[Affliction] Spamming Drain Soul

[Deleted]

During the opener I know 100% it doesn't affect anything but when you have no haste procs and if you spam drain soul could you get less ticks than letting it sit? I mean in mop if u spammed (the old) drain soul it didn't tick. hmmmm

[Jessicka]

During the opener I know 100% it doesn't affect anything but when you have no haste procs and if you spam drain soul could you get less ticks than letting it sit? I mean in mop if u spammed (the old) drain soul it didn't tick. hmmmm

I think they fixed that as far back as Cataclysm, although spamming previously to WoD cause you to lose snapshots, it now makes literally no difference because snapshotting is also gone.

[Tramzh]

drain soul is basically = malefic grasp fyi but no point in spamming, no dps increase. its a dps increase to not spam it if you snapshot drain soul on your haste procs. I usually recast right after 2nd last tick if I'm allowed to stand completely still but I always press it no matter how long time i have left if BL, DS, berserking or any haste proc are 1-0.1 seconds left . very minor dps increase but you not much else to minmax anyway now with this spec

sry terrible grammar and english havent slept for like 20 hours

[Deleted]

First of all you should be using a castbar addon that allows you to see ticks of Drain Soul so you can re-cast Drain Soul just after a tick rather than just before one (if you aren't doing this already, in which case great). Secondly like Tramzh says you can snapshot the cast time of Drain Soul just as a haste buff is about to drop (BL/Hero, DS, Berserking, SoN, etc) but it's a very minor DPS increase.

Also I remember some thread a while back that discussed the proc-chance of Sandman's Pouch for Affliction and I think the conclusion was that the trinket only procced on the initital cast of Drain Soul and hits of Haunt but this may have been fixed, haven't used Sandman's Puch for a while so I can't say. If this is still the case and you are using Sandman's Pouch you'd want to spam Drain Soul as much as possible when the internal CD is done.

[Deleted]

Secondly like Tramzh says you can snapshot the cast time of Drain Soul just as a haste buff is about to drop (BL/Hero, DS, Berserking, SoN, etc) but it's a very minor DPS increase.

ye ye im fully aware of that

[Organoth]

By spamming I am guessing you mean refreshing it early, and for that I can say 100% it is a DPS loss. I was refreshing early, just short of 1 second left on the cast. Looking at logs I was getting in more casts than the other Affliction warlock in my guild, but fewer total ticks. Fewer ticks = less DPS. I still don't let it fall off, but I refresh much later now, as close to not letting it fall off as possible.

[Deleted]

Nice info, as a new affliction lock.

[Harsesis]

Keep in mind that like MG in MoP only the initial casting of Drain Soul can proc trinkets and other effects that proc on spell cast.

[Baconeggcheese]

If you enjoy spamming the button or just have a bad habit:

#showtooltip Drain soul
/cast [no channeling:drain soul]drain soul

should make it so you can mash the button and it'll just ignore you and finish the channel. I think that was the macro I used to use.

[FurtyIRL]

If you enjoy spamming the button or just have a bad habit:

#showtooltip Drain soul
/cast [no channeling:drain soul]drain soul

should make it so you can mash the button and it'll just ignore you and finish the channel. I think that was the macro I used to use.

Using macros like this is actually a dps loss. Clipping the last tick of the channel automatically adds it to your next cast and is a dps gain; using a nochanneling macro adds a small bit of input lag between each cast which adds up to a couple lost GCDs over the course of an entire encounter.

[Baconeggcheese]

Using macros like this is actually a dps loss. Clipping the last tick of the channel automatically adds it to your next cast and is a dps gain; using a nochanneling macro adds a small bit of input lag between each cast which adds up to a couple lost GCDs over the course of an entire encounter.

Now that I test it again she does pause between casts, I don't remember that happening before. Then again maybe I just didn't use the macro because of it, it's been a while.

[cbadizzle]

I have noticed some affliction locks only let their drain soul tick twice and re-casting instead of allowing it so fully cast and refreshing. Is there a reason for doing so?