Warlock DPS issues!

[Chamenas]

Okay, so yeah, yeah, I know that Warlocks and pure DPS classes are not the main focus here, but people are helpful so I'll see if anyone has anything to offer. I feel silly posting this thread, but I'm scratching my head.

My Warlock's Armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Icecrown&n=Lalia)
Quick rundown of stats (without self buffs)
Spellpower: 2094
Crit: 23.49%
Haste: 359
Intellect: 1007
Spirit: 670

My gear is not the most fantastic gear out there, and is sort of patchy since this is an alt that I've been trying to get up there. However, in a 25 man raid with self buffs and plenty of raid buffs (I'm fairly certain just about everything I can get) + Flask of the Frost Wyrm, I only barely put out 5k dps and that's only because I was lucky enough to not get fire.

My Priority system is as such:
CoD
Immo
Conflag
Chaos Bolt
Incin

Because I don't use the Life Tap glyph (I have replenishment) I don't Life Tap until I get under 10k mana, then I usually Life Tap once, burn, and hit it again when I get low. This allows me to keep running my priority rotation with as little interruption as possible. I try to pop my cooldowns when I can, use a haste pot, and we had heroism on the fight.

Given my gear, I feel that I should be pulling about 6k, maybe a little higher, in a fight where I stand around. I don't know what I'm doing wrong and I'd love if someone could give me some tips to get me closer to the DPS I should be doing.

On a side note, on 10 man Gormok I only pulled out 2.4k dps. Granted I dont have the buffs that I did, and caster dps is tough on Gormok, but I feel like I should still be pulling out a much higher dps. On fights with lots of movement or target switching I find my DPS drops a lot more significantly than other DPS classes. I don't know if this is a Warlock issue (I have very little burst) or if I'm doing something wrong that I can improve upon. All I try to do is keep up my priorities and run out of fire, switch targets or do whatever I need to in the fight.

[Quinafoi]

Are you using an EJ dps spreadsheet or something for calculating that you should be doing 6k dps? I look at your gear and I would say that 5k is pretty respectable for your current gear level. If you probably run the numbers through a spreadsheet you might find that you calculate out to like 6k dps, but those are under relatively ideal conditions.

One thing though it looks like you are over hit capped most likely. Unless the only hit buff you are running with is a Draenei Racial. Some of those gems you could reassign. If you're running with a Moonkin or a Shadow Priest you can likely drop 3% more off that.

[Chamenas]

I only give myself the guarantee of a Draenei racial (which, sadly, isn't always a guarantee) so I don't gear or spec assuming the others. I'm more often running 10 mans than 25 mans and the regular 10 mans I'm in have neither, and I can't really rely on PUGs to have them. But trust me, I'd love to kick out for another trinket to up my dps, but, right now, I'm working towards the Triumph hit trinket, I really need that hit :(

Sort of depressing to think I can't improve my dps though. I have seen spreadsheet numbers, and I know those are always a little inflated. But I was hitting 5k on 10-man patchwerk a month ago and have gotten numerous upgrades since then, I figured I'd be able to break past 5k easier now.

[Quinafoi]

Well your comparing Apples to Patchwerk. You want to compare how you progress it has to be in the same context. I personally still lead a Naxxramas 25 farming raid even though I'm also doing ToGC in 10 and 25 man just to keep looking back at the standard dps test of Patchwerk.

Some fights you simply don't do as well depending on the circumstances. Northrend Beasts for example could really gimp your DPS if you happened to get a snobold as a caster. Your numbers could also be artificially low as well due to DoTs ticking while you are unable to do other casts like when Icehowl knocks everyone back to the walls. Your DPS suffers as a result, but your damage is higher (it goes to the lovely debate of what is more important, dps or damage). Where do you fall in the spectrum of your raid's dps? Are you middle of the road with like 2 higher, 2 lower (assuming 2 tanks and 3 healers give or take)?

[Darkroman]

I'm no warlock user, but I was with one of my guildies that is a warlock while we were talking about DPS. I told him about life tap glyph and he got curious and tested it out just to experiment. His DPS jumped up real good. Also considering you have a little more spirit than my guildy it should help you out a bit.

[Quinafoi]

Yes, I should have mentioned it sooner but Glyph of Life Tap is relatively mandatory for warlocks currently because they have so much spirit on gear. It is a significant dps increase to use it. I'd say ditch Incinerate for it.

[Quinafoi]

Chances are in a DPS spreadsheet (which I don't have for a warlock, sorry) I'd guestimate that Glyph of Life Tap would net you around 150+ dps increase. This is a relatively educated guess based on the cost of using a GCD on a non-damage ability affects DPS and how much I personally benefit from the passive benefit of spirit I get as a Moonkin where as yours would be an active benefit only after using Life Tap.

Simply just use min rank life tap when you don't need the mana to give yourself the buff like before pulls.

[Quinafoi]

Also, do you raid with anyone applying the Curse of Elements type debuff. You already said you don't have a Moonkin so no Earth and Moon. Do you have a Death Knight giving you the 13% bonus spell damage? If you don't it might actually be more benefitial for you to apply Curse of Elements than Curse of Doom.

[Chamenas]

I apply Curse of Elements when no one else in the raid is applying the debuff.

[Quinafoi]

Well one other piece of general advice for a caster. This may not apply to you. If you don't have Quartz, get it. It has built in cast latency in the cast bar which differs from what the system monitor displays as your latency. It allows you to suffer less down time between casts by queueing the next cast at the appropriate time. When you are dealing in casts that are say 2 seconds long, and you have 100ms latency (5%) you theoretically can increase your dps by accounting for the latency. It's not a perfect science, but it does have measurable results.

[Chamenas]

I do have quartz, but haven't fully configured it to a point where I could use it like that, so I'll take a look at it and set it up that way and see if it can help me any. Having done a few fights now where I just stand there, I suppose I'm probably right on the money with 5k, I could probably get closer to 5.5k and I'll continue working on the little things to see what I can eek out.

My major problem right now is on fights where I'm moving a lot. Last night on Jaraxus I had about 2.4k dps because I had to move so much and could never really get much of my dps in.