Deep Affliction!!!

Well as you saw in my last entry I just wasn't ready to give up the easy hit, hell I got shit to do during the raid. People to explain fights to, Uberness to consider. You know, I'm busy, and well, I decided I wanted the everpresent life/mana dance that deep affliction offered while I was leveling. Does that mean I'm ready to give up damage, hell no. So back to the blogs I scoured. Here's what I mashed together thanks to tons of great warlocks and little dash of my own dastardlyness. With a deep Affliction spec like this.

http://www.wow-tools.org/talent-calculator/Warlock/235022200122351005050003135100000000000000000000000000055003005000000000000000000 

I went about trying to figure out a good Macro for boss fights and trash. I figured there had to be some point where it revolved and I think I found it or at least close. The boss one manages to keep all five dots up and hammer it home with shadow bolts. The key is to put shadow bolt and haunt up first to get the two stack of shadow embrace. 

Boss fight: #showtooltip /castsequence reset=10 shadow bolt,haunt,curse of agony,corruption,unstable affliction,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,haunt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,unstable affliction,shadow bolt,curse of agony,shadow bolt,haunt,shadow bolt,life tap,

If you spam the macro and life tap after a nightfall procced shadow bolt you should get haunt off on time and be able to keep this up indefinately. If it misses on reapplying corruption. It will pick it up when it starts over.  For trash I use this.

 

#showtooltip

/castsequence reset=5 shadow bolt,haunt,curse of agony,corruption,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,haunt,shadow bolt,Life Tap,

The Mob should die hopefully just after you life tap or close to it. Making room for your haunt to restore your life. I'm at 72 so far and I just put the last point in deaths embrace. the next five will go into ruin for the 100% bonus to SB's and the last three in to cataclysm to allow you to lower your hit cap across the board. \

-Litofeit

For the love of Shadow

We were the dps kings. Sure the occasional hunter or rouge could give us a run for our money. Once in a while our favorite mages would step out from our shadows. All in all, everyone knew that when we got invited to the group, the healers would have enough mana to finish the fight, The tanks would have to stay on their toes to keep our preys attention, and the girlies eyes would flutter in our dark directions. Then, there came the neutering. Don't get me wrong I have seen a few successful builds now that can somewhat compete, both fire and shadow. However, the fact of the matter is this. If no ones gear changed all that much from before the neutering. Everyone's damage should have been pretty much the same. I have no problems with others dps going up. I do have a problem with mine dropping. I have seen fellow locks all over the blogs saying that it's ok that were not on top anymore, that we had a good long run. Horseshit! We were gods and we want it back. Not only that, I don't want fire, I'm not a mage. I want to push shadow! Thus I turned back to my old favorite, my first love of warlockdom, Affliction.

I started looking at the tree very hard. I found I was putting the pieces together even if I wasn't right there in front of a talent tree. It was while walking around the old nuke plant that I had a realization. There is a shadow synergy there, buried deep in the descriptions. The trick is spell utilization. I have read so many complaints about the affliction tree having an ungodly spell rotation. That during a complicated fight it would  be and really is impossible to maintain the difficult rotation. To that I say, stop using every damn dot you have. When you were little Destruction mongrels did you use every destruction spell? No you didn't pew-pew boy, no you didn't! I digress, the synergy is this. There are eight talents in the affliction tree that will up the damage of corruption: Improved corruption, Empowered Corruption, Shadow Embrace, Shadow Mastery, Contagion, Pandemic, Everlasting affliction, and Haunt. Let's not forget Improved Shadow bolt over there in Destruction. there are two talent's that proc on tic's of corruption to up your damage: Pandemic, and Eradication. Haunt, by the love of all that's unholy renews your corruption. The pattern is clear here. shadow revolves around Corruption. By the time your done with talents Corruption is a churning writhing juggernaut of shadow dps. Throw in a glyph of shadow bolt and a glyph of corruption, and your night falling  cheaper shadow bolts 8 percent of the time. Corruption is on auto, and the only other spells to maintain to take advantage of the various procs are Haunt and Unstable affliction. Thus the spell rotation falls to 

1. COE

2. Corruption

3.make a cast sequence macro for this. SB, SB, SB, SB, Haunt, SB, UA.

3A. you can copy and past this:

#showtooltip

/castsequence Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt,Shadow Bolt,Haunt,Shadow Bolt,Unstable Affliction

You will have the following spells/effects on target: Corruption, Unstable affliction, Curse of the elements, and Shadow Embrace at all times, and hopefully Improved Shadow Bolt and Eradication as much as possible. Oh let's not forget the fel puppy one more easy shadow dot, and his buff works great with fel armor. All affected by the talents listed above. Here's a link to the spec. Haunt/ Ruin

 

    But Litofeit, you plea. we are not 80 yet we can't do this spec. I know, me neither. So for now, I'm using Devastation instead. Forgoing Unstable affliction and still revolving around Corruption. The ups, easy shadow damage, Matches pre-patch dps, with easy rotation. The downs, you have to maintain Corruption yourself. Still a cast sequence macro can bring you back down to one button. Don't get me wrong, If your looking to make your rotation a little more challenging, the opportunity is there for you. This is for those of us who are doing other things at the same time. Here's the level 70 spec Eradication/ Devestation

#showtooltip

/castsequence corruption,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt,shadow bolt 

Hopefully this will find you back in the running when they up Shadow Mastery to 15%

P.S. Don't forget to Life Tap.

-Lito