[MoP] Affliction Guide

Contents:
1. Glyphs
2. Stats
3. Your Demon
4. Spells and Abilities – Single Target
5. Spells and Abilities – Multi Target and AoE
6. Extra Tips

1. Talents

Tier 1

There isn’t a clear winner here. You won’t find much use for Harvest Life. Soul Leech will ease your healer’s work by providing a constant flow of health, but Dark Regeneration adds an extra survival cooldown that might save you in dangerous situations. Either of these last two will be fine.

Tier 2

Howl of Terror isn’t going to be useful in a whole lot of situations, although there may be specific encounters in the future where it’s reliable. Mortal Coil has the benefit of providing you with 15% of your maximum health which gives it far more practical use in a raid situation, so it will be the talent of choice in most situations. With that in mind, on certain encounters involving stunnable adds, Shadowfury will be a great talent, so don’t ignore it completely. I’ll be explaining specific encounters where it’ll be useful in future guides on my website.

Tier 3

The talents in this tree are all heavy defensive abilities. Soul Link in its current state shares damage between you and your pet so that you both remain at the same percentage of health. This works both ways, so you take a large amount of any damage directed at your pet. Any Warlock that did Madness of Deathwing Heroic will know that pets have a terrible tendency to stand in places that will get them killed, and whilst this could boil down to simply requiring better pet control. However, if you’re using Grimoire of Sacrifice, then you get a flat 20% health increase by using this talent. Sacrificial Pact offers you a ~300k shield, but Dark Bargain could save you from a lot more depending on how it’s used, and despite its recent nerf, is still the better talent of this tier in my books.

Tier 4

Burning Rush is the go to talent of choice here – an on demand sprint with no cooldown is absolutely amazing. There may be the odd fight here or there where you want Unbound Will. There likely won’t be any occasions where Blood Fear will have use in PvE.

Tier 5

This is one of the “no choice” options. Grimoire of Sacrifice offers the highest DPS gain for Affliction from the talents in this tier. This sacrifices your pet to give a 50% damage buff to your Malefic Grasp, Haunt, Drain Soul and Fel Flame. It also increases the extra DoT tick damage caused by Malefic Grasp by 50%. In addition, it increases your maximum health by 20% (if you have Soul Link), restores 2% of your health every 5 seconds and gives you a utility ability depending on which pet you sacrificed. In some situations, you may find use for one of the other two talents, if burst damage or AoE is required, for example.

Tier 6

Honestly, the talents in this tier are all far too encounter specific to judge outright. For stationary “ultraxion type” fights without any AoE the only choice is Archimonde’s Vengeance, on fights with considerable AoE you’ll want to take Mannoroth’s Fury, and on highly mobile fights Kil’jaeden’s Cunning will be the talent of choice.

2. Glyphs

Like most things in MoP, the glyph system has been simplified. Most of the Warlock glyphs do not offer any DPS gains and are simply cosmetic or fun tweaks to the class. There are three you should consider for Affliction:

Minor:[Glyph of Soul Swap]
Major:[Glyph of Soul Shards]
Major:[Glyph of Soulstone]

3. Stats

Intellect:
This is your primary stat. Each point of Intellect increases your Spell Power by 1. However, when looking at your gear, each point of Intellect is actually worth 1.05 Intellect due to the passive ability Nethermancy. Therefore, if an item has 20 Intellect, you will gain 21 Intellect when you equip it. Intellect also increases your crit chance by a very small amount; 2548 Intellect gives you 1% chance to crit.

Hit
Increases your chance to hit with spells. You need a total of 15% hit to reach cap, and 340 hit rating is equal to 1% hit. Once you reach the hit cap (5100 hit rating), your spells are all guaranteed to hit, so any additional hit is pointless.

Haste
Makes your spells cast faster and reduces your global cooldown. 1% Haste makes your spells cast 1% faster, and you need 423 haste rating to gain 1%.

Crit Rating
Increases your chance to critically hit with spells. You need 600 crit rating to gain 1% chance to crit.

Mastery
Each percent of Mastery increases the damage you do with Agony, Corruption and Unstable Affliction by 1%. Each percent of Mastery is equal to 302 Mastery rating

Expertise
Expertise grants Spell Hit at exactly the same rate as Hit Rating does. You can combine a mixture of Hit and Expertise to each hit cap.

As a general rule of thumb, you should consider stats in the following order of importance:

In Pre-Raid Gear:

Intellect –> Spell Power –> Hit (Up to 15%) –> Haste -> Mastery –> Crit.

In Mid to Late Raid Gear:

Intellect –> Spell Power –> Hit (Up to 15%) –> Mastery >= Haste –> Crit.

Intellect is your best stat, and will almost always be the deciding factor in your upgrades. Hit is slightly weaker for Affliction than it is for the other specs, but for practical reasons you should get as close to the hit cap as possible. Missing a Haunt is fairly unfortunate, and it just keeps your DPS more constant. Mastery and Haste are very close together in terms of how good they are. In earlier gear levels, Haste is the better of the two stats, but only slightly. Mastery becomes the better stat as your gear improves, but Haste is not far behind.

To optimise your reforging, once your gear is relatively stable, use the scale factors generated by SimCraft and plug them into www.wowreforge.com. Import your character, specify the hit cap and away you go. If you don’t know how to use SimCraft, I’ll explain it in a future tutorial. If you don’t want to Sim your own character, or don’t care about accuracy, you can use the default scale factors in WoW Reforge. You could also use the addon ReforgeLite for similar functionality.

3. Your Demon

Currently Affliction does not use a pet, as it utilises the Grimoire of Sacrifice talent. The pet that you sacrifice grants you a utility spell, each of which may have some use in a raid situation. Sacrificing the Imp grants you Singe Magic, sacrificing the Voidwalker grants you Shadow Bulwark, sacrificing the Succubus grants you Seduction and sacrificing the Felhunter grants you Spell Lock.

In situations where you elect not to use Grimoire of Sacrifice, you would use the Succubus pet instead.

Don’t forget your Doomguard. This is a powerful demon that you can summon only once every 10 minutes, and he stays with you for 60 seconds, attacking the target that you cast him on. He deals 20% bonus damage to enemies under 20% health, and also benefits from bloodlust. The best time to use him depends heavily on the fight that you’re on and when your raid uses bloodlust, but it will almost always be just before bloodlust is cast.

The Infernal is the Doomguard’s equivalent for AoE situations. He shares the cooldown with the Doomguard, so you must decide which one is most appropriate to use. You’ll usually use the Infernal when there are 7 or more targets.

4. Spells and Abilities – Single Target

Caster Form Spells:

CORRUPTION: This deals Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 18 seconds, and each tick of damage has a chance to generate a Soul Shard.

AGONY: This deals damage every 2 seconds for 24 seconds. It starts at 1 stack, and every time it deals damage, it gains an extra stack, increasing the damage done with each tick. Once it reaches 10 stacks, it won’t gain any more. In addition, if you recast Agony once it is at 10 stacks, the duration will be extended and it will stay at 10 stacks.

UNSTABLE AFFLICTION: This deals Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 14 seconds. If dispelled, it deals damage to the dispeller and silences them.

Haunt: This deals high damage to an enemy, and applies a debuff that causes all of your spells to do 25% more damage to that enemy for 8 seconds. This consumes one Soul Shard.

SOULBURN: This grants extra effects to some of your spells. This costs one Soul Shard.

SOUL SWAP: This removes all of your DoT effects from one enemy, and allows you to move them to another target. With the glyph, it does not remove the DoTs from the first enemy, effectively allowing you to move your DoTs for free, although this has a 30 second cooldown. When used with Soulburn, it instantly applies Agony, Corruption and Unstable Affliction to an enemy, without the need for a target to steal the DoTs from. This has no cooldown.

MALEFIC GRASP: This is a channelled spell that deals Shadow damage every second for 4 seconds. Every time it deals damage, it causes all of your periodic effects on the target to instantly deal 50% of their tick damage.

DRAIN SOUL: This is a channelled spell that deals Shadow damage every 2 seconds for 12 seconds, and generates a Soul Shard every second tick of damage. If the enemy is below 20% health, it deals 100% additional damage, and every time it deals damage, it causes all of your Affliction periodic effects on the target to instantly deal 100% of their tick damage.

Spell Priority

1 – Haunt – Keep this up when you have Soul Shards.
2 – Agony – Keep this up at 10 stacks.
3 – Corruption – Keep this up.
4 – Unstable Affliction – Keep this up.
5 – Drain Soul – Use this as your filler below 20%.
6 – Malefic Grasp – Use this as your filler above 20%.
7 – Fel Flame – Use this when moving.

At the start of the fight, use Dark Soul, and then Soulburn with Soul Swap, to instantly apply your DoT effects to the enemy. Apply Haunt, and try to keep it up for the entire duration of Dark Soul. Reapply your DoTs once you have a few Intellect procs and Dark Soul still active. For the rest of the fight, keep your DoTs up and use Malefic Grasp as your filler spell, and keep Haunt uptime as high as possible. Once the enemy falls below 20% health, use Drain Soul instead of Malefic grasp.

Remember that if nobody else in your raid is providing the magic damage taken debuff, you should apply Curse of the Elements on every enemy you attack. Remember to use Flask of the Warm Sun at all times, and use Potion of the Jade Serpent immediately before you enter combat, and again at critical stages of the fight.

Advanced Soul Shard Management
Knowing when to use your Soul Shards is what will separate a poor Warlock from a great one.

At the start of the fight you will use a Soul Shard to get Soulburn into a Soul Swap and get your DoTs up. You will use this any time a big cooldown such as Dark Soul is about to expire.

The first rule is never let yourself waste a Nightfall proc. For this reason, you should never sit on 4 Soul Shards. If you get four Shards, throw out a Haunt.
During Dark Soul, try to keep Haunt up with 100% uptime.

During the execute, you have unlimited shards. Keep Haunt up with 100% uptime and only use Soulburn: Soul Swap to refresh your DoTs.

5. Spells and Abilities – Multi Target and AoE

SEED OF CORRUPTION: This deals Shadow damage to an enemy over time. Once the target takes enough damage from the Caster, it explodes and deals Shadow damage to all enemies within 15 yards. When used with Soulburn, the explosion applies Corruption to afflicted targets.

Spell Priority: 3 or more targets

1 – Seed of Corruption – Use this with Soulburn to keep Corruption up on each enemy.
2 – Agony – Cast on each enemy.
3 – Seed of Corruption – Apply to each enemy.

In other words, start up with a Soulburn: Seed of Corruption on one enemy, and then apply Agony to each enemy. Once you’ve done that, rotate Seed of Corruption on each enemy. For extensive AoE, use your Infernal for a huge boost in damage.

6. Extra Tips
This section should clarify some of the major mechanic changes between Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria.

Dot Refreshing:
At level 90, DoTs are refreshed in a different way. If you cast Corruption on an enemy that already has Corruption on it, the remaining duration of the previous effect will be added to the new effect, up to a maximum of 50% of its base duration. So, if you recast Corruption when it has 6 seconds remaining, it will now have 24 seconds remaining. The maximum duration it will increase to is 27 seconds, since its base duration is 18. This means that you can refresh it any time when it has less than 9 seconds remaining and you won’t waste any time. (9+ 18= 27).

Before you reach level 90, this extension doesn’t happen, which means you should refresh your DoT just after it expires.

Doom Guard:
Your Doomguard now benefits from Bloodlust and deals bonus damage when under 20%. He also updates dynamically with your stats – there is no need to wait for Int or Haste procs before you summon him – although summoning him when their internal cooldown is soon to expire will be beneficial, to ensure they proc whilst he is out.

[MoP] SimulationCraft for Warlocks

This post automatically updates to reflect the latest results at simulationcraft.org. Click on the charts below for details and scale factors:

The AoE report is from an 8-target simulation with a fight duration of 2-3 minutes.

In the pets/grimoires comparisons, the baseline T13H profile has no talents but is using the highest-DPS pet.

Watch the changelog for updates to the SimulationCraft warlock model.  Changes my take an hour to be reflected in the results.

[MoP] 5.0.4 Talent Analysis

Patch 5.0.4, the Mists of Pandaria pre-patch, included a revamp of the talent system.  In its new form a choice of talents becomes available every 15 levels.  Each of these ‘talent tiers’ includes 3 different versions of close to the same thing.  In summary, they can be described as follows:

• Level 15 – Self-Healing
• Level 30 – Crowd Control Utilities
• Level 45 – Survival Talents
• Level 60 – Utilities
• Level 75 – DPS Utility Talents
• Level 90 – Encounter Specific Utilities

Tier 1 – Self-Healing

At level 15 we will choose between 3 self-healing talents.

Dark regeneration offers you fast and instant health, which can be good in tight situations on a boss fight as it also increases healing you receive by 25% after it’s used. Good for tight phases like dark phase on Warlord Zon’ozz.
Soul Leech is the passive health regeneration talent to take for a fight with steady damage taken. I recommend this on most fights as Destruction, just for that extra passive healing it can bring.
Harvest Life is the AOE version of drain life, a very decent spell to have on fast AOE fights where seed of corruption might not be able to even tick properly. Seed of Corruption is still supposed to bring more AOE for affliction, so I don’t recommend taking this talent other than for the fun of it; it’s especially fun to use it while leveling, as a low level Warlock, when you do not have Seed of Corruption available.

There isn’t a clear winner here. You won’t find much use for Harvest Life. Soul Leech will ease your healer’s work by providing a constant flow of health, but Dark Regeneration adds an extra survival cooldown that might save you in dangerous situations

Personal Choice/PVE orientated talent winner:  Soul Leech

Tier 2 – Crowd Control Utilities

At level 30 we will choose between 3 crowd control utilities, which are generally of greater use in PVP situations then PVE.
Howl of Terror comes as we know it, an AOE fear, but very little to no use in PVE content; could prove useful in challenge modes or heroic dungeons with a lot of caster mobs.
Mortal Coil restores 15% of your health, so it can become a very handy mini Healthstone for tricky situations.
Shadowfury as we know it, good on fights that you can actually use the stun on; such as Ragnaros, with the Sons of Flame.

Personal Choice/PVE orientated talent winner: Mortal Coil

Tier 3 – Survival Talents

Level 45 brings us some interesting survival talents, it will be difficult to pick a specific most useful talent, as each is useful in varying situations.
Soul Link has changed from the 20% passive reduction to the pet, to a shared health pool between the pet and yourself. I personally do not fancy this talent, as I don’t like the option your pet take damage and you will as well. Healing your pet also heals you, but for PVE situations I prefer the other two options due to the annoyance of putting our pet in danger and the increased potential of it dying as a result of using this talent.  Any Warlock that did Madness of Deathwing Heroic will know that pets have a terrible tendency to stand in places that will get them killed, and whilst this could boil down to simply requiring better pet control, you’re better off avoiding this talent completely.
Sacrificial Pact sacrifices half your pet’s health to give you back 200% of that health in a nice shield. Very useful talent for PVE, pre pop it as most damage is predictable, or even once you take heavy damage. Can be used on nearly any encounter, which makes it an overall great talent.
Dark Bargain is the hyped talent some people for some reason think is good. I personally like this talent, however optimal use of it does require communication with your healers.  Preventing damage for 8 seconds has the potential of being extremely useful and allow us to soak in some encounters, however using it will require synergy with other members of the raid.

Personal Choice/PVE orientated talent winner: Sacrificial Pact

Tier 4 – Utilities

The fourth tier, which becomes available at level 60, proves more crowd control and movement utilities.
Blood Fear is the much discussed instant fear that becomes godlike in PvP, but no use for us in PVE overall; apart from potential use of the talent as an interupt in heroic dungeons and challenge modes. There is at least one encounter in Mists that will require fast CC.
Burning Rush is a fun talent that increases our movement speed but at the cost of 4% of our health per second. I haven’t really found much use for this yet, but I’m sure once we get more familiar with things we might find some fun things to do in PVE with this talent.  The fact that it has no cooldown makes it highly appealing.
Unbound Will is a removal of magical effects, very useful on some encounters that you can actually use this to remove things from yourself. Found it very good for some encounters, and obviously it’s very situational and nothing you will get to use for every encounter.

Personal Choice/PVE orientated talent winner: Unbound Will

Tier 5 – DPS Utility Talents

Tier 5, provides play-style/DPS utilizes, the choice of which will largely be determined by the specialization you are playing at the time
Grimoire of Supremacy is the talent that changes our pets into a more powerful version with new spells and 20% more damage. Obviously a decent talent for when you might not be able to get use of others.
Grimoire of Service is on demand extra burst, and will be very useful on Spine of Deathwing-like fights, as you can really get that extra burst out during a short period of time. Very useful for small high DPS demanding phases, but judging so far from beta it might not get much love.
Grimoire of Sacrifice is the best for Affliction and Destruction, as it increases our damage by most of our spells by 25%.

PVE orientated Affliction specialization talent winner: Grimoire of Sacrifice

Grimoire of Sacrifice offers the highest DPS gain for Affliction from the talents in this tier. This sacrifices your pet to give a 50% damage buff to your Malefic Grasp, Haunt, Drain Soul and Fel Flame. It also increases the extra DoT tick damage caused by Malefic Grasp by 50%. In addition, it increases your maximum health by 20%, restores 2% of your health every 5 seconds and gives you a utility ability depending on which pet you sacrificed. In addition, you will no longer need to micro your pet, hurray!  However, remember that the talent gives all your single target spells increased damage as affliction, which means that when you will have to multi DoT a lot, and decrease your single target casting times, this talent will NOT be useful.

PVE orientated Demonology specialization talent winner:  Grimoire of Service

The highest DPS choice of this tier, at the moment, is Grimoire of Service, due to the extra Felguard you gain when it is used.  The talent is very useful for burst DPS situations, however should you be in a fight where pets aren’t available then it will no longer be useful.  Should this be the case then Grimoire of Supremacy should be utilised.  Grimoire of Sacrifice, unlike for Affliction and Destruction, is not as useful for Demonology due to the fact that it has alot of damage from dots and pets and therefore it does not compliment the specialization well.

PVE orientated Destruction specialization talent winner:  Grimoire of Sacrifice

As Destruction is the weakest of the three specializations currently, and only useful in specific PVE situations, Grimoire of Sacrifice is the only viable option.  However, this is likely to change in future as the class is balanced further.

Tier 6 – Encounter Specific Utilities

Honestly, the talents in this tier are all far too encounter specific to judge outright. For stationary “Ultraxion type” fights without any AoE the only choice is Archimonde’s Vengeance, on fights with considerable AoE you’ll want to take Mannoroth’s Fury, and on highly mobile fights Kil’jaeden’s Cunning will be the talent of choice.

[MoP] First Week Gear: Destruction

BiS gear that is attainable in the first week of Mists of Pandaria for Destruction:

Wowhead Profile

In addition to indicating the best gear for each item slot, this profile also indicates what gear needs to be reforged, which gems should be chosen, and the relevant enchants for each piece of gear.

The BiS Destruction gear available in Week 1 of MoP is largely shared with Demonology, with the only difference between the two being how you reforge, unlike Affliction which is itemized differently and therefore requires a mostly different item set.  If you only have the time to specifically go after one set of gear, then I would recommend gearing for Affliction first due to its current performance in comparison to the other two specializations.  Remember that no Valor Point gear will be available until Week 2 and it will not be possible to obtain at least Revered reputation with most factions which give valor point rewards during the first week of the expansion.

Gear source/gemming summary:

• Level 90 dungeon items (13)
• Crafted items (2)
• Meta (1), Red (3), Orange (2), and Purple (3).

Gear Statistics Priorities:

[MoP] First Week Gear: Demonology

BiS gear that is attainable in the first week of Mists of Pandaria for Demonology:

Wowhead Profile

In addition to indicating the best gear for each item slot, this profile also indicates what gear needs to be reforged, which gems should be chosen, and the relevant enchants for each piece of gear.

The BiS Demonology gear available in Week 1 of MoP is largely shared with Destruciton, unlike Affliction which is itemized differently and therefore requires a mostly different item set.  If you only have the time to specifically go after one set of gear, then I would recommend gearing for Affliction first due to its current performance in comparison to the other two specializations.  Remember that no Valor Point gear will be available until Week 2 and it will not be possible to obtain at least Revered reputation with most factions which give valor point rewards during the first week of the expansion.

Gear source/gemming summary:

• Level 90 dungeon items (13)
• Crafted items (2)
• Meta (1), Red (3), Orange (2), and Purple (3).

Gear Statistics Priorities:

[MoP] First Week Gear: Affliction

BiS gear that is attainable in the first week for Affliction:

Wowhead Profile

In addition to indicating the best gear for each item slot, this profile also indicates what gear needs to be reforged, which gems should be chosen, and the relevant enchants for each piece of gear.

The BiS Affliction gear available is largely specialization specific, unlike Demonology and Destruction which share the same items but are reforge differently.  If you only have the time to specifically go after one set of gear, then I would recommend gearing for Affliction first due to its current performance in comparison to the other two specializations.

Gear source/gemming summary:

• Level 90 dungeon items (13)
• Crafted items (2)
• Meta (1), Red (2), Orange (3), and Purple (3).

Pre-Raid Gear Statistics Priorities:

Damage Over Time Haste Breakpoint Calculation

The formula for computing the number of ticks in a DoT or HoT is relatively straightforward:

Round ( Base Spell Duration / ( Base Tick Time / (1 + Haste %)))

The following tool should prove useful when making decisions about how much Haste to stack, as you will want to determine the optimal amount that will provide the greatest ‘tick’ return over multiple spells while not disregarding other secondary stats such as Mastery.

Haste Breakpoint Calculator updated for 5.0.5

To use it, download the file and open it with the spreadsheet program of your choice. If you don’t have one,  OpenOffice is a freely available suite. Change the ‘DoT’ values to match the values for the spells of your choice, then put your current Haste value in the big yellow cell that says YOUR HASTE % HERE. The values should fill in.

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like:

I hope you find this tool useful when making decisions regarding gear and reforging.

Furthermore, the following spreadsheets should also prove useful:

• DOT_HOT Haste calculations 5.0 (Lv.85) [15952]
• DOT_HOT Haste calculations 5.0 (Lv.90) [15983]