A deflated Warlock who could use help.

[Kitsuyi 0]

Hello Warlock friends, I feel something is amiss with my Warlock. I last played back when Heart of Swarm came out and was comfortably doing 100-120k+ in 10M, which was decent at the time. I quit for a year and just came back recently (Thursday) and for some odd reason my DPS can't even touch 100k now. I know with the tiers of raiding that have come out afterwards has increased things substantially. But to not even be able to break 100k anymore seems absurd.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/uldum/Rhiani/simple

 

Up above is my armory, I'm at ilvl 492. I run the rotation that is recommended (Affliction, despite armory might saying it's destruction), making sure to keep the best possible up-time on my DOTs.

 

My only other reasoning, might be because recount is off? I did LFR25 man earlier this evening and this other Warlock parsed in at 140k DPS, despite him having overwhelming damage which just didn't seem right. I roughly parsed 45k.

 

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I'm just rusty due to being gone for so long and my reaction times are down or perhaps there's something that'll change once I gear up to be higher than ilvl 492. As it stands now, I'm quite deflated and well, not very happy that things aren't how they used to be. I know change was needed but it's just frustrating.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Also, sorry I don't have any WoL since it was just LFR.

 

[Astynax 24]

Hello Warlock friends, I feel something is amiss with my Warlock. I last played back when Heart of Swarm came out and was comfortably doing 100-120k+ in 10M, which was decent at the time. I quit for a year and just came back recently (Thursday) and for some odd reason my DPS can't even touch 100k now. I know with the tiers of raiding that have come out afterwards has increased things substantially. But to not even be able to break 100k anymore seems absurd.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/uldum/Rhiani/simple

 

Up above is my armory, I'm at ilvl 492. I run the rotation that is recommended (Affliction, despite armory might saying it's destruction), making sure to keep the best possible up-time on my DOTs.

 

My only other reasoning, might be because recount is off? I did LFR25 man earlier this evening and this other Warlock parsed in at 140k DPS, despite him having overwhelming damage which just didn't seem right. I roughly parsed 45k.

 

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I'm just rusty due to being gone for so long and my reaction times are down or perhaps there's something that'll change once I gear up to be higher than ilvl 492. As it stands now, I'm quite deflated and well, not very happy that things aren't how they used to be. I know change was needed but it's just frustrating.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Also, sorry I don't have any WoL since it was just LFR.

 

Okay.... This one's a long one....

 

First off: get out of aff. I love the spec. I love the way it plays. But even at my 535 ilvl, it's behind by a good 30k dps. At higher ilvls, it becomes more viable, but if you're concerned with dps, esp with your gear, it's terribad.  It got a series of nerfs, which it probably deserved, and destro got buffed severely. Now aff has fallen victim to the affliction curse. That is, it scales good with ilvl, but it takes good ilvl.

 

Second: your trinkets seem pretty sub-par. I don't remember what I was running before SoO trinks, but those procs are weak. Get better trinks, and you'll see some DPS increase there. Also, your stats are..... I don't even know. I guess you were trying to stack mastery? But you're not hitting any of your haste breakpoints, and if you did, you'd have no mastery... Honestly, you're just in such a bad spot gear wise to be trying to play aff.... Even with my 535 ilvl, I can't get aff to close the ~25k gap between it and destro... I don't want to hate on the spec.... but from my experience, being in your shoes, it's a really weak spec.

[Ilion 8]

 

My only other reasoning, might be because recount is off? I did LFR25 man earlier this evening and this other Warlock parsed in at 140k DPS, despite him having overwhelming damage which just didn't seem right. I roughly parsed 45k.

 

 

 

Are you talking about Immerseus?

[Zagam 1,982]

Hello Warlock friends, I feel something is amiss with my Warlock. I last played back when Heart of Swarm came out and was comfortably doing 100-120k+ in 10M, which was decent at the time. I quit for a year and just came back recently (Thursday) and for some odd reason my DPS can't even touch 100k now. I know with the tiers of raiding that have come out afterwards has increased things substantially. But to not even be able to break 100k anymore seems absurd.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/uldum/Rhiani/simple

 

Up above is my armory, I'm at ilvl 492. I run the rotation that is recommended (Affliction, despite armory might saying it's destruction), making sure to keep the best possible up-time on my DOTs.

 

My only other reasoning, might be because recount is off? I did LFR25 man earlier this evening and this other Warlock parsed in at 140k DPS, despite him having overwhelming damage which just didn't seem right. I roughly parsed 45k.

 

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I'm just rusty due to being gone for so long and my reaction times are down or perhaps there's something that'll change once I gear up to be higher than ilvl 492. As it stands now, I'm quite deflated and well, not very happy that things aren't how they used to be. I know change was needed but it's just frustrating.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Also, sorry I don't have any WoL since it was just LFR.

Hey friend.  Back in T14, Affliction was the best spec for a couple of reasons.  Grimoire of Sacrifice increased our spells by 50%.  Now it is only 20%.  Affliction has never been buffed since T14 while Destruction has gotten some serious love.  Basically, Aff ruled T14, Demo ruled T15, and Destro is king for T16.  There's no reason for all of that, but it's how it played out.  Since you're returning, you have lots to catch up on, but the playstyle for all three specs is largely unchanged from when you left. 

 

Make sure you visit the Timeless Isle to fill in any pieces of gear you might be missing.  Follow the guide on how to obtain your two guaranteed Burdens of Eternity which will give you access to 535 gear.  Also, Throne of Thunder has been nerfed 20%, and you can now do it via cross-realms.  Openraid.us is a great place to find a group to plow through content and snag some 522/535 gear.  Once you do that, you can fit your way into a Flexible Raid on Openraid.us for the new raid, Siege of Orgrimmar.  I highly recommend this instead of LFR.  Since you've gone, LFR provides almost nothing for the heroic/elite player, so there aren't any heroic/elite players carrying the slosh around, so LFR is in a pretty bad state if you don't like wiping. 

 

If you need anything else, I'll be available tonight and can be in Mumble to help you get caught up to speed both with your specs and what to do in the game to get caught up in gear and continue progress on your legendary chain.  You can find my battletag and other info in the Warlock Mumble forum thread. 

[Omaric 246]

I wouldn't say that Affliction is largely unchanged.  The lowered damage on Haunt, and the fact that it now only increases DoT damage (by a lot more), means that you no longer want to clip it.

 

The change to Soul Swap is a huge gameplay modifier.  No longer do you have to SB:SS everything to get full DoT's running.  Now, whenever you Soul Swap, not only is the power of the DoT's you inhaled maintained, but so is the exact duration.  That's huge.  You can now transfer super powered DoT's to more targets without having to waste Soul Shards.  Just keep in mind that when I say the duration is maintained, that if you SS a set of DoT's that have 3 seconds left, then your new target will only have 3 seconds remaining once they're applied.  They'll have 3 seconds left *even* if you keep them inhaled for a few seconds.  Power and duration is maintained until you exhale.

 

I would recommend trying to maintain powerful DoT's on the target dummies using this new method until you get used to it.

[Zagam 1,982]

Well, of course there are some changes, but the basic goal of Affliction is still the same.  Soul Swap is a minor mechanical change with a huge theoretical gain, but the prioritization of Affliction in maximizing DoT damage remains unchanged.  While they pulled some damage from the drains and put them in the DoTs, playstyle is identical.  I played Aff in T14, so I know if I came back and played the same with full movement via KJC and GoSac being a 50% buff, things would feel quite different without playstyle being different. 

 

There are far too many small changes to digest, but my guess is if he is playing like in T14, he's feeling those changes more than the actual small playstyle changes.

[Omaric 246]

I agree mostly, but Soul Swap was huge breh.  I almost never used SS without SB prior to that change.  I think it affected the spec a lot.  I'm just putting it out here because the change to SS is seemingly subtle, but it's huge and not everyone might catch that after having returned from a hiatus.  It's obviously only something to worry about in a fight with multiple targets, which happens to be a majority of the boss fights in SoO.

[Kitsuyi 0]

I added your battle.net Zagam. I think we talked before in T14 too, when I had some questions so your repeated help is greatly appreciated. Also, I want to thank everybody else who commented in this thread, to try and guide me from the abysmal depths of mediocrity, into something that I can be content with to enjoy raiding! 

 

Also, hooray for being from Minneapolis. Best city NA. ;p

[Omaric 246]

It *is* pretty awesome.  We might even be acquaintances, who the flip knows!?

 

Keep practicing though.  LFR is amazing to really get a feel for a spec.  As was suggested earlier, if you don't hate Destruction, I'd definitely take it for a spin.

[Kitsuyi 0]

Oh no, I don't hate it. Just have never played it. Since TBC I've always been Affliction and Demo. I'm curious about it and have no qualms about trying.

[Elro 47]

As someone who has played around with all the specs on a more casual level than our awesome friends Zagam and Omaric here, Destro is good if you don't want to get into something complex. Demo is still viable (with certain SoO items, like PBI), but it's harder to play competently. Destro...it's simpler, and who doesn't love Chaos Bolts critting for 1 million damage?

[Ilion 8]

As someone who has played around with all the specs on a more casual level than our awesome friends Zagam and Omaric here, Destro is good if you don't want to get into something complex. Demo is still viable (with certain SoO items, like PBI), but it's harder to play competently. Destro...it's simpler, and who doesn't love Chaos Bolts critting for 1 million damage?

 

 

You're completely wrong, at high ilvl destro is king in most encounters.

[Zagam 1,982]

You're completely wrong, at high ilvl destro is king in most encounters.

This is an aggressive comment which isn't factual.  At high item levels, all three specs compete with each other.  There are some encounters that favor Destruction and some that favor Affliction.  Affliction and Demonology catch up to Destruction at higher item levels (565+).