Trying Affliction Again

[Twinkielock 15]

The last time I was affliction was T14, so needless to say it's been a while. 

 

I know my haunt uptime is a bit low.   Is there anything else that I can improve on though?

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/kP8yhWXx1YnJDjbz/#fight=7&type=damage-done&source=33

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/kP8yhWXx1YnJDjbz/#fight=12&type=damage-done&source=33

 

 

 

 

[Zagam 1,982]

Hmm...It's Friday so I won't do my typical reaming.

 

360k is rather embarrassing for a multi-dotting class in any facet, especially Heroic.  You did well with your opener, but based on your graph look on Protectors, your DPS went DOWN during execute.  I don't even know.  Let's take a look under the hood.

 

First problem I see is that you're clearly not snapshotting properly.  This is evident by Agony being 30% of your damage compared to UA being only 25%.  UA can and will hit harder than Agony.  I see you're using the Multistrike trinket which only contributed 4.6% of your damage.  I see no pet - surely you weren't using GoSac as Affliction?  I'll find out soon.  Your Doomguard only got off 11 casts.  You only got 60% worth from him.  Yep, Grimoire of Sacrifice.  This is a HUGE mistake.

 

You had 16 procs of Tempus Repit for 24.22% uptime.  The procs are spread out enough that you shoulda been flying with good DoT tick speed.  You had 31 Shadow Trance procs, so that means you were working with 35 total Soul Shards (4 + 31).  PBI proc'd reliably for you, but Toxic Power gave you some cruddy RNG.  You shouldn't be using this trinket if you have BBoY, so not sure if this was used by necessity or mistake. 

 

I see you using Drain Soul at earlier parts of the fight.  This is typically frowned upon because MG does comparable damage.  In Protectors, nothing you kill replenishes your Soul Shards, which is the important part.  It looks like you were casting it quickly to replenish shards which is a mistake.  If you're going to channel it, channel it to get Soul Shards back, not for execute damage.

 

I see you were using your 4pc.  This is generally advised against unless you don't have better Haste/Mastery or higher item level pieces.  To give you an example, you got 3 procs out of 31 Haunts.  Worth it?  Nope. 

 

Speaking of Haunt, you got 31 free Soul Shards and you used them appropriately.  You had almost 1,000 ticks of Corruption and only got 31 Soul Shards back - your proc rate looks low, but remember you only get Soul Shards back from your most RECENT Corruption.  If you had a Tempus Repit Corruption ticking somewhere and you applied a shitty one somewhere else, you stopped generating your Shards.  If you divide your approximate ticks by 3, you'd see your proc rate from Nightfall was very close to 10%. 

 

Haunt uptime is nowhere close to 100% during execute.  Your Haunt uptime during your opener was pretty low, as well.  You HAVE to prioritize empowering your most powerful DoTs in order to play Affliction well.

 

Now, let's solve why your DPS sucked outside of all the above factors.  Your graph peaks 10 seconds in around 1.6M and then drops down below 500k after only 30 seconds.  You SHOULD be getting empowered DoTs up and running in the first 5 seconds and then re-establishing them before your major procs fall off.  It looks like you didn't refresh before your powerful procs faded thus limiting your opener.  This is Affliction's most important time frame BY FAR, and it slipped past you.  You also dropped WELL below 200k at one point which just should not be with 3 targets.  Make sure your DoT uptime is high on all 3 targets, not just that you have it up somewhere.

[Lockybalboa 618]

You hard casted your dots almost twice as much as I did for only a 3 min longer fight but only casted SS 4 more times then I did. AKA, use soulswap more.

 

I don't see a GoSac buff and I don't see pet damage. So either your pet was on passive or you didn't sac your pet, either way, bad warlock! bad!

 

BBoY>KTT if you have it

 

REst is covered by Zag

[Twinkielock 15]

I was using GoSac unsure why it didn't show.  I switched to GoSup for Norshum though.  I also found out after the fight drain soul was useless.  I was trying for the execute > 4 shards.    Destro is my main spec, I had a few items to switch around, but I didn't have time between  the first boss and second, because the dumbass master looter had to do loot by hand the first boss (aka me) and slowed things down tons.

 

The gear I have different is the helm, and a chest.   KTT and PBI are the only trinkets I have.  

 

Thank you both for your tips.  I look forward to Iron Jug and next week to try again.

[Twinkielock 15]

Speaking of protectors during execute as affliction should you continue to multi-dot or do you nuke one target with everything you have?

[Zagam 1,982]

DoTs on everything alive and single target rotation on priority target as always.  If it's alive, DoT it.

[Raezt 0]

Quick question to the topic kind of (don't really want to start a new thread for it);

 

I'm demo/destro at the moment, but really want to try out affliction too, as destro somehow isn't really to my thing.

What would you guys suggest, respec (throw out the destro), or just roll a new character?

[Lockybalboa 618]

For time spent, rerolling and lvling and gearing is clearly the best use of your life. I mean really, how can anyone be asked to GO to a trainer, open a chat with them, PAY them to respec you, and then change your bars. Its to much I say! Why even reroll? Do you really want TWO warlocks on your character select screen? No! Deleted the old warlock and remake as aff. Clearly the better path vs. RESPECING.

[Raezt 0]

"Long story"...

My "main problem" is, that I'm stuck at ilvl 504 with my lock, whenever I go LFR I get flack for having "low-dps" and "go destro lol noob"

 

I'm doing the best I can, but can't squeeze out in Recount more then 60k dps. Was threatened to be kicked off raids if I don't switch to destro, which I barely know, and could pull off about 65k-67k, but at that low ilvl with no legendary back and no "hc gear" it's impossible for me to do more.

And I seem to have the poorest luck with this char, almost nothing is dropping in raids, I always get tons of gold though :D

 

No logs available sadly, but seeing as I'm still gearing him up, with no support from a guild... mehhh....

[Liquidsteel 279]

Creating a new character will only set you back in time though... I actually thought you were joking.

You can stay affliction if you want to, but DPS will be lower until you get better gear and generally improve as a player.

Destruction won't magically inflate your numbers if you don't learn it, however. Browse the forums and pick up tricks and guidance on how to play the spec.

Little things like doing an efficient opener, dot uptime, havoc usage, shadowburn sniping with mouse over macro etc. Hell, even your UI and encounter knowledge can cause huge swings in DPS between players.

There are so many variables that just asking if a simple spec switch will increase your dps isn't really answerable. You probably will get higher numbers as destro, but your dps might continue to suck.

[Desos 18]

While I know how hard of a grind it can be to gear up and this isn´t this kind of thread to show you how to get gear upgrades etc, I would like to give you some tips, which you assumingly did not know about:
Get your weekly kill of Ordos/Celestials, even Nalak or Ondaasta until they don´t provide any significant gear upgrades anymore. You didn´t kill Ordos on this account if I look at your achievements, so this is an easy way to get gear upgrades without support from a raid guild.

Also at this far into the tier, craftables are not that expensive anymore and will also provide better gear than what you have now. It seems you didn´t use your Burden of Eternity to upgrade tokens from the timeless isle to a 535er piece. There are guides how to get at least 1 Burden, so get them.

For unlucky slots where you are still stuck with ilvl <516 you can run heroic scenarios, which also provide a quick way to cap on VP, without having to raid Flex and higher. Since you´re on the VP grind for the legendary cloak, capping on VP should be on your wow bucket list.

I put up a profile on AMR and disabled all gear sources that involve any kind of raiding, so just items from Ordos, Celestials, VP vendor and HC scenarios and it had(without the legendary cloak) an iLvl of 552, fully upgraded. This is just to show you how many items you can get without raiding.

Edited April 30, 2014 by check0790

[Liquidsteel 279]

He can't do Ordos without the legendary cape :(

[Desos 18]

Ohh I forgot about that...sorry. Forgot about that requirement with all of my chars since I got my cloak in the first ID of 5.4

[Stunlocked 8]

60k does seem a bit low for your item level, but I'm sure others with more experience can speak to that.   There are a lot of stickies in this forum that will help you. 
 

"whenever I go LFR I get flack for having "low-dps" and "go destro lol noob"
 

Are you getting kicked out of LFR?  Generally speaking, I've rarely seen DPS get kicked out of DPS unless things get really bad.  If you're just getting flack and insults - all I can say is get a thick skin and keep on going.  LFR can be a very unpleasant experience.  But it's going to be the easiest way for you to get upgrades.   And like everything else - the more times you do something, the better you get.   Regardless of which spec you choose, LFR is still going to be LFR and you're going to get through it if you want upgrades.

Edited April 30, 2014 by Stunlocked

[Raezt 0]

I realized maybe it would have been better, that I start a new thread here in the lock forum or somewhere general.

 

Anyways...

 

Thank you for the tips guys! I'm not giving up yet, but it does get frustrating after a while...

(By this time I grinded another hundred couple of gold from LFRs...yaay me :D )

[vaeevictiss 17]

Well now i have a couple questions seeing this thread...

 

1. Should we throw haunt on everything, or just 1 target at a time?

2. Should we just not be using DS at all in this fight, or just for the final execute?

 

I have always hated this fight honestly lol. I do good dps compared to my guild...but i dont do good dps on it. 

 

I always feel im running around trying to soul swap and keep everything maxed to my snapshotting. Sometimes i cant find the damn mob quickly, other times the soul swap buff falls off and then i have to recast on the mob or switch back to the original, swap again, then find the intended target again. 

 

I have the same prob the OP does with my haunt uptime (but i think its cause i multi haunt) and my CoA being higher.

 

this was this weeks

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/PNBCdqgHMZfTQVmh#type=damage-done&fight=6

 

I just always feel like i make so many mistakes compared to other fights.

 

How do you guys efficiently manage this encounter? 

Edited May 7, 2014 by vaeevictiss

[Zagam 1,982]

Should be using Haunt on anything with empowered DoTs on them.  Shouldn't matter where it's at. 

 

First off - quit using the Abyssal.  Period.  Ever.  Yours did 99,500 damage when it landed, melee'd for 87,300, and ticked for 198,000.  It's a COMPLETE waste.

 

Second off - Haunt uptime is only 34%.  This is abysmally low and attributes directly to your DPS being sub 300k, which for all intents and purposes, is dreadfully low.  Your DoTs are below 99% uptime which is bad, as well.  93 and 94% are not acceptable uptimes on DoTs.  With Pandemic, letting them fall off is a major mechanical flaw in gameplay.

 

Thirdly, if you aren't aware, the 4pc is garbage for Affliction.  If you have better pieces, please use them (replace legs, chest).  Your Dark Refund gave you 1 Soul Shard over the entire fight.

 

Fourth, you got 23 Shadow Trance procs.  You had 7 uses of Soul Burn and 20 uses of Haunt.  23 + initial 4 = 27, so what did you do with the Soul Shards you generated via Drain Soul? 

 

Fifth, why is your Haunt uptime not even remotely close to 100% during execute phase?  See this graph: http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/PNBCdqgHMZfTQVmh#type=auras&fight=6&source=18&spells=debuffs&by=target&ability=48181

 

Your Haunt uptime is for 8 seconds in the last 90 seconds.  This is just horrible. 

 

Aside from your guild making a brutal mistake in saving Bloodlust for the end of the fight, you have some serious mechanical flaws in your gameplay.  Revisit the F.A.Q., revisit the Affliction guide, and practice on the target dummies in Orgrimmar/Stormwind until you are comfortable with 3 target fights.  Once you're good here, swap to the 4 targets that have a permanent execution phase on them (20%) and practice your execute phase DPS.  You NEED to have Haunt rolling on everything while you're empowered and while you are executing.  It's a 35% DPS boost - skipping it is a no-no.

[vaeevictiss 17]

Yea im normally Destro for everything except that fight and Thok. Rarely ever play aff anymore.

 

I also never seem to get enough shards to keep haunt on everything all the time either. As for the 4P, I dont have anything else. The set is geared towards destro.

 

ya, wasnt sure about the abyssal either. Guess i figured with the multiple targets it would be better.

 

Should we be using TW/Hero/BL right at the start of the fight?

 

I feel my destro is decent...for example...

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/yALVHMdZm4BRbgNq#fight=12&type=damage-done&source=7

 

had good uptime there

 

 

I see you use destro for Protectors...does that do a better job?

 

 

Its been a while since i used aff so i have become very rusty on it so ill just put in some more practice with it.

Edited May 7, 2014 by vaeevictiss

[Drafty53 17]

On that Malk kill you posted, your incinerate's did more damage than chaosbolt...that should be flipped, and flipped quickly.  Your average CBs were under 1mil, which in your gear (4pc, PBI & KTT normal) means you need some slight work on maximizing your Chaosbolt casts under strong procs.

 

Yes your immolate uptime was very good, but for destro the #1 thing is maximizing CBs.

[vaeevictiss 17]

On that Malk kill you posted, your incinerate's did more damage than chaosbolt...that should be flipped, and flipped quickly.  Your average CBs were under 1mil, which in your gear (4pc, PBI & KTT normal) means you need some slight work on maximizing your Chaosbolt casts under strong procs.

 

Yes your immolate uptime was very good, but for destro the #1 thing is maximizing CBs.

Yea, i guess i never know the perfect time. Any time i get a proc i try to send one or two off. Should i save them for a bunch of procs? I feel if i would wait for a lot of procs then i would just be wasting the time. Also, say you get a full set of procs up, should i just dump all my embers on CB? that is what i currently do.

[Desos 18]

Unless you definitely know, there will be immediately procs more powerful than your current ones, try to get rid of your embers as long as the proc is up.

A thinkable scenario in which you could hold back some, but not all embers is when your DS gets ready, which also should mean PBI procs soon. PBI+DS is imo stronger than a single KTT or BBoY(at low stacks) proc.

Another scenario, which is more likely to happen, is that you are maybe 2 embers short for your 4 pc to proc. Here it could be favorable to first trigger the 4pc and then cast CBs, unless the proc would fade until you manage to activate your 4 pc.

For full procs, full ember dump.

All this needs practice, a good UI and a little bit of experience, but this min/maxing imho makes up for having a simple 5 skill priority system.

[vaeevictiss 17]

Sounds good! thanks for the tips. Im done with the destro stuff since i ninjaed the OP's thread here so sorry about that.

 

One overall question that could apply to the OP as well, is there an addon that shows all the little hidden cool downs on procs so you can get a better idea when stuff will pop?

Edited May 9, 2014 by vaeevictiss

[Liquidsteel 279]

Sounds good! thanks for the tips. Im done with the destro stuff since i ninjaed the OP's thread here so sorry about that.

 

One overall question that could apply to the OP as well, is there an addon that shows all the little hidden cool downs on procs so you can get a better idea when stuff will pop?

 

WeakAuras.

[vaeevictiss 17]

oh damn, didnt even think of using it for that

[Kaboozle 0]

God zagam how are u so clueless

 

Agony will always do more dmg than UA 

 

http://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ZX3rLdWDwcBQ67KF#fight=2&type=damage-done&source=78

 

here is a 1.5mill fallen protectors, im obviously snapshotting wrong right