Need advice for H-Madness as affliction

[Skyrge 9]

So my guild downed Heroic Spine last night (WOOT!, wtf does woot mean anyway?) but we only had time for a few pulls on Heroic Madness. It's pretty apparent that we'll be getting it down tomorrow night, but I'm looking to maximize my aoe dps on the Congealing Bloods as that was our sticking point on the fight (We missed it by around 2% I believe.) I tried to send out a few seeds before dropping reign of fire, but lost at least one uncompleted cast to them dying early. Recount says I did a bit over 1million dmg to them including Spellweave which put me in the bottom 2. On subsequent spawns I just blew my mana chasing them with reign of fire. Is it worth glyphing Harvest Life? In the Demo tips and tricks post, Zagam loves Harvest Life (I did too) however in another post (the aff. tips I believe) he says it's not worth it. I live by Zagam's advice but am a bit confused there, is it still viable in Demo? I am considering doing the fight as Demo just to help push us over our only roadblock.

Also, not that we had problems with Blistering Tentacles at all but just to maximise my own contribution there, is it worth losing my last 2 Soul Shards to dot up two of them when Drain Soul doesnt seem to be replenishing my shards when they die? Whats the best strat for affliction with those little low-health buggers. I feel so naked at zero shards.

Sorry for the long-winded post but wanted to be specific and thanks in advance.

[Zagam 1,982]

Hi Skyrge,

I've removed Harvest Life from my build. It proc's Spellweave, but it just doesn't do enough damage in those high intensity moments of those Congealing Bloods. Last night, I was on the bottom of the charts as Affliction, but we succeeded. Our comp consisted of:

Assassination Rogue

Survival Hunter

Fury Warrior

Blood DK

Shadow Priest

Affliction Warlock

Fire Mage

The Fire Mage and Shadow Priest were the top 2 due to their multiple AoE capabilities. Your job is to make sure you have 100% mana and begin channeling Rain of Fire where they spawn. You shouldn't be responsible for any slows...just do as much damage as possible. I didn't test a Soulburn Seed of Corruption, but I feel this is a waste of two globals that could be used on Rain of Fire.

Prior to Phase 2, during the execute phase of the last arm tentacle, make sure you are channeling Drain Soul on it so that you replenish your Soul Shards. When you land on the last platform for Phase 2, put your DoTs up and begin Drain Soul channeling until you need to switch to help with the Fragments. I applied DoTs to all 3 fragments using my Soulburn: Soul Swap macro and then channeled Malefic Grasp on one until it was in execute phase, then I finished it with Drain Soul to replenish my shards. With Deathwing at 16%, no one touched him and we let the Terrors come out. Again, I applied DoTs to both Terrors and performed my rotation on one of them using Drain Soul to replenish shards. When the Terrors were down, I slapped all DoTs on Deathwing and began channeling Drain Soul while watching for the Bloods to spawn (I'm the raid leader, so it's nice to do DPS while not paying attention to enable my focus on mechanics). When the Bloods spawned, I ordered my guys and gals to switch and I instantly began channeling Rain of Fire continuously until they were all dead. You'll need to Life Tap your mana back up because each tick of Rain costs massive amounts of mana.

When you come out of the first Blood phase, DW should be around 13%...push to 12%, kill adds, then push to 10% and deal with this set of Bloods in the same exact way. I used Dark Soul: Misery for this set as a CD to burst the adds down. On the 5% Bloods, I used my Infernal to add the extra boost. With this strat, we easily one shot Madness. As Affliction, you won't top the meters on the bloods, but you will be way up there overall.

[Skyrge 9]

Thanks as always for the great response. Your strat for phase 2 was exactly how I went about it, so it's good to know I'm on the right track. Also good to know I don't need to turn off the shadow-powered blowtorch that is my affliction spec for Madness. Thanks for the confirmation.

[Skyrge 9]

Madness down! Thanks again to Zagam, just thought I'd put in a few tips for anyone else that was looking this up. As previously noted Rain of Fire rapes your mana, the key that helped me was making sure mana was full before the bloods spawned. 1-2 Life Taps, healers never complained. Have Rain qued up on their spawn point and click as soon you see the little buggers. While thats channelling, que up the next one just out front of the 1st and click whenever the majority are in the next green circle, repeat a third time. 100% mana was enough for me to get through 3 Rains. I did use Dark Soul on the second group (big help) and had Infernal ready for the 3rd group. I was bummed to see Infernal add up to only 300k between the damage from awakening and his aoe/melee on the adds. While he is always fun to play with and looks impressive, I'm not sure I'd invite him to the party next week. All told I managed almost 3 million on bloods this time and was able to pull my weight on our only sticking point. Hope this helps other locks...well for the 3 weeks that this info is relevant anyway! >.<