Hello guys, I am new to warlock as a whole, and I know the class isn’t in a great spot right now but I enjoy playing it so… Anyway, am I supposed to hold dark soul for infernal? Or press it on CD?
The spec isn’t in a bad spot, it’s just not as easy and has a complex 6-7 button rotation. It’s very powerful in m+ with the Wilfred legendary and allows me to use my infernal and dark souls together every two minutes. I’ve been topping charts even in single target after the buff. We were already amazing with two target cleave and 5+ target AOE(uncapped).
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I can’t speak on Destro since I don’t play it and haven’t played it in SL but Warlocks are always a strong class overall. They might not be top-tier but they are also not bottom tier. Just don’t expect to do well in Arena with melee cleaves.
Our good damage is during burst phases so I’d say hold it until needed. In pvp it’s a giant red bubble telling everyone to dispell/steal/kick you, so you never get to use it.
For PvE I’d use it on CD unless you know you’ll only get one more use in the fight and you’ll have one more infernal, though it might be a wash idk. Most cases you’re better off taking CDF, anyway.
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I use CDF in that row for PvE myself, but I’ve seen others use it during infernal burst phases then again once it’s off cd.
For PvP I use it when I’m about to burst someone down with back-to-back CBs.
CDF is generally (unless you’re insanely starved for crit) the play except in two clear scenarios:
- You have multiple targets to fight but they’re too spaced out, in which Cataclysm and CDF would not be able to hit more than 1 target.
- You are fighting one target where burst windows gain tremendous value (super fast boss kills, bursting damage value increased on sludgefist pillars, bursting shriekwing hard before the invulnerable phase, etc).
The only fight that comes to mind where scenario #1 rings true in the current tier is Huntsman. Bear in mind that depending on the strategy of the group you’re in, they may tank the bears in melee frequently or very rarely. If they’re split frequently for spooky ghosts, DS will be a lot better than CDF. Note that if you look at top 100 destro lock parses on CN fights, most of those fights are very fast kills, where bursting super hard is more valuable because they have less time to get rounds of CDs off.
Go aff. Get a ton of macros and wa. Win.
It depends on the situation. Usually you will hold it for inferal to spam cb. But making sure to make the most of dark soul is key. such as making sure not to over generate soul shards or over use filler spells instead of cb. Oh and properly stacking backdrafts for cb and not incinerate.
Dark soul had big value in BfA where it would line up with infernal with the reduced cd cause of azerite.
Currently CDF is better for almost all situations in PvE. If you insist on taking dark soul though, you should definitely have it ready for use along with infernal. So no, you don’t use it on cd.
In M+ you can squeeze one use (even without infernal) in between boss fights but you must be absolutely sure next boss is 2+ min away.
The answer to how to properly use DS is that it’s totally dependent on the length of the fight. For a 4-minute fight you’d only get two uses of DS so you’d hold the second one for Infernal. For a 5-minute fight you’d use DS on CD and hold your second Infernal for your third DS. On a 10-minute fight you would line up your first DS and Infernal, use DS by itself at 2 minutes, use Infernal by itself at 3 minutes, DS by itself at 4, line them up again at 6, then hold your last DS for last Infernal at 9. This is all also assuming that you lust on pull, which is kinda rare this tier tbh. Long story short, it takes a lot of planning and fight knowledge to maximize DS value. Just try to line it up with Infernal as much as possible without losing a use of either over the course of a fight.
Just as an aside, for me personally DS is simming exactly the same as CDF (for 5-min ST Patchwerk) since the buff came out.
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Exactly as Saoren said… use your 2 min cd’s at 0,2,4 and use your 3 min cd’s at 0,4. But if you feel you’ll kill in under 4 minutes, use both at 0,3.
In dungeons use them together on bosses but just after a boss use your 3 min cd on the next pack, 2 min cd on the pack after that so that both are available for the next boss.