5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Elegua 0]

Here is my toon link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/korialstrasz/Elegua/simple

Forums are all over the place on this issue, and it seems like Icy Veins' guide on Afflocks has recently changed on the issue too:

Haste or Mastery?

I like the idea of Mastery but throughout Cataclysm it was awful for us. I've changed everything now in favor of Mastery over Haste and have seen awesome numbers...but it seems like my fellow Afflocks are still divided on this.

[Zagam 1,982]

Damien believes Haste is better than Mastery, just like Askmrrobot does. I personally, through my own tests, believe Mastery is stronger. I also see higher reforging into Mastery on the Simulationcraft.org website and believe that with their tests and my tests, that we've proven mathematically that Mastery is better than Haste.

I have 56% haste self buffed, 72% raid buffed, and 78% with Heroic Necromantic Focus at 10 stacks. I hit 52k on Ultraxion with ease and pushed 49k on Warmaster with multi-dotting and focusing on drakes. I also was the 2nd highest Tendon damage on Spine (only losing to a Shadow Priest) beating a Hunter, Fury Warrior, and a legendary Rogue (he's good, Affliction is just crazy with burst now).

It's a personal preference...I don't feel it's too drastic of a change, especially if some people argue one way and others argue another. A good reasoning point there is that they are close enough that you can make an argument for either one. If you're performing well enough to do what you want to do, stay with it. Feel free to experiment on dummies with a full reforge profile. When MoP goes live, there will be reports of haste thresholds that we will want to meet before pushing into Mastery just like Demonology and Destruction did in Cataclysm. I believe there's already a haste spreadsheet out there on EJ somewhere, but those can always change.

[Zagam 1,982]

Confirmed by numerous LFR tests and 1 Heroic DS test: normal Cunning of the Cruel > Heroic Necromantic Focus.

Regular Cunning = 458 Int + Shadowbolt attack

Heroic Necromantic Focus = 433 Int + 440 Mastery

I was hoping I discovered a use for an old trinket with the additional 440 Mastery rating, but I was wrong. The 440 Mastery barely constitutes a 1k DPS increase while the Shadowbolt attack from Cunning is much higher. If you have the Heroic Cunning (which will not drop for me), then there's absolutely no question about which is better. If you've got Cunning, use it.

[Soulrider 0]

I use the rotation in the guide but my dps is not that good. Am i doing something wrong?

[Zagam 1,982]

I use the rotation in the guide but my dps is not that good. Am i doing something wrong?

Do you have an armory link? Statistics? Are you level 85? If your picture icon is of your toon, I notice you are still wearing your BoA helm. What kind of DPS are you pushing? Some World of Logs parses or some statistics should give us an opportunity to help you.

[Soulrider 0]

Its an old photo and the website wont change to my new photo for some reason. Here is a link to my current gear http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/usa/kil'_jeaden/soulrider. My dps ranges around like 14k sometimes 18k depending on fight. I have just started playing again and was never really into getting into to much depth till now, so I really dont know about the parses :( But I am trying to lear so I can maximize my dps.

[Zagam 1,982]

Its an old photo and the website wont change to my new photo for some reason. Here is a link to my current gear http://www.askmrrobo...eaden/soulrider. My dps ranges around like 14k sometimes 18k depending on fight. I have just started playing again and was never really into getting into to much depth till now, so I really dont know about the parses But I am trying to lear so I can maximize my dps.

Many, many issues.

1) Your hit rating is at 19.74%. This is 4.74% too high.

2) Do NOT use Spirit. You have Spirit on your Off-hand, Shoulders, Belt, Legs, and one of your Trinket procs.

3) You do not utilize the Reforging feature at all. Reforge to the following priority:

If the item has Spirit, reforge Spirit to Hit (try to avoid having any Spirit at all)

If the item has Crit, reforge Crit to Hit until 15.00 Hit, then all extra Crit into Mastery

If the item has Haste, reforge Haste to Hit until 15.00 Hit, then all extra Haste into Mastery

4) You do not have many of your items enchanted. In fact, it appears you are only enchanting your 397 pieces, which is acceptable to save money but not acceptable if you're asking ways to increase your DPS.

5) You do not use gems in your sockets. Again, acceptable while gearing up, not if asking about your DPS.

[Soulrider 0]

lol yea the spirit gear just replaced some blues :) not a complete noob lmao! And i dont want to gem or enchant gear I plan on getting rid of. So basically its my gear holding me back then? I am running the Twilight Heroics for JP's and the gear before I enchant or Gem. So basically I should get back to you once I get better gear? The Hit I know is way over lol Its just I dont want to spend the money reforging until I gad idea?et my appropriate gear. Or is that a b

[Soulrider 0]

A bad idea*

[Zagam 1,982]

It's not a bad idea, but it's impossible for us to assist you with better DPS other than looking at what I pointed out. Once you have your gear acquired, your DPS will go up significantly. Right now, all you can do in dungeons is put DoTs up on multiple targets and do your single target rotation to one. For bosses, do your rotation. 20k is a good benchmark for you right now on bosses if you do the rotation as listed in this post.

[Soulrider 0]

It's not a bad idea, but it's impossible for us to assist you with better DPS other than looking at what I pointed out. Once you have your gear acquired, your DPS will go up significantly. Right now, all you can do in dungeons is put DoTs up on multiple targets and do your single target rotation to one. For bosses, do your rotation. 20k is a good benchmark for you right now on bosses if you do the rotation as listed in this post.

Ok thanks, i farm the Heroics alot so hopefully it should not take to long and I will get back to you asap! Again thanks for your help :)

[Soulrider 0]

I do have one last quick question! What is ormally used my warlocks a staff or a 1H and a OH?

[Soulrider 0]

sorry my crappy work computer sucks! I mean Normally used by*

[Zagam 1,982]

I do have one last quick question! What is ormally used my warlocks a staff or a 1H and a OH?

There isn't a decent Off Hand in Dragon Soul that you can reliably get your hands on. There is one low percentage trash drop. For now, don't worry about gear. You'll be doing new quests and getting ilvl 414 greens in exactly 2 weeks. If you really still care, go for a quickly obtained staff, either normal Hagara or the staff from LFR or normal Madness.

[Soulrider 0]

Ok thanks, guess I will just get back to you once it hit 90 lol

[Soulrider 0]

You say Mastery, how come wowreforge and askmrrobot are telling me to reforge to all haste? I got rid of all my spirit gear and most of my stuff is gemmed and enchant. Just is there a way to format the reforge sites to help me with the mastery so I can drop my hit chance to 15% and get my mastery high like you advise?

[Soulrider 0]

Here is my wowreforge link http://www.wowreforge.com/US/Kil'Jaeden/Soulrider

[Boradan 17]

You say Mastery, how come wowreforge and askmrrobot are telling me to reforge to all haste? I got rid of all my spirit gear and most of my stuff is gemmed and enchant. Just is there a way to format the reforge sites to help me with the mastery so I can drop my hit chance to 15% and get my mastery high like you advise?

Read the big red box on askmrrobot.... its geared for lvl 90, so the recommendations sometimes wont be optimal.

TBH, I wouldnt even bother with the expense for reforging right now. Theres less than 2 weeks till Mop, just do what you can with the gear you have. Gemming/enchanting/reforging is a waste of money right now

Edited September 13, 2012 by Boradan

[Soulrider 0]

Read the big red box on askmrrobot.... its geared for lvl 90, so the recommendations sometimes wont be optimal.

TBH, I wouldnt even bother with the expense for reforging right now. Theres less than 2 weeks till cata, just do what you can with the gear you have. Gemming/enchanting/reforging is a waste of money right now

Ok thanks

[Zagam 1,982]

Mr. Robot and I disagree on secondary stats. It's understandable if you want to follow in Mr Robot's footsteps, but I've gone through the measures of using Simulationcraft values to show the biggest DPS gain per point of secondary stats in another thread. See the link below. In Affliction's case, Mastery comes out ahead of Haste, but by a small margin. You can reforge either way and still be doing sufficient DPS. Just don't reforge into Crit.

https://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/568-stats-weight-in-mop/

[Kravn 5]

I will say that after reforging about 30 times and running Simcraft over and over, I've come to the conclusion that haste and mastery are so close as to be almost interchangeable.

In fact, I found that when I prioritized Mastery OR Haste unduly, I lost DPS. Wobb has posted on his Affliction guide that he believes the current stat weights are: Mastery - 1.67, Haste - 1.64, and Crit - 1.03. My experience with reforging certainly seems to back this up, as if I overprioritized either stat, my DPS went down in both Simcraft and against dummies.

In the end, I found for my gear, I balanced out well at about 16.5% haste and 62% Mastery. Completing against other warlocks in my guild, I find that Haste does offer an invisible benefit over Mastery - While Mastery pulls very slightly ahead on a long fight, Haste is over-represented in quick fights, or where there are adds. The haste warlocks beat me handily on multi-target fights like Warmastar Blackhorn. I tend to do better on more static fights like Ultraxion and Morchok. Keep in mind, if the above numbers are correct for stat weightings, Mastery is so slightly ahead of Haste it's only going to manifest in a very small amount of DPS - In fact, in Simcraft if I go full in either direction, the DPS difference reported in < 500DPS over optimum.

YMMV - I anticipate that at the haste levels and mastery levels we have at 90, the variance will be more noticeable.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Kravn

[Troket 5]

A Question that I Haven't seen asked. And sorry before hand if it sounds a little silly but when reading the tool tips over the years of playing wow they can tend to be misleading and vague.

You say to keep up haunt as close to 100% as possible, but do I need to refresh my dots after casting haunt in order for them to receive the bonus?

Every time you cast or refresh a dot the damage is recalculated by what modifiers are up at that time am I correct?

Assuming that I am correct about the dots damage being recalculated by the modifiers that are present at the time. Should we refresh all dots every time we receive a boost via proc, potion or other? Or are there some modifiers that aren't worth it?

Can I get your personal take on this one Zagam? And do you use Power Auras or another addon to keep track of your buffs?

Edited September 14, 2012 by Troket

[Zagam 1,982]

A Question that I Haven't seen asked. And sorry before hand if it sounds a little silly but when reading the tool tips over the years of playing wow they can tend to be misleading and vague.

You say to keep up haunt as close to 100% as possible, but do I need to refresh my dots after casting haunt in order for them to receive the bonus?

Every time you cast or refresh a dot the damage is recalculated by what modifiers are up at that time am I correct?

Assuming that I am correct about the dots damage being recalculated by the modifiers that are present at the time. Should we refresh all dots every time we receive a boost via proc, potion or other? Or are there some modifiers that aren't worth it?

Can I get your personal take on this one Zagam? And do you use Power Auras or another addon to keep track of your buffs?

I use TukUI that includes TukUI Class Timers which is what I use to track my buffs, DoTs, etc. If you use a Potion or trinket/profession proc, you'll want to refresh your DoTs, but applying Haunt makes the DoT ticks 25% more powerful as soon as Haunt finally hits its target (I think Haunt has the slowest travel time of any spell in the entire game). DoTs take snapshots of buffs on you prior to calculating damage; however, any new debuff applied to an enemy instantly affects the damage coming in.

TL;DR = You do NOT need to reapply DoTs with Haunt. DoTs snapshot your buffs, not the enemy debuffs. Updating an enemy debuff modifies damage instantly.

[Troket 5]

Thanks Zagam for the speedy reply. I am so glad this site isn't speaking in tongues.

Reading through all the theorycraft on Elitist Jerks is such a headache and don't attempt to ask a question over there. "You don't understand quantum string theory what a noob!" post deleted.

[Boradan 17]

I use ElvUI and it has the same classtimer functionality that Tukui has.

Unfortunately, I dont use the built in class timers on my lock as it doesnt show DoT ticks, which makes it REALLY hard casting corruption between the last 2 ticks.

I use Forte Xorcist instead for this reason,

However.... level 90 will see us getting pandemic, so that removes the issue from the equation.....

Back to ElvUI Classtimers as soon as MoP hits live.