5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Boradan 17]

There are plenty of addons to tell you what proc you get from windsong. They all have different spellIDs, so it isnt an issue.

Powerauras, tellmewhen, anything theat can be set to track stuff can do it.

[Sharrd 0]

Anyone can explain this?

http://www.worldoflo...?s=9893&e=10419

How the 1º lock did more 12k then me? Since my uptime it's almost 100%

Answer is very simple. Just better gear. 8 ilvl difference is very solid advantage.

11% more int and 14% more mastery - it's about 20+% more damage.

You clear win this battle because he ahead you by just 15+% dps... not 20+% as he can.

Sorry for my bad english.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Sharrd

[Zagam 1,982]

Gear doesn't make a 12k difference at this point in the game. It makes some difference, but DPS gains and losses are all in the style of play and knowledge of class. Gear is just shiny stuff you wear to show you can kill bosses. Heroic 6/6 was done at an average ilvl of 472, so using gear as an excuse is really starting to lose its taste.

[Sharrd 0]

Gear doesn't make a 12k difference at this point in the game. It makes some difference, but DPS gains and losses are all in the style of play and knowledge of class. Gear is just shiny stuff you wear to show you can kill bosses. Heroic 6/6 was done at an average ilvl of 472, so using gear as an excuse is really starting to lose its taste.

Log shows us about ~20% the difference between the average values almost each main damage source.

And percentage distribution of damage by source is very similar. It's not play style. It's gear.

Affliction scales extremely well and every piece of gear will make a significant DPS gain.

8 ilvl difference is very solid. +11% int and +14% mastery does +12k easy at their(477-485) gear level. Edited October 26, 2012 by Sharrd

[Zagam 1,982]

My DPS didn't climb 12k when I went up 8 ilvls (2 pieces of gear) just like it won't go up another 12k in 8 more ilvls. Item level has very little to do with DPS. How did an Affliction Warlock do 170k DPS at ilvl 473? Because he can play better than I can at item level 483 where I do 154k. Just because someone outperforms you doesn't mean you can say 'oh they have better gear.' That isn't a reason...it's an excuse. There's a Warlock on Mal'Ganis who does 125k DPS with nearly identical stats and gear to me while I do 30k more. Based on what you guys are saying about gear, once you get gear, it plays the game for you. Gear on one person makes that person better, but there are ALWAYS ways to improve playing your game. Affliction has one of the most significant windows of opportunity to increase DPS because of Pandemic and snapshots of statistics that if you don't realize it, your DPS stays in the good range while those who fully understand both of those concepts can do ridiculously good numbers and stand far and away from the pack.

[Incendax 0]

I keep trying to get my numbers up as an affliction lock, but Unstable Affliction has such a low duration that I'm constantly having to stop and fuss with it instead of doing things that generate good DPS. What is the secret to keeping Unstable Affliction up without tanking your DPS?

[Jack 0]

Relax, brother! Goose fraba. Sounds like you're overstressing and trying too hard. Just relax and let the DoTs flow free. Have you ever asked him what he's doing differently than you? Personally, I don't see how a Heroic raider would take Soul Harvest over Soul Leech, but maybe he knows something I don't? Maybe it's that good for that add phase I've not yet dealt with. Did he crit more? Did he pot more? DoT uptime isn't everything anymore. Pandemic changed the game. It's DoT timing. When you have buffs, you refresh your DoTs then and you refresh your DoTs just as your buffs expire for maximum uptime. I've since changed my class timer bars to include my DMF Trinket proc, Lightweave proc, Potion time, and Stormlash to go along with Dark Soul. Now when something procs, it puts a bar beside my unit frames indicating what buff activated and how long it will be up. If I see my Relic proc and know that it just gave me 3000+ Intellect, I'll stop what I'm doing and refresh my DoTs. Three seconds before it fades, I'll refresh them again and remind myself NOT to refresh them until they are close to running out of time. Increasing your uptime with powered up DoTs will make the difference in DPS over someone who just prioritizes having DoTs up. It makes it interesting and something you really have to pay attention to in order to truly maximize your throughput.

Zagam,

Ive been struggling with configuring classtimers to do exactly that. any chance i (or we!) could get your config/profile to look at and test out ?

also, 2 questions:

1. i'm supposed to have 10% haste (3400) and not more. this means i need to have 10% unbuffed? or i can take into account raid buffs and plan accordingly (i now have 6%, but inside the raid gorup ill have 11%). is that the way to go ?

2. starting rotation - i channel MG for a full duration to proc and trigger all of my procs, THEN misery, SS:SB, Haunt +usual rotation.

again, is that the way to go? i see that when i pop everything with the procs, i get so much more on the one hand, but until then i got 4-5 seconds wasted and everyone is ahead of me.

thanks !

[Adrianpwns 0]

Hello, what is currently (5.0.5) the best weapons for affliction warlocks?

Should I use a staff or a wand/dagger and off-hand?

Thank you in advance!

[Zagam 1,982]

I keep trying to get my numbers up as an affliction lock, but Unstable Affliction has such a low duration that I'm constantly having to stop and fuss with it instead of doing things that generate good DPS. What is the secret to keeping Unstable Affliction up without tanking your DPS?

Unstable Affliction is a core ability of your rotation. It has a minimum duration of 14 seconds. You generate good DPS by keeping this DoT up at all times. Asking how to not use it is the very wrong question to ask. It does not "tank" your DPS. It will tank your DPS if you DON'T use it. You generate good DPS by using Malefic Grasp with all three of your DoTs on the target.

Zagam,

Ive been struggling with configuring classtimers to do exactly that. any chance i (or we!) could get your config/profile to look at and test out ?

also, 2 questions:

1. i'm supposed to have 10% haste (3400) and not more. this means i need to have 10% unbuffed? or i can take into account raid buffs and plan accordingly (i now have 6%, but inside the raid gorup ill have 11%). is that the way to go ?

2. starting rotation - i channel MG for a full duration to proc and trigger all of my procs, THEN misery, SS:SB, Haunt +usual rotation.

again, is that the way to go? i see that when i pop everything with the procs, i get so much more on the one hand, but until then i got 4-5 seconds wasted and everyone is ahead of me.

thanks !

Where are you getting this 10% haste number? With gear, your haste rating will automatically upgrade. As noted in some other forum posts, I recommend a haste value of 3049 rating that acquires you an extra Corruption tick, an extra UA tick, and two Agony ticks if you have 5% spell haste in your raid. After that, you should be shoving all stats into Mastery (after hit capping, if you prefer that route like I do.)

Your opening rotation of using MG without DoTs sounds terribly unoptimal. Using MG without DoTs is a waste of time. Just open with your rotation and make sure Misery is up before you put your DoTs up so they benefit from the haste thresholds. What I do is Curse of Elements, Trinket use + Potion + Dark Soul: Misery, SB:SS, Haunt, Malefic Grasp until all of my procs go off. Then I pop my Doomguard, SB:SS again, Haunt, and then do Malefic Grasp until Misery is about to fall off. When it is 3 seconds left, I reapply Agony, Corruption, and UA in that order and do NOT refresh them until they are about to wear off so they gain the maximum benefit of Misery. I have no problem opening up to 100k DPS using those 4 Soul Shards at the beginning. After that, manually reapply DoTs and use Soul Shards for Haunt.

I use TukUI, so my class timers are very easy to modify in the txt file. You just look up the spell ID and add it into the txt file. I've added the three different Windsong types, Dark Soul:Misery, and the Jade Potion to it. If you need assistance, I should be able to help. Unfortunately, I may be unavailable for a week if this hurricane hits as hard as it looks like it's going to.

Hello, what is currently (5.0.5) the best weapons for affliction warlocks?

Should I use a staff or a wand/dagger and off-hand?

Thank you in advance!

The 476 Inscription-made off hand has great stats and isn't terribly expensive or hard to obtain. Personally, I use a 1H+OH for the stats. Fully enchanted, it's almost always a better decision to take the weapon and the off-hand. This is especially true as the only raiding weapon available to us is a wand off of Elegon until we get our Sha-touched weapon out of Terrace of the Endless Spring.

[Stunlocked 8]

Unstable Affliction is a core ability of your rotation. It has a minimum duration of 14 seconds. You generate good DPS by keeping this DoT up at all times. Asking how to not use it is the very wrong question to ask. It does not "tank" your DPS. It will tank your DPS if you DON'T use it. You generate good DPS by using Malefic Grasp with all three of your DoTs on the target.

He actually was asking for help on how to keep it up, not on help 'not using'. Although I'm not quite sure what problem he's having. You keep it up by casting it when it's about to expire :-). Edited October 29, 2012 by Stunlocked

[Durion 0]

Hi,

I got a little problem setting my Combat Text Add On(Mik's Scrolling Battle text). Malefic Gasp triggers all 3 Dots every 0,9 secounds, but this damage isnt recogniced as periodic damage, the Add On cannot combine the ticks. for example (20000 Agonie [2Hits])

Result is that my dmg log is spammed with the damage from Malefic Gasp. Anyone knows an Add On, which combines all 3 ticks or something else?

Mfg Durion

[Zagam 1,982]

Hi,

I got a little problem setting my Combat Text Add On(Mik's Scrolling Battle text). Malefic Gasp triggers all 3 Dots every 0,9 secounds, but this damage isnt recogniced as periodic damage, the Add On cannot combine the ticks. for example (20000 Agonie [2Hits])

Result is that my dmg log is spammed with the damage from Malefic Gasp. Anyone knows an Add On, which combines all 3 ticks or something else?

Mfg Durion

Why do people scroll damage text anyways? Doesn't Blizzard give you enough to worry about without watching all the white and yellow numbers on your screen? Run logs and look afterwards!

Malefic Grasp treats DoTs as them being a 'proc' at 100% rate as long as they're applied. That's why in World of Logs, they are generated twice...once per for "ticks" and once per for "hits."

[Durion 0]

i know, but instead of disable the shown damage i try to clear the ui, so it isnt chaotic anymore and the best way to do this is combining the procs of the dots (triggered by malefic gasp) in one displayed number

[Incendax 0]

He actually was asking for help on how to keep it up, not on help 'not using'. Although I'm not quite sure what problem he's having. You keep it up by casting it when it's about to expire :-).

Yeah, I was definitely asking for help on how to keep it up, not help on 'not using' it. The problem I am having is casting UA means I constantly have to cut off MG to recast UA. Because of all the different timers my usual rotation looks like SS: SW, Haunt, MG, UA, MG, Corrup, MG, UA, MG, Agony, Haunt, UA, ect. It runs out so fast I keep having to interrupt MG over and over again. That cast time murders my DPS.

But if I just use SS: SW constantly I can't keep a positive shard count for Haunt.

Edited October 30, 2012 by Incendax

[Zagam 1,982]

Yeah, I was definitely asking for help on how to keep it up, not help on 'not using' it. The problem I am having is casting UA means I constantly have to cut off MG to recast UA. Because of all the different timers my usual rotation looks like SS: SW, Haunt, MG, UA, MG, Corrup, MG, UA, MG, Agony, Haunt, UA, ect. It runs out so fast I keep having to interrupt MG over and over again. That cast time murders my DPS.

But if I just use SS: SW constantly I can't keep a positive shard count for Haunt.

Not sure why you're asking how to keep UA up. You cast it. It's a core ability that is designed for the class to be a main contributor of its DPS. It's like you're asking why you have to do what the game designers want you to do. Because that's how it is designed. Boomkins have DoTs with a duration of 14 seconds that they must maintain to do optimal DPS. Having DoTs with varying durations allows game developers to balance DPS out. Breaking your MG cast to refresh UA is part of your core rotation and should just be done. If a 1.5 second cast is 'murdering' your DPS, you're not doing something right. With Pandemic, you can reapply Unstable Affliction anywhere between 0 and 7 seconds remaining on the current Unstable Affliction to acquire the maximum benefit. With UA refreshed at 7 seconds, you'll have a 21 second duration on your DoT. And let me point out something else...you're not interrupting MG like you would interrupt a Haunt cast. MG ticks 4 times and breaking it after the first, second, or third tick is of no negative consequence. It is designed to be interrupted in order to refresh DoTs with a proc, potion, Bloodlust, or other power-altering event. Get an addon like DrainSouler that tracks ticks of MG and DS so you can see when they tick to optimize your DPS.

[Ballie 1]

There are plenty of addons to tell you what proc you get from windsong. They all have different spellIDs, so it isnt an issue.

Powerauras, tellmewhen, anything theat can be set to track stuff can do it.

Apparently, I should have looked around for addon's before I posted that. The basic classtimers I was using didnt give me the option. I now have tellmewhen and all is good but but the icon for mastery:windsong is shown all the time and disapears when it proc's. It would be nice to have it the other way around. All the "help" vids on youtube are out dated. I didnt really want to ask about addon help on here but......I'm asking for addon help.

[Gravyspasm 70]

All the "help" vids on youtube are out dated. I didnt really want to ask about addon help on here but......I'm asking for addon help.

how about powerauras? Tellmewhen and needtoknow are fine alert bars, but are too basic for my need to fiddle with every aspect of an alert system

[Ballie 1]

how about powerauras? Tellmewhen and needtoknow are fine alert bars, but are too basic for my need to fiddle with every aspect of an alert system

yea I might just have to get powerauras. Tellmewhen has been redone to be more user friendly but not friendly enough for me i guess. Thanks

[Stunlocked 8]

I have WeakAuras installed and set it up so it shows icons with a little timer for buffs. It does show three separate buffs for Windsong and tracks them separately. However, they show the same icon for each of them. But perhaps there's a way to set it up to filter out one version or show something different.

[Incendax 0]

If a 1.5 second cast is 'murdering' your DPS, you're not doing something right.

I'm handicapped so I have to run castsequence macros. At most I can break it up into about four macros. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure two of them have to be Haunt and Drain Soul which leaves me two left. You previously advised that I have one macro be nothing but SB: SW which leaves my last macro to pick up from the moment SB: SW is cast and manually refresh those DOTs. So it looks something like 'MG, MG, UA, MG, Corrup, MG, UA, Agony'.

So whenever I Haunt it sets the timing back 2 seconds, which would be fine with Corrup and Agony but UA is so short I have to scramble to catch the macro back up. So you're recommending cutting MG short?

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm handicapped so I have to run castsequence macros. At most I can break it up into about four macros. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure two of them have to be Haunt and Drain Soul which leaves me two left. You previously advised that I have one macro be nothing but SB: SW which leaves my last macro to pick up from the moment SB: SW is cast and manually refresh those DOTs. So it looks something like 'MG, MG, UA, MG, Corrup, MG, UA, Agony'.

So whenever I Haunt it sets the timing back 2 seconds, which would be fine with Corrup and Agony but UA is so short I have to scramble to catch the macro back up. So you're recommending cutting MG short?

Why not have Drain Soul and Malefic Grasp be the same macro with a shift modifier? For example, E is Malefic Grasp for me while Shift-E is Drain Soul. Would that give you the capability to add another macro? I'm not familiar enough with cast sequence macros to give you advice on it, but I would absolutely recommend stopping Malefic Grasp in the middle of the cast so long as you don't interrupt it right before a tick. This doesn't even provide a mana problem because they made channeling spells cost initial mana and mana per tick instead of front loading all the mana cost like they use to, so breaking MG after 2 or 3 ticks will benefit you more than you might think. Latency issues also effect the last tick, so allowing it to run it's full duration and 'clipping' it before it's done it's 4th tick will cost you more than you might intially think.

[Stunlocked 8]

Yeah - it will be helpful for yo to get an Addon that shows ticks on channeling spells. Zagram mentioned one named DrainSouler (I've never heard of it). Quartz also has that functionality.

Damage is done on each tick. So yes, you can break MG or Drain Soul in mid-cast: but you want to learn how to judge whehter you can wait for that next tick or not before you cast UA or Haunt, or even if Agony, Corruption or any buffs will fall off before the next tick (meaning you need to recast them).

[Fel 42]

yea I might just have to get powerauras. Tellmewhen has been redone to be more user friendly but not friendly enough for me i guess. Thanks

I'd recommend WeakAuras, it's a bit more lightweight. Also, you can search youtube for 'Touchymcfeel: Weakauras 6' and that should get you a video in which he explains in detail how to configure timer bars for procs/ICDs. I found it very useful and am now using it to track all 3 windsongs (I put 3 tiny barrs above one normal sized icon.. not tracking the ICD for this one though), Predation and Lightweave. Luck willing, I'll be using it to track the Relic of Yu'lon and Light of the Cosmos procs soon enough as well

[Gravyspasm 70]

I'd recommend WeakAuras, it's a bit more lightweight.

Weak auras is a perfect substitution for those of you that find powerauars too difficult.

Yeah - it will be helpful for yo to get an Addon that shows ticks on channeling spells. Zagram mentioned one named DrainSouler (I've never heard of it). Quartz also has that functionality.

.

Drainsouler is more or less useful for the audible ticks. I mean, sure you can watch a bar tick off one by one, but i like the addition of the little beep sound drainsouler has when i'm on a drainsoul execute. (also have it sound off when i'm doing a grasp filler).

[Vortex 3]

Since you pull out this topic I would like to ask if anyone knows how I can disable sound in game without "loosing" Drain Soul sound effects?