[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Markuus]

Quick question. Would you use a 915 Star Gate over an 860 Arcanocrystal?

[severan]

Quick question. Would you use a 915 Star Gate over an 860 Arcanocrystal?

It would be a loss according to trinket compare

Simming my toon I lose 23K dps out of 1 million switching from an 860 arcano to 915 stargate,

[Beatin]

The biggest thing I think people are missing is a redesign of t20 set bonuses. I also think a haunt build will be very strong with fights with priority adds. It will give more damage bonus than mg and you can run around to deal with mechanics.

[Deleted]

Depends what the new bonuses are. I mean, if they can come up with ones as bad as the existing T20's.....

[Deleted]

Problem remains if we compare MG vs Haunt, Haunt should deal the dmg of a single UA if it wants to compete with MG. Preferably scale with the talents/mastery we have.

@100% mastery, UA deals about 760% SP, Haunt will deal close to 1000% SP (after the 25% dmg increase from the last changes). UA adds 18% dmg from contagion, thus we should probably UA into HAUNT as we would not miss an UA tick anyway. UA also benefits from Perdition/increased crit chance/increase dot crit chance. With proper relics that boost UA, your UA probably deals more damage then Haunt. Benefit being you are more flexible with dotting up a 2nd target as you don't need to drain the main target (unless you want a shard from the add when it dies with DS).

[Xorn]

Sure, one ua probably deals more damage on average than one haunt, but you also have to attribute the 30% damage to it as well. It's absolutely going to be worth it to cast haunt over ua

[Deleted]

With the loss of the T19 bonus we'll have a lot fewer shards, whatever the T20 bonus is I bet it won;t be as good

[Kirroth]

Might as well repost this here. PTR build is up with the actual information now. Afflic changes:

Soul Effigy is replaced by the formerly PvP talent Death's Embrace: Agony, Corruption, UA, and Drain Soul deal "up to" 50% extra damage to targets under 35% health.

Phantom Singularity and Siphon Life have switched places, cementing the level 60 tier as the AoE tier. Phantom Singularity damage increased by almost at third with the cooldown reduced to 40s and the range reduced from 25y to 20y. Siphon Life damage increased by about 40%. The healing on both is reduced to keep it in line with the old damage.

Tier 20 2pc bonus: Corruption damage has a chance to generate a Soul Shard. Approximately 2.5 procs per minute
Tier 20 4pc bonus: Spending a Soul Shard has a 25% chance to grant you 15% Haste for 8 sec.

My personal reactions: From my PvP experience Death's Embrace is a powerful talent. The choice between that, a powered up Siphon Life, and SC is finally offering us some real choice in genuinely powerful lvl 100 talents. Meanwhile a stronger and shorter cooldown Phantom Singularity is an interesting alternative to Sow the Seeds. It looks more like an Affliction Cataclysm now. My main concern is that it takes 16s to deal its damage, and burst AoE is the king of AoE. Testing will be needed.

ETA: Also some redesign on Haunt, if reversion counts. SS cost removed, damage reduced by 20%, cooldown increased to 30s. Which is one way to solve the problem of making it worth a SS.

[Lucrece]

Death's embrace will probably win out for the mere reason that execute DPS is immensely useful and part of why shadow priests were brought to progress.

I'm not sure I like them swapping siphon life. I liked the baseline survivability it offered and now it has to compete with actual dps talents but whatever.

Phantom singularity should have dealt its damage over 6 seconds at most.

[Kirroth]

Phantom singularity should have dealt its damage over 6 seconds at most.

That might be asking a bit much, but 8s or 10s would be a lot more reasonable yes. Sustained AoE lasting 16 just isn't a thing anymore. Also, unlike spells like Cataclysm, PS runs the risk of the target dying early and ending the spell. You have to either put it on a boss or pick out the lowest priority mob to have any hope of it lasting the full duration.

[Lucrece]

That might be asking a bit much, but 8s or 10s would be a lot more reasonable yes. Sustained AoE lasting 16 just isn't a thing anymore. Also, unlike spells like Cataclysm, PS runs the risk of the target dying early and ending the spell. You have to either put it on a boss or pick out the lowest priority mob to have any hope of it lasting the full duration.

Which is why I asked for 6 seconds.

Out come the two sindragosas and eyebeam plus fury of the illidari (assuming you don't have an ele shaman or fury warriors either adding to that) and anything that isn't frontloaded aoe is useless.

[erinthea]

Thing is with PS you still have standard seed for aoe as well so the longer duration allows you to cast your normal seeds all the while your PS is ticking away, its damage was also buffed.

the last talent is a no brainer deaths embrace is much more powerful than the other talents.

The 4 piece tier bonus will be amazing along with contagion basically 18% damage and a reasonable chance at a 15% haste buff. the synergy is gonna be crazy also with Deaths Embrace Contagion Haunt in execute range with thee 15% bonus our dots will hit like a truck.

[Deleted]

Kinda weird that the 15% buff doesnt; apply to agony, our strongest dot....but does apply to see dof corruption.

Also, the new siphon Life is quite powerful. Does about 50% more that Corruption. or about the same as a Writhe powered Agony (but not if the 15% buff applied properly)

[Lucrece]

Kinda weird that the 15% buff doesnt; apply to agony, our strongest dot....but does apply to see dof corruption.

Also, the new siphon Life is quite powerful. Does about 50% more that Corruption. or about the same as a Writhe powered Agony (but not if the 15% buff applied properly)

Yeah but it also means you have to maintain that pain in the ass short duration dot while death's embrace is similarly strong but requires no such management and makes your play with Contagion and Haunt much easier to manage.

[Kirroth]

The reports I'm reading on Death's Embrace "up to" qualifier is that it's 1.3% for every percent under 36% health. So at 25% health it's a +13% damage buff at 15% it's +26% and so on.

Which is good but not amazing, and in line with the "passive talents are weaker than active talents" standard where SL is probably going to sim higher on many fights but requires juggling an extra DoT in actual play.

[Deleted]

Fantastic! Let's give affliction some more ramp.

The winner being siphon life fits with their "affliction is about multidotting" philosophy.

I knew there'd be a stinger in that "up to" bit.

Execute reliance can be a bane in pugs, if you wipe they just start kicking the "low dps" and arguing "but mine goes up a lot later on, honest" cuts no ice.

[Deleted]

Simcraft currently tells me, that i deal around 880k dps on Singletarget. This is more or less realistic, depending on proccs between 800 and 900k.

I've just been online on the testrealm and played with Haunt, Contagion, PS, Supremacy and the new (or old) execute-talent.

I was a little over 1m dps, with 4pc t19, 906 Itemlevel, with UA dealing crits above 7 digit critical hits during haunt, like now with MG. No Pots, no food.

One nice thing is, that PS is now a little ST-dmg-boost, that can be synced with adds spawning to deal even more dmg.

[Count Zero]

Simcraft currently tells me, that i deal around 880k dps on Singletarget. This is more or less realistic, depending on proccs between 800 and 900k.

I've just been online on the testrealm and played with Haunt, Contagion, PS, Supremacy and the new (or old) execute-talent.

I was a little over 1m dps, with 4pc t19, 906 Itemlevel, with UA dealing crits above 7 digit critical hits during haunt, like now with MG. No Pots, no food.

One nice thing is, that PS is now a little ST-dmg-boost, that can be synced with adds spawning to deal even more dmg.

What did you test on ? Target dummy ?

[Deleted]

The damage is OK, the shard starvation is awful.

I'm guessing they want to pull some damage out of UA but by gawd it feels terrible to sit and wait and wait and wait for a shard.

[Deleted]

The damage is OK, the shard starvation is awful.

I'm guessing they want to pull some damage out of UA but by gawd it feels terrible to sit and wait and wait and wait for a shard.

Personally I think it's great. It feels better to be strategic and bank and spend your shards with more thought. I dumped my warlock for elemental shaman in NH since I'm not a fan of the MG drain emphasis gameplay. I'm strongly considering coming back to warlock for tomb since a haunt + PS + SL/Embrace build could be a lot more fun. The destruction changes are really nice as an offspec too.