[Warlock] Affliction cast-rotation
 

I've read a lot on the other Warlock-theorycrafting thread in this section. But I haven't been able to find a good cast-rotation for us Affliction-specced warlocks. So this is why im posting this.


Dots available: UA, Corr, Immo, Siphon Life and CoA (dipends if your assigned to non-dot buff or not)

To start with, Immolate is too good to leave out of the rotation. Mainly because you need to have unreachable +shadowdmg to afford skipping it (acording to the other thread about warlock dps)

After a bit of testing I've found out the following cast-rotation for max sustained dps in a long (boss) fight: (may be wrong though)

Apply curse first, wait for the GCD to finish, then I do as below
UA -> Corr -> Immo -> SL -> DP -> SB -> SB -> UA -> ... (apply new curse when needed)

This rotation is mainly focued on loosing as few GCD's as possible, and with this rotation the only GCD you will be waiting for is after the initial curse, wich is kinda natural for me cause of tanks initial agro. The other GCDs runs out while casting UA and Immo.
I've added DP in this rotation to help healers the most, and to keep my imp regenerating mana throughout the entire fight.

The thing is, dots obviously dont shine on trash, because they have to run all out to gain the maximum benefit. So for shortet trash-fights i just use Curse -> UA -> Corr -> SB -> SB.

I'd like some feedback on how to make a better cast-rotation, so please share your thoughts, oppinions and advices on this subject.
Thank you.

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.

hmm... interresting. Since you dont "waste" a global on it, the only issue would be the mana. The question though, is if the rotation gives more dps with or without SL...
Wich I dont have the answer to

You usually aren't taking consistent dmg but life tap takes away life and SL helps recover that life faster. It helps out the healers and allows you to maintain a good health/mana ratio. On boss fights it is 100% necessary. Without SL you would need to rely on Healers, Pots or DL, all of which are either lowing your dps or draining healers mana. It is also instant so there is no reason not to work it in the rotation.

What do you base that on?



This is a screenshot of my main hotbar with DrDamage showing average values for what the different spells will hit for. As you can see, my shadowbolt will average for less than SL, despite taking around 1 second longer to cast, assuming 1.5sec GCD. Note that the numbers for Shadowbolt factor in crit. Now, I don't have Devastation (trying to combine pvp- and pve-specs ftl) but that wouldn't push my average Shadowbolt much higher than 1703.

So for me, the Damage Per Second Per Cast for SL is ~1213, but only 665.6 for Shadowbolt, which is what you would of course fill the time you suddenly had to spare if you didn't use SL.

I chose to use a picture for this because DrDamage is a great addon, and it's values are very consistent with my calculations as well as my in-game parses, so I really want to promote it's use. And also because a picture says more than a thousand words ;-).

This assumes that SL will tick it's entire duration of course.

A bit off-topic: With SL and DP with a buffed pet, you are more or less self-sustained, barring AoE-damage. The only healing I recieved last Prince was when I had the axes on me, no Drain Life either. With 3-piece Frozen Shadowweave an affliction lock is just disgustingly good for sustained single-target dps from range (it more or less negates your need for a beefed up pet).

Siphon life should definitely be included in any spell rotation (well, unless the target dies quickly) - it constitutes a significant dps boost.

With 1000 spell damage, a single SL does (63*10+30/15/2*1000)*1.10 = 1973 damage before target debuffs have been taken into account, which is quite a bit more than you get from a shadow bolt (which takes longer to cast). If one does a simulation of a sustained dps cycle where spent mana is regained by LT/DP, one finds that overall dps is increases by roughly 4% by including SL.

By the same token, immolate shoud never be omitted from the rotation despite inferior +fire damage stats.

Edit: and someone else was faster replying making this post somewhat superfluous.

I couldn't agree more Kruthal. My bar is extremely similar. i think my SB is at 1666 with the other spells scaled appropriately. A good affliction lock can dps non stop 24/7 even on holidays.

My mistake, thanks for letting me know :D

back to the cast-rotation. any suggestions how to improve/change it ?

Mine is the same, but I only use Siphon when on long (i.e important) fights.

Hello fellow Grim Batolian!

I also try use Dark Pact whenever its 'up' and Lifetap if I know I wont be taking damage.

I guess I just try and minimise the wasted GCD's relative to the length of the fight.

Your cycle has UA, Corruption, and immolate falling off within 1.5 seconds, and SL falling off with them every other cycle, resulting in a point where all your dots are not applied. You'd get better results by staggering them and using a dot timer to refresh each one as they fall off.

The only drawback to SL is its DPM, but that can be mitigated by throwing a life tap after casting it.

*****

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

*****

Also, if you're running up against the debuff limit (use dfilter to check this) then Immolate and SL might be things you want to consider dropping (yes I have had it get to the stage where things were dropping off). Esp if you're in a group with a shadow priest the gain from SL is kinda of negligible.

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.

In Kara our healers seem to be much more lenient in correcting small dips in HP, I can usually stay down 15% under max and not get their attention. In 25 mans it all depends on the content. During Mag I easily stayed under max HP (not always at my own will) while channelers were up, but as soon as it was just Mag I couldn't dip even 500 without being topped off.

you have 4 different durations.

24/60 Curse
30 Siphon Life
18 UA/Corr
15 Immolate

it doesn't matter how you stagger them, if they are to have 100% overtime there will be times when more than one needs refreshing at once. (particularly immolate with ua/corr).
theres nothing you can do to stop them overlapping over any reasonable length encounter.
just have a general priority with your dots by the dps they do, (corr/ua/curse/sl/immo)

always try to keep ua/corr casted together and use a decent dot timer so you can start casting ua at around 1.6s. shadowbolt between dots and save dark pact/lifetap for when you know you can't fit a 2.5s cast in before something needs refreshing.