3x warlock dps tips/macros?

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02-24-2009, 07:27 PM
unseen

3x warlock dps tips/macros?

OK, so I'm running my Warrior/Priest/3-warlocks group and my warrior is geared well enough to tank now (roughly 26k health unbuffed, uncrittable, gets about 29k health buffed), my priest is respectable with 1780ish spell power.

My warlocks, however, are pathetic right now. I'm putting out a meager 1200-1300 dps (tops) on most fights. For a while there my tank was actually outdpsing them. They each have about 1550ish spell power (with demon armor), which I'll admit isn't much. They do have a couple BOE epics and have an epic belt from being exalted with the faction in Icecrown (I forget the name right now).

I've started doing Gundrak and at this point I can down Moorabi in one attempt. Eck is a nightmare -- I'm racing to his enrage point so most times it takes me 3+ attempts to get him. I just barely started being able to down the snake boss, but usually I lose my priest at the very least while killing him and sometimes it takes a few attempts.

I've got all my warlocks abilities bound to 1-7 and I've been manually hitting them. I used to play a warlock as my main pre-BC (once BC came around I switched to a resto druid), so I figured I could handle managing their abilites manually. I have no castsequences or anything set for them.

They're all specced destruction since I figured that would be the easiest to do while healing and tanking. Having them specced demonology seemed like a waste since I'd want one of them to have a felhunter out and I'd want an imp out - both of which would be a waste for a demo lock. I also didn't want to have to worry about handling all the dots as affliction.

Typically I start with curses (2 agony + 1 ele), corruption, immolate. I then conflag (I have the glyphs) and then incinerate until it's time to refresh dots.

I could be dead wrong in my spec choice, or maybe there's some easy tips I could use to increase the dps I need? How are you warlock dpsers doing it?
02-24-2009, 07:41 PM
Bigfish

I'm pulling 2.2k on my Afflcition lock. I'll post the macros later.
02-24-2009, 08:19 PM
elsegundo

Preventing macro failure?

try that as well.
02-24-2009, 09:38 PM
savaki
Here's the chain I use for my aff lock:
- Haunt
- Curse of X
- Corruption
- Unstable Affliction
- Siphon Life
- Drain Life while you're waiting
- Shadow bolt whenever shadow trance comes up
02-24-2009, 10:51 PM
elsegundo
Quote:
Originally Posted by 'savaki',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180919#post1 80919

Here's the chain I use for my aff lock:

Haunt
Curse of X
Corruption
Unstable Affliction
Siphon Life
Drain Life while you're waiting
Shadow bolt whenever shadow trance comes up
how do you know nightfall procs?
also the OP is a destro lock, so... ??? lol
02-24-2009, 11:07 PM
Bigfish

Code:

//Multibutton macro /assist Focus /castsequence reset=target Curse of the Elements, m /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton2 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton3 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton4 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton5 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton6 //Corruption /castsequence reset=target Corruption,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //Haunt /castsequence reset=combat Haunt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //immolate /castsequence reset=combat Immolate,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //Siphon Life /castsequence reset=combat Siphon Life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,life tap,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,life tap //Unstable Affliction /castsequence reset=combat Unstable Affliction,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, /cast Shadow Bolt

That essentially keeps your dots up 99% of the time for an afflcition spec. As was pointed out, you're not affliction, but this is how you can make affliction work if you have 1 button you can just spam.
02-25-2009, 03:57 AM
unseen

Thanks for the replies so far guys!

I'm willing to respec as necessary -- whatever will help!

I had just assumed that tracking affliction's dots was more micromanagement than keeping track of destruction.

I've got one warlock specced to affliction at the moment I'll give some of this stuff with. I ran him around tonight through the heroic bosses I mentioned and he was pretty far behind my other warlocks, but that was with me doing a pretty terrible rotation.
02-25-2009, 05:18 AM
Bunny

Interesting idea. Currently my lock is specced destruction but I am going to try affliction and the macros suggested in this thread to check the dps and the playstyle. Anybody who can link a good multibox affliction spec? I whould also appreciate hints which talents are necessary and which are good in theory but may not be suitable for multiboxing.
Bunny
02-25-2009, 03:12 PM
Catamer

I have a feeling you are SoL when it comes to your warlocks if you are using your DoT(s) to get your DPS out of them.
Many of the warlock DoTs put out more DPS at the end of the life cycle than at the front, so any DoT that didn't make it to full life didn't get you full DPS.
they will only shine or out perform others in your team when they are getting all of their DoTs going and it takes time to cast all of them.
They should shine when it comes to a boss fight because with proper applied DoTs and life taps they shouldn't go OOM, and the boss should last long enough for all of the DoTs reach maturity.

for afliction i used to use the longest lasting dot first which I think is siphon life.
Haunt should probably be manually applied because drain life works best with more DoT on the target.
/stopmacro [channeling]
/castsequence reset=target/5 siphon life, curse of X, corruption,unstable, immolate, life tap,drain life, drain life
I suppose you could always go destructo and spam shadow bolts but they have a long casting time :-(

I can have my level 70 warlock out DPS my level 80 shaman in Kara by having him spam seed of corruption
so maybe you should look into the warlock macro for spaming seed of corruption on trash mobs.
someone had a macro that limited the range the /targetenemy works on so that the warlocks were not targeting stuff out of range. I use it on my warlock at times, I'll look it up later.
02-25-2009, 04:30 PM
unseen

This is another question. Seed of corruption uses a lot of mana -- I don't ever use it on groups of 3 or 4 mobs.

Where are you using SoC other than large packs of mobs?
02-26-2009, 01:08 AM
unseen

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=180954#post 180954

Code:

//Multibutton macro /assist Focus /castsequence reset=target Curse of the Elements, m /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton2 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton3 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton4 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton5 /click MultiBarBottomLeftButton6 //Corruption /castsequence reset=target Corruption,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //Haunt /castsequence reset=combat Haunt,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //immolate /castsequence reset=combat Immolate,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, //Siphon Life /castsequence reset=combat Siphon Life,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,life tap,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,life tap //Unstable Affliction /castsequence reset=combat Unstable Affliction,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, /cast Shadow Bolt

That essentially keeps your dots up 99% of the time for an afflcition spec. As was pointed out, you're not affliction, but this is how you can make affliction work if you have 1 button you can just spam.

OK it took me a while to get my head wrapped around the concept of these macros. I finally got them all set and while it DOES work my dps is ridiculously low. On Moorabi my destruction warlocks did almost double the damage. My afflction warlock did just a little more than the tank.

Going to have to work on this a lot more.
02-26-2009, 02:02 AM
Allesarelle

Warlocks are mah favorite class

I am running a Dk/priest/3xWarlock team. Have cleared heroic Nexus, Keep, Gundrak, Culling and have partially cleared most of the others. (just a few sticky bosses giving me trouble). My warlocks run around 2000 dps with my one warlock with some raid gear hitting 2200 dps through the dungeon. Can see 2500 to 3000ish on bosses. I run a simple easy spec on them now. Affliction IS the dps king but the rotation can be a real pain without some serious macro work. And I would argue that clears are overall quicker out of affliction because trash dies too quick for your dots to really pay off. But Seed of Corruption spam would be much more powerful in affliction then in my spec. The next highest DPS spec (simulation craft) is FG/Emberstorm which is what I run now.

FG/Ember

This gives you the felguards which are relentless killing machines. As I stated before... when you are repositioning.. they are killing.. When you are lifetapping.. they are killing. When you are turned around from fear and need to be gathered up... they intercept and keep on killing. When you are in town.. they are dreaming about killing. The zero hassle pets do around 500 to 600dps each in my group. They can tank trash in a pinch if somehow you are failing to hold aggro for whatever reason. With the right buffs it scales up nicely. Your warrior has some things for them my dk doesn't. It also gives you easy macro's and rotation.

Button 1:

/cast [target=focustarget, nochanneling] Curse of Agony (or elements on one of them since you don't have a DK giving ebon plague)

Button 2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget, nochanneling] reset =10/target Corruption, Immolate (when they go up in this order you can pretty much cast them together as a pair when they drop.. they sync up nice)

Button 3:

/cast demonic empowerment (No GCD so this just keeps DE up on every cooldown since this is your spam button)
/cast [target=focustarget, nochanneling] Incinerate

For trash I just use the corruption, immolate and then spam incinerate till they are dead. For Bosses CoA gets thrown on as well. With very little able to kill the pets in heroics.. especially with your priest casting prayer of healing.. they are just killing machines. Felguards also cleave and when you have three of them it starts to add up for the trash packs. The rotation is simple and easy with not too much to keep track of on your dots. Incinerate being on it's own and not being in a cast sequence is a few hundred dps increase over a castsequence with it spammed in.

I am very happy with this set up.

Allesarelle
02-26-2009, 12:46 PM
unseen

RE: Warlocks are mah favorite class

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allesarelle',index.php?page=Thread&postID=181309#p ost181309]I am running a Dk/priest/3xWarlock team. Have cleared heroic Nexus, Keep, Gundrak, Culling and have partially cleared most of the others. (just a few sticky bosses giving me trouble). My warlocks run around 2000 dps with my one warlock with some raid gear hitting 2200 dps through the dungeon. Can see 2500 to 3000ish on bosses. I run a simple easy spec on them now. Affliction IS the dps king but the rotation can be a real pain without some serious macro work. And I would argue that clears are overall quicker out of affliction because trash dies too quick for your dots to really pay off. But Seed of Corruption spam would be much more powerful in affliction then in my spec. The next highest DPS spec (simulation craft) is FG/Emberstorm which is what I run now.

[url='http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IZ0xIzsgMq0sxzZVchVrzuV

FG/Ember[/url]

This gives you the felguards which are relentless killing machines. As I stated before... when you are repositioning.. they are killing.. When you are lifetapping.. they are killing. When you are turned around from fear and need to be gathered up... they intercept and keep on killing. When you are in town.. they are dreaming about killing. The zero hassle pets do around 500 to 600dps each in my group. They can tank trash in a pinch if somehow you are failing to hold aggro for whatever reason. With the right buffs it scales up nicely. Your warrior has some things for them my dk doesn't. It also gives you easy macro's and rotation.

Button 1:

/cast [target=focustarget, nochanneling] Curse of Agony (or elements on one of them since you don't have a DK giving ebon plague)

Button 2:

/castsequence [target=focustarget, nochanneling] reset =10/target Corruption, Immolate (when they go up in this order you can pretty much cast them together as a pair when they drop.. they sync up nice)

Button 3:

/cast demonic empowerment (No GCD so this just keeps DE up on every cooldown since this is your spam button)
/cast [target=focustarget, nochanneling] Incinerate

For trash I just use the corruption, immolate and then spam incinerate till they are dead. For Bosses CoA gets thrown on as well. With very little able to kill the pets in heroics.. especially with your priest casting prayer of healing.. they are just killing machines. Felguards also cleave and when you have three of them it starts to add up for the trash packs. The rotation is simple and easy with not too much to keep track of on your dots. Incinerate being on it's own and not being in a cast sequence is a few hundred dps increase over a castsequence with it spammed in.

I am very happy with this set up.

Allesarelle

So all 3 of your warlocks just run with felguards?

My tank isn't quite geared yet so I kind of enjoy having that extra bit of health on him, and my healer isn't quite geared to the teeth yet either so I enjoy the fel hunter's buff. I could learn to deal without either one if it was providing that big of a dps increase though.
02-26-2009, 01:01 PM
Bigfish

Quote:

Originally Posted by 'unseen',index.php?page=Thread&postID=181304#post1 81304

OK it took me a while to get my head wrapped around the concept of these macros. I finally got them all set and while it DOES work my dps is ridiculously low. On Moorabi my destruction warlocks did almost double the damage. My afflction warlock did just a little more than the tank.

Going to have to work on this a lot more.

Well, a number of factors influence the damage on that spec. I wasn't saying a quick respec would immediately up the damage, just that its an efficient way to manage DoTs. I'll say straight off you have to have a good hit rating, and crit rating isn't nearly as important as it would be for destro. Without a good hit rating, my macros won't function very well on an affliction spec just because they operate on the assumption that they will land 100% of the time. If any of the DoTs miss, you wait the full duration before trying to reapply, which will kill your DPS.

Now I don't know what your stats look like, so I can't comment there, I just know that I run affliction rather well.
02-27-2009, 04:12 AM
Allesarelle

Yes..

Yes Unseen I run with three felguards out. My priest is discipline with divine spirit so that overrides the spirit part of the fel intelligence buff. So a felhunter would only give my guys the intelligence which is a low priority stat for the warlocks and although a good stat for my priest I just don't think the dps loss is worth it. Although the pets did get a nice survivability buff a patch ago the felhunter is still a melee pet and quite squishy compared to a felguard. Now the imp does provide some nice benefits even beyond the health buff. The fire shield is not to be overlooked and he does some really good ranged dps. If you wanted an imp out there are some interesting hybrid builds based on Master Demonologist/improved imp that will work nice for you. Personally i don't think his health buff is worth it. Although it's hard to say 1330 hp's across the group is not all that it can be all that especially when progressing.

The real reason I changed them all over to the same spec is the massive gain of DPS I had when I changed over from one spam macro for everything to the macro's I listed above. With FG/Ember you have a good 15 second run where you are spamming incinerates. Putting it out of a castsequence was a HUGE gain in DPS due to the auto-queing it allows server side. I'm talking a difference in the hundreds here. Unfortunantly (but fortunantly for single play) the casting priorities and sequences are massively different for each spec on the warlock. If I mixed it up with pets I would have to mix up my talent specs to emphasize that pet. Destruction for the imp and Affliction for the FelHunter. Three completely different cast sequences and priorities to either keep track of or to slap into castsequence macro's from hell. I tried it and the DPS loss was just too much of a bite for me and the buffs I gained were not all that spectacular. In the end the health and spirit and spell power buffs from my priest is enough and although I would love to have the demonic pact talent, fel intelligence, and the imps health buff (plus fire shield) I decided uniformity of macro's and a emphasis on DPS from my DPS section was a better choice. For me the FG/Ember spec works well. All three in destruction or affliction would work nice as well (and give you some pet buffs) if you could do a good job of sorting the more complicated and more rigid casting sequence macro's for those specs.

As a side note. Damn Bigfish that macro work is awesome. I could definantly see that making affliction much easier to implement. Although I personally feel it is a lot easier to live up to the potential of other warlock specs then trying to multixbox the affliction rotation I can see how that approach could make it very doable.

As another side note. Warrior commanding should/will override your blood pact anyhow Unseen. And the armor debuffs and attack power buffs your warrior brings should make felguards even more of monsters then they already are.

Allesarelle