Opening and Soul Swap

[bangorme 0]

The recommendation is that the opening use soul swap to put the three dots on your target.  However, with Soulburn + Haunt, then Soulburn + Soul Swap, thats four soul shards.  I've got Fragment of the Dark Star trinket, so I'm finding that I don't have the shards when it's time to renew the Soulburn + Haunt. 

 

Maybe the Soul Swap isn't worth it since it takes a very short time to put up the three dots?

 

[Lockybalboa 618]

Who is recommending that? I don't.

 

EDIT: opener in my aff guide is a little out dated, Im going fix that now. It sitll doesn't say open with SW though.

 

EDIT 2: More parts of the guide are out dated then I thought but since it is the end of the xpack and I'm busy I dont feel like updating all of it today. Bleh.

[bangorme 0]

It's in Damien's guide, which is less outdated than yours.   https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/affliction-warlock-pve-dps-guide

 

I'll take a look at yours!

Edited March 30, 2016 by bangorme

[Lockybalboa 618]

Maybe with a 24 second pull timer and gear strong enough to make Shard RNG not an issue it is worth it, but for the average user I don't think it is. Since I don't raid often anymore and I raid my warlock even less, I could be wrong.

[Drkdragon 9]

With class trinket + Tier and a 24+ second pull timer it is nice to use SB:Swap in your opener. You will have not have to refresh haunt on your target anyway and the fragment should give you enough procs to fill your shards back up in time to refresh SB:Haunt and then some.

[Trensharo 1]

I think the Soul Swap makes sense, but only if you have Class Trinket and T18 4PC with decent enough hast 35-40%+).  You will generate those 2+ shards back before you have to cast SH:Haunt again because your Drain Soul will give you basically a 30+ second Haunt debuff anyways.  Also, with Nightfall giving so many 2 Shard procs I often myself overcapped on shards within seconds of opening with SB:SS an SB:H.

 

But only for single target.

[Curinir 4]

The only fight I ever touch Soul Swap is Council on the opener. And I don't ever Soulburn Soulswap. it's not worth the shards imo.

[HeadBeeGuy 11]

See, on Council I prefer to use the shards to Haunt all three of them in the opener so I don't do any soul swapping. I SB:SS in the opener on pretty much every other boss I play Aff on and I don't really have any issues keeping SB: Haunt up afterward, though.

[Curinir 4]

On Council if I could extend the haunts with Drain Soul I would do that, but since I'm so busy casting dots nonstop I don't. As far as SB:SS goes, sure keeping SB: Haunt up is easy enough, but I'd rather pump those two shards into extra haunts. Cutting out one global to spend two shards just isn't justifiable to me.

[Liarparadox 5]

If you can't reliably generate shards to make up for that type of opening, don't do it. It's not some huge gain in dps. Being empty on shards when you need them is far more hurtful than the gain of quickly putting out those first dots (not very much quicker really). I personally don't think it's worth risking it for such a small gain. But as Locky noted, if you have the gear and it's not an issue, go for it. But you apparently don't have the shard regen reliably, so forget using it in the opener for now at least.