It detonates based on your damage instead of anyone's damage now. Its own damage is always enough to pop it, but you can speed it up with DoTs, direct damage, or other seeds (one seed going off will now pop all other seeds nearby).

EDIT: vvv Don't forget the other important change; it now counts proc'd damage as well, so seeds can pop each other. Previously they couldn't.

Ahh. That explains a lot.. I missed that in the release notes. Kind of lame but that is fine. I don;t use it too often anymore. The AOE damage is not what it used to be.

I don't know if something was stealth changed recently but I found in the last few days that a simple SB:SoC followed by SoC on everything I could find would reliably push my dps through the roof compared to last week or earlier.

That has always been the case. You could stack SB:SoC and SoC on one mob then SoC the rest of the mobs to easily sit comfortably near the top range of dps on AoE.

If the mobs don't tend to live long, I've found a SB:SoC followed by a SoC and an instant cast fel flame to set off both is a decent way to start.

Is it a loss of DPS to begin a rotation of Affliction as such? (Theoretically on a boss fight):

Cooldowns available (I'm maxed herbalism and an Orc, so Lifeblood>Dark Soul: Misery>Blood Fury), Curse of Elements, Soulburn>Soul Swap (for instant DoT application), Haunt, channel Malefic Grasp.

My concern is that Soul Swap immediately just to get DoTs on quickly might be taking away from something... what it might be, I don't know. But I've read Icy Veins and Noxxic and neither have mentioned it. Also, is it a DPS loss to use Fel Flame to keep Corruption and Unstable Affliction up? I've gotten used to not using it for Immolate in Destruction, but I'd like to begin raiding as Affliction and want to be sure I'm using the rotation properly to keep up with competitive DPS. Would appreciate any input or advice.

I have problems figuring out what the best opener is as an affliction warlock.
Lets says you have a full tank and spank fight where hero is popped at the start of the fight.

My hypotheses is that I want to maximize the amount oh MG time during haunt with as strongly buffed DOTs as possible.

And I know that the best thing is to use Soul Burn 20 seconds before pull and SS at T=0. But that is usually to big of a hassle to be feasible for me in most cases.

And that would give me something like.
1. T-2 PrePot
2. T-1 Precast doomguard (to not waste GCD)
3. T SB-SS
4. CoE
5. MG (To get all procs up ASAP)
6. pop DS
7. Reapply all dots when all procs and buffs are up
8. Haunt + MG, reapply haunt when needed.
9. Reapply all dots when the first strong proc is about to fall of
10. Haunt + MG
11. Let DOTs tick their last tick before reapplying. Except for agony.

What im not doing here is precasting haunt. It seems like a wasted haunt to me, because I don't have strong dots up.
What is the best way to reapply dots at (6.) and (9.) Should I felflame + agony. Hardcast or SB+SS?
Also is it maybe a mistake to SS-SB at 3. Maybe it is better to hardcast them and not waste any shards before procs are up.

Or my this hypotheses wrong and should I go with the standard haunt precast rotation?

Depending on your gear and enchants, you might want to cast your Doomguard after Lightweave/Jade Spirit/Trinket+Int procs.

In my experience getting the rest of the raid to have a 20 second count down is nigh-impossible so all I do is pre-pot.

Doomguard updates dynamically, also it does not seem to cast more than a fixed number of attacks despite haste or bloodlust (see last page). Thus it's probably best to cast it under 20%.

Seems like you're wasting some time with this opening. What is the purpose of saving DS until after you apply your dots for the first time?
Personally, I pop DS+Prepot+Racials, Haunt, SB-SS to start the fight, then SB-SS again once procs are up. No point in holding onto shards that you may regenerate anyway (especially with a DS'd/bloodlusted Corruption) - the idea of "wasting" shards is only relevant when you're about to repop your CDs/pot, or if you're about to execute.

Just for clarity, letting DOTs tick their last tick is something you track on your empowered DOTs, or all the time? If it is the latter, there is no real need to do so since the dps loss of reapplying a dot early is minimal - especially when running slightly below hit cap. And this does not mean you're letting them drop off, right? Because that will destroy your DPS.

Before a pull in my guild, I constantly have the SB buff precasted; sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly, but for the most part I can begin a fight with 4 shards and an instant DOT application. It helps if you are in a guild with good rhythm and consistent time between pulls.

The only reason you're likely to choose to have a DoT tick its last tick (and yes: that obviously means that it will drop off) is when it was cast with a higher DPS set of buffs than you currently have. If you currently have a better set of buffs (or the same set), then it's clearly better to re-apply during the Pandemic window than to allow it to fall off.

You suggest that the DPS loss of overwriting a high power DoT with a lower power one for a few ticks in such a situation is "minimal", but if it was easy to avoid then it would still be worth it, it certainly wouldn't "destroy" your DPS. The problem is that it isn't easy.

To make the choice correctly you have to keep track of the buffs you were under when you cast the DoT, what ones you have now, and the opportunity cost of re-applying the DoT at any given point during it's duration (compared to doing something else.)

Inkube was suggesting using a rule of thumb that at the beginning of the fight you can assume that allowing the DoTs to tick to completion is a DPS gain because they get cast with a very good set of buffs (and it's easy to do.) Trying to keep track of such things later on during the fight will probably distract you enough (or you'll make the wrong choices enough) that it would be a DPS loss.

For our Lei Shi heroic progress I'm playing demonology. The spec is great for high dmg during get away and demon leap mobility.

However.. during add phase, the wild imps are sometimes all over the place, breaking other players cc. Is there any way to avoid this?


Side note info, I'm using the wild imp glyph which I pop along with other cds for get away.