Legion Affliction Artifact Speculation

[Hhavok]

I played around with affliction on the PTR without an artifact weapon, and I really liked the feel of it, but I'm a little unsure of how the artifact weapon talents will factor in to end-game. I noticed that on most class/specs, the artifact talents that are bordered in gold (including the initial talent) pack a little more punch than the rest. Maybe they'll deal exceptionally high damage, but on a cooldown, or provide an on-demand buff, or a hefty proc based on your normal rotation, for example. For the afflication lock, three of the four abilities require killing targets.

One of them is wrath of consumption, buffing dot damage by 2% per kill, capping at +10% damage for 20 seconds. Another is Soul Flame, causing killed targets to burst for aoe damage. The initial talent, Reap Souls, requires sacrificing souls captured by your artifact weapon (from killed enemies?) for what looks like a pretty solid damage buff of +10% damage and double all artifact traits.

Does anyone have any good speculative thoughts on how this could effect end-game raids or mythic dungeons? I'm a little unsure myself, about committing to affliction lock and leveling the artifact weapon, only to find that viability is only there when a boss has sufficient adds to make affliction work like it's supposed to. I can see it making sense to balance affliction around the fact that they have +20% damage and double artifact trait bonuses, but then I can see situations where they get none of these for whole boss fights.

Beta Affliction Artifact Calculator

[Zerach8]

Souls spawn from ulthalesh (purple orbs on the ground) while u are in combat, dont necessarily need to kill stuff, but u are right that two of the gold traits require u killing a target so ST seems lacking altho im not sure if thats really the case (no beta experience).
Also true that many fights arent arent only single target, so having the 2nd artifact for those bosses, if affl is behind other two specs is an option.

[Hhavok]

Souls spawn from ulthalesh (purple orbs on the ground) while u are in combat, dont necessarily need to kill stuff

Thanks. That info actually helps a lot. The initial trait definitely seems like the strongest one, and the fact that it can be used without getting kills should make a big difference.

[sevenheaven21]

Thanks. That info actually helps a lot. The initial trait definitely seems like the strongest one, and the fact that it can be used without getting kills should make a big difference.

Pretty positive that killing the ghosts that spawn from your wep will activate the traits, meaning you just have to multidot, which is aff's thing anyway

[Duckz0rs]

Pretty positive that killing the ghosts that spawn from your wep will activate the traits, meaning you just have to multidot, which is aff's thing anyway

They should but don't. It would be fixed in the previous patch, but reportedly hasn't been fixed.

[Zerach8]

Pretty positive that killing the ghosts that spawn from your wep will activate the traits, meaning you just have to multidot, which is aff's thing anyway

they changed how ulthalesh works, no longer spawns ghosts, but now spawns purple orbs that count as souls that u can reap for 10% dmg and 2x traits for 5sec per soul consumed.

[sevenheaven21]

They should but don't. It would be fixed in the previous patch, but reportedly hasn't been fixed.

Ah ok, don't have beta and haven't really kept up with affi. That's annoying.

[Hhavok]

The ghost spawns did sound kind of fun.

[Deleted]

The ghost spawns did sound kind of fun.

On ST maybe, but on a complicated multitarget fight with actual mechanics... good luck ;]

[Deleted]

On ST maybe, but on a complicated multitarget fight with actual mechanics... good luck ;]

Even on ST it was all but fun. They had barely any HP, so it just needed 1 dot on them, but they did not have a name plate which made them extremely hard to target and it was just tedious during a fight...

I'm very happy they changed that mechanics. Although I think in the process, they missed changing some of the weapon traits, too that relied on souls being killed.

[Zerach8]

still hoping they change them, its not really a big deal changing and tunning it, maybe something to work with SoC, or tune other artifact traits for more ST damage

[Duckz0rs]

Those traits (Wrath of Consumption and Soul Flame) should proc off the purple orbs that Ulthalesh spawns at the moment but don't due to a bug (unless that got fixed already, I don't have beta access). It still won't be ideal in ST, but at least they'll have good use.

[Zerach8]

wrath of consumption is good regardless than, if u soak at least 5 souls u get 20% dot damage for 20sec which is a lot along with 2x trait bonuses and another 10% damage. In this case i honestly dont care if soul flame does nothing on ST.
But the tooltip says on kill, so i doubt they will change how it works. They could make it work with reap but than u are kinda forced to upkeep a buff thats based on rng of soul spawning from the staff which wouldnt feel any different than SB:haunt does now.

[Deleted]

Even on ST it was all but fun. They had barely any HP, so it just needed 1 dot on them, but they did not have a name plate which made them extremely hard to target and it was just tedious during a fight...

I'm very happy they changed that mechanics. Although I think in the process, they missed changing some of the weapon traits, too that relied on souls being killed.

Baconeggsetc. has remarked that the proc rate from souls escaping Ulthalesh's loving embrace was so low, that in practice the traits were almost surely designed as a way to prop up Affliction's shitty multitarget capabilities. Here: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post41368557

I think he argues this point well, so I choose to believe.

[striderZA]

wrath of consumption is good regardless than, if u soak at least 5 souls u get 20% dot damage for 20sec which is a lot along with 2x trait bonuses and another 10% damage.

You get 10% damage flat, it's only the duration of the buff that is based on the #shards that you consumed. Unless it's currently bugged, that is.

[Zerach8]

You get 10% damage flat, it's only the duration of the buff that is based on the #shards that you consumed. Unless it's currently bugged, that is.

meant 20% from wrath of consumption (4% per stack instead of 2% due to reap) and 10% from reap itself