Affliction Lock Strategy
 

I’m looking to provide some constructive criticism for a Kara group that currently is running with 3 affliction warlocks. Since they are heavily reliant on DoTs for their primary damage, what is the best method of handling fights such as the Curator that have multiple adds with relatively low HP. What kind of spell rotation should they be using to maximize their dps when accommodating for non-DoT friendly mobs. Also what would be the best spell choice/target for this fight.

Like it or not, you're going to struggle on this fight by default with that setup. If you simply have to bring 3 Locks...consider making at least one of them Destruction so they can nuke those adds in short order.

Yeah right. Just spam Searing pain on the low health adds. 3 affliction locks aren't a drawback in there unless they're retarded.

What are the melee doing in that fight? Your OT should tank the adds and other melee on them also SB (maybe x2) + Shadowburn is enough.
My first kill was with a BM hunter, me affli and either another affli lock or that was all the ranged we had. Feral in cat gear and bearform can mangle an add to him and then just build rage for the next one. At this point I can even keep DoTs on Curator for a decent uptime.
Also your locks should dot up Curator right before Evocation, like 5 seconds (so they tick right on evo). SB + Shadowburn on the add before Evo, dots on curator, dots on last add then nuke Curator.
True, it was a bit hard, as in probably hardest first kill to get in there but doable and got easier as we killed him more.

EDIT: yeah. forgot to mention what Snape said, CoD on 45-60 sec till Evo, they're fun :P

You need to time your Dooms to go off during the Evocation as well.

With 3 affliction locks you may want to consider having them each cast two DoTs on each add as it spawns, keep their full array of dots on curator, and drain life curator when they have nothing else to do. Assuming they spread out so that only one person is taking damage from an add at a time, the rest of your raid DPS can just focus on curator and kill him in record time. Between siphon life and drain life heals, and assuming your healers aren't terrible, it should be easy enough to keep the warlocks up even if there are 2-3 adds up at a time.

Just do a little math based on your warlocks current gear, to make sure you figure out exactly how many DoTs will be needed to kill the adds in a 20 second window, and make sure your warlocks get that many on them each time they spawn. My guess is that a UA + corruption cast should do the trick, and maybe tack on a siphon life for healing if needed.

I'm not positive as to what strategy they are currently using, but I do know they were struggling a bit with the fight. I believe a lot of this is due to the class balance (or lack there of), having 3 affliction locks.

Working from intuition I think having each cast a dot on the sparks would be horribly taxing on healer mana since they would remain up for a longer period of time. Would searing pain spam be a viable option or would it be better to spam SB on the sparks? Also would it be worth the time/mana to add either CoE or CoS to the sparks as they come out.

As far as the boss is concerned, CoD timed to go off within the first 5 sec of evocation seems like more DPS than maintaining CoA, not to mention saving time refreshing CoA while concentrating on the sparks. Once CoD goes off, would it be advisable to have one lock use CoS/CoE or have all 3 use CoA? Also I'm asuming they would want to spam SB any time they aren't refreshing dots during the evocation phase.

The dps class composition I belive is 3 aff warlocks, 1 mage, 1 warrior, 1 BM hunter.

You'd be surprised how fast flares go down with three warlocks using a /target astral macro and draining life. Can you say ... don't cross the beams?

Honestly though, it shouldn't be a problem. If they have shadowburn, have them pop that stuff; astral flares return shards IIRC.

If anything, you should in better shape for downing Curator due to the stacked curses of doom. Make sure your warlocks load up their remaining DoTs prior to the evocation so they can just spam-nuke during evocations.

They don't. At least they weren't in 2.1

Post your whole raid setup. tbh with 3 pairs of dot and drain you should get them down pretty quick. 3 dooms each rotation is pretty good too, and they can keep UA/Corr on Curator the whole time.

I don't see how this can be taxing on healer mana, if you have a resto druid or holy paladin they can keep your locks up easily with flash of light or lifebloom, while your other healers deal with hateful bolt and curator melee damage. Your warlocks will also be mitigating a good portion of their damage intake with siphons and drain lifes, and with fel armor any regular healing done on them is going to be increased as well. With all your DPS on curator full time, he will go down in 2 evocations easily, so having massive healer longevity isn't really as much of an issue as if you were focus firing down the adds with a bunch of people who aren't specced into focus firing, and killing him in 4-5 evocations.

Assuming you put enough dots on the adds for them to die in 20 seconds, the most number of adds you are going to have up at any time is 2. On a single target curator adds put out about 300-400 dps, which should not be an issue to heal through, especially when you consider that they will spend some time ping ponging between your locks.

Even affliction locks usually have bane, so SB spam should be fine on the adds. They should also have the best DPS during evocate, as they can set up Doom to pop during it, as well as have all their dots stacked for the entire phase if they play smrt.

My guild locks used to have a policy of just getting 1 sbolt and 1 SP off on adds, then swapping back to curator to DPS, regardless of the status of the flare. You don't want your locks trying to get KB's on flares, b/c of the opportunity cost of casting that ONE last spell, and having the mob die before it lands... the DPS hit in that case is just dumb. Let your melee kill the damn things. The dot strategy previously mentioned was basically how we used to approach CoT: BM adds when we were all undergeared and leveling - you know they have X HP, and you know how much damage your dots can do... so apply those dots and move on.

As our DPS has improved (and our raid comp changed as we go) we've taken to just leaving the locks on Curator 100% of the time. Just as a friendly reminder: time your Dooms to hit at the *end* of evocation so you've got a better chance (with 3 warlocks nuking) that ISB will be up for when the CoD's proc. With that many warlocks eating ISB charges though, you're all going to have to be aware that if ISB is up with 3-4 sec till doom goes off - NO MORE SHADOW BOLTS :)

It will also help to issue a friendly reminder to your shadow priests that while their 4K SW:D's are cute (or whatever they do to eat ISB charges), all they're doing is lowering raid DPS and making the boss stay alive longer. Back when I was 0 21 40 and running w/ a shadow priest, my ISB charges would get eaten up *really* fast, until I realized he was saving his MB and SW:D for when the proc was up just to see some big numbers.

This is ridiculous. Three Affliction warlocks is perfectly fine for Curator. If they're *really* the only ones on add duty:

Load up Curator with full stacks of DOTs.

Flare comes out, hit TAB, cast Shadow Bolt twice. TAB back.

Do this twice. It's dead. Keep DOTs up on Curator, be ready to TAB-bolt again.

Just maintain the DOTs on Curator. If the locks Amp and trinket their first Dooms at 55s to Evocation, they will take something like 25% of his health away in one enormous chunk. Just to be sure, you might have one lock CoS and the other two do the CoDs.

Don't bother with Corruption.

DoT up Curator and just immolate -> drain life spam the adds. Shadowbolt works here too but more often than not, you should top off your health from the 4-5k shocks you randomly take.

3 locks on that fight would make it easy imo. DoTs constantly on curator while you shadowbolt the adds down. The adds don't have that much health and three well geared warlocks should be able to burn them down with SB alone within the 10 second time frame.

Are you making sure your caster and ranged dps isn't moving when the adds attack them? They should be standing still and constantly casting. Having a paladin with concentration aura in their group would help in that regard.

Watch how your melee dps is doing that fight as well. I think with proper heroic purples and 5 man blues, your warlocks should be doing a ton of damage to Curator and the adds.