Need help with DPS - Destruction

[ayinn 0]

Hi everyone! 

 

I've been playing Destruction Warlock for a while now (because I heard it's the best spec till ilvl 512-ish), but I just can't manage to do a lot of dmg. 

I've read the guide here (it's awesome! Thanks for that ) and I've been trying my best to follow it, but I just feel like I should be able to do a lot more dmg than I'm doing. Meaning, I'm probably doing something wrong. I just can't find what :S 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/emerald-dream/Ayinn/advanced

WoL: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-wzdtuyvv753co77r/ (We're not an exceptionally good group yet, but we're an enthusiastic bunch !)
Rotation:

Opening: Immolate - Curse of the Elements - Optical Blast - Conflagrate - Rain of Fire - conflagrate - Incinerate 3x - Rain of Fire - Incinerate - Dark Soul Instability - Trinket 4.561 int for 25 sec - Summon Terrorguard - Immolate - Chaos Bolt 
Normal:
1. Keep Immolate and Rain of Fire up at all times.
2. Cast Conflagrate with 2 stacks

3. When possible, cast Shadowburn
3. Cast Chaos Bolt with 3+ Burning embers and less than 3 Backdraft stacks

4. 3+ Burning embers, but more than 3 Burning embers -> Cast Incinerate untill I have less than 3 backdraft, then cast Chaos bolt. 

5. 3- Burning Embers -> Conflagrate, then Incinerate

6. Optial blas on CD

7. Dark Soul Instability and Trinket when I'm about to cast Chaos bolt, or I save them when I know a heroism is coming up soon.

That's basicially it, I believe. 

Hopefully someone can help me

Edited September 5, 2013 by ayinn

[Gravyspasm 69]

Here's the best help i can give.

Learn another spec. Destro is dead in the water, come tuesday.

[Zagam 1972]

Hi everyone! 

 

I've been playing Destruction Warlock for a while now (because I heard it's the best spec till ilvl 512-ish), but I just can't manage to do a lot of dmg. 

I've read the guide here (it's awesome! Thanks for that ) and I've been trying my best to follow it, but I just feel like I should be able to do a lot more dmg than I'm doing. Meaning, I'm probably doing something wrong. I just can't find what :S 

Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

Armory: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/emerald-dream/Ayinn/advanced

WoL: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-wzdtuyvv753co77r/ (We're not an exceptionally good group yet, but we're an enthusiastic bunch !)

Rotation:

Opening: Immolate - Curse of the Elements - Optical Blast - Conflagrate - Rain of Fire - conflagrate - Incinerate 3x - Rain of Fire - Incinerate - Dark Soul Instability - Trinket 4.561 int for 25 sec - Summon Terrorguard - Immolate - Chaos Bolt 

Normal:

1. Keep Immolate and Rain of Fire up at all times.

2. Cast Conflagrate with 2 stacks

3. When possible, cast Shadowburn

3. Cast Chaos Bolt with 3+ Burning embers and less than 3 Backdraft stacks

4. 3+ Burning embers, but more than 3 Burning embers -> Cast Incinerate untill I have less than 3 backdraft, then cast Chaos bolt. 

5. 3- Burning Embers -> Conflagrate, then Incinerate

6. Optial blas on CD

7. Dark Soul Instability and Trinket when I'm about to cast Chaos bolt, or I save them when I know a heroism is coming up soon.

That's basicially it, I believe. 

Hopefully someone can help me

Looks like you understand the spec but have complications performing the spec. 

 

*Your logs show abysmal Rain of Fire uptime.  Immolate uptime in the 82% range is not good. 

*You only got off 30 Shadowburns in all 3 of those fights.  That's pretty low.

*You NEVER casted Havoc.  Not one single time. 

*Why are you manually using Optical Blast?  Your Observer should be using melee and Tongue Lick only.  Anything else is a DPS loss because of constraints to his energy.

*You got 3 Dark Souls in a fight that lasted 6:48.  You should have had 4.  You got 2 Dark Souls in a fight that lasted 7:05.  Missed out on 2 periods of burst here.

 

Considering you're raiding T14 content on normal modes, I don't see any difficulty.  Difficulty is the breeder of innovation and desire to improve.  Are you raiding anything relevant?  You seem to be able to read Destruction's priority but be unable to execute them.  There's where your potential to increase lies.

[Nemo 27]

In other words: Practise, practise, practise :)
And take special note of Zagam's pointers when you practise.

[Soulzar 42]

Additionally, one of the biggest ways to maximize DPS as destruction is proper ember pooling/dumping.  You have the basics of not chewing backdraft charges on CB and casting CB to avoid capping embers.

 

Do you use any mods like Weak Auras to track your trinket procs?  This is very important and highly suggested if you do not.

 

As example, casting a CB with no trinket procs vs casting CB's with say... Breath of the Hydra up, can be the difference in 200k per CB.  The game with Destro is pooling embers for your procs, then dumping them.

 

Another example, your opener described above...while it may be logical to save your first use of DarkSoul for a bit to allow some ember pooling, by the time you are using it your Prepot, Meta (once you get it), trinkets, Enchants (embroidery/jade).. have all procced and likely almost done and fallen off... leaving your opening CB's only buffed by Dark Soul, and not by every proc that scales your CB's up.  Having your Immolate and initial 6 hasted incins buffed by Dark Soul will also give you quicker ember generation during your initial burst.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I'd like to point out in addition to your low RoF and Immo uptimes as well as rather low usage of Dark Soul, you have very low usage of Chaos Bolt. On Protectors, you only cast 17 of them. In an almost 7-minute fight, you should have significantly more. For a fight like that, especially where you have two of the targets on top of each other (assuming you're doing elite mode), you want to make sure you keep RoF on top of both of them with all the uptime possible, as well as Immo. Now, since all damage you do the non-kill targets is healed when one dies, you don't need to worry about Havoc for the purposes of Chaos Bolt or Shadowburn, but you should still use it for Immo/Conflag/Incin so you can increase your ember generation. On a fight like that, you should be casting a Chaos Bolt roughly every 12 seconds. For a fight like that, you should be getting closer to 30 than 17.

 

Your gear is also slightly inconsistent. You've got a lot reforged into crit, yet your gemming is Int/Haste.

[ayinn 0]

Alright, thank you for all your responses :)!

 

@Gravyspasm: Destro will be dead after the patch? How come? I must admit, while I’m very eager to learn everything about playing a warlock, I haven’t played it long enough to understand what the patch is really going to change. Also, if not Desto, what would you suggest?

 

@Zagam: Thank you for your detailed tips and explanations :D It’s good to know that, at least in my head, I get the general idea.
*Are  they really that low? I feel like I’m constantly casting them as it is :S Also got ForteXorcist Addon so it’s easier to track. But, I do have some trouble keeping them up when there are multiple targets. So I think that’s why it’s that low. Do you perhaps have any tips for that? Or is it just practice, practice and more practice (<-- Probably this)
* Yeah, I had a feeling I was using too few Shadowburn, because I heard other people use it a lot more. I use it whenever I can though, so it’s probably (and all the tips you guys gave me here lead me to this conclusion) because I don’t generate my Embers quickly enough.  

* Havoc. Yes. No real explanation here besides that I tend to forget. That’s really bad on my part, and I’ll definitely work on that.

* I think using Optical Blast is a remnant from my lvling days as a Demon specced warlock, where I used my felhunters ability a lot. So I figured Optical Blast also did more dmg, consider it forgotten and I’ll save it for when I need the silence instead. Ty :)

* I’m never too sure when to use it. On one hand, I want to save it for when we get Heroism, but on the other hand it’s only a 2 min CD. But from what you’re saying, I basically use it whenever it’s available, right?

Thanks a lot for your help :) I’ll go and apply what you said right away (and I’ll continue practicing!)

 

@Nemo: Yes, ser!

 

@Soulzar: No, I don’t have Weak Auras atm. I’ll go check it out. So, if I understand it correctly, it’s vital to use CB when your things are proccing? So, say, I only have 2 Embers but my Breath of the Hydra (for example) is proccing, I use both embers on a CB?

 

@Kazistrasza: Thanks a lot for that tip! I wasn’t casting anything on the other two, because I was thinking they healed their health back anyway. Didn’t stop to consider using them to generate burning embers. However, one question: wouldn’t it be better to use Incin and Conflag on the main target? Shouldn’t they generate as much Embers from the main target as from the other two? Though it could be at all plausible that I’m missing something here..