A long tiresome ramble on Warlock leveling strategy for BFA

Hopefully the short attention span people were filtered out by the subject title.

The toon I am going with for BFA release and initial push is going to be my human, tailor/enchanter warlock. As per the factions thread, there seems to be a lot of value to unlock, and that means I probably want a human that can solo well and maximize rep gains. For me that is the warlock. In this post I will go into some of the decision points I am going with for solo faction grinding. This is not a good raid build- I have other 110s that I can push up for that later. This guy’s goal is to hit exalted on all 6 factions by running quest lines and world quests.

Which spec? When I think of warlock, I think the gameplay that stands out is pets + mobile DoTs. You can play mage and do cast times and roots, and destruction warlock seems pointless and redundant.

That leaves demonology and affliction. Now Demonology has a cool sort of zookeeper like feel now where you can summon armies of imps and other demons to swarm things. But I have problems with that as is. One typical frustration for me questing is being stuck in combat because some pet has wandered off someplace and is still chewing on something. I can not heal, I can not mount up, I just have to walk until combat drops. I think this sort of problem will get much worse in BFA with the zookeeper build, with more imps to wander off and fall into those kind of problem areas. Since your entire DPS for Demonology is now pet based, dealing with pet AI issues can be a frustration.

So that leaves me with affliction. The tier 6 ability, Grimoire of Sacrifice, may actually turn that stuck pet into a bonus upon sacrifice and give me some more control in areas where sloppy pets are problematic. The pet for affliction is a perk- void walker if you need a tank; succubus if you need crowd control; imp if you want hassle free dps; fell hunter if you need an interrupt. Even with the better dps option, the imp, the fraction of DPS it grants is small, so dumping pets in affliction is no real hardship.

So affliction it is. Now for the rest of the talents.

T1- Nightfall, Drain Soul, or Deathbolt. Oh I went around and around on this one. If you use seed of corruption to spread a bunch of corruption to many targets, Nightfall should go off like popcorn, giving you free Shadow Bolts. But that is pretty much an overpull situation that will likely kill you for WQs, so I think it is of lower use. Drain soul is a channel that replaces 2s cast shadow bolt, does increased damage below 20%, and generates a shard if you use it to kill the foe. I like channels, particularly this one because this one starts at 0% mana, and ticks up in cost the longer you channel, so I can get a few tics in and move without damage loss. If you have to move and cancel that Shadow Bolt, you lose all of that cast time you had invested before. So a channel I think like this is a better move if you like mobility, as you can do it as long as you need, and you are free to break off at any time without much penalty. But beyond that you get the shard fishing function, which lets you lay down more shard consumers like UA or Seed. The final option is Deathbolt. It is up every 30s, and is insta cast, so it is a longish CD. It does big damage if you have fully loaded the target up with DoTs, but if you start delaying it, you can cut your DPS. So there is some finesse to using it, and I think the routine functionality of Drain Soul is a better pick.

T2- Writhe in Agony, Absolute Corruption, Siphon Life. I go round and round on these. Writhe is good for boss kills where you can build the full 15 stacks of agony. For trash and questing, it is largely useless. Siphon life is another GCD insta DoT which can impact things that scale off of number of DoTs, and if you religiously light up everything with it, you get a decent health return. Absolute corruption means you never need to refresh corruption, and you are doing damage even if you are over there somewhere looting a quest item. But if you tag an evade bugged mob with it, you are stuck in combat. Overall I tend to like Absolute corruption. My pattern for groups is to seed, agony, corrupt, drain pop the seed, then apply agony by tabs to everything, then drain snipe back shards. If you turn on nameplates, you can see which guy to snipe next, and overall this is very satisfying. For a string of singles, I just double dot- Agony and corruption, and keep moving. The pet deals with them as they die in my wake. So yeah absolute corruption it is. But there is some joy in the triple DoT and run strategy of siphon.

T3- Demon Skin, Burning Rush, Dark Pact. Soul leech normally knocks off 10% of the damage you take, and Demon Skin ups this to 15%. It might be the edge in one shot mechanics, but is for the most part not going to be useful. Dark Pact is a 1min CD defensive that is powered by 20% of your life and lets you break CC. Good for PVP, not really good else. Burning Rush is my go to here as so many times I want to move fast and this is the only real option short of gates for Warlock. If you have siphon, you can triple dot and burning rush while questing and still have life.

T4-Sow the Seeds, Phantom Singularity, Vile Taint. Sow is not as good as it was in legion. The DD component of the explosion is 24% of spell power, which is small. The main advantage is greater corruption spreading, and better kill of light large crowds of trash. It is passive, so it is easy. Phantom Singularity is a 45s CD target based insta cast AOE, which hits hard (144% of SP over 16s), gives another DoT for anything that scales by DoTs, and has a 25% heal. Pretty decent return, think you have to manage its usage and not macro it. Vile Taint is a ground targeted soul shard consuming AO on a 20s CD with a 30% snare and moderate DD (75% of SP). I think either you take Sow the Seeds for simplicity, or you go with Phantom. Still undecided here. I think what I am going to do is try out Singularity in a GSE2 macro for both (UA and Seed). This keeps it off of the routine corruption and agony casts, but if I am going to bother seeding or unstable afflicting, I will try Singularity. Ideally the GSE2 macro will have /cast Singularity in the Key Release section so I can open with the cast and as that completes add in Singularity.

T5-Darkfury, Mortal Coil, Demonic Circle. Darkfury makes your 1.5s cast AOE 8yd stun have a 45s CD. Mortal Coil is a single target 45s horror for 3s that heals you for 20%. Demonic Circle is the gate thing warlocks use in raids to move the whole raid between points. I think for questing Demonic Circle is pretty bad unless you want a quick getaway. I do not really use the AOE stun for solo, since if you need AOE stun, having to endure interrupts for 1.5s of the cast stinks, so this is more of a move for Mythics. I think the best pick here is Mortal Coil. Macro it with your health stone, and mash that button- stone down, well you get relief for 3s and some life back from Mortal Coil. Also horror is a really hard effect from a PvP standpoint to negate.

T6- Shadow Embrace, Haunt, Grimoire of Sacrifice. Shadow Embrace will make drain soul debuff thetarget to take 3% more dmg for 10s per stack, limit 3 stacks. Passive modest damage buff linked to your anytime. Haunt is slight dmg upfront (55% SP) with a 15s 10% dmg debuff on a 15s CD that gets refunded if it dies. Grimoire of Sacrifice lets you use your pet command demon ability after you sac the pet. I tried Haunt. It felt like a bunch of micromanagement on routine dotting, and just slowed me down. So shadow embrace for more DPS and less pet control, or Grimoire of Sacrifice if pets are annoying.

T7-Soul Conduit, Creeping Death, and Dark Soul:Misery. Soul Conduit is a passive 15% chance for shard refund on use. This matters more for builds not using drain soul, or if you are power mashing a Gnome Sequence macro to stay up on shard generation. Not good for me in this build. Creeping death is just faster kills, which is a huge plus for solo content, and the default choice. Dark Misery is a haste buff for 20s on a 2min CD. More burst. If bosses are a huge problem, go with the burst, else go with Creeping Death.

War Mode- Not bothering unless it is a guild PVP enabled event. My experience is the 10% xp gain from it is not worth the 20% downtime from being griefed. Would take adaptation to offset long CC automatically. I would go with Endless Affliction, Rot and Decay, and Essence Drain as my other 3.

Basic rotations

Singles- Weak targets get agony, corruption, then drain sniped, with me tabbing after applying first 2. Pick up some quest item while DoTs do the work. Stronger targets get UA on the open, then agony, corruption, and UA as many times as needed before I drain it out with drain soul. Drain life, mortal coil, warlock candy for life return.

Bosses- Open with UA, agony, corruption, then UA til close to dry keeping agony up, then drop Darkglare and drain soul. Heal self or pet as needed. Eventually it runs out of life.

Crowds- Seed 1 or 2 times depending on size and distance, agony, corruption, drain soul and pop the seed spreading corruption. Once popped, apply agony, then drain soul snipe/dump more seeds as needed. Typically void walker goes in with macro to apply seed, and it clusters them before I do any damage.

Lots of people overcamping an area- use burning rush to zip around, dumping perma corruption on everything and let other players be my pets doing all the tedious work of DPSing that stuff down.

Macros-

All of my attacks are macroed in this form

#show
/targetenemy[noharm][dead]
/cast spellname
/startattack
/petdefensive
/petattack

So the voidwalker goes and chews on the new target when I use that spell. As you run around dotting things, the voidwalker will have agro on them one at a time then collectively, and they tend to cluster on him. I think I want that legendary that snares targets with corruption. Note that the petdefensive command means it goes after anything that has agro on me, and will defauth to attacking my present target.

My mount macro is something like this

#show
/use [flyable] WarlockClassMount
/use [swimming] Sea Turtle
/use [noflyable] Water Strider
/dismount
/petpassive

I forget the name of the class hall mount for Warlock, but use that. Turtle goes underwater. Dismounts me if I am mounted. Puts pet on passive. Useful as a combat recall of your pet, just hit the mount macro and your pet comes back, even though you can not mount up again

Gear- well I am not putting much into gear right now. Just whatever is an upgrade, I use. My legendaries are not even upgraded. At some point they will be discarded.

Buffs- got the item that buffs you from Broken SHore, am using legion haste food, I conjure warlock candy and soulstone myself. Haste/intellect are the gems/enchants to go for. I use the scavenge cloth shoulder enchant.

Pets- mostly use Voidwalker for carefree, agro free life

I’m sticking with Affliction for BFA, just didn’t like the feel of the Zookeeper.

After losing my Rock & Doomguard as pets, I’ve stuck with the imp for ranged dps.
I only pull out the Blueberry if I know I am going to try and pull more than I can chew & want to dump Seeds into the mix.

T1 - I went with Nightfall for the insta ShadowBolts. (With Absolute Corruption & Shadow Embrace) I usually never have to cast it, just insta casts keep popping.

T2 - Absolute Corruption used with Legendary Sacrolash’s Dark Strike (15% more corruption damage & 60% movement reduction) At max range, along with the imp, I just pop Corruption & Agony. by the time the mob is halfway to me, I usually have a shadowbolt proc.

T3 - Burning Rush

T4 - Sow the Seeds: mainly because of the corruption spread, which is permanent due to Absolute Corruption. I hate that they reduced my seed count from 3 to 2. If I know it will be a very large group, send in the Blueberry first and let him round up the mobs. Then pop the Seeds. (I miss my Eternal’s AOE, he complimented my Seed attack so well)

T5 - Haven’t touched it since I talented it, but Demonic Circle is the only one that might have any use (mainly groups)

T6 - Shadow Embrace: ShadowBolt applies Shadow Embrace for the 3% (unless you replaced it with Drain Soul) & using it with Nightfall gives me the damage buff I am used to getting from Meatball

T7 - Creeping Death. Since I am dotting the mobs, reducing their speed, & increasing the dot effects, they just seem to die before reaching me.

War Mode scares me…but same choices you made.

Rotation: Singles (up to 3 at the same time): If I plan on UA, I will pre-cast that. Otherwise It is Corruption (to snare) then Agony, followed by InstaBolts. I usually don’t have to kite, but in a pinch, Burning Rush.

Crowds: (4+): Blueberry, Seeds, Agony, Darkglare, Seeds, Seeds (If they were elites, I’d work in UA)

Good feedback. Just what I was hoping for, another Warlock chiming in on what is working.

With Drain Soul sniping, I can preload more UA/Seeds, and get it all back with a few good snipes. Might try nightfall though. I really hate shadow bolt cast. That legendary sounds great, but not sure if I have the 1000 currency needed to get it. How much of a lifebar does your SB take off?

THe imp- have you seen how much of your DPS it is doing? I could hardly notice a difference. I did notice a difference in my lifebar though. Dark shore seems to be pop hell right now with spawn rate cranked and I find myself wishing I had that VW more than I find myself regretting lost imp DPS.

I am assuming creeping death for AOE with the VW? Would be weird trying to kite singles through it.

I might want to reload tidy plates. Should help a lot with Warlock. Adds a lot to visual clutter, but puts the perspective back in the field.

i’m currently 221 with Mastery being my main stat - which gives me a 102% increase in DOT damage
Shadowbolt is hitting for 783 & by the 3rd bolt at 9% staying at 854 so long as i refresh shadow embrace.

The imp hits for 557 and in a full Agony cycle he is dealing roughly ~ 5k in damage

Creeping Death is just a passive 15% haste for DOTs vs the 30% 20 sec burst you get from Dark Soul

The only time I had any issue on mobs was last night when I ported to Darnassus and got dropped at the invasion point after doing Thorns Part 2 and got swarmed by 7 npcs. Once I backed up, I had more control.

I have been using the Imp for the ranged dps, vs the felpuppy, since by the time the felpuppy got to the mobs, i already lost maybe 2 imp blasts. If I ever needed to interrupt casts, I would pull out the felpuppy.

If I ever felt the mobs were lasting too long on the DOTs I will sick the Blueberry on them and just take my time.

Interesting. Icy says use haste. Have you tried both haste and mastery and seen in your experience mastery is better?

Is Drain Soul classified as a DOT or a DD? If that and other channels are considered DOTs, then would they not scale better with mastery?

I agree with the imp and time on target. The thing I have trouble with is pet advice. Icy is scant on it, and in past incarnations they buffed Felhound damage for affliction, and the last incarnation the Infernal was easily my go-to. With Infernal gone, it is time to re-evaluate pets.

The overpull I had on Darnassus was when the VW went into a group, and stuff added, then stuff spawned and added and he dropped like a rock.

I’ll have to re-read this when I lvl up my lock. Thanks.

I was never an enthusiastic DOT (Damage Over Time) kind of 'lock, and the artifact in Legion was so much fun that I’m having issues getting past the way Affliciton feels at 110 with the BfA changes. For example, the lack of Soul Flame really impacted my enjoyment, and Sow the Seeds just feels neutered now, to me. I also feel like my minion options have become so limited that I need time to adjust.

I’m finding more enjoyment in the new Demonology spec, and currently plan to level with it. Unfortunately, Demonology does not have a good “tagging” mechanism for getting credit when multiple folks are quickly killing mobs … may end up using Drain Life as an instant cast tag. I never feel comfortable just tagging and then letting other folks do the heavy lifting, so I don’t mind killing what I tag, I just need to be able to at least tag before things die.

At 120 it will be interesting to see how the specs feel then, once we are at the level that the changes are targeted towards. In the past it has sometimes been of benefit to “take an expansion off” for a spec that was radically changed, so I’ve learned to look on the bright side of a DPS class that has three specs to enjoy. If you are a hybrid class with just one DPS spec, and the devs change what you enjoyed about it, your options are more limited, perhaps either suck it up or move on to a class you enjoy more …

I use the add on Pawn for gear selection and it has always weighted Affliction as Mastery -> Haste -> Crit
i believe channeled spells have always counted as DD and not DOT.

When the felpuppy gave the damage buff it was first choice, and the Infernal/Doomguard was just too good of a combo swap out, that the original pets got shelved and saw no game time.

I’ve always liked Icy for general comments & suggestions but it always seems they don’t follow their own talent suggestions when they list the rotation choices…how could I open with that? you X’d it in the talent build…

Haste has always been great for faster dots,channels, & spellcasting, but my guess is Mastery doubling the dot damage outpaced the quicker damage.

I’ll be happy if CC returns to dungeons and I finally have a reason for the succubus to be out…purely for game necessity…no other motives…

I really wanted my demon army, but the mobs just died too quick for me to ramp up imp creation, then the ones i had dispelled before I got to the next mob, i always felt like i was starting from scratch. I just like the dot, dot, dot targeting when i’m trying to kill x mobs, i don’t really have downtime.

I agree at 120 everything will feel different as we see what gear is dropping and hitting the elites in raids.

I’ll keep swapping between the 2 just to see how it is progressing, especially if i finally hit a wall in the one spec.
Destro isn’t really a choice since I’ll just use my mage for that play style.

Few new notes-

Prior to getting that ring which slows foes by 60% when you have corruption, I was running talent build [2321212]. I would just triple DoT with a castsequence macro with agony, siphon, corruption. This worked well because you are not that far off on reapplying it, and makes DoT maintenance easier. Just refresh with that.

The triple DoT load on Darkshore was enough to grind down things. I would load up about 3 widely scattered enemies, have the VW tank each in turn, and then snipe shards with drain soul. Super easy, super fluid, no stand around and casts. Siphon gives it that ittle extra oomph you need to get it to drain range without applying UA. Of course for bosses, I just break out the full rotation.

Now that I got that ring, I am going to double DoT gather a pile if they are scattered and rely upon the slow to keep them from getting me, and use perma corruption. Since I have dropped siphon, I will try phantom singularity out instead. Another good trick is to open with seed, agony, and then agony a lot of other stuff, then pop the seed on the lot.

You are right that Seed is not as strong. Singularity or taint seem the corrections, but I do not like the cast time on taint. Also it is a ground target which is a little more iffy to get right.

But I just got the ring on Sun and have not really ahve had a chance to check it out

OK, I have played a lot of Warlock in my grind to exalted (still not there, most everything is mid-revered now). I fumbled through a M5 (missed timer by a few min). Went on a normal Uldir run and got all but the last boss cleared. Also ran all 10 mythics on M0. My thinking on Warlock has changed a bunch since I first posted this.

I started playing around with GSE (Gnome Sequencer Enhanced). Depending on talents, I was experiencing terrible button bloat, and running out of hotkeys. So I found a couple and modified them. I started with DM_Steel. I took his basic single target macro and modified it. As it stands it is pretty good keeping Agony and Corruption on target, and it seems to keep phantom singularity on CD, and it is not so good about applying haunt (he says add it after PS). I put in petattack and petdefensive into his basic rotation, added haunt, and pulled out darkglare and deathbolt. I completely trashed his burst macro, moving to a priorty stack of 3 actions of casting darkglare, phantom singularity, then deathbolt.

You see, where us affliction Warlocks get big DPS now is from Deathbolt. Yeah that one. I skipped it for so long using drain soul, and I was just not doing much damage as I should. Affliction Warlocks optimize that sucker to up their DPS by timing the burst. What it does is do 30% of the remaining DOT damage all in one burst. So you make sure agony and corruption are on target as well as haunt, then you load it up with 5x unstable affliction, maybe tap agony a 2nd time, then burst it with PS, darkglare and death bolt. You get really big numbers doing this, and you will rocket up.

What this brings to the class is burst, and that is really needed. That big fatty that needs to die now— burst it with deathbolt.

So I need to have the following on separate binds

  1. phantom singularity- for a pack I like to seed then PS to pop the seed, so I need to access it directly.

  2. The single target mash macro, just to load up stuff

  3. A macro with a cast sequence of agony and corruption with a 3s reset and a reset for change of target

  4. Unstable affliction- you have to use your brain on this one, the macro will keep one stack up, but when you load and how you load is part of learning this class

  5. Seed

  6. Warlock candy

  7. Drain life

  8. Burning rush

  9. Mount/petpassive

  10. Heal pet

  11. Command pet special ability (typically interrupt for felhunter)

  12. Fear

  13. Enslave demon

  14. Burst macro with darkglare

  15. Haunt, because sometimes you need it on and it is not up

and so you can see this thing sits at 15 hotkeys even with compression via GSE.

Now lets take another look at talents, knowing what I do now

Tier1- Deathbolt. Don’t even think about the others.

Tier2- Absolute corruption- big winner, perma corruption. I have seen so many pulls just turn into trains of trash being kited all over, with my DoTs still ticking after I am dead. Not having to refresh is huge, and for questing I can double DoT and run and just have the VW take it all into a nice little train of death.

Tier3- Burning Rush. Seen a lot of guys running with Demon Skin, but I am always far behind the group and need to catch up, and being able to punch that speed button saves me a lot. On Island Adventures, typically I am stuck in combat and unmounted, and this is a key ability.

Tier4- Phantom Singularity or Sow the Seeds- Sow the Seeds can make your DPS look higher when you are in a huge group with other people bursting. Your DOTS do not get up fast enough before stuff is dead, but if you seed-detonate-seed you can blow it down. Really though I feel that this is a false thing, just giving you a higher damage number on trash, and if other guys burst it faster, fine. Your value is perma corruption on tough stuff. Phantom Singularity is another DoT which amplifies Deathbolt, and it helps pop the seeds and it has some heal value…just great overall.

Tier5- Darkfury. I loved Mortal Coil as a cheap interrupt and get out of my face button, but I am using Shadowfury (the 1min AOE stun) more to support big pulls gone wrong. Also for questing if it is a big pull and you can not keep that VW up, summon a new one, and shadowfury to give that VW a chance to get it under control.

Tier6- Haunt or Grimoire of Sacrifice. Shadow embrace requires shadowbolt spam which is not very effective, and that macro tends to put up shadow bolts higher in the order if you take it, and DPS drops. Haunt is great for pets out (solo, or interrupts in instances), and the Grimoire beats that otherwise. Haunt is a bear to keep up though with everything else.

Tier 7- I switched to Soul Conduit from Creeping death- shards were an issue with Creeping Death and that macro. Also having your DoTs finish faster made it harder to get them all on target before Deathbolt, and you just spend more time with GCDs refreshing them. When I was using drain soul, sure, go with Creeping Death.

General DPS rotations

Icy is really conservative saying hold until max shards before doing another unstable affliction. Also your armor can have the Azerite trait Cascading Calamity which is a 15s haste buff when you apply UA on top of something that has UA. So I find myself moving more to double UA to get that buff.

Typical single target is agony, corruption, haunt, UAxN, and do the deathbolt thing if it is burst worthy. For packs it is Seed, PS, agony, UAx2 to get the haste, then tab agony to get 5 guys with agony, then start working in UAs on the off targets. If there is a big fatty or a really dangerous spell caster, then you deathbolt burst it.

I probably need to work on this mash macro so it puts up haunt more often.

Pets and interrupts-

If you solo, VW
If you need interrupts, Felhunter. Nameplates on helps finding the one to interrupt.
If you are raiding, sac pet or imp.

VW is a disposable meat shield and treat it as such. Just let it die, and summon another. Typically stuff sticks to you for a few seconds after you summon the VW. Fear can get them off you, so can the AOE stun. Life drain until the VW picks it up. For bosses, I will do the health funnel/drain life thing and just slowly grind it down.

Fantastic write up.

I am horrible on macros and have only played around with a basic cast sequence of Agony,Corruption, Siphon Life, Haunt, UA tied to one of my mouse buttons. I tab target and usually just blast off the first 2 before going to the next target.

Talents,

the only 2 things we differ on is I took

  1. Siphon Life over Absolute Corruption once I dinged 116 and lost the Ring Artifact Slow Ability. (God I miss that ring). I was refreshing corruption with Seed on the AOE pulls, and was just popping Agony & Siphon while cycling thru the targets. I do think I like AC better in the long run, but having better results with SL since it is another dot adding to Deathbolt punch.

  2. Creeping Death, the 15% haste included SL so since I stayed with that one, I kept CD to maximize the dots. Deathbolt didn’t seem to be out of rotation for me, but i wasn’t using the macro you have. I had to manually cast all my UA. So once it dinged 5 shards, it was unload time.

Spot on with the pets, once I lost the slow, Blueberry had to come out of retirement. now I just have him stand in the middle while I just rodeo in the mobs. Mobs I usually just pop a shard and summon a new VW right before he dies. If it is a boss, I’ll health funnel/Drain Life and wear him down that way.

The Azerite Gear plays a huge factor, & until I get the pieces I want, I am constantly swapping out pieces and testing out damage potential. Currently have 2x Agony Stacks with 1 Dagger in the Back. I keep looking for the Rare that drops the Shoulder Dagger, but haven’t found him yet. The only Wracking Brilliance is a chest piece and the dagger chest piece gave more damage overall. So until one of those 2 drops to stack, I’ll keep my 2x Agony. i have 3x Agony in all, but it was actually lower dps than using either Dagger or Wracking with 2x Agony.

I am also looking for Thunderous Blast pieces, no luck so far.

Siphon life was really good while levelling. Triple dot and forget would kill most singles. However mass pulls where you are seeding, keeping siphon up is tough. Thus perma corruption helps.

I am going to try and learn how to do the GSE macros. So far I have been cowboy coding- load in their string and muck around in what they wrote. I think I really need to understand the basics of how to get it to skip applying corruption or agony when it is already on. I get the basic priority stack macro.

My aim though is to apply them in this order for the mash is

  1. Agony if it is not on or it is time to refresh
  2. Corruption if it is not on
  3. UA if you are at max charges
  4. Haunt if it is off CD
  5. UA if UA buff is off
  6. Shadowbolt otherwise

What this would do is reserve PS and DB for my own burst planning, hold a lot of shards to bank for burst, but otherwise maintain the DoTs. I think what happens with the macro is I am burning shards more with UA application, and thus having extra shard generation helps.

Might be worth it if I can automate this stuff to go back to SL as the mash macro would do better keeping corruption up and the new dot SL. BUT right now with perma corruption if I screw up and let agony fall off while I am burning a problem with deathbolt, at least that corruption stays, so it is hard.

The gear is just an impossible headache. I keep and equip the highest ilvl piece I have and scrap/DE the rest. The attributes on the piece matter a lot, and I think matter more than all of the ring unlocks. Present thinking is ilvl trumps all, and at the same ilvl you weigh which has better azurite traits. I have not gone through sims yet, but gear is so much in flux now that it makes sense to prioritize ilvl. Also high ilvl means you can trade any drop at that ilvl or less.

So last night here is where i stood with damage in Uldir

22.9% Agony
22.5% UA
13.9% Corruption
11.3% Siphon Life
7.6% Phantom
6.1% Deathbolt
4.2% Dagger
3.5% Haunt
3.3% Shadow Bolt

Siphon Life, while not in the top 3, was #4 but against mainly a single target (Taloc). I wonder if I shouldn’t swap talents between trash with AC/Seed, then respec back into SL on bosses for the added dot?

Deathbolt had a really nice crit for 56,341. Best I could do without a crit was usually 30k, average was 15k. i had some DB of 4k where there was not much juice left in the dots, but needed a hit on the Blood to kill it quick.

I did notice shards were not generating as quick as i like on a single target boss, so i will definitely swap out of creeping death on single boss. need to stock up on more tomes.

Haunt was disappointing, but i might have delayed casting it several times opting to refresh Agony at 10 stacks.

Once you figure out your Warloc Sequencer, we would love a tutorial on how to set up Gnome Sequencer and how to optimize the Warloc rotation.

Gear wise, I always opt for higher ilevel (currently 336) over traits, but i have so many 325+ pieces, while only 2 340 head. i need to run some mythics.

I nominate Snydelee as our Netherlord Supreme Leader for his guidance.

I have been digging deep into this stuff.

Some big things that are emerging.

  1. You can not detect a state. So these macros are not asking if agony or corruption is up, but how they switch targets puts it back. Not sure how it works, will have to take a harder look at code when I get home.

  2. Getting conflicting messages on whether or not reset=3/tar works. The macro I was using employs that, yet others say it does not work.

  3. Bank and hold v. use on CD. Think about this

  • haunt is 15s CD
  • deathbolt is 30s CD
  • phantom singularity is 45s CD
  • darkglare is 180s CD

If you hold everything to be up for one mega hit, you give up 11 haunts, 5 deathbolts, 3 phantom singularities over that 180s time period. To line it all up like that you miss out on way too much.

If you hold up deathbolt to only when phantom is up, then you only get 4 per 180s instead of 6. Another big loss.

So I think just using it on CD, but doing what Icy says of pumping UAs up just before DB is up, and making sure agony and corruption are on just before DB hits is the way to go. I have a weak aura that tracks DB and shows how much time left, so I can just plan it that way.

This guy DB_Steele seems to have figured out some of this stuff and I need to hit a dummy. There is another guy who put up a drain soul/siphon life masher that he claims is good that you might like better.

I think there is a scaling amount of damage DB will give you based on the global cool downs of mainly Darkglare since it has the longest CD.

MegaBlast (Every possible DOT applied) followed by refreshed A/C/SL/H/UAx?/DB, popping PS when it comes up, and eventually you come back to the MegaBlast since 4 Phantoms will get you back in sync with DG.

Shard Generation is variable so the amount will fluctuate, but i don’t think I would hold back till the DG is almost back up.

There has to be some math that would show the greatest amount of bang for your buck, but I do not want to even think about coming up with that equation.