I need help please guys

[Erin/Radiant]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Zul%27jin&n=Radiant

There's my armory profile. I am having some trouble as far as itemization and knowing what stats to stack etc. I had an abysmal hit rating last night, but I dropped some gold on gems, enchants and got some different trinkets and as far as I can tell, with my suppression talents, I'm hit rating capped. So I think that's good. My request however is for anyone knowledgeable of warlocks or even just gameplay in general, please look at my profile and tell me what I can do to improve on my own. Outside of getting better gear from raiding. Any quest rewards or faction vendor items that might help me? Could my talents be better? Different glyphs? What about haste rating?

Here's my cast rotation: Life tap to trigger the glyph (20% of spirit gained as spell power for 20 secs.) then depending on the enemy curse of doom or curse of agony to get that ticking off. Then haunt, unstable affliction, corruption. After that I shadowbolt spam with improved SB until my life tap buff needs renewed and then recast all dots that have expired. Sometimes I'll throw in curse of elements if no one else is casting it. I also throw in my engineering stuff sometimes too. I don't usually raid in demonology spec. It can be done I hear, but my single target dps is about 30% higher with affliction. So I think my rotation is good, but if someone sees where I need to improve, I'd be glad to hear it.

Overall I'm open to anything I can do on my own to improve so I can contribute to raids. Wow heroes says I'm ready for uld 10 but I still have a few blues I feel like I need to replace first. shoes, a ring etc...so any help guys?

[Ian]

As a fledgling spell dps type person myself, my first suggestion is to replace you green trinket with the mark of the war prisoner from H VH.  It drops off cyanigosa so it's a possibility each time you run it, it's got a bit more hit rating and a better use function than the green you've got right now.  The rest of your gear seems solid, but knowing next to nothing about warlocks in general I'm probably not the best judge of that :p

[Erin/Radiant]

I've never seen that trinket drop. I'll definitely go for that. The green I have now is sort of a stopgap measure I got from a quest. It took a few minutes and capped out my hit rating is why I have it for now.

[Vitandus]

Your gem choices are much improved from last night.

You want to ensure you have 2 stacks of Shadow Embrace up as much as possible. A Haunt and Shadowbolt for the effect, then apply the DoTs. Rotate as needed, keep hitting Life Tap when the buff wears off.

Lots of gear to replace.

[sirrom]

your build looks solid and gear is decent. for warlock  most gear has stam and int forgoing spirit for some reason  im not sure if spirit acually helps a warlock like crit or SP hidden in it like other casters.
On a note..RECOUNT is not a perfect guide for dps...its a good tool for geting a general feel for your dps and you can analyze from it...but it does not seperate AOE/single target. Affliction is a very good SINGLE target spec...destruction is a very good AOE spec  but weak on single.
demonology is somewhere in middle i feel.Most go for destruction because recount reports a higher dps than affliction due to AOE.  AOE can really spike up the dps and damage of recount. for example  a warrior dps has little aoe or slow weak aoe vs a paladin outfitted with exact same gear(as close as posible) will out dps a warrior almost double due to AOE.but a warrior will out dps a paladin on single target in most cases.
HDL has to remeber that recount and other dps meters does not separate the 2 types of damage...they read damage as damage. so your build might be very solid for affliction.

also dont forget your imp....it is added passive dps and glyphing/talent to increase imp damage is always good.

[Vitandus]

your build looks solid and gear is decent. for warlock  most gear has stam and int forgoing spirit for some reason  im not sure if spirit acually helps a warlock like crit or SP hidden in it like other casters.

Spirit helps warlocks, but the primary stat is Spell Power. A warlock should never gem for Stamina except in very special cases.

HDL has to remeber that recount and other dps meters does not separate the 2 types of damage...they read damage as damage. so your build might be very solid for affliction.

http://hordedefenseleague.org/index.php/topic,1354.0.html

^Read. That means you, too, Brad. Read it.

The raid leaders consume raid data. We know how to tell if a raid healer who may be lower performed or not. We also know how to read damage meters. For a Warlock, damage is damage.

[Kotodama]

your build looks solid and gear is decent. for warlock  most gear has stam and int forgoing spirit for some reason  im not sure if spirit acually helps a warlock like crit or SP hidden in it like other casters.
On a note..RECOUNT is not a perfect guide for dps...its a good tool for geting a general feel for your dps and you can analyze from it...but it does not seperate AOE/single target. Affliction is a very good SINGLE target spec...destruction is a very good AOE spec  but weak on single.
demonology is somewhere in middle i feel.Most go for destruction because recount reports a higher dps than affliction due to AOE.  AOE can really spike up the dps and damage of recount. for example  a warrior dps has little aoe or slow weak aoe vs a paladin outfitted with exact same gear(as close as posible) will out dps a warrior almost double due to AOE.but a warrior will out dps a paladin on single target in most cases.
HDL has to remeber that recount and other dps meters does not separate the 2 types of damage...they read damage as damage. so your build might be very solid for affliction.

also dont forget your imp....it is added passive dps and glyphing/talent to increase imp damage is always good.

I feel I must pipe in.


Your demonology build looks mostly ok.  Your affliction build looks like a PvP build.  Putting talent builds aside for a moment, I must explain warlock gear itemization and stats.

There are four stats warlocks want.  Spellpower, spellpower, spirit, crit.  The order of spirit and crit is debatable.  As a side note, Intellect is crap.

Spellpower is the #1 stat you want.  This should warrant no explanation.  Spirit for warlocks is like spellpower, even more so for a demonology warlock with Demonic Aegis (or a destro with DA like myself and Telis).  Demonic Aegis improves our Fel Armor and our Fel Armor gives us Spellpower equal to 30% of our total spirit (40% with 3 points in DA).  No other stats are more important IMO.
Warlocks like crit, not as much as spellpower but we like it alot.  But crit is not an important stat because our talents give us alot of temporary boosts in crit that proc quite a bit, as much as 20% or more.  This is why if you look at WWS you will see a warlock such as myself, who only has a baseline 15% crit, critting as much as 40% or even 60% of the time.  Again Intellect is crap.  Yes Intellect gives you crit and increases the size of your mana pool, but we do not care about the size of our mana pool and the crit from 1pt of crit > 1pt ofIntellect.
Speaking of WWS, they are the absolute BEST way to judge your performance, period.  Recount gives you a nice indication of how you're doing at the moment but the detail of WWS allows you to see what you're doing wrong and where you need to improve.

Now as for specifics.  Warlocks gem for spellpower.  We enchant for spellpower.  The ONLY exception is if you are not hit capped.

The different talent builds and their forte is as follows.

Destruction - Single Target DPS.  Destruction excels at large crits and bust damage.

Afflication - Multi Target DPS.  Whereas affliction can hold it's own in single target damage, multiple targets is where Afflication is king.  This however does not usually apply to trash pulls because it takes time for DoTs to tick and trash dies quickly.  Affliction is nice on boss fights dont get me wrong, especially one ones requiring alot of movement.

Demonology - Pet DPS/Single Target DPS/Survivability.  A large portion of a demonology warlocks damage is delt by his pets or buffs gained from pet abilities.  Demonology is about boosting your pet's performance or your own performance through your pet's abilities.

As far as AOE damage is concerned, warlocks in any spec excel at it.  Destruction warlocks can do things to drive up their crit temporarily and have their RoF or SoC crit alot.  The Affliction tree has talents that boost the damage of your SoC. All of the talent trees have talents that will indirectly boost your AOE dps.  Remember trash damage means nothing.  Only look at boss dps.

Right now, most warlocks are either Destruction or Afflication it seems.  I personally play as destruction, but have my second spec as Affliction for PvP.

The pet that used for each spec is different and also subject to the situation/fight that you're in. 

If you are Affliction in PvP, the Succubus is very good.  It's as easy as leaving it on Defensive and forgetting about it until you actually want to seduce someone specificly.  In PvE Affliction locks will still tend to use the Succubus for it's dps or the Felhunter for it's abilities like Fel Intelligence or Shadow Bite.

Destruction warlocks use the Imp.  One of the nice talents that Destruction warlocks get is Empowered Imp, which increases the damage done by your Imp and when your Imp crits you gain 20% crit for your next destro spell. Some (like myself) will also take Improved Imp from the first tier of the Demonology tree to further boost the Imp's dps.

Demonology warlocks use the Felguard.  The Felguard easily has the highest dps of all of the warlock pets.  The Demonology tree talents also further improve the Felguard's dps and yours also when you are using it.

This post has turned out to be quite general in nature.  For specifics you can ask any of the warlocks in the guild for advice.  If they do not know the answer to your question or they are unsure, they will know who to ask to be sure.

[Acree]

I think you forgot haste.  Isn't the itemization a warlock looks for: Hit (until capped), Spellpower, Haste, Spirit, Crit - in that order?

[sirrom]

okok  i should NOT have added"and other dps meters" and should have stated HDL in general  as in most casual players and not the raid leaders/ council,or anyone that knows how to read between the lines etc.
what i was trying to explain was that most use recount as "this is my dps" and not as a guide,and a large number use it as a braging tool, which should not be confused with other meters. recount is a decent tool  but not the WOWGOD addon that some people think it is.
what i was trying to get across and maybe explained a bit better was warlock affliction is very strong right now for a spec and erin should be confident in the spec, and not worry as to If a destruction warlock or demon would be better.Affliction is a very strong single target and very weak aoe spec in a raid cus trash dies too quick and unless you KNOW how to read between the lines..recount is not an accurate guide for dps,but still usefull.
anyway with that said  my best advice for you erin is talk to chuck(kotodama) in game and have him take you to a training dummy and he can help you out a ton on rotation,if or when to reapply a dot(like if dot does more damage at start and less at end...or if a dot has an end proc and should wait for it to end before reapply.....stuff like that.

he increased my dps by 600 just by pointing out stuff i didnt even know about:)

[Kotodama]

I think you forgot haste.  Isn't the itemization a warlock looks for: Hit (until capped), Spellpower, Haste, Spirit, Crit - in that order?

I knew I would forget something.  Thankyou.

Hit is important.  Affliction isn't as big a deal because it's easy to recast a dot that misses and you wont lose much dps over it.  Destruction locks stand to lose alot of dps if they miss because they depend on big hits and their rotation is very dependent on certain spells being applied in a certain order.  Demonology falls somewhere in between.  Hit is something all classes should want to be capped on.  It is easy to get hit capped though so I really didn't feel the need to mention it alot except when gemming.

Haste is important.  All casters like haste...actually EVERYBODY likes haste.  For warlocks Haste is the #5 stat (am I taking that joke too far?).

1. Spellpower
2. Spirit
3. Crit
4. Haste

Haste is something that you will get as you gather gear.  Because of the diminishing returns of haste, there is no real point to trying to gem or enchant for it unless you have very little.

This brings me to another point.  Warlock gear is easy to spot.  It will usually have Spellpower, Stam and Spirit on it.  Absolutely no mp5 and maybe some Intellect (who cares it's crap).

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Zul%27jin&n=Kotodama

If you look at my gear you will see my helm is the perfect warlock peice.  You will also notice that the warlock teir peices have the stats I mentioned above on them.

[Erin/Radiant]

I use demonology spec for the AE damage. I've been able to pull sick damage from the demo AE. Metamorph, then immolate aura, hellfire spam and let the pet go nuts. bonus points if the pet is the infernal with HIS AE up too.

And the shadow embrace I never really paid much attention to it. Was just an extra buff, but now that you mention it pat and I'm looking at it closer, I'll keep my eye on the stacks of that.

My big question though is whether anyone sees anything (other than the VH trinket mentioned) specific that I can do to improve that doesn't involve 10 or more people. Preferrably just myself. I admit I rely heavily on recount to tell me what my DPS is and the posts Pat linked back there are informative. This taken into account however, I know I can be a lot better, if I can just get my hands on the knowledge I need and a few gear replacements.

[Kotodama]

Lastly for now I want to say that I explained all of the different types of warlocks so that YOU can choose which you want to play. There's no point in playing a game (or paying for it for that matter) if you're not enjoying yourself.

Gear is important, but knowing your class and build is the MOST important thing.  As Brad stated above, he gained a 600 dps increase just from knowledge alone.  That is more than replacing any single peice of gear will give you.

For the most part all of the Warlock talent builds are fairly close in DPS right now.

[Vitandus]

Gear from Heroics

[Kotodama]

I  must correct myself.  I listed desired stats as:

1. Spellpower
2. Spirit
3. Crit
4. Haste

Not sure WTF I was thinking.  Maybe since it was an afterthought, even though it shouldn't have been.  Regardless I listed it very wrong, it should be:

1. Spellpower
2. Spirit
3. Haste
4. Crit

This is generally the order.