Affliction 5.4 pre-release guide

[Deleted]

With all these non-stop ptr affliction changes I'm quite lost.
Would someone care to write a small guide for the beginning of 5.4? Here a suggested ToC:

A. T6 talents
B. Glyphs
C. Stat priorities
D. Pet & grimoire choices
E. Action Priority List single target
F. Action Priority List multiple targets
G. Starting rotation
H. Drain life & Harvest Life, yay or nay?
I. Miscellaneous tips


A. T6 talents
Archimonde's Darkness
Your Dark Soul spells have two charges.
When to use in T16 raid:



Kil'jaeden's Cunning
You can cast Malefic Grasp, Incinerate and Shadow Bolt while moving.
When to use in T16 raid:

Mannoroth's Fury
Increases the area of your area of effect by 500% and damage by 100% of your Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura and Rain of Fire for 10 sec.
1 minute cooldown
When to use in T16 raid:


B. Glyphs




C. Stat priorities
Haste > Mastery > Crit ?

D.Grimoire choices
Is GoSac (+20% instead of +30%) still interesting?

E. Action Priority List single target

F. Action Priority List multiple targets

G. Starting rotation

H. Drain life & Harvest Life, yay or nay?

I. Miscellaneous tips
- Best trinkets 5.4:
- Best starting trinket T15
- Are T15 522 trinkets still Worth it?

[Deleted]

I'm sure the current guides will be updated to reflect the 5.4 changes soon enough.

[Grizelda]

Do we really need a pre release guide for the next 5 days?

[EvreliaGaming]

I'm sure the current guides will be updated to reflect the 5.4 changes soon enough.

^

Patience young padawan.

[Destroyed]

Haste > Mastery > Crit ?

I can tell you this is wrong, mastery>haste breakpoint> crit > haste for my observations. Regardless with the changes mastery will be above haste this tier

[Kalmah]

mastery>haste breakpoint> crit > haste

Crit being worth more than haste at any point ? I doubt it.

[Destroyed]

due to our t16 2 piece and amp trinket increasing crit dmg, yes

also haste being nerfed for aff locks, yes

[Keldion]

due to our t16 2 piece and amp trinket increasing crit dmg, yes

also haste being nerfed for aff locks, yes

Your logic is flawed. The 2pc T16 bonus has a high uptime even without a fixation upon critical strike rating; Affliction generates a high number of Unstable Affliction damage events within a ten second period.

Haste also has a direct effect on Haunt uptime through shard generation, while crit has no other mechanical interactions with Affliction and is diluted by the high amounts of intellect found on our raiding gear.

[Caides]

Your logic is flawed. The 2pc T16 bonus has a high uptime even without a fixation upon critical strike rating; Affliction generates a high number of Unstable Affliction damage events within a ten second period.

Haste also has a direct effect on Haunt uptime through shard generation, while crit has no other mechanical interactions with Affliction and is diluted by the high amounts of intellect found on our raiding gear.

Pretty much this. Besides, isn't the general consensus KTT will likely be better than Bindings? Atleast for a little while. If you plan on playing the other 2 specs at any point, it may not be a bad idea to go for it since AFAIK it's BiS for the other 2 and the difference between KTT and Bindings is marginal anyway for Aff.

[Woz]

All I'm sayin' is I hope people read a few of the other 5.4 threads before just waiting to be hand-held with a spec guide that probably won't have the information that they are really looking.

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty much this. Besides, isn't the general consensus KTT will likely be better than Bindings? Atleast for a little while. If you plan on playing the other 2 specs at any point, it may not be a bad idea to go for it since AFAIK it's BiS for the other 2 and the difference between KTT and Bindings is marginal anyway for Aff.

I'm about 75% sure KTT will be better for progression than Bindings. But for a "BiS" setup, Bindings will be much better.

[JV Chequer]

due to our t16 2 piece and amp trinket increasing crit dmg, yes

also haste being nerfed for aff locks, yes

MG and DS makes Haste good for affliction even after certain BP, that`s why it was so close of mastery at 5.0 and that`s why it will remain close at mastery in 5.4

[Destroyed]

MG and DS makes Haste good for affliction even after certain BP, that`s why it was so close of mastery at 5.0 and that`s why it will remain close at mastery in 5.4

nerf to mg/ds dot ticks and increase dot damage will make mastery more useful than haste this tier, also the nerf to haste effecting rppms.

[EvreliaGaming]

All I'm sayin' is I hope people read a few of the other 5.4 threads before just waiting to be hand-held with a spec guide that probably won't have the information that they are really looking.

The whole point of a spec guide is to compile the information so that people don't have to trawl through dozens of pages of discussions without coming to any verifiable conclusion. Not everyone has time to spend hours reading through 40 pages of discussion.

[JV Chequer]

nerf to mg/ds dot ticks and increase dot damage will make mastery more useful than haste this tier, also the nerf to haste effecting rppms.

Even with MG/DS nerf, Dots buffs and RPPM change, haste still pretty decent, WAAAAY better than crit.

But yes, mastery is totally better than haste, even in single target, but breakpoints are still desirable, it totally worth the loss of small percentage of mastery for one more tick of one or two dots.

[Woz]

The whole point of a spec guide is to compile the information so that people don't have to trawl through dozens of pages of discussions without coming to any verifiable conclusion. Not everyone has time to spend hours reading through 40 pages of discussion.

I'm aware of this but sometimes not all the information is available in that post all things considered you have missed on some things before.

[Deleted]

nerf to mg/ds dot ticks and increase dot damage will make mastery more useful than haste this tier, also the nerf to haste effecting rppms.

well keep in mind that the buffs to our dots pretty much offsets the MG/DS dot tick nerf and with us now stacking mastery the difference is neglicable if not a slight increase in dmg from MG/DS dot ticks and the the nerf to haste scaling rppm while noticable, was never the reason why we stacked haste in 5.3 as the gain is very very small, but i agree mastery will prolly be better but you'd still want to stack atleast enough haste for the 9778 and prolly also for the 13737 if you can do that without loosing too much mastery.

[Deleted]

well keep in mind that the buffs to our dots pretty much offsets the MG/DS dot tick nerf and with us now stacking mastery the difference is neglicable if not a slight increase in dmg from MG/DS dot ticks and the the nerf to haste scaling rppm while noticable, was never the reason why we stacked haste in 5.3 as the gain is very very small, but i agree mastery will prolly be better but you'd still want to stack atleast enough haste for the 9778 and prolly also for the 13737 if you can do that without loosing too much mastery.

A fact that many people don't talk about, is that haste and mastery scale with each other. This means while mastery could be the best stat ever, way above haste, there would still be a point where haste would be more beneficial to stack.

Without having any sims to back it up, and with the stat weight being shifted even more in the favour of mastery - I still think the 13737 breakpoint is worth reaching, while mainting high mastery.

With Immerseus trinket, and heroic SoO gear, you should be able to get very high stat ratings, especially since there is next to no crit on bis gear.

[Deleted]

A fact that many people don't talk about, is that haste and mastery scale with each other. This means while mastery could be the best stat ever, way above haste, there would still be a point where haste would be more beneficial to stack.

Without having any sims to back it up, and with the stat weight being shifted even more in the favour of mastery - I still think the 13737 breakpoint is worth reaching, while mainting high mastery.

With Immerseus trinket, and heroic SoO gear, you should be able to get very high stat ratings, especially since there is next to no crit on bis gear.

the question is if its more beneficial to stay at the 9778 BP and stack mastery to around 17,6k in ilvl 561 unbuffed or if its better to go for the 13737 BP and have around 14k mastery unbuffed(if my calculations with stats is correct which is basically just gem haste instead of mastery with the gearsetup ive used) bcoz both stats scale synergistically it might be more beneficial to have both stats very close to each other.

[Cyberthug32]

I have seen better numbers with 9778 over 13737 on testing on ptr

[Werst]

The question isn't what we should aim for at ~540-550ilvl (coming raw from 5.3) but when we get in mostly 5.4 gear during the crux of progression. The extra 10-15ilvls (depending on how much warforged, heroic off early bosses, etc) between 550'ish bis of 5.3 and the 560+ of that approx. ballpark is the better question. That one will probably vary on a fight to fight basis.

I think its pretty safe to say starting the tier at 9778 > mastery is the smart move...its just when you make the jump to the 13K ballpark which is going to be defined on a more individual basis since we all know that despite coins and such RNG is a cruel wench.