5.4 Destruction Tips and Quirks

[ertai 0]

What about rain if fire? Is it a valuable dps gain to keep it up all the time of shamans encounter or galakras P1?

How do you manage to maximise shadowburn? It is sometimes hard to find and target a low hp mob when there is a lot of them gathered.

I actually spam tab when i see that some life becomes low ( thanks to tidy plate)

[Zagam 1,983]

Rain of Fire is always a gain with 2 targets able to be in it.  This is mentioned in the guide.

 

Hard to find targets should never be an issue.  If you're looking to pad on trash mobs, you need a name plate recognition pattern.  For me, ElvUI turns the nameplates red when they are sub 20%.  In your case, with lots of them around, you're mostly looking to SB trash mobs that are irrelevant.  Most of your damage from SB here is overkill damage which looks good on meters but is mostly inefficient and worthless.  Spamming Tab isn't the most methodical way of doing this.  You'll want to either use a mouseover or be prepared to click targets and hit your SB button.

[PhilColins 9]

Most of your damage from SB here is overkill damage which looks good on meters but is mostly inefficient and worthless. 

Tell my raid leader this. He seems to think since the other warlock does this, that he is better. This may or may not be true.

[Twinkielock 15]

Rain of Fire is always a gain with 2 targets able to be in it.  This is mentioned in the guide.

 

Hard to find targets should never be an issue.  If you're looking to pad on trash mobs, you need a name plate recognition pattern.  For me, ElvUI turns the nameplates red when they are sub 20%.  In your case, with lots of them around, you're mostly looking to SB trash mobs that are irrelevant.  Most of your damage from SB here is overkill damage which looks good on meters but is mostly inefficient and worthless.  Spamming Tab isn't the most methodical way of doing this.  You'll want to either use a mouseover or be prepared to click targets and hit your SB button.

How can you configure this in ELVUI? (The turning red part)

Also I know it was mentioned in another thread (but not this one, that I could find) If you have both PBI and KTT, what should your opener be?

[Zagam 1,983]

ElvUI did it for me automatically.  Opener doesn't change at all.  You follow protocol - get off as many Chaos Bolts under the effects of cooldowns as possible.  Opener changes based on number of crits delivered.

[Oldtrout 7]

Tell my raid leader this. He seems to think since the other warlock does this, that he is better. This may or may not be true.

It's only true if the SB gains you embers which you can then use in non-padding situations, or obviously if havocing onto a bigger mob. If you're at 3.5-4 embers and have no havoc, shadowburning a mob that isn't #1 kill priority and will die in a matter of seconds anyway is completely padding.

 

You should just tell your raid leader that you know how to play your class better than he does so butt out. Too many people are quick to criticize a DPS's numbers without actually looking into how much worthwhile damage they're contributing.

Edited November 25, 2013 by Oldtrout

[Kazistrasz 216]

You should just tell your raid leader that you know how to play your class better than he does so butt out. Too many people are quick to criticize a DPS's numbers without actually looking into how much worthwhile damage they're contributing.

 

I strongly advise against doing that, unless you've been in your guild for so unbelievably long that you can get away with it. If your RL seems to think that other lock is doing better, odds are pretty good you're not in a position like that. If I said something to a DPS about their performance and getting their numbers up only to have them respond like that, they'd be looking for a new guild before the night was over (I've done it before).

 

The proper response to your RL here is to explain that the other lock is padding while you're contributing meaningful damage to the fight. Open logs and find his average SB and compare it to 20% of the health a mob has. My girlfriend goes "oh look, I beat you on the opener," and I go, "oh look, I had three times your damage to the boss because I wasn't sitting on adds."

[Omaric 246]

Real talk.

[Oldtrout 7]

I strongly advise against doing that, unless you've been in your guild for so unbelievably long that you can get away with it. If your RL seems to think that other lock is doing better, odds are pretty good you're not in a position like that. If I said something to a DPS about their performance and getting their numbers up only to have them respond like that, they'd be looking for a new guild before the night was over (I've done it before).

I'm talking the specific situation, where the raid leader is telling him he isn't playing as well as the padding lock. That is pretty much proof the raid leader doesn't have a clue about how warlocks dps, and that he's the kind of guy who'll throw out criticism without all the facts.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Oldtrout

[Omaric 246]

I'm going to start removing comments that are related to raid leading if this continues.

[Vipples 5]

Hey all, long time reader, first time poster! Mucho respect for all the locks here for putting together all of this amazing information. I had some questions about 10 man heroic Dark Shamans as destro. We've downed them twice now, but each time we barely squeak by the enrage timer. We use the two team split method, with me, frost mage, surv hunter on Kardis (bear tank). I'm basically on ADD duty from 65% on, and I was wondering what you guys do in order to kill these in the most efficient way. We've got a holy pally healing our group, and she puts on Righteous fury so the adds come to us rather than the Haromm group, or our Kardis tank. Once the adds start spawning, I seem to barely have time to dps Kardis other than the occasional Chaos Bolt or immolate refresh. I've asked our tank to try to attempt to position their spawn so that they move through Kardis, that way I can just FnB spam Kardis. Unfortunately, due to the chaotic nature of the storms/tornadoes, he can't always position them ideally and there are times where they're just all lined up perpendicular to our groups position. Our hunter always puts down a trap, and both hunter/mage help me out if I call for it, but we try to keep them 100% on Kardis just in order to get enough dps on boss.

 

I was just wondering if any others that have done this fight in 10 man, have seen more efficient ways to place the adds, or to deal with them. There were some spawns that the adds all grouped up perfectly and I was able to blow them up in no time, and immediately get back on the boss. But with all the movement and planning my CDs for iron prison, I'm usually just in 100% panic mode trying to kill adds before they get to our healer/ranged group. I suppose mannoroth's fury could help destroy the adds, but then I'd lose out on being able to run around with FnB incinerates. 

 

We start on Malk tonight, so hopefully that goes swimmingly. Thanks in advance for any advice/help!

[Zagam 1,983]

No tornadoes should ever be near the tank.  Sounds like your ranged and healers lack spatial recognition.  Tornadoes will never spawn on a tank, so the tank should have room to work with.  If he's able to get them centrally focused around the boss, FnB makes this job easy.  If they're spread out, forget about it.  Manno's won't help you kill the adds faster because Rain of Fire doesn't hit that hard.  Remember, the adds can be knocked back and stunned, so Shadowfury should help.  Also, your Hunter should be dropping a Frost Trap to keep them localized in a point you can AoE them with ease.  He also should be using Glaive Toss to snare them an additional time.  The Slimes should be melted by your group.  Don't use a Holy Paladin to get them to move.  They should be slowed and stunned as much as possible, not being allowed to move freely.

[Omaric 246]

Yeah I was basically going to say what Zag said about the oozes.  Make sure your tank pops a baby CD for every Geyser and just have him stay around the boss so your group can AoE them down.  In that scenario your F&B will hit all the oozes if the boss is targeted.  Again like Zag said, use those Shadowfury's liberally to help offset tank damage due to them not kiting.  I generally call out a few people for a stun rotation, but it sounds like you're in a 10 man so you may not have access to as many AoE stuns.

[Vipples 5]

Toxic storm has been spawning on our tank very often, is that because we don't have 5 ranged? our 4th dps is a frost DK and is 100% on haromm. I guess I don't understand how the tornadoes move, I thought once they spawned, they just moved in a random direction and continued on that trajectory for a few seconds. 

[Zagam 1,983]

If you're separating the bosses, send melee with the other boss.  Problem solved.  Only ranged and healers should be with the ooze boss.

[Soulzar 42]

What our tank does for them is he will run out away from boss when they start spawning, do a small circle back to boss.  This way the last ones spawning spawn on top of the first ones and it keeps them all grouped up.

 

I am unsure what AoE threat Bear tanks have, we have a monk so he spams his barrels of easy mode while they are spawning.  IMO, having your healer bait them with RFury is probably the primary cause of them being all over the place.

 

I think I've stunned them...like never...

Edited December 4, 2013 by Soulzar

[Vipples 5]

Well, we were having issues with some adds running up to our Prot pally who was on the other boss far far away before we had our pally healer put on righteous fury. Our ooze boss tank usually never touched the adds, he just placed 'em and went back on boss. Maybe we should just have him do the little circle trick, that seems like it'd keep the adds tight enough. I typically use Shadowfury on cooldown on them, and I dont have much trouble killing them, Its just that i wanted to try to find more of an efficient strategy for placing them/dealing with them so that I can get more dps time on the actual boss since I'm the only one dpsing the adds.

 

And to be clear, we DO have our only melee dps on the NON ooze boss (Haromm). The Ooze boss(Kardis) group is Druid (Tank), Pally (healer), Mage, Hunter, myself. We stay at range and we're always tightly grouped together. 

 

Thanks again for the tips and suggestions.

[Omaric 246]

You might want to have your druid tank spamming some AoE when the oozes are spawning.

[Belloc 6]

If you're separating the bosses, send melee with the other boss.  Problem solved.  Only ranged and healers should be with the ooze boss.

We do exactly this and storms will still spawn on the tank, just like the other guy is suggesting. It doesn't always happen, but it happens regularly enough. Our group, however, prefers it when it happens, because it means we don't have to move.

 

So, to recap: group split in half. 1 tank, 3 ranged dps, and 1 healer (paladin) on Wavebinder. Tank is the only person even remotely close to the boss and storms still spawn on him.

 

Anyway, I agree with the above poster that mentioned running them out a bit and circling back so that the last adds spawn where the first adds were.

Edited December 4, 2013 by Belloc

[MallBall 2]

I was in a Lock Mumble chat thing a few weeks ago, and it was mentioned that after a certain ilevel, haste becomes a priority over mastery.  I can't remember what that level was!  Can someone please refresh my memory?  More importantly, does that still hold true?

[Lockybalboa 618]

I was in a Lock Mumble chat thing a few weeks ago, and it was mentioned that after a certain ilevel, haste becomes a priority over mastery.  I can't remember what that level was!  Can someone please refresh my memory?  More importantly, does that still hold true?

 

Never. Never ever ever ever.

[Zagam 1,983]

I was in a Lock Mumble chat thing a few weeks ago, and it was mentioned that after a certain ilevel, haste becomes a priority over mastery.  I can't remember what that level was!  Can someone please refresh my memory?  More importantly, does that still hold true?

No one has ever said that in my Mumble.

[MallBall 2]

Really?!  Was it crit then?  There was another female in there and she was talking about how she went a different build, and you, Zagam, said it was too low of an ilvl to try that.   I may be going crazy then.

[Zagam 1,983]

Yes, it was Crit.  Most Destruction Warlocks were still in the Haste/Mastery build and I was playing Crit/Mastery.  She was asking if it was better, and I said once you hit a certain item level, you could dump Haste and see a marginal improvement because Haste is mostly wasted as Destruction.  She saw big improvements going into Mastery/Crit, but I'd never steer someone into Haste as Destruction.

[Kazistrasz 216]

Honestly, I found an increase even before the item level you suggested, too. It's just getting that much better now.