The easiest answer is the truest: don't look for a haste 'sweet spot' as you describe it. Just stack it high.
In affliction, you wanna be casting all the time to maximise your dps.
That means not waiting for CoA to fall off. Cast your SB, then refresh CoA. 0 cast downtime is what you should aim for, not for a haste sweet spot.
Increasing the number of ticks would be an awkward mechanic, would it not? They'd have to end up rounding up or down to the nearest whole number of ticks since you can't have a "half tick." The only way to prevent corruption from not being refreshed at least once or twice in a raid would be to just increase the damage of corruption by a percentage equal to your haste %, or only have it scale with a fraction of your haste rather than all of it. I wouldn't mind them changing Glyph of UA instead because its pretty horrible right now, and it would be a straight up dps increase because there aren't any talents to screw with the results like EA does with corruption. Granted, it wouldn't increase other specs dps, but as it is now destruction has two glyphs for destruction only spells (conflag and CB), demonology has two (meta and felguard), but affliction's other glyph besides haunt (unstable affliction) is absolutely horrible. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing to fix that while at the same time avoid having to deal with an overly complex haste mechanic on corruption.
There was some discussion about this on wow.com about how to deal with the mechanic of adding haste to dots. Someone in thier forums made the suggestion that rather than changing the timing of damage ticks or shortening the dot to have haste affect damage. In the way that you may have enough haste to get a "half tick" of damage, the suggestion was to take that damage from that tick to increase the overall damage of the dot ticks. I imagine there would be some scaling issues if dots increased in damage that way though.
I presume you mean immolate? If so, this change happened back at 3.1. Affliction warlocks should thus drop immolate from their rotation and use UA instead.
If so, this change happened back at 3.1. Affliction warlocks should thus drop immolate from their rotation and use UA instead.
So at that point what is the benefit of the 53/0/18 build? You're going for a talent that provides benefits to you're destruction spells but from what I see does not benefit you're affliction spells. Would those 18 talents be better served in the demonology tree maybe in improved succubus or demonic aegis?
So at that point what is the benefit of the 53/0/18 build? You're going for a talent that provides benefits to you're destruction spells but from what I see does not benefit you're affliction spells. Would those 18 talents be better served in the demonology tree maybe in improved succubus or demonic aegis?
The benefit is to Shadow Bolt. While it may be filler it still contributes a significant percentage of your total DPS. Checking the logs of my last few raids it does in the range of 24% to 29% of my total damage, depending on the fight. The effect of Bane and Ruin on that are not insignificant.
He might be referring to Aftermath which indeed is a wasted talent for Affliction locks. These points are better spent in Demonic Power (for increased DPS), Destructive Reach (higher utility) or maybe even Molten Skin (better survivability) or something entirely else, depending on your playstyle.
Wouldn't this be a good time to have Shadow Bolt rebranded as an Affliction spell (and adjust the talent trees accordingly)? Introducing Incinerate at beginner levels would allow this, and make a lot of sense.
For one, it would solve the problem of Affliction having to spend a whooping 8 talent points if they want extended range and pushback protection for their whole arsenal of spells. Maybe it could even allow Affliction to pick up those Demo talents that Destruction warlocks can afford.
Not that I am so terribly opposed to Affl/Destro having different talent tree structures. As an big fan of Affliction though, I'd really like to see Shadow Bolt be made "our own" spell.
That's a whole different can of worms. The Warlock trees are remarkably redundant. There are separate Affliction and Destruction talents for range boosting, threat reduction, and crit multiplication. Heck, there used to be separate +Hit talents for the two trees. It's a clumsy legacy design, and one I suspect will get tossed in Cataclysm.
That said, the reason Shadow Bolt is a Destruction spell is that they are Destruction and Affliction spells, not Fire and Shadow spells. Warlocks are not Mages and shouldn't envy their design.
So at that point what is the benefit of the 53/0/18 build? You're going for a talent that provides benefits to you're destruction spells but from what I see does not benefit you're affliction spells. Would those 18 talents be better served in the demonology tree maybe in improved succubus or demonic aegis?
Well initially you should always have at least 15 points in Destruction, in Bane, Improved Shadow Bolt and Ruin. The other points i'm guessing you're referring to Demonic Power and perhaps Destructive Reach? Aftermath is useless for affliction. The only reason you would spec into Demonic Power is for the extra damage from the Succubus. With 3.3 approaching, it is likely the spec will have more points in Affliction with Improved Felhunter instead. I am currently running 55/1/15 as my offspec for when we don't have a mage purely for the Felhunter buff.
Personally at 3.1 i always ran with 53/1/17 anyway for the Fel synergy. I struggle to think why you would need any more than 17 points in destruction, unless you have severe threat problems.
Thx for putting together this guide - it's a great resource for someone like myself learning how to raid w/ a loc. I was wondering if the first page could be updated to cover AOE during raiding. I'm spec'd affliction, but am unsure how to burn down trash. Any advice? I can't seem to find an answer by searching.
Nobody cares much about trash. I'm a bit leery of Seed: it has a tendency to detonate at the worst possible time (when a mob flees towards another pack...). And by the time you realize you're pulling aggro, it's already too late.
So I mainly use rain of fire, which DPSes less, can be interrupted at any time, and is a nice, long cast that allows you do be semi-afk.
Nobody cares much about trash. I'm a bit leery of Seed: it has a tendency to detonate at the worst possible time (when a mob flees towards another pack...). And by the time you realize you're pulling aggro, it's already too late.
So I mainly use rain of fire, which DPSes less, can be interrupted at any time, and is a nice, long cast that allows you do be semi-afk.
I have to agree on Seeding trash. Seed is certainly your more powerful AOE, especially as affliction, but a group of seeds can go off at just the wrong moment and pull things onto you. Certainly in Naxx, where a multitude of large packs were the order of the day, seed of corruption was a liability and warlocks had a reputation for going pop.
While this applies to destro warlocks, not affliction, it is a rather useful thing to note: The next tick of Rain of Fire will be all-critical after an empowered imp proc, consuming the buff. I haven't tested the effects of Empowered Imp on seed of corruption. I hadn't thought to take a screenshot of this in my combat log, but it's fairly obvious this is the case when you see 30+ hits, all of them critical, on onyxia's whelps. With the 2t9 bonus, this may well put rain of fire in the lead for destroying the whelps - and given how easily the whelps can break away and chomp DPS anyway, I'd be wary of seeding there.
The safest way to use seed of corruption is to cast it on the target the tank and melee are hitting so it gos off fast. Just keep recasting it on that target. But again trash dps = who cares.
I don't see how the glyph potentially making us cast Haunt more often during Heroism/Bloodlust (with my proposed secondary effect) messes with us to the point of warranting profanity, since all casters have to cast more often during that time for the DPS increase anyway. It would just be a very sped up version of how we usually cast, which is exactly what most other casters deal with. Of course, this would streamline even more if the other DoTs got treatment similar to Corruption, which it looks like may happen at some point after 3.3 if the blue post is to be believed. I'm also not playing up UA to be absolutely crucial in PVP, but the fact stands that behind the two generally considered "essential" glyphs for Affliction PVP (Soul Link and Howl of Terror), the three most popular Glyphs (and by a good margin) are Unstable Affliction, Corruption (in its current form), and Shadowflame. Then again, in 3.3 I don't see any Afflictionlock not taking the new Glyph of Corruption, so Glyph of UA may very well be in need of a light buff to maintain its attractiveness in that area.
As it stands now, when you refresh a corruption with haunt, it resets to 18 second duration *every time*. So you'd never have to "cast haunt more often during bloodlust".
However, this leads me to question whether the glyph is atually working properly. There are 3 basic scenarios that could explain this behavior:
1) When your refresh corruption with haunt, you get a 18 second completely normal non-glyphed corruption. This makes the glyph basically useless.
or
2) When you refresh corruption, you get an 18 second corruption that simply ticks faster than normal (meaning you get extra ticks).
or
3) When you refresh corruption you get an 18 second corruption that ticks faster than normal based on the haste of THE ORIGINAL corruption cast, not your haste when you cast haunt.
I have no idea which of those 3 is the current functionality, I just know that haunt does indeed bump the duration back to 18 seconds every time. So either the glyph becomes useless, or this is an added perk (it might even be possible to "roll" a high haste value the whole fight long).
Edit: Did some testing, it's the third one.
I was able to get a corruption that ticked every 2 seconds to refresh to 18 seconds on every haunt but keep ticking every 2 seconds. I could have kept that strength of a corruption rolling indefinitely. That *really* adds value to engineering for PvE -- since you can get that glove boost on your corruption all fight long.
3) When you refresh corruption you get an 18 second corruption that ticks faster than normal based on the haste of THE ORIGINAL corruption cast, not your haste when you cast haunt.
This is the case, The Haste Bonus is not recalculated on a refresh. So your idea with Engeenering is defenitly working (+ Haste Potion + Power Infusion + Eradication will be very awesome, since all of these multiply each other, except for Gloves Buff, your own Haste Rating and Haste Potion since all of them are simply Rating).
Already tested that a While ago with Eradication + Bloodlust, got a 1.5 sec Corruption and kept it active for another ~5 minutes, it was still at 1.5 sec Speed when I stopped.
What is the optimal start?
The opening sequence found most often ist Shadow Bolt->Haunt->Corruption->Unstable Affliction->Curse of Agony.
I personally use Life Tap (Rank 1) once before the boss fight starts to get the buff from the mandatory Life Tap glyph.
You could also add that if you got a "stacking" trinket like [Illustration of the Dragon Soul], it may be worth stacking this to full 10 stacks before the fight (via Life Tap (Rank 1) or Health Funnel); but you have to consider that you probably will trigger on-cast procs like Lightweave Embroidery or from other talents and trinkets, activating their ICD and delaying their next proc.
Regarding corruption: is there any addon that records your haste and critical strike rating from when you initially cast corruption, and then warns you if at any time in the fight these ratings change considerably?
The addon should track raid buffs, boss debuffs, and self buffs. Most raid buffs and boss debuffs will be up the entire fight, unless someone dies, misses a cast/swing or you move out of range - the safe way would be to check for them every time.
Raid buffs
+5% crit chance (Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath)
+5% spell haste (Wrath of Air Totem)
+3% haste (Improved Moonkin Form/Swift Retribution)
Stat multiplier 110% (Blessing of Kings)
+48 (or more) intelligence (Fel Intelligence, Arcane Intellect)
+37 (or more) to all stats (Mark of the Wild)
+30% spell casting speed (Bloodlust/Heroism)
Boss debuffs
+5% crit chance (Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill, Improved Shadow Bolt)
+3% Crit taken (Totem of Wrath, Master Poisoner, Heart of the Crusader)
Self buffs
+20% spell casting speed (Eradication, Power Infusion)
+400 haste rating (Haste Potion)
+200 critical strike rating (Potion of Wild Magic)
All trinkets with haste or critical strike rating, on-use or as proc
The addon could then tell you when it is worth to re-cast corruption, e.g. while a Bloodlust, or if you proc Eradication and have a trinket with crit rating active.
Start the fight as usual. Once Eradication procs, /w your priest friend for Power Infusion, use a Haste Potion and the trinket, re-cast corruption. Win.
Yes they did, but Shadow priests got 3 hasted dots via shadowform before they reverted SW:P, whereas warlocks only have one.
I don't understand how the number of hasted buffs they have available is in any way related to the bug in question, where the refreshed dot retains all haste buffs (and presumably crit debuffs?) from when it was originally applied rather than from when it is being refreshed. Now, they said that they found shadow priest damage to be too high with hasted SW:P, but I strongly suspect they simply couldn't fix the bug and undid the buff because of it, then added haste to the other dots instead (though they didn't do it in that order).
If corruption also has this problem, then I don't see why they'd add haste to it rather than UA and/or CoA. I mean, it encourages weird things like stacking as many haste buffs as possible, in order to get as large a boost as possible for that one corruption application, then keep refreshing it for the rest of the fight. It's an extremely unintuitive mechanic that nobody who isn't an avid forum reader will know about unless they're very observant, and it also raises questions like if the class will be balanced around the max theoretical possible damage while abusing that mechanic, or without abusing it (and, if they feel this can be overlooked, if they care about affliction damage at all).
Last edited by Xunwael : 12/01/09 at 11:14 AM.
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law
I don't understand how the number of hasted buffs they have available is in any way related to the bug in question, where the refreshed dot retains all haste buffs (and presumably crit debuffs?) from when it was originally applied rather than from when it is being refreshed. Now, they said that they found shadow priest damage to be too high with hasted SW:P, but I strongly suspect they simply couldn't fix the bug and undid the buff because of it, then added haste to the other dots instead (though they didn't do it in that order).
If corruption also has this problem, then I don't see why they'd add haste to it rather than UA and/or CoA. I mean, it encourages weird things like stacking as many haste buffs as possible, in order to get as large a boost as possible for that one corruption application, then keep refreshing it for the rest of the fight. It's an extremely unintuitive mechanic that nobody who isn't an avid forum reader will know about unless they're very observant, and it also raises questions like if the class will be balanced around the max theoretical possible damage while abusing that mechanic, or without abusing it (and, if they feel this can be overlooked, if they care about affliction damage at all).
The point is that shadow priests' dps was too high with all three dots hasted, especially considering the rolling SW:P. It's more in line with only two of them.
They said they wanted to test how dots could be hasted via glyphs first, and I suspect it's easier to balance Affliction dps around one hasted dot, even if it's acting kinda weird, than throwing out additionnal CoA\UA glyphs.
There aren't that many possibilities of hastening dots in the affliction tree though, as we're supposed to put other curses than CoA sometimes. And with siphon life being taken out of the game, the other candidate would be UA, but as it's supposed to be a dispel shield in pvp, shortening its duration may cause issues.
Though I do agree that they probably don't know how to fix the bug, but they just can't find another decent solution for Warlocks the way they did for Shadow priests. But I wouldn't be surprised if they fixed it, especially if mods begin to come out helping to time your corruption at the right moment (the way mods that helped boomkins to deal with their eclipse procs led to a talent change).
The point is that shadow priests' dps was too high with all three dots hasted, especially considering the rolling SW:P. It's more in line with only two of them.
They said they wanted to test how dots could be hasted via glyphs first, and I suspect it's easier to balance Affliction dps around one hasted dot, even if it's acting kinda weird, than throwing out additionnal CoA\UA glyphs.
There aren't that many possibilities of hastening dots in the affliction tree though, as we're supposed to put other curses than CoA sometimes. And with siphon life being taken out of the game, the other candidate would be UA, but as it's supposed to be a dispel shield in pvp, shortening its duration may cause issues.
Though I do agree that they probably don't know how to fix the bug, but they just can't find another decent solution for Warlocks the way they did for Shadow priests. But I wouldn't be surprised if they fixed it, especially if mods begin to come out helping to time your corruption at the right moment (the way mods that helped boomkins to deal with their eclipse procs led to a talent change).
Blizz' policy on changing game mechanics to prevent addon reliance seems to be "When an addon is considered mandatory, change something." The Boomkin addon was automatically removing a buff whenever it came up, the rogue addon was swapping weapons automatically; the most a warlock addon could do is shout "corruption now!", and there are quite a few variables involved in when it's best to use corruption. You want maximum haste, yes, but some things are short procs you can rely on having often, some are rarer, and some are on-use. You can still have some degree of control over it.
There already plenty of addons that display your caster stats as a small line of text, and plenty that watch for certain buffs. You won't need any new addons to time corruption for the most haste, just the ability to watch your buffs and know which icons you want lit up. Sure, it'd be better to have something you can tweak to display a message when you have all your procs up at once, but it wouldn't be a massive advantage over what a warlock with a brain and the default interface could accomplish.
Edit: bad formatting on tag
it may be worth stacking this to full 10 stacks before the fight (via Life Tap (Rank 1) or Health Funnel); but you have to consider that you probably will trigger on-cast procs like Lightweave Embroidery or from other talents and trinkets, activating their ICD and delaying their next proc.
Minor point but unlike health funnel, lifetap R1 does not proc lightweave, and doesn't proc any of the trinks (that could proc) I have either.
Regards the 'bug' on haste. Personally I hope they fix it before live, the last thing aff needs is a rep for doing too much DPS due to an exploitable design flaw.
Minor point but unlike health funnel, lifetap R1 does not proc lightweave, and doesn't proc any of the trinks (that could proc) I have either.
You are right, Life Tap does not proc Lightweave Embroidery, tested it for a few minutes now - but I also didn't proc it with Health Funnel. In my testings I found out that it depends on how you use Health Funnel: this spell consists of an initial effect that may or may not proc things, and a channeling/over time effect (displayed as a player buff) that may or may not proc things. To make it even more confusing, it depends on your trinkets (the exact wording) if they proc or not.
I came up with this little table. "Yes" means the trinket/embroidery can proc of the corresponding effect, "no" means it will not. Please append your own trinkets to this table, or correct mistakes I did in my small sample size.
Conclusion:
I would recommend to pre-charge your IotDS or EotBM with Health Funnel casts, by casting it and then immediately cancel the channeling effect by moving/jumping. You will not only proc less inner CDs of your trinkets, but also Health Funnel costs less health points than Life Tap (R1).
10/21/09, 6:02 AM
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