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  1. #1
    Deleted

    Demo or Affliction?

    At the start of this expansion I read that affliction was the number 1 raiding spec, and all warlocks in the top raiding guilds were using it. But now I hardly see any affliction warlocks anymore in those guilds and the lock spec of choice has become demonology.

    Now, did I miss anything or can somebody explain this shift to me plz. Does it become more viable at better gear levels or what is it? I tried demonology but I performed better as affliction in our mainraids.

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Mowb View Post
    At the start of this expansion I read that affliction was the number 1 raiding spec, and all warlocks in the top raiding guilds were using it. But now I hardly see any affliction warlocks anymore in those guilds and the lock spec of choice has become demonology.

    Now, did I miss anything or can somebody explain this shift to me plz. Does it become more viable at better gear levels or what is it? I tried demonology but I performed better as affliction in our mainraids.
    They also said that Affliction locks shouldn't go for the hit cap and to reforge that all into the other stats. General consensus now though is you should be as close to the hit cap as your gear will allow.

    Play the spec you perform the best in. Regardless of what the numbers say you can do, you are more useful to your raid doing what you perform the best at and enjoy doing. Personally I hate affliction but I enjoy demo, and on most fights I can do as much if not more then a similarly geared affliction lock.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Mowb View Post
    But now I hardly see any affliction warlocks anymore in those guilds and the lock spec of choice has become demonology.
    wrong

    Does it become more viable at better gear levels or what is it?
    wrong

    Quote Originally Posted by Whydrood View Post
    General consensus now though is you should be as close to the hit cap as your gear will allow.
    wrong

    affli is still better on most fights and demo is rarely even an option if you have the elegon wand since there's no other weapons available that can compare to it.

  4. #4
    I play demo since MoP and happy with it. I used to play affliction but I don't like it (I'm not saying its not good, I'm saying I don't like it now) as long as I can keep up with other classes in the raid and the other warlocks in the guild, I'm happy.

    So far I had no problems.

    Play what you like, not what is "best"

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Bonkura View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Whydrood View Post
    General consensus now though is you should be as close to the hit cap as your gear will allow.
    wrong.
    Care to elaborate? The reason I ask is I couldn't help notice you sitting at 14% hit. I also couldn't help noticing that the BiS numbers people are going by (namely the numbers being put out by simcraft) saying affliction is better then demo, every BiS set from Pre-Raid (463 Heroic Dungeon gear) to T14H is hit capped for affliction.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Whydrood View Post
    Care to elaborate? The reason I ask is I couldn't help notice you sitting at 14% hit. I also couldn't help noticing that the BiS numbers people are going by (namely the numbers being put out by simcraft) saying affliction is better then demo, every BiS set from Pre-Raid (463 Heroic Dungeon gear) to T14H is hit capped for affliction.
    14% for me is hit cap because I get 1% from using a wand as orc. I'm using it now because we're progressing on Zor'Lok heroic and I feel there's too much movement so I'm not confident in not being hit capped while having so much else to worry about (especially P2 is a bitch if you're not capped).

    Usually I stick to level 92 hit cap (12%) beacuse in most encounters where there's stuff that has to die fast when you switch targets it's adds at level 92.


    I think regarding different hit valeus it goes something like this.

    15% (boss level hit cap): Go for this if you're progressing and don't like the RNG or you're just not confident in your skill level to play without hit cap (i.e. you're not able to react fast enough to misses)

    12% (level 92 hit cap): Go for this if you're progressing and confident you can keep everything up on boss level targets but need reliable damage on adds

    Below 12%: Go for this if you're on farm content and don't have to worry about RNG and just want to push as high DPS as possible (I'm not 100% sure how low you should go but probably gem/reforge out of hit as much as possible, use SimCraft to check this)

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Bonkura View Post
    14% for me is hit cap because I get 1% from using a wand as orc. I'm using it now because we're progressing on Zor'Lok heroic and I feel there's too much movement so I'm not confident in not being hit capped while having so much else to worry about (especially P2 is a bitch if you're not capped).

    Usually I stick to level 92 hit cap (12%) beacuse in most encounters where there's stuff that has to die fast when you switch targets it's adds at level 92.


    I think regarding different hit valeus it goes something like this.

    15% (boss level hit cap): Go for this if you're progressing and don't like the RNG or you're just not confident in your skill level to play without hit cap (i.e. you're not able to react fast enough to misses)

    12% (level 92 hit cap): Go for this if you're progressing and confident you can keep everything up on boss level targets but need reliable damage on adds

    Below 12%: Go for this if you're on farm content and don't have to worry about RNG and just want to push as high DPS as possible (I'm not 100% sure how low you should go but probably gem/reforge out of hit as much as possible, use SimCraft to check this)
    Ahh ok. This advice I can understand. When people were saying go without hit before the first raid even opened up I was utterly shocked at how many people actually took this advice seriously. Thanks for the clarification.

  8. #8
    Deleted
    why would you go hitcap? you got any good argument that beats simcraft saying hit sucks? you do know you can even adjust simcraft to act like a totally bad player and hit still comes out behind?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Mowb View Post
    At the start of this expansion I read that affliction was the number 1 raiding spec, and all warlocks in the top raiding guilds were using it. But now I hardly see any affliction warlocks anymore in those guilds and the lock spec of choice has become demonology.
    Locks in top guilds spec/glyph/gem/reforge differently per boss. If you're seeing them on demo then there's a very good chance it will be the best setup for that match.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by gbtg View Post
    why would you go hitcap? you got any good argument that beats simcraft saying hit sucks? you do know you can even adjust simcraft to act like a totally bad player and hit still comes out behind?
    At the risk of turning this into an affliction hit cap debate, simcraft is a robot. Being a bad player and having a bad streak of misses are 2 completely different things. The thing people fail to realize is that these sims run from 100-50k boss fights in a matter of minutes. For you to have the minimum data points necessary to gauge your DPS vs this simulation, it would take you almost 2 years of running the same boss fight weekly if you downed him the first try every try, or if you are like most progression guilds and spend a few weeks at 10+ attempts on a harder boss it might take you less time, but lets just say for arguments sake you have a Warlock who has 2 sets of the same ilvl 490 gear, one with 15% hit, and one with 8.5%.

    The 8.5% hit gear:
    Minimum DPS (50k iterations): 91.5k DPS, with an average of 98.8k DPS, and a max of 107.9k DPS

    The 15% hit gear:
    Minimum DPS (50k iterations): 92.4k DPS, with an average of 98.5k DPS with a max of 106.6k DPS

    On both sides of the scale, both min and max the difference is about 1k dps. The average difference is about 300 DPS. But if you will notice, the minimum DPS this Warlock will do according to simcraft hit capped is higher then the minimum he can do with 8.5% hit. It would be nice though if simcraft did put out the number of times you hit the minimum side of the scale vs the maximum side of the scale rather then the very vague graph they use.

    I am not saying you are wrong for thinking that going with simcrafts numbers are right, I am just saying that personally I wouldn't blindly follow simcraft without looking at all of my gearing options and weighing the benefits. In the end it is going to greatly depend on the player what side of the scale he pulls. Personally for me, if I was affliction I would be hit capped, not because hit cap is better and it will maximize my DPS, but because I am not comfortable with the rotation and I wouldn't be expecting a miss and probably wouldn't react quickly enough to maximize my DPS rotation.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    you are completely right, whydrood, while hit is simmed lower than haste and mastery in general what ppl forget is that it is nothing more than a simulation where the best conditions are met, meaning that you refresh dots instantly after a miss, and unless you have reaction times faster than a human being(which is an impossibility) is capable of, hitcap will ultimately benefit you more. i personally prefer to get as close to hitcap that i can without reforging into hit while maintaining my haste thresholds as afflic and then maximize my mastery which i mainly mainly do through gemming and reforging. i have 19,4k sp, 58,3% mastery, 4717 haste and 9,2% crit with 13,76% hit(nothing reforged into hit) and that is pretty much the optimal stats for me and that is what it is all about, you have some guidelines you can follow and then reforge/gem accordingly and get the stats you prefer, just coz something has been simmed superior doesmnt mean that it is superior in an actual encounter as the encounters simmed are generally very static in nature where as actual encounters are dynamic in nature which makes a huge difference.

    on topic: it differs a lot actually, the highest single target spec current is afflic with demo rather far behind(10-12k dps) but it basically comes down to the encounter. on some afflic is best, on others demo is best. you say you dont see many affliclocks which is just the opposite of me, i dont see that many demo locks. in raiding guilds the locks tend to spec back and forth between demo and afflic depending on fights, im sure if you use armory on them you'll see that they have both specs, so in general it all comes down to the encounters.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by almara2512 View Post
    with 13,76% hit(nothing reforged into hit) and that is pretty much the optimal stats for me and that is what it is all about
    except you're wrong. you're wasting stats by being between hit caps. it makes no sense whatsoever if not backed up by the software you're bashing (simcraft).

    Quote Originally Posted by Rochana View Post
    I've watched through lots of raidlogs and very often I notice that if there are fights where spriests perform bad on that the affliction warlocks won't perform very well either, if there's a fight fire mages perform good on demonology warlocks perform good too.
    this is also wrong. affliction is good on most fights and only get beaten on fights where mages can get insane combustions due to gimmicky mechanics aka logs noone care about. demo is also good on most fights except some where affliction is far ahead.

  13. #13
    1) Don't go "half hit cap," either full hit cap or full on don't.
    2) Demonology warlock plays very, very different from fire mage.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bonkura View Post
    except you're wrong. you're wasting stats by being between hit caps. it makes no sense whatsoever if not backed up by the software you're bashing (simcraft).
    im not bashing simcraft, im just saying that ppl are mindlessly following it like what it spits out, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. its those ppl that im bashing, not the software in itself, the software brings you guidelines, not whole truths. thing is tho the way i have gemmed/reforged is the way i prefer, ill still go after hitcap anyway i can provided i can get it through gear but i wont reforge for it, unless it under the area that i have set, if it is, then and only then will i reforge for it. also nice to take take 1 sentence and put it way out of context btw
    Last edited by mmoca748dddcc2; 2012-11-13 at 12:17 AM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by almara2512 View Post
    im not bashing simcraft, im just saying that ppl are mindlessly following it like what it spits out, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. its those ppl that im bashing, not the software in itself, the software brings you guidelines, not whole truths. thing is tho, its what i prefer, ill still go after hitcap anyway i can provided i can get it through gear but i wont reforge for it, unless it under the area that i have set, if it is, then and only then will i reforge for it. also nice to take take 1 sentence and put it way out of context btw
    if you consider it out of context you shouldn't spit out such statements. you're free to do whatever you want with your gear but what you're doing is not better than the guidelines provided by simcraft that most other people follow.

  16. #16
    I wouldn't say demo plays like fire mage. Demo can't cleave damage like a mage can (dot spreading) also, fire mages aren't the boss at aoe anymore. Their full damage aoe has been limited to 3 targets, this is what makes them better for cleave fights. Mage can have all dots active on 3 targets and demo can at most do corruption, shadow flame, doom. Which don't hit all that hard since demo has more dps from nukes.

    Back in cata though fire mages were absolutely insane at aoe when they spread combustion on everything.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Bonkura View Post
    if you consider it out of context you shouldn't spit out such statements. you're free to do whatever you want with your gear but what you're doing is not better than the guidelines provided by simcraft that most other people follow.
    well he did take a small sentence i wrote and used to as an arguement that i was bashing simcraft when what im advocating is to use simcraft as basis(as no human can play like a machine) to set up a guideline or strategy for you to follow when it comes to gemming, gearing and reforging which is how ive always used simcraft and not just mindlessly following, gemming, gearing and reforging stuff just coz a program says so.

  18. #18
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    Let's let the debate on how to use Simcraft rest or discuss it in another thread and stick to the topic of this thread wether Affliction or Demo is the spec to be at the moment and why.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Rochana View Post
    Overall I don't like the shoe-horning that is happening either... Demonology is only a tiny bit behind on affliction, just is harder to play. Doesn't warrant everyone going around saying you -should- be demonology.
    that's subjective though. I personally believe demo is easier because it's more forgiving than affli as long as you're following the basics of lining up procs/cds for your meta. also it's very mechanic based just like fire mage. most fights this tier where demo has been "better" than affli is when certain burst (mainly AoE) is needed. feng is a great example of this. same goes for spirit kings and to some degree wind lord in HoF. most of the times avoiding enrage on the boss has to do with mechanics over actual overall dps output. for something like 1/5 fights you'll have to go demo to help score a kill but for parsing affli is most likely still gonna be better.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Rochana View Post
    Overall I don't like the shoe-horning that is happening either...
    Welcome to being a warlock. The last time we weren't shoe-horned, every spec was equally bad (Dragon Soul).

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