Post by asakawa
EDIT: btw nice guidethanks ^_^
Frequently asked questions!0/17/54 - deep destruciton
not sure if this was mentioned or it's allowed to post this here
eh?
Post by asakawa
i've been putting it off since it's a huge topic but i finally got round to adding a section on rolling corruption:
The deep Affliction PvE build uses the talent
Everlasting Affliction to allow commonly used spells to refresh the currently ticking Corruption (the strongest DoT an Affliction Warlock possesses) on the target.
This "refresh", as opposed to the spell getting recast specifically by the player, is the source of an emergent gameplay mechanic which is not intuitive but is incredibly powerful when mastered.
The important thing to understand about the "rolling Corruption" is that certain stats continue when the spell is refreshed while others are reset to what you character has at the time of the refresh.
The stats that
do roll are:
- Critical strike chance
- Percentage damage modifiers
The stats that
do not roll are:
What this means is that if we can push our Crit chance and damage buffs as high as possible when we cast the initial Corruption on a boss fight, that high chance will continue for the full length of the fight or for as long as we can keep it refreshed.
To achieve this Affliction Warlocks will use a very specific opening spell order and then go to great lengths to make sure that initial Corruption never drops off.
The most notable buffs we should bear in mind are:
Percentage Damage:
This is a sizeable list of buffs and it is not easy to stack them all up for your first corruption (in the case of Death's Embrace it is impossible!).
The Nevermelting Ice Crystal is a relatively weak trinket compared to some of the trinkets gained in current content raids but the nature of it's proc means that when you first activate it you have a +20% crit chance which only reduces when you crit with a spell. If you cast corruption after activating the trinket but before gaining a crit your corruption will keep that 20% crit for it's duration. As such, NMIC is best-in-slot (or close to) for Affliction Warlocks who can use this mechanic well.
Focus Magic gives a 3% crit buff but you only need it in place when you cast your Corruption. the Mage is free to cast it on their normal target after the first 15 seconds of the fight if they wish.
You can "pre-pot" your Potion of Wild Magic. That means using the potion just before entering combat thereby negating the potion sickness that usually allows the use of only one potion per combat phase. this will allow you to use a
Potion of Speed toward the end of the fight when you are using
Drain Soul as your main nuke and the raid probably uses
Heroism/
Bloodlust.
Weapons, unlike other gear slots, can be swapped in combat. This allows you to use any high Crit weapon at the start of the fight then swap to your best weapon setup for the rest of the fight.
The percentage damage buffs are a little more difficult to manage. If your tanks don't need Tricks of the Trade from the Rogue then it is very strong when given to you but means you need to be aware of your threat since all the rogue's threat comes with that nice buff.
The 4pcT10 Proc is a random proc. You can cast Unstable Affliction and hope for a proc but that will likely require quite a wait and the chances are good that you would lose your potion buff and certainly the tricks buff. It's nice if you can get it but probably not something you should attempt to get every time.
Death's Embrace is a 12% damage buff that you get once your target reaches 35% health. If you can get the rogue to cast another tricks on you (difficult due to the short range on tricks) then it will likely be best to recast Corruption with both of these buffs and reactivate NMIC at that point too. If you can't reliably stack all these buffs then it is probably best to maintain the initial corruption.
So, what is the best cast order at the start of the fight?
- Out of combat: Equip a Crit weapon
- Get FM from a mage
Directly before combat:
- Tricks from a Rogue
- Life Tap(rank1)
- Use potion of wild magic
- Shadow Bolt
- Haunt
- Unstable Affliction
- Nevermelting Ice Crystal
- Corruption
- Curse of Agony
- Continue using normal spell priorities
The only other tip i would mention is that if your corruption looks like it might fall off before you get the chance to cast a refreshing spell on it you can use
Drain Life to refresh it. It only requires you to stand still for one second to get the first tick of damage and achieve the refresh.
I hope this sheds some light on this difficult concept.
it's a lot of words so i would really welcome some peer review on it. corrections, clarifications, suggestions, even spelling errors ^_^
i also don't currently play Affliction (main spec demo, sub spec destro) so if i'm missing any of the latest tricks please fill me in.
edit: on a side note - this FAQ is now over 8000 words long O.o
i don't think my university dissertation was this long!
...also, perhaps this is straying from the less-is-more philosophy i was aiming for when i first started.