23
Kansas City, Missouri

Depending on what spec I would be expected to raid at between affliction and demonology, both bring a significant role to the raid composition.

While affliction brings great DPS and 5% spellcrit, Demonology is seen to be one of the highest contributors to ranged spell casters. They’re up there with Boomkins.

Depending on what spec I would be expected to raid at between affliction and demonology, both bring a significant role to the raid composition.

While affliction brings great DPS and 5% spellcrit, Demonology is seen to be one of the highest contributors to ranged spell casters. They’re up there with Boomkins. I know my class inside and out, and because of that it has become really easy to maximum rotations/spell priorities, as well as manage class mechanics perfectly (well as perfect as fight mechanics allow). This has allowed me in the past to out dps vastly better geared warlocks. Affliction warlocks require 100% attention and usually considered one of the hardest rotations to really play perfectly, along with feral.

Playing either is not an issue, although I definitely prefer Affliction.

Sure. There are a couple option rotations for affliction warlocks. They all revolve around tier10 4 piece and rolling corruption mechanics.

Shadowbolt, Haunt, CoA, UA, Corruption, then Shadowbolt spam. The order of opening rotation isn’t as important as some make it out to be. I choose CoA after Haunt to give my Haunt travel time to hit my target. This prevents wasting a charge of your NMIC on an accidental Haunt crit. While it is the lowest priority spell, its better to be casting something then waste a second waiting for your haunt to land. If using NMIC to roll corruption use NMIC before casting UA, so UA will get the full benefit of NMIC for that UA's duration. UA and corruptions place are interchangeable, in order. You’re only talking about a second different in the first initial tick between UA and corruption.

Another opener is, Shadowbolt, Haunt, UA, Corruption, CoA. If you are rolling your corruption with NMIC, you are relying on waiting for your Tier10 bonus to proc, cast Seed of Corruption to clear your current Corruption, a shadowbolt filler for travel time, then a NMIC’d corruption to reapply. The problem with this is if you got very unlucky with your UA you could be waiting for over 30 seconds for your Tier10 4piece to proc and are wasting NMIC’s mechanics. This messes up the reapplication of NMIC + tier10 4 piece + sub 35% (deaths embrace), because the fight is probably almost over now.

The other varitation of this is: Corruption, Shadowbolt, Haunt, UA, CoA. This allows you to pop your NMIC and apply corruption when your tier10 set piece procs and roll the crit rating and 10% increased damage with the corruption without having to worry about “There is currently a stronger spell active” error. Again, the same problems occur while waiting for your tier 10 to proc to apply NMIC.

All in all, if you are running with NMIC its best to choose the first rotation no matter what gear or tier bonuses you have. Once you replace NMIC with something like DFO and you don’t have to worry about NMIC corruption rolling, you must switch to either of the two variations of waiting for your Tier10 4piece bonus to proc. I prefer the first, as it gives your mob time to acquire the appropriate rolling debuffs, so it can roll everything it needs to besides the tier bonus.

Now that we’ve conquered this wall of text, priority and mechanics are fairly simple. Cast everything as they fall off. In haunts case, be sure to cast it before it has 3 seconds left on its duration so at any distant it will reapply before it falls off. With castingUA, depending if you in Bloodlust or under Eradication, its either between .8 seconds at my very lowest to 1.2 seconds at my very highest left on its duration. This is to prevent you from overlapping your DOTS, which is the worst thing you can do. When it comes to stuff like CoA, if it still has 1 second left on its duration, go ahead and cast another shadowbolt and reapply CoA at the end of the cast time. You never want to be waiting around. To achieve the highest DPS you want to always have a spell queued.

In execution phase (20%) drain soul begins. The only thing I let fall to not be instantly reapplied is CoA. Everything else needs to stay up. UA for tier bonus, Corruption for Eradication, Haunt for its dot buff. I reapply CoA on the end of one of these spells. By the end of the fight, drain soul should account for 10%-15% of your damage or 10-20 ticks.

When it comes to demonology (it took me this long to get here). Its fairly straight forward. Immolate, Corruption, CoD, Shadowbolt, incinerate when Molten Core procs. When you get to execution phase, keep Immolate (for Tier10 bonus) and Corruption (for Molten Core) up. Pop metamorphosis at the beginning, so you can meta again at bloodlust. Lining up meta with bloodlust is key for dps, so if its coming early be sure to know its coming early, and adjust accordingly. Be sure to pay attention to your decimation procs off of adds for 9 seconds of soul fire spamming pre execution range. Good for Marrowgar, Deathwhisper, Saurfang, Purticide, Dreamwalker, and Blood Prince council. Pretty much any fight with adds you should shine.

Jesus, look how long this is, what the fuck have I done?

1) Shadowbolt, Haunt, CoA, UA, Corruption, Shadowbolt spam. If using NMIC to roll corruption, use NMIC before casting UA, so UA will get the full benefit of NMIC for that UA's duration.

Definitely so. Here is the most relevant log I have. http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-rv4pns2q8x3pl6wf/analyze/dd/source/?s=9320&e=9608
Any logs after this have been progression fights, I was sat, or between a two week period I took off raiding because my son was born. This was before I even had my tier10 4 piece, so my dps should improve from this log about 600-800-dps. This would have me competing for top 5 dps compared to your 9.6.2010 Rotface kill.

I have a few holes in my gear, but not by a significant margin when applied to simcraft, cloak, gloves, ring, and wand.
I assure you I have considered the boe options. The cloak was the only option I was really considering up until today. The seasonal boss cloak that drops off Ahune is better by 16 DPS.
Now I have tried to upgrade all of these through all my options, I've just been unlucky with DKP, rolls/drops in ICC 10. Beyond that getting together a group on here for TOGC isn't the easiest task. So I've looked at all the BOE options ran them through simcraft multiple times before.

The wand, Nightmare ender compared to my profile only nets a 7 dps increase due to loss of hit and shifting of gems. I've also tried substituting the hit loss with my offspec demonology hit gloves, Sister's Handshrouds. This only nets a 5 DPS increase. 5-7 DPS really just is not significant enough to spend 7-10k on.

When it comes to the BOE ring, Marrowgar's Frigid Eye, there is a 33DPS increase. I have been actively looking for it in trade and scanning the auction house when I can on spare time. Hasn't turned up yet or a price that I'm willing to pay.

Its hard to justify spending 20k on relatively bad items for my spec and only see a ~40dps increase.