[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[Deleted]

Has it always been like this every tier or is this the first one?

[Khadjid]

The problem is mostly just this tier. They did too good a job in balancing mastery and haste for affliction that we can't give a clear cut answer of which is better without analysing the specific gear set with which you're trying to tune your stats. And even then it's hard to tell.

[xskarma]

And even worse, how can people who regularly read the forums keep answering people about things they are not able to understand at all?

People are simple beings on the whole and want simple truths, and most importantly they remember simple truths. So when a question with a complex answer comes along, or an answer that tells them to go do a lot of (complicated) work they'd rather listen to someone that tells them "go and do this simple to remember thing". If they then see a good result (or more likely not a bad result) they take it for good knowledge and spread it to the next person.

It took weeks before people got around to accepting that going for 10% haste, then mastery was the best simple solution to what to reforge to (even if this very thread in the prepatch allready noted that keeping haste/mastery close was ideal) and it will probably take weeks of all the more influential voices on this forum to say "reforge to 4717 and then keep Haste/MAstery balanced" before people will accept that and start spreading THAT as the common knowledge. I'm not so sure if it's simple enough for most people though, cause it's not as clear cut and requires you to do more then just set up 1 cap and let addons do the rest.

On the whole it's best to not get frustrated with people seeking simple answers, but to just keep repeating what you know to be best. Having it in your sig for people to see will no doubt help too.

[Bonkura]

You're probably right about how people think and act but it's still wrong and it's hard for me to understand and accept how it ended up this way.

I can admit that at the beginning of the expansion I didn't listen to everything the more experienced/knowledgeable people here said but I still followed what SimCraft told me unless I had to do small tweaks during encounters that I knew theorycrafting hadn't been able to prove yet (like when to actually stack mastery or to even use a pet).

10% haste -> full mastery until 4717 haste -> full mastery has never been the way to do it. We've been told to ignore haste plateaus until we can reach them while maintaining a healthy amount of mastery. When to do this is what we've told people to use SimCraft for and instead at looking at the right values people have just been thinking that mastery all the way is better because with their current stats mastery have given a higher value. How they haven't even thought about running SimCraft again to check their new values after adding more mastery is just beyond me.


I guess the next step for the majority of the Affliction Warlock community to learn is how haste works. I tried explain it earlier but it seems people ignored it so maybe someone else has to give it a try by explaining it better. I have to admit I only have a vague understanding of how it actually works so it's nothing I'll personally try go more in depth with in a guide or similar.

Another thing is of course to learn how to use SimCraft properly. I think Rustjive has started on both of these topics so I recommend people to go read his blog if you feel you're still lost and want to know more about how the spec actually works this expansion.

I'd also like to encourage people who are not 100% sure about what's better and not but still want to help out to say this in your posts. I'm sure there's someone who can correct you if you are wrong and it helps prevent any confusion going on here.

[Titan2k10]

All of these questions are answered in the first post. Literally every one.

I understand this is your sticky and mean no dis respect in any fashion but it was a little vague in my opinion. Example below and why i am/was confused

At level 90, DoTs are refreshed in a different way. If you cast Corruption on an enemy that already has Corruption on it, the remaining duration of the previous effect will be added to the new effect, up to a maximum of 50% of its base duration. So, if you recast Corruption when it has 6 seconds remaining, it will now have 24 seconds remaining. The maximum duration it will increase to is 27 seconds, since its base duration is 18. This means that you can refresh it any time when it has less than 9 seconds remaining and you won't waste any time. (9+ 18= 27).

Above was what you wrote on DoT refreshing. What I read it as was initially if you recast when 6 seconds are left then 6 seconds will be added onto 18 but the last bold sounds like ANY time with less than 9 seconds will give it 9 additional seconds, up to 27. This is where I was confused. 9 seconds would leave 50% duration left so refresh at 50% for maximum duration 27 seconds.

Sorry for the confusion and i appreciate the clarification from you and Telila as well. Telila thank you for clarifying with Essence of Terror as well.

Regards,
Me

---------- Post added 2012-12-19 at 08:47 PM ----------

Please try to find a suitable thread to put your questions in next time, like this Affliction sticky guide, instead of making a new thread.

You can refresh your dots at anytime in the Pandemic safe time below 50% duration and 0%, in damage it matters nothing. There is a base length of the dot you can not change, Pandemic adds up to 50% to that. There's no stretching dots beyond that. (at least I think that's what you meant to ask)

Recast dots with Essence, yes at some point. Affdots addon can help you tell if it's a good time to refresh or not. Using SB;SS or individual depends highly on the situation, on if you have a supply of shards or not. On the whole if there are no adds to get Shards off of it is mostly best to manually refresh your dots. And, yes, SB:SS works like the normal way of refreshing dots, so they will add length to your dot through Pandemic.

Thank you for the addon suggestion as well. These forums are much more helpful and much more tolerant of someone seeking answers than the mage/warrior forums *shudder*

[JV Chequer]

10% haste -> full mastery until 4717 haste -> full mastery has never been the way to do it. We've been told to ignore haste plateaus until we can reach them while maintaining a healthy amount of mastery. When to do this is what we've told people to use SimCraft for and instead at looking at the right values people have just been thinking that mastery all the way is better because with their current stats mastery have given a higher value. How they haven't even thought about running SimCraft again to check their new values after adding more mastery is just beyond me.

I guess the next step for the majority of the Affliction Warlock community to learn is how haste works. I tried explain it earlier but it seems people ignored it so maybe someone else has to give it a try by explaining it better. I have to admit I only have a vague understanding of how it actually works so it's nothing I'll personally try go more in depth with in a guide or similar.

Long Story Short, take 12% or 15% hit chance based on which playstyle you like then u can:

* Listen some lazy/casual/unknowingly ppl and go after 4717 or 6637 Haste Breakpoint, depend on your ilvl.
* Just reforge all your extra hit and all your crit in Haste or Mastery based what is possible on that item and balance both of them, with mastery gems, getting +/- Mastery ~300-400 above haste >> crit
* If the 2nd option leads you near a breakpoint go after the breakpoint even if your mastery drops a bit


I'm right or just messed up this beautiful thread?

[Glorn]

I ran simcraft with 4.8k haste it showed 96k dps,in scale factors mastery was ahead of haste.But I decided to reforge for next breakpoint,6640 haste 13.5% hit 4950 mastery and I just ran simcraft,it shows 110k dps!Can't wait for a raid tomorrow to see if its really gonna be that nice dps improvement!

My armory http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Glorrn/simple

[Apero]

I ran simcraft with 4.8k haste it showed 96k dps,in scale factors mastery was ahead of haste.But I decided to reforge for next breakpoint,6640 haste 13.5% hit 4950 mastery and I just ran simcraft,it shows 110k dps!Can't wait for a raid tomorrow to see if its really gonna be that nice dps improvement!

My armory http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Glorrn/simple

Probably not. Simcraft messed up something. The differences are max +-500 dps or something. 110k with your Gear seem a little bit high to me anyway tbh.

[Destroyed]

Question. Which trinket is best used with H Cosmos, relic of yulon or essence of terror (n)

[Ezzyo]

Question. Which trinket is best used with H Cosmos, relic of yulon or essence of terror (n)

http://darkcontent.wordpress.com/201...-combinations/

[Glorn]

Guys what addon are u using to track dots on multiple targets?

[Surutcra]

EDIT : Moved.

[Rustjive]

Your images are impossible to see. It looks like you gave us the thumbnail link.

[Greywardenn]

Regarding the very unusual results everyone has been getting with simcraft for affliction since 5.1, I think there's something very wrong and here is the best evidence I could find.

With current gear, I have exactly 4717 haste. Running 50k iterations and plotting haste scaling very locally around that 4717 value, I would expect to see a very noticeable gap (used to be 700+ dps from 4716 to 4717 haste).
The thing is : there is no such gap, just as if there was actually no additional tick on corruption...
URL(http) -> s11.postimage.org/454r5vubn/simcraft_haste_plot.png


For reference, here is my armory (URL(http) -> eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/hyjal/Surutcra/advanced) and here are the stats as detected by simcraft o this simulation :
URL(http) -> s14.postimage.org/y7z78e9xd/simcraft_stats.png


EDIT : Sorry about the hacky-style links and images, I was not allowed to post with proper ones...

Did you check in your Sim profile and make sure that it shows your correct Haste Value? The recent Sim releases have been a little off.

[Bloodfire]

Question about gear:
What's better:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=86210#comments
or
http://www.wowhead.com/item=89930#comments
?

[warlockSTAR]

Question about gear:
What's better:
http://www.wowhead.com/item=86210#comments
or
http://www.wowhead.com/item=89930#comments
?

The heroic one?

[JV Chequer]

The heroic one?

^This, for a slightly difference.

[Erolian]

You guys seriously need a GOOD developer for Rawr. This type of stat balancing is what it does best

[Gorthan]

I've played around with simcraft for few days and i'm not fully conviced by the results i got. This is my armroy:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...gorthan/simple

As you can see, as a goblin, i've reached the 6151 (6637 for non goblin) haste plateau, sacrificing some mastery, accordingly to simcraft plot. 104k dps. Than i decided to drop haste to 4249 (4717 for non goblin) and reforge to mastery. Simcraft sims a 103.5k dps. As a last try i simmed again keeping haste within 500 mastery value. 103.6k. Am i doing something wrong?

[Daggot Ur]

I've played around with simcraft for few days and i'm not fully conviced by the results i got. This is my armroy:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...gorthan/simple

As you can see, as a goblin, i've reached the 6151 (6637 for non goblin) haste plateau, sacrificing some mastery, accordingly to simcraft plot. 104k dps. Than i decided to drop haste to 4249 (4717 for non goblin) and reforge to mastery. Simcraft sims a 103.5k dps. As a last try i simmed again keeping haste within 500 mastery value. 103.6k. Am i doing something wrong?

I've got exactly the same thing 6151 and ~4,3K mastery yields higher dps than 4249 and ~6,2 Mastery. Haven't tried the 500 difference thing though, however, i think that this is a wrong way to go anyway.