Trouble with Affliction raid DPS...again

Greetings fellow warlocks,

My problem is in the title, and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. I’m posting this here first, then going to the Discord/Warlock. Would appreciate any constructive criticism.

Here is my armory link:

Find below my standard rotation, and tell me where can I improve.

  1. Pre-pot + DS:Misery + Haunt pre-cast.
  2. Apply Agony, Corruption and SL in this order.
  3. Cast Guardians of Azeroth (Major lvl 3 Essence).
  4. Dump all the UA’s I have (Max 5).
  5. Cast PS.
  6. DG, then DB.
  7. Shadowbolt.

Here are things going on ‘behind the scenes’

I refresh DOTs 1-2 seconds before falling off, usually walking to a better position while doing them to not waste GCDs. I use DL when I have 50 stacks (ID Trait), and always make sure to use it when Haunt and atleast 1 UA is up on the boss. I try my best to have a good uptime on Cascading Calamity. I move towards the portal summoned from my trinket to get that sweet INT boost.

Now, with all of this, I’m finishing towards the end of the meters on all bosses! Even the queen’s court while using AC instead of SL.

What. Am. I. Doing. Wrong!?

Let’s see.

Mhm, uhm, yep, yeah, got it.

So after carefully checking out your character I strongly believe I know the problem.

You play warlock and expect to top DPS as noxxic shows. That’s not how it works.

There is no class balance in BFA.

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True, but I was never one to complain. I mean, I’ve stuck with warlock since TBC and never changed. It gets buffed and it gets nerfed and I’m okay with that. But I feel at this point in time, either I’m doing something completely wrong, or the warlock affliction engine is broken down, and I just want to know which one is it :frowning_face:

You do indeed seem to suffer from low performance across the board (60th percentile average on heroic, 32 on zaqul and 15 on azshara; 38 on sivarra mythic, 7 on behemoth) this is a clear indication there is SOMETHING you need to do to improve.

What that is I don’t know, I consider affliction trash. It is the most boring and annoying spec in the game for me, I would suggest you to try destruction instead.

Might also have to do with benthic gear, i’m assuming more raiders you’re comparing yourself to have 425 + socket + a good EP affix, which should be significantly better than a 430-440.

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Your trinkets are meh. Get the mechagon one with red punch card from the vendor. Use it when you have ua/haunt up on the target. It’s so much better than the music box.

That is the truth, I think I should be doing better now after utilizing my 425 socketed benthic, and some changes to my rotation priorities.

Well I found your problem, your opener is not good :slight_smile:
try this:
4-3 sec mark, Pre-pot - Haunt - Guardian (gotta build them stacks brah)
Fight has started
Agony - Misery - corruption, singularity, dump UA, DG then DB obv
You may want to try to do:
Agony - Singularity - Misery - corruption - dump, DG then DB, since Phantom is affected by haste reducing the window you have to apply dots.

I don’t fathom how big of a difference this whole benthic deal is, but I succumbed to that and got myself the 425 socketed feet. Hoping for an improvement now.

Tell me about it, but I have those cause I don’t have anything better :frowning_face:

I’ll be definitely trying this and comparing on the dummy!

Hey friend,

A disclaimer first, i don’t pretend to be the best lock out there so just try what said if you feel up to it, secondly, I much prefer demo and destro over affli for many reasons, firstly affli being brain dead boring imo, but since its the easiest to get much dps on single target, i bare it until affli gets either changed, or the other specs buffed.

My advice is sadly alongside many others, Get socketed benthic armor, i’ve looked into your logs, and you seem to be doing well on your raid the 8th of this month, but what you are missing are secondary stats and bethic effects.

i’ll explain their benefit as best I can, they don’t seem to be much worth face value but consider this: having a 445 ( even + socket) will give you exactly +10% secondary stats on the piece and +20% main stat on the piece in comparison to a 425 benthic piece. this then also means that you would have to have all your pieces of 445 where a benthic can be, have a socket, otherwise you loose out on 50 stats.
taking that in, the stats on a single piece usually equates to about a 1%- 1.5% increase in damage from 425 to 445, seeing as you normally upgrade about 13 pieces you’re looking at a 13%-21.5% upgrade in damage OVERALL if you went from 425 to 445 on all pieces.
Now you take into account sockets, 445’s with sockets will be rare, far more rare than farming benthic items for sockets, a socket is 50 secondary stats which equates to anywhere from a 1%-2.5% increase in damage if you socket your best secondary stat, taking that into account you’ve already offset the ilvl difference simply by having that socket present, now if your 445 has a socket this of course sets off the stat difference again, but then comes in the benthic equipped effects, these have a 1%-2% OVERALL damage increase meaning they are worth the upgrade of about 13%-26% on a single slot. that’s why although not seemingly valuable at first, since its only a minor part of your damage in comparison to the ilvl you gain, are extremely deceiving.
They increase your damage by a ridiculous amount, now if you also gear for Haste>Crit>Verse, this also means that not only will your regular damage increase, so too will the damage of benthic, trinkets, essences, and azerite traits increase, mastery has NO effect on NONE of these effects. intellect has NO effect on many azerite traits, some trinkets, all benthic effects and all essence effects, so ilvl upgrades on items that aren’t the benthic piece ( which are mostly intellect upgrades) don’t hold value to what is giving you essentially “free” damage, only the actual ilvl increase on the benthic item increases the benthic effect by a great margin.
This free damage cannot be offset by your own class’s spells with the ilvl increase you would get from wearing simple 445’s and not even where they all socketed as well.
I know, its annoying and confusing as duck but literally

TL:DR,

  • Wear damage proccing benthic gear, and you will see your damage increase
  • Wear Haste>Crit>Vers , and avoid mastery at all cost. ( this is speaking raid wise, once you enter m+ and benthic doesn’t work, the rules change again )

also even though you have a lure and a venom relic, it doesn’t hurt to own a font of power, even at 430 with can best a venom relic when used in optimal burst moments in fights (wrath, ashvane,orgo,za’qul, even ashara herself) i;e fights where you loose uptime on the boss and so the venom stacks on boss ( fish boss, ashvane if you’re guild don’t drag her to middle, wrath when fighting adds), or need the extra burst at specific moments (ashvane, za’qul). The static 200+ crit is a great addition in secondary stats that will help you and all these damage effects, and even though the activatable is intellect ( and so will not empower these effects) it will increase your own dot’s damage by a significant margin, making you burst window ( Darkglare, Misery, Deathbolt) make use of all that increased intellect on all your dots UA’s and PS, and transferr it to make Deathbolts that can hit 160k+ noncrit, i’ve even seen a 460k crit once under optimal circumstances.

As a little sidenote, you really must look at all these affects as NOT MY CLASS, that way you see them as “free damage” that comes in trough random gear, allows you to see that they don’t work with how a class is supposed to work. Crucible of Flame as one of the best examples, it looks like its part of your class, but it isn’t, its damage is significantly increased by leveling your hearth of azeroth, and in part by critting or increasing overall dmg ( Vers gear ). most all of these effects even the lure trinket work this way.

As i looked over some of your logs, and it seems you also lack some mechanical skill i guess you could call it.
once mechanics happen you seem to loose your focus or are otherwise overwhelmed, thats why your efforts on sivara are actualy great and are mearly hold back by gear, but on other bosses, like ashvane or za’qul , maybe even orgo, you lack the depth on looking ahead into a fight.
even on Behemoth, you got to look ahead if you want the most you can get, if he’s gona swap platforms soon, you want to be refreshing your dots right before he swaps, even throw in Phantom on him before he leaves if you can, the dmg ticks and the cooldown is returning while you swim. in a nutchel, Dot uptime is of Paramount importance to the damage of affli, and that talking haunt and UA as well, you want to make sure you cast UA at about 2sec before the previous one falls off, so that when you cast it, there isn’t a single moment where the 10% damage increase was lost ( and also to maintain Cascading azerite trait).

Hope this helps

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