6.1 Affliction Guide

[Liquidsteel 279]

Same as MG. After a tick.

[Zagam 1,982]

Yup, get a tracker - most cast bar addons show the intervals of Drain Soul.  I tend to go after the 3rd tick each time with a recast.  I asked Locky what he does out of curiousity and he goes the whole cast.  I don't prefer that method because of latency and the possibility of hitting Drain Soul too early and clipping the 4th tick.  I'm actually not sure if Drain Soul acts like Pandemic where it adds the damage at the end, extends it, or adds the damage as a partial tick so I just play it safe and go after the 3rd tick.  This is impossible with Dark Soul, Tempus Repit, and Bloodlust up, however - cast time of Drain Soul at that point is like 1.5 seconds.

[Glickz 0]

It just ticks 4 times for the same amount, ending on the 4th. I'm mostly worried about the end of cast and maximizing the spell queue. I guess I should just check out a spellbar addon with an ms bar but I was hoping for a built-in solution, somehow.

 

The problem with ending on the 3rd tick is the same latency issue as on the 4th. Or are you saying that the damage tick still comes on time if you refresh the channel

 

oh, weird. Spamming the drain soul key gave me 7 ticks after i stopped doing it

Edited October 31, 2014 by Xarzzardorn

[Zagam 1,982]

You must have insane latency to get 7 ticks of damage after you stop casting it - it only ticks 4 times, so there's something else going on.  I have about 45-50 ms on most days, 25 on good days.  There's no problem ending it after 3 ticks because you have a visual showing when the tick ends - so at worst, you end the cast after the 3rd tick and have a bit of 'dps loss' when you requeue the spell to start over.  When you let it last to 4 ticks, you are going to get the same effect if you time it after Drain Soul ends, or worse, cut off the 4th tick by trying to push the two casts as close together as possible.  Because of this potential human timing error, I utilize the 3rd tick.

[Glickz 0]

I ping 30-40 ms to my server. Try it and see for yourself. I get 6 unless I proc my metagem or pop DS and then I can get 7

 

Aren't you paying an up front amount of mana to start the channel? so you're paying a little extra if you clip after 3. But mana considerations at 90 don't seem to matter much

[Zagam 1,982]

Get 6 what?  I don't think we're talking about the same thing.  Drain Soul ticks 4 times - period.  It doesn't gain additional ticks - Haste only speeds up the total time spent.  I think you're seeing damage numbers of Drain Soul proccing other DoTs.  The penalty to initiate a spell isn't worth worrying about.

[Liquidsteel 279]

If you clip the last tick it gets added to the next cast. Works like that for us and for shadow priests.

 

Also, I am seeing more than 4 ticks on my cast bar, using gnosis.

[Zagam 1,982]

Sounds like an error with the addon unless they changed the way Drain Soul worked and didn't tell anyone.  Might have to look at combat logs.  Drain Soul itself is only supposed to tick 4 times.  They asked them back in MSV if it gained ticks via Pandemic and they said no, it only shortens the cast time (in reference to Malefic Grasp).  The tooltip implies 4 hits over x.xx seconds, baseline 4.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'm in a raid right now on Mage, but I will try to test it later to show. 

 

Shadow's have been doing this with MF to gain an extra tick of Insanity, and I've also noted it working with Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul.

[Glickz 0]

a 15 second demonstration:

http://youtu.be/vjvubLaH6ss

 

 

I stopped playing after lady sinestra and came back recently so I missed out on or forgot a lot of the modern spell changes. My memories of drain soul are using it at rank 1 to destroy my bagspace. So I guess what Liquidsteel said but along all 4 ticks not just 1. Thanks for the help

Edited November 1, 2014 by Xarzzardorn

[Zagam 1,982]

Those extra hits are Multistrike hits.  Since you have Dark Intent and maybe KTT, that explains it.  See that 100 damage that pops up outside of the majority of your 300 hits?  That's a Multistrike hit.  Aside from that, didn't see anything out of the norm.  You're spamming it much more than I would - you're likely hitting it after 1 tick. 

[spikeysquad 50]

From my own testing yes it seems that Drain Soul has 4 base ticks. However, like Liquidsteel I also use Gnosis and that shows it as having 6 ticks... Seems like I should change so what cast bar do other people use? Quartz perhaps?

 

Judging by the number of ticks and the fact that the channel is constantly changing its length I believe that Drain Soul does work like Mind Flay (since Cata anyhow) and the clipped tick is added to the next cast. When I clipped after tick 3 and then did a full Drain Soul channel it always registered as 8 ticks still. 

[Eddie 16]

The Elvui default castbar is showing 4 ticks.

[Glickz 0]

Those extra hits are Multistrike hits.  Since you have Dark Intent and maybe KTT, that explains it.  See that 100 damage that pops up outside of the majority of your 300 hits?  That's a Multistrike hit.  Aside from that, didn't see anything out of the norm.  You're spamming it much more than I would - you're likely hitting it after 1 tick. 

 

I'm not counting the multistrikes, which are very obviously close to 30% of the regular hits, 118 and 392 respectively. I'm spamming it to show it's not cumulative across more than 2 drain soul casts.

 

From the video description "Spamming drain soul key. Spamming stops when the channel bar stops refilling" which is at about the 10 second mark. I know that is when it stopped because I recorded it. After that mark is where I count the ~7 ticks. I see 6 when I do this naked. I even counted them from the actual combat log

 

This was more of a curiosity than anything so I'll leave it at that

[Zagam 1,982]

This addon showing 6 ticks or whatever is likely using the number of ticks from OLD Drain Soul, not new Drain Soul which is essentially Malefic Grasp.  I've gone through it countless times - you get 4 ticks from Drain Soul, regardless of button spamming, waiting for 3 ticks, or waiting for 4.  There is no Pandemic or partial tick system.

[spikeysquad 50]

OK thanks for the replies. Also please forgive my rudeness for not thanking the guide writers and all the contributors before. Your efforts really makes a difference to players so  thank you!

 

I do still see clipped ticks turning up in the second channel on the scrolling text and recount. However, if that doesn't happen then when I clip Drain Soul what causes the changes in its cast times? Unless that is also wrong with Gnosis but I have also tested this with Quartz now. It isn't due to the meta or any other haste proc that I can see but I am quite new to lock and may be missing some ability or the like.

 

Ultimately none of this really matters. The real question is when doing Drain, Drain when is the best time to start casting the second Drain Soul? Or should I get a "no challening" macro? Ah that takes me back to Wrath Shadow Priest. To clip Drain for DoTs, I assume the ideal time is just after a tick? Well a tick that is really a tick! 

 

P.S. I posted on the Gnosis comment page on Curse and the author told me how to fix the addon (I've used it a long time and ideally didn't want to change). Seems to be working great now and in time with the floating text hits.  

Edited November 2, 2014 by spikeysquad

[Vile 9]

I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, but are these stat weights made under the assumptuon that multistrike can proc Nightfall? I've seen 2 and 3 simultaneous procs on single target fights leading me to believe the assumptuon would be correct. I this could boost shard generation significantly it'd work wonders at least on the current ilvl running SB:Haunt as I feel I'm often starved for shards.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Stat weights where made using SimCraft, testing, and logic. At the time I hadn't seen a reputable source showing that MS could proc Nightfall and some fairly convincing testing showing that it did not, however the testing done was small sample and in beta so I couldn't say for sure either way.

 

 

As far as I have seen/been proven to me MS does NOT proc Nightfall. Once we get some Aff logs going in the next day or two I can double check and put the question to rest.

[Vile 9]

Where do I look for Nightfall procs in my logs? I'm assuming Events View in one or other tab but haven't been able to find it so far.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Buffs.

[Vile 9]

I searched Buffs for Nightfall but found nothing. Maybe I was on a Destro fight or something I only briefly looked through it this morning.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Okay, I was wrong. I thought it was under buffs but it isn't.

 

"Resources" is the tab you need. I think you need advanced combat logging turned on for it to be logged though.

[Vile 9]

There it is, thank you! I could've sworn I saw at least a double Nightfall last night but might be I just wasn't paying enough attention. Looking at all our fights from yesterday night (with two Affli locks present) no Nightfall procs were from Multistrike. Or rather there were no instances where Nightfall procced both from a normal tick and Multistrike tick simultaneously.

[Alphric 7]

So how's ebola spec stacking up these days?

[Lockybalboa 618]

Trying it tonight. Heard good things.