Switch

[TeaLeaf]

Sent Switch this PM today hoping it will improve his dps numbers.

Hi Switch, I've been looking at ways to help you increase your dps because if we both start banging in big numbers then we will rock the raid and make a lot of fights way easier for the rest of the raid.  You're actually better geared than me at (i357 v i360), so there's no reason you can't be doing the numbers I am at the moment.  This is what I came up with, I hope it helps.

Have you thought of removing Dispersion glyph and replacing with SW:D?  Helps mana and is defintely of more use to dps when <25% boss HP.  

Meta gem - you can update it to the 54 Int + 3% crit damage gem instead of the +2% mana gem

Shoulder enchant - needs updating to epic enchant, I know you're wearing the tabard but it won't take long in daily heroics to max out the rep needed, especially if you do the daily quests at Therazene.  A couple of days and you should be done and got the rep.

Rotation:
This is where you can find the biggest increase in your dps imo.  Atm the rotation is not second nature to you, so you have 'dead time' where you are not casting anything as you are thinking about other things (movement or what to cast).  The best thing I can suggest is to stand at a target dummy and start the rotation, then keep doing it until you are oom.  Rinse & repeat until you start to feel (and hear) the rhythm of the spells.  The sound is important as it gives you a lot of clues as to what needs to be recast (misses for example or the length of the mind blast/flay cast/channel time).   If the sound cues what & when you do the next thing, you do not need to be looking at a DOT timer to cast the next item, you know it is due and do it anyway!

Your two key spells to work on are Mind Blast & Mind Flay.  Mind Flay is what stacks our orbs and gives us Dark Evangalism.  Mind Blast is what converts the orbs to our other increased damage buff, Empowered Shadow.  So both buff our dps.  Basically you need to use both more often.  In the Al'Akir kill last night we had these cast numbers:

TL-------------Spell-------------------------Switch
78.5%----Empowered Shadow buff uptime-----47.7%
93.2%----Dark Evangalism buff uptime---------55.6%
33--------Mind Blast number------------------19
161-------Mind Flay number-------------------59

If you can increase the number of times you cast Mind Blast and Mind Flay each fight, not only do you get more dps because of casting more spells, but all your spells get their damage buffed and increased - that's a double win!

I have Mind Flay on a very easy to reach mouse button, it's the one my thumb rests on the whole time, so when in doubt I am spamming the Mind Flay button.  Find the button that works for you in the same way and get used to spamming it.  

Mind Blast is the button next to Mind Flay for me; find a similar key pairing and use Mind Blast as soon as it is off CD as a prio then fill all the spare time with mind flay.  

In the gaps, keep the DOTs up and check timers:  SW:P, VT & DP - you can clip these spells, it does not matter, but keep MB on CD all the time and fill anything & everything with Mind Flay.

If you improved your buff uptime by using MF & MB more often, then by my calculations you'd be very close to my dps levels.  Once you get the MB/MF buffs going and second-nature, you can then work on DOT uptimes.  Together they'll add 40% or so to your dps numbers.

Hope this helps.

I decided to focus on the buff uptime as he is clearly not managing to handle DOT uptimes yet.  Buff uptime is simpler to manage, so hopefully he'll get better.  DOT times for him last night were truly awful (67% SW:P, 63% DP, 52% VT) so I decided to suggest the easier 'self-buff your dps' route.  I hope it works, because if we did have higher dps then a lot of our fights become true farm not the hard work they currently are.