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Sythre

10-20-2008, 03:54 AM

Hi everyone. I hope the game is treating you well.I have had a warlock main since LU13. I played hard right up through level 80 and ran through much of ROK (non-raid mostly). I had to take a seven or eight month break and now I find myself back to my old digs.The reason I am posting is that I need help with my warlock and that help I know will only come from other warlocks. Now I know there aren't many of us out there, BUT I want to appeal to you all and get some ideas on how to make MYSELF a better player of the warlock class. Things that I want to exclude from the discussion as much as possible to focus on the help I desperately need.1. Epic weapon - As of right now I am not in the 5% with their epic. So when replying please keep that in mind.2. I am in a great guild (arguably the best = LoTIL on Perma) with lots of very knowledgeable players and classes (only two real warlock mains however) but we are casual and aren't represented with every class. We raid but we haven't progressed like the larger more regimented guilds even though we are getting there.3. The warlock class is gimped in comparison to the scout's dps - argument ceded there. There are several posts that deal with that in terms of the lack of multi mobs in RoK, lack of tier 1 damage without many supporting classes and a setup focused on the warlock, and many other reasons. I understand the sentiment, but I want to focus on what I can do about it. Getting past that, I want to work with what I have or can realistically get. I want to be the best a warlock can be at "adding dps in raids" on my own merit where we stand right now pre-TSO. Adding dps being my main goal. So, please help me in the following areas:My current AA setup: (125 AAs) SorcerorStr - 4 4 4 8AGI - 4 4 6 8WIS - 4 6 4 8 1WarlockFocused Casting: Enhance Dissolve 4, Enhance Acid 4, Enhance Vacuum Chamber 4, Enhance Encase 4, Enhance Distortion 4, Focused CastingVacuous: Enhance Magi Shielding 5, Concussive 5, Nullify 5, VacuousAftershock: Enhance Cataclysm 3, Radiation 4, Nil Absolution 5, Armageddon 5, Upheaval 5, AftershockThats it. the thought is to complete the ones that I have particularly agility on the sorceror tree and each place where I already have points on the Warlock tree. PLEASE provide your input on what else I should be doing here.Casting Order (on raid mobs)Single Target: I usually buff Netherrealm and Corrupt gift on pull and start with Tumultuous Maelstrom. After that I go - focused casting -vacuum chamber-acid-brood infestation-dissolve-foh Distortioin-Absolution-Nullify-Armaggedon-Radiation-Concussive - then I just start using whatever comes up first.Multi-mob: I start with Netherrealm and Corrupt gift on pull and start with Tumultuous Maelstrom. After that I do Armageddon-Acid Storm - Nullify - Upheaval-Absolution-Cataclysm-Radiation-Concussive then I get on the lone surviving mob as if a single (if I am alive)My intelligence self buffed only is 858. I usually in raid am close to 1090.My crit percent is 44 but 52 to 55 raid buffed and using Second Sight.My gear at 80 is Hool'uh's Witchy Hat, Scaled Netmen's Cloak, Elegant Praetor's Robes, Di'Zok Ceremonial Cloth Shawl, Woven Silk Underlay, Sorcerous Gloves, Sash of Secrets, Dark Mulin Breeches, Gwalnax Brigade Battlecaster's shoes, Mark of Awakened Intellect, Nax' Earrings of Verracity, Starblast Earring, Painsmith's Empowered Ring, Burdened Signet, Swamplord Writwraps, Tormented Bracelet of Doom, Danak Wishbone, pristine chaos imbued swiftcloth hex doll, The Arm of Mithaniel, Smoldering Black Book, and of course Death's grip (fabled).In a raid I might at most have a Troubadore with me that might or might not be specifically there for me. Otherwise, our raid is fill with usually a 8 to 1 ratio of melees to sqishies (usually two or three of us cloth wearing dps types)Please give me your harshest critiques about the above as those things are the easiest to change. After that please make suggestions as to how you lead on the parse or at least come in the top five. Really just being in contention and giving some dps competition is good enough for me. It would allow us as a raid force to keep pushing one another. Right now they are dragging me like dead weight.My last raid was in Korsha fighting Kordux and Zarda and my dps was 700. Based on posts on the forums and those that speak here, I wil assume and agree that that is low.How can I dps more efficeitnly? What are the spells and casting orders that are the most efficient given our current state of being? I would even request how you guys/gals have macros setup and how you have your hotbars designed.I am really looking for anything that helps here. If I can be the best I can be now and then TSO comes out, at least at that point I will be able to make a decision as to keeping the warlock as my main or finding another toon that I can shine with. Any help will be much apprecieated. I am genuine want to get better as a player with my main as a warlock. I would really like to outparse some scouts and surprise a few folks at some point if that is even possible in my situation (would put a big smile on my face mainly the surprise part). Thanks for the comments beforehand. Lord Sythre, warlock , Captain of the Minty Julep.

Nevao

10-20-2008, 01:56 PM

At work so I don't have time to write out a full post of thoughts but until then, a couple of questions:<ul><li>What is tier quality of your spells?</li><li>When you are raiding are you having problems with Aggro? I'm guessing not, but if so that could indicate other issues.</li><li>What does your MT group look like?</li><li>What does your group look like?</li><li>When you do have a troub, what buffs are they playing? Are they gearing towards melee or magic?</li><li>What does your raidwide parse numbers look like compared to the raid total DPS look like? In this case while chasing a number is nice, a % is probably a more realistic number.</li><li>Are you doing other activities in raid like feeding power? (A good thing to do, just something that will cause a DPS hit)</li></ul>A couple of initial thoughts:<ul><li>The Vacous Line really shouldn't be necessary if you are not having aggro issues, and if you are there are other ways to deal with it. Unless I've missed something in a recent revamp you're better off grabbing pieces of the Propogations line insteatd.</li><li>Broodlings, Broodlings, Broodlings! They are your friend in an AE fight, not just single target.</li><li>Somewhere around here is a post on spell efficienies in terms of DPS and MPS (mana per second). Even if you can find it it would be a good idea to do the calculations yourself just to get a feel for what spells are buying you what. For example some AE spells just aren't worth casting unless you have X number of mobs. X is not always 2. </li><li>While there's not much you can do about it, having a troub is critical to success. You'll be able to reach respectablish numbers without one, but to really shine you will need a troub.</li></ul>More thoughts to come once I get home and can look more in depth at gear and can pull my warlock up.

maddawg138

10-20-2008, 02:54 PM

go with propagation not vacuous. the line overall is better.also if you go to eq2flames.com and read the warlock forums there, there is alot of great information there as well that you may want to poke around in.you should try to use Acid Storm even on single target and cast it as the mob is incoming. and you should max out agi before you max out wis line IMO as power shouldnt be a huge deal for the most part even with more casual raiders.another thing is to join the ww warlock channel at Butcherblock.warlockchannel. there are plenty of people there that will help you out.

Frank Sojourner

10-20-2008, 03:49 PM

Well, there are a lot of other factors that come into play in the personal dps equation, i.e. total raid dps, if your debuffers are actually debuffing, raid aggro management, etc. That said, your dps seems to be really low. Let's start with spell cast order. There are a few discussions on this forum and EQ2flames that discuss cast orders in detail. A lot of chaff in the threads but there is also some good information there. Just glancing over your cast order on singles, these spells should not be there. Radiation - unless >3 mobs in the encounter a spell that is detrimental to warlock dps. too long of cast time for dmg output. Even with my mythical I do not cast this spell on singles. (pre-mythical) Absolution - unless you have a lot of spell haste, the cast time is going to be around a third greater for comparative dmg to Distortion. It is not a dps efficient spell, pre-mythical. Only cast if another more efficient spell is not up. Dissolve - Seems like it should be a decent parsing spell, but it isn't. Around 2/3rds the cast time of Distortion with around 1/2 the average dmg = poor dps efficiency. Only time to use it is when the mob is almost dead and you need a quick cast to land before it is dead. Upheaval - I'd throw this in there as well. Unless you have the casting speed buffs/cast time reducers so that you can cast spells like Absolution and Upheaval in < 2.65 secs or so (guesstimate), they just aren't worth it for single targets. Unless, maybe focused casting is up and you know the mob is dispatched on top of fully debuffed. Nullify and Concussive - Point blank... with single targets in RoK if you have to worry about a warlock pulling aggro, your raid has issues. I also notice you don't have Encase or Flames of Velious on your rotation, why not? Do you have a brigand in raid? If you do, do you know when he hits Dispatched? Do they use Blood Rake at the beginning of the fight or after they use Dispatched? Just guessing here but I would think that even trash last long enough for you to consider using your nox debuff on the mobs. Also, by taking those spells out of the rotation, I would think you should have less power issues as Absolution and Radiation have poor power to dmg ratios, especially pre-mythical.In RoK raiding, debuffs are essential to parsing well, I will see my dps fluxuate 2k dps on encounters because of resists and/or the brig afking. I also find crits and spell haste to be essential to parsing well. With so few casters in the raid try to get into a group to soak up as many of the caster buffs available. At that stage in progression, we are overly reliant on other members of the raid to provide us with dps, in the form of procs, spell haste, etc. Once you gear up, we start to come into our own more.

Sythre

10-21-2008, 02:36 AM

<cite>Nevao wrote:</cite><blockquote>At work so I don't have time to write out a full post of thoughts but until then, a couple of questions:<ul><li>What is tier quality of your spells?</li><li>When you are raiding are you having problems with Aggro? I'm guessing not, but if so that could indicate other issues.</li><li>What does your MT group look like?</li><li>What does your group look like?</li><li>When you do have a troub, what buffs are they playing? Are they gearing towards melee or magic?</li><li>What does your raidwide parse numbers look like compared to the raid total DPS look like? In this case while chasing a number is nice, a % is probably a more realistic number.</li><li>Are you doing other activities in raid like feeding power? (A good thing to do, just something that will cause a DPS hit)</li></ul>A couple of initial thoughts:<ul><li>The Vacous Line really shouldn't be necessary if you are not having aggro issues, and if you are there are other ways to deal with it. Unless I've missed something in a recent revamp you're better off grabbing pieces of the Propogations line insteatd.</li><li>Broodlings, Broodlings, Broodlings! They are your friend in an AE fight, not just single target.</li><li>Somewhere around here is a post on spell efficienies in terms of DPS and MPS (mana per second). Even if you can find it it would be a good idea to do the calculations yourself just to get a feel for what spells are buying you what. For example some AE spells just aren't worth casting unless you have X number of mobs. X is not always 2. </li><li>While there's not much you can do about it, having a troub is critical to success. You'll be able to reach respectablish numbers without one, but to really shine you will need a troub.</li></ul>More thoughts to come once I get home and can look more in depth at gear and can pull my warlock up.</blockquote>I will do my best to answer your questions. I'm still working my way into the raids so I may not have it exactly right. 1. All of my spells through 80 are Ad3. I may have 1 or 2 masters with the exception of M2 Absolution.2. I don't have problems with aggro on singles for the most part. I do however, get aggro if we have 3+ mobs, my parsing there does much better as expected but it trails off if they don't die quickly as a group. I really think my single target dps could use the most work especially to prevent that trail off. 3. MT group is usually a guard, swashie, dirge, Inq, another healer mystic perhaps and one other is usually an assasin I believe. 4. My group has generally had a healer, usually a fury, maybe a Temp, a tank, monk or pally, a troubadour, and cloth casters, usually me and a wizard. 5. We are definitely geared toward melee due to the abundance of scouts and to be honest tanks. 6. I can post some numbers this Sat. as it is likely the next chance I will get to go araiding with my warlock. 7. I haven't been feeding power, so my dps, such that it is, is supposed to be pure dps. I have had the vacuous line for a while now even back before my break. I haven't tried not having the points in it. I will take a look at propagations as you suggest. I have several respecs I can use to give it a shot.

Sythre

10-21-2008, 02:43 AM

<cite>Xede@Kithicor wrote:</cite><blockquote>go with propagation not vacuous. the line overall is better.also if you go to eq2flames.com and read the warlock forums there, there is alot of great information there as well that you may want to poke around in.you should try to use Acid Storm even on single target and cast it as the mob is incoming. and you should max out agi before you max out wis line IMO as power shouldnt be a huge deal for the most part even with more casual raiders.another thing is to join the ww warlock channel at Butcherblock.warlockchannel. there are plenty of people there that will help you out.</blockquote>Definitely will look at propagation, eq2flames (which I have heard of in passing but never really delved into it), and join the channel. I am confused overall with Acid Storm. I guess I relate better to spells that have a listed damage. I don't have a feel for what the pet is actually doing for me.I actually do have power problems, even with Shards and/or hearts, the city merchant items, manastone, and the shrubbery goods I am finding power issues. Maybe it goes back to me using the bigger DDs inappropriately in my casting order as Frank is intimating.

Sythre

10-21-2008, 02:54 AM

<cite>Frank Sojourner wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, there are a lot of other factors that come into play in the personal dps equation, i.e. total raid dps, if your debuffers are actually debuffing, raid aggro management, etc. That said, your dps seems to be really low.Let's start with spell cast order. There are a few discussions on this forum and EQ2flames that discuss cast orders in detail. A lot of chaff in the threads but there is also some good information there. Just glancing over your cast order on singles, these spells should not be there. Radiation - unless >3 mobs in the encounter a spell that is detrimental to warlock dps. too long of cast time for dmg output. Even with my mythical I do not cast this spell on singles.(pre-mythical) Absolution - unless you have a lot of spell haste, the cast time is going to be around a third greater for comparative dmg to Distortion. It is not a dps efficient spell, pre-mythical. Only cast if another more efficient spell is not up. Dissolve - Seems like it should be a decent parsing spell, but it isn't. Around 2/3rds the cast time of Distortion with around 1/2 the average dmg = poor dps efficiency. Only time to use it is when the mob is almost dead and you need a quick cast to land before it is dead.Upheaval - I'd throw this in there as well. Unless you have the casting speed buffs/cast time reducers so that you can cast spells like Absolution and Upheaval in < 2.65 secs or so (guesstimate), they just aren't worth it for single targets. Unless, maybe focused casting is up and you know the mob is dispatched on top of fully debuffed. Nullify and Concussive - Point blank... with single targets in RoK if you have to worry about a warlock pulling aggro, your raid has issues.I also notice you don't have Encase or Flames of Velious on your rotation, why not? Do you have a brigand in raid? If you do, do you know when he hits Dispatched? Do they use Blood Rake at the beginning of the fight or after they use Dispatched? Just guessing here but I would think that even trash last long enough for you to consider using your nox debuff on the mobs. Also, by taking those spells out of the rotation, I would think you should have less power issues as Absolution and Radiation have poor power to dmg ratios, especially pre-mythical.In RoK raiding, debuffs are essential to parsing well, I will see my dps fluxuate 2k dps on encounters because of resists and/or the brig afking. I also find crits and spell haste to be essential to parsing well. With so few casters in the raid try to get into a group to soak up as many of the caster buffs available. At that stage in progression, we are overly reliant on other members of the raid to provide us with dps, in the form of procs, spell haste, etc. Once you gear up, we start to come into our own more. </blockquote>As you mention there is alot of chaff on casting order, but I will keep digging. I still need to check out eq2flames. I am on pretty good terms with our guild brigand so I will also talk to him to see how I might keep better tabs on his dispatch. I feel pretty comfortable about my crit %. I am surprised to see Absolution taken out of the order as I have always thought it to be good in any lineup, but again I have only recently decided to step my game up a notch or two.Lots of good suggestions on these replies and it looks like I have some legwork to do now. Thanks much guys for the input. I will probably come back and update after Sat. night when I get a chance to try some of this. I never thought about it before, but wouldn't it be nice to have an unkillable target(s) to try some of this out on without actually being in a raid combat <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Windowlicker

10-21-2008, 08:41 AM

If your at 125 AA's, the single best thing you could be doing at level 80 is questing and farming AA. Beyond that, strive to ensure all your gear is level 80 as well. (Ie, loose the hoolah's hat)Look for items that have spell crit on them. You won't need to raid to find them.1. AGI is your most important AA line, you need to finish it. (You didn't buy into the last ability)2. Propagations is much better then Vacuous (It's been said, mirroring the thought)It really looks like it's probably a case of your AA being slightly out of whack, and your gear not being where it should be for a character at your level. (And when I say that, it appears your missing even the solo-quested upgrades from RoK in some cases)I'm willing to bet your spellcasting order is also out of whack, which will adversly effect your DPS output. What is your spell crit at? How much added spell damage do you have? - Even saying you have high spell crit, and around 700-800 added spell damage you still will require a troub AND illusionist both buffing you to even compete with scouts in RoK. So if your missing either, don't be suprised if you're falling short on the parse.