You wouldn't lifetap every 10 seconds as I doubt you could ever spend mana that quickly outside of the drain soul range, and even then, it's a stretch. I do think, however, that opening with a lifetap would be a good idea since the extra spell dmg would hit up every DoT, and you're probably moving to position at the start of the fight anyway.

The goal with the 4-piece bonus would be to ensure that you never lifetap twice-in-a-row (really, it'd be never having 2 lifetaps go off within 10 seconds of each other). Does this mean you lifetap every 10 seconds? No. But it does mean that you need better lifetap planning.

I actually figured just the opposite. Since lifetap scales with spirit I thought the bonus was pushing us in the direction of lifetapping twice in a row (so the second one is more efficient). Would this extra mana be greatly overshadowed by the decreased duration of the extra damage via spirit if you were to spread out your lifetaps?

Yeah I agree with Debuff, if anything the proc (which resets each lifetap) allows your second lifetap to be buffed and then you to have 90 (or more) spell power for reapplying DoTs and such after you lifetap.

Sounds like this would be a complicated theory crafting problem that's beyond my level, but I think from first glance, you'd be better off doing a solo lifetap. The second lifetap would yield about 1170 more mana than the first. I think a double-lifetap at this point would almost account for 50% of the average warlock's mana. You'd be lifetapping so rarely that the 90 spell dmg would almost be insignificant.

The question you have to answer is this:
When life tapping, which is more valuable?
A: X mana, 90 spell power for 10 seconds, repeated every Y seconds.
B: 2X + 1170 mana, 90 spell power for 8.5 seconds, repeated every Z seconds.

X = mana gained from one lifetap.
Y = frequency of solo lifetap = X / (mana consumption / second)
Z = frequency of duo-lifetaps = (2X + 1170) / (mana consumption / second)

I think that A will win due to the frequency of repetition. You would end up having that 90 spell power up almost 2.5 times as often as in option B.

Blacksen, I think it might be a little easier to model the double-tapping as saving a portion of a lifetap, similar to how one would quantify the benefits of Improved Lifetap. One would still need to figure in the spell damage increases though between the two strategies.

Like you, I think this is a little beyond my theorycrafting capabilities.

True, although I don't really think that clipping one tick of one of the weaker dots will hurt dps that much and simplifies rotation alot ?

While tapping twice seems like a good idea, it would be an even better idea (if you actually need the mana), to tap, give yourself ~8 seconds of the buff, and time the second tap at the end of the buff, so you would utilize the extra mana but not waste the DPS gained of having the buff itself up.

I don't remember where I saw it but DoT effects are no longer buffed simply by casting them with trinkets up, rather all of your spells will be buffed while a trinket is up, regardless of when cast.

Where did you get your information?

From wowhead: "Increases the damage bonus effect of your Curse of the Elements spell by an additional 3%, and increases your spell damage by 3%." Increasing spell damage means 1.03 multiplier.

Unfortunately this isn't true. I'm sitting here putting UA on the target dummy, and force-proccing [Dying Curse] and the ticks of UA aren't changing.

The sooner this rumor dies the better off we will all be. Malediction has no effect on your spellpower attribute. "Spell Damage" is not a statistic anymore because its named was changed to "Spellpower" which is not in the talent description. Anything that mentions modifying your spell damage means that it modifies the damage that your spells do. You'll notice that when you spec into it your spellpower attribute does not change at all but your spells do more damage.
Note however that this doesn't make a difference in some situations. Since the difference is 3% of base damage, and this difference is static, it does not affect any aspect of spell scaling. It does effect glyphing.

When I tested it back in beta the damage increase was a little less than 3% on shadow spells, but a full 3% on immolate. It may have stacking issues with, eg, Shadow Mastery, spellstone, or talents like imp CoA, or this may have been fixed since last I tested it with fine precision.

sorry clicked and posted in the wrong thread.

Any words about the ultimate trinkets for aff locks? Like now I have Extract of Necromatic Power and Ilustration of Dragon Soul, but i really think EoNP isnt the Top2 Trinket for us. I was thinking to use the Embrace of the Spider one, but never got one and never saw a good math about these trinkets. Anyone know anything?

Upon doing some testing of Immolate on a target dummy the other day, I discovered that the initial damage of Immolate, the Direct Damage portion, seems to be affected by both Shadow Embrace and Haunt, but not Spellstone. Can anyone else confirm this? I cannot think of anything else to explain the numbers I saw, but perhaps one of you can.

@Fallenman, is there a reason you used 22% crit for Pandemic crits for Corruption and Unstable Affliction, and 40% crit for Immolate and Shadow Bolt? I understand that you specified 22% crit from gear and the 40% is buffed, but I was under the impression that Pandemic benefitted from crit raid buffs as well. Was I mistaken in this? Also, is there a reason you left a 1.01 modifier for spellstone off of your calculations?

Pandemic only gets the 3% of Totem of Wrath and the 5% of the boomkim aura/elemental oath. Imp Scourge/Winter's Chill is a debuff on the mob so it dont count to our Pandemic

Has anyone come up with any numbers comparing using drainsoul and shadow dot rotation >25% compared to full rotation with shadbolt spam? Just curious, I have been raiding affliction the past week and on certain encounters I feel I lose some dps at the end of the fight compared to what I would push if I just continued my normal affliction rotation and sometimes it goes vice versa(I do more dps using DS). Anyone able to come up with any conclusions?

Quick querstion, there isn't a thread about it and I didn't care to start one. My question is concerning gearing and itemization. Does anyone happen to know the ratios for certain stats. Take for example with the affliction spec 56/0/15 Approximately how much

+1Spelldmg = x crit = x haste = x hit = xmp5.

If anyone knows or knows of an addon that could assist me in this that would be great.

Edit - Also anyone suggest any type of rotation for Heroics, where mobs just die way too fast. I mean is there anything better than CoE shadowbolting

Addon: RatingBuster - Addons - Curse

Rotation: There is none. Get an addon to see remaining time on dots and use SBs while none need refreshing. At 25% use soulsiphon. On trash I use corruption and SBs. That sums it up pretty much.

This post really belongs here rather then where i put it last night.

I ran 53/0/18 today Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Wow Web Stats - just go to patch, other then patch i had a bad night i died a lot.

I wanted to test out ISBs usefulness and well it’s not bad, and isn’t hard to keep it up on a boss that requires lil movement. Getting used to not having any range talents was the biggest issue I had with this build but overall it’s very solid. Even with crit being not the best stat for aff locks IMO getting to 20% unbuffed would make this build shine, which is pretty easy with what gear is out there.

Only gear difference between now and that WWS is that I did not have the Heigan chest, was using [Gown of Blaumeux].

Ran with Felhunter over imp as I was the only lock today, we often have 2 aff locks. I think i could have pushed more DPS but i know i fat fingered and messed up the rotation around 40% on patch.

Can someone give some insight about how to do the drain soul thing at 25%? Someone mentioned you can't leave it channeling because it's just not as effective as... doing something else. Melbufrahma I was looking for you on your server haha. I just want to secret to 5k deeps.

I could be doing it wrong, however when the boss hits ~25% I make sure that Dots & haunt are as refreshed as I can without recasting, and then hit DS. During DS I break it to refresh dots that are not immolate, keeping Hanut and 2/2 SE up at all times, the only time I cast SB >25% is if I need to get 2/2 SE back up because it fell off for some reason.

I think I’m going to test out a new cast bar, as there are some you can mod to show you when the damage tick on channeled spells will happen or alert you with a sound. This should make it easier to avoid dropping DS .5s before a tick to refresh dots.

This week was the first time we have run with a OOMkin, hopefully next week ill get an ele shaman as well.


blgdinger, I dont plat during the day (work) but I'm normally on after 6 EST most days.

So basically instead of shadowbolts being the filler you use drain soul instead? Channeling it normally until a dot is about to expire, correct? Also you shouldn't have to shadowbolt because haunt should be refreshing shadows embrace?

sorry if I seem slightly redundant but in 6th grade I was taught that the best way to clarify information is being able to regurgitate it yourself with full understanding :p