/combatlogon (WWS)

Trifectae has taken the leap into data analysis and are now recording runs with WWS. (Thanks Haru!) So, for the first time I can start taking a look at how I'm doing on my own time and without being logged into the game. Let's look at our first recorded instance that I was a part of and see what WoWWebStats is saying about me:

We ran Shadow Labs last Sunday and did a great job of taking the beast down. The only thing we didn't one shot was Murmur, which was unfortunate as I had to leave before the second attempt. We almost got it in there before I had a gig I had to play, but they took Murmur down after I left. More power to them!

Here's the anon. WWS report. I'm Shamshel. Topped the DPS for the instance, but what I'm really proud of is the first two boss fights. I think looking at these fights and the numbers shows where locks can really excel! Both Ambassador Hellmaw and Blackheart the Inciter have abilities that stop the group from being able to actively DPS them. Hellmaw fears periodically and Blackheart has, well, "fun". (Mind controlling and having you each attack each other). What a warlock can do in these fights, that's different from most other classes is keep attacking through these periods of time.

DOTs keep ticking even if you aren't casting them at the moment. Unlike mages who can rock out the burst damage, boss fights make warlocks shine. The longer the encounter goes on, the more damage you can rock out if you keep a steady rotation of DOTs up. You can see if you go to the individual fights for both Hellmaw and Blackheart, on Hellmaw, I was 45% of the damage with 100% DPS uptime. I did avoid a couple of the fears and while everyone else was being chased around, (our dr00d tank did a great job of holding agro, even when feared), I was able to keep refreshing my dots and SB in the downtime. Even when I got feared, I was able to keep 3-4 dots up for the duration of that time, so this REALLY increases the amount of damage you can do.

The same business happened on Blackheart, where funny enough, he died while we were mind controlled thanks to my dots ticking away at him. Though, we remained upset at each other and fighting for a few seconds. (In memory of good old Blackheart, I suppose?)

It is so important as a lock, especially with boss fights, that you do your best to refresh your dots as soon as they finish their duration time. My general rotation for a boss fight is:

Opening: Trinket + Amplify Curse + Curse of Doom

Corruption, Unstable Affliction, Siphon Life, Immolate

SB, SB

After two SBs you are going to have to refresh something. I avoid life tapping for quite a while and will generally try to time it with moments where I won't have to refresh a DOT for about 5 secs so that I can get in another SB or double tap if I'm really low on mana. However, if you are siphoning life without life tapping, you aren't really getting the most out of the healing capability of that which you could turn into more mana. I'm generally okay with this on the 5 man fights because my mana pool is large enough that I don't have to tap very often. I'd rather be OOM at the end of the fight, but have succeeded at keeping a constant stream of DPS on the boss the whole time than to still be full on mana and have my DPS suffer.

Once you start refreshing DOTs, fill your void with SB after SB, life tapping as needed but leaving space for refreshing DOTs. Watch your timer bars. (Quartz is great for this). If you've got 2 secs left before UA runs out, start casting it. Same with immolate. Try not to refresh CoA until right after it has actually expired because you don't want to miss out on the end of its damage. Since CoA becomes most powerful at the end, refreshing it early is a loss of potential damage.

One final note about the WWS report that should be made is I was by far the best geared player on the run. Most of the other toons were relatively newer minted 70s and so the fact that I was able to top the damage charts is expected, and frankly, there would have been a problem had I not. The whole group did a fantastic job. Our pally healer did a great job keeping everyone up and got several nice drops while we were there. Our BM hunter was chain trapping up a storm. Our newly converted Ret Pally had fantastic DPS, much to the shock of all those ret-haters out there and our dr00d tank did a great job holding agro throughout. Thanks to our other hunter too who helped come in and clean up on Murmur after we bit it the first time and I had to leave.

Here's looking forward to improved performance due to data analysis! Yay Webstats!