[Warlock] Affliction cast-rotation - Page 2

Kruthal · 03/21/07, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by Deathwing

Since we're talking about Siphon Life and healers...has anyone managed to condition their healers NOT to heal you after a couple of lifetaps. I used to have a 60 priest in MC, and I can certainly understand the healer's position. It is damn near impossible to tell if that was some incedental damage that the warlock is expecting you to heal or if it was a lifetap. And even then, with the amount of attention a lot of fights require besides your main role(tanking, dps, or healing), requiring a healer to tell what type of damage one person is taking would be ridiculous.

So, one of the major advantages of an affliction build(self-sustainable), seems to be negated because the healers are going to heal you anyway. I've tried affliction spec(felguard now), and almost every time I used SL and DL, it was 80% overheal.

I tend not to life tap till I need it, or if it fits into my cast-cycles, i.e. I want to refresh a DoT shortly, so I don't have time to cast a Shadowbolt. Excepting of course the first Life Tap which I do early, just like the first Dark Pact, to get the hp/mana regen going. This generally leaves me at a low hp-deficit, and since I generally have the most hp in raids and I've told my healers I can take care of myself, I recieve little to no heals. SL actually ends up being decent effective healing this way. DL ends up being mainly overhealing for me too, since I rarely use it unless I'm so low on hp a healer is already winding up a heal =P

Not much of an answer perhaps, I just don't feel that affliction leans towards life-tapping in big chunks, so I guess I'm never down enough hp that our healers bother =P

• frmorrison · 03/21/07, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by Lamaros

I use DoTimer and recast dots when they need to be recast. Resists/lag/movement makes a rotation mostly stupid.

This is very true and this is how I play, but having having a rotation of spells you normally cast helps (i.e. it is good to cast UA/Corruption first).

spronk · 03/21/07, 1:10 PM

It would be funny if the castsequence macro command would take resists into consideration, warlocks could then just change their hotbar into two buttons - trashseq and boss-seq.

yes, just kidding! Although castsequence is great when grinding, you can just mash on one key while browsing the web on another window.

niska · 03/21/07, 1:17 PM

Originally Posted by spronk

yes, just kidding! Although castsequence is great when grinding, you can just mash on one key while browsing the web on another window.

just get a drinking bird on it and go see a movie. what could possibly go wrong?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Size_Homer

Draele · 03/21/07, 1:56 PM

I start with highest damage per cast time in a longer fight. On a short fights I start with longest duration first, and on really short fights I just UA/Corr/Imm/Bolt

Here's mine on a boss fight. Note: we have no shadow priests and only 1 other warlock who is fire and keeps elements up for the Mages so I do use Agony/Doom.

ampDoom
UA
Corruption
Siphon
Immolate
Bolt a few times
UA
Corruption
Immolate
Bolt some
Siphon
Bolt some

...and so on.

EDIT: If there happens to be 1-2 second after a bolt but before DoTs need refreshed I make sure to work in a DP/LT in there.

TheOnly · 03/21/07, 2:45 PM

Originally Posted by Demi9OD

I'm new to this but unless you are taking consistent damage I don't believe SL is worth the global or mana to cast.

Siphon Life has a Damage per Cast Time greater than shadowbolt. Thus, like Immolate, as long as it will run most of its duration, it increases your dps.

It does more damage than a shadowbolt (including crits) and takes 1 second less time to cast. If you are not using it on long boss fights, you are losing dps.

Here is a better question.
How many ticks does it take for dot (X) to become more useful than casting shadow bolts instead?

900 shadow damage
800 fire
10% crit
6% hit
fully talented DoTs

2/5 suppression.
5/5 bane

CoS, misery, and such are factored out, since they amplify everything by the same amount and don't change the calculation.

Corruption and UA will deal about 390 per tick (more for corruption, less for UA, but similar for this approximation)
Shadow bolt does 1440 damage. But it takes 5/3 as long to cast. So corruption and UA need to deal 3/5 of the SB damage to be at least equal. So, this is 864 damage.
If they have only 2 ticks, they are not as good, and if they have 3, they are more valuable.
Corruption takes 9 seconds from time of cast to get 3 ticks, UA takes 10.5.
The dps loss is small if there is only 2 ticks, if you factor in the shadow bolt travel time.

Roughly, the break-even boundary is between 2 and 3 ticks.

CoA: this is harder, since the first 4 ticks are diminished. We would have to reach that same 864 damage before the Mob died to be better than shadow bolt. CoA does 3230 damage with this gear/spec. the middle 4 ticks do 3230/12 = 269 damage. The first ticks will be about 60 damage less each. I am not sure if imp. CoA affects the base damage and the dot damage difference or not (+spell damage is spread evenly over each tick).
Anyhow, that takes about 4 to 5 ticks, or 8 to 10 seconds.

Much like Corruption and UA, if a target lives for 10ish seconds after a cast, it is better than shadowbolt.

What about immolate? Well since its damage is front-loaded, it is even easier to reach the 864 damage barrier compared to a 1440 shadow bolt. However, it will vary depending on curses, shadow weaving, and improved scorch debuffs. Assuming none of these:
The initial damage is about 500, and the ticks are about 225. So, it would take 2 ticks or so to equal shadow bolt. This takes 7.5 seconds.

Ok, lastly siphon life.

1.5 second cast time, 10 ticks 3 seconds apart, and 1634 damage. Each tick does 163 damage. It takes 6 ticks (18 seconds) for it to be more damage per cast time than shadowbolt, unless you had a siphon / shadow and flame build -- which would be odd.

The basics are, for all your Dots and in almost any spec, if the target lives for 10 seconds after you start casting the spell, DoTs are better dps than shadowbolt. The only exception is Siphon Life, which takes 18 to 20 seconds to pay off.

If a target lives between 12 and20 seconds, the most dps is:

CoA>UA>Corr>Immo> SB >SB >SB >SB

Add Siphon if it will run its duration, and switching to another curse doesn't hurt much, especially since you can often do it before you could otherwise dps due to aggro issues.

TheOnly · 03/21/07, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

This is very true and this is how I play, but having having a rotation of spells you normally cast helps (i.e. it is good to cast UA/Corruption first).

One of the key facts that came out of the warlock dps spreadsheet here (another) DPS Spreadsheet
was this:

"Dot Gap" (missing time between dot refreshes due to casting shadow bolt instead) is a minor dps loss. If you are refreshing your dots a little bit late, it isn't that important (on the order of a couple seconds). However, missing your sequences by 0.1 seconds (taking say, 1.8 seconds per global cooldown action rather than 1.7 -- lag, button timing, etc affect this) is a much larger loss in dps.

Thus, it is most important to make sure you are doing _something_ with as little gap as possible between casts rather than having that particular something be super-optimal. If some dots fall off for a couple seconds, don't stress, just keep working at doing everything with as little pause between actions as possible.

Kyth · 03/21/07, 4:02 PM

Originally Posted by TheOnly

1.5 second cast time, 10 ticks 3 seconds apart, and 1634 damage. Each tick does 163 damage. It takes 6 ticks (18 seconds) for it to be more damage per cast time than shadowbolt, unless you had a siphon / shadow and flame build -- which would be odd.

Pfft. That's one of my two favorite pve builds. Shadow-based destruction build. Very powerful.

Lamaros · 03/21/07, 7:26 PM

Originally Posted by TheOnly

lots of stuff

I expect with a high crit rating, Bane, Ruin, Imp. SB, Shadow Weaving, and high +shadow damage Immole will cease to be worth casting.

As it is I have 1125ish shadow, 825ish normal damge, a little under 20% crit and Quags Trinket. I feel like I'm pushing close to the point where I can drop Immolate if needed (and as I have said with certain raid makeups it is needed sometimes due to the debuff cap), though I havn't really done any testing to be sure.

GokieKS · 03/24/07, 7:58 PM

My sequence is as follows:

If I'm doing CoE/CoS/CoR, apply that first:

Corruption -> UA -> SL -> Immolate -> Drain Life/Shadow Bolt cycle -> Corruption -> UA -> Immolate -> Repeat.

Technically, for the absolute best/most synergistic cycle, UA really should be casted before Corruption. But Corruption has the advantage of being able to cast on the move, and able to trigger NF procs, so I've grown into the habit of almost always casting that first (having NF proc on the first tick of Corruption is delicious when soloing)

If I'm using CoA, I just cast that first, and then re-apply it whenever it falls off, during a DL/SB cycle. When Amp Curse gets fixed to work with CoD, the same will apply to that.

Sponge · 03/25/07, 6:18 AM

I took some time after one of my classes to create a time line to discover how I should go about pursuing my maximum damage potential as an affliction warlock. It evolved into this... I've had some complaints about the colors and such, but I made it on Microsoft paint, and putting it on black was to my advantage, so the colors are quite blaring, I apologize.

To read it, follow the legend, and where there's a colored box, it means spell cast time...
--Also I've had questions about the initial immolate... With bane it's a 1.5 second cast time which gives extra time for the tank to establish agro and to eliminate the time between the last shadowbolt of line A, and the first unstable affliction of line B as much as possible. Thank you for your time to read this and to check it out!
I hope to get some feedback soon!

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/2...tguide2if2.png

Enzytë · 07/08/08, 9:52 AM

"Ok, lastly siphon life.

1.5 second cast time, 10 ticks 3 seconds apart, and 1634 damage. Each tick does 163 damage. It takes 6 ticks (18 seconds) for it to be more damage per cast time than shadowbolt, unless you had a siphon / shadow and flame build -- which would be odd."

TheOnly says that SL is a 1.5 sec cast time, but SL is instant cast. Is there something I am missing here?