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Help with Destro
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Post by
Monday
Now, a couple things before I get this off:
I have read
the thread
right below mine at the time of posting. The tips were helpful, but it was a little hard to determine the correct information because of all the contradiction.
I have read through the stickies. I know there's stuff that's wrong, I'm more concerned about how far off the warlock is.
This is not my warlock. It's a friend's warlock, but he honestly doesn't care about playing correctly much. He asks me questions, but I'm not a master of warlocks and I probably won't be until mine hits 85 and I actually start paying attention. Now, you may have heard the whole "It's not my character" thing before, but it honestly isn't (and me protesting is probably making you all think "denial = proof!").
You also may be asking "Why do you care if it's a friend's warlock and he doesn't care about getting better?" And frankly, it's to protect his reputation. He's only doing about 3k or so in heroics, and he isn't regarded as the best player. I'd like to fix any problems I can before people start thinking about not letting him into raids or heroics.
So,
this is the character
and these are the
talents
. I didn't know mastery was a subpar stat before, so I'll be going through and reforging pretty much all of his gear to Hit/Haste. I know there's a mastery gem in there, I'll switch it out into an intellect + haste gem.
Now, for the spec. Looking through the stickies, apparently Shadowburn is a good talent, but I haven't seen much use for it when I or he play. Has it been changed from an instant cast uses soulshard thread (from back before the Shattering when I last used Shadowburn), or is it more like Hammer of Wrath now?
Secondly, we both use lifetap a lot when playing, so we took the improved Life Tap talent. Is this a bad idea, or is it acceptable?
We also took Aftermath, which I hear is acceptable.
Thirdly, glyphs. How useful are the Glyphs of Chaos Bolt and Incinerate? I'm hesitant to change them (as glyphs cost a $%^&load for some reason on my realm. At least last I checked anyways. I'll take another look, and if it's cheap I'll switch them out).
With the Major Glyphs, all of them listed as good don't necessarily affect my playstyle. I never use healthstones, Soul Link isn't necessarily that amazing (I've replaced it with fear) and the Glyph of Shadowflame I feel is useful for fights like Erudax.
So, after all that reading, the question is frank. How bad are we sucking, and how much do we need to fix?
Also, don't get offended if I don't reply to this thread for a bit. I don't visit the Warlock forum often, and I tend to forget threads that I've made ^_^)
Post by
131584
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
DraconisAerius
Now, for the spec. Looking through the stickies, apparently Shadowburn is a good talent, but I haven't seen much use for it when I or he play. Has it been changed from an instant cast uses soulshard thread (from back before the Shattering when I last used Shadowburn), or is it more like Hammer of Wrath now?
Shadowburn doesn't cost anything except mana, but for destro (since it does fire damage, aka mastery) it's a better option for a finisher (like Drain Soul for aff/demo) because it restores shards. This is important for situations where you don't have time to Soul Harvest, such as boss fights with adds (I'm thinking the final boss in Grim Batol). It gives you the option of banging out more instant Soul Fires than you would normally get.
Secondly, we both use lifetap a lot when playing, so we took the improved Life Tap talent. Is this a bad idea, or is it acceptable?
It's certainly not terrible. And probably a relief for your healers since you tap less and they have to heal you less.
We also took Aftermath, which I hear is acceptable.
Not so much. More of a pvp/soloing thing. For leveling/soloing/pvp it's great. For dungeons/raids it's not that great. Unless there is a specific mechanic you are trying to counter with a speed debuff from your conflag hits.
Thirdly, glyphs. How useful are the Glyphs of Chaos Bolt and Incinerate? I'm hesitant to change them (as glyphs cost a $%^&load for some reason on my realm. At least last I checked anyways. I'll take another look, and if it's cheap I'll switch them out).
Incinerate is good. Chaos Bolt... well there are better options. Glyphs cost tons every where, because once you have bought it, you never need to again for that toon.
With the Major Glyphs, all of them listed as good don't necessarily affect my playstyle. I never use healthstones, Soul Link isn't necessarily that amazing (I've replaced it with fear) and the Glyph of Shadowflame I feel is useful for fights like Erudax.
Personally I use Soul Link and Fear and Soul Swap (yeah I run aff) and honestly I think that Soul Swap glyph has saved my ass more times that you might care to count. Oh and start using healthstones. Good placement of a Soulwell on some fights has saved a wipe for me before. It's almost as good as a lightwell. Another thing to consider... If, as you said, you guys life tap alot, why not get the glyph?
Post by
asakawa
3k is very bad. you can certainly make some much needed tweaks to spec and glyphs but the issue is the player.
start simple.
get your friend to get a timer addon and set up a couple of timers so they can see what's going on.
go to a test dummy and get them to cast immolate and spam incinerate until immo is less than 3 seconds from dropping off then recast immo. get them to a point where they're comfortable with this rotation and make sure they are spamming the incinerate key in between.
at this point they should be doing more than 3k. don't move on to the next step until he's comfortable with the previous one.
next add conflagrate AS SOON as it's off cooldown, every cooldown
so now you've got two timers, immo and conflag
now add soul fire and make a timer to track the "improved soul fire" buff. you want to keep the buff up.
next add corruption to the mix with a timer for the debuff on the target
now add chaos bolt with a timer for the cooldown
incinerate isn't a bad glyph but chaos bolt is dreadful. just pay up or find a friendly scribe and get the right primes. majors don't matter at all.
mana feed in demo is the answer to your life tap problem. don't go into aff, just go deeper into demo.
to be frank, you kinda just need to get on and do what the FAQ says. you're basically asking for rotation (priority) and glyph choice and that's all detailed very plainly in the FAQ. if you're doing what the FAQ says and still having trouble then that's a good point to start asking questions but at the minute you're asking lots of questions that are answered and stickied.
best of luck with it anyway.
Post by
DraconisAerius
Just to build on what asakawa said about glyphs, find yourself a scribe who is nice (maybe one in your guild who you can trade favours with) and buy the mats for the glyphs you need. Much cheaper.
Post by
Monday
you're basically asking for rotation (priority)
I already know the rotation pretty well.
find yourself a scribe who is nice (maybe one in your guild who you can trade favours with)
This is what I was thinking. My guild is absolutely full of nice people, and one or two owe me a favor (not that I think in terms like that. It just came to me while typing this).
To Draconis Aerius: I'll look into Shadowburn then and switch out Aftermath.
If, as you said, you guys life tap alot, why not get the glyph?
/shrug. I'll look into that as well.
*
start simple.
*
get your friend to get a timer addon and set up a couple of timers so they can see what's going on.
*
go to a test dummy and get them to cast immolate and spam incinerate until immo is less than 3 seconds from dropping off then recast immo. get them to a point where they're comfortable with this rotation and make sure they are spamming the incinerate key in between.
*
at this point they should be doing more than 3k. don't move on to the next step until he's comfortable with the previous one.
*
next add conflagrate AS SOON as it's off cooldown, every cooldown
*
so now you've got two timers, immo and conflag
*
now add soul fire and make a timer to track the "improved soul fire" buff. you want to keep the buff up.
*
next add corruption to the mix with a timer for the debuff on the target
*
now add chaos bolt with a timer for the cooldown
I'll have him go through this. Ty =)he honestly doesn't care about playing correctly much
1. I can tell.
2. So why bother?
3.
Obligatory EJ link
if you're hellbent on trying.
Mainly because we're friends, so I try and look out for him. Even if he doesn't care very much I want to have him keep a good impression on the guild so they'll let him in when they do heroics and the like (I'm not saying that my guild is snobby or anything, but they like to have people that know what they're doing, even if they'll help you if you don't know.)
and glyph choice and that's all detailed very plainly in the FAQ.
It wasn't so much that I didn't find them as much as I wasn't sure if they were flexible. From what I hear they aren't really, so I'll switch out Chaos Bolt.
to be frank, you kinda just need to get on and do what the FAQ says.
Yeah pretty much. I just wanted a little more personalized help with it in case there were things that weren't that important to switch out.
So, thanks for the non-flaming feedback everyone! I'll make these changes sometime around Friday and see how they do.
Post by
105167
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
shadowburn's DPET (not DPS!) is only very slightly higher than that of incinerate. such a small increase on such a rarely used spell means that while it's something worth doing in the strictest min/max sense it really is not something the OP needs to worry about. they have some major issues, none of which will be at all aided by taking shadowburn in their build.
furthermore, aftermath has it's own utility in the daze effect which has a couple of uses (omnotron slimes etc).
the fear glyph is also optional but i agree it's very useful.
strictly speaking the life tap glyph is entirely optional given its incredibly minor influence on output but given it's the only major glyph that has a measurable effect on output it tends to be assumed to be non-optional.
your gemming advice isn't, strictly speaking, correct either. given the destro stat weights a socket bonus of 10int on a single gem would also be worth gemming a purple int/hit gem for.
on a double gems item the bonus needs to be 10int but also the sockets need to be at least one red or two blue and all these recommendations require that the character need the hit (or are able to reforge to a point where they need it and are making gains in other stats).
my entire post is an example of why we should leave things alone once they've been answered. the OP's query would probably have been best answered with "do what the FAQ says" but a couple of more thorough answers were given that culminated in basically the same thing. once we have people like Olocan chipping in with stuff that needs correcting the advice gets more and more confusing for anyone trying to pick up solid info.
TL;DR read the FAQ.
Post by
105167
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
if you have reason to believe the FAQ's advice is incorrect or outdated you would be taking part in and helping this community by posting to the FAQ thread with the update or correction and supporting numbers/empirical evidence.
however, my point wasn't so much that you're flat out wrong just that you're putting a lot of emphasis on things that barely factor and really not helping the OP at all.
Post by
539323
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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