Affliction Warlock 8.3

[Guest KSkinner1989]

On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 4:17 PM, Furty said:

/cast [@cursor] Vile Taint

 

Thank you sooo much for this.... you are awesome!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest Khes]

Hi, you seem to be missing rankings for both affliction traits from the item Smartly Plumed Cap: Meticulous Scheming and Dreadful Calling. which is better?!

[Guest Signex]

I'm really enjoying the easy build, much better then the other. Seeing Deathbolt crit is so satisfying, my highest was 49k. ?

[Guest Oradrel]

After the opener (where you spend all unstable afflictions), you go back to spamming SB...do I always keep unstable affliction up (even if it means having no shards most of the fight?), or, build up to 5 (or whatever) amount of shards and use them all at once in my rotation?

I see it says to maintain 1 but I'm always shard starved.  Does the spec build rely on having only 1, maybe 2, shards every 6 seconds?

In other words, am I spanning SB just to get a single shard to refresh UA or is UA used in any other way (with other abilities) where I should save them up?

 

[Guest etio]

People don't realize that, the azerite armor buff that provides the stacking drain life damage on each corruption tick, also affects drain soul. That plus a target sub 20%, makes drain soul very attractive in my book.

[Guest locksalot]

On 8/21/2018 at 8:09 AM, Guest etio said:

People don't realize that, the azerite armor buff that provides the stacking drain life damage on each corruption tick, also affects drain soul. That plus a target sub 20%, makes drain soul very attractive in my book.

Is this working as intended or is this likely to be fixed/removed in a future patch?

[Guest Locker]

Great guide, but would it be possible to get an update to the trinket simulations after the Darkmoon trinket was greatly buffed. I can't figure out how to sim a trinket list like that myself, but the deck must be pulling ahead of a good deal of the dungeon trinkets post buff, no? ?

[Guest Carlson]

Why Torrent of Elements over a stat bonus? Am I reading this wrong? does it just make all of your spells do more

[Guest Razda]

On 7/18/2018 at 2:57 AM, Furty said:

"Using the Imp for its  Blood Pact aura and  Singe Magic ability is recommended, unless you require an interrupt or purge from the Felhunter."

there is a difference on dps imp vs felhunter? 

[Furty 51]

On 8/19/2018 at 11:56 AM, Guest KSkinner1989 said:

Thank you sooo much for this.... you are awesome!!!!!!!!!!

Glad you like it!

On 8/19/2018 at 11:11 PM, Guest Khes said:

Hi, you seem to be missing rankings for both affliction traits from the item Smartly Plumed Cap: Meticulous Scheming and Dreadful Calling. which is better?!

New Azerite sims should be up on the page tomorrow.

On 8/20/2018 at 7:20 AM, Guest Signex said:

I'm really enjoying the easy build, much better then the other. Seeing Deathbolt crit is so satisfying, my highest was 49k. ?

You can have some truly insane Deathbolts on the first boss in Motherlode. I'm still on a mission to break 200k but I've been very close a few times! 

On 8/21/2018 at 2:32 AM, Guest Oradrel said:

After the opener (where you spend all unstable afflictions), you go back to spamming SB...do I always keep unstable affliction up (even if it means having no shards most of the fight?), or, build up to 5 (or whatever) amount of shards and use them all at once in my rotation?

I see it says to maintain 1 but I'm always shard starved.  Does the spec build rely on having only 1, maybe 2, shards every 6 seconds?

In other words, am I spanning SB just to get a single shard to refresh UA or is UA used in any other way (with other abilities) where I should save them up?

 

You should usually have slightly more than enough shards to maintain Unstable Affliction. I usually get about 1.1-1.2 Shards between each UA cast (so basically every 5th cast or so I am sitting on 2 Shards instead of one). There isn't much incentive for a large Soul Shard dump outside of Darkglare, unless you want to set up a big Deathbolt to burst an add (at an overall damage loss).

On 8/21/2018 at 3:09 AM, Guest etio said:

People don't realize that, the azerite armor buff that provides the stacking drain life damage on each corruption tick, also affects drain soul. That plus a target sub 20%, makes drain soul very attractive in my book.

 

On 8/22/2018 at 8:57 AM, Guest locksalot said:

Is this working as intended or is this likely to be fixed/removed in a future patch?

This was recently fixed.

16 hours ago, Guest Razda said:

there is a difference on dps imp vs felhunter? 

DPS is pretty normalized between Imp, Succubus, and Felhunter, although Imp is usually marginally higher due to it being a ranged pet (and therefore not having to chase the boss for a second if it moves). The difference is so minimal, however, that you should use whatever pet has the best fit for the situation. 

[Guest Khes]

thnx for the response, cheers. can't wait to check it out.

also, i did some of my own simming and if one DOES choose nightfall (for whatever reason), haste pulls slightly ahead of mastery. afaict, mastery pulls ahead for almost all other talent choices.

would love to see a confirm on this from someone else though (full spec: 1222112, 9% haste, 38% mastery, 6%Vers, 14% crit, no enchants at time of sim... was trying to decide which wep/ring enchants to buy)

have since respecced to the recommended build. 

Eggnog - Mug'Thol

[Furty 51]

46 minutes ago, Guest Khes said:

thnx for the response, cheers. can't wait to check it out.

also, i did some of my own simming and if one DOES choose nightfall (for whatever reason), haste pulls slightly ahead of mastery. afaict, mastery pulls ahead for almost all other talent choices.

would love to see a confirm on this from someone else though (full spec: 1222112, 9% haste, 38% mastery, 6%Vers, 14% crit, no enchants at time of sim... was trying to decide which wep/ring enchants to buy)

have since respecced to the recommended build. 

Eggnog - Mug'Thol

I can sim it for confirmation if you desire the academic knowledge but for now it doesn't serve a lot of purpose. I do some of my early sims, particularly for stats, using artificially balanced stats so there is an even distribution. For example, if your Warlock has 450 of each stat exactly, what do you want to stack from there? The answer is, of course, Mastery. This is why, with an uneven balance of stats, certain stats that are "low" in the stat priority might outsim their "superior" brethren — having a very low amount of a certain stat might drive its priority up in the short term.

Personally, I loathe dealing with percentages and have always traded in good old fashioned rating. My Warlock has 1200 Mastery and 650 Haste, and so on. This is because rating provides valuable ratios relative to other stats. It's very hard to eyeball the value of 6% Haste vs. 18% Mastery, but if I know 1 Mastery Rating is the equivalent of 1.5 Haste rating (for example) it's a lot easier to evaluate without the use of a sim. 

 

 

[Guest Friktion]

Can I receive some clarification on Tier 2 talents? From Mythic perspective is Absolute Corruption still worth it over the other two options? Trying to find a nice balance between mythics, WQ, and getting ganked. ?

[Furty 51]

1 hour ago, Guest Friktion said:

Can I receive some clarification on Tier 2 talents? From Mythic perspective is Absolute Corruption still worth it over the other two options? Trying to find a nice balance between mythics, WQ, and getting ganked. ?

Absolute Corruption is generally the best option for dungeons, yes.

[Guest hello]

On 7/19/2018 at 11:12 AM, Guest Lignar said:

When is Haunt recommended to use?

Before you applied all your dots or after?

Haunt gives you a 10% damage increase to the target just like Unstable Affliction, it also has a duration that is long enough to apply all opening dots and darkglare

[Guest Hayduke]

Mastery is our highest stat priority and it scales with Drain Soul. Is there any situation (like soul sniping in mythics) that it would be better than deathbolt?

[Furty 51]

18 hours ago, Guest hello said:

Haunt gives you a 10% damage increase to the target just like Unstable Affliction, it also has a duration that is long enough to apply all opening dots and darkglare

Ideally you pre-cast Haunt at the start of the fight so all your DoTs are buffed from the get-go. After that, you apply on cooldown.

[Furty 51]

1 hour ago, Guest Hayduke said:

Mastery is our highest stat priority and it scales with Drain Soul. Is there any situation (like soul sniping in mythics) that it would be better than deathbolt?

Not that I've encountered thus far.

[Guest Larfa]

Isnt Voidwalker decent pet in dungeons due to its aoe dmg? Or is it just my feeling

[Furty 51]

3 hours ago, Guest Larfa said:

Isnt Voidwalker decent pet in dungeons due to its aoe dmg? Or is it just my feeling

In dungeons we use Grimoire of Sacrifice.

[Pitri 0]

What is the best method to take care of dungeon trash groups?

Right now I start with Seed of Corruption to apply Absolute Corruption to all targets. Next step is to apply Agony to all targets. 

Is it a good way to take the trash down by spamming Seed until all my shards are used?

[Guest Cieson]

So what about the Leyshock's Grand Compilation, I think it works well.

[Furty 51]

On 8/31/2018 at 8:00 AM, Pitri said:

What is the best method to take care of dungeon trash groups?

Right now I start with Seed of Corruption to apply Absolute Corruption to all targets. Next step is to apply Agony to all targets. 

Is it a good way to take the trash down by spamming Seed until all my shards are used?

I usually put up one Agony while "running in" before casting my Seed. After that, start applying Agony to targets and casting Unstable Affliction on them. If Phantom Singularity is up, I usually use it right away (before seed) as it pops the seed instantly and you want it off cooldown as early as possible (for the next pack). Usually it's worthwhile to maintain up to 7-8 Agonies, but I do them in batches - usually I am able to do 4-5 targets before I have refresh those same targets, then move on to dotting up any remaining targets. If there's 8+ targets, spam seed.

[Guest azerite traits]

I'm recently new to using Icy Veins, so I apologize if this has been answered somewhere else. On the Azerite Traits and Armor section for Affliction Warlocks the single target list starts with Thunderous_Blast_3. Farther down that list there is a Thunderous_Blast_2. Does that mean having three pieces of azerite armor with Thunderous Blast selected in each versus two pieces? I notice under Destruction spec the names end in "340" so I'm guessing that's not the case and maybe it's just a name for the ability on two different ilvl pieces of armor. Thanks for any info provided. 

[Guest Lockness]

For Lock builds why is it still recommending to use an old artifact item with absolute corruption if this guide was updated for BFA?