I'm not sure how worth it Shadow Embrace is. You'll have to take special effort to get the two stacks in.
Also, I'm not personally a fan of improved drain soul for leveling (although DS gets execute on all ranks now, so it might be more worthwhile). Maybe the threat reduction will be worth it, since you have a real tank.
Nor am I fan of Amplify Curse.
Although, I think you'd do just fine leveling with that build, even if you don't change anything at all.
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
Yeah, I did Idrain soul for the threat lowering, not the actual soul draining.
Amplify curse is passive, right?
As for shadows embrace, thats works with DoTs, right? So if I have corruption, CoA, and whatnot on, and I hit with a shadowbolt, thats an extra 5% damage for 12 seconds, even if its just one stack?
Yeah, I did Idrain soul for the threat lowering, not the actual soul draining.
Amplify curse is passive, right?
As for shadows embrace, thats works with DoTs, right? So if I have corruption, CoA, and whatnot on, and I hit with a shadowbolt, thats an extra 5% damage for 12 seconds, even if its just one stack?
Dropped the Shadow embrace and amplify curse to get 5 in base, and shadowburn
I would put the points spent in Improved Health stone and Demonic Embrace into Ruin. You get enough self healing through Haunt and Siphon life that the added health from those Demo talents isn't really worth it. Plus you're leveling with a pally that will have most of the aggro and/or can heal you.
I haven't been Affliction since 77 / 78 and im getting a little bored of destruction now. I fancy trying something new, but i'm on the lower end of our guilds dps chart as it is. (I dont have the gear)
Speaking of Dps, adding a boomkin into the 10 man group increased my dps by about 500. Which was nice.
Affliction has a lot less burst. It also has less sustained damage. However, it's much closer to destro at weaker gear levels. Also, I'd expect the damage difference isn't really as much of a problem when you're just doing a regular mode raid. It does provide ISB, which depending on your mages, might be really nice to have.
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
as I said.. when destro and affliction have almost the same dps, I think that you'll have to see what kind of fight you have.. there aren't really that many fights atm where constantly ticking dots are needed, but there are always some fights where you need quick burst fast, which would make destro preferable to affliction even if it's dps was slightly slower
but ... who knows that the hardcore minmaxers say
I find Destruction WAY easier to play.. I love affliction, but I just can't get the hang of it for some reason.
I still use it for qeusting, farming, dailys, pvp, basicially everytthing but dungeons and raids.
And when I say bad I mean terribad, I have trouble hitting 2k as affliction where I am getting more and more consistantly between 3-4 with destruction.
Maybe I'll give it another go this weekend and do some guild run 5mans, I really WANT to be good at it
Gnutson on
Erai - Operative <--Imperial Double Agent--> Sniper - Eari
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
Well as I understand it aff soloing, aff in aoe pulls, and aff on a boss are very different, with mainly aff on a boss being like song twisting on an Everquest bard, only worse, because you have twelve different songs with different durations, and have to actually pay attention to things other than twisting, like not dying to the fire.
I'm so glad I don't even want to play affliction. I have too many alts to devote a lot of time learning how to do DPS in a complicated way. Leveling my feral druid might end up being a mistake, for this reason
Raid DPSing as Aff is not even complicated anymore, but it's a hell of a lot more work than destro. You pretty much only want to do it if you like watching timers. You don't have to refresh corruption anymore, so it's pretty much just making sure CoA/UA stay up, refreshing haunt when it's off CD and never letting the debuff drop, and spamming shadowbolts until it's time to drain soul execute.
My main dps alt is a warlock and I prefer affliction to destro in terms of flavor, but destro is just so much easier that it's hard to justify being Aff in a raid.
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
So do the changes actually make the Felhunter the affliction raid pet of choice in 3.3?
Also, it would be nice if they sped up the Haunt projectile speed.
And for multiples? SoC if there is more than 3? Rain of fire for 2-3? tab dot?
Not bother becuse the mages and rogues will have them all dead before you can get a shadowbolt off?
Seed spam is inferior to Rain until a certain number of mobs get involved. I have no idea what the number is, but I imagine it's around 4 or 5. That said, seed spam rapes your mana in short order.
For 2-3, I would tab DoT if they're mobs that tend to live for 20 or more seconds. If it's the kind of trash that will be mostly dead in 10-15 seconds, just rain of fire a couple times.
1) You should never have to worry about Mana on an AFF lock... seriously.
2) SoC works well if enough damage is being done around the house. Ie: If someone else is tossing out AoE, SoC will proc nearly instantly, and your ownly downtime is going to be the GCD.
3) Rain of Fire has a delay during the initial channel, and while it does great damage, you're locked into place and anything that goes wrong will stop your damage.
That being said, SoC has that unchangeable cast time, and it's really how you see the situation. I've been begggggggging Blizzard to give us a Glyph that lets cast time for SoC be effected by haste rating.
The only reason I brought up mana is that it's possible you'll have to burn a GCD or two tapping with seed spam, while you'll be able to cast RoF pretty much nonstop for any realistic fight duration.
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
So do the changes actually make the Felhunter the affliction raid pet of choice in 3.3?
Also, it would be nice if they sped up the Haunt projectile speed.
It does make felhunter the ideal pet, but EJ still has numbers up for succubus affliction (keeps 2 points in demoinc power instead of improved felhunter). The spec's behind destro by about as much as felhunter affliction's ahead, so not by much. It's still noteworthy because it has nearly complete pet freedom without giving up a great deal in terms of DPS.
I've always just spammed SoC on whatever the tank has targeted. By the time the second has cast the first has exploded, same with the third to the second and so on and so on . SoC doesn't take much dmg to explode so I find spamming it on 1 target who's taking dmg is better than trying to land it on everything.
EWom on
Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.
Perhaps it's been discussed a million times in this thread, but I'm 36 and destruction. Currently I just spam shadow bolts and a few other spells, but have steered clear from fire spells. I think that changes at 40 with conflag... but should I stick with destro for leveling, or is demo or affl superior (for leveling)?
Perhaps it's been discussed a million times in this thread, but I'm 36 and destruction. Currently I just spam shadow bolts and a few other spells, but have steered clear from fire spells. I think that changes at 40 with conflag... but should I stick with destro for leveling, or is demo or affl superior (for leveling)?
At that level, affliction would be superior. Demo is pretty lousy until at least you get a felguard.
Destruction changes a lot as you level. At 40, pick up glyph of conflag and make sure you have aftermath in your spec. Open up fights with immolate>conflag for the big damage and a nice daze effect, which will give you the time to cast a couple shadowbolts and probably kill them without any trouble.
At 64(?) when you get incinerate, the spec will change again - a respec would probably be in order then, since incinerate becomes your primary nuke.
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
So do the changes actually make the Felhunter the affliction raid pet of choice in 3.3?
Also, it would be nice if they sped up the Haunt projectile speed.
It does make felhunter the ideal pet, but EJ still has numbers up for succubus affliction (keeps 2 points in demoinc power instead of improved felhunter).
Oh, nice. So imp Felhunter is going to be more than just a joke talent with some slight use while leveling?
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
So do the changes actually make the Felhunter the affliction raid pet of choice in 3.3?
Also, it would be nice if they sped up the Haunt projectile speed.
It does make felhunter the ideal pet, but EJ still has numbers up for succubus affliction (keeps 2 points in demoinc power instead of improved felhunter).
Oh, nice. So imp Felhunter is going to be more than just a joke talent with some slight use while leveling?
Yep, it's actually a really solid DPS talent. Dark pact is looking very close to usable in a raid setting, too, because of it, but isn't a completely solid yet because there's a smaller pool with slower regen to draw from than with life tap.
Where would the point in dark pact come from? I could potentially see it being worthwhile then in fights where life tapping is risky at times (Jaraxxus if you have Incinerate Flesh, Twin Valks, Anub phase 3).
And you said the two in imp felhunter will come from demonic power?
Where would the point in dark pact come from? I could potentially see it being worthwhile then in fights where life tapping is risky at times (Jaraxxus if you have Incinerate Flesh, Twin Valks, Anub phase 3).
And you said the two in imp felhunter will come from demonic power?
The main thing with it is at a sufficient level of spellpower, it'll actually start doing more than you can probably get from life tap, and in 3.3 dark pact will also trigger glyph of life tap. Though they scale on different stats so it's a very individual thing which will be best, dark pact does scale with itself thanks to getting glyph of life tap's buff. However, you're also draining a huge portion of your pet's mana for one, and if you ever misjudge your timing and need a second, you'll be pretty much screwed since the second won't get full benefit and will leave your felhunter unable to shadow bite for more mana immediately.
And, yeah, imp felhunter points come right out of demonic power. 2 points in succubus for 2 points in felhunter, pretty easy trade.
I like that pretty much every patch since 3.0 is making Affliction more and more what I stubbornly want it to be.
Where will the point for Dark Pact be dropped from? As far as I know, the current affliction raid spec doesn't get DP, does it?
It would be the last floater point - it's in cataclysm in the cookie cutter, but a lot of people put it in fel synergy for the pet healing. In theory if dark pact were sustainable on it's own, it would make improved life tap expendable, but those 2 points would still have to be somewhere in the top 3 tiers anyway.
Yeah, when you said dark pact may be worth getting, at first I was excited about the prospect of being able to ditch the 2 annoying/perfunctory points in imp life tap, but then I looked at the calculator to see what my new options were and was like "meh."
Now if they could just make amplify curse something useful like the resto druid GotEM.
I talked about this and thought about what was said earlier about affliction being hard {buttons!}
I have said it you get used to the keyboard dance after some time
My brother pointed out back in TBC when Affliction and Destruction were about the same last a lot of people went over to Affliction and bitched about how hard it was
I have both and will keep dark pact and imp life tab until Cataclysm when they come out with the new De Kitchen sinkifyed specs
I always compared affliction to guitar hero without the music. I remember back in 3.0 somebody even made a mod for affliction and shadow that basically replaced your standard timers with a guitar hero board.
On a slightly different note. Has anyone been on the PTR yet with their destro-lock. My machine is in the shop getting a board changed. I was wondering what conflagrate is hitting for post-nerf.
On a slightly different note. Has anyone been on the PTR yet with their destro-lock. My machine is in the shop getting a board changed. I was wondering what conflagrate is hitting for post-nerf.
Knock 25% off what it's hitting now and you're about spot on, at least for the nuke itself.
If you're thinking PVE, it's pretty much the same. You lose the firestone 1% bonus on the DOT, but the nuke and DOT crit independently (DOT ticks get the 25% elevated crit rate, too) - so a non-crit can still get a DOT crit and do more damage than a normal noncrit, and vice-versa. DOT crits don't proc pyroclasm. It's a very tiny effective nerf.
Target dummy DPS seems to be down a little bit, but I think it might be just as much recount buggery from the burst nerf as actual DPS loss (sort of like how mages gain 1500 dps going from fire to arcane but gain much less damage done over the course of a boss fight than that number would imply).
Posts
Feel free to make fun of me, as long as you offer improvemetns
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrburAoVAoIktbhZx
I'm not sure how worth it Shadow Embrace is. You'll have to take special effort to get the two stacks in.
Also, I'm not personally a fan of improved drain soul for leveling (although DS gets execute on all ranks now, so it might be more worthwhile). Maybe the threat reduction will be worth it, since you have a real tank.
Nor am I fan of Amplify Curse.
Although, I think you'd do just fine leveling with that build, even if you don't change anything at all.
Shadow Embrace is not that hard to get two stacks and keep them up for me at least
Amplify Curse I had it in vanilla wow I have not used it since
I don't know about the improved drain soul I kind of want to pick it up for the threat reduction
Amplify curse is passive, right?
As for shadows embrace, thats works with DoTs, right? So if I have corruption, CoA, and whatnot on, and I hit with a shadowbolt, thats an extra 5% damage for 12 seconds, even if its just one stack?
Alt; how about this?
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxrbhrhoVAoIktbhZE00o
Dropped the Shadow embrace and amplify curse to get 5 in base, and shadowburn
Yes for shadow embrace
For leveling?
Leveling I say pick what works for you and go with it as you get used to the keyboard dance for affliction
My whole point was that Shadow Embrace tends not to be very useful for leveling.
I would put the points spent in Improved Health stone and Demonic Embrace into Ruin. You get enough self healing through Haunt and Siphon life that the added health from those Demo talents isn't really worth it. Plus you're leveling with a pally that will have most of the aggro and/or can heal you.
I haven't been Affliction since 77 / 78 and im getting a little bored of destruction now. I fancy trying something new, but i'm on the lower end of our guilds dps chart as it is. (I dont have the gear)
Speaking of Dps, adding a boomkin into the 10 man group increased my dps by about 500. Which was nice.
Looking ahead, so far, 3.3 numbers on the PTR make destro and affliction very similar in terms of sustained dps, with affliction slightly ahead (although even demo is comparable on PTR).
It would feel so odd to raid as demo.
but ... who knows that the hardcore minmaxers say
I still use it for qeusting, farming, dailys, pvp, basicially everytthing but dungeons and raids.
And when I say bad I mean terribad, I have trouble hitting 2k as affliction where I am getting more and more consistantly between 3-4 with destruction.
Maybe I'll give it another go this weekend and do some guild run 5mans, I really WANT to be good at it
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
I'm so glad I don't even want to play affliction. I have too many alts to devote a lot of time learning how to do DPS in a complicated way. Leveling my feral druid might end up being a mistake, for this reason
My main dps alt is a warlock and I prefer affliction to destro in terms of flavor, but destro is just so much easier that it's hard to justify being Aff in a raid.
Also, it would be nice if they sped up the Haunt projectile speed.
Cast Haunt
Cast Corruption
Cast UA
Cast your Curse
Then you just keep everything refreshed and spam shadowbolt/Drain Soul when you've got nothing else to do.
Not bother becuse the mages and rogues will have them all dead before you can get a shadowbolt off?
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
That's been my experience. I'm still deciding between "Dot Everything" and "Rain of Fire" for what does the most damage.
For 2-3, I would tab DoT if they're mobs that tend to live for 20 or more seconds. If it's the kind of trash that will be mostly dead in 10-15 seconds, just rain of fire a couple times.
2) SoC works well if enough damage is being done around the house. Ie: If someone else is tossing out AoE, SoC will proc nearly instantly, and your ownly downtime is going to be the GCD.
3) Rain of Fire has a delay during the initial channel, and while it does great damage, you're locked into place and anything that goes wrong will stop your damage.
That being said, SoC has that unchangeable cast time, and it's really how you see the situation. I've been begggggggging Blizzard to give us a Glyph that lets cast time for SoC be effected by haste rating.
*drooooooooool*
It does make felhunter the ideal pet, but EJ still has numbers up for succubus affliction (keeps 2 points in demoinc power instead of improved felhunter). The spec's behind destro by about as much as felhunter affliction's ahead, so not by much. It's still noteworthy because it has nearly complete pet freedom without giving up a great deal in terms of DPS.
At that level, affliction would be superior. Demo is pretty lousy until at least you get a felguard.
Destruction changes a lot as you level. At 40, pick up glyph of conflag and make sure you have aftermath in your spec. Open up fights with immolate>conflag for the big damage and a nice daze effect, which will give you the time to cast a couple shadowbolts and probably kill them without any trouble.
At 64(?) when you get incinerate, the spec will change again - a respec would probably be in order then, since incinerate becomes your primary nuke.
Yep, it's actually a really solid DPS talent. Dark pact is looking very close to usable in a raid setting, too, because of it, but isn't a completely solid yet because there's a smaller pool with slower regen to draw from than with life tap.
And you said the two in imp felhunter will come from demonic power?
The main thing with it is at a sufficient level of spellpower, it'll actually start doing more than you can probably get from life tap, and in 3.3 dark pact will also trigger glyph of life tap. Though they scale on different stats so it's a very individual thing which will be best, dark pact does scale with itself thanks to getting glyph of life tap's buff. However, you're also draining a huge portion of your pet's mana for one, and if you ever misjudge your timing and need a second, you'll be pretty much screwed since the second won't get full benefit and will leave your felhunter unable to shadow bite for more mana immediately.
And, yeah, imp felhunter points come right out of demonic power. 2 points in succubus for 2 points in felhunter, pretty easy trade.
Where will the point for Dark Pact be dropped from? As far as I know, the current affliction raid spec doesn't get DP, does it?
It would be the last floater point - it's in cataclysm in the cookie cutter, but a lot of people put it in fel synergy for the pet healing. In theory if dark pact were sustainable on it's own, it would make improved life tap expendable, but those 2 points would still have to be somewhere in the top 3 tiers anyway.
Now if they could just make amplify curse something useful like the resto druid GotEM.
I have said it you get used to the keyboard dance after some time
My brother pointed out back in TBC when Affliction and Destruction were about the same last a lot of people went over to Affliction and bitched about how hard it was
I have both and will keep dark pact and imp life tab until Cataclysm when they come out with the new De Kitchen sinkifyed specs
Knock 25% off what it's hitting now and you're about spot on, at least for the nuke itself.
If you're thinking PVE, it's pretty much the same. You lose the firestone 1% bonus on the DOT, but the nuke and DOT crit independently (DOT ticks get the 25% elevated crit rate, too) - so a non-crit can still get a DOT crit and do more damage than a normal noncrit, and vice-versa. DOT crits don't proc pyroclasm. It's a very tiny effective nerf.
Target dummy DPS seems to be down a little bit, but I think it might be just as much recount buggery from the burst nerf as actual DPS loss (sort of like how mages gain 1500 dps going from fire to arcane but gain much less damage done over the course of a boss fight than that number would imply).