UPDATE: I have written a new and improved guide for Power Auras for Cataclsym. You can find it here. I've been having a lot of fun with the new Destruction playstyle. So much fun I'll probably dual spec both PvE Destruction and PvE Affliction. I've heard the new rotation described as "Whack-A-Mole" style button mashing, and that's not entirely untrue, but turns out I have a soft spot for arcade games that involve jumping up and down and banging things on the head. Warlocks got so much in this patch, we really have had to relearn how to play our familiar specs. My first night in ICC, I was putting out huge numbers, which is great, but man did I feel clumsy. I can't count the number of times I fat-fingered an extra Incinerate and let Corruption fall off. No matter what your DPS looks like, raiding is never fun when you know you were messing up. World of Logs will tell the whole story, man, you sucked at keeping up Improved Soulfire. So, I spent the next afternoon getting hot and heavy with my UI, to help re-train my trigger instincts.
I am a big fan of Power Auras. I love everything about it. It is a great way to keep track of your procs and cooldowns without making your eyes yo-yo back and forth across the screen. I am thrilled that Blizzard finally got on board and implemented it's own version, particularly since its textures are more vivid than the classic Power Auras. I think the two will end up complimenting each other beautifully, and plan to keep using both. Here are the ways I have set up my auras to keep my DPS output at its best.
DoTs! Hey look, Destruction isn't just a mage with an imp anymore! It is actually worthwhile for us to cast DoTs instead of spamming incinerate! While I will actually be using Forte Xorcist to keep track of DoTs (there's only so many auras you can keep track of!) it's important to know what DoTs you have up. For Destruction, your priority order is Bane of Doom, Immolate, Corruption, and Shadowflame. Yes, that is right, Shadowflame. More on this later.
Cooldowns! This is where I get really excited about Power Auras. Before 4.0, I had never bothered to set up auras for Destruction cooldowns. You didn't really have a whole lot going on to distract you, it wasn't all that necessary. Now it is. Your cooldowns in Destruction are a big deal, it's important to get them off again right away. I like to mix a sound (shotgun was my preference) with color coded images that remind me of the spell. You can use different sounds if you think you'll react better, but I found it more distracting to try to remember what sound meant what since most of the sounds aren't all that intuitive. The important thing is that it gets your attention, and colors are much easier to associate. (Green = Chaos Bolt for instance. Doorbell means...uh, huh?) For cooldowns, I am sticking with Power Auras rather than the new Blizzard functions. While cooldowns are important, they need to take a backseat not just to procs, but to the other stuff going on during a fight, and so I liked that they were less flashy. Here is how I set mine up.
- Conflagrate: 8 second cooldown. (Glyphed.) Huge percentage of your damage, big priority. You want this aura to be loud, huge, and obnoxious. Do not miss this cooldown. I like using a flat orange graphic to remind me of the tooltip icon.
- Chaos Bolt: 12 second cooldown. Nuke. Again, you'll want a shotgun sound on this cooldown, but you don't need it to be as big a graphic as Conflagrate. I use a bright green graphic to make it easily identifiable from Conflagrate.
- Shadowflame: 15 second cooldown. DoT. The cooldown is longer than the DoT. Remember that you need to be within 10 yards for this to hit the boss. You will also want to pick up the Major Glyph that applies a slowing effect. For this spell, I wanted a softer effect because there will be lots of times when you can't be in melee range to cast it, and you need the graphic to be small enough that you don't feel the need to disable power auras. I found pink to be perfectly appropriate.
- Soulburn: 30 second cooldown. Personal DPS. You will definitely want to know when this is up without having to check your bars, but you don't want it getting in the way when you are fighting. While this is a big deal for your DPS, the use of this is strategic and you may not always want to use it as soon as it is up. I put this at the top of my screen in purple, with a different sound than my spell cooldowns. Note that when you soulburn, spells that can be affected will glow. Be careful what casts you are queuing up before you use this, you don't want to be caught auto-casting searing pain when you meant to use soul fire.
For all of your cooldowns, make sure you check the boxes for "only in combat." You won't be all that worried that Chaos Bolt is off cooldown when you are doing laps of Dalaran.
Procs! Procs are especially important to keep track of as Destruction because so much depends on using them correctly, especially in conjunction with your soulburn usage. Blizzard has built a few of them in by default, and I found that those are the ones I want to keep using.
- Improved Soul Fire: Cast Soul Fire at +80% for 15 seconds of +15% haste, 15 second cooldown. For this, you mostly just want to keep track of how much longer the effect will last...so that you can put it back up, of course! I didn't want any more orange graphics cluttering my screen, so I just went with an easily visible countdown on Power Auras and a small glow effect. You may want to set up a sound or other notification for the boss's health dropping below 80%, at which point you can no longer proc this effect.
- Empowered Imp: Instant Soul Fire! While not a high proc chance, you will want to know about this lovely nuke right away, every time. Luckily, Blizzard anticipated your need and built in a great aura for you. Not only does it pop huge, shiny, fiery brackets (so easily distinguished from any of our other fire-related auras!) it also...wait for it...makes your soul fire button glow! This is a spell it would be impossible to miss. I love it.
You can copy the coding for my power auras behind the cut.
I have only been playing WoW for two years, and I have been raiding seriously only half of that time. I thought I was hot shit when all I was doing was pugging, but pushing hard modes and standing next to members of Elitist Jerks at the toil-err, Bank Teller brings home the fact that there is always someone who does it better than you do. Or at the very least, you can push your limits further. Maybe your DPS is great, maybe your guild wipes the floor with whatever boss you meet, but there is something very satisfying about going over your logs the next day, seeing what you didn't do perfectly, and figuring out how to get better.
Make sure to check out my new and improved guide to Power Auras in Cataclysm.
Just copy the string of text, open power auras (/powa), and paste! Change the page number (mine is 1) if you already use power auras.
Set=Page 1@
Aura[1]=Version:3.0.0W; b:0.0902; g:0.2784; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball; buffname:Conflagrate; bufftype:15; texture:24; alpha:1; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true; size:0.83@
Aura[2]=Version:3.0.0W; b:0.902; g:0.3294; icon:Ability_Warlock_ShadowFlame; buffname:Shadowflame; bufftype:15; texture:4; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true@
Aura[3]=Version:3.0.0W; g:0.1647; icon:spell_warlock_soulburn; buffname:Soulburn; r:0.5137; bufftype:15; texture:7; mine:true; sound:23; combat:true; size:0.99; y:161@
Aura[4]=Version:3.0.0W; b:0; g:0.8784; icon:Spell_Fire_Fireball02; buffname:Improved Soul Fire; texture:16; alpha:0.4; mine:true; combat:true; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-100@
Aura[5]=Version:3.0.0W; b:0.1961; icon:Ability_Warlock_ChaosBolt; buffname:Chaos Bolt; r:0.2353; bufftype:15; texture:5; alpha:1; mine:true; sound:22; PowerType:0; combat:true; size:1.28@
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