Hood of Eternal Disdain really BiS?

[JJShadoe]

So the Hood finally dropped for me today. I see it consistently posted as Affliction's BiS legendary, but unless you're specced into WiA and SE, I can't imagine how it could be better than the cloak, ring, bracers or belt.

Agony gets to full damage 10% faster? That's what, one extra tick of full power Agony? Then no benefit unless Agony drops off and you have to reapply it and then you get that once boosted tick again. I can't fathom how that's better than a 15% buff to Corruption or 4% damage with UA up.

Can anyone explain it's BiS status to me? I feel like I must be missing something.

[Unlockmyhrt]

So the Hood finally dropped for me today. I see it consistently posted as Affliction's BiS legendary, but unless you're specced into WiA and SE, I can't imagine how it could be better than the cloak, ring, bracers or belt.

Agony gets to full damage 10% faster? That's what, one extra tick of full power Agony? Then no benefit unless Agony drops off and you have to reapply it and then you get that once boosted tick again. I can't fathom how that's better than a 15% buff to Corruption or 4% damage with UA up.

Can anyone explain it's BiS status to me? I feel like I must be missing something.

Soul Bit generation mainly 10% faster

[Count Zero]

Soul Bit generation mainly 10% faster

And just to clarify what you mean by this: the Hood gets to max Agony damage faster by having Agony just tick 10% faster in general, at all times.

[Ghormus]

And just to clarify what you mean by this: the Hood gets to max Agony damage faster by having Agony just tick 10% faster in general, at all times.

Yeah. The wording is really deceptive for it - couple that with the stats on it and it just blows everything else out of the water.

[Cheze]

It should really just be worded 'Agony ticks 10% faster', since the ramp-up is a function of the tick rate anyway

what you're really using it for is the ~10% more soul shards

[Count Zero]

I'm gonna guess the original intent for it was exactly just that only Agony would reach max damage faster, but they couldn't figure out how to do that other than make it tick faster, and they never thought to update the tooltip since it's not like it's ~incorrect~.

[JJShadoe]

Well that makes a lot more sense! I appreciate the clarification. Kinda ridiculous that the tooltip is so far off the mark.

[Jellospally]

So the Hood finally dropped for me today. I see it consistently posted as Affliction's BiS legendary, but unless you're specced into WiA and SE, I can't imagine how it could be better than the cloak, ring, bracers or belt.

Agony gets to full damage 10% faster? That's what, one extra tick of full power Agony? Then no benefit unless Agony drops off and you have to reapply it and then you get that once boosted tick again. I can't fathom how that's better than a 15% buff to Corruption or 4% damage with UA up.

Can anyone explain it's BiS status to me? I feel like I must be missing something.

Also as for Corr ring its so bad. It is 21k dps on my 1.134m parse on krosus its pretty bad. Corr is awful

[Danvash]

If you have the corruption ring and nothing else, using absolute corruption and soul effigy will be solid for single target and fights like Botanist on heroic.

[shrunken]

The primary Affliction throughput legendaries (helm, belt, bracers, cloak) are all very close to each other in value. Helm is the best, but it does not make the spec function as a necessity, unlike many legendaries other classes have to deal with.

Basically, you're not wrong for feeling like it's not miles better than some other Aff legendaries, and grats on getting a bis item.

[Lucrece]

The helm is best simply because it's entirely passive to receive the benefits and reduces your ramp up significantly on your second top source of damage.

The others don't come close. The belt is some shitty RNG inferior version of soul conduit, and the bracers basically make your UA increase damage by 4% on the target while it's up (only particularly great if you stack multiple UA's in a row to squeeze the 4% damage window; it's like a 1/3 of a Contagion talent).

[Locks4fun]

The neck and pants combo has been giving me the best results. Neck for the stat stick and pants for the stats as well as the huge jump in intellect which is overlooked. Outperforms every other combo I have tried and I have all affliction leggos.

[Liarparadox]

the bracers basically make your UA increase damage by 4% on the target while it's up (only particularly great if you stack multiple UA's in a row to squeeze the 4% damage window; it's like a 1/3 of a Contagion talent).

Just to be clear, with bracers, for single target, there is no reason to "squeeze" out anything. The 4% is always up when UA is up, no need to stack any more than usual. It doesn't change a single thing with the "rotation". If anything, stacking UAs and running dry is going to hurt even more since, aside from not empowering every UA since one is spamming, that 4% will drop off once the shards are gone. Don't stack UAs any more than usual with bracers. 2 UA then drain, same as always.

If you had a second target and lots of shards then sure you could throw one on the off-target for an extra 4% buff; but that's comes with the opportunity cost of not empowering those ticks since that isn't your drain target; and that extra 4% doesn't last very long anyway; hardly worth it. People seem to think the AFF bracers changes play style. It doesn't.

[Lucrece]

Just to be clear, with bracers, for single target, there is no reason to "squeeze" out anything. The 4% is always up when UA is up, no need to stack any more than usual. It doesn't change a single thing with the "rotation". If anything, stacking UAs and running dry is going to hurt even more since, aside from not empowering every UA since one is spamming, that 4% will drop off once the shards are gone. Don't stack UAs any more than usual with bracers. 2 UA then drain, same as always.

If you had a second target and lots of shards then sure you could throw one on the off-target for an extra 4% buff; but that's comes with the opportunity cost of not empowering those ticks since that isn't your drain target; and that extra 4% doesn't last very long anyway; hardly worth it. People seem to think the AFF bracers changes play style. It doesn't.

I meant weaving just like with Contagion. You want to bank shards to keep the 4% buff going for as long as possible.

The 2 UA cycle only applies for MG anyways and not WiA builds. Granted MG is the dominant talent right now because ST is so valued and council fights so few to make WiA shine (whereas with helya WiA was pretty good).

[JJShadoe]

Also as for Corr ring its so bad. It is 21k dps on my 1.134m parse on krosus its pretty bad. Corr is awful

With the ring on and AC, my Corruption out damages my 10-stack Agony by 25%, that seems like a pretty significant sustain boost for a DoT that takes 1 GCD.

[Liarparadox]

I meant weaving just like with Contagion. You want to bank shards to keep the 4% buff going for as long as possible.

The 2 UA cycle only applies for MG anyways and not WiA builds. Granted MG is the dominant talent right now because ST is so valued and council fights so few to make WiA shine (whereas with helya WiA was pretty good).

Correct. The wording of your first post is misleading since you seemed to imply the bracers are only good if you can stack UAs (which you apparently meant, don't stack. Again, charitably just a wording issue). There is no 'bracers are good only if you can...' No. That's nonsense. They are excellent. ATM AFF locks have shards coming out of their ass. This buff will be up a lot in our current gear. My last Krosus kill had the bracer buff up around 73%, Gul'dan 62%, and Botanist 76%, to take a varied sample. If you get bracers, be happy; they are awesome.

I understand you didn't mean it the way it came out; but I'm making sure people aren't misled. I emphasize this point because I've seen this question asked sooooo much: How do the bracers change the AFF rotation? Everyone should understand that for MG builds, when you have bracers you don't "bank" anything for the 4% buff any more than you normally would. Bracers make absolutely no difference to the cycle when playing MG (and as you point out the vast majority of people are playing MG, with the exception of Botanist: AC/SE/WiA). And it's a solid to excellent legendary on every fight.

[Jellospally]

With the ring on and AC, my Corruption out damages my 10-stack Agony by 25%, that seems like a pretty significant sustain boost for a DoT that takes 1 GCD.

You would never take AC even with ring. Contagion will beat it in NH.