World of Warcraft

Introduction
Affliction sims out as our number 3 spec on a single target Patchwerk style encounter, but it is our most mobile spec. It is also our best spec for multi-dot damage against 2 or more targets. For me, I consider it to be also the most polished, smoothest and "easiest" spec to play.

Spec
32/3/6: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/tool/talent-calculator#Vc00!hkhajVkVT!Y!P!YTklNnpqJ

Glyphs
Corruption, Unstable Affliction and Haunt are the Primes, Life Tap, Shadow Bolt, Soul Swap the Majors. I have Soul Link rather than Life Tap for the added survivability however as LT is such a minor DPS increase especially a high haste levels. Similarly, UA can be replaced by Bane of Agony for multi-dot encounters at high haste levels, or by Lash of Pain on encounters where the Succubus is used for hitting airborne or other ranged targets.

Priorities
Haunt
Bane of Doom (single target - Agony if you're going to be Soul Swapping)
Corruption
Unstable Affliction
Soulburn: Soul Fire (with T13 4pc)
Drain Soul (target <25%)
Shadowflame
Shadow Bolt

Situational
Curse of Elements/Weakness/Tongues depending on encounter and raid composition.
Fel Flame on Movement

AoE
Soulburn: Seed of Corruption
Shadowflame
Seed of Corruption


Unstable Affliction should be clipped in the last 2 seconds, but Bane of Doom should not be clipped unless your have more powerful buffs than at the point of casting.

Shadow Bolt and Haunt apply the Shadow Embrace debuff: this should be maintained at 3 stacks at all times, even across multiple targets.

Against anything that'll live long enough for a full DoT duration, use Soul Swap to spread your DoTs initially, but manually refreshing them after this should prove more of a DPS increase.

Demon Soul: Felhunter should be used close to cooldown, ahead of reapplying DoTs and/or when begining multidotting. The effect applies Corruption applied by SB:SoC also, so it's a nice boost to AoE damage. Demon Soul: Succubus should be used after DoTs are applied and you begin using filler.

Pet
Felhunter against most targets. Succubus, glyphed against airborne targets.

Doomguard Single Target.
Infernal AoE.

Guardians should be summoned under the maximum number of stat increase buffs, such as trinkets, potions, power torrent and so on. They do not benefit from percentile based buffs such as Wrath of Air or Heroism.

Stat priority
Intellect >> Hit (to cap) > Haste >> Crit > Mastery

Haste Plateaus are not hugely important to Affliction, and it's impossible to reach haste levels from gear that will make the other stats more desirable.

Trinkets (Curtesy of neubs986: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1033285-BiS-Trinket-lists.)

Affliction
HCoC- 3776
HICM- 3386
CoC- 3378
HWoU- 3345
HVPL- 3049
ICM- 3018
CoC(LFR)- 2979
WoU- 2909
VPL- 2711
ICM(LFR)- 2604
WoU(LFR)- 2579
BW- 2397
RoZ- 2336
DMC:V- 2204
FGDL- 2101

Other Resources
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/837892-Affliction-A-Guide-%284.2%29
http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t112939-affliction_cataclysm_4_3_release/

Sticky req this one aswell. (Sticky req the other 2 aswell).
Nice job Jessicka!

Im using this priority, but still got some 333 items, yet i can barely pass 12k damage in Cata Hc's.

I just did Well of Eternity and just got 10k DPS.

Got kicked cus everyone called me a noob. :S Yet in Hour of Twilight i managed to get up into 14-15k. The Shadowbolt spam takes to long with over 2 second cast, most times i barely have time to even apply dots before most targets is down.

Not sure what im doing wrong, watched so many vids and read so many "guides" and yet i cant seem to perform 20k Damage as one vid i saw did. Now, some people say its cus i dont have full gear and gemmed it all with highest gems, still doesnt seem like i should need to do that to be able to pass 10k at least. O.o

With only 2 useful (yet suboptimal) gems and 0 useful enchants it's no wonder you're doing bad in heroics. Gear and enchants make an immense difference.

Enchants are quite cheap nowadays and you don't even have to go directly for the top end ones, you can use cheaper things like 15 stats to chest, 50 haste to bracers, 30 int to cloak (though 50 is quite cheap too), 50 haste to gloves is very cheap and is the best enchant for affli, belt buckles are cheap, 50 haste to boots is cheap. You can use Hurricane on weapon instead of Power Torrent too. Of course having the maxed enchants is important in the long run, but if you lack gold and can't use it on trash gear you're gonna replace, you can use these for a bit.

You're also revered with guardians of hyjal, you can go and get yourself a head enchant right away. You'll need to quest in deepholm for your shoulder enchant, though.

You only need 6% hit for non-boss level (skull) targets, also.

Thanks for the tips, went and bought some cheap enchants that i could afford, im currently at 13% spell hit, and i still have a 3% chance to miss on skulls. O.o

20/01/2012 15:26Posted by Zêdark

Thanks for the tips, went and bought some cheap enchants that i could afford, im currently at 13% spell hit, and i still have a 3% chance to miss on skulls. O.o

reforge all mastery to hit. if you still have problems reaching the hit cap reforge the crit to hit as well.

oh and dont forget the metasocket and put 20intellect+20haste on the yellow sockets.

edit: the cap is 17% btw

Also, the ramp up time on affliction means it isn't great for heroics if you're in a high dps group, as the bosses just don't live long enough. The longer the fight, the more chance you have to shine as an affliction lock.

Thanks for the post Jessicka

I've found Affliction is pretty well fine in heroics. You just can't focus down individual trash as you would other specs, so you're basically pressed into a constant AoE or multidotting with SB:SoC and Soul Swapping. On bosses there's no issues at all.

Bumping.

Thanks for the thread (sticky requested)! Got a quick question as a new lock - do you use Soulburn->Soul Fire at all? I'm always worried that its a waste of dps to have all 3 shards, so I use that on cooldown. Bad idea?

Not a bad idea at all, although for Affliction Drain Life is a better use of it.

1stly - Nice guide.

2ndly a question:
Where does the t13 4 set bonus fit in the rotation.

I've been feeling a bit apprehensive about getting the 4-set because the bonus basically adds another spell to our rotation and i'm not exactly sure how to go about it.

Thirdly some moaning:
I personally find the 4pc set bonus to be the worst since .... tier 11 - as it forces us to use utility spell in our regular rotation. Meaning that soulburn will be on cooldown .. whenever we might be needing to use it to say .. resurrect a pet.

2ndly a question:
Where does the t13 4 set bonus fit in the rotation.

Use it on CD. As for number 3, using soulfire gives you back a shard, so you don't use anything, and when you get the set bonus you won't be pet switching anymore

2ndly a question:
Where does the t13 4 set bonus fit in the rotation.

Use it on CD. As for number 3, using soulfire gives you back a shard, so you don't use anything, and when you get the set bonus you won't be pet switching anymore

Yeah i figured as much, thanks.

My actual gripe with it is that someone in blizzard thought a little something like this:
Hmm warlocks - they only have to watch their dot timers, cooldowns and control their pet while doing a 4-6 button rotation.
What they need is another spell in their rotation!

...

:)

Yeah - our rotations were too simple to begin with. And wasn't it at the start of cata where they thought - hey affliction shouldn't cast soulfire..

That was my gripe.

It does suck, but if we've learned anything from blizzard it's that they always screw up at least one set bonus each tier. It just so happens that this makes our rotations harder while other classes lives get made easier (i'm sure there's an arcane mage joke there somewhere).

02/02/2012 09:43Posted by Jessicka

Not a bad idea at all, although for Affliction Drain Life is a better use of it.

Even without 4 set soulfire is a better use for soulburn.

05/02/2012 23:31Posted by Levistus

It just so happens that this makes our rotations harder while other classes lives get made easier

Since when is affliction's rotation hard? O_O

05/02/2012 23:31Posted by Lobsang

Since when is affliction's rotation hard? O_O

Harder != hard. However it isn't super-easy either.

Now add warlock pet control and CD watching to the mix and you get one of the most complex dps classes in the game hands down.

Translation - have to work harder than some other classes to achieve the same results.

But i think that's getting kind of offtopic anyway.. as the point we were discussing i thought was that the t13 4pc bonus messes up the affliction rotation ;)

My actual gripe with it is that someone in blizzard thought a little something like this:
Hmm warlocks - they only have to watch their dot timers, cooldowns and control their pet while doing a 4-6 button rotation.
What they need is another spell in their rotation!

You say that, but conceptually, I though the T11 four set was the best set bonus they've ever implemented (although the benefit was poor, and in it's original incarnation a DPS loss!). I'd love to see more active proc style bonuses in future. My main gripe with the current 4 set is that it's use basically costs us utility, and I can see a lot of potential use for SB:Healthstones going into hard modes.

Harder != hard. However it isn't super-easy either.

Now add warlock pet control and CD watching to the mix and you get one of the most complex dps classes in the game hands down.

Translation - have to work harder than some other classes to achieve the same results.

But i think that's getting kind of offtopic anyway.. as the point we were discussing i thought was that the t13 4pc bonus messes up the affliction rotation ;)

It's not hard, Dot clipping was the "hard" part that is no longer an issue. The extra ability on a 45s CD isn't so bad as ppl make out. Lock is hard if u compare it to 3 button wonders like boomkins :P

But meh what i find easy other's might find hard so no point debating indepth about a class as i might find another class hard where u find it easy.

On topic: Maybe add soulfire as prio with T-13 set bonus disclaimer for ur optimal rotation?