I must be doing something wrong

[skullytor 4]

Hey guys, ive been working on my lock for a while and i feel like its geared well enough to pull moderate dps. however, on the dummy i cant seem to break 47k. ive reforged to Haste = 4750 then mastery = 47k. reforged to max haste, then mastery = 47k, and reforged to max master, then haste = 47k. wtf. i have the t14 2 set which i know isnt great but cmon. ilvl = 487.

http://www.wow-heroe...mrage/ÖBLIVION/

any advice would be much appreciated. my rotation follows the exact description on the topic here at icy veins, i rarely let stacks drop off unless im focusing down an add. very confused

Edited April 27, 2013 by skullytor

[uconnfan34 4]

IDK what your dps should be at that level, but target dummies are kinda bad to test dps on unless also you have full raid buffs/pots/flask also since affliction scales a lot better with them (espicially 5% haste). http://us.battle.net...livion/advanced judging from your wow armory, your trinkets are pretty awful and affliction really shines when u have some awesome trinkets because of pandemic and empowered dots. If you really wanted to see higher dps on a target dummy unbuff, you would want to stack haste and use supremecy. Yea, but bottom line is target dummy is kind of a horrible way to judge dps unless you have full raid buffs. You would be better off simming your char with dif reforges.

Edited April 27, 2013 by uconnfan34

[skullytor 4]

what kind of trinks should i be going for? are the straight intel trinks more effective or haste based?

[uconnfan34 4]

Anything with a int proc with a int/haste base would be ideal. Any trinket in tot would do, but my personally favorite combo is breath of hydra and wushoolays. If you have enough gold, grab the dark moon fair trinket cause it is substantially better then anything you have now. Picking up the shadow pan assault valor trinket would also do you a ton of good. I would also run msv eaither norm or lfr to try and get the trinket off elegon also which would be a great replacement for that blue.

Edited April 27, 2013 by uconnfan34

[Cedrin 3]

Haste and mastery are fairly close stat weights. do you have any logs? If you could run some logs and post them we could really dissect your rotation and see where you can improve. That being said you may not be doing anything wrong, idk without logs. Most often low dps isn't from secondary stats than it is rotation. That being said it might be a good idea to look at increasing your haste. There are some very good guides on the lock forums which give stat weights etc. big thing with affliction is snap shoting your dots. very useful addon for this is affdots. It will tell you strength of dots if refreshed with current procs. If you read the rotation guides you are probably aware that dots don't increase with procs alone but when they are refreshed the current stats are on dots for duration or until refreshed. A few tips would be never let agony drop off, try to keep corruption and unstable affliction at 100% as much as possible. Haunt and malefic grasp between refreshing dots. That's very basic , look for zagam's affliction guild in sticky posts. If doing rotation correctly, a quick dps boost would be jade spirt on weapon, darkroom faire trinket and valor trinket . It's understandable if you are waiting for a new lfr weapon before enchanting with jade spirit.

[Cedrin 3]

what kind of trinks should i be going for? are the straight intel trinks more effective or haste based?

There is a post on dps per trinket on the forums by zagam also. Sorry I can't navigate and link to well from phone or I would.

[skullytor 4]

@ cedrin. Thanks for the reply! i am familiar with snapshotting of dots and use weak auras to monitor my procs very easily. i try to update dots with sb/ss when several are up simultaneously but i guess i have the opinion that the 3 gcd's of refreshing dots isnt worth the lost 4ish seconds on malific grasp. is this true? should i always be instantly reapplying dots manually when procs pop?

[Zagam 1,982]

This situation varies. There is no 'golden rule' that dictates how DoTs should be applied. You typically will always have time to pre-plan adjustments needed, but sometimes things just have to happen immediately, like the 4 second window of opportunity when Perfect Aim procs. Your Soul Shards are far more valuable being used with Haunt than they are being used to apply all three DoTs unless the new DoT spell power buff is significant and all three will fully benefit from Pandemic.

[skullytor 4]

pandemic's usefulness has always baffeled me. ive read countless posts on here regarding how this aspect of affliction works and have yet to grasp it. any way you would be able to super-summarize it with regard to reapplying dots in like....3 sentences?

[schmearcampain 0]

pandemic's usefulness has always baffeled me. ive read countless posts on here regarding how this aspect of affliction works and have yet to grasp it. any way you would be able to super-summarize it with regard to reapplying dots in like....3 sentences?

instead of waiting to refresh a dot just as it ends, you can refresh it at 50% and gain the full benefit.

Remember, even instant cast dots take time. The global cool down (GCD) keeps you from insta-spamming your dots. Therefore, to maximize efficiency you want to cast them as infrequently as possible. Before pandemic was around, the most efficient way to refresh your dots was to wait until the last second.

Example: Corruption lasts 18 seconds. Cast corruption, wait 17 seconds, recast corruption. It lasts 18s. So with 2 casts, you've had corruption running for 35 seconds.

If you cast it early, Cast corruption, wait 9 seconds, recast corruption. 2 casts = 27 seconds of corruption.

Pandemic changes this by allowing you to extend the length of the dot by 50%. As long as you refresh your dot with 50% or less of the time left, you won't lose anything by casting before the dot drops off.

Examples: Cast Corr. Wait 17 seconds. Recast corruption. 2 casts, 17 seconds + 19 seconds = 36 seconds of corruption,.

Cast corruption. wait 9 seconds. recast corruption. 9 seconds + 27 seconds = 36 seconds of corruption. The second cast has added the time that was left on the first cast of corruption.

The upshot of all of this is that you 1) have more freedom to recast dots and still achieve perfect efficiency and 2) you can extend the length of dots that are empowered by stat buffs.

[skullytor 4]

Right, which is kinda what i understood. what im still lost on (bear with me) is how to effectively snapshot more powerful dots. i use affdots and with enchants and tailoring i have procs going off constantly, so my sp and haste is constantly fluctuating. do i refresh dots which are above, say, 150, (with reference to affdots) when their timers are still above half? or do i ignore these potentially more powerful dots in an attempt to save gcd's. i have a tendency to want to burn 3 gcds in order to manually refresh all 3 dots when their affdot power is at 110 or above, which im not sure if i should be doing or not. ive gotten the impression that using sb/ss to refresh dots is a no no, as thats valuable wasted dps by a lacking of a haunt cd. thoughts?

Edited May 15, 2013 by skullytor

[Omaric 246]

Right, which is kinda what i understood. what im still lost on (bear with me) is how to effectively snapshot more powerful dots. i use affdots and with enchants and tailoring i have procs going off constantly, so my sp and haste is constantly fluctuating. do i refresh dots which are above, say, 150, (with reference to affdots) when their timers are still above half? or do i ignore these potentially more powerful dots in an attempt to save gcd's. i have a tendency to want to burn 3 gcds in order to manually refresh all 3 dots when their affdot power is at 110 or above, which im not sure if i should be doing or not. ive gotten the impression that using sb/ss to refresh dots is a no no, as thats valuable wasted dps by a lacking of a haunt cd. thoughts?

You always want to refresh to get the stronger DoT's, but not to the point where you are never casting Malefic Grasp.

Your SB:SS usage should vary depending on your Soul Shard generation rate. If you're swimming in them, of course feel free to use SB:SS more liberally. On fights where you're waiting around for them to come in, save the Soul Shards for Haunt and *only* when you've got powerful DoT's rolling. Don't waste Haunt on weak DoT's if you aren't swimming in shards.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Omaric

[Cruzan 71]

do i refresh dots which are above, say, 150, (with reference to affdots) when their timers are still above half? or do i ignore these potentially more powerful dots in an attempt to save gcd's. i have a tendency to want to burn 3 gcds in order to manually refresh all 3 dots when their affdot power is at 110 or above, which im not sure if i should be doing or not. ive gotten the impression that using sb/ss to refresh dots is a no no, as thats valuable wasted dps by a lacking of a haunt cd. thoughts?

Hey,

Its generally not worth it to refresh those DoTs above the Pandemic threshold if the gain is only 10% or 110 as Affdots says. Anything above 125 is a good place to aim for refreshing/snapshotting your DoTs which also happens to be when Affdots is Blue.

So to answer your questions in order, if Affdots says 150, holy jesus, yes refresh those bad boys! 110? Meh, keep channeling MG and wait for something better to come along (unless you are under the pandemic/50% threshold).

Regarding whether to individually refresh or use SB:SS, Zagam already answered a few posts above:

Your Soul Shards are far more valuable being used with Haunt than they are being used to apply all three DoTs unless the new DoT spell power buff is significant and all three will fully benefit from Pandemic.

So SB:SS is okay to use if all your DoTs are green on Affdots, and they all have a significant increase with an Affdots reading of 125 or more. You can combine that with what Omaric said and only do this if you also happen to have plenty of shards, 3+. If you only have one shard it won't be worth it to use SB:SS because you won't be able to throw a Haunt in there to get maximum benefit.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Cruzan

[skullytor 4]

awesome, i think that finally cleared up my questions concerning rotation. Im quite frustrated, though im not sure if i should be. simcraft has me at an optimal haste/mastery balance and its showing my topped out dps at 109k, which for a 507 lock seems pitifully low. allot of my gear is valor bought though and theres a hefty amount of crit on there. sadly, i have no idea what else to do lol. i do consistenly pull around 95k which, considering simcrafts results with no error taken into account, i can live with.

[Cruzan 71]

The Volatile Talisman would be a good choice for your next valor purchase. If you have the time to spare, running the old LFRs and using Elder charms on bosses that drop t14 tokens won't be a bad idea. Even getting in to a pug (Openraid is amazing for this) for t14 on normal would be a good route to go as well. Getting the t14 4pc bonus will last you a while, especially if its 496. Our t14 4pc bonus was/is amazing and is relatively easy to get.

Also, don't judge your dps based on what simcraft pumps out. Fights vary and you will rarely see one that is the exact same situation as the one simc uses for its tests.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Cruzan

[skullytor 4]

im already running the 2 set t15, with one of the 2 being a 522. i currently have the volatile talisman equipped. i understand its a building process, but 109 does seem low for 507 imo.

[Cruzan 71]

Oh that's weird I clicked on your link in the OP and didn't see any of that sorry. Carry on.

Link logs of the fights where you are concerned you're underperforming and maybe we can break things down even more.

[skullytor 4]

no worries, i dont have any logs available at this time for dumb reasons (guild hasnt checked apps for new applicants on wol) but i think i have a general handle on whats dropping my dps. ultimately, i believe chaos is the primary culprit on many fights. using tortos as an example: im always on spinny turtle duty. fight starts by dpsing the boss and immediately switching to adds when they are summoned. i usually have 3 shards at this time. i them sb/ss all 3 adds (dropping my shards to 0) and using MG on the designated kill target. during this time i typically have at most 1 shard as im desperately trying to get those turtles down. i think during this process i drain my shards AND allow my dots on tortos to fall off. im running around, sometimes have kick duty, getting knocked about often (damn you, -30% run speed) and in a constant state of desperation to knock out those turtles. what this means: i never use shards at the correct time for powerful dots, resnapshotting UP to powerful dots is difficult bc of the mechanics of many fights, and when i do resnapshot up the turtle dies quickly soon thereafter. meanwhile dots on torts have dropped off and i have to rebuild agony stacks. basically, it turns into a shit show with an inability to properly manage my dots at high levels, if at all. i think practice will help a bit, but at the same time i cant just quickly reapply dots on the boss as 1) im low on shards the entire fight from sb/ss'ing on the turtles as they spawn and 2) haunt uptimes are low due to the shard shortage previously mentioned. gah. seems silly but perhaps i should only sb/ss 1 turtle (kill target) and spare the shards for the next turtle or the boss. Im always having trouble balancing dot uptime and single target effectiveness on the turtles as ranged dps seems to always be low. still, i dont think low dps from other players should correspond with low dps on my part. how do you guys handle this fight as affliction? do you dot all 3 turtles as they spawn in order to gain nightfall procs and keep your shards high, or do you ignore them until they become kill target and then use haunt only when high powered dots are rolling?

i know there is allot to look at there, but the devil is in the details with affliction, that is for certain. im always trying to weigh the balance in terms of dps between simply manually applying corruption on the 3 turtles (in my head at a cost of 3+ gcd's depending on how fast i can tab target them) OR use sb/ss's on the 3 turtles + tortos in an alternative method to generate dps + shards from nightfall OR ignore 2 of the turtles and just use sb/ss on the boss and kill target. im constantly debating wether or not using sb/ss on a target is worth it, bc it seems that the shard used for an add doesnt always translate to a shard gained from nightfall nor an effecient use of a wasted haunt usage. christ my thoughts are scattered. if you guys can sift through this bullshit and help me with dot management on adds + a boss i think it will settle about 1000 questions i have regarding affliction. due to this confusion ive considered switching specs to demo or destro several times, but i love affliction and want to become excellent at it. thankyou in advance, gents!

[Cruzan 71]

Hehe that about sums up the chaos that can be associated with a multi-dotting class/fight. I can only really use theory for affliction since ive done it as destro on normal. I've made attempts at heroic and was forced to play affliction, but i was on turtle slow + bat AoE duty so my role was a little different than yours.

As for your shard shortage issue there are 2 major sources that you can tap in to to start having an excess of shards. 1) SB:SoC the bats. 2)Drain Soul a dying bat. Even if your focus is the boss and turtles, you can and should utilize the bats to top off on shards as much as possible.

As for DoT management, I'm not sure what addons you're currently using atm. If you use Weakauras you can do some pretty awesome stuff to help yourself out. I had tons of custom icons and warnings rolling when I had affliction as my main spec. If I used affliction more now I;d probably use WA to alert me when my focus target's DoTs are expiring making Tortos my focus. That way I could run around killin/kicking turtles and be alerted whenever I needed to refresh Tortos' DoTs. Might seem like a lot of effort, but it takes about a minute to set up icons/sound warnings like that and they are extremely helpful. I believe there are other addons that do similar multi-target dot tracking that you could look in to as well, but I love the customization I can get out of weakauras.

But ya, if you're feeling overwhelmed with a fight, remember that you don't have to go the extra mile all the time. Dotting all three turtles is great, but not gamebreaking. Its not a DPS loss to focus on one turtle at a time while watching Tortos its just not as much of a gain as is possible ( sounds dumb to say cuz its technically a loss lol). Dotting and working on two targets at 95% efficiency will outweigh dotting 4 targets with 50% efficiency, even more so if it lets you be aware of dot empowerment throughout a fight. I'm actually not entirely sure dotting all 4 targets would work out to be the best option if your other ranged dps burn down the other turtles fairly quickly. Multi-dotting gets better the longer that targets will live. So try and figure out if its even worth your time to do it. It could come down to where you don't even need to focus a turtle yourself. SB:SSing the three turtles then hopping back on to Tortos could be a viable option as well. I can't say since I don't have logs to look at so you'll have to be the judge.

This is the aspect of playing Affliction that I loved and miss, this planning that has to go in beforehand. Demo and Destro are very cut+paste by comparison in my opinion. inb4 haters.

Best of luck!

Edited May 19, 2013 by Cruzan

[skullytor 4]

hm, how do you use WA to monitor a mob that is not being targeted? my buffs and procs are all rolling through WA but only the current target. id be very interested to hear how you set this up?

[Cruzan 71]

I only know if a way to track your focus target. There might be a way to get more than that, but I don;t know of one. I posted a WA string in another thread for someone who had a similar question.

Here's the link to that thread

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm pretty sure that most Warlocks used Tidyplates to track DoTs on multiple targets. Makes it very easy to see, but I'm not sure you're looking for that answer? I know it's still not as good as seeing your target's DoT power with Affdots, but you usually don't care too much in keeping empowered DoTs up on multiple targets with a couple of obvious exceptions.

[skullytor 4]

actually its those obvious examples (aka: council) that i was looking for a way to monitor buff powers on multiple targets.