Many Affliction Locks using Drain Life as Filler?

[Ekkoeu]

Respecced to Affliction and am wondering how many people are using drain life as a filler over SB as all the guides I've read say to use SB's. Not sure whether I should therefore respec or not. I know 4.1 sims drain life afflictions locks as doing the most dps.

Ek

[Corgrash]

I use drain life simply because I find it more enjoyable. The DPS difference is so small its not really much cause for concern.
I also prefer having my Felhunter over the succubus since it has a purge and a spell-lock.

You will also find healers will start making love with you during fights because you heal yourself alot.

http://wowtal.com/#k=1zgw_Ujt.ala.warlock.XtaGV
thts the talents I use

[Blazefury5]

I use drain life simply because I find it more enjoyable. The DPS difference is so small its not really much cause for concern.
I also prefer having my Felhunter over the succubus since it has a purge and a spell-lock.

You will also find healers will start making love with you during fights because you heal yourself alot.

http://wowtal.com/#k=1zgw_Ujt.ala.warlock.XtaGV
thts the talents I use

I don't understand, you say all this which I agree with but then you spec into an ability that requires you to shadowbolt to give your group 5% crit. So you must at one point cast SB to make this talent used which helps the group and yourself a lot more?

[Ekkoeu]

I use drain life simply because I find it more enjoyable. The DPS difference is so small its not really much cause for concern.
I also prefer having my Felhunter over the succubus since it has a purge and a spell-lock.

You will also find healers will start making love with you during fights because you heal yourself alot.

http://wowtal.com/#k=1zgw_Ujt.ala.warlock.XtaGV
thts the talents I use

I enjoy it more also :P dunno why ! Another problem I've had in using my Felhunter is it spell locks on CD for some reason instead of being something I can pop when I need too, any ideas?

[Deleted]

As far as I remember, Drain Life filler is only better if your a robot with 0 latency. Human error, bad reaction times and latency will cause DL filler to fall behind.

[Corgrash]

I don't understand, you say all this which I agree with but then you spec into an ability that requires you to shadowbolt to give your group 5% crit. So you must at one point cast SB to make this talent used which helps the group and yourself a lot more?

Its not the spell crit bonus I picked it for its the 12% increased shadow bolt dmg which comes in handy when you get shadow trance procs letting you cast an instant shadow bolt.

[Cracka_Bob]

theres 3 ways to go about this...

stack haste/crit and use SB as a filler

stack mastery and use DL as a filler

balance both and use DL after 25%

someone correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't played afflic in a while

[Corgrash]

I enjoy it more also :P dunno why ! Another problem I've had in using my Felhunter is it spell locks on CD for some reason instead of being something I can pop when I need too, any ideas?

Turn the ability off of passive. You can tell if its on passive by looking for a yellow/white border swirling around the spells icon. Whilst on passive, the felhunter will just use it willy nilly on casting enemies rather than when you particularly choose to. I personaly keybind it to middle click.

[Veriu]

theres 3 ways to go about this...

stack haste/crit and use SB as a filler

stack mastery and use DL as a filler

balance both and use DL after 25%

someone correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't played afflic in a while

SB filler is haste>crit>mastery
DL filler is haste>crit>mastery (but mastery is slightly better)

and no, never use DL below 25%...use drain soul below 25%, for both sides.

[Corgrash]

theres 3 ways to go about this...

stack haste/crit and use SB as a filler

stack mastery and use DL as a filler

balance both and use DL after 25%

someone correct me if I'm wrong since I haven't played afflic in a while

I personaly stack Hitcap>int>haste>mastery>crit.
Though if I was going to be really smart about it, I would get my haste levels to the largest amount of ticks per DoT and then with any remaining stats go for mastery.

---------- Post added 2011-03-26 at 01:59 AM ----------

I should also add that its probably best that you get some way of seeing when each dot (inc drain life/soul) ticks such as fortexorcists spell timers. That way you can really nail taking advantage of your spells and keeping DPS to a maximum.

[Cracka_Bob]

SB filler is haste>crit>mastery
DL filler is haste>crit>mastery (but mastery is slightly better)

and no, never use DL below 25%...use drain soul below 25%, for both sides.

oops forgot about drain soul... sorry got it mixed up...

[Ekkoeu]

Turn the ability off of passive. You can tell if its on passive by looking for a yellow/white border swirling around the spells icon. Whilst on passive, the felhunter will just use it willy nilly on casting enemies rather than when you particularly choose to. I personaly keybind it to middle click.

This worked, thank you

[vkei]

with my understanding , mastery always the last choice of a lock

[SLhyphy]

I don't understand, you say all this which I agree with but then you spec into an ability that requires you to shadowbolt to give your group 5% crit. So you must at one point cast SB to make this talent used which helps the group and yourself a lot more?

Yeah, because he's smart? You use DL primarily and SB only to keep the buff up and on nightfall procs. 5% crit helps a lotttttt.

[Seclorum]

If you have a fire mage you dont even need to keep the buff up for your raid.

Also you dont have to keep the buff up constantly either. Its applied whenever you use a nightfall proc (Instant shadowbolt) and Drain gives more nightfall procs.

Also the latency affect isnt as terrible as people seem to think it is. To execute any afflic spec you need a drain soul tick timer so you can clip your DS after a tick when you have to recast haunt/bane. So you apply the same methodology to DL and know what situations require you to clip after the 2nd tick and which do not. Its not as faceroll as just spamming the cast button until your spell starts casting which means, sudder to think, you actually need to work a little for your damage.

Sbolt and Drain are both valid ways to play afflic but drain will offer better mana management, more interesting rotation, and happier healers over the same old sbolt spec we have had since 4.0

[HatsHatsHats]

If you have a fire mage you dont even need to keep the buff up for your raid.
Also the latency affect isnt as terrible as people seem to think it is. To execute any afflic spec you need a drain soul tick timer so you can clip your DS after a tick when you have to recast haunt/bane.

You don't need a timer, I just watch the UA duration because it refreshes after a tick of drain soul

[Deleted]

with my understanding , mastery always the last choice of a lock

With 359+ish gear as demo, Mastery starts becoming the best stat as demo. In 4.1, Mastery is even stronger.

---------- Post added 2011-03-26 at 08:36 AM ----------

As far as I remember, Drain Life filler is only better if your a robot with 0 latency. Human error, bad reaction times and latency will cause DL filler to fall behind.

Actually, AffDrain seem to be fairly latency friendly. Reports suggest that as long as you dont clip a DL tick with more than 0.4-0.5 sec, DL will overtake SB as your filler.

[Jenerena]

I'll have to shadow bolt every 30 secs to keep shadow and flame up since I'm the only one providing this to my group. I guess the DL spec still comes ahead if I do this and DL otherwise. But I'd have to take the talent.

To be honest I'll probably stick to SB spam until I get more comfortable with it. It's been a while since I've played affliction at a serious level.

[Corgrash]

with my understanding , mastery always the last choice of a lock

Maybe with using shadow bolt. But Drain Life counts as a shadow DoT aswell so scales with mastery.

---------- Post added 2011-03-26 at 01:30 PM ----------

I'll have to shadow bolt every 30 secs to keep shadow and flame up since I'm the only one providing this to my group. I guess the DL spec still comes ahead if I do this and DL otherwise. But I'd have to take the talent.

To be honest I'll probably stick to SB spam until I get more comfortable with it. It's been a while since I've played affliction at a serious level.

It would be more of a DPS loss atm to keep shadow and flame up if youre the only one in your group that can provide it. Atm the SB filler and the DL arent too far off eachother in DPS, I personaly like this as it gives us a choice in how we play the spec, makes it feel a bit more special.

[Raugnaut]

I personally dont see why everyone is saying that latency matters in a DL rotation. Since you can clip your channels/dots now, if you continuasly spamed DL after the first tick, you would still do the same amount of DPCT, since it would continuasly tick. I can see mana cost being an issue, though, but with the next patch, with Felhunter's Shadowbite restoring 16% mana, along with it doing a crap ton of damage, i can see DL coming ahead.

---------- Post added 2011-03-26 at 01:55 PM ----------

Maybe with using shadow bolt. But Drain Life counts as a shadow DoT aswell so scales with mastery.[COLOR="red"]
It would be more of a DPS loss atm to keep shadow and flame up if youre the only one in your group that can provide it. Atm the SB filler and the DL arent too far off eachother in DPS, I personaly like this as it gives us a choice in how we play the spec, makes it feel a bit more special.

As was stated here, if you use DL as a filler, mastery affects ALL your damage. Essentially, 1 point of mastery = 1.63 dps. And since mastery has a cheaper stat budget then Crit, it can be worth stacking it over crit.

And for the crit buff, you maintain it with Shadow Trance procs. It procs very, very often with DL.