5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Zagam 1,982]

Editted some parts of main post namely the Doomguard bug discovered via World of Logs where he is not gaining from Bloodlust.

[Vortex 3]

That exactly what I was asking, it seems isn't a bug Zagam, it's intended by blizzard. I'm not sure though, just something I read on MMO.

And now? Another thing to fry my head lol, which it's the best time to pop Doomguard now? At the start of the fight with all proc's, pot active or at 20%hp.

I'm not a big fan popping Doomguard at 20%, I'm doing it wrong? Ofc some bosses benift more popping im right at the begin such as Blade Lord Ta'yak or Tsulong.

On Lord Ta'yak no point to save it for tornado phase, neither on Tsulong since most of guilds are killing him on "day phase". But for the other all bosses?

Thought? Tips?

Edited November 21, 2012 by Vortex

[Zagam 1,982]

Use at him at your own peril. He won't contribute a signficant portion of your DPS anyways. He's just a little bonus. Add him whenever you find it best fit. I use it on parts of fights that we need to down a bit faster. For example, on our first night on Elegon, I used him at the beginning to keep us from getting a 3rd protector before he hit 85%. Now I use him during the execute phase because he isn't needed anywhere else. On fights like Blade Lord Ta'yak, I use him loaded with all procs at the beginning. It would be hilarious seeing him walk down the hall to get back in range for his lame Doombolts.

I miss when the Doomguard was awesome =(

[JvChequer 43]

Doomguard does not deserve a 10min CD, that's the truth. Blizzard should buff him or turn into a 5min CD.

[Vortex 3]

I didn't do any math but for the look of it, Dark Soul it's more strong then Doomguard? :P

Yesterday I pop it at <20% on Stone Guards and I ranked 14º Stone Guards 25 HC. And the other lock pop him after all tiles are light up and he ranked 13º.

Well it's seems I will do it like I was normally doing, pop him at the begin of any fight, unless it's a Zorlok type.

You guys have any idea how much dps Doomguard are giving us when he it's up? 1-2k? Less then that?

Thanks it seems I don't need to worry too much with this bloody guardian :D.

[maggie 4]

I read all your info and I honestly thank you

I was always Destro then switched to Affliction for the mobility Affliction has, You are a talented guy

Keep up these posts, they are awesome !!

[dooms 1]

really nice and deep tips.. i'll try it on my next raid.. thx zagam

[Zagam 1,982]

Changed to reflect 5.1 changes.

[Vortex 3]

"Tier 1

Dark Regeneration - defensive cooldown that heals you and increases healing received. Typically only needed to recover from heavy damage that your healers need assistance with. Inferior to Soul Leech in most situations.

Soul Leech - passive continuous healing that will provide a majority of the healing done to your Warlock. So powerful that you will often heal yourself for MORE than your healers will heal you. This should be your staple raiding talent.

Soul Harvest - lackluster AoE talent that doesn't provide a whole lot of power. If you require AoE for a fight, consider Demonology."

You mean Harvest Life I believe, not Soul Harvest( spell doesn't exist anymore).

[Zagam 1,982]

Typo. Thanks.

Soul Harvest does exist as a passive health regeneration for Demonology...just an fyi =)

[Twinkielock 15]

Zagam,

What changed in your guide? I read it twice and I can't notice the difference. Regardless thank you for doing everything you do!

[Zagam 1,982]

I added the talents section and modified the Pandemic section. The talent section highlights the change to Kil'Jaeden's Cunning while the Pandemic section removed the part about the bug that existed until today. All good things!

[Roy 0]

Greetings! First, I would like to say very solid post for those learning and/or better understanding Affliction.

I did see that you posted that the viable haste threshold, gear allowed of course, was 4707 for the extra corruption tick for extra chance to proc nightfall for haunt uptime. Although it's close, according to this spreadsheet the non-goblin haste figure I belive you are referring to is 4717 haste, rather than 4707.

If you would like to view the spreadsheet directly, here is a link:

https://docs.google....xZmFYa0E#gid=12

Again, great post!

Edit: Forgot to mention the Goblin Racial haste figure is 4249.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Roy

[Zagam 1,982]

Thanks. Again, another typo. I really should hire a proofreader -_-

[schmearcampain 0]

Zagam:

"Mannoroth's Fury - boosts the range of AoE abilities by "500%." 500% sounds way bigger than it actually is. It boosts the RADIUS of the AoE by 500%, but this really only increases the AoE range of your abilities by about 225%. Neat in concept, but again not really required for anything."

It should read, boosts the AREA of the AoE by 500%, but only increases the RADIUS by about 225%

Love the guide.

[Zagam 1,982]

Noted, but I can't get nickpicky about what is actually constituted by Manno's Fury. If you want to really think about the math, it definitely does NOT increase the AREA by 500%. This would make your reticle absolutely humongous. It's some value I don't really want to think about with all the clunky math.

[schmearcampain 0]

The math is actually pretty simple. Area of a circle = Pi * radius ^ 2. The Area increases exponentially as the radius increases linearly.

Check out Seed of Corruption. Without Manno's, it's radius is 15m. The area the spell covers is 3.14 * 15 * 15, or 706.5 sq. meters.

With Manno's on, the tool tip for SoC says 34m radius. 3.14 * 34 * 34 = 3629.84 sq meters.

3629.84 / 706.5 = 5.13, or roughly 513%.

[Kravn 5]

Having trouble finding definitive math on the relative values of Jade Spirit vs. Windsong for Aff in 5.1 now that Jade Spirit is on the RPPM. Simcraft does not seem to model Windsong uptimes accurately. Anyone found hard numbers here?

[Gaius 0]

Tier 3

Soul Link - Provides 20% extra HP when combined with Grimoire of Sacrifice. This is substantial in that all of our healing is based on percent of max HP. Higher HP = higher healing.

Wow, I didn't even know about that. The tool-tip for Soul Link doesn't say anything about it and the tool-tip for Grimoire of Sacrifice only mentions it when you actually have Soul Link active as a talent, which I never had because I assumed it would only be useful with an active demon. Kind of bad design :/

[Zagam 1,982]

The math is actually pretty simple. Area of a circle = Pi * radius ^ 2. The Area increases exponentially as the radius increases linearly.

Check out Seed of Corruption. Without Manno's, it's radius is 15m. The area the spell covers is 3.14 * 15 * 15, or 706.5 sq. meters.

With Manno's on, the tool tip for SoC says 34m radius. 3.14 * 34 * 34 = 3629.84 sq meters.

3629.84 / 706.5 = 5.13, or roughly 513%.

I'm an engineer by profession and training. I know how the math works. I just don't believe the tool-tips. As you say, the area increases exponentially as the radius increases linearly. Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking the radius increased 500% when it actually is the area and the radius increases 34/15 or 227%.

Having trouble finding definitive math on the relative values of Jade Spirit vs. Windsong for Aff in 5.1 now that Jade Spirit is on the RPPM. Simcraft does not seem to model Windsong uptimes accurately. Anyone found hard numbers here?

I believe that the RPPM of 2 now makes it so that Jade Spirit is significantly better than it used to be for us and has a much higher uptime. Because I've not received a bloody weapon in 25+ token tries (no bitterness here, clearly -_-), I've been able to do real testing as I do with most of the things on here. I know that people were reporting that it actually refreshed on them indicating that, unlike Power Torrent, you can actually, theoretically, have Jade Spirit up 100% of the time. Of course, these are just reports and rumors. Actual testing (not Simcraft modeling) should give a little better explanation.

Wow, I didn't even know about that. The tool-tip for Soul Link doesn't say anything about it and the tool-tip for Grimoire of Sacrifice only mentions it when you actually have Soul Link active as a talent, which I never had because I assumed it would only be useful with an active demon. Kind of bad design :/

Just like their ability to push out changes without telling us? The QQ on the forums about Chaos Bolt's nerf and that stupid DoT caused massive amounts of rage. I also felt like we had one of two things happen with 5.1

1) DoTs were buffed

2) Tooltips were corrected

I know that before 5.1, my Agony tooltip said that it would do 80k over 23.3 seconds. Now it says it does 170k over 23.3 seconds. Maybe it finally incorporates Mastery in its tooltip? Who knows. However, one thing is clear: Blizzard doesn't like to tell you when things change. But yes, if you use Soul Link, when you sacrifice your demon, you get 20% more HP. This is why Soul Link > Dark Bargain for raids.

[schmearcampain 0]

I know that before 5.1, my Agony tooltip said that it would do 80k over 23.3 seconds. Now it says it does 170k over 23.3 seconds. Maybe it finally incorporates Mastery in its tooltip? Who knows. However, one thing is clear: Blizzard doesn't like to tell you when things change.

What it's quoting now is the Agony damage done if all ticks are done with 10 stacks instead of with a ramp up. I tested this on a dummy and it worked out almost exactly. Tool tip says up to 114,400 dmg done and my 10 stack ticks hit each time for 8799. 13 * 8799 = 114,387

What I did notice last night was that my CoE debuff doesn't show all the time anymore on raid enemies. I'm guessing it's because another +5% spell damage debuff is placed on him after mine is, but 1) That debuff doesn't show up either and 2) it never used to make my CoE icon disappear. It's kind of annoying having to remember if I've placed it on a mob or not.

[Zagam 1,982]

CoE can only be overwritten by other CoEs since every other magic damage taken debuff has a shorter duration. Coordinate with other Warlocks to find out who's doing CoE.

[Fel 42]

I had a question regarding execute phases. Two questions actually.

1) During raid boss execute phases, unless I'm unlucky, I have a DS:M to use because I save for up to 30 secs for this purpose. When I use it, I tend to use the following order:

DS:M + SB: SS

Haunt

MG x 2.5

SB: SS

At this point, I now have ~10 secs left on my DS:M, and if I wasnt totally stupid/unlucky, a couple of my procs are up and I have DS:M hasted and proc-buffed DoTs with max duration on the target.

From here, I am uncertain whether it is best to continue to use SB:SS to refresh DoTs each time UA is about to expire, as the guide suggests, or whether I should use a separate GCD for that DoT to allow the hugely buffed Corr and Agony to continue rolling. I guess there would be 3 choices:

a) Haunt > UA > DS, repeat and use SB:SS to refresh all once Corr is coming due.

B) Haunt > UA > Corr > DS and use SB:SS to refresh all once Agony is coming due.

c) Follow the guide and use SB:SS to refresh all when US is coming due, thus overwriting all the mega-dots with normal ones but saving the extra GCDs.

2) During execute phases, I tend to find myself swimming in soul shards after the first 30 seconds or so. At that point, once every second haunt cycle I need to use two, one to SB:SS DoTs back up and one to reapply haunt. During the non Sb:SS cylce though I simply use one shard for haunt, and that quickly caps me again at 4 shards since by that time I am already maxed.

My question therefor is, when I would normally simply cast haunt the one time to keep it's effect on the boss, should I just cast it 3x back to back? It hits very hard I've noticed. This would come down to the damage of Haunt vs the damage of Drain Soul ticks I would imagine, but there may be other factors I am neglecting.

Thanks in advance for any tips, and just to reiterate; thank you for the guides, I'd be a far less effective afflock without this website and Zagam's input.

[Vortex 3]

On execute you SHOULD only cast Haunt and use Drain Soul and let it tick with your Haunt up. Drain Soul it's really strong on execute, their ticks do insane damage. Don't trown all of your haunts, you'll spend precious time without your Drain Soul ticking. He hits like 13435504934939 trucks on execute phase.

Let's imagine you're on top 5 and boss have 21% hp, you refresh all your dots if you gain some proc's, haunt and let Drain Soul do the rest of your job. You can go top5 to top1 only with Haunt and Drain Soul. Don't spend 2-3 seconds spending all your shards clueless .

Example: Haunt, Drain Soul until your Haunt have 1-2 seconds left, Haunt, Drain soulllllll, rinse and repeat. Refresh all your dots with SB:SS on execute phase.

Edit: I <3 so much Drain Soul, i'm doing awesome crits on execute phase 200-300k crit. Best Drain Soul EVER! I feel really strong with all of those Drain Soul ticks!

Edited December 4, 2012 by Vortex

[Zagam 1,982]

Do NOT use Haunt back to back. The rule of thumb is to not overwrite Haunt. During execute, you'll want Haunt up full time while managing the power of your DoTs. Don't use SB:SS if you had a monster proc...just let your DoTs tick to their last duration and manually cast. Since Drain Soul powers your DoT ticks from Drain Soul ticks, you don't want to lose this power as the DPS loss will be multplicative. Most people would just rather avoid complications and just apply via SB:SS, but this is a huge DPS loss if you don't manage the power of your Agony. Overwriting a 37k spell power Agony with a 24k spell power Agony would crush your execute phase. Manage DoTs, manage DoTs, manage DoTs. Keep Haunt up, use DS as filler.