Need input on what I might be doing wrong as Affliction.

[Neverdyne 0]

Hello fellow Warlocks! Recently I've been having disappointing performance on a few fights of SoO 25N, specifically single target fights (Iron Juggernaut, Malkorok, Blackfuse, Thok). When I see my performance on these fights compared to what I see in other logs I feel underwhelmed. The problem is I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong. 

 

Armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/illidan/Shiftedd/simple

 

I'm ilvl 559, with Toxic and Bindings as trinkets. I went for the 9778 Haste softcap and the rest is throw into Mastery. I play as Destruction for my second spec, which I use for the AoE fights. I've had good success with Destruction, but not so much with Affliction, except for multi-dot fights like Protectors, where I feel I'm doing fine. Here's some of my latest logs for Affliction:

 

Protectors (315K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-gg64sut970v0pwp9/sum/damageDone/?s=1316&e=1671

 

Iron Juggernaut (212K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-gg64sut970v0pwp9/sum/damageDone/?s=5858&e=6230

 

Dark Shamans (252K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-gg64sut970v0pwp9/sum/damageDone/?s=7426&e=7842

 

Nazgrim (239K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-gg64sut970v0pwp9/sum/damageDone/?s=8839&e=9286

 

Malkorok (231K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-gg64sut970v0pwp9/sum/damageDone/?s=10953&e=11234

 

Blackfuse (204K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-3maf8mv5qcmjcks1/sum/damageDone/?s=3591&e=3935

 

Thok (202K DPS) : http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-3maf8mv5qcmjcks1/sum/damageDone/?s=5065&e=5566

 

I feel like I should be doing more in Juggernaut, Malkorok, Blackfuse, and Thok. In Iron Juggernaut, I never went out of range, and movement was minimal. In Thok I never got fixated though he did go out of range from me a few times, and movement was moderate. In Blackfuse I stay on the boss the whole time, though movement is sometimes also a problem. 

 

ROTATION: I follow the rotation listed on the site. During the fight, if I get Soulshards I usually save them up to use them when my trinkets proc. I try to maintain buffed up dots as much as possible, though sometimes I feel like trinkets don't proc for a long time. 

 

- Should I keep saving Soulshards for trinket procs or should I use Haunt more aggressively even when no procs are up? 

 

- Should I let my Dark Souls wait a while until trinket procs or should I use it on cooldown? How much is too much waiting? 

 

- Lastly, I'm having a hard time figuring out if Kil'jaeden is better than Archimonde for some fights. For example, in Blackfuse the is a lot of movement, but is it really worth it to drop Archimonde for a little bit more malefic grasp, when I can already fill movement portions with fel flame? What about Thok, do you guys feel Cunning is better there? 

 

Any input is appreciated, if you want more information I can provide it. Next week I'll record my boss kills to make it easier to find flaws. Thanks!

 

[mediocregatsby 18]

iron juggernaut: 

you got 31 shadow trance procs but only 50% haunt uptime. you cast soulburn 20 (!!!!!!) times which is really not a good sign. you should be using those soulshards to get more haunt uptime, not to refresh your dots. the only time you want to sb:ss in the middle of your single target rotation is if you suddenly get multiple procs at once and it's the tail-end of your wush/BBOY stack. i used to have a top 3 parse on this fight thanks to a 75% haunt uptime, and i only cast soulburn like 7 times.

 

that means you should NOT really be saving shards unless your DS is just about to come off cooldown or something like that.

you should also always use your DS on cooldown because the ICD of PBI lines up perfectly with the 2 minute DS cooldown.

 

thok:

you should be using unending resolve so you can freecast during thok's interrupt spam. use the glyph that reduces the cooldown to 2 minutes so you can channel MG a lot more.

 

siegecrafter:

abhorrently low haunt uptime, unreasonably high use of soulburn (24!?)

[Neverdyne 0]

Ahh, so my soulburn usage is too high and my haunt too low, yeah that's probably it. Thanks a lot, changing that should really help some. Is there any reason to use Sac instead of Supremacy for any of those fights? 

Edited October 11, 2013 by Neverdyne

[mediocregatsby 18]

by the way even your protectors performance is not that good. you are topping your guild meters but i have the same ilvl as you without PBI and i pull way over 400k. 315k at 560 ilvl is very low. do not use SB:SS so much!

[mediocregatsby 18]

 

Ahh, so my soulburn usage is too high and my haunt too low, yeah that's probably it. Thanks a lot, changing that should really help some. Is there any reason to use Sac instead of Supremacy for any of those fights? 

 

if you have KTT and/or if there is any significant amount of pet movement on the fight, use sac. with perfect play, the dps difference is marginal. with imperfect play, there can be a sizable dps difference thanks to ease of playing sac or having to rez your pet or move it etc

[Rakupenda 15]

- Should I keep saving Soulshards for trinket procs or should I use Haunt more aggressively even when no procs are up? 

 

- Should I let my Dark Souls wait a while until trinket procs or should I use it on cooldown? How much is too much waiting? 

 

- Lastly, I'm having a hard time figuring out if Kil'jaeden is better than Archimonde for some fights. For example, in Blackfuse the is a lot of movement, but is it really worth it to drop Archimonde for a little bit more malefic grasp, when I can already fill movement portions with fel flame? What about Thok, do you guys feel Cunning is better there? 

Try to avoid wasting (and yes, I mean wasting) Shards on SB:SS application of your dots, especially during single-target fights. You get more benefit by manually applying them and using it for Haunt instead. The only time you should really use a SB:SS is in the opener for first application or second application to snapshot your trinkets for maximum benefit (10 stack of Wush/BBOY for instance.)

 

Dark Soul should be used on cooldown. But, you should know about how long the fight lasts in advance. For a six+ minute fight you should use Dark Soul four times. If, for example, the fight is 7:59 seconds long (so you still only get four Dark Souls as the fifth one doesn't come up until 8 minutes in) then you have some freedom in waiting for trinket procs (exactly 1:39 seconds of waiting you can do). If you've got PBI trinket it should line up with every Dark Soul if it is used on CD from the start. And you want to make sure you have a Dark Soul up for execute phase. One of the benefits to the extra Dark Soul talent is the greater freedom to line them up with trinket procs or standstill/stack phases where you aren't wasting its uptime moving instead of channeling.

 

Sigecrafter normal you shouldn't need KJC as it is largely standstill except for kiting fire/dodging drills. Mines you'll be casting instant casts mainly (SB:SS and Soul Swap). Heroic Siegecrafter you will definitely want to go with KJC as you are constantly moving.

 

Taking the Dark Soul talent requires additional prep and practice compared to KJC. When to move, where to position yourself so you don't have to move as much, if you do have to move weaving Fel Flame to help make up the damage, when to use the extra Dark Soul, etc. KJC is easier to utilize and not a bad way to go, especially when you're learning the mechanics of a fight.

 

I've been doing some spreadsheeting to try and estimate how much movement you need to do to warrant KJC over the extra Dark Soul. (I need to sit down and work more on this, progression has been eating up all my time recently) If you have 2p tier bonus, KJC becomes more viable as your MG will be 15% more effective. In other words: you don't need as much movement to make it worthwhile to take over the Dark Soul.

 

For Destro KJC is almost always recommended as Dark Soul is "lackluster" as Zagam put it. Destro doesn't have as much "passive" damage as Affi/Demo does. They've got a lot of damage going on via dots/pets that if you must move you are still doing a good fraction (if not nearly 100%) of your normal damage.

[Omaric 246]

if you have KTT and/or if there is any significant amount of pet movement on the fight, use sac. with perfect play, the dps difference is marginal. with imperfect play, there can be a sizable dps difference thanks to ease of playing sac or having to rez your pet or move it etc

 

I feel like using GoSac as Affliction is counter intuitive to Affliction's role this tier.  Affliction excels on sustained multi-target fights, but I don't think using GoSac with KTT would benefit as much as having a pet.  Mainly because your DoT's aren't improved via GoSac when KTT procs.

 

I'm not saying Affliction is bad at single-target, it's really good, but I think it would still benefit more from having GoSup.

[Rakupenda 15]

Mainly because your DoT's aren't improved via GoSac when KTT procs.

Elaborate on this if you wouldn't mind. It doesn't make sense to me. KTT copies a % of the damage dealt. If the dot deals increased damage via GoSac, why wouldn't KTT copy that increased damage?

[Zagam 1,982]

I love that I have nothing else to input.  Booya for an elite community.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I love that I have nothing else to input.  Booya for an elite community.

I was wondering why I didn't see the meme anywhere...

[Omaric 246]

Elaborate on this if you wouldn't mind. It doesn't make sense to me. KTT copies a % of the damage dealt. If the dot deals increased damage via GoSac, why wouldn't KTT copy that increased damage?

It doesn't though. GoSac increases the damage done on MG, DS and Haunt. None of those are DoT's. Essentially if you choose GoSac and KTT your DoT's would be doing the same damage as they would be doing with GoSup and KTT. I just don't feel like increased KTT damage from MG, DS, and Haunt only are enough to beat GoSup.

I'm not sure if that makes more sense or not, I just got back from happy hour.

[Kazistrasz 216]

It doesn't though. GoSac increases the damage done on MG, DS and Haunt. None of those are DoT's. Essentially if you choose GoSac and KTT your DoT's would be doing the same damage as they would be doing with GoSup and KTT. I just don't feel like increased KTT damage from MG, DS, and Haunt only are enough to beat GoSup.

I'm not sure if that makes more sense or not, I just got back from happy hour.

 

This will vary based on how much time you're able to spend casting those spells. If it's Protectors and you're constantly swapping DoTs around and not often stopping to channel, then GoSup is obviously king. If you're doing Protectors where you're actually able to sit and channel quite often, GoSac could indeed be worth it, especially if you get your 2pc.

[Neverdyne 0]

Thanks for all the help guys. I did a Flex 1 tonight to test out trying to keep haunt up more, this was the result: 

 

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/lj857hm9qqoamsju/details/2/?s=21455&e=21776

 

45% uptime compared to 13% uptime on my previous log, managed to pull 420K DPS. It definitely makes a difference, gonna try Iron Juggernaut tomorrow and see what happens.

[Samhain66 0]

Everything. >.> I keed I keed.

[Neverdyne 0]

By the way, does Sac affect Immolate when used with Brimstone? I'm guessing no, but since Immolate is a single target spell originally I'm not sure. If it does, do you think it'd be better than Sup for Garrosh?

[Brown 14]

By the way, does Sac affect Immolate when used with Brimstone? I'm guessing no, but since Immolate is a single target spell originally I'm not sure. If it does, do you think it'd be better than Sup for Garrosh?

 

Nothing with F&B is boosted by Sac.

[Neverdyne 0]

Nothing with F&B is boosted by Sac.

 

Thanks!

[Rakupenda 15]

It doesn't though. GoSac increases the damage done on MG, DS and Haunt. None of those are DoT's. Essentially if you choose GoSac and KTT your DoT's would be doing the same damage as they would be doing with GoSup and KTT. I just don't feel like increased KTT damage from MG, DS, and Haunt only are enough to beat GoSup.

Are you looking at the dot damage of the ticks ("Corruption (Dot)") or at the MG % damage of the dots ("Corruption")? They are classified as different items, so what you claim would make sense because the base dot damage isn't changing with GoSac. You need to check the MG damage, not the dot.

[Zagam 1,982]

You need to look at MG, DS, and all of their sub-parts.  MG-Agony, MG-UA, MG-Corr, DS-Agony, DS-UA, and DS-Corr are all parts of the 'increased damage of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul' dialogue.  So, GoSac TECHNICALLY increases the following:

 

Haunt

Fel Flame

Malefic Grasp

Malefic Grasp - Agony

Malefic Grasp - UA

Malefic Grasp - Corruption

Drain Soul - Agony

Drain Soul - UA

Drain Soul - Corruption

Drain Soul

 

Drain Soul and MG - DoTs are listed on WoL as "Hits" instead of "Ticks" because of their dynamic.  These "Hits" are increased by GoSac.

[Rakupenda 15]

I meant that ^ You phrased it much better and in more detail than I, Zagam. Hits vs ticks, much better terminology.

[Omaric 246]

Are you looking at the dot damage of the ticks ("Corruption (Dot)") or at the MG % damage of the dots ("Corruption")? They are classified as different items, so what you claim would make sense because the base dot damage isn't changing with GoSac. You need to check the MG damage, not the dot.

 

I stand corrected!  Well technically I'm sitting, but you get the point!