[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[weakdots]

I've played around with simcraft for few days and i'm not fully conviced by the results i got. This is my armroy:

As you can see, as a goblin, i've reached the 6151 (6637 for non goblin) haste plateau, sacrificing some mastery, accordingly to simcraft plot. 104k dps. Than i decided to drop haste to 4249 (4717 for non goblin) and reforge to mastery. Simcraft sims a 103.5k dps. As a last try i simmed again keeping haste within 500 mastery value. 103.6k. Am i doing something wrong?

i have reason to believe simcraft does not take into account goblin racial. i too am a goblin and what i noticed when i was a lower ilvl and using the 4249 haste breakpoint, i would check my reforge plot for up to 1500 point change and it would tell me there would be a small gain (less then 200 dps) going for around ~4700 haste (non-goblin breakpoint). The same thing happens now at the 6151 haste rating i play at when i do reforge plots 1000 points in both directions it tells me i can see a ~50 dps gain going for ~6400 and ~6600 both non goblin breakpoints.

[Surutcra]

I checked the stats detected by simcraft (included in the second picture), and I correctly got 4717 haste. Has anyone got an explanation for these results ?

To view the pictures, simply copy/paste the link into browser (you may need to add "h t t p : / /" in front). Btw, if a forum mod can lift the restriction I'd be grateful if you did !

[xskarma]

I checked the stats detected by simcraft (included in the second picture), and I correctly got 4717 haste. Has anyone got an explanation for these results ?

To view the pictures, simply copy/paste the link into browser (you may need to add "h t t p : / /" in front). Btw, if a forum mod can lift the restriction I'd be grateful if you did !

You need 10 posts on the MMO-C forums to be able to post links. I can fix them for you in your previous post though.

I have not looked at Sim results in a while due to no new gear so I have no idea what might be up with it (or not).

[Surutcra]

Thanks about that

[n0n3]

Grimoire of Sacrifice now increases the damage of abilities by 20% (was 25%) for Destruction, and 45% (was 50%) for Affliction.

Can someone thats good with simc do the math and figure out if we'll still be petless in 5.2 after this nerf?

[Viggers]

Can someone thats good with simc do the math and figure out if we'll still be petless in 5.2 after this nerf?

i really hope so! petless affli just feels right to me...

[JV Chequer]

Can someone thats good with simc do the math and figure out if we'll still be petless in 5.2 after this nerf?

Probably, its a 5% nerf but the dps loss in using pets is bigger in simulationcraft, and after all, Whipslash is going to be a "sacrifice spell" from succubus. Good in Pvp as well, and maybe pve.

[Surutcra]

EDIT : Re-posted previous post to correctly show images and armory link, I hope that it's clearer for everyone now... and that maybe someone has an explanation or acknoledges there is something very wrong !


Regarding the very unusual results everyone has been getting with simcraft for affliction since 5.1, I think there's something very wrong and here is the best evidence I could find.

With current gear, I have exactly 4717 haste. Running 50k iterations and plotting haste scaling very locally around that 4717 value, I would expect to see a very noticeable gap (used to be 700+ dps from 4716 to 4717 haste).
The thing is : there is no such gap, just as if there was actually no additional tick on corruption...



For reference, here is my armory and here are the stats as detected by simcraft o this simulation :

[Gobuchul]

Why would you expect to see a very noticeable gap? I certainly wouldn't.

The sim models haste breakpoints perfectly correctly - this can be easily verified by running something like this:

warlock=UnderBP actions=corruption,if=!ticking gear_haste_rating=4716 copy=OverBP gear_haste_rating=4717

[Surutcra]

There used to be 500+ dps gap in older versions of simcraft, and afaik there was no change to the game mechanics that would explain why there is not anymore.

[Gootgot]

For challenges modes. Do you guys think reforging to haste>12-13%hit>mastery would be the best option ?
Haste should be slightly better for aoe, and iirc haste was better then mastery at that low gear levels ?

[Ridcully]

How reliably can warlocks detonate sparks on heroic Will using portal? Had a couple of tries but still haven't figured out the exact moment to port, sometimes it works, sometimes spark does not detonate, sometimes I drop dead.

[nightfalls]

How reliably can warlocks detonate sparks on heroic Will using portal? Had a couple of tries but still haven't figured out the exact moment to port, sometimes it works, sometimes spark does not detonate, sometimes I drop dead.

I would just DB or Sac Pact them, personally. Not worth the split-second timing.

[edit] DB + UR makes popping 4 sparks do 900k over 8 seconds, which is about 100k per second. If you're clever you can get almost 40% reduction on that (let's say 20%) which is only 720k = 90k/sec mitigated with twilight ward. Combine that with a Dark Regen Healthstone, Shadow Bulwark, and a couple of HoTs and its unnoticable. You could probably even do up to 8 if you are really crazy.

If you're on 25m, then you shouldn't be popping sparks.

[Gobuchul]

There used to be 500+ dps gap in older versions of simcraft, and afaik there was no change to the game mechanics that would explain why there is not anymore.

To my knowledge there has never been a 500+ dps gap for that particular breakpoint. You may be thinking of the 4198 breakpoiint, which has a much more significant effect on single target dps.

[Ridcully]

I would just DB or Sac Pact them, personally. Not worth the split-second timing.

[edit] DB + UR makes popping 4 sparks do 900k over 8 seconds, which is about 100k per second. If you're clever you can get almost 40% reduction on that (let's say 20%) which is only 720k = 90k/sec mitigated with twilight ward. Combine that with a Dark Regen Healthstone, Shadow Bulwark, and a couple of HoTs and its unnoticable. You could probably even do up to 8 if you are really crazy.

If you're on 25m, then you shouldn't be popping sparks.

Thanks. If I can't learn to detonate them using portal, I'll definately use this strategy. In 10 man frequency of detonations seems more important than amount of sparks detonated at once.

[Palmz]

For challenges modes. Do you guys think reforging to haste>12-13%hit>mastery would be the best option ?
Haste should be slightly better for aoe, and iirc haste was better then mastery at that low gear levels ?

IMO that is the best option to go for CM's. Int > 12% hit > Haste > Mastery. The fast pace for CM's, you'll spend most of your time AOEing with SoC and spending your soul shards on SB:SoC and SB:SSing on trash. You want your dots to tick faster to get dmg in and increase your chances of Nightfall procs while squeezing in extra SoC's which is what you'll get with more haste. With the possibility of going for the 4717 corruption tick you'll have more soul shard procs throughout the instance as well. I found 15% hit to be practically useless since most bosses are single target burns and your chance of missing is extremely small even at 12% hit. I would do your best to reforge out of mastery but still gem with Intellect.

[nightfalls]

Thanks. If I can't learn to detonate them using portal, I'll definately use this strategy. In 10 man frequency of detonations seems more important than amount of sparks detonated at once.

I wouldn't even bother using portal, the timing would be so tight especially considering the number of detonations and the cost of failing. It's a really horrible strat to rely on. In Cata for instance, you knew when a magma trap would go off since you stepped in it. Here, you have almost no clue when the spark thinks its close enough to you to detonate.

And when I said number at once, a trick (unless you're doing courage/strengths) is you can just CC a few waves, then kill them all and blow all the sparks up at once with long CDs.

[Gootgot]

IMO that is the best option to go for CM's. Int > 12% hit > Haste > Mastery. The fast pace for CM's, you'll spend most of your time AOEing with SoC and spending your soul shards on SB:SoC and SB:SSing on trash. You want your dots to tick faster to get dmg in and increase your chances of Nightfall procs while squeezing in extra SoC's which is what you'll get with more haste. With the possibility of going for the 4717 corruption tick you'll have more soul shard procs throughout the instance as well. I found 15% hit to be practically useless since most bosses are single target burns and your chance of missing is extremely small even at 12% hit. I would do your best to reforge out of mastery but still gem with Intellect.

Thx, thats kinda what i did. Although i was faaaar from any haste caps. I think i had <4k haste even with full haste reforge.

We did 6/9 gold runs yesterday (including brewery and SM ) We will try to finish it tonight. But don't know if eu servers will be up !

[gruxxar]

I just skeemed a bit over the first page but i was wondering how it's standing with "best" races. Since we now got Sacrifice available and the best 'grimoire' is usually subject to changing percentages each patch and/or better gear lvls the orc race might lose a bit of it's value since one of orc's perks was the 5% pet-dmg increase.

afaik Undead got a little buff didn't they ?(touch or the dead? can't remember) So if anyone got a tad of information upon the matter, enlighten me please.

[EvreliaGaming]

I just skeemed a bit over the first page but i was wondering how it's standing with "best" races. Since we now got Sacrifice available and the best 'grimoire' is usually subject to changing percentages each patch and/or better gear lvls the orc race might lose a bit of it's value since one of orc's perks was the 5% pet-dmg increase.

afaik Undead got a little buff didn't they ?(touch or the dead? can't remember) So if anyone got a tad of information upon the matter, enlighten me please.

Troll is very slightly better than Orc, once you are in full BiS heroic gear or so. Orc is significantly better than other races in all other situations.