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Guide to Curses (and Banes!)
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Post by
Kangi
With the simplifications of curses and banes in Patch 5.0, this thread has outlived its usefulness and will not be updated.
Ah, curses. There are quite a few of them, and not many Warlocks utilize them to their full advantage. Here's a quick run-down on the different curses' functions and what curses should be used in certain situations.
Here are the curses and banes:
Curse of Weakness
Curse of Tongues
Chaos Brand
Doom
Agony
Havoc
Now, let's start with
Curse of Weakness
, this is widely seen as being without many uses, except in the case of hard-hitting mobs and melee classes in PvP. It has limited use in raids, except a boost to having the tank not take as much damage from bosses' hits if they're not applying the debuff themselves for some reason.
Physical Damage Reduction:
Can't stack with:
Demoralizing Shout
,
Incapacitating Roar
,
Vindication
,
,
Bloody Screech
.
Next,
Curse of Tongues
. This curse is most often used against other casters in PvP, and has limited use in PvE. One of the only times you should use this in raiding is on a caster mob or boss that isn't immune to it (i.e. Maloriak), to help if your interrupters are having trouble interrupting fast enough.
Cast Speed Slow:
Can't stack with:
Slow
,
Empty Poison Vial
,
.
And to
. An Affliction spec-only curse, it's very situational in raid situations, but is very useful for kiting in PvP and soloing.
Movement Speed Reduction:
Can't stack with: Anything, two movement speed reductions can't completely immobilize the target or make it go any slower.
Up next,
Chaos Brand
. Many people seem to think they should always use this on all single-target fights in raids and dungeons. This is not the case if there is a Boomkin, Unholy Death Knight, Assassination Rogue, or even Hunter present. They have
passive
talents
(and
pet
abilities
, in the case of the Hunter)
that
cause a debuff that has the same effect as CoE. If there are no classes with you that apply the debuff, however, a warlock should definitely use CoE, for it's a debuff that should always be up in a raid for the extra magic damage.
It's a good debuff in PvP for reducing the resistances of enemies and causing your spells to do more damage to them, as well, though weakening their ability output with other curses may be a preferable way to go.
Spell Damage Taken:
Can't stack with:
,
,
,
,
.
Now, on to the banes! Here we have
Doom
. Its use in PvP is limited due to the amount of time this takes to tick, and your target will likely be dead before this deals any damage in soloing. For raiding, BoD is used as the primary bane for damage-dealing. BoD also has a chance of spawning an
Ebon Imp
upon each tick, adding to your damage output even more.
Continuing on the banes, we come to
Agony
. It is only ever used in raiding on short-lived trash (or other situational times), but it's more versatile in PvP and soloing situations than its tick-per-fifteen-seconds counterpart (though at many times, it's only worth casting as Affliction).
Finally, we have
Havoc
. This bane is only available to Destruction-specced Warlocks. Its usage is entirely situational, yet very useful when you have more than one target to kill. Cast this on a nearby enemy (that you aren't CCing) in PvP to put additional pressure on them as you burn your main target; use it on multiple-target raid fights (such as Shannox) to heighten your damage output. The possibilities are numerous.
Summary:
For PvP:
Banes:
Agony
is generally a superior choice to BoD for PvP.
Havoc
can be useful on an off-target.
Curses:
Chaos Brand
for higher damage dealt to the target.
Curse of Tongues
against casters (primarily healers).
Curse of Weakness
if you're afraid that melee will rip you to shreds.
(
Affliction-only
), to make sure those melee can't catch up with you.
For soloing:
Banes:
Agony
, to make things die, of course.
Curses:
(
Affliction-only
), for situations in which kiting is needed. Basically, curses aren't important enough to cast in most soloing situations (with obvious exceptions being elites or other long fights).
For raiding:
Banes:
Doom
for maximum dps.
Agony
for some Affliction situations.
Havoc
(
Destruction-only
) for multiple-target fights.
Curses:
Chaos Brand
if there are no Unholy Death Knights/Boomkins/Assassination Rogues in the raid.
Curse of Weakness
if your tanks don't cast the debuff themselves for whatever reason.
(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Kangi##DELIM##
Post by
Kangi
Discontinued Curses
Here we learn of the curses of days past.
Curse of Recklessness.
This ability went through a few iterations before finally being removed from the game. It would increase a target's attack power, but reduce its armor and cause it to no longer flee (you know, that annoying thing some humanoids do when they get low on health?). It was changed to simply reduce the target's armor by a percent, but seeing how that was basically useless for Warlocks, its effect was later merged with
Curse of Weakness
as a curse to help tanks and melee, and CoR was removed from the game. Nowadays, even its effect that was moved to CoW has been removed, and CoR has been forgotten.
Interesting uses:
Using it on mobs low-leveled players were attacking, and watching as the mob destroyed the player with its new attack power boost.
Using it on humanoids and smugly smirking as they stand there attacking you until the last breath instead of grabbing two or three friends.
Curse of Shadow.
This ability would reduce the shadow and arcane resistance of the target it was placed on, while also increasing its damage taken from those spell schools. At that time,
Chaos Brand
would only affect nature, fire, and frost schools. Needless to say, Blizzard decided there was no point to keeping these abilities separate, and merged CoS' effect into CoE.
Interesting uses:
Using it on bosses and spamming
Shadow Bolt
back when Warlocks used a stupidly simple rotation in PvE. (Hint: you casted Shadow Bolt a lot.)
Using it on a demon before enslaving it to make sure it didn't resist
Subjugate Demon
.
(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Kangi##DELIM##
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Kangi
You should elaborate on CoD and CoA.
Now, on to
Curse of Doom
. Clearly, it has no use in PvP due to it not being able to be cast on players, and your target will most likely be dead before this ticks in soloing. If you're using it to try to get a Doomguard,
Ritual of Doom
is much more efficient in doing this, though you won't have people helping you summon it in soloing.
It has some use in raiding, but only certain specs, such as Meta and Destruction builds, should use it, for it may do more dps than CoA.
For a Destruction build, you're not using CoA for it's damage; you're using it for Molten Core. Since CoA ticks every 2 seconds, you have a greater chance of having it proc MC than if you use Corruption, though you should use both. CoD is better to use for builds that aren't Affliction based and don't have Meta or Molten Core. For example, 0/40/31.
Finally, we come to
Curse of Agony
. This is the most useful curse, doing damage to an enemy in PvP, and getting great dps in raiding when you don't have to use CoE. Most builds include this in their rotation, with the exception of a few that use Curse of Doom.
Same as above; it's used in Destruction builds not for damage, but to proc MC.
I was meaning for deep-destruction builds (3/13/55) when I said that. Molten Core is far into the demonology tree now, and isn't accessable to deep-destruction builds now.
Post by
Kangi
You forgot
Curse of Exhaustion
by the way. Looks like somebody doesn't know their curses!
Doh, I knew I forgot one. I'll edit that in soon.
Edit: Done.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Razmortis
One note about meta builds is that they use fire, too. That means you want CoA to proc your Molten Core.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
Post by
Kangi
It should be noted either way.
Noted it, tell me what you think of how it is worded now.
Post by
Kangi
One note about meta builds is that they use fire, too. That means you want CoA to proc your Molten Core.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.Not entirely sure about that, but I reworded it.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Kangi
Added Curse Q&A section, tell me what you guys think.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
107178
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Kangi
I need confirmation as to what CoW does and does not stack with, I'm not entirely sure about it. Also, the things I've said about CoD vs. CoA are based entirely on what I have read from simcrafts, I am not sure of the math behind it. And lock, imho, Molten Core is worth it for Immolation, the damage increase is fairly good. At least for now, takes to much time to make only to have most of the people to just skip over the guide and start a new post for a answer that can be found in the guides...
This is truth.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Kangi
Holy-- the post you quoted makes my head hurt.
Post by
107178
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Blightman
Now, on to
Curse of Doom
. Clearly, it has no use in PvP due to it not being able to be cast on players, and your target will most likely be dead before this ticks in soloing. If you're using it to try to get a Doomguard,
Ritual of Doom
is much more efficient in doing this, though you won't have people helping you summon it in soloing. It has some use in raiding, but only certain specs, such as builds that don't include/use the Molten Core talent (excluding Affliction), should use it, for it may do more dps than CoA.
If you do use CoD as part of your rotation, if you estimate that the next CoD you cast won't tick until the boss is dead, use CoA for that last part of a minute, otherwise, the CoD would be wasted.
For clarity try:
For raiding, CoD is only used by Destro builds that do not include Molten Core. Affliction will use CoA for more DPS. Demo and Destro builds with Molten Core will use CoA to increase MC uptime.
Post by
Blightman
If the tank is having trouble, should I use CoW?
It's an interesting thought overall, but the amount of attack power CoW reduces is not enough to make a big difference if your tank isn't well-geared or well-skilled enough to take on bosses or mobs.
How about using CoW for the armor-reducing effect, to help the melee dpsers?
This could increase melee's dps, but it doesn't stack with some other armor-reducing effects. It does not stack with abilities such as Sunder Armor/Expose Armor but does stack with abilities such as Faerie Fire. (need confirmation with this)
The armor reduction from CoW does stack with Sunder/Expose Armor but does not stack with
Sting
or
faerie Fire
The AP reduction does not stack with Demoralizing Shout/Roar.
Source
Certain group comps can make CoW a viable option. Rule of thumb:
more than 1/2 group is melee and the # of melee is >4 and armor debuff not coming from somewhere else use it.
Post by
Kangi
For clarity try:
For raiding, CoD is only used by Destro builds that do not include Molten Core. Affliction will use CoA for more DPS. Demo and Destro builds with Molten Core will use CoA to increase MC uptime.I'll copy/paste that, will reduce that huge paragraph down to size. The armor reduction from CoW does stack with Sunder/Expose Armor but does not stack with Sting or faerie Fire
The AP reduction does not stack with Demoralizing Shout/Roar.
Source
Certain group comps can make CoW a viable option. Rule of thumb:
more than 1/2 group is melee and the # of melee is >4 and armor debuff not coming from somewhere else use it.So the complete opposite of what I put in, figures.
Tyvm, Blight.
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