I’m doing it right!

So last night we went into Dragon Soul to test out our abilities.  Some of us were having issues but they got sorted out by the time we got the 2nd boss down.  The only real issue I had was the fact that I hadn’t downloaded the DBM addon for Cata raids.  This didn’t become an issue until Ultraxion.  I will say that I didn’t mess up my button pushing (I watch my cast bars and debuffs TYVM) but I also noticed I wasn’t getting any warnings or updates.

Other than some grumpiness that killed the Non-Red Slice buff I had cast earlier, things went pretty well.  By the end of the night Red Slice was gone and even Red Lyssi went away.

Want to know why?

 

The big crits.

 

I am a closet meter whore.  Well I might not be that in the closet about it, but I am no where near as bad as you think when the phase “meter whore” pops in your mind.  I LOVE seeing BIG numbers pop up on the screen.  Playing affliction didn’t start giving me those numbers until late in the expansion when I had lots of gear to inflate my numbers.  Even then I would only see like 30-40k crits on my shadow bolts.  Sometimes I would get a really nice 15-20k crit on my corruption ticks, but nothing like what I would hear other classes getting.  Affliction’s damage is slow and steady with a spike at the end.  Destro, not so much.

I think the smallest crit I got with a chaos bolt last night was 86k.  The highest I got was with shadowburn for 190k.

Yes, 190k crit.

 

EXCITEMENT!

 

When I talk about being a meter whore I don’t mean HAVING to be at the top.  I like being in the top 3 (if possible).  If I hit #1 or #2 I get really excited.  Mostly because I play with such good players.  Adoe, Sorak and Zug all usually wipe the floor with the rest of us dps.  It is like the only contest is between those 3.  So when I manage to sneak in there and top one of those 3 guys I am just over the moon.  I don’t usually get too bad about it publicly (sometimes yes I do, but not ALL THE TIME).  To Slice, yeah I am usually all pumped up and crow about beating someone.  He usually just rolls his eyes at me and ignores me.  Which is fine, I made myself happy, it works.

I think the best part of last night for me was beating Adoe on Deathwing.  I would say beating Sorak but he died halfway through the fight (he managed to kill himself by shadowstepping, it was quite hilarious I might add) and even though he was kicking everyone’s ass throughout the rest of the raid, it wouldn’t be fair to compare myself to him that fight.  While Sorak and Adoe were neck and neck all night (one fight they were like 20 dps points off from each other and the equivalent damage was less than 1000 difference) I was battling with Shadey.  I was so busy focusing on the top dogs that I completely overlooked the mage in the raid that manged to kick my ass on several fights.  I had gotten used to her healing on her shaman and not keeping tabs on her dps (cause there wasn’t any!) which was a critical mistake.  One that I will not continue to overlook.  This means I can’t come in and half-ass fights anymore.  I need to stay on my game so I’m not on the bottom like I was for most of Wrath.

Anyway!  Back to the story!

The excitement wasn’t from beating Adoe, I usually am #1 or #2 on the Deathwing fight, it was from beating Adoe in a spec I had never played before prior to that night.

THAT is what got me excited.

I had done NO research on my “new” spec.  I wasn’t even 100% sure on my rotation.  I used the tab Blizz supplied in my spellbook and went to town.  Yes I fat fingered a lot of stuff, and I wasn’t awful on a lot of my dot uptime ( I was bad, but not awful.)  So when I finally did do some research to find out I was doing things right was pretty awesome.

http://spellbound.nu/?p=2002

Saga is an awesome warlock blogger.  If you aren’t already reading her you totally need to.  She does a great job with explaining things.  Far better than my rambly non-existent how-to posts.

So yeah, go read her. 😀

I’m now getting excited about leveling and raiding again.  I don’t know how I will level in MoP, I might switch back to Aff, but I am not sure.  It almost feels like Destro is doing a great job with the self healing.  I could even glyph or spec in for more.  With a 625% mana regen (Destro locks CANNOT life tap, we don’t have the spell anymore) I really feel like I am unstoppable.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

*CACKLE*

Revealing

I have a confession to make,

 

I

 

*deep breath*

 

WENT DESTRO!

 

*GASP*

 

I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW!

 

As an “Aff for life!” warlock this feels almost like a betrayal to all I have ever known and loved.

For a while the dirty secret was kept on my baby warlock that I was leveling for the classy trolls guild cheeve.  I decided that I was going to learn to destro because I was so unhappy with the new aff rotation.  It ended up being so much fun that I thought about changing my PvP off spec on Lyssi to destro to play around but I never went through with it.

I mean, I wrote posts rhapsodizing over affliction and my love for it.  I said I would NEVER play destro.  It was just a mage with a pet.  Etc, etc, etc.

Now I’ve switched and love it.

When I was testing things out on the Beta I spent quite a long time at the dummies just trying to get my fingers into the swing of a new rotation while trying to keep the basic buttons that I had grown accustomed to.  I moved all of the spells around until I had a flow going.  It was starting to look up for me and affliction for MoP.  I won’t lie.  For a while I was honestly looking at my stable of alts and wondering which one I could happily switch to and raid on for MoP.  Before the Beta changes to affliction went through it was looking as though I would be playing my Priest or Druid, as a healer.

That’s right.

I was thinking of switching my role COMPLETELY!

Which is kind of odd considering I hadn’t healed full time since Wrath.  This was also the time in which resto druid healing was spamming wild growth and rejuv on any person taking any tiny amount of damage.  Hell, I was still angry tree at that time.  The most I had healed since then was in 5 mans or alt runs with the guild.  I even did LFR on my priest a time or two.  Other than that, no real raiding.

What was I thinking in becoming a healer again?

Yes I am insane, if you didn’t believe me (or Slice for that matter) prior to this then you should have no doubts left.

So when the changes came down that helped the aff rotation I was happy again.  I could keep my main, I could keep playing the spec I loved so much.

Fast forward to last night and the 5.0.04 patch.

I hopped online on Lyssi and first hit the trainer to change my off spec from aff (aff pvp prior to the changes) to destro then I flew up to the dummies.

I was dumb at first because I hadn’t put the glyphs in.  So after some toon swapping I got my glyphs I needed for both specs and went back to testing my rotation.

Yeah I had problems.

I already knew from the Beta that I would have to re-organize my keys and bars, even if I hadn’t read the reminder from Cynwise.  Even after switching my buttons around and practicing for quite a while as aff, I just couldn’t get back into the flow I had found on the Beta.

Then I switched my spec . . .

 

The rotation flowed.

 

I can’t explain it any other way.

 

I was just hitting the buttons with the same ease that I had from years of playing affliction, only I wasn’t playing affliction.  It was a scary thought that I could so easily transition to something I had never played before.

 

After I messed around with the rotation for a little while longer I decided that I needed to reforge my gear to better optimize destro.  Affliction loves haste, Demo loves mastery and Destro loves crit.  Since I lost my stat stick in my wand and the hit cap was lowered I thought I would go reforge and see how much more crit I could squeeze out of my haste heavy gear.  Off to Mr. Robot!

First of all, when did AskMrRobot become such shit?  I loved that site when it first came out.  I haven’t used it since it updated to the new format, which was around Firelands.  I stopped using it then because it kept putting the wrong stat levels on my gear.  Which meant that it wasn’t optimized.  I went there last night to see if they had fixed it, and no.  It told me to take my haste enchant off and put on an expertise enchant.

Excuse me?

Why the hell would a caster need expertise?

Ok fine I checked the stat weights.  Expertise was at ZERO and yet 4 different pieces of gear were being told to be enchanted or reforged to expertise.

I just gave up at that point.

I can hear Sorak chiming in with “Why are you relying on some silly website?”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I logged back in and just did the reforging myself.  I am slightly over hit cap but I don’t know what else I could do with what I had.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to raise my crit any higher since I didn’t have anything to reforge away other than haste.  I don’t know about you but I still love haste way too much to want to get rid of it.  Especially now that DI has been changed.  Lots of haste is awesome!

 

Anyway I logged off pretty happy with what I had set up.  New keybinds, new spec, new pet.  It is golden!

 

Tonight we are going to raid to see how everyone handles their new rotations, etc.  I am eagerly anticipating it!  Hopefully I will get a chance tomorrow to make an update on how things went.  If not, I am sure Arv or Rep or Slice will post something.

 

Sorry for being so quiet for so long!  I miss you guys!