[Archived] Affliction Warlock 5.4

[dooms 1]

is it better to.. refresh DoTs (corrupt + UA) via Fel Flame or re-apply it using the skills ?

[Zagam 1,982]

is it better to.. refresh DoTs (corrupt + UA) via Fel Flame or re-apply it using the skills ?

Please read the first page of the guide written in the Warlock forums. You can find it here: https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/593-505-affliction-tips-quirks/

[MorticiaNoire 0]

Hi,

I've just found this website!where have i been?! anyway i have just practised the macro to cast all dots..

#showtooltip

/castsequence reset=1 Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction

what i am finding is i press it once agony is applied..i press it again it seems to refresh agony as it starts to tick, it can take 2-3 presses before corruption and then ua is applied..is this right? it doesnt seem to be

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm not familiar with cast sequence macros. This seems like a terrible plan with how DoTs work now with Pandemic and tracking power of DoTs. Try manually casting adds rather than dealing with a sequence macro because you won't be using a macro like that in any fight unless you want your DPS to be quite mediocre.

[MorticiaNoire 0]

was using the one recommended on here..but i shal manually do it from now on!

[Damien 1,514]

was using the one recommended on here..but i shal manually do it from now on!

I am going to remove this macro, because it does not make enough sense :P Simply apply your DoTs with Soulburn+Soul Shard and you will be much better off!

[Guest Thaya]

- Tier 1 Talents: Harvest Life is only useful if there's not enough time to do the SoC routine, on very low hp AoE targets.

- Major Glyphs: should mention that the downside of Glyph of Soul Swap is the 30 seconds cooldown blocking you from using SB:SS, and that cooldown starts when you Inhale nowadays in MoP, not on Exhale like it used to in Cataclysm.

- Major Glyphs: Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion used together with Mannoroth's Fury and Soulburn makes it a huge range, AoE, 70% snare. This comes in useful on several fights and gives us unique functionality that's very useful in 10man where there might be a lack of snares, I feel like it deserves a mention.

- Single Target Rotation: could mention that the only class able to provide CoE is rogues. So, apply CoE to everything that's not attacked by a rogue. (No hunter will ever use a CoE pet when you're in the raid.)

- Multiple Target Rotation: the second paragraph doesn't say enough. I feel it's very important to make people understand that SoC explodes only from your own damage. So the SoC spam routine is: DoT a target, throw SB:SoC on it to apply Corruption to everything around it, and then just keep spamming SoC, SB:SoC every ~10-15 seconds, SB:SS to keep it dotted, and even Haunt to make sure SoC explodes every time - you will have infinite shards with enough targets. SB:CoE is also a good idea if you have enough shards/time.

- Refreshing Your DoTs and Pandemic: you say to refresh dots just before they expire, and in the very next section you mention Pandemic which actually allows us to refresh dots way before they expire. Should probably mention that a lot of the playstyle now has to do with accounting for Pandemic - it lets us create better Haunt/MG windows and to benefit more from intellect procs. If this is an advanced section of the guide, mentioning shard stacking until intellect procs to maximize Haunt/MG during them is a good idea too - ExtraCD addon trivializes this as it lets you see inner cds. This is a pretty noticeable dps increase, and much more involved gameplay.

- Stats: mention the 4717 haste breakpoint (4249 for goblins), other breakpoints are irrelevant so far. It's very easy to make mrrobot optimize around it by inputting the threshold as 0.16652092.

- Professions: 640 mastery > 320 intellect for blacksmithing.

Fix these and this guide will be 100% spot on.

[Guest Blasturd]

My question is regarding Grimoire of Sacrifice . Since it buffs our "Spam" spells and has no effect on our DoT spells, I think its safe to say it would be a DPS loss in some multidot situations where manually casting and refreshing your DoTs leaves you less and less time to channel. Am I way off base here?

Fight's with regular AOE mechanics also seem like they might benefit more from a pet then a single target damage bonus.

If I'm correct in this, what pet(s) would be best to use? Shivarra can AoE for us, would she be the winner?

Thanks.

[Durner 0]

The guide says that "Unending Breath enables you to walk on water", which it naturally does not. Could be corrected Edited December 3, 2012 by Durner

[Guest Guest]

The guide says that "Unending Breath enables you to walk on water", which it naturally does not. Could be corrected

Actually, soulburning unending breath does allow you to walk on water.

[Manoj 1]

My question is regarding Grimoire of Sacrifice . Since it buffs our "Spam" spells and has no effect on our DoT spells, I think its safe to say it would be a DPS loss in some multidot situations where manually casting and refreshing your DoTs leaves you less and less time to channel. Am I way off base here?

Fight's with regular AOE mechanics also seem like they might benefit more from a pet then a single target damage bonus.

If I'm correct in this, what pet(s) would be best to use? Shivarra can AoE for us, would she be the winner?

Thanks.

I also agree with this . if u have say 2 or more targets e g. stone guards hardly there will be time to spam MG , due to constant switching of bosses during petrification /overload phase . so is it better to use a pet so that the dps will be slightly higher than GS talent. probably observer wud be preferred choice ? .

so any one can help out with this theory? ..

[Zagam 1,982]

No. The only pet worth mentioning when it comes to AoE is the Felguard which you can't access as Affliction. Grimoire of Sacrifice doesn't JUST buff MG, DS, Haunt, and Fel Fire. It also boosts your HP by 20% with Soul Link, heals you for 2% of your max HP every 5 seconds, and is on average 7k DPS better than any pet Grimoire option. Why are you not spamming MG on at least one target in a 2 target encounter? The extra target BOOSTS your DPS by giving you another target for DoTs and Nightfall procs. If you're constantly switching targets on Stone Guard, consider your strategy ahead of time. If your petrifying dog is being moved, then stay on him the entire time. If the other two dogs are being switched, stay on the petrifying dog. See the pattern? Affliction is gifted with the ability to generate DPS on the move without any DPS loss thanks to Kil'jaeden's Cunning.

The ONLY fight where there is a 'regular' AOE mechanic is Wind Lord, the 4th boss in Heart of Fear. That's 1 boss out of 16. Oddly enough, Demonology tends to perform stronger here, but not as strong as Affliction once all the adds are down. Affliction can hold its own with Seed of Corruption spam, even though you're not 'benefiting' from the damage buff of Grim of Sac, you will be at some point if you perform your rotation correctly.

[Guest Dibz]

No, sir, you are wrong. You do NOT use Soul Shards to reapply DoTs without taking a moment to look at your situation. If you have one Soul Shard, you do NOT use it to refresh your DoTs. You manually recast them. If you are swimming in Soul Shards like in execute phases, you use SB:SS to reapply DoTs. You're either wrong or the luckiest Affliction Warlock in the world with a constant flow of Soul Shards you can't find a better use for.

I believe he was refering to the starter in which case he happens to be right.

You SB:SS at the start along with a haunt and MG once that should procc all your trinkets/enchants + potion is already up so you fel flame once then keep MG'ing until all your buffs are about to drop and you refresh all your dots with a single SB:SS and you have a long duration of DS'ed dots that are buffed with all the proccs. With the hasted corruption/mg channel you should not have a problem to keep haunting throughout the entire bloodlust.

[Zagam 1,982]

Obviously you SB:SS at the start. I've posted that in every thread I've done. It felt like he was referring to later parts of the fight. Your opener should be CoE, DS:M, SB:SS, MG full duration. Once MG is done channeling, all of your procs will be live. Manually cast each DoT to extend via Pandemic, Haunt again, and MG. From here until DS:M wears off, all you'll do is keep Haunt up and MG. You DON'T want to recast your DoTs because they'll apply at about 40% of the power applied during all procs.

[Guest Dibz]

You fel flame and manually refresh BoA after the initial MG, that saves you a global + ff damage since the highest dps is still to SB:SS refresh your dots just before the lowest time procc is about to expire so you get a full refresh with DS + all the proccs that will net you the most damage.

[Manoj 1]

Yest i was trying dmg done by Agony for 1 apply . tool tip says 106k but its doing 80k so is it bug ?..

other dots are doing perfect.

any info on this ?

also in recount it shows as Agony,Agony(dot) what does this specific ?..

Edited December 11, 2012 by Manoj

[Guest Demencia]

Question pertaining mostly to raid bosses when they hit that 20% mark. We're using drain soul which is filling up the shards. I refresh the DOTs with SB:SS and generally still have three left over. I can either:

1) Just go back to Drain Soul after the refresh

2) Pop a Haunt and then go back to Drain Soul

3) Pop Haunt x3 and then go back to Drain Soul

Which is going to net me the most dps gain? I find myself using #3 because the shards are available but thinking #2 is probably the right answer.

[Damien 1,514]

Question pertaining mostly to raid bosses when they hit that 20% mark. We're using drain soul which is filling up the shards. I refresh the DOTs with SB:SS and generally still have three left over. I can either:

1) Just go back to Drain Soul after the refresh

2) Pop a Haunt and then go back to Drain Soul

3) Pop Haunt x3 and then go back to Drain Soul

Which is going to net me the most dps gain? I find myself using #3 because the shards are available but thinking #2 is probably the right answer.

The answer lies between 1 and 2, I think. You want to keep 100% uptime on Haunt, but you do not want to refresh it, if it is already applied to the target. You can't just spam Haunt when you have Soul Shards, because, while casting Haunt, your DoTs are not benefitting from Drain Soul, which you are not channeling.

[Fel 42]

@Manoj

The second instnace of your DoTs in recount/wologs is the MG or DS procced tick damage. It will always be whichever of the two has the lower overall value.

Regarding Agony's damage being lower than what the tooltip states, I am not sure why that is but I remember Zagam covering something to the effect of a bugged tooltip somewhere in the lock forums.

-A

[Guest Lünvingen]

Hey,

Thanks for the great guides! I'm currently only doing ok in my raid, and I want to know what I'm doing wrong:

I open with a soulburned soul swap (usually with my CD's up)

and use MG as long as I'm not doing anything else, excluded moving (gotta love Kil'jaeden's cunning)

When stuff procs, and my debuffs are above the treshold for pandemic, I usually send of a fel flame to update the dammage of corruption and unstable affliction, and reapply agony.

I send of a haunt as often as possible, but mostly when nightfall procs.

My main question is if using fel flame to update the dammage of corruption and unstable affliction is a valid strategy, or should I reapply them manually.

[Guest Khan]

Has anyone answered the hit vrs mastery/haste question? Should we gem/reforge to get to 15% hit, or ignore hit like Mr. Robot suggests?

[Fel 42]

Has anyone answered the hit vrs mastery/haste question? Should we gem/reforge to get to 15% hit, or ignore hit like Mr. Robot suggests?

There is a huge amount on info on the class forums here that covers this issue, I'd recommend you have a browse through those, particularly the stickied threads posted by Zagam. The gist is, either method can be effective, but from what I see, a lot of the community leans towards hit capping first, then hitting the haste thresholds kindly provided by Zagam's theorycrafting. Speaking as someone who has tried both methods, and hates the RNG of missing, you can put out excellent DPS with the hit cap.

[Fel 42]

Hey,

Thanks for the great guides! I'm currently only doing ok in my raid, and I want to know what I'm doing wrong:

I open with a soulburned soul swap (usually with my CD's up)

and use MG as long as I'm not doing anything else, excluded moving (gotta love Kil'jaeden's cunning)

When stuff procs, and my debuffs are above the treshold for pandemic, I usually send of a fel flame to update the dammage of corruption and unstable affliction, and reapply agony.

I send of a haunt as often as possible, but mostly when nightfall procs.

My main question is if using fel flame to update the dammage of corruption and unstable affliction is a valid strategy, or should I reapply them manually.

Reapply them manually. Fel Flame, although a tempting alternative, has been loosely proven to be a DPS loss in almost all circumstances, including the one you've suggested above. I'd recommend reading through the forum posts on the lock forums here for tips and tricks on general locking.

Regarding openers, I've found that the highest *initial* burst is:

T-1: Pre-pot/Haunt

T0: CoE

T1: DS:M/SB:SS

MG until Haunt is @ 1 sec: all procs have now occured

SB:SS to get all DoTs @ max buff

Haunt

Doomguard while haunt is in the air

MG while maintaining haunt as much as soul shards will allow, and refresh DoTs manually from here on out.

In practice for me, this works very well for two reasons:

1) When we have fights where we open with heroism, my second SB:SS tends to be neatly timed to benefit from hero (since it's cast ~5 - 8 secs into the fight).

2) Although the second SB:SS removes the possibility of another haunt and is therefor arguably a DPS loss, I find my shard proc rate is sufficient to compensate and give me haunt uptime until I am forced to refresh UA manually for the first time. I do not know if this is an overall DPS loss, but at the very least this provides me with a stronger opening burst. (not hugely, but it's there, I've tested plenty).

[JvChequer 43]

Has anyone answered the hit vrs mastery/haste question? Should we gem/reforge to get to 15% hit, or ignore hit like Mr. Robot suggests?

Around ilvl 490, goes after 6637 haste breakpoint and focus on Mastery, more haste maybe be a dps gain, but not relevant at all, 300 dps gain max depends on your gear and the fight-style.

And for me, Hit capping worth it the dps loss, because I can't handle RNG, my hit its around 14.9%+ at least when my reforge become to complicated to reach 15.1% at max.

[Cohumulone 3]

I have a question for a fight like Will. My main is a Boomkin but I do another raid on my lock. I feel like I'm missing out on something on some fights. Big thanks for the tips and tricks post for DoT refreshing. Has significantly increased my DPS.

On multi-add fights (Will and Garajal), would you use all dots on all the things? I feel like agony is a waste, and I don't like the UA cast time, but I know a combination of these is most likely going to be the best.

Help me out here please.