What is the definite and optimal Affliction opener?

[Drobo]

I've seen a lot of conflicting information over this, but the two main schools of thought seem to be Evrelias vs. Sparkuggz (thank you both for your work btw). My personal opener is kind of a combination of the two, but I was recently grouped with another lock in an xrealm raid, and despite the fact he was basically full BiS he was blowing me out of the water on every pull.

So what is in fact the absolute best opening sequence? Please be as specific as possible.

[Rustjive]

I don't see how you can combine the two - the difference is a Fel Flame. Surely you can't cast half a Fel Flame?

Pre-pot, precast Haunt, pop all CDs, SB:SS, Doomguard if encounter allows for it, MG, chain Haunt debuff, Fel Flame, MG, chain Haunt debuff/SB:SS before all procs fall off (order dependent on buff duration - often times Jade Spirit will be close to falling off, so you should SB:SS before Haunt; in addition, if you only have one Shard the choice should be to SB:SS), try to maintain Haunt for your buffed DoTs, let Corruption/UA get the last tick, refresh Agony with 1 tick left.

The reason for the Fel Flame post Haunt is you can take advantage of spell queuing. SB:SS near the end for full Pandemic benefit on Agony.

[Ezzyo]

I've found an increase (assuming 5 shards), with prepot at 1s sb:ss first, mg to procs, ds haunt etc as described above. Difference basically is that first haunt has all of your procs to it vs just the pot.

[Deleted]

I do the following and have found it to be the best burst DPS.

1. CotE
2. Dark Soul
3. SB:SS
4. Malefic Grasp (this will most likely trigger all of your procs/enchants)
5. Malefig Grasp (only in case you got incredibly unlucky with procs, which will most likely not happen)
6. Doom Guard
7. Haunt + Fel Flame in GCD
8. Malefic Grasp + Agony

And then there's one special thing I do.
pic-upload [.] de/view-18060440/WoWScrnShot_020913_052638.jpg.html
(I'm not allowed to upload pictures or post links yet)

Since all the procs you have should pop as soon as you start the fight your buffs will pretty much look like this. Now as soon as the first buff is down to 0,5-2s. I instantly hit SB:SS which will refresh all my dots and give them a 2nd full duration with all my all my available buffs up. Now your Haunt will have much greater effect on your DoTs and the duration of your burst will be increased significantly.

[Deleted]

I do the following and have found it to be the best burst DPS.

1. CotE
2. Dark Soul
3. SB:SS
4. Malefic Grasp (this will most likely trigger all of your procs/enchants)
5. Malefig Grasp (only in case you got incredibly unlucky with procs, which will most likely not happen)
6. Doom Guard
7. Haunt + Fel Flame in GCD
8. Malefic Grasp + Agony

And then there's one special thing I do.
pic-upload [.] de/view-18060440/WoWScrnShot_020913_052638.jpg.html
(I'm not allowed to upload pictures or post links yet)

Since all the procs you have should pop as soon as you start the fight your buffs will pretty much look like this. Now as soon as the first buff is down to 0,5-2s. I instantly hit SB:SS which will refresh all my dots and give them a 2nd full duration with all my all my available buffs up. Now your Haunt will have much greater effect on your DoTs and the duration of your burst will be increased significantly.

Edit: The reason why I'm not opening with Haunt + SB:SS, but only SB:SS and then Malefic Grasp, is because I feel the 1st Haunt is pretty much wasted, since the first DoTs you apply don't have any benefits from any procs/CDs whatsoever (dark soul and maybe a use trinket at maximum, but that's it). So the first Haunt is pretty much wasted imo. What I do instead is shown above. I force all my procs to pop up by using Malefic Grasp 1-2x and then refresh all my DoTs with fel flame and agony (manually). This saves me 1 shard to the thing I mentioned and showed you in the picture above.

[Xyronic]

This is my opener;

1. Pre-pot
2. Pre-cast Haunt
3. Dark Soul/Berserking/(Synapse)
4. SoulBurn:SoulSwap
5. Malefic Grasp to fish for procs
6. SoulBurn:SoulSwap when all trinkets/berserking/dark soul are up
7. MG spam
8. SB/SS near the end of multiple procs in order to extend the spell power buff.

[actiwe]

I do the following and have found it to be the best burst DPS.

1. CotE
2. Dark Soul
3. SB:SS
4. Malefic Grasp (this will most likely trigger all of your procs/enchants)
5. Malefig Grasp (only in case you got incredibly unlucky with procs, which will most likely not happen)
6. Doom Guard
7. Haunt + Fel Flame in GCD
8. Malefic Grasp + Agony

And then there's one special thing I do.
pic-upload [.] de/view-18060440/WoWScrnShot_020913_052638.jpg.html
(I'm not allowed to upload pictures or post links yet)

Since all the procs you have should pop as soon as you start the fight your buffs will pretty much look like this. Now as soon as the first buff is down to 0,5-2s. I instantly hit SB:SS which will refresh all my dots and give them a 2nd full duration with all my all my available buffs up. Now your Haunt will have much greater effect on your DoTs and the duration of your burst will be increased significantly.

Edit: The reason why I'm not opening with Haunt + SB:SS, but only SB:SS and then Malefic Grasp, is because I feel the 1st Haunt is pretty much wasted, since the first DoTs you apply don't have any benefits from any procs/CDs whatsoever (dark soul and maybe a use trinket at maximum, but that's it). So the first Haunt is pretty much wasted imo. What I do instead is shown above. I force all my procs to pop up by using Malefic Grasp 1-2x and then refresh all my DoTs with fel flame and agony (manually). This saves me 1 shard to the thing I mentioned and showed you in the picture above.

Let me tell you, this is not the best way to get high burst. Your applying ur first haunt very late. If you pre-pot and pre cast haunt 1,5sec before pull you will get alot more burst

[EvreliaGaming]

I've seen a lot of conflicting information over this, but the two main schools of thought seem to be Evrelias vs. Sparkuggz (thank you both for your work btw). My personal opener is kind of a combination of the two, but I was recently grouped with another lock in an xrealm raid, and despite the fact he was basically full BiS he was blowing me out of the water on every pull.

So what is in fact the absolute best opening sequence? Please be as specific as possible.

The Fel Flame opener was more relevant when SB:SS didn't scale your dots up properly due to pandemic smoothing. The difference between the two is probably insignificant now.

From the discussion in the Affliction Warlock Thread:

With bloodlust:

t = -1.5 : Prepot + Haunt
t = 0 : DS + all "use" effects + (SBSS for 3 dots (using the pre-pooled shard to apply dots)
until all procs up : MG
when all procs up : SB+SS
until procs are about to fade : keep haunt up and MG
when procs are about to fade : SB+SS

Without bloodlust:

t = -1.5 : Prepot + Haunt
t = 0 : DS + all "use" effects + (SBSS (using the pre-pooled shard to apply dots)
until all procs up : MG
when all procs up : Fel Flame (refreshes UA and Corruption)
until procs are about to fade : keep haunt up and MG
when procs are about to fade : SB:SS


The only difference between the two is whether you use a Fel Flame or an SB:SS after your procs are all up. SB:SS buffs agony whereas Fel Flame does not, but you can spare the extra shard when you have Lust and you can't really without.

If you're worried about burst dps, bear in mind that being full BiS will have a much, much more significant affect on burst dps than it will on sustain, so it's not surprising that he's beating you.

[Deleted]

This is my opener;

1. Pre-pot
2. Pre-cast Haunt
3. Dark Soul/Berserking/(Synapse)
4. SoulBurn:SoulSwap
5. Malefic Grasp to fish for procs
6. SoulBurn:SoulSwap when all trinkets/berserking/dark soul are up
7. MG spam
8. SB/SS near the end of multiple procs in order to extend the spell power buff.

i do this as well with the exception of the 8th and 2nd one as i rarely feel its worth it, as my dots usually last longer than the procs themselves but you may have a point tho, it really depends what the duration of your procs is and you might end up clipping your supercharged DoTs with less powerful ones and i dont cast haunt until i have my procs.

edit: did a little testing on the 8th part, and you are correct, it is the way to go if you have shards etc.

[Conando]

Yeah, I've been doing it almost exactly the same as Xyronic:

Prepot
Haunt
Dark Soul
SB:SS
MG until both of my trinkets proc
SB:SS
MG/Haunt when it drops
SB:SS once my trinkets/Dark Soul is about to expire
Haunt and MG until those dots expire

It feels a bit odd to burn through 3 shards on SB:SS during that phase, but I guess there's some logic to it. With hero up I usually have enough shards to haunt through that entire burn phase, so the only thing I'd be getting by saving that shard is another haunt afterwards. So I'm basically trading one haunt for around 8 seconds (usually how much dot time I get back with the 3rd SB:SS) of fully buffed dots.

[Deleted]

doing the same way as Xyronic/Conando

Propot
-> castsequence macro:
/castsequence reset=5 Curse of Elements, Haunt, Dark Soul: Misery, Soulburn, Soul Swap
Doomguard (depending on encounter)
... channeling MG until procs are up
SB:SS
MG/Haunt when it drops
SB:SS once my trinkets/Dark Soul is about to expire
Haunt and MG until those dots expire

[Bonkura]

This thread is asking for the "definite and optimal" opener yet there has been zero math posted to back up any of your posts here. Until said math has been posted you're all just guessing and not providing the answer to what OP was asking for when he made the thread.

[Deleted]

Below affli opener pointed out by Sparkuggz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuIH1ppzJWU
-> more or less the same as evralia has posted

seems to be the same as desribed by Xyronic/Conando and me

This thread is asking for the "definite and optimal" opener yet there has been zero math posted to back up any of your posts here. Until said math has been posted you're all just guessing and not providing the answer to what OP was asking for when he made the thread.

-> not everything can be done my math...

[Deleted]

-> not everything can be done my math...

False! But this, in particular, would be so complex that probably none of us would understand it.

[Rustjive]

False! But this, in particular, would be so complex that probably none of us would understand it.

It's not that complex; I'm working on it.

[Deleted]

It's not that complex; I'm working on it.

If you consider every factor and every outcome for the burst as well as what it will do to your "post-burst" damagedealing, then it's pretty damn complex. If you're comparing Haunt's damage to Fel Flame's damage, then no, it's simple.

[Rustjive]

If you consider every factor and every outcome for the burst as well as what it will do to your "post-burst" damagedealing, then it's pretty damn complex.

When you sit down and consider your options and the limited toolkit of things you'll be working with, it's far simpler than you think. There are perhaps only a few decision making points, and your time frame and resources are bounded. This is one of those things that looks very complex, but when fully considered the myriad of options can be reduced.

[Riencel]

Letting Haunt fades instead of refresh it is a DPS loss?

[Mixehh]

I've basically been using what's been posted by Evrelia, although I'm not particularly sold on the optimum point to pop Synapse Springs. Currently I use it with the first sbss, but I'm sure it'd give more if it was applied at the same time as the second application - especially if it was a sbss as opposed to a fel flame.

Does anyone know? I'm sure the difference would be negligible either way, but it depresses me to see it running out so quick and I've not had the time to test it.

[Biruta]

Potion of the Jade Serpent
Haunt
Dark Soul
SB:SS
MG until both of my trinkets proc
SB:SS
MG/Haunt when it drops
SB:SS once my trinkets/Dark Soul is about to expire
Haunt and MG until those dots expire

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 02:24 PM ----------

-> castsequence macro:

Stop, pls.