Spell rotation, gear or respec needed?

[Dirky]

Hi,
I've been affliction since about level 62, however since I have been raiding more 25 man content, we are 3/4 TK and 4/6 SSC now, I have noticed my damage is not great in comparison to the rest of my guild members. In fact it sucks
I'm specced 43/0/18 and my armoury is at:-
The World of Warcraft Armory

A recent Wow Web Stats from SSC is at:-

Wow Web Stats

As you can see I am pretty well down in the overall damage.

My usual spell rotation is like:-
UA > Curse of Agony > Corr > SL > SB > SB (and then top up dots as reqd)

Or sometimes I will do
UA > Curse of Agony > Corr > Immolate > Incinerate > Incinerate > SB (top dots)

I'm unsure if putting the immolate and incinerate in there is a waste of time?

I'll pop my trinket whenever it is on cooldown. And try and use Amplify Curse when I can.

As I am usually the only Affliction 'lock in raid I will often be asked to do the banishes and keep Curse of Elements up instead of Curse of Agony, so I realise this is bound to have some impact on my damage output.

I'm wondering if my spell rotations look ok? Also I dont have any points in Soul Siphon, should I have 2 points in this to make difference?

Thanks for any pointers you can give.
D

[Nihiliphim]

I seem to have a similar problem, one thing I tried and it did improve my dps against other classes which deal loads of burst damage is that I removed SL from my rotation completely and put 2/5 in improved corruption. Didn't try to use Curse of Agony instead of CoS though, our raid setups require me to use CoS instead since I got 3/3 malediction, and if I'm forced to use CoE instead then I'm totally screwed since we don't have a shadowpriest in the guild at all...

[Dirky]

Originally Posted by Nihiliphim

I seem to have a similar problem, one thing I tried and it did improve my dps against other classes which deal loads of burst damage is that I removed SL from my rotation completely and put 2/5 in improved corruption. Didn't try to use Curse of Agony instead of CoS though, our raid setups require me to use CoS instead since I got 3/3 malediction, and if I'm forced to use CoE instead then I'm totally screwed since we don't have a shadowpriest in the guild at all...

Thats spooky, I just replied to one of your posts, then checked back here and saw you had replied to mine

Thanks
d

[Eterud]

Imo: affliction is a waste of an dps spot after gruul's lair, althought it might be nice for vashj kiting thought.

affliction=utility for the raid.
destro=dps in my eyes.
0/21/40 spec with:

Immolate>4x sb>lifetap cycle and you can continue for ages with an low amount of healing and decend threat gainage.

[Malevevely]

You should be pairing UA and Corr(Same duration) ie rotation is Curse>UA>corr>immo>SiLi>bolt tap when needed. Incinerate is a waste for an affliction lock dont cast it ever. It is only ever viable with haste as a 21/40 build and even then shadow destro is better imho. If you have the base stats for destro (202 hit, 17%tooltip crit as aff, 1k + shadow) then feel free to respec it sounds like you are having rotation issues. You could respec destro or work on a better rotation. I would suggest a demo/destro build if your crit is a little low 0/40/21 with a succy out is a nice median or try out felguard with 2T5 and vst. Imho destro is more of a T6 spec for max output however I look at T5 as a time to play try out a demo spec or perfect your affliction.

@ the above post a well played aff lock can hold their own into early BT/Hyjal. Locks should never kite striders get an ele shaman frost shock makes that part really easy.

[Eterud]

tbh it is worth to spec destro above 175 hit rating imo. 18%+crit in the tooltip as destro, 1k+shadow damage.
I tried it out even when I had just 130 hit rating and I allready saw an 200 dps improve vs affli.

@malevevely:
I doubt they'll be even at 60% of the dps they would have as destro unless they can spam their improved Curse of Agony instead of an CoS/CoE/CoR.

[Sidora]

I disagree completely with Eteruds comments. I am afflock 42/0/19 and in my previous guild we were 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC and Rage in MH down. I was always in the top 5 on damage meters, ALWAYS. New guild is farming first 4 in ZA and I'm always 1 or 2 on damage meter (even tossing CoS/CoE depending on raid make up).

Affliction is an extremely viable tree all the way upto mid t6 content. Many top end guilds are still carrying 1 afflock into upper t6 content for utility. Granted dps at that level won't touch the destro locks, Afflocks still bring valuable utility to any raid


I do agree with Malev on Incin, don't bother unless your haste stacking and destro fire.

My rotation = CoS/CoE>UA>Corr>Immo>SiLi>SBspam. Refresh, tap/pact, repeat, loot boss.


Dirky - your armory was showing me a different build (perhaps pvp build) so I couldn't see that, and your WWS didn't work either so I couldn't see that either, sorry.

[Malevevely]

Like Sidora said aff locks are viable and bring a lot of utility to the raid however they must have low latency as high latency = more downtime on dots and significantly less dps. Also aff locks must be very conscious of the debuff cap and having their high damage abilities knocked off the mob. In short it really isnt until your farming illidan or progressing in sunwell that aff locks become obsolete however good aff locks are few and far between.

[Dirky]

Originally Posted by Sidora

I disagree completely with Eteruds comments. I am afflock 42/0/19 and in my previous guild we were 3/4 TK and 5/6 SSC and Rage in MH down. I was always in the top 5 on damage meters, ALWAYS. New guild is farming first 4 in ZA and I'm always 1 or 2 on damage meter (even tossing CoS/CoE depending on raid make up).

Affliction is an extremely viable tree all the way upto mid t6 content. Many top end guilds are still carrying 1 afflock into upper t6 content for utility. Granted dps at that level won't touch the destro locks, Afflocks still bring valuable utility to any raid


I do agree with Malev on Incin, don't bother unless your haste stacking and destro fire.

My rotation = CoS/CoE>UA>Corr>Immo>SiLi>SBspam. Refresh, tap/pact, repeat, loot boss.


Dirky - your armory was showing me a different build (perhaps pvp build) so I couldn't see that, and your WWS didn't work either so I couldn't see that either, sorry.

Thanks for your comments. I've spec'd back 41/0/20 now. I'l log in my raiding gear too. I've got 190 hit now and 1046 shadow damage self buffed.
Reading these recent posts has spurred me on to persist with affliction some more
D