5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Serafijn 0]

Re-reading it boss. Must've missed that or at least must've not-understood it. I'll get back to you if I still feel stupid.

[Zagam 1,982]

I'll admit, the first posts formatting could use some bright colors to draw attention in the right place. I'll make up for it when I start theorycrafting 5.2. I'm anticipating some numbers going live tomorrow with adjustments. If we don't see a Supremacy buff, Sacrifice will still be the bee's knees for Affliction and the Observer pet will take over for Destruction. This will also change Destro's stat priority. We shall see.

Also, Serafijin, you're not stupid. Like I said, I take the blame for the formatting of the post. I'll tune it up.

[Sifon 25]

I'll admit, the first posts formatting could use some bright colors to draw attention in the right place. I'll make up for it when I start theorycrafting 5.2. I'm anticipating some numbers going live tomorrow with adjustments. If we don't see a Supremacy buff, Sacrifice will still be the bee's knees for Affliction and the Observer pet will take over for Destruction. This will also change Destro's stat priority. We shall see.

Also, Serafijin, you're not stupid. Like I said, I take the blame for the formatting of the post. I'll tune it up.

%5 nerf on sacrifice makes supremacy better for destro?

[Zagam 1,982]

Possibly. Depends on stat reforging. Mastery doesn't provide any benefit to your pet, so Mastery may lose some weight to Haste and Crit with an Observer out. Actually, all of the pets under Supremacy are pretty tight together, so you can pick whichever pet you like the best. Personally, I'll be going with the Imp when I test because he's ranged and I've always found ranged pets to be better.

[Cruzan 71]

So as we've been discussing Haste breakpoints more and more I was wondering if someone could clear up a question that's been bugging me for a while.

Initially I was under the impression that Haste only increased the tick rate of your DoTs, but after looking at my tooltip a while back I noticed that my listed durations were actually shorter/longer than the baseline. This fluctuated from being shorter/longer depending on how much Haste I had. I looked in to it, but the best answer I was able to find was listed on a wowpedia article from a few years ago and seems like it was more related to dot clipping than anything else which is fairly irrelevant nowadays.

This is because the game engine endeavours to keep these effects' durations as close as possible to the original length; when an effect's duration is reduced by more than half a tick, an extra tick will be added.

Can anyone clear this up for me? It seems like minor changes in a dots duration in combination with its tick-rate would effect breakpoint calculations, but I have no doubt that this has already been accounted for. I just can't find any info on the internets to explain how this is being calculated.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I also know that this might become even more irrelevant as we move from ICD trinkets to RPPM trinkets, but just for curiosity's sake it would be nice to know what's going on here.

2nd Edit: I thought I figured it out, but I'm coming up about 0.3 seconds short for each modified duration in my calculations. The basic process I'm using is the amount of ticks a certain spell will get with your haste rating and multiplying that by your tick rate or SpT. THis usually gives me a value around the base duration, but like I said is about .3 seconds short across the board. I'm taking in to account that I'm only self buffed.

My math.

Current Haste: 5364 (12.62%)

Seconds/Tick: 1.748

Agony: +2 ticks. 1.748*14ticks = 24.45s According to tooltip, 24.86s

Corruption: +1 tick. 1.748*10 = 17.48s. Tooltip = 17.76s

UA: +1. 1.748*8 = 13.98s. Tooltip = 14.21s

What am i missing here? Sorry if this seems dumb, but getting the wrong answer for math problems bugs the hell out of me.

Edited February 16, 2013 by Cruzan

[Morgaliel 2]

For those who will try to make affliction work at 5.2 - which will probably be my case as I have no real affinity with demono, never had - how will you spend your VP at the launch of the patch ? VP gear looks good with barely no crit, many items available from day 1, if not rather quickly.

I am looking at the neck + the trinket, but the ring also looks good...

++

[Zagam 1,982]

For those who will try to make affliction work at 5.2 - which will probably be my case as I have no real affinity with demono, never had - how will you spend your VP at the launch of the patch ? VP gear looks good with barely no crit, many items available from day 1, if not rather quickly.

I am looking at the neck + the trinket, but the ring also looks good...

++

Anything you can upgrade from lower item levels will be a big upgrade. Necks were rather rare in this tier. You could have gotten the 502 Hit/Crit from Feng or the 502 Crit/Haste from Heroic Will...but other than that, your choices were limited. I passed on both necks to keep the 489 Hit/Mastery I picked up from Klaxxi way back when. Rings are also at a rarity...since necks and rings are 1250 VP a piece, if you save up at least 2500 VP, you can upgrade two of these items immediately. This would be my recommendation, but I can't recommend anything based on secondary stats at the moment. I have a feeling that stat weights will change drastically as we move away from Grimoire of Sacrifice since pets do not gain any benefit from Mastery.

[thedoom 0]

OK - Noobish question - but what's the best way of getting wowreforge to make me a build where haste (+4717) = mastery .

If I give them the same weights it all goes weird.....I figure I'm missing something.

[JvChequer 43]

Anything you can upgrade from lower item levels will be a big upgrade. Necks were rather rare in this tier. You could have gotten the 502 Hit/Crit from Feng or the 502 Crit/Haste from Heroic Will...but other than that, your choices were limited. I passed on both necks to keep the 489 Hit/Mastery I picked up from Klaxxi way back when. Rings are also at a rarity...since necks and rings are 1250 VP a piece, if you save up at least 2500 VP, you can upgrade two of these items immediately. This would be my recommendation, but I can't recommend anything based on secondary stats at the moment. I have a feeling that stat weights will change drastically as we move away from Grimoire of Sacrifice since pets do not gain any benefit from Mastery.

GoSup + RPPM probably will increase the Haste value for affliction like a train.

Critical could be useful por Aff locks, blizzard should buff Nightfall to have a 30% proc when Corruption critical ticks or something like that.

[Morgaliel 2]

Many thanks. What about the Volatile Talisman of the Shado-Pan Assault ?

Wouldn't it be a nice upgrade from RoY or LotC ? I know it is not in the BiS list made in another topic, but it looks quite decent, especially if Haste is better.

Edited February 27, 2013 by Morgaliel

[Zagam 1,982]

It's the same thing as Essence of Terror except a tad bit better. Perfectly viable especially if you're not running around with a 510 LotC and 517 EoT.

[JvChequer 43]

It's the same thing as Essence of Terror except a tad bit better. Perfectly viable especially if you're not running around with a 510 LotC and 517 EoT.

My only corcern about this Trinket it's he be worse than de LFR Version of the "hit + Intelect scale Proc one" from the 3rd boss.

And maybe the 510 LoTC it's pretty much good as the 522 one.

Edited February 27, 2013 by JvChequer

[vladMTL 1]

seeing how they keep on nerfing affliction by the day, dafuq will affliction be after 1-2 weeks when 5.2 is out ? below both the other specs ? Jesus Christ and his mom Mary who THE FUCK wants to play demo GOD i hate that spec with all the SHIT ever since wow is out CRAP pet's path finding issues they didn't bother to correct for years now ... pffff

this is so wrong lol why force me to play with a pet if i don't wanna ... why not buff the other options close to the non-pet one instead ?! ...

Edited February 28, 2013 by vldsb

[Morgaliel 2]

Many thanks for your advice. I have normal LotC and RoY so I think I'll take the trinket before the ring. And hope for the LFR hit trinket too ! :)

[Zagam 1,982]

seeing how they keep on nerfing affliction by the day, dafuq will affliction be after 1-2 weeks when 5.2 is out ? below both the other specs ? Jesus Christ and his mom Mary who THE FUCK wants to play demo GOD i hate that spec with all the SHIT ever since wow is out CRAP pet's path finding issues they didn't bother to correct for years now ... pffff

this is so wrong lol why force me to play with a pet if i don't wanna ... why not buff the other options close to the non-pet one instead ?! ...

You're not forced to play with a pet. You can still take this talent and be better than Rogues, Warriors, Fire Mages, etc. You just won't be on top of the meters with mediocre play like most other Affliction Warlocks. The talent wasn't drastically OP for T14, but they had to scale it down for T15 and T16 because of how well it scales with gear. Oh, and some Warlocks, like myself, want to play Demonology and enjoy having a Felguard around. :)

[vladMTL 1]

so many encounters were SO not made for playing with a pet or were broken and they fixed not so soon after they introduced them ... i don't like nor want to own the meters i don't even care about world of logs or whoever scores 1st in the world as a lock on god knows what fight but DAMN why would you want to succumb with frustration because some fat mofo from blizzard while munching a cheeseburger forgot to put a , somewhere and your pet will stay still and look stupid like the failguard does on elegon hc and gen speaking play something it was always broken here and there ... where's the fun in that ?

please share cause i wanna be a part of it too

Edited February 28, 2013 by vldsb

[Zagam 1,982]

Pet pathing usually isn't an issue if you plan for it. On a fight like Elegon, if you manually move your Felguard right under Elegon, he will be able to hit every Charge with Felstorm. Easier if you use petattack macros to make him instantly switch instead of relying on the inferior 'assist' mode implemented with the game. What I'm saying is there shouldn't be a spec where it is the best spec for ALL fights. For example, in Dragon Soul it went like this:

Morchok - Destruction

Yor'sahj - Demonology

Zon'ozz - Destruction

Hagara - Destruction

Ultraxion - Demonology

Warmaster - Affliction

Spine - Demonology

Madness - any

In T14, it's just Affliction. Not one fight other than Heroic Tsulong where the other specs perform better. Heroic Tsulong is just taking advantage of so many adds in execute phase...makes Shadowburn exceptionally overpowered. But that's it! Feeling tied to a spec because it outperforms the other specs by a landslide wasn't fun for this entire tier.

[vladMTL 1]

makes sense what you write, i never was all for one spec i simply hate demo ... if i wanted to be a hunter i'd be one by now and demo is like one or so I see it in my obtuse way of thinking about it at least ...

on the other hand i'm 34 dunno about you which at this point after so many years of wow ( 28th may 2005 ) with 9 months of a break in LK and 9 in cata i barely feel myself SO fulfilled by trying to make my life harder in this game and having to do for myself what the devs couldn't do themselves when they designed things :)

sure there's always a reason for which we all play and pick what we pick no matter what it may be but damn I for example am still hanging because the curiosity and fun to go through the content, nothing much else at a decent pace ... proly finding it harder and harder to do it might be a sign for me i should quit :D BUT i'd love that to be my decision and not others even if it's THEIR game i'm paying to play ... so many buts and ifs :)

thanks ! br o/ o7

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm a WotLK baby. Hit lvl 70 on my Paladin 4 days before WotLK went live. Warlock was my 2nd alt. 26 years old...I just go with the flow. Sometimes I buck the current, but most of the time I just take the good and run with it the best I can.

[vladMTL 1]

So young ! maybe now a 3 button class like a rogue will suit a grumpy old mofo like me then

/respect for all your work you put into this man !

Edited February 28, 2013 by vldsb

[Zagam 1,982]

I enjoy it. I'm in an irritating spot now where all the efforts I put in are for naught as things keep changing. I'm having a hard time trying to justify my findings against other people's work. For example, someone wrote the Affliction BiS profile as being SUPER heavy Haste...like 17000 Haste rating and 4000 Mastery with 3200 Crit. I know using a pet will make Mastery worth less, but wow...this has to be wrong. That much Haste would make UA under 1 GCD, would DEFINITELY put Haunt under the 1 GCD and clipping MG and DS properly would be much more difficult...I don't know. Everything is so weird right now. I just want to kill Heroic Tsulong tonight. That fight makes me pull my hair out.

[Twinkielock 15]

I enjoy it. I'm in an irritating spot now where all the efforts I put in are for naught as things keep changing. I'm having a hard time trying to justify my findings against other people's work. For example, someone wrote the Affliction BiS profile as being SUPER heavy Haste...like 17000 Haste rating and 4000 Mastery with 3200 Crit. I know using a pet will make Mastery worth less, but wow...this has to be wrong. That much Haste would make UA under 1 GCD, would DEFINITELY put Haunt under the 1 GCD and clipping MG and DS properly would be much more difficult...I don't know. Everything is so weird right now. I just want to kill Heroic Tsulong tonight. That fight makes me pull my hair out.

I always enjoy the extreme values. My current build (which used the old 4250 haste, (goblin) rest Mastery stat priority led me to have a ton of mastery. When I plugged myself into Ask Mr. Robot it suggested I replace my Int meta gem with the mastery run.

That being said is the first page accurate? Are you still recommending Grim of Sac?

[Zagam 1,982]

Yes. Even a Grim of Sac at 25% is better than Service or Supremacy for Affliction. This effect is exaggerated by improving your gear.

[JvChequer 43]

You know how much is better? Because if are less than 1-3% better, in some AOE Fights worth use Gosup. Edited March 5, 2013 by JvChequer

[Zagam 1,982]

In AOE fights, go Demonology. The difference in Grimoires for all specs is very small (less than 5%). Even Demonology Sacrifice isn't far behind Demo Service/Supremacy. However, do not use Sacrifice as Destro. At 15%, it's ALMOST worse than not taking any talent at all.