Affliction help. What level and when does it become viable

[Dark Intent]

Ok so I'm only lv 86 with my lock. I've been rocking demo and at this level it performs great. I tried affliction during a dungeon run and it was abysmal to say the least. I couldn't aoe to save my life and even on single target fights I'm struggling to pull what I can as demo. I was way at the bottom on fights as afflic. I switched back to demo and the difference in dps is incredible. I've read the sticky. Is it even worth going affliction at my level to get used to it or should I wait until 90?

[Shadocaster]

Affliction becomes viable when the enemies live for longer than 60 seconds.

During levelling your numbers may not be so great. Ramp up time and all that.

I do have something you can try on fast dying mobs: Soul Burn, Soul Swap, Haunt, Haunt, Haunt, Malefic Grasp, Drain Soul.

Target next mob and repeat

[Ekco90]

If you want to get used to the spec, then by all means go affliction, but don't expect to have great numbers since the mobs in heroic and regular dungeons do not last long enough like in raids where affliction is the top spec. If you like seeing high numbers right now, then demonology is the spec to use until level 90.

[Woeful]

Affliction does not do dominating dps during dungeon runs. The mobs don't live long enough to give your dots time to tick, and seed of corruption doesn't perform well. To AOE with Affliction, try Soulburn --> Seed of Corruption, --> Seed of Corruption --> Fel Flame --> Seed of Corruption --> Fel Flame. The idea is to get everything dotted with Corruption and then use your seed and blow it up with Fel Flame. The more mobs you have the better the dps through put, but on a standard 3-5 mob dungeon pack, don't expect overwhelming numbers. If the mobs were to live longer you can tab target your seeds and get them to blow for super numbers, but that's 10-15 seconds into the fight and its rare where a standard dungeon pack survives that long.

Affliction does do well single target, so you should shine on boss fights. If anyone complains about your dps overall, keep a parse of your boss dps and they will usually shut up.

[Dark Intent]

Affliction does not do dominating dps during dungeon runs. The mobs don't live long enough to give your dots time to tick, and seed of corruption doesn't perform well. To AOE with Affliction, try Soulburn --> Seed of Corruption, --> Seed of Corruption --> Fel Flame --> Seed of Corruption --> Fel Flame. The idea is to get everything dotted with Corruption and then use your seed and blow it up with Fel Flame. The more mobs you have the better the dps through put, but on a standard 3-5 mob dungeon pack, don't expect overwhelming numbers. If the mobs were to live longer you can tab target your seeds and get them to blow for super numbers, but that's 10-15 seconds into the fight and its rare where a standard dungeon pack survives that long.

Affliction does do well single target, so you should shine on boss fights. If anyone complains about your dps overall, keep a parse of your boss dps and they will usually shut up.

will try this thanks for the tip. Though i still do better single target as demo. So I guess I just need more practice :=D

[jaymzkerten]

In 5 mans on bosses just SB:SS to put all your dots up, haunt, then MG. The key to keeping your dps up is to ensure none of your dots fall off (as not only do you miss uptime on the dot but you also miss out on the MG ticks) and haunt as often as you can. If the boss has adds SB:SS as many of them as you can and (9 times out of 10) if you drain soul one of them you will get all your shards back.

[Dark Intent]

now is it worth using fel-flame to refresh dots or should I re-cast?

[Phookah]

now is it worth using fel-flame to refresh dots or should I re-cast?

Recast. Fel-flame should generally only be used when you have to move.

[HemmerN]

On less than 5+ mobs seed is realy not worth it, just SB:SS onto 4 mobs then spam MG on the last one you put DoT's on untill you see one is low, then Drain Soul that one to get shards back, reDoT the two highest health mobs and put haunt on bot of them, then DS/MG as needed, all shards you get from corruption is spendt on Haunt on the mob you are MGing.

On bosses start with CoE --> Soulburn ---> Dark Soul ---> SS --> Felflame (to exstend the dots a bit so that UA dosnt fall off during the first duration of haunt) Then spam MG untill haunt falls off after that recast haunt and DoT's as needed, never ever lett agony fall off recast Corr and UA as close to falling off as possibe

[Alltat]

Affliction becomes viable when the enemies live for longer than 60 seconds.

I'd say the limit is closer to 15-20 seconds, but pretty much this.

Whether or not you have Soul Swap also matters a lot. Once you can use SB+SS to quickly get all DoTs up on multiple targets, affliction gets much better.

[Last Starfighter]

Affliction becomes viable when the enemies live for longer than 60 seconds.

During levelling your numbers may not be so great. Ramp up time and all that.

I do have something you can try on fast dying mobs: Soul Burn, Soul Swap, Haunt, Haunt, Haunt, Malefic Grasp, Drain Soul.

Target next mob and repeat

Affliction has amazing burst. And with MG, the ramp up time is pretty much gone.

[Shodan30]

Affliction gets kinda insane with a lot of mastery gear. Raid buffed im at 79% mastery and I've pulled aggro against main tanks early in the fight and I didnt think that was really possible anymore. I usually open with pre-pot, trinket, Dark soul soulburn soulswap CoE, haunt, MF .This same combo is fairly effective even in heroics. the fight doesnt have to last 60 seconds for it to be effective, just ingle target.

[Shadocaster]

Affliction gets kinda insane with a lot of mastery gear. Raid buffed im at 79% mastery and I've pulled aggro against main tanks early in the fight and I didnt think that was really possible anymore. I usually open with pre-pot, trinket, Dark soul soulburn soulswap CoE, haunt, MF .This same combo is fairly effective even in heroics. the fight doesnt have to last 60 seconds for it to be effective, just ingle target.

hell yeah bursting to 240k on sha of fear!

[Damerflinn]

You'll likely notice the same thing happening once you hit 90. At least it seemed like it for me. The two specs have a very small point in time when they are pretty much equal, but then Aff pulls ahead. And this is because of gear, in early leveling gear as a fresh 90 you'll do better in Demo, especially if you got a bit of Hit gear to give you a bit more hit that you need to have as Demo. But then as you get more Haste and Mastery Aff pulls ahead and stays there until you get into raiding, and even then Aff will be better.

Aff is also not as simple as some have made it sound, and the biggest difference between an average Lock and an amazing one, is when they are using Haunt, and how they are managing their Soul Shards. Proper management of SS's and use of Haunt can make a HUGE difference in your DPS, and actually took a bit more practice to pull off correctly on a consistent basis then it did playing Aff in Cata.

[Shodan30]

Yeah, when i first switched to affliction i was maybe 50k dps on raid bosses which was about 5k greater then my old spec so i stayed with it, got some mods, researched what best to move around. reforged mostly to mastery, got a few upgrades...got better at timing things...I still have a way to go to feel like ive mastered anything but im on top of the dps charts most of the time ranging from 80k-100k dps depending on the boss.

I like to open the above, then just as the first haunt is about to expire, my on use buffs are all still up, so i soul swap haunt a second time, and evaluate my soul shards, if im coming up on a burst phase like elegons sparks, i throw in a few seconds of drain soul to make sure i have max shards....I can manually cast dots and burn down the first spark in 10 man solo, the second i use a trinket proc or di third and forth i use a soulburn soulswap + haunt +MF since they get faster.

Know your bosses health, know when 20% hits so you can start going wild with drain soul...at this point the only spells you should be casting are soulburn soulswap haunt and drain soul...with trinket/di usage as they pop.

However, as much as i like aff now, I think destro is still the better spec for leveling/questing. supremacy grimorim.