[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Dwill]

@Soulzar Yeah, that'd make sense. Has it been like this before 7.1.5 as far as you, or someone else, knows?

It's been like this since the beginning of Legion.

The Ghostly Souls of your dead mobs will drop off as the corpses disappear.

Which makes no sense in the context of the weapon. It's supposed to harvest souls but it just leaves them attached to the corpse which then disappear, losing them in the process. Ulthalesh be like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kirroth]

After. If you cast it before, your reap uptime is ticking away while you are still casting your UAs(and not draining). Double casting then immediately using reap lets you get the UAs up, and then the reap up.. before the first UA gets it first dmg tick off. That gives you more time on those Reap stacks for those UAs.. and any Echo procs.

Are you sure about that? I thought UA snapshotted its damage on cast and didn't dynamically update with later buffs like real DoTs do.

...of course, I'm remembering that from launch, and didn't follow all the changes UA went through while I was Destro spec. So I could be very wrong. Someone else please confirm if I am, because if so I need to update my rotation habits.

[Joryy]

Looking to start some talent discussions. Some of these will change for mythic, but might as well get started. I can't link my logs b/c they're private, but I will describe what happened. For some context, I am 891 with 54 traits, currently a trial in a US top 20 guild. I have the power chord, sephuz, norgannons, and wilfreds. Let me know what you think of my talent choices.

SKORPYSKORP
I played: 1-3-3-2-1-1-3 for ~1.5m dps (485k to boss)
The goal here was to do a lot of boss damage while crushing the lilskorpymons. So I used haunt and ELT as soulflame/seed damage multipliers on the boss. It was okay, pretty happy with the result. The bigger skorpys lived longer than I was expecting, so haunting them/playing writhe might be decent. Hard to tell in a split run though. The little adds are fearable, so howl and meteor strike give perfect sephuz uptime.

Chromatic Anomaly
I played: 3-1-3-1-1-1-3 for ~670kdps
Standard boss damage build. I usually prefer effigy to conduit, but this fight takes place over too much area for it. The adds are immune to howl, so if you can figure out a decent way to use portal that would be better. I'm not sold on siphon life. Feels like a well timed soul harvest could put in some work, and there are moments you could pad with Sts. Remember to snipe shards from the adds.

Trilliax
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ ded 2 lazer lol
Seems like a pretty straightforward single target fight. Might take burning rush on mythic. It looooooks like you can do silly things with agony and soul harvest, but would it be worth losing 10 globals agonying the lil dudes?

Spellblade
I played: 3-2-3-1-1-1-1 for ~ 650kdps
Again, boss damage build. Howl was useless. If the dps check on the adds is hard, STS/phantom are on the table. Many opportunities to snipe shards.

Krosus
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ 550kdps
I played pretty bad. Somewhat hoping the adds live longer on mythic, can barely even get tags for woc stats. Effigy is always in range for dots if you place it at max.

Botanist
I played: 2-2-1-1-1-1-2 for ~ 800kdps
Love this fight. Always fun stuff to do. There are so many shards to gain from resets/sniping. Remember to drain soul the orbs right before they explode for a shard/woc. The phantom singularity can be trouble, since it'll hit the 'DON'T TOUCH ME' orb.

Star Augur
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ 630kdps
Felt like MG wasn't the optimal talent for phase 3 (gcd restraints), but there are two phases before it where it is certainly prime.

Tich
I played: 3-2-3-3-2-1-3 for ~ 800kdps (~400k to boss)
I played soul harvest because I had a dream of casting a bunch of agonies on bats and then going in for huge damage on the boss with the night buff, plus the slimes give a bunch of free agony targets. Didn't love it, though my boss damage is pretty decent. STS and phantom seem like cheesy bullshit to me, though if the bat phase is a massive dps check then sure. 2.5 second seed casts are pretty horrible with the night lazer though.

Tich
I played: 1-2-1-1-2-1-3 for ~ 450kdps
The plan was to get a ton of value from haunt resets, but without working timers I blew a bunch of haunts. This fight has enough movement that I am still unsure what to play in the 15 row. Haunt and MG are punished by all the movement, but the boss clears her dots every time she phases, so writhe hurts too. Might have to play another spec here. Phantom singularity might be good here, with all the movement.

Gul'dan
I played: 1-2-1-1-2-1-2 for ~ 500kdps
The plan was to get a ton of value from haunt resets, but without working timers I blew a bunch of haunts. Further, a lot of the timing for resets seem to be barely worth. However, this fight is pure movement cancer, so I am once again not sure what to play in the 15 row. Haunt did kick ass on the empowered eyes, but MG would too. Might have to play another spec here.

Overall nighthold is great, and affliction is a lot of fun. I wish we could get some normalization on souls -- why couldn't it be a regular CD with a CD reduction on mob death?

[Demonidze]

Weird thing I'm noticing on logs: most top parses even on Krosus are running Soul Conduit instead of Effigy. Wasn't it like 4% behind after hotfixes?

its understandable, effigy is a cancer of an ability. it has to be seriously ahead of SC in order to convince me to play it.

[SpikeySquad]

Are you sure about that? I thought UA snapshotted its damage on cast and didn't dynamically update with later buffs like real DoTs do.

...of course, I'm remembering that from launch, and didn't follow all the changes UA went through while I was Destro spec. So I could be very wrong. Someone else please confirm if I am, because if so I need to update my rotation habits.

Since 7.1 UA no longer snapshots. At the start of the guide there are the changes from major patch that you may find helpful.

[Deleted]

hi! About simcraft and personal scalling
would beastlord mode instead of patchwerk be better as a fight style ON SIMCRAFT for nighthold as general.... most fights arent patchwerk at all (lots of adds, aoe, movement) and as it seems to me beastlord style fits better the fight style there.

would like to know your opinions as the scale is really diferent. patchwerk top is mastery on beastlord top is haste.... (not letting drop 125% mastery but as a scale for what to go after that)

[Kirroth]

Since 7.1 UA no longer snapshots. At the start of the guide there are the changes from major patch that you may find helpful.

Hmm, so it does. Thank you, I'll be adjusting my rotation.

[Cardio32]

Looking to start some talent discussions. Some of these will change for mythic, but might as well get started. I can't link my logs b/c they're private, but I will describe what happened. For some context, I am 891 with 54 traits, currently a trial in a US top 20 guild. I have the power chord, sephuz, norgannons, and wilfreds. Let me know what you think of my talent choices.

SKORPYSKORP
I played: 1-3-3-2-1-1-3 for ~1.5m dps (485k to boss)
The goal here was to do a lot of boss damage while crushing the lilskorpymons. So I used haunt and ELT as soulflame/seed damage multipliers on the boss. It was okay, pretty happy with the result. The bigger skorpys lived longer than I was expecting, so haunting them/playing writhe might be decent. Hard to tell in a split run though. The little adds are fearable, so howl and meteor strike give perfect sephuz uptime.

Chromatic Anomaly
I played: 3-1-3-1-1-1-3 for ~670kdps
Standard boss damage build. I usually prefer effigy to conduit, but this fight takes place over too much area for it. The adds are immune to howl, so if you can figure out a decent way to use portal that would be better. I'm not sold on siphon life. Feels like a well timed soul harvest could put in some work, and there are moments you could pad with Sts. Remember to snipe shards from the adds.

Trilliax
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ ded 2 lazer lol
Seems like a pretty straightforward single target fight. Might take burning rush on mythic. It looooooks like you can do silly things with agony and soul harvest, but would it be worth losing 10 globals agonying the lil dudes?

Spellblade
I played: 3-2-3-1-1-1-1 for ~ 650kdps
Again, boss damage build. Howl was useless. If the dps check on the adds is hard, STS/phantom are on the table. Many opportunities to snipe shards.

Krosus
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ 550kdps
I played pretty bad. Somewhat hoping the adds live longer on mythic, can barely even get tags for woc stats. Effigy is always in range for dots if you place it at max.

Botanist
I played: 2-2-1-1-1-1-2 for ~ 800kdps
Love this fight. Always fun stuff to do. There are so many shards to gain from resets/sniping. Remember to drain soul the orbs right before they explode for a shard/woc. The phantom singularity can be trouble, since it'll hit the 'DON'T TOUCH ME' orb.

Star Augur
I played: 3-2-1-1-1-1-1 for ~ 630kdps
Felt like MG wasn't the optimal talent for phase 3 (gcd restraints), but there are two phases before it where it is certainly prime.

Tich
I played: 3-2-3-3-2-1-3 for ~ 800kdps (~400k to boss)
I played soul harvest because I had a dream of casting a bunch of agonies on bats and then going in for huge damage on the boss with the night buff, plus the slimes give a bunch of free agony targets. Didn't love it, though my boss damage is pretty decent. STS and phantom seem like cheesy bullshit to me, though if the bat phase is a massive dps check then sure. 2.5 second seed casts are pretty horrible with the night lazer though.

Tich
I played: 1-2-1-1-2-1-3 for ~ 450kdps
The plan was to get a ton of value from haunt resets, but without working timers I blew a bunch of haunts. This fight has enough movement that I am still unsure what to play in the 15 row. Haunt and MG are punished by all the movement, but the boss clears her dots every time she phases, so writhe hurts too. Might have to play another spec here. Phantom singularity might be good here, with all the movement.

Gul'dan
I played: 1-2-1-1-2-1-2 for ~ 500kdps
The plan was to get a ton of value from haunt resets, but without working timers I blew a bunch of haunts. Further, a lot of the timing for resets seem to be barely worth. However, this fight is pure movement cancer, so I am once again not sure what to play in the 15 row. Haunt did kick ass on the empowered eyes, but MG would too. Might have to play another spec here.

Overall nighthold is great, and affliction is a lot of fun. I wish we could get some normalization on souls -- why couldn't it be a regular CD with a CD reduction on mob death?

Thanks for sharing,

I've been wondering why no one seems to be really trying out haunt. Seems fantastic if you have adds that will reset and you get decent debuff uptime. With that said, it looks like you don't really like writhe and avoid it like the plague. I feel like MG is just too strong right now, I'm going to follow what this guy did:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/ranking...933176/latest/

His damage is pretty much absurd and lowest parse was 93%. He's basically fulltime MG on all bosses, AG all bosses, and Seed on 2 bosses.

[Liarparadox]

Curious to know what people are running for heroic NH: Demon skin, dark pact, or burning rush? I have been using Dark Pact because I used to use sacrifice; and it's just OP with that. But now that I'm AFF with a doom and I just got Prydaz, I thought about switching it up to Demon Skin. What are people doing with this tier (and why is helpful).

[Lucrece]

Curious to know what people are running for heroic NH: Demon skin, dark pact, or burning rush? I have been using Dark Pact because I used to use sacrifice; and it's just OP with that. But now that I'm AFF with a doom and I just got Prydaz, I thought about switching it up to Demon Skin. What are people doing with this tier (and why is helpful).

Burning Rush allows you to reposition and deal with movement more quickly, which translates to DPS.

[Kirroth]

Burning Rush allows you to reposition and deal with movement more quickly, which translates to DPS.

True, but I find the combo of Prydaz and Demon Skin is enough that I often don't need to move. The combined shield is over 1.25m health for me. Sure, some stuff has to be dodged no matter what, but a lot of the more minor raid damage type of effects that act as a healer tax if too many people stand in the fire? I stand in that fire and the healers don't even notice.

Now, it takes a little bit of extra raid awareness. You need to know the difference between "won't touch your actual health even if you stand in it" and "the only reason you're at 20% and not dead is because of that absorb shield". But it's really super fun to just shrug off stuff like that.

[Lucrece]

True, but I find the combo of Prydaz and Demon Skin is enough that I often don't need to move. The combined shield is over 1.25m health for me. Sure, some stuff has to be dodged no matter what, but a lot of the more minor raid damage type of effects that act as a healer tax if too many people stand in the fire? I stand in that fire and the healers don't even notice.

Now, it takes a little bit of extra raid awareness. You need to know the difference between "won't touch your actual health even if you stand in it" and "the only reason you're at 20% and not dead is because of that absorb shield". But it's really super fun to just shrug off stuff like that.

Yeah, I liked demonskin in Cenarius.

But when it came to Odyn and Helya, having Burning Rush to quickly dump tornadoes or switch sides as they light up, or to deal with corroded orbs or get into the purple swirl to soak or up the stairs opposite of the ones where I set my demonic circle, or Odyn's runes, Burning Rush is king.

I find my love for Demon Skin pretty nice for court of stars, though, and I can see how it will be really useful for the new Bursting Affix in the weeks it comes up.

[MonsieuRoberts]

I've always loved recharging shields, and Demon Skin is usually my go-to, along with portal pants and lots of movement when refreshing DoTs.

Heroic progression has shown me the value of Dark Pact, though.

[Count Zero]

Guess I could have asked before I did the work, but: I finally got around to jumping back into fix all my buttons and auras and stuff ... I hadn't done enough Afflic to need to worry about learning Soul Effigy before, but:

Is there a more efficient way to handle this thing than having a button to use it, another button to make it your focus and re-target the boss, and yet another button to (either target it so you can do whatever, or to just cast what you wanted to and then re-target the boss) ? Also a separate unit frame or aura to track that dot.

I mean, I have all those things set up and that basically trivializes its usage, but 3 keybinds is an unheard-of amount of real estate on my UI for one ability.

But then I'm pretty rusty in general and Aff is my OS anyway so it might really be a moot point for me, hah ...

[SpikeySquad]

Guess I could have asked before I did the work, but: I finally got around to jumping back into fix all my buttons and auras and stuff ... I hadn't done enough Afflic to need to worry about learning Soul Effigy before, but:

Is there a more efficient way to handle this thing than having a button to use it, another button to make it your focus and re-target the boss, and yet another button to (either target it so you can do whatever, or to just cast what you wanted to and then re-target the boss) ? Also a separate unit frame or aura to track that dot.

I mean, I have all those things set up and that basically trivializes its usage, but 3 keybinds is an unheard-of amount of real estate on my UI for one ability.

But then I'm pretty rusty in general and Aff is my OS anyway so it might really be a moot point for me, hah ...

Mouseover and focus macros for each DoT saves you one keybind. If going down that route then you probably should have a basic focus macro as well (for any target). Then you will back to just needing the cast effigy (though you will have to switch back to the main target manually).

[Kirroth]

Is there a more efficient way to handle this thing than having a button to use it, another button to make it your focus and re-target the boss, and yet another button to (either target it so you can do whatever, or to just cast what you wanted to and then re-target the boss) ? Also a separate unit frame or aura to track that dot.

Now, I personally use Soul Conduit. I find the ease of use makes my actual play results higher than Soul Effigy's theoretical gains. That said, I did whip up this macro for it.

#showtooltip
/cast [nomod:alt] Soul Effigy
/focus [mod:alt]
/targetlasttarget [mod:alt]

You click once and it casts Soul Effigy. Once the cast is complete you alt-click a second time and it will focus the Effigy and re-target the boss. Due to Soul Effigy's cast time a one-click macro is impossible. But this gives you two clicks on one button to accomplish what you need, which is as good as it gets with this crappy talent.

[Deleted]

What about tier parts? We want 2p, 4p?

[Soulzar]

I've been wondering why no one seems to be really trying out haunt. Seems fantastic if you have adds that will reset and you get decent debuff uptime.

I really can't think of a situation where I feel haunt would be worth giving up MG. I'd be lieing if I said I knew how hard Haunts DD portion hits for, but it would have to be pretty damn high to be able to trump 70% scaling on UA.

Curious to know what people are running for heroic NH: Demon skin, dark pact, or burning rush?

I am burning rush 100% of the time now unless I feel I can abuse Dark Pact in a fight.

Is there a more efficient way to handle this thing than having a button to use it, another button to make it your focus and re-target the boss, and yet another button to (either target it so you can do whatever, or to just cast what you wanted to and then re-target the boss) ? Also a separate unit frame or aura to track that dot.

#Showtooltip
/focus [talent:7/1]
/cast [talent:7/1] Soul Effigy; [talent:7/2] Phantom Singularity;

This is my Effigy macro. Hit it once to cast effigy, and a second time once effigy cast is completed to focus it. No need to use a modifier for the focus portion as Effigy is auto targeted after cast and you can not cast effigy on itself. As such, hitting it again just causes the /focus action to run, not recast effigy.

From here you can either create one master macro that casts all 3 dots on your Focus target using modifiers or add a modifier to each of your normal dot binds to cast at the focus target. Whichever works best for your play/setup.

The Singularity part in the just causes that macro to cast Phantom Singularity instead if you have that talent and not Effigy.

[Lucrece]

So how are these slated trinket buffs shaking up the trinket hierarchy, if at all?

[Raxle]

Is there a more efficient way to handle this thing than having a button to use it, another button to make it your focus and re-target the boss, and yet another button to (either target it so you can do whatever, or to just cast what you wanted to and then re-target the boss) ? Also a separate unit frame or aura to track that dot.

There's some good suggestions here already. Here's what I use:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt,target=focus][] Agony
/stopmacro [target=focus,exists]
/cleartarget
/targetexact Soul Effigy
/focus [exists]
/targetlasttarget [noexists]

Since I use Agony right away every time I summon my Effigy, it made sense to tie my focus macro to my Agony button. The rest of the macro checks if I have a focus already and won't override it if it exists. It also will appear to do nothing if there's no Effigy to target and focus and just work like normal. It does run into issues with targeting others' Effigies (is that even still a thing? I never run with other locks).

The mod:alt in there is optional. I use alt modifiers to cast all my DoTs on the Effigy.