1. #1
    Deleted

    Soul Conduct and Contagion VS Effigy and AC

    Hello!!

    I know there is already guides ALL over the place about talents and rotation and so on, buuut sometimes when my dps is low in a raid encounter I sometimes go to warcraft logs and pickup people and look at their talents and such, I am not just picking 1 but multiple different characters at the same item lvl as me with no hood legendary like myself. So please dont be "look at that guide, stupid". Thank you

    But here goes my question, on many fights Krosus, Guldan, StarBOI etc. I see very different talent builds regardless of legendaries and 4 sets.

    So I am just asking why is this? and what build would you recommend, which is better? Is it a matter of playstyle? Tunneling? Adds?

    Thank you very much

  2. #2
    Deleted
    while AC and effigy sims better i feel like cont and SC is better, with the 4 set you shouldnt really have much problems with shards and every single boss has adds spawning where you can cheese some extra shards for yourself if played right.

  3. #3
    its a matter of playstyle and what job you perform on the encounter. aff right now can work with a lot of different builds. so just try it out and see what works for you. generally having effigy takes more skill as its more dots to manage while having high drain uptime.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Mikdru View Post
    Hello!!

    I know there is already guides ALL over the place about talents and rotation and so on, buuut sometimes when my dps is low in a raid encounter I sometimes go to warcraft logs and pickup people and look at their talents and such, I am not just picking 1 but multiple different characters at the same item lvl as me with no hood legendary like myself. So please dont be "look at that guide, stupid". Thank you

    But here goes my question, on many fights Krosus, Guldan, StarBOI etc. I see very different talent builds regardless of legendaries and 4 sets.

    So I am just asking why is this? and what build would you recommend, which is better? Is it a matter of playstyle? Tunneling? Adds?

    Thank you very much
    So i kind of went through similar the last couple of weeks where my DPS was lower than I felt it should be so I would scour the guides trying to figure out what i'm doing wrong. I watched Terryn's guides and Preciousyipz's videos and was able to fix a couple of things that I was doing incorrectly, but if you watch some of the boss kill videos, you can see a recurring theme. That theme is that these guys know the fights inside and out, so they are able to maximize their DPS based on the flow of the fight. Your able to anticipate if adds are coming, or if there is a phase transition and manage your shards/souls/CDs accordingly. I was blindly putting UA on the boss only to switch to adds before I could drain them for fights like Tich or Botanist. Actually Botanist was just a sh*t show because I was panicking and dotting everything instead of using the drain cycles which tanked my DPS. I improved on that fight basically through watching a couple of videos and just practicing with normal mode pugs or on LFR.

    So for your question on which build to use, it really depends on you. You can sim or compare builds on the dummies and see that maybe Contagion/SL/SC is consistently 50K DPS higher than AC/SE but what you don't see is the amount of movement and mechanics from a fight. So your build will depend on what your most comfortable with. Your raid makeup may have a high amount of aoe so adds will drop before you have a chance to do a single drain cycle on it, so your better off to tunnel the boss or just time your seed to hit the adds and just stay on boss. The heroic boss kills for the guys i mentioned above help a lot, they may talk to a mechanic that you can use to legitimately bump up your DPS (not cheese it).

    Last piece of advice is test your builds in LFR and not your guild runs. Doing Trillax a couple times on LFR with different builds will help you figure out what works best for you as the mechanics are pretty much the same (or at least movement)

    I've played a warlock since vanilla, and this is the first time in 12 years that I feel RNG plays a big part in your performance between which legendaries you have and your soul/shard generation. Hope that helps.
    Last edited by rlusignan; 2017-02-16 at 02:50 PM.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by rlusignan View Post

    Last piece of advice is test your builds in LFR and not your guild runs. Doing Trillax a couple times on LFR with different builds will help you figure out what works best for you as the mechanics are pretty much the same (or at least movement)
    I liked your post but especially this part. It's something I'm going to do today in LFR. I know I'm going to try this because I feel right now on some of the bosses in Nighthold I "panic move" like on Tich and Trilliax and maybe moving to a more movement friendly build like AC/SE would benefit me.

    As a rule of thumb, if you're running an SE build should you also spec into Writhe of Agony or stay MG? For some reason I have it in my head that these talents should always be grouped together

    MG-Contagion-SC

    Writhe-AC-SE

    Maybe I'm wrong and there is opportunity to mix and match on some boss fights.

  6. #6
    Honestly on mythic raiding, MG, Contagion, SL, SE sims the highest for me. On mythic krosus this also performs the best.

    Depends on the fight, especially in mythic, i go through a lot of tomes.
    Please do one thing on the forums, read the whole post first, form an opinion, and then state whether you agree or disagree.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Thalem View Post
    I liked your post but especially this part. It's something I'm going to do today in LFR. I know I'm going to try this because I feel right now on some of the bosses in Nighthold I "panic move" like on Tich and Trilliax and maybe moving to a more movement friendly build like AC/SE would benefit me.

    As a rule of thumb, if you're running an SE build should you also spec into Writhe of Agony or stay MG? For some reason I have it in my head that these talents should always be grouped together

    MG-Contagion-SC

    Writhe-AC-SE

    Maybe I'm wrong and there is opportunity to mix and match on some boss fights.
    Thanks! I've only killed Skorp on mythic so most of my input is based off what i've read/seen on videos or done in heroic clears. Go check out Terryn's videos, specifically the 7.1.5 single target opener and rotation. My interpretation and experience is that Contagion/SL/SC is very similar to AC/SL/SE and it's a personal preference because a lot of the deltas in DPS will more often then not be souls and shard generation. If your Min/Maxing your builds and care about that 5% then you aren't reading this anyhow as you've probably already written guilds or done videos, so really it's playstyle preference. Drain cycles still apply with both builds as you need to buff UA for full duration to maximize the DPS. In a fight where you are switching targets, or there is constant movement, a Writhe build may be more effective as you can focus on keeping Agony/SL/AC up on all targets and Effigy (no SL on Effigy though) and dump UAs into targets as you generate shards because the mechanics prevent you from getting consistent drain cycles. Instead your maintaining DoTs and dumping UAs.

    So the TLDR:

    Any MG build is about keeping Agony up and managing your drain cycles on a target to make sure every tick of UA is buffed. You will only cast UA twice and drain as MG will buff 100% duration (you will have to start another drain mid-channel though as it times out before UA finishes but that is covered in Terryn's video). Only exception is if your shard generation high and your constantly sitting at 5 shards, just dump 3 and drain. Don't worry about SL/Corruption dropping during your drain cycle (another mistake I made), just focus on Agony and full duration drain cycles.

    Any Writhe/SE build is about keeping Agony/AC/SL on all targets (no SL on effigy) and dumping UAs as you generate shards.

    Hopefully that helps and makes sense. This xpac by far has been the most complicated as far as rotations go for affliction due to the talent options combined with RNG Reap and Legendaries.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by rlusignan View Post
    Thanks! I've only killed Skorp on mythic so most of my input is based off what i've read/seen on videos or done in heroic clears. Go check out Terryn's videos, specifically the 7.1.5 single target opener and rotation. My interpretation and experience is that Contagion/SL/SC is very similar to AC/SL/SE and it's a personal preference because a lot of the deltas in DPS will more often then not be souls and shard generation. If your Min/Maxing your builds and care about that 5% then you aren't reading this anyhow as you've probably already written guilds or done videos, so really it's playstyle preference. Drain cycles still apply with both builds as you need to buff UA for full duration to maximize the DPS. In a fight where you are switching targets, or there is constant movement, a Writhe build may be more effective as you can focus on keeping Agony/SL/AC up on all targets and Effigy (no SL on Effigy though) and dump UAs into targets as you generate shards because the mechanics prevent you from getting consistent drain cycles. Instead your maintaining DoTs and dumping UAs.

    So the TLDR:

    Any MG build is about keeping Agony up and managing your drain cycles on a target to make sure every tick of UA is buffed. You will only cast UA twice and drain as MG will buff 100% duration (you will have to start another drain mid-channel though as it times out before UA finishes but that is covered in Terryn's video). Only exception is if your shard generation high and your constantly sitting at 5 shards, just dump 3 and drain. Don't worry about SL/Corruption dropping during your drain cycle (another mistake I made), just focus on Agony and full duration drain cycles.

    Any Writhe/SE build is about keeping Agony/AC/SL on all targets (no SL on effigy) and dumping UAs as you generate shards.

    Hopefully that helps and makes sense. This xpac by far has been the most complicated as far as rotations go for affliction due to the talent options combined with RNG Reap and Legendaries.
    Right now I think I'm on the skill level of semi-mastering the Drain cycles with an MG-Contagion-SC build. I'm looking to branch out my playstyle however and use more Writhe/AC/SE which you've given me some great pointers on!

    I'm not a 95th percentile player and I only raid Heroic however I always look for opportunities to bleed out more damage if I can. Maybe in LFR I start experimenting with Writhe/AC/SE or MG/ but like you said, still making sure I drain soul during UA dumps. I suppose even a hybrid of MG/Contagion/SE may be worth experimenting with as well.

    I figure my rotation will be something like Agony/Corruption/SL on the target, Agony/Corruption on my Effigy and then start going into a standard UAx2 drain cycle while keeping Agony up on my target and SE and letting the other DoTs fall off if still draining UAs. Is that about the jist of it?
    Last edited by Tikishock; 2017-02-16 at 05:17 PM.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Thalem View Post
    Right now I think I'm on the skill level of semi-mastering the Drain cycles with an MG-Contagion-SC build. I'm looking to branch out my playstyle however and use more Writhe/AC/SE which you've given me some great pointers on!

    I'm not a 95th percentile player and I only raid Heroic however I always look for opportunities to bleed out more damage if I can. Maybe in LFR I start experimenting with Writhe/AC/SE but like you said, still making sure I drain soul during UA dumps.

    I figure my rotation will be something like Agony/Corruption/SL on the target, Agony/Corruption on my Effigy and then start going into a standard UAx2 drain cycle while keeping Agony up on my target and SE and letting the other DoTs fall off if still draining UAs. Is that about the jist of it?
    95% imho are no longer valid as those top performers cheese the encounters for big numbers.

    Yeah, your rotation looks good, only tweak is:

    Agony/Corruption/SL target, Agony Corruption Effigy, Drain boss as you want your Agony to build up to at least 8 on each target. Refresh Dots then UA, Reap (if 2 or more), UA, Drain. Watch for Fatal Echoes to refresh your UA and keep draining while only refreshing Agony on boss and Effigy. This is where decent DOT tracking is important as sometimes you'll be 1 or 2 seconds difference from UA/Drain cycle finishing to your Agony dropping off. Just resist the urge refresh right at the Pandemic timer for Agony and interrupt your drain cycle as you can squeeze out a couple ticks of buffed UA and still refresh Agony.

    I also have a tellmewhen icon for Wrath of Consumption timer/stacks as it's more damage so when I'm at 5 stacks i try really hard to maximize damage during that time.
    Last edited by rlusignan; 2017-02-16 at 05:28 PM.

  10. #10
    Thanks Rlusignan! I'm going to mess around with that build in LFR and see where I end up! Hopefully I'll be able to use SE on High Botanist like Yipz does in his video...but with lesser results of course

  11. #11
    I just got one question if someone could answer it and explain the reason of his answer I would be very thankful.
    With the actual lvl of gear + 4p tier bonus, there are many times that you get to 5 shards just after 1 drain and while corruption and SL are at half of its duration, and you know that they won't be enough time for the entire drain cycle, is it more worth to cast them again (losing that 10-25% out of pandemic range) and risking to lose 1 shard by overcapping, or just ignore them and go ahead with the UA dump and drain? Is the same case if you don't have souls to reap?

    I personally think going for the UA dump is more worth since the risk of losing 1 shard (1 UA dmg) is higher than 4-5s of corruption+SL. But it might be more even without reap(?).

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Gnomognomo View Post
    I just got one question if someone could answer it and explain the reason of his answer I would be very thankful.
    With the actual lvl of gear + 4p tier bonus, there are many times that you get to 5 shards just after 1 drain and while corruption and SL are at half of its duration, and you know that they won't be enough time for the entire drain cycle, is it more worth to cast them again (losing that 10-25% out of pandemic range) and risking to lose 1 shard by overcapping, or just ignore them and go ahead with the UA dump and drain? Is the same case if you don't have souls to reap?

    I personally think going for the UA dump is more worth since the risk of losing 1 shard (1 UA dmg) is higher than 4-5s of corruption+SL. But it might be more even without reap(?).
    Go to a target dummy and for roughly 2 minutes sit there managing Agony, Corruption and SL (no UA, pet, drain, or Reap). Once you have a baseline, reset and put Agony on the dummy and maintain it while going through your drain cycles without using Corruption, SL, pet or Reap. The DPS with UA/Drain/Agony will probably be 2+ times more than it is with just DoTs, so that should tell you where your priorities should be in the rotation. I don't have 4 piece yet (or decent trinkets for that matter) but if I seem to be capping a lot on shards I'll dump a 3rd UA and drain even though I think I end up missing 2 tick of UA because of the additional cast.

  13. #13
    Just look az SP coefficients.
    UA: 384%
    Corr: 254%
    SL: 289%

    Not overcapping is the highest priority.
    So if you are at 5 shards, do your drain cycle ASAP! Even let Corr and SL fall off, just finish your cycle and reapply them.

    What I'm not sure about is when to reapply Agony; overwrite first outside Pandemic range, UAx2+Reap+Drain, or the opposite:
    UAx2+Reap+Drain, but let 1-2 ticks of UA un-drained and cast Agony inside pandemic.

  14. #14
    wrong thread, moved
    Last edited by Shadocaster; 2017-02-17 at 04:26 PM.
    CompTIA A+ Computer technician, 7 years and counting...

    Retired WoW Heroic Raider, currently playing DOTA 2 competitively.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Orwell7 View Post
    What I'm not sure about is when to reapply Agony; overwrite first outside Pandemic range, UAx2+Reap+Drain, or the opposite:
    UAx2+Reap+Drain, but let 1-2 ticks of UA un-drained and cast Agony inside pandemic.
    I'd say refresh Agony outside of Pandemic. The gain from proper management of Pandemic is marginal when compared to losing MG on UA ticks.

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Mikdru View Post
    Hello!!

    I know there is already guides ALL over the place about talents and rotation and so on, buuut sometimes when my dps is low in a raid encounter I sometimes go to warcraft logs and pickup people and look at their talents and such, I am not just picking 1 but multiple different characters at the same item lvl as me with no hood legendary like myself. So please dont be "look at that guide, stupid". Thank you

    But here goes my question, on many fights Krosus, Guldan, StarBOI etc. I see very different talent builds regardless of legendaries and 4 sets.

    So I am just asking why is this? and what build would you recommend, which is better? Is it a matter of playstyle? Tunneling? Adds?

    Thank you very much
    Okay, so i switched from Destro to Affliction in 7.1.5, and Had to basically relearn the spec since it had been several expansions since i did affliction seriously. Heres what helped me most:

    1) I started out with the simplest setup. Absolute corruption, drain soul, sow the seeds and conduit . you get use to dropping corruption on everything, maintain CoA, UA twice and drain...rinse repeat.
    2) Moved to siphon life. got use to throwing that in when I do a refresh of CoA.
    3) switched to soul effigy. I had a lot of trouble here, but what made the difference is making macros to /target soul effigy; /Cast Curse of Agony; /target lasttarget. (and other buttons for Siphon life and corruption but you dont need those as often since i keep AC).
    4) Got the general idea down. Rotation begins with Corr,CoA,SL, soul effigy, corr,coa on the effigy, retarget the boss, drain a few seconds, reapply agony and siphon life on the boss, hit the button to reapply agony on the effigy at this point, i can start doing 2 UA's and drains, and reap souls as they become available.

    Once i got the general rotation to this point, the only thing that changed as i got my tier gear and better gear was how many UA's i could cast. Frankly with 4 piece, i simply do not need soul conduit anymore. even single target fights, im making enough shards from agony on the effigy and the boss to keep me going and only very rarely be out of shards.

    I'm about at the point that i should try swapping out AC for Contagion and see if my dps improves, but im already pretty impressed with the changes, usually pulling 450k-500k on any given nighthold boss.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    I suggest you to watch Yippzarena on youtube, an experienced affliction warlock. He has manu interesting videos on talents and fights.

  18. #18
    I've been simming a bit each build and actually i got a surprise, since the 2nd best build is MG/contagion/soul harvest/GSup/SE and i thought it would be AC/SL/SE (obviously the best one is 3/1/x/1/x/1/1), there are some bosses that does not favour the SE usage such like tich or big room ones, but in the others, if you don't want to run with 4dots (x2 agonys, corruption and sl) you can go with this build and since the sim is straight ST on some bosses, you will do even more dmg with Soul harvest, since in many bosses there are peaks of dmg such like bl, non-mechanics periods, after killing some adds WoC stacks and more.

    What do you guys think?

    Pd: contagion + soul harvest was just slightly ahead of AC + SL, 15-20k tho, but with a good management of soul harvest it should be much more higher in real situations.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Gnomognomo View Post
    I've been simming a bit each build and actually i got a surprise, since the 2nd best build is MG/contagion/soul harvest/GSup/SE and i thought it would be AC/SL/SE (obviously the best one is 3/1/x/1/x/1/1), there are some bosses that does not favour the SE usage such like tich or big room ones, but in the others, if you don't want to run with 4dots (x2 agonys, corruption and sl) you can go with this build and since the sim is straight ST on some bosses, you will do even more dmg with Soul harvest, since in many bosses there are peaks of dmg such like bl, non-mechanics periods, after killing some adds WoC stacks and more.

    What do you guys think?

    Pd: contagion + soul harvest was just slightly ahead of AC + SL, 15-20k tho, but with a good management of soul harvest it should be much more higher in real situations.
    I have been checking log for this and in most cases, Soul Harvest has higher (mean) dps. Note that its played also by less people. (Heroic, since there are not many logs from other than first 5-6 bosses in mythic)
    Last edited by Gnomognomo; 2017-02-21 at 02:18 AM.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •