Newb

Hi,

Been reading this forum for quite awhile but never actually posted.

I have several questions that I feel some of you could greatly help me with (if you dont mind, that is).

I have only played the game for about a year and are still learning new things.

Lately (2 months or so), I have been raiding bigger stuff such as the different TSO raid instances. Havent gotten far in them, just the few easy nameds such as the Strange Stalker, Senior Loyalist Tilas, Thet-em-aua and Xythus Aransta & Davian.

Enough about that. My questions are a bit random but mostly they are about raiding on your Warlock.

1) I have a 114 Spell Crit. What is the max Spell Crit you can gain and what should I try to get mine up to?

2) Does Spell Damage really matter much? I have a total of 397 Spell Damage and it feels very low but its the only way if I wish to keep a decent Spell Crit (in this case, 114).

3) What is best to have casted on you during a raid, TC or Tempo?

4) Is a 9000 parse in a mage group, decent on trash inside Palace of the Ancient One? Our RDPS on trash is between 80-100k. (will list gear below so you got something to go with)

5) Why do I parse a crappy 5000 on the training dummy but when I raid I parse about 4000 more? Does the Troubador really make such a huge difference?

I think thats the questions that has been going on in my head lately that I cant seem to really get the full understanding of.

I would like to tell you about my Warlock so you got something to go with.

He has 200 AA as well as his Mythical. His armor is armor from the Ward of Elements except for one piece which is from the TSO raid set. The jewelry would be the fabled pieces from the easy nameds in the TSO raid zones. Items such as the Eye-Mounted Ring, Dark Metal Ingot, I wear a Bloodthirsty Choker as well for the 10 extra base spell damage. We are not talking a Warlock equipped in a full TSO raid armor with Avatar charms and jewelry, as you can tell.

I dont really wear any items that will proc when I successfully cast a hostile spell. Its mostly just stuff with a Spell Crit and Spell damage.

I feel I got a pretty good casting order, which I could be very wrong about. So for now I leave that alone.

Any answers to my questions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

EDIT: Forgot to add the RDPS.

SageGaspar

I think 120-ish is the cap against level 88 mobs but 114 isn't bad. Is that with full raid buffs? You can use scrolls of combat and elixirs of tactics to knock that up if you don't.

It definitely matters, and that is a little on the lowish side. I think mine is around 1000 in raids and there's a bunch of stuff I'm missing. You can use fiery magma infusions or whatever to bump that up a bit. I don't know what your earring situation is like and this might sound stupid but honestly I still get use out of the Force Hoop, can buy it off the broker cheap and it's 125 spell damage. You'd probably only be sacrificing a tiny amount of crit for it too. You can adorn your gloves and the choker for a bit more too.

I don't know in a straight up comparison honestly but when there's a decision usually there's a good choice just from looking at the group setup. If there's a wizard in the group I'll take UT since I get the most benefit out of the extra tick, if there's no other mages I'll let the chanter have UT and take TC just so we both get nice buffs. Doesn't hurt to spread the love around.

That's not terrible for where your gear and raid DPS is depending on server lag especially. If you're doing 10% of your raid's DPS I'd say it's a decent contribution.

Troub, illy, debuffs on the raid mob all contribute to make a huge difference. Troub is giving you base damage, cast speed, like 17% crit I think, some reuse, makes acid tick faster so you can cast it as soon as it's up almost. Tandem is a nice damage boost. Peace of Mind and Maestro are both big chunks of damage. Jester's is very nice. There's other people in groups giving you buffs too that you may not be aware of.

Dunno what your exact gear situation is at but you might be able to get some upgrades from TSO instances, if you can get a dictionary from EA or a najena's ring of readiness to drop those are great options, the signature quest offhand is awesome. There's a decent wrist and ring from the void instances. Some of the raid stuff is a little crappy even though it drops from raids.

If you guys do Hate the wicked wand of malice is still great and the ring off byzola ain't bad either, will kick up your spell damage numbers a bit. There's some other decent items in there for other classes too still I think, might be worth hitting just for fun if y'all have never been.

Berrbe

Sturges

maybe i looked over it but you only have one set piece from tso? what about rok? the two set is pretty beast for us.

also, arent people replacing the sig reward due to proc changes? its got good blue stats... thats for sure

warlock827

Very nice fills in berrbe thanks .. Berrbe if you dont mind me asking you are well off gear wise what is your averge parse on bosses now that you got nice gear

warlock827

Do you even use plaguebringer single target spell in your rotation?

Newb

This thread has answered everything I had been wondering about.

Thanks for your help and time.

Just to let you know the casting order I have been using on raids lately. Here it is:

Netherealm
Gift of Bertoxxulous
Vacuum Field
Armageddon
Focused Casting
Aura of Void
Freehand Sorcery
Absolution
Distortion
Plaguebringer
Acid
Thunderclap
Bewilderment

By now Vacuum Field and Aura of Void are back up. So I recast those and then hit all the big nukes again.

Looking at my spell order it seems I need to get Acid casted more in between.

Is this spell order way off, or seem okay?

SageGaspar

Depends on how lucky they get with the symbols off Tombs trash and Absatallius I guess, 90 spell damage isn't bad for my money though and it's not a terribly challenging quest. The proc is sorta icing. That's honestly how I look at the Byzola ring too, haven't seen a Gynok ring or a ring of readiness yet so much options are a little limited.

And yeah you need to get acid going constantly. You want to let the old acid expire and get a new one up ASAP, ideally right after the last one expires. The benefit of casting it early in the fight is it always lands. It's big DPS though. If you don't have both AAs for it you need those too.

As other people said if you don't have it yet, two set is also a big thing to get going as soon as you can, it essentially brings your reuse on armageddon down to the cap.

Berrbe

On average around 14k
Some named vary.
Yes, whenever its up cause my crit bonus is capped(50) so it hits pretty hard

Definitely more acid, there is no way you were keeping acid running with that.

Newb

Yes. I really only cast Acid when nothing else is up (not counting Dissolve).

I had no idea it was such a great DPS on raids but reading into the spell more, it cant get resisted. Thats pretty awesome.

I will need to upgrade that to Master as well, then.