Afflic vs Destro.

[Unoriginal]

So iv been leveling a warlock, iv been leveling as afflic 1-64, once i got incinerate i went destro to get a real feel for it, and omgawd the dps is so hot, pew pew lazors hot.

boss fights 800 dps for afflic

and 1100 dps for destro.

i know this isnt level cap , but this looks like a huge difference does it change when haunt comes or is destro just the sexier spec?

[Agallochh]

I'd imagine it would change when Haunt comes. Low-level fights don't last long enough to see Afflictions awesome DPS, mostly because of a lack of the execution phase. Destruction is higher DPS atm in both low levels and higher levels, but it should all balance out more with the affliction buffs coming.

[Calabera]

As Agallochh mentioned, low lvl dungeons don't allow for afflictions to show it's true potential.

With my current gear (which is nowhere near hot) in available raid content.

Spec DPS
------------------------------------------
Affliction 19-22K
Demo 20-21K
Destro 21-24K

It also depends a lot in which encounter you are facing, there are encounter in which Demo will out perform any other spec if used well. (Maloriak. Magmaw come to mind.)

I would say, the biggest error as affliction is to wait to cast haunt. It should be cast every time is off the GCD, simply because it has a travel time. And additional 3% damage glyphed is huge!

[gerv]

So Calabera, are you saying that at ilvl 351 (based on your picture below) you are getting 19k - 22k dps as Affliction? Can you enlighten me on your rotation and how you manage to do that? I'm ilvl 346 and have a fairly good grasp on how to play affliction and in most dungeons i'm lucky to get 12k (usually around 9.5 - 10k. I have only done a couple raids, but in those fights (Tronbots and Maloriak) I have only managed to get maybe around 13k. I'm using the usual haunt>BoA (or BoD), Corr, UA, spam shadowbolts, keep dots refreshed and use drain soul below 25% health with CoE put up first. If you wouldn't mind checking out my toon Hephesteus on the Ysera server and letting me know if I'm missing something or simply let me know how you get that much DPS, i mean that's like Huntard dps... thanks.

[Veriu]

I'd say that's probably the dps results from simcraft, with all buffs, all debuffs, and assuming a perfect player (there's an option to set how good of a player you are).

As for affliction, the problem with judging your dps from a heroic dungeon, is that the bosses die to fast.

think of it this way
barring procs (to make it easy for me), and zero haste ,again to make it easier to show what I mean

first 10 seconds you deal almost zero DPS
time 0:CoE zero damage
time 1.5: BoD zero damage
time 3.0: Corruption applying at 3 seconds as you are running in, so in first 10 seconds that's 2 ticks
time 4.5: UA applying at 6.0 second mark, so that's 1 tick before first 10 seconds
time 6.0: Haunt hits for say 10k
time 7.5: Shadowbolt 2.5 second cast, hits for say 10k as well.
time 10: Shadowbolt started to cast, after that you have 3 stacks of SE up, and all dots, buildup is done.

so, in that 10 seconds, you get about 20k from haunt and a shadowbolt, and 1 tick from UA and 2 from corruption...say they both hit for around 4k, thats 20k+3*4k=32k in 10 seconds giving you a dps of 3.2k

during middle of fight, while all dots and stuff are up, but boss is above 25%, you are doing say around 14k a second.

during last 25% of the fight, you are draining soul, which ends up buffing your dps to say 26k

so, those numbers aren't going to change from fight to fight, what will change is the length of the fight, based on other people in the group/raid and the bosses HP.

if the fight takes 30 seconds.
then you have 10 seconds of 32k damage
12.5 seconds of 14k DPS so 175000k damage
the last 7.5 seconds of 26k so 195000k
so you have a total damage of 390k so you did 12.3k DPS

if on the other hand it's a 5 minute fight
then you have 10 seconds of 32k damage
215 seconds of 14k DPS so 3.01 million damage
75 seconds of 26k DPS so 1.95 million damage
so you have a total damage of 4.992 million damage, so overall you did 16.6k DPS

the longer the fight, the less that those first 10 seconds count, and the longer the execution phase, so the more your DPS while draining soul counts.

In a heroic dungeon, most boss fights take like a minute...maybe 2. Also there's often gimicks which make you have to redo that first 10 second buildup (i.e. corborus submerging, or mindbender mindcontrolling someone), making your total dps much lower than it would be on a raid boss where the fight takes at least 5 minutes (some take over 10 minutes) so that first 10 seconds really doesn't matter at all, and you are draining soul for a long time.

Oh, and before anyone says it...yes, I forgot shadowflame in the buildup, but don't feel like redoing it...so just assume this is one of those fights where you can't stand in range. also, yes....the time for drain soul isn't a straight 25% of the fight duration, because it's 25% of the boss's health and the raid does more dps during that phase, but the idea remains the same.

as for comparing the DPS to destro. Destro really has no execution phase (shadowburn YAY!), so it basically does about the same dps the whole time. Assuming gear is equal to my example above, Destro would do around say 17-18k dps. So, in a heroic dungeon destro kicks affliction's butt. But if the execution phase is long enough, affliction will overtake destro (currently, I don't think any fight is long enough for that to happen, but in theory it would happen.)

[Seclorum]

I'd say that's probably the dps results from simcraft, with all buffs, all debuffs, and assuming a perfect player (there's an option to set how good of a player you are).

As for affliction, the problem with judging your dps from a heroic dungeon, is that the bosses die to fast.

think of it this way
barring procs (to make it easy for me), and zero haste ,again to make it easier to show what I mean

first 10 seconds you deal almost zero DPS
time 0:CoE zero damage
time 1.5: BoD zero damage
time 3.0: Corruption applying at 3 seconds as you are running in, so in first 10 seconds that's 2 ticks
time 4.5: UA applying at 6.0 second mark, so that's 1 tick before first 10 seconds
time 6.0: Haunt hits for say 10k
time 7.5: Shadowbolt 2.5 second cast, hits for say 10k as well.
time 10: Shadowbolt started to cast, after that you have 3 stacks of SE up, and all dots, buildup is done.

so, in that 10 seconds, you get about 20k from haunt and a shadowbolt, and 1 tick from UA and 2 from corruption...say they both hit for around 4k, thats 20k+3*4k=32k in 10 seconds giving you a dps of 3.2k

during middle of fight, while all dots and stuff are up, but boss is above 25%, you are doing say around 14k a second.

during last 25% of the fight, you are draining soul, which ends up buffing your dps to say 26k

so, those numbers aren't going to change from fight to fight, what will change is the length of the fight, based on other people in the group/raid and the bosses HP.

if the fight takes 30 seconds.
then you have 10 seconds of 32k damage
12.5 seconds of 14k DPS so 175000k damage
the last 7.5 seconds of 26k so 195000k
so you have a total damage of 390k so you did 12.3k DPS

if on the other hand it's a 5 minute fight
then you have 10 seconds of 32k damage
215 seconds of 14k DPS so 3.01 million damage
75 seconds of 26k DPS so 1.95 million damage
so you have a total damage of 4.992 million damage, so overall you did 16.6k DPS

the longer the fight, the less that those first 10 seconds count, and the longer the execution phase, so the more your DPS while draining soul counts.

In a heroic dungeon, most boss fights take like a minute...maybe 2. Also there's often gimicks which make you have to redo that first 10 second buildup (i.e. corborus submerging, or mindbender mindcontrolling someone), making your total dps much lower than it would be on a raid boss where the fight takes at least 5 minutes (some take over 10 minutes) so that first 10 seconds really doesn't matter at all, and you are draining soul for a long time.

Oh, and before anyone says it...yes, I forgot shadowflame in the buildup, but don't feel like redoing it...so just assume this is one of those fights where you can't stand in range. also, yes....the time for drain soul isn't a straight 25% of the fight duration, because it's 25% of the boss's health and the raid does more dps during that phase, but the idea remains the same.

as for comparing the DPS to destro. Destro really has no execution phase (shadowburn YAY!), so it basically does about the same dps the whole time. Assuming gear is equal to my example above, Destro would do around say 17-18k dps. So, in a heroic dungeon destro kicks affliction's butt. But if the execution phase is long enough, affliction will overtake destro (currently, I don't think any fight is long enough for that to happen, but in theory it would happen.)

Nice breakdown of the differences. Its hard to off the cuff explain to people why the two specs are not always equal. Some other things to consider.

Pet Damage:

Affliction currently uses the succubus who fires off a 12-15k Lash every 6 seconds.
Destro uses the imp who fires off (I think) 5-8k firebolts every second.

In 4.1 Afflic uses the felhunter who does like 22-44k Every 12 seconds. (His damage is a bit high now. Hes designed to beat the succubus for affliction now)

AOE:

Affliction has Seed, Rain, Shadowflame, and (in some specs) Soulburn Seed. Generaly your never going to use Rain, and Seed will almost always beat it out, especialy with the 4.1 buff. Shadowflame is good to use all the time, especialy in AOE. And Soulburn seed is decent but generaly its not as useful as putting the talent point somewhere else.

Destro has Rain, Shadowflame, Shadowfury, Seed, and Havoc. Seed isnt used over rain, especialy with 4.1 buffs. Shadowflame is always good to use. Shadowfury is situational but useful, and Havoc is the bees knees for cleave fights.

Destro lacks really good Mass target AOE but has good cleave aoe, whereas Afflic has good aoe all around but can get a little hectic with cleave (by multi dotting you gotta track a bunch of things all at once on multiple targets)

[Veriu]

Nice breakdown of the differences. Its hard to off the cuff explain to people why the two specs are not always equal. Some other things to consider.

Pet Damage:

Affliction currently uses the succubus who fires off a 12-15k Lash every 6 seconds.
Destro uses the imp who fires off (I think) 5-8k firebolts every second.

In 4.1 Afflic uses the felhunter who does like 22-44k Every 12 seconds. (His damage is a bit high now. Hes designed to beat the succubus for affliction now)

AOE:

Affliction has Seed, Rain, Shadowflame, and (in some specs) Soulburn Seed. Generaly your never going to use Rain, and Seed will almost always beat it out, especialy with the 4.1 buff. Shadowflame is good to use all the time, especialy in AOE. And Soulburn seed is decent but generaly its not as useful as putting the talent point somewhere else.

Destro has Rain, Shadowflame, Shadowfury, Seed, and Havoc. Seed isnt used over rain, especialy with 4.1 buffs. Shadowflame is always good to use. Shadowfury is situational but useful, and Havoc is the bees knees for cleave fights.

Destro lacks really good Mass target AOE but has good cleave aoe, whereas Afflic has good aoe all around but can get a little hectic with cleave (by multi dotting you gotta track a bunch of things all at once on multiple targets)

you don't like soulburn seed? I use it all the time...not so much for aoe (though it's nice of course), but mostly I use it at the beginning of multi-target fights, trash packs of three or whatever. Puts corruption on all 3 mobs, saves me 2 GCD's. and what am I going to put that point in instead? have two points in jinx? 20 yard range is enough imo, most of the time mobs are tanked within 20 yards of each other, and generally if they aren't, it's times where 40 yard range wouldn't be enough (i.e. nef & ony, Conclave of Wind, etc)

oh, and how is felpuppy a bit high?

12-15k every 6 seconds on succy
22-44k every 12 seconds on felpuppy

so succy does between 24-30k every 12 seconds.....so going from 24-30k to 22-44k is a big change? doesn't seem like a big change to me, especially as felpuppy's damage in contingent on you keeping all of your dots up, and he's melee instead of a 20 yard range on lash.

[Calabera]

Gerv, your gear seems ok for starting. Other than the belt, I would have gone with Dreamless. That way you could reforge all you did into hit to haste and made a gain. It also upgrades better as you get more gear. I would try to get in BH as much as possible and try to get gloves, legs.

As far as dungeons, everything dies so quick in dungeons. I personally run Demo or Destro, lately more demo than destro in dungeons.

Rotations, I personally think affliction is more of a maintenance build than a rotational build. Keep your DoTs up, your uptime in all your DoTs should be over 90% minimun! With practice and good awareness you can get up to 95+% uptime. Remember Haunt has a travel time so cast it as soon as it gets off CD. Stay close to the boss so you can Shadow Flame, you should be using Shadow Flame every time it comes out of CD.

If you have to move due to fight mechanics use this time to fel flame, while its the worse spell we have at the moment its better than just running without any damage. Also, if you see one of your dots is about to run out while you are on the run, refresh it. (As long as it does not have a cast time that could cause your death or a wipe.)

Your spec seems to be off, why would you have Dark Arts as an affliction spec? 1/2 Jinx? I would instead put 2 points into Fel Synergy to ensure your demon never dies, if it does is a DPS loss and the extra point would go to 2/2 jinx.

Use Demon Soul every time is off CD. The only time it should be saved is if you know you are getting a lust in less than 2 minutes.

Execute, refresh your Haunt after the next tick of Drain Soul after Haunt got off the CD. In other words, do not hard clip your drain soul to refresh haunt.

Also, for raids, ensure you pre-pot and lust-pot. It brings up your numbers a lot.

[gerv]

Obviously I would have gotten the Dreamless Belt and Breeches of Mended Nightmares if I had the gold. I specced that because I heard a rumor that Imps were going to be better than the succy and I didn't respec. I don't use shadowflame normally for no reason except that I forget its there, so I will need to use that. Thanks for the help....Affliction forever.....

[Beyz]

Nice breakdown of the differences. Its hard to off the cuff explain to people why the two specs are not always equal. Some other things to consider.

Pet Damage:

Affliction currently uses the succubus who fires off a 12-15k Lash every 6 seconds.
Destro uses the imp who fires off (I think) 5-8k firebolts every second.

In 4.1 Afflic uses the felhunter who does like 22-44k Every 12 seconds. (His damage is a bit high now. Hes designed to beat the succubus for affliction now)

AOE:

Affliction has Seed, Rain, Shadowflame, and (in some specs) Soulburn Seed. Generaly your never going to use Rain, and Seed will almost always beat it out, especialy with the 4.1 buff. Shadowflame is good to use all the time, especialy in AOE. And Soulburn seed is decent but generaly its not as useful as putting the talent point somewhere else.

Destro has Rain, Shadowflame, Shadowfury, Seed, and Havoc. Seed isnt used over rain, especialy with 4.1 buffs. Shadowflame is always good to use. Shadowfury is situational but useful, and Havoc is the bees knees for cleave fights.

Destro lacks really good Mass target AOE but has good cleave aoe, whereas Afflic has good aoe all around but can get a little hectic with cleave (by multi dotting you gotta track a bunch of things all at once on multiple targets)

And how exactly is multidotting any different as destro over affli? You even have soul swap as affli while you gotta manually maintain immolate and corruption as destro

[nilnar]

Nice breakdown of the differences. Its hard to off the cuff explain to people why the two specs are not always equal. Some other things to consider.

Pet Damage:

Affliction currently uses the succubus who fires off a 12-15k Lash every 6 seconds.
Destro uses the imp who fires off (I think) 5-8k firebolts every second.

In 4.1 Afflic uses the felhunter who does like 22-44k Every 12 seconds. (His damage is a bit high now. Hes designed to beat the succubus for affliction now)

AOE:

Affliction has Seed, Rain, Shadowflame, and (in some specs) Soulburn Seed. Generaly your never going to use Rain, and Seed will almost always beat it out, especialy with the 4.1 buff. Shadowflame is good to use all the time, especialy in AOE. And Soulburn seed is decent but generaly its not as useful as putting the talent point somewhere else.

Destro has Rain, Shadowflame, Shadowfury, Seed, and Havoc. Seed isnt used over rain, especialy with 4.1 buffs. Shadowflame is always good to use. Shadowfury is situational but useful, and Havoc is the bees knees for cleave fights.

Destro lacks really good Mass target AOE but has good cleave aoe, whereas Afflic has good aoe all around but can get a little hectic with cleave (by multi dotting you gotta track a bunch of things all at once on multiple targets)

Strange post. I think you should double check your pets' abilities for starters, as you're a long way wide of the mark. Also, soulburn seed is a very powerful talent point in raid environments, I can't understand why it would ever be skipped.

And how exactly is multidotting any different as destro over affli? You even have soul swap as affli while you gotta manually maintain immolate and corruption as destro

Shadow embrace. On a fight with 2 available targets, where its desired to dps both, its worth keeping SE up, but the level of complexity it adds is pretty significant.

[Sinuhe]

So iv been leveling a warlock, iv been leveling as afflic 1-64, once i got incinerate i went destro to get a real feel for it, and omgawd the dps is so hot, pew pew lazors hot.

boss fights 800 dps for afflic

and 1100 dps for destro.

i know this isnt level cap , but this looks like a huge difference does it change when haunt comes or is destro just the sexier spec?

To keep this on topic, things will change lot in the future for you.

Without knowing your spec any better few things that you're missing at least are Haunt which gives 23% more damage on all dots with glyph, shadow & flame which increases your filler damage by 12% and provides 5% crit buff on target (that you might get in dungeon from elsewhere tho). + all other possible things you might be lacking with leveling spec.

At end game both are very close to each others with bigger differences depending on fight so it's basically up to you which to play with.

[Seclorum]

you don't like soulburn seed? I use it all the time...not so much for aoe (though it's nice of course), but mostly I use it at the beginning of multi-target fights, trash packs of three or whatever. Puts corruption on all 3 mobs, saves me 2 GCD's. and what am I going to put that point in instead? have two points in jinx? 20 yard range is enough imo, most of the time mobs are tanked within 20 yards of each other, and generally if they aren't, it's times where 40 yard range wouldn't be enough (i.e. nef & ony, Conclave of Wind, etc)

oh, and how is felpuppy a bit high?

12-15k every 6 seconds on succy
22-44k every 12 seconds on felpuppy

so succy does between 24-30k every 12 seconds.....so going from 24-30k to 22-44k is a big change? doesn't seem like a big change to me, especially as felpuppy's damage in contingent on you keeping all of your dots up, and he's melee instead of a 20 yard range on lash.

1, Why wouldn't you put a 2nd point in Jinx? You have to put a point in either Jinx, improved fear, Curse of exhaustion, or improved howl of terror.

2. By somewhere else I believe a 3rd point in Shadow and Flames is generally more useful. You use it situationaly to put dots on a bunch of targets, were chances are the targets wont live full durations anyway, whereas Shadow and Flames is always useful.

3. Hes a bit high in that provided you keep your Dots on the target, which is what you should be aiming for anyway, he will be the highest damaging pet. High is a relative term. And the "Big Change" is not just the extra damage he brings by himself, but his demon soul. Instead of using the Succubus demon soul and ,possibly, switching out the puppy for 25% phase you can use the better demon soul for the full fight.

Strange post. I think you should double check your pets' abilities for starters, as you're a long way wide of the mark. Also, soulburn seed is a very powerful talent point in raid environments, I can't understand why it would ever be skipped.

*Actually checking this time*

Imp: 2350 every 1.5 second W/ Dark Arts. Can Crit.
Voidwalker: 1160 every Melee swing. 2476 every 5ish seconds (Torment). Can Crit
Succubus: 3100 every 3 seconds. Can Crit. (Whiplash does 5-7k damage to all targets within its circle. Doesnt always autocast this. 25sec CD. Can Crit.)
Felhunter: 1044-1500 every Melee swing. 3-7.5k Every 6 seconds. Can Crit. (Was WITH Haunt, UA, Corr, Bane, Curse, Drain all up. )

All those were just now on live.

Soulburn Seed isnt bad, its situational. The problem is going out of your way to grab that 1 point just for those situations. At its level and below you need ALL those talents, and in side specs you also have very attractive options that can, potentialy, be more useful. Thats not a hard "THIS IS BAD" but merely an acknowledgment of the issue this talent has.

[nilnar]

Succubus: 3100 every 3 seconds.

I'm not sure where you're getting 3 seconds from, but I suggest you look ingame. Lash of pain is instant cast and has no cooldown (aside from 1.5 second global cooldown). I'm also curious as to where your numbers are from, as my lash of pain hits for harder than whiplash on a single target (also worth knowing that the succubus usually only autocasts whiplash if it gets attacked, and its off the succubus global cooldown so casting it is always a dps increase).

edit - had another look, whiplash is actually doing more than lash of pain, but its more like 4200 vs 3700. Much closer than your numbers.

Glyphed imp damage is also much close to succubus damage than your numbers imply, so I'm pretty confused by your post again.

Soulburn Seed isnt bad, its situational. The problem is going out of your way to grab that 1 point just for those situations. At its level and below you need ALL those talents, and in side specs you also have very attractive options that can, potentialy, be more useful. Thats not a hard "THIS IS BAD" but merely an acknowledgment of the issue this talent has.

I guess you're playing drain spec. As SB, there is space to take it. Man, drain spec is terrible.

[Veriu]

1, Why wouldn't you put a 2nd point in Jinx? You have to put a point in either Jinx, improved fear, Curse of exhaustion, or improved howl of terror.

2. By somewhere else I believe a 3rd point in Shadow and Flames is generally more useful. You use it situationaly to put dots on a bunch of targets, were chances are the targets wont live full durations anyway, whereas Shadow and Flames is always useful.

3. Hes a bit high in that provided you keep your Dots on the target, which is what you should be aiming for anyway, he will be the highest damaging pet. High is a relative term. And the "Big Change" is not just the extra damage he brings by himself, but his demon soul. Instead of using the Succubus demon soul and ,possibly, switching out the puppy for 25% phase you can use the better demon soul for the full fight.



*Actually checking this time*

Imp: 2350 every 1.5 second W/ Dark Arts. Can Crit.
Voidwalker: 1160 every Melee swing. 2476 every 5ish seconds (Torment). Can Crit
Succubus: 3100 every 3 seconds. Can Crit. (Whiplash does 5-7k damage to all targets within its circle. Doesnt always autocast this. 25sec CD. Can Crit.)
Felhunter: 1044-1500 every Melee swing. 3-7.5k Every 6 seconds. Can Crit. (Was WITH Haunt, UA, Corr, Bane, Curse, Drain all up. )

All those were just now on live.

Soulburn Seed isnt bad, its situational. The problem is going out of your way to grab that 1 point just for those situations. At its level and below you need ALL those talents, and in side specs you also have very attractive options that can, potentialy, be more useful. Thats not a hard "THIS IS BAD" but merely an acknowledgment of the issue this talent has.

http://wowtal.com/#k=vzAS7Rk5.ala.warlock.

I picked up Curse of exhaustion, as it is nice be be able to help out kiters (i.e. Nef, Magmaw, ODS, etc)

If I had a free point, i'd fill up mana feed, not jinx.

As for soulburn:SoC

you are trying to make a spec that is going to be "good" for all fights, but has no situational usefulness. I pick up utility talents, they may make it so that on many fights I'm like 2% lower than I would be, but in fights where having an instant cast ranged 30% snare that last for 30 seconds is helpful, I'm there. In fights where AoE is needed, mine is better than yours. And when there's a 3-4 mobs that need to be killed, I'm getting everything doted up faster than you.

I guess you're playing drain spec. As SB, there is space to take it. Man, drain spec is terrible.

why's it terrible? I like it....I heal myself more than SB spec, I need to life tap less than SB spec, and most importantly...IT'S WAY FREAKING COOLER!

YES, I DPS by DRAINING the life of the enemy into me, their life force becomes my life force...I'm like becoming Nef, and Cho'gal, maybe soon I'll become Sinestra. Perhaps I might even get to become Deathwing....That's just baddass, dude. You can't beat that.

[nilnar]

why's it terrible? I like it....I heal myself more than SB spec, I need to life tap less than SB spec, and most importantly...IT'S WAY FREAKING COOLER!

YES, I DPS by DRAINING the life of the enemy into me, their life force becomes my life force...I'm like becoming Nef, and Cho'gal, maybe soon I'll become Sinestra. Perhaps I might even get to become Deathwing....That's just baddass, dude. You can't beat that.

You cut your 2 target cleave down considerably by not being able to keep SE and S&F up on two targets reliably (cleaving being a strength of affliction warlocks). You cut your aoe considerably by not having SB:SoC (the healing from spread corruptions, haste from almost garunteed eradication procs and obviously added damage are all huge bonuses).

I'm curious to know which fights CoEx is useful for. I can't honestly think of any.

[Veriu]

As for SE, yes...I played around and switched back and forth for awhile trying to decide if shadowbolt for SE stacks on 2-3 mobs was worth losing drain life filler...I ended up choosing drain life, while it may hurt my max dps on ODS, nef p1, V&T, and ascendant council (those being the only fights, I can think of off the top of my head that have 2 targets)...I like the feel of drain life spec better, so I use it. If I was in a hardcore, going for realm first guild, or something I'd go shadowbolt...but I'm not...and drain life filler means I heal myself alot more, and I don't need to life tap nearly as much....so I'm helping out the healers more. Hell, in alot of fights I don't even need a heal, last chim fight WoL showed that I received only 1 single target heal the whole fight (and no, I didn't die). So idk...maybe I wouldn't go shadow bolt even if I was going for realm firsts, due to needing more heals so stressing healer mana more.

I have SB:SoC.....the spec I linked to above, is my spec.

CoEx is useful to help out kiters. I throw it up in P1 nef to help our kiter out. I throw it up on H magmaw, to help out the kiter. I throw it up on ODS poison slimes to help out whoever they are targeting. Also I use it on the last boss of BRC...yeah, not a raid, but having it means I can kite those adds while half asleep, which helps for people going for achievements, and just if I am pugging, doing it myself means it isn't going to fail. I also might use it on maloriak big adds to help that kiter out...but so far we haven't had a problem with them yet, so haven't tried.

[nilnar]

I don't need to life tap nearly as much.

With only 1 point in mana feed I sincerely doubt this is true, considering drain life is heavier on mana use.

[Seclorum]

I'm not sure where you're getting 3 seconds from, but I suggest you look ingame. Lash of pain is instant cast and has no cooldown (aside from 1.5 second global cooldown). I'm also curious as to where your numbers are from, as my lash of pain hits for harder than whiplash on a single target (also worth knowing that the succubus usually only autocasts whiplash if it gets attacked, and its off the succubus global cooldown so casting it is always a dps increase).

edit - had another look, whiplash is actually doing more than lash of pain, but its more like 4200 vs 3700. Much closer than your numbers.

Glyphed imp damage is also much close to succubus damage than your numbers imply, so I'm pretty confused by your post again.


I guess you're playing drain spec. As SB, there is space to take it. Man, drain spec is terrible.

I sat at a target dummy and used a stopwatch. Yes she obeys the GCD but she wasnt triggering lash immediately after it came up, she waited a second before triggering it. it seemed to vary, could be some kind of lag effect. Her lash also crit very frequently, almost 40% according to recount over a 5min period. As for the damage, might you be in demonology? Whiplash was always hitting at least 5k but i had to manualy target fire it because she wont autocast it on a dummy.

I did not have Imp Glyph active, when I did the test, and there is burning embers to account for as well as Empowered Imp procs. The imp is best used for destro.

Also the damage may vary because for most of the tests I was not attacking the dummy, and thus was not getting any procs from trinkets/enchants, which may account for lower damage.


As for drain spec, Its not bad. It has its advantages and weaknesses. And yes, as SB you can take it easy but not everyone will nor is it "Required" to do so. Situational.

you are trying to make a spec that is going to be "good" for all fights, but has no situational usefulness. I pick up utility talents, they may make it so that on many fights I'm like 2% lower than I would be, but in fights where having an instant cast ranged 30% snare that last for 30 seconds is helpful, I'm there. In fights where AoE is needed, mine is better than yours. And when there's a 3-4 mobs that need to be killed, I'm getting everything doted up faster than you.

I dont generaly go for a situational talent unless i can find a situation that makes it useful. In my raids our kiters all supply thier own Slows/snares which tend to be more useful.

Take magmaw for example, How easy is it to tag every single parasite with Exhaustion? Whereas you can have a hunter drop a trap, or a shaman drop a totem, or a rogue go FOK spamming his slow poison, a DK drop desecration or chillblains. Exhaustion would be great and useful if Jinx spread it as well...

For an AOE fight idd swap to Demonology and take a dump all over your AOE. The difference between specs is that stark for AOE. Soulburn Seed isnt bad at all. I Did a little testing of it when i did the pet tests. I just wish Seed itself didnt overwrite Corruption.

With only 1 point in mana feed I sincerely doubt this is true, considering drain life is heavier on mana use.

Every time the succubus crits with lash, which is alot, you get 2% mana. Just by virtue of this your dropping mana needs. 4.1 with 2/2 in mana feed the Felhunter will return 16% mana every bite crit. Thats not Base mana, thats Total mana. It doesnt replace LT but it does cut the need down. Plus as Drain spec those periods your low are less dangerous because you will rapidly regenerate.

[Veriu]

With only 1 point in mana feed I sincerely doubt this is true, considering drain life is heavier on mana use.

Actually...drain life isn't more mana intensive than shadowbolt. yes it costs more mana per cast, but it also lasts longer. Shadowbolt is 10% base mana every 2.5 seconds, drain life is 12% mana every 3 seconds. It kinda evens out.

and compared to zero points in mana feed, 2% mana returned for every crit does reduce life tapping by alot.

I dont generaly go for a situational talent unless i can find a situation that makes it useful. In my raids our kiters all supply thier own Slows/snares which tend to be more useful.

Take magmaw for example, How easy is it to tag every single parasite with Exhaustion? Whereas you can have a hunter drop a trap, or a shaman drop a totem, or a rogue go FOK spamming his slow poison, a DK drop desecration or chillblains. Exhaustion would be great and useful if Jinx spread it as well...

For an AOE fight idd swap to Demonology and take a dump all over your AOE. The difference between specs is that stark for AOE. Soulburn Seed isnt bad at all. I Did a little testing of it when i did the pet tests. I just wish Seed itself didnt overwrite Corruption.

I was talking about heroic magmaw, not normal. in heroic there are bone constructs created which are generally kited around. And yes, generally the kiter has their own slows, but they are generally not 30 seconds in length. i.e. I've seen vids of using frost mages to kite nef's adds in P1. Frost mage has great slows, but none of them are very long lasting, and it's possible that some of the adds doesn't get slowed. If I have CoEX on all of them, then even if they aren't slowed by 50+% by the frost mage, they would be at least slowed 30% by me.

And yeah, demo is better aoe...but I hate demo....it is stupid. and dumb.