Affliction mythic + gear set and talent question

[hatex]

Hello, I'm wanting to know what kind of gear sets, legendaries and talents you use for mythic + and when you swap to them.

[Stratcaster]

Gear: 4pc T20 or T21 + Arcano trinket
Talents: MG, AC, StS, SC
Legendaries: Sacrolash + Belt(PCoL) or Chest

[Deleted]

Depends on lvl of +mythic and which mythic instance + weekly affixes. Your tanks gear, your healers gear, your follow dps gear. There is no answear, join warlock community on discord and read what ppl have to say at the beggining of new weekly reset.

[Biomega]

Depends on lvl of +mythic and which mythic instance + weekly affixes. Your tanks gear, your healers gear, your follow dps gear. There is no answear, join warlock community on discord and read what ppl have to say at the beggining of new weekly reset.

Very much this.

If you want to play optimally, there is a ton of gear and talent options that you swap between depending on a number of factors.

[iru]

Sephuz/Chest/Prydaz/Helm
MG/Contag/Mortal Coil/Sow/Supremacy/SC

If you're going really high you need to probably equip Prydaz, otherwise any of the legendaries depending on which tier pieces you have. Also Writhe starts working if you're going really high keys on fortified weeks. For stats go haste and crit.

[SpikeySquad]

Have to say I disagree with a lot of the talent sets put forward but then I only run 15-19. I would never take MG for a start as it has very much reduced cleaving power, reduced target switching and you still have to drain to get full benefit. MG without Contagion is a not a good mix ever and STS with Contagion makes no sense in my opinion.

Main two builds I use are WiA-Cont-SH-DE with T21. Or for mass AoE WiA-ELT-STS-SC with T20.

As said before my choice also depends on affixes, group, dungeon and just personal preference.

Seeds I go Haste and Crit and try to drop all mastery. Dot build add back in some mastery but I still lean more towards Haste than I would in a raid.

Leggos on trash I usually wear Sephuz-Helm for a dot build and Sephuz-Chest for Seeds. I usually change to more ST ones on bosses and packs of 1-2. Swap in Prydaz when needed.

[iru]

The problem with Writhe is that it doesnt have time to stack at all if you're doing the weekly +15. Sure when you get to +18-20 on fortified then it starts to be a very good talent compared to Mg. This is obviously very group dependant, if you have a team with low aoe dps, then yeah sure writhe might do the job even at lower keys.

The thing with my build (MG/Contag/Mortal Coil/Sow/Supremacy/SC) is that you have very good aoe while still having very good single target for bosses, you're only changing SH to Sow. It obviously depends a lot on your group, but in my runs aoe is usually just spamming seeds (and maybe a couple of agonys for shards) while you keep most of the single target talents (mg+contag) for that sweet boss burst.

[SpikeySquad]

The problem with Writhe is that it doesnt have time to stack at all if you're doing the weekly +15. Sure when you get to +18-20 on fortified then it starts to be a very good talent compared to Mg. This is obviously very group dependant, if you have a team with low aoe dps, then yeah sure writhe might do the job even at lower keys.

The thing with my build (MG/Contag/Mortal Coil/Sow/Supremacy/SC) is that you have very good aoe while still having very good single target for bosses, you're only changing SH to Sow. It obviously depends a lot on your group, but in my runs aoe is usually just spamming seeds (and maybe a couple of agonys for shards) while you keep most of the single target talents (mg+contag) for that sweet boss burst.

I messed around a lot with sims and practice when I was trying to understand talents on short fights. I too used to take MG as yes I thought it was better, I totally disagree now.

WiA may not have time to stack but I don't feel I have enough time to drain properly either in dungeons. In the end sim wise the two talents are relatively close on Patchwerk ST so you move a little and add some adds sometimes you're already ahead with WiA in my experience or at least let's say not more than a few % behind?

On most trash if you have taken StS then you will be seeding so MG and Contagion are dead talents for so much of the dungeon. So here MG definitely loses out to WiA (yes assuming the mobs pass a 10 stack Agony but it's pretty rare for that not to happen except on packs that just explode). Contagion has no benefit on AoE so it loses out greatly to ELT on that sweet high damage.

In the end it depends on what your priorities are but if I have taken StS then it means I want AoE damage not ST and the gain of taking WiA and ELT on an AoE pack is crazyyyy. However, yes if you really find MG better for you have at it. Like I said I often take talents down to preference.

[Biomega]

WiA may not have time to stack but I don't feel I have enough time to drain properly either in dungeons. In the end sim wise the two talents are relatively close on Patchwerk ST so you move a little and add some adds sometimes you're already ahead with WiA in my experience or at least let's say not more than a few % behind?

On most trash if you have taken StS then you will be seeding so MG and Contagion are dead talents for so much of the dungeon. So here MG definitely loses out to WiA (yes assuming the mobs pass a 10 stack Agony but it's pretty rare for that not to happen except on packs that just explode). Contagion has no benefit on AoE so it loses out greatly to ELT on that sweet high damage.

In the end it depends on what your priorities are but if I have taken StS then it means I want AoE damage not ST and the gain of taking WiA and ELT on an AoE pack is crazyyyy. However, yes if you really find MG better for you have at it. Like I said I often take talents down to preference.

MG and WiA are reasonably close; close enough so that it's a real contender in M+ because it's much more movement-intensive than raid fights tend to be. Also, as you rightly remarked, there's often not that much Draining outside of boss fights, which further narrows the gap.

HOWEVER

If you're running with a group where things die very quickly and you rarely even go past 10 Agony stacks, then WiA is hardly even doing anything - MG might not be super good there either, but it's better than doing NOTHING (which is what WiA dies if everything does before 11+ stacks).

Adjust to your setup.

[Deleted]

WiA
ELT/Contagion
STS
Soul Conduit

This is going to be your cookiecutter specc.
For Neltharions Lair, Upper Kara and Darkheart Thicket you should consider Soul Harvest since there's barely any AoE in there. Especially for Tyrannical weeks.
For Seat and Lower kara I prefer to run AC instead of ELT/Contagion. AC is good for all bosses in seat and good on all bosses except maiden in Lower Kara.
I've been experimenting with AC + Soul Harvest for DHT and NL aswell. Easy to do 3 million total and you can try it out. StS is prefered if your group does massive pulls though.

Head + Belt/Prydaz for single target.
Head + Sephuz for 2-3 targets. Keep these legendaries for all trash if you're playing SH
Sephuz + Netherlord for 4+ targets(StS) with full crit + haste gear. I prefer 4p T21, way more consistent and you lose too much stats swapping to T20 imo.
Sephuz + Corruption when you're kiting(Usually AoE gear)

If you're running AC use Corruption ring + Head for almost all bosses and Ring + Sephuz for almost all trash.

[Biomega]

I think Soul Harvester + Sephuz deserves a mention for StS setups, it tends to outperform the Helm if you gear for good amounts of Haste/Crit.

[muto]

I think Soul Harvester + Sephuz deserves a mention for StS setups, it tends to outperform the Helm if you gear for good amounts of Haste/Crit.

The helm is only good in high keys. low keys everything dies too fast. I generally like Sephuz for Seed spam, and Prydaz for stats + shield. Higher keys Prydaz is almost a must along with Dark Pact. I'm talking 20+.

What talents you pick is all general to the affixes and dungeons. Affliction is very versatile so you kinda gotta use common sense when it comes to that. For example there's no trash in Upper compared to Black Rook Hold, so never pick Seeds in Upper. Pick PS or SH.

[Gaaz]

As was mentioned already multiple times, truly optimal legendary setup depends on your other gear, affixes and key level. That said, I do tend to use a general setup for all my runs in Mythic+. The one I am most comfortable with is Sacrolash + Soul. Prydaz is nice, but since I am not doing 25+, there is little consequence in not equipping it. Anything that can kill you in one strike in keys lower than that is a one shot mechanic anyways. You can raise overall DPS by changing Sacrolash for one of the power leggys or Sephuz, but having most mobs permanently slowed is a nice bonus, and he damage difference is not going to be stellar anyways. Execute from Soul is almost a must imo, far more valuable than anything indicated by pure damage numbers. You can swap it for another ring on Helya if you really need to push to the max though on that particular boss.

[MasterBash]

What Spikeyshadow said. However, I kinda hate the chest personally as I find it too much rng (procs at end of a pull when mobs are nearly dead, not proccing at all, lower shards regen...). Even on big pulls with StS, having agony on like 5 targets make me shard starved without the helm and obviously you need shards or else you wont be spamming much seeds. Chest will give you a higher peak if you get lucky but helm will most likely give you a higher average in the end.

WiA is better. Not only does it perform better when there is movement, its quite close on single target too. As soon as you add one more target (adds with some hp or whatever), WiA wins.

Sacrolash is good for the packs before the first boss in SoT.