Category Archives: Tips

Today the patch finally went live on EU realms as well, meaning that everyone now should have their updated Warlocks. As mentioned previously we’ve had quite a few changes to the Warlock class and I will try to write down the basic rotations at 85.

This is not the be all end all guide, but just the pure basics to get you started with your changed rotation as Destruction.

The Basics

We no longer need 17% Hit, but only 15% (1537 rating at 85).

You now pick a specialization, but the actual talents are the same for each one. To change your talents you don’t have to visit a Class Trainer anymore, but you do have to visit one if you wish to switch from one specialization to another. Switching talents now is similar to switching glyphs, and you need Dust of Disappearance just the same as well.

Destruction

Talents

You can pretty much choose whatever you want for your talents depending on your personal preference and the boss mechanics. The one talent that actually has a bearing on your actual dps is the tier 5 talent where you choose your grimoire. The suggested one for Destruction is Grimoire of Supremacy, which turns your demons into the stronger versions. Supposedly at 85 Grimoire of Sacrifice may yield a little bit more dps, so you can go for that if you prefer. As for me, I’m sticking with Supremacy, because hey… those demons look awesome!

Stat Priorities

Intellect > Hit (15%) > Haste > Crit > Mastery

Glyphs

Major: Burning Embers, the rest you can choose depending on the fight
Minor: Your choice (I personally like Nightmares)

Pet

As Destruction you’ll want to use the Felhunter, or if you chose to go with Grimoire of Supremacy, the updated version; the Observer.

Spell Rotation

• Conflagrate (as much as possible)
• Chaos Bolt (if you have Burning Embers and boss is above 20%, but not if you have Backdraft)
• Shadowburn (if you have Burning Embers and boss is below 20%)
• Immolate (always keep up)
• Incinerate (filler – builds Burning Embers)

Use your dps cooldown Dark Soul: Instability every cooldown, but try to do it when you have as many Burning Embers as possible so that you can cast several Chaos Bolts.

Also, try to save up Burning Embers for when the boss is about to hit 20% so that you can use several Shadowburn straight off.

And obviously don’t forget to use your Summon Doomguard (or Summon Terrorguard if you went with the Supremacy talent.)

Enjoy your new Warlock changes and let’s get out there and dominate!

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Next week patch 5.0.4 will be hitting the live servers and a lot of changes are going to be happening. Not only to Warlocks, but everyone – so it’s time to get ready! Please note that the tooltips may not be entirely correct since things are still changing somewhat.

General Changes

These are some of the changes happening to the game in general:

• The Theramore Scenario, a lead-in to the Mists of Pandaria story. (Won’t be active straight away.)
• Account-wide achievements, pets and mounts.
• AoE looting!
• Prime glyphs are gone and we only have Major and Minor glyphs, both of which have had big changes.
• We get the new talents, abilities and skills for all classes.
• BattleTags are finally in WoW!
• Head Enchants will be removed.
• Ranged weapons no longer have a minimum range.
• Relics, wands, thrown and ranged weapons are gone or changed to take up a main weapon slot.
• Spell Penetration is gone, and instead we will see PvP Power on items.
• The current Arena season will end.
• You can no longer obtain Valor or Conquest points, everything will award Justice/Honor points.
• Items previously bought with Valor/Conquest can now be bought with Justice/Honor.
• Your current Valor points will be converted to Justice points, and current Conquest points will be converted to Honor points.

Warlock Specialisations

As Warlocks a lot is changing for us in the patch, since Blizzard has done quite some work on the class. First of all, each spec now has its own resource system. Affliction will keep using Soul Shards, while Demonology uses Demonic Fury and Destruction will have Burning Embers.

Once we choose our spec, the actual talent tree will be the same for all, and you can choose whichever talents you feel suit you since most are situational or might just simply suit your personal playstyle better. The only talents that actually increase dps are the level 90 ones, which we obviously can’t access yet. However, the tier 5 ones (Grimoires) have ones that are generally considered better per spec. This might still change of course, since the beta is still open.

According to Elitist Jerks, the grimoires we should use would be:
Destruction – Supremacy or Sacrifice (at 85 Sacrifice may be a tiny bit better, but the difference is rather small.)
Demonology – Service
Affliction – Sacrifice

Our new talent tree.

Spells & Abilities

There have been quite a few changes to our spells, and I’ll try to go through them all. The first thing to remember is probably that spells are now split in two categories; Core and Spec. Core abilities are ones that you have regardless of which specialisation you choose, while Spec ones are only available in their respective specialisation. In an effort to avoid this post being huge, I will only list the abilities that are new or changed for the Core ones. However, I will list everything for each Spec so that you know which spells belong where.

Core Abilities

• Create Soulwell (Changed. You can now do this alone! Yay!)
• Curse of Enfeeblement (New. Basically Curse of Tongues and Curse of Weakness combined.)
• Command Demon (New.)
• Dark Intent (Changed. Now a raid-wide buff.)
• Twilight Ward (New. Replaces Shadow Ward.)
• Unending Resolve (New.)
• Nethermancy (New. Passive.)

Destruction

• Chaos Bolt (Tooltip currently wrong, it costs 1 burning ember, not 10!)
• Conflagrate
• Dark Soul: Instability (New.)
• Ember Tap (New.)
• Fire and Brimstone (New.)
• Flames of Xoroth (New.)
• Havoc (New, changed from Bane of Havoc.)
• Immolate
• Incinerate
• Rain of Fire (No longer channeled.)
• Shadowburn
• Aftermath (New. Passive.)
• Backdraft (Passive.)
• Backlash (Passive.)
• Burning Embers (New. Passive.)
• Chaotic Energy (New. Passive.)
• Mastery: Emberstorm (Passive.)

Demonology

• Carrion Swarm (New. Metamorphosis.)
• Corruption
• Dark Soul: Knowledge (New.)
• Demonic Leap (Activates Metamorphosis.)
• Hand of Gul’Dan
• Hellfire
• Metamorphosis
• Shadow Bolt
• Soul Fire
• Decimation (Passive.)
• Demonic Fury (Passive.)
• Demonic Rebirth (Passive.)
• Mastery: Master Demonologist (Passive.)
• Metamorphosis: Chaos Wave (New. Replaces Hand of Gul’dan while in Meta.)
• Metamorphosis: Cursed Auras (New. Replaces Curse of Enfeeblement and Elements while in Meta.)
• Metamorphosis: Doom (New. Replaces Corruption while in Meta.)
• Metamorphosis: Immolation Aura (New. Replaces Hellfire while in Meta.)
• Metamorphosis: Touch of Chaos (New. Replaces Shadowbolt while in Meta.)
• Metamorphosis: Void Ray (New. Replaces Fel Flame while in Meta.)
• Molten Core (Passive.)
• Nether Plating (New. Passive.)
• Wild Imps (New. Passive.)

Affliction

• Agony
• Corruption
• Curse of Exhaustion
• Dark Soul: Misery (New.)
• Drain Soul
• Haunt
• Malefic Grasp
• Rain of Fire (No longer channeled.)
• Seed of Corruption
• Soul Swap
• Soulburn
• Unstable Affliction
• Improved Fear (New. Passive.)
• Mastery: Potent Affliction (Passive.)
• Nightfall (Passive.)
• Soulburn: Curse (New. Passive.)
• Soulburn: Health Funnel (New. Passive.)
• Soulburn: Seed of Corruption (New. Passive.)

Glyphs

As mentioned earlier Prime Glyphs are gone and we’re left with only Major and Minor glyphs. Few glyphs provide an actual dps increase, and instead may be useful in certain situations or are just there for fun/visual changes. Below is a list of glyphs that will be available to us as of the patch.

Major Glyphs

• Burning Embers
• Conflagrate
• Curse of Exhaustion
• Dark Soul
• Demon Hunting
• Demon Training
• Demonic Circle
• Everlasting Affliction
• Fear
• Healthstone
• Imp Swarm
• Life Tap
• Shadowflame
• Siphon Life
• Soul Consumption
• Soul Shards
• Soul Swap
• Soulstone
• Unstable Affliction

Minor Glyphs

• Carrion Swarm
• Crimson Banish
• Enslave Demon
• Eye of Kilrogg
• Falling Meteor
• Felguard
• Hand of Gul’Dan
• Health Funnel
• Nightmares
• Shadow Bolt
• Soulwell
• Subtlety
• Unending Breath
• Verdant Spheres

Suggested glyphs per spec:
Destruction - Burning Embers, Conflagrate
Demonology – Imp Swarm, Shadow Bolt
Affliction –  Soul Shards, Soul Swap

These are the major changes happening to Warlocks next week. Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll try to answer them as well as I can.

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I’m writing this guide to explain how I went about to complete the Through Glass, Darkly quest in the Legendary quest line. It’s not meant to be the end-all, be-all guide, but just how I did it and what worked for me. I’m sure there are many ways that work, but this might give you some tips on how to complete it.

I will not discuss the lore of the quest, but if you don’t want to know what happens beforehand, you may not want to read this post, just in case.

The Scene

You’ve collected your 25 eternal embers from Firelands bosses, bought your 3 sands of time and turned the quest in to Anachronos. He will then send you to Coldarra (which will be phased) where you will meet Tarecgosa. You will meet up with her in a special version of The Nexus.

This version of The Nexus you have to do alone, so no guild members or friends can help you out. Tarecgosa however will be with you for most of it.

Preparations

Initially I went in without respeccing, but after a couple of tries I realised that my Felhunter kept dying, and so I respecced my Affliction spec to give me 2/2 Fel Synergy. While I was respeccing I also took 2/2 Demonic Aegis.

I also switched my Shadowbolt glyph for the Felhunter glyph.

I’d suggest bringing a health potion, something which I personally forgot. You definitely want to have a health stone ready, even if you have a potion.

The Hallways

As you enter The Nexus Tarecgosa is with you. The first mob she will make you invisible and you don’t have to worry about it.

After that you get to a room with a big sentinel and two dogs. Now, I was Demonology for this part, but I’m sure it works just as well as Affliction or Destruction. I killed the two dogs first, letting Tarecgosa tank the big sentinel. Just set my demon on them and dotted them up. Make sure to move out of the fire patches that the sentinel puts on the ground and you’ll be fine. Once the dogs were dead, it was an easy job killing the sentinel.

You’ll now start walking down the path towards where the first boss normally is. Watch out for the frost walls coming out of the sides, you have to pace yourself. It’s pretty much the same as the hallway in Icecrown Citadel if you remember it.

You’ll meet another couple of big dudes, but Tarecgosa will keep you safe. Then, however, she will run off and leave you alone to deal with 3 dogs. It’s no worries really, just set your demon on them and dot them all up. Use Drain Life to keep yourself alive if you need to.

Now there’s the hallway leading up to the landing before where Grand Magus Telestra can normally be found. This is a bit of a gauntlet event with lots of small adds who will keep re-spawning if you’re not quick enough.

I just powered my way through it with Hellfire and my Felguard using Felstorm. I’m sure as any other spec it can be done as well, just make sure you keep moving. Use Drain Life to stay alive if needed. I killed one set of adds (they sort of spawn in packs), then ran up to the next one.. killed it.. and so on.

When you get to the top, keep moving forward to Telestra’s room, or you might risk pulling the pack at the top when it respawns. In Telestra’s room you’ll see Tarecgosa frozen by two sentinels. They won’t aggro you though, so you have time to regain mana/health before you attack them.

I just burned them down one at a time (you seem to only aggro the one you attack, so you can take a break for mana/health in between if needed), while remembering to move out of the freezing ground ability.

After this Tarecgosa will run down the next hallway where a big wall of ice will be blocking the way. She will work on breaking it down while asking you to watch her back. A named, big dog will appear. He’s easy though – just keep your pet on him and dps him as usual while moving away from the shadowflame he will breathe towards you.

The Platforms

Once the ice wall is down you will see the old room with the ramps and platforms, only now there are only floating little platforms there. On each platform is a dragonkin. There’s a little disc in front of you which you will have to jump onto, and it will float you towards the closest dragonkin.

Your pet will bug out at this point and not join you, so you’re on your own. Make sure you’re at full health and mana before you jump onto the disc.

The dragonkin will cast shadowbolts, so use your Shadow Ward liberally. There are also floating orbs at the edge of his platform (a total of 4 I believe). Make sure you always use one before he does his big shadow damage move (you’ll see a warning that he’s powering it up).

Be careful no to cast anything after clicking the orb until you see a protective shield around yourself. I’ve heard that it can bug out/delay if you’re casting.

After the big add is down, jump onto his platform. Don’t jump any further yet because two small adds will appear and you’ll have to kill them. Once they’re dead, make sure you get health/mana back before jumping onto one of their discs to get to the next platform.

Rinse and repeat until you land safely on the other side of the chasm.

Don’t worry about the many adds here, Tarecgosa will appear and nuke them all for you. Quickly make sure you have your pet, get mana and health back, and run up the platform to where Anomalus usually is.

The Boss

Now you will be facing the boss himself, a Twilight Dragon named Thyrinar. He does some abilities that you need to be aware of.

Ability 1: Twilight Blast
Use your Felhunter to silence it as much as possible. Shadow Ward on cooldown.

Ability 2: Twisting Twilight
A beam of shadow that follows you and puts shadowflame on the ground. Make sure you kite it around the edges of the room. Don’t get hit – you’ll die!

Ability 3: Twilight Restoration
This is a big self-heal buff and also makes him take 50% less damage. Make sure you use your Felhunter to Devour it!

He will also summon adds that do a Fire Nova ability. Try never to be close to the adds. Let the pet tank them, and fear them if they get too close to you.

Tactic:

Put your pet on Passive, because if he attacks the boss he will bug out (due to the boss flying). Make sure your pet is always in range to dispel the healing buff, and silence as many twilight blasts as possible.

When the boss summons an add (it will come running up the ramp), set your pet on it. Put an instant dot or two on it. I didn’t always do this, and the pet seemed to kill it anyway. However, I did notice that without 2/2 Fel Synergy the pet died (probably because I used Soul Link).

Just keep all your DoTs on the boss, use Drain Life as your filler (you’ll need it!) instead of Shadowbolt. The Felhunter glyph will help with health as well any time you dispel the self-heal.

You will spend most of the fight putting up DoTs, using Drain Life and silencing and purging the boss. Remember to put your pet on the add and kite the beam around the edges (make sure your pet doesn’t stand in it though!). Don’t forget to use Shadow Ward every cooldown as well, since he casts the Twilight Blast almost constantly, and your pet’s silence can’t get nearly as many as we’d like.

It took me a few tries to get him down, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as I had expected. The changes to Fel Synergy and the Felhunter glyph made a huge difference!

To help with the silencing and purging (and you’ll want this done as reliably as possible), I set the boss as my Focus target and keybound the following two macros.

#showtooltip Devour Magic
/cast [@focus] Devour Magic

#showtooltip Spell Lock
/cast [@focus] Spell Lock

Good luck with your quest!

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There are some simple truths out there when it comes to gear. All classes have stats that are useless to them, and other that are useful. Some are more useful than others.

For Warlocks we know that Spirit is one of those horrible, useless stats that give us absolutely nothing. I’ve read comments and guides by people saying that you should rather wear a green item than an item with Spirit.

Now, that’s not entirely true.

Gearing up relies in large part upon luck. You have to kill the bosses, which you may argue is skill – but then the boss has to actually drop the pieces that you need, and you need to win them.

I know that for the longest time I could not get my hands on a pair of good bracers. The only pair I got had Spirit on them! I eventually switched them for a pair of PvP bracers. (Another big no-no from a lot of people.)

Thing is, you can only choose to equip items that you have. And choosing the best item that you have is what I want to look at today.

Stat Weights

I’m sure you’ve heard the term before. Basically, each stat in the game has a value to your character in regards to how useful it is. The way to find out the stat weights for your character specifically is to run Simulation Craft with your data plugged in.

This does mean that your stat weights can change if you get a new piece of gear and you may want to check again.

Once you have your stat weights, you know which stats are the most important to you – and they have an actual numerical value.

This is where you can use your stat weights to determine which piece of gear is better for you to wear, even if it has Spirit or even Resilience.

The Calculation

For the sake of this post, I will use some dummy numbers (I don’t remember my own off hand), but they shouldn’t be too far off.

Intellect: 2.7
Hit: 1.8
Crit: 0.9
Haste: 1.1
Mastery: 0.7

Spirit and Resilience both have 0 value.

So let’s compare two items to see which one is the best one to use. We do so by adding the values they get if you combine the stat weights and see which one ends up with the highest number.

I will use the PvP bracers I ended up using instead of the Spirit PvE bracers which was the only piece I had at the time.

Vicious Gladiator’s Cuffs of Accuracy
Intellect: 201 (201*2.7 = 542,7)
Hit: 134 (134*1.8 = 241,2)
Resilience: 134 (134*0 = 0)
Total Value: 783,9

Baron Ashbury’s Cuffs
Intellect: 168 (168*2.7 = 453,6)
Mastery: 112 (112*0.7 = 78,4)
Spirit: 112 (112*0 = 0)
Total Value: 532

According to this calculation, the Resilience bracers are better. However, we also have to take into account reforging. I would reforge the Spirit on the Bracers to Hit. So let’s do a calculation on the bracers with the Spirit reforged to Hit.

Baron Ashbury’s Cuffs
Intellect: 168 (168*2.7 = 453,6)
Mastery: 112 (112*0.7 = 78,4)
Spirit: 67 (67*0 = 0)
Hit: 45 (45*1.8 = 81)
Total Value: 613

In this particular case, the resilience bracers are still better. It’s all about what kind of luck you have with drops, and wrist especially was a difficult case for me personally for quite some time. In fact, it still kind of is. I’ve now upgraded to a pair of epic Spirit bracers. I swear Lady RNG hates me.

But let’s look at another possibility. I recently had the option to upgrade to an epic head with Spirit on it, or keep my blue ilevel 346 head. Those situations can be tricky. Is the Spirit item better or worse?

Cowl of Pleasant Gloom
Intellect: 242 (242*2.7 = 653,4)
Crit: 182 (182*0.9 = 163,8)
Hit: 162 (162*1.8 = 291,6)
Total Value: 1108,8

Crown of Burning Waters
Intellect: 281 (281*2.7 = 758,7)
Spirit: 228 (228*0 = 0)
Mastery: 168 (168*0.7 = 117,6)
Total Value: 876.30

Even if I reforged the Spirit to Hit (which would give me 92 Hit = another 165,6 points), the epic item would not be better than the blue ilevel 346 item.

While, in this case, the Spirit item ended up being worse than the non-Spirit item – there will be times when the Spirit items come up ahead.

The best thing you can do is find your own stat weights, and find out for yourself. Then you know when to switch a piece of gear for a Spirit piece (or on the odd occasion a resilience piece)

Wands are another one of those items that are difficult to get, and I know for a lot of people Finkle’s Mixer Upper ends up better (since there are so few good wands out there). With the Spirit reforged to Hit it beats a lot of the blue wands available.

In Conclusion

Don’t automatically assume that a higher ilevel is a better item for you. Especially if it has an undesirable stat. Spirit especially, but it can also be Mastery if you have an item with Haste+Hit. Make sure you compare the items to see which one is actually better according to your stat weights.

However, there are times when it’s okay to use Spirit items – if they end up better than what you have.

May Lady RNG shine her luck, I know she hates me – maybe she likes some of you better!

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This is not a “proper” post, but a list of available gear from the current tier of raids. I know it’s late, and we’re soon getting another tier – and I intend to make a loot list from that once it hits. This is just to complement the Warlock Pre-Raid Gear list (which has been updated to include ZA/ZG gear) and the future 4.2 gear list.

This is a list of loot available to Warlocks from the current raid content. Note that this is not a Best in Slot list, but I will list all items available to us.

I don’t personally believe in Best in Slot lists. While they might be interesting and something to aim for if you’re in a high end guild, I find loot a little too random to know what you will get. What is generally considered BiS, may not be BiS for you right now because it would make you lose too much Hit for example.

Spirit items are not listed because Spirit is a useless stat for Warlocks. However, there may be instances where a Spirit item may be better than a blue piece you might have, in which case feel free to grab it and reforge the Spirit to something useful. I just won’t include the item on the list.

I don’t want to clutter the list, so I’m listing the non-Heroic pieces. Pretty much everything has the same item, but as Heroic version from the Heroic raids.

Note: The gear from Throne of the Four Winds have random stats, so they may or may not end up useful to a Warlock.

HEAD
Power Generator Hood (Blackwing Descent – Omnotron Defense System)
Shadowflame Hood (Blackwing Descent – Nefarian *Token*)

SHOULDER
Shadowflame Mantle (Throne of Four Winds – Al’Akir *Token*)
Shadowflame Mantle (Bastion of Twilight – Cho’gall *Token*)
Mantle of Roaring Flames (Blackwing Descent – Atramedes)

CHEST
Shadowblaze Robes (Blackwing Descent – Nefarian)
Dizze’s Whirling Robe (Trash)

WAIST
Soul Breath Belt (Throne of the Four Winds – Conclave of Wind)
Belt of Arcane Storms (Blackwing Descent – Maloriak)

HANDS
Hands of the Twilight Council (Bastion of Twilight – Cho’gall)

WRIST
Bracers of the Bronze Flight (Bastion of Twilight – Halfus Wyrmbreaker)
Bracers of the Dark Pool (Bastion of Twilight – Trash)

LEGS
Soul Breath Leggings (Throne of the Four Winds – Al’Akir)
Flame Pillar Leggings (Blackwing Descent – Magmaw)

FEET
Einhorn’s Galoshes (Blackwing Descent – Chimaeron)

BACK
Planetary Drape (Throne of the Four Winds – Al’Akir)
Shadow of Dread (Blackwing Descent – Nefarian)

NECK
Valiona’s Medallion (Bastion of Twilight – Valiona & Theralion)

FINGER
Planetary Band (Throne of the Four Winds – Conclave of Wind)
Signet of the Fifth Circle (Bastion of Twilight – Cho’gall)

TRINKET
Theralion’s Mirror (Bastion of Twilight – Valiona & Theralion)
Heart of Ignacious (Bastion of Twilight – Ascendant Council)
Bell of Enraging Resonance (Blackwing Descent – Atramedes)

WEAPON
Stormwake, the Tempest’s Reach (Throne of the Four Winds – Al’Akir)
Blade of the Witching Hour (Bastion of Twilight – Valiona & Theralion)
Incineratus (Blackwing Descent – Magmaw)
Maldo’s Sword Cane (Blackwing Descent – Trash)

OFF-HAND
Book of Binding Will (Bastion of Twilight – Halfus Wyrmbreaker)

WAND
Theresa’s Booklight (Blackwing Descent – Trash)

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Edit: Added Firelands bosses.
In Cataclysm the spell Bane of Havoc was introduced for Destruction Warlocks and it’s a spell that is very situational. However, if you use it right it can help your dps on the fights where it’s viable.

Now that we’re getting further into the raiding content I’m finding which fights the spell can be useful, and I thought I’d put it down in writing (partly for myself so I don’t forget between raids – gold-fish memory and all that..)

How does it work?

First of all we need to understand what Bane of Havoc actually does. It’s a Bane – which means you can’t use it on the same target as your Doom or Agony target. You have to pick one Bane.

You can only have Bane of Havoc active on one target at a time, so you have to pick the correct target.

Because Bane of Havoc causes the target it’s active on to take damage equal to 15% of damage to other targets – you want to put Bane of Havoc on the target you’re currently not dpsing.

So in a fight with two targets, you put Bane of Havoc on target A while you dps target B.

In a fight with a boss and adds that you AoE, put Bane of Havoc on the boss while you dps the adds; he will take 15% of the damage done to each add.

So which fights should we use it on?

Beth’tilac

Put Bane of Havoc on the boss as you run in to start the fight. She will then take damage when you dps the adds downstairs.

Do note though that the window during which you can do this is very small before she retreats, so it’s best if your raid lets you do the pull with BoH. She doesn’t aggro you (though she’s bugged sometimes and hit me for 70k).

Shannox

If you’re assigned to dps Shannox, put BoH on either of the dogs.

If you’re assigned to dps either of the dogs, but BoH on the boss.

Lord Ryolith

Odds are that you will be assigned to dps the adds, so just put Bane of Havoc on one of his legs. If you end up dpsing the legs, put BoH on the leg you’re not dpsing.

Alysrazor

If you’re flying, put BoH on one of the hatchlings.

If you’re not flying, put BoH on Alysrazor.

Conclave of Wind

If you read the tooltip it says 40 yards range on Bane of Havoc, but it actually doesn’t have a limit when applied, so you can put it up on an add you’re not dpsing.

Personally I put it on Nezir (frost guy) for the most part, but I will put it on the add I’m assigned to (usually Rohash; wind guy) when I’m jumping across to dps Nezir during the full energy phase.

Omnotron Defense System

You can put Bane of Havoc on the omnotron that’s getting deactivated when you switch to a new one. The shield mechanic won’t be activated, except for Magmatron. Never ever BoH Magmatron because you’ll blow up the raid.

Magmaw

You can put Bane of Havoc on Magmaw as you’re AoEing the adds and he will take 15% of the damage done to each add.

It’s also a good idea to put Bane of Havoc on Magmaw just before he’s chained. It means the body will still take damage as you’re dpsing the exposed head. Then put Bane of Havoc on the head just before it disappears again.

However, note that this means you shouldn’t put BoH on the body again for dpsing adds – as it will then remove it from the head. Only use it during the adds before the first phase of the head becoming exposed.

Maloriak

Put Bane of Havoc on the boss when you’re about to dps the adds in the green phase.

Nefarian

In Phase 1; put Bane of Havoc on whichever dragon you’re not dpsing yourself.

In Phase 2; again, just put Bane of Havoc on whichever target you’re not assigned to dps directly.

Halfus Wyrmbreaker

Because in my guild we always dps down the drakes first I always put Bane of Havoc on Halfus as we run in so that he takes 15% of the damage done while we’re on the drakes/whelps.

Obviously remember to switch it to Doom as you switch to Halfus once the drakes/whelps are dead.

Valiona & Theralion

As you run in, put Bane of Havoc on Theralion before he takes off. After that, just put it on the dragon about to go in the air. You want the damage you do to the grounded dragon to transfer to the flying one.

Ascendant Council

Again, just Bane of Havoc the target you’re not dpsing directly. As ranged you’re most likely dpsing Feludius in Phase 1 and Arion in Phase 2. That means you’re putting BoH on Ignacious and then Terrastra. In Phase 3 there’s no one to put it on.

Cho’gall

If you’re assigned to switching to the Adherents put Bane of Havoc on Cho’gall before you switch.

A few points

• It counts as a hostile action even if you’re not dpsing anything yet. (I found this out the hard way by a misclick and pulled a boss.. oops.)

• Dpsing your Bane of Havoc target is a loss of dps since it does 0 damage to the target if you’re not dpsing something else. Remember to switch back to Agony or Doom.

• It only transfers damage done by you, your Imp’s damage doesn’t count (except for the Burning Embers effect which is triggered by both you and the pet).

• You can be the ultimate emo and use Hellfire – the damage you take will be transferred to the Bane of Havoc target. (This also works to take people out of stealth if you’re in PvP and managed to put Bane on a rogue etc. But note that you have to actually take damage, and not absorb it with a shield or ward.)

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This is meant as a quick list on the debuffs in our arsenal and knowing when to use them depending on your raid/group setup.

For our own personal dps we would always want to prioritise Curse of the Elements but if someone else in the raid is putting it up why not look at Curse of Weakness or Curse of Tongues if it’s something that could be helpful to your raid?

Curses vs Banes

In the patch before Cataclysm was released the Warlock curses were swapped into two groups instead of one; Banes and Curses, meaning that you can use one of each on a target.

Unless other members of your raid are already automatically applying every debuff you should make sure that you not only use your Bane on the boss, but also the appropriate Curse.

Banes are damaging DoTs. You can only have one on each target.

Curses are debuffs that you can apply, you can have one on each target.

Banes

We have three Banes available to us, and you should always use the Bane that is the best for your spec.

• Bane of Doom – The preferred spell for every spec at the moment.

• Bane of Agony – While not the preferred spell, you can still use it if you know the target will die before Bane of Doom can be useful (like lower health adds etc.).

• Bane of Havoc – Very situational spell, you’d never use it on a single target fight.

Curses

Curses are our debuffs, and unless your raid setup means that every possible debuff is already applied, you should use one of these on every fight. Curse of the Elements in particular is a personal dps increase, but even if someone is already applying that debuff there is no reason for you to not help out by using one of the other Curses.

I’ve listed them mentioning the debuff they apply, and also the other classes that apply the same debuff to assist you in knowing when to use which one.

• Curse of Elements – 8% increased magical damage taken. Other classes that do the same: Unholy Death Knight, Balance Druid, Mutilate Rogue.

• Curse of Weakness – physical damage done reduced by 10%. Other classes that do the same: Bear Druid, Warrior, Blood Death Knight, Protection Paladin.

• Curse of Tongues – Increases target’s casting time by 30%. Other classes that do the same: Death Knight, Arcane Mage, Rogues with Mind-Numbing Poison.

• Curse of Exhaustion – Reduces the target’s movement speed by 30%. Affliction only. This isn’t really something you’d be using in a raid. I’ve not yet had a boss where I have to kite something – but maybe there is one somewhere. Truthfully it’s pretty horrible and glyphed Shadowflame will actually give a better slow. As will pretty much every other class out there with a slow.

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