Aff. Help to increase dps in key+

[Deleted]

Hi, I am kinda new to affliction lock. Switched from my arms warrior this evening and cleared heroic ToS. Luckily I got 4 set and I am now 925eq.

In key+ I tend to struggle on my dps. I have taken a few 10's and will be running a lot more. My current best dps was 900k overall in HoV +10. My preferred build for key+ is Malefic / contagion / Soul harvest / soul conduit. What I try to do is dot all targets up with agony + corruption, the I cast UA on them after and keep my dots up. But I am unsure if I should dot all targets up with UA or cast many on one and drain it while only keeping agony + corruption up on the other targets.

When I have all my dots running I reap and use Soul Harvest. On bosses I do okay.

I have one issue though. My legendaries are bad. I have 3 so far and it is feet, legs and trinket. I can only hope to get some of the nice ones soon

Do my talents and rotation on packs seem okay? Or are there some things I can do different to up my dps? I would really appreciate if you guys could give me some tricks to get me well started in maining an aff lock.

Last question is about stats and trinkets. Is it better to go for crit/haste gear so agony come to ten stacks fast on trash pulls because they die so fast or is it fine to run with mastery heavy gear? And regarding trinkets are there any aoe trinkets or other trinkets in general that is a must have. Right now my best trinkets are KJ burning wish, 885 whispers in the dark and 905 terror from below. I currently run with Kj+terror they sim slightly higher than Whispers and KJ gives a decent aoe burst.

Thanks in advance, Pay on Silvermoon EU.

[Melzan]

You mention on bosses you do okay. So I'll assume you're talking about trash packs when you mention your low dps.

I would say, based off nothing more than your talent setup, its to be expected.

If you wanted to do more trash dps on the higher mythics I would pick WiA over MG, and also probably take Sow the Seeds.

MG really doesn't support the spreading dot style as much as WiA allows, since the way the drain cycles work out with MG, you lose far too many globals to multidotting.

Of course this all depends on how many targets you're talking about, I assumed 3 or more.

The rotation you described is basically the multitarget rotation for Contagion/WiA build, which leaves very little room for channeling, therefore wasting the potential of your MG talent. When I'm running MG and forced to multidot, I tend to just throw a couple of agonys out for the shard regen.

[Arcrin]

go sow the seeds and spam that in all m+ dungeons except a few like upper kara with very little trash

other than that you seem fine, on tyrannical weeks i go MG for boss dmg and WiA for fortified other than that its pretty standard build

[SpikeySquad]

I've found 3 main builds that work the best for me. However, I am sure that others have their preferences.

The more single target one which you are doing. Though I would normally take PS as I find SH too long in dungeons.

Wia-Cont-PS-SC for multidottting fun, dot all the things.

MG-ELT-StS-SC for AoE lols.

As to which I choose it depends on the dungeon, affixes and group etc.

[Cheze]

I don't think WiA is really worth taking; it's a loss on bosses and priority/single trash mobs and doesn't really help you against short lived trash anyway. If you are using UA on trash (priority targets, or too few for seed) you should be dumping them into one and channeling MG at it.

If you want more aoe trash damage you can go ELT+Sow, but I don't think that's really a worthwhile choice in very many circumstances. Either trash will live long enough for the usual 'spread agony+corr' routine to work, or it won't and it's dead in seconds anyway. Maybe teeming weeks or something.

[Deleted]

Hi, I am kinda new to affliction lock. Switched from my arms warrior this evening and cleared heroic ToS. Luckily I got 4 set and I am now 925eq.

In key+ I tend to struggle on my dps. I have taken a few 10's and will be running a lot more. My current best dps was 900k overall in HoV +10. My preferred build for key+ is Malefic / contagion / Soul harvest / soul conduit. What I try to do is dot all targets up with agony + corruption, the I cast UA on them after and keep my dots up. But I am unsure if I should dot all targets up with UA or cast many on one and drain it while only keeping agony + corruption up on the other targets.

When I have all my dots running I reap and use Soul Harvest. On bosses I do okay.

I have one issue though. My legendaries are bad. I have 3 so far and it is feet, legs and trinket. I can only hope to get some of the nice ones soon

Do my talents and rotation on packs seem okay? Or are there some things I can do different to up my dps? I would really appreciate if you guys could give me some tricks to get me well started in maining an aff lock.

Last question is about stats and trinkets. Is it better to go for crit/haste gear so agony come to ten stacks fast on trash pulls because they die so fast or is it fine to run with mastery heavy gear? And regarding trinkets are there any aoe trinkets or other trinkets in general that is a must have. Right now my best trinkets are KJ burning wish, 885 whispers in the dark and 905 terror from below. I currently run with Kj+terror they sim slightly higher than Whispers and KJ gives a decent aoe burst.

Thanks in advance, Pay on Silvermoon EU.

You won't be doing much trash dps in 10+. These low keys are made for burst classes, which aff locks are not. When you get to the higher keys (15+ and higher), then it kind of depends on your group setup. If you have a warry/rogue (or both), then spec for boss damage (dark soul) as the other 2 will annihilate most of the trash anyway. Alternatively if you still want to help during trash, go Phantom S.. If you don't have warry/rogue then go Sow the Seeds. Especially on the higher keys, Aff lock can be really good at sustained AoE.

I would never switch away from MG/Cont because the little benefit you MIGHT have on trash doesn't outweigh the massive loss you will have on bosses.

I usually have a set with high haste/crit, Netherlord leggy and sephuz for most dungeons for trash (except things like kara or BRH where a lot of undead can not be feared (Mortal coil or howl), so for this probably either the slow ring or the regular Netherlord/Helm or Netherlord/Belt combo.

Before bosses I switch to a high mastery/haste set with Netherlord and Helm (or belt), sometimes also Netherlord and Chest. On the higher tyr keys, it's prydaz anyway with Netherlord.

This way, except for warry/rogue, I'm pretty competitive in dps and utility with all other classes.

[Tolian]

Personally I try to run a balanced build for M+: MG/AC(w/ Sac)/Seeds/SC. I suppose on fortified weeks WiA might be an upgrade on high level keys cuz the trash lives longer, but even then I prefer to keep MG so I have some single target oomph for boss fights. Overall DPS can vary pretty significantly based on the dungeon/affix/tank, but usually this build and my gear gets me in the 1.5M-2M range at that level key.
@Squashbuddy: If you're sub-1M overall, chances are (at 925 ilvl especially) you're doing it wrong. Give AC/Seeds a try for a few dungeons and see how it turns out.

[Deleted]

Tonight I have done a few 10's and my dps increased. I tried running MG and seeds and dumping all my UA's to the target I drain. It was better on bosses and also on trash for me. I am still learning and can feel there are still big improvements to be made in multidotting and doing it right. In the last 2 dungeons I did 1,17 and 1,10m dps overall so MG is possible better on the low keys I run. Adds gets killed so fast that my agony can't ramp to 15 on every mob pack.

Ty for all your answers, I will try out some different builds and try to get a high haste/crit gear set. Hopefully som good legendaries will drop too.

[rinotz]

Never try to maintain more than 4 Agonies (even 4 agonies is difficult to maintain in some situations without losing dps), sometimes even just 3 if the targets are dying quickly. The default talents are MG/CT/StS/SC. Although you should play around with it depending on what legendaries you have and what affixes you're playing with.

[Deleted]

On fortified keys, either run WiA + SH or MG + StS (always contagion)
Always, ALWAYS go MG on tyrannical, and you can choose between StS or SH (even phantom singularity) depending on the kind of pulls you'll make

[SpikeySquad]

Yes MG-Cont would give you better boss damage and damage on 2 targets/spread targets and slightly better burst on say adds but why do you think you should take Cont with Seeds? Seems very contradictory to me.

Over a 2 minute patchwerk ST fight (though at a guess bosses are probably nearer one minute on the keys I run) I lose 4% DPS using ELT over Contagion which to me is fine on Fortified. However, this of course is starting with 0 souls (though a sim would give you 3 quickly) and in a dungeons you would be silly to do that.

On every trash pack with 3+ mobs I gain 10% (on my spells anyhow) from using ELT and you are unlikely to be throwing any UAs around at this time hence you receive 0% from Contagion. Of course yes eventually mobs start dying and you go back to one target with the 15% from Contagion when you're down to one-two mobs. Doesn't seem a decent trade off to me so what am I missing? You need that extra boss damage?

[Deleted]

Yes MG-Cont would give you better boss damage and damage on 2 targets/spread targets and slightly better burst on say adds but why do you think you should take Cont with Seeds? Seems very contradictory to me.

Over a 2 minute patchwerk ST fight (though at a guess bosses are probably nearer one minute on the keys I run) I lose 4% DPS using ELT over Contagion which to me is fine on Fortified. However, this of course is starting with 0 souls (though a sim would give you 3 quickly) and in a dungeons you would be silly to do that.

On every trash pack with 3+ mobs I gain 10% (on my spells anyhow) from using ELT and you are unlikely to be throwing any UAs around at this time hence you receive 0% from Contagion. Of course yes eventually mobs start dying and you go back to one target with the 15% from Contagion when you're down to one-two mobs. Doesn't seem a decent trade off to me so what am I missing? You need that extra boss damage?

Well as i said it depends on the pulls, even on a dungeon like EoA you'll face giants or hydras where you wont be able to pull much with it depending on affixes and be forced to use contagion, its a question of playstyle as well, i dont enjoy having to tap before everypull
And bosses are usually when your healer will struggle as long as you dont go into very high keys in certain dungeons

[Deleted]

3 Agony is more than enough, only use 4-5 if you have bloodlust

[SpikeySquad]

Well as i said it depends on the pulls, even on a dungeon like EoA you'll face giants or hydras where you wont be able to pull much with it depending on affixes and be forced to use contagion, its a question of playstyle as well, i dont enjoy having to tap before everypull
And bosses are usually when your healer will struggle as long as you dont go into very high keys in certain dungeons

Fair enough. Personally I would only take StS when the affixes are fine for AoEing and we will not be facing too many 1-3 mob packs so I don't ever have to UA much if I have taken Seeds.

From a playstyle view yes I can understand you don't want to have to maintain ELT though. I play Destro as well and it used to be the best talent (and still is on AoE) so I guess I am just used to maintaining it.

Yes you do lose more HP with ELT over normal life tapping but usually, in my limited experience anyhow, if the affy lock is dead so are the rest of party. Though of course, there are certain packs which can do a major amount of damage/one shot but I doubt it's many times that having 10% more HP that I can heal up in a second anyhow would have saved me. I probably don't go high enough keys though for bosses to be doing too much damage to me personally on Fortified.