Affliction in Cataclysm (4.3 Release) - Page 7

zinnin · 04/01/11, 8:44 AM

I was doing some execute range DPS testing out on the Melee dummies in ToC grounds I noticed that the extra 12% damage increase from Death's Embrace is actually going into effect at 35% and not the advertised 25%. Not really hugely helpful unless your waiting for the execute range to refresh a Bane, but figured I'd mention it to see if other people are seeing the same thing.

Originally Posted by krilz

Maybe not warlock-related, but do you know if Critical Mass has the same issue?

The issue stems from the fact that crit isn't re-calculated per tick, which means unless you update it, it will never see the additional 5% crit.

• Zakalwe · 04/01/11, 8:53 AM

Originally Posted by zinnin

The issue stems from the fact that crit isn't re-calculated per tick, which means unless you update it, it will never see the additional 5% crit.

There is no basis for this statement. Since there is no functional difference between "crit isn't recalculated per tick, period" and "crit debuffs on the boss aren't recalculated per tick", we have no way of knowing which is the actual underlying cause of what we observe.

Unless someone has tested this with Critical Mass specifically, we also don't know if the underlying cause is "crit debuffs aren't recalculated per tick, period" or "Shadow and Flame isn't recalculated per tick but Critical Mass is". As far as I know, the answer to krilz' question is "no, we don't know until someone tests it".

EDIT: Though to be fair, there's a pretty good chance Shadow and Flame and Critical Mass work the same way here, considering they're supposed to be the exact same debuff. But that does not mean we can take it for granted - there are plenty of other examples of "equivalent" debuffs having subtle and undocumented variations in their implementations.

moop · 04/01/11, 11:29 AM

Managed to convince a mage to help me out. The following tests were carried out on 4 level 85 training dummies, naked, with 2.97% paperdoll crit chance.

Test #1: Immolate/Corruption/Bane of Agony applied before Critical Mass: 15 crits out of 500 ticks [3.0%]
Test #2: Immolate/Corruption/Bane of Agony applied after Critical Mass: 39 crits out of 500 ticks [7.8%]

Note: Ticks from DoT's applied before Critical Mass was applied in Test #1 were ignored in order to avoid skewing the results, i.e. only ticks while the Critical Mass debuff was up were considered.

In other words, Critical Mass behaves the same as Shadow and Flame.

vejito · 04/23/11, 2:00 PM

Do the majority of people believe that it is nearly impossible to beat out shadow bolt filler with DL filler due to latency in 4.1? Also, even with latency issues, would it be better to use DL during Demon soul, provided the boss is over 25% hp?

Paxtez · 04/23/11, 3:30 PM

Originally Posted by vejito

Do the majority of people believe that it is nearly impossible to beat out shadow bolt filler with DL filler due to latency in 4.1? Also, even with latency issues, would it be better to use DL during Demon soul, provided the boss is over 25% hp?

I think it should be viable, if you look at the 4.06 numbers, AffDrain was only beating out Aff by a small margin (16dps for 359 and 25dps for 372) but the difference between them in 4.1 is much greater (198dps for 359 and 268dps for 372).
[Numbers from http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t110222-...n_4_0_6_4_1_a/ at time of writing]

In addition to the increased damage there are several other factors that may compensate for some amounts of lag; such as the drastic increase in the amount of self-heals and less of a need to lifetap. In addition the damage difference between the two specs, AffDrain seems much more tolerant of movement.

Flamingcloud · 04/23/11, 3:53 PM

Originally Posted by Paxtez

I think it should be viable, if you look at the 4.06 numbers, AffDrain was only beating out Aff by a small margin (16dps for 359 and 25dps for 372) but the difference between them in 4.1 is much greater (198dps for 359 and 268dps for 372).
[Numbers from http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t110222-...n_4_0_6_4_1_a/ at time of writing]

In addition to the increased damage there are several other factors that may compensate for some amounts of lag; such as the drastic increase in the amount of self-heals and less of a need to lifetap. In addition the damage difference between the two specs, AffDrain seems much more tolerant of movement.

Affdrain is actually ahead by 565 in the latest build for 372 gear posted on simulationcraft.org. It was helped out a lot by mana feed+fel hunter changes. However I would think that on fights where shadow embrace needs to be reapplied (either because it fell off or because of a target switch) shadow bolt will probably beat it out. It is hard to say if it is better for movement fights, on one hand you have part of your filler spell potentially having caused damage already and an increase in night fall procs in which you can move, but on the other hand the advantage of having mana feed goes down quite a bit when you can do all of your life taps for the fight when you would have been moving anyways.

Speaking of shadow embrace, is it implemented in Simulationcraft at all?

Paxtez · 04/23/11, 5:02 PM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

It is hard to say if it is better for movement fights, on one hand you have part of your filler spell potentially having caused damage already and an increase in night fall procs in which you can move, but on the other hand the advantage of having mana feed goes down quite a bit when you can do all of your life taps for the fight when you would have been moving anyways.

When you compare the patchwerk/light movement/heavy movement from the Simcraft thread you see that the DPS difference between Aff and AffDrain widens.

ilvl372 (4.06)  Aff      AffDrain    % Diff
Patchwerk       26562    26597       + 0.131%
Light Movement  26264    26304       + 0.152%
Heavy Movement  24215    24653       + 1.808%

I think some of the increase would come from the use of Fel Flame while on the move (and not casting life tap or refreshing BoD).

Flamingcloud · 04/23/11, 6:31 PM

Again that is only relevant if simulationcraft is implementing shadow embrace stacking properly(and not just assuming every target has 3 stacks always), proper optimization of movement, movement of all three types (forced to move now, I need to move but I can finish the cast, and I can wait until my next instant cast(s) to move).

Not to mention things like night fall procs and fel flame procs should be held longer if there is a chance you will need to move instead of being cast in the order of dps, all 3 instant soul fires would be during movement, dots could be refreshed before fel flame spam starts, cooldowns could potentially be saved for periods of non-movement. The cast order is not at all optimized or realistic. On top of all that it is from an old build, running 4.0.6.

It may be better on movement fights in 4.1.0, but we realistically have no real evidence of that.

Zimeron · 04/25/11, 11:55 AM

Originally Posted by Flamingcloud

Again that is only relevant if simulationcraft is implementing shadow embrace stacking properly(and not just assuming every target has 3 stacks always), proper optimization of movement, movement of all three types (forced to move now, I need to move but I can finish the cast, and I can wait until my next instant cast(s) to move).

Shadow Embrace is implemented as a stacking debuff in the sim, it doesn't assume you magically always have three stacks on the target. We're always open to new suggestions for priority lists, so feel free to submit a better optimized list for movement events. The documentation will be of great help to you if you're not familiar with how to write action lists.

Also, we do have PTR support for 4.1 in the sim, there's a drop down in the GUI or add ptr=1 to your profile to toggle.

Неотступник · 04/27/11, 6:45 AM

Hi, Jmickey.
Tell me please, why do we need to invest talent points into Shadow and Flame, if we use as a filler Drain Life. A spell Shadow Bolt use only by chance to activate Nightfall.
Just wanted to ask why in the rotation you use Bane of Doom, when he was at Soul Swap not transmitted to the second goal. Rationally, it would probably be used Bane of Agone
Please forgive me for my clumsy English.
The post would not have been written if not for Google translator

Crebba · 04/27/11, 9:02 AM

With both Nightfall and Glyph of Corruption proccing instant shadowbolts you end up casting a few, that makes the 12% increase dmg and 5% crit(assuming none else in the raid bring that debuff) a nice addition to your DPS.

As he states under the prio list, if you are in a fight where you will be using Soulswap then change BoD to BoA, but for single target dps BoD provides more DPS than BoA.

Неотступник · 04/27/11, 9:47 AM

Thank you very much. Please comment on the situation regarding afli filled with Shadow Bolt. Today I ran into fierce criticism of the filler Drain Life. Which, by the statement "the circle of experts " plays in causing damage to two targets simultaneously.
Motivate them is the fact that SB filler can be maintained at 2 to Embrace the Darkness, which would give more gains than Drain Life and his bonus for the Felhunter (additional 30% damage from the bite of Darkness) because Drain Life also Considered dot-abilities)

Kyngston · 04/27/11, 6:22 PM

The simcraft 4.1 spell priority for SB-Aff shows that when Demon Soul is active, the preferred filler priority is:
- Soulburn: Drain Life followed by
- Drain Life

I assume that the 20% dot boost from Demon Soul, pushes the DPCT of DL above SB, even when SB spec'd.

The OP does not mention this detail, nor does it suggest when to use Soulburn on single target fights.

I have not done the simcraft both ways prove or disprove this. I'm just pointing out that the OP spell priority does not match the priority used by the latest 4.1 simcraft builds.

Sayre · 04/28/11, 1:52 AM

I am sure everyone realizes the importance of not randomly clipping the Drain Soul channel during the execute phase. When you need to break the channel to refresh, it is best to do so immediately after Drain Soul ticks or casting time is lost. Given how much spam exists in the standard UI, no mere mortal can do this consistently. I have been using the DrainSoulTimer addon to do this, but this addon is not updated consistently and as of 4.1 is broken.

Using MikScrollingBattleText (MSBT available at Curse) and tweaking the settings, I was able to recreate the functionality of DrainSoulTimer, and MSBT will hopefully be updated more consistently. Using this will give a visual and auditory cue for when Drain Soul ticks, allowing you to minimize lost casting time.

(Note: as of today the downloadable MSBT from Curse needs to be edited as discussed on the Curse thread to function, but patch day was yesterday, so hopefully the addon will be fixed soon)

Under Triggers, select Add New Trigger and call it Drain Soul.
Edit (crossed tool icon) Trigger Classes - Warlock.
Select Add Event.
Choose Periodic Skill Damage (DoT).
Delete (red X icon) Condition Crit = True.
Edit (crossed tool icon) Condition Skill Name = and type Drain Soul into the Parameter box.
Save the Trigger.
Find the Trigger in the list of triggers.
Change the color (click the white color box) to an evil warlock purple. (IMPORTANT: Warlocks like purple.)
Edit the event (crossed tools icon) and select a sound (I prefer Simon Chime).

Nnayr · 04/28/11, 4:14 AM

Originally Posted by Sayre

I am sure everyone realizes the importance of not randomly clipping the Drain Soul channel during the execute phase. When you need to break the channel to refresh, it is best to do so immediately after Drain Soul ticks or casting time is lost. Given how much spam exists in the standard UI, no mere mortal can do this consistently. I have been using the DrainSoulTimer addon to do this, but this addon is not updated consistently and as of 4.1 is broken.

Using MikScrollingBattleText (MSBT available at Curse) and tweaking the settings, I was able to recreate the functionality of DrainSoulTimer, and MSBT will hopefully be updated more consistently. Using this will give a visual and auditory cue for when Drain Soul ticks, allowing you to minimize lost casting time.

(Note: as of today the downloadable MSBT from Curse needs to be edited as discussed on the Curse thread to function, but patch day was yesterday, so hopefully the addon will be fixed soon)

Under Triggers, select Add New Trigger and call it Drain Soul.
Edit (crossed tool icon) Trigger Classes - Warlock.
Select Add Event.
Choose Periodic Skill Damage (DoT).
Delete (red X icon) Condition Crit = True.
Edit (crossed tool icon) Condition Skill Name = and type Drain Soul into the Parameter box.
Save the Trigger.
Find the Trigger in the list of triggers.
Change the color (click the white color box) to an evil warlock purple. (IMPORTANT: Warlocks like purple.)
Edit the event (crossed tools icon) and select a sound (I prefer Simon Chime).

- Sayre

Why not just use quartz? It has tick indications on the cast bar.