Showing posts with label DPS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DPS. Show all posts

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Destruction Basics Guide (For 5.3)

Destruction is the preferred spec if you are new to playing a warlock. It is the best DPS spec at low gear levels until about ilevel 525.

Recommended Talents and Glyphs 

They have changed the Talents and Glyphs to make them more situational. There isn't a single best option that is the best for every fight. Here, I will share my thoughts on which are the more useful talents. 

Tier 1: Soul Leech 
Soul Leech is amazing especially for Destruction. It returns 10% of damage dealt from certain key spells as a shield that absorbs damage. Use this for all fights. 

Tier 2: Mortal Coil or ShadowFury 
Mortal Coil should be the default option. Having a 15% Health Heal on 45 s cooldown is amazing. However, for certain fights, it might be necessary to spec into Shadowfury for add control. An example is if you need to stun the Loa Spirit on Council of Elders.

Tier 3: Sacrificial Pact
This is a 200K shield every minute. Amazing! You can have this up every time on Jinrokh's Lightning storm or Megara's Rampage.

Tier 4: Unbound Will 
Purges all magic and all CC from you. This works perfectly to neutralize many raid bosses abilities. Examples: Pinning Arrows from Spirit Kings, Amber Prison from Heart of Fear, Quicksand from Council of Elders.

Tier 5: Pick any. 

They are all pretty close right now. Pick one that you like and roll with it. I personally use Supremacy because I like the Pet abilities that I can use: Disarm, Cauterize Master, Mass Dispel, Interrupts, etc. Grimoire of Sacrifice is better at higher gear levels > 530.

Tier 6: Kil'jaeden's Cunning. 
This talent allows you to DPS while moving. Best ability in the game in my opinion.


Recommended Major Glyphs: 
Glyph of Healthstone: Healthstone restores 40% life over 10 s
Glyph of Siphon Life: Corruption heals 20% of damage done.
Third One: Up to you. If you cannot decide, use Glyph of Soul Stone.

Minor Glyphs: Entirely up to you. 



DPS Rotation/Priority List 

Single Target 

1.) Keep these up on boss 100% of time: 
Debuff: Curse Of Elements (extra 5% damage)
Dot: Immolate 

2.) Big Damage Spell: Chaos Bolt
Cast Chaos Bolts only when you have buffs on you. Don't cast an unbuffed Chaos Bolt ever. If you are a beginner, use Chaos Bolts only during Dark Soul or you reach 4 embers (capped).

Havoc allows you copy Chaos Bolt over to a secondary target for free. Literally doubles your damage. 

3.) Haste Buff - Conflagrate
Use Conflagrate as often as possible. It buffs Incinerate and/or Chaos Bolt cast speed. 

4.) Filler Spells - Incinerate and Rain of Fire
Use these spells to regenerate embers for you to cast Chaos Bolts. 
If you have a lot of mana, use Rain of Fire (very mana intensive) 
If you are low on mana, use incinerate. 

5.) Execute Phase - Shadow Burn
Replace Chaos Bolt with ShadowBurn.

6.) Special Cooldowns
Use your Summon Doomguard (10 min Cooldown) at the start of every fight. 
Use your Dark Soul Cooldown at the start of the fight and as often as possible throughout the entire fight.

AOE Rotation 
  • Keep Rain of Fire up all the time
  • Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Immolate 
  • Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Conflagrate 
  • Cast Fire and Brimstone --> Cast Incinerate 
  • Use Shadowburns and Havoc if target health is < 20%



Gemming and Reforging


This is not of high importance. Playing around with your secondary stats only affects a very small portion of your dps. If you are pulling a lot lesser than what you are supposed to, its probably not due to secondary stats.  

Some quick advice. All three secondary stats are very close to each other for Destruction. However, you might want to prioritise Haste/Mastery if you have an affliction off spec like me.


Advanced Tips: 

  • Never use the Conflagrate Buff on Chaos Bolt. This is mainly for better mana efficiency.
  • ShadowBurn can be copied three times on an additional with Havoc. For example, I cast Shadow Burn three times and deal 300K per cast. If I use Havoc before casting Shadow Burn, it copies the spell three times for free. You get 1,800,000 damage in total, which is a huge amount. This can increase your dps by a few thousand. 
  • You might want to delay your Dark Soul for a short while to wait for the boss to drop below 20% health, so that you can use Dark Soul together with Shadowburn (more value for money)


Affliction Basics Guide (For 5.3)



Introduction

Affliction is the preferred spec if you have good gear (ilevel > 525). 

If you have slightly lower ilevel, but have a Legendary Meta Gem or have a ToT Raid Trinket, Affliction might be better for you too. You need to use Simcraft to simulate to confirm this for yourself.



Before I begin, I would like to point out this excellent guide at Icy Veins which is significantly more detailed than the one that I have here: 

Recommended Talents and Glyphs 

They have changed the Talents and Glyphs to make them more situational. There isn't a single best option that is the best for every fight. Here, I will share my thoughts on which are the more useful talents. 

Tier 1: Soul Leech 
Soul Leech is amazing especially for Destruction. It returns 10% of damage dealt from certain key spells as a shield that absorbs damage. Use this for all fights. 

Tier 2: Mortal Coil or ShadowFury 
Mortal Coil should be the default option. Having a 15% Health Heal on 45 s cooldown is amazing. However, for certain fights, it might be necessary to spec into Shadowfury for add control. An example is if you need to stun the Loa Spirit on Council of Elders.

Tier 3: Sacrificial Pact
This is a 200K shield every minute. Amazing! You can have this up every time on Jinrokh's Lightning storm or Megara's Rampage.

Tier 4: Unbound Will 
Purges all magic and all CC from you. This works perfectly to neutralize many raid bosses abilities. Examples: Pinning Arrows from Spirit Kings, Amber Prison from Heart of Fear, Quicksand from Council of Elders.

Tier 5: Pick any. 

They are all pretty close right now. Pick one that you like and roll with it. I personally use Supremacy because I like the Pet abilities that I can use: Disarm, Cauterize Master, Mass Dispel, Interrupts, etc. Grimoire of Sacrifice is better at higher gear levels > 530.

Tier 6: Kil'jaeden's Cunning. 
This talent allows you to DPS while moving. Best ability in the game in my opinion. 

Recommended Major Glyphs: 
Glyph of Healthstone: Healthstone restores 40% life over 10 s
Glyph of Siphon Life: Corruption heals 20% of damage done.
Third One: Up to you. If you cannot decide, use Glyph of Soul Stone.

Minor Glyphs: Entirely up to you. 

DPS Rotation/Priority List 

Single Target

1.) Keep these up on boss 100% of time: 
Debuff: Curse Of Elements (extra 5% damage) 
Dots in order of priority: 
  • Agony (highest priority. Never let this drop off boss)
  • Unstable Affliction 
  • Corruption 
2.) Damage Increase Buff
Haunt (Lasts for 8 seconds)
Cast this when: 
  • you have a lot of buffs on your dots
  • you get to dps for 8 seconds without being interrupted. (to Life Tap, or refresh dots, move from boss, etc) 
  • You have 4 Soul Shards and nothing better to spend them on. 
3.) Filler Spell
 Malefic Grasp. Cast this when all your dots are up and you have nothing else to cast. 

4.) Execute Phase (< 20% Health)
You will have almost unlimited soul shards during this phase. 
Use Soul Swap (Soul Burn to refresh dots if they are going to expire) 

Use Haunt as often as possible. 
Use Drain Soul as Filler Spell instead of Malefic grasp. 

5.) Special Cooldowns
Use your Summon Doomguard (10 min Cooldown) at the start of every fight. 
Use your Dark Soul Cooldown at the start of the fight and as often as possible throughout the entire fight.



AOE

Greater than 5 targets: 
Seed of Corruption (Soul Burn) to put Corruption up on everyone.
Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to explode the Seed 
Then cycle through all the targets and cast Seed of Corruption non-stop. 
When you see corruption about to expire, recast Seed of Corruption (Soul Burn)

About 2 to 4 targets
Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to instant put dots on all the mobs. 
Carry out your single target rotation on one of the mobs. 

Note: Affliction Spec has poor burst AOE. If you need AOE burst damage, use Destruction Spec.


Gemming and Reforging.
This is not of high importance. Playing around with your secondary stats only affects a very small portion of your dps. If you are pulling a lot lesser than what you are supposed to, its probably not due to secondary stats. 
If you want some quick advice, go for either: 

  • 6637 haste and rest mastery (for low gear levels < ilevel 500) 
  • 9778 haste and rest mastery (for ToT geared)
  •  Avoid Crit and reforge out of it. 







Understanding Simcraft for Warlocks

Introduction 

This is the first in a series of posts about Simcraft and how to use it to learn more about playing a warlock. Simcraft for warlocks can be found here. There are some important pieces of information found in Simcraft that can help you learn how to be a better warlock 



Estimated Theoretical DPS

This is useful for gauging your own performance. Simcraft is designed pretty well for warlocks and currently, it is possible for warlocks to perform very close to the simulated values (Within 5K dps) for single target fights. If you are pulling 20% below what simcraft suggests for you, it means that we need to work on your dps. Fortunately, that's what we are here for. 



Damage per Execute Time (Value for Money!)

A layman's way of understanding Damage per execute Time is Value for Money. A spell with a high Value for Money means that you will get very good damage for the time you spend casting it. 

A spell that has high Damage may not always have high Value for Money. For example, a spell that hits for 1,000,000 damage but takes 1 hour to cast is not as good as a spell that hits for 500,000 but takes 3 seconds to cast. 

This graph below is very useful for us because it tells us how to prioritise. 



 Basically, Agony gives us the most Value for Money and it is our most important Dot. In any multi-dot fight (Council of Elders, for example), you will do much more damage if you cast Agony and keep it up on all the bosses instead of other spells.


 



There are a lot of interesting things to note for Destruction. Firstly, you will see that ShadowBurn should be our highest priority. Interestingly, Immolate has a higher Value for Money compared to Chaos Bolt. Incinerate(our filler spell) has the lowest priority of all. This means that in any fight, we should try to cast LESS Incinerates and MORE Immolates whenever possible. Notice that Rain of Fire has better Value for Money than Incinerate and it generates the same amount of embers. If you can cast Rain of Fire on at least two targets, it will result in a noticeable gain in DPS. If you can cast it on only one target, it will result in a slight gain in dps.



DPS Timeline

The last thing that I want to show is the DPS Timeline. This graph tells us two interesting things. Firstly, our opening burst is super important. If we can line up Bloodlust at the start, it will result in us having significantly more DPS




Another interesting thing to observe. Do you notice the little humps in DPS? Warlocks are like rubber bands. They do their damage in bursts. Learning how to take advantage of important procs makes the difference between a good warlock and a bad one. This will be the topic of my next post. 




Friday, May 17, 2013

Professions and Trinkets

How do you tell which Professions and Trinkets are best for you? 

To get really accurate results. 

1.) Simulate it using Simcraft 

2.) Get the profession/trinket and test it out in a real world setting. Ultimately, real-world data >>> simulated theoretical data


For the average player though, there really isn't a need to use Simcraft. If you are having problems with a raid boss, it is probably not a issue with your professions as long as you have two professions that provide a dps bonus. If you don't have any professions at all, then that might be a problem. 

The rule of thumb is to pick professions and trinkets that:
Have a HIGH bonus over a SHORT period of time (most important!) 
Have procs that are triggered by you (not so important) 

As far as possible, avoid those which give a LOW bonus over a LONG period of time. 

There are many reasons for this choice: 


  • We are a dot-based class. We can extend these procs/buff for a longer period of time through our dots. We have Soul Swap (Soul Burn) which allows to reapply all our dots instantly. For example, even though a proc lasts for 4 seconds (Lei Shen Trinket), we can make it last for 40 seconds. 
  • A lot of our damage is done through bursts. Destruction's Chaos Bolts are a good example. I can fit Three Chaos Bolts in a 10 second window. I want to have three HIGHLY buffed Chaos Bolts instead of three LOW buffed Chaos Bolts. 
  • Some profession procs can be stacked with our cooldowns for massive damage. For example, Haste Buff from Herbalism can be paired up and used together with our Dark Soul cooldown all the time. 


The recommended list of  professions are 
Tailoring: 2000 Intellect over 15 second proc
Engineering: 1920 Intellect for 10 seconds every minute
Herbalism: 2880 Haste for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. 

For Trinkets, we apply a similar reasoning. HIGH bonuses over a short period of TIME. Almost all trinkets are good for warlocks this tier.  Even the valor trinket is very decent. 

The recommended trinkets for the various specs 
Demonology: Unerring Vision of Lei Shen (Absolute MUST!)  and Volatile Talisman of the Shado Pan 
Affliction: Breath of the Hydra and Wushuulay's Final Choice
Destruction: Wushuulay's Final Choice, Pick any 2nd Trinket


For Demonlogy, the 100% Crit proc from Unerring Vision is super important compared to the rest of the other trinkets. For example, even if you have a proc from Breath of the Hydra, you will not refresh it over a 100% Crit Doom. 












Affliction - The Opening Attack!!!

For Warlocks, the opener is super important. 




Look at the DPS chart above. In the opening sequence, you pull roughly 3 times the average dps for the rest of the fight. If you screw up the opener, it will greatly reduce your dps. 

This is the Opener that I use. I will try to explain the rationale behind each step so that all of you can learn. 


For Single Target


Before the Boss is Pulled 

Tell your tank to have a Pre-Pull countdown: 5,4,3,2,1 PULL! 
One second before the boss is pulled: Consume a Potion of the Jade Serpent
Additional Note: In the execute phase (Boss < 20% Health), use another Potion of Jade Serpent together with your Dark Soul. 

Boss is Pulled 

Our job is simple: 
Get all possible procs and buffs UP as quickly as possible.
Extend and keep these procs and buffs for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE

The spells to use are (in this order): 
  • Curse of Elements  - 5% Damage Debuff
  • Summon Guardian: DoomGuard. Benefits from all procs too! 
  • Use all possible DPS Cooldowns (Dark Soul, Profession, Trinket, Racial, etc) 
  • Soul Swap (Soul Burn)-  Apply all Dots on Target Immediately.  
  • Malefic Grasp until you have all your Procs/Buffs UP. Important Note: You must have an addon to track all your Procs/Buffs on your target
  • Once all Buffs/Procs are UP, Recast all the dots manually to benefit from the new procs. Do it in this order: Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction
  • Cast Haunt(30% Damage Increase) as much as possible but keep one Soul Shard as backup. 
  • One second before the Big Buffs expire, Refresh all the dots again using Soul Swap (Soul Burn)
  •  
  • For example, in the screenshot above, the Red, Blue and green Buff are going to expire soon. I refresh all my dots NOW to keep the buff in my dots. Even though the proc is gone, my dots continue to tick and benefit from them. 
  • One second before Dark Soul expires, refresh all your dots again using Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to keep the Dark Soul Buff on your dots. 

For Multi Target
This is mainly for fights like Council of Elders, or Stone Guards where there are a few bosses to attack at the start. 

The main thing to note is this: 
Cast LESS of Haunt and Malefic Grasp
Use MORE of Soul Swap (Soul Burn) to multi dot all your targets. 

Before the Boss is Pulled 

Tell your tank to have a Pre-Pull countdown: 5,4,3,2,1 PULL! 
One second before the boss is pulled: Consume a Potion of the Jade Serpent
Additional Note: In the execute phase (Boss < 20% Health), use another Potion of Jade Serpent together with your Dark Soul. 

Boss is Pulled 

Our job is simple: 
Get all possible procs and buffs UP as quickly as possible.
Extend and keep these procs and buffs as LONG as possible.
Multi Dot ALL Bosses with our Super Buffed Dots as much as possible.

The spells to use are (in this order): 
  • Curse of Elements  - 5% Damage Debuff
  • Summon Guardian: DoomGuard (Don't use Infernal unless you have 6+ targets)
  • Soul Swap (Soul Burn)-  Apply all Dots on Target Immediately.  
  • Malefic Grasp until you have all your Procs/Buffs UP. Important Note: You must have an addon to track all your Procs/Buffs on your target
  • Once all Buffs/Procs are UP, Use Soul Swap (Soul Burn) as much as possible to put Dots on all the bosses. 
  • Just before the Big Buffs expire, if you still have shards, use Soul Swap (Soul Burn) on as many bosses as possible. If no shards, refresh Agony manually on all the bosses again. Never ever let Agony drop off any of the bosses. Get an Addon to show Dots on the name plates of the bosses. If you are having problems, just refresh Agony slightly earlier (when > 10s left on Agony left). 
  • Before Dark Soul expires, refresh all your dots again on all the bosses to extend this buff in your dots. 




Destruction - the Opening Attack


This is the Opener that I use. I will try to explain the rationale behind each step so that all of you can learn. 

For Single Target


Before the Boss is Pulled 

Tell your tank to have a Pre-Pull countdown: 5,4,3,2,1 PULL! 
One second before the boss is pulled: Consume a Potion of the Jade Serpent
Additional Note: In the execute phase (Boss < 20% Health), use another Potion of Jade Serpent together with your Dark Soul. 

Boss is Pulled 

Our job is simple: 
Get all possible procs and buffs UP as quickly as possible.
Cast as many Chaos Bolts as we can while the Buffs are up. 

The spells to use are (in this order): 
  • Curse of Elements  - 5% Damage Debuff
  • Summon Guardian: DoomGuard. Benefits from all procs too! 
  • Dark Soul + all On-Use Trinkets, Professions Cooldowns
  • Immolate
  • Rain of Fire (to increase proc rate of trinkets and generate embers) 
  • Conflagrate x 2 (For haste buff on Incinerate/Chaos Bolt) 
  • Incinerate x 4 (to build up embers. We prefer to use Conflagrate buff on Incinerate instead of Chaos Bolt for mana efficiency) 
  • Chaos Bolt x 2 (sometimes 3 if you get lucky) 
  • Immolate one last time just before your Dark Soul runs out.

Important Warlock Macros


Raid Macros 

These macros help make your life easier in a raid. 

Use Action Button on your Focus Target
Good for: Wind Lord, to CC Adds
Saves you time from clicking on the add, then clicking on the action button


/target Focus
/click ExtraActionButton1
/targetlasttarget


Use Imp's Mass Dispel Ability. 
It's pretty good. Dispels Magic and hits three targets on 10 second CD. 

/cast [pet:Fel Imp] Sear Magic


Put a target on Focus
Self-explanatory

/focus


Instant Pet Resummon (For Affliction Only)
Need to use a Soul Shard for this.

/cast Soulburn
/cast Summon Observer

DPS Macros

Easily dot up two targets without swapping targets 
Good for all multi target fights
When you press Alt, and click this, it casts Agony on your Focus Target
When you just click this, it casts Agony on your main target

/cast [modifier:alt, target=focus] Agony
/cast [nomodifier:alt] Agony

Cast Havoc on Focus Target
Good for fights where there is a second target to dps. Example: Garalon, Elegon, Horridon, Elder Council, etc. 
To cast Chaos Bolt on a second target, I just press this macro, then click Chao Bolt. Two Buttons only. 

/cast [@focus] Havoc

Cast Havoc on current target, and return to your previous target. 
Good for fights where there are a lot of adds to dps down. Example: Horridon

/cast Havoc
/targetlasttarget




Which Pet to Use?

Which Pets should you use for the various specs?

For Demonology, it's obvious that its their very own special pet: The FelGuard


For Affliction and Destruction, it doesn't really matter. Based on Simcraft, these are the results. 







For most people, you can pick any pet that you like. If you are in a World First's Guild, you will want to pick the one that gives even a 0.1% dps increase. If you're in such a Guild, you probably wouldn't learn anything from reading this blog. LOL! 

One tip that I would like to share. For fights where you switch targets a lot (Example: Horridon), a ranged pet like the Imp is better. Then again, you can get a melee pet if you really want to. Put him on Passive, and have him continually Attack one target (Horridon, Sul, Tortos, etc)

Finding Windows of Opportunities

Now, I am going to share the most important secret behind doing high DPS for a warlock. There are many names for it: Snapshotting Stats, Extending Empowered Dots.I like to call it finding Windows of Opportunities. There are four lessons to be learnt. 

Lesson One: Extending Dots when you see a Big Proc!

Let us take a look at our Legendary Meta Gem

Sinister Primal Diamond: +324 Crit & Chance on dealing spell damage to gain 30% spell haste for 10 sec.



The proc is 30% Spell Haste (BloodLust) for 10 seconds. But this does not mean that warlocks get 30% spell haste for only 10 seconds. Lets give an example. Curse of Agony lasts for 24 seconds, but you can extend its duration via Pandemic to last for 36 seconds.  This is how to do it. 

Buff procs:  30% Haste Buff for 10 seconds
  • Refresh Agony immediately 
  • At the ninth second, Refresh Agony again. 
  • Agony now lasts for 36 more seconds with the 30% haste Buff. 

So, Agony now lasts for more than 40 seconds.  This means that we have artificially extended the benefit of the proc by more than 4 times compared to the original 10 seconds! 


Lesson Two: Some Buffs Stack together better than others

The next big idea is that some buffs stack multiplicatively. Lets explain this in a simplified manner

Case A: 
You gain a 30% Haste Buff. 
You do 30% more damage!


Case B:
You gain a 30% Intellect Buff

You do 30% more damage

Case C: You gain BOTH a 30% Intellect Buff and a 30% Haste buff. 
Do you do 60% more damage?

NO!!!!

When both the haste and intellect buff stack together, you hit very hard and very fast (TM).
In total, your new dps will be 130% x 130% = 169%. 
You do 69% more damage!

The lesson behind this is that different types of buffs (Haste, Crit, Intellect, etc) synergise together well and give you a lot of extra damage if you know how to take advantage of it.

Lesson 3: Use your most "Value for Money" Power Spells when you have lots of Buffs

I am only familiar with Affliction and Destruction. 

Affliction: 
  • If you see a lot of procs active, immediately refresh all your dots! 
  • Just before the proc expires, you refresh your dots again. You get to "keep" the buff on your dots until they drop off.This is called snapshotting or extending empowered dots.
  • Only use Haunt when your dots are super buffed. Don't use it when your dots have no buffs on them.
Destruction 
  • Only use Chaos Bolts when you have at least one proc active.
  •  The only exception is that you are going to reach 4 embers soon, then you should cast Chaos Bolt since casting a unbuffed Chaos Bolt is better than wasting the embers by not using them.

Lesson 4: Have a good User Interface !

I will have a detailed post that explains the elements of a good user interface later on. I will cover this briefly for now. Some people believe that a good user interface is not important. But ultimately, I believe that a good user interface supports you and makes you a better player. Even warlocks from the Top World Class Guilds (Method, for example) are using some of the addons that I mention below. If world class players can benefit from using these addons, I believe the average player like you and I can gain greatly from them too!

You absolutely need to have an addon that tracks how powerfully buffed your dots are (Affdots). And you also need to track which buffs are active on you right now (WeakAuras). The Dot Timer that I use is NeedtoKnow. If you see a lot of buffs proc, immediately refresh your dots to take advantage of the buff and cast your good spells to maximise the damage (Haunt, Chaos Bolts, etc).










Thursday, May 16, 2013

Good Fights for Warlocks

Have you ever heard someone say: "This fight is great for Warlocks?" What is it about a raid boss that makes it good for warlocks? 

Here I shed some light on this issue. To answer this, we need to look at the unique strengths and limitations of our two specs: Affliction and Destruction. Note: I don't have Unerring Vision of Lei Shen yet, so I cannot use Demonlogy yet. 


Limited Resources 

Warlocks are constrained by our resources (embers and shards). These resources regenerate slowly. 

Regenerates Resources when Adds Die

Look at these spells: 

Shadow Burn: 
If the target dies within 5 sec, and yields experience or honor, the caster gains two Burning Embers instead.

Drain Soul
If the target dies, three Soul Shards are energized. Lasts 12 sec. 


Value for Money Spells

We have some spells that are especially powerful, but we cannot use them often due to limited shards/embers. These are: 

ShadowBurn (Havoc-ed if possible) for Destruction
Soul Swap (Soul Burn) for Affliction. 

But what happens in a fight like Horridon or Will in the Emperor where there are a lot of adds? 

When each Add dies, you regenerate a large amount of Embers/Shards. You get an amazing chain reaction that gives you access to almost unlimited shards and embers that allows you to use your Best Spells almost all the time. 

For Destruction
ShadowBurn one add --> Get two embers --> ShadowBurn more adds --> Get even more embers --> ShadowBurn Shadowburn. 

Whenever possible, always use Havoc together with Shadowburn. You get another 3 x Shadowburn for free. TERRIBLE TERRIBLE DAMAGE! 

For Affliction
Drain Soul a dying target --> Get three shards --> Spam dots on three more targets --> Drain Soul again --> Replenish all shards --> MOAR DOTS

So, in summary, the best fights for warlocks consist of: 

  • Multiple Targets (Multi Dotting is powerful) 
  • Lots of Low Health Adds that appear often and die quickly (to regenerate resources)
Best Fights for Warlocks this Tier


With One Add 
  • Elegon: Celestial Protector 
  • Elder Council: LOA Spirit

With MANY Adds (Hehe! Massive Damage!) 
  • Garajal: Spirit Zone
  • Horridon
  • Will of the Emperor 
  • Grand Empress Shekzeer
  • Tsulong
  • Tortos