5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Zagam 1,982]

Here are some notes on how to better play your Affliction Warlock. Be sure to read through these series of posts to find other players' thoughts and ideas. I've done my best to summarize here.

Table of Contents

1) DoTs and You

2) Affliction's Feel and Nature

3) Affliction's Resources

4) Opener and Execution

5) Soul Shard Management

6) Agony

7) Unstable Affliction & Corruption

8) Dark Soul:Misery

9) Seed of Corruption and AoE

10) Stat Priorities

11) Empowered DoTs and maximizing your Warlock

12) Pandemic and Fel Flame and Doomguard...OH MY!

13) Talents and Glyphs

14) Tier 16 Bonuses

15) Trinkets

16) Affliction Math and Theorycrafting

 

 

1) DoTs and you
 

Affliction Warlocks are all about their DoTs and Mastery: Potent Afflictions.  In 5.4, this is even more true as damage has been pulled from Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul and put into Agony, Unstable Affliction, and Corruption.  Affliction's execution is based on keeping DoTs as powerful as possible by reapplying with procs, buffing with Haunt, and managing Soul Shards as its spec-dependent resource.  Affliction is all about making split-second decisions and reacting to things that change on a second by second basis. 

 

 

2) Affliction's Feel and Nature

 

Affliction is reverting back to how it felt before Mists of Pandaria which is a strong multidotting class with high potency in both single target and AoE scenarios.  You'll be spending over 60% of your time casting Malefic Grasp, but most of your damage will come from your ability to correctly apply procs to your DoTs and sustain them as long as possible.  With the 5.4 DoT buff, you're going to want to put DoTs on anything that is attackable.  If it's alive, DoT it. 

 

 

3) Affliction's Resources

 

Affliction relies on two primary resources: mana and Soul Shards. 

 

Mana is consumed by casting any spell and is gradually consumed during Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul on a per tick basis. Mana is regained by using Life Tap.  You will never need to worry about mana issues as an Affliction Warlock.  Your ability to recover large portions of mana with Life Tap is intended to be part of your rotation.  However, you should use it as little as possible and try to end each fight with very low mana.

 

Soul Shards are Affliction's specialization-dependent resource.  Understanding what they are, how to use them, and how to generate them separates mediocre Warlocks from great Warlocks.  Soul Shards come with an initial value of 4.  They can be spent in a multitude of ways, but your 3 primary damage dealing methods involve Seed of Corruption, Soulburn: Soul Swap, and Haunt.

 

Using Soulburn activates special properties for the next spell you cast.  For Seed of Corruption, it empowers the explosion that happens and makes it apply Corruption to each mob the explosion hits.  Using Soulburn before using Soul Swap enables you to apply all 3 DoTs to your target instantly.  Finally, casting Haunt will consume Soul Shards.  More will be discussed with each of these in subsequent sections of this guide.  Soul Shards are acquired passively outside of combat at a slow rate.  Inside of combat, there are only two ways to acquire Soul Shards: by killing something with Drain Soul applied to it or by proccing Nightfall.

 

Killing an enemy with Drain Soul will completely replenish your Soul Shards.  Any time you can kill an add with low health, you should employ this method to refill on your Soul Shards. 

 

When Corruption ticks, you have a 10% chance to proc Nightfall which returns Soul Shards to you.  In 5.4, this effect can no longer occur from all Corruptions currently applied.  It, instead, applies ONLY to your most recent Corruption. 

 

 

4) Opener and Execution

 

Affliction's opener should be like this:

(prepot) Curse of the Elements -> Dark Soul: Misery -> Haunt -> Soulburn: Soul Swap -> Malefic Grasp until all procs up -> Soulburn: Soul Swap -> Malefic Grasp spam + Haunt maintenance
 

This opening allows you to get Haunt out followed by all of your DoTs.  As your procs happen, your spell power will explode into a very high value.  You'll want to take advantage of this by reapplying all DoTs and taking advantage of Pandemic to lock in those procs for a long period of time.  A strong opener is important for Affliction.  Thankfully, it is very simple to execute.

Affliction's execution should be like this:

 

Soulburn: Soul Swap -> Haunt -> Drain Soul

 

As soon as an enemy hits 20%, you should no longer be casting Malefic Grasp.  While you are casting Drain Soul, each 2 ticks will generate Soul Shards.  You will use this mechanic to ensure 100% Haunt uptime during execution.  If your DoTs are about to fall off, reapply with Soulburn: Soul Swap.  Otherwise, refresh Haunt and keep Drain Soul applied. 

 

It has been said by a few highly skilled Warlocks that consuming all of your Soul Shards by spamming Haunt before going back to Drain Soul during execute phase is stronger with the changes to Affliction in 5.4.  I've not yet tested, but I trust these guys.  In execute phase, spam Haunt before going back to Drain Soul!

 

 

5) Soul Shards Management

 

Soul Shards management is VERY important to Affliction Warlocks in order to maximize damage.  Remember, Soul Shards can be regenerated throughout combat and you should always maximize your opportunities to do so.

 

During single target DPS rotations, you should optimize your DPS by performing your opening which will cost two Soul Shards.  After that, you'll be spending your Soul Shards on Haunt, which has been greatly buffed in 5.4.  Haunt now deals 50% more damage on hit as well as increasing all periodic damage by 45%, up from 30% in 5.3.  This puts a higher emphasis on maximizing your Haunt uptime via Soul Shards management.  Because Haunt has a high priority, you will not be wanting to use Soulburn: Soul Swap during single target DPS scenarios.  You'll want to reapply DoTs individually while using Haunt during periods of increased damage or high Intellect, Haste, or Mastery procs.  Corruption will be a high priority to maintain due to Nightfall.  With a 10% chance on tick to generate Soul Shards, leaving this DoT off will severely limit your Soul Shards generation.

 

During any fight with extra targets that die quickly, you'll want to use Drain Soul to finish them off.  Doing this will replenish all 4 of your Soul Shards.  You can use this to your knowledge by spending all of your Soul Shards before an opportunity to replenish them so that Soul Shards are not wasted. 

 

Since Soul Shards are limited, you should strive to optimize their usage as 100% uptime is nearly impossible to achieve and tied heavily to the RNG of Nightfall.  In order to maximize your limited resource, you should always use Haunt during Dark Soul: Misery, Bloodlust, Haste Trigger, or any time you have a large Intellect proc empowering your DoTs.  Try to not use Soul Shards and Haunt during periods of time where your DoTs are not empowered. 

 

With the 4pc T16, Haunt will also have a 10% chance to refund 1 Soul Shards upon expiring.  This will boost your Haunt uptime and increase your DPS. 

 

 

6) Agony

 

Agony is your most important DoT and is worthy of its own section.  Agony operates by dealing increasing damage by the number of stacks it has, up to 10.  Reapplying Agony will maintain its current stacks, so you will not start over at 1 if you reapply Agony while Agony has a 10 stack.  Maintaining a 10 stack of Agony is Affliction's absolute most important task.  Keeping Agony's spell damage as high as possible by reapplying with procs and buffs is also very important.  Letting Agony fall off has extremely negative consequences.

 

At approximately 40k Spell Power, Agony's 10 stack will hit for about 28,000-30,000 damage.  With procs, this gets even higher.  For calculation purposes, let's assume 30,000 for non-crits.  If you maintain a 10 stack for an entire random 10 tick duration, you'd do 30,000 x 10, or 300,000 damage.  However, if you were to have let Agony fall off and had to rebuild during this same 10 tick cycle, your first tick would hit for 3,000, your 2nd for 6,000, etc.  For emphasis, this is what you'd be losing:

 

Tick 1: 3,000 (-27,000)

Tick 2: 6,000 (-24,000)

Tick 3: 9,000 (-21,000)

...

Tick 9: 27,000 (-3,000)

Tick 10: 30,000 (-0)

 

Total lost = 0 - 3000 - 6000 - 9000 - ... - 24000 - 27000 = 135,000 damage.  That's a lot of damage lost for letting Agony fall off, and this number is enhanced by other buffs and critical hits.  Don't EVER let Agony fall off.

 

 

7) Unstable Affliction & Corruption

 

These are the other two DoTs in the Warlock arsenal.  They are less potent than Agony, but important nonetheless.  Unstable Affliction hits harder than Corruption, but it requires more applications.  Make sure you keep Unstable Affliction uptime as high as possible.  Letting Unstable Affliction fall off for a second isn't the end of the world because it doesn't have a stacking mechanic such as Agony.  Corruption's damage is the least important, but it is most important for the previously mentioned Nightfall effect.  Keep all 3 DoTs up all the time.

 

 

8) Dark Soul: Misery

 

Dark Soul: Misery is now Bloodlust/Time Warp for 20 seconds with a 2 minute CD. 30% Haste is an incredible cooldown. Use it often and love it. Try to time it before applying DoTs so that they benefit from the increased Haste thresholds. If you already have DoTs applied, reapply them. With Pandemic, you'll receive the bonus damage from the DoTs while extending the duration.  Your last Dark Soul: Misery should be saved for execute phase. 
 

9) Seed of Corruption and AoE

 

1-4 targets

Keep your 3 primary DoTs rolling on all targets at all time.  With the buff to DoTs in 5.4, Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul are less important than your DoTs.  Maintain Agony at all costs and keep your other DoTs + Haunt rolling as much as you can.

 

5+ targets

Simply apply a Soulburn: Seed of Corruption to one target and do any damage to the same target. This should trigger the explosion and put Corruption on all targets. After applying a Soulburn: Seed of Corruptionto put Corruption on all targets, simply tab and put Seed of Corruption on as many enemies as you can. The Corruption on each will do enough damage to trigger an explosion which will trigger all the other seeds. For prolonged AoE, maintain the Soulburn: Seed of Corruption part of your rotation once every 16 seconds. For 4-6 targets, after doing this, just use your Soulburn: Soul Swap macro to put more DoTs on 4 targets and Malefic Grasp one of them. Use Drain Soul to replenish Soul Shards for more DoTs.
 

10) Stat Priorities

 

"Crit is Shit" is a good line to remember about your stat priorities as a Warlock in general, especially Affliction.  Affliction's stat priority focuses on some Haste thresholds to maximize ticks of DoTs while gathering tons of Mastery to empower DoTs on a large level.

 

Relevant Haste thresholds:

 

9778: +4 Agony

12439: +3 Unstable Affliction

13157: +5 Agony

13737: +4 Corruption

 

Any Haste level past this is simply too expensive in terms of given up Mastery to pursue.  While Corruption is not an important threshold, since the next threshold is only 600 rating past the Agony threshold, we should pursue it.  This threshold also covers most reasonable thresholds during +30% Haste procs.  Therefore, your recommended Haste threshold is 13,737 Rating.  This rating is affected by the Amplification buff provided by the Purified Bindings of Immerseus.  The Haste threshold you should pursue will be dependent on the version of this trinket you have.  See the trinket post on the Warlock forums for more detailed threshold breakdowns.

 

 

11) Empowered DoTs and maximizing your Warlock

 

There is a lot of complexity to maximizing Affliction's DPS. It's all about knowing what trinkets are proc'd, what buffs are currently on you, and what debuffs are on the boss. To simplify everything, I prioritize keeping my DoTs up with minimal effort which is what Soulburn: Soul Swap does. Obviously RNG plays into your Haunt uptime, but a rule of thumb is to never overwrite a powerful DoT with a lesser DoT. Sounds simple, but it's not.

Take these scenarios for example:

Let's say you don't have any trinkets on. You can test this at your local test target. Apply some DoTs. They will tick for the same damage at the same time interval all the time. The only modifier to their damage will be critical hits. Let's say (these numbers are SO wrong, but I'm using for simplicity) you have 3 DoTs running.

Corruption ticks for 10 damage and has 14 seconds left
Agony ticks for 15 damage and has 22 seconds left
Unstable Affliction ticks for 12 damage and has 6 seconds left

With no buffs present on these adds, they will continue ticking for that damage and only the time left matters. Feel free to extend these DoT durations whenever you see fit. Reapplying Unstable Affliction will make Unstable Affliction continue to tick for 12 damage but now the duration will be 20 seconds (14+6, because 6 is less than the maximum allowed to be added to 14 via Pandemic, which would be 7).

Now let's say you're a tailor or engineer and you use Synapse Springs or have your Lightweave proc. If you do NOT reapply DoTs, your DoTs will continue to tick for the same damage. However, let's say you're alerted to one of these procs and you reapply your DoTs. Again, remember these numbers are made up for simplicity, but you see the effect...

Corruption ticks for 13 damage for 24 seconds (16 + 8)
Agony ticks for 18 damage for 36 seconds (24 + 12)
Unstable Affliction ticks for 15 damage for 20 seconds (14+6)

Now we have empowered DoTs ticking for their maximum duration! Let's JUST look at Agony. Let's say Synapse Springs lasts for 10 seconds (not sure, not an engineer). So at that point, you'd have Agony ticking for 18 damage with 26 seconds left on its timer. If you were to reapply Agony at 18 seconds to get back up to 36 seconds, you would LOSE the empowered DoT. You'd go back to Agony ticking for 15 damage for 36 seconds. In this scenario, it's better to NOT reapply DoTs until your empowered DoTs are about to wear off. Follow?

Now let's add trinkets to the mess. At the beginning of the fight, you will have all of your procs line up. Lightweave, a potion, Dark Soul: Misery, two trinkets...I call this the "works." You won't get the "works" at any other point in the fight because of different timers. However, you can use knowledge of internal cooldowns on trinkets to see if you can line up things you can control, such as a potion or Dark Soul: Misery, . If you set up some auras or classtimers with WeakAuras to notify you of stuff procing, you can use that moment to reapply DoTs for a bigger effect. You can also see when Dark Soul: Misery, or a trinket has 4 seconds left on its buff, you could reapply DoTs again benefitting from Pandemic AND receiving the damage buff for the extended duration. At the beginning of the fight when you apply your DoTs, they are going to be mega DoTs. This is what Pandemic is designed for. Affliction is as good as you make your DoTs last, but if you want to excel, learn to REALLY understand that empowered DoTs remain empowered throughout their duration even after your buffs wear off. Take advantage of this and see your numbers skyrocket.

 

RPPM factors come into play on how often they proc.  The 5.4 trinkets include some RPPM procs and some ICD procs.  For ICD procs, you'd do well to track timers so that you know when they will proc.  This allows for planned Haunt and CD use.  RPPM trinkets are more random and require a notification system such as a WeakAura string to notify you of a proc.  Managing these procs is what makes or breaks an Affliction Warlock.
 

12) Pandemic and Fel Flameand Summon Doomguard...OH MY!

 

Fel Flame has been changed in 5.4 to do more damage, cost less mana, and most importantly, not reapply or extend DoTs.  This gives Affliction a very healthy spell to use while moving without destroying our potential buffed DoTs.  Fel Flame will be a very solid choice, especially if you elect not to take Kil'jaeden's Cunning.

 

Now, we've done all of that without really looking at Pandemic. With Pandemic, it states that when you refresh a DoT, up to 50% of the maximum duration will be added to the current casting DoT. Maybe it sounds confusing, so I'll lay it out here.

Unstable Affliction = 14 second base duration with a tick speed of 2 seconds. With Pandemic, you can add up to 7 seconds of your previous remaining time to a new cast. Let's look at some reapplying methods and timings for emphasis:

Refresh Unstable Affliction at 2 seconds left --> Unstable Affliction with 16 second duration
Refresh Unstable Affliction at 5 seconds left --> Unstable Affliction with 19 second duration
Refresh Unstable Affliction at 7 seconds left --> Unstable Affliction with 21 second duration
Refresh Unstable Affliction at 10 seconds left --> Unstable Affliction with 21 second duration
Refresh Unstable Affliction at 14 seconds left --> Unstable Affliction with 21 second duration

As you can see, the optimal time to refresh Unstable Affliction is ANYTIME below 7 seconds remaining. If you do this, you gain the maximum duration via Pandemic.

Using Pandemic and stat snapshots is what separates Warlocks who score in the 50th percentile versus the ones who score in the 90th percentile. Knowing how Pandemic and snapshot for stats works, you can monitor many things. The way I work my DoT application is based off of trinket procs. For example, right before Dark Soul: Misery wears off, I reapply DoTs no matter how much time is left on them to get the maximum benefit of additional ticks with the 30% spell haste buff. This is importat at the start because all of your trinkets and enchants would have proc'd as well. Typically the way the stars align, right as my Dark Soul is about to wear off (3 seconds left), my trinkets are about to fall off as well. With 3 seconds left, I refresh UA, Corruption, and Agony. Now, for the full duration of these DoTs, I will NOT refresh them. They are super powerful DoTs that if refreshed would revert back to your current stats which are nowhere close to what you were just under the effect of.

 

For the Summon Doomguard, he doesn't do a whole lot more damage when he's under execute phase. Execute phases are typically shorter than the minute duration you get him for so when the boss dies, you'd likely be standing there next to your big friend and he has nothing to target. This means you wasted potential DPS. Your Summon Doomguard also benefits from snapshot stats. I prefer to use my Summon Doomguard at the beginning when my static spell power goes up with all of the procs.  I know I at least get full uptime with super mega stats that likely won't be nice enough to align when the boss hits 20% for optimal use. It is, however, to note that your Summon Doomguard should be used on any part of the fight that requires an extra push to get through a phase faster

Note that your Summon Doomguard will only cast 17 Doombolts.  Make sure he's getting them all in.  He's not a powerful CD, but he is still important.

 

13) Talents and Glyphs

5.4 has seen some talent overhaul.  All fights are unique enough to warrant a fight-by-fight talent and glyph selection process.  I have a separate forum section devoted to that.  For a good default build, I suggest the following:

 

Tier 1
Soul Leech - 5.4 has reduced this cap to 15% of your max HP, down from 100%.  This was a hefty nerf, but it is still strong and will provide a high amount of absorption/damage reduction.

 

Tier 2
Mortal Coil - 15% of max HP heal every 45 seconds? Incredible. This should be your staple raiding talent. Use liberally when taking damage.

Tier 3
Soul Link - reworked in 5.4 to transfer 20% of damage done to your pet and provide 3% of all damage done as healing to you and your pet.  VERY solid choice for any fight.

 

Tier 4

Unbound Will - staple raiding talent. You can use this to instantly break out of magic effects

 

Tier 5
Grimoire of Supremacy - Affliction's go-to talent choice.  Use the Imp or Observer.

 

Tier 6
Archimonde's Darkness - reworked in 5.4.  Essentially gives you an additional Dark Soul.  For stationary fights, this talent will be very solid.

 

Kil'jaeden's Cunning - 5.4 rework makes it so you can cast Malefic Grasp with no movement penalty.  For high movement fights, you'll want to take KJC.

 

Mannoroth's Fury - boosts the area and increases damage of AoE by 100% for 10 seconds on a 60 second CD.

 

Glyphs are entirely situational and none provide an absolute DPS increase.  Take what is best suited for the encounter at hand.  Note the Haste spreadsheet in section 16 as to whether or not you should use the Glyph of Unstable Affliction.  During Bloodlust, you're going to see a 1.000 sec cast of Unstable Affliction with just 8% Haste.  However, for the rest of the fight, the glyph might be a viable option as you would need over 40% Haste to have a 1.000 sec cast without the glyph.  Use at your discretion.

 

 

14) Tier 16 Bonuses

 

Affliction's 2pc T16 set bonus causes Unstable Affliction critical hits to have a 50% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 15% for 10 seconds.  This is a pretty nice set bonus because it results in a pretty high uptime.  At BiS gear levels deprioritizing Crit, Crit rating is close to 25% raid buffed.  This means each Unstable Affliction tick has a 25% to Crit and those Crits have a 50% chance to proc a buff that lasts for 10 seconds.  Considering non-BiS levels of Haste with the recommended threshold of 13737, you'll be getting 17 Unstable Affliction ticks in 14 seconds.  While actual results will vary, you could expect 4 of those Unstable Affliction ticks to Crit and 2 of those Crits to proc the buff.  This is without considering the Malefic Grasp and DS ticks of Unstable Affliction.  This 2pc bonus will have a high uptime, which coorelates to a significant DPS gain.  The best part is it requires no change in gameplay.  It is purely a DPS buff.

 

Affliction's 4pc T16 set bonus causes Haunt to have a 10% chance to refund its Soul Shards cost.  This is pretty awesome in that it increases your Haunt damage as well as your overall Haunt uptime which vastly increases DPS. 

 

The 2pc is absolutely essential as it comes out to a high DPS gain.  The 4pc is largely RNG reliant and can be good but can also be unnoticeable.  High Haunt uptime doesn't require this set bonus, so if you have better itemized pieces of gear, feel free to pass up the 4pc bonus.

 

 

15) Trinkets

 

 

1. Purified Bindings of Immerseus

2. Black Blood of Y'Shaarj

3. Kardris' Toxic Totem

 

The Multistrike trinket will be interesting.  Since Black Blood was changed to be a better version of Wushoolay's, it looks solid again.  Bindings proc is 115 sec CD while Black Blood and Toxic Totem have RPPMs of 0.92. 

 

 

16) Affliction Math and Theorycrafting

 

 

EDITED: 08/28/2013 (Patch 5.4)

Edited November 15, 2013 by Zagam

[Skyrge 9]

Thanks so much for this. It does answer the one question I had regarding Harvest Life and Yor'sahj's Black Bloods. If you're using it on that fight I guess it's safe to assume that the heal doesn't proc Deep Corruption. That fight is one of the first things I thought of when I first saw that talent. Guess I won't be needing my prepared apology for blowing everyone up.

[Zagam 1,982]

It's odd, but I never had Black combined with Purple last night, so I can't say 100% whether Harvest Life counts or not. It's so weird on that mechanic on what counts or what doesn't count, but I don't remember Drain Life counting. Evocation does count, but Healthstones do not. You're more than welcome to check it out and post it here. I plan on building a Warlock 'tricks and tips' page here that will make the one on Elitist Jerks look bad (mostly because they forgot about it). By pooling this information, we can make sure that Icy-Veins stays on top of the world on guiding Warlocks into helping their guild succeed!

[Skyrge 9]

When we run it next week I will try it out. If I blow up our raid I'll let you know. All in the name of science and what not. ;) And yes, all of your guides and forums blow EJ away. I tell everyone who asks how to do anything to come here. The standardized format is great and you guys have made me a much better player. Much appreciated.

[tallonsden 0]

Ok, I see where you say the rotation should be:

4) Affliction's opener should be like this:

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

My question is where is corr,agony and ua in the order or does it not matter the order in which you cast them? Also, is it best to cast haunt when it's free even if you're mid-cast on grasp?

Which talents did you take dark regen/soul leech and burning rush/unbound will?

Thanks for the help in advance.

[Bobio 1]

You said..

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

what or where is Demon soul?

I dont see that in my spell book,,,

[Ouic 1]

Excellent overview, Zagam. I'm curious if you tested out doing any channel-twisting mid-combat to help with shard regen, or if that is a significant loss?

Ok, I see where you say the rotation should be:

4) Affliction's opener should be like this:

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

My question is where is corr,agony and ua in the order or does it not matter the order in which you cast them? Also, is it best to cast haunt when it's free even if you're mid-cast on grasp?

Which talents did you take dark regen/soul leech and burning rush/unbound will?

Thanks for the help in advance.

That initial Soulburn: Soul Swap will apply all three DoTs, so the order isn't an issue. If you were to manually apply them, for whatever reason, you'd probably want to prioritize Agony (the sooner it stacks up, the better) > Corruption > UA.

I'm not 100% on the current numbers, but if Haunt is not up or it's about to fall off, I'd interrupt Grasp. Haunt is just an incredible amount of damage, especially if Nightfall procs feel like making friends.

Of those you asked about, many seem to be taking Harvest Life and Unbound Will. Many of these are really preference/playstyle/encounter-based choices, though.

You said..

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

what or where is Demon soul?

I dont see that in my spell book,,,

Demon Soul is now called Dark Soul and it's benefit changes based on your specialization. The Affliction version is called Dark Soul: Misery.

[Kispee 0]

You mentioned the necessity of haunt's refreshing.

Let me ask what would you advise when I have 0 soul shard.

Should I pray for corruption proc or may I start to channel drain soul to create 1 or 2 (above 20 %)?

[wisredz 3]

My advise would be to keep going normally, you really don't want to let the effect from MG drop off in favor of haunt.

[Hypernovae 0]

Zagam, I have to say thank you for a really clear and informative post.

I have tried your opener and it has boosted my dps by approximately 5k, which is sick. I trully thank you.

However, I want to know what you think about stacking Mastery as opposed to Haste, and what your recommendation for haste in this newer situation where mastery gives so much damage bonus.

Right now my Warlock is by no means BiS in all slots, but I reforged to 15.04 hit,

and i am at 17 percent Haste with 50 percent Mastery. I can certainly reforge more into Mastery, but the question is should I at the expense of haste?

[Zagam 1,982]

Ok, I see where you say the rotation should be:

4) Affliction's opener should be like this:

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

My question is where is corr,agony and ua in the order or does it not matter the order in which you cast them? Also, is it best to cast haunt when it's free even if you're mid-cast on grasp?

Which talents did you take dark regen/soul leech and burning rush/unbound will?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Sorry for the delay...WVU college football game =)

I'm sorry for using the ability "Demon Soul"...I'm stuck in my ways. It is correctly called 'Dark Soul: Misery' and it should be used before applying your dots with Soulburn: Soul Swap because the haste will greatly impact the dps of those DoTs.

Also, for talents, I took Harvest Life, Mortal Coil, Dark Bargain, Unbound Will, and Grim of Sacrifice. I may be tossing Harvest Life aside and using Soul Leech since Soul Harvest is suffering a huge nerf and Rain of Fire was better anyways.

[Zagam 1,982]

You said..

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

what or where is Demon soul?

I dont see that in my spell book,,,

Bobio, I apologize for using the incorrect term. The correct spell is "Dark Soul: MIsery"...I apologize for being stuck in my ways of Cataclysm. I hope you found this ability successfully now =)

[Zagam 1,982]

Excellent overview, Zagam. I'm curious if you tested out doing any channel-twisting mid-combat to help with shard regen, or if that is a significant loss?

That initial Soulburn: Soul Swap will apply all three DoTs, so the order isn't an issue. If you were to manually apply them, for whatever reason, you'd probably want to prioritize Agony (the sooner it stacks up, the better) > Corruption > UA.

I'm not 100% on the current numbers, but if Haunt is not up or it's about to fall off, I'd interrupt Grasp. Haunt is just an incredible amount of damage, especially if Nightfall procs feel like making friends.

Of those you asked about, many seem to be taking Harvest Life and Unbound Will. Many of these are really preference/playstyle/encounter-based choices, though.

Demon Soul is now called Dark Soul and it's benefit changes based on your specialization. The Affliction version is called Dark Soul: Misery.

Criph,

Thank you for your assistance in clarifying my attempts to help people with spell names.

As for your question, I do NOT currently spend time obtaining Soul Shards to keep Haunt applied. I feel it to be too much of a DPS decrease, and most simulations I've looked at and ran have this coming up with a 1% DPS gain if you do it perfectly like a machine would. Considering movement, changing, and human error, no one would be able to obtain a DPS gain by drain twisting. RNG will affect your DPS if Nightfall doesn't proc a lot, but it hasn't destroyed my DPS in any fight. I've been running the crap out of LFR to test various things, and I've never found Drain Soul'ing to get a shard worth the loss of not having Malefic Grasp up. Just keep doing your rotation and then use Haunt when it procs. Take advantage of any add in a fight...as long as Drain Soul is channeling on it when it dies, you'll be replenished with your 4 Soul Shards.

[Zagam 1,982]

You mentioned the necessity of haunt's refreshing.

Let me ask what would you advise when I have 0 soul shard.

Should I pray for corruption proc or may I start to channel drain soul to create 1 or 2 (above 20 %)?

Kispee,

I do not advise you to channel Drain Soul in efforts to obtain a Soul Shard. You are not meant to maintain 100% uptime on Haunt. RNG will allow you to come closer to 100% than other attempts, but no one will ever be able to maintain 100% uptime on a single target boss without hampering their DPS.

[Zagam 1,982]

Zagam, I have to say thank you for a really clear and informative post.

I have tried your opener and it has boosted my dps by approximately 5k, which is sick. I trully thank you.

However, I want to know what you think about stacking Mastery as opposed to Haste, and what your recommendation for haste in this newer situation where mastery gives so much damage bonus.

Right now my Warlock is by no means BiS in all slots, but I reforged to 15.04 hit,

and i am at 17 percent Haste with 50 percent Mastery. I can certainly reforge more into Mastery, but the question is should I at the expense of haste?

Great question. In Cata, Affliction stayed as far away from Mastery as humanly possible...now it's a FANTASTIC stat and it scales extremely well. I pushed as much of my secondary stats (after hit of course) into Mastery and I run around 56% self buffed, 72% with Blessing of Might. I have found my Mastery build to do significantly more DPS than my Haste build. If you can squeeze more Mastery out, do it. I'm currently running a few simulations with the Necromantic Focus from Baleroc (391, 44 mastery stacking 10 times + 433 int) to see if I can benefit over Cunning of the Cruel now that Cunning doesn't get the 30% Shadow damage buff it used to from speccing into Affliction. I'll keep you guys posted on my finds. Obviously this would only be true for the next couple of weeks, but worth a look into anyways =)

[Ouic 1]

I do not advise you to channel Drain Soul in efforts to obtain a Soul Shard.

Excellent, thanks for the confirm. And I'm still stuck on Demon Soul, too. :)

You mentioned multi-dotting being a loss in most scenarios, but what do you think about maximizing available Corruption targets to fish for more Nightfall procs?

[Zagam 1,982]

Excellent, thanks for the confirm. And I'm still stuck on Demon Soul, too.

You mentioned multi-dotting being a loss in most scenarios, but what do you think about maximizing available Corruption targets to fish for more Nightfall procs?

This is how I've been doing my AoE:

4 or less targets: Soulburn: Soul Swap to each target, channel Malefic Grasp on one. When it's close to dying, switch to Drain Soul. Bam, 4 shards are back in your soul

5 or more targets: Chain Rain of Fire. Seed is bad, and it's only being nerfed more.

If you do the Soulburn: Soul Swap method to multi-dot, it's a huge DPS increase. Manually casting UA, Corr, and Agony is not what it once was. The real power comes from channeling Malefic Grasp, but being able to apply 12 DoTs in 4 globals is pretty impressive. I anticipate a nerf...if this goes live, we will be the ultimate 4 target DPS champions.

[Zagam 1,982]

http://www.worldoflo.../?s=2444&e=2657

Here is a link to my World of Logs parse for the first half of LFR. I have it tabbed to Hagara, but you may have to navigate the kills to see my DoT uptime, spells used, etc. I was let to die on Morchok and Yor'sahj (took a 205k melee due to tank dying lol) but Hagara is noted because of my BEAST burst by applying dots, Haunt, and channeling MG. Holy hell, I peaked at 150k, can only imagine if I had a potion used. I'll link the 2nd half shortly. Waiting in this absurd queue.

While I wait, I'm looking at some of this data. You'll see duplicated spells on my Hagara list like Unstable Affliction listed twice...the 2nd one is the UA that is proc'd by Malefic Grasp, if any of you are confused.

Notice how HARD Haunt hits! I managed to get a 57% uptime on Haunt on Zon'ozz by balancing around 2 Soul Shards (using one when I proc'd to get up to 3) and burned them all in the end. Haunt should always be a priority, but don't get caught without a Soul Shard.

EDIT: Can't do LFR due to big time dummies. Can't understand how tanks don't get it by now. I'll just have to push my parses up on Tuesday for a pure Affliction test. Stay tuned =)

Edited September 2, 2012 by Zagam

[Silvercus 1]

I have been toying around with the idea of using my necrotic focus (sp?) to replace one of my other trinkets (have Will of Unbinding, and Heroic insignia of the corrupted..), I know I wouldnt replace the will of unbinding with it, so that would only leave replacing my heroic insignia. It is an int drop (as well as that huge haste proc), but a 440 mastery gain. With the testing I have done on the dummies I haven't been able to tell much, if an,y difference yet. The guildies I have pitched this idea to have all said I should stay with the heroic insignia, but I would like to hear your opinion on it when you have the time.

Thanks

-Silvercus

Kobayashi Maru Scenario - Norgannon US Horde

[Bobio 1]

Thanks guys for clearing that up! This is a great website and all my friends and guildies are recomending it.. It is such a good format you have here, easy to read and you guys do a great job, unlike EJ which is just to much over thinking on specs, builds, talents and so on..Keep up the good work and once again..Thanks!

[Zagam 1,982]

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/cd8ymzp0dvglx3x6/

My logs for 2nd half of LFR. Now, I want you all to realize that I sat through a 76 minute queue only to find tanks who didn't know anything. I died to a melee on Ultraxion shortly after Bloodlust and I was tanking the Terrors on Madness during execute phase, so my DPS fell from 95k to 80k =(

If anyone has any questions, I wouldn't say this is a good parse to look from, and I'll be sure to put posts of my Heroic logs on Tuesday.

A side note, I'd like to recommend a chance to the Affliction execute rotation and it should go as follows:

First, make a macro that looks like this:

#showtooltip Soul Swap

/cast Soulburn

/cast Soul Swap

Now, when the boss hits 20% (or a PvP player), do the following:

1) Cast Haunt (Costs 1 Soul Shard)

2) Use Macro (refreshes UA, Agony, and Corruption (Costs 1 Soul Shard)

3) Cast Drain Soul for 4 ticks (Generates 2 Soul Shards)

By doing this as soon as the 4th Drain Soul ticks, you can infinitely keep up your Haunt bonus as well as your DoTs with minimal effort. My execute DPS shot through the roof using this method. This method can also be abused to hell and back during any encounters with adds that you can use as a Drain Soul battery (see Warmaster). Go to my Warmaster logs. Because I have 4 Soul Shards, I used my macro to put 3 DoTs on each of the 2 ground adds and the two drakes...I then went and performed the single target rotation on one drake and casted Drain Soul as it died refreshing my Soul Shards. I then refreshed DoTs on the other 3 and repeated. You can see that I almost hit 50k DPS and I could easily break that with more focus, buffs, and concentration. Since nearly every DS fight has adds, you should almost never be out of Soul Shards, therefore reducing the number of times you have to manually refresh your DoTs. Let me know how this works out for you guys =D

[Exciter 0]

thanks for clearing up a few things.

i have one question concerning the soul shard management. you said to keep haunt up as much as possible without switching to drain soul above execute and i agree basically. but wouldnt it be better to save up at least 3 shards when your dark soul CD is about to end? so you can keep haunt up 100% during dark soul.

also, what glyphs are you using? soul swap doenst make sense, dark soul is pretty crappy aswell..

soul shards is very good, but the other 2? i use siphon life and healthstone.

kind regards

Nortrom-Frostwolf-EU

Edited September 3, 2012 by Exciter

[Zagam 1,982]

thanks for clearing up a few things.

i have one question concerning the soul shard management. you said to keep haunt up as much as possible without switching to drain soul above execute and i agree basically. but wouldnt it be better to save up at least 3 shards when your dark soul CD is about to end? so you can keep haunt up 100% during dark soul.

also, what glyphs are you using? soul swap doenst make sense, dark soul is pretty crappy aswell..

soul shards is very good, but the other 2? i use siphon life and healthstone.

kind regards

Nortrom-Frostwolf-EU

Yes, you want Haunt up as much as possible, but not where you are Drain Souling above 20%. If you want the Soul Shards for Dark Soul, then just save them up and don't apply Haunt.

My current Major Glyphs are: Soulstone, Soul Shards, and Siphon Life.

My current Minor Glyphs are: Soulwell, Nightmare, and Banish.

[Kissodeath 0]

One other tip i would recomand is to remeber Fel Fire adds 6 seconds to UA and Corruption. So if you are on the move and need to refresh its great till you can get stopped again.

Edited September 3, 2012 by Kissodeath

[Zagam 1,982]

One other tip i would recomand is to remeber Fel Fire adds 6 seconds to UA and Corruption. So if you are on the move and need to refresh its great till you can get stopped again.

Fel Fire is horribly under represented by heavy movement fights. When doing an Ulduar achievement run, the idea on Hodir is to never stop moving. I only did to apply Haunt and replaced Malefic Grasp with Fel Fire and still did 59k DPS over about 2 minutes with Bloodlust up for 40 seconds of that. Do not feel you are gimped in heavy movement fights....slap Fel Fire on those bad guys!