[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[Bonkura]

How about on Horridon hc? On our last attempts I changed to Sac cause we're having some trouble killing the adds in time and I felt like the pet was practically just running around, barely attacking anything.

Put the pet on passive and bind /petattack and /petfollow. It might take some time to learn to micro your pet properly but very much needed this patch.

I've found Fel Imp to be more useful than Observer because it's faster at target switching and doesn't randomly die if you put it on the spirit (or knock it back and follow it to the end of the room).

[Count Zero]

Going total haste gems + reforging to get the 3rd tick of corruption (9211) now that I have Wushoolay's simmed out to be about a 500 dps increase for me on single target, but I'm concerned that losing so much mastery (I'd be just above 5k or so) would actually weaken my multidotting (which is generally why I go Afflic for any given encounter).

So, basically ... what has a stronger effect on dots that aren't being MG-ed on: hitting that breakpoint, or having more mastery ?

[Bonkura]

Your question is very hard to answer with so little information so I'll just give you my general view on it.

If you will benefit from the extra tick that amount of haste should be worth more than dumping it into mastery. Because of this scaling mastery and intellect are more reliable stats to go for in multidot scenarios, but perhaps not the best for all situations or in the long run.

Overall haste will benefit you more with GoSup and RPPM procs from the legendary meta, trinkets and jade spirit so it should be the way to go. However you are not going to see that big differences by maintaining some mastery.


You'll need to be more specific with fight scenarios and your gear if you want a more in-depth answer.

[Count Zero]

Your question is very hard to answer with so little information so I'll just give you my general view on it.

If you will benefit from the extra tick that amount of haste should be worth more than dumping it into mastery. Because of this scaling mastery and intellect are more reliable stats to go for in multidot scenarios, but perhaps not the best for all situations or in the long run.

Overall haste will benefit you more with GoSup and RPPM procs from the legendary meta, trinkets and jade spirit so it should be the way to go. However you are not going to see that big differences by maintaining some mastery.


You'll need to be more specific with fight scenarios and your gear if you want a more in-depth answer.

Well, my situation changed a bit -- with some Thunderforged int/expertise (which provided many lulz for my guild) bracers I can reach the 9778 breakpoint if I go full gemming/reforging for haste, but it'd drop my Mastery to under 5k.

And I'm not really looking for anything ultra specific, as at a certain point it's really a matter of personal playstyle/ability that will have the biggest effect ... but in general I was just wondering -- for multidot fights (Council, Horridon, for example) if I'd be better served reaching the breakpoint even though it means dropping a ton of mastery.

I have the rep trink and Wushoolay's (and ofc jade spirit on my weapon). So only two total RPPM things. I think for now I will hold off on replacing all my gems until I get Breath and/or the meta.

[Bonkura]

I'd just look at it this way.

If it's a fight where you are a) losing MG uptime to refresh dots on targets that will get all ticks most of the time and/or b) losing MG uptime to spam SoC as a filler then haste should be the clear winner.

Again it's a very simple approach to the matter but it's hard to be perfectly prepared for every fight. When it comes to gemming this patch I see no reason to not go for full haste/hit/exp gems since you can always dump a lot of that haste to mastery if you wish to.

Bear in mind I got back to the game couple of weeks ago and just started doing some heroic fights in a very casual guild mainly playing Destruction. I'm posting here with the intention to get back into the theorycrafting discussion and my ideas might be a bit outdated.

[Count Zero]

Yeah -- I know it's a pretty difficult question to answer without some detailed investigation, but I'm not really after complete min/max-ing. Just had been wondering if there was a general consensus about what "should" be better in "most" situations, sorta like the quickhand version of our stat weights we'd been working with before the RPPM trinks (as in, "haste to breakpoints then mastery" ... or even "haste and mastery about even").

My thinking about mastery/haste for multi-dot situations is that our dots double-dip from haste and mastery synergistically when being MG'd ... with haste, not only are they just ticking faster regularly, but the faster you MG the faster you get those copied ticks ... and your mastery benefits those copied ticks ... originally I'd been thinking that haste had a stronger synergy when they are being MG'd, but mastery was stronger for dots when they weren't being MG'd ... however, with our stat weightings for haste and mastery having been so close the entire xpac, I think the case is actually that they both have pretty much an equal overall effect on our dots.

I'm sure if someone did some uber-detailed math they could figure out what's optimal but I don't think the difference would be noticeable amidst rng and real play. I'm guessing, however, that for your "average" warlock in real situations, hitting just above a breakpoint for UA would yield the best multi-dotting results.

[Werst]

While mastery IS your friend for multidotting hitting a breakpoint means longer dot uptimes per application which gives you more free GCD's. I might go mast after that breakpoint (where I'm 99% sure sims will say keep going on haste) for the sake of multidotting but hitting the 9211 or 9778 breakpoint will help your multidotting in that its easier to keep the juggling act going and more free gcd's = more dmg. The 9211 one for corruption is especially nice for the (theoretically) more nightfall procs you would get due to the extra tick per duration. Thus more SB:SS or haunts which are a precious resource in a multidotting fight.

This one is also probably somewhat dependent on your latency. (functionally, not necessarily simc dependent if you know what I mean) IE if you have a slow connection then mastery will work better, if you have a really fast connection you can take advantage of the haste for more GCDs. Same logic with your reaction time.

[Deleted]

While mastery IS your friend for multidotting hitting a breakpoint means longer dot uptimes per application which gives you more free GCD's. I might go mast after that breakpoint (where I'm 99% sure sims will say keep going on haste) for the sake of multidotting but hitting the 9211 or 9778 breakpoint will help your multidotting in that its easier to keep the juggling act going and more free gcd's = more dmg. The 9211 one for corruption is especially nice for the (theoretically) more nightfall procs you would get due to the extra tick per duration. Thus more SB:SS or haunts which are a precious resource in a multidotting fight.

This one is also probably somewhat dependent on your latency. (functionally, not necessarily simc dependent if you know what I mean) IE if you have a slow connection then mastery will work better, if you have a really fast connection you can take advantage of the haste for more GCDs. Same logic with your reaction time.

uhm, i might just be really tired atm and as a result just plain stupid, but the bolded part, doesnt make since one bit to me. hitting a haste breakpoint does 1 thing and 1 thing only, it gives you an extra tick within the dot's normal duration, nothing more and nothing less. ofc if you meant that the extra tick corruption would get, could potentially increase the amount of nightfall procs you get and there by give you more shards to spend on SB:SS and saving GCDs from hard casting dots, you would be correct but you go about it in such a round-about way.

[Brusalk]

uhm, i might just be really tired atm and as a result just plain stupid, but the bolded part, doesnt make since one bit to me. hitting a haste breakpoint does 1 thing and 1 thing only, it gives you an extra tick within the dot's normal duration, nothing more and nothing less. ofc if you meant that the extra tick corruption would get, could potentially increase the amount of nightfall procs you get and there by give you more shards to spend on SB:SS and saving GCDs from hard casting dots, you would be correct but you go about it in such a round-about way.

A dot will have a base duration, say 15 seconds ticking 3 times. Now, you increase haste and the duration decreases (still same number of ticks, but faster).

Just after a breakpoint/at a breakpoint, you gain an extra tick and the total duration goes up to 15 seconds again (actually a bit more if you're right on, but that's largely irrelavent).

That's what he's talking about.

[Ridcully]

A dot will have a base duration, say 15 seconds ticking 3 times. Now, you increase haste and the duration decreases (still same number of ticks, but faster).

Just after a breakpoint/at a breakpoint, you gain an extra tick and the total duration goes up to 15 seconds again (actually a bit more if you're right on, but that's largely irrelavent).

Adittional tick duration gets added to total duration.

I'm running 6640 haste and full mastery (99,46% raid-buffed). Doing fine in normal modes, ranked on 4 out of 5 bosses yesterday, so it seems viable.

[Deleted]

A dot will have a base duration, say 15 seconds ticking 3 times. Now, you increase haste and the duration decreases (still same number of ticks, but faster).

Just after a breakpoint/at a breakpoint, you gain an extra tick and the total duration goes up to 15 seconds again (actually a bit more if you're right on, but that's largely irrelavent).

That's what he's talking about.

ah, i thought it was a given that it worked like, no wonder it felt like a very round about kind of way to explain it.

[dahri]

Adittional tick duration gets added to total duration.

I'm running 6640 haste and full mastery (99,46% raid-buffed). Doing fine in normal modes, ranked on 4 out of 5 bosses yesterday, so it seems viable.

What Brusalk said is right.
I would argue thats why the UA haste breakpoints are so good. It is at this point our shortest dot is at max duration. Which gives us much more time for MG before we have to reapply UA again.

[Ridcully]

What Brusalk said is right.
I would argue thats why the UA haste breakpoints are so good. It is at this point our shortest dot is at max duration. Which gives us much more time for MG before we have to reapply UA again.

Dot with 15 second duration and 3 ticks will have maximum possible duration close to 17,5 seconds if you reached haste breakpoint and minimum duration close to 12,5 seconds if you are really close to reaching it.
Corr/Agony breakpoints are pretty far from UA breakpoints for values that I have checked and close to each other. Two dots with longer durations are likely beter, even if UA is the shortest.

[Deleted]

So, anyone done the math on if the 4PC bonus is worth it for Affli?

What I mean is that if you can get any piece of loot you want, would it be better to go for 2 PC and 3 thunderforged off set pieces rather than 4 PC and 1 hunderforged off set piece?

[Ridcully]

So, anyone done the math on if the 4PC bonus is worth it for Affli?

What I mean is that if you can get any piece of loot you want, would it be better to go for 2 PC and 3 thunderforged off set pieces rather than 4 PC and 1 hunderforged off set piece?

About 1,7-1,8% on single-target fights, less on multi-target. TF is probably better.

[Shodan30]

hum. you know, i just had a thought.

Since the RPPM trinkets for affliction seem to be centered around snapshotting your dots at the height of its proc, wouldnt you want to prolong the dots as long as possible with Glyph of everlasting affliction ? Seems that if you are stacking haste obscenely, you could have a really high uptime and it would do better even with the damage reduction to the dots.

[Deleted]

afaik glyph of everlasting affliction is never a dps upgrade for affliction. it isnt just about the haste, as you benefit from the haste with or without EA glyph, taking that the haste out of the equation then the only thing that really remain is how often you can get supercharged dots up on the target for the prolonged duration that EA glyph grants you and if that prolonged duration makes up for the loss in dmg from the glyph, and i dont think that it will overall, atleast that is my take on it, i might be wrong.

[Surutcra]

Dot with 15 second duration and 3 ticks will have maximum possible duration close to 17,5 seconds if you reached haste breakpoint and minimum duration close to 12,5 seconds if you are really close to reaching it.
Corr/Agony breakpoints are pretty far from UA breakpoints for values that I have checked and close to each other. Two dots with longer durations are likely beter, even if UA is the shortest.

Your numerical values are not accurate here, it's going to be (15s -0.5 tickTime) right before the breakpoint, and (15s + 0.5 tickTime) right after it. So for low-haste breakpoints you can expect something like 13.5s & 16.5s (anyway, never more than a 3s gap).

Breakpoints on Agony are mostly irrelevant in my opinion for three reasons :
- because it's long, the relative gain is very small
- everytime you use SB:SS, there's a decent chance that Agony is not in pandemic range, resulting in any additional tick being wasted.
- because it's long you don't refresh it often and a decent amount out of the few times you do refresh it are going to be with various haste buffs (and then other breakpoints matter)

Breakpoints on UA are the most important imo :
- because it's short, the relative gain is high
- reaching a breakpoint on UA brings UA & Corr duration closer together
- if you're using SS trick, you absolutely want to hit a UA breakpoint (with all haste buffs though, so these are different ones and they are usually close to one another)

[Ridcully]

Your numerical values are not accurate here, it's going to be (15s -0.5 tickTime) right before the breakpoint, and (15s + 0.5 tickTime) right after it. So for low-haste breakpoints you can expect something like 13.5s & 16.5s (anyway, never more than a 3s gap).

15s - 0,5 * (15/3) = 12,5
15s + 0,5 * (15/3) = 17,5
Everything else needs numbers. Try simcraft with 12439 haste, see if it is a dps gain over 13737.

Glyph of EA was a 10% damage loss on training dummy in T14 (more in raid because your base stats are higher while procs remain the same), I doubt current procs are strong enough to make it a damage increase.

[Rustjive]

DoT ticks are 2s base.