Dots and you: The Affliction Warlock Thread - Page 93

pitibull · 01/24/10, 5:30 AM

Originally Posted by Fecys

Thats what I pointed out before aswell (and got banned for it..). It can also be very good if you somehow get lucky, you get a +15% dmg running corruption, but overall corruption wont benefit from it which will make the bonus a lot less good for afli.

Actully it's more of a gift IMO. You can wait with the NMIC and pot, and when you get the proc from the 4pt10, use the trink+pot and recast. It might clip the current corruption, but you can then roll this "empowerd" corruption (theoretically) for the entire fight!

True, all other dots won't get the full duration of the dmg buff, but rolling corrution for a 100% uptime of this buff is just huge (OP?).

JFunkz15 · 01/24/10, 5:28 PM

How do you know you can roll the 10% damage bonus... I would think it would fall off on the first refresh after the buff wore off... If you can indeed roll that 10% buff via everlasting affliction it would be very OP.

Vicieus · 01/25/10, 2:30 AM

Originally Posted by Ralimenua

Aaryndor's summary is accurate. To go over the sequence in more detail, because I'm bored:

0. Pre-combat Life Tap Rank 1 - spellpower boost, if you have the Glyph, which is still worth it.
1. Pre-combat [Potion of Wild Magic] (5% crit, pre-combat to allow for another potion during Bloodlust/Heroism).
2. Shadow Bolt (Applies 5% crit Shadow Mastery, only need one. First stack of Shadow Embrace).
3. Haunt (Applies 28% glyphed damage boost to shadow. Second stack of Shadow Embrace).
3a. Haunt is travelling now. Gently.
4. Curse of Agony or Unstable Affliction. Which spell you choose here will depend on the fight, your latency, your distance from the target, etc.
5. Activate [Nevermelting Ice Crystal]. Gives you a 5-stack buff that amounts to 20% crit at 5 stacks. Yay. You don't want to activate the [Nevermelting Ice Crystal] until after Haunt lands, because Haunt can crit, and remove one stack of the NMIC's buff (4% crit). This is not theoretical: I have seen this happen. Proc NMIC after Haunt lands if you want the full 20% crit.
6. Corruption. By now, you should have 39% more crit than your base: 9% malediction, 5% potion, 5% ISB, 20% NMIC. If you can roll this crit boost throughout the fight, you are a grown-up affliction warlock.
7. UA or CoA, whichever you didn't cast earlier.
8. Rotation.

The proposed change to Shadow Embrace may make it worth casting SB-Haunt-SB-NMIC-Corruption-CoA-UA-*. Time and simulation will tell. I'm filled with trepidation that SE stacking 3 times will come hand-in-hand with crit recalculation on reapplication, which would be disappointing, but consistent with haste and spellpower. Using NMIC is no exploit, but it is kinda cheesy.

Question why not have the rotation something like:
0. Pre-combat Life Tap Rank 1 - spellpower boost, if you have the Glyph, which is still worth it.
1. Pre-combat [Potion of Wild Magic] (5% crit, pre-combat to allow for another potion during Bloodlust/Heroism).
2. Shadow Bolt (Applies 5% crit Shadow Mastery, only need one. First stack of Shadow Embrace).
3. haunt
4. pop NIC
5. cast corruption
6. cast UA
7. cast coa
8. shadowbolts

My thinking is that you want to pop it sooner in the rotation and take a chance at the haunt critting vs popping it later and getting to your line of sb casts faster (because sbs have a higher crit chance.)

Unfortunatly I don't have the trinket currently to test any rotation out.

Smurrf · 01/25/10, 6:16 AM

The whole purpose of waiting a global to cast Corruption is precisely to ensure that Haunt does not remove a portion of the NMIC crit chance. You're going to be casting all your dots anyway before starting your second SB, so the idea that by changing the order, you're going to cast SB faster doesn't hold water.

Rubberducker · 01/25/10, 6:23 AM

not sure if it already has been posted, nevertheless.

the tier 10 4 set bonus, does indeed work like tricks of the trade, and it stacks with it aswell. in the meaning that corruption will keep the 10% damage if you roll it, and its not affected by the 10% damage unless you recast it.

i tested it today as i managed to get 4 pieces.

without tricks and tier corruption ticked for 1421
with tier procc 1564
with tier and tricks it was about 1800.

so in order to really pump out dps as affliction, you need to juggle the proccs and trinkets once at the start of the fight and once at below 35%.

Kilroggmama · 01/25/10, 7:28 AM

Originally Posted by Vicieus

Question why not have the rotation something like:
0. Pre-combat Life Tap Rank 1 - spellpower boost, if you have the Glyph, which is still worth it.
1. Pre-combat [Potion of Wild Magic] (5% crit, pre-combat to allow for another potion during Bloodlust/Heroism).
2. Shadow Bolt (Applies 5% crit Shadow Mastery, only need one. First stack of Shadow Embrace).
3. haunt
4. pop NIC
5. cast corruption
6. cast UA
7. cast coa
8. shadowbolts

Why not:

0. Pre-combat Life Tap Rank 1 - spellpower boost, if you have the Glyph, which is still worth it.
1. Pre-combat [Potion of Wild Magic] (5% crit, pre-combat to allow for another potion during Bloodlust/Heroism).
2. Shadow Bolt (Applies 5% crit Shadow Mastery, only need one. First stack of Shadow Embrace).
3. haunt
4. cast coa
5. pop NIC (make sure Haunt hit first)
6. cast corruption
7. cast UA
8. shadowbolts

CoA can't crit, so it won't benefit from NIC anyway, cast it as a time filler after Haunt, before popping trinket.

sharkee · 01/25/10, 7:48 AM

Originally Posted by Rubberducker

not sure if it already has been posted, nevertheless.

the tier 10 4 set bonus, does indeed work like tricks of the trade, and it stacks with it aswell. in the meaning that corruption will keep the 10% damage if you roll it, and its not affected by the 10% damage unless you recast it.

i tested it today as i managed to get 4 pieces.

without tricks and tier corruption ticked for 1421
with tier procc 1564
with tier and tricks it was about 1800.

so in order to really pump out dps as affliction, you need to juggle the proccs and trinkets once at the start of the fight and once at below 35%.

So what changes in the starting line-up with 4pt10 then?

We start as usual with:
SB > Haunt > UA > Corr > CoA > SB
etc.

Wait for the t10 proc, then use NMIC and recast corr?

realCool · 01/26/10, 2:10 AM

Originally Posted by sharkee

So what changes in the starting line-up with 4pt10 then?

We start as usual with:
SB > Haunt > UA > Corr > CoA > SB
etc.

Wait for the t10 proc, then use NMIC and recast corr?

I would think it should be something along those lines. You should also get a rogue to give you tricks of the trade when you have the procc use NMIC in the meantime an then recast corruption. Same process when the mob reaches 35%. But with this new rotation pre-potting loses much of its value because you only get the bonus für corruption when you get the procc on your first or second tick.

Vicieus · 01/26/10, 6:31 AM

Originally Posted by Smurrf

The whole purpose of waiting a global to cast Corruption is precisely to ensure that Haunt does not remove a portion of the NMIC crit chance. You're going to be casting all your dots anyway before starting your second SB, so the idea that by changing the order, you're going to cast SB faster doesn't hold water.

I understand why you cast the coa or UA. Its just that your putting corruption in the rotation closer to your shadowbolts so the likelyhood of your sbs critting and reducing the NIC stack should be much higher than by your haunt critting.

Datalord · 01/26/10, 6:58 AM

Originally Posted by sharkee

So what changes in the starting line-up with 4pt10 then?

We start as usual with:
SB > Haunt > UA > Corr > CoA > SB
etc.

Wait for the t10 proc, then use NMIC and recast corr?

In that case I would start with UA -> Corr -> Haunt -> SB -> CoA , simply to get the highest DPET spells off first. Possibly losing SE and Haunt buff on the first tick, depending on range to the boss, should be less of a dps loss than taking the lowest DPET first. This also gives you extra Corruption ticks to gain Nightfall and Eradication procs.
I might even argue that using Corr -> CoA -> UA -> Haunt -> SB is better, since it gives the freedom to move into a spot which many of the bosses require. The +5% crit from SB is negligible since you will reapply it very soon.

When 4T10 procs, pop NIC and reapply Corruption.

I have not found a way to test the above statement, but it seems like a natural consequence of our previous findings on openers.

Smurrf · 01/26/10, 10:42 AM

Originally Posted by Vicieus

I understand why you cast the CoA or UA. Its just that you're putting Corruption in the rotation closer to your Shadowbolts so the likelihood of your SBs critting and reducing the NIC stack should be much higher than by your Haunt critting.

Once Corruption is cast, the spell's crit chance is locked in. Subsequent crits by Shadowbolt, Haunt, etc., won't change Corr's crit chance so long as it is being refreshed.

Cahrin · 01/26/10, 11:10 AM

Is the mechanic for 'a more powerful spell is already active' well known? As I understand, it's based purely on spellpower. This presents an obvious issue with reapplying Corruption to get benefit from 4PT10, particularly for tailors (Lightweave) and owners of proc-based SP bonus trinkets (Dislodged, for example). I've already experienced the issue when trying to reapply with Tricks (same concept) right after a Dislodged proc ended (I had presumably refreshed my Corruption via Everlasting Affliction while I had around 5000 SP, making it nearly impossible to surpass that to apply a new one).

This leads me to believe the issue of changing the opener is largely moot since your ability to reapply your Corruption is going to be largely random. Unless the mechanic changes (or my understanding of it is incorrect) I'm guessing we're going to be out of luck and it will essentially be best to "ignore" the proc with respect to modifying your rotation. It may, however, be worthwhile (depending on how quickly the first T10 proc occurs) to simply forgo applying Corruption until you get the 4PT10 bonus, at which point you would pop NMIC and apply it then.

wheyyaat · 01/26/10, 12:01 PM

If the "more powerful spell" mechanic is based purely on spellpower, then one would think you would just have to wait out the procs (such as lightweave and DFO) and then recast corruption since the spellpower level of corruption is re-calculated each refresh via Everlasting affliction, correct? If this method can not be used to deal with it, then this is pretty inconsistent behavior. I'll test this out in more detail when I get home tonight, as I have lightweave on my lock.

Nartas · 01/26/10, 12:42 PM

Cast a seed to get rid of your current corruption then reapply it.

Tenthplanet · 01/26/10, 2:07 PM

I followed your 2 references for glyphs and did not find what you were suggesting. Albeit I'm pushing tiny buttons on a cellphone trying to find what you mentioned about glyphs in an alternate discussion.

I do agree that glyph of quick decay and life tap are the top 2 glyphs to use.

When I was following your cite of the glyph discussion - the information seemed old.

I was looking for the numbers which combine quick decay and corruption glyphs to see if it enhances proc rate.

Was this overlooked in your glyph choices, or am I not seeing it on this tiny screen?

BTW, I really like your guide.