrong. If anything. I'm using immolate > corruption > BoD (usually use BoA on trash since there's not a 15s wait) then guldan then just spam SB until Molten Core procs then incinerate, pretty much how EJ lays it out. It takes so fucking long to get to decent DPS this way that as I said, most trash is already dead or damn near, and on bosses it just feels too slow and I simply cant keep up with anyone else without doing a rediculous amount of work.
I really feel like I'm doing something wrong or missing something because other warlocks in parties im in with other characters don't seem to have this issue, they're doing full dps damn near off the bat and don't have this serious ramp up issue I seem to have. Plus they are able to do a damn thing to trash which seems to totally allude me.
I'm considering going affliction but I'm not sure if that will solve any of my issues. I've never tried destro as it seemed too mage-ish, but if there's less ramp up and I don't feel like I'm constantly leeching in heroics then I don't even care. I'm up for anything at this point.
Ironically (?) the only other class I seem to have similar issues with is spriest, but my spriest gear is unbelievably bad so its more understandable there. Maybe dot classes just hate me. but I don't remember having this issue on my spriest in wotlk when she was decently geared.
Does anyone have any tips? I know its hard not watching me play or anything, but maybe someone who is actually good at this class might have some tips; even if it is to just change my spec or whatever.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
1 -- The highest dps pet is the felhunter (dog), not the felguard. On bosses, if you want to maximize dmg, people (until 4 piece of the new raid gear) will do the following:
- use Moonwell Chalice
- enter metamorphosis (note, these are 2 distinct steps, don't macro them at the same time because it takes the server a moment to realize the mastery from the chalice)
- use demon soul: felguard & whirlwind
- immolation aura
- when whirlwind is over, soulburn + summon felhunter
(with 4piece T13, soul shards are used on cooldown with soulfire, so this strat will not be viable and we will just have the dog. If it's a really heavy aoe fight, the whirlwind is nice to use though).
2 -- With 4.3 now live, I believe our filler of choice is always incinerate. There is still debate/discussion about this and your strat of shadowbolt + incin on MC procs was correct in T12 (and may still be, I'm not 100% sure). ***Really, I don't know about this -- other locks please let me know if this is right/wrong***
3 -- On "burst" targets (trash), only use Immo+Corruption. Unless they're going to stay alive for a little while, Bane's aren't really worth it. You are correct in using Doom on bosses/Agony on bigger trash though. Always use Gul'dan, if nothing else because it looks cool (but it is much higher dps than sb/incin).
4 -- I have no idea how you're geared/glyphed. But, in < T13, it's Mastery >>>> Haste >> Crit. You only want enough haste to make sure Impending Doom brings your Metamorphosis cooldown to 2 minutes to line up with Moonwell Chalice. Always go into Metamorphosis with MWC used first (until you get the ridiculously sexy trinkets from DragonSoul).
5 -- Metamorphosis drives your damage. Use it on cooldown (with MWC as mentioned). Outside of meta, we are one of the weakest dps specs. Inside of Meta, we're the top(ie, in a fight that we could stay in Meta the entire time, everyone else would be hard pressed to beat us). It balances out to put us near the top with appropriate use of Meta.
6 -- While they did get nerfed a bit, the doomguard/infernal are HUGE sources of damage. Make sure to use them on boss fights AFTER you are in Metamorphosis & while the demon soul buff is still active.
7 -- Make sure you are managing dots correctly. Ie -- refresh them all just before they fall off. I personally use "TellMeWhen" as a dot/cooldown timer. There are a lot of good options out there (including some sick bastards that just use the default UI...shudder). But, make sure whatever you use that you do not let your dots fall off the boss (except in the case of a fully loaded up Bane of Doom...let that one fall off before refreshing it to get the full effect). If your other problem is with a shadowpriest, I suspect your dot management may be the key to success.
8 -- Finally, make sure you use Shadowflame (remember the low range). It's not enough to go from "my dps sucks" to "I'm a firebreathing god", but it is a dps increase over straight SB/Incin spam.
Good luck, I hope some of this makes a difference.
On trash, you can multi-dot Immolate and Corruption for pretty solid damage. Make sure you're using felstorm too, cause it's pretty ridiculous. Banes aren't really worth casting unless you're going to get the full duration out of them. Broadly though if trash is dying too quickly for you to ramp up properly, your dps doesn't really matter.
The key to dps as demo is managing metamorphosis correctly. You want to be popping meta pretty much as often as you're able, unless you're using the chalice (in which case, line them up. The chalice also has some weird impacts on stat priorities.) Haste is roughly even with mastery until 2000 rating or so, then they even out and mastery starts to pull ahead (especially true with the chalice; the reasons for this are kind of unintuitive but they make sense.)
I don't think there's a definitive answer at this point on incinerate vs shadowbolt as a filler nuke, although I'd be pretty surprised if incinerate pulls ahead outside of maybe some specialized situations. Shadowbolt's coefficient is a lot better and it has a longer cast time.
Stuff like pet twisting, micromanaging BoD and working in shadowflame/immolation aura are important, but they're marginal dps increases.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
AAaannyway. Here is a link to my lock. Looking at him I have a few 358 pvp shit too I guess. Looking at him now it's actually pretty sad stuff.
How do you manage metamorphosis? It seems just like any other cooldown. I know there's a talent that gives a chance to reduce its cooldown but I don't see how you could possibly have it up even close to full time. I get it once a boss, tops (except Mannoroth because it takes forever), and I usually don't use it on trash because they die fast and I don't want it on cooldown for a boss.
After I got a couple more 378's last night I was able to do ~20k on bosses pretty consistantly (except the bullshit rogue boss in Twilight who's silence attack doesn't work as advertised), but trash I'm still sub 10k almost universally unless it's a large pack I can just hellfire on with my felguard using felstorm. I just don't know what to do. As mentioend there's no real reason to DoT up with the time it takes to do so vs them actually doing any damage on crap that dies. I mean, I guess if trash is still going down quick, whatever; I just feel like an idiot when I'm sitting there at 8k on trash and everyone else is 20k. I make up for it on bosses though I suppose.
I typically switch to the doggie during bosses.
I'll try that dot addon. I had forteexorcist but it was just too cumbersome. I liked that it tracked multiple mobs but it was just too much information and ended up not really being any more useful than just watching dots on default UI, since it only really mattered much on bosses.
If I can't seem to grasp the metamorphosis thing should I just give demo up? Go affliction or Destro? I used to be affliction way back when but have been demo forever and don't really know what to do in affliction anymore really. Plus it has a higher reliance on dots, so I'm worried I'd just be in a worse situation than now on dungeons.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Since Cataclysm, affliction has changed the least out of all three specs, and mostly the only changes are via the mechanics of dot refreshes. With 4.3, I think it is probably the least popular spec though.
Why? I have never tried destro, but when I go from Affl to Demo I get overwhelmed and forget things. (Admittedly, I have only ever leveled it and alt-raided as affl over the years.) I would think it wouldn't be a problem, since I have raided as a hunter for a few years.
I am still affliction though, and the numbers are supposed to be pretty close together, so it shouldn't make a big difference. I hope.
Thanks
I'm having trouble thinking what trash doesn't live long enough for putting immo/corruption up on 2-3 mobs to be doable, but it might just be that you got some overgeared melee or something who can cleave everything to death.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The only ones worse are the hunters who told me to be in charge of killing the ghosts on Jindo the Hakkar.
Good times.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
They put you, for no obvious reason, as the sole ghost killer. And it's entirely your fault if you don't kill them all despite them not doing anything but hitting the chains.
Handling the ghosts isn't something a lock can do well by themselves.
Of course the obvious answer to this situation is that anyone that can hit the ghosts should be killing the ghosts. They go down in seconds and if you'renot a tard and fighting them in the purple they're not that bad if the healer isn't ass.
But you get people who are so dead set on assigning one person to do them for no discernable reason. And good luck if you point out that its more important to keep the ghosts off the healer than tunnel vision the chains down.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
The new instances are pretty fun as a lock, especially the Anti-Noz. Constant demon soul and Doomguard is a bunch of fun.
That's why Jhuutom invented searing pain.