Soul effigy - good or bad talent? (gameplay wise)

[agittunc]

Hey peeps, i have been playing affliction warlock. so far its pretty good.

I wanted to ask you guys what u think about soul effigy gameplay wise? because for me its really a annoying talent that is almost the only choice unless u have insane ammounts of adds on your wake.

what do you think about this talent?

[Gaidax]

Unfortunately it is the only choice, moreso in Legion at 110 once you realize it synergies with SoC and Soul Flame as well.

I think it is cancer, but it seems Blizzard can't help but stick all kinds of shit mechanics obsoleted for others to our specs, we got Inquisition reborn with Mana Tap and some of the Prismatic Crystal woes endure with this thing. We just got rid of Soulburn, which was shit really in retrospect only to go to the loving embrace of Soul Effigy.

I, for one, would love it to be a choice as opposed to being mandatory.

[Deleted]

I'm not really a huge fan.

It feels like affliction's "single target" damage will end up balanced around SE being a mandatory talent. I enjoy multidotting, but I'd much rather have a single target viable spec with an increase while multidotting rather than a multidot spec that needs to talent into it's own second target to perform on ST fights.

SE just feels really unpleasant to me in a way that I struggle to sum up, but it feels like they're coming at the design from the wrong direction - and I say that as someone who's probably least effected by it, the real people that suffer will be the casual crowd that just loath or can't multidot well. If their ST damage is balanced around it they won't have a fun time.

I've enjoyed most of the talent trees I've checked out, lots of them have revitalised classes that had major issues. The warlock one seems to have some really glaringly unfun additions like mana tap and SE. It makes SB:Haunt's resource hogging maintenance buff seem good in comparison.

[Gaidax]

Well overall there are interesting additions across the board, but it's upsetting that amongst them you have these "gems".

People begged Blizzard to get rid of Mana Tap over the course of Alpha and Soul Effigy was never popular either.

My other pet peeve is Roaring Blaze for Destruction, but I acknowledge some like it. For me Destruction definitely is about strong direct damage and big nukes, so Roaring Blaze suddenly slapping a managed DoT to the mix makes me quite cold, especially because once again this seems to be a go-to talent in most cases.

I think so far only Demonology avoided the bullet of awkward optional on paper but mandatory in reality annoying talents, but Demonic Empowerment is questionable choice on its own. I'd rather have it turned into some quick nuke that does direct damage, does not generate shards and causes your guardians to switch to its target and then have DE bonuses baked into the demons by default.

[Kirroth]

Unfortunately it is the only choice, moreso in Legion at 110 once you realize it synergies with SoC and Soul Flame as well.

And that's half the problem right there. If it was a niche talent so you could DoT-cleave on a pure single target fight, it'd be fine. The problem is that you can game the hell out of its mechanics if you can coordinate having it placed in the middle of an add pack so all your AoE splashes over it. That makes it objectively better while requiring the Warlock player to do unfun things, like run around to move its placement or beg the raid to have a fixed location for add killing.

The other half of the problem is that Phantom Singularity is utterly worthless, which means there's a lack of good competition for Effigy. Seriously, I don't think I've heard anyone say a positive thing about Singularity, nor can I think of any where it'd be useful outside of maybe an AV scrum.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately it is the only choice, moreso in Legion at 110 once you realize it synergies with SoC and Soul Flame as well.

How does Soul Flame interact with it?

[Lucrece]

I have a love/hate relationship with it. I hate the mechanism of tab targeting even more.

BUT, soul effigy is the only visually new thing affliction received, it's the only time you're seeing new animations.

Phantom Singularity is also there, but it's a long cooldown and it's basically a copy of demo's spell effect but floating over someone else's head.

Affliction desperately needs visual updates.

[Dnusha]

It can be annoying in pve but in pvp the thing hits people through the pillars so its pretty neat. in the end it's just another target to put dots on, so it's ok, i guess.

[PickleballAce]

I don't mind multidotting since we are Warlocks after all...but the occasional Patchwerk fight is a nice change of pace, and unfortunately Soul Effigy negates that. Not the worst thing in the world, but I can't say that I'm a fan of it.

[Gaidax]

How does Soul Flame interact with it?

Soul Flame explosion hits Effigy and damage is transferred to the target.

[Exijin]

Hey peeps, i have been playing affliction warlock. so far its pretty good.

I wanted to ask you guys what u think about soul effigy gameplay wise? because for me its really a annoying talent that is almost the only choice unless u have insane ammounts of adds on your wake.

what do you think about this talent?

It's great for PvP - Especially smaller scale "duels" or on a focus target. It allow you to adapt a lot more to your opponent.

[Cathbadh]

It really shouldn't surprise Blizzard that it isn't a popular talent as most mages hated Prismatic Crystal.

I could tolerate it if there was a way to set up a target frame in my UI for it. Then I could just set it above the boss frame and switch easily enough. It'd still be annoying, but I'd at least consider playing Aff.

[Exijin]

It really shouldn't surprise Blizzard that it isn't a popular talent as most mages hated Prismatic Crystal.

I could tolerate it if there was a way to set up a target frame in my UI for it. Then I could just set it above the boss frame and switch easily enough. It'd still be annoying, but I'd at least consider playing Aff.

This can be solved by addons. Kui nameplates give it a health bar above it.

[Cainium]

The only thing i don't like about it is the missing UI support. It consumes my focus frame for efficient multi-dotting, which annoys me on certain fights.

IMO it is a good solution to the "On-Par ST, OP Multi-Target" OR "UP ST, On-Par Multi-Target" problem. It allows Blizzard to balance Affliction around Multi-Target and use SE to adjust ST DPS by any %.

In MoP they tried this using DoTs as an amplifier for Malefic Grasp and introducing Soul Swap for fast target switching. We know how this has ended, and what they've done in WoD to this mechanic.

SE needs his own unit frame, then it would be alot better gameplay wise.

IMO it should be like this:
Soul effigy: on any fight where you can efficiently double-dip from AoE effects (bosses/adds are tanked on a stationary position)
Phantom Singularity: pure single target fights (it should be possible to tune this talent that it can pass SE on ST)
Soul Conduit: Everything else, non-stationary encounters and priority target fights where we need lots of shards to dump many UAs into the prio target

[Cathbadh]

This can be solved by addons. Kui nameplates give it a health bar above it.

Not a name plate, Elvui provides that. I mean an actual target frame/focus frame (without eating up my single focus frame) that I can place wherever I want so that I don't have to be facing my effigy or trying to find it among a dozen mobs. At that point it would go from annoying enough to keep me in other specs to tolerable but not fun.

[Jessicka]

It adds yet more ramp up, hurts switching even more, is badly positioned when you cast it (kind of behind you to the right, pretty much asking to be outranged for mobile fights) lacks a health bar (even with tidyplates) and doesn't really add anything except more multi dotting and multi dotting when you wouldn't usually.

Fair to say I'm not a fan, and given the apparent relative weakness of Conduit and the AoE one against it, it looks pretty mandatory. Oh well. As I've been told endlessly while complaining about it through beta "if you don't like multi dotting don't play the spec".

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Soul Flame explosion hits Effigy and damage is transferred to the target.

Assuming you place the Effigy next to the target, that seems to be a pain in the arse to actually do.

[Gaidax]

Assuming you place the Effigy next to the target, that seems to be a pain in the arse to actually do.

Yes, it requires skill...

[Grizelda]

I'm not a huge fan either but l'd argue that it improves mobility by allowing more frequent use of instant cast spells and improves healing as another SI target

[Gorgodeus]

It really shouldn't surprise Blizzard that it isn't a popular talent as most mages hated Prismatic Crystal.

I could tolerate it if there was a way to set up a target frame in my UI for it. Then I could just set it above the boss frame and switch easily enough. It'd still be annoying, but I'd at least consider playing Aff.

You can use macros to target and cast at Soul Effigy.

[Jessicka]

Yes, it requires skill...

Yes, running in to melee, such skill. Until the boss is kited away... That really is not a skill thing, it's a straight up pain in the arse thing. Kinda sick of people defending bad design with "skill" based around tedious but otherwise very easy hoop jumping.

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I'm not a huge fan either but l'd argue that it improves mobility by allowing more frequent use of instant cast spells and improves healing as another SI target

Not really, you're using a lot less Drain Life so lose actually lose a lot of healing.