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October 14, 2008, 12:21 PM

#1 (permalink)

Gwyl

Character Info
Gwyllim
80 Orc Warlock
Maelstrom US RP PvP
Guild: Earthmother Protectorate
Talent Spec: 54/17/0

Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review

I've been thinking about the 3.0.2 patch and spent a large portion of last month trying out some ideas on the PTR to confirm my initial impressions. *This post is entirely concerned about*affliction, particularly for the interim period between now and when the expansion hits in a month. This is also focused on raiding, though arguably pvp is going to be where the real innovation is found. Finally, these are only my opinions, albeit long-winded one. Please, correct/debate/disagree with these assessments, and hopefully a working guide for talents in the Wrath of the Lich King world will develop out of the conversation.

Which curse?

First, there is the important question of which curse to use. With the new "frailty" talent, there is the possibility of doing dramatic armor reduction without any cost (other than a missing curse) using the new Curse of Recklessness. I see this as a real improvement in melee-heavy raids. If you are not stacking a boomkin, then the next curse on the list is Curse of Elements. A rule of thumb for Curse of Elements: if your damage meter (e.g., Recount) indicates that you're doing less than 16% (=3% from the overall damage boost + 13% from the curse) of your damage with Curse of Agony, use Curse of Elements instead. It ups all of the rest of your DPS sufficiently (when talented with the new malediction) to make it worthwhile. Every build I tested on the PTR maxed its DPS in this scenario. That said, the new boomkin buffs override curse of elements, in which case you'll be using Curse of Agony to get the double benefit.

Why Curse of Agony, and not Doom? Well, it scales better---benefiting from Shadow Mastery, Contagion, and Improved Curse of Agony, while for some reason, Curse of Doom does not. I know, that sounds like a bug, but as of October 12th (tested on the PTR), that's how it works. Oh, and if you end up using Curse of Agony, Amplify Curse and the Curse of Agony glyph (which adds two ticks and 4 seconds to the time of the DoT) are definitely worthwhile investments. [Using the analysis below, the talent reduces F by 0.02, the glyph by an addition 0.005. This is a huge benefit for a single talent point. If shadow bolt is 33% of your dps, that translates into a 0.8-1% improvement in overall dps.]

To summarize: use Curse of Elements, unless you have a boomkin, in which case, Curse of Agony. On the off chance that you are surrounded by melee or ranged DPS, the new Curse of Recklessness, talented, is pretty sweet as well.

Talent points outside affliction

Next, how many talent points do I have to spend on the affliction tree? Or, in other words, what talents do I have to have from demonology or destruction? It used to be you needed Bane and Improved Shadow Bolt at the least. However, now ISB only effects the first four direct damage spells (basically, shadow bolt and haunt), so you don't need it. That's right, it does not benefit DoTs anymore. Instead, we have Haunt, which (surprise, surprise) makes DoTs do 20% more damage for 12 seconds after it hits---pretty much just like improved shadow bolt used to do. Only now, you can guarantee 100% uptime, and you get some healing out of the deal. Not too bad, right? Of course, this means you have to spend at least 51 points in affliction, and Ruin will be inaccessible in a 70 build. If you're not hit capped, put 3 points in the hit/mana talent, and you now have 51 points to spend, with 2 more to go in demo for survivability or into affliction for better synergy.

Talent analysis

Now, the tier-by-tier analysis of the (affliction) talents. A detailed damage analysis is at the end, but here are the assumptions.
(1) 1/3rd of damage is from shadow bolt filler; 2/3rds is from DoTs and Haunt
(2) The parameter A contains the combined effects of +hit and +haste. A change of +hit by 1% is a 1% change of A, and similarly for +haste. 3% improvement in A gives a 1% overall DPS improvement.
(3) The parameter F is the fraction of time spent casting / renewing DoTs and Haunt. Reducing F by 0.03 is a 1% overall DPS improvement.

Tier 1:

Improved Curse of Agony (2): 5/10% overall improvement in Curse of Agony damage. Combined with Contagion, Shadow Mastery, Amplify Curse, and the Glyph, this talent makes Curse of Agony the damage Curse of choice. In practice, I find Curse of Agony is around 13% of my DPS with this, and so two points is about 1% DPS gain.
Suppression (3): This improves your hit in affliction, which (again) reduces the fraction of time spent casting DoTs, which (again) improves your DPS. That said, each point corresponds to only a 0.15-0.2% improvement in DPS, due to the reduced effect of +hit for DoTs (see below). The exception: Haunt. A Haunt resist means around 9.5 seconds (and a few ticks of every DoT) before Haunt can go back up. Get it until you're hit capped, then go for something else.
Improved Corruption (5): 2/4/6/8/10% overall damage improvement in Corruption, some crit benefit for SoC. Corruption is around 20% of my overall damage, after all talents. With everlasting affliction, it has zero downtime, making it the spell of choice, pretty much all the time. That said, this talent is about 0.4% DPS increase per point, slightly worse than Imp Curse of Agony.

Tier 2:

Frailty (2): Depends on many circumstances. With amplify curse, and good dexterity for key presses, this is a great PVP tool. For melee heavy scenarios, CoR should really shine. Talk to your raid.
Improved Drain Soul (2): The mana is nice for grinding, but the most important part here is the threat reduction. A necessary talent.
Improved Life Tap (2): Life tap no longer benefits from +damage gear. Rather, it gets its bonus from +spirit. This one is situational. Let's say you need to Life Tap every 24 seconds (once every other Haunt or so) to maintain DPS. Two points in this mean tapping only once every 30 seconds. This is a 1/24 - 1/30 = 0.0083, or a less than 0.01 change in F for two talent points, corresponding to about 0.1% DPS improvement per point. Marginal.
Soul Siphon (2): When you hit level 77, Drain Soul will start doing 4x damage on low health targets. Then this talent will shine. Otherwise, you have no business casting drain life/drain soul in a raid except for boss-specific situations (e.g., Netherspite). Pass.

Tier 3:

Improved Fear (2): PVP only, but beautiful!
Fel Concentration (3): Reduces Haunt and UA pushback, which is nice, but with the changes to pushback (1 second max for cast spells) that isn't a huge advantage. The channeling improvements are good for drain tanking, but again, not necessary before level 77. Situational.
Amplify Curse (1): Great for PVP, but also good if you use Curse of Agony for your Curse of choice. In particular, this reduces F by 0.021, about a 0.75% DPS increase. Amazing for a single talent point.

Tier 4:

Grim Reach (2): Good in PVP, situational in boss fights. Probably one point is sufficient to get past designer goals (think Prince and his 30 yard AoE).
Nightfall (2): Stacks with the Glyph of Corruption, for more insta-cast shadowbolts. Very situational; the DPS increase is not huge, but it can reduces "gap" time. A useful talent if you have an addon to make certain you never miss a proc. Naively speaking, two talent points are equivalent to a glyph, which gives a sense that it's not a great talent. In terms of overall DPS improvement, this means once every 37.5 seconds (on average) you have a 1 second reduction in cast time for shadow bolt, and some potential improvement in DoT gaps. The former is a marginal gain. However, reducing DoT gaps by 1 second every 40 seconds may be worth it. Reducing DoT gaps by even 0.1 seconds is about a 0.4-0.5% overall DPS increase. This could translate into a 1-2% overall increase, well worth it.
Empowered Corruption (3): Did I mention that corruption is the spell of choice, always? Get it.

Tier 5:

Shadow Embrace (5): This is a good PVE and good battleground PVP talent. Stacked twice (assuming 2/3rds damage is DoTs), you'll have a 6-7% overall DPS improvement for 5 talent points. Amazing. However, as of 10/12, it was bugged on the PTR, such that only one warlock got the benefit; all the others could refresh it, but that was all. If that persists, it suggests that raids will benefit most from one (or two) deep affliction, and the rest in other specs.
Siphon Life (1): I assume you take this, because siphon life is about 7% of your total DPS, and only increases F by 0.05 (i.e., about a 1.5-2% reduction of shadow bolt DPS). Thus, around 5% total DPS improvement for a single talent point. Take it.
Curse of Exhaustion (1): Horrid. 30% snare? That's it? I mean, with the old Amplify Curse, you got a decent 50%. The only saving grace is in PVP with the Glyph, in which case you can CoEx warriors outside of their normal range. Pass.

Tier 6:

Improved Felhunter (2): A funny thing about this talent. This will make you want to Dark Pact more. In fact, this pretty much requires taking Dark Pact. But with the new scaling, I didn't find any DPS improvement for more dark pacts and fewer life taps. In particular, all the healing from Haunt and Siphon Life means that you're mostly self sufficient. To add insult, the Fel Intellect ability is weaker than other buffs of a similar nature, so it will often be useless. Pass.
Shadow Mastery (5): As everything but immolate and Curse of Doom (which you're not using) benefit from this, take it. It's about an 8% increase in total DPS for 5 talent points. Necessary.

Tier 7:

Eradication (3): Many electrons have been shuttled about discussing the merits of this talent. If there was no 30 second internal cooldown, all three points would be worth it. As it stands, your uptime is nearly maxed with two points. As for the effect? If it proc'd every 48 seconds (about the best you can do, with the internal cooldown), you'd get an overall 5% haste improvement, which corresponds to a 1.5-2% overall DPS improvement. Not bad for 2 points.
Contagion (5): Mediocre. Curse of Agony and Corruption combine for about 33% of damage in builds that use Curse of Agony. For 5 points, you get a 1.5% overall DPS improvement. However, you need this for Unstable Affliction, a must-have talent. Thus, take all 5 points.
Dark Pact (1): This is situational, but I find a DPS increase with Dark Pact, because I worry less about my health. Use it and life tap together, keeping in mind the incoming healing from Haunt.

Tier 8:

Improved Howl of Terror (2): PVP only. Very nice for that, however.
Malediction (3): If you are in 10 man raids, you'll be using 3 points in this rather than Curse of Agony. Even if you're not, a 1% DPS increase per talent point means this is worthwhile. However, I doubt you'll have the talent points to spend on it if you are going the Curse of Agony route.

Tier 9:

Death's Embrace (3): 12% damage increase for the last 35% of health? Not bad. This is not an overall 4% DPS improvement, though---everyone else hits harder in those last 35%, too, so you spend less than 1/3rd of the time at those health values. Probably 1% overall DPS improvement per point, which is pretty good. Also likely to be better than improved shadow bolt, which even with max crit rates is 6% for 5 talent points.
Unstable Affliction (1): Like siphon life, a must have. Huge DPS increase for a single point.
Pandemic (3): DoTs that crit! Sounds incredible! Well, it's nice. Particularly because corruption is the monster spell that all your other talents help with. Something like 35-40% of your total damage is from corruption and unstable affliction. With 15% crit rates, you get 2-3% overall DPS improvements per point in this talent. Definitely better than Death's Embrace.

Tier 10:

Everlasting affliction (5): Get it. All of it. It reduces F by 0.083, a 2.5-3% overall DPS increase. It also improves the spell damage coefficients of three of your DoTs, giving another big increase.

Tier 11:

Haunt (1): Get it. This is the "new" improved shadow bolt. It is also necessary for both Shadow Embrace and Everlasting Affliction. Use it often, to make certain to get the double stack of Shadow Embrace and to refresh corruption. It has a 8 second cooldown, meaning you can keep corruption up even if the first one misses. Use it every cooldown if you're low on affliction +hit.

Methodology

I need to describe some of my methodology for evaluating talents. In particular, the damage model used for affliction is a little more complex than a direct damage scenario. The effects of +damage and +crit are straightforward to evaluate, and you can refer to the copious literature on it in the forums. Trickier are +haste, +hit, and other things (improvements in cast time, lengthing of DoT times).

To evaluate these effects, you have to consider how much of your time is spent casting/refreshing DoTs, and how much is spent casting shadow bolt. Let's call this fraction f[spell]. For example, in a perfect world, without any +haste or +hit, f[corruption] = 1.5/18. In practice, +haste and +hit reduce this fraction, while lag and human response increase it. If you know this fraction (f) for all of the spells in your rotation (Curse of choice, corruption, unstable affliction, siphon life, immolate, and haunt), you can figure out the total portion of your time spent casting DoTs: F = Sum(f).

To calculate the DPS, let D[spell name] be the damage your spell does if it hits every time and does not have any +haste (including +damage and +crit effects, e.g., through Pandemic). For calculating the damage per second from DoTs, we only need to know the total damage, d[spell name], and the time between casts. The time between casts is set by the length of the DoT and the "gap" time. Thus, the longer the DoT, the less "gap" time effects the dps of the spell, which provides another indicator of the benefit of the Curse of Agony glyph. Roughly speaking, the "gap" time reduces DPS from DoTs by about 7% (~ 1/15).

To calculate the DPS from the filler spell, Shadow Bolt, we need to now include the effects of +hit and +haste. We define a combined +hit and +haste parameter A = (0.83 + hit) * (1 + haste). For example, if you only cast shadowbolt, your actual DPS would be A * D[shadow bolt]/2.5 s (assuming 5 points in Bane). The effects of +hit and +haste, as mentioned before, are to reduce the time spent casting DoTs. This is equivalent to saying that the actual time spent casting DoTs is F / A. Now, to figure out our total DPS, we first sum over damage from DoTs, then we add to it:

DPS = DPS from DoTs + A * D[shadow bolt] (1 - F / A) /2.5 s

This is an approximation, of course. It neglects some second order effects, particularly the interplay between lag and haste. It is convenient to rewrite the Shadow Bolt component of this to see the complete effects of +haste and +hit:

DPS(from SB filler) = DPS[shadow bolt w/o haste or hit] * (A - F)

In practice, A is near unity, and F is between 40 and 55%. If the filler is 1/3rd of your DPS, then a change of F from 0.43 to 0.40 is a 1% improvement in overall DPS. Similarly, an increase of A by 0.03 is a 1% improvement to DPS.

To conclude: +hit and +haste do matter, but you need a substantial amount to benefit. More important are things that increase the duration of DoTs or decrease the GCD for specific spells, i.e., Amplify Curse.

For reference:
Spells, sorted by f
Immolate: 13.3% (10% w/ 5 points in bane)
Haunt: 12.5% (18.8% if cast immediately after every 8 sec cooldown)
Unstable Affliction: 10% (8.6% w/ glyph)
Corruption: 8.3% (0% w/ 5 points in everlasting affliction)
Curse of Agony 6.3% (5.4% w/ glyph, 4.2% w/ Amplify Curse, 3.6% with both)
Siphon Life 5.0%

F (untalented, no glyphs): 55%
F (talents and glyphs): 40%
F (talents and glyphs, use CoElements): 36%
F (talents and glyphs, with 0.2 s lag and 1 s "gap" between DoTs): 44%
F (talents and glyphs, with 0.2 s lag and 1 s "gap" between DoTs, use CoElements): 40%

The Following 42 Users Say Thank You to Gwyl For This Useful Post:

Akasha, Alexxiss, Alifeyl, Baaja, Bëlakor, Belthezor, Canadianpimp, Debuff, Dr1ZZ, ghoti, Jancith, Kherien, Kilmir, Lazysob, Maltyrius, Miath, Mirko, otelma, palsbjørn, Potter, quattra, Ryltar, schylla.bc, Seraph, supudo, Synops, Syphix, Taquarin, Theleb, thetrueavatar, Thralock, Tilt, turinsrevenge, uberkru, Vaell, Warpy, Weblock, XEvilGnome666, xTAGx Wizard, Zamp, zaxo, zyke

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October 14, 2008, 08:22 PM	#2 (permalink)
Gafilka Character Info Gafilka 70 Gnome Warlock Trollbane US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 45/16/0	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review After reading this I think I may go afflict instead of fire destro. Thank so much

October 14, 2008, 08:51 PM	#3 (permalink)
Akasha	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review Awesome post! Anyone want to do the same for the other two trees? __________________ Whether you're a forum expert, newbie or just want a good laugh... Everyone can learn something from : Posting And You... They're, there, their? Wear, were, where? Test yourself!

October 14, 2008, 08:56 PM	#4 (permalink)
Vaell Character Info Vaell 80 Blood Elf Warlock Scarshield Legion Euro RP PvP Guild: The Final Contingency Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/41/30	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review gold star Welcome to the Den and enjoy your stay. ^^ A quality post. Thank you. Gets a tea and settles in for a good read

October 14, 2008, 10:33 PM	#5 (permalink)
amiddleona Character Info Amiddleona 70 Gnome Warlock Greymane US PvE Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 45/5/11	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review Good analysis one little quirk, you said that if less than 16% of your damage is Curse of Agony then use CoE. Actually the 5 minutes length of CoE should be included too, because that is about 13.5 seconds every 5 minutes (4.5% more time to cast SB), so that should be included too. so prolly around 17% or 18%. good guide :D. And I cry everytime I see that internal CD on eradication.

October 14, 2008, 11:35 PM	#6 (permalink)
QirexDEV Character Info Kemper 70 Gnome Warlock Illidan US PvP Guild: Serenity Now Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/21/40	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review Great post, I linked it on my guilds board for the other locks to look at if that's ok. I decided to go 51/0/10 this new patch because I saw what you saw in the patch being a big buff to affliction, which is my favorite spec to play by far. can't wait until I'm level 80 and I can have ruin as well. Should be a pretty raid viable, fun spec to play.

October 14, 2008, 11:37 PM	#7 (permalink)
dafrey23 Character Info Avandian 70 Blood Elf Warlock Azgalor US PvP Guild: Hellscream Raiders Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 53/3/15	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review well, I've just spent the past hour getting my first taste of the new affliction talents. GOOD DPS is pretty solid. I've picked up a little from pre-patch, as long as I keep everything up constantly. I'm still feeling out some things so I think I could get a couple hundred more DPS out of it soon. Also, this is going to be a great levelling spec. Just casting Haunt, Corruption and Curse of Agony on a mob is enough to kill it with a blueberry tanking. You could drop the Curse of Agony and just drain life if you wanted as well. And if you remember to life tap at some point in the fight, the heal coming back will keep you topped off in life and mana indefinately. BAD To get that DPS I had to juggle Haunt, Corruption (just the first cast), Curse of Agony, SiLi, UA, and Immolate. And the live version of Haunt still has the 10 sec cooldown, so keeping haunt up is really tough. You basically have a half second window to cast it in order to keep everything right.

October 15, 2008, 12:19 AM

#8 (permalink)

Akasha

Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review

Quote:

Great post, I linked it on my guilds board for the other locks to look at if that's ok.

Everything here is for all Warlocks, so please link away. So long as you do link and not just copy+paste.

__________________

Whether you're a forum expert, newbie or just want a good laugh...
Everyone can learn something from : Posting And You...

They're, there, their? Wear, were, where? Test yourself!

October 15, 2008, 06:55 AM	#9 (permalink)
BiBus Character Info BiBus 70 Human Warlock Jaedenar Euro PvP Guild: The Drunken Fighters Talent Spec: 00/21/40	Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review I just can say "That's a great post" I always loved affliction but had to give it up for raiding because of the better scaling of destruction. Now: how do we deal with boss that reset aggro every minute or so? Will be aggro no longer a problem?

October 15, 2008, 07:01 AM

#10 (permalink)

Theleb

Character Info
Theleb
70 Human Warlock
Shadowsong Euro PvE
Guild: Original
Talent Spec: 0/46/15

Re: Post-3.0.2 affliction talents review

Aye, thats a pwn summary

BiBus - DoTs left on a Boss during aggro resets will still cause a problem - just make sure you let them run out before the transition (Hydross for example) but with greater built-in threat tanks shouldn't have too many problems getting mobs back if you do make an error in judgement.

*** Information added 2 Minutes and 1 Seconds later... ***

Quote:

BAD
To get that DPS I had to juggle Haunt, Corruption (just the first cast), Curse of Agony, SiLi, UA, and Immolate. And the live version of Haunt still has the 10 sec cooldown, so keeping haunt up is really tough. You basically have a half second window to cast it in order to keep everything right.

Yeah, affliciton is a lot of fun when it comes to juggling rotations - always has been. I found that dropping Immolate gave me better DPS simply through easier rotations (especially now with the addition of haunt).

__________________

Lefric - 80 Rogue Theleb - 70 Warlock Celegorm - 70 Hunter Kahlye - 70 Shaman - Gaerun 62 Paladin - Weldrake 80 Death Knight
Shadow priest for me , So I can lifetap wildly, Then roll on your loot.

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