question about affliction rotation

[HorrorCosmic]

I have a few questions about the rotation i can't seem to find answers too. I've look through icy veins and the sticky guides on here but there's a few small things i believe i'm missing.

With Contagion i understand your goal is to keep UA up as much as possible. The problem i'm running into is my initial UA expires a few seconds right after a drain soul channel. So do i reapply UA and drain soul again or is there a better method?

here's what i'm seeing.

apply my dot's, reap, UA, UA, drain soul, as soon as drain soul is done I recast UA, drain soul, refresh dots + UA, drain soul, cast reap if i have 2-4 stacks.

It seems like i'm spending less time channeling DS than i should be.

And then some of the guides say to only cast reap when you have 2 shards for UA so i'm assuming to stack 2+ UA's but i barely have that many available while trying to keep 100% upkeep on UA, so am i replacing UA stacking with just 2 consistent application?

[SpikeySquad]

I have a few questions about the rotation i can't seem to find answers too. I've look through icy veins and the sticky guides on here but there's a few small things i believe i'm missing.

With Contagion i understand your goal is to keep UA up as much as possible. The problem i'm running into is my initial UA expires a few seconds right after a drain soul channel. So do i reapply UA and drain soul again or is there a better method?

here's what i'm seeing.

apply my dot's, reap, UA, UA, drain soul, as soon as drain soul is done I recast UA, drain soul, refresh dots + UA, drain soul, cast reap if i have 2-4 stacks.

It seems like i'm spending less time channeling DS than i should be.

And then some of the guides say to only cast reap when you have 2 shards for UA so i'm assuming to stack 2+ UA's but i barely have that many available while trying to keep 100% upkeep on UA, so am i replacing UA stacking with just 2 consistent application?

Assuming you are using MG then forget UA uptime even with Contagion. You want clean drain cycles so you can be fully draining your UAs.

This channel should help guide you. I'd suggest to look at Malefic Grasp for beginners to start and then perhaps the Fatal Echoes and Reap Soul usage.

[Cerinh]

I've look through icy veins

NEVER listen to Icy Veins, okay? They're not what they used to be.

apply my dot's, reap, UA, UA, drain soul, as soon as drain soul is done I recast UA, drain soul, refresh dots + UA, drain soul, cast reap if i have 2-4 stacks.

As a general rule of thumb, never channel drain soul to the end. Recast it after two ticks. You get more value out of it this way since the first tick is always instant.
Here's my rotation for you:
Agony, Corruption, Unstable Affliction, pop the souls from the Harvester, Drain Soul (2 ticks), Drain Soul (2 ticks), Pop more souls from the Harvester, Unstable Afflicton, Drain Soul (2 ticks), Corruption, Agony, Unstable Affliction, pop more souls, Drain Soul (2 ticks), ... and so on and so forth. I hope this helps you. =)

[Jellospally]

As a general rule of thumb, never channel drain soul to the end. Recast it after two ticks. You get more value out of it this way since the first tick is always instant.

Uh ya no it doesn't instant tick. That is just the left over time before next tick being almost 0 when you start a new one(old duration before a tick+30% of the channel is added to the start of the new one just like DoTs. There is no reason to do this.

[Gohzerlock]

Uh ya no it doesn't instant tick. That is just the left over time before next tick being almost 0 when you start a new one(old duration before a tick+30% of the channel is added to the start of the new one just like DoTs. There is no reason to do this.

Ironically there is a warlock tutorial video on youtube, forget by whom. The guy starts a new channel of drain soul after two ticks but only because the second channel after two ticks is around the remaining duration of two UAs, not because it's a mythical instant tick. Maybe thats why he started this practice under mistaken pretense.

Or, maybe he's just seeing compounding horror and mistaking it for a ua tick... who knows.

[Jellospally]

There is just literally no reason to recast drain until its almost gone and for the first 2 weeks of 7.2 it was a dps loss because it reverted the channel carry over mechanic and you just lost ticks(granted it was a bug due to blizzard using pre legion patch build cuz lolidiots).