[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[warlockSTAR]

With jin'rohk, After standing in Fluidity I don't need to re cast dots correct? dots update dynamically with debuffs?

Just wanting to be sure.

[Bonkura]

yes, it's just like haunt

[Deleted]

With jin'rohk, After standing in Fluidity I don't need to re cast dots correct? dots update dynamically with debuffs?

Just wanting to be sure.

You do need to recast them. It's player debuff, not target.

[EvreliaGaming]

You do need to recast them. It's player debuff, not target.

This is correct.

[miasmah]

what is the next haste cap after 9778?

i just got the legendary gem so I wonder if I have to reforge for higher haste?

anyone can help?

[Gremory1]

what is the next haste cap after 9778?

i just got the legendary gem so I wonder if I have to reforge for higher haste?

anyone can help?

http://www.totemspot.com/vb/entry.php?b=44 this will help. The next breakpoints are 12439, 13157, 13737

On a different note - I'm stacking all haste and finally have more than 2 trinkets to choose from. If I have:

522 Unerring Vision
522 Cha Ye's
522 Breath of the Hydra

Which of these 3 should I be using? Should I drop unerring vision when I'm not in demo and just use the 2 int proc trinkets? This also gets me closer to 13737 (and might be enough if I drop a socket bonus or two for 320 haste).

Thoughts? (Also I know I should just sim but I won't have access to simcraft for 2 days and am impatient - I apologize in advance)

[Nupss]

I still don't get why people are still rambling on about these damn haste breakpoints. Some people are so obsessed with them that I'm pretty sure they are gimping themselves in the process. There has been enough proof that haste breakpoints don't really matter, unless you happen to be conveniently close to one. Heck even Evrelia's guide says the following, and that's already giving it more credit that it should imo:

A haste breakpoint is the level of Haste at which your DoTs gain an extra tick during their cycle. It's not an enormous dps gain, but it is a small one.
...
Now, it's not worth reforging completely out of Mastery to reach the breakpoints, but as long as you keep Mastery and Haste roughly even, it should be worth reforging to these breakpoints.

[n0n3]

If you have 2 rppm trinkets and legendary meta, go haste dont worry about balancing your stats.

[Gremory1]

I still don't get why people are still rambling on about these damn haste breakpoints. Some people are so obsessed with them that I'm pretty sure they are gimping themselves in the process. There has been enough proof that haste breakpoints don't really matter, unless you happen to be conveniently close to one. Heck even Evrelia's guide says the following, and that's already giving it more credit that it should imo:

Clearly with the meta gem and RPPM trinkets keeping haste and mastery about even is no longer the strategy most are choosing. I'm sure Evrelia would acknowledge this but having to repeatedly update a guide is not a reasonable requirement; most of the information is still useful.

If the gear priority is all haste all the time, then how is being aware of the next breakpoints going to gimp something? It's very possible that foregoing a 80 int/60 crit for 180 haste for example by ignoring a socket bonus and hitting a breakpoint will be more DPS since you have to refresh the dots slightly less frequently during a fight.

In addition, my mentality isn't just to get close to the potential of a spec; it's to try to cap it out. I can pick up a new DPS spec and be playing at 90% of its potential in 20 minutes. Getting the last 10%, however, takes weeks of experimenting and practicing. Of course all the discussion on the forum is going to be about small marginal performance gains.

[Deleted]

http://www.totemspot.com/vb/entry.php?b=44 this will help. The next breakpoints are 12439, 13157, 13737

On a different note - I'm stacking all haste and finally have more than 2 trinkets to choose from. If I have:

522 Unerring Vision
522 Cha Ye's
522 Breath of the Hydra

Which of these 3 should I be using? Should I drop unerring vision when I'm not in demo and just use the 2 int proc trinkets? This also gets me closer to 13737 (and might be enough if I drop a socket bonus or two for 320 haste).

Thoughts? (Also I know I should just sim but I won't have access to simcraft for 2 days and am impatient - I apologize in advance)

i would pick the UVLS and BotH, as im fairly sure cah-ye's isnt very good for afflic since you need a lot of crit for it to be good and chances are you wont have much crit.

[Nupss]

Clearly with the meta gem and RPPM trinkets keeping haste and mastery about even is no longer the strategy most are choosing. I'm sure Evrelia would acknowledge this but having to repeatedly update a guide is not a reasonable requirement; most of the information is still useful.

If the gear priority is all haste all the time, then how is being aware of the next breakpoints going to gimp something? It's very possible that foregoing a 80 int/60 crit for 180 haste for example by ignoring a socket bonus and hitting a breakpoint will be more DPS since you have to refresh the dots slightly less frequently during a fight.

In addition, my mentality isn't just to get close to the potential of a spec; it's to try to cap it out. I can pick up a new DPS spec and be playing at 90% of its potential in 20 minutes. Getting the last 10%, however, takes weeks of experimenting and practicing. Of course all the discussion on the forum is going to be about small marginal performance gains.

I kind of disagree. You have to consider that affliction simply isn't the best spec on a couple of key fights in ToT, most noticably Horridon, Primordius, Durumu (hc) and Lei shen, where Destruction is clearly a better choice. By keeping mastery at an acceptable level, I think you will gain more damage on those fights than you lose on Affliction fights, because mastery is still a very decent stat.

Just taking a peek at Evrelia shows that he is sporting 10.9k mastery and 9139 haste, so he clearly hasn't bothered with the corruption breakpoint that's at 9,211. Now this might not perfectly reflect Evrelia's standpoint on Affliction dps, but it shows that this setup is currently working for him while farming heroics, would it not?

[Gremory1]

I kind of disagree. You have to consider that affliction simply isn't the best spec on a couple of key fights in ToT, most noticably Horridon, Primordius, Durumu (hc) and Lei shen, where Destruction is clearly a better choice. By keeping mastery at an acceptable level, I think you will gain more damage on those fights than you lose on Affliction fights, because mastery is still a very decent stat.

Just taking a peek at Evrelia shows that he is sporting 10.9k mastery and 9139 haste, so he clearly hasn't bothered with the corruption breakpoint that's at 9,211. Now this might not perfectly reflect Evrelia's standpoint on Affliction dps, but it shows that this setup is currently working for him while farming heroics, would it not?

Of course - if your goal is to bridge the stat gap between 2 different specs, then a discussion of what is optimal for either of them individually isn't really relevant. That is similar to the argument that Destro locks should just stack mastery this tier; even though it might be slightly worse single target there are enough ToT AOE fights and the gain on AOE is so significant by stacking mastery that it's worth it if you don't want to reforge.

That's not the same as figuring out what's ideal, however. In addition, just because somebody is using a setup to farm heroics does not mean it's the ideal setup. Later in the tier I'm sure Evrelia's guild could 20-man many of the heroics. Just because they can get by with 5 people AFK, however, doesn't mean it's optimal.

[Surutcra]

15s - 0,5 * (15/3) = 12,5
15s + 0,5 * (15/3) = 17,5
Everything else needs numbers. Try simcraft with 12439 haste, see if it is a dps gain over 13737.

Glyph of EA was a 10% damage loss on training dummy in T14 (more in raid because your base stats are higher while procs remain the same), I doubt current procs are strong enough to make it a damage increase.

Sorry my bad, I pictured 5 ticks over 15s (for 3s tick time), which is closer to the format of most dots, but you're right.

[Woz]

i would pick the UVLS and BotH, as im fairly sure cah-ye's isnt very good for afflic since you need a lot of crit for it to be good and chances are you wont have much crit.

I disagree wholeheartedly. UVLS and Cha Ye's work SO well in conjunction with each other since Cha Ye's procs off crits every time UVLS procs the RPPM of Cha Ye's skyrockets.

[Deleted]

Even without UVLS, i still like Cha Ye a lot due to it's high procrate and low duration nature. And even when proccing only on crits, i'm always around 25-30% uptime. Can't wait till i get to pair it with UVLS.

[Deleted]

I disagree wholeheartedly. UVLS and Cha Ye's work SO well in conjunction with each other since Cha Ye's procs off crits every time UVLS procs the RPPM of Cha Ye's skyrockets.

im fairly sure it isnt everytime, and UVLS would simply double the rppm of cha-ye and only for 4 secs, basically adding 0,8085 rppm to the trinket. Even with 100% critrate you wouldnt get cha-ye to proc that often as it is still limited by its rppm and not the amount of times your spells crit.

[EvreliaGaming]

There's not really any point trying to "bridge" two specs because you end up with both being inferior. It's not like its hard or expensive to reforge between specs. I run with Full Haste for Affliction and full Mastery for Destruction. For Demo I go 8097 Haste and then Mastery. This is only because of the fights I happen to play these specs on.

Even with 100% critrate you wouldnt get cha-ye to proc that often as it is still limited by its rppm and not the amount of times your spells crit.

That's not how RPPM works. Cha-Ye's RPPM is directly calculated from your Crit Chance.

[Deleted]

that was kinda my point, evralia. i know the formula very well for cha-ye, and what i wrote is sound mathematically, 100% crit chance, wont give you 100% uptime on it, atleast not according to its formula. Woz makes it sound like it procs everytime you crit, and it wont, by that account breath of the hydra would proc all the time, since ALL your dmg is periodic dmg.

Edit: ok did the math from my previous statement, and i was sorta wrong, it doesnt add 0,8085 as i claimed(well technically it does, just b4 you multiply the haste in the equation and not after), assuming 20% crit with 40% haste the 100% crit chance trinket changes cha-ye's rppm from 1,358 to 2,49 for 4 secs,

[EvreliaGaming]

that was kinda my point, evralia.

Ah yes, I misinterpreted what you said. Carry on!

[Woz]

that was kinda my point, evralia. i know the formula very well for cha-ye, and what i wrote is sound mathematically, 100% crit chance, wont give you 100% uptime on it, atleast not according to its formula. Woz makes it sound like it procs everytime you crit, and it wont, by that account breath of the hydra would proc all the time, since ALL your dmg is periodic dmg.

Edit: ok did the math from my previous statement, and i was sorta wrong, it doesnt add 0,8085 as i claimed(well technically it does, just b4 you multiply the haste in the equation and not after), assuming 20% crit with 40% haste the 100% crit chance trinket changes cha-ye's rppm from 1,358 to 2,49 for 4 secs,

I wasn't implying it is going to proc every time you get a UVLS proc. My awful phone grammar missed a comma when there should have been one. Should have been:

I disagree wholeheartedly. UVLS and Cha Ye's work SO well in conjunction with each other since Cha Ye's procs off crits, every time UVLS procs the RPPM of Cha Ye's skyrockets.