[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

You say forced, other people who enjoy multi-dotting say enabled. But that difference of opinion is why it's an optional talent, after all.

Enjoy multi-dotting as in enjoy doing the same thing twice, because a gimmick compels you to? Yeah, that's poor design in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed multi-dotting when it mattered. E.g. when there were more targets and AoE wasn't an option. I wouldn't enjoy an artificial form of multi-dotting as a standard.

If your damage is balanced between the main target and the effigy (never surpassing 100% of your potential), it would be awesome! That would make the effigy a useful tool in various scenarios. If you'd be forced to DPS the effigy to reach 100% of your potential, even when the main target is perfectly targetable it would be a gimmick. If you could surpass 100% of your potential by dubble-dipping the effigy, it would be OP.

If you don't understand what I mean, read my last few replies. I tried explaining my thoughts more thoroughly there.

[nerdzrool]

Enjoy multi-dotting as in enjoy doing the same thing twice, because a gimmick compels you to? Yeah, that's poor design in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed multi-dotting when it mattered. E.g. when there were more targets and AoE wasn't an option. I wouldn't enjoy an artificial form of multi-dotting as a standard.

If your damage is balanced between the main target and the effigy (never surpassing 100% of your potential), it would be awesome! That would make the effigy a useful tool in various scenarios. If you'd be forced to DPS the effigy to reach 100% of your potential, even when the main target is perfectly targetable it would be a gimmick. If you could surpass 100% of your potential by dubble-dipping the effigy, it would be OP.

If you don't understand what I mean, read my last few replies. I tried explaining my thoughts more thoroughly there.

Your proposed version would basically never be used because the other 100 talents would out damage it by a significant margin. There simply haven't been any fights recently where the bosses have not "accessible" as you described, and in any case you'd still put agony on the effigy when the boss was accessible because it doubles your soul shard generation. One of the main changes to Affliction in Legion is that your agony can generate shards from any number of targets, not just one like corruption on live. Multidotting, at least with Agony, will be a large damage gain in basically any scenario even if the secondary targets are completely irrelevant so if you don't enjoy mutli-dotting or find the exploitation of it to be "gimmicky" then you're not gonna like Aff in Legion.

[Deleted]

Your proposed version would basically never be used because the other 100 talents would out damage it by a significant margin. There simply haven't been any fights recently where the bosses have not "accessible" as you described, and in any case you'd still put agony on the effigy when the boss was accessible because it doubles your soul shard generation. One of the main changes to Affliction in Legion is that your agony can generate shards from any number of targets, not just one like corruption on live. Multidotting, at least with Agony, will be a large damage gain in basically any scenario even if the secondary targets are completely irrelevant so if you don't enjoy mutli-dotting or find the exploitation of it to be "gimmicky" then you're not gonna like Aff in Legion.

There have been MANY fights in WoW's history where the main target wasn't accessible for a certain duration. That would make the effigy incredibly useful. As for using it to increase your chances of generating a shard, yeah, I figured as much.

But in its current iteration, damage output will be balanced around the assumption that the affliction warlock will always have a fully dotted effigy up. Is that a fun mechanic? Are there really many players out there that go: "Yay! I can press these 4 buttons twice in a row now!"

Like I said, multi-dotting was fun when it mattered; two bosses, bosse who spawn adds, bosses with more than one hitbox, etc. To me, it's a gimmick that doesn't necessarily complicate the class, it merely requires you to repeat a simple action.

Opinion, anyway.

[nerdzrool]

There have been MANY fights in WoW's history where the main target wasn't accessible for a certain duration. That would make the effigy incredibly useful. As for using it to increase your chances of generating a shard, yeah, I figured as much.

But in its current iteration, damage output will be balanced around the assumption that the affliction warlock will always have a fully dotted effigy up. Is that a fun mechanic? Are there really many players out there that go: "Yay! I can press these 4 buttons twice in a row now!"

Like I said, multi-dotting was fun when it mattered; two bosses, bosse who spawn adds, bosses with more than one hitbox, etc. To me, it's a gimmick that doesn't necessarily complicate the class, it merely requires you to repeat a simple action.

Opinion, anyway.

It won't be fully dotted as I said earlier, you'll never use UA on it since it's damage stacks, and siphon life will be situational which reduces you to just Corruption and Agony. Keeping 2 dots up on a second target isn't bad at all and even then corruption does barely enough damage to be worthwhile on the Effigy. I didn't play in MoP much past the first couple raids of LFR due to college, but my thoughts are that if a boss becomes "inaccessible" for any reason other than he moved slightly too far away, then Effigy damage likely won't go through either. Numbers are far from final so assuming Effigy will be the basis for our damage output isn't a good idea, especially with Soul Conduit replacing DS in that same tier sometime soon. It's entirely possible a Conduit/DServ/Drain Soul build could compete with an effigy build on single target once the numbers are finalized.

Every class has simple actions they repeat ad nauseum, if it's not dots it'll be Drain Life, shadowbolt, incinerate, etc. Personally I enjoy casting more dots on a dot-based class especially after having so much of our damage tied to Drain Soul on live, but to each his own.

[Deleted]

It won't be fully dotted as I said earlier, you'll never use UA on it since it's damage stacks, and siphon life will be situational which reduces you to just Corruption and Agony. Keeping 2 dots up on a second target isn't bad at all and even then corruption does barely enough damage to be worthwhile on the Effigy. I didn't play in MoP much past the first couple raids of LFR due to college, but my thoughts are that if a boss becomes "inaccessible" for any reason other than he moved slightly too far away, then Effigy damage likely won't go through either. Numbers are far from final so assuming Effigy will be the basis for our damage output isn't a good idea, especially with Soul Conduit replacing DS in that same tier sometime soon. It's entirely possible a Conduit/DServ/Drain Soul build could compete with an effigy build on single target once the numbers are finalized.

Every class has simple actions they repeat ad nauseum, if it's not dots it'll be Drain Life, shadowbolt, incinerate, etc. Personally I enjoy casting more dots on a dot-based class especially after having so much of our damage tied to Drain Soul on live, but to each his own.

Well, that would make the effigy even more ridiculous... It's not about repeating actions ad nauseam, it's about having to duplicate them. It just seems so, ehm, pointless.

Anyway, we'll see how it pans out.

[Deleted]

Well, that would make the effigy even more ridiculous... It's not about repeating actions ad nauseam, it's about having to duplicate them. It just seems so, ehm, pointless.

Anyway, we'll see how it pans out.

These days bosses get 90%+ damage reduction so that makes effigy useless for that part. I like effigy for it allows for more balanced DoTs. Currently our DoTs deal crappy damage unless you SB: Haunt + Drain Soul and this makes DoTs rather weak for multi doting. This allows DoTs to be balanced for multidoting and transfer it to a single target gain.

However Soul Conduit looks pretty good for Affliction as well.

[Deleted]

These days bosses get 90%+ damage reduction so that makes effigy useless for that part. I like effigy for it allows for more balanced DoTs. Currently our DoTs deal crappy damage unless you SB: Haunt + Drain Soul and this makes DoTs rather weak for multi doting. This allows DoTs to be balanced for multidoting and transfer it to a single target gain.

However Soul Conduit looks pretty good for Affliction as well.

I don't get it, how does the effigy allow for more balanced dots? It's either 100% damage on boss, plus 50% damage on boss (which would make the effigy OP) or 50% damage on boss plus 50% damage on effigy (which would make the effigy compulsory).

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea; nuking the effigy when the boss is out of LOS or when his main hitbox is unreachable, etc. I just don't like the idea of having to dot it regardless of the situation.

Also, what do you mean with 90% damage reduction? When? Why?

[Jessicka]

These days bosses get 90%+ damage reduction so that makes effigy useless for that part. I like effigy for it allows for more balanced DoTs. Currently our DoTs deal crappy damage unless you SB: Haunt + Drain Soul and this makes DoTs rather weak for multi doting. This allows DoTs to be balanced for multidoting and transfer it to a single target gain.

However Soul Conduit looks pretty good for Affliction as well.

How does it make DoTs more balanced when you need up to 7 (2x Agony, 2x Corruption, 2x Siphon Life, 1x Unstable Affliction) of them up to do normal damage?

[Deleted]

I don't get it, how does the effigy allow for more balanced dots? It's either 100% damage on boss, plus 50% damage on boss (which would make the effigy OP) or 50% damage on boss plus 50% damage on effigy (which would make the effigy compulsory).

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea; nuking the effigy when the boss is out of LOS or when his main hitbox is unreachable, etc. I just don't like the idea of having to dot it regardless of the situation.

Also, what do you mean with 90% damage reduction? When? Why?

Iron Reaver Air phase is still reachable but has big damage reduction for example?

Because of the focus to DoTs instead of filler Drain X we are balanced around multitarget doting without SE, or single target WITH SE.

Current itteration of Aff is weak dots, so weak multidot and strong ST with Drain.

[Duckz0rs]

Iron Reaver Air phase is still reachable but has big damage reduction for example?

Similarly Iskar is easily reachable in his flying phase, but flat-out becomes immune to damage. On Hanz & Franz you could keep your DoTs rolling but they became immune to damage as well. Think it was the same for the council fight in BRF when they jumped to the shit, but it's been a while.

[nerdzrool]

Similarly Iskar is easily reachable in his flying phase, but flat-out becomes immune to damage. On Hanz & Franz you could keep your DoTs rolling but they became immune to damage as well. Think it was the same for the council fight in BRF when they jumped to the shit, but it's been a while.

Iskar doesn't become immune to damage unless you get him to 1hp during an air phase, he takes full damage otherwise.

In any case the talent definitely shouldn't be balanced around times where bosses are untargetable/unreachable because those occurrences simply aren't that common. The idea of the talent is fine as is; more dots, more shards, better movement, it mostly suffers from targetting and placement issues which have been done to death.

How does it make DoTs more balanced when you need up to 7 (2x Agony, 2x Corruption, 2x Siphon Life, 1x Unstable Affliction) of them up to do normal damage?

Again, like 90% of the benefit of the talent is achieved just by maintaining agony on it since it does like double the damage of the other dots and generates shards to boot. I don't foresee many situations where you take siphon life and effigy since effigy is mostly for single target and siphon is more geared towards multi where the extra shards from effigy aren't as critical.

[Deleted]

Iron Reaver Air phase is still reachable but has big damage reduction for example?

Because of the focus to DoTs instead of filler Drain X we are balanced around multitarget doting without SE, or single target WITH SE.

Current itteration of Aff is weak dots, so weak multidot and strong ST with Drain.

In that fight effigy would be used like any other single target fight.

Anyway, as I said, we'll see how it evolves. From what I've gathered so far, it seems like a stupid gimmick.

[Deleted]

Why do you think SE is a stupid gimmick though?
DoT classes like to Multi Dot to increase Damage, be that directly or indirectly through resources.

I would think having a talent that allows Affliction to multi dot during a ST encounter would give them an easier time balancing the spec for ST.

Personally i prefer this than having to constantly Drain the target.

[Deleted]

Why do you think SE is a stupid gimmick though?
DoT classes like to Multi Dot to increase Damage, be that directly or indirectly through resources.

I would think having a talent that allows Affliction to multi dot during a ST encounter would give them an easier time balancing the spec for ST.

Personally i prefer this than having to constantly Drain the target.

Because you'll still mostly drain and other than repeating the action of applying Agony and Corruption, barely anything changes. I mean seriously, who'll go "Yay! I can apply Agony and Corruption on two targets now! Affliction has become SO engaging!". Barely anyone, I predict.

Such a talent is interesting if you'll still be able to dps the main target, when it's out of LoS. E.G. another player pillar-hugging, or bosses diving underwater, etc. But it should be useless if the main target is accessible - imo.

[Duckz0rs]

Because you'll still mostly drain and other than repeating the action of applying Agony and Corruption, barely anything changes. I mean seriously, who'll go "Yay! I can apply Agony and Corruption on two targets now! Affliction has become SO engaging!". Barely anyone, I predict.

Such a talent is interesting if you'll still be able to dps the main target, when it's out of LoS. E.G. another player pillar-hugging, or bosses diving underwater, etc. But it should be useless if the main target is accessible - imo.

The implementation you propose would make it a dead talent outside of pvp. The amount of times bosses left range throughout ALL of WoD are countable on one hand: Hanz & Franz, BRF Council, Iron Reaver and Iskar. And they do so for a reason, you should focus on something else during that moment of the encounter.
Would you really like a talent of which the only purpose is to break the encounter design in a scenario that hardly ever happens in the first place? Because it'll have no purpose outside of that as you propose it.

And yes, I'd wager most people that play Affliction like multi-dotting. I'd be one of those people at least. It's what differentiates Affli and Shadow gameplay-wise from Legion on out. Do you want few dots and focus on channeling - Shadow Priest. Do you want a DoT spec that actually focuses the majority of the gameplay on casting dots - Affliction Warlock.

[nerdzrool]

Because you'll still mostly drain and other than repeating the action of applying Agony and Corruption, barely anything changes. I mean seriously, who'll go "Yay! I can apply Agony and Corruption on two targets now! Affliction has become SO engaging!". Barely anyone, I predict.

Such a talent is interesting if you'll still be able to dps the main target, when it's out of LoS. E.G. another player pillar-hugging, or bosses diving underwater, etc. But it should be useless if the main target is accessible - imo.

But you also get to cast UA twice as often which is supposed to be our "fun" spell. Honestly it just sounds like you don't enjoy multidotting in which case you've probably picked the wrong class.

[Deleted]

Because you'll still mostly drain and other than repeating the action of applying Agony and Corruption, barely anything changes. I mean seriously, who'll go "Yay! I can apply Agony and Corruption on two targets now! Affliction has become SO engaging!". Barely anyone, I predict.

Such a talent is interesting if you'll still be able to dps the main target, when it's out of LoS. E.G. another player pillar-hugging, or bosses diving underwater, etc. But it should be useless if the main target is accessible - imo.

Have you tried aff on alpha at all?
The times i have tested it on dummies and within 5mans, using DL is not on the top of my list of things to do that often.

I also don't get how you think casting DL back to back is any different from casting Cor + Agony back to back.

[Deleted]

But you also get to cast UA twice as often which is supposed to be our "fun" spell. Honestly it just sounds like you don't enjoy multidotting in which case you've probably picked the wrong class.

I think you got that right. Multi Doting isn't for everyone and Affliction always has been a MDOT spec. And unbalanced at that because it conflicts with single target fights. DoT's too strong, Affliction is god mode on Council dps. Dots too weak and they are not worth casting or you are just crap on single target fights.

[Fearsom1992]

I think you got that right. Multi Doting isn't for everyone and Affliction always has been a MDOT spec. And unbalanced at that because it conflicts with single target fights. DoT's too strong, Affliction is god mode on Council dps. Dots too weak and they are not worth casting or you are just crap on single target fights.

I mean shouldn't warlocks be as powerful as mages since they are basically the same class pure dps only brings dps n healthstones so why should it matter if its "op" when its fine for mages to be ridiculous idk ive been playing wow for 11years and I am fine when a pure dps is op it makes logical sense

[Deleted]

But you also get to cast UA twice as often which is supposed to be our "fun" spell. Honestly it just sounds like you don't enjoy multidotting in which case you've probably picked the wrong class.

What makes UA fun, juxtaposed to any other dot?

The amount of assumptions in the replies is interesting. I never said I disliked multi-dotting, nor that I particularly enjoy draining. I enjoy playing the class and that includes casting my dots an a few other targets to help dps them down, if needed, while I can focus on my main target (multi-dotting).

I just don't see the value of artificially creating a second target, other than increasing the chance to generate a shard, just so you can 'multi-dot'. It seems counter-intuitive.

I quit after killing Garrosh mythic (back then it was called heroic), so I didn't experience any Legion alpha build, which is mainly why I'm asking so many questions about its actual mechanics.