[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[CaseyTheRetard]

As the person above, I've also been messing around with simcraft and these haste thresholds. I've noticed something that makes me think there's a problem with simcraft (or haste calculations) though. I compared two sets of results, the first was from sims with 4500 haste and the second from sims with 4931 haste (These numbers were due to just making one reforge (mastery>haste) then importing). In both sets of results the number of ticks from coruption was the same, at around 289 ticks for both sims (give or take one or two). Now with an extra tick from corruption at 4717 haste, you'd think think the second set of results would be showing alot more ticks.

Getting a tiny bit of haste and crossing a breakpoint won't greatly increase the total number of ticks, but it should noticeably reduce the number of casts of the dot ability.

[Tresdallah]

Getting a tiny bit of haste and crossing a breakpoint won't greatly increase the total number of ticks, but it should noticeably reduce the number of casts of the dot ability.

I have absolutely no idea what the point of this post is....
Crossing a breakpoint gives you exactly 1 new tick for each breakpoint of a particular dot. That's all, that's all its ever been, all it ever will be.

---------- Post added 2012-10-24 at 02:05 PM ----------

As the person above, I've also been messing around with simcraft and these haste thresholds. I've noticed something that makes me think there's a problem with simcraft (or haste calculations) though. I compared two sets of results, the first was from sims with 4500 haste and the second from sims with 4931 haste (These numbers were due to just making one reforge (mastery>haste) then importing). In both sets of results the number of ticks from coruption was the same, at around 289 ticks for both sims (give or take one or two). Now with an extra tick from corruption at 4717 haste, you'd think think the second set of results would be showing alot more ticks.

For both sims raid haste was in place and DS was unglyphed.

Haste calculations are from a spreadsheet (not mine) that I cannot post a link to until I've posted a few times in the forums, Y u no trust peef, mmo champion?!

Well anyway, the spreadsheet I have agrees with this forum and other forums that there's an 11th tick of corruption at 4717 haste, so maybe it's just simcraft that's broken? Or maybe I'm missing something, since I'm still fairly new to theorycrafting with simcraft.

As it pertains to this post, though. Did you check your paper doll for that haste value or did you check the post-buff sim? Because with 5% buff (moonkin/spriest aura) the 4500 would be given 250 more haste thus pushing it beyond the 4717 breakpoint, causing both sims to be at the same breakpoint.

[Demonlock81]

As it pertains to this post, though. Did you check your paper doll for that haste value or did you check the post-buff sim? Because with 5% buff (moonkin/spriest aura) the 4500 would be given 250 more haste thus pushing it beyond the 4717 breakpoint, causing both sims to be at the same breakpoint.

I don't believe that is how the 5% haste buff works. It's a straight 5% not 5% of your current haste rating. I can't really comment on the reason why simcraft would show the same amount of ticks for both haste ratings, but it may have something to do with how pandemic works.

[Tresdallah]

I don't believe that is how the 5% haste buff works. It's a straight 5% not 5% of your current haste rating. I can't really comment on the reason why simcraft would show the same amount of ticks for both haste ratings, but it may have something to do with how pandemic works.

Ah yes, you are correct. I have NO idea why I was in this mindset of thinking. We'll call it a herpderp moment lol.

[Rustjive]

I have absolutely no idea what the point of this post is....

CaseyTheRetard is right. Think about it like this - at 4716 your ticks take 1.716s or thereabouts. At 4717 your ticks take 1.7149s. Over the course of a short enough fight, you might not get any extra ticks - in fact, you don't. The 'extra' tick only comes into play when your Corruption runs full duration and expires. Every other benefit of the haste threshold comes from the fact that your Corruption runs longer - at 4716 your Corruption has a duration of 17.xx seconds - at 4717, your corruption has a duration of 18.86s.

[Ridcully]

I'm checking my logs and having a hard time justifying taking Jade Spirit enchant over Windsong. Sum of windsong proc uptime is anywhere from 60% (Dogs) to 100% (Feng), crit is not that valuable so lets say 50% and 85%. Jade Spirit uptime is 23% at best, right? Seems that Jade Spirit is in a range from "a bit better" to "not even close", depending on fight. What am I missing?

[Bonkura]

I'm checking my logs and having a hard time justifying taking Jade Spirit enchant over Windsong. Sum of windsong proc uptime is anywhere from 60% (Dogs) to 100% (Feng), crit is not that valuable so lets say 50% and 85%. Jade Spirit uptime is 23% at best, right? Seems that Jade Spirit is in a range from "a bit better" to "not even close", depending on fight. What am I missing?

Let's do some quick noob math for it. =P

Using these stat weights from my profile:

Int 4.05
Haste 2.05
Mastery 2.00
Crit 1.40

According to logs it seems each Windsong proc can vary from 10% to 40% uptime, let's underestimate its average uptime a bit and settle at 20% for each of them.

Jade Spirit has a 12s duration with 50s ICD. It gives a maximum uptime of 24%.


If we first add the Windsong procs together we'll get 300 stats from each of them (20% of 1500), which means 300 Haste, Mastery and Crit.

300*2.05 = 615
300*2.00 = 600
300*1.40 = 420

615+600+420 = 1635 DPS for Windsong


For Jade Spirit it will be 24% of 1650 = 396 Intellect.
396*4.05 = 1604 DPS for Jade Spirit


So by looking at them this way they are pretty even. However this doesn't account for getting multiple Windsong procs at the same time and thus probably pulling ahead by quite a bit, even with these underestimated proc rates.

[Ridcully]

After a bit of thinking, it's probably like that:
You only benefit from Windsong if you are updating dots when at least one of it's procs is up, otherwise it is completely wasted. However there is no benefit in updating them as soon as it procs, the buff is not large enough. Can't really say if they line up well, I'll try to keep an eye on individual procs from now on.
Jade Spirit is pretty straightforward and internal cooldown lines up with other procs. Uptime is not that important, with extending dots you can get much more benefit from a proc (also true for Windsong).

Edit: Also, I try to Haunt dots that are under strong proc effects, most of Windsong procs will not be Haunted. Starting to think that Jade is a very solid enchant after all.

[Bonkura]

After a bit of thinking, it's probably like that:
You only benefit from Windsong if you are updating dots when at least one of it's procs is up, otherwise it is completely wasted. However there is no benefit in updating them as soon as it procs, the buff is not large enough. Can't really say if they line up well, I'll try to keep an eye on individual procs from now on.
Jade Spirit is pretty straightforward and internal cooldown lines up with other procs. Uptime is not that important, with extending dots you can get much more benefit from a proc (also true for Windsong).

Edit: Also, I try to Haunt dots that are under strong proc effects, most of Windsong procs will not be Haunted. Starting to think that Jade is a very solid enchant after all.

I think you're still gonna have a much higher uptime on dots with Windsong than the Jade Spirit buff. Jade Spirit might line up with other procs for the first set and second set of buffs but the longer the fight gets they will get more and more out of sync because of slightly different duration and ICDs. You can't say the procs are wasted either since you do more than using dots lol.

There's so many buffs from procs right now I think you'll just get mad by trying to track all of them and try react as well.

Just look at my list below:

Lightweave Embroidery (2000 Int / 15s dur / 60s ICD)
Windsong (3x procs all over the place)
Relic of Yu'lon (3027 Int / 15s dur / 50s ICD)
Light of the Cosmos (2539 Int / 20s dur / 45s ICD)

Combined with other duration based buffs/CDs:

Dark Soul (30% Haste / 20s dur / 120s CD)
Blood Fury (2256 SP / 15s dur / 120s CD)
Synapse Springs (1920 Int / 10s dur / 60s CD)
Bloodlust (30% haste / 45s dur / 600s CD)
Jade Serpent Potion (4000 Int / 25s dur / 2x/fight)


It's not going to get easier with 80s CD on DS. All focus will probably be around timing trinket procs with DS and using Haunt outside of CDs only when we know we have buffed dots up on which we can get off 8s of MG to get full use of Haunt. And making sure to use your Haunts well is gonna get you out of sync on your proc dotting a lot of times. I'm also sure this is where we are gonna see good soul shard managament rewarded for real.

[Ridcully]

Needs more testing.
From my experience desyncing procs is not that big of a problem, usually I can get two procs up pretty reliably. Lightweave desyncs faster than others.
Relic: 50s icd, pretty high chance to proc
Light: 45s icd, very high chance to proc
Lightweave: 55s icd, average chance to proc
Jade: 50s icd, no idea about proc chance

[Bonkura]

I'm not sure what you are trying to test out. It's not like you can control your procs. The problem is 1) tracking all of them and 2) react to them, especially in combination with other buffs.

My point is there's so much to track with stuff up basically all the time so we'll eventually just want to track and react to the big procs like our trinkets. This is bound to happen later on anyway when gear gets better

[Ridcully]

I'm not sure what you are trying to test out.

Seeing if at least one of the Windsong procs is up when I am applying dots. And if not, can I dalay reapplying without them falling off. Amount of things to track is getting out of hand

[Bonkura]

Seeing if at least one of the Windsong procs is up when I am applying dots. And if not, can I dalay reapplying without them falling off. Amount of things to track is getting out of hand

Oh. This is why we need an addon to track what buffs our current dots have. >_<

[Roark91]

Hey Evralia, thanks a lot for your guide and more importantly, your recent video which helped to clear up some of the problems I was having as affliction. However, I have a few questions regarding reacting your dots to procs and your proposed opening rotation.

Firstly, assuming only int. procs, is it recommended to refresh your dots even when their duration will be clipped beyond what Pandemic allows? For UA and Corr., I'm thinking yes because they can be refreshed with Fel Flame, which won't clip them but only reset their stats and add to their duration. But what about Agony? Unless my memory is terrible, FF doesn't refresh Agony. So, for example, if my Agony has 20s left and my Relic of Yu'lon procs, should I instantly refresh it and waste ~8s, or should I wait till Agony is 'Pandemically' safe to refresh at ~<12s?

This brings me to a question regarding the opening rotation in your video. Assuming FF works as I think it does, you wouldn't refresh Agony after the initial burst of procs by just casting FF. So would you instead use two GCDs to refresh Agony and cast FF after everything procs? And I also have a suggestion for an optimal opening rotation. The buff from Soulburn last 30s but, if OOC, you will regenerate the soul shard 20s after using Soulburn. Whenever my raid is about to pull, I pop Soulburn >20s early and start the fight with Soulswap>CoE>Haunt>DS + SB:SS (while Haunt flies to the boss). This gives my initial dots a really long duration with a zero net soul shard cost, and, if I'm really lucky, the first ticks of the initial dots will cause my stuff to proc before DS + SB:SS so that then I won't even have to refresh any of them until the end of DS.

Honestly, I have SO many questions and they increase in number every time I raid and encounter a new scenario. I'm gonna stop here before this post becomes an essay.

[Tresdallah]

My point is there's so much to track with stuff up basically all the time so we'll eventually just want to track and react to the big procs like our trinkets.

If this is how you feel then you will never truly min/max your DPS. Ultimately, in the end it will probably only cost you about 200 DPS or so, but that's the nature of min/maxxing.

---------- Post added 2012-10-25 at 12:30 PM ----------

Hey Evralia, thanks a lot for your guide and more importantly, your recent video which helped to clear up some of the problems I was having as affliction. However, I have a few questions regarding reacting your dots to procs and your proposed opening rotation.

Firstly, assuming only int. procs, is it recommended to refresh your dots even when their duration will be clipped beyond what Pandemic allows? For UA and Corr., I'm thinking yes because they can be refreshed with Fel Flame, which won't clip them but only reset their stats and add to their duration. But what about Agony? Unless my memory is terrible, FF doesn't refresh Agony. So, for example, if my Agony has 20s left and my Relic of Yu'lon procs, should I instantly refresh it and waste ~8s, or should I wait till Agony is 'Pandemically' safe to refresh at ~<12s?

This brings me to a question regarding the opening rotation in your video. Assuming FF works as I think it does, you wouldn't refresh Agony after the initial burst of procs by just casting FF. So would you instead use two GCDs to refresh Agony and cast FF after everything procs? And I also have a suggestion for an optimal opening rotation. The buff from Soulburn last 30s but, if OOC, you will regenerate the soul shard 20s after using Soulburn. Whenever my raid is about to pull, I pop Soulburn >20s early and start the fight with Soulswap>CoE>Haunt>DS + SB:SS (while Haunt flies to the boss). This gives my initial dots a really long duration with a zero net soul shard cost, and, if I'm really lucky, the first ticks of the initial dots will cause my stuff to proc before DS + SB:SS so that then I won't even have to refresh any of them until the end of DS.

Honestly, I have SO many questions and they increase in number every time I raid and encounter a new scenario. I'm gonna stop here before this post becomes an essay.

Well, I BELIEVE that since your Agony is still "ramping up" at the start of the fight, it would update each time it gained a stack to whatever you have procced. So no, I don't believe you need to refresh your Agony, which is why Evrelia didn't mention it.

As it pertains to your supposed opener, many people are still debating this very thing. If they should just DS or even MG at the start to gain all procs then shard into dots and continue. I think the vast majority of us have decided that simply using FF once everything is rolling and just going 1 shard down (from initial SB:SS) is the way to go.

The only fight you might want to SB:CoE on is Stone Guard, but even then you're only getting it on two of them so I don't see the point. So not sure you should ever use a SB to put up CoE. Just my 2 cents.

[Bonkura]

If this is how you feel then you will never truly min/max your DPS. Ultimately, in the end it will probably only cost you about 200 DPS or so, but that's the nature of min/maxxing.[COLOR="red"]

Well, to be blunt, you guys can sit here all day and talk about min/maxing but most people are not gonna have any chance to pull it off during raids. There will be so much else affecting your DPS like small mistakes here and there mechanic wise as well as RNG, that focusing on these small things are just gonna damage you more in the end. I'm just going to tell you GL with your complicated playstyle which you seem to promote.

[Roark91]

Well, I BELIEVE that since your Agony is still "ramping up" at the start of the fight, it would update each time it gained a stack to whatever you have procced. So no, I don't believe you need to refresh your Agony, which is why Evrelia didn't mention it.

That makes sense. I didn't think Agony would behave like that but yeah I can see that.

As it pertains to your supposed opener, many people are still debating this very thing. If they should just DS or even MG at the start to gain all procs then shard into dots and continue. I think the vast majority of us have decided that simply using FF once everything is rolling and just going 1 shard down (from initial SB:SS) is the way to go.

The only fight you might want to SB:CoE on is Stone Guard, but even then you're only getting it on two of them so I don't see the point. So not sure you should ever use a SB to put up CoE. Just my 2 cents.

I think you misunderstood me. I don't SB:CoE, ever. Even on Stone Guards, I do each CoE manually since I usually like to wait to see which dog goes active before I unload. The three GCDs used to get CoE up buy me that time. What I was trying to get at was essentially having 5 soul shards during the pull. SB > Wait ~20s while the shard regenerates > Tank pulls > SS (Because the SB buff is still on you, but the soul shard has regenerated, you've just applied your three dots and maintained 4 soul shards to proceed with the rest of the opener). The next time you SB:SS, which will be after using DS, those dots will have a 150% duration thanks to Pandemic. Is that clearer?

[CDShaidar]

Well, I BELIEVE that since your Agony is still "ramping up" at the start of the fight, it would update each time it gained a stack to whatever you have procced. So no, I don't believe you need to refresh your Agony, which is why Evrelia didn't mention it.

Is there any evidence at all of this behavior? I can't imagine agony behaves differently than every other dot in this regard...

[Brusalk]

Is there any evidence at all of this behavior? I can't imagine agony behaves differently than every other dot in this regard...

When you get a haste buff while agony is still ramping up, agony will update to the new haste value every tick until the point it reaches 10 stacks. Then it stops updating. I assume that it performs just like every other dot in that the other values like spellpower update at the same time.

I'll post a video if people really want, but you can confirm it yourself easily with windsong.

[nightfalls]

Well, to be blunt, you guys can sit here all day and talk about min/maxing but most people are not gonna have any chance to pull it off during raids. There will be so much else affecting your DPS like small mistakes here and there mechanic wise as well as RNG, that focusing on these small things are just gonna damage you more in the end. I'm just going to tell you GL with your complicated playstyle which you seem to promote.

Basically what he says. Character optimization is good for min/max because a proper gear setup is "free" DPS (meaning that it will improve your DPS regardless of your quality of play, so you don't have to "work" for it). Talents are good because they can either give you "free" DPS, or make your DPS substantially easier to "work" for. But at the end of the day, progression raiding is a lot more about consistently maintaining DPS while handling a lot of mechanics (and multiple targets) instead of absolute min-max on small details.

It's the same reason many players choose to hit cap, when it's a "theoretical" DPS loss. You gain much more consistency than if you don't cap, and that factors in not only in consistency for DPS, but less small things to worry about.