Epat's deleted post that had to go somewhere
Epatrick — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 00:52
/dips into his well of warlockdom and spews forth a vomit of text regarding warlocks
Honestly, Affliction when we were raiding gruul's and SSC was
awesome As haste gear and higher item levels started getting into the
mix, the sheer amount of shadowbolts an epat geared caster can toss out
that hit anywhere from 2.5k-8.7k is quite astonishing. In long fights
where my only job is to blast the ever loving hell out of a boss
(illidan being the obvious example) myself and dikymo (both not
tanking, both sac/snf locks) have topped the dps meters. The only
thing that stops us is the threat cap. With a shadow priest and a
shaman, a caster group with mixed arcane mages/bolt locks are the
powerhouses of the dps. Oh, and eff the freakin' 40% passive threat
redux on arcane mages, eff it.
Side note: In Hamfist i'm seeing a cool trend of the purple squares
getting love in the shaman/shadow priest groups with the arcane mages
on nuke fights. What I kind of giggle at is the thought of an arcane
mage trying to do anything like long term massive dps without a
shadowpriest at the very least. If an arcane mage in the tanking group
could top an affliction locks dps, I'd be very very impressed, just
from the sheer amount of mana conservation/pot chugging/gem guzzling
they'd have to do. Most mages respec to fire or frost (from my
experience with hamfist) if they know they are/are not going to be
getting a shadow priest. The warlocks traditionally stay with one spec
(affliction or destro) and are put wherever there's room and inevitably
there's always, always, always the call from the raid leader for "do
you run with your imp out" and I have to bid goodbye to my affliction
lock brother jester who sticks his imp down like the totem it's always
been valued for.
To answer Dufe's Question:
Shadow Embrace means that every time the tank gets hit, they take 5%
less dmg from the debuffed mob. (when the talent is max'd) Tonight
when I was ninja'd onto pyrael (I asked him to let me play on him
because I rarely ever get to see that part of BT because I work on
tuesday nights) I saw Grovinski take a 14k hit and drop, just poof.
bye grov. 14k x .05 : 700. I don't know if that means a lot, but a
tank taking 700 less dmg is equal to them having an imp on them, so
adding the two together, with the hp buff (about 700 health) and taking
5% less dmg (another 700 on that particular hit) that's 1400 onto
grovinski's life bar. I dont know how much he was down, but learning
new bosses, the softer a boss hits, the better, yes? Also Shadow
Embrace stacks with other debuffs on a target (insect swarm,
thunderclap, demo roar/shout, CoW etc) if your tanks are taking huge
hits, then yes, S/E is most definitely something you need in your raid
if your tanks are being lit up like a buck cherry song.
Group utility:
a shadow priest in a warlock's group is absolute heaven for the
warlock, and I'll tell you why : GCD's. When Keisjaa/Agoney are in my
group, I tap maybe a third of what I would normally. That's HUGE for
me. My Shadowbolts currently clock in at about I wanna say 2.4 secs
with spell haste. somebody else can do the math, I have around 120
spell haste (still waiting on two more reckless pryestones for my
delicious chestpiece) My entire rotation consists of BOLT BOLT BOLT
BOLT BOLT ----> 50% mana Tap to near full Bolt-bolt-bolt repeat.
every tap is 1.5 secs of my casting lost to regain mana. two taps is
one shadowbolt I could've shot out. that's potentially on a fully
debuffed mob an 8k shadowbolt. over the course of an illidan fight, a
shadowpriest regens enough for a warlock to continuously cast with
possibly a lifebloom or a flash heal from an ancy healer. A shaman in
a group (because <3 shadowpriests but they totally need the mana
tide) means a lot to a warlock as well. 1% hit. by. just. being.
there. Lock Spell hit cap is 202. I can drop almost an entire trinket
or ring with hit on it for more dmg/crit/haste just by being given a
shaman. it's sexy good times. I doubt any other caster benefits as
much as a warlock (regardless of spec, as all locks should be at hit
cap for raid bosses) from those two synergistic groupings. For fights
like illidan or bloodboil, I'd almost prefer to put weave in with the
shaman/destro lock/spriest/mage just so the casters in that group can
better deal with the bloodboils. So yes, being the lock in the tank
group, they get boned, big time.
Something else to remember about an affliction lock's dps : a good
affliction lock will hopefully have THE best survivability (baring
major mishaps or wtf two volcanoes on me kapow.) of any caster. They
have a walking stam buff, and drains/siphons to keep them up through
AoE. it's also measured less in dps and more in overall dmg done.
dots tick every two secs. so every other second they are not
contributing to dps. which is why an affliction lock (look at
gorefiend try 1 where I was able to stand and dot/nuke) Pyrael is only
at 883 dps, but third overall in dmg for that attempt (I'd say look at
try 2, but atar yelled at me to get out of the group when I still had
like thirty seconds on my turning into a vengeful spirit debuff so I'm
only present in dps for 63% of the fight) :P
I talked with Pyrael about his spec tonight before I left his house
(stealing shitty wi-fi from a neighbor atm) and he tweaked it to drop
shadow embrace a few days ago in an effort to stay malediction but
increase his dps. while I told him it was good that he was trying to
inch more dps out of his spec, it was totally counterintuitive to what
a "raid affl lock" should be doing. We're going to go over some other
stuff tomorrow as well, so if you want him to go Destro, I'll help him
with that spec too....and don't talk shit about my friends in vent when
i'm around, I don't appreciate it, especially when it was me playing
them.
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I was looking at dufe's
Epatrick — Sat, 05/10/2008 - 23:45I was looking at dufe's comment before bed tonight and rofl'd a little bit. It occurs to me that most other classes have special abilities that increase their dps by a large amount for a short period of time, hunters have rapid killing ( i think that's the name of the 5 min ability that makes them pew pew harder) mages have arcane power/icy veins/combustion stacks of arcane blast w/e. Combat rogues have adrenaline rush ( I think at least, I don't know if that's the new hotness for raiding like it used to be) warriors can pop recklessness, shamans have bloodlust/heroism that shamervate for enh and ( I don't know about ele) Retadins have AW they can pop for an added boost.
"aren't there some cd's/abilities you can use to increase your dps for that go-time" (misquoted because of laziness)...the answer for shadow users is quite simply : No. We have no innate abilities nor ones we can pick up for talents that we can use to provide us with a guaranteed crit string/dmg boost/haste buff/guaranteed POWPOW. we rely totally on our groups to buff us in times of high dps necessity. Drums/heroism is about it. Sad days.
One of the reasons a warlock
Epatrick — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 16:30One of the reasons a warlock taps : it scales with spell dmg, the more spell dmg we have, the larger the amount of mana we return to ourselves when we push that button. which in turn decreases the amount of gcd's we use up smashing that button. A pot is on a 2 min cd, I can blow through my entire mana bar in under a minute if I'm just spamming shadowbolt and have no spriest/mana totem. I have no mana gem, I have no evocate, the only thing I can do besides lifetap is take a super mana pot. on a 2 min cd that returns oh...minimum 2.4k mana? so a non tapping warlock is useless for a large percentage of the fight if they are constantly casting and then ooming and waiting for a pot cd. shadowbolt is also not a very efficient spell, honestly, incinerate is WAY more efficient, but scales for shit when it crits (no extra fire dmg debuff unlike shadow bolt on crit)
A rank 11 shadowbolt has a casting cost of 420 mana, with my raid gear I can throw one of those bad boys out at just over 2 secs. I also have 11k mana (thereabouts) if I'm smashing my shadowbolt key and throwing a bolt out as soon as my cast finishes, I can cast 26 times and my mana bar is out. so in a little under a minute I'm completely oom. without any type of passive regen (warlock gear has NO spirit on it, and we actually sacrifice spirit for stam from a talent) throw in a super mana pot which may hit for minimum return that's...6 more casts so 12 seconds later I'm oom again waiting on a cd that won't come up for a minute and 45 secs. Warlocks are efficient in that they can actively choose when to hit lifetap, and gain health back from hits (soul leech on average can heal for about 1.5k on a crit, and that's 20% proc on dmg) A good warlock pots just as often as a mage or spriest (on a progression fight I'll tap then use mad alch's to regen both mana and health)
Warlocks have been taught since before BC that we have two mana bars, a green one and a blue one. Our gear has more stam on it because we need that to cast, literally. Our nukes are nowhere near as efficient as mages (I don't know how much a frostbolt/firebolt costs, or if you have a talent that reduces the cost of the bolt, but ours is a paltry 5% mana cost reduction with nothing else attached to it, we take it, but man, it sucks.) but I'm pretty sure with Judgement of wisdom up, a mage can cast indefinitely with their primary nuke (not the arcane one).
I LOVE having a shadowpriest in my group for two reasons : one, the aggressive regen that ag/keis give me enables me to throw out more bolts without tapping. 2. the health return actually enables me to throw a tap into my rotation, and instead of needing to tap three times in a row and continue casting, I can tap once, regain mana before I needed it to cast and be healed by my partymember's VE. No other class besides paladin uses the vampiric embrace as effectively as a smart warlock. Mages shouldn't be taking dmg, and if they are, they're going to be needing quite a bit more than the hot ticks that are being put up by the priests.
You say that without a shadowpriest you're forced to use a dps rotation that isn't optimal because even with the mana return from your gems/evocate/pots it's not enough...(I took it as less optimal because you said "filler", correct me if I'm wrong) So, say you were in a "jungle" group and knew you would be in one for the remainder of the night, would you go respec to frost? Warlocks really have no option for that. We have one major nuke : shadowbolt. that's it. we can sacrifice 15% of our dmg for a felhunter for mana regen (but what's the point of that kind of sacrifice unless it's a fight where our healers won't be able to heal us and we're without a spriest and our pots need to be used to stay alive instead of for mana) but we'll hit like pussies and it's equivalent to your filler rotation.
I don't know if that answered your question, but there ya go.
Ah, I see... I didn't know
Disrupter — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 21:58Ah, I see...
I didn't know that lifetap scaled with spell damage, nor that it cost so much mana to dps as a desto lock...
See, as Arcane the Shadowpriest is kinda like that for a lock, I can use a very VERY large amount of mana in a VERY short amount of time... Icy Veins/Arcane Power/Arcane Blast stack x3.... is intense on mana, even with mana gems AND mana pots AND an evocate AND a shadow priest.
Fire gets a direct benefit, if they're willing to use consumables...
Frost gets one too, not sure if its more or less then fire, but Destro pots and an elemental that doesn't go oom is pretty nice.
I'm hoping to maybe get t6 bracers and try out my spec with 4/8 t6 and 2/5 t5, though likely fire/frost will scale much better with the 4/8 t6.. arcane only really casts frostbolt as a filler for when they're low on mana. With an spriest and my spec I regen mana faster then I use it while casting frostbolt, allowing me to non stop dps if I do it right. Thus not 100% NEEDING the spriest to do damage, but if you want me to do a bunch more gimme one ;).
Thanks for the info.
To answer Disrupter, locks
Tankard — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 16:11To answer Disrupter, locks use HUGE amounts of mana. SB costs 420 mana. In 1 minute we burn through 10000 mana just spamming shadowbolts. I do use Super Mana pots. But it's often on cooldown when I need more mana. It's much worse for AOE. Seed of Corruption costs 882 mana per cast, and Rain of Fire (though used rarely in raid) is 1480 mana.
Especially feces
Gares of War — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:39Especially feces
I hate pyrael and he smell
Katibug — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:34I hate pyrael and he smell like tuna. And his friend Epat, I hear he smells like pee and feces!
rofl did I miss something?
Shinso — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 10:23rofl did I miss something?
Which is why we polled Epat
Aidin — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 07:36Which is why we polled Epat several weeks ago re: the expectaton for an Affliction lock (but it was directly related to Cory at the time and not Py)
Is pyreal raiding as
Dikymo — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 07:27Is pyreal raiding as affliction? 1k dps is a pretty hard number for an affliction lock to attain. Check out hamfist parses and see where weave is sitting DPS wise.
Secretary vice president to the vice president's secretary of the department of redundancy department
Conversation went like
Aidin — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 07:21Conversation went like this:
Dufe: "At this point we should all be above 1000dps, and anything less then that on Akama is fail"
Aidin: "So Atar, Zoo, and Py fail!"
Dufe: "Well Atar and Zoo had to tank a lot of that"
Aidin: "So Pyreal failz"
Dufe: "I'm not calling names...I'm just saying..."
Doesn't sound too horribly offensive to me. Even awaited a chime in from Py that never happened...only today to realize it is because it was not Py...it was Epat.
This is the same amount of "shit" we give any raider that is not performing to their ability. We gave it to Cory...she stepped it up...We gave it to Shinso and he clocked in at #2 right behind Dufe, We give it to Frosst as a healer...sorry Py isn't immune to the 1000+dps push.
Just as Grasen said, I can't wait for the day where we go "Holy shit Py! Way to fuckin go!" ...but yes you have to still loot all the weapons.
Aidin's transcript is pretty
Dufe — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:32Aidin's transcript is pretty close. I did indeed say that any dpser that can't break 1000 dps on AKAMA is fail, the comment had NO reference to any other fight. I was specifically trying to avoid mentioning a name, and I did feel a bit bad when it was narrowed down. I also checked to make sure Pyreal was in channel because if it did come out, I wanted to make sure that it was being said to his face, rather than behind his back.
As Grasen said, we've pushed all of our dps when we think they underperform a bit, we don't sit around waiting for Pyreal and Pyreal alone to make some mess-up that we can ride him for. In all honesty, I didn't even know Py was affliction last night until I dived one step deeper into the parse about 15 sec later. That being said, I will admit some ignorance, but is it not possible for an afflic to burst higher than 800dps for a 41 sec fight? No trinkets or ability cd's to pop? All I'm saying is it seems a little strange when I've seen 900 dps out of Py on longer fights. I'm not trying to call anyone dumb, or say their the worst player in the world or anything here, I'm just seeing something that doesn't add up in my mind and trying to find an explanation.
The only problem with Akama
saedo — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 11:51The only problem with Akama parses is that they only show the 30-60 sec you're on Shade of Akama himself.
Here, did the split for your Akama that includes all the adds in the beginning: http://wowwebstats.com/nnknzvthfi63u?s=6267,6751
Actually well the Shade of Akama himself does skew the fight still.
Here's the split where it's adds only: http://wowwebstats.com/nnknzvthfi63u?s=6267,6387
This part of the fight at least, Epat/Pyrael goes neck and neck with Watches.
I think the point was that
Dufe — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 12:43I think the point was that the Akama parses tend to skew the number upwards heavily for pretty much everyone. Hence the concern for those on the lower end.
And afflic needs time to
saedo — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 12:46And afflic needs time to ramp up any damage due to the dots. The shorter you make that Akama fight the more it's goes against him.
Plus, Akama gets a stacking debuff that increases the damage done on him. So, big hits come in the end. Dunno if dot ticks ramp up with that though or only on initial applications of it.
My comments on the whole
Disrupter — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 13:40My comments on the whole lock/mage/spriest thing...
Mages get a mana gem for upwards of 2.5k every 2 minutes, and a potion every 2 minutes on the high end of 3k every 2 minutes, then throwing in evocate every 8 minutes with a really good evocate stat stick can be a full mana pool (with 2/8 t6.)
As fire a shadow priest means the ability to use flame caps and destro pots, not a necessity to actually dps, but if your given one you should try to atleast use those on boss fights.
As frost a shadow priest means the ability to use destro pots, and the water elemental never going oom. Once again, not a necessity to beable to dps.. but done right it can up it :).
As for ARCANE, it's not a necessity. With or without a shadow priest my mana gem and mana potion are ALWAYS on cool down. A proper arcane spec can have a weaker dps side filler into their rotation, to help dull down their mana usage.
I, wondering why the warlocks whom can life tap, did some research as to why they were even considered to be given a shadow priest at all, considering for free they can build their mana all the way to full at will, and a couple lifeblooms would heal them back up.
I had completely forgotten that a life tap causes a GBCD, and finally realized the reason a lock would want a shadow priest... but even then... a question for you wouldn't it be better to chug a pot, then to life tap, it'd technically up your damage more then a life tap, it's certainly not cheaper but... when your arcane your ALWAYS potting to do your most dps, evocates great and all, but it's still not enough to non stop cast as arcane. As Frost or Fire, it's actually a dps DECREASE if you are not potting and having to evocate because of it.
Not an attack at you or anything, I'm leveling a lock and interested in how it all works for a warlock. I read it wasn't better to life tap and use destro pots, then it is to just use super manas. You can reply here or in a message I don't care it's something I've been wondering :).
That is a good point.
Dufe — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 12:59That is a good point. Although this isn't a definitive answer, I see the dot ticks maxing way above their average on the parse. Since they can't crit, would that be a good indicator that they are being affected by the debuff?
Look at the combat log of
saedo — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 13:18Look at the combat log of Pyrael for Akama only: http://wowwebstats.com/nnknzvthfi63u?s=6386-6426&bl=0&fia=16&fiaa=a&fit=...
It does look like the debuff works per tick of a dot. Each subsequent tick is either equal or above the previous tick (cept for the very last corruption tick).
Now another thing I see that probably works against afflic in this fight is the rounding numbers nature. Since the dot ticks are such smaller numbers relatively you don't get that huge ramp up of big hits as you do with SB spamming. Like Watches SB's are going up from 3K to 4K as the fight goes on.
Not neccessarily if there
saedo — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 13:06Not neccessarily if there was a 2nd application of it towards the end of it.
Mana pot chugging was all I
Agoney — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 06:42Mana pot chugging was all I did pre vashj/kael. There some nights now where I only use 3 or 4. ps hijacking epats thread pps log on gta4 sometime noob.
If Pyrael wants to give
Atar — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 06:22If Pyrael wants to give Destro a shot lets try it out. Although, I can't promise a shadow priest group. With us having only one shadow priest it makes it hard saying, "I can't put you in that group". I know Dufe and Lepp NEED the shadow with being arcane. Then I normally put Watches and Tenbears/Frosst in that group. Can an arcane mage survive without a shadow priest? I could pull Tenbears/Frosst out of the group and stick another lock in there. Would that be better?
"I'd say look at
try 2, but atar yelled at me to get out of the group when I still had
like thirty seconds on my turning into a vengeful spirit debuff so I'm
only present in dps for 63% of the fight"
It was MY first time ever seeing Teron. Yes, I was ancy, but give me a little break. If anything just yell at me and say, "hey I don't have to run yet", or something. Spread the knowledge.
As far as people talking shit about your friend. I really, really hope people have enough sense to not do that. I'm not sure if I was in vent when who said whatever, but I'd really hope people wouldn't be that degrading to do something like that. Yes, I've quoted a Pyrael line or two (like the weapons comment), but I don't mean anything by that at all. If by me saying that affends you then I apologize.
FYI: no one was "talking
Aidin — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 04:29FYI: no one was "talking shit" we were ribbing a guy a little bit who we thought was in channel, after all his name was listed in our vent channel. Could have been anyone...could have been Cori, could have been Shinso...could have been anyone.
Pyreal's char's dps was
Grasen — Fri, 05/09/2008 - 06:05Pyreal's char's dps was lacking in that fight and i called him on it. I didnt know it was you playing him and I assumed he was still in the channel as his name was still in there and we had just finished up. It's not talking shit when it's no different then us calling out Coryni or Shinso in the previous weeks as well as Caronte on wed. Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll be able to do like we were abe to do Shinso and say hay man good job you have really stepped it up.