[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[dholland662]

Haste works exactly the same way as the class trinket does. UA is designed to only have 4 ticks period, so haste will drop the duration and reduce the tick period


Another thing to note is UA pandemics, which actually increases the tick count to 5.

So how does the new UA effect work, that if the target dies in 8 seconds or less the shard is refunded. Is that window shortened or not?

[wholol]

Am i the only person who feels affliction is missing something ? feels like i got 9 fingers on my hands or something.

[Baconeggcheese]

Damage numbers are completely broken on the PTR, makes me wonder if Blizzard do any sort of internal testing before launching content. Like, at all.

I can't say why but most numbers tweaks happen over the course of many builds and a lot of it is just to get certain spells at a certain damage ratio before they flat buff or nerf an entire spec to get it exactly where they want it. A lot of times it makes changes or specific builds look nonsensical until you see what happens several builds down the line.

Which is why you continue to see people repeatedly saying not to worry about tuning.

[Kirroth]

Am i the only person who feels affliction is missing something ? feels like i got 9 fingers on my hands or something.

There's no big impactful button, it's true. The damage output is very smooth and consistent. This might change with the artifact weapon; Reap Souls and Compound Interest might make SS dumps more powerful, though even then you've got multiple UA casts on top of UA's innate damage spreading.

The thing is, I'm totally okay with that. All the efforts to give Afflic a big impactful button have been failures, probably because they go against its nature. Afflic is the spec of slow, inevitable demise as a stack of DoTs grinds your foes into the dirt. That's what I loved about it. Legion Afflic promises to once again let me pile DoTs on a target and know no matter how much they hit me my Drain Life and Siphon Life will keep me alive long enough for them to die first. Demon Skin enhanced Soul Leech promises to be the cherry on top for that playstyle.

You juggle DoTs, you cast some filler with nothing's close to expiring, maybe you talent into Haunt for an extra little cooldown to throw in there. Does it really need anything making it more complicated? Not for me.

[dholland662]

I can't say why but most numbers tweaks happen over the course of many builds and a lot of it is just to get certain spells at a certain damage ratio before they flat buff or nerf an entire spec to get it exactly where they want it. A lot of times it makes changes or specific builds look nonsensical until you see what happens several builds down the line.

Which is why you continue to see people repeatedly saying not to worry about tuning.

But I want to panic

[Kainslife]

Currently they require killing blows but that's supposedly a bug that will eventually be fixed.

Pretty solid sustained aoe with the right setup (sts/sac), burst aoe isn't great due to cast/travel/trigger on seeds. Ramp up on pull is pretty bad in basically every situation due to starting with 1 shard / 0 souls and decaying quickly out of combat. Target swaps are a lot better than live since UA deals a lot of damage fairly quickly and refunds a shard if it expires early, but we still won't be great at very short adds since they won't live long enough for UA to tick out. We'll do fine on anything that lives 8s or more since we'll be able to cast a few UAs into them and have them tick out. 2 target cleave is fine, nothing special from what I can tell.

How are we looking for Mythic+ dungeons? Think I'll be better off just going Destruction?

[Vankhorne]

I can't say why but most numbers tweaks happen over the course of many builds and a lot of it is just to get certain spells at a certain damage ratio before they flat buff or nerf an entire spec to get it exactly where they want it. A lot of times it makes changes or specific builds look nonsensical until you see what happens several builds down the line.

Which is why you continue to see people repeatedly saying not to worry about tuning.

I understand your point and I agree, but the game is in such a broken state, it is hard to believe that any test was made, at all. Examples: Getting 1 shot when a Warrior charges you, even before Charge ends its animation. Or, Feral opens on you, and you die before the Feral appears out of stealth. Or, being soloed by half Hunter's Barrage.

Repeating, I agree with what you said, but it is hard to believe such a degree of incompetence.

[Deleted]

They managed to balance the game somewhat well in the last 10 years or so.
The same stuff is happening in D3 and even though the classes aren't in perfect balance, it always turns out to be rather well tuned.
In Blizzard's case, it's actually quite likely that they can use this data and change stuff accordingly for the later PTR versions or Live versions.

Take the LoN set in D3 for example, it was +1000% or +800% dmg (way too high) first, then +100% (way too low) and the next version had it at an extremely sweet spot.

[Fenzha]

It might just be me but after time on the PTR i just can't get why UA is still a dot at this point, it has stupidly low duration it may as well just be a direct damage spell. It falls off if you blink and if you don't have to manage it on the targets then it may aswell just be a shadow bolt, haunt or chaos bolt.

I played and enjoyed affliction from Kara all the way to Siege and i've mixed it in while playing WoD, but i just cant get the spec to feel good on the PTR. This is just my opinion.

[Jessicka]

Finally got around to some PTR testing. Feels a bit empty if you're not picking Siphon Life, but then you can't have Soul Harvest which I'd prefer to have over Mana Tap. I'd like if they could switch those around. Otherwise, seems okay, Soul Conduit feels like it has a reasonable return on Shards but no idea how well the numbers compete with Soul Effigy.

Overall, not entirely convinced when compared to Mage, both Fire and Frost actually feel really well polished and 'done' where Warlocks, as ever, still could use some work.

[wholol]

There's no big impactful button, it's true. The damage output is very smooth and consistent. This might change with the artifact weapon; Reap Souls and Compound Interest might make SS dumps more powerful, though even then you've got multiple UA casts on top of UA's innate damage spreading.

The thing is, I'm totally okay with that. All the efforts to give Afflic a big impactful button have been failures, probably because they go against its nature. Afflic is the spec of slow, inevitable demise as a stack of DoTs grinds your foes into the dirt. That's what I loved about it. Legion Afflic promises to once again let me pile DoTs on a target and know no matter how much they hit me my Drain Life and Siphon Life will keep me alive long enough for them to die first. Demon Skin enhanced Soul Leech promises to be the cherry on top for that playstyle.

You juggle DoTs, you cast some filler with nothing's close to expiring, maybe you talent into Haunt for an extra little cooldown to throw in there. Does it really need anything making it more complicated? Not for me.

Sounds like a love story to me

On topic though maybe I've gotten too used to mop/wod playstyle ,I think i'll need some time to get back in the tbc groove of it.

[Sarkol]

It might just be me but after time on the PTR i just can't get why UA is still a dot at this point, it has stupidly low duration it may as well just be a direct damage spell. It falls off if you blink and if you don't have to manage it on the targets then it may aswell just be a shadow bolt, haunt or chaos bolt.

I played and enjoyed affliction from Kara all the way to Siege and i've mixed it in while playing WoD, but i just cant get the spec to feel good on the PTR. This is just my opinion.

Unstable is a DoT, technically, but it's a burst spell. Why should it be like the spells you listed? It's semi-unique how it is now, so why change it? What's wrong with it? It's not a spell you have to refresh, really , either. If you're bursting and stacking many then you'll stack the damage. Not sure what the problem of it falling off is though. As long as you aren't capping shards there's no loss.

[Kirroth]

Unstable is a DoT, technically, but it's a burst spell. Why should it be like the spells you listed? It's semi-unique how it is now, so why change it? What's wrong with it? It's not a spell you have to refresh, really , either. If you're bursting and stacking many then you'll stack the damage. Not sure what the problem of it falling off is though. As long as you aren't capping shards there's no loss.

Yeah, I don't see it either. If UA was a nuke it'd just be a weaker Chaos Bolt knockoff. Not only is it more fitting with Afflic's flavor as a DoT, but it makes it easier for it to interact with all Afflic's DoT buffing traits. Heck, most of the UA specific enhancements have to do with it being on a target or falling off a target or being applied to a new target. None of those would work if it was a straight nuke.

[Deleted]

Finally got around to some PTR testing. Feels a bit empty if you're not picking Siphon Life, but then you can't have Soul Harvest which I'd prefer to have over Mana Tap. I'd like if they could switch those around. Otherwise, seems okay, Soul Conduit feels like it has a reasonable return on Shards but no idea how well the numbers compete with Soul Effigy.

Overall, not entirely convinced when compared to Mage, both Fire and Frost actually feel really well polished and 'done' where Warlocks, as ever, still could use some work.

Gotta admit frost surprised me on beta, its much more fun and has an interesting depth, plus the rotation isnt a snoozefest anymore, which make me play it more than fire actually
FOs stacking is just soo sexy in dungeons

[Fenzha]

Unstable is a DoT, technically, but it's a burst spell. Why should it be like the spells you listed? It's semi-unique how it is now, so why change it? What's wrong with it? It's not a spell you have to refresh, really , either. If you're bursting and stacking many then you'll stack the damage. Not sure what the problem of it falling off is though. As long as you aren't capping shards there's no loss.

What i was saying is that although it is a dot it feels like it has just become one of those single target nukes to me. They have practically taken the time component out it being a DoT. It's a problem i have with the spell now but i guess i am alone on that.

[Kirroth]

What i was saying is that although it is a dot it feels like it has just become one of those single target nukes to me. They have practically taken the time component out it being a DoT. It's a problem i have with the spell now but i guess i am alone on that.

It's a nuke-DoT, like Devouring Plague is for current Shadow Priests. Which I remember more than one Warlock player saying, "Why can't Afflic have a spell like that?" And now in Legion it will. Which is probably a fair exchange for giving Shadow the Demo Meta mechanic.

[Spunt]

Are affliction locks completely boned any on fight that benefits more from lust on the pull? Seems like it takes a while for locks to get resources needed to start dealing heavy dmg. Where is the burst?

[Sarkol]

What i was saying is that although it is a dot it feels like it has just become one of those single target nukes to me. They have practically taken the time component out it being a DoT. It's a problem i have with the spell now but i guess i am alone on that.

Sure some people don't like it, but i think it fits perfectly. Small duration, very powerful dot that you can stack. Gives Affliction some burst, while keeping the class fantasy intact. Traits can be played into it better too. Playing affliction on the off chance on PTR was surprisingly enjoyable. Very rarely channelling or hard casting, and most maintaining Dots and Shards to utilise Unstable Aflliction. Back to it's roots more than in a long time i'd say.

[Budong]

Very rarely channelling or hard casting, and most maintaining Dots and Shards to utilise Unstable Aflliction. Back to it's roots more than in a long time i'd say.

Your roots are shallow. I'm guessing you didn't play Warlock in Vanilla, as they didn't have Unstable Affliction until Burning Crusade.

[Sarkol]

Your roots are shallow. I'm guessing you didn't play Warlock in Vanilla, as they didn't have Unstable Affliction until Burning Crusade.

I was making a broad statement about being more dot orientated before, which i'm sure it was. It's gone away from that the last few expansions.