SB:Haunt/Haunt

[Calol 5]

With the SB:haunt talent do you maintain the unbuffed haunt as well as the haunting spirits buff? I have no problems (procs willing) keeping haunting spirits up but when I try and keep normal hunt up as well I start becoming really shard starved. It just seems like I am hurting myself more than anything else. Am I using this wrong or am I just unlocky with shard procs?

[Facade 1]

You use your regular haunt in the same fashion as you would without SB:H; use them when another haunt debuff is not currently active on your target and you are either about to cap shards or have a strong proc. The trick is to make the decision to either cast it with or without SB depending on whether or not your haunting spirits buff is close to pandemic range. There may be procs that you cannot react to if you have an RNG dry spell also though. Keeping up Haunting Spirits will usually be more important than missing one proc. Its impossible to keep up haunt itself up 100% on a target through a fight with our current generation rate.

[Stunlocked 8]

This is covered in the sticky. What the above poster said does not match anything I have seen here or anywhere else. Here is what is in the sticky:

"If you are using the level 100 talent Soulburn: Haunt then the only goal of the soul shards is to keep Soulburn: Haunt at close to 100% uptime as possible. Hold your Soul Shards for when your Soulburn: Haunt buff is about to expire on you, but to not allow them to cap out. Allowing your shards to cap might cause a loss of total shard generation due to missed Nightfall procs. To prevent soul shard capping, use a non-empowered Haunt on the main DPS target when ever you reach 4 soul shards."

Edited July 30, 2015 by Stunlocked

[Zilthy 36]

Or more simply said "Only use plain haunt when at 4 soul shards and SB:Haunt still up."

 

There are a few deviations from that though.

 

1) Haunting Spirits up, boss nearly dead (IE haunting spirits will likely still be up when boss dies).  Keep haunt rolling.

 

2) *big* buffs and bonuses up and have 3 shards. (Possibly even 2) such as gorfiend during feast of souls phase damage buff, dark soul, trinket procs (this is somewhat of a gamble).

 

3) Big sacrifice of dps to get a priority target down that everyone else is ignoring.  I admit, this is getting old.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Zilthy

[spikeysquad 50]

Personally with the double Nightfall procs I tend to hover at 2 soul shards. You can "hold" a shard with Soulburn for up to 30 seconds unless you are going to do one of the spells it effects.