Post by asakawa
This guide will aim to provide all the information and advice required to play well in PvE.
I would welcome any input from other Warlocks, particularly if you notice a common issue that isn't addressed
Table of Contents
- Talent Specialisations
- Spells
Talent Specialisations
These builds have all the points you need to maximise damage output and at this point in the expansion we have a pretty good hold on the best talents to choose that don't have a direct effect on damage. You can make a few changes to these builds, and I've noted the talents to replace if you want to do this, but be sure you have a good reason to do so.
Affliction (32/3/6)
Optional points here are
and points can also be taken from
if you really need them.
If you're making a build specifically to excel in multi-target fights then use a
0/31/10 build instead, for efficient multi-DoTing
Alternative Talent Builds:- Affliction: Drain - This spec replaces Shadow Bolt with Drain Life as the filler spell. With patch 4.2 it isn't such a prominent option.
- Demonology: AoE - This spec goes back to using Shadow Bolt as filler and takes talent and Glyph choices to maximise multi-DoTing
Return to ContentsSpells
Here's the Priority orders for casting spells as the three main Warlock specs. The word "rotation" is often used to describe the normal list of spells you cast but "priority" is a more accurate description of the slightly more complex decision tree involved in casting the right spells at the right times.
Note: An opening spell order for Affliction is included since the optimal order in which you apply various debuffs means that the opener differs from the priority list. This is not true of the other specs and is not hugely important even for Affliction.Spell Priority
- Haunt
- Corruption
- Doom
- Unstable Affliction
- - When target below 25%
- - if in melee range
- Shadow Bolt
Opener: Shadow Bolt ►
Haunt ►
Corruption ►
Doom ►
Unstable Affliction ►
Shadow Bolt ► ►
Notable Non-rotational spells
- Soul Swap - When glyphed this spell should be used to maintain three DoTs on two targets whenever applicable.
- is best used for instant pet summons or maybe for quick for the heal. Instant Soul Fire is a very minor increase over other filler but it's too minor to worry about.
- is used for AoE with if close enough followed by regular Seed of Corruption after.
- On multitarget fights Affliction is very strong because it can use DoTs on several targets at once. However, Doom can only be placed on one target at a time so this is the time to use Agony instead (or use Doom on the main target and Agony on adds).
Spell Priority
- Immolate
-
- Doom
- Corruption
- and - if in melee range
- Soul Fire - on proc
- Incinerate
Notable Non-rotational spells
- is the most important ability a Demonology Warlock has. It increases damage done by a flat percentage which is further increased by Mastery. The cooldown is shortened by casting nukes so don't worry about the 3minute cooldown, you want to use it early in the fight and as often as you can from then on - only save it if you know your raid will use Heroism/Bloodlust soon.
- is best used for instant pet summons. Instant Soul Fire is an option but best used before the target reaches 25%
- Hellfire is the main AoE spell which is augmented with , and Felstorm (if using a Felguard).
Spell Priority
- Soul Fire to maintain
- Immolate
- Conflagrate
- Doom
- - if in melee range
- Corruption
-
- Incinerate
Notable Non-rotational spells
- Havoc should be used whenever you have more than one target that will last more than 20 seconds (guestimate).
- Shadowfury provides an AoE stun which is very situational but a useful tool that's worth being aware of.
- Shadowburn does only marginally more damage than Destruction's normal filler but can be useful to replenish Soul Shards depending on the encounter.
- provides a magic damage absorb on a short cooldown. Most boss fights have a mechanic or two that can be eased with this spell.
- is best used for instant Soul Fire. Save your three Soul Shards for moments when is going to fall off and you don't have time to hard cast Soul Fire.
- Rain of Fire is the main AoE spell with if close enough and Havoc on the mob likely to die last.
Important spells for all specs
- should be favoured over in basically all PvE situations.
- Chaos Brand is an essential debuff! It is applied by all Assassination Rogues, Unholy Death Knights and Balance Druids but if none of those particular specs is present in your raid then you should apply the Curse yourself. Hunters can also apply the debuff but it is very rare that they would ever do so.
- is a very important buff for all Warlock specs but it's reciprocal and needs a partner that uses periodic spells. More information here.
- is a new ability with Cataclysm that gives the caster a buff depending on the current pet. Use it as often as possible and combine with other buffs whenever practical.
- should always be maintained, cast immediately after summoning a new pet.
- Demonic Circle and Demonic Circle: Teleport are a pair of abilities that have situational use but it is such an interesting ability that it is worth keeping it in mind during any fight that requires you to move.
- can be used whenever you're forced to move and do not need to cast any other instant ability. It is also worth using if you have 4pieces of Tier 11 gear and get (proc).
- Life Tap deserves an honourable mention. A signature Warlock ability most used by Affliction currently but available to all specs when they need mana.
Return to ContentsMinions
Best MinionOptional/Situational AfflictionDemonologyDue to the strength of a Felguard's
effect and the relative weakness of the Felhunter's, swapping pets to get the best buff
is advised. Use
when it's available but do "hard cast" (cast despite the long cast time) when it isn't.
Destruction- Summon Imp - There aren't really any alternative options
Guardian Pets:- Summon Doomguard does excellent single target damage and is the best choice for almost all Raid boss fights.
- Summon Infernal does AoE damage which is less useful but worth bearing in mind if you need burst AoE.
In either case Guardian Pets take a snapshot of the caster's stats when they are summoned which they use until they despawn even if your own stats decrease. As such it is best to trigger them along with strong buffs to your character sheet stats like trinkets, racials and potions. Be sure to Summon the Guardian
after the other effects are in place.
Haste buffs such as Heroism/Bloodlust do not appear to affect guardian pets.
Return to ContentsGlyphs
Glyphs ordered by strength-
Spec Prime Major MinorAffliction - Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
NoStrongOptions
Demonology- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
Destruction- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
- Charred Glyph
Notable Major Glyphs:The Major Glyphs listed in the table above are the only ones that directly increase damage. However, the effect of the Glyph of Life Tap and Glyph of Shadow Bolt are incredibly small over the course of the fight so even these should be considered optional if you have a strong use for the more utility-based glyphs.
For some "interesting" experiments with glyph and pet options take a look at
this threadReturn to ContentsStats
Stat Priorities:
Affliction:- Int
- Hit
- Haste
- Crit
- Mastery
Demonology:- Hit
- Int
- Mastery
- Haste
- Crit
Destruction:- Int
- Hit
- Mastery
- Crit
- Haste
Hit Cap:
- You need 102.45 Hit Rating to get 1% increased chance to hit
- The hit cap for heroic dungeons is 6% or 615 rating
- The hit cap for raids is 17% or 1742 rating
Haste:
Haste Rating reduces the time between ticks of a Damage over Time spell. With enough Haste this will provide extra ticks on a single spell cast. However, you will almost always be able to refresh a DoT spell before it falls off meaning that even before you have enough Haste for a full extra tick you still gain the benefit from the Haste rating.
The only spec that really needs to concern itself with specific Haste levels is Destruction because
Conflagrate does more damage if you have enough Haste for your
Immolate to gain extra ticks.
The Haste rating requirements for
Immolate are:
+Ticks
%
Rating
Goblin
1 9.9% 218 90
2 30% 2589 2437
3 49.9% 4951 4776
4 70% 7326 7127
(this assumes fully raid buffed)
It's generally best not to worry too much about Haste caps beyond Destruction being aware of those Immolate numbers. Just follow the stat weights and do your best to refresh DoTs between the second-to-last and final tick.
For reference a
very thorough spreadsheet covering Haste caps for all DoT spells can be found
here - credit to
KeldionT13-Heroic Stat Weights:
Int SP Hit Crit Haste Mastery
Affliction T13H 4.4573 3.3994 3.6450 2.0835 2.2968 1.6449
Demonology T13H 4.3969 3.3452 5.0422 2.2116 2.5742 3.2801
Destruction T13H 4.3875 3.4470 4.3021 2.0384 1.8601 2.0855
I strongly encourage the use of
SimulationCraft to get accurate stat weight for one's own character.
These stat weights are a decent guide but they will only tell you so much.
Reforging:
Reforging allows you to turn a portion of one of an item's stats into another more useful stat.
There are a few rules however:
- You turn 40% of a stat into the same amount of an alternative stat
- You cannot reforge to Intellect
- You cannot reforge to a stat already present on the item
Reforging is simple, you take the lowest value stat and turn it into the highest value stat.
This is most useful for acquiring the Hit cap without going too far over it. You take the lowest weighted stat (Crit or Mastery depending on spec) and reforge it all into Hit until you're capped, then start reforging it into the next highest stat (Haste).
Return to ContentsGems
The most important thing to understand before gemming your gear is that the socket colours allow you to unlock the socket bonus but they do not have to be adhered to. In most cases there is a big enough difference between the 'best' gem and the one needed for the bonus that it is best to ignore socket colours completely.
The general rule to follow when gemming is to use red gems in all sockets and only break this rule to fulfil the meta-gem requirement. All meta-gems have a requirement such as "Requires 2 blue gems" or "Requires 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 blue gem" and the meta will only become active when the requirement is met (you will be able to see if it is not activated as the text will be greyed out).
Although there are only 3 socket colours (red, blue, yellow), the socket bonuses and meta requirements can be fulfilled by the secondary coloured gems (orange, purple, green).
So blue sockets can accept a blue, green or purple gem; red sockets can accept a red, orange or purple gem; and yellow sockets can accept a yellow, orange or green gem.
Also, Prismatic Sockets (found on relics, added to belts by anyone and added to bracers and gloves by Blacksmiths)
do not require the use of Prismatic Gems. They have no socket colour and as such provide no bonus for colour matching.
The gems we use as Warlocks are:
Meta: Burning Shadowspirit DiamondRed: Brilliant Inferno Ruby -
Brilliant Queen's GarnetYellow: Reckless Ember Topaz -
Reckless Lava CoralBlue: Veiled Demonseye -
Veiled Shadow SpinelJewelcrafters: Brilliant Chimera's EyeReturn to ContentsEnchants
Slot Regular enchant Profession specificHead Arcanum of Hyjal Shoulders Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone Felfire Inscription Back Greater Intellect Chest Peerless Stats Wrist Mighty Intellect /
Hands Haste Belt Ebonsteel Belt Buckle Legs Powerful Enchanted Spellthread Master's Spellthread Boots Lavawalker Finger Weapon Power Torrent Off-Hand Superior Intellect Return to ContentsProfessions
The various professions in WoW essentially boil down into two categories, the good and the bad.
- Good:
Tailoring, Engineering, Jewelcrafting, Enchanting, Alchemy, Leatherworking, Inscription, Blacksmithing - Bad:
Skinning, Mining, Herbalism
Main profession benefits:
Alchemy:MixologyBlacksmithing: and
Enchanting:x2
Engineering:Herbalism:Inscription:Felfire InscriptionJewelcrafting:Brilliant Chimera's Eyex3
Leatherworking:Mining:Skinning:Tailoring:For some numbers on the relative strengths of the professions see
this threadReturn to ContentsTips, Tricks & Extra Bits
General DPS increasing tips:
- DO clip your DoTs - Get a good DoT timer addon and find a layout that you're comfortable with. This should help you see exactly when your DoTs are coming to an end and help you maintain 100% uptime, refreshing your DoTs between the second-to-last and final tick.
- Use your trinkets - The DPS that is attributed to certain trinkets on boards like this or 'elitist jerks' is based on the idea that the trinket's 'on use' effect will be used as often as possible. Trinkets can be powerful if saved for 'burn phases' (generally when the raid uses heroism) but if you're not used to saving them for these moments then it's much better to macro them into an ability and have them trigger whenever they're available.
- Enchant all your gear - your gear may be good but enchants and gems are hugely important. The rep enchants for head and shoulder slots are the most often ones to be missed.
- Don't match socket colours without good reason - When gemming your gear don't try too hard to match socket colours - unless it's for a metagem requirement, in many cases a straight +40 Intellect gem is the best option.
- Follow Stat Weights - Intellect is very strong so increase your Int whenever you can (gems/enchants). Hit is next and has a hard cap you can aim for.
- Max your professions - All professions give some benefits at high levels.
- Use a proper spec - The talent builds in this (and the other) stickies are carefully planned to provide the best ouput for your points.
- Spam that button! - When rotations say things like "spam shadow bolt" they mean it. Get a castbar addon like gnosis which shows latency as a red section on your cast bar. As soon as this portion is reached you should spam the button to try to reduce the effect that lag has on your DPS.
- Clicking is bad! - Clicking spells on your actionbar with your mouse will reduce your output in raids. Use keybinds even if they are just the default number keys. If you are a "clicker" it is entirely worth the small drop in your performance for a few days while you re-learn playing with keybinds.
Dark Intent:
is a reciprocal buff, you cast it on a raid member and you both get 3% Haste. However you also buff each other further every time one of your periodic effects crits. When you crit your partner gets 1% increased damage/healing-over-time and when your partner crits you get 3%. Both of these effects stack up to 3 times as long as they are refreshed within 7 seconds.
So it's important for you that you put it on someone that will proc the buff on you consistently and it's important for the raid that you put it on someone who will benefit the raid the most overall.
On boss fights DPSers are limited in the number of periodic effects they can use by the fact that there's generally only one target for the DoTs. Healers that use HoT effects don't have this drawback and can be very good targets for Dark Intent. However if your raid just isn't taking much damage you may find that they don't need to use as many HoTs and your lose uptime on the buff.
That said,
Restoration Druids (and to a lesser extent Holy Priests) make excellent, even ideal, targets for Dark Intent in terms of uptime.
If you're putting Dark Intent on a DPSer then you can follow this ordered list which is in order of benefit to the raid as a whole:
1Shadow Priest7Feral Druid13Assassination Rogue
2Balance Druid8Survival Hunter14Frost Death Knight
3Fire Mage9Retribution Paladin15Unholy Death Knight
4Elemental Shaman10Combat Rogue16Beast Master Hunter
5Frost Mage11Enhancement Shaman
6Arcane Mage12Marksman Hunter
credit to
Gherkin's guide.
This guide is thoroughly researched and shows information for the various Warlock specs as well information on uptimes and personal DPS gain.
Other Resources:
Glossary of Abbreviations:
- DPS - Damage-Per-Second. A measure of damage done, also a term used to describe the act of doing damage and a character who does damage ("doing DPS", "I am a DPSer")
- PvE - Player versus Environment. Any area of the game that doesn't involve playing against other players.
- PvP - Player versus Player - Playing in direct competition with other players
- DoT - Damage over Time - lots of warlock spells do damage over time instead of all at once.
- DD - Direct Damage - the counter part to DoT.
- AoE - Area of Effect - spells that do damage to more than one target.
- HoT - Howl of Terror (in other contexts refers to Heal over Time)
- SB - Shadow Bolt
- SiLi - Siphon Life
- SL - Soul Link
- iSF - Improved Soul Fire
- SF - Soul Fire (sometimes used to describe shadowfury depending on context)
- LT - Life Tap
- DS - Drain Soul
- DL - Drain Life
- UA - Unstable Affliction
- VW - VoidWalker(pet)
- FH - Felhunter(pet)
- FG - Felguard(pet)
- ISB - Improved Shadow Bolt
- BoA - Bane of Agony
- CoE - Curse of Elements
- CoEx - Curse of Exhaustion
- CoW - Curse of Weakness
- BoD - Bane of Doom
- SnF - Shadow and Fire
- FnB - Fire and Brimstone
- Meta - Metamorphosis
- CB - Chaos Bolt
- DPCT/DPET - Damage Per Cast Time / Damage Per Execute Time. This is a measure of the amount of damage a spell does in comparison to the time it takes to make it happen.
- CD - Cooldown
- GCD - Global Cooldown
- MC - Molten Core
- RoF - Rain of Fire
- SoC - Seed of Corruption
- GoX - Glyph of <spell name> (i.e. GoLT = Glyph of LifeTap)
Return to Contents(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##asakawa##DELIM##
Post by Metalfenrir
@.@... this is an entirely different level of formatting, this is practically an art form. Very good stuff in here! Its nice to see you back in the FAQ/Guide seat, although its shame we lost Killo100 :(
Its like 4 in the morning, so I can't look at all this right now, but I did notice one thing.
The 8% spell damage debuff is also applied by unholy dks via
Ebon Plaguebringer. Thats the only thing out of place I've noticed, excellent work Asakawa
@ Mohack
Hit is our most important secondary stat, so aside from enchants and gemming for int, it takes top priority. Capping hit is still a big deal, its just not as huge of a deal as it was in Wrath. It is still worth mentioning in the tips and tricks imo.