Range boosters are one of those ephemeral powers that drive some people nuts because there's absolutely no way to input them into a spreadsheet or simulator. It's not that they don't have benefits. It's that those benefits are difficult to put into numbers, and tend to be very situational.

For example, they're useless in the Auriaya fight, because you spend the whole time on top of the tank right in front of her. Completely wasted talent points. But on the other end is the Hodir fight, where the extra range is hugely useful for de-icing the NPCs and staying with the buffs. The rest of the Ulduar battles mostly fall in between those two extremes.

For my part, I use them. I really enjoy the extra flexibility in positioning and reduced movement needs. But I'm not in a top-end serious raiding guild, where the extra 2% DPS you'll get from putting the talent points elsewhere may mean the difference between success and failure on a hard mode.

So my opinion would be YMMV. They're far from useless, and you have to measure your own playstyle and priorities to see if they're worth it for you.

I haven't used Affliction as my main spec since 3.1 hit, but when I did raid as affli, I put one point in each of the range increasing talents. The 5% threat decrease to Destro spells from destructive reach does equate the ability to do some more DPS. I recall Shadow Bolt being 20-30% of my DPS depending on the fight, which means about a 1.5% DPS increase if you're in danger of pulling. This was quite noticeable on Malyos, where before the demonic circle fix we could continue our full rotation in a spark for the entire of phase 1, and I'm sure it would be useful on Hodir, where huge shadowbolt crits could cause some big threat, especially in the early portion of the fight when one crit can increase your threat by a significant margin.

Nonetheless, reduced threat is a very situational DPS increase, only really useful in fights where you have some kind of damage buff the tank lacks. They're probably not counted in spreadsheets and simcraft for this reason, but I've not checked recently.

Clear win:
* Iron Council
* Yogg phase 2, somewhat also phase 1
* Freya
* General Vezax (shadow crash beyond your range... tough)

Definite increase, maybe not much:
* Ignis
* Razorscale

I run with 1/2 on both affliction and destro range for affliction spec, and 1/2 destro range in destro spec.

Why do lots and lots of people say to start the fight with SB first over haunt? I know we are splitting hairs here, but if one way is conclusively better than the other I think it should be mentioned no matter how small the difference.

My rational is that both apply the shadow embrace debuff, so the first one you cast will not have the 5% increase, and the second one will. Shouldn't you start with the weaker spell so that the stronger spell gets the 5%?

Shadow Embrace applies to DoTs. Shadowbolt and Haunt are both Direct Damage, so the effect does not apply. The reasoning behind haunt second is so that the full duration of that haunt is used by your DoTs.

The other reason is to get Imp SB on the target asap, increasing raid damage, and also increasing the chance that haunt can crit.

Sanctified Spellthread is the same exact enchant as [Brilliant Spellthread] and is listed above [Sapphire Spellthread] as spirit is more useful than stamina (via Fel armor conversion).

Any tailor worth their salt should know this but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to mention in parenthesis as the ring enchants are also listed in the first post.

Hi all,

A more of a high-level question here, I've been through the forums and can't find a minimum or recommended crit for an affliction lock.

Given that I've reached my 17% hit cap (I have) with suppression, should I gear up with haste gear and forget about crit? Or should I try and reach a certain crit %age then fill with haste gear? Is there a ratio between haste and crit you should go for (2:1?) if you're already hit capped?

Thanks for your thoughts

No. It depends on all your other gear. There is a dependency between various different stats and that dependency varies based on your spec and how much of each stat you currently already have. As the saying goes - you're unique, just like everybody else. So you get the same answer - go and run simcraft.

As another lock already pointed out simcraft is your friend. Even if your not able to run the program you can grab the line that will help you pick your gear.
Warlock_T8_53_00_18 Sta=0.00 Int=0.32 Spi=0.73 SP=1.56 Hit=2.16 Crit=0.82 Haste=1.04

So if your seeing which bracer, boot, etc to wear... just add up the stats. Haste is worth a little more per point then crit but some gear is just plain better for dps casters then others.

Next please check the amount of hit you actually need.
17% for bosses from 3 sources
your gear (you have over 20% there alone)
your raid - moonkin or shadow priest is +3%
your talents - you took 3% + hit from suppression
and if your alliance +1% more from derani
total hit you have is over 26% in a normal 25 man raid (that is wasting a ton of points).

So remember you only need 11% hit from your gear based on having the +3% from shadow priest or moonkin and another 3% from talents.

Just a small thing, but Starshard Edge + Cosmos is 39 + 51 = 90 hit, not 80.

With patch 3.2 out has the Affliction rotation changed? I know the "glyph of life tap" now gives an extra 20 seconds on its buff and I was wondering if that had any effect on the rotation. It would help very much if you would post your rotation to make sure I'm doing the proper rotation. Thank you EJ community!

@ruditos:
There is no such thing as rotation any more. What you have is a spell priority list. With each available cast window you apply your highest available DPCT spell or spell chain provided you don't clip anything. Read the Cast Sequence section of the first post.

Thank you. I see what your talking about now. I found out pretty much everything I needed to know. I thought the previous posts were outdated but I understand how the forums work now.

Wondering why your stat weights are different then the simcraft one for affliction. Seems spirit took a huge increase in stat weighing ever since the LT glyph change. It has spirit better then crit at a 1.02/.92. Looks like haste with down some and spirit is almost better then haste.

I have 5/5 in Everlasting Affliction and use Drain Life as my filler but my corruption doesn't seem to reset. I also use DoT Timers addon. How is the corruption timer suppose to work? Does it tick down to 0 (no bar) and the start at full again with DoT timers or do I need to pay attention to in-game icon. Is there a better addon to track this?

I am still leveling (currently lvl 73) and I haven't put any points into destruction to get the improvements to shadow bolt. I gone deep into affliction and enough into demo to get Demonic Aegis trying to maximize spell power. I use drain life to proc the instant cast shadow bolts. My mob sequence usually goes haunt, UA, CoA, Corruption and it has been working pretty well. I have practically no down time with life tapping for mana and drain life to heal. I think it is called drain-tanking. I haven't run any spreadsheets or other tools but from looking the untalented numbers of shadow bolt I have to imagine the damage isn't all that different the defacto spec.


i will look into quartz, thanks for the tip.

Any chance a new optimal gear list just like patch 3.1/t8 one will be posted soon? I mean I got a fair amount of emblems of triumph piled up, I'm sure everyone does by now and I just can't decide whether its worth to spend 75 emblems on Hood of Smoldering Aftermath or not. It is cleary better than ilevel 245 warlock set item statwise, maybe even good enough to compete with ilevel258 one but i feel like it might go vain quickly as heroic version of Coliseum will be avaible soon.

Therefore, as new heroic item versions upcoming with heroic mode Coliseum soon, assuming 4 piece bonus is still kind of indispensible, which t9 piece you think would go into a bag slot in order to make room for a better non-set item?

Moreover, which tier pieces or items you think should be bought with emblem of triumphs at first? Or should we keep saving for ilevel245 tier items if both ilevel232 ones and non-set items obtainable with them just doesn't worth?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I should've checked simple questions/simple answers thread first, my apologies for the confusion.

Simple question I think, but it probably belongs here rather than in the "simple question" thread.

My warlock (Sordelloc on Steamwheedle Cartel) switched from Demo to Affl at 80; his talents are 54/0/17. Previously, for aoe I could simple use Meta and Rain of Fire for some impressive damage (for level). What is the aoe strategy for Affl? Should I be trying to Dot up multiple targets or just alternate RoF/Shadowflame? Does Hellfire have any place at all on my spellbar?

I ask because people are used to seeing Recount reports from warlocks with very splashy aoe damage and at the moment Sordelloc is undergeared and very focused on single targets.

Thank you for the answer, but I need a little bit more than that I think. Are you saying that the aoe rotation for a group of three elites is SoC-SoC-SoC and repeat until dead? No RoF or Shadowflame at all? Save the other two for non-elite trash?

For three adds you might be better just dotting them all up with Corruption / Curse of Elements/Agony, UA and then spamming hellfire, shadowflame and rotating haunts.

The trouble with Seed is it deals only a small amount of damage to the mob you cast it on, but a great deal to all the other mobs nearby. With 3 Adds you are only getting 2 explosions per cast, which isn't amazing.

4+ mobs = spam seed of corruption.

2 mobs = dot them both up

3mobs = ???