[5.4] Affliction Warlock and Encounter Specific Guides

[Jellospally]

Just use Imp instead of Observer. Most fights Imp is better due to bosses getting moved around and it gets out of melee range for a second or two which makes the Imp better.

[Asuhariet]

Just use Imp instead of Observer. Most fights Imp is better due to bosses getting moved around and it gets out of melee range for a second or two which makes the Imp better.

I was more thinking along the lines of fights like Malkorok or Juggernaut.
But is Optic Blast a dps increase with the Observer or does it take time away from autoattacks to cast it?

[Jellospally]

Not exactly sure, but just use Imp on everything. Go check all the ranks on every fight. Imps, imps, imps and more imps.

Melee pets are aids just ignore them.

[Asuhariet]

Not exactly sure, but just use Imp on everything. Go check all the ranks on every fight. Imps, imps, imps and more imps.

Melee pets are aids just ignore them.

But then what if I'm on interrupt rotations on certain fights? I can't use the imp then, and there's several periods of downtime when I'm not using the ability.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, I'm just genuinely curious if using the ability would increase dps or decrease it.

[Woz]

But then what if I'm on interrupt rotations on certain fights? I can't use the imp then, and there's several periods of downtime when I'm not using the ability.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, I'm just genuinely curious if using the ability would increase dps or decrease it.

It's negligible if there is any increase or decrease. If you have to interrupt (ie: Garrosh) then use Observer just be wary of your pet not attacking (specifically that fight).

[yoloswagginz]

did they fix it now? i tried trinket swapping on sha, immerseus and protectors never proced and when i swapped trinkets my rppm trinkets didn't proc for 10 seconds in all cases

[Xyronic]

But then what if I'm on interrupt rotations on certain fights? I can't use the imp then, and there's several periods of downtime when I'm not using the ability.
I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, I'm just genuinely curious if using the ability would increase dps or decrease it.

You shouldn't be on interrupt rotations as a warlock.

[Moruff]

did they fix it now? i tried trinket swapping on sha, immerseus and protectors never proced and when i swapped trinkets my rppm trinkets didn't proc for 10 seconds in all cases

I was able to get KTT to proc immediately upon swapping, but not BBOY. I think bboy has a built in 10s internal cd? I remember reading that somewhere, but can't be sure.

[Valq]

I was able to get KTT to proc immediately upon swapping, but not BBOY. I think bboy has a built in 10s internal cd? I remember reading that somewhere, but can't be sure.

Nope, not true, BBoY procs multiple times in a row at times, its an RPPM trinket, and the RPPM resets on boss pull, if all, you're just extremely unlucky with it.

[cabana]

You shouldn't be on interrupt rotations as a warlock.

Don't be such a bum. A lot of locks are needed to interrupt on 10m stuff.

[Deleted]

It has protection in place to prevent it from proccing whilst it's still stacking up.

[Hugginz]

You shouldn't be on interrupt rotations as a warlock.

Can you tell our GM that :P

[Deleted]

Don't be such a bum. A lot of locks are needed to interrupt on 10m stuff.

well, unless you're running with all ranged players, having a lock on interrupt rotation shouldnt really be needed, but ofc locks can be used if your raid is in an absolute pinch.

[Glurp]

I'm having issues working out how to properly do the protectors style multi-dotting. The opening set of DoTs is fine, I understand how to use soul swap to extend properly but I have absolutely no idea what I'm meant to do in terms of refreshing DoTs later in the fight. Am I meant to manually recast all my DoTs when I get procs and their duration is low enough or do I SB:SS at some places? Anyone able to explain this to me?

Also how important is PBOI for Affliction? The OP says it's BiS once all your other gear is BiS but considering how outdated most of the information in the guide is I'm not sure how much to trust that. Currently I'm using a normal BBoY and normal warforged KTT, would either be worth replacing with a flex PBOI?

[Valq]

I'm having issues working out how to properly do the protectors style multi-dotting. The opening set of DoTs is fine, I understand how to use soul swap to extend properly but I have absolutely no idea what I'm meant to do in terms of refreshing DoTs later in the fight. Am I meant to manually recast all my DoTs when I get procs and their duration is low enough or do I SB:SS at some places? Anyone able to explain this to me?

Also how important is PBOI for Affliction? The OP says it's BiS once all your other gear is BiS but considering how outdated most of the information in the guide is I'm not sure how much to trust that. Currently I'm using a normal BBoY and normal warforged KTT, would either be worth replacing with a flex PBOI?

So you just manually re-cast dots with a procc, since your agony can, and should last till your 2nd DS+PBI. Usually, if you mess up your dots and lose a bit of their duration, you're just going to have to hope to get lucky with a BBoY proc inbetween and SB+SS at it. Now, needless to say, the main SB+SS's you're meant to have on that fight are the opener one, and your 2nd line up (2nd DS+PBI, usually something else procs too). The rest is up to you and how you manage the fight, and the fight length, obviously if you get BBoY+Meta gem and you have a DS at some point, then that'd probably be a SB+SS unless its towards the start of the fight, where your opener dots all have a lot of duration left on them.

I'd say PBI is extremely important, even if you're not at BiS, because even if the scaling isn't as strong when you don't have BiS gear, the way the proc lines up with your 2nd DS is just too good to pass up, and the scaling isn't even that bad, especially with the item level bump, so I'd say PBI > KTT no matter the circumstances.

[Moruff]

So you just manually re-cast dots with a procc, since your agony can, and should last till your 2nd DS+PBI.

Well agony is 36s and you get that 11ish sec into the fight. Everytime you swap with a filler you extend it by 2.x secs and if you are swapping onto new targets you only extend it by 1 gcd. If you manually refresh one of the other dots, you lose that gcd from its duration as well. From the initial buffed dots 11s to second PBI at 116s (best case scenario) that's 105s, which even if you put a filler in for every swap, you'd only extend it for 35 x 2.x (max swaps of agony x extension length), with a max of 100ish secs. However you're not going to always put a filler in. You'll probably swap it without a filler something like 15 times because of adds and manually recast ua and corr a couple times each, reducing the total duration of the agony to 80 to 90s. Plus, it's not very beneficial to keep extending a dot that's only going to fall off by the time you get back to that target, so under 4s duration.

Anyway, since you're going to refresh agony before your second PBI, find a good opportunity to refresh everything as agony is getting down to sub 7s duration (pray for a bboy proc) and use your AD DS. By the time PBI procs again, you'll have another DS and if bboy or meta procs you can overwrite everything and extend those dots until the end of the fight. You don't necessarily HAVE to align DS with PBI in this fight because bboy proc is twice as strong and you won't be procing PBI again until the very end of the fight (when you won't need to extend dots anymore) if at all. Better to save DS for when you have bboy. Of course it could fuck you over and proc at really bad times.

[Valq]

Anyway, since you're going to refresh agony before your second PBI, find a good opportunity to refresh everything as agony is getting down to sub 7s duration (pray for a bboy proc) and use your AD DS. By the time PBI procs again, you'll have another DS and if bboy or meta procs you can overwrite everything and extend those dots until the end of the fight. You don't necessarily HAVE to align DS with PBI in this fight because bboy proc is twice as strong and you won't be procing PBI again until the very end of the fight (when you won't need to extend dots anymore) if at all. Better to save DS for when you have bboy. Of course it could fuck you over and proc at really bad times.

This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, yes you HAVE to align DS with PBI on protectors, its not even an option not to, unless you PBI procs really late. If you mean you don't have to pop DS with PBI, then you're presenting a theoretically perfect fight with a BBoY proc at the perfect time(s), that's very RNG dependent, hence this is misleading. BBoY may not even proc beyond the opener until really late in the fight. Its not better to save your 2nd DS for when you have BBoY, heck knows if your BBoY will proc again during the fight, the only reason to save the DS would be if you directly got a BBoY proc RIGHT before PBI.

[yoloswagginz]

This is wrong on so many levels. For starters, yes you HAVE to align DS with PBI on protectors, its not even an option not to, unless you PBI procs really late. If you mean you don't have to pop DS with PBI, then you're presenting a theoretically perfect fight with a BBoY proc at the perfect time(s), that's very RNG dependent, hence this is misleading. BBoY may not even proc beyond the opener until really late in the fight. Its not better to save your 2nd DS for when you have BBoY, heck knows if your BBoY will proc again during the fight, the only reason to save the DS would be if you directly got a BBoY proc RIGHT before PBI.

bindings + DS is pretty much equal to a BB proc with nothing else so even if u dont have a DS its still worth refreshing ur dots. its actually fairly unlikley BB won't proc. if u dont get a BB proc then of course u would line it up w/ bindings but its something u can wait and see for. u could even pop DS w/ bindings supposing u dont get a BB proc beforehand. then if u get a BB proc afterwards u could use ur second DS from AD since DS be up at the time bindings procs and that'll pretty much carry over until the rest of the fight.

[Valq]

bindings + DS is pretty much equal to a BB proc with nothing else so even if u dont have a DS its still worth refreshing ur dots. its actually fairly unlikley BB won't proc. if u dont get a BB proc then of course u would line it up w/ bindings but its something u can wait and see for. u could even pop DS w/ bindings supposing u dont get a BB proc beforehand. then if u get a BB proc afterwards u could use ur second DS from AD since DS be up at the time bindings procs and that'll pretty much carry over until the rest of the fight.

Thats exactly what I'm trying to say right here. In an ideal situation were you get BBoY at the right times, you could delay your DS, but if not, then popping it with PBI is the right thing to do ^^ And as you say, you could pop 2nd DS with PBI and use your AD DS with BBoY if it does proc later, there's really no need to delay the 2nd DS for anything else most the time, unless you pop your AD DS before PBI procs.

[FurtyIRL]

Thats exactly what I'm trying to say right here. In an ideal situation were you get BBoY at the right times, you could delay your DS, but if not, then popping it with PBI is the right thing to do ^^ And as you say, you could pop 2nd DS with PBI and use your AD DS with BBoY if it does proc later, there's really no need to delay the 2nd DS for anything else most the time, unless you pop your AD DS before PBI procs.

What you're saying is you should basically always use Dark Soul on that fight with your PBOI, but that's pretty much entirely contextual. It's nice to use PBOI+DS together because it's a more or less fixed point you can count on, but make no mistake, if you can use your DS with bboy at an opportune moment there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't.