5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[obleak 10]

Zagam, your updated Demonology 5.3 guide was really but really really good...I would really like to see an updated 5.3 Affliction guide to play much better with Affliction because i find Affliction to be much more difficult than Demonology for some reason.

That's odd i've not ever heard anyone say that. Anything that you find difficult in affliction is with in DEMO plus 100 other things

[Juloroh 0]

That's odd i've not ever heard anyone say that. Anything that you find difficult in affliction is with in DEMO plus 100 other things

I find demo and destru to be less difficult than Affli. Main Spe is Demo for me and i'm happy with the DPS i have in Demo, and that's not the case when playing Affliction.

Maybe it's shard management, haunt uptime,...i don't know but i'm not really satisfied with my Affliction DPS.

That's why i would be really happy with an updated affliction guide like the demo one, they really help.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Juloroh

[Zagam 1,982]

It'll be my next upgrade. I have to dabble back into Affliction to remember how to play it lol

[Icy 0]

I have been reading forums on this site for awile, but looking for a bit of help. I am affliction ilvl 534 with 2H/12 TOT progression. I have been stacking haste like a mofo and am now over 14k haste. Should I be dumping some of that haste into mastery now? I also use gosac cause I have gotten so used to having no pet and love it, but not sure if I should be going with grimsup with all the haste. MY other question is in regards to trinkets. I have Breath and Wushoo both upgraded. Should I be using Lei Shen trinket instead of wushoo? It has dropped 3 times and I keep passing thinking it isnt great for affliction. Here is a link to my profile.

Thanks!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/illidan/Icyfrozt/simple

[obleak 10]

I have been reading forums on this site for awile, but looking for a bit of help. I am affliction ilvl 534 with 2H/12 TOT progression. I have been stacking haste like a mofo and am now over 14k haste. Should I be dumping some of that haste into mastery now? I also use gosac cause I have gotten so used to having no pet and love it, but not sure if I should be going with grimsup with all the haste. MY other question is in regards to trinkets. I have Breath and Wushoo both upgraded. Should I be using Lei Shen trinket instead of wushoo? It has dropped 3 times and I keep passing thinking it isnt great for affliction. Here is a link to my profile.

Thanks!

http://us.battle.net...Icyfrozt/simple

get to your closest haste cap. I'm not sure what it is, but i know there is one around 14k haste.. Switch out of goSac.. it's a boost only to use GoSac on high MG fights as previously mentioned above. Use GoSuprem or GoServices.. both are acceptable. I prefer GoSuprem for one less cd to manage, but you may was GOservice for high burst moments like H Tort/H Magera/H Durumu.. Ect... Anything with lots of cleave needed.. but that doesn't mean Suprem is bad.

Regading the trinkets i've got a lot of feedback on a forum i monitor.. i use Lei Shen's because i'm primarily DEMO and reforging everytime due to over being over hit cap with Wooshoo's is just not worth it.. that being said.. it is easier to line up all your buffs with Breath of Hydra and Whooshoo's. Aff Dots only shows Perfect Aim's Critted Dots for like one of your dots in AFF (forget which one) so also hard to remember which dots is 100% crit.. and it's very rng based.

Regardless of being so RNG i still prefer static INT over yucky hit.

after you reach your cap dump remaining stats into mastery (assuming you have hit to 15%) keep out of CRIT AT ALL COSTS...

Edited July 7, 2013 by obleak

[Narga 0]

How would it be to go with alot of mastery to do a affli/destro hybrid? would you see alot of difference in affli with high mastery, compared to high haste?

Edited July 10, 2013 by Narga

[Zagam 1,982]

Nope. Won't see a large difference at all. For Aff/Destro combination, I'd push for 8100 Haste and shove the rest into Mastery, if that's what you meant.

[Narga 0]

Nope. Won't see a large difference at all. For Aff/Destro combination, I'd push for 8100 Haste and shove the rest into Mastery, if that's what you meant.

Ah, okai, thanks. How would be an efficient way to gem, when going for that? would it be beneficial to reforge first, and then gem the way you see fit afterwards, or gem your way to more haste/mastery and then reforge it away?

[Zagam 1,982]

Slap gems in then reforge to your values

[Narga 0]

Nope. Won't see a large difference at all. For Aff/Destro combination, I'd push for 8100 Haste and shove the rest into Mastery, if that's what you meant.

sooo... last question.. :P

would it be beneficial to do GoSac with high mastery overall, or still just on high MG fights? Thanks for all previous replys ^^

[Zagam 1,982]

Avoid GoSac. It's not even until you're at 545+ ilvl. Take Supremacy, let your pet do its thing.

[Zagam 1,982]

So I ran normal ToES and HoF this weekend....here's the log for those that want to see certain aspects of the fights: http://worldoflogs.com/reports/jnmdcxxelza04rtc/

What I toyed around with was my trinkets. I reforged to use Wushoolay's. With a little paper napkin math, I realized something quite incredible. The syncronization of this trinket combo makes it, in my opinion, VASTLY superior to using Unerring. Here's how it worked. At the start of a fight, Breath and Wush will proc. Both of these have a 20 second duration. Dark Soul has a 20 second duration. Tempus Repit has a 10 second duration. Potion has a 25 sec duration. My opener became CoE - Dark Soul - SB:SS - Haunt - MG - MG - SB:SS - MG spam. I did another SB:SS when Tempus Repit and Breath were live resulting in an Affdots coefficient of around 195. This also used Pandemic. Now the main focus was to snapshot DoTs at the end of Wushoolays. I continued MG spam while reapplying UA and Corruption if needed. When Wush hit 10 stacks, I used another SB:SS. During this very brief 2 second window, I had 74,500 spell power and an Affdots coefficient of 145, which meant these DoTs were 45% more powerful than the ones running with Tempus Repit and such.

My base Intellect is in the neighboorhood of 22k. 543 Wush 10 stack = 16,700 Int. Potion = 4000 Int. Breath of the Hydra = 8350 Int. You can see quite clearly how awesome this is. The best part is when you re-snapshot, you're snapshotting DoTs that are going to last for their maximum duration. My average Agony ticks were over 100k for many fights.

Now, the justification behind saying to leave UVLS at home is that when I'm running with Intellect procs that do MORE than double my spellpower, then the normal ticks of these buffed DoTs would do more than the critical effects of the normal DoTs. Remember, UVLS's effect is diminished for each crit you would have gotten without the trinket. If you get some crits with the mega Intellect DoTs, they are going to be so big, it's unbelievable.

This provides for a VERY long and strong opener. It feels like your opener lasts a minute. By the time my DoTs started to wear off, I saw another proc of Breath/Wush and just started the process over. I also put a higher priority on maintaining Haunt on a Wushoolay's proc than Dark Soul. When Wush gets combined with Tempus Repit, look out. It's going to be RNG to get everything to line up, but my good lord, when you do, holy crap. I'll be sampling this method this week in Heroic ToT and we'll see how it feels in current content.

[JvChequer 43]

How you reforge for all this? Full Haste? 9778 cap? 13737?

[Zagam 1,982]

Whatever my armory says now. I think it's around 10.5k Haste and 12.7k Mastery IIRC.

[JvChequer 43]

I Think both Affliction and Demo which 545~ ilvl should aim for a higher Doom/Agony Breakpoint, even for multi-target the loss wouldn't be that high.

Just a though btw.

[Zagam 1,982]

I don't think the breakpoints are worthwhile, personally, since you are monitoring procs, not extra ticks. I want my DoTs to hit harder, and I like the Mastery build. Sacrificing 5-6% of overall damage to get an extra Doom tick as Demonology isn't worthwhile at all.

[JvChequer 43]

I think it's pretty much dependent on lucky, 'cause more imps - from one imp between imp swam and one more from Doom - mean more fury and more dmg to us, but, if the UVLS proc in the wrong time, the whole point of haste build falls.

Edited July 29, 2013 by JvChequer

[Juloroh 0]

So I ran normal ToES and HoF this weekend....here's the log for those that want to see certain aspects of the fights: http://worldoflogs.c...mdcxxelza04rtc/

What I toyed around with was my trinkets. I reforged to use Wushoolay's. With a little paper napkin math, I realized something quite incredible. The syncronization of this trinket combo makes it, in my opinion, VASTLY superior to using Unerring. Here's how it worked. At the start of a fight, Breath and Wush will proc. Both of these have a 20 second duration. Dark Soul has a 20 second duration. Tempus Repit has a 10 second duration. Potion has a 25 sec duration. My opener became CoE - Dark Soul - SB:SS - Haunt - MG - MG - SB:SS - MG spam. I did another SB:SS when Tempus Repit and Breath were live resulting in an Affdots coefficient of around 195. This also used Pandemic. Now the main focus was to snapshot DoTs at the end of Wushoolays. I continued MG spam while reapplying UA and Corruption if needed. When Wush hit 10 stacks, I used another SB:SS. During this very brief 2 second window, I had 74,500 spell power and an Affdots coefficient of 145, which meant these DoTs were 45% more powerful than the ones running with Tempus Repit and such.

My base Intellect is in the neighboorhood of 22k. 543 Wush 10 stack = 16,700 Int. Potion = 4000 Int. Breath of the Hydra = 8350 Int. You can see quite clearly how awesome this is. The best part is when you re-snapshot, you're snapshotting DoTs that are going to last for their maximum duration. My average Agony ticks were over 100k for many fights.

Now, the justification behind saying to leave UVLS at home is that when I'm running with Intellect procs that do MORE than double my spellpower, then the normal ticks of these buffed DoTs would do more than the critical effects of the normal DoTs. Remember, UVLS's effect is diminished for each crit you would have gotten without the trinket. If you get some crits with the mega Intellect DoTs, they are going to be so big, it's unbelievable.

This provides for a VERY long and strong opener. It feels like your opener lasts a minute. By the time my DoTs started to wear off, I saw another proc of Breath/Wush and just started the process over. I also put a higher priority on maintaining Haunt on a Wushoolay's proc than Dark Soul. When Wush gets combined with Tempus Repit, look out. It's going to be RNG to get everything to line up, but my good lord, when you do, holy crap. I'll be sampling this method this week in Heroic ToT and we'll see how it feels in current content.

Quite interesting, did you tried to run a Wush + UVLS combo to see how it compare with the Breath/Wush combo you used?I imagine a 10 stack Wush combined with an UVLS proc, i know that the chance of it actually happening are extremely slim, but man, imagine those numbers,...I would really want to see a log with that combo from the great Zagam...

Edited July 30, 2013 by Juloroh

[Zagam 1,982]

Quite interesting, did you tried to run a Wush + UVLS combo to see how it compare with the Breath/Wush combo you used?I imagine a 10 stack Wush combined with an UVLS proc, i know that the chance of it actually happening are extremely slim, but man, imagine those numbers,...I would really want to see a log with that combo from the great Zagam...

That's the thing...it's MUCH more likely and reasonable to get a combination of Breath and some amount of Wush. It goes back to showing what would happen in those what if scenarios like what would you do if Unerring proc'd at Wush's 2 stack. You'd end up refreshing your DoTs at Wush's 10 stack negating those crits because the higher Int would be better. The reason UVLS is SOOOO good for Demonology isn't the DAMAGE that the crit effect has...it's the secondary effect. Destruction and Affliction don't get any effect from crits except double damage. The 4 second window is also largely unpredictable. At least with Wush, you know exactly how much time you've got until you're looking at 16k bonus Intellect.

[Juloroh 0]

That's the thing...it's MUCH more likely and reasonable to get a combination of Breath and some amount of Wush. It goes back to showing what would happen in those what if scenarios like what would you do if Unerring proc'd at Wush's 2 stack. You'd end up refreshing your DoTs at Wush's 10 stack negating those crits because the higher Int would be better. The reason UVLS is SOOOO good for Demonology isn't the DAMAGE that the crit effect has...it's the secondary effect. Destruction and Affliction don't get any effect from crits except double damage. The 4 second window is also largely unpredictable. At least with Wush, you know exactly how much time you've got until you're looking at 16k bonus Intellect.

So to get this straight :

UVLS/Wush < Wush/breath combo because of better synergy between Wush and breath , the fact that they proc more than UVLS, and both have 20 seconds duration....

[Zagam 1,982]

IMO, yes. While Wush's duration is slightly misinterpreted, you really are gaining benefit the entire time while it ramps up. It's just a much more predictable and effective proc than a 4 second window.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I'm just setting up as Affliction to try it out. I have two questions.

#1: Glyphs? In the OP, you don't mention glyphs anywhere, other than Soul Shard (which no longer exists I'm assuming; I can't find it). Do you use Glyph of Soul Swap to copy DoTs to a second target or do you leave the glyph off and just burn one to DoT a second target?

#2: You put in the guide that you won't be using Sacrifical Pact since you're using Grimoire of Sacrifice. Did it used to not take out 25% of your own HP if you Sacrificed your pet and give you the larger shield? Do you still recommend Soul Link over Sacrificial Pact?

[Juloroh 0]

I'm just setting up as Affliction to try it out. I have two questions.

#1: Glyphs? In the OP, you don't mention glyphs anywhere, other than Soul Shard (which no longer exists I'm assuming; I can't find it). Do you use Glyph of Soul Swap to copy DoTs to a second target or do you leave the glyph off and just burn one to DoT a second target?

#2: You put in the guide that you won't be using Sacrifical Pact since you're using Grimoire of Sacrifice. Did it used to not take out 25% of your own HP if you Sacrificed your pet and give you the larger shield? Do you still recommend Soul Link over Sacrificial Pact?

Edited August 3, 2013 by Juloroh

[Zagam 1,982]

I'm just setting up as Affliction to try it out. I have two questions.

#1: Glyphs? In the OP, you don't mention glyphs anywhere, other than Soul Shard (which no longer exists I'm assuming; I can't find it). Do you use Glyph of Soul Swap to copy DoTs to a second target or do you leave the glyph off and just burn one to DoT a second target?

#2: You put in the guide that you won't be using Sacrifical Pact since you're using Grimoire of Sacrifice. Did it used to not take out 25% of your own HP if you Sacrificed your pet and give you the larger shield? Do you still recommend Soul Link over Sacrificial Pact?

No glyphs really help Affliction; therefore, none are mentioned.  Glyph of Soul Swap is being replaced in 5.4 and you really don't want to have Soul Swap on a cooldown because you won't be able to Soulburn: Soul Swap.  Survival CDs are largely dependent on the fight.  For constant AoE, Soul Link is better.  For bursts of damage, Sacrificial Pact, despite the Grimoire choice, is highly desirable.

[Kazistrasz 216]

More questions from the noob:

 

#1: In your opener you have two places for SB:SS and a Haunt. After that, do you ever use SB:SS or just manually do them all (excluding UVLS proc which I'm assuming you SB:SS due to the small window)?

 

#2: How much of a loss is Drain Life compared to MG? Obviously it shouldn't be used as a filler, but what about helping healers during periods of heavy raid damage?