Thanks for this guide, was looking for a guide that actually explained the basics. Many big creators like Kalamazi speak like you have already played 100s of hours XD
Hey man, really appreciate your videos, super comprehensive. I came here to comment on something specifically, but it occurs to me that this is already a month old, meaning it may already be obsolete information. I would suggest doing refreshers now and again as new videos come out, they can just be tacked on at the start or end, assuming your audience are already experts and it can be brief and to the point. This is over an hour of theory crafting (which is awesome) but I'm not gonna go through and find exactly where the references were made, or if they have since been changed. With that said- What really stood out to me is that you saw the full potential that nightfall+shadowbolt provides, which a lot of people seemed to have overlooked. I was a bit surprised that you undervalued improved haunt. Now if haunt was instant, this engine would be insane. But with a fast-ish version of haunt into an automatic instant shadowbolt, it's practically a pseudo instant haunt. Which is nice. And by the way, I've been noticing Haunt actually doing some pretty good damage, it's just overshadowed by the other insane burst aoe, but it's decent for priority targeting. Also- after Soul Rot you have almost ten seconds where you can have haunt debuffing two separate targets (remember it's not just the initial damage). The faster cast time makes that much less of an inconvenience to fit in. I'm digressing. I've been playing around extensively with this shadowbolt machine gun style build, including with Feast of Souls instead of Shared Fate. You end up drowning in shards with a lot of cri+nightfall, so I tried fitting in other spenders like Oblivion, which may have niche applications but is similarly hard to fit in with the rest of the rotation. This is what I specifically came here to point out- what I've noticed in practice is, yes you're correct shadowbolting at instant speed is getting max value, but with Drain Soul- I think there's a major trade off. With each instant cast of shadowbolt you have 1 chance to proc an instant MR, but with Drain Soul, it's every tick that has a chance to trigger, so when it comes to fishing for instant MR specifically, with drain soul you get procs far more frequently- Same thing applies to Shadowbolt Volley, it's every tick of DS vs every cast of Shadowbolt. But if I'm not mistaken, if you talent into nightfall shadowbolt specifically, then your shadowbolt volleys will apply Shadow Embrace to all targets they spray, so that's another trade off as well. It seems like a preference/encounter based thing, if you want the mobility from machine gun shadowbolting, if you add Vers and Crit, you start seeing all those tertiary damaging abilities shooting way up. With DS for more instant MR then mastery. Last thing- going back to what I said earlier, I'm a bit surprised that you undervalue improved haunt and for that matter improved unstable affliction. I admit I like cute things. But it's like pseudo haste for those abilities. Since they both are pretty much the extremely inconvenient parts of our rotation, cutting their casting time in half means you get off your rotation far more smoothly, and then have a bunch of time to do other things like reposition or just get to casting spells that actually matter. It's a very subtle thing but particularly with MPLUS, you have the extra points to move, and the result of totally smoothing out your rotation, seems like it could be invaluable. Or maybe pragmatic is the word. Faster Haunt/Unstable Affliction can end up netting you a ton of value in completely indirect ways, and riding them off as merely QOL I think isn't factoring for the full encounter. Anyway hope that reads okay. Keep up the videos they're outstanding. Thank you!
Vlox is the real MVP here! These are the kind of guides I would actually pay for if needed. The pace is good, the “in depth” parts are understandable, and most of all it’s an actual guide. Not a clickbait title. Vlox, thanks for the guide! 🙏
Probably the best guide out there for Affliction right now. As someone who hasn't played the spec for several expansions these thorough breakdowns of the hero talents and different damage profiles has done tremendously for helping me understand how to play Affliction. From your breakdowns of the different rotations I've been able to spot errors in my own play in both raid and dungeons and how to correct those mistakes going forward. I also appreciated the discussion at the end regarding the pros and cons of each of the hero talents in both raid and M+. That discussion combined with my experiences so far farming M0s has made me reconsider how I'll be approaching the beginning of season 1 as I'm running those lower level dungeons.
actual goated guide bro, I love how in-depth it is and you go over everything. I'm fairly new to warlock and only touched demo really so far but wanting to check out some affli action and this is for sure helping out a ton so big thanks :D
Thank you for the actual digestible content people can learn from! Those bigger name content creators all seem to be unable to hit that mark that you can. I haven't raided as affliction since nathria and am looking to relearn to improve my gameplay, and this certainly helped! I'll need to check out one of your streams these days to pick your brain!
Dude holy s***!!!! Well, my one love warlock is Kalamazi but... you knocked it out of the park! what a perfect guide and video. You just gained a new follower on every platform! I will try the ST AOE spec today and will probably will be my main spec for everything. Thank you so much! keep up!!!
I think this guide was better than Kala because Kala rushes some of the finer details because we should know. Also Kala doesn’t play soul harvester and this thing is so op.
Just found your channel, Man you need more subs, this is how you explain a class, as returning warlock for TWW i appreciate the effort you put into this and the Demo Video
I appreciate the effort you put into your video. The stat priority is allways different, depending on the talent and equipment. But in general you can say that Haste is the Best and Versatility the Worst. Crit Chance so far. becomes very interesting if you play soul harvesters, especially single target. The content that is live allready isnt meant for Affliction. if you do group content, all and i mean ALL other classes and specs destroys you dps wise, so dont let them fool you. its "easy" content and front loaded dps will burst all mobs down in no time. Aff shines when HP Pools gettin higher.
One thing, why are you dumping shards before the first soul rot on pull? Doesnt sim show that its better to waste these shards and instantly soulrot > ps after corruption and start dumping?
I was going to play warlock this expansion but is very frustrating that locks have to do so much to build aoe when other classes just cleave without doing any rotation. Also i like demonology better, I play way better with demonology but the damage is lower than affliction but with less setup.
I like to think of Demo as that current “cleave without rotation” in a sense. It’s the one spec I feel that gets crazy burst off the rip. I usually sit top 1-2 dps with Demo. But come M+, Aff will definitely shine since mobs will last longer and let us ramp up our dots
4168 seconds of a guide , i watched every second of it , i have high hopes in the spec , mostly gonna raid , appreciated so much buddy , also wish me luck ♥ BTW WE NEED MORE PARTS PLS
you are amazing 10/10 like subed for the in depth explanations Kalamazi really doesnt do m+ and just focuses on high end raiding and really doesnt do a good job of going into every aspect like the class like you do! i hope you do this for the other specs also I picked up warlock this season and this information has been invaluable amazing job awesome player!
Great balance between depth and ease of learning! Unrelated question, but how would you rang afflock survivability and sustain this expax compared to other casters?
I’d say very solid. Our passive defense took a little hit but we got better actives with demonic healthstone. A near heal to full and 20% extra health available every 1 minute is pretty nuts. Helps to fill in those gaps where your pact and unending are on cd
Dwarf/night elf always for m+. Once dracthyr becomes available it will admittedly also be pretty strong with two extra stops but they will have 3 min cds so idk
when burst goes off, how to know whether to spamm rapture or shadow bolt for procs, thats only thing i dont uderstand, if im at 1 shard, how do i know if i should spamm shadow for 5-6 times, or press thar rapture?
thx alot man!!! much appreciated!! quick one! in your AOE burst at 35mins, when off burst, it seems that you use SB over MR. is it the case? do you want to used MR mainly when you have SR ?? you of course don't over cap them, but some time you sit with 3 MR charges but still use SB even if not a proc
Yes generally you just want to be pooling outside of cds to make sure you have 5 shards when they come back up. When you send vile taint by itself you can probably send a rapture or two (mostly with soul harvester) and still be ok for the big burst window
@@Vlox_Gaming thanks for the response man. much appreciated! last one from me to to abuse your kindness! we consider the burst window to be when both VT and SR are up right? as you mentioned that if only VT, we can use couple MR but not to dump all of them
Yes big burst is vt/soul rot/darkglare when it’s up/malevolence. And yes you can sometimes be able to send some raptures with just vt up, rarely should you ever go full dump with just vt. That depends on stuff like if you’re able snipe shards soon, your current shard count when you use vt, how soon stuff will die, and how long till you pull next pack. It’s kind of hard to understand just by reading, it’s one of those more advanced things that you just learn as you put more time into the spec and get comfortable with timings and how it flows
I went fishing for haste/mastery gear, and my ST sims don’t seem to want me to use it. I can get up to about 13% quite happily, but raidbots seems to want me at more like 7%
Idk man apparently we’re going through a stat crisis now and we’re all just along for the ride. If anything changes I’ll be sure to update the guide, just using the information I had from all my beta testing.
Great info. Coming into warlock for first season. Never mained warlock so will be fun, this has been a huge help. Any chance you’ve got a UI link? I like the way you’ve got this setup. Thanks again
How do you always see the time left on agony in groups? When checking it in your video you often can’t see the numbers because the bars are overlapping :/ I have exactly this problem
I’m just used to my nameplates I guess, they’re set up how i like and it works for me. That’s why it’s important to have a ui catered to how you like it. Just in general though, once you refresh one agony you very very likely will need to start refreshing your other agonies as they should all have very similar durations
Hey there, subscribed to your channel as you have very nice experience. Do you plan to make a Demo guide aswell or you think Affliction is going to be the best in season 1? Thanks!
I am planning to make a demo and destro guide yes, just not sure how detailed they will be yet. Also yes aff is just better at everything in higher keys right now. Demo is very competitive or possibly better in raid and also still very solid in higher keys
My damage in M+ is really good but when i go to raid i see it's pretty low for some reason I have question do you need always to use CDs always together ? like what of my phantom singularity is active but my soul rot or darkglare on cd and why always when i see people doing the raid they always leave like 1 soul ?
If you really need Amplify Curse, why wouldn't you drop fel domination instead? When do you need to resummon your pet? I don't understand why so many warlocks think Fel Domination is a must have for group content when they never die in group content anymore with all the DR and little threat they pull.
You don’t “really need” amplify curse technically. The reason you don’t drop fel dom is because 1) in very high keys damage output can get a little nutty at times and potentially rot your pet to death mid fight, 2) pets die to random stuff all the time, sometimes mid fight, 3) pets despawn sometimes randomly, like when your tank is about to pull. Now tell me if in any of those scenarios you would want to be hardcasting a pet summon
I watched Kalamazi and Sjele and they are stacking mastery/crit and not much haste. Do you think thats the way early in expansion or is it better just for Hellcaller? I plan playing Soul Harvester so idk which stat i should max.
It's sure is Soul Harvester the way to go for aoe and single target ? or Hellcaller for mythic? i didn't play this game since shadowlands and not used for the new skill tree
do you think soulharvester aff can compete with diabolist demo on m0 week? for me, diabolist demo's been a clear winner for hc so far, but I really want to play some affliction too
can you explain in the same slow detail, how do you handle AOE as AFF-SH when VT and SR are on CD when you come to next pack. My dps is nothing if VT and SR are not available which is very often in clearing to bosses.
If they’re on cd they’re on cd you know. You just do filler stuff until they come back up. As you’re running in and your tank is pulling slap some agonies on stuff
I noticed from spamming heroics that mob hp,and tank pull patterns are scuffed. Demo seems much stronger till around +10 week 1 m+. Are the bis trinkets the same for both?
@@Vlox_Gaming yeah seem like every spec uses brood which is good. A lot of people are starting to say the demo having better st might actually be better. Idk anymore. I prefer demo tbh, because they haven’t fixed the dot reset issue for aff yet.
on those 5 dummies I can get 2.5mil - 3mil dps. Enjoy week one of Mythic bois because were getting nerfed the second blizzard realise we do nutty damage on mobs that live long enough to set up on.
if i miss using my vile taint immediately off cooldown in a dungeon , and its like 20 second to my next soul rot + malevolence, do i hold vile for that or send it and hold the other two for next vile taint?
In that specific situation if it makes sense to use vile taint, like the stuff isn’t going to die soon, still use vile taint anyway and just hold soul rot and malevolence for when it comes back up. You’ll only be holding soul rot and malevolence for about 10 seconds. You don’t want to leave vile taint off cooldown too long since it has a short cooldown
Is anyone else like me and prefer to not use drain soul at all vs shadow bolt? I cant stand having to stand totally still, been mainly only playing demo this expac and pumping but i wanna get into a 2nd spec since destro is meh right now...not i really dont wanna drain ever lol
I actually prefer shadow bolt right now too, but drain is 100% better for pure single target with soul harvester. Although the gap is not as big as sims might show if you are not playing drain soul perfectly
so before using soul rot, i must use malific rapture to get to 1 shard? is that key??, and then maintain dots and use malific rapture again to get to 0-1 shards and then use soul rot again?
You don’t “have” to dump on opener, sometimes you just don’t have the time. But yes “generally” you don’t want to overcap on the 3 shards soul rot gives
@@Vlox_Gaming sorry for asking but what u mean by " sometimes you just don’t have the time". i dont know should i waste shards get to 1 shard then use soul rapture on opener or what
how come you use VT first on the aoe rotation? i thought aoe rotation is Seed > UA&Haunt > VT > SR > CDs > Rapture spam? VT doesn't have a long duration so using it first means it wont have aslong to rapture inside when you extend it
It’s to be able to start generating shards earlier. You’ll still have enough time to catch it with darkglare and dump pretty much all your shards with it on, it’ll extend with the talent malign omen. If you go into a pack high on shards already you can for sure just start with seed if you want
Yeah about 3 or less basically, cause after seed and vt you’ll be down to 1 or 0. I would say this is also a lot more valuable to do on hellcaller because with soul harvester you get shards with soul rot anyway
@@Vlox_Gaming could it be better on 3 shards to just manually apply 3/4 agony's whilst the tank is gathering mobs and then go into Seed, UA, Haunt, VT, SR, CDs and rapture spam?
Uh I think it might have been troll or human once upon a time, but I know orc was definitely up there too. I’ll be honest with you though I haven’t checked that kind of stuff for a long time, nowadays I mostly just play dwarf or night elf for the racial abilities in m+
You mean the aoe build for soul harvester where I take shadow bolt? You can use ua on stuff that is dying, you have agony shard gen which scales with multiple targets, soul rot to give you 3 shards when you use it, plus tormented crescendo for free raptures
@@Vlox_Gaming i know that-1 get soul shards with soul rot but I don't understand the other possibility. If have soul rot on CD, I only spam shadow bolt because I dont know how else to get soul shards, Sorry that I don't understand :D
Ua is unstable affliction, gives you 1 shard if it is on something that dies. Agony is one of your dots, it naturally gens shards for you, each tick has some rng change to generate a shard for you
In higher keys I think soul harvester has a little more going for it vs hellcaller because you start needing more things than just really good mass aoe. Soul harvester has really good aoe anyway, did many keys with it on beta and the damage on packs is there even in bigger pulls. I’ll definitely try out hellcaller once we get around 14ish and higher, it might just turn out all that extra aoe is worth it on big pulls when stuff lives really long.
Yes it gains value as you go higher and things live a lot longer. However, prio damage and boss damage also becomes of higher importance the higher you go and soul harvester does that better. If they stay tuned pretty close like they are now I could see each tree potentially being better depending on the dungeon for sure
They’re both good for different reasons, and tuned pretty close. I just think a lot of these dungeons play into what soul harvester is good at more. Also most people will not even get high enough in keys to the point which stuff lives long enough for hellcaller to potentially take over. All that being said if you’re only doing keys like 10 and under it literally doesn’t matter which tree you play, just play the one you’re better at
Small note when u mentioned spreading Shadow's Embrace: Those shadowbolts will not proc Crescendo. The target must have all 3 dots to get a crescendo proc. I dont know how to sim this, if it's worth it to sucrifice TC procs for 8% more damage on a secondary target. Also Improve Haunt talent is not taken for the damage amp of Haunt, but rather for its 1 talent point compared to Malediction which is 2 talent node. Also, Haunt will proc Nightfall which is a nice buff. As Soul Harvester i dont think our dots are our main focus. Mostly Rapture and Nightfall's.
You can keep shadow embrace on a secondary target and still be able to send a majority of your shadowbolts on the target with ua, or just swap ua to current target. I think it’s definitely worth for the damage. Obviously only in a situation like a 2 target boss fight or a small pack with two high health prio targets. For haunt, that’s kinda what I was getting at where you’re only taking that talent for pathing basically where you’re probably better off taking something that actually provides more value over the key like malediction. Yes rapture and shadow bolt have more focus with soul harvester but your dots are still doing a very large chunk of your overall over a key. You don’t need improved haunt to still be able to proc nightfall from it.
@Vlox_Gaming I know every body says the same I like the new affliction in raid but i liked the speed spam in mythic plus feels like it takes a age to set up now
This is completely wrong for stat prio, stat prio is mastery>crit>haste>vers for affliction and anyone that says otherwise is simply wrong. Focus on I lvl but do NOT stack mastery haste. EDIT: hell caller is also ahead of soul harvester in all content currently.
I mentioned that you want be prioritizing ilvl until the point where it makes sense to start min maxing stats (basically when you have similar ilvl pieces to pick from). I would also not wish playing aff with low haste on my worst enemy but you do you
@@Vlox_Gaming you're late to the party, look at icy veins. Look at all the sims and testing from beta. The data clearly show mastery crit for stat prio. Maybe do a bit of research on a topic before making a video that misleads your audience. This has been knowledge to the community for weeks already and you're posting a video sub 570 ilvl. It's just common sense man.
Idk man 10+ years of playing a class and a degenerate amount of beta keys seems to be good research to me. If you really think I’m trying to mislead anyone maybe go watch some of my beta keys where I was hard stacking haste and lmk what you think. Also not to knock on the guy making the icy veins guide but I don’t see an ounce of sim data there so I guess you probably just have access to it or made it yourself
@Vlox_Gaming My personal sims have pointed towards a relative dps increase by prioritising mastery and crit and aiming for ~10% haste. Playing aff with this lower haste feels a bit ass but is leading to higher numbers. I know sims are not perfect accuracy but just wanted to add my personal experimentation to the conversation. One thing I have noticed is that if you plan to play demo and aff, demo is wanting more haste than the crit. So it's a balancing act there. One last thing I wanted to mention was you ignored swift artifice. I personally think this talent in the class tree has a lot of value. Reduce cast time on brez and hearthstone shouldn't be slept on. The point people have been pulling for it is demonic fortitude, it sucks to lose 5% health but 1.4 second brez can be a huge save (1.4 second hearthstone refresh is a nice bonus) Thanks for the video I think your information is quite helpful.
![Pointers in C / C++ [Full Course]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zuegQmMdy8M/mqdefault.jpg)
Thanks for this guide, was looking for a guide that actually explained the basics. Many big creators like Kalamazi speak like you have already played 100s of hours XD
Happy to hear it helped
@@Vlox_Gaming I was always destro/demo but now I finally am getting the hang of it, cuz of your guide with affli, thanks
Dude this guide is amazing Ive been a lock main for a long time took the last couple xpacs. This is a great in depth guide. Thank you.
Hey man, really appreciate your videos, super comprehensive. I came here to comment on something specifically, but it occurs to me that this is already a month old, meaning it may already be obsolete information. I would suggest doing refreshers now and again as new videos come out, they can just be tacked on at the start or end, assuming your audience are already experts and it can be brief and to the point. This is over an hour of theory crafting (which is awesome) but I'm not gonna go through and find exactly where the references were made, or if they have since been changed.
With that said- What really stood out to me is that you saw the full potential that nightfall+shadowbolt provides, which a lot of people seemed to have overlooked.
I was a bit surprised that you undervalued improved haunt. Now if haunt was instant, this engine would be insane. But with a fast-ish version of haunt into an automatic instant shadowbolt, it's practically a pseudo instant haunt. Which is nice. And by the way, I've been noticing Haunt actually doing some pretty good damage, it's just overshadowed by the other insane burst aoe, but it's decent for priority targeting. Also- after Soul Rot you have almost ten seconds where you can have haunt debuffing two separate targets (remember it's not just the initial damage). The faster cast time makes that much less of an inconvenience to fit in. I'm digressing.
I've been playing around extensively with this shadowbolt machine gun style build, including with Feast of Souls instead of Shared Fate. You end up drowning in shards with a lot of cri+nightfall, so I tried fitting in other spenders like Oblivion, which may have niche applications but is similarly hard to fit in with the rest of the rotation.
This is what I specifically came here to point out- what I've noticed in practice is, yes you're correct shadowbolting at instant speed is getting max value, but with Drain Soul- I think there's a major trade off. With each instant cast of shadowbolt you have 1 chance to proc an instant MR, but with Drain Soul, it's every tick that has a chance to trigger, so when it comes to fishing for instant MR specifically, with drain soul you get procs far more frequently- Same thing applies to Shadowbolt Volley, it's every tick of DS vs every cast of Shadowbolt. But if I'm not mistaken, if you talent into nightfall shadowbolt specifically, then your shadowbolt volleys will apply Shadow Embrace to all targets they spray, so that's another trade off as well. It seems like a preference/encounter based thing, if you want the mobility from machine gun shadowbolting, if you add Vers and Crit, you start seeing all those tertiary damaging abilities shooting way up. With DS for more instant MR then mastery.
Last thing- going back to what I said earlier, I'm a bit surprised that you undervalue improved haunt and for that matter improved unstable affliction. I admit I like cute things. But it's like pseudo haste for those abilities. Since they both are pretty much the extremely inconvenient parts of our rotation, cutting their casting time in half means you get off your rotation far more smoothly, and then have a bunch of time to do other things like reposition or just get to casting spells that actually matter. It's a very subtle thing but particularly with MPLUS, you have the extra points to move, and the result of totally smoothing out your rotation, seems like it could be invaluable. Or maybe pragmatic is the word.
Faster Haunt/Unstable Affliction can end up netting you a ton of value in completely indirect ways, and riding them off as merely QOL I think isn't factoring for the full encounter.
Anyway hope that reads okay. Keep up the videos they're outstanding. Thank you!
Vlox is the real MVP here! These are the kind of guides I would actually pay for if needed. The pace is good, the “in depth” parts are understandable, and most of all it’s an actual guide. Not a clickbait title.
Vlox, thanks for the guide! 🙏
Really appreciate that, glad you enjoyed
Probably the best guide out there for Affliction right now. As someone who hasn't played the spec for several expansions these thorough breakdowns of the hero talents and different damage profiles has done tremendously for helping me understand how to play Affliction. From your breakdowns of the different rotations I've been able to spot errors in my own play in both raid and dungeons and how to correct those mistakes going forward. I also appreciated the discussion at the end regarding the pros and cons of each of the hero talents in both raid and M+. That discussion combined with my experiences so far farming M0s has made me reconsider how I'll be approaching the beginning of season 1 as I'm running those lower level dungeons.
Really appreciate that thanks, glad you enjoyed it
This was such a good well-made guide, thank you! The best I've seen for any class.
Thank you! Happy you enjoyed
actual goated guide bro, I love how in-depth it is and you go over everything. I'm fairly new to warlock and only touched demo really so far but wanting to check out some affli action and this is for sure helping out a ton so big thanks :D
Thank you for the actual digestible content people can learn from! Those bigger name content creators all seem to be unable to hit that mark that you can. I haven't raided as affliction since nathria and am looking to relearn to improve my gameplay, and this certainly helped! I'll need to check out one of your streams these days to pick your brain!
Hope to see you in one of my streams!
This is the best affliction guide I've seen so far. Ty.
My mans coming through with the best format guide ever, thanks a lot brother
Dude holy s***!!!! Well, my one love warlock is Kalamazi but... you knocked it out of the park! what a perfect guide and video. You just gained a new follower on every platform! I will try the ST AOE spec today and will probably will be my main spec for everything. Thank you so much! keep up!!!
Really appreciate that brother thank you
I think this guide was better than Kala because Kala rushes some of the finer details because we should know.
Also Kala doesn’t play soul harvester and this thing is so op.
This guide is amazing. The Shadow Bolt vs Drain Soul part was super helpfull for me. Thank you very much!
Glad it helped!
Just found your channel, Man you need more subs, this is how you explain a class, as returning warlock for TWW i appreciate the effort you put into this and the Demo Video
Thanks for watching brother appreciate it
Very good guide for Affliction, liked & subbed!
Thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed
underrated channel xou are MVP
love the calm attitude you have, amazing guide, thank you ♥
great vid! helped me a lot thanks
I appreciate the effort you put into your video. The stat priority is allways different, depending on the talent and equipment.
But in general you can say that Haste is the Best and Versatility the Worst.
Crit Chance so far. becomes very interesting if you play soul harvesters, especially single target.
The content that is live allready isnt meant for Affliction.
if you do group content, all and i mean ALL other classes and specs destroys you dps wise, so dont let them fool you.
its "easy" content and front loaded dps will burst all mobs down in no time.
Aff shines when HP Pools gettin higher.
Better we fly under the radar right now anyway. Aff was performing very well on beta once I got into much higher keys
Shhhhhh, they'll break our kneecaps if you keep that up.
Facts. Come M+, Aff locks will be ramping up dps big time when longer DPS is required
One thing, why are you dumping shards before the first soul rot on pull? Doesnt sim show that its better to waste these shards and instantly soulrot > ps after corruption and start dumping?
Thanks for this! Really well made guide.
Awesome guide ty!
you are a saviour dude. thumbs up
I was going to play warlock this expansion but is very frustrating that locks have to do so much to build aoe when other classes just cleave without doing any rotation.
Also i like demonology better, I play way better with demonology but the damage is lower than affliction but with less setup.
I like to think of Demo as that current “cleave without rotation” in a sense. It’s the one spec I feel that gets crazy burst off the rip. I usually sit top 1-2 dps with Demo. But come M+, Aff will definitely shine since mobs will last longer and let us ramp up our dots
very good guide ❤. would be also very good if you will upload some m+ keys to see what are good decisions why do this and that
Man, awesome guide!
What is the addon for the coursor ring? Always missing my mouse on the screen
weakaura, its on my discord
MY GOAT!!!!! thank u for posting this im new to aff and warlock so this is extremely helpful :D
Wooow that guide is amazing ❤❤❤❤❤! Ty 😊
thx! enjoyed the gameplay vids aswell!
4168 seconds of a guide , i watched every second of it , i have high hopes in the spec , mostly gonna raid , appreciated so much buddy , also wish me luck ♥
BTW WE NEED MORE PARTS PLS
Happy to hear you enjoyed the video man, glad it helped you out
you are amazing 10/10 like subed for the in depth explanations Kalamazi really doesnt do m+ and just focuses on high end raiding and really doesnt do a good job of going into every aspect like the class like you do! i hope you do this for the other specs also I picked up warlock this season and this information has been invaluable amazing job awesome player!
Glad it helped! Will definitely be doing the other two specs as well
Amazing video keep them coming
Thanks for this guide!
Great balance between depth and ease of learning!
Unrelated question, but how would you rang afflock survivability and sustain this expax compared to other casters?
I’d say very solid. Our passive defense took a little hit but we got better actives with demonic healthstone. A near heal to full and 20% extra health available every 1 minute is pretty nuts. Helps to fill in those gaps where your pact and unending are on cd
thank you for clean guide, does anything change after the realease ? planning to start with this..
There’s an up-to-date faq available on my discord
Thx for the guide! ❤
Thank you for the guide! Excited for your Demo one. Can you do a video about consumables and enchants?
That info is in my discord channel now, link is in video description or on my yt front page
As someone who plays all 3 specs, which do you think is a higher tier this season? Affliction, demonology or destruction?
They're all pretty close and good at different things
Whats the better hero talent for afflic for single and aoe?
sick guide, what do you think are the best races for affli warlock? will warlocks be primarily night elf and dwarf favored again for high end M+?
Dwarf/night elf always for m+. Once dracthyr becomes available it will admittedly also be pretty strong with two extra stops but they will have 3 min cds so idk
when burst goes off, how to know whether to spamm rapture or shadow bolt for procs, thats only thing i dont uderstand, if im at 1 shard, how do i know if i should spamm shadow for 5-6 times, or press thar rapture?
Amazing stuff. Can you make video on addons and setups?
On my channel
thx alot man!!! much appreciated!! quick one! in your AOE burst at 35mins, when off burst, it seems that you use SB over MR. is it the case? do you want to used MR mainly when you have SR ?? you of course don't over cap them, but some time you sit with 3 MR charges but still use SB even if not a proc
Yes generally you just want to be pooling outside of cds to make sure you have 5 shards when they come back up. When you send vile taint by itself you can probably send a rapture or two (mostly with soul harvester) and still be ok for the big burst window
@@Vlox_Gaming thanks for the response man. much appreciated! last one from me to to abuse your kindness! we consider the burst window to be when both VT and SR are up right? as you mentioned that if only VT, we can use couple MR but not to dump all of them
Yes big burst is vt/soul rot/darkglare when it’s up/malevolence. And yes you can sometimes be able to send some raptures with just vt up, rarely should you ever go full dump with just vt. That depends on stuff like if you’re able snipe shards soon, your current shard count when you use vt, how soon stuff will die, and how long till you pull next pack. It’s kind of hard to understand just by reading, it’s one of those more advanced things that you just learn as you put more time into the spec and get comfortable with timings and how it flows
@@Vlox_Gaming makes total sense. Thanks alot for taking the time man. much appreciated and keep those vids coming!! :)
I went fishing for haste/mastery gear, and my ST sims don’t seem to want me to use it. I can get up to about 13% quite happily, but raidbots seems to want me at more like 7%
Idk man apparently we’re going through a stat crisis now and we’re all just along for the ride. If anything changes I’ll be sure to update the guide, just using the information I had from all my beta testing.
@@Vlox_Gaming I hope it does change. Haste just makes affliction play so much nicer
Great info. Coming into warlock for first season. Never mained warlock so will be fun, this has been a huge help. Any chance you’ve got a UI link? I like the way you’ve got this setup. Thanks again
There’s a link to my elvui profile in the video description and a video going over the setup
@@Vlox_Gaming Thanks brother
Is there any way we can get your UI by any chance? Thanks for the guide, really helpful!
Nevermind, just joined your discord! Thank you :D!
For the countdown timer, is it weakaura you are using, like nightfall that's over your healthbar?
That’s a tracker built into Elvui
How do you always see the time left on agony in groups? When checking it in your video you often can’t see the numbers because the bars are overlapping :/
I have exactly this problem
I’m just used to my nameplates I guess, they’re set up how i like and it works for me. That’s why it’s important to have a ui catered to how you like it. Just in general though, once you refresh one agony you very very likely will need to start refreshing your other agonies as they should all have very similar durations
Hey there, subscribed to your channel as you have very nice experience.
Do you plan to make a Demo guide aswell or you think Affliction is going to be the best in season 1?
Thanks!
I am planning to make a demo and destro guide yes, just not sure how detailed they will be yet. Also yes aff is just better at everything in higher keys right now. Demo is very competitive or possibly better in raid and also still very solid in higher keys
Thanks!
Thanks for this, really appreciate it!
My damage in M+ is really good but when i go to raid i see it's pretty low for some reason
I have question do you need always to use CDs always together ? like what of my phantom singularity is active but my soul rot or darkglare on cd
and why always when i see people doing the raid they always leave like 1 soul ?
Hold singularity yes
What add on are you using to track nightfall procs? I’m having trouble finding a working one
it's not an add on it's from the game
Elvui
Love this detail ! Heart❤
Thanks bro
If you really need Amplify Curse, why wouldn't you drop fel domination instead? When do you need to resummon your pet? I don't understand why so many warlocks think Fel Domination is a must have for group content when they never die in group content anymore with all the DR and little threat they pull.
You don’t “really need” amplify curse technically. The reason you don’t drop fel dom is because 1) in very high keys damage output can get a little nutty at times and potentially rot your pet to death mid fight, 2) pets die to random stuff all the time, sometimes mid fight, 3) pets despawn sometimes randomly, like when your tank is about to pull. Now tell me if in any of those scenarios you would want to be hardcasting a pet summon
I watched Kalamazi and Sjele and they are stacking mastery/crit and not much haste. Do you think thats the way early in expansion or is it better just for Hellcaller? I plan playing Soul Harvester so idk which stat i should max.
Crit is a little better for raid, haste a little better for m+, mastery good everywhere. That’s for either tree
@@Vlox_Gaming understand, thank you!
It's sure is Soul Harvester the way to go for aoe and single target ? or Hellcaller for mythic?
i didn't play this game since shadowlands and not used for the new skill tree
Soul harvester is going to be better in most scenarios yes, outside of potentially very high keys. Hellcaller is also bugged right now
do you think soulharvester aff can compete with diabolist demo on m0 week? for me, diabolist demo's been a clear winner for hc so far, but I really want to play some affliction too
Depends on your group, both are solid. At the end of the day doesn’t really matter a whole lot you’ll be able to clear the content anyway
What about seed to spread corruption on larger packs or do you not use that?
Yes
Do u think i can play with samd gear as affli and destro?Im switching every day casualy and thats the thing idk which stats should i go for haha
Aff wants a little more mastery, destro a little more haste. Just sim to make sure you don’t overstack stats
I am doing Haste > Mastery > Versatility > Crit. Just because I want to be a little different. :)
Hell yea
Aff always looks interesting, but when I see the amount of hardcasting required it always makes lean away from trying it in M+
Well if there’s ever a time to play aff it’s now. Hasn’t played this good in a long time
hey man great guide.. can u also do a video about embelishments and trinkets pls?
That info is in my discord channel, link should be on my yt page or video description
Where do you think afflic lock ranks compared to the other dps classes for raid and mythic+
I’d say like middle to upper middle in raid, and a strong contender for top 5 dps specs overall for m+
can you explain in the same slow detail, how do you handle AOE as AFF-SH when VT and SR are on CD when you come to next pack. My dps is nothing if VT and SR are not available which is very often in clearing to bosses.
If they’re on cd they’re on cd you know. You just do filler stuff until they come back up. As you’re running in and your tank is pulling slap some agonies on stuff
I noticed from spamming heroics that mob hp,and tank pull patterns are scuffed. Demo seems much stronger till around +10 week 1 m+. Are the bis trinkets the same for both?
Demo will be better in keys early on yes. They use very similar trinkets as well
@@Vlox_Gaming yeah seem like every spec uses brood which is good. A lot of people are starting to say the demo having better st might actually be better. Idk anymore. I prefer demo tbh, because they haven’t fixed the dot reset issue for aff yet.
Aff and demo are close enough that you will do better on whichever you play better. But aff does have a very slight edge, at least in my sims
on those 5 dummies I can get 2.5mil - 3mil dps.
Enjoy week one of Mythic bois because were getting nerfed the second blizzard realise we do nutty damage on mobs that live long enough to set up on.
Your opinion 1.Affli 2.Demon 3. Destro in first season?
For m+ right now yes
if i miss using my vile taint immediately off cooldown in a dungeon , and its like 20 second to my next soul rot + malevolence, do i hold vile for that or send it and hold the other two for next vile taint?
In that specific situation if it makes sense to use vile taint, like the stuff isn’t going to die soon, still use vile taint anyway and just hold soul rot and malevolence for when it comes back up. You’ll only be holding soul rot and malevolence for about 10 seconds. You don’t want to leave vile taint off cooldown too long since it has a short cooldown
Is anyone else like me and prefer to not use drain soul at all vs shadow bolt? I cant stand having to stand totally still, been mainly only playing demo this expac and pumping but i wanna get into a 2nd spec since destro is meh right now...not i really dont wanna drain ever lol
I actually prefer shadow bolt right now too, but drain is 100% better for pure single target with soul harvester. Although the gap is not as big as sims might show if you are not playing drain soul perfectly
so before using soul rot, i must use malific rapture to get to 1 shard? is that key??, and then maintain dots and use malific rapture again to get to 0-1 shards and then use soul rot again?
You don’t “have” to dump on opener, sometimes you just don’t have the time. But yes “generally” you don’t want to overcap on the 3 shards soul rot gives
@@Vlox_Gaming sorry for asking but what u mean by " sometimes you just don’t have the time". i dont know should i waste shards get to 1 shard then use soul rapture on opener or what
mechanics, stuff dying, having to move, etc.
how come you use VT first on the aoe rotation? i thought aoe rotation is Seed > UA&Haunt > VT > SR > CDs > Rapture spam? VT doesn't have a long duration so using it first means it wont have aslong to rapture inside when you extend it
It’s to be able to start generating shards earlier. You’ll still have enough time to catch it with darkglare and dump pretty much all your shards with it on, it’ll extend with the talent malign omen. If you go into a pack high on shards already you can for sure just start with seed if you want
@@Vlox_Gaming so I should only use this method if I'm 3 shards or less? Nice one for the tip mate 👍
Yeah about 3 or less basically, cause after seed and vt you’ll be down to 1 or 0. I would say this is also a lot more valuable to do on hellcaller because with soul harvester you get shards with soul rot anyway
@@Vlox_Gaming could it be better on 3 shards to just manually apply 3/4 agony's whilst the tank is gathering mobs and then go into Seed, UA, Haunt, VT, SR, CDs and rapture spam?
Yea if your tank is ever running around and gathering stuff just manually apply agony and go into the regular aoe setup
What spec of Warlock is the best tight now for m plus
Demo and aff are good, aff is better in higher keys
i keep running out of shards, any tips?
You’re going to and should run out of shards at certain points. Other than that all you can do is keep agonies on, shard snipe, and pray to rng
is Orc the best racial for demo lock? :)
Uh I think it might have been troll or human once upon a time, but I know orc was definitely up there too. I’ll be honest with you though I haven’t checked that kind of stuff for a long time, nowadays I mostly just play dwarf or night elf for the racial abilities in m+
I try to import your interface and it nor work can you helpme
What is it that’s not working
Would you mind sharing your import strings for your builds?
Sure I can post them. Out of town for the weekend so I will do that when I get home Monday
Isnt dwarf warlock illegal to play?
Yup, I’m banned till next xpac just for playing dwarf
How did you turn casting rapture to throwing spiders
It’s a secret :) wdym though actually
@@Vlox_Gaming i mean is that a glyph or something else
I don’t have a glyph no, I just legitimately don’t know what you’re referring to lol
@@Vlox_Gaming He's referring to your trinket.
Ohh lmao yea that is the sac trinket from ara-kara
master how do I farm soul shards if I play the talent build without soul thief I don't understand that otherwise the guide is very good in my opinion
You mean the aoe build for soul harvester where I take shadow bolt? You can use ua on stuff that is dying, you have agony shard gen which scales with multiple targets, soul rot to give you 3 shards when you use it, plus tormented crescendo for free raptures
@@Vlox_Gaming i know that-1 get soul shards with soul rot but I don't understand the other possibility. If have soul rot on CD, I only spam shadow bolt because I dont know how else to get soul shards, Sorry that I don't understand :D
@@Vlox_Gaming and what u mean with ua?
Ua is unstable affliction, gives you 1 shard if it is on something that dies. Agony is one of your dots, it naturally gens shards for you, each tick has some rng change to generate a shard for you
@@Vlox_Gaming ok thanks mate great work
Which Talent build u Play for m+?
Anyone know what the spell on keybind 4 is?
It’s oblivion, I obviously don’t use it because I’m not talented into it. I’m just lazy and don’t take it off my bar
can we say ST and lower keys = soul harvester, rest hellcaller ?
In higher keys I think soul harvester has a little more going for it vs hellcaller because you start needing more things than just really good mass aoe. Soul harvester has really good aoe anyway, did many keys with it on beta and the damage on packs is there even in bigger pulls. I’ll definitely try out hellcaller once we get around 14ish and higher, it might just turn out all that extra aoe is worth it on big pulls when stuff lives really long.
i think you run soul harvester until high keys
@@Vlox_Gaming I heard that hellcaller is even better in extended fights that mobs live longer. That s why I asked
Yes it gains value as you go higher and things live a lot longer. However, prio damage and boss damage also becomes of higher importance the higher you go and soul harvester does that better. If they stay tuned pretty close like they are now I could see each tree potentially being better depending on the dungeon for sure
From where you get this pet skin?
Legion karazhan (if you’re talking about the felhunter skin). There’s a book in the library after you kill mana devourer
Why do you play soul harvester when hellcaller is better or so everyone says?
They’re both good for different reasons, and tuned pretty close. I just think a lot of these dungeons play into what soul harvester is good at more. Also most people will not even get high enough in keys to the point which stuff lives long enough for hellcaller to potentially take over. All that being said if you’re only doing keys like 10 and under it literally doesn’t matter which tree you play, just play the one you’re better at
Small note when u mentioned spreading Shadow's Embrace: Those shadowbolts will not proc Crescendo. The target must have all 3 dots to get a crescendo proc. I dont know how to sim this, if it's worth it to sucrifice TC procs for 8% more damage on a secondary target.
Also Improve Haunt talent is not taken for the damage amp of Haunt, but rather for its 1 talent point compared to Malediction which is 2 talent node. Also, Haunt will proc Nightfall which is a nice buff. As Soul Harvester i dont think our dots are our main focus. Mostly Rapture and Nightfall's.
You can keep shadow embrace on a secondary target and still be able to send a majority of your shadowbolts on the target with ua, or just swap ua to current target. I think it’s definitely worth for the damage. Obviously only in a situation like a 2 target boss fight or a small pack with two high health prio targets.
For haunt, that’s kinda what I was getting at where you’re only taking that talent for pathing basically where you’re probably better off taking something that actually provides more value over the key like malediction. Yes rapture and shadow bolt have more focus with soul harvester but your dots are still doing a very large chunk of your overall over a key. You don’t need improved haunt to still be able to proc nightfall from it.
Am I the only one who misses old affliction? Feel like the new one just feels so clunky
Dude if you played affliction at all last season this is literally a night and day difference. This is 100% the best the spec has played in years
@Vlox_Gaming I know every body says the same I like the new affliction in raid but i liked the speed spam in mythic plus feels like it takes a age to set up now
I wish you also played mage. Mages needs this level of explanation.
You have, phosphoros, the king of mage guides
Wtf is this spec that you need a phd to play... jesus.
It used to be a lot worse if you can believe it
Should probably work on getting rid of the valorant accent man
Will get on that right now!!
This is completely wrong for stat prio, stat prio is mastery>crit>haste>vers for affliction and anyone that says otherwise is simply wrong. Focus on I lvl but do NOT stack mastery haste.
EDIT: hell caller is also ahead of soul harvester in all content currently.
I mentioned that you want be prioritizing ilvl until the point where it makes sense to start min maxing stats (basically when you have similar ilvl pieces to pick from). I would also not wish playing aff with low haste on my worst enemy but you do you
@@Vlox_Gaming agree
@@Vlox_Gaming you're late to the party, look at icy veins. Look at all the sims and testing from beta. The data clearly show mastery crit for stat prio. Maybe do a bit of research on a topic before making a video that misleads your audience. This has been knowledge to the community for weeks already and you're posting a video sub 570 ilvl. It's just common sense man.
Idk man 10+ years of playing a class and a degenerate amount of beta keys seems to be good research to me. If you really think I’m trying to mislead anyone maybe go watch some of my beta keys where I was hard stacking haste and lmk what you think. Also not to knock on the guy making the icy veins guide but I don’t see an ounce of sim data there so I guess you probably just have access to it or made it yourself
@Vlox_Gaming My personal sims have pointed towards a relative dps increase by prioritising mastery and crit and aiming for ~10% haste. Playing aff with this lower haste feels a bit ass but is leading to higher numbers. I know sims are not perfect accuracy but just wanted to add my personal experimentation to the conversation.
One thing I have noticed is that if you plan to play demo and aff, demo is wanting more haste than the crit. So it's a balancing act there.
One last thing I wanted to mention was you ignored swift artifice. I personally think this talent in the class tree has a lot of value. Reduce cast time on brez and hearthstone shouldn't be slept on. The point people have been pulling for it is demonic fortitude, it sucks to lose 5% health but 1.4 second brez can be a huge save (1.4 second hearthstone refresh is a nice bonus)
Thanks for the video I think your information is quite helpful.
gj man, ty for the guide