my affliction warlock sucks

[balrog78]

I am running a team together with a friend of mine, we got feral druid, 2 hunters, resto druid and affli warlock. The warlock does 15% of the damage, where the hunters deal 32%. Any idea what talent build and what spell rotation to use? I dont expect the warlock to outperform the hunters with trash mobs but at least he should do better with bosses, what do you think?

thanks

[elsegundo]

whats your spell rotation?

also, remember that affliock spells are usually dots with the occassional shadowbolt. if your mob last 10 seconds but your curse of Agony lasts 20, you've wasted 10 seconds of damage. also, as a lock, i've come to understand that its not all about damage. you have curses that slows, weakens, and causes stupidity (CoRecklessness) for others. your curse of elements will be useless for the hunters. as is their hunters mark or trueshot aura for you. what i would do it turn up the damage would be to skip the long DoTs and just Curse of Elements, Corruption, (Haunt if you have it), Drain Life. If nightfall procs (Shadowtrance), take it. If you need more dps, use the Succy. If the druid grabs 4+ mobs and swipes, a good Rain of Fire would help.

[balrog78]

Maybe we will try with the rain of fire, but its a little bit more of micro management then.
The rotation includes: corruption, unstable affliction, siphon life and shadow bolts. I tried to optimize the rotation ofc. Haunt will be available on level 80 since some points are in destruction tree. Curse of elements was planned for later when we play all of our 10 toons which include 2 mages and an elemental shaman. Drain life does a lot of damage? We skipped that one and using shadow bolt instead.

[Ualaa]

Back in BC level raids, on trash even as Affliction spec, the best dps was instant Corruption followed by S.Bolt spam, on fast to die trash type mobs. This was true in instances as well. If you do not have Corruption procs insta-bolts via Nightfall, then straight DD spam will be better then dots.

I'm not sure if Wrath dots are powerful enough to be higher dps, when the dot is only allowed to tick for 20-25% of its duration before the mob dies. I suspect, with only partial damage from your dots, like BC, you're better off with DD spam.

When it comes to bosses, or any mob who will be around for long enough to have your dots actually tick their duration and need to be reapplied, your dot rotation will be the dps method of choice.
You still have phenominal AoE as a warlock, any time you can Seed of Destruction spam on trash, the other toons will be wondering how to keep up with your dps.
Affliction brings extremely low maintanence, compared to other warlocks.. but in a high dps group, if you want to be competitive while leveling or in instances, more of a pew-pew spec might be better.

[elsegundo]

you did say you were affliction, right?

dont juggle your specs like that. if you go affliction, do affliction. i would only go into destro for improved sb, bane, and shadowburn (if its still there) and call it a day in the destro tree. the rest should go to affliction. if you're having more fun in destro, then would get enough points to increase damamge on Corruption and CoA, then use the remaining points for Destro.

I would UA, CoA, Corruption, Drain Life. (drain life refreshes Corruption, Haunt also refreshes Corruption if you decide to get Haunt). When nightfall procs, use your SB then. then go back to keeping your dots up. For short fights, i woudnt even worry about CoA.

Do you have good spell damage? as affliction, load up on spell damage, stamina, int, and crit gear. even though they've added crit in with spell damage, i wouldnt count on it as my first three stats. stamina for life tap and drain life. you need a large pool to keep your mana up.

[balrog78]

yes, its only improved sb and bane and some other talent. I needed those for questing (dont use DoTs then). The problem with drain life is, that it is channeled. Also watching the nightfall proc is quite difficult if the warlock is multiboxed and the focus is on the main :S But I gonna give it a try.
Regarding the gear I focussed on spell damage, stamina and int. Then hit and crit.

[elsegundo]

hmmm... honestly, even when questing, i dont use SB unless when i open (before i got haunt) or when nightfall procs.

quite honestly though i wouldnt worry too much about my affllock damage. its not the nuke and destory type build, plus if you end up clearing the instance, then there's really no need to improve on damage. but try the different combinations spells and see which works best for you.

[wowphreak]

meh had a whole big post on this lost it arrrgghhh :/

well basically boils down to its tough maxing affliction dps
was gonna try tab targeting and casting siphon life,coa,curuption on all targets and then seed em

with boss critters its tough keeping the dots all up even in ideal conditions need to figure out a better dot rotation :/

was even debating on a goofy off spec
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=IfxrM...gczcxoZE0hVM0z
just so I could go back to spamming sb again.

[Knytestorme]

Best rotation is purely through corruption (with all applicable aff talents) up on every mob you're fighting in a pull and then SB spam each mob in kill order. None will last long enough for a full aff rotation and corruption shouildn't tick for enough to pull agro away from an ae tank on the mobs not being actively tanked.

It's a slight cheat but it's the way we have to work and you should see your total dps in the run improve significantly.

For boss fights it's simple....use all your dots and sb spam until you need to redo them with tapping in between. You will need to sit down with a spreadsheet and play around with each dot and it's number of ticks to work out the best order for you of applying them so they all run out around the same time (so you can keep as much uptime as possible) but it's fun to do as it's a real mental challenge.

[Coltimar]

Don't do Rain of Fire. Ever. Locks have the two best AoE's in the game and RoF ain't one. I only cast SB on my lock when Nightfall procs. When I was raiding I had my macro perfect. As soon as unstable affliction ticked off I was mashing the button to reapply it. Don't forget to trinket when they are up. Link your armory.