Mondays are always fun because of the resets. Right now, I’ve been finishing up gearing the last few pieces on my warlock as he gets a few more tier 14 pieces. I managed to get the 4 set bonus, sacrificing an expensive 496 piece I purchased on the auction house. Ironically, I also won my tier 15 legs off of Nalak but I’m going to wait a bit until I can get another tier piece before putting it into use. I might lose some DPS but I really didn’t want to sacrifice my recent 4 set bonus, especially after I spent a bunch of materials enchanting his stuff.
One thing I ended up doing was switching from Demonology to Destruction. Unfortunately, even with a reasonable weapon and some of his tier pieces, my warlock ended up getting slaughtered in the DPS race against other warlocks. One thing I realized is that most end up going Destruction. Since I never tried that spec out before, I decided to give it a go. It’s a little weird/awkward at first and not entirely intuitive. I watched one of Mike Preach’s videos on the Destruction warlock spec and he mentioned that it’s not really smooth compared to Affliction and not as cool as Demonology.
I can certainly see his point in giving it a shot. First, it’s just weird including an AoE spell, Rain of Fire, into the rotation. I’m not entirely sure how nor why that was included for a single target method. Then there’s the whole Burning Embers resource, which I feel makes this spec pretty retarded. I know that warlocks originally had the soul shards as a secondary resource on top of mana. But I really hate how virtually every class and spec almost has their own form of resources outside of the simple mana stat. Regardless, compared to Cataclysm, the Destruction spec does feel easier overall. I recall the rotation for Destruction in Cataclysm had somewhere around 11-14 different priorities, which made me just go Affliction for the expansion.
Single target does feel reasonably smooth. Probably, the one thing I haven’t mastered yet is incorporating Chaos Bolt. Since I’m using an Add-On called SpellFlash to give me a hand in alerting me for my rotation, I occasionally get confused as to when exactly I need to fire out a Chaos Bolt. When I look at other Destruction warlocks, it feels that they end up doing more damage with a slightly different rotation.
The thing I was a little wary of though was AoE. Previously, Warlocks and Mages probably had the best AoE abilities around. Unfortunately, with the revamped classes/specs, warlocks no longer can just issue out Rain of Fire mindlessly. Only Destruction can really make good use of it. But the thing is that with Destruction, you still end up doing a bit to get more out of your Rain of Fire spells. This aspect is something Mike Preach lamented when it came to the class. Also, Destruction really isn’t much of a DoT class compared to Affliction. You pretty much just work with Immolate, which I’m not entirely fond of because it’s not an instant cast spell as compared to other Warlock specs spells. So you really can’t do that much of a multi-dotting type of fighting style using this spec as opposed to say the Affliction spec.
Right now, I do see my DPS rising, which might be the result of the combination between my upgraded gear and part of the spec. Yet I feel as though I’m not yet fully maxing out the potential compared to other Destruction warlocks. That said, I really enjoy the big numbers you see from this spec. Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn possibly are some of the biggest number generators in this game that I’ve seen. So I’m hoping I can do more in improving my play style with the Warlock.
After working a bit on my warlock, I moved to my paladin. I’m really getting a kick out of the whole loot specialization feature. It’s been great gearing my paladin up for his tank spec. Today, he received his shoulder token, the both LFR tanking trinkets (pre-ToT), some bracers, and the Sha-Touched sword. I’m hoping to get the shield, a cloak, ring and a belt. If I manage all that, my paladin will be pretty decently geared. I’ve been wanting to mess around with his protection spec for a long time, but his gear had been horrible that I found it pointless. Since I have a fair amount of Charms left over, I might attempt to farm a few bosses once I complete getting the valor points from my remaining LFR runs.
I wanted to go a bit further on my paladin but decided to switch back over to my warrior. I figured it might be good to level as fast as possible with my warrior (and in the future my remaining alts) just so I can take advantage of things like Sha groups, etc. Thus far, it’s been pretty fun and I’m fairly close to level 89. When I started Kun-Lai, I was probably around 3 bars into level 88 and only completed the quest that opened up the Horde Pandaren city. Right now, I’m halfway done and will probably level once I complete the Lorewalker Cho quest line in the mountains. Since there’s a large number of quests remaining in Kun-Lai and that the end quests lead towards Townlonge Steppes, I’m going to try finishing up this area. Not sure if I’ll hit 90 at this rate, but if I don’t, I’ll probably be pretty close.
I’m really looking forward to my warrior hitting level 90. The leveling process has been extremely quick this time around and I’m pretty happy about skipping Krasarang Wilds (although I did miss out on the kick-the-teddy-bear quest). The missing gold is something that does bother me a bit but I think I’ll manage. I’m hoping to avoid spending too much on epics and seeing if she can get away with some bare bones crafted PVP gear and some other crafted items. I hope to complete the intro scenarios to the Isle of Thunder so she can quickly obtain a belt. If not, I’ll just hunt rares to get the treasure room key before doing any raids (except for Nalak and Oondasta).
After I complete her, I might end up leveling my mage next. I considered leveling up my rogue but my mage already has quite a bit of crafted blues. So she’s quite ahead of the curve. Since Frost Mages are some of the top DPS at the moment, I might switch back to that spec. It’ll be interesting going back. Arcane was quite fun in Cataclysm but I’m suspicious of how it’ll perform in high movement fights.
At any rate, things feel as though they are moving at a better rate. I think this is a great time to level and do some pre-ToT raids. I think by the time I finish leveling up my other three toons to 90, we’ll start hearing more about the next patch more concretely.