[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

The "cap" assuming gcd capped would be something like tick damage x8 rolling at a time with infinite shards. If I'm imagining right.

yeah 8 UAs but the dmg of UA gets lower for each cast, so if you have 2 UAs rolling the total dmg it deals is like 266%sp+266% sp*7/8, or something like that, coz your old UA would have ticked atleast once.

[gruxxar]

I've been pondering about this recently, but is there no cap to how many UA's we can stack on a single target?

I mean logically speaking there should be, otherwise it would be insanely broken on single target fights, I mean just imagine what the dps would be if you can infinitely stack UAs, I mean it's not even about dpsing anymore because nothing would come near that level of dps after the very first minute and the longer the fight goes the dps just keeps going on growing exponentially.

If you think about it, lets say we pick soul conduit and soul harvest, start the fight with full shards and just focus on making sure that UA never runs out, we can manage generating 1 shard every 6.4-7 secs ( factoring the minimum cast time and delay up to the maximum 1 sec, aka gcd cap) while banking on several from soul harvest in case RNG doesnt happen within those 6.5~ sec, aka soul conduit refund or agony multidotting.

So theoretically let's say on a single target fight that lasts around 5+mins ( let's just go with 5 mins):
(5*60)/6.5 = 46.15 , let's just round it up to 46 ish UA stacks,I mean what would a 46th stacked UA be ticking for anyways ? we're probably talking 1% of the bosses HP per second here or more but something around those figures

Anyways my point is this would potentially break dps meters and afflock stacking would be a thing and then the nerf bat.

Unless I've missed something critical in my so called logic of course, please enlighten me with your opinions on this matter.

Can someone test this on a dummy in alpha and see if it works ?I understand there might be holes in time where shards might be an issue but I'm hoping proper usage of soul conduit and soul harvest can fill in those dead times of bad RNG.

I think you misunderstand how UA works on alpha. it's like Ignite, not like HoG (live) stacking. Every refresh recalculates the dmg of UA, being the damage from the freshly cast UA + the remaining damage from the UA already present on the mob. All those damage parts get bundled & then redistributed in dot ticks.

[wholol]

Ah I see, I see.

Guess that slipped my mind, well thanks for clarifying ^_~

[Deleted]

I think you misunderstand how UA works on alpha. it's like Ignite, not like HoG (live) stacking. Every refresh recalculates the dmg of UA, being the damage from the freshly cast UA + the remaining damage from the UA already present on the mob. All those damage parts get bundled & then redistributed in dot ticks.

yeah, it also adds a natural cap to the amount of UAs that can be rolling on a target which i assume is why they made it use an ignite like mechanic for it.

[Dnusha]

I can only hope Absolute Corruption nerf won't force us to use Mana Tap.

[Deleted]

Affliction Warlock – Soul Effigy revised to not provide such a drastic increase in proc chances.

Soul effigy being 25% damage to main target almost feels like a waste of GCD's to cast anything on it.

[Deleted]

I can only hope Absolute Corruption nerf won't force us to use Mana Tap.

Waaait, but if we have snapshotting on all dots, don't we kinda have to, anyway? I'm getting slightly worried, I'm going to straight up admit I'm not good enough to manage snapshotting w/ 2 game-changing buffs w/ different duration + procs and at least 2 targets (inc Effigy) on a real fight with movement, mechanics and all, without having Soul Swap...

Send help!

[Duckz0rs]

Affliction Warlock – Soul Effigy revised to not provide such a drastic increase in proc chances.

Soul effigy being 25% damage to main target almost feels like a waste of GCD's to cast anything on it.

I'm not sure how reducing the damage from 50% to 25% does anything to the proc rate, assuming they're talking about shard procs. Confusing change to be honest, unless it's intended to reduce procrate by making the talent flat-out useless. Can't really see it competing with Soul Conduit at this rate.

Aaaaaand.... still no changes to mana cost, Soul Effigy mechanics, gold perk talents etc. Guess this is what we're going to get at launch.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure how reducing the damage from 50% to 25% does anything to the proc rate, assuming they're talking about shard procs. Confusing change to be honest, unless it's intended to reduce procrate by making the talent flat-out useless. Can't really see it competing with Soul Conduit at this rate.

Aaaaaand.... still no changes to mana cost, Soul Effigy mechanics, gold perk talents etc. Guess this is what we're going to get at launch.

Yup, I had the same "WTF" expression on my face .

[Duckz0rs]

Yup, I had the same "WTF" expression on my face .

From the class feedback forums, post by Sigma (couldn't access it earlier due to travel, sorry):

This sort of thing is good for http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20743504316, but, Agony on Soul Effigy will give shards 25% as often as any other Agony. The mechanics are complicated due to Agony's variable proc rate and you can ask for more detail there if you want, but what I just said is accurate for modeling purposes. You'll have 1.25x as many shards per unit time from Agony if you cast it on an Effigy in addition to a normal target.

So it seems to be a double nerf: it now only transfers 25% damage to its target AND has a reduced proc chance on Agony shards. Well, I suppose throwing the talent in the trashcan is one way to deal with given feedback?

[Deleted]

I can only hope Absolute Corruption nerf won't force us to use Mana Tap.

no matter how bad the talents in that row gets, you'd never take mana tap unless they make it blatently OP compared to the other talent, its so mechanically bad that you'd essentially only have 2 choices in that row.

[gruxxar]

Well since Soul Conduit got a whole lot more attractive now, I feel Abs Corruption might be a tad too much for single target at least, you literaly apply 'only' agony then ..

[Baconeggcheese]

I can only hope Absolute Corruption nerf won't force us to use Mana Tap.

I'm fairly confident mana tap is an inevitability. It's harder to use which means if its on par with the other talents then it'll never be taken. This is especially true of absolute corruption since it actually makes things easier to manage instead of harder.

Even if by some miracle it starts out being balanced with the other talents at launch it'll likely see no use and get buffed up at some point during the xpac forcing everyone to take it.

[Lucrece]

I'm so over this stupid directive players have that just because something is more of a chore to maintain, it should be the optimal talent. By virtue of that then we are forced into playstyles we may not enjoy in the class just because it's what the optimal build demands. Not everything in a damn game needs to be a skill check.

[Duckz0rs]

I'm so over this stupid directive players have that just because something is more of a chore to maintain, it should be the optimal talent. By virtue of that then we are forced into playstyles we may not enjoy in the class just because it's what the optimal build demands. Not everything in a damn game needs to be a skill check.

It's not really a directive by the players, but more a deduction of what we think is Blizzards directive on these matters. It should be pretty obvious at this point that no-one here, including the world first race players, wants Mana Tap as a talent. Let alone that it's probably a forced choice because of said directive. That facts are stated does not mean it's agreed upon.

[wholol]

Is contagion not even considered at this point ? I've always felt that if UA uptime is almost always present that contagion should be superior to the other 2, or am I missing something ?

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm so over this stupid directive players have that just because something is more of a chore to maintain, it should be the optimal talent. By virtue of that then we are forced into playstyles we may not enjoy in the class just because it's what the optimal build demands. Not everything in a damn game needs to be a skill check.

It's not a difficult concept, its almost entirely determined by player behavior.

If somethings x% harder to pull off for the same reward, that means it's flat out less effective since players aren't robots and will be that much more likely to play sub-optimally. If you can do the same damage spamming 1 button vs a complex 30 button sequence players would take the 1 button every time regardless of whether or not they found it fun because it nets the best results. There's less room for error etc, which means the more complex thing needs to be stronger to account for the margin of error otherwise its flat out weaker than the talent its supposedly balanced against.

Which means the more skilled who do practically play like robots get better results with it, and it becomes the "best" even though its not the best for most players since they won't necessarily get that potential out of it.

You have to balance around what players are going to do, which is almost always what they feel is optimal. And if two things produce the same number but one is more difficult to pull off, then the easier one is optimal since it nets better / more consistent results.

Is contagion not even considered at this point ? I've always felt that if UA uptime is almost always present that contagion should be superior to the other 2, or am I missing something ?

In single target and multi-dot yes, assuming you can manage it. In single target it'll be fairly easy to figure out, in say council or what have you it'll be extremely difficult for people to juggle upwards of 4 dots all of which have a short duration which will devalue the talent due to player error.

For aoe its literally worthless, which makes it a lot less appealing than the other two options since mana tap works in all situations and absolute corruption works with everything except burst aoe. Mana tap is easier to manage than trying to maintain UA in council situations and allows UA to be used entirely around compound interest and trinket procs, and absolute corruption is just flat out easier to manage in council since it removes the need to refresh one of your dots bringing it back down to 2 primary dots and a spender that you can just cast into whatever target.

I actually like contagion because its actually a difficult and rewarding version of a maintenance buff that plays into how players should want to play the spec. I kinda wish it was one of our gold artifact traits. It's just not a super compelling option vs the other ones if they're even mildly balanced.

[Lucrece]

It's not a difficult concept, its almost entirely determined by player behavior.

If somethings x% harder to pull off for the same reward, that means it's flat out less effective since players aren't robots and will be that much more likely to play sub-optimally. If you can do the same damage spamming 1 button vs a complex 30 button sequence players would take the 1 button every time regardless of whether or not they found it fun because it nets the best results. There's less room for error etc, which means the more complex thing needs to be stronger to account for the margin of error otherwise its flat out weaker than the talent its supposedly balanced against.

Which means the more skilled who do practically play like robots get better results with it, and it becomes the "best" even though its not the best for most players since they won't necessarily get that potential out of it.

You have to balance around what players are going to do, which is almost always what they feel is optimal. And if two things produce the same number but one is more difficult to pull off, then the easier one is optimal since it nets better / more consistent results.

Problem being that by making one talent obviously optimal, players are essentially forced into that option in any raiding scenario.

I mean, if we take that logic of harder=optimal to its absurd conclusion, then frost DK's and mages should be doing less DPS than a feral druid or windwalker monk. We'd have a variance of class performance based on the skills necessary to optimize it.

And yet that's not the case, so why should it be with talents? Talents are about playstyle options, choice. If you remove that choice just because one talent is more convenient regardless of gameplay preferences, you are causing harm to the class by decreasing the potential number of people who might enjoy it. Sorta like forcing Savage Roar as a talent on feral druids right now in the Legion iteration. One of the reasons Savage Roar was moved to a talent was due to player disdain for it, and yet it being tuned as the optimal talent has translated to the same scenario as if it were baseline.

I can understand a 2-4% difference, but when we go beyond that it just becomes ridiculous as it's just an illusion of choice in talents, not an actual freedom to alter your playstyle.

We also see this in this bandwagon movement to turn every game into Dark Souls because some people have got the idea in their heads that the value of a game is related to its difficulty and opportunity to fail, when there are many reasons for why a game holds value to different people.

[Baconeggcheese]

And yet that's not the case, so why should it be with talents? Talents are about playstyle options, choice.

So.. again... Something will always be optimal. If you balance all 3 to have the same absolute performance than the "obviously optimal" choice is the one that is easiest to execute. There is no choice in that regard.

Talents have never and continue to not be designed around choice, because players by and large go with what's optimal regardless. That's what's good about most of the new rows in legion, they are *not* playstyle choices, they are situational talents. You get a ST talent, an aoe talent, a cleave talent on the same row or what have you. There isn't true choice in that, there's responses to situations.

Again, the reason a more complex talent or spec needs to be stronger when played *perfectly* is because if it isn't it's automatically sub-optimal.

We also see this in this bandwagon movement to turn every game into Dark Souls because some people have got the idea in their heads that the value of a game is related to its difficulty and opportunity to fail, when there are many reasons for why a game holds value to different people.

I actually just bought my first dark souls game (the latest one) and the funny thing is its significantly easier of a game than people hype it up to be. I'm assuming it just gets touted as this hyper difficult game because everything else in the industry around the time the first game came out decided to avoid any hint of difficulty like the plague.

[Lucrece]

That's because Dark Souls is largely a twitch game, and if your twitch skills are remotely fine you won't do too badly at it. Personally I found its combat to be hideously monotone and would far prefer "easier" games with much more engaging combat engines that amount to more than "poke and dodge/block".