I'm levelling my lock now and i think once i reach the big 70 i'm gonna go affliction.

But i got a few questions for any affli locks, even though i don't think we currently have any, but u never know, sax might read this

Question 1 is:

How do i dps on trash, because i'm imagining by the time all my dots are up the mob is pretty much dead so my dps is 0

Question 2 is:

On a boss, once all my dots are up what do i do? Would i shadow bolt or Incinerate, somet like that, or just dark pact and wait to renew dots?

Question 3 is:

Do i use immolate as affli?

I'm looking for a response from a knowledgable lock now please
i.e. no response from Shead pretending he knows what he's talking about
Much appreciated
kthyxbye
Ell

I do still read this.
First off, dps = damage per second. So what matters is not the instant dmg you do, but the damage you do per second. It is calculated by the total time you do damage, so even dots are dps.

Q1: Dots = dps for an affliction lock. switch it out with shadowbolts or lifedrain, and u ll have a fast kill. Mana regen is fulfilled by your pet, so no worries about that.

Q2: keep up your dots, and shadowbolt when you can. On a boss your main damage comes from shadowbolt, and it gets augmented by your dots. Other than that, shadowburn can also be a good "max up your dps" skill, but you waste shards on those.

Q3: Yes, you do. No doubt about it. You don t use immolate, and you re missing out on damage which you can use as a lock. For an affliction lock, every dot you can put up, you need to put up.

Here's roughly how an affliction Warlock should play:

1. Put up DoTs
2. Mana Tap if you feel like it
3. Drain health from mob until you are full health, or the DoTs have gone
4. Go back to step one
5. Whenever you've got nothing to do, or just feel like it, then cast Shadow Bolt.


>How do i dps on trash, because i'm imagining by the time all my dots are up the mob is pretty much dead so my dps is 0

Warlocks tend to have trouble doing much damage on mobs that die quickly. If you think that's going to happen, cast Shadow Bolt (it does damage immediately, and won't cost you mana if the mod dies whilst you are charging it up), set your pet on it, or just use your wand.


>Do i use immolate as affli?

If you're affliction, you've probably got more shadow damage than fire damage so you should probably go for another Shadow Bolt over a fire spell.

Thx for that, slightly conflicting views but both helpful, each to their own i guess

So basically my strategy would be to: (not in this order, not decided on order yet)

Corruption, Immolate, CoA(if another curse not needed), UA, SL, Then Shadowbolt till a dot runs out
And dark pact when i drop to around 50-60% to give my imp time to regen

And on trash mobs UA, corruption, immolate then shadow bolt spam

This will change my spec i'd imagined slightly, i did have 43 18 0

but im guessing destro points are more valuable then demo for the shad bolt

now its just a case of deciding what i'd rather have UA or Ruin

ruin is only valuable if you have the crit rating for it. Basically it s a waste of skillpoints and damage that comes out of UA when you don t have the critrating, since it amplifies the crit bonus damage without heightening the chance on having a crit.

Elle, I'm an affli lock as well.

Look at my spec to have a good dungeon/raiding one.
Only thing you could change for raids is the instant howl of terror and put it in Malediction.
I just have the improved howl because it's very handy to grind with but in raids it has as good as no use.

Now, some things:
-I don't got UA as i think it's a bit useless in PvE. Ok, it's a dot. But I noticed that when I had UA in my previous build, you have very less time left between the last dot you put on and the time your dots run out.
-What I do now (on bosses): put on curse of Elements/Shadows, instant corruption, instant siphon life and then immolation. After that you got time to do 3-4 shadowbolts and you start the chain again (withouth the curse then as they stay 5 mins). And ofc I use Darc Pact as soon as needed, just make your imp regen all the time! No need to save it all up to use at once.
-Wat I do on trash: CoE/S, corruption, (siphon life sometimes) and then shadowbolts. No need for immolation as you do more dmg with a shadowbolt in the same time (unless it's longer lasting trash ofc).
-What I noticed when I had UA: very less time to cast shadow bolts, so the talent point I have in desto are a bit useless when you get UA. Better to spend them in Malediction/Demo then (improved hs and better imp aura for stamina).
-If your dots are up, you should do shadowbolts and no incinerate. Reason: as affly you go for shadow damage and not fire damage. That way, your dots do more dmg and ofc your shadowbolts to. So only fire spell you are using is Immolate.
-If you won't put points in destro, you can always put some in Shadow Embrace' to. But as I said: check my build to get some big lines. If you want to get good shadow bolt dmg to, take the same talents as me in destro. You'll get nice crits with them then (you can work on crit rating once you got your hit for affly capped - not that much if you got the talents to).

So, hopefully you get some tips from this!

If you have more questions, shoot!

Greetz,
Kam.

Edit: I just noticed I have improved Curse of Agony. I'll probably put those in Malediction soon as in raids I never do Agony

i think if you all wanna do more damage than me lisen to saxx sireusly not kidding here this dude know every thing about warlocks and knows how to play with it some warlocks here do there job fine as dmg dealers but some do barly more dmg than the main tank.

so trust me when i say it's the best for you all if you do what sax say's
use every dot you have than shadow bolts and dont forget to use dark pact for some mana dont use it when your olmost out of mana use just it like every 30 sec maby even more
after your dots are over cast new dots
if you realy wanna be good at this get a addon that show's how long your dot's are active i would use nature enemy castbar but i am 100% sure saxx got a much better one with this addon you can time perfect to trow a new dot on your target and time better when to cast shadowbolts

i also think all locks should go to most affliction like for example this is what i would take if i was a lock
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basic ... 0000000000

reason why i take this build is that even your imp will do more dmg becaus why not use him when you have it becaus 9 of the 10 time's you will be in group 1 for the imp buff for the main tanks and wile you have your imp out why not use it ?
so buff it to and your imp will do some extra dmg it's basicly the same as my searing totem

Leven,

you do miss the ball with the last thing.
Your imp should not do damage anyway, and why not?
Well, if you let your imp cast fireballs he's out of mana in no time. And then you got no use at all for dark pact and you got an oom lock in no time to.

Imps are just to put an passive and to be used as mana storage, you waste that all if you let him cast firebolts.

And in what way does Ssaxx'es story differs from my story?
I think that on a pure dps fight I'm always close to you so I know how to play a lock to...

150% agreed with Kam's post.

Also, imps are practically sure that they'll die in a fight, raiddmg keeps increasing the further you go in raids. And then you even lose blood pact.

Also Leven, with your spec you still have no dark embrace nor Malediction, if you truly want to go deep Affliction, you really want those two talents. Raidsupport wins!

well i dont know how fast they go out of mana but every dmg that a imp can do is dmg and when you see you need mana you let your imp stop and use the abilty to get his mana and when your full mana again let him dps again that was my tough

but like i said that build what i linked is something what i would take
and Malediction is not something what every warlock should have if your most active warlock has this and if i am correct kaymn is who dont have Malediction than the other locks dont need to have malediction.(or dos it stacks)

and now i have a question why take the spell ruin in destruction above unstable affliction ??
imo if i think what's better i would go for unstable affliction it's very nice to make your immolate have twice a higher crit
for examle from 100dmg to 200 but immolate dos also dmg over time for example another 100 points so total 300
but if you put points in unstable and that gives 200 points that's total 400 points if you understand what i mean
like i said it's a question becaus maby i tought wrong about this or is there something from unstable affliction what i dont know

and btw i never said you where wrong kaymn just saying that saxx got alot of expierence
but if you feel upset about that
and i never said your damage was not good i did't said any name in my post


and theta you dont need shadow embracers in pve if you get dmg your dmg is the same like the others and you can even heal your self with siphon health wile you casting shadowbolts how good is that ? if needed you can even drain life and you still do dmg talking about overpowerd

I don't really see the link between your immolate and ruin question Leven. Certainly, your critdamage on immolate is better, but that is not why one would take Ruin.

Ruin is taken for shadowbolt crits, and it does go very well with an Affl build as well because of the 'Nightfall' proc that you can get, 4% chance on every tick on your affliction dots to get an instant shadowbolt spell. On top of that, Kam has a decent amount of crit raidbuffed, and thus keeps shadow vulnerability up, which further increases his shadow damage anyway.
Ruin vs Unstable affliction is just a playstyle difference I'd guess, just because putting on hots and then 'waiting' until they have to be recast, seems to be pretty boring. It'd be nice to be able to throw in a (powerful thanks to ruin) shadowbolt crit once in a while.
Also, going for Ruin gives the ability to burst dps if need be, whereas a full Affliction lock is always stuck to his dots, Kam's build can also rely on shadowbolt crits in between the dots, because the crits will be double that, of a different affl lock's build.

And well Leven, Shadow Embrace is good, because 5% less physical damage on bosses, is quite a bit I'd think, wouldn't you agree?

And only one Malediction lock, I disagree, you'd want at least two. Seeing one lock can only put one curse on a boss, you'd want one for CoE and CoS.


*Edit: On the imp, Imps should always be in phaseshift, as said, an imp will almost certainly die by any kind of AoE damage, and there's a truckload of it in the later fights where we're heading to atm. The possible loss in stamina would only strain healers and dpsers to keep their hp up more, and also, the possible loss of a mana-battery would make the warlock in question do less dps, seeing he'd have to lifetap more instead of using dark pact. Which is yet again, safer to use, than lifetap.

oke littel update just checked thottbot immolate dos 327 fire dmg and 615 over time total 942 dmg if you would take ruin it would be 654 dmg and 615 over time that's total 1269 dmg

if you would take unstable affliction you get from immolate the 327 dmg and the 615 over time so 942 dmg plus another 1050 from unstable that's total 1992 dmg plus if your affliction you have way much more shadow damage than fire dmg
so these are just the basic stats in game with your gear the difference should be much higher
or am i wrong again ?

lol i din't know shadow bolt was a destruction spell
i tough it was affliction as it is a shadow dmg ect...

and about the imp your right aoe dmg i forget

And well Leven, Shadow Embrace is good, because 5% less physical damage on bosses, is quite a bit I'd think, wouldn't you agree?
ehh lol ? not even i can survive 2 hits or 1 hit from a boss what's make you think the 5% lesser physical dmg would make a difference ? and even you are a cloth so i think you should know aswell thast it's no difference

*cough* less damage on the main and or offtanks?

where do you see that party member get 5% lesser dmg ?

and if it's true why dont or warlocks have this than for example kamyn also not have it so can't say he got a good build aswell than
and might also dont have it aia also not Thiadure also not you 100% sure it's true that that is for party members aswell ? becaus ifso people would have take it

also non of those 4 got malediction ...

And I quote:

Shadow Embrace: Your corruption, Curse of Agony, Siphon Life, and Seed of Corruption spells reduce the physical damage done by 1/2/3/4/5%'

Which means that the physical damage done by mobs, on anyone, gets reduced by said %.

And not necessarily so, as said before, although talents might be useful, people aren't forced in specs. And seeing there is no personal gain whatsoever in these talents, it would be kind of stupid to take them. 'Set-raiding specs' don't work if only a few classes or only a few people take or 'have' to take them, it's either everyone, or on their own accord. So every lock does have a good build, just there are less efficiënt ones for raid damage. But affliction, even without those talents, tends to be better for raidviability, imho.

god i will be happy if the new raid ranks come
becaus no one have Shadow Embrace or Malediction
and 5% lesser dmg on the tank would be a god blessing from heaven if or most active lock would have it

even if it is or worst geared warlock have Shadow Embrace than i want him than in a 25 man raid as it is better for raiding
and you wont feel the difference in dmg compared to best geared and worst geared warlock we do feel the difference if the tank get 5% lesser dmg and the healers wont go out of mana rly fast as you have 6 a 7 healers in a raid

Leven please, if you want to be interesting here please make sure you know what you are talking about.

First off all I said before that i'll get 2 points in malediction as I got no use for imporved Curse of Agony.
Then again you need 2 locks with Malediction as you got 2 curses, not 1.

Second, ruin is only taken for the shadow bolts yes. Immolation has nothing to do with it and I'm working on crit rating to so for me it's good.
As I also said before: it's choosing between UA and ruin. I chose the second (and explained why in my first post here). Any lock that goes to UA should pick the Shadow Embrace because you can't have it all if you want to get to ruin as well.
So go complain to the demo or destro locks if you want it!

Third, imp should just never cast a spell just because of the phaseshift. If you let him cast 1 bolt at Gruul he's dead the next minute. Same at Maggy, Curator, Nightbane,...
That's just not the task of the imp!

So plz, read what I said in previous posts and if you react make sure you know what it's about...

im posting even though u dont believe me...

but yeah id go 38/39 - 0 - 23/22 aka affli ruin.
but then again i dont mind having a raid support class.

and yes id take malediction and probably the 5% damage reduction, i'll link my proposed spec but as ell says i aint a lock... i just know alot about em (which is true as in previous guilds we discussed everything about em (GM and Main Officer were locks, affli and destro))

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IEMd00ftVtcZZex0xM0z is my general outline, but its up to debate on how i spend most of the points here, oh and ell has those cheating goggles (so he has a decent amount of crit) Also as another point this build will be good with about 15% crit (20% destro), but needs abit of hit rating too, due to shadow bolts.

and also i got 40 - 0 -21 soooo bleh