Warlock cast order help

hi, returning warlock after 3+ years i missed out on the previous 2 expansions and have returned after subscribing again , i've been questing solo mainly and have hit a wall as regards dps.

I've been doing allot of research regarding adjusting my AA spec which helped allot and was wondering if anyone would be kind enough to post a screenshot of there most efficient spell cast order bars with your cast order ( saves time going through all the spell names etc )

my favourite thing in everquest 2 after i returned was the shipwrecked pirate ratonga tradeskill quest loved it.

I currently have 1. a single target dps bar ( at the top ) 2. an encounter aoe dps bar ( 2nd bar down and 3. buff bar

I know allot has changed as regards its best to max out potency etc and get all your spells to ancient quality.


anyway if someone could help help get back up to scratch so i can get my foot in the door when my guild raid again would be nice.

Thanks

Casting Order
Casting order doesn't go by absolute damage... you have to consider how long the spell takes to cast, whether it procs over time, and how fast it refreshes. My cast order won't necessarily be your cast order. It depends on the quality of your spells, how you are geared, and your overall stats.

If you aren't already, you probably will want to use Advanced Combat Tracker: you'll need ACT and the EQ2 English Parser (unless you use another language for which there's an EQ2 Parser).

I use an Excel spreadsheet to compute which spells give the best DPS, and I use that as a basis for my cast order. Not everybody uses the same formulas for this. A person called Kokotewa has published his cast order calculation tools, but I'll admit I have never been able to figure out how to use his tools properly.

For me, I self-buff, then open my Knowledge book and look at each spell to get the following values:

• Casting Time
• Re-Cast Time
• Max Initial Damage
• Max DOT Damage
• Every X Secs (for DOTs)
• Duration
• AOE Multiplier (I use 4 for blue AOEs and 3 for green AOEs)

Roughly I add "Max Initial Damage" to the total DOT damage, which is calculated by figuring out how many times the DOT (if the spell has a DOT component) can proc. That I divide by the "Re-Cast Time". Then I multiply by my "AOE Multiplier", if applicable.

I haven't messed with my warlock's cast order in a while, so you'll need to really read your spells. Open each from the Knowledge book and read what it does, then check what ACT thinks it is doing. For example, AA can add damage or DOT components to spells that need to be figured in. Or (as on my conjy) some spells aren't well-described in the Knowledge Book and you have to rely on ACT for what all they're doing (conjy pets do melee and casting damage, and none of it is quantified in the Knowledge Book, and you'll want to check Netherlord specifically).

For ACT testing, I like to go to a Guild Hall with guild hall dummies to test against (select an Epic non-killable dummy). Or you can go find some place where there's a lot of similar solo mobs that con green or blue to you, crank up ACT, then kill a dozen or more of them over and over with a single spell, then you can use the results out of ACT to fill in the values in your chart.

Once you have worked out a trial casting order, test it using ACT. Warlocks have tons of spells that have a mob debuffing component, so you may want to experiment with getting in some debuffs early rather than going by straight DPS of a given spell (the debuffs will make your other damage hit harder). Try various setups.

Other Tips
Laugh! You must absolutely develop a sense of humor about dying if you are gonna play a caster. You will die a lot. Don't get mad... learn from each death. Maybe you can approach the mob in a different way, using different spells, or maybe it's just too big for you at the moment.

Upgrade Your Spells and Gear: I hope your most useful spells are at least at Expert level. If not, get out and start harvesting to get rares and have a Sage craft them for you. If you find a Master version that you can afford, upgrade to Master. But absolutely don't be satisfied with the default version you get to start with... upgrade them to Adepts (check the broker) until you can get Experts or better. Upgrade your spells! They are to you what plate armor and a shield are for a tank!

If you have good quality armor and jewelry, you can usually survive a hit or two, allowing a more DPS-centric pet time to kill your foe! As you travel, harvest EVERYTHING. What you don't use, sell on the broker. Rares can be made into cloth armor, daggers, staffs, wands, jewelry, charms, spells etc., and it's always cheaper to commission a crafter to make 'em for you. Mastercrafted gear is really, really helpful... you can do without, but if you have it, things get easier.

Body Pulling: Learn how to body pull. Body pulling is not just for tanks! If a group of monsters is not linked, you can edge up to "barely in noticing range". As soon as it notices you, backpedal! Before you or your pet hit it, let it get a little away from its swarms of friends, then attack. If you just clobber it while it's having a coffee break with its buddies, it may very well scream for help and the whole bunch of them will come at you, mad and ready to kill you, so instead, lure it away THEN kill it.

Root-and-Nuke: Learn early to root things, then attack, back up, re-root, attack, etc. Upgrade Netherous Bind when you can . Nailing a monster's feet to the ground using Netherous Bind and staying out of range will let you beat bigger, badder things. This is less useful at higher levels, but at low levels you really want to have this down pat.

Thanks allot Sigrdrifa for your in depth info, i'll do as you suggest and try doing my own cast order ( i will save it for a rainy weekend though as it sounds like allot of work )

i remember 3y ago doing something similar and just thought it was a case of swapping a few spells around that are not as efficient.

i'll check my casting speed and reuse are maxed out if that is possible and start the ACT dummy bashing this weekend.

BTW heres my cast order from 4 years ago

https://www.flickr.com/gp/hammyuk/m5s609

One thing I've found effective, that I can add to this discussion, is, if you make bookends of the spells that add damage on hit or when the mobs hit you... and put your enc or single target skills between, you can go back and forth between the bookends. For example, gift of bertoxx (a bunch of spells with DOT) curse of darkness, Aura of Void. L-R and repeat. It stacks up the damages very nicely.

Also, keep track of procs and items that give you combat mitigation debuff. It's a "new stat" that mobs have that translates directly into dps for you. It might take a bit of research but it will help. Fervor too.

Thanks, i will try that also

I think it's worth mentioning, my dps in heroics (not experts) for 317 resolve and 21k potency is between 86 million to 112 million. Some mobs are terrible for parsing because they have immunity sometimes, but in general (except for Vessel of the Sorceress heroic), that is my parse. Sometimes people don't give real numbers but I think it helps. I expect that if I can find enough gear in experts (334 Resolve now) with higher potency I'll be doing better. I've heard people quote some theoretical numbers like 600 million dps is sometimes expected, and you can see beastlords doing 6 million, but I don't even bother expecting that kind of thing. The parses I've seen with people I know are alts of raiders have been around 2-4 hundred million. That's the goal I'm looking for personally. Just respectable. Not so much that I'm lazy, but there is more to do in Norrath than worry about parsing. For instance, I still need proof of the pudding.

Someone had asked me for tips for raiding on a warlock so I'll copy/paste what I wrote for whatever help you can get from it. Keep in mind I haven't played in a few months, but I doubt much has changed. My profile is open for my current aa spec if you have any questions as to why I am spec'd the way I am I will answer them.

First things first it is extremely important to stand at 20 meters when possible to max out unda. That is hands down our best ability. I use field of war purple adorn just for the radius increase in order to give me more leeway in distance. It caps at 20 meters and 100sda though so no need to stand father than that. I have unda macro'd to various abilities so I always cast it on cooldown as many times as possible.

I am spec'd left side, in my experience it is better than right side now. So I'm full left side with miasma, no nox attunement, I stopped casting gift of bertox. Empowered bolt gives 6% fervor and I found that I am able to keep both empowered bolt and void surge up 100% of the time just by casting aura of the void. I made a macro that has aura of the void and occult bolt in it and it will cast them one after another. So I cast aura of the void then occult bolt, once void surge runs out I cast aura of the void only and skip a round of occult bolt, rinse and repeat. Left side is pretty easy to get the hang of there is not much deviation or timing involved, its just keep your buffs up and go through your priority order.

When draw from the void actually worked I would cast that pre pull and use a brew to reset it so I could cast it again when it wore off. The spell priority order is pretty much the same as it has always been except now flames of velious is pretty awesome with the boost from left side.

I do my best to time ascension combos or use ascension with fervor proc. Maximizing ascension will boost your dps considerably, and it is very dumb I hate it, it has made the game so bland and is one of the reasons I have taken a break. I believe etherealist is the top parsing ascension class atm and if you have people to combo with that will be all the better. I just made act triggers and tried my best to combo when I could.

2nd response

I do not prioritze my dots. They are just part of my fillers. PB,chains, and apoc are casted pretty much as soon as they are refreshed. I do not cast netherlord or acid raid at all. Broodlings is pretty high in my filler rotation. Off the top of my head my priority order would be something like pb,apoc,chains,tc,da,acid,di,dp,distortion,beweilderment. I macro unda to a bunch of abilities so it is casted immidiately. I use flames of velious pretty much on cooldown when name is less than 75%. I almost never have to go any farther in my priority than those abiilties.

I have the same question basically, as the OP.

@Yards, I've seen you mention this before, but I come up with nothing when I google it, what 'brew' do you mean? "When draw from the void actually worked I would cast that pre pull and use a brew to reset it so I could cast it again when it wore off."

And I'm not sure what Draw from the Void is. Maybe this? http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Draw_from_the_Void

If it's the passive one, then there's no need to cast it. So my only clue is -- maybe it's the spell. Except I can't find that spell anywhere. It seems to behave like Gift of Bertox, by the description. Except you say you don't use that. Bit lost on this part.

Thanks for the explanation though, and the sig so I can ponder your gear/AAs, etc.

http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/1411972242 That's the ability you get for doing your ka epic.


http://u.eq2wire.com/item/index/3217595963 That's the brew I am talking about

My eight ball says all indications point to one thing.... the Epic 2.

Looks like for mere mortals, the Gift is the best we have until Epic 2 is done.

I tested "leftside" Occult Bolt vs Toxic Assault (rightside) in Prestige, but leftside drops my CB way too much, stuff I once one shotted, was taking 2-3 hits, or triggers to kill. If it's like that in solo's it will be worse with tougher mobs. When my gear supports it, and I"m overcapped on CB then it will make sense to use leftside.

I actually feel bad for warlocks, your epic 2.0 spells are trash

What do you mean?

the 25 fervor 1 isn't that bad I guess, but the damage proc is not as good as what most classes get.

I guess at this point I'm at a /shrug moment about whether or not the epic skills are handy. However, I will say that Draw from the Void is an upgraded Gift of Bertox, and there's no law against using both. The other one seems simple enough though the cast times on these is unnecessarily long I think. But that's not a Warlock specific issue.

I use this as a reference for the skills: https://forums.eq2wire.com/threads/epic-2-0-spells.213022/

Some of the other sources have Aura of Void being the skill that procs the Fervor but that makes no sense since it's an Enemy targeted skill. Not that it's a bad skill, just why would it proc fervor on you? Glad that was changed.

The thing about Warlocks is, it's good to build up your stacks of damage and have that "damage increases as health decreases" AA, it's very surekill as long as you don't try to burst damage while neglecting the dots. It takes a lot of self discipline to hold off on a burst spell because your add-on damage skills aren't up yet.

It does make life maybe overly complex though when you add to it, clicky effects on charms, planning for the Celestial proc, listening for the "surge" message in Act for Ascension skills... it can be a difficult class to play well, especially now. If the durations were improved a bit it would help. There's usually a point in any battle where I have 4-5 options to choose from and I'm not sure which is best. If that could be 2-3 options, I'd be less stressed over it.

My internal dialog is like "Remember Aura of Void will wear off soon... remember to restart Gift, remember to use Unda whenever it's up, remember to ... and in the meantime, ACT is going... surge (Asc skill) and I'm like GAH! (click asc skill), ok now where was I? Oh wiat, Unda is up... get at least one going first... Aura is closest... Aura/Unda... umm... which one is down now?"

LOL It's like playing a live memory game. I understand why people once called for using the Warlock as pure burst damage and called these other spells "skill bloat" that they said should be removed. But it does make for a very intense play experience. I happen to enjoy that.

Well from a Wizard perspective a right-side spec'd wizard was always a burst dps class, now that I am left side we can actually have very very good sustained dps as well.

I feel like you're trying to make it harder than it really is.

Draw from the Void isnt really an upgrade to Gift, especially when you compare their reuse and duration. I believe yards is saying that Gift is no longer worth casting because from an efficiency standpoint, there should always be something better you can cast. I mean all in all there are what... like 7-10 actual spells that we cast, plus ascensions?

As far as Unda is concerned, I think Yards mentioned it as well, just macro it to several of your frequently used spells so that it gets cast on cooldown. Problem solved, now you dont have to think about it.

Once you go left side, the cast order really becomes very simple... Its all about maintaining that fervor, and rotating your big spells, and dropping ascensions when celestial gate procs.

Im left side spec and maintain the buff the entire fight with no trouble at all, I pretty much do exactly what your saying to do here with a slight twist.
I will cast DOV, SF, spellbind then Reset with brew then ill cast my rising tide. The pot buffs keep my low end potency up while the first part of Rising tide is running So I will use my longer casting spells here Like Flames of velious, Dark incubations, Apocalypse, ect with the quik cast spells in the between.
Draw and spellbind reset I use them together and when draw is up I Hit any and Every quick casting ability I have for triggers. If Celestial gate triggers while Draw of the Void is running Stay with quick cast triggers for void. If Draw is Not up then I go with ascensions when Celestial Gate hits.
Also if you grandmaster Elementalist your going to win Boss fights with that. AOE fights the Ethermancy will win. Thuramaturge is nice dps but will never win a parse...EVER. After The New Expansion Geomancer might be something to look at with Adornments that will add CB overcaps and Damage to the abilities that currently are just more or less a CC.

Delete it , then faceroll a conjy throw lots of money at your ascensions.

Wouldn't suggest going elementalist considering the level 11+ spells are restricted to natural elemental spells.
Same with Geomancer since some of their spells are restricted to only Combat arts,

Actually I'm glad that Thaumaturgist (the most blazingly obvious Asc class for warlock) is finally getting some big damage spells at 11+. Now I don't have to fret over the nox debuff. I probably would've stayed Thaum anyway, but that's just me, I won't play my character in a freaky way just because, more damage. If you gave my SK a skill that was divine healing called "Fluffy bunny angel heal" I wouldn't cast it, it's just so wrong, lol.

I hope it's obvious by now that I'd fall asleep bored if my class wasn't hard to play well. I"m a skills player, not a faceroller.

I still have a lot to learn about warlocks. I've only been serious about it for a few months. One thing that's odd about this forum, nobody admits to having any lack of knowledge. Yet warlocks end up on the "alts" list of people's toons. Hardly touched after some basic level of upkeep with the current expac. Why is that?