Monthly Archives: August 2012

Destruction Warlock Spell Rotation (5.0.4)

Posted on August 29, 2012 by


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

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!

7 people like this post.
Unlike
Posted in Tips, Warlock | 12 Comments

Warlock Spell Effects

Posted on August 27, 2012 by

This week the patch comes live and with it all our new skills and abilities. There are a lot of new spell effects, which is something I always enjoy to check out. So I’ve been spending a bit of time on the PTR specifically checking how we look, and can I just say… We look awesome!

This post will have no valuable information really, just some screenshots of our new spell effects. Since I love spell effects! After this week, we will all look this great when casting spells!

Soul Shard visual – your shards will float above your head.

Destruction’s Embers – as you get more embers you will burn more and more. This is when you’re at full power.

Demonology’s Demonic Fury – as we gain more and more demonic fury, we grow horns!

Shadowbolt Glyph – splits your shadowbolt into three smaller ones.

Soulfire has a new graphic where we hurl three balls of fire at our target.

The new Affliction spell – Malefic Grasp

 

Conflagrate – now with extra burning!

Chaos Bolt is bigger and more awesome looking!

Verdant Spheres glyph – turns your soulshards/burning embers into spheres.

Soulwell glyph – now with extra green stuff!

Nightmares glyph – makes you run on water… with fire!

5 people like this post.
Unlike
Posted in Random Ramblings, Warlock | Leave a comment

Warlock Changes in 5.0.4

Posted on August 23, 2012 by

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

Destruction

Demonology

Affliction

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

Minor Glyphs

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.

5 people like this post.
Unlike
Posted in Tips, Warlock | 7 Comments

The Missing Ingredient

Posted on August 20, 2012 by

Being a mid-range guild progression wise we’ve always found recruitment to be a difficult task, but Cataclysm has possibly been the worst one. Our server doesn’t have a huge population, and so most raiders will join the higher end guilds, rather than ours or one of the others at our progression level. There tend to be too many guilds and too few active raiders.

Reading other blogs and forums, I see that other guilds struggle as well, and I’m curious about what most guilds struggle with role wise. For us, in Cataclysm we’ve mainly been lacking reliable tanks. We’ve had the same three healers throughout the entire expansion (with a fourth spot for rotation that’s had some turn-over), but we’ve switched tanks… I don’t even know how many times. Dps wise we’ve also had the same people, with a few extra on rotation that’s had some turn-over. But we’ve had at least five dps that have been reliable raiding members.

We now finally have a reliable tank who’s been with us for several months and is looking to stay with us in Mists. That said, we’re still missing an off-tank and I’ve been filling the role on my Death Knight and lately on my Paladin just to keep us raiding. When the expansion hits we may have to start looking for a new off-tank, since a lot of fights do require two tanks (especially early on).

In comparison, my friend’s horde guild had the same tanks almost the entire expansion. Healers were also fairly reliable, with just times when some couldn’t make it and so having a fourth on rotation was helpful. My brother’s guild (which is in the high-end raiding) had no problems with tanks either, but instead lacked healers.

This is a small pool to judge from, but it does seem to me that few guilds are lacking dps players, and are more likely to miss healers or tanks. I do wonder what the reason is. Are tanks and healers less fun to play? Or is it the stress of the role that get to people?

I personally enjoy both tanking and healing, but I will admit that I find them a lot more stressful than being dps. You still have a lot to do as a dps, but you making a mistake is less likely to wipe the raid. Most likely you’ll get yourself killed or your damage output will suffer, but the rest of the raid will still live. If you make a mistake as a tank people most often die. Same as a healer.

Has your guild lacked a certain role this expansion? And what do you think is the reason for the low amount of tanks and healers?

2 people like this post.
Unlike
Posted in Guild, Random Ramblings | 7 Comments

Oh, the hate!

Posted on August 17, 2012 by

I have so many things I want to write about, but I’m not managing to sit down to actually write them. Maybe it’s related to the fact that whenever I sit down before the computer I think to myself “OMG so much to do in WoW before the expansion!”. Or maybe I’m just tired. Or maybe a bit of both.

At the moment I’m feeling very little love from the green people in Azeroth. I don’t understand all the hate!

They used to hate me more. I’d already plied them with some cloth at this point..

I guess it could have something to do with me slaughtering them for hours on end in Booty Bay, but do they really have to hold a grudge? I had good reason! I am now Bloodsail Admiral Démonique. Who wouldn’t slaughter some goblins for that title?

Hail the admiral!

I guess now I need to start getting on their good side again. After all it gets rather tedious when you can’t enter certain cities without being attacked on sight.

Be the first to like.
Unlike
Posted in Random Ramblings | 4 Comments

[MoP] Warlock Gear Preview

Posted on August 8, 2012 by

With less than two months left before Mists of Pandaria is released I wanted to have another look at the Warlock gear that will be available to us.

Dungeon Set

This is the cloth set mostly available from 5-man Heroic dungeons. There are a few items with the same looks, some are also from quest rewards or the new scenarios. It’s fairly non-descript as it’s the same for all cloth classes. Out of the colours shown so far, I personally prefer the one with purple for my Warlock. The set feels fairly boring, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to wear it for long once LFR and the raids are introduced. The items are mostly ilevel 464, but there are the odd quest reward/tailoring item that is ilevel 450.

Dungeon Set

Season 12 Arena Set

The season 12 PvP set is absolutely gorgeous. I normally don’t do PvP on my Warlock much, but I think I may have to start because I really want to get my hands on this set. There are three sets with varying colours, depending on how you earn them. Dreadful from Honor Points (battlegrounds), Malevolent from Conquest Points (arena and RBG) and Malevolent Elite from Conquest Points, but requiring a personal rating of 2200.

2-piece bonus: Reduces the cooldown of your Unending Resolve by 20 sec.
4-piece bonus: Your Twilight Ward now absorbs damage from all magical schools.

Season 12

Challenge Set

From the new challenge runs in heroic 5 man dungeons you can get the challenge set. It has no stats, but makes up for it in looks, allowing you to use them for transmogrification. I personally love this set, and it’s another one on my list of sets that I just have to get.

Challenge Armor

Tier 14

From the raids you can get the usual tier sets. There’s the ilevel 483 from LFR, ilevel 496 from normal raids and ilevel 509 from heroic raids. I think the helm looks pretty badass, and I like the overall look of the armour. My one tiny pet peeve is the little discs. For some reason, once I saw them.. they were all I could see!

2-piece bonus.
4-piece bonus.

Tier 14

On the whole, I’m really happy with all of the Warlock sets that we’ve currently seen for Mists of Pandaria. I can see my Warlock wearing any of those outfits and loving it!

What are your opinions on the Warlock sets? If you’re not a Warlock, how’s your set looking? Are you hating it or loving it?

Images from Wowhead and MMO-Champion.

3 people like this post.
Unlike
Posted in MoP Beta, Warlock | 2 Comments

Darkmoon Faire: “Test Your Strength” Tip

Posted on August 5, 2012 by

In this slow period between expansions there may be people (like I), who don’t necessarily complete a raid and therefore may need to farm for their Darkmoon Faire: “Test Your Strength” quest. Some time ago I found the perfect place to farm for these, and I thought I’d share it with you!

It’s in Deepholm, and it takes between 10-15 minutes to farm the full 250 grisly trophies, depending on how lucky you are with respawns. It’s the area to the west, and you will fly from one end to the other killing the little packs of flying stone bats. While there, I usually kill the larger packs of jaspertip swarmers as well.

Just start in one end and fly to the other, then back down again. If you’re lucky with respawns you won’t need to do the full route more than once.

Stay inside the red-marked area. There are stone bat packs all through it.

Pack of stone bats.

Jaspertip Swarmers running around.

Be the first to like.
Unlike
Posted in Tips, World Events | 3 Comments

A Warlock’s Heart

Posted on August 2, 2012 by

In WoW you can usually find all kinds of quests. Anything between helping someone find something, kill aggressors or help injured people. There are also quests that are a bit shady, quests where you will kill first and ask questions later or sometimes even torture someone to get the answers that you need.

I remember reading discussions about the quest in Northrend where you torture a man to get answers, and some people questioned whether this was something your character would actually do. My character is a Warlock and I suspect she wouldn’t even bat an eye while using that neural needler on another person.

In fact, she hasn’t ever really been bothered by any quest in WoW. She does what she considers necessary, caring little for others as long as she benefits from her actions. I didn’t think the day would come when there was a quest she (I) had a problem finishing. There have been several sad quests in the game, where we know the story is based on a real life person, but this was different.

I took my Warlock to Darkshore, since I am slowly working on Loremaster and I thought I’d start there since it gives you a pet as well. While there, you end up getting a quest to kill the corrupted bears roaming the forests. This is usually not an issue for me… Only these corrupted bears had little cubs following them. And when you kill a bear, this happens.

“Mommy?”

The bear cub(s) will sit down and stare blankly at the corpse of their parent. I found this incredibly sad. I don’t remember a quest being quite this sad for me before. Eventually the cub will give up and run off into the distance. Blizzard, please give us a new quest where we save the cubs! Even my hardened Warlock couldn’t do this quest without feeling guilty!

Have you ever done/found a quest that you feel bad about?

Be the first to like.
Unlike
Posted in Random Ramblings | 13 Comments