Since the cookiecutter Affliction spec has no room for Fel Synergy..

[Inshabel]

How do you guys keep your puppy alive? I've only had the oppurtunity to try 4.1 Affliction on V&T normal, but my pet died 2-3 times on that fight. I was thinking to switch 1 point from Jinx to FS.

Edit: Need that point to advance to the next tier, so that was a silly idea.

[Tokens]

Depending on your haste levels, you can easily take out one point in Pandemic.

[Toxxie]

I was just looking at removing one in Pandemic or Dark Arts until I figure it out myself. I just set my offspec to Affliction last night, and it is much less forgiving than what I was running prior to 4.1....

[Falconys]

Since my other spec is Demo I dropped SB:SoC to pick up 1/2 Fel Synergy. If it's an AoE fight I won't be using Affliction anyway so it made sense to me to go that route.

[Inshabel]

Since my other spec is Demo I dropped SB:SoC to pick up 1/2 Fel Synergy. If it's an AoE fight I won't be using Affliction anyway so it made sense to me to go that route.

Hmm, that's a nice idea.

[Penguin FTW]

I was going to drop it from SB seed but there's no way I'm respeccing every time some kind of aoe is needed, so I dropped a point in pandemic and it's all good

[azazal]

ye either drop 1 point in pandemic or you go spec drain life filler and you get 2/2 fel synergy.

[Delia]

Yea, definitely had my felpuppy die twice during H Chimeron and had to soulburn summon him, prolly gonna swap my spec up to get Fel Syn.

[Falconys]

Yeah, Chimeron is a tough fight in Aff/SB because of the reliance on life tapping, which can be fatal. For that I actually use Demonology so I have full points in mana feed, demonic aegis, and fel synergy. I realize its (probably) a dps loss but the survivability helps a lot. Death=ZeroDPS. Aff/DL would still have a solid chance there though because of the raw healing for yourself and your pet, as well as having more time between life taps.

I can't speak to heroic mode, but I imagine it's no walk in the park.

[Penguin FTW]

With soul link your spec is irrelevant on Chimaeron, all 3 have at least some degree of self healing, but you really shouldn't fall under 10k most of the time anyway.

[Delia]

Yeah, Chimeron is a tough fight in Aff/SB because of the reliance on life tapping, which can be fatal. For that I actually use Demonology so I have full points in mana feed, demonic aegis, and fel synergy. I realize its (probably) a dps loss but the survivability helps a lot. Death=ZeroDPS. Aff/DL would still have a solid chance there though because of the raw healing for yourself and your pet, as well as having more time between life taps.

I can't speak to heroic mode, but I imagine it's no walk in the park.

Its easier than you'd think, you cant Life Tap during feud (for obvious reasons), and you cant Life Tap during P2 (immune to healing, constant DoT... bad things happen). Just have to LT after haunts, or drain life to get up to 30k life before using LT, very doable, DL spec likely would have worked better though, which is what I'm swapping to for next raid.

[Falconys]

Soul Link itself becomes irrelevant when your pet dies, and since Felhunters and Felguards will always be behind the boss they won't be getting much if any in the way of AoE heals. At least Imps and Succubi can be parked on the gather point for the offline phase. Yes, all warlock specs have significant self healing mechanics. Because we have self healing and life tap, our mana conservation is based on using them (not every spec can reach mana feed), which can be fatal if poorly timed or at the very least leave you oom for a few seconds more than you'd like.

Also, I don't know about anybody else, but I love the level of independance we have. We can easily compensate for damage that would kill a hunter or mage... and boomkin have to stop everything to heal themselves because healing spells cancel Moonkin form.

[Penguin FTW]

Your pet should never die, and you have 3 soul shards to get him back in a global if that somehow ever happens.

[Delia]

Your pet should never die, and you have 3 soul shards to get him back in a global if that somehow ever happens.

H Chim 10 man without any melee (except the 2 tanks and pseudo-tank), your felhunter will die as aff bolt spec (little to no splash heals cause no melee, no fel syn heals, and he's taking 25% of your damage). You can summon him back, but it is a DPS loss from him having to run back (or if you don't notice immediately, i have a power aura for it cause i used to forget my pet fairly often), pet not dying is always a DPS increase, whether you have a soul shard to resummon or not.

[Penguin FTW]

I admittedly know little of the 10 man aspect

[Deleted]

Dropping 1 point from pandemic is roughly 57dps.

[Penguin FTW]

I'll drop 57 simmed dps to keep my pet alive every time, that's not even a debate to me

[Deleted]

My point exatcly

And for ppl thinking 57dps is little, think of this:
(me for example)
I have 2292 haste unbuffed. That gives me a GCD of just over 1.18 sec. (also remember Eradication and BL(40 sec i know))
1.5 / ((1 + (2292 / 12805)) * 1.05 * 1.03) = 1.18 sec
I really hope I'm doing the next part correctly..
1/2 Pandemic gives an unbuffed GCD of 1.25 when using banes:
1.25 / ((1 + (2292 / 12805)) * 1.05 * 1.03) = 0.98 sec

So even with 1/2 in pandemic I'm hard capped when using Banes. So the second point in pandemic is "useless" since UA should NEVER drop anyway.

(Please correct my match if its incorrect)

[Entropic]

The cookiecutter spec for Affliction is DL Afflic, not SB. It should be 31/7/3, enough points for Fel Synergy.

[Honzi]

Since the patch I feel that my pet (also with hunter) is taking way more damage than before. It seems that the 90% aoe damage reduction for pets is not working properly again. Did anyone else make similar experiences?