[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Werst]

In looking at the 100 row fir 7.2.5 it would make sense to buff siphon life to get us competitive with whatever benchmark and make it single target only. Deaths Embrace is a great multi target tool. SC is the compromise. Otherwise DE and SL are doing a similar job and possess similar strengths and weaknesses.

Plus c'mon, balancing aff's single vs multi has always been a problem. The other way to do that is leave siphon as is on 100 row and buff haunt for our single target since it's very nature is a single target only buff. That unbalances the 15 row so the SL single target only method seems smarter. Plus then you avoid pvp crying when you have SL on everything with a hp bar...

[Deleted]

I'm willing to bet we're going to see Siphon Life nerfed and affliction balanced aorund spread damage.

It's unavoidable. Do decent damage single target with a talent like that and it goes into overdrive with multiple targets.

[Lucrece]

The thing that kept aff ST balanced was tying more of affliction's damage to haunt/UA, so it should be fine. Affliction will still be doing less multidot damage than ST damage because UA and haunt are huge ST steroids that cannot be cleaved.

[Inshabel]

Question about the legiondary sims, can I see somewhere what traits they have unlocked on the Artifact? I have Hood and Cloak but recently got the trinket and that sims as a big improvement over the cloak, I was wondering if the sims are in a vacuum or do they have Rend Soul unlocked?

Bumping my earlier post, are the legendary sims done with Rend Soul?

[Deleted]

Well they changed whispers before raid release so there's still hope that new trinkets receive very negative feedback and they change them into something usable.

But there's one thing they will not change for certain: shit relics. ToS filled with trash relics once again. This time there're more usable relics (shadow damage for affliction for example) but relic from last boss is the same garbage as relic from last in NH. They could make relics so each class need different one, but for some reason they continue to put usable traits on same relics for every class who use them (botanist relic: dh/rogue/warlock) creating some idiotic competition between melee and ranged. Also I don't know why they continue to ignore relic power issue.

I have several 905 shadow relics, but traits on them is hot garbage (non dps/drain soul dmg) and they're dps loss compared to my 890 crit dmg relic.

I finaly got my 2 890 Perdition relics + Agony dmg Blood relic. and the 6/6 Perdition is very nice .

[SpikeySquad]

Bumping my earlier post, are the legendary sims done with Rend Soul?

You're talking about the ones on the Lock One Stop thingy? Then yes.

Any decent sim should have that information available. So scroll down under the sim results, click on the one you are interested in and at the top you get the talents and traits purchased. If you want to find the gear used etc keep scrolling down.

[Inshabel]

You're talking about the ones on the Lock One Stop thingy? Then yes.

Any decent sim should have that information available. So scroll down under the sim results, click on the one you are interested in and at the top you get the talents and traits purchased. If you want to find the gear used etc keep scrolling down.

Right, found it, thanks!

[EqualWin]

I knwo this isn't the place, but i dont wanna make a post.

anyone else fucking have problem with dcs and loading screen? it takes forever to load and dc all the time

[TummyBoy]

Just wondering, but does the stat priority change for Mythic plus dungeons? My Aff spec is at 100 mastery 25 haste and 21 crit. I'm wondering if I should dedicate more to mastery.

[SpikeySquad]

Just wondering, but does the stat priority change for Mythic plus dungeons? My Aff spec is at 100 mastery 25 haste and 21 crit. I'm wondering if I should dedicate more to mastery.

Sounds a decent enough stat spread to me Tummy for AoE though it depends on what abilities are giving you the most damage, the dungeon, affixes, level, other players and so on. Of course you can always swap and change in a dungeon anyhow between say large trash packs and a single target boss.

If you rely more on DoTs than Seed as I usually seem to in high end dungeons then you probably want more mastery. However if you are getting a LOT of AoE damage then Seed favours haste while Soulflame likes Crit.

If you want to do both without swapping gear then I'd suggest something in between.

So all in all the answer depends. Have a play, sim and see what works.

[Markuus]

So ive been trying to get a 900+ mastery stat stick from the relinquished tokens on broken shore. Today i got a 900 Dreadstone of Endless Shadows /w socket. Is it even worth using for affliction? Ive been on the warlock one stop shop and its not even listed in the trinkets list. I have been using Whispers 900/Arcano 860

[severan]

Its not in the notes but based on my agony tooltip it got the 20% boost on the ptr.

[Kirroth]

Its not in the notes but based on my agony tooltip it got the 20% boost on the ptr.

Assuming that's correct, anyone got the numbers of what that does for a Writhe build compared to Haunt?

[Sunlighthell]

Its not in the notes but based on my agony tooltip it got the 20% boost on the ptr.

Yeah, agony got buffed on ptr. Ticks for 65k non buffed by reap on live while on ptr it ticks for 77k at 10 stacks. With writhe on live agony ticks for 131k on ptr 116k. Also doonguard's doom bolt hit harder on ptr despite tooltip (fro me at least) state that damage is lower than on live (153k non crit compared to 129k on live at 100% dummy)

I have 1% more mastery and ~800 int more on live than on ptr. Need someone who will test new tier bonuses. In my optinion they are weaker than current t19. Hovewer whispers + lust + tier proc is insane.

[Deleted]

That's why they are nerfing the T19 in 7.2.5

1.15 Agony chance to proc a shard is reduced to 1.10

Probably because it was proccing more shards than the T20 bonus off Corruption and despite what they say they do not want people retaining Nighthold gear because it;s better than Sargeras gear despite the ilevel difference

It is evident they want us having less shards in 7.2.5 with more damage in other abilities and less focussed on Unstable Affliction. But it feels very "pray for a shard" with a spender you do not spend very often.

Personally I still think that they will not be able to have single target damage based around dots competetive without it potentially going out of control on council type fights...or have us balanced around those but feel bad on fights where we can;t spread dots.

That pendulum has swung backwards and forwards ever since Wrath at least. Same for Shadow Priests, in the Nighthold they only really shine on Botanist.

iirc Sargeras has a lot of single target and cleave fights, a one council fight and hardly any with mass aoe, and most of them don't feature lot sof taggable adds to proc shards+souls+wrath

[Sunlighthell]

I tested new t20 bonus and with it I ended up with ~43-45% damage done by UA, compared to live 50-55%.

Also they still not rewamped pvp death embrace on ptr and holinka and his team are dumb enough to let 2 identical talent exist (remeber 7.0.3 and that useless infernal talent in destro pvp talents?). One can hope for some slow or heal reduction in it's place, but i doubt it will happen despite the fact that affliction is in need of such skills. (only dps spec without stun/slow)

[Liarparadox]

Just got whispers TF. Is there anything I should be doing during the increase/decrease buffs? For example, refreshing dots during the decrease or draining during the increase in spellcasting? Not sure how, if at all, this trinket impacts priorities/use of global.

[Livix]

Great guide thanks a lot

[Liarparadox]

you tube.com/watch?v=-d0qmOtyiIo ;-)

Thanks a lot; I appreciate it!

[SpikeySquad]

Thanks for the updates Terryn. There is one typing error in "Damage Biffs"

So for SH (let's say the base duration for the sake of argument) and for Concordance does the following apply?

"UA twice.
Pop reap (Its not on the GCD)
UA until 5.
Drain until depleted."

The base 5UAs last about 13 seconds so they fit into SH and with 5 under Reap there probably are some Fatal Echoes. However, Concordance is only 10 seconds so that is very little drain time and especially if you have to refresh Agony first as you never know when that proc is coming.

Do you also advocate using 5 UAs over draining during Whispers/haste procs? As that is how I took your sentence about damage buffs.