[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

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Lvl 15: Writhe in Agony takes forever to ramp. Ideally, you want things to die before you refresh your dots again, which means you'll never even *get* to 20 Agony stacks. Larger mobs, quest mobs or minibosses... maybe, but even that isn't so sure, because you'll unload 5+ shards into them, and they'll probably still die.

Lvl 100: Soul Effigy is extremely clunky to use for leveling, imo. Why would you not use Soul Shards? Not just on harder enemies, but also when you have a nice juicy pile of targets dotted up, you can burst them rather than standing there.

[SirreASDF]

Well in a very low death environment like arenas ( where death usually means the end of the match ), it does seem to proc a tad more than every 40 secs, or it could be my imagination, I can't be sure.

Thanks, that does feel rather shitty for arenas :/

I assume that means that roughly every 40 secs you get 5 seconds extra on the "empowered perks"? Starting at 5 sec after the first 40? That is pretty rubbish for pvp :/ In 2v2 it probably wont see much use at all.. For 3v3, I guess it can be a nice addition when going for a kill

[Rezhial]

So, I'm wondering about a spec for Affliction leveling right now (for 100-110 obviously). Of course nothing really matters at this point because literally any spec would work, but I like to optimize and I'm planning to do so when I level. I figure the fastest way to go about it is, if possible, mass multi-dotting, primarily with instant casts alone.

For that, I figure the following talents would be best:

Level 15: Writhe in Agony

The other choices just have a cast time, and are not worth it. Haunt might be worth considering, if and only if the mobs we're fighting have too much HP to die from our instant cast DoTs alone.

Level 30: Absolute Corruption

Definitely the go-to choice in my opinion, as we're going to want to DoT/DoT/DoT/tab/repeat. A permanent Corruption with higher damage will probably lead to it being our highest output spell.

Level 45: Demon Skin

Only real choice.

Level 60: Siphon Life

Another instant cast DoT, and everything else on this tier seems irrelevant. A big AoE pull would work well with Sow the Seeds, but mobs aren't going to live long enough I imagine.

Level 75: Burning Rush

Faster run speed is better. We don't need survivability while leveling.

Level 90: Grimoire of Supremacy

Probably the best with an Infernal pet. Infernal does good AoE damage and taunts as well.

Level 100: Soul Effigy?

It's hard to even tell here. We're generally not going to be using Soul Shards I imagine, and Phantom Singularity is garbage. For a longer boss fight Soul Effigy would be a real DPS boost.

If anyone has any other input on this I'd like to hear it. This seems to make the most sense to me atm.

I agree with most other than 100 talent. I think Soul Conduit will be the better choice. Effigy definitely favors targets living for a while, and extra UAs, despite having a cast time, are always nice. But then again, if mobs die without the need of UA, then I suppose it's useless.

[TummyBoy]

I agree with most other than 100 talent. I think Soul Conduit will be the better choice. Effigy definitely favors targets living for a while, and extra UAs, despite having a cast time, are always nice. But then again, if mobs die without the need of UA, then I suppose it's useless.

With Absolute Corruption, I doubt the average mob will require UA to kill. This is of course assuming that a Siphon Soul / Agony / Corruption combo will kill mobs from level 100-110. This is how I went from 90-100, although at that point I had to cast UA to kill the mobs (seeing as we only had 2 instant cast DoTs).

From what I know about Legion leveling, there are a lot of section end bosses meaning that sustained single target DPS isn't exactly useless. If we do need UA to kill average mobs efficiently then yes, absolutely Soul Conduit will be better.

[wholol]

With Absolute Corruption, I doubt the average mob will require UA to kill. This is of course assuming that a Siphon Soul / Agony / Corruption combo will kill mobs from level 100-110. This is how I went from 90-100, although at that point I had to cast UA to kill the mobs (seeing as we only had 2 instant cast DoTs).

From what I know about Legion leveling, there are a lot of section end bosses meaning that sustained single target DPS isn't exactly useless. If we do need UA to kill average mobs efficiently then yes, absolutely Soul Conduit will be better.

As someone who has leveled from 100 to 110 as affliction I must tell you, if you decide to go with a tank pet ( VW or infernal ) you can pretty much mass pull by the dozen , no joke.

Although I must tell you burning rush isn't rly needed, not many situations where you need to move much while in combat ( and out of combat you're pretty much mounted as most zones are outdoor lvling ), I would very much advise you to get dark pact , it has saved my life from the occasional over pull.

As for your first row of talents, I've tried all 3 and I honestly feel like any of those work , writhe is nice but usually normal mobs don't last long enough for it to hit the 20th stack, and haunt has nice burst but has a cd which resets on kills, which is fine rly, and drain soul I found is just better sustained though I feel most comfortable playing drain soul while leveling simply because of the fact that gives you a shard when u kill something while draining, this means with mass pulls you are always full on shards and you can chain cast UAs repeatedly which simply destroys mobs.

Absolute corr is fine but you dont benefit from the full duration , unless you are going to SoC a group of mobs which is a viable way for mass pulling, though I found that you cannot always mass pull as mobs are too far apart, and given the above about drain soul and shard income you can keep UA up well enough, so contagion is rather decent too, but down to preference rly.

Supremacy is the way for leveling that's for sure.

Last row, don't bother with effigy for leveling, trust me it's clunky and annoying and most of the time you won't even need it, I found shards flow in quite well with drain soul so I don't even need conduit which left with me phantom singularity, which isn't that bad tbh, when you mass pull mobs , throw in a few seeds into phantom then proceed to tab dot everything and you'll be shredding through those mobs so fast it's not even funny.

@SirreASDF Please read what I wrote again, I didn't say it procs every 40 secs. I said it procs more than once per 40 secs or so it seems.
I've had times where I've had 5 procced souls in arena within the first minute and other times where I've had 8 within the same period, sometimes it's less than 3 so I don't rly know how frequently it's proccing but I can assure you that every time you build enough shards to spam UA you will be able to use soul reap for the entire duration of the UA dump.

[TummyBoy]

As someone who has leveled from 100 to 110 as affliction I must tell you, if you decide to go with a tank pet ( VW or infernal ) you can pretty much mass pull by the dozen , no joke.

Although I must tell you burning rush isn't rly needed, not many situations where you need to move much while in combat ( and out of combat you're pretty much mounted as most zones are outdoor lvling ), I would very much advise you to get dark pact , it has saved my life from the occasional over pull.

As for your first row of talents, I've tried all 3 and I honestly feel like any of those work , writhe is nice but usually normal mobs don't last long enough for it to hit the 20th stack, and haunt has nice burst but has a cd which resets on kills, which is fine rly, and drain soul I found is just better sustained though I feel most comfortable playing drain soul while leveling simply because of the fact that gives you a shard when u kill something while draining, this means with mass pulls you are always full on shards and you can chain cast UAs repeatedly which simply destroys mobs.

Absolute corr is fine but you dont benefit from the full duration , unless you are going to SoC a group of mobs which is a viable way for mass pulling, though I found that you cannot always mass pull as mobs are too far apart, and given the above about drain soul and shard income you can keep UA up well enough, so contagion is rather decent too, but down to preference rly.

Supremacy is the way for leveling that's for sure.

Last row, don't bother with effigy for leveling, trust me it's clunky and annoying and most of the time you won't even need it, I found shards flow in quite well with drain soul so I don't even need conduit which left with me phantom singularity, which isn't that bad tbh, when you mass pull mobs , throw in a few seeds into phantom then proceed to tab dot everything and you'll be shredding through those mobs so fast it's not even funny.

@SirreASDF Please read what I wrote again, I didn't say it procs every 40 secs. I said it procs more than once per 40 secs or so it seems.
I've had times where I've had 5 procced souls in arena within the first minute and other times where I've had 8 within the same period, sometimes it's less than 3 so I don't rly know how frequently it's proccing but I can assure you that every time you build enough shards to spam UA you will be able to use soul reap for the entire duration of the UA dump.

Thank you for the advice! There's no real alternative to hands-on experience. Phantom Singularity is something that I should have given a fairer thought to. I use it in PvP a lot because I'm just too lazy to Soul Conduit a single target most of the time. I really liked the idea of Burning Rush but again, we need to think about the content before anything else, and Dark Pact is always a welcome ability to have.

I think a big part of leveling (especially if you've been doing it since beta like I have) is lazy options. Absolute Corruption is a lazy option. Phantom Singularity is a lazy option. Supremacy is a lazy option. It's just much better when you want to focus on finishing quests quickly rather than committing to a more complicated and involved rotation, where you actually have to kind of pay attention to what you're doing. I liked WoD content where I would just dot/dot/dot tab and move on, trusting that the mob would die pretty quickly. That's actually what I really like about Affliction leveling in general so anything which contributes to that is welcome.

[SirreASDF]

@SirreASDF Please read what I wrote again, I didn't say it procs every 40 secs. I said it procs more than once per 40 secs or so it seems.
I've had times where I've had 5 procced souls in arena within the first minute and other times where I've had 8 within the same period, sometimes it's less than 3 so I don't rly know how frequently it's proccing but I can assure you that every time you build enough shards to spam UA you will be able to use soul reap for the entire duration of the UA dump.

Ah, wonderful news, thanks yet again!

[CuchuCachu]

Well I expect affli to scale higher than destro on ST, as long as that immolate bug is fixed.

As for overall ST , meh I can't really say, honestly I would be grasping at straws if I gave you an answer to that but if I would to make an estimated guess I believe affliction can still be relatively close to top line with a ST build ( though I doubt it will be N1 ST ).

While Destro will be good at ST , amazingly good at cleaves and relatively good at aoe, basically a very polished well rounded spec.

Well that's good. I would rather play affliction but I enjoy Destruction as well.

Also, you guys werent kidding about pvp. Did not die once in Warsong Gulch. And topped damage in the 2 bgs I did tonight but that was expected (truthfully I came in a close second to another affliction warlock but I did have to afk for quite a while and was leading them previously, though honestly they were a better pvper I think).

The only specs which ever killed me tonight were the aforementioned Affliction Lock and what I believe is an Assassination Rogue who was just doing a ton of damage. Even then I was able to handle him 1v1 by being an annoying asshole.

However I am conflicted towards the second row of talents when pvping. Contagion or Absolute Corruption? Mana Tap would actually be okay imo but I dont want to juggle another button.

But most importantly: I bet Phantom Singularity could cause major havoc in Temple of Kotmongu should the Orb Carriers be grouped up. It would do a lot of damage and supply you with powerful healing to finish them off with relatively low risk

[Bytch]

So, Ive been playing my tanks on beta and have just now copied my Lock over. Im late to the thread, but wondering what's the preferred trait route(s) on Artifact right now?

[TummyBoy]

Hey everyone, quick question: when does Contagion overtake Absolute Corruption in DPS? In 5 minute parses at the target dummy with my gear (ilevel 710, mix of PvP and PvE stuff, no set bonuses, no class trinket), I was able to achieve 57,000 DPS with Absolute Corruption, and only 52,000 DPS with Contagion. My Unstable Afflictions were spaced out either way to increase the uptime on the debuff, and my DoT management didn't have any errors in it during either parse.

What makes Contagion better for most players?

[Rayaleith]

Since I will get destro artifact first and affli second, has anyone tested the catch up time and mechanics for the 2nd artifact? I will need the affli one for PvP.

[Deleted]

Hey everyone, quick question: when does Contagion overtake Absolute Corruption in DPS? In 5 minute parses at the target dummy with my gear (ilevel 710, mix of PvP and PvE stuff, no set bonuses, no class trinket), I was able to achieve 57,000 DPS with Absolute Corruption, and only 52,000 DPS with Contagion. My Unstable Afflictions were spaced out either way to increase the uptime on the debuff, and my DoT management didn't have any errors in it during either parse.

What makes Contagion better for most players?

How does one reach 57k DPS with that gear, I only reach ~32k-34k with PvP gear which is ~703... didn't do any mistakes either (since the rotation is extremely simple), is your recount/skada double tracking/dipping the effigy or something?

[Deleted]

I think Contagion should be a stacking effect because that is clearly the intended use of Unstable Affliction. On the othe rhand, knowing Blizzard they;d start Contagion at 1% for 1 UA - which would make it crap.

Levelling spec, I'd take Haunt (because it is sometime shandy to have a nuke, and it resets if the target dies, agony takes forever to stack to 20), it's tossup between Contagion and Absolute Corruption; if you can do tup load sof things you will be drowningin shards and can UA everything too, whereas AC just increases Corruption by 25%. I think I;d go with Contagion. Demon Skin and Siphon Life are no-brainers, for the shields, self-healing plus another dot you can spread. Supremacy for the infernal, which is fairly tanky but does moredamage than the voidlord, finally soul conduit which synergises really well if you are dumping Agony on loads of mobs and using Contagion as well. You'll be able to dump UA's on everything and have your damage to them upp increased by 15%.

Also, Seed of Corruption is a fast way to dump Corruption on a stacked group of mobs. You could even spam SoC as extra damage. Sould Effigy is useles for levelling unless you hit a mini-boss (and I think affliction will be able to take on such things single handed in a way few classes can). Phantom singularity if you really, really need the healing. Too long a cooldown I think.

[CuchuCachu]

Question regarding pvp talents. Soulburn to me seems like the strongest choice in its row.

Simply because you can get an 18 second UA out in one cast time (less time spent with a cast bar the better I find), and adding a regular UA on top of that will condense the remaining damage that 18 second UA would do into only 8 seconds. Like a Quickened Decay.

Now it is just a matter of deciding between Rot and Decay or Amplify Afflictions for me.

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I think Contagion should be a stacking effect because that is clearly the intended use of Unstable Affliction. On the othe rhand, knowing Blizzard they;d start Contagion at 1% for 1 UA - which would make it crap.

Levelling spec, I'd take Haunt (because it is sometime shandy to have a nuke, and it resets if the target dies, agony takes forever to stack to 20), it's tossup between Contagion and Absolute Corruption; if you can do tup load sof things you will be drowningin shards and can UA everything too, whereas AC just increases Corruption by 25%. I think I;d go with Contagion. Demon Skin and Siphon Life are no-brainers, for the shields, self-healing plus another dot you can spread. Supremacy for the infernal, which is fairly tanky but does moredamage than the voidlord, finally soul conduit which synergises really well if you are dumping Agony on loads of mobs and using Contagion as well. You'll be able to dump UA's on everything and have your damage to them upp increased by 15%.

Also, Seed of Corruption is a fast way to dump Corruption on a stacked group of mobs. You could even spam SoC as extra damage. Sould Effigy is useles for levelling unless you hit a mini-boss (and I think affliction will be able to take on such things single handed in a way few classes can). Phantom singularity if you really, really need the healing. Too long a cooldown I think.

Haunt is underrated. Good for casual content and pvp I find (though that's mostly because the other two arent terribly useful in pvp, possible exception being Writhe in Agony paired with Rot and Decay)

[wholol]

Question regarding pvp talents. Soulburn to me seems like the strongest choice in its row.

Simply because you can get an 18 second UA out in one cast time (less time spent with a cast bar the better I find), and adding a regular UA on top of that will condense the remaining damage that 18 second UA would do into only 8 seconds. Like a Quickened Decay.

This was tested and discussed in the pvp thread , the best talent in that row is everlasting affliction ( if you want details about why check out the pvp thread).

[ThePhantombox]

How does one reach 57k DPS with that gear, I only reach ~32k-34k with PvP gear which is ~703... didn't do any mistakes either (since the rotation is extremely simple), is your recount/skada double tracking/dipping the effigy or something?

Triiiiinnnnnkeeeeeetttttssssss

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...EAD-FIRST-POST

[TummyBoy]

How does one reach 57k DPS with that gear, I only reach ~32k-34k with PvP gear which is ~703... didn't do any mistakes either (since the rotation is extremely simple), is your recount/skada double tracking/dipping the effigy or something?

I adjusted for the double dip, but the answer is probably trinkets. This was of course single target on a dummy but getting the Alchemy trinket alone (ilevel 725) increased my DPS by like 6,000. That on top of the heirloom trinket makes a reasonably gigantic difference.

On boss fights with actual mechanics involved I do substantially less. My last Archimonde kill I ended up at 43k.

[CuchuCachu]

This was tested and discussed in the pvp thread , the best talent in that row is everlasting affliction ( if you want details about why check out the pvp thread).

Endless Affliction. Currently skimming the pages. Too bad Rot and Decay resets the UA accumulation

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Also, there is talk about Soul generation. This guy's seems to be much faster than 1 every 40 seconds.

Unless it is buffed in Arena of course

[wholol]

Endless Affliction. Currently skimming the pages. Too bad Rot and Decay resets the UA accumulation

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Also, there is talk about Soul generation. This guy's seems to be much faster than 1 every 40 seconds.

Unless it is buffed in Arena of course

The guy in the video isn't in arena btw ( he's in nagrand, there's an actual version of the nagrand arena in nagrand where anyone that enters becomes red even from the same faction).

Also, what's up with people and 1 soul every 40 secs , where are you getting this info from?

On beta I feel you generate souls much faster than 1 every 40 secs, at least in combat.

[CuchuCachu]

The guy in the video isn't in arena btw ( he's in nagrand, there's an actual version of the nagrand arena in nagrand where anyone that enters becomes red even from the same faction).

Also, what's up with people and 1 soul every 40 secs , where are you getting this info from?

On beta I feel you generate souls much faster than 1 every 40 secs, at least in combat.

Saw people saying that on the last page

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Also, wholol.

I saw the discussion and Endless Affliction does do more damage however I like Soulburn for not needing so much cast time. Interrupt protection.

Or will casting circle make that unnecessary?