[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[nerdzrool]

What is everyone's thoughts on the new Soul Harvest talent?

Pretty strong for Aff, no complaints other than wishing it was 1.5 or 3min to line up with DG/Service.

edit: or a second charge

[zvvl]

What is everyone's thoughts on the new Soul Harvest talent?

I think it's pretty boring design wise. Dark Soul had some interesting interactions and timings. This seems like it'll be fairly cookie cutter for when you want to use it as it doesn't really synergize with anything.

[hiramloram]

What is everyone's thoughts on the new Soul Harvest talent?

It should have been named differently. It should have replaced Mana Tap.

[PickleballAce]

It's funny that Blizzard wanted to reduce cooldown stacking to contain burst, especially at the start of an encounter, and what can we do in Legion...?

Mana Tap +
Soul Harvest +
Grimoire of Service +
Summon Doomguard/Infernal (with the legendary bonus)



Of course, they won't all align perfectly each time off CD but that's still a lot of shit to pop together. Obviously we can Dark Soul + Serv + DG on Live, but it's an interesting direction to take.

[nerdzrool]

It's funny that Blizzard wanted to reduce cooldown stacking to contain burst, especially at the start of an encounter, and what can we do in Legion...?

Mana Tap +
Soul Harvest +
Grimoire of Service +
Summon Doomguard/Infernal (with the legendary bonus)



Of course, they won't all align perfectly each time off CD but that's still a lot of shit to pop together. Obviously we can Dark Soul + Serv + DG on Live, but it's an interesting direction to take.

Mana Tap isn't a cd and Contagion is easily better for opening burst, GoServ and Doomguard each require a shard, we start with 1 shard on pull, rppm has a lower chance to proc on pull and trinkets are significantly weaker anyways, ring is gone, and last I heard they were thinking about removing prepot. All in all I'd say the did a nice job of reducing reliance on burst CDs, especially on opener.

[pixelated senpai]

last I heard they were thinking about removing prepot.

Ew... where did you here that? i hope that's some false rumor mess.

[dholland662]

Mana Tap isn't a cd and Contagion is easily better for opening burst, GoServ and Doomguard each require a shard, we start with 1 shard on pull, rppm has a lower chance to proc on pull and trinkets are significantly weaker anyways, ring is gone, and last I heard they were thinking about removing prepot. All in all I'd say the did a nice job of reducing reliance on burst CDs, especially on opener.

Rppm? What is that?

[Duckz0rs]

Rppm? What is that?

Random Procs Per Minute.

[Deleted]

Ew... where did you here that? i hope that's some false rumor mess.

Doesn't really matter, everyone will be balanced around not having one anyway.

[Darkheart]

In the latest build, there is an undocumented change that reduces UA duration with haste but keeps same number of ticks.

For example with 45-50% haste that we can get from heroic gear in legion, UA will do its full damage in 5.5 seconds or so instead of 8. During lust and troll racial UA duration can be something like 3.5 seconds.

This buffs Affliction's potential for burst priority add damage considerably.

Credit goes to Ghaddo and others who are testing this in the latest beta build. Just wanted to mention this here as I think it's very good news. And with the news that Blizz will fix our gold traits to make them not require killing blow, I believe Affliction will be in very good shape.

[Soulzar]

In the latest build, there is an undocumented change that reduces UA duration with haste but keeps same number of ticks.

For example with 45-50% haste that we can get from heroic gear in legion, UA will do its full damage in 5.5 seconds or so instead of 8. During lust and troll racial UA duration can be something like 3.5 seconds.

Wouldn't this change nerf the shit out of Contagion?

[nerdzrool]

Wouldn't this change nerf the shit out of Contagion?

Yep, also nerfs felhunter/service a bit since UA uptime is lower overall. Hopefully they change contagion to a separate debuff that isn't scaled down by haste, which would probably also fix the issue where UAs don't get the benefit of contagion unless you apply one before the old one expires.

[baldian]

Yep, also nerfs felhunter/service a bit since UA uptime is lower overall. Hopefully they change contagion to a separate debuff that isn't scaled down by haste, which would probably also fix the issue where UAs don't get the benefit of contagion unless you apply one before the old one expires.

And its a big nerf for UA too

Old UA: more haste = more tick = more damage per shard

New UA: more haste = same tick = same damage per shard

or am i wrong ?

[Baconeggcheese]

Wouldn't this change nerf the shit out of Contagion?

It should be a nerf all around tbh, the same ticks that were happening in 5.5 seconds should have still been happening when the duration stayed 8 seconds, with the difference being that it added ticks that it no longer adds.

Contagion loses value with this, and in pvp it makes dot protection difficult depending on the haste value they decide to give unless they adjust endless affliction. Though I imagine they're not going to give us a ton of secondaries besides versatility in pvp.

[nerdzrool]

And its a big nerf for UA too

Old UA: more haste = more tick = more damage per shard

New UA: more haste = same tick = same damage per shard

or am i wrong ?

You're correct, it was a substantial nerf, but makes us easier to balance since UA won't double dip on haste (previously haste increased both the damage and amount of UAs).

[Deleted]

Wouldn't this change nerf the shit out of Contagion?

doesn't haste also increase the amounts of shards you get per minute or something like that, to bring it back to the same amount? (relatively)

[nerdzrool]

doesn't haste also increase the amounts of shards you get per minute or something like that, to bring it back to the same amount? (relatively)

Yes but if you cast UAs back to back you don't get 16s dot uptime, you get 8+1.5.

[Darkheart]

doesn't haste also increase the amounts of shards you get per minute or something like that, to bring it back to the same amount? (relatively)

You get shards from Agony, not UA. The haste reducing DOT duration change affects UA only. Therefore shard generation rate is unchanged.

Previously when UA damage was spread across 8 seconds, it was mediocre as a nuke for short lived ads. This change is actually a major buff in killing priority targets.

As for Contagion, maybe they will do something more to compensate for the haste shortened UA duration, but Contagion is still pretty strong I believe.

This is still undocumented by the way, so maybe more changes and some official explanation to come.

[Fearsom1992]

Has anyone got their third relic yet? and our most powerful relic trait seems to be the crit dmg or the crit to UA so should crit be our top stat its very confusing .

- I am still trying to think of the opener for affi because waiting on the shards/reap soul/CPI procs isn't fun I mean when we have blood lust the opener is amazing because all our stuff procs more.

[nerdzrool]

Has anyone got their third relic yet? and our most powerful relic trait seems to be the crit dmg or the crit to UA so should crit be our top stat its very confusing .

- I am still trying to think of the opener for affi because waiting on the shards/reap soul/CPI procs isn't fun I mean when we have blood lust the opener is amazing because all our stuff procs more.

Yes i have it, perdition or shadowy incantations are likely the optimal relic slots because they affect most of our spells. Crit is behind haste and mastery, it might pull ahead of mastery if you have like 3 perdition relics but even then it's debatable, i doubt it will pull ahead of haste ever.

Opener would look something like

Agony
(Effigy)
Agony (effigy)
Corruption
Corruption (effigy)
(siphon)
drain until ~2-3 shards or 5x CI
(harvest)
Doomguard
(service)
Reap
UA