Affliction Warlock 8.3

[Valks 2,407]

This thread is for comments about our Affliction Warlock guide.

[ldhenderson95 2]

I just wanted to be the first to say THANK YOU!

[Guest Skreel]

Is there a suggested pet summons to use?

[holobyte 1]

thanks for the guide!

Edited July 18, 2018 by holobyte

[arednie 0]

Thank you very much. Any chance you might add PVP talent option recommendations soon? xx

[Guest Skuzz]

I know the guide says Pre-Patch for legendaries, but people might use that same logic for BFA leveling and for that I strongly advise against using Prydaz since you will get your BFA Azerite Neck item very fast and it will replace any other neck item for the rest of BFA.

[Guest Khanlock]

Great help!  Thanks.  Has anyone come up with a macro yet that puts Vile Taint over your target?  That's going to be time consuming to manually place it every time.

[Guest Coldshatter]

So, is the S tier the better choices and it goes down in rank to the D-tier?  Just making sure I understand your rankings.  Thanks!

[Guest Noren]

Hello,

So I am an old school vanilla thru Wrath player and just came back and as you can imagine the game is totally different.

 

I am in my 5th day now and have a question about versatility...why is it ranked so low on priority?  The definition put out is a straight out damage increase and damage reduction on dmg taken .   Seems great to me.  Is the buff minuscule and doesn't do much and thats why its number 5?

 

thanks

[Guest Lignar]

When is Haunt recommended to use?

Before you applied all your dots or after?

[Guest Cloak]

Taking Creeping Death with Deathbolt is counterintuitive. I’d suggest Dark Soul: Misery.

[Guest Zendarin]

Quote

 Dark Pact is a good option for encounters where you need to soak a mechanic or survive a telegraphed amount of high damage. 

What does telegraphed mean here? I'm super confused. Thanks!

[Tri 139]

10 minutes ago, Guest Zendarin said:

What does telegraphed mean here? I'm super confused. Thanks!

It means when the boss is going to use a big super move that's going to do a lot of damage and you can see it coming. So many bosses will charge up a laser or there will be some animation or audio clue that lets your know (telegraphs) that a big ouchie ability is about to come. First example off the top of my head would be garrosh from SoO, in his sha phases he cast annihilate ability, he would lean back very slowly and you would start to see the triangle hit box appear, that is telegraphed, telling you that the ability is coming ?

so when you see the big animation coming you use dark pact as a defensive cooldown, so that you don't get dead by the big super laser death beam of destruction or what have you 

[Valks 2,407]

3 hours ago, Guest Zendarin said:

What does telegraphed mean here? I'm super confused. Thanks!

Tri is correct, but! A more up-to-date example would be any of the mechanics on Garothi Worldbreaker. The slam has a long cast time so you know exactly when it will hit, the explosions from Annihilation, the damage from Decimate. It's just an ability you know will hit you, as opposed to a random, instant hit from an ability or melee attack.

[Drakolich 0]

Could you please guys add the Strengths and Weakness from each Warlock's specs on the guides pages?

Edited July 21, 2018 by Drakolich

[Valks 2,407]

4 hours ago, Drakolich said:

Could you please guys add the Strengths and Weakness from each Warlock's specs on the guides pages?

We'll look into getting them up!

[Guest Guest20000000]

The suggestion for talents is incorrect currently on live.  Tier one should be either Nightfall or Drain Soul.  Tier 2 is Siphon Life.  Tier 4 is Phantom Singularity.  If you do the math damage divided by time (this is what is dps) you will see I am correct.

[SacredBlaze 1]

Will you add a explanation of when to use Haunt in our rotation, particulary at our opening. I´m guessing we will replace Shadow Bolt precast for Haunt precast and then just use it on CD but its just a wild guess.

[ATU 2]

Hi.

You never include in your rotation Haunt....... you need to... 

[SacredBlaze 1]

Greetings,

I would like to make a contribution to the Vile Taint (VT) V.S Phantom Syngularity (PS) situation from a PVE stand point.

Previously, we were told that VT was much stronger than the other two talents regardless of Single/Cleave/Multiple Targets. Now it says that PS should be " our default talent in virtually all situations." 

So I made my own tests under the following conditions:

1. Three minute duration fights, so it's fair for both PS (4 casts) and VT (11 casts).

2. No full rotation, just using the abilities on CD (no Agony, Corruption Unstable Affliction, CD's etc).

3. Generally trying to only have those two talents as the main source of damage although if it's not it will be displayed (VT which needs Souls Fragments from Agony/Corruption).

For a TL;DR go to the botton of the post. These were the results:

- For Three Target Combat:

Vile Taint:                                                           Phantom Singularity:

Vile Taint was about 45% stronger just from a pure damage stand point in AoE.

- For Single Target Combat:

Vile Taint:                                                          Phantom Singularity:

Vile Taint was about 54% stronger just from a pure damage stand point in Single Target.

These results show that Vile Taint deals significantly more damage than PS in both situations.. Now, there are some considerations from both talents you have to keep in mind before you choose:

1. Cast: While PS is a instant cast, VT has a 1,3s cast time. But remember PS does trigger a GCD while VT cast time can be reduced by haste. Meaning that with high Haste stats the true difference between casting PS or VT will be casting while moving.

2. Cost: PS is completely a free cast ability. VT costs a valuable soul shard which means your up-time of Unstable Affliction (UA) won't be as high.. Furthermore this kind of affects the Deathbolt build since you have one less UA to add to the mix. In VT defense however, the damage of a single VT vs UA is not that far apart. Unstable Affliction deals around 20% more damage than BT from a single target point of view. So using that Sould Shard in VT hurts, but not as much as you might think (yes I'm aware UA also gives you +10% extra damage to the target).

3. Usability: PS needs a target, furthermore it needs a target that won't die in the following 15s in order to deal it's full damage.. Otherwise huge damage potential is lost (not very cool for low m+ or low health adds in raids). VT has a "skill shot" component where you have to cast the place where the ability will be cast (similar to Shadow's Fury) meaning you have to make sure you will land the ability within the 1,3s cast time before the target moves.

Both usabilities have their pros and cons and ultimately it becomes a personal choice. Myself, I don't really bother because I was a Survival in legion and we have to skill shot Caltrops + Fire Trap at the boss/adds feet all the time.. it feels natural to me. But, if the enemy is flying, or it's tricky to click the ground it might hurt your rotation (case in point Kin'Garoth)

4. CDs: PS has over two times the CD of VT (45s VS 20s) so you have to choose wisely which will be your target, as stated before you'll need to find a high enough health target to cast PS to get the full 15s damage. VT is just a cast in adds without bothering too much (except if they move out of the skill shot zone). While dealing with M+ adds I like to cast a Seed of corruption followed by a Shadow's Fury and while stuned a VT so the Seed of corruption explodes and now all adds have both Corruption and VT.

Having less CD gives you more damage potential yes, but it also means you'll have to invest more time in your rotation to cast the ability so while having a lower CD sounds great and all, it could be troublesome.

4. Utility: PS has a mediocre utility in the form of self-healing. From a Single Target PS I got healed just from 1k health after the DoT expired which is not impressive at all considering we have around 25k+ health, however in AoE the healing this effect is more noticeable, around 3k for 4 targets (still low IMPO). VT offers a strong usefull CC in the form of a 30% snare for the duration of the DoT, really handy in M+ for kitting strats.

So TL;DR, while Phantom Singularity is easier to use and more accesible it offers way less damage than Vile Taint. Furthermore PS self healing utility pales in front of VT's 30% snare so if I had to choose between both of them I would definetly pick VT over PS no questions asked. Yes it's a bit harder, costier and messier to use but, to me, the rewards are clearly worthy in both Single target and AoE.

P.S: Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious about PS damage or usage I haven't factored yet but.. I'm not quite sure why the guide switched to favor PS as the better talent "in virtually all situations." over VT.

Edited July 23, 2018 by SacredBlaze

[Valks 2,407]

47 minutes ago, SacredBlaze said:

P.S: Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious about PS damage or usage I haven't factored yet but.. I'm not quite sure why the guide switched to favor PS as the better talent "in virtually all situations." over VT.

Furty will respond to this in the near future, but I'd like to just say a few things:

• There's absolutely no need to test this as you did. Simulations are there for a reason and they can give you thousands upon thousands of iterations of the full rotation, rather than just testing two spells' damage output.
• You are ignoring the GCD cost of VT. That's an extra 7 GCDs that could be used elsewhere, on other spells.
• It currently sims 6% lower for me on personal sims using RaidBots (VT).

Like I said, Furty will respond with more detail if needed, but these were the things that really stuck out in your testing for me.

[SacredBlaze 1]

4 hours ago, Blainie said:

Furty will respond to this in the near future, but I'd like to just say a few things:

• There's absolutely no need to test this as you did. Simulations are there for a reason and they can give you thousands upon thousands of iterations of the full rotation, rather than just testing two spells' damage output.
• You are ignoring the GCD cost of VT. That's an extra 7 GCDs that could be used elsewhere, on other spells.
• It currently sims 6% lower for me on personal sims using RaidBots (VT).

Like I said, Furty will respond with more detail if needed, but these were the things that really stuck out in your testing for me.

Yeah most likely. I just pointed this out because to me, at least so far is not even a contest. VT is superior in every way.. Now I'm probably wrong since the SIMs says so (no sarcasm) but I'm not quite sure how you can mess PS rotation.. Basically is: use it on CD.

[SacredBlaze 1]

I'm definetly overlooking something in my tests then. Thanks for the reply ?

[NecroWar666 0]

hi thanks for the guide but I have a question about the legendries that confuses me why is prydaz amulet is good ? defensive wise is not a priority and DPS wise I instead along withHood of Eternal Disdain  I use   Streten's Sleepless Shackles  which is in B tier , and gives much better damage ? 

I didn't try the other legendries yet .

thanks 

[Guest Khan]

Couple things.  If I'm torn between two talents, I always check what the top locks are using.  Right now it's almost 100% Phantom.  Saves me re-inventing the wheel.

Second, has anyone come up with numbers to use in Pawn for stats?