[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[xskarma]

So I was reading the patch notes this morning while waiting on it to download and came across this in the bug fixes - "Pandemic no longer smooths the damage when extending dots with different amounts of spellpower."

I'm kind of confused on what this means, that doesn't have anything to do with refreshing DoT's with Intellect procs does it? If not could some reiterate for me?

There was a smoothing mechanic in place that was regulating spellpower in your dots to some degree. It could be by passed by using Fel Flame, and was kinda stupid to start with, so they removed it. Now when you refresh a dot you get full benefit from whatever SPellpower you have going, no matter what. (the opposite is also true that you lose any spellpower you had going when you refresh.)

Why removed "first week" gear list? I just dinged my lock to 90 ;(

The list was only useful for that first week before raiding. There was no LFR available yet for instance. Right now the gearing up will be much more fluent then the first week mad heroic dungeon rush was. You'll probably enter LFR at some point only half fitted out with heroic drops, even before you start raiding normals and beyond (if you do that).

[rezoacken]

So I was reading the patch notes this morning while waiting on it to download and came across this in the bug fixes - "Pandemic no longer smooths the damage when extending dots with different amounts of spellpower."

I'm kind of confused on what this means, that doesn't have anything to do with refreshing DoT's with Intellect procs does it? If not could some reiterate for me?

I think its a fix regarding corruption not being correctly updated with a normal cast while being correctly updated with a felflame.

[Viggers]

approx how much of a dps loss is it to gem INT in red sockets, and then INT/mastery or INT/hit above 480 ilvl? i ask because i much prefer demo and dont want to force myself to play affli because of my gems. would it be a bigger dps loss to play demo with mastery prio gems or to play affli with INT prio gems?

[Bonkura]

approx how much of a dps loss is it to gem INT in red sockets, and then INT/mastery or INT/hit above 480 ilvl? i ask because i much prefer demo and dont want to force myself to play affli because of my gems. would it be a bigger dps loss to play demo with mastery prio gems or to play affli with INT prio gems?

Just pull your stat weights from SimCraft and it should be easy to tell how much you gain/loss.

[miasmah]

Thanks for this thread and the excellent video by evralia.

I had a few questions:

1-Why should u never ever cast haunt without an intel proc up? I can understand why you should not do it when you are low on shards but:
Lets say u have 3 shards and DPSing a single target and your haunt falls off and you dont have any intel procs. Is it wrong to throw a haunt and start MGing or should you just continue to MG and wait for either a intel proc or Nightfall?

2-Sometimes I find myself in the below situation:
The Mob has Corruption,Agony and Haunt but Unstable Affliction is about to expire:
In this case, do you MG all the way until Haunt expires and then apply UA
or do you immediately cast UA even if it means missing the chance to MG while Haunt is up?


3-Regarding FF usage, am I right to summarize that:
FF should only be used in your opener rotation (as evralia's video suggest)
and
When you have the chance to use it again during the next Dark soul / Heroism to extend dots and save your SB:SS for when Heroism / Dark Soul is expiring (just like you would do in the opener)

Other than the 2 above scenarios, is it generally worthwhile to use FF for dot extension?

[attora]

Hello, there are a lot of pages in this thread so I figured it'd be easier to ask, what is our optimal opener perfected? I am getting about 100k Less burst dps on bosses than a slight less geared warlock than myself. I am 491 Ilvl.

[Deleted]

Hello, there are a lot of pages in this thread so I figured it'd be easier to ask, what is our optimal opener perfected? I am getting about 100k Less burst dps on bosses than a slight less geared warlock than myself. I am 491 Ilvl.

Go read the first post, dude. Watch the video.

And besides that, asking him (the slight less geared lock)

[David Cavalheiro]

Thanks for this thread and the excellent video by evralia.

I had a few questions:

1-Why should u never ever cast haunt without an intel proc up? I can understand why you should not do it when you are low on shards but:
Lets say u have 3 shards and DPSing a single target and your haunt falls off and you dont have any intel procs. Is it wrong to throw a haunt and start MGing or should you just continue to MG and wait for either a intel proc or Nightfall?

2-Sometimes I find myself in the below situation:
The Mob has Corruption,Agony and Haunt but Unstable Affliction is about to expire:
In this case, do you MG all the way until Haunt expires and then apply UA
or do you immediately cast UA even if it means missing the chance to MG while Haunt is up?


3-Regarding FF usage, am I right to summarize that:
FF should only be used in your opener rotation (as evralia's video suggest)
and
When you have the chance to use it again during the next Dark soul / Heroism to extend dots and save your SB:SS for when Heroism / Dark Soul is expiring (just like you would do in the opener)

Other than the 2 above scenarios, is it generally worthwhile to use FF for dot extension?

1- Isn't a rule you can and you should do it, but only if you have 3-4 shards, less then that don't waste a single shard.You should have always 2 shards if you don't have any procs, to refresh with SB:SS if it's necessary or to throw a haunt way.

2- You do not! Don't let Dots expire have in mind that they are the most important of your damage. Remember to refresh all dots before you start a "full haunt". YOu don't need to wait anymore to the last tick, just refresh it when you gain some proc's.

3- Personally I don't use FF at the begin of fight neither do refresh doTs before Dark Soul expire, or I refresh them manually 2-3 sec before Dark Soul expires or I save 1 shard and SB:SS 1-2 seconds before Dark Soul fades. Only time I use FF it's when I need to move, if I'm not using KJ or if i was sleeping and my UA it's almost fading(1-2 seconds), since I don't have time to cast it, I will trow a FF to refresh UA asap!

Don't use FF to extend any dot, do it manually or SB:SS if you have to.

[rezoacken]

Thanks for this thread and the excellent video by evralia.

I had a few questions:

1-Why should u never ever cast haunt without an intel proc up? I can understand why you should not do it when you are low on shards but:
Lets say u have 3 shards and DPSing a single target and your haunt falls off and you dont have any intel procs. Is it wrong to throw a haunt and start MGing or should you just continue to MG and wait for either a intel proc or Nightfall?

2-Sometimes I find myself in the below situation:
The Mob has Corruption,Agony and Haunt but Unstable Affliction is about to expire:
In this case, do you MG all the way until Haunt expires and then apply UA
or do you immediately cast UA even if it means missing the chance to MG while Haunt is up?


3-Regarding FF usage, am I right to summarize that:
FF should only be used in your opener rotation (as evralia's video suggest)
and
When you have the chance to use it again during the next Dark soul / Heroism to extend dots and save your SB:SS for when Heroism / Dark Soul is expiring (just like you would do in the opener)

Other than the 2 above scenarios, is it generally worthwhile to use FF for dot extension?

1. Always cast haunt if you are at 4, at 3 cast haunt if dark soul or every proc are far away (10-15s+).

2. You should avoid this situation, cast/refresh dots BEFORE using haunts so that you dont have to refresh during haunt. Do not let a dot die. if it dies during a haunt you will have to refresh during that haunt.
If something procs, refresh first THEN haunt.

3. I don't think there is very definite answer to this. I personaly use felflame when I need to refresh both Corruption and unstable affliction and they wouldn't benefit from a full pandemic (if I cast them manually). If you use AffDots addon: If both green, I manualy cast, if both blue I felflame, if one blue one green, I cast the green one first then the blue one (who might have turned green).

[Deleted]

what addon is using evrelia in his interface to track procs?. i see icons with procs and timers. i have tested tellmewhen but it's not the same.

[Bonkura]

Don't use FF to extend any dot, do it manually or SB:SS if you have to.

I do it during my opener after my 2nd Haunt.

[David Cavalheiro]

what addon is using evrelia in his interface to track procs?. i see icons with procs and timers. i have tested tellmewhen but it's not the same.

Edit: Power Auras or Weakauras

[Deleted]

I'm not 100% sure, but might be Classtimers.

i think is not classtimers. classtimers has bars. i am talking about this "big" square icons that appear when a proc is up, with a counter running in the rigth side of the icon and dissapear when the proc is gone.

[Rustjive]

Don't use FF to extend any dot

That's a nice rule to follow if you're just learning to play the spec, but it's really wrong.

---------- Post added 2012-11-28 at 10:51 AM ----------

i think is not classtimers. classtimers has bars. i am talking about this "big" square icons that appear when a proc is up, with a counter running in the rigth side of the icon and dissapear when the proc is gone.

Both PowerAuras and WeakAuras will do something like that.

[David Cavalheiro]

I'm not 100% sure, but might be Classtimers.

Oh I missunderstood your question, didn't read it properly. It's powerauras or weakauras both do the same functions.


About Fel Flame like I mentioned before I'm not using it if i have to refresh dots, but I might try with full pandemic and if my proc's are current better.

[Tresdallah]

Oh I missunderstood your question, didn't read it properly. It's powerauras or weakauras both do the same functions.


About Fel Flame like I mentioned before I'm not using it if i have to refresh dots, but I might try with full pandemic and if my proc's are current better.

I'm not sure you understand the benefits of using FF. FF should be used (ESPECIALLY DURING BURN PHASES) as Evrelia talks about in his video when you have procs up and you need to quickly update UA/Cor. By doing this you allow yourself much more MG time, and don't lose anything (as you FF when the two are within the 50% threshold).

[Anakonda]

Could anyone please tell me what the addon is that tracks the debuffs that Evralia uses in his vids?

Atm im using ButtonTimers, but quite frankly i would love have something better - and that addon looks just like what i need.

[Deathnotes]

Question,

I've been playing around with SimCraft for the past couple of weeks, and I've noticed there's not really anything showing that the SimCraft will refresh DoT's on Intellect procs, is this the case?

[Tenchinage]

Question,

I've been playing around with SimCraft for the past couple of weeks, and I've noticed there's not really anything showing that the SimCraft will refresh DoT's on Intellect procs, is this the case?

Correct, this is rather non-trivial process to codify in an action priority list. Looks like the difficult part with crafting this in the action priority list is getting the baseline for the values. I'll dig around in the SimCraft code to see what's possible.

[rezoacken]

Question,

I've been playing around with SimCraft for the past couple of weeks, and I've noticed there's not really anything showing that the SimCraft will refresh DoT's on Intellect procs, is this the case?

Yes Simcraft doesn't refresh and because of that you should be a bit higher than the simC result.