Fun in Regular Halls of Lightning

One of my friends has leveled a DK tank and he wanted to take it on a test drive. So we rousted together some people and hit the heroic daily, which was Utgarde Keep. I took Kikidas, because Ingvar drops a ring. It's better than the rings I have. So I went.

When I joined the group, I got a swell of heart-ache and longing remembrance, as Agurtzane said, "Nooo! I wanted JUST ONE CHANCE to hold aggro!"

Of course, it would have helped if he had been in frost presence instead of unholy! (Remind me to tell you guys about the hunter in our Ulduar-10 that had on Pack during the Deconstructor.)

So after a few wipes (well, I kept dying, so as far as I'm concerned... wipe) where I kept going, "I don't know WHY I'm pulling aggro! I'm waiting!" I finally notice that the tank is not in frost. I gleefully point it out, gloating that it wasn't my warlocky badness that was causing me to pull aggro. I, dare I say, was innocent.

We go on through the instance, la-de-da, kill the boss, la-de-da, no ring, poop, and we try to get him the tanking trinket out of regular HoL. Kikidas doesn't need anything out of regular HoL (not that any of my 80's do), so I decide to take Kvasira just to make it a nice quick run.

Heehee. I need to run regular instances more often! I was almost hitting 4k DPS on everything. *glee* I know it means nothing... but it still made me squeal in delight and fuzzy warmth.

So fuzzy. So warm. Like curling up with a kitten of epic DPS proportions.

And once Frost presence was on, Agurtzane kept threat really well... except for when I opened with Divine Storm...

C'mon people, I need the BIG NUMBERS! Aggro be damned. (It isn't like every tank doesn't have to get massive amounts of AoE threat right away with ANY ret paladin that they run with. I was just training the new tank appropriately.)

On a side note... I'm still having issues figuring out a good single or duo-target trash rotation. For quick deaths, rain of fire seems to do better than SoC? But other than that, is it SB, SB, DL?

Ridiculously Lucky

I (as Kikidas) had been in an OS25, which was an odd run in and of itself because the DK leader tried to not invite other DK's (or melee... curious that, dontchathink?) because of the DK tier token shares it with rogues, druids and mages.

Yet he had like, 5 mages. Go fig.

Anyway, so I finish the OS25 (getting nothing, lesigh), and I'm in Dalaran when the shout comes out that they need reinforcements!

I sigh to myself and note that I need an upgraded headpiece and appppparently, the Titan-forged Hood of Dominance is the one to get if you can get it. And to get it, you need 40 marks of Wintergrasp.

So I go do my duty and "help" take Wintergrasp.

And I see someone call out in LFG that they're forming a VoA25.

And I ask if I can join. And I'm in. And somehow, I'm given assistant. And we fill the raid up. I try for balance, so I didn't invite more than 3 DK's (despite the zillion and ten who wanted in the raid), tried to keep it at 3 mages and hunters, but we wound up with 4 and 4. A few rogues, a few druids, a few warriors, some priests, one pally, a few shaman... but no other warlocks even asked to come in (seriously, no one asked!). So I'm the only warlock.

And the Watcher goes down. And Seraphelia looks at the loot and says, "Damn it, three warlock pieces."

I laugh, certain he's jesting. But he says he isn't. And I nearly kill myself in the Watchers cloud o' gas trying to see... oh frabjabulous day... he isn't kidding.

Valorous Plagueheart Robe, Valorous Plagueheart Leggings and Deadly Gladiator's Felweave Trousers all dropped. And they start the rolls and someone politely points out (it wasn't me, either!) that there's only one warlock. And he asks if I want all of it...

I say, "Oh that would be kind of you, thank you."... okay, what I really said was "YES! :D :D :D"

I am ridiculously, undeservedly lucky.

Giving up the Ghost

... I tried, really I did. And in a perfect world, I did well.

But as soon as I started missing Shadowbolts, my DPS tanked.

And I hit a plateau with my DPS that I felt I should have been above.

So...

I went and got Haunt. Stinky yucky Haunt. And I immediately went to the Heroic Dummy and shot at it a few times and sighed sadly as my DPS effortlessly jumped up higher than I've ever gotten it with intense concentration.

Damn you. Damn you to Hell!

...

Where YOU is Absitively the Warlock, as well as Blizzard in general.

Pushin' 1800

I took Kikidas into a few heroics yesterday (Thank you, Boon!) and watched as her DPS on bosses climbed from approximately 1400 to about 1800 as I got an upgrade here or there.

Granted, as a mostly affliction warlock, my overall DPS still needs some help... but my DPS on bosses was actually pretty nice. I find myself all nostalgic about the good old days.

My rotation on trash is to slap Corr/CoA on them all and then SB spam until I need to reapply.

My rotation on bosses is currently UA, Corr, CoA, SL, SB until I need to reapply. I think this needs working on. I have improved SB, so I may try to hit SB first to apply the debuff before I apply the others. And with the loss of SL coming soon, I will soon be able to start SB spam far sooner. I think I need to go back to the training dummy and smack it around a bit until I'm sure I have the best rotation I can get out of my hybridized spec.

One of the things I took OUT of my talent build was Dark Pact. I love it and I miss it, but with a pet that sometimes winds up dying in boss AoE/Splash damage, I can't rely on it.

So I'm having to be more conscientious of my mana bar than I have been in the past, in terms of when it's safe to life tap and when I may need to drain life or if the healer has the time to spare to catch me up.

Either way, having fun! And.. given that my guild seems to have way too many melee DPS and no ranged DPS, hopefully in a bit I can be an alternative DPS for when we just can't swing another melee'er into the group.

The Fall of Naxxramas (10), etc, etc

Yes... Knights of Utopia has cleared Naxx-10.

(Woot woot!)

We tend to run a very melee-heavy raid, which just won't work with K'T... so we had our resto druid respec Boomkin and I took my restoration shaman instead of my retribution paladin.

We had 3 DK (1 tank, 2 dps), 1 rogue, 1 warrior (tank), 1 boomkin, 1 hunter, 1 paladin (healer), 1 priest (healer) and 1 shaman (healer). And of course, what would drop?

Yes, that's right. On K'T we had 2 ranged dps and 5 melee classes. We're insane, what can I tell you!

And yes, of course Death's Bite dropped! I sobbed brokenly as I congratulated the DK that won it. And drooled on it, so that it slipped out of his hand and broke his foot, but hey.. I can't help myself.

I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't seem to upload Kikidas into the system so that it actually takes a look at her freakin' stats/abilities. Because I don't HAVE Haunt, because I WANT to try a UA/Ruin build first. Because I want to actually have some utility on things that live less than 2 minutes. :P So sue me. And get off my back. My blog. My warlock.

STOP JUDGING ME!

Ahem.

So I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't figure out how to upload Kikidas. Anyone have any suggestions? They have a little 'input your realm and name here' (get) option, so if they don't really get the character, why do they offer that?

I played around with the dummies in Stormwind, swapping around gear and playing with rotation and abilities. I seem to push about mid 1500's. Now I need to get out of my crappy greens and find some dungeon drops.

In a sad sad side note, I was in regular Halls of Lightning yesterday with a somewhat underleveled group. A 78 DK tank, a 77 disc priest, a 78 mage, an 80 rogue and myself. Right? Okay... so will be a little tough, but should be doable, right?

The TANK... spent most of his time running away from fights and not tanking. No, that isn't me being sarcastic. He literally would turn and run away from a pull. Because he wanted to pull them to a very certain spot and if that didn't happen, he'd RUN AWAY. Because when an underleveled tank would face pull, that just didn't work for him, nosirree. *sigh*

He'd also let mobs get behind him and whack away at his back. So kept dying. When we accidentally pulled the boss the first time, he ran away, even though the group was at full health, full mana and was just waiting for him to pull the boss.

When he said he was doing that because he liked to pull the mobs further back rather than fight where they were, I very astutely pointed out that as the tank, he had these nifty abilities to hold aggro and move the mobs wherever he wanted them to be. Not only the ability to move mobs, but a neat benefit to that would be that his DPS would live and his healer wouldn't get one shot trying to keep the DPS alive!

We got through the fist boss (sob) after way too many wipes and time spent staring at the screen going, "Did the tank just run away, again?" ... with myself and the rogue tanking the lieutenants... thank god for fear. >< ...

... and then on our way to the second boss, even though he had asked for marking abilities to mark the mobs, he wasn't putting up away (I don't have the time! says he), so I go after what he seemed to be attacking first. And it said 'zomg, warlock! love warlock!' and came to try to hug me.

I did a death coil to make it go away from me and back up the stairs. The tank still was ignoring it. So it came back to me. So I did what any good warlock would do...

If I'm going to die, damnit, I'm taking the group with me!!! I feared it... and it went running to another group, naturally.

The priest said, "You gotta hold aggro." ... because the priest was getting whacked like every single time and almost dying ... a lot.

When the tank was like, 'wah, it wasn't my fault! someone pulled another group!'

I said, 'Nope, not your fault. But you still have to hold aggro. I accidentally grabbed another group because I was being attacked. Sorry guys.'

And the tank says, 'emo emo, QQ, I'm gone!' and leaves.

And we pull in a level 80 feral druid and the run goes super smooth after that. (one wipe on Ionus, but that was more bad luck than bad skill)

Amazingly, I think it had something to do with the fact that the tank didn't run away from pulls? Possibly? I can't tell for sure.

I mean, obviously the extra levels on the tank undoubtedly helped, but I really don't think that was the reason we had a problem in the beginning. Just really don't think that was the case at all.

And then back to raid stuff, we took a shot or three at Malygos. Gonna be interesting to see how next week goes.

Warlock: Potential Level 80 Build

So, I obviously just blogged about what I may try to do later in the game. And I'm thinking this may be it.

Devastation vs. Haunt

I opted to go with Devastation versus Haunt. This means I don't get Everlasting Affliction to rebuff my Corruption, unless I decide to use Drain Life in the middle of a fight, but if I'm planning on keeping Shadow Bolt as a good portion of my spell rotation (and yes, I have to play with this, a LOT, because I have no idea what the spell rotation will be, or how applicable keeping SB in my rotation will be... Geeze people, I'm only level 73. I'm not clairvoyant.), I'd rather have 5% crit for said yummy-bolts-of-death and worry about the GCD instead. Besides which, what I said previously about the Haunt-Spell-Cycle precluding Shadowbolting still holds true....

I will miss the boost to DoT effects that Haunt gives. Damnit.

No More Shadowburn

While Shadowburn is going to figure highly in my leveling build, because damnit I LIKE it and it's so nice to have an instant cast spell to finish off that mob that's just so annoyingly clinging to life... let's face it, on boss fights, it usually isn't applicable unless you have a zillion and ten shards to spare. Granted, I loved using it on the Curator during Evocation, shard be damned, but overall, not as useful as something else would be. So sadly, in my proposed level 80 spec, it goes buhbye.

Unstable Affliction and Pandemic

I'm a leeeetle iffy on this right now, basically because currently my crit chance is 13%. Which means if I spend the points in UA and Pandemic right now, I have a 13% chance / tick of causing 100% more damage from that tick? That's how I'm reading it right now. Anyone see anything different? Currently, I plan on keeping it, because if I am going to go with a hybrid spec, I imagine that I'll be boosting my spell crit chance a bit more than I was.

Destruction!

Damnit, I'm looking deeper at the Destruction tree and I see some things that are making me twitch with desire. But I'll play with Affliction first before I see if the grass is indeed greener on the other side.

COMMENTS WELCOME

Please, unload your thoughts if you have a lock, especially a level 80 lock, about what I'm thinking. I won't be offended really. I've done hybrid before when everyone was telling me I was a dummy, so I'll really be okay with you guys saying I shouldn't be hybrid. But what I'm really looking for is commentary in the form of, "Have you considered this hybrid spec, because of X, Y and Z".

Kikidas @ 73 : 43/0/21

That's right. I respecced.

And not surprisingly, I'm enjoying it more than I was. I do plan on going as deep into affliction as I can, while trying to retain my Devastation, Ruin and Shadowburn. Which won't work for anyone, but I'll play with it.

What do I mean by it won't work? We'll touch on that in a second.

Also not surprisingly... I'm not dying anymore.

I know it's just a matter of playstyle. Lots of warlocks dot up tons of mobs and kite them around in circles until they all die.

And yes, that is hilariously fun, but it doesn't suit my playstyle.

Now, why won't Devastation and Ruin work for deep affliction? First of all, to get Haunt, you can't get Devastation.

Secondly, everything I'm reading of a full deep affliction cycle has barely any time to cast even the occasional SB to get the debuff from ISB, or if you're going for Shadows Embrace before you hit the mob with Haunt... that why should I have Ruin (increases crit bonus of my destruction spells by 100% at max rank)? I won't ever be casting it. Arguably it would increase the crit bonus of my Immolate, but really?

So I have a lot of playing to do.

So saying, my hare-brained hybrid spec worked well for me in TBC, even though no one else I knew had something anything close to it.

Maybe a new hare-brained hybrid spec will work for me in WotLK too.

We'll have to see what I can come up with, shall we?

Who are you and what have you done to Kikidas?

I hereby qualify the following with this disclaimer: I am on a laggy laptop. I don't have Necrosis on said laptop. I can't tab target on the laptop. And I've been spending a vast majority of my time lately running around in plate and 18k health.

So, yesterday I spend a little time on Kikidas. I log in, I briefly reaccustom myself to what spells I have in my hotbars and etc, etc. And I head on out to do quests.

I have Boon in my party, just to chat while he levels up his engineering.

And I'm out in the Dragonblight and I ride along the way I have habitually ridden along for ages upon ages. Meaning I ride straight to my goal, stop to see what I have chasing me and then get jusssst a little further to make them 'leave combat', or I stop and kill them if there's just one or two.

Of course, this plan backfires BADLY when you get knocked off your mount... when you're level 72. When you have 8k health. When you're on a laptop. When you're surrounded by mobs that are level 73.

So I died.

...

Then I resurrected and wound up dying again because the stupid mobs were still within range to aggro me.

...

I safely resurrect, get my quest done, head on my way.

...

And die in another group of mobs that knocked me off my mount.

...

And Boon is going, "Uh... K?"

...

And I grumble, "Shut up."

...

And then I'm doing the quest out at Ruby Dragonshrine, where you have to help the NPC's kill things. And I somehow manage to ride off my mount right into the middle of a huge gang of ghouls and geists. And I for some reason decide that opening up with several SoC is OBVIOUSLY the best way to get the quest done as quickly and efficiently as I can.

And the ghouls and geists decide I look extra tasty. And I stupidly parked myself very close to them.

And I die.

...

And Boon says, "Who are you and what have you done with Kikidas?"

...

On a side note, while I think deep affliction is going to be tasty tasty tasty, I think I'm going to, while leveling, respec to my old hybrid spec so I can get some bang along with my buck. And as I level up, I'll spend more points to get deeper into affliction. We shall see.

Damnit. I've been spoiled by the Light. This is unacceptable. :(

I need to go kick some puppies and read some LFG.

The B!tch is Back

Elton John put it best...

I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, oh the bitch is back, stone cold sober as a matter of fact, I can bitch, I can bitch, 'cause I'm better than you, it's the way that I move, the things that I do. Oh oh oh!

Kikidas has been dusted off as of yesterday and put back into the game! I spent most of yesterday afternoon running around and dotting up 5-7 mobs at once and then collecting loot off of their dessicated corpses.

It was delicious. My only problem is that they're dying too fast sometimes, I'm having a hard time timing Soul Drain appropriately. What's the use in them dying if I don't get a soul shard out of the deal?

She just finished up Howling Fjord (I was 10 quests away from the achievement, so I finished up a few) and one of the quests was The Cleansing. And I ask you, I honestly ask you... why did I have to kill my 'inner turmoil'. She was great! The things building within me all my life... oh, yes. Yes please! We can kill so many things together!

If only my inner turmoil wasn't such a megalomaniac, what wonderful things we could have accomplished together!

Oh well, more loot for me, I guess.

Now I'm finishing up the Wrathgate. So. Much. Fun.

7500 DPS in H.MrT!

Okay, sure... it was on the little arcane worms and I was SoCing my little heart out... but it was so very pretty to see!

My first instance running deep affliction with Kikidas with the new 51 point talent and ... wow, you don't have time to do anything but CoE-Haunt-UA-Imm-Cor-SL-SB... before you have to start recasting everything again!

I have to play with my rotation, very obviously. Because most mobs were dying before I was done casting even one 'rotation'. I've always been a fan of Corr-SBspam for trash. Boss fights, once that last a while longer, I need to figure out the best rotation for spell casting. Since I'm new to both Haunt AND Unstable Affliction, I need to figure out how to work their cooldowns in with everything else I need to do. It would also help if I could get my DoTimer up and running again.

Overall, my average DPS was 920something. Which is about 100 more than I typically run in your 'average' run.

The boost to tank threat is more than enough to offset my loss of blessing of salvation. I only pulled aggro from Owaru once or twice, and then only because I was being a baaaaaad baaaaaad DPS.

*giggle*

The one, the only... Kikidas!

If you do a search for Kikidas on the armory... you get just one. Me. I'm special. That and I will hunt you down and destroy you if you take my name.

It's mine. My own. My precious!

With the advent of the new and improved 51 point talents, my hybrid spec has gone the way of the dodo and $1.99 gas.

The question became, which spec do I pick? I've always been fond of affliction. I've only been demonology once, and that was way back in 'classic wow'. And even then, I was a hybrid with a lot of points in affliction.

Why do I like affliction so very much? People think of warlocks and they think fire and brimstone and demons! When I think of warlocks, I think of DoTs that just don't stop and life tap and drain life and siphon life. That aspect of play to me is so much more satisfying. Because otherwise I should just roll a mage! And I have one of those already, thanks though!

(I jest, there is more to a shadowmage or firelock than spamming ranged spells. I can't think of what they are, but I'm sure there's more to it.)

And for a while, it bothered me that the only love affliction locks got was as a 'raid buff' character. Oh? Are you affliction? Do you have malediction? No. You suck. Go away.

Now, while the role of the affliction lock has been locked in place as a raid buff character by raid wide Blood Pact, the love that affliction locks have recieved makes me giggle.. chortle.. gleefully contemplate killing stuff with Kikidas again.

I'm not one to just go off of what other people say that I should do with talent specs. Do I read? Yes. Do I think about what I read? Yes. But it's my choice .. which explains my hybrid spec that no one else seemed to have other than a footnote in WoWWiki.

My new spec is deep affliction... (and keep in mind, the talent tree that is currently used on the website is outdated) because who could pass up a 51 point talent like Haunt? Let me think... I can damage the target, increasing my DoT damage by 20%, and then I get healed for 100% of the damage that I just did?

Yes please!

And all the spell damage boosts and a few haste boosts and oh, it's just yummy. What I need is for recount to work again so I can judge how well I'm doing comparatively.

I do believe this patch got rid of a lot of hybrid specs that were floating around, because in order to get to the 'defining' spells or abilities, we have to sink more points into the tree. And then at that point, it's worth it to just keep going.

My only class that so far I have that did NOT take the 51 point talent is my priest. But I'll talk about that later.

Pure Warlocky Awesomeness

A few people in our guild have decided one last hoorah to try to get the Champion of the Naaru title. Which means doing the Cipher of Damnation quests out in Shadowmoon Valley.

Boon needed to get the Ciphers done. And that means killing Ruul. And we're out there and we're advertising to try to get a few more people to come kill Ruul. It was early enough that our usual crew weren't home yet.

So Boon looks at me, I was Kikidas at the time, and says, "I think we can duo him."

And I say, "Are you nuts?"

And then I pop my trinkets and go to town. Boon, being a paladin, just keeps healing me. And I just keep dark pacting and life tapping and keep killing and killing and killing.

And he's down.

And then one of our guildies comes online and needs to get Gorefiend's armor from the undead dragon. And the tank we bring out there with us doesn't have the spectrecles, nor has ever done the volcanic ash quest to even make them.

So I say, "I'll tank!" and I pop my trinkets and go to town.

<3 warlocks.

(A little nervous here about the life tap 'nerf'. I loves me my life tap.)

Seduce: Banish: Fear

Warlocks have three forms of crowd control. And we can use all three at the same time (which makes the warlock the superior crowd control class.).

We can seduce humanoids with our succubus.
We can banish demons and elementals with a spell.
And we can fear lots of things with another spell.

No where do you see a warlock doing multiple CC's as much as you see it in MrT. And maybe the big pulls in Slabs.

In MrT, a lot of the groups come in sets of five. Or six. They usually include one demon (Sister of Torment) and lots of humanoids.

So you, the uber-warlock that you are, have your succubus out for seducing and are ready to banish the demon and maybe if one of the other people lose it, fear-yo-yo a third. (Remember, DPS is for wussies. You are all about the CC, locky!)

If you're using a focus macro, it can hopefully be done easily. Just remember, you can't have two focuses, so don't use a focus macro for seduce and banish.

However, if your focus macro decides to NOT WORK ever, and you have no idea why since you haven't done anything to it and you aren't using both focus macros for seduce and banish... then you have to do things the hard way.. manually.

Which can be done and done well if you're quick with the mouse or tab-targetting. But it is a little sloppy.

You can't reseduce until the old seduce wears off. A good seduce macro will include some form of stop-cast on your succubus, so she stops her previous cast and recasts at the same time, same button. Is nice.

However, manually, you'd have to click follow, then seduce. I guess it could work that way, but oy... so annoying. Otherwise, you have to watch our dot timers (which should include seduce) and as soon as it ends, you should have the seduce target targetted and be ready to click seduce.

You also can't rebanish until banish is out. This isn't a macro thing, it's simply you cannot rebanish something until it's not banished anymore. Stupid Blizzard. Sure, you can RESHEEP something... grumble.

So, again with the dot timer... when it hits 2s, wait half a second (or a breath, whichever is easier for you to calculate), then recast your banish.

If you are using necrosis, there is a banish button on the necrosis module, a left click should cast rank 2, a right click casts rank 1. If you're close to being ready to take the banished mob, then try to slap a rank 1 on it. It makes everyone happier.

As for fears... ah, lovely lovely fear. Our bread, butter, joy and happiness.

Remember that fear-yo-yo is a finely turned art. If the mob gets too far away, it can run into something else and you wind up ... all sorts of dead.

Curse of Recklessness is your friend. Don't forget it. Ideally, you'd be able to pull said mob well away from where it could run into something else, so you can fear freely and openly, without the use of curses. Especially if you're also handling a seduce and a banish.

Otherwise, you're standing between feared mob back in the cleared area, and the group you're fighting currently, and are having to swivel around and around to make sure all your targets stay under lock and key.

Is it doable? Yes.
Is it fun? Hell no.

Seduce Macro: shift+macro clears last focus, sets new focus.
#show Seduction
/clearfocus [modifier:shift]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/petstay
/petfollow
/stopcasting
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,exists,harm] Seduction; Seduction

I don't use a chain fear macro. I tried one once, didn't like it. Since fearing is, for a vast majority of time, something you need to watch closely, I don't like simply using a macro and forgetting about it.

I cannot find on the interwebs where my banish macro is... so I'll have to look at my character in game. So I'll have to edit it in later. So you'll just have to wait.

To imp, or not to imp: that is the question:

I've touched on this in the past and have agreed to disagree in the past with other warlocks over this subject.

I originally posted it because we had a low performing warlock in our Karazhan runs that was demonology/destruction. And they'd bring out and sac their succubus instead of giving the tanks the Blood Pact buff.



I had someone, presumably a high performing demonology/destruction warlock tell me that warlocks shouldn't feel obligated to sacrifice their DPS to give the tanks a fort buff.

I disagreed then and I still disagree now (with qualifiers, as most things have).

Blood Pact at max rank (non improved) gives 66 stamina. Improved it gives 86.
Stamina improves health by 10 health points per one point of stamina (10.5 if you're a tauren!).
Feral druids recieve an additional 20% if they have Heart of the Wild (tauren druids 25%).

(In an aside, c'mon Blizzard. Favor Horde much? ... Ooh, next blog idea. Racial imbalance.)

That's 660 health or 860 health depending on if you have an improved imp or not. I don't do math, so I'm not going to figure out how much feral druids would get.

(caveat: My values are obtained by research through WoWWiki. Please point out any errors.)

So the question becomes... when does it become more valuable to a raid to have a demonology specced warlock keep out (or sacrifice) their minion versus keeping an imp out for blood pact?

That's a very tricky, subtle, variable line.

Master Demonology gives you a variety of buffs if you have out certain minions (or if you sacrifice certain minions with Demonic Sacrifice).

Demon: . . Master Demonology: . . . . . . . . . . .Demonic Sacrifice
Imp: . . . . .Decreases threat by 20%: . . . . . . . Fire Damage increased by 15%
Succubus: Increases (spell) damage by 10%: Shadow Damage increased by 15%

In the beginning, when we were starting Karazhan, our tanks needed every little bit of health they could get, to counteract long drawn out boss fights and low healer mana pools (and low tank health pools). Underperforming DPS raidwise that couldn't be made up by one person increasing their damage by 10 or 15%.

Now, our runs are staffed by awesome healers and tanks that are close to 19k-20k health buffed (14-15k unbuffed). Is that extra bit of health worth it? Not for the tanks necessarily, but I still say it's situational.

Splash damage can effect the 8k health priest, who may benefit from that extra 600-800 health? (Counterargument is that healers should be able to keep people up, and there's a reason we have minimum health requirements for raids. Additionally, a high performing warlock that's performing even higher? Possibly the difference between a raid wipe and a raid success.)

(Case in point: This last weekend we downed Halazzi in ZA. Both tanks were dead at 4% boss health. We still downed him. One of the last DPS still standing was our Demonology warlock. Was that the difference? It's unlikely that the blood pact buff would have saved anyone in that group, but the extra DPS could have been the difference!)

For the warlocks who complain that they have to hit soul shatter early and then back off on DPS because they're hitting the threat cap ... having the imp out for the reduction in threat (20%!!!) may be beneficial, and then they can buff the group as well.

We ask people all the time to not DPS to their utmost for the benefit of the raid. We have mages in ZA who spend several fights doing nothing but chain-sheeping mobs. We sometimes need to have hunters chain-trap mobs in the Moroes fight if we're short on priests.

Do we need to have them do it all the time (mages in ZA, sorry.. you're out of luck!), no. But we don't hesitate to expect someone to stop DPSing to help the raid.

A drop in 10 or 15% of their damage to benefit the raid (or allow them to keep DPSing with that tasty 20% threat reduction)... where do you draw the line? When do you say their DPS isn't as important as the extra health?

Has anyone calculated how much more damage they could do if they could go nuts on the boss with 20% threat reduction? In addition to the 30% of salvation? The 2% on their cloak? If they have Destructive Reach, 10% on their SB and Immolate?

C'mon, who isn't drooling at the thought of a 52/62% threat reduction for their top damaging class that sometimes has to simply STOP damaging at all to stay below the tank in threat?

So I've moved SLIGHTLY from my original thoughts.

At very high health pools on tanks and healers and DPS, the small amount of health from blood pact may not be worthwhile ...

(though we still expect our Kings and Fortitude buffs. Why don't we say that little bit of health isn't worthwhile, either? Where do we draw the line on that? We eke out every last little benefit we can get to buff ourselves, why are we not demanding Blood Pact? And yes, I hear you demonology people going: We're ekeing out the most of our damage with that tasty 10-15% damage increase!)

(Maybe the difference is that Kings and Fort doesn't negatively affect the classes casting them, whereas Blood Pact could technically negatively affect the warlock as they then lose out in proverbial damage done.)

... while the increase in damage may be.

At lower health pools or where lots of people may be taking damage or for the mage tank in Gruuls...

Do you see my point? (Rambling and tangental though it may be.)

Where does the benefit to the raid outweigh the benefit to the individual? When does the benefit to the individual outweigh the benefit to the raid?

Such are the questions of our lives. I'm happy to hear comments, criticisms and thoughts! Because honestly.. where do YOU draw that proverbial line? And what is your rationale for drawing it?

Moardots! Increasing DPS and Damage Done

No, I didn't respec UA, don't get your hopes up.

However, based on what I reviewed earlier, about spell rotation and the website I had found, I made a few changes to my casting rotation.

I removed Immolate. I added CoE. I slapped up Corruption and Siphon Life and then I SB spammed until it was time to slap up Corruption and Siphon Life again.

Due to this, not using improved CoA... I wonder if I should respec slightly, since the only reason to use Amplify Curse is on Curator for CoD and for CoA. I shall have to ponder.

What I noticed is that instead of about 35% of my damage coming from SB, it jumped to nearly 50%.

I also noticed that I was getting more use out of the Improved ShadowBolt debuff, as I was able to almost always hit the mob with 4-5 SB's by the time it wore off.

Now true, some of my increase in damage tonight in ZA was due to shamelessly gleeful use of SoC. *nummy* But one fight where I wasn't AoEing, I topped 1k DPS. *squee*

What doesn't help me is that every so often in a boss fight, I have to just stop casting. I'll have already used soulshatter, and I'm still passing the tanks on Omen.

Just imagine what I could do if I didn't have to stop casting. Or just imagine what I'd have to NOT do if I didn't have salvation and subtlty on.

Love. Warlock.

By the way, I switched to Recount. I really do like it. Not only does it tell you what your overall DPS is, you can select current fight, overall information AND if you select your name, it breaks down what abilities you use for the damage... and if you select an ability, it breaks it down for you in terms of hit, crit, miss, resist, etc.

So, just a friendly reminder kids... even if you think you're already doing the most awesome and the best and there's nothing you could possibly change to do better...

Yeah. You probably could do something better or different or tweak yourself just that extra little bit. Sometimes the difference between a boss dying and a boss living is a holy night elf priest using Starshards everytime it's up. (See, tweak! It isn't very many of the night elf healy priests that use Starshards whenever it's available. It's a skill that now costs no mana to use and is no longer channeled. So, unless you're having to spam heal your tank (which is sometimes what is going on!)... why not use it?)

Grow and evolve. Provide moardots. Make your raid leader happy. Make yourself happy!

There's a lesson in life in this too. This doesn't apply only to the game. Now, naturally, you can't really cast Starshards on your boss, as much as you wish you could... but in every aspect of your life... there's always room for improvement, even if you're already awesome. :)

Leveling Goddess! and Other Things

In a grand total of 4 hours, I went from level 56 to level 58 on my RETRIBUTION (add CRACK-POW sound effect) paladin.

Then, since I'm going to stick with Teppou, Fyzzgig and Zeshura, I stopped leveling experience wise and instead went to get my mining skill up from 239 to 300, ready for Outlands! Otherwise I'd be 70 by the time they got to 58! (I jest! ... slightly, but it is a jest! I'd only be 68... not 70.)

So, I needed to get from 239 to 250 for Thorium. Right. Mithril it is. Badlands I went. Not too shabby if you ride back and forth across the southern zone wall. I hit the 250 mark and I said, finally, now I can go get Thorium. I went to a mining map website and looked at where they recommend. They recommended the Burning Steppes and lo and behold, the Burning Steppes isn't all that far from the Badlands. So that's where I went.

Big Mistake.

I spent 4 hours (long enough I could probably have been almost 60, if not truly 60, if I was actually leveling) getting to 300 mining skill out in the Burning Steppes. There were simply no nodes to be found. I had no competition (except one donkey's butt hunter that stole a node out from under me. No, really, he did. I was fighting something RIGHT ON TOP OF THE NODE, and it was almost dead. He rides up and starts to mine and stays in 'loot box' mode on the Rich Thorium that I was wanting to mine. I said, 'Uh, do you mind?' but apparently he didn't. I only saw him the once, otherwise, I was the only person in the zone it seemed.)

Afterwards, Teppou says the better place for thorium is EPL and Winterspring. Of course, he said that after I was 300.

Now I'm looking at leveling up my jewelcrafting on my paladin to 300.

I will admit, I am HEAVILY biased AGAINST leveling guides for experience and going up levels. Not that they aren't useful for people who may not know where to go and what quests to do. But I don't like them. As I mentioned above, I don't have a problem with leveling fast. (This probably has a little to do with having leveled 6 characters to 70 without a guide. I kinda know where to go now. I POSSIBLY would have used a leveling guide if it was my first or second character.)

(But then again, possibly not. I'm stubborn and hate 'following the crowd', as my asinine brain insists on calling it.)

(This probably explains my non-conformist warlock spec.)

(Are you getting tired of parenthesis yet?)

(I'm not.)

However, I am an absolute idiot when it comes to leveling crafting skills. My jewelcrafting is (was) 206. And I sit there and look at what I need and say, "Ooh, let me go get that." and I run out and I grab what I need and I make 4 items to get to 210. Then I look what I need and say, "Oooh, let me go get that." and I spend HOURS getting the materials to make 3 things. (I didn't do that second part yet. I got to 210 and then I said, 'Crap. I'm in Ironforge. I don't think there's a JC trainer in IF.'

I is dumb.

So I caved... I'm going to use a crafting guide to get my jewelcrafting to 300. I can hear Owaru now "It's not worth it!" he shouts. But you know me (or if you don't...), and I have to have a jewelcrafter. I have one of everything else (granted, my engineering is craptacular, but I do have an engineer!), so it's only natural that I have a jewelcrafter, too. I've been hoarding outland gems for a while so hopefully I can turn a little profit from them when I can start cutting gems... that and no more running to the AH everytime I upgrade a PoC piece and need 2 or 3 gems.

On a warlock aside...

I took Fyzzgig through Sunken Temple and my only wish is that SoC could have an instant proc the way Shadowbolt can with Nightfall. Owaru's words to that were, "The last thing you need is an instant SoC *shudder*.".

But truly, when you're mass clearing a low level instance, even though they aren't doing a lot of damage to you, you still get knockback on your casting bar. Which makes it really frustrating because the best way to clear something is to have a bunch of SoC on things so that when the first goes off, it sets the others off too. And then you have a bunch of dead mobs with 4 casts.

I managed it once, to get 4 off before I started to get hit. It was beautiful... bunches of purple lights and explody sounds, then the agonized groans of multiple dragonkin dying and hitting the ground. And clearing Jammal the Prophet's room was fun too, I'd SoC two things, then run over to a third group. Then I did the 'back up and DoT' thing, to avoid the ghosties. 'Twas much fun.

The best quote of the evening... well, there were many, but the funniest-warlock-related one was...

Owaru: "You think I go Ogrila?" (talking about the most heart-rending death saying.)
Kvasira: "No, you're going to HELL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Kvasira: "Oh wait, sorry. I was channeling Kikidas."

Frozen Shadoweave vs. Tier 4 or 5

So, in my journey of discovery that I've undertaken this week (what, didn't you know?) I've come across a few references where people compare FSW with Tier 4/5 gear, favorably.

So. Let's compare.

a. Shadow's Embrace / Spellstrike Infusion vs. b. Voidheart Rainment vs. c. Corruptor Rainment
(I can't get wowhead to pop up the cool little things, so you'll have to click!)

Now, the nifty thing about those links is they sum them up for you! Most of my work is already done. Woot woot.

The reason I list Shadow's Embrace with Spellstrike Infusion is that likely if you're sticking with those, you'll have both. Versus if you go full T4 or T5.

Now, I can't make nifty tables because I'm an idiot, so I'm going to go stat by stat comparison. Roughly.

Example: Longer Name: a. FSW/SI (35 letters) > b. VR (17 letters) = c. CR (17 letters)

Armor: c 907 > b 821 > a 734
-- armor is useful, but not essential for a warlock that isn't tanking.

Stamina: c 240 > b 183 > a 94
-- it's to be expected that the higher tier armor has more stamina, but of note is that the difference between stamina between B and A is almost double. In some instances, well, a lot of instances, you need a MINIMUM amount of stamina to survive. Most warlocks don't have an issue with that, but it's still something to keep an eye on.

Intellect: b 157 > c 146 > a 64
-- in this instance, B has more intellect than C, but only barely. But C has more than double A. Intellect increases your spell crit chance, not merely your mana pool. And while life-tap and dark-pact mean mana-pool-schmana-pool, they do nothing for your spell crit chance.

Healing: c 248 > b 203 > a 64
-- EDIT: Thanks to /emofire, I look like a moron! No, honestly thank you, Emo. :) So, according to WoWWiki, drain life, etc, does not benefit from +healing. So, does this only apply then to health funnel? What does it apply to? Do our bandages get a buff? Why the heck does our Tier armor have +healing? ... is it for those of us who want to secretly be shadow priests? Give it up, you can't heal anyone!... ahem.. So overall importance, depending on just which of our abilities it applies to (health funnel and bandaging??)... who the heck knows. I don't. Anyone?

Damage: Shadow: a 271 > c 248 > b 203; Fire: c 248 > b 203 > a 92; AVERAGE: c 248 > b 203 > a 181
-- This is the one place where, IMNSHO, A has a clear advantage over the others. You're a warlock. Unless you're destro-specced, (even if you are!) you do a lot of shadow damage. It's what we are. We're shadow-mages (only much cooler). However, it's boost to FIRE damage is pitiful and unless you're completely removing Immolate from your DoT rotation (some afflocks do), you're gimping yourself. I suppose destro-locks and firelocks possibly go Spellfire tailoring.

Spell Crit: c 88 > b 66 > a 50
-- If you're truly an afflock and you believe SB is for weenies, then this stat means nothing for you. However, even an afflock does a vast majority of their damage from SB. SB can crit. So, not so stupid a stat to look at, is it? The FSW set has ZERO spell crit. All the spell crit in this information comes from the SI set.

Spell Hit: c 65 > b 44 > a 38
-- Everyone needs spell hit. We all know the magic numbers. FSW set has ZERO spell hit.

Sockets: a 12 (2R, 5Y, 5B) > c 8 (6Y, 1B, 1Meta) > b 7 (3Y, 2R, 1B, 1Meta)
-- Though it lacks a meta socket, the sheer amount of gems you can put into set A makes it very customizable. A Great Dawnstone supplies +8 spell hit. If you ignore socket bonuses, you could get 96 spell hit in A, 65 in C and 56 in B. A Runed Living Ruby supplies +9 damage. Do the math, I'm lazy. Obviously, the more sockets you have, the more you can boost your gear. It's a nice versatility that so far, IMNSHO, is a saving grace of the mixed A set.

Set Bonus: There is no real rating for this, as the bonus of the set bonus varies from spec to spec and situation to situation.
A offers the chance for 92 spell damage for 10 seconds (SI) and 2% of shadow damage returned in the form of health (FSW). The FSW set bonus was rather nice to have when I was hateful bolt soaker in Kara and when I was farming, but personally, I'd rather have higher overall health and just siphon life.
B 2 pieces give you 135 fire or shadow damage chance, 4 gives your corruption and immolate abilities a 3 second boost in duration.
C 2 pieces gives your pet 15% of your damage in the form of life (hello demonology!) and 4 pieces cause your SB to increase the damage of your corruption by 10% and your incinerate to increase the damage of your immolate by 10%. (affliction or destruction)
IMNSHO, 2 pieces of B is better than 2 pieces of SI. What's really nifty if you could combine the two! Legs and Head of SI, two other pieces of B... then you could get a boost of 217 spell damage (fire or shadow) at any given time. Wouldn't that be nice?
I wish I had four pieces of C, since I'm a big fan of corruption. :)

Anyway... I guess this post could have come across better, maybe I can learn to put in a table and clean it up.

I suppose if you're looking in terms of just overall shadow damage and versatility, FSW/SI is the way to go. However, you take a hit in stamina, intellect, spell hit and spell crit and fire damage.

The nice thing is... my gear is mixed and matched! I'm wearing the FSW boots, T4 head, gloves, chest and legs and T5 shoulders. Though I've lost the FSW set bonus and obviously am no longer wearing the spell strike set, I evaluate gear on a gear by gear basis and upgrade to whatever is better, taking into consideration things like set bonuses and the like. It's a very individualized situation, where HOW you play and WHAT spec you play changes what gear works best for you. You don't HAVE to stick to only T4 or T5 or FSW/SI. You can do what I do, some T4, a T5, some FSW...

Maybe I'll make my first visit to Dr. Doom or Boom or whatever his name is with a few changes of gear and see what works best for me.

Addendum: Curses and Improved Corruption

A well timed curse is a warlocks best friend. It's instant. It's usually low mana and it can serve lots of different functions.

Curse of Agony/Improved Curse of Agony: Damage DoT. Not so useful for things that die quickly, since it ramps up damage towards the end of the curse. Amazingly useful for long lived mobs. If you have three warlocks in the group, the lock that has Improved Curse of Agony but not Malediction should be doing this one, leaving CoE and CoS to the Malediction or non-Improved CoA warlocks.

Curse of Weakness: Useful for those mobs that hit like Optimus Prime. Heroic bog lords in Underbog come to mind. It does not stack with other CoW's from other warlocks, so pick one warlock to do this and stick to him (best if it's improved curse of weakness). In general, not often used on bosses when CoS, CoA or CoE is far more useful in raids, unless you have an unheard of four warlocks in one raid group.

Curse of Recklessness: The best use I've seen for this is when you're fearing something but don't want it to go too far. Swap between CoR and CoW. CoR will bring it running back to you. CoW sends it running away again. (or any other curse, really.) I've also heard in PvP if you use it on a warrior who throws up spell reflect, you've suddenly become immune to fear.

Curse of Exhaustion: I don't have this one myself. It's a talent, not a purchased skill. Makes them run away slower.. or chase you slower. Whichever is more applicable to your situation at the time. Need to kite something? This is your baby.

Curse of Shadows: If you're in a raid group with multiple warlocks OR shadow priests, this is the curse of choice. A warlock with malediction should cast this over a warlock without malediction. Get together with your raid warlocks and figure out who has what curses improved.

Curse of Elements: If you have a mage in your group, this is your curse of choice. Again, Malediction Lock> Non Malediction Lock.

Curse of Doom: Useful for various bosses, the Curator being one that comes to mind instantly. Another one where it's useful is the end boss in ZA. He eventually becomes a form that, whenever magic is cast AT ALL, it damages the caster. If you slap a CoD on him about a minute before he transforms into the hawk form, and then try to keep that up whilst wanding, it works nicely.

Curse of Tongues: Used on various casting mobs. Increases casting time. It's used on a few boss fights and trash pulls in 25 man raids. Again, only one of these can be on a mob at the same time. So assign it to a particular warlock.

Amplify Curse is a affliction lock talent. I'm not 100% sure if it works with the CoS or CoE or any of those, but I KNOW it works like a lovely lovely charm with CoD on the Curator and also improves the damage output of CoA.

In general, CoE and CoS should be put up for anything -- trash mobs, etc, if there is a mage or shadow priest in the group. If you have 1 lock, 1 mage and 1 spriest, CoS is the way to go. If it's just a lock and a mage, pick whichever of them will boost the better DPSer.

5 points in the affliction tree will make your Corruption spell instant cast.
Did you hear me?
INSTANT CAST
Why wouldn't you get it?

You know you're cool when your clothes match...

From the beginning of the game, we get various 'sets' of clothing - some that don't have similar names, but were designed in such a way that they match. Undoubtedly this was done on purpose because no one likes looking like a hobo.

Except hobos.

However, at various times, in our quest to get better gear and upgrade ourselves, we wind up looking like we're either 1: seriously fashion deficient, 2: color blind or 3: both.

When Blizzard introduced the dressing room, we suddenly had a takeoff of a small subset of people who wouldn't wear things if they didn't make them look cool, despite any upgrades to stats they may get, unless they were actively in a dungeon or some other 'need the stats' activity.

People had always carried around (or had available) a 'town' outfit, probably a practice far more prevalent in RP servers than in nonRP servers. I myself did this, and fostered this for my guild, as a tailor who could make the Black Mageweave set (hello, sexy/slut!) for guild members, I was in high demand! I personally usually had my characters dressed in a robe of some sort, since to my eyes, they look better than slutwear! Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy slutwear myself, but at the same time... I'm trying to look respectable here! Or there. I was the co-guild leader and it was beneath me to look anything less than respectable!

Boon, the paladin, had a full set of something that made him look like a knight in shining armor. Everyone in the guild had a 'guild meeting' outfit that they wore specifically for any guild meeting, no matter what for. If you recall, I mentioned that my guild had its guild meetings RP style, in the world, at a set location, and with everything typed out.

It was a load of fun. People would farm for hours (or days!) for the mats to make their 'formal' gear. They had to look GOOD.

There were some outfits that weren't BoP that I would loan out to people who didn't have time to farm their own outfit, like the wedding dresses that are sold in Moonglade, I don't recall the actual name, hanbok? something like that. And of course, now there are the specific holiday related outfits and there's just so much fun clothing!

In my mind though, nothing looks so good as when you have REAL clothes that match. A full set of Hallowed Gear, or Voidheart, or whatever. 1: you match! Yay! 2: you kick ass! 3: c'mon, you get a thrill out of seeing yourself on your character select screen all matchy and kickassy. Admit it. You can't hide it from yourself!

We're a visual people. We like things that LOOK pretty to our eyes, be it a girl toon for a male player (the oft heard excuse: If I'm going to be staring at this thing for hours, it can at least look pretty!) or a matching set of gear, it says something immediately to us.

For those gear pieces that are obvious, where you can just look and not have to inspect to KNOW what they're wearing -- or at least (in the case of lookalike gear) the QUALITY of gear, everyone wearing the gear gets a big burst of pride. (C'mon, admit it. You take pride in being kickass and pretty.)

Anyway, last night I went and practically beggared myself by buying the primals to make 1: 4 bolts of primal mooncloth (2 tailors, 1 mooncloth tailor) and 2: 1 primal mooncloth belt.

.

(Okay, I'm not really beggared. I'm just not as rich as I normally am. I have 6 level 70's that are constantly questing, instancing and doing stuff. While I don't have enough to just buy myself an epic flying mount, neither do I usually have problems buying the Earthwarden off the cuff or loaning a guildy enough gold to get their regular flying mount.)

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My priest, Kiljara, had a level 68 green healing belt on previously. So this is, obviously, a big upgrade for her. Yay for tailoring!

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Kathe finally went and did Arc. It was cake. I'm working slowly on those SMV quest lines -- namely because I am doing them with two slackers! -- to get some more tanky gear for her.

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Kikidas is still merely awesome. (I haven't talked about my 'main' for a while. So here I go.)

Now, everyone obviously picks their spec particulars because they think either 1: it's the best or 2: their guild says 'change or we kill you.'. However, IMNSHO, there are a few things that every warlock SHOULD have and SHOULD do if they raid.

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A warlock in a raid serves a few very particular purposes.

1: soulstone

2: healthstone

3: banish duty/charm duty

4: improved imp bloodpact

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1: A soulstone is for use at the discretion of either your raid leader or your class leader. Who it gets put on. The person who has it put on also isn't at their discretion to use USUALLY. It's always polite to ask 'Should I use it?' before you go and do that, with some few exceptions. When it isn't a wipe saver (ie: Maiden) or when something is almost dead and just a few more heals is the difference between living/downing the mob and everyone dying for no reason. Sometimes a SS is put not on a wipe-saver but with multiple warlocks, on the person most likely to die and by dying have a big negative impact on the group. (#1 DPSer, tank, healer)

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2: Healthstones are important. I don't think I need to say too much about this. Don't forget to prompt your raid members for more, because they'll forget to ask.

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3: If you don't have a focus macro for banish and/or charm, GET ONE. If you're a warlock in a raid, then your primary function is DPS WHILE CCing. Not CC then DPS. Not DPS then CC. Both. At the same time. You're a warlock. Multi-task. A focus macro allows you to not have to switch targets back and forth between your CC target and your DPS target. (This applies to mages and druids, too!)

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(On a side note, any repeat-CC class can do this (unsure about hunters, but I'm sure there's something.), sheep, shackle, charm, banish, cyclone, hibernate...)

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I don't know the numbers, but your DPS is going to drop like a rock if you have to anticipate your target breaking, turn to find it, click it, then recast (or wait for banish to cool down before you recast). Alternatively, your CC target will run amok if you try to eke out the last few DPS you can before you re-CC.

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With a focus macro and a timer, you keep DPSing on your main target, you notice to yourself 'Seduce is ending in 3 seconds.', you finish your shadowbolt cast, you click your seduce focus macro, and then you go back to DPSing. No fuss. No muss. No more than a millisecond of time spent CCing.

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With banish, you do lose a little bit of time, but that's unavoidable. To avoid any break in your banish, let your timer click to 2, THEN macro. Banish is a 1.5s cast. It SHOULD hit just as your previous banish wears off. But still no fuss, no muss. No target running over and one-shotting the healer while you try to re-target it. The banish focus macro that is on WoWWiki has a modifier that lets you switch between rank 1 and rank 2 banishes, which is useful so you don't waste time waiting for the rank 2 banish to wear off when you know they're getting ready to switch to your mob. Incidentally, you do have to try to switch between rank 1 and rank 2 banishes during a certain boss fight in ZA, so it's useful to get used to how to switch between the two.

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4: This is an EXTRA 70 stamina your tanks can have. Not doing that is like a priest saying 'Sorry, I don't do fort buffs.'. Unless there are multiple warlocks in the group that can keep this buff on the tank group, you as the warlock don't get another option unless you need your succubus for CC or some other vitally important minion job. If you have another warlock keeping bloodpact on the tank, then go ahead and sacrifice if you're demon-spec, or DPS with it or whatever else you want to do with it. But if you're the one and only warlock in the raid group, then you keep that imp out. You keep him phased out, and if you're going to be positioned away from the main tank, you park him where the tanks will be standing.

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(In Gruul's lair, a warlock will be asked to park their minion by the mage-tank for the extra hit points.)

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The raid leader SHOULD say to any warlock that doesn't have their imp out 'Hey, will you get out your imp, please.', even if it doesn't have improved bloodpact, it's still more hit points for the tanks.

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IMNSHO.

Heroically ready and heroically dead!

Many many people of awesome talent, ability and gear are suddenly able to do heroics that they previously could not do, simply because they did not want to run the same instance.. over and over and over and over again to get the reputation. With the new patch, the reputation required to purchase your heroic key has been lowered to honored.

This is good news to the people I have mentioned above, those of talent, ability and gear! Note I said AND.

Something I've already encountered, and something I'm sure I will be encountering more and more are people who have talent, or ability or gear, but not talent/ability and gear.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'll be the first to say that it isn't gear that makes the player. I've partied with epic'd out idiots and with normally geared genius's. However ... to a certain extent, you need the gear to survive a heroic. You need to do the DPS. You need to do the healing. You need to survive the tanking. Whatever gear it takes to do that, you need to have it.

With the opening of heroics to people who are only honored, we not only get a lot more people trying to do heroics, which is all to the good if you've ever tried for 4 hours to get a tank for a single heroic run.... but all to the bad because now we'll be trying for 2 hours to get a tank for a single heroic run and die and die and die and wipe and die and wipe s'more if s/he isn't appropriately geared. I don't know about you -- I don't mind trying if there's a chance of success. I do mind mindlessly wiping when there isn't a snowballs chance in hell (unless you believe in Dante's version of hell, then it's a different story!) of success.

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE heroics. I went into heroics with blue gear and after tons of heroic runs, I'm now decked out in pretty pretty purple. And I had a blast doing it! But I was pulling my weight (even if at times it was slightly substandard) and I didn't try to do heroics that required ridiculous amounts of heroicness to complete. I think EVERYONE should do heroics. But just like everything else ... be prepared. Know what you're doing. Know what healing/dps/tankability you need to have to pull it off.

You'll die in heroics. I know this. You know this. Everyone knows this. But you shouldn't go from 100% durability to 0% durability and only be at the first boss because a: the tank keeps dying after two hits by a single mob, b: the healer spams their biggest, best heals and the tank just keeps losing health over a period of time until he's dead or c: the tank is doing great, the healer is keeping the tank up, but it's taking too long to kill the mob and the healer runs out of mana.

I love being DPS for just that reason. Even if I'm somewhat slacking in gear or ability, I have two other people who will hopefully make up the difference, though it will make the instance harder. Doable, but harder.

However, this doesn't mean that I should walk into Heroic Ramparts with green gear and 150DPS. That ain't gonna fly. But I do get some slack. A tank and a healer however, poor blokes, need to be at the top of their game because there isn't another healer to take over (in your typical 5-man), or another tank to take over if you just aren't up to doing the job.

Oh, and CROWD CONTROL.

Know what crowd control you can and cannot do. Know how your tank pulls (sap's are terrible with pally tanks, unless there are more than three mobs and even then know how the pally shield is likely to bounce and sap the one that is least likely to be whacked, etc), know what mobs can be mind controlled, sheeped, charmed, cycloned, blinded, gouged, trapped, feared, etc. Even the best tank will have problems if 3 super-elites are whacking on him (or her). Know what your kill order is, and for heavens sake, do not ever ever DoT something that should be crowd controlled until the tank is whacking it! Sometimes there's an accident, I understand that. But I hate hate hate rogues who say 'I was just getting it off the priest!' but OH NOW IT'S POISONED, !@#@*#&!^!. You know what I say to that? DEATHCOIL! Deathcoil gets it off the priest and goes away in 3 seconds, ample time to get it reCC'd.

But I digressed. Crowd control is vitally important in heroics. It just is. Don't argue with me. Accept what I say.

This is why warlocks are the superior crowd control class. We can charm humanoids. We can banish demons and elementals. We can enslave demons. We can chain fear anything except undead (and a few other exceptions).

What can a rogue do? Oh.. I can sap a humanoid... but only before battle... and it can't be reapplied.
What can a mage do? I can sheep a humanoid or a beast!
What can a hunter do? I can trap a single target! Maybe two if I'm really good. (oh, and I can fear a beast every so often)
What can a druid do? I can hibernate a beast or cyclone a target for 6 seconds.
What can a priest do? They can mind control humanoids, so long as the priest doesn't take damage and the priest can't do anything while mind controlling and gains a ton of aggro if the MC'd mob doesn't die.
What about a shaman, warrior or paladin? Nada! Ya'll suck! (just kidding, love you guys! :)

Now, a warlock.. well.. we can charm a humanoid (as long as our succubus stays alive) while banishing a demon/elemental (which can't be broken, just has to wear off). Or we can banish a demon/elemental while enslaving another demon and use it as our minion, still attacking all the while. Oh, and that thing hitting the priest?

DEATHCOIL!