Topic
(Sticky)
[PvE] Affliction in 5.0.x: A guide.
|
Edited by Jessicka on 28/03/13 13:49 (GMT)
Introduction
Affliction sims out as our number top spec on a single target Patchwerk style encounter, however it is not as mobile as it once was with so much damage tied to Malefic Grasp. Burst and controlled damage is much improved from previous expansions, but not really a match for Destruction or Demonology. It is of course however very strong in mulitdotting and sustained AoE encounters, in spite of its burst AoE being rather weak. Glyphs Soul Shards is the only really ‘mandatory’ glyph, as it offers one additional shard slot giving you more flexibility over when to use them. Other slots I’d recommend Siphon Life, Soulstone or Healthstone. Priorities Agony must be kept at 10 stacks and never allowed to drop. Unstable Affliction a bread and butter cast time DoT Corruption, instant cast DoT. Each tick has a chance to generate a Soul Shard. This Shard generation occurs through a hidden stacking buff whereby the chance to generate a Shard increases ‘per tick’. This results in a fairly random, but consistent return of Shards. Multidotting will increase the returns. Haunt applies a 25% debuff to the target that increases all damage dealt by you by 25% and consuming a Shard Malefic Grasp causes extra DoT ticks for 50% of their damage Drain Soul deals greater damage than Malefic Grasp while the target is below 20% health, as well as generating a Soul Shard every second tick and causing addition ticks from your DoTs. Fel Flame is used while moving if Agony or Corruption don’t need refreshing and extends the duration of UA. The key to dealing damage with Affliction is how you overlap your MG and Haunt debuffs across your DoTs as it is not possible to have 100% Haunt uptime prior to the execute due to the limitation on Shard returns. It is best therefore to refresh DoTs while Haunt is down, and to cast Haunt while there are more than 10s (8s, accounting for cast and travel time) left on all three DoTs leaving you able to channel MG throughout the full duration of Haunt. Because of this need to overlap, we have the ability ‘Pandemic’, this allows us to recast our DoTs inside the second half of their duration without DPS loss, this makes it very easy to build those 12s windows. In execute range when the target is less than 20%, we switch filler to Drain Soul. This spell deals more damage than Malefic Grasp, while also guaranteeing increased Shard returns and more powerful additional ‘ticks’, so at this point we can maintain 100% uptime on Haunt, while refreshing all three DoTs. AoE Soulburn: Seed of Corruption followed by Seed of Corruption spam. Depending on the lifespan of the adds, it may be desirable to spread UA and Agony around too. Note that SoC does not detonate from others’ damage, only your own so you will need to tab through targets and use other seeds and Corruption to deal the damage to detonate them. Burst Dark Soul is our DPS cooldown, always make sure DoTs are refreshed and you have Shards spare to cover its full duration with Haunt. Soulburn: Soul Swap can be used to apply DoTs for some strong quickly applied burst. Talents The only meaningful DPS talent comes from the level 75 ‘Grimoire’ row. At present, Supremacy is simming just ahead of the alternatives. Sacrifice is only really good if an encounter is unfavorable to pets, or if you struggle with controlling them. But if you simply don't like pets, then it's not too terrible an option. The additional burst from using Grimoire of Service can be beneficial if there are vulnerable phases, or if there's a lot of downtime. At present the Felhunter is the best option for this, although all pets are very close, except the Imp which is a little behind, but benefits from moving less due to being ranged. I actually prefer the Succubus, since she's semi-ranged (Lash of Pain has a 20 yard range) so she offers a decent middle ground. Guardians Guardians now dynamically update their stats with your own, including effects like Heroism. The Doomguard is best used when you can either stack as many of these as possible, for example if Heroism is used at the pull with pre-pots, or if Heroism is used later it’s generally best to wait until the execute phase/final minute of the encounter where it benefits from an additional 20% damage. The Infernal should be used for AoE. Stat priority Intellect >> Hit (to cap) > Haste ~ Mastery > Crit There's some contention over whether Haste or Mastery are best, but I understand Haste is the preferred stat for those producing the best parses on WoL. |
|
|
Edited by Jessicka on 26/10/12 14:57 (BST)
Reserved.
|
|
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 |
|
Edited by Thaya on 20/01/12 14:52 (GMT)
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
|
|
Edited by Masculina on 20/01/12 21:03 (GMT)
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.
|
|
Edited by Erdanel on 01/02/12 23:04 (GMT)
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?
|
|
|
Edited by Jessicka on 02/02/12 09:44 (GMT)
Not a bad idea at all, although for Affliction Drain Life is a better use of it.
|
|
Edited by Falc on 05/02/12 20:55 (GMT)
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: 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 |
|
|
Edited by Falc on 05/02/12 22:42 (GMT)
2ndly a question: 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).
|
|
Edited by Lobsang on 05/02/12 23:33 (GMT)
Even without 4 set soulfire is a better use for soulburn.
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 ;) |
|
|
Edited by Jessicka on 06/02/12 09:39 (GMT)
My actual gripe with it is that someone in blizzard thought a little something like this: 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. 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? |
