Purple = Epic

I had to repost this article from Elk, because it's just plain awesome. An all 'lock raid. Warms my sharded soul.

That is all.

On Warlock RP

Wanted to check in today. It's been a bit. I was reading Poneria's little spat of fiction over at Fel Concentration, and fondly remembering my own glory days with RP here on the site. That was a lot of fun, wasn't it? Warlocks make great fictional characters. They are predisposed to walk the good/evil line, and it makes for a very interesting protagonist. How can you make someone who is, essentially, evil be sympathetic? How can a group where "selfishness" is a core value ever go on some sort of epic hero journey?

I watched Iron Man 3 last weekend, and really enjoyed the movie. I had the crazy notion just this morning that, you know, Tony Stark might just be a Warlock. IM3 certainly had the minion thing down. Plus, he is an inherently selfish character.

The cool part about that movie, to me, was the cleverness with which the story was pulled off. In the Avengers movie, the very fabric of the world was in jeopardy what with the alien invasion and Norse gods and all. It was the epitome of a "save the world" plot. How, then, do you create a movie in the same universe, with the same character, and have it retain a high stakes feel? It's like... well, we just saved the world, now what? Sequels in general struggle often with this problem. The stakes were so high in a previous movie and any subsequent plot will fall a bit flat.

There is a neat little trick that I think IM3 nailed. Instead of putting the whole wide world in jeopardy, you need only put the main character's world in jeopardy. If you make a likable character, then threatening things that are important to them can really raise the stakes without needing to resort to threats of a more global variety.

As a Warlock, I appreciate this. Saving the world doesn't always appeal to me. Sometimes, well... let 'em burn, right? Yet, threaten what I love and... it's on! Blizzard has a hard time using this trick, since we'd all be protagonists in Azeroth. Global threats are the only ones that seem to work well, which perhaps is why I feel it gets a bit overdone there. They have some good story threads, but my favorite by far was the Lich King. Fitting, then, that it may be perhaps the most personal of the Azerothian storylines.

I've been working with a character, Damian, on my writing blog that I'm trying to make into a bit of a Warlock. As much fun as WoW RP fiction was, I really enjoy working in my own world as well. It's more challenging, but I can also publish it at the end of the day and don't have to worry about offending any IP lawyers. Still, I'm trying to carry what I've learned over into my fiction. Tortured, somewhat ambiguous characters are fun to write. And, also, don't forge to make it personal.

Yay Warlockery!

If you've also noticed the lack of posting around here, don't worry. I still exist. Just doing more lurking these days than playing. Nothing much to report of note. I've been getting out IRL, too. Trying to create a new minion by resurrecting one of those - whaddya call 'em? - oh yeah, social lives. Just so y'all know, I will pipe up when I have things to say, but as previously warned, it's not going to be super often. I appreciate (very much!) all of you that have hung around for this long. It really does mean a lot. Connecting with folks is a large reason why any of us bloggers blog. With that in mind, even when I'm not posting I get email notifications for comments and junk. If something comes up or you just want to say hi, I have not disappeared and don't plan on closing this. It's free to me, so as long as blogger will have me, I'll be here in some ephemeral form or another.

Apart from that boring I-feel-obligated-to-share-what-is-up paragraph, I wanted to say a huge THANKS to  Amijade over at Warlockery for the very kind words prior to my little 'locky spotlight. I feel honored to have inspired other writers so, and glad that even in my absence the fate of the Purple World (...of Warcraft) is in good (if somewhat corrupted and bony) hands. Like I mentioned, I think the opportunity to connect with other great people has always been one of the biggest strengths of the WoW blogging community, and the gamer community in general.

I've enjoyed the spotlight, and will definitely continue to lurk around the Warlockery, if only to cackle with glee at the corruption of others.

Aff'lock Leveling Guide and a Musing

I've never done a leveling guide, but stumbled across a good one here several moons ago. Just wanted to give a quick shout out to it. Great work Psynister. Hopefully my generic title will net some Google searches and send them your way. You know, if they don't get there without my shoddy help.

In other news, I've been busy being social. Read: not gaming. Sadly. Being social is hard work.

I have been playing some League of Legends. I'll say this for LoL vs WoW. It is far, far easier to casually play a game like LoL. I can pick up, play a game in about an hour, and feel like I've accomplished something. Even when we get rolled.

In WoW, I can't play for just an hour. Oh, sure, I could force myself with a timer or something (and I usually do that), but you log in, start doing dailies, queue up... and all of a sudden it's 1AM. This isn't always a bad thing, but it is when I'm already feeling a bit sleep deprived. LoL has a built in cut-off time.

I'm looking forward to patch 5.2, when we'll be able to earn rep through dungeon runs. I think part of my difficult with the current incarnation of WoW is that I feel that I must both grind rep and run dungeons/LFR. I really enjoyed the old tabard system, because you could just make a point of getting on for the sole purpose of running one dungeon. It becomes more like LoL. My personal problem is that I really need to cap some reps before I can actually spend my accumulated points on anything. The patch change helps me in so many ways.

So I'm sandbagging a bit in WoW, waiting for the patch to drop. Until then, LoL is great filler. Also, I should probably progress some more in ACIII. That's another one I can't just sit and play for only an hour though...

From Zero to Gear-o

Terrible pun. I know. Deal with it. It reflects how I feel I've geared... very much in giant, terribly pun-y, leaps. Or something.

This past weekend, I finally got over the LFR hump. Immediately, I won a belt (and then nothing else for several runs). I also hit honored with Golden Lotus. As a tailor, that meant two more purples. I purchased a trinket and OH on the AH. I sold a purple robe to make the money back. I think I went from about 30k DPS to 60K DPS in a matter of hours. Pretty crazy.

I spoke a little about a rep path for Warlocks in my last post. If you're a tailor, getting honored with GL is huge. I also snagged a ring from the Operation: Shieldwall quartermaster for VP. I was nearing the cap after the last few weeks of dailies/heroics/LFR. I figured a ring was a good choice, since there's a second slot, so if I immediately get a drop, my purchase was not wasted.

I don't think I'm able to reliably juggle more than two hubs at a time, so GL and O:S are where I'm starting and would suggest other 'locks start there as well. O:S has the best rewards if you consider the eventual ilevel. GL is pretty much required to get started, but the tailoring really sells it if you're a tailor. Klaxxi is another option, but that's sitting in the 3-hole for me.

When 5.2 drops, it will shake this list up. I'm sure the new rep they come up with will take precedence. I'm hoping to have capped one of my first few before it does, but that may not be in the cards. I'm slow.

If you're looking for solid items to purchase on the AH. There's an OH purple that I snagged for 4k. There's also a trinket (Dragonling something) that can be filled with cogs to be pretty solid. With cogs, I don't think it was a whole lot more than 3k. If you're curious, I'm the Fulguralis on Alexstrasza. Check me out on Mr. Robot. I've only started reforging/properly enchanting/gemming the purple items. Until very recently, I was replacing things too quickly to be mess with it.

On an unrelated side note: I actually really enjoy trash now. With SS+SB, I feel like I actually contribute. Especially when I can time my DS so I'm constantly full of shards, and spreading DoTs like a madman. When I got to a stand and sling boss, it was almost boring. At least until I realized I really need to manage my shards better. For long fights, it's hard to keep Haunt up, and I think I want to be sure not to clip it, so-as to maximize the use of each shard. Mana has not been a huge issue as long as I remember to tap once every minute or so. Sometimes I forget and end up low.

I need to throw stats and spec into the primer, but I've not had the chance to snag any screenies yet. Maybe this week. I'm sort of counting on a talent reset with 5.2, so I can take the pet sacrifice talent instead of the super-pet talent that I have now. Nibs tells us that sacrificing the pup is actually pretty warlockerly of us, plus there's a very low danger of g- gui- guilt? Is that how it's pronounced? I guess if you're specced Destro you should be more concerned.

Primer Updated and Rep Grinding Plan

Just a quick FYI post today, I slapped the glyph information into my primer, complete with links. Feel free to let me know if I booger-ed anything. I've got spec and stats left. Both should be relatively short, but I want some links/screenshots to better explain them. For stats, I'm just basically using Ask Mr. Robot anyway, and doing the "non hit cap" version. It's tough getting used to misses, but I figured I may as well start. It's not as bad as I thought. Speccing is pretty simple these days, as well.

I'm also going to ramble a bit about the dailies I've been doing. The short version from my quick and dirty holiday research is to start with Operation: Shieldwall (for Alliance). It's going to have the best gear upgrades. Also, I want to get some stuff from Shado-pan soon, and that requires completion of the Golden Lotus reputation. So I do the Shieldwall and Lotus dailies, basically. Throw in a scenario/heroic if I can. I'm one point away from LFR eligibility, so that's exciting.

I topped off Tillers pretty quick, just because it's simple to do. I like to log off there, as it's a quick flight down to Lion's Landing or up to the Golden Lotus hub. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I throw in the Klaxxi dailies. I was really close to capping my Valor last week. Go me.

Now that I've finally started Assassin's Creed III, though, I see a distinct lack of dailies in my future. I'll probably still try to knock out an hour's worth, but that probably won't get me capped. Oh well...

Happy 2013!

2013 marks the start of the 6th year for this blog. This is also post 884. That's not a special number or anything, but boy is it a lot. 2012 was a bit of a rough year for yours truly, and my writing definitely suffered as a result. Still, I'm incredibly glad I took the plunge and opened my doors 6 years ago. I may not be as useful these days, but I'm thankful for all of you readers that have stuck with me, commented, and otherwise shared this space. I can't begin to express how much it means, especially when you're having a crappy year. One of the greatest things about the Internet (and our gaming community in particular) is the assurance that even when you feel alone... you're not.

I've met a lot of amazing people on this journey and was just taking a moment for reflection this morning. I will be back in 2013, writing about random warlockery. Though I've been quiet over the holiday break, it is not for a lack of gaming. I'm one ilevel point away from being LFR geared and dipping my toes in a bit of raiding. It was somewhat of an accomplishment for me to get back on the horse, so to speak. I've been proud in the past to be the first in the guild to cap, to be the best geared, etc etc. This time I'm coming from a whole different angle, and in some ways its eye-opening. Can you still be proud when you're the absolute last person to the party? I suppose my pride surprises me.

If you're curious and looking for a warlockerly tidbit, I'm in the midst of the Golden Lotus daily throes. I'm also doing the Operation: Shieldwall stuff, as that seems to be the best way to get geared quickly. My first exalted rep in MoP was definitely the Tillers. Go figure. But more on that as things settle back into a somewhat normal schedule. Until then, happy holidays to you and yours, thanks for reading, and pleasant corrupting in 2013!

I shard all of you.

Affliction Warlock Glyphs

I promised a quick break down of my glyphs this week, so here we go. There's not nearly as much to say about this section as there was about the rotation, but feel free to chime in with any tips/corrections. I'll plop this draft into my on-going primer (with links!) sometime over the holiday break.

For major glyphs, I'm going with:

• Glyph of Dark Soul - Adds a passive haste component while sacrificing some of the active effect.
• Glyph of Siphon Life - Adds self-healing to Corruption.
• Glyph of Soul Shards - Adds and extra shard slot.

Soul Shard is the only "required" glyph on that list. Having the extra shard makes a huge difference. Siphon Life is perhaps the second most common choice, as the extra health is good juju. Dark Soul, however, is probably pretty questionable. Currently, I'm taking it because I don't do a good job of using my DaS buff whenever it is off cooldown. At some point in the future, if I improve, I will likely replace this with Soul Swap. Rumor has it that the DaS glyph results in a DPS loss, but I need to look into the conditions of that statement. Obviously, if you never use DaS, it would no longer represent a loss. I imagine there must be some tipping point between "constantly" and "never" where the DPS loss kicks in. 

I'm pretty ambivalent about Soul Swap. I wish we had another good major glyph. With SB+SS, I just generally don't see the need for the glyph. As long as you judiciously throw in your Drain Soul prior to the death of things, shards don't seem to be a problem. And when you're not dealing with quick dying adds, you're not swapping a whole lot. Still, there is some use for allowing you to essentially DPS more than one sustained target, when such a situation arises.

Down in the minors, we have:

• Soulwell - Cosmetic glow.
• Verdant Spheres - Cosmetic balls.
• Eye of Kilrogg - Lets your eye place your portal.

The first two are simple cosmetic effects. If I were doing a lot of underwater stuff, I'd plop Unending Breath in Soulwell's place. It seems as if every underwater questing area gives you a convenient buff these days, though, so I never ended up using it. The spheres are just because I wanted to look like a sparkly vampire.

The Eye glyph is pretty useful, especially prior to obtaining my MoP flight license. It can allow you to teleport to places where you wouldn't otherwise have been able to reach. It's not really an in-combat thing, but fun and useful when exploring which is more than I can say for those other glyphs. 

Does anyone else feel like Warlocks always get the most boring glyphs?

MoP Affliction Warlock Primer Started

I published the rough draft of my rotation post last week and got some great feedback. I've taken that, updated things as needed, and plugged it into what will become my MoP Affliction Warlock Primer Page. It is linked up there on the top left of the page where my old guides used to be.

The eventual goal is to have everything in there I need to be a competent Affliction Warlock. Right now, we just have the rotational discussion. I'm planning to publish a rough draft about glyphs before this week ends. Stats and spec will be covered eventually as well. If there are any other key topics I've missed, I'm definitely open to adding a section.

Again, the goal of these articles is not to be a hardcore raider, but simply to get Affliction Warlocks started. You may want to do things differently, and I encourage anyone and everyone to share these alternate methods along with the rationale behind them. As my old gaffer used to say: "There's more than one way to afflict an orc." He might have been a bit hordist.

In any case, thanks to everyone that commented. Hopefully the primer helps some of the other Warlocks out there that are looking for a simple discussion of (what I consider) the basics. If nothing else, it has helped me hone my own playing. I slapped on the shard glyph last night and, hoo boy, what a difference an extra shard makes. I ran a quick scenario and felt like I was slinging shadow errrrverywhere. It was glorious.

I have to say, I really enjoy where they've taken the class in MoP. Traditionally, I've always viewed changes from Blizz with a healthy skepticism, but I really feel they nailed it in this expansion. They updated and removed a lot of the unpleasant sides of Affliction Warlockery without sacrificing (what I feel to be) the identity of the class. Bravo!

Now I just need to work on those "Coming Soon" areas.

Slinging Shadow in Mists

Okay. So here is my attempt at organizing my somewhat disparate thoughts about the current method of Affliction Warlock Spellslinging. Eventually, I'm going to organize this information into a primer to replace the outdated articles that I have on the left. At that point, I'm sure it'll be too late to be of help to anyone. Still, I'm doing this as much for myself as any of the rest of you. Now that I'm level 90 and starting to gear up, I need to know how to play proper-like, if only so as not to embarrass myself in group settings.

Let me set one expectation straight here: My goal with this is not to become a top raider or anything like that. The idea is to capture a basic foundation of what I believe to be a respectable way to play the class I love. There are always things one could do better, but let's agree to discuss what we believe every "core" Aff'lock should do. With that being said, here we go...

A lot has changed in MoP. The Warlock class has been redesigned. I think they did a great job of keeping the old flavor that I loved about the class, and mixing it with some new niceties that fix long-endured issues.

Buffing was simplified. Dark Intent has become a buff that should always be up, and much simpler than the days where we used to need to choose which class to link with. When you've got an active pet, you should keep your Soul Link up as well. Outside of that, you have your normal choices of food and flask that generally aim to buff our major stats, and that will be important when raiding, but outside of competitive group environments, these are optional. A good Warlock will always keep goodies on hand that buff one of our top three stats. (I'll do a dive into stats later. For now, Int, Haste, and Mastery are all good choices.)

Once we're buffed, we should look to the spells we're going to keep up during a fight. There are two major phases of any combat situation for Affliction Warlocks. One is above 25% health, the second is under 25% health. There's a third option, and that is AoE fights. I'll cover all three.

Above 25% Health, Single Target
Haunt > Curse of the Elements > Soulburn+Soul Swap > Maelific Grasp Filler > Fel Fire Refresh

We want to lead off with our "buff" spells that improve DoT damage. I don't always do this (because of laziness), but this makes sure that every tick benefits from their application. I would advocate leading off with Haunt since it has a "fly time," applying only after it has traveled from your hand and hit the target. Thus, after the Global Cool Down, CotE and H can hit almost simultaneously.

I like to use SB+SS to pop all my DoTs once, but if you're shard starved, you can put them up manually. And when I say "DoTs," I'm talking about what I like to call the Big Three: Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Agony. The primary goal of Affliction DPS is going to be to keep those Big Three rolling as much as possible. Our DoT up time on any given fight should exceed 90%. If you're learning Affliction, focus your efforts here first.

I will use Fel Fire to refresh Corr and UA. It adds a direct damage component, and the GCD's wash out when you consider you only get half of the time you would get with a manual refresh (but would have to manually refresh two spells, so you get two for the price of one). The only caveat to FF usage is if there is a fight where we're mana starved, as it is not the most mana-efficient path. Manual refreshing would be better then. Agony is a manual refresh all the way, and try to keep it at 10 stacks (by not letting it fall off).

Goal number 1 is maximizing Big Three up time. Goal number 2, then, would be to maximize the up time of our filler and thus minimize "non-damaging" down time. We will want to try to keep Haunt up as much as possible, but will likely be shard-limited to some extent, so we should simply do our best. More important, maybe, is weaving in as much MG as possible. MG is the spell that replaced our old Shadowbolt filler. MG is tied much more strongly to DoTs, increasing its importance as filler. The more we can keep MG rolling (without letting other things drop off), the better our DPS numbers are going to look.

And that's pretty much it for >25%. It's a lot simpler than in years past. If you feel like you are doing sub-par DPS, my first advice would be to check your up times. I've had a few discussions about that here, and I think we're looking at average up times of >90% on the Big Three, ~50% for Haunt (generally less), and ~40% for MG (fight/situation dependent, and 40 is probably a lofty goal). These are just rules of thumb, and your mileage may vary, but can provide you with a frame of reference and basis for improvement.

Below 25% Health, Single Target
We're pretty much doing the same stuff here. Keeping the Big Three rolling. Keeping Haunt up. The big switch is that instead of MG filler, we'll switch to using Drain Soul. DrS can have some pretty massive ticks under 25%, so it is totally worth using. Simply replace MG with DrS. Since DrS ticks a lot slower, this is where an addon that shows ticks (like Quartz) can be helpful. Try to weave your various refreshers right after ticks have occurred. (You could do the same with MG, but it does not have as much of an impact since the ticks are faster and the overall spell is shorter).

I try to make use of our Dark Soul buff just prior to entering this phase. I do not believe that DaS stacks with effects like Heroism, so you may want to use the buff differently depending on when the group buffs come out. For most fights, I could use DaS at the beginning, and probably somewhere in the middle as well. I believe it has a 2 min cooldown, so a studious 'lock would be able to get ~3 uses out of it per fight. I am not a studious 'lock. I routinely forget about it, so I just try to make sure I use it at least once per fight, and I want to make sure that when I want to use it, it is ready to go. This is a personal preference. No doubt many of you do much better than me.

Finally, I have my Doomguard macro'ed to my DaS key, so whenever I pop the buff, I also bring out my bonus pet. Make sure you use this guy once per fight. It has a longer cooldown, so you're not going to be able to generally weave him in any more. I save my punches for the end, but there may be circumstance where you want to blow this stuff earlier. Maybe a tricky part where some bonus DPS is needed. Your call.

Area of Effect, Multiple Targets
Previously, we've always tried to define a certain number of units where utilizing AoE spells becomes preferable to simply trying to keep up DoTs on multiple targets. I think it may fall between 3 and 4 mobs. With 3 or fewer, you want to do single target stuff (perhaps using SS to run your Big Three on multiple targets). With 4 or more, you'll want to switch to AoE spells. For the Affliction Warlock, this means a SB+CotE (so that Elements gets put on all of the enemies), then following with a SS+Seed of Corruption (this will apply Corruption to all targets hit by the exploding seed). Plant your seed on the target with the most health, and push it toward explosion (it has a damage done trigger). I like to throw out a Drain Life here (with the AoE talent). It's probably better (when health is of no concern), to channel RoF or just do direct damage to the target to get your seed to explode. An alternate method would be to spread more seeds around while waiting for the explosion to get a chain of explosions. While this is great fun, I don't think you should do it if you've spread Corruption out, as SoC and Corr don't mix. That is, one replaces the other (still, right?).

One of the major reason I like to use the Drain Life approach is that spamming your AoE abilities will drain your mana ridiculously fast. Drain Life is a lot more mana efficient, though it doesn't pack the wallop of the others. Just something to consider. This is how I like to AoE and I think it is a solid approach. I wouldn't worry too much about being the master of AoE. Aff'locks are kings of sustained, single target damage. Let the mages deal with pesky groups.

So this summarizes my approach to Affliction Warlockery. See any major goofs? How do you do things differently and why? Consider this my first draft, so I'd love to fix any errors you notice. Like I said, this is more for me than all of you, since you're all pros already, right?

Up Time Follow Up

A little follow-up from yesterday's post. There was some great discussion in the comments section, but K-bear followed up with some more information for me. She slid a pair of logs across my metaphorical desk. One from her again, and one from another Aff'lock raider in a group she really respects as being "good."

She's been holding down the 3/4 slot on the meters in her raids with ~38k DPS. Solid middle-of-the-pack performance, but because we like to conjecture about all things warlockery, we're going to analyze things.

The other Warlock was also in the 3 spot in his/her raid. In both raids, the top two characters perform over 60k DPS. In Warlock 2's (W2) raid, though, our Warlock is giving chase with ~62k DPS.

Now, first things first. This is not a scientific study we're talking about here. For instance, I'm totally ignoring the gear component here. From our conversations, I'm pretty sure W2 out gears dear K-bear. I'm also ignoring important things like group composition, fight mechanics, etc, etc. There are plenty of important things that I'm just blissfully ignoring, so take this with a grain of fel salt.

The reason this is worth mentioning is because I believe we're comparing two pretty competent Warlock players. One is still sort of getting the feel of Affliction (because she bounces around specs), and the other is probably more comfortable. Here's what I saw.

The Big Three up time was pretty much the same. This is as expected. If we were handing out a "ready to raid" badge for Warlocks, mastery of the Big Three would probably be the primary criteria. As I scrolled down, though, I found some tentative proof of my suspicions. MG up time for W2 was around 40%. K-bear was only hitting around 20% up time for MG. That's a huge difference. Does it account for 24k DPS? Probably not, but I would bet as K-bear gains comfort and increases that MG up time, her DPS shoots up accordingly.

It was interesting that the Haunt up time for both was around 50%. No change, despite the increased MG up time. K admitted that she was a little Haunt happy during the fight, so her 50% may not have been efficiently obtained. Perhaps she would have been served better letting that drop a bit and focusing more on MG.

Like I said, this is just conjecture, but I think it's interesting if you're a raiding Warlock. Hopefully, you can consult your own logs and try to identify places where you can improve. I'd love to get more numbers so that maybe some day we could make a statement like: "Yeah, in typical fights you should have around 40% up time for MG." Or something like that. I don't have enough info yet, and there are a ton of variables that I'm not considering, but I think it provides a good place to focus.

MG is new and integrated even more into our DoTs than Shadowbolts ever were, and figuring out ways to squeeze in more s-bolts used to be a valuable pursuit as far as DPS increase was concerned. The way MG supports our DoTs, it's not simply a matter of added damage from the spell itself, but of the buff to all of our DoTs as well. It's all tied together. Doubling your MG up time should definitely provide a significant DPS increase.

Aff'lock Performance Indicators

I was gchatting with a fellow 'lock blogger yesterday (I'll let her identify herself in the comments, should she desire to be known as my Evil Accomplice), and we were primarily conjecturing on the nature of Affliction Warlock DPS. One of the common questions you'll get as a long time class blogger (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this) is from folks wondering "what am I doing wrong?" Generally, this question is centered around raid performance.

I've never had a rote answer, preferring instead to feel out the individual and try to see where they might be struggling. Then, I can usually offer some tailored tips. Not always, but sometimes. This approach has served me well, and--let's face it--I'm not exactly the hub of all things warlockerly. That is to say, my inbox isn't exactly overflowing with these sorts of requests, they just sometimes happen.

Now that I'm 90, I've turned my thoughts toward group performance. While you're leveling, I don't much see the need to min/max. Gear will be replaced a lot, and quests don't generally provide you a long DPS burn period with which to accurately gauge performance. Sure, you could point to your numbers in dungeons, but even then I do not think all classes level up equally, so the balance at 89 is likely different than 90.

An alternative way of saying the same thing is that we know Blizz balances at max level. Those are the numbers they're likely most concerned with. Thus, everything below that can be viewed with a level of healthy skepticism.

So, I'm now 90, I have no more excuses (manufactured or not) for disregarding my performance. But how to gauge? Whereas in Cataclysm we had about -5 changes (yes, that's a negative), MoP has revamped the class in almost all areas. The essentials like "using DoTs" are still there, but everything from the method of application to the method of refreshment has changed greatly.

The problem I've always had with simple looking at a meter and saying "well, I came in third so I have work to do" is that such an approach doesn't explain very well where you might be failing. Affliction Warlocks have always been a bastion of spell slinging complexity. Our spells are designed to weave together and provide a very level state of sustained damage. This is both blessing and curse (HA! CURSE!).

The blessing is that even when I don't have the highest DPS, I generally put out the most overall damage. The curse is that if you aren't weaving quite right, your damage can plummet pretty quickly. I always envision Warlock damage as sort of a ski-slope with damage on the "y" and execution ability on the "x." Good Warlock execution has always been rewarded by solid numbers. (Unlike, say, my old Frost DK where I felt sometimes that I could faceroll my way to solid numbers.)

Typically, my current rotation functions something like this:

1. SB+SS to get the Big Three up.
2. CotE
3. Haunt
4. MG filler
5. Maintain DoTs
6. Maintain Haunt

I realize folks would suggest putting CotE and Haunt up first. If you're using SB+SS to initiate, by the time that both CotE and Haunt get up, everything has ticked maybe once. Over the course of a >30s fight, one missed tick is a total wash. Do the napkin math if you don't believe me. Let me be clear: the order you initiate is NOT your biggest area of concern if you're playing at my level (read: not super hardcore, but just want to do well).

What is then? Well, quite simply: Up time. This has always been the case with Aff'locks. The closer you can get to 100% up time on your various buffs/debuffs is going to be the biggest and clearest marker of DPS performance. Feel like your DPS is low? The very first place I would check is my up time.

To facilitate discussion, Evil Accomplice and I viewed one of her logs from a very early raid where she'd just started running Affliction. Immediately, two things came to mind to look out for:

1. She was probably not super comfortable with the rotation.
2. She was probably not super comfortable with the fight mechanics.

In my opinion, those are the two biggest things that commonly cause a problem with up time. Impressively, her Big Three were all over 90% up time. I think (because I've not done extensive play testing yet) that this is pretty good. It used to be where I could only reliably keep Corr up over the 90% mark, and the others were generally close. On good days, keeping all the DoTs over 90% was generally a good indication of stellar performance.

With the new rotation, I think the Big Three should be easier to keep up, even when uncomfortable (it's a little easier to focus on them now, I think). The lack of comfort is going to shake it's way down to inefficient shard management and interrupted channeling. Or, more specifically, look for poor up time on MG and Haunt.

Evil Accomplice's Haunt was sub 50% and MG was something like 15%. I'm not sure what to bench mark for those. What would "good" up time look like for them? After all, they're not going to be 90%, no way. Haunt maybe, but we're definitely not going to be constantly channeling. And there's the whole sub 25% health DS thing to consider.

This has already gotten a bit long-winded, so I'm going to wrap it up with some generic advice. Should Evil Accomplice want to improve her DPS performance, I'd tell her to try to find ways to increase Haunt and MG up time. Especially Haunt.

This is where weaving comes in. If Haunt is not being kept up and you say "yeah, well, I just don't have enough shards." We have the chance to get shards refunded from MG, right? In a way, Haunt and MG are inextricably tied together as filler. Do poorly with one and you'll likely hurt the other. And Haunt has been buffed so that it's damage is pretty significant I think.

When we're uncomfortable, we can probably keep our Big Three up, but our filler is going to suffer. Back in the day, we used to pay attention to how many shadowbolts we squeezed in. This was a fairly decent approximation of Aff'lock performance (at least when you live somewhere between "newb" and "hardcore"). Now, I would advise aspiring 'locks to check out their MG/Haunt statistics. Improve those and see if your DPS doesn't respond accordingly.

This is all just conjecture. I'd really like to put my shadow where my mouth is (or something) and test the theory. Unfortunately, I've got quite a bit of gearing to do before I'll be invited to raids (even the LFR!). Some of you raiding 'locks out there... check this out. Let me know what you think. I may be completely wrong here, but it seems logical, right?

90!

Okay, so Ful is getting his groove back. At least a little. I put in a pretty solid session Saturday that I think lasted about twelve hours. I've not done one of those in a long time (read: since last expansion probably). It wasn't really planned, just sort of worked out that way. Basically did all of level 90 in one sitting.

It was one of those things where you start playing, knock out some quests, and then go clean something. Then sit back down, knock out some more quests, go get some food. Then more questing and... maybe I should do something else. But wait! 50%! At this point I can totally get to 60%, just to be over halfway. Two hours later... 80%! Might as well finish it off now. So I did. Dinged for the final time this expansion sometime around 1AM Saturday night, server time.

Here's a list of my initial post-ding thoughts (keep in mind I was pretty tired):

• I have never been so glad to fly in my life. The zones seem to get progressively rockier (?), encouraging flying over riding. I suppose that makes sense.
• I finally got to turn in a lot of quests that had been cluttering my bags, waiting for me to have access to places like the Seat of Knowledge. That felt wonderful.
• The stream of refugees into the Vale was pretty neat. It nearly coincided with my final ding (I was two quest turn-ins away), so I almost felt a be emotional. Not that a Warlock would cop to having anything resembling emotions.
• I'm still going to finish the quests to get Pandarian Loremaster. It's nice that these give you the same rep you're going to need from dailies.
• Moving without interrupting casting is pretty neat. There are a whole bunch of habits I need to overcome now to make the most of things. Having grown used to being a damage turret for the last five-ish years, it's amazing now my thought I hadn't realized I give to where I stand when I pull. Now I can readjust without ruining my rotation. Totally an odd feeling, but not in a bad way. It's sort of like, oh yeah, I wasn't just interrupted by the stupid yank... the spell went off!
• I'm doing a few dailies, but I've not developed a cohesive plan yet. I'd like to cap out my profs first, I think, and focus on raid gearing last. With my current status as "last sub off the bench," I'm not too worried about it. I should probably try to get LFR ilevel just to preclude any complaints should I be brought in.

Anyway, that's all for today. I'm excited about being at the level needed to help out. I missed some of the more social aspects of MMO gaming. Hopefully I can derp my way to some adequate gear and help out somewhere. I wouldn't consider myself back on the horse completely, but I'm partially in the saddle.

87... and Cooking.

These are really inspiring post titles, I know. The generic nature of the content seems to merit a numeric title in my mind. That, and it's a not-so-subtle reminder that I'm totally behind. It's by choice, so I'm not totally angsty about it. In fact, it's been a nice flip-side for me. Instead of rushing to try to understand everything and then provide good information here... I'm sort of learning from y'all. I definitely appreciate all the commentors who have been stopping by.

So as the title indicates, I hit 87 over the weekend. I was actually able to do a good amount of leveling, and I'm almost halfway to 88. I'm doing a lot of work with the farm folk right now, and some young Pandarian girl is following me around exclaiming about all of the neat things. The Warlock in me wants to shard her.

Or is it "orb" her now that I'm a vampire warlock?

Joking aside, the leveling process continues to be fun. They've done a good job. Even going as slowly as I've been going has been engaging. Seems like the right amount of story to me.

Here's another question perhaps you guys can help me with. What's up with cooking leveling? Do you only run into the trainer later? I have all these cooking ingredients but can't find any recipes. I generally like to simply level my stuff as I go, making use of drops and what-have-you. I have all these items marked "cooking ingredients" filling up my bag... but no recipes to utilize them. Without doing a whole bunch of research, I simply looked up a trainer and he/she/it seemed to be someplace I'd not discovered yet. Anyone else have this issue during their initial leveling journey?

Ding! 86!

I know, I know. Everyone else is posting their level 90 screenies. I'm cackling at my title because I just hit 86 last nighit. Like I said, slooooowlock.

This isn't to say I'm not completely enjoying myself, because I am. I've added the SB+SS move to my playbook now, and pretty much use that as my opener everywhere fine DoTs are flung. I pop Elements and then hit MG and the life just leeches away. I always imagine the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "He chose... poorly."

Here's a question you can help me with, dear readers. What is the best way you've found so far to capture pets in pet battles? BBB was writing the other day about a pet whose attack leaves the baddy at 1HP. Good stuff there. Are there any other clever ways?

Here's the thing. I like pet battles. I want to capture more pets. Sometimes, I also just want to kill things. Killing things is fun. Capturing is sort of a pain. I feel like I have to do it right now, when the pets are the right level, or later when I come back I'll just be one-shotting everything (or, if I put a lower pet out, it will get one-shotted).

In addition, do you guys know of an addon that will highlight pets on your mini-map that you do NOT have. I have a hard time remembering which ones I've captured. When I'm flying over them, I mouse over and try to think, but would love an addon that does this for me.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks in advance for the advice!

SB + SS is Pretty Awesome

One of the biggest complaints for Aff'locks everywhere has been the perpetual lack of burst damage. Trash was the bane of our existence for so long. To some extent, I think many of us old 'locks have simple grown used to the deficiency over the years.

In MoP, it is very apparent that Blizz has attempted to address the issue, and I think they've done a felling good job. I continue to be impressed with a vast majority of the design decisions. Doubly so because my faith had taken a pretty solid shot with Cataclysm. MoP is almost a complete 180. Where before I feel like every decision fell flat, now I feel like they're knocking 'em out of the park.

The title pretty much says it all. Thanks to a comment from my article last week, I remembered the new Soulburn + Soul Swap combo. Pretty awesome. Gets DoTs up right away and you can get straight to bursting. I may even dump my SS glyph, since I'm more likely to use SS this way now.

If you're looking for higher level, hard hitting journalism, check out Amijade  I liked today's article on Kil'jaeden's Cunning. Good stuff. I'm SO not there. Still 85. Shameful, I know, but I'm having fun. That's what counts.

Also, still addicted to PokeWoW, but I have forced myself to intersperse some leveling. Both are fun. What's a 'lock to do?!

Slowlock

I told you things might be wonky around here for a bit. It's been a little over a week since my "Day One" in MoP post. You'd think I might be 90 by now, have some good advice, yadda yadda. Nope, still 85. Alllllmost 86. Just last night I finally found the last of the trainers I needed to unlock levelling with all secondary professions. I also discovered pet battles. So, yeah, guess what I did last night.

Like everyone else, I find the pet battles supremely addictive. It doesn't help that I've not had any long stretches of time to play yet. The good news is that there's plenty to do, even on a hop-on/hop-off type of play schedule. Pet battles are perfect for that niche.

I will try to impart some Warlocky wisdom. Y'all have probably figured all of this out already, but I'm starting to settle into my "rotation." Obviously, leveling is going to be a different animal than raiding, so keep in mind I'm only leveling right now. Here's what I'm hitting:

Corr > UA > Haunt > Elements > MG > Fel Fire > Drain Soul.

MG is my filler. I use FF to get out of channeling and swap quickly to DS. It seems pretty effective, and refreshes those two main DoTs. I don't have to repeat a lot, because things are dead. I'm sure that will change as I level.

The big omission to this rotation is Agony. I'm not using it on this quick-dying stuff. I think that makes sense. When something lives longer, I tend to squeeze it in just before MG. Generally that's because I'm like "Oh crap, this is going to take longer to die... let's us Agony."

We used to always lead off with Shadow Bolts to set up the debuff before dotting. With no bolts, this is no longer a concern. I always liked leading with my instants anyway, so I'd throw Agony/Corr first, I think. For longer fights, I've not decided if I'll use FF for all refreshes, or just to swap at the DS 25% health point. Anyone have data for that?

So, yeah. Slow Aff'lock is slow. I'm hoping this weekend is a bit more mundane and I can get some good time in. We'll see.

Rapid Cast Expansion

Fulguralis: Well, this is nice.
Spaz: Nice...like.... candy?!
Felspaz: Did-someone-say-candy?
Spaz: Whoareyou?Whoareyou?Whoareyou?
*Two voices, unintelligible arguing.*
Spaz: Felspaz. That-is-your-name.
Felspaz: Call-me-imp.Call-me-fire.Call-me-maybe, I-do-not-care! I. WANT. CANDY.
Fulguralis: You're kidding, right?
*Big Crash*
Fulguralis: Aaaand there go the lights.
Midnight: Awwww, big strong man is afraid of the dark. You know, some of the yummiest happen in the dark.
Spaz: ca-Ca-CA-CANDY?
Felspaz: Candy-candy!
Candi: Who keeps yelling for me?
Midnight: Mmmmm, speak of the devil.
Candi: Horny, baby?
Fulguralis: No. Affliction. I'm not into Demonality... Hey! Hands to yourself!
Candi: All six of them?
Midnight: C'mon, Mr. Warlock, nothing wrong with a little...
Spaz: SUGAR!
Felspaz: Sugar-sugar!
Berry Blue: No, they mean looooove.
Spaz: PIE?
Berry Blue: Long, slow, easy...
Spaz: Licorice?
Felspaze: Black-licorice. It's-bigger.
Spaz: No-no, it-just-looks...
Lord of V: I got this one, Berry.
Berry Blue: How about a duet?
Lord of V: Ooooh, good idea my brotha.
Fulguralis: Honestly, where is that music coming from? We don't own a saxophone.
Candi: We're going to...
Midnight: ....sax you up...
Candi: ...play you like an instrument...
Midnight: ...with whipped cream on my...
Spaz: ICE-CREAM
Felspaz: You-scream?
Spaz: No-you-idiot. Ice...
Felspaz: You-are-the-idiot. It'sa-joke. You-are-supposed-to...
Berry Blue: This is a song about looooove.
LoV: *High Pitch* Listen as we sing about looove.
Midnight: ... and then we'll take your...
Candi: ...with the reverse...
Berry Blue: ...when the night is young...
LoV: *High Pitch* Night is yoooooung.
Spaz: I-said-ice-cream-and-you-said...
Felspaz: I-know-what-I-said-you-little...
Spaz: You're-little-too! HAhAHAHAHa...
*Sparkie starts barking wildly in the background*
Fulguralis: Faaaantastic.
*Sounds of Imp arguing, smooth singing, and sexy purring form an incoherent deluge of noise.*
Fulguralis: Guys... does anyone else see that floating... what is that? Guys? GUYS! What is it doing?!
*Silence*
Fulguralis: Evil I, is that you?
Evil I: Yes.
Fulguralis: What...ah... what are you doing?
Evil I: Observing.
...
Spaz and Felspaz, simultaneously: Creepy.
Midnight: Creepy.
Candi: Creepy.
Berry Blue: Creepy.
LoV: Creepy.
Fulguralis: Yeah, creepy.
Evil I: It's what I do.
...
Spaz: First!
*Things devolve back into screeching, barking, singing, and moaning.*
Fulguralis: Supremecy, huh? Bah! Shoulda went with Sacrifice...

Baby Locksteps

One small step for Warlocks, one giant leap for Warlock kind? The ODB-Butt posted the other day about a baby warlock he rolled. The article is noteworthy not (only) for its interesting wordiness, but for the first-hand experience of leveling a Warlock since they've changed things on us. If you're a Warlock keeping up with anything Cynwise has written, you're probably aware of his deep-dive into the unpopularity of the Warlock class. One of the most-substantiated (and agreed-upon) reasons for a lack of 'locks was the unpleasantness of early leveling. It sounds to me that Blizz may have improved upon it. And not only improved, but perhaps... shattered the soul of the problem?

Awful, I know. Oh well. That's all I've got for you today.

(Also, since I used a bit of parody: RIP Mr. Armstrong.)

First Hack at New Rotation

I dug into my revamped spellbook this weekend. I amused myself by listing the items that jumped out to me as changes. Then I took inventory of my bars, tweaked a few things, and practiced what I came up with on a dummy. I was on a level 80 dummy and recount said I was doing like 20k DPS. I'm not sure how that compares to what I was doing before the patch. I think it seems about the same, but I was hardly employing the scientific method.

Here's that list, in no particular order:

• They made Dark Intent into a raid-wide buff. No more decisions. Darn. I rather liked being able to exclude people. Felt very warlocky. This is still probably a good thing, though.
• CotE - Soulburn for AoE. Whatever.
• Dark Soul - This looks new. Basically a trinket pop, short term buff.
• Fel Fire - Changed to refresh two spells now, Corr and UA. Does this make it worth it? Seems to be a lot closer now... the button presses (GCDs) appear to equal out now.
• Life Tap - Now absorbs healing? So, you can't hurt yourself. Another thing that is somewhat less warlocky, but oh well. 
• Unending Resolve - This is new. Something it would be nice to have on hand, it seems. Situational.
• Soul Shatter now uses health instead of a shard.
• Our shards are basically just for Haunt. Meh.

I pulled out Shivarra, buffed up, and hit on the dummy. No, not her. The stuffed dude. On the stick.

My rotation ended up like this:

1. Corruption
2. Agony
3. Unstable Affliction
4. Haunt
5. Malefic Grasp as filler.

I tried to keep Haunt going as much as my shards would allow. I was much less than 100% up time. Didn't get shards as fast as I needed. That's pretty annoying.

I would switch to Drain Soul (instead of MG), but the dummy's health didn't get low. They don't really do that.

Otherwise, it was pretty much that simple. Unlike Cynwise, I really didn't feel the need to blow away all of my buttons and start fresh. In fact, most of them still worked just fine (they transferred well). My basic UI strategy involves double using numeric keys with macros. That is, I don't do a whole lot of complicated stuff. I simply set things up so that holding "alt" brings up a second set of spells. That was, all the important parts of my spellbook are right there. I think the simple approach worked in my favor with the changes.

Overall, it wasn't too bad. It felt fast, and I was a bit clumsy. I used FF to refresh Corr and UA. Not sure if that's the best way, but I'm not sure why it wouldn't be. If the GCDs are indeed equal now, you're just adding a direct damage component to your refreshing, right?

I'm sure there were things I'm missing, but I think I caught the basics. I know that Demo and Destro seemed to have gotten a lot of the "cool new" stuff. I'm anxious to try them as well, but Affliction had to be the first cut. I should have queued up for some things, but didn't really get the chance. I'm hoping to sneak back into a raid group as a sub or something. We'll see how that goes. Until then, it's just me and the dummy. Oh, and that guy on the stick.