Re: Affliction warlock


On Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:06:20 -0500, "Shiflet" <rshiflet@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

"Catriona R" <catrionarNOSPAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8aur6vFgj4U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Atm my rotation as such on single mobs is Haunt (if off cd, if not,
slot it in when it is), UA, Corruption, CoElements - does this sound
about right?

Open with Shadow Bolt, it does the most damage per hit, and has the longest
cast time. Sbolt->Haunt->Corruption then move to next target. Never a reason
to use CoE in single fights. For regular mobs, they don't live long enough,
you'd be better off spending the GCD on something else, for long fights, CoA
is better.

But why open with a long cast time spell that's not needed? The mob
will die from dots alone, so rather use a shorter cast time (UA). If I
wanted to use shadowbolt as more than just filler I wouldn't be
affliction :-P Suppose a fair point about CoE but can't see that it
hurts either, more damage is always good. I would use CoA on longer
fights, yep.

I realise it may be better to do corruption earlier but I
like having the cast time ones over with before the mob reaches me, so
no pushback! CoE seems likely to be more valuable than the small ticks
from the start of CoA, since the mobs rarely live very long (it's
extremely rare for me to get the haunt heal before it dies so I assume
<12 sec is normal lifespan).

Honestly, for just 1 single enemy, you don't need to bother with either
curse. If there's multiple enemies though, the best way to do it is to just
run around and tag ALL of them with Corruption and CoA and just run from mob
to mob doing it. You can kill literally dozens of mobs this way with no
downtime and have near full health and mana at the end of it.

Maybe at higher gear levels, at mine more than 4 mobs without a break
and even with haunt heal I'll begin to run low on health or mana :-P
(Well, "low" as in, nearing 50%, I prefer to keep it up about 90 ;-))
Maybe I should've made clear - I am not 80, nor am I in full lvl 70
epics; I have only a few lvl 70 epics; I'm mostly in blues with a
couple of Northrend greens and I don't have that great spellpower yet.
Working on it but... yeah.

What should I do after I've got the dots up though? Nothing looks wildly
appealing, drain soul maybe?

On normal enemies, they shouldn't be alive long enough to do anything.

Well they are lol, I don't have that much spellpower yet. Shadowbolt
does pretty crap damage so can't really see that it'd improve matters
to open with it, either.

Bosses are obvious, same dots (well probably use CoA there unless there's
some more casters in the group) and shadowbolt when they don't need
refreshed (I'm putting out 1.4k dps on a target dummy already, which
seems promising, my other dps characters weren't doing that till the
high 70s!)

Yep, with Drain Soul as your finishing move.

Makes sense, it does higher damage on low health mobs, right? Is it
high enough to beat shadowbolt spam as my filler on a boss then (below
25% ofc)?

But what do I do with trash packs? These days of aoe
everything down are hell for dot classes, so I assume SoC everything,
maybe try and get a CoE up here and there? Is it even worth trying to
do anything else? :-/ I have a horrible feeling I will look awful on
the damage meters... :-P

Spam SoC. Doing ANYTHING else(including CoE) is a)wasting your time and
b)lowering your DPS. And SoC spamming will usually put you at or near the
top of the meters. Oh, you'll want a good tank for that, too...

Yeah the "good tank" bit is what worries me lol :-P Any suggestions
for what to do when I do not have a good tank? ;-) Maybe put a few
dots up and then SoC, hoping he's got enough threat lead by then?

Also, what's my main stats to go for? Hit to cap is a nobrainer, and
since I don't raid plus have Suppression, it's also very easy to cap
to +2 lvls, great. Spellpower is pretty obvious but... crit, haste?
Spirit? Seems I have a few spells that crit now, I hardly ever notice
any crits so I'm not sure how much difference it's making,

It makes a difference. The main aff priority after hit cap is SP>Haste>Crit.

Got it, seems easier to get crit than haste at my level but I'll take
both then.

Haste, hmm... does it benefit me much? I
know in Catclysm it'll make my dots tick faster but I think right now
there's only one spell that does it, with a glyph, am I right?

Yes, and it's a glyph you want. It also helps your SBolts and Haunts cast
faster. And honestly, once you're at 80, if you're JUST fighting 1 lone mob,
2 Sbolts(with a Haunt, if the mob still lives) will get the job done faster
than any complex rotation, so...

But if I wanted to use shadowbolt I'd be destro - I'm affliction for
dots. And dots aren't affected other than cast time, and the *one*
that's affected with the glyph. So all this shadowbolt talk is totally
irrelevant to me really.

My build is here:
http://www.wowhead.com/profile=eu.draenor.rosad#talents - anything
obvious I've missed? Yes I'm filling out Malediction, and yes I'll get
imp shadowbolt after that ;-)

Well, you're missing Imp CoA, which is kinda like an arms warrior not taking
2h Weapon Specialization.

Well I don't use CoA... it's useless on anything except bosses (you
said yourself, don't cast anything other than SoC on trash), so it
seems a little pointless to improve it at this stage!

You have 2/2 Imp Howl of Terror which you should,
well, never have to use, so that would be my recommendation for where to
free up 2 points.

I'm levelling... aka soloing :-P Why would I not want to have an
instant cast aoe fear, exactly? I've already said, I do not raid, so
giving me advice for a cookiecutter raid build isn't really what I was
after; I can find that anywhere - I ask this group to get relevant
suggestions for my own situation, which is mainly soloing with the odd
5-man. And there's tons of uses instant cast fear can have in soloing;
it would've saved my life last night had the damn mechagnomes not been
immune to it (so yeah, ok, it's useless in most of Icecrown, but
*most* places it's valuable).

Amplify Curse is also extremely useful. I know you said
you think CoA is a waste, but it should actually be one of your main skills.
You can literally kill dozens of mobs with no downtime just by running from
mob to mob and putting CoA and Corruption on them all and letting them do
their work as you move to the next target. Imp CoA and Amplify Curse both
make that faster and more efficient. I never needed Fel Synergy either, the
Felhunter doesn't really hold aggro remarkably well, so it shouldn't be
taking all that much damage.

You cannot do that at my gear level. Seriously, you can't. Whatever
gear level you have, I'm sure it's a walk in the park, but at mine
it's not, I'll lose FAR too much health waiting for the dots to tick
down, so I have to cast more than 2 (and really need the healing off
Haunt if I ever lifetap). And there's no point in using CoA on a mob
that won't even live half its duration, waste of mana, since it does
much better damage at the end. Unless there's something I'm totally
missing here I simply cannot see a reason at present to ever use CoA
on anything that's not an elite or a boss. Either the mob doesn't live
long enough, or it does and I'm taking too much damage because I
didn't use a more powerful spell to kill it faster... neither seems a
great result.

Fel Synergy, hmm - I'm using that as a holdover from my demo/affli
hybrid lock, loved that spell on her and was delighted when it got
made available to all specs. There's been a few times my felpuppy has
had aggro on stuff and needed it tbh, tends to be when it proximity
aggros something else, I just let it tank for a little while I finish
dotting a previous one - whether it'll be that useful in the long run
I don't know; I'll keep an eye on it. Also wondering if the avoidance
mechanic for aoes will prevent enough damage in instances or if I'll
find the healing handy there too - there's a lot of mobs/bosses that
drop nasty things on the ground, and you can't really control a pet to
not stand in them! Still evaluating that one really; I love the idea
of it, but yeah it may not be that needed.

You're also missing Death's Embrace, but if you just solo I suppose it's no
biggie. For what it's worth, this is the spec I was using when I was running
Aff:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#IfxbbzMAoiAoIktZE00V:InTzV0

Hehe yeah we discussed that one the other day - I may take it, or may
not - atm my points to 80 are set for Malediction, imp shadowbolt and
2 over, which may go on imp CoA if it's actually useful by then
(perhaps better gear at 80 will let me do the 2 dots per mob thing -
I'd love to be able to do that, but it's simply not gonna work out
well right now, but with better gear it may well do!), if not, I'll
consider DE instead, but suspecting I won't get that since I doubt
I'll group much beyond a few 5-mans along the way. This is why it's
hard to get advice for specs and stuff - everyone has raid dps in mind
and I don't raid, and it's a totally different world outside of raids;
I'm forever seeing people say glyph of circle of healing is essential
for a holy priest for example... it's 100% useless to me in 5-mans
(making a 5-target heal hit 6... ;-))! Quite a few similar things that
just don't apply when you're not raiding.

This spec is pretty much the standard aff spec, though some locks take Imp
Lifetap over Imp Drain Soul, and some take 1/2 Fel Synergy over Dark Pact.

I didn't do much raiding outside of VoA, but since I ran a lot of 5 mans
things like Death's Embrace were still more useful to me than Grim Reach or
Fel Concentration(when soloing, pushback wasn't an issue as it was basically
just run and dot, and anything with a cast time was reserved for
elites/opening moves).

Oki, yeah, seen that spec and it's miles from my soloing preferences
lol - can see what you mean, but I don't get enough healing from Haunt
and Siphon Life to not want the odd drain life, for example, which I
obviously don't want much pushback on. Presumably that gets better
with more spellpower, but at my gear level, hmm. That said I'm trying
to train myself to Dark Pact more often, can't believe how fast the
felpuppy's mana fills! If I use that more than lifetap I'll need a bit
less healing. Grim Reach I like, since the mobs don't reach me so
fast, which means less damage taken and less pushback on my cast time
dots.

Ruin, hmm - if that was all spells it'd be great but since I don't
really use shadowbolt that much, then it's probably more optional for
me - since I'd only use it on bosses in 5-mans, or when Nightfall
procs really. Think you'll run a lot more 5-mans than I will - I just
don't have time to run that many with the number of alts I have, plus
I burnout if I do too many, so I just prioritise 1-2 characters at a
time for them (atm my rogue does 2 per day; random + FoS for
Nighttime, and I can't bring myself to do any more than that most
days!)

They all look so useless I didn't bother beyond Unending Breath... and
that character's a scribe!

Warlocks get crappy minor glyph selection. Most locks, regardless of
spec(mine included, both specs) if they even bother getting 3 minors go with
Unending Breath, Souls(I know, you don't raid, but should you decide you
wanna, or even if you wanna throw a soulwell out in a 5-man, may as well
make it cheaper), and Drain Soul(more shards in less time, should you run
low on em for some reason).

Makes sense, yeah - can at least see situational use in those two,
albeit I'll barely use them. The thought of running out of shards
seems pretty unlikely atm but I guess it's possible, yeah ;-) I'm
impressed at how seriously bad warlock minors are though, every other
class I play can get much more use. Hm, well, my paladin isn't much
better off - longer blessings when cast on yourself... for blessings I
can't use as a tank! That's my other scribe, sigh :-P
--
EU-Draenor:
Sagart (80 Undead Priest)
Tairbh (80 Tauren Druid)
Buinne (80 Troll Shaman)
Balgair (80 Human Rogue)
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Affliction warlock
    ... Because UA doesn't have upfront damage and shadowbolt takes a good chunk of health out of the mob before it reaches it. ... run around and tag ALL of them with Corruption and CoA and just run from mob ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Affliction warlock
    ... wanted to use shadowbolt as more than just filler I wouldn't be ... a stack of shadow embrace to increase the damage done by your shadow DoTs. ... The difference is how long the mob is going to live, not the amount of damage deal. ... If a mob has 10000 HP and let's say your shadowbolt and each of your corruption tick is 2000 damage. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Affliction warlock
    ... Open with Shadow Bolt, it does the most damage per hit, and has the longest ... so rather use a shorter cast time. ... Because UA doesn't have upfront damage and shadowbolt takes a good chunk ... of health out of the mob before it reaches it. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Felguard vs Affliction DPS
    ... butter damage spell. ...  The 20% increase in shadow damage from imp shadowbolt ... procs works on your dots as well. ... than 1 mob at a time could be dangerous for your repair bill. ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)
  • Re: Affliction warlock
    ... more casters in the group) and shadowbolt when they don't need ... lifetap, make sure the damage buff never expires. ... Spellpower is pretty obvious but... ... Seems I have a few spells that crit now, ...
    (alt.games.warcraft)