How to AoE as affliction?

[itisasitis 1]

Hi all,

Maybe this has been posted but I couldn't find anything. I'm at a complete loss as to how to push my AoE dps as affliction. I am obviously doing something massively wrong since I hear affliction AoE is supposed to be fantastic.

Is straight up Seed of corruption spam the way to go? I mean just apply - pop - reapply? In that case, what is the best way of popping? Just soul draining and then reapply?

Any help is very welcome as I'm getting very frustrated.

[Glitterfart 0]

Affliction builds are mostly about choosing either full aoe or full ST, since a mix of thoose is somewhat lackluster.

So lets say you want to shine at AOE; get drain soul, sow the seeds, sacrifice and singularity. Rest is somewhat optional.

 

Start by seeding immediately followed by agony on atleast 3-4 targets.

Pop singularity.

Drain until seeds pop.

From there its refreshing agony and throwing in some seeds to refresh corruption. Drain as filler inbetween.

Equally important is keeping reap up before seeds pop. 

Dish out some infernals aswell if youre in dire need of numbers and stun.

At some point, depending on number of targets spamming seed might be advisable. But that mostly appeals to a large amount of short lived targets (but obv never reapply seed before its been popped).

The golden trait Soul Flame is a wonderful ability that will passively boost your numbers (quite hysterically on large, short-lived packs I might add), so defo get that even though its completely worthless on ST-bosses.

 

This might be a gross over-simplification I admit, but it should get you somewhat rolling of the start-line :>

 

Edited October 7, 2016 by Glitterfart

[Zorban 0]

In dungeons for when you're fighting groups of 3+ mobs then Sow the Seeds is the way to go. Keep Agony updated on 3 or maybe 4 of them, cast Phantom Singularity if you have it talented ( be careful so you don't pull mobs like a hunter might with barrrage ). Cast Seed of Corruption, Drain Life/Soul on that target until the seed pops and spreads Corruption and then just keep casting Seed of Corruption until you run out of Soul Shards.

By now your Agony will have stacked up enough so that in the time it takes you to finish casting another Seed of Corruption. Corruption and Agony have popped all the other seeds.

Absolute Corruption is pretty handy for this too.

The bigger the pull, the more damage you will deal. If possible make sure Reap Souls is active to get the increased Soul Flame and Seed of Corruption damage.

If pulls are 3 mobs or less then just stick with Siphon Life and dot up all mobs.

For Emerald Nightmare just stick with Siphon Life. Seeds is nice to use on trash but for boss encounters adds tend to be too spread to make much use of Seeds.

Il'gynoth is the only fight I would consider seeds because of the Ichors. However the Ichors die pretty fast when all the raid dps dogpile them and the various tentacles that spawn are too far spread or only 2 are close together meaning you won't get much benefit from Sow the Seeds and I'd recommend sticking to Siphon Life.

Simply dotting up multiple targets may not seem to do much but once Agony is fully stacked the damage is pretty solid.

[itisasitis 1]

Thanks a lot. To clarify, I'm using absolute corruption, it makes life so much easier, and effigy for boss damage. It seems like Grim of Sac is just totally necessary to have decent AoE damage, sad...

Is there an estimate how much not having Grim of Service gimps ST damage?