[Legion] Terryn's guide to Affliction Warlock

[Deleted]

So whats the perfect play with 4p T21 on Single Target? Maintaining 1 UA all the Time and drain ? Im kinda lost right now.

[Biomega]

So whats the perfect play with 4p T21 on Single Target? Maintaining 1 UA all the Time and drain ? Im kinda lost right now.

Check the Rotation section at Lock One Stop Shop.

[SpikeySquad]

So whats the perfect play with 4p T21 on Single Target? Maintaining 1 UA all the Time and drain ? Im kinda lost right now.

With MG the answer is always clean drain cycles.

With WiA you take into account Contagion and 4 piece uptime.

[Caprix]

Check the Rotation section at Lock One Stop Shop.

That was a nice start point for me. One thing not indicated there though, how do you handle the legendary belt (i don't have a better alternative yet), especially on single target.
Because in a lot of case, the 2p t21 or some traits refreshes/extends UA. Let's say you're not going to overcap shards right now, but have one to spend, 4p buff is going to fade, but UA on target still have some uptime.

- If you spend it right now, you keep the 4pt21 buff running, but you miss an opportunity to get a belt proc (so 25% of an UA damage on average+some contagion uptime due to more shard on average if talented)

- Of course if you're MG specced i guess the belt is just another incentive to keep draining (25% from all dots including UAs is more than 15% on agony/corruption/siphon only (4p)+25% of an UA (belt)) as long as all dots including UA are up and you're not going to cap? So the belt is kinda bad for MG then?

- If not MG specced that's 25% of an UA (playing with belt proc) vs 15% on agony/corruption/siphon during... well it depends. So here i guess the choice (refreshing 4p buff or not when UA is already running on target) depends on the planned downtime on the buff. At which point should i decide "fuck the belt" and cast an UA?

[kpii]

hey guys, if im running contagion do i dump my UA's during soul harvest or try to keep shards to maintain uptime of overall UA outside of buffs?

[muto]

hey guys, if im running contagion do i dump my UA's during soul harvest or try to keep shards to maintain uptime of overall UA outside of buffs?

Maintain Contagion. Spread your UAs out and never cap Shards.

[Deleted]

I need a weakaura for Death's embrace.. Does anyone have time to link yours or making me one please?

[Biomega]

I need a weakaura for Death's embrace.. Does anyone have time to link yours or making me one please?

I'm sure wago has some. But what do you want it for, if I may ask? It's not like some specific number would change what you do. I'm a firm believer in only tracking information actually modifying your behavior. If it's just something that happens passively and you continue business as usual, why distract yourself? There's enough to keep in mind as it is.

[Deleted]

I'm sure wago has some. But what do you want it for, if I may ask? It's not like some specific number would change what you do. I'm a firm believer in only tracking information actually modifying your behavior. If it's just something that happens passively and you continue business as usual, why distract yourself? There's enough to keep in mind as it is.

You can track Deaths Embrace percentage, some people prefer a visual to burst out cds at high percentage to gain most out of their execute.

[Biomega]

You can track Deaths Embrace percentage, some people prefer a visual to burst out cds at high percentage to gain most out of their execute.

But what do you need the actual number for? Surely the way to optimize is to hold off on anything you can blow until the very last second; ideally all your burst would expire the moment the boss dies. Knowing if DE is at 35% or 37% isn't going to determine that, boss HP% is.

[Deleted]

But what do you need the actual number for? Surely the way to optimize is to hold off on anything you can blow until the very last second; ideally all your burst would expire the moment the boss dies. Knowing if DE is at 35% or 37% isn't going to determine that, boss HP% is.

Instead of using cooldowns at 30% you could save them up for 40% DE, thats what you use the number for, its an indicator of how much damage increase percent wise you have compared to the less hp the boss has. its different from fight to fight, the more MAX HP the boss has the longer the execution phase. If the boss is going down so fast that when you pop your cds at 40% DE, that your soul harvest wont maintain its full duration, perhaps you should use it sooner, and vice versa.

People use it so they can push their dps to the limits, some people prefer using a visual indicator, some do not.

"Knowing if DE at 35 or 37% isnt going to determine that, boss hp% is"

DE is fixed percent compared to bossHp percentage, so it is at the same amount of BossHP% you gain the extra % dmg.

50%/35% gives a total of 1,42 % damage increase per 1 % boss is declining in hp. That means if the boss is at 10% hp you have a total of 35%-10% difference = 25% * 1,42% =35,5% damage increase, which does not change. Only the maximum hp of the boss changes which gives us longer execute phase we can stay in.

[Biomega]

DE is fixed percent compared to bossHp percentage, so it is at the same amount of % you gain the extra % dmg.

That's basically what I'm saying. You don't need to convert DE numbers because you already have boss %HP, which is useful to track for all sorts of reasons (phase transitions, whatever). I'm glad you agree that tracking DE numerical values is superfluous.

[Deleted]

That's basically what I'm saying. You don't need to convert DE numbers because you already have boss %HP, which is useful to track for all sorts of reasons (phase transitions, whatever). I'm glad you agree that tracking DE numerical values is superfluous.

Thats not what i understood from reading your reply, it seemed like you compared the percentage different from boss to boss. My bad.

but again its all about the visual aid for some people.

[Deleted]

I lost the link but a more useful WA would be the estimated "Time to die" of the boss used be SP priest at the beginning of Legion.
It would give you a better information of when to use your cd.

[sappete]

Confused about the stat weights. I simmed different gear sets, and keep seeing crit above Mastery. Does that make sense ?
947 ilvl 4p T21 / hood / belt.
26% crit
26% haste
100% mastery

stat weights come out to
Haste 39.19
Crit 37.57
Mastery 36.88
Vers 30.41
Int 20.39

[Kirroth]

Confused about the stat weights. I simmed different gear sets, and keep seeing crit above Mastery. Does that make sense ?

It can. Mastery starts sliding into diminishing returns past 100%. Slowly, so there's no hard cap or soft cap, but if you're really trying to optimize your stat balance it shows up. Meanwhile Crit can be surprisingly valuable for Afflic, especially if you have a couple extra Perdition ranks from relics.

If you're getting extra crit chance from Winnowing and Inherently Unstable, and extra crit damage from Perdition, and extra ranks of Perdition from your relics that are then doubled by Reap Souls... that all adds up to make Crit pretty good for the spec, even if you don't have any core abilities that focus on it.

[sappete]

It can. Mastery starts sliding into diminishing returns past 100%. Slowly, so there's no hard cap or soft cap, but if you're really trying to optimize your stat balance it shows up. Meanwhile Crit can be surprisingly valuable for Afflic, especially if you have a couple extra Perdition ranks from relics.

If you're getting extra crit chance from Winnowing and Inherently Unstable, and extra crit damage from Perdition, and extra ranks of Perdition from your relics that are then doubled by Reap Souls... that all adds up to make Crit pretty good for the spec, even if you don't have any core abilities that focus on it.

Thanks, makes sense. Appreciate the explanation !

[Biomega]

It's also important to differentiate between single target and multi target, as Mastery is (obviously) much much stronger with multiple targets, but a fairly mediocre single-target stat.

[Kirroth]

Thanks, makes sense. Appreciate the explanation !

No problem. As of this expansion I'm a convert to using Simcraft and the Simpermut addon to test different gear sets against each other. A lot of this stuff isn't obvious, and general guides may not always apply to your specific circumstances.

For example, I'm not using my "best" two legendaries. I'm not even using the second or third best legendary to go with the Hood. Why? Because due to my available swap pieces and their titanforge levels, if I were to change legendary items while preserving my tier 4pc I'd lose both overall item level and about 10% crit. Even with a better legendary choice those losses sim as a DPS loss. That's because the performance difference between the top four or five legendary options is pretty narrow and all three of my relics have Perdition traits, so Crit is really good for me.

General guides are good for getting started, or if you're doing forgiving content and just don't need to maximize your performance that highly. But if you want to really reach your full potential you need to start testing for your specific situation.

[SpikeySquad]

Mastery by itself doesn't actually have diminishing returns. The issue is more is you lose the balance if you "over stack" it compared to the other stats.