I have been playing affliction since t4 content, and up until T7 content i was almost always top DPS, But since the Ulduar patch I have always been really low. Now in T9 Im back up to par, but on some fights ill pull 7-8k dps and on some I cant pass 5k. Its not just the fight mechanics, because each week I pull drastically different numbers on the same fights.

There has to be something very minor I'm doing wrong that is destroying my dps sometimes.
I start fights by LT prepotting/NMIC Corruption CoA (while moving) Haunt SB UA.
I pop my Living flame every time it is off CD and usually save NMIC for when corr falls off due to target switching/submerge etc.
I keep my dots up with an almost perfect up time.

This is not a "QQ I suxx help me get better" post. I'm here to ask a few questions others may need help with as well, and hopefully with the answers fix what i'm doing wrong, I just wanted to give some background on how I've been doing things.

1. With haunt, does it need to be up first in order to give the 23% damage increase to Corruption, or is it applies when haunt hits.
2. Gems, I see a lot of the top end warlocks on my server gemmed to hit every set bonus. Is this proper, or is it better to just get 2 blue sockets for the Meta, get bonus where there are only Red/Yellow involved, and gem pure SP for other blues? Ive seen the numbers on the OPs post, but that has yet to be updated for 3.3.
3. Life Tap, What is the proper way to keep the Life tap Glyph buff going? I've heard Life Tapping after every second Haunt is the best way to go, because you get the heal to offset the life lost from the spell. But that seems to be wasted, because i always have to much mana.

Thank you for your time, I hope these answers help more than just me.
Also if anyone who knows how to use Simcraft would message me, i would greatly appreciate it. I need to find my scaling factors, and that would be a nice tool to use anyways.

Roger that. Ari out.

I came here as soon as I saw the blue post, now that Heartpierce is a 4 energy proc, where does it stand in comparison to other daggers of the same level. I know I passed it over to an alt in my guild because the 258 Gouge was better. Regretting that now.

Int - 0.4721
Spirit - 1.0540
SP - 1.6974
Crit - 1.0937
Haste - 1.5342


These are yours. I'd gem for socket bonus for yellow with SP/Haste that would gain you more spell power, but I'd avoid gemming that way for anything less than 7 spell power and run straight reds except for the purple spirit/sp gems to activate your meta. Simcraft has an easy GUI to use...I'd recommend downloading it and playing around with it for yourself. This will save you a lot of frustration and in game gold regemming or swapping gear around and hopefully "guessing" what the outcome will be.

Cleave Build

First I want to say thank you so much to all who have added their expertise over the years, this forum is a great and vast resource which I have enjoyed for some time. This is my first post, so please be gentle.

I generally only tank instances rather than raids, and one thing I have noticed is that avg dps seems to have risen sharply since 3.3. Thus we as tanks face the task of often holding aggro with 3 dps hitting 4K on mobs. Many dps use AOE to quickly deal with trash mobs on most instances rather than single target. Given how hard people hit, I have been forced to think about changing my tanking style in order to keep aggro.

I have put together a new build, I will call the Cleave Build. I was hoping to get some helpful criticism from the brain trust here at EJ. The basic theory behind this build is to use as much AOE threat generation as possible to hold aggro, with the cornerstone being Cleave.

Cleave Build

I certainly have some upgrades to make on my tanking character, so I know I personally have holes to be filled which would allow for better threat generation. However is this type of build viable at dealing with the massive DPS output we see in heroics these days?

thanks so much!

Our haste rating as Demonology spec is higher than ever with all the new gear out. Currently I am at 1043 haste with my spellstone applied before raids buffs. Is there a point where we should consider using a firestone instead? I am noticing that under heroism, it seems like I am over the haste cap.

What's the GCD for wrath? And other balance druid spells for that matter?

Bornakk 1/5/10
"The Invigoration buff from melee attacks using the Heartpierce dagger will now grant twice as much resources as before. It now grants 2 rage, 4 energy, or 120 mana every 2 seconds for 10 seconds."

Does this change make Heartpierce a comparable or better mh than Rib Spreader now?

I have some new gear and some challenges as well. I have since received the drop of Deathbringers Wil and I'm surprised to see it drop my dps over using Deaths Verdict. I foliow Aldrianna's worksheet 1.4.1, I used it almost as a bible to upgrading my gear. I follow the gemming recommendations and once I made the recent changes I started getting red areas on the spreadsheet in the White Crit Cap and MH Base Crit Cap. I'm not sure what turning red means but it has to be bad. Can you folks offer some advice?

The hit cap target is 315 with current spec?
Expertise cap is 16 I believe
Is there a ArmPen cap?


WoW Armory Alternative - Nameless Armory Profiles.

I would like a revisit on the advantages/disadvantages of Improved Shadow bolt.

According to my best information, ISB is and overlapping buff with Boomkin aura and the Shaman Crit buff.

it's advantage over the aura is that it is a debuff and is therefore on the boss, not forcing you to stay near the boomkin or shaman.

it therefore stacks with improved scorch.


in Deep destro w/ imp the only trade off talents appear to be cataclysm and soul leech.

I am running 3/13/55 in raid situations only. Our guild has usually only one lock and no boomkin. Our normal dps is lock, 2 mages, ret pally, hunter.


To put this simply, is the value of the increased crit worth the loss of dps due to adding SB in my rotation?

I am no mana or longevity issues, and the hunter and ret pally maintain replenishment making improved SL unneccesary.

What are some comments/opinions?

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