Moar Affliction Warlocks in 3.3
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 10:10
So, I've been giddily reading patchnotes for 3.3 and have been quite excited, if a little scared about the complexity of the turn Demo is taking.
Demo changes are what have me excited/anxious, so I thought I'd throw this topic out there to talk Warlock raid/specs.
Based on the latest simcraft numbers it appears that the affliction tree is winning in 3.3 by a nose, this makes sense to me given the buffs specific to the demo tree as well. Now, demo will never compete for numbers, but it's starting to look like the raid might be a little less dependent on SB spam if there are aff-locks out there too.
Here's the issue: It used to be the case that a demo lock would hop into a spellweaving rotation of SB and SoulFire when the target was at less than 35%. A SB hit would enable the decimate buff (causing a faster soulfire cast speed and making soulfire not cost a soulshard), and the ensuing SoulFire hit would eat up that buff. Patchnotes seem to indicate that soulfire is going to refresh the decimate buff, making it possible to spam soulfire for the last 35% of boss health. At about 18K - 20K crits and approximately a 1.5 second cast time, that's a big damage buff for the demo lock.
However, there's a rub. Casters in the raid (at least in salmon) have been relying on my 5% crit debuff applied by improved shadow bolt. It's been nice not to have any mages have to play "scorch bitch". However, keeping up the 5% crit debuff would require a hit to a demo-lock's (read: my) dps when the boss is sub-35% health as every few soulfires the demo-lock will need to toss in a shadowbolt...not the end of the world (especially since the demo-lock's role is raid rather than personal dps), but a dps hit nonetheless. And, perhaps it's a dps hit that wouldn't need to be...
Here's the thing though, IF affliction is going to be the top dps tree anyway, AND we have enough warlocks in raid it seems that getting an affliction lock in raid would keep up the 5% crit debuff AND not sacrifice any dps.
Whaddya think?
Ok. I wanted to see what the
Scaron — Fri, 12/11/2009 - 10:51Ok. I wanted to see what the new affliction could do, so I tried it out for a couple nights:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/nqcqw84gfh7sps91/sum/damageDone/ (not every fight here was as affliction)
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l3velsrbuqcmaoh6/sum/damageDone/ (affliction all night long)
I'm guessing here, but I'd estimate that my dps would, on average, be about 1500k lower as demo compared to affliction.
I'd love to hear any feedback about these parses.
warlock affliction raiding
Vitriola — Thu, 01/07/2010 - 08:33I am liking it more and more. I was in a pug toc 25 man last night. The good news is that I was at the top (or nearly so) of the meters throughout. It has been a while since I could do that with affliction. The bad news is that I never got far beyond 7k dps in the fights, except for handling adds in the final fight, of course. I did especially like that I did so much self healing. That takes a good deal of pressure off the healers.
All in all, I like affliction more and more. I am not leaning toward demonology as secondary build as you do, but it is not as much a requisite as improved SB goes with affliction. Now, lets see if watches and shurley have good experiences with it.
That is amazing stuff, Scar!
Vitriola — Wed, 01/06/2010 - 14:01That is amazing stuff, Scar! I note that you cast more than 400 spells in 8 minutes. That means that your average is that you cast your spells in under a second.
Now, I have found that my system not infrequently shows a 2 second lag in that I can hit a button and not see the results of that hit for a couple seconds. That is not meaning to be overly obvious but that it is not something that would be expected based on things like server ping and frame rate and such, which are fine. My SB takes 1.8 seconds to cast. As this is indicative of things overall, I have to ask, how can you cast twice as fast as I can? I know that you have a high haste but mine is not too low at 470. Can 150 more haste make that much of a difference? (I am averaging with shurley and watches.)
I see your enthusiasm for affliction. I have been doing randoms with it, but no real raiding, so I cannot speak to that. My typical dps in a 5 man pug for a boss is just under 5k and trash pulls are a lot higher. I can only assume that things would increase with the buffs of a heavy raid.
I like affliction on principle and I am glad to see it making a comeback.
In my effort to convince
Scaron — Fri, 12/11/2009 - 11:08In my effort to convince every warlock in DF to go affliction (kidding, that's an overstatement, but it does seem promising atm), I'd like to use an example of what can happen, way easily, if you play your affliction cards right. Take a peek at this fight (the Saurfang fight):
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/l3velsrbuqcmaoh6/sum/damageDone/?s=55...
What happened was that at some point about midway through the fight, I noticed that I had gotten a couple haste buffs stacked...I popped a haste pot and recast corruption. Corruption continued to tick at this faster rate throughout the remainder of the fight (because it is kept up with everlasting corruption / haunt.) In the end, for this fight corruption counted for over 30% of my damage. In other words, my corruption did 2.2k dps by itself in that fight, and it never needed to be refreshed...haunt simply needed to be recast on CD. This is not a normal example, it's was a couple of lucky procs. However, if the affliction lock times heroism + PI + haste pot this should be a relatively simple combo to manage and recast corruption during.
There's a hotfix to "nerf"
saedo — Fri, 12/11/2009 - 11:21There's a hotfix to "nerf" that now ain't there?
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=21730605184&pageNo...
Rolling Corruptions no longer use the initial haste value indefinitely.
This is really more of a bug fix than a nerf. The problem here was that
players could inflate the initial cast of Corruption and have the spell
tick for that damage indefinitely as long as it was refreshed. This
resulted in some "jaw dropping" damage. Technically this was a tricky
one to fix but we wanted to keep the Glyph of Quick Decay and were able
to ultimately find a solution. When this fix goes live, the hasted
Corruption should correct itself to your current haste within a tick or
two of the spell being refreshed.
Ideally, we'd rather make changes while we're still in PTR before a
patch goes live, but in the end we'd rather make changes than allow
something imbalanced to continue just because we didn't change it
pre-patch. To the community's credit, some players predicted these
issues might become a problem. We appreciate the feedback as always,
even if we don't always immediately make changes suggested by the
community.
I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread, but only because it
covers three different topics and not because we're trying to limit any
response or feedback to this announcement.
dammit saedo, you wreck all
Scaron — Fri, 12/11/2009 - 11:42dammit saedo, you wreck all my fun.
i hadn't read this, but you're right.
While simcrafts and rawrs are
Agoney — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:52While simcrafts and rawrs are good tools, I tend to avoid giving them much merit. Those are your playing 100% perfect and on a stationary boss with minimal lag expected DPS. Thats great, but how often does this happen in a fight? While the number it gives you is a good number to work around, I'd spec more to what a fight consists and demands during progress time.
This isnt really saying affliction is good nor bad, it's more a gripe I have with simcraft and rawr have become accepted as the best tools (by the raiding community in general). During progress, you should spec to the fight(s) rather then what one of these tools would tell you.
Thus my comments below about
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 14:16Thus my comments below about practical vs. theoretical dps numbers.
It's always best to
saedo — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 14:07It's always best to understand why those tools tell you the things they do. As long as they do that and don't get into the pitfall of blind faith in numbers, then those tools are just fine.
yea, sims are not to tell you
Kwondre — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 14:13yea, sims are not to tell you what "will happen" on a boss or fight, but are to tell you what "should" happen. That's where players come in, to take what "should happen" and then translate/modify that into what "does happen."
Well, link the spec. Does
saedo — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:55Well, link the spec. Does Scaron have a diff spec in mind without imp SB?
No. The spec in question (the
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:04No. The spec in question (the demo spec) is 0/56/15. Imp SB is included in this spec as SB remains the Demo filler spell when the boss > 35% health (and in addition to the crit debuff, this also buffs SB dmg by 5% making it a no brainer talent). At issue, however, is what happens sub-35% health. In that case, demo lock switches to a soulfire spam (per patchnotes 3.3). Thus the 5% crit debuff would not be reapplied sub-35% health on the boss IF the demo-lock was the only person applying that debuff.
That is the demo/destro build
Olorien — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:20That is the demo/destro build that you would like to run but the crux of your question is if you spam Soul Fire 35% is it going to cost the raid dps due to dropping the 5% crit buff.
What I am saying is that it is not a gimp to affliction's dps at all too maintain that buff as long as there is an affliction lock in the raid.
Oh I get it. Though, with a
saedo — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:14Oh I get it. Though, with a 30 sec debuff timer, a typical sub-35% shouldn't last more than a couple mins, so only need to stagger 4 SBs in them.
Then I guess yea, would have to work out fight by fight if mages are going arcane or fire I suppose. Here's the gist for the first gate of bosses.
OK after actually
Kwondre — Thu, 12/10/2009 - 13:16OK after actually experiencing these fights, I believe that Arcane is still superior in 3 out of the 4 fights.
1) Marrowgar...mostly a single target fight, whether its DPS'ing boss, or DPS'ing spikes...Arcane wins where due to pure burst
2) Deathwhisper...really the same story...Fire is nice for putting up dots on a lot of targets, but you still want to be able to get on-demand burst like you do with Arcane to kill specific adds quickly.
3) Gunship...Definitely a Living Bomb/Blizzard AOE kind of fight...and a very boring one at that!
4) Saurfang...Blast Wave is nice to have for adds, but there are enough folks with stronger snares...Low HP of adds makes Living Bomb less useful, and the AOE reduction will affect the "explosion" splash damage of the bomb...I think Arcane wins here as well.
Sure call me out on the
Olorien — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:01Sure call me out on the carpet. I don't know what Scaron is thinking for an aff spec, but every thing I have read says the new affliction spec is an Aff/Destro build 55/0/16 ish like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IfxMbzMAoiA0IktZE0oV
Oh, and this is the
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:07Oh, and this is the affliction top theoretical dps build from simcraft (ala elitistjerks):
http://profiler.wowhead.com/?profile=14604901
It has changed since I last
Olorien — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:23It has changed since I last looked at it, but is essentially the same build that I was linked. The point of all this is that new afflictions specs WILL take imp Sbolt and will not have any trouble maintain the imp sbolt buff.
Actually, I think the one you
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:33Actually, I think the one you posted may be more up to date with current pet theorycrafting...there's talk of affliction locks using the felpuppy in 3.3...thus the points you linked in imp felpup probably reflect that shift.
I thought that was wierd but
Olorien — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 17:28I thought that was wierd but haven't had a chance too read recently so assumed I was missing something.
I think it is a safe bet that
Olorien — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:49I think it is a safe bet that affliction locks will keep up the imp SB debuff for the 5% crit. SB is still the filler spell for Affliction so it is not a DPS gimp at all for an Aff lock to keep it applied. The question becomes do you have an aff spec lock in raid, or a mage that can apply the mage version of the same debuff.
I guess that's really what
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:58I guess that's really what I'm suggesting...we don't currently have an aff-lock in salmon, but I would propose that we should get (at least) one in 3.3 if the practical numbers are really turning out to be as good as the theoretical numbers look. My reasoning for affliction lock over a mage would be that the aff-lock requires no dps loss to apply the debuff while the mage requires a small dps loss.
WTB Watchesup as affliction
Aurleas — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 13:03WTB Watchesup as affliction even back in udluar he was topping meters playing around with affliction. If your up for it watches give it a go.
keep this in mind for 25 man
Kwondre — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:11keep this in mind for 25 man raids...fire and frostfire mages will no longer need to glyph for scorch but will apply 5% crit in one scorch cast, by default...
I've noticed that unlike TOC, ICC seems like it will have a fair amount of multi-target fights - which are situations in which fire/frostfire specs are more desirable than arcane anyway.
any estimate of how much this
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 11:18any estimate of how much this gimps the mage's dps? How long does the debuff last before it needs to be refreshed?
well scorch is about 40-50%
Kwondre — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:07well scorch is about 40-50% of the damage of the basic nuke spells Fireball or Frostfire Bolt, but is also half the cast time. It would require 1 GCD every 30 seconds. The DPS loss increases as the fight increases, but I don't think its really a big deal. I struggle to imagine the difference being > 1-2% on a standard length fight.
The bigger question (as opposed to whether an afflic lock should ISB or a mage should scorch) will be whether or not arcane/fire is a better spec on a particular fight.
For the first few, I think Marrowgar = Arcane, Gunship = Frostfire, Saurfang = Frostfire, etc etc.
With Frost now being raid
Dragon — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 14:13With Frost now being raid viable would it be worth it on the AoE fights to have a token frost mage to put Winter's Chill debuff on ALL The AOE mods without needing to use a global CD?
Given the new hasted
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:33Given the new hasted corruption (via the glyph of quick decay) affliction is the top theoretical dps spec in 3.3 by about 300dps. Some estimates have corruption generating about 4.7k dps ON ITS OWN (okay, insert whining about how warlocks are op here).
I probably should've been more clear about this upfront, I don't think mages should be providing the crit debuff at all if there's even one affliction warlock in raid; there's no sense in them having a dps loss if it's unnecessary. Mostly, I'm trying to persuade salmon that it may be time to add an afflock to raid in addtion to me as demo...mostly because a) affliction appears to do more dps and b) I would definitely do more dps with an affliction lock in raid--without gimping anyone's (not a mage or another warlock's)--dps.
Also, you have an Elem shaman
saedo — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 12:56Also, you have an Elem shaman now right?
Is it worth going Demo still over Afflic to provide a marginally better buff? It's what, 20-30 more spellpower per caster (assuming if they even get above 3K sp)?
I did a similar type of analysis regarding Savage Combat vs Mutilate rogues for KB specifically. Determining for a 1 boss full dps time fight, how much physical damage people do and how much the debuff contributed. Conclusion was, for us, Mutilate might be worth losing the debuff.
See comment/question below
Scaron — Mon, 12/07/2009 - 14:17See comment/question below about calculating DP benefit per raider.