5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Morgaliel 2]

Happy holidays to all !

I've had my 4p bonus for a week, and I am wondering how to efficiently manage my shards. One said that you should be saving them to Haunt while DS is up which is more difficult now than before. So, I have tried some things, such as saving the initial SB:SS ar the beginning of DS, but Ii would appreciate some other players' advice. So, if you are lucky enough to have this bonus, how has it changed your shard management ? Any tricks ?

Also, another question which has been bothering me : let's say I only have one shard when DS is about to finish. Should I use the shard to :

- SB:SS at the last second of DS,

- manually refresh dots that are about to fall (likely UA and when Haunt is active) and Haunt,

- hardcast all 3 dots 5 sec before the end of DS and Haunt.

Thanks.

[Zagam 1,982]

It's all dependent on the DoT's spellpower. The 4pc bonus has done nothing for me except boost my DPS significantly by managing the spellpower of my DoTs. Mindlessly refreshing DoTs won't do you anything except make your DPS decent. Managing the strength of your DoTs will put you in the fantastic to ridiculously awesome category. There is no clear answer as to when you should refresh your DoTs except when they are benefiting the most from your buffs at that moment. All I do is use Haunt every time I have a shard. If I don't have a shard, I don't worry about Haunt regardless of whether or not Dark Soul is up. With this strategy, I've put up 5 top 50 parses and 2 top 10 parses. Can't really argue against that.

[Morgaliel 2]

Very interesting. Previously, I was saving up my shards for DS in order to begin with SB:SS, Haunt all the way and SB:SS at the end if I could. This means that I could slightely delay DS if I didn't have at least 2-3 shards along with good procs.

I will try to focus a little less on Haunt and my shards, and more on my dots from now on. Thanks a lot !

[patsfan20 0]

I have a couple of questions. I recently switched from Destruction to Affliction, since everything says Affliction has the highest DPS. So I am still getting used to everything...

1) What are the best gems for each color slot? I am wondering because for blue slots, some sites say Sensei's Wild Jade (160 Mastery + 160 Hit) but others say the Veiled Imperial Amethyst (80 Int + 160 Hit). And for red slots, I had always done the Brilliant Ruby (160 Int), but now some sites are saying to use the Artful Vermillion Onyx (80 Int + 160 Mastery). EDIT: Nevermind... I just found the Gem thread...

2) The Askmrrobot site has me reforging out of Hit and into Mastery, to the point where it would put me well below the Hit cap. Does that make sense?? If I follow Mr Robot, it would put me at 9.64% hit, which is well below the cap.

Sorry for the noob questions... I am trying anything to get my DPS up, it has usually been around the 38-45K range in LFR.

Edited December 26, 2012 by patsfan20

[Zagam 1,982]

The hit issue is addressed in the very first post of this thread. Let me know if you still have particular questions after reading that.

[Boradan 17]

I would like to make a suggestion for the opener.

You currently have:

Curse of Elements -> Dark Soul -> Soulburn: Soul Swap -> Haunt -> Spam Malefic Grasp

If you have a decent raid leader, I would suggest this:

For the pull, have the tank do a

/dbm pull 25

As soon as the timer starts, do a SB - nothing else.. just pop soulburn

a few seconds before the timer ends, you will regenerate your shard and STILL have the soulburn buff by the time the pull happens.

Your opener should then be

Dark Soul>Soulswap (you still have the SB buff)>CoE>haunt>MG (until you get 1 or 2 procs)>reapply buffed dots>Haunt>MG (keeping haunt up for the full duration of your DS/procs)

I have found this to give me a much higher opening burst (effectively a free shard for haunt)

Edited December 27, 2012 by Boradan

[Zagam 1,982]

25 seconds is a longggggg wait for just one person to regenerate a Soul Shard that would have a very minimal effect on your overall DPS. The only situation I can see this being necessary for would be a super tight DPS race like pre-nerf Heroic Ultraxion was.

Also, you wouldn't want to waste a global applying Curse of Elements with Dark Soul active. This would more than make up for the extra Shard you're generating. Keeping Haunt up for the duration of Dark Soul is impossible if you really know how to keep DoTs up during Dark Soul. Reapplying DoTs before Dark Soul wears off would essentially extend Dark Soul for the duration of those DoTs. This is how you stretch Dark Soul, and it would be impossible to keep Haunt up 100% of the time for what is essentially a 50 second Dark Soul. Focus on maintaining the spellpower of your DoTs and using Haunt whenever you have a Soul Shard available. Don't pool them to keep them up full time during Dark Soul. You'll see a much bigger improvement than pooling shards for bursts of damage when your overall sustained performance would be enhanced by just watching your DoTs.

[Boradan 17]

25 seconds is a longggggg wait for just one person to regenerate a Soul Shard that would have a very minimal effect on your overall DPS. The only situation I can see this being necessary for would be a super tight DPS race like pre-nerf Heroic Ultraxion was.

Also, you wouldn't want to waste a global applying Curse of Elements with Dark Soul active. This would more than make up for the extra Shard you're generating. Keeping Haunt up for the duration of Dark Soul is impossible if you really know how to keep DoTs up during Dark Soul. Reapplying DoTs before Dark Soul wears off would essentially extend Dark Soul for the duration of those DoTs. This is how you stretch Dark Soul, and it would be impossible to keep Haunt up 100% of the time for what is essentially a 50 second Dark Soul.

25 seconds isnt that long, and your raid becomes used to it. They can still be eating etc during that period.

You still have 3 global CDs after the pull before haunt is applied, so the dps starts at the same time, and I would rather use a GCD on CoE and get a free shard for Haunt. This would be he equivalent of 1 MG tick or 1 extra haunt...(I normally raid with a rogue, so I dont even use CoE in that opener so I dont actually use the GCD anyways at this point - I usually apply CoE at some later stage after DS wears off)

Also, by 100% uptime on haunt, I meant as much as you CAN with your nightfall procs. I know 100% uptime isnt possible - I should have worded it 'keep haunt up as much as possible' or simply stopped at the 'MG Spam' as you did ;)

Don't pool them to keep them up full time during Dark Soul. You'll see a much bigger improvement than pooling shards for bursts of damage when your overall sustained performance would be enhanced by just watching your DoTs.

I was only suggesting an opener with 5 shards... not general shard management

[Bloodsample 0]

Are there any Addons that display your dots over enemy's head? It would be very helpful on multi target fights.

[Morgaliel 2]

Are there any Addons that display your dots over enemy's head? It would be very helpful on multi target fights.

Yes. Tidyplates. There has been some conflicts with other addons (MSBT) since the 5.1, but it is really awesome !

[Skyrge 9]

Anyone know how to force Askmrrobot to soft-cap my Haste at the 4717 threshold that Zagam mentions in the latest version of this post? I know how to edit stat weights on there, i'm just not sure what value to enter (they say the max is 1 so I'm assuming it's whatever % haste increase is at 4717? >.<).

Also just wanted to mention what I use to keep track of how powerful my DoTs are so I dont SB:SS blindly and overwrite some 39k DoTs with 24k. I know a lot of people like myself use power auras to track DoT timers. Well what I do to avoid having to make an aura for each proc I want to track is use Tinycasterstats. It gives a very simple readout of your current spellpower, haste crit and mastery. I just place it right next to the heads-up display ive made for my DoTs with PowerAuras. That way I can see exactly where my SP and haste are when I refresh a dot and know whether thats one that I want to preserve or replace with a better one ASAP. It's also very easy to see when a lot of your procs line up again. My personal guideline is to just refresh everything if i see my SP get up over 30k regardless of how much time they have left. The only minor downside is that you dont have a timer that says how much time you have left with your super-stats, but after playing this way for a while, it's actually become really intuitive, not to mention you can just glance at youre buffs to see if you have time for a MG channel or two before re-refreshing to take advantage of Pandemic before they wear off. Zagam is totally right. By using this strat I would say that I'm spending the majority of most fights with my DoTs running in the 30k-35k range instead of my base 23k spellpower.

[Zagam 1,982]

Skyrge, I recommend the addon called "Affdots"...it essentially summarizes what you've done with Powerauras but would be better for those of us not skilled at setting up such auras. It puts a neat little window on your screen and does exactly what you mention, except it just has numbers. 100 means your DoT is ticking at the same spell power you applied it. 150 means your current spell power is 50% higher than it was when you applied your DoT, and 50 means your spell power is half of what it was when you applied your DoTs. It also makes a neat little color table...Green = Spell Power is higher AND you can fully benefit from Pandemic, so stop what you're doing and reapply. Red = don't. Yellow = DoT about to wear off, so be ready to reapply regardless of spell power, and Blue means you have a higher spell power but won't totally gain the benefit of Pandemic. Typically you'll see a lot of Blue when a proc happens...I tend to ignore Blue and consider it Green if the value is 125 or higher. This addon has COMPLETELY alleviated the necessity to micro manage 3 DoTs in my head. It's something that no human can manage...this addon makes life simple...enough for me to push 125k DPS on a 3 minute Gara'jal at 494 ilvl. I can't recommend that bad boy enough, but I'm super glad to hear someone vouch for managing DoT spell power! Makes my Friday morning haha

[Skyrge 9]

That is....AWESOME!!! Ihave resisted the full UI replacements because, for some odd reason, I don't seem to mind customizing my own with add-ons that I like, but Affdots is one that I will definitely try. See what you did there? I take and take from this site, and when I try to give something back, you just give me more! Meh, Warlocks shouldn't care about karma anyway. Thanks for the tip...again, lol.

By the way, any ideas on that haste value for mrrobot's gear optimizer? I think it just wants the %haste from gear rather than the stat value of 4717.

[Zagam 1,982]

I think 425 haste rating = 1%? So 4717 would be exactly 11.0988235294%. Blizz rounds to 4 decimals, so you're looking at 11.0988% which would show up as 11.10% haste on your character sheet. If AMR doesn't help you with your reforging, use wowreforge.com. That's what I use. Or I can send you my super awesome spreadsheet that I use myself...lol

[Skyrge 9]

Thanks again Zagam, I think I've got it. Lazy of me really, I could've looked it up and converted it, never occurred to me though, durrr. AMR must be including raid buffs or something, it takes 16.72% haste to make it push Haste over 4717, so for anyone else going after that threshold set the softcap value (not the weight) at 0.167. So here we go, Hit to cap, Haste to at least 4717, then Mastery...Has me trading 2354 mastery from my current set-up to make the Haste soft cap...Including reforging out of Mastery for Hit or Expertise on 2 pieces. Hmmmmm...not sure about that, I might just say close enough on the hit cap and keep the 344 Mastery.

Anyone at all feel free to flame away or critique, espescially you Zagam. Skyrge @ Blackrock-US for armory. Before you blast me for not raiding though...my work schedule isn't letting me raid on a regular basis, so yes, I'm going through all of this to, I don't know, be the best pug i can be? King of LFR? ahhh fml, I miss wiping on heroic progression, lol

Edited December 29, 2012 by Skyrge

[Sternebrezeln 0]

hey there,

I have a question about proccs and ICDs of trinkets.

Lets say Trinket1 procced in this very moment and the ICD of Trinket2 has 3 seconds left, of course you will wait until Trinket2 proccs and then refresh your DoTs.

My Question is how big this "waiting before second procc comes" window is.

For expample, Trinket1 procced and Trinket2 will procc in 8 seconds. Will you refresh DoTs right now and in 8 seconds again? or will you wait?

You see the problem is, Trinket1 proccs, I refresh the DoTs, 8 seconds later Trinket2 proccs and AffDots will not become "blue" because its not a ">125" power gain. So Im not sure how to handle that situation.

Whoever reapplies to this, I appreaciate your time =)

Edited January 4, 2013 by Sternebrezeln

[Gravyspasm 70]

AffDots will not become "blue" because its not a ">125" power gain. So Im not sure how to handle that situation.

can't we control that threshold? i haven't really poked around with that addon other than installing it and letting it do its thing, so i apologize if that is an obviously incorrect statement.

just feels like there might be (should be) control over how big/small of a change before it goes blue/yellow

[Zagam 1,982]

125 is the threshold in which reapplying a DoT is worth the global even when Pandemic will not be fully utilized. Not sure how you are going to focus on how long your trinkets have and expecting them to line up. For example, let's assume you have Relic and Light of the Cosmos. Relic has a 30% uptime with a 15 sec duration and Light of the Cosmos has a 42% uptime with a 20 second duration. So your uptimes would look like this...

(all times in seconds from start of combat)

Relic: 0-15, 65-80, 130-145, 195-210, 260-275, 325-340, 400-415 (7 minutes of combat)

LoTC: 0-20, 68-88, 136-156, 204-224, 272-292, 340-360, 408-428 (7 minutes of combat)

If you look real close, you can see the line up extremely well together. See here:

Time intervals

00-15: both

16-20: LoTC

21-64: nothing

65-67: Relic

68-80: both

81-88: LoTC

etc.

These trinkets overlap all the way until second 340. At second 340 (5 minutes, 40 seconds) Relic is falling off and LoTC is starting. This isn't going to break you, and this is something Simulationcraft CANNOT model. This is why extremely skilled Affliction Warlocks can embarrass the simulation theoretical DPS...knowledge of these time thresholds had to be maintained until Affdots came around. Now you can just play recklessly and update your DoTs based on this addon. If you REALLY want to get down to the nitty gritty, you can lay out your DoT times to figure out exactly at what seconds you'll be applying DoTs, but then playing Affliction becomes robotic and REALLY not fun.

The fact that you acknowledge two trinkets are coming and lining up means that you're likely performing optimally. Being aware of adjustments to your spell power will make you an incredibly talented Warlock, even if you don't or can't fully utilize it. Just do the best you can and soon reapplying will seem like 2nd nature.

[vladMTL 1]

hi there

do you guys know in terms of pure math dps how much would be the orc racial and the ud one ... was thinking of doing a race change from goblin to ... something else *sigh*

thanks

[JvChequer 43]

The dps increase did not worth the money, is around 1-2k max, if u are belf to orc, since u're goblin and haste is pretty damn important the racial change probably will increase just a bit your dps if u know how to use your racial with your trinkets and DS.

[Zagam 1,982]

"Worth" is subjective to the person paying for something. If you're looking at it from a dollar per DPS gain, don't pay for it. Here's the breakdown for each and you decide:

Goblin --> Orc

You lose Rocket Jump, 1% haste, a personal bank, exalted prices from all vendors, and a plethora of corny jokes

You gain 2% pet damage, 1% expertise if holding a Wand, 15% stun reduction, a 2k+ spell power cooldown, and the best shoulder cosmetic appearance

Goblin --> Undead

You lose Rocket Jump, 1% haste, a personal bank, exalted prices from all vendors, and a plethora of corny jokes

You gain Touch of the Grave (1-2% of your total damage), the best spell animations, Will of the Forsaken, and you can Cannibalize players you slay

Goblins allow an easier time reaching spell haste thresholds. It basically comes down mostly to what is important to you. For example, I went Goblin ---> Orc when I finished Challenge Modes because my gear needed to be bigger. Worth $25? Absolutely. For you, I would pocket that money and get yourself something.

[vladMTL 1]

thanks for the replies, was just curious from the dps point of view how much that racial would be, the 20e wont be a problem ... if i'll miss something would be being small ( always wanted to be a noam :D ) and most def. the rocket jump got me out of A LOT of problems ever since cata started :( :)

thanks !

[Megafon923 0]

hi gays! please sorry for my question. very difficult to find the right information, at the fact that I do not know much English. Sorryyyyyy:(

if I do 4717 haste what bonuses I get from this? item ivl 486 . I could lose an important Mastery. is it worth it?

[skurn 0]

great guide, really helpful as im dusting down my vanilla/tbc lock havent recently got him to 90. actually prefer demo but afflics more relaxing for alt raiding.

[Zagam 1,982]

hi gays! please sorry for my question. very difficult to find the right information, at the fact that I do not know much English. Sorryyyyyy:(

if I do 4717 haste what bonuses I get from this? item ivl 486 . I could lose an important Mastery. is it worth it?

You get extra DoT ticks. At your item level, you SHOULD be going for 4717 haste.