[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Fallensaint]

Ty

So UA doesnt snapshot haste?

Also, what if you have normal corruption? A lot of the add advice assumes AC

UA does snapshot haste, but unlike other DoTs haste on UA reduces it's duration instead of giving extra ticks. So more haste doesn't give you more damage per UA, but it's still a desirable stat because it increases shard generation and damage on your other abilities.

[TummyBoy]

Hey OP. Thanks for this incredible guide. It has made me want to play Affliction even more in Legion. I did have a couple of questions that I would like answered, though. Please forgive my misunderstandings if I have any.

1.) In the rotation section you said this:

When hitting 4 Compounding Horror stacks, cast off your Unstable Affliction.

So this means you cast a single Unstable Affliction, or multiple UAs? I haven't played beta but the way it's written, it feels like I would constantly be capping on Soul Shards if I'm only supposed to cast one UA here. Of course, I could be completely wrong.

2.) What do you think about Soul Effigy being used with a /tar Soul Effigy -> /targetlasttarget macro? This is what I'm currently using on live, and it's really good. I set focus to another target and use shift 1/2/3/4 to apply my dots easily and it's made it a lot easier for me.

3.) Siphon Life is currently the best on live. Is it really that dogshit at 110? That's pretty surprising to me.

4.) UA is the highest damage currently in our rotation? Cool.

[Deleted]

August 8 hotfix : "Phantom Singularity now only hits enemies within line of sight of it."

What's the point ? PS line of sight = line of sight of the mob it's applied on ?
It would be completely out of control and unusable this way...
I don't get it.

[Scathbais]

August 8 hotfix : "Phantom Singularity now only hits enemies within line of sight of it."

What's the point ? PS line of sight = line of sight of the mob it's applied on ?
It would be completely out of control and unusable this way...
I don't get it.

More likely than not, this is a PVP fix. Perhaps enemy players complained that PS should behave like other spells in terms of how it should work with LoS?

[eScar95]

I really like the graphics you have on this guide. Haven't read the entire thing yet, but I'll come back to it. Plan on making a youtube guide?

[Cantbearyou]

More likely than not, this is a PVP fix. Perhaps enemy players complained that PS should behave like other spells in terms of how it should work with LoS?

It would pull mobs through the ceiling/floors in instances as well.

[Kirroth]

It would pull mobs through the ceiling/floors in instances as well.

Yeah, I had some hilarious pulls doing retro raids with it. Stuff like pulling half of BWL because it tagged Chromagus through the floor.

[Terryn]

It would pull mobs through the ceiling/floors in instances as well.

Pretty sure this is the primary thing. It was like the next level barage.


I'll be doing some updates while in the airport tonight / this weekend. Simc stuff will be posted by the 20th for updated gear lists and such. I'm looking at having 3 for now: basic blue gear set, mythic + with nightmare, and mythic plus with Nighthold (and tier). Capping this to one legiondary until we have word as to when the second will become available. If anyone else has some sugestions please let me know

[CuchuCachu]

Pretty sure this is the primary thing. It was like the next level barage.


I'll be doing some updates while in the airport tonight / this weekend. Simc stuff will be posted by the 20th for updated gear lists and such. I'm looking at having 3 for now: basic blue gear set, mythic + with nightmare, and mythic plus with Nighthold (and tier). Capping this to one legiondary until we have word as to when the second will become available. If anyone else has some sugestions please let me know

Just my earlier suggestion to segregate the tactics in the adds/multi-target sections by stacked and non-stacked to make it easier to readily interpret

[TheLimonTree]

I'm probably really late to this party but is anyone else concerned that 2 of our gold traits involve killing targets? I understand we used to have our own personal adds spawn that we could dot but that's not the case anymore, so those traits seem useless on single target fights.

[Kirroth]

I'm probably really late to this party but is anyone else concerned that 2 of our gold traits involve killing targets? I understand we used to have our own personal adds spawn that we could dot but that's not the case anymore, so those traits seem useless on single target fights.

Two things to keep in mind.

First, those gold traits are there for the purpose of making Afflic not suck at fights with quickly dying adds. Fights like that have been a problem for DoT specs since the dawn of time. The traits aren't central pillar of the spec's performance, they're a crutch to carry us through the situations we're weakest in.

Second, how may pure single target fights are there even? Like, one per raid instance? I mean sure, they're a bit more common in dungeons, but I don't think dungeon bosses are even an issue. Plus as Afflic you can talent into Writhe in Agony and Soul Effigy and your single target performance goes way up.

[TheLimonTree]

Two things to keep in mind.

First, those gold traits are there for the purpose of making Afflic not suck at fights with quickly dying adds. Fights like that have been a problem for DoT specs since the dawn of time. The traits aren't central pillar of the spec's performance, they're a crutch to carry us through the situations we're weakest in.

Second, how may pure single target fights are there even? Like, one per raid instance? I mean sure, they're a bit more common in dungeons, but I don't think dungeon bosses are even an issue. Plus as Afflic you can talent into Writhe in Agony and Soul Effigy and your single target performance goes way up.

True enough, we definitely need better burst aoe in live atm.

[Kirroth]

True enough, we definitely need better burst aoe in live atm.

Live is in the post-expansion limbo. We massively outgear everything, so instant burst is massively overvalued because everything dies too fast for anything else to matter. This is not an accurate representation of what any content of substance will play like in Legion.

Seriously, this happens every damned expansion change. The pre-patch hits to nerf old content, everything becomes a cheese run where burst is all that matters, and people get their underwear in a twist if they're not one of the three specs that got the best result in the "balance is only a very rough estimate until you reach max level again" lottery. Just sit back and chill. Nothing this month matters. At all. Nor is it representative of what the next expac will play like.

[CuchuCachu]

Live is in the post-expansion limbo. We massively outgear everything, so instant burst is massively overvalued because everything dies too fast for anything else to matter. This is not an accurate representation of what any content of substance will play like in Legion.

Seriously, this happens every damned expansion change. The pre-patch hits to nerf old content, everything becomes a cheese run where burst is all that matters, and people get their underwear in a twist if they're not one of the three specs that got the best result in the "balance is only a very rough estimate until you reach max level again" lottery. Just sit back and chill. Nothing this month matters. At all. Nor is it representative of what the next expac will play like.

Isnt this why Demo is the raid spec now? Can just blow everything down?

[Deleted]

Demo is the very definition of slow rampup. Even slower than Affliction. Definitely not a burst spec, even with the gear crutches it has in pre-expansion. It is used in raid spec only because of 3 things:
- Class trinket
- 4piece set
- Other specs are atrocious without the artefact

[Soulzar]

Pretty sure this is the primary thing. It was like the next level barage.

Memories of Seed pulling half of Karazhan on the way to Maiden

[TheLimonTree]

Memories of Seed pulling half of Karazhan on the way to Maiden

Pretty sure I remember it somehow pulling the adds from the seating area in opera during a boss pull once.

[Terryn]

Memories of Seed pulling half of Karazhan on the way to Maiden

The mamories

[CuchuCachu]

Question regarding the multi-target adds advice:

"If any targets will be alive for greater than 30 seconds and you have Absolute Corruption, hit them with corruption if they will not be hit by seed of corruption. This will give bonus Compounding Horror stacks."

What if AC is not taken? Is Corruption a waste of GCDs then?

Also, a suggestion for Terryn.

The Adds and Multi-Target sections may be easier to interpret if you make two sections regarding stacked and non-stacked adds since the strategy is pretty different, especially in the multi-target section

/10characters

[Terryn]

/10characters

Sorry I had a class project due last week and I'm traveling for The International so I haven't had the time to update things. Going to be doing that this week.

TLDR though (Keep in mind this is all in perspective of 110):
Corruption is actually a better ability to use on adds at certain points. Agony kind of "Soft Caps" on shards after 4 targets, going from 4 to 5 targets with agony only increases the shard gen rate by about 10%, and its damage isn't great until after about 6 stacks. Basically it entirely depends on the scenario and I'll be updating things.
1) If these adds will live 15-20 seconds and you're at 4 agonies already its better to corruption them and move along with other things. This is simply for the damage from corruption, Harvester of Souls procs (Which can do fairly nice damage) and Compounding Horror procs.
2) If you dont have the 4 agonies, its better to agony then corruption.
3) If the adds are going to die within 10 seconds its really not worth it to do any dots other than UA. The biggest thing though is you want to time applying UA so it has 1 or 2 ticks left to get the shard back.

Add fights are weird so i'll talk about them more when i update the guide later this week.