5.4 Affliction Tips & Quirks

[Troket 5]

Zagam

Why 10% haste on your toon? Is there a haste threshold you are trying to maintain?

Why Windsong on your weapon? "It does not work with dot's found this out the hard way"

Sorry for all the questions.

For large packs of mobs 5 or more I soulstone-seed of curruption then reign of fire this does ok damage on large pulls but no where near what i am seeing from other classes and I run out of mana really fast so it isnt something I can Keep up for to long. And is not recommended when trying to chain.

I also am getting around 60k dps on single target or boss fights.

Elemental shammy did 200k on a pack of mobs...... I cried just a little

Edited October 1, 2012 by Troket

[Zagam 1,982]

Zagam

Why 10% haste on your toon? Is there a haste threshold you are trying to maintain?

Why Windsong on your weapon? "It does not work with dot's found this out the hard way"

Sorry for all the questions.

For large packs of mobs 5 or more I soulstone-seed of curruption then reign of fire this does ok damage on large pulls but no where near what i am seeing from other classes and I run out of mana really fast so it isnt something I can Keep up for to long. And is not recommended when trying to chain.

I also am getting around 60k dps on single target or boss fights.

Elemental shammy did 200k on a pack of mobs...... I cried just a little

10% haste is just purely obtained through gear itemization. I'm switching out a few newly acquired pieces that replace Crit/Haste with Mastery/Hit. Should help me hit the hit cap easier. There are very easy to obtain haste thresholds for your three DoTs that you will easily achieve with gear + 5% spell haste in raids.

Windsong proc's with Malefic Grasp and Haunt. You don't need your DoTs to proc it since Malefic Grasp and Haunt will be used rigorously. I use Windsong because there's no better option at the moment.

60k DPS single target is fine. Affliction is not meant to do great AoE numbers. You have a specialization for AoE called Demonology. As Affliction with 4 targets, I can hover between 80 and 100k DPS. As Demonology, I can push 400k+ on 8 or more mobs. You play Affliction for single target and 2 targets, not AoE trash.

Why cry about another class doing good AoE? He likely used all of his cooldowns and it lasted over a short duration. In PvE, everyone is on YOUR side, not against you. There's no reason to complain about other classes being good at something unless you're being replaced on a raid team because your class isn't good enough; however, good players always find ways to achieve better numbers in meaningful situations making them useful all the time. Bring the player, not the class. Your trash DPS doesn't matter. On a fun side, do you really think you can compete with an Elemental Shaman spamming one button to do AoE?

[Troket 5]

No I don't expect to keep up with the one button masher but I want to do challenge modes and that is kinda all about the trash. :P

I also understand they are on my team. I don't wish them to be nerfed or anything I am simply trying to figure out if I am doing something wrong. Sorry if my post seemed like I was angry the correct emotion is confused and a little frustrated. So I guess that means I was Confrustrated o.O

I have not had Windsong proc even once. I cant believe blizzard didn't state that this doesn't work with dots/hots in the the tool tip for the enchant. There are going to be a million confused dotters out there. Would love to know why they dont think it should work with dots/hots.

Are you getting the windsong proc while channeling?

[Twinkielock 15]

What are you using for a reforge calculator right now? wowreforge seems to be borked.

[Zagam 1,982]

No I don't expect to keep up with the one button masher but I want to do challenge modes and that is kinda all about the trash.

I also understand they are on my team. I don't wish them to be nerfed or anything I am simply trying to figure out if I am doing something wrong. Sorry if my post seemed like I was angry the correct emotion is confused and a little frustrated. So I guess that means I was Confrustrated o.O

I have not had Windsong proc even once. I cant believe blizzard didn't state that this doesn't work with dots/hots in the the tool tip for the enchant. There are going to be a million confused dotters out there. Would love to know why they dont think it should work with dots/hots.

Are you getting the windsong proc while channeling?

I'll link some logs from tonight's raid to show you its proc rate.

[Zagam 1,982]

What are you using for a reforge calculator right now? wowreforge seems to be borked.

I don't use Mr. Robot. Icy-Veins likes him, but he told me to use 7% hit last night, and I can't really understand how they'd design a reforge system to bypass the hard cap of hit rating. What I use is wowreforge.com and I put my own calculated weights in the table. For example, with Mastery, I put 2.65, Haste = 2.09, and Crit = 1.91. I put in the little box on the lower end that Hit MUST be at least 5,100 and it does the work for me. I still have to fine tweak things because my gear doesn't have enough hit on it, so I have to reforge out of Haste and Mastery into Hit. Those reforging tools are useful, but tools are only as useful as the user lets them be. Don't blindly copy what they say without thinking about the outcome.

[Vortex 3]

Don't Leave us hanging Zagam, Vortex and others. We are all wondering what changes you have made now that you are 90.

I am having trouble with aoe and am in need of major help. Heroic's I am coming in last in pack pulls... DK tank was doing 70k dps per second on packs......

What are the new stat priorities at 90 is it still Mastery Haste Crit? Is there a small haste cap I should shoot for while also stacking as much mastery as possible?

I was away because I've been on holiday and I was only playing mop xD trying different things and switch between Affliction and Demonology for heroics.

About AOE like Zagam says it doesn't matter so much. Locks atm on demonology are AOE beasts, but I will not off-topic since this it's all about Affliction. 100k it's the normal dps on trash packs and you don't need to pop everthing, btw I never pop my Infernal, I save cooldown for Doomguard.

About AOE affliction it's all about dotting EVERTHING, and have some addons to track it such as Tidyplates or ForteXcorsist. Personally i'm using Tidyplates.

Less then 4 targets just SoulBurn: Soul Swap and keep all 3 dots on all targets. You can launch some Haunts to see nice numbers tho. But if you use Haunt don't forget to use Dark Soul, before you start to Haunt. After that it's all about maintain all dots on the targets and use your filler. Very easy.

+4 targets- SoulBurn: Seed of Corruption, Tab out Seed of Corruption at all targets and start to dot everthing after. Remember on Affliction it's very important to dot EVERTHING. Just DOT DOT DOT DOT DOT

+ 8 targets: SoulBurn: Seed of Corruption, Rain of Fire when seeds explode, recast it again. Rain of Fire will let your seeds explode more quickly.

Personally I don't like so much Affliction for AOE. Go Demonology if you wanna top meters on AOE packs, doesn't matter your reforge.

I'm not aware about any haste caps atm, yes are the same stats Mastery- Haste- Crit.

Atm I'm running Heroics with Demonology and I'm doing between 40-80k in all bosses. <3 Demo for dungeons!

Maybe Demonology will compete with Affliction on raids, we've to see.

Windsong it's bugged, blizzard it's aware of that, they are working on it. His proc's are too low, this wasn't intended.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Vortex

[morothemic 0]

I have a quick question. I'm running with the trinket (can't remember the name) but it gives int boost when used. That with the int pot gives me a 7k+ int bonus. At that point would it be more beneficial to refresh corruption and UA using fel flame to keep that bonus throughout the fight? My initial thought is yes as that's a huge bonus but wasn't sure and I'm curious for your thoughts.

[Zagam 1,982]

I have a quick question. I'm running with the trinket (can't remember the name) but it gives int boost when used. That with the int pot gives me a 7k+ int bonus. At that point would it be more beneficial to refresh corruption and UA using fel flame to keep that bonus throughout the fight? My initial thought is yes as that's a huge bonus but wasn't sure and I'm curious for your thoughts.

I may need corrected, but I read somewhere that refreshing DoTs with Fel Flame updates the DoT based on your stats, so there'd be no point in that. I will look into that as soon as possible.

[morothemic 0]

I may need corrected, but I read somewhere that refreshing DoTs with Fel Flame updates the DoT based on your stats, so there'd be no point in that. I will look into that as soon as possible.

It seems you are correct. I guess that was true only in the early stages of the beta and corrected. It sounded a little too good to be true and sorry for de-railing the thread with wrong information.

[Zagam 1,982]

You're fine mate...was definitely something work looking into! Imagine keeping DoTs empowered with essentially a permanent Potion, Dark Soul, tailoring buffs, and trinket uses! We'd get nerfed to the ground lol...it just makes it so you have to pay attention when buffs are about to wear off...recast your DoTs to extend them with the buffs present.

[Goldni 0]

I have question about weapon enchants which you think is better to use still, I had windsong on for raid yesterday and it was only like procing 1-2times a fight. so was wondering if you think power torrent would be better still until you can get jade spirit. since power torrent gives 500 int and it procs every 45secs. so 500 int 9ish times during a 7minute fight or windsong with random proc 1-2times for 7min fight?

[Ouic 1]

I have question about weapon enchants which you think is better to use still, I had windsong on for raid yesterday and it was only like procing 1-2times a fight. so was wondering if you think power torrent would be better still until you can get jade spirit. since power torrent gives 500 int and it procs every 45secs. so 500 int 9ish times during a 7minute fight or windsong with random proc 1-2times for 7min fight?

I personally couldn't justify the use of Windsong in my tests and in sims. I'm using Power Torrent for now.

[Stasis 36]

With its 1 second ICD, apparently it was too good for us (even though rogues are currently abusing it worse than we ever could have on Beta), so they made not proc from hots/dots, and consequently made it absolutely terrible for Spriests and Warlocks.

Luckily someone at BlizzHQ sobered up and apparently they're working on a fix... Source.

[Troket 5]

Glad to hear there working on making Windsong viable for us dotters.

I have been searching the web a little and can't find any info on haste thresh holds. Anybody got any info on when we receive an extra tick? Seeing as I am a little bit of a new affliction warlock does Malific Grasp and Haunt have haste thresh holds as well?

[vaeevictiss 17]

I wanted to add a nice tip that should probably be common knowledge anyway...

In the past, you could get pretty close to hit cap without really worrying too much. Well as affliction it is pretty important. I reforged trying to get close as i could to cap and the closest i was able to get was 14.94%. I said well shit thats fine. Sure enough i had a SB:SW miss lol. Now back in the day one spell cast is one dot, but with this i wasted a shard and 3 dots.

So, that being said, it is much better to be over hit cap than even a little under.

Would it happen again? who knows, it is a slim chance, but the thing you need to be aware of is your stats are based per spell cast. A lot of people think, for example, if you have a 1% chance to miss, that is over the duration of an encounter...it doesnt look bad that way. Fact of the matter is there is a 1% chance to miss every time you push a button.

[Zagam 1,982]

I appreciate the backing up of hit capping. I feel dirty playing with 14.96%. I just can't reforge any less than 15.20% and that feels dirtier. Considering hit food :) On a serious note, if you do forge over the 15.00%, try to keep it within .10% such as 15.09%. No reasonable person would call you terrible for being .09% over.

On a fun note, when i was 15.10%, I did record a miss on a trash mob in a heroic. I'm not sure if it had a buff or debuff, but when I looked at the logs, nothing came into play. I just missed a mob I was told I couldn't miss. Hopefully it was just one little glitch...or it was my stupid Engineering trinket Dragon. Who knows...

[Chobani 6]

I don't use Mr. Robot. Icy-Veins likes him, but he told me to use 7% hit last night, and I can't really understand how they'd design a reforge system to bypass the hard cap of hit rating. What I use is wowreforge.com and I put my own calculated weights in the table. For example, with Mastery, I put 2.65, Haste = 2.09, and Crit = 1.91. I put in the little box on the lower end that Hit MUST be at least 5,100 and it does the work for me. I still have to fine tweak things because my gear doesn't have enough hit on it, so I have to reforge out of Haste and Mastery into Hit. Those reforging tools are useful, but tools are only as useful as the user lets them be. Don't blindly copy what they say without thinking about the outcome.

This is what I'm having a hard time understanding. Why/how is mastery currently weighted higher than hit for Affliction? I just go in and change the weight for hit to 3 so that it goes for the cap.

[Ouic 1]

This is what I'm having a hard time understanding. Why/how is mastery currently weighted higher than hit for Affliction? I just go in and change the weight for hit to 3 so that it goes for the cap.

It's worth it if you don't mind changing up your playstyle a bit this early in the expansion. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you can quickly react to a DoT application or MG miss, your DoT ticks themselves won't actually miss. So you're pushing a lot more into pure damage stats (getting to a comfortable haste point and then hoarding mastery) vs. being hit capped. Pandemic also gives you a bit of a buffer. It does suck on the rare occasion when Haunt wastes a precious shard, but I've still noticed an overall gain.

Don't mistake, I'm not advocating it for everyone. I feel dirty, myself, ignoring so much hit. But the results show in the sometimes-hectic playstyle.

Tip: If you're Orc and using a wand, automatic +1% hit from your racial allows you to shave off even more.

Edited October 13, 2012 by Ouic

[Chobani 6]

It's worth it if you don't mind changing up your playstyle a bit this early in the expansion. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you can quickly react to a DoT application or MG miss, your DoT ticks themselves won't actually miss. So you're pushing a lot more into pure damage stats (getting to a comfortable haste point and then hoarding mastery) vs. being hit capped. Pandemic also gives you a bit of a buffer. It does suck on the rare occasion when Haunt wastes a precious shard, but I've still noticed an overall gain.

Don't mistake, I'm not advocating it for everyone. I feel dirty, myself, ignoring so much hit. But the results show in the sometimes-hectic playstyle.

Tip: If you're Orc and using a wand, automatic +1% hit from your racial allows you to shave off even more.

Hearing that PFFFSSSTTTT sound whenever a spell misses is like Pavlov's Bell to me. All these years of conditioning, I don't think I can be cool with this.

[Incendax 0]

How do you keep up a positive flow of soul shards to haunt with? When I run Soul Burn: Soul Swap and MG I end up losing shards over the course of the battle, not gaining them. Is it worthwhile to use Drain Soul above 20% just to regain shards for Haunt?

[Ouic 1]

How do you keep up a positive flow of soul shards to haunt with? When I run Soul Burn: Soul Swap and MG I end up losing shards over the course of the battle, not gaining them. Is it worthwhile to use Drain Soul above 20% just to regain shards for Haunt?

It's typically a loss to Drain Soul outside of execute range. You won't often get the RNG to keep Haunt up 100% of the time, but that isn't expected.

You can get creative with it, like hitting the non-assisted boss(es) that you wouldn't typically DoT up on The Stone Stone Guard with Corruption (preferably when moving) to fish for extra Nightfall procs, or using Drain Soul just before Feng's Epicenter goes off (if your tank can't cancel or barrier) so that you're generating shards while everyone else is missing. Just play as smart as you can; the rest is up to RNG, unfortunately.

[Ouic 1]

Hearing that PFFFSSSTTTT sound whenever a spell misses is like Pavlov's Bell to me. All these years of conditioning, I don't think I can be cool with this.

So true, but so useful. I hadn't played with one of those add-ons in so long, that I actually created my own PFFFSSSTTTT alert in WeakAuras last week just for a bit of extra help in realizing it when things get crazy (Will of the Emperor comes to mind).

[vaeevictiss 17]

so i didnt read thru this whole thread, so excuse me if this is repeated, but i found a neat...trick...i suppose. Soulburn lasts 30 seconds. You can regen that shard much faster than that. So you can pop soulburn before a pull (for soul swap for example) then let it regen before the pull, and you can essentially start combat with 5 shards (4 w/o the glyph).

Edited October 14, 2012 by vaeevictiss

[Troket 5]

Don't know how I did it but I accomplished to get 15% on the dot.. Get it on the dot Lame joke I know.

15% Hit

5.8 Haste

58% Mastery

Doing a truck load of damage all thanks to Icy Veins.

Edited October 15, 2012 by Troket