5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[mediocregatsby 18]

I think I read somewhere that they said at Blizzcon they were going to tweak/rework/balance them so Horde had great active racials, and Alliance had great passive racials. They obviously have to change some of them since they are doing away with hit/expertise.

that.. sounds so bad...

active racials just by nature of being able to use them in alignment with mechanics and other procs are almost always superior. surely blizzard understands this?

[Omaric 246]

I'm sure they do.  I doubt the troll racials will remain fully intact.

[zenn 0]

Hello fellow warlocks... I am a big fan of this website and this forum.  I am a bit in a situation here and I need some feedback.  I am currently a 563 aff/destro lock and I am rolling with 561 Purified Bindings of Immerseus and 561 Kardris' Toxic Totem. 

Since SoO came out, I have been the #1 dps in my 10man guild.  I have been waiting patiently for Black Blood of Y'Shaarj to drop and last time we killed  Garrosh it finally dropped. 

As soon as we downed Garrosh my game froze, I mentioned in vent that I need that Trinket and I need to reboot my computer.  When I came back my GM gave the BBY to a Frost Mage (rolling with flex version of PBI and KTT) that just joined our guild the day before the raid.  Furthermore, we are in a DKP system and gave her over 160 points of DKP for joining (reason: "so she can compete on gear with us").  The GM did not let me bid with my DKP and said that it would benefit the guild more if she gets it.  I told the GM that because its a better ilvl doesnt mean that its an upgrade for the mage.  The GM pulled rank on me and said that, "you are our top dps, you already have two 561 Trinkets and you are just being a Trinket whore.  Its done so..."

 

What do you guys think?

[Zagam 1,982]

I think you should have let the Mage have the trinket.  Your GM pulled the proper move to give the raid group its biggest upgrade.  Gear should never be a means to up your DPS...it should always be a means to kill the next boss.  Now you look greedy and not likely looked well upon when the next piece of loot comes that is good for you and the Mage equally. 

 

There is no situation here.  You can't have every piece of loot that drops.  Focus more on continuing to bring your DPS up and be a more valuable asset to your team.  Be more of a team player rather than worrying about a marginal DPS increase.

[Muoric 3]

Personally I'd actually prefer having KTT and PBI if I had the choice. As Zagam said, I think this helped your raid group a lot more. I do understand you being pissed to some degree, but you already have pretty good trinkets, so it's not like you'd be in a totally horrible situation either.

[Oldtrout 7]

It's only a very slight upgrade, if that, on your current trinkets. It's a bigger upgrade for the mage, even if he plays a spec which wouldn't utilize it as well as affliction.

 

There is sometimes an issue of raid leaders not knowing when a particular item should probably be given to a certain class regardless of whose gear / ilvl appears to be in more demand of it (UVLS), but it isn't really here. On the whole, SoO trinkets are pretty balanced in their value to every caster.

 

Not saying your GM has done everything right. Denying you the opportunity to roll because "you're a trinket whore" isn't really the right way to go about it, nor is distributing loot while you're offline. But in the end it worked it the way it probably should.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Oldtrout

[Lockybalboa 618]

You're wrong, GM is right, man up. This isn't facebook.

[juribe 1]

Needs of the guild outweigh the needs of your epeen. Sorry!

[Omaric 246]

You're wrong, GM is right, man up. This isn't facebook.

 

Yeah, this is Real Talk 98.5.

 

Damn people.

[Belloc 6]

While I agree that the raid group is probably better served by having the trinket go to the mage, I would like to point out two things:

 

1. The mage had joined the guild the day before. I've seen guilds that do not allow trials to get loot over mains because, surprise surprise, they tend to take loot and then leave the guild.

 

2. They use a DKP system. DKP systems have no room for officer/GM involvement. If you aren't going to let your players spend their points as they please, then don't use a DKP system.

[Omaric 246]

While I agree with you, this isn't the thread for this.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I'm a GM, and I can tell you exactly how this works.

 

When you have a new recruit, they're often behind the rest of your guild. People looking for a guild are often looking for one slightly above where they're currently at. Part of recruiting new players means having to invest in them. If you bring someone in and they're 8 ilvls behind or missing a couple really core pieces (like trinkets), you have to make that investment.

 

If you don't, they're going to get further and further behind your guild, and you're going to end up replacing them with someone that's closer to where your guild has gotten, and they're going to feel bad and you're going to look bad. Having a poor process of handling new recruits is a good way to earn yourself a bad rep and prevent yourself from ever recruiting to fill spots. Rep as a guild is so invaluable I can't even describe it.

 

In any loot system, there's room for the GM to override. That's why they're the GM, because they're in charge. They have the ultimate authority within the guild. Even in a DKP system, if the GM and officers see that the system would create such an misappropriation of loot, they have every right to do something about it. Honestly, hurting the ability to get things to new recruits is one of the biggest downfalls of DKP systems anyway. But, the point stands, if I made the executive decision and you wanted to argue, you would immediately be on the shit list.

 

Why? Because a guild is a team. For a guild to function, everyone has to be on board with that. The raid's success is your success. No matter how great you do, if someone else is missing 20k DPS because of that core upgrade they gave to you instead, that's the difference between a 2% wipe and a kill over the course of the fight. If you look at ANY decent guild's recruitment advertising or app, they list their requirements as someone who sees loot as only a means to an end and not the end itself. If you're not on board with that, they don't want you. 

 

If I gave someone loot over you because it was such a bigger upgrade for them and significantly better for the raid and you tried to argue, I'd call you a loot whore, too. I'd also tell you to can it, and if you argued again, you would risk being put on probation. There's no room for that in a guild.

 

Also, as Omaric said, this isn't the thread. So let the voice of a GM who knows how to lead a guild be the last word on the matter.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Kazistrasza

[Omaric 246]

I'm going to slap you Kaz.

[Lockybalboa 618]

I'm going to slap you Kaz.

 

 

He might like it

[Kazistrasz 216]

Oh, baby.

[chlcrc 4]

So although this thread seems to have died a bit, I just wanted to say thanks for this. I've been rolling Destro on my Warlock (he only reached 90 in October, but I'm pretty decently well geared now thanks to some amazing good luck), and I decided to try out Affliction as my offspec. I think the AOE will take me a while to get down (I'm used to my Destro and my main's Hunter multistrike lol), but it's pretty fun!

 

This guide is a life saver though; I'd be pretty screwed if I only used Icy-Veins.

[Liquidsteel 279]

You mentioned AoE; I skimmed over the guide and didn't see it in the Seed of Corruption section so I'll mention it here.

 

If you are quick enough, Soul Swap can be used to inhale Seed of Corruption (and its soulburned variant) along with your regular dots.

 

A beastly way to AoE as affliction (say for example on the bats on thok) is to Soulburn Soulswap your dots, followed by a quick Seed of Corruption. As soon as seed debuff appears on the target you need to quickly Inhale off your target and back onto another, at which point you immediately inhale before Seed has a chance to explode, and repeat the process on as many mobs are alive.

 

Can be tricky to pull off especially with high latency, but it's so worth it.

[Liquidsteel 279]

So it doesn't seem many people are playing Affliction on these forums, but I gave it a good go today (played it on every boss of the 13 we cleared tonight bar Shamans which I sat out for) and have to say it's not as far behind Destruction on some fights as I had imagined. 

 

I had previously come to find the spec dull and boring, but having gone up to 18k haste I feel like it's a lot more fluid and a hell of a lot more fun. Still have much to improve on, but it's not so bad when your spells are flying out so quickly :D

[Omaric 246]

Yeah it definitely performs very well on a lot of fights, but I think it's mostly the spamming of Malefic Grasp/Drain Soul that gets to people.  Personally I hate it because making the best out of when to clip the channel is a pain.  Did that last tick go off or did lag screw me?  That kind of stuff annoys me. 

[Liquidsteel 279]

 Did that last tick go off or did lag screw me?  That kind of stuff annoys me. 

 

Yep I can relate to this. I'm thinking of installing that "DrainSouler" addon which counts your ticks as just with Gnosis I know I'm losing thousands of dps by missing a split second here or there dozens of times each encounter.

 

It's just kind of refreshing being able to ditch destro on farm after months of playing it on every fight. 

[Zagam 1,982]

Not using DrainSouler is pretty brutal.  Timing your Drain Soul ticks and weaving in Haunts and Soulburns is MUCH harder without a tracker.  I use it with MG when I do play Affliction and always break my cast on the second to last tick.  I don't like latency causing me to waste time. 

 

I still wish you could cast Shadow Bolt instead.  Oh well...

[Zagam 1,982]

Also, I'm jelly that you're done with progression and can change specs.  I still feel tied to Destruction for the last two bosses.  God damn holiday break and people rerolling!

[Liquidsteel 279]

Well Gnosis (cast bar addon) at least has the cast bar divided into ticks but it's not as accurate as DrainSouler, at least it feels smoother.

 

I could go full on slack and turn the sound on for each MG tick but I feel coupled with AffDots it would be a bit cheap. Also very annoying...

 

And yes, we managed to clear just in the nick of time before christmas afks. Only 13 other guilds have snagged a kill since ours on the 18th. Holidays are brutal. My old old 10 man guild nearly fell apart in ToT when we didnt have a single progress raid for 5 weeks in summer...

[Zagam 1,982]

Last night, we essentially had to relearn Siegecrafter.  Took...eh, 15-20 attempts again.  Finally got it.  Then we wiped on Thok 4 times and got that.  So Tuesday, we one shot every boss up to Siege.  Wednesday was spent knocking down two bosses.  Tonight, we will do 3 hours of progression and then clear, because for some reason, no one wants to extend the lockout and make progress on meaningful bosses.

[Strife 6]

Is Drainsouler alot better than just using quartz with the tick marks on?

 

That's what I've been using, but maybe I should try this out.