Reflections From The Pond

Remember how I talked about the painfulness of being at the low end of the dps meter?

I modified Paynne’s spec a bit to a variety of the Felguard/Emberstorm spec, put Incinerate on that easy-to-reach key where I used to have Shadow Bolt, and dove head first into the world of raiding again. And it payed off!

Paynne is at the top of the DPS chart!!

Admittedly, this is on one fight only, and one that is very good if you are an aoe’ing dps class, but look at the stats from the last time Paynne was there:

In these 2 weeks since that first Gluth fight she has almost doubled her total dps output and went from a measly 2300 dps to more than 3900.

Granted, she has had a few gear upgrades, but mostly her boosted dps is a result of me sitting down and actually looking around for a spec that would suit me for both raiding and solo play. This spec is allegedly not putting out as much hurt as an affliction one, but it is also allegedly a lot easier to play since you don’t have to keep track of a lot of different dots ticking down.

This is how I play it:

Trash packs

Dot a mob up with Curse of Agony and Corruption and send the Felguard in with his Cleave enabled, empowering him whenever it comes off cooldown. The shadow damage ticks from the dots will proc Molten Core, and you rain fire down on the mobs’ heads. See all the pretty yellow numbers pop up on your screen!

Bosses or single-target trash mobs

Dot dot dot (no, I am not referring to Mamma Mia) the big ugly mofo with Curse of Agony,  Corruption and Immolate and start spamming him with Incinerate. Send the Felguard and empower him as often as you can. Like before, the dots will trigger Molten Core, and take care to always keep a fresh Immolate up for the damage increase to Incinerate.

See, not very difficult! :-)

So, the raiding is going ok with this spec, but how about the solo play and questing?

Well, since this spec leaves Paynne with only rank 1 in Mana Feed and completely devoid of the Fel Synergy and the Demonic Resilience, her Felguard is a bit more fragile when he is taking on the mobs as a tank instead of a dps, and she needs to Life Tap and  feed him up a lot more often than before. It’s not a huge difference in questing speed, and the increased raid damage makes her more than willing to live with it :-)

If you enjoyed this post check out these posts as well!

1. More warlock macrosI am a sucker for macros to save key space, and my warlock Paynne has quite a few of them...
2. 20 k Curse of Doom!So last night I was in Karazhan again. Was a fun run, we started at The Curator and worked our...
3. Demonic macrosSo,I couldn’t resist anymore, I specced my little lock back to demonology… I use her too much for questing still...
4. DPS Meter WoesLast night we ran a guild 25-man, we went to Obsidian Sanctum with our regular raiders and a few guildies...