Warlock: Talent Realized

“Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.”
Robert Half

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Warlock: Talent Realized

I don’t know how many parents that I’ve frustrated after I’ve heard, “My son is very talented”. In my mind, talent is cheap and only suggests potential. Let’s see some work and then we can talk.

The Affliction Warlock is a powerful single-target class. The damage starts low and then builds as the many damage-over-time spells peak and then cook along. The key in sustaining the damage on a raid boss is careful management of these spells and when to refresh them.

Since the newest raid started, I’ve been a weak player but it is getting better and better with experience and learning more everyday. Frankly, I’ve been over-whelmed by all of the new-to-me ways to play.

My initial mistake with to take the full raiding build from the Guide Sites. Hammering away and guessing at buttons, even if they were the best buttons, was giving me some bottom of the pack numbers.

So: I changed my talents. Two of the spells that I would have to track “on cooldown” have been changed to the passive talent.

Agony should be one of my top hitters. I went and got a Weak Aura that will track the spell as a count-down bar so I can refresh it before it is spent. This will keep the spell at top form and not need to ramp up.

Last night we downed seven bosses on Normal. Nothing to brag on that except that we squeezed in seven bosses in three hours (yay us for moving forward quickly). My DPS is now in the top third of the raid! And, I know that I can be a lot better.

My intention is to add another talent that I have to sustain once I have Agony down. This will be a while because it isn’t easy! However, I hope within the next few months to fold in the more active talents as I get control of each new one.

It seems that the Warlock class player needs to have a rhythm, building in a tick-tock motion into the muscle memory so you can look away from the boss for a moment because you know that you know that a spell needs refreshing.

It is a challenge but I am entrenching myself in this new class the best that can within reason!

I remember the faces of my freshman class when I told them that they were all accepted because of their talent in auditions. Then I told them to look around the room and realize that talent is cheap. Let’s get to work.