I’ve been playing Affliction Warlock for some weeks now and have entered the end game. Read a lot of guides and generally followed them to good success.
One thing I’m finding that is the cornerstone of the AffLock is obviously soul shard generation and that it can be quite slow when working on 2+ minute boss mobs with few adds. And there seems to be almost zero trinkets/legendaries that actually affect this part of the rotation, except Haste itself.
So I have made this, and played with it quite a few times.
So my synopsis is - it’s useful but only in mythic+ dungeons. It doesn’t stand out much in raid. It really has that affect of RNG so it’s not super reliable but you do feel it when playing an AOE oriented build.
The build I’ve run where it works well is Vile Taint/Absolute Corruption. The setup before any damage is 2 shards, and the increased shard gen works in favour of this kind of playstyle.
As example 3 shards start before pack of 5-6:
Seed of corruption (2 shards)
Dot up with agony’s (3 shards)
Pick main target to damage down. (3-4 shards)
UA/Haunt target, get 3 stacks of Shadows Embrace. (4-5 shards)
Cast Vile Taint in pack. (4 shards)
Soul rot. (4-5 shards)
CD’s/MR (5 shards, due to generation even through spending window.)
Every 20 seconds you should be in a position to cast VT again, and still place out 3-4 MRs. It’s reliable enough to push big numbers in multiple packs, but can falter for ST damages. The VT and AC playstyle makes it less plate spinning too (which honestly is nice.)
You can run rolling agony with this if you’d like, but I’d go for shadows embrace for the ST damage. Or run a SL build with synergy (which is always going to be better)
Hrm yeah I’m not currently running VT/AC talents in lieu of the more single target friendly options. But you’re right. I should give VT/AC another go and see how it feels.
I guess the main question is: Is the crafted legendary on, say, a ring a better option than most other drops in that slot? I imagine no, if we’re looking at the far end-game gear. But in the middle of end-game it might be a good option?
Give it a try, update on us how you feel about it! It’s kinda boring that the only influence it has is resource generation, but what can you do!
I would honestly tell you to make it for what’s more accessible for you currently, as we are currently bearing the end for this season, and if two legendaries becomes a thing, I only imagine it being popular to be paired with other legendaries.
I made mine a ring, but I did that early before I knew about synergy, but it did help with haste and mastery at the time, and even now is pretty good! However getting an item to 235 with int stat is always worth it.
I’ve been using it since the start, it’s fine. My original intent was to play kyrian cause the extra shards would be used on more powerful MR outside your cds. However i ended up as Night Fae and it’s all about that burst window, from this perspective the 20% extra isn’t really noticeable.
The other warlock in my raid is using demonic synergy but again, unless you get a proc in that burst window, it doesn’t have a noticeable impact.
It’s ~about the same dps in the end as the head legendary but it delivers only in the right content. It delivers good if you pick the aoe talent which costs a soul shard instead of the single target dot which does aoe in 15m yards. You can think of having this soul shard for free. I am not satisfied with it, but it s the only choice after the head. My dps on my 220 ilvl now are around 7k dps overall, more on fortified weeks; but I feel like when I had the other legendary it delivered more dps overall. It s probably best to use it on fortified weeks when you know the tank pulls big, otherwise just take the head. I also had burst windows with the chest soul shard legendary where it didnt generate one shard after I consumed my 5. It’s pure rng and 20% more of a low percentage is still low ;D but 20% more.
I also have to say, that weeks ago I was expecting to scale better than I did now with my ilvl.
I didnt test yet or calculate how the buffed legendaries in 9.0.5 feel for affli, but main stats from head and chest legendaries are worth a lot
It’s definitely a decent alternative to the Demonic Synergy legendary, but it is definitely not better.
If you would like to play the easier, less GCD build in M+ for example, the Absolute Corruption + vile taint build, you can easily play it with the Agony legendary as your soul shards will not suffer as much from Seed+taint in the opener.
But to play optimally you should play the full ST build even in keys, but I am talking about keys above 17-18, which most warlocks don’t rly step into unfortunately, mainly because of community perceptions that we’re bad in keys, which we are definitely not, its just we need the key level to be high enough to start pumping.
In general, it is our 2nd best so you can play it, but should you is another matter. Just play what you like is my advice, unless you are pushing high end content.
problem is that up to 15+ mythic that I been into , till seed of corryption lands, everything is missing 1/3 of its HP, the moment agony is up they are down to 40%