[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[Kashii]

....Soulburn: Soul Swap instantly applies all your DoTs to one enemy, uses a soul shard, and does not trigger a cooldown*.

(*on the current beta build, Soulburn: Soul Swap does trigger a cooldown when glyphed, but it is believed to be a bug).

So yeah, I would say it's a mandatory glyph, or as close to mandatory as you're going to get.

Unfortunately, there aren't really any other interesting major glyphs for Affliction.

Yeah this was the part I was unsure about in terms of being a bug on Beta or working as intended. Of course, if you are on a single target encounter or an encounter with one primary target plus periodic spawns of low HP adds (an AOE pile) then Soul Swap glyph is pretty much useless because you won't be using Soul Swap w/o Soulburn.

As I said before, I'm fine with your list of glyphs as a "default" set (assuming the SB:SS cd is a bug) and look forward to your encounter by encounter suggestions.

[EvreliaGaming]

I disagree, actually.

1) It's not "dangerous" if you are using Sacrifice, it's a flat 20% health boost.
2) It's predictable which encounters have pet-killing mechanics and which ones do not. For instance, Ultraxion does not have pet killing mechanics.

Finally, Dark Bargain is a pretty incredible talent, I'll give you that, but it's downside is its 3 minute cooldown. Sacrificial Pact is a 1 minute cooldown, and Soul Link is always there all the time. So Dark Bargain is good, but only if there is something significant to "bargain" that will come infrequently (Ultraxion, for instance).

For instance on Madness, depending on what progression status is, I might have taken Soul Link over Dark Bargain simply because it is always up, whereas Dark Bargain is only up every 3 minutes (I could only use it on either the bolt, the first blisterings, or the second blisterings, and it's still only a 50% reduction). Keep in mind you can avoid the pet damage by using Sacrifice or by keeping your pet on the Wing/Arm tentacle.

Sacrificial Pact I think is overlooked as a talent, I think it's incredible due to its cooldown. For instance on Spine, you can save healers a LOT of grief if you Sacrificial Pact every time you are fiery gripped.


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I still think your guide is incredible by the way, but yeah, just nit-picking at the situational defensive talent tier.

Fair comments. Thank you.

[Mindcrime]

Great guide Evralia, with so many changes to the warlock class the community on the front lines that are documenting the changes and collectively putting that data in an easy to read guide is going to be much appreciated by many warlocks.

Keep up the good work

[Fuqup]

Re: damage soaking with Dark Bargain - does Unending Resolve mitigate the damage from the DB DoT?

[EvreliaGaming]

Re: damage soaking with Dark Bargain - does Unending Resolve mitigate the damage from the DB DoT?

Yes. You can use it during the dot to mitigate the damage, or you can use it during dark bargain to mitigate the entire dot.

[Sillyputty]

Wouldn't harvest life be good in heavy AOE situations? 4+ targets?

[Tresdallah]

Wouldn't harvest life be good in heavy AOE situations? 4+ targets?

Yes it would, but if you look at the encounters for the upcoming tier there really aren't many (I know Elegon does) fights where you would really benefit from the mass damage afforded to you from HL.

[Spoiledkid]

I'd say Glyph of Siphon Life is a better choice than Glyph of Soulstone. Glyph of Soulstone is useless if you aren't using a combat res and even if you do, benefits aren't that significant (60% max hp vs. 100% max hp when ressed).

[Oatz]

Great work with this.

[smegdawg]

I'd say Glyph of Siphon Life is a better choice than Glyph of Soulstone. Glyph of Soulstone is useless if you aren't using a combat res and even if you do, benefits aren't that significant (60% max hp vs. 100% max hp when ressed).

Yah I will most likely be using this as well.

When grouping with friends communication is better so the healer will know when someone is getting a battle rez and be prepared to give them an extra heal or two. However, when I do PuGs and solo queues for LFD I will probably be running the soulstone glyph.

Thanks for the post Evralia!

[Deleted]

The Dark Bargain change has made it quite a bit less desirable now, but I still think it's the better talent in that row.
It's a shame most of the talents we have, we can't really use. I would love to have Shadowfury, love the versatility it brings, but there is just no need for it in any encounter in the first tier (Unless you have a gimped 10 man setup I guess)
Think Blizzard would have to change at least 1 talent in every row to make them more desirable, but I think they will just nerf the best talents in line with the crappy ones.
Like Dark Bargain and Kiljaeden's Cunning, which is now next to useless. The change made it a liability on every fight you'd want to take it. Sad really.

[Alone0129]

I'm not exactly sure why, but under you gem suggestions both your red and orange show Artulf gems instead of brilliant and reckless.

[EvreliaGaming]

I'm not exactly sure why, but under you gem suggestions both your red and orange show Artulf gems instead of brilliant and reckless.

Because Mastery > Haste and because 160 Mastery > 80 Int.

[Alone0129]

If that is the case then, in your week one gearing up it shows using the reckless gems instead of artful as well as reforging out of mastery into haste. I apologize if I am missing something in-between there as I have read the entire thread a couple times and this is confusing me.

[EvreliaGaming]

No need to apologise - There's a little red warning label above the week one BiS profile that explains it. The stat weights changed in a recent beta build, but the latest Simcraft is not publicly downloadable at the moment, so I can't accurately produce a new BiS profile until it is. I could just go in and change the gems, but there are a lot of other changes to make, so it would be rather pointless.

Hope that clears it up.

[Alone0129]

Ahhh well, derp on my part. I am not sure why all that red letting didn't register in my brain. I'll keep checking back for an update. Thanks for the info, you are making my job a lot easier since my guild asked me to change mains to a Warlock. Now I can focus more on studying the new raid encounters.

[CDShaidar]

Just pointing out that you are once again using hybrid gems incorrectly as in your other guides...

[EvreliaGaming]

Just pointing out that you are once again using hybrid gems incorrectly as in your other guides...

Stat weights are changing so much with each build that I was just going to wait for the next beta build and the downloadable Simcraft and change it all at once - but since you insist, I've updated the post to include all the possible gemming choices dependant on individual stats.

[CDShaidar]

Stat weights are changing so much with each build that I was just going to wait for the next beta build and the downloadable Simcraft and change it all at once - but since you insist, I've updated the post to include all the possible gemming choices dependant on individual stats.

You just need to be consistent if you're going to publish a guide. Don't tell someone it's "simple maths" to use a hybrid in a red socket but then not use the pure of that stat in it's appropriate colored socket... if 80 int <160 stat it should be that way in your entire guide, if you aren't going to do scaling correctly then don't mention it at all until you do it right.

[EvreliaGaming]

You just need to be consistent if you're going to publish a guide. Don't tell someone it's "simple maths" to use a hybrid in a red socket but then not use the pure of that stat in it's appropriate colored socket... if 80 int <160 stat it should be that way in your entire guide, if you aren't going to do scaling correctly then don't mention it at all until you do it right.

Since the stat weights have almost definitely changed in the most recent beta build, it is irrelevant whether I update it right now or in a few days when I can actually test it. If someone points out an error I make a note of it and decide if it needs updating immediately or if it will go through in the next build draft. I do not have to alter that process at your behest.

My answer to his question successfully explained why you would "ever want to use a hybrid gem in a red slot". That is a standalone question.

Thank you for the pointer about pure secondary stat gems.