#0 - Feb. 11, 2009, 10:16 a.m.
----------------------------------------------------------
1] Introduction
2] No training dummys
3] Rotation
4] Affliction
5] Demonology
6] Destruction
7] About Hit
8] About Crit
9] General tips
Introduction:
----------------------------------------------------------
The reason I'm writing this guide is for the most part a lack of a good raiding guide- and a number of really poor rading guides (or guide look-a-like's) popping up in these forums. Additionally, what's good and what isn't really isn't as clear cut as it was throughout TBC and there are a lot more different and viable ways to do DPS now.
I have played most viable DPS specs so far, and done 5k+ DPS in every one of them. Obviously I've not played every single spec within the past week, but I do have experience playing mostly any spec.
I do not think there currently is a thing that can be considered "the best spec", argueably affliction will come out on top when it comes to nuke fests, but a spec is only as good as it's performance in the relavant content. What I mean by this is that, for example Affliction would perform terrible on a M'uru type of fight (We already see this to a lesser extend on Sarth 3D).
No training dummys:
----------------------------------------------------------
I often see people compare their DPS in one spec on a training dummy against their DPS of another spec on a training dummy. To put it bluntly; stop doing this. Why? For the most part because training dummys do not provide real world information- you're missing all sorts of buffs that will affect different talents and different specs in very different ways. For example; empowered imp basically does nothing on a training dummy because it's missing 18% worth of raid crit buffs.
That doesn't mean you should stay away from training dummys all together- but you should really understand what to use them for. A training dummy should be seen as just that- a training dummy. A training dummy is a training dummy, it's good to practice your new rotation with- it's good to practice on them- they just don't make a very good benchmark.
In terms of actually testing a talent spec- nothing beats actually bringing it to a raid. With the simplicity of the current raid content and how well mostly any spec can perform- there shouldn't be anything stopping you from trying each talent spec in a raid.
Rotation:
----------------------------------------------------------
I'm a fairly frequent poster here, and one of the very few that actually bothers to do any half assed theory crafting on these forums. As such, people ask me a lot of questions. That's fine, I like questions. There's 1 question however that I hate. Really, no question annoys me more than someone asking me "What is your rotation?". I don't have a rotation, and if you want to do decent DPS- neither should you. Warlocks should cast their spells in order of importance. This generally means that you just cast whichever spell has the highest DPSC- and really that's about it. There is no rotation, there is DPSC priority.
