[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[Brusalk]

Does anyone know how channeled spells are calculated. I think it is different from ability to ability or stat to stat, but not sure. For instance, I know if I cast drain soul under a haste buff, it'll use that haste even if the buff runs out. However, I noticed on my boomkin that I can't snapshot intellect procs with hurricane but it'll snapshot the haste or a meta or nature's grace. Anyone know if that is the same for drain soul/MG?

Channels snapshot Haste like DoTs, however update dynamically with other stats.

EDIT TO THE ABOVE:
I was incorrect about this. They do snapshot everything like DoTs.

[Teye]

There is a sticky for this.

Looks like someone merged it, nvm.

[xskarma]

how big diffrence are their between ktt hc vs black blood normal? black blood always being so much harder to use -.-'. if ktt is a big loss tho i guess its worth to still use blood.

Moved your thread to the Affliction sticky where it is more likely to find people that know the answer, and where the answer can then be found by people looking for this same information.

[Keosen]

Regarding affDots is there a way to create separate setup for destro spec?
Basically i need the frame to be in different position when respecing to destro.

update: Found it dual profile duh.

[pkm]

Is there an addon that can let me play aff lock effectively?

Gonna be blunt, i have focus issues. Keeping track of several things at a time is not my forte at all. Im talking about an addon that tells me just about everything from trink procs to re apply dots to which targets should be the next to refresh. If it works out well i wouldn't mind using that addon to play balance druid.

[FurtyIRL]

Is there an addon that can let me play aff lock effectively?

Gonna be blunt, i have focus issues. Keeping track of several things at a time is not my forte at all. Im talking about an addon that tells me just about everything from trink procs to re apply dots to which targets should be the next to refresh. If it works out well i wouldn't mind using that addon to play balance druid.

WeakAuras and AffDots pretty much cover everything, it just takes a little setup time. The trade off is that you can literally do whatever you want in terms of arranging things so that it works for you.

[Deleted]

Is there an addon that can let me play aff lock effectively?

Gonna be blunt, i have focus issues. Keeping track of several things at a time is not my forte at all. Im talking about an addon that tells me just about everything from trink procs to re apply dots to which targets should be the next to refresh. If it works out well i wouldn't mind using that addon to play balance druid.

Sounds like Weakauras is the addon for you. Affdots helps aswell.

[Alyzyr]

Hey guys, I got a question about horde race and affliction warlock.

Is troll a must have race, if you want to have a beast burst as affliction ?
As of right now, i'm 569ilvl , with KTT flex and BBoY normal , and I already burst 1,2mil as affliction single target.
I'm hoping to get PBI tomorrow, and I expect that to be the item which will allow me to switch from Destro MS to Affliction, and also get 13,7k haste bp.

Anyways, my guildie told me that to have a good burst as affliction(thefore higher dps on shorter fights), i need trolls racial. The haste buff.
Is this true ? Do I really have to racechange to troll for good burst dmg ? How much is the difference between any other race and troll affli burst ?

Thanks in advance.

[Bonkura]

I recently changed from Troll to Undead because it's farm so the numbers don't bother me that much. The other Warlock in my guild beats me significantly on fights like Protectors, Juggernaut & Dark Shamans, where the initial burst is more important. On longer fights it evens out more and I get a better shot at beating him and when we both play Destro it's hardly noticeable.

[Deleted]

I have a hard time grasping and learning the whole Affliction spec. I've only got 562 ilvl at the moment, but do have PBI and BBoY from Normal, and thought it'd be fun to try some Affliction play. The whole spec constantly confuses me, is there a way to learn Affliction in a very basic way than just standing at raid dummies for 10 hours?

[Alyzyr]

I have a hard time grasping and learning the whole Affliction spec. I've only got 562 ilvl at the moment, but do have PBI and BBoY from Normal, and thought it'd be fun to try some Affliction play. The whole spec constantly confuses me, is there a way to learn Affliction in a very basic way than just standing at raid dummies for 10 hours?

Basic way of playing affli is: Keep all 3 dots up, keep haunt up at the start OR/AND when you have super buffed dots up OR/AND when you have too many soul shards.
Thats all there is to the basic way of playing it.
If we go deeper into how-to, then there's various of videos that show how-to on single target opener(sparkuzz)and 100mil dps multidot (sparkuzz,evrilia?).

I practiced my affliction playstyle on Malkrok LFR(!!!) just to check how i'd do with 8/8 buffs and BL start. Its the closest (and easiest) fight you'll find in SoO that is similar to patchwerk.

[EvreliaGaming]

I have a hard time grasping and learning the whole Affliction spec. I've only got 562 ilvl at the moment, but do have PBI and BBoY from Normal, and thought it'd be fun to try some Affliction play. The whole spec constantly confuses me, is there a way to learn Affliction in a very basic way than just standing at raid dummies for 10 hours?

Watch the video in the front of the guide. Download Affdots and setup Weakauras for your main trinket procs, and practice maximising the uptime of empowered procs on your DoTs. It's just a lot of common sense on when it's worth refreshing a DoT, weighing up the potential strength increase vs the remaining duration, and then timing Haunts to line up with those procs.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey guys, I got a question about horde race and affliction warlock.

Is troll a must have race, if you want to have a beast burst as affliction ?
As of right now, i'm 569ilvl , with KTT flex and BBoY normal , and I already burst 1,2mil as affliction single target.
I'm hoping to get PBI tomorrow, and I expect that to be the item which will allow me to switch from Destro MS to Affliction, and also get 13,7k haste bp.

Anyways, my guildie told me that to have a good burst as affliction(thefore higher dps on shorter fights), i need trolls racial. The haste buff.
Is this true ? Do I really have to racechange to troll for good burst dmg ? How much is the difference between any other race and troll affli burst ?

Thanks in advance.

It's not needed at all. Sure, it helps quite a bit, but it's not required at all. We're Alliance (unfortunately), but all of our Locks have had rank 1s on those fights at some point or another (not that ranks are a particularly good indicator).

Also remember that they're toning down the racials for WoD so personally I wouldn't bother.

[icecoldsir]

It's not needed at all. Sure, it helps quite a bit, but it's not required at all. We're Alliance (unfortunately), but all of our Locks have had rank 1s on those fights at some point or another (not that ranks are a particularly good indicator).

Also remember that they're toning down the racials for WoD so personally I wouldn't bother.

While I agree that it really doesn't matter at this point with WoD being 5-6 months away, you didn't have any rank 1 parses as affliction as alliance at least according to Raidbots (your highest being a 96% as afflic). Which isn't surprising at all due to how strong afflic is with Troll racial.

OT: OP, in my opinion if you want to have the best damage as affliction you are indeed best off being troll.

[Deleted]

I though of a great improvement to affliction, when you exhale your soulswap it shouldn't trigger a GCD.

[yoloswagginz]

While I agree that it really doesn't matter at this point with WoD being 5-6 months away, you didn't have any rank 1 parses as affliction as alliance at least according to Raidbots (your highest being a 96% as afflic). Which isn't surprising at all due to how strong afflic is with Troll racial.

OT: OP, in my opinion if you want to have the best damage as affliction you are indeed best off being troll.

raidbots counts chinese players aswell which are 8 ilvls higher. so u can get a rank 1 us/eu w/o it showing as 100th percentile.

- - - Updated - - -

I though of a great improvement to affliction, when you exhale your soulswap it shouldn't trigger a GCD.

would be even more overpowered than it already is and that sounds clunky.

[Bonkura]

I though of a great improvement to affliction, when you exhale your soulswap it shouldn't trigger a GCD.

I vote for removing Soulburn and make Soul Swap move the current dots like it used to. This constant swapping was fun for a while but they have to get rid of it.

[EvreliaGaming]

While I agree that it really doesn't matter at this point with WoD being 5-6 months away, you didn't have any rank 1 parses as affliction as alliance at least according to Raidbots (your highest being a 96% as afflic). Which isn't surprising at all due to how strong afflic is with Troll racial.

OT: OP, in my opinion if you want to have the best damage as affliction you are indeed best off being troll.

By that logic, even the current rank 1 on IJ "hasnt had a rank 1" because Raidbots only puts it at 98%. Alas, chinese players and their 8level boost

[icecoldsir]

By that logic, even the current rank 1 on IJ "hasnt had a rank 1" because Raidbots only puts it at 98%. Alas, chinese players and their 8level boost

Yeah didn't think raidbots still included asian parses, recently came back after a 3 month break so I thought they would've fixed it by now.

Anyways, my apologies!

[yoloswagginz]

I vote for removing Soulburn and make Soul Swap move the current dots like it used to. This constant swapping was fun for a while but they have to get rid of it.

if they did that aff would be very clunky and slow to build up. also our individual dots don't do very much dmg its only because we have 3 of them that we can swap onto targets instantly that make it OP. they would needa re-balance everything. I don't think the direction they're moving with aff now is bad. i'm just skeptical on whether or not they're going to balance it properly with the removal of snapshotting.

[Count Zero]

^ What about a decent CD on Soulburn in general ? Like 30 seconds. You can use it on the pull and for most target swaps / transitions. or idk, just tossing ideas at the wall here