Affliction and Lack of AOE/Burst

[Deleted]

Hey there,

I really got a Problem with getting in any amount of DMG in my daily heroic. The Mobs go down so fast, my Dots, and my only AOE, Seed of Corruption are just useless. Even most bosses die so fast, that Agony won't stack up to 20 stacks.

How do you deal with that? What Talents would be the better choice for that? Don't want to change my Specc to Destro, the new Destro is just not my playstyle .

P.S.: My DPs in Raids is fine, since most mobs live long enough . Especially if I can multi-dot.

[Lightwysh]

GoSac + Sow the seeds + life drain to pop the seed. On short lived adds(not even sure why you care about dps on these) the splash from GoSac will get you on the board. On longer lived adds, keep your agony up if only just for shards, your main DPS will still come from Seed and GoSac cleave.

[Nhiosis]

Hey there,

I really got a Problem with getting in any amount of DMG in my daily heroic. The Mobs go down so fast, my Dots, and my only AOE, Seed of Corruption are just useless. Even most bosses die so fast, that Agony won't stack up to 20 stacks.

How do you deal with that? What Talents would be the better choice for that? Don't want to change my Specc to Destro, the new Destro is just not my playstyle .

P.S.: My DPs in Raids is fine, since most mobs live long enough . Especially if I can multi-dot.

Hey,

I'm not an expert on affliction as I typically play destruction, so take this with a grain of salt. Affliction just isn't going to be very good on short lived fights by nature I believe. It's sort of always been difficult to do well with in low HP dungeons where mobs die quickly. I imagine you could do semi well on bosses where you have the time to ramp up your damage.... But trash not so much.

Heck, even as destro I'm lucky to get off double Havoc chaos bolts sometimes depending on the groups gear. Someone else might be able to chime in with better advice than me but I think in general it's just something affliction / rot specs deal with.

[Raynos]

Go Demo, hand of Gul'dan, with implosion or impending doom and grim of service with extra felguard. Sweet sweet aoe.

[Deleted]

Hey there,

I really got a Problem with getting in any amount of DMG in my daily heroic. The Mobs go down so fast, my Dots, and my only AOE, Seed of Corruption are just useless. Even most bosses die so fast, that Agony won't stack up to 20 stacks.

How do you deal with that? What Talents would be the better choice for that? Don't want to change my Specc to Destro, the new Destro is just not my playstyle .

P.S.: My DPs in Raids is fine, since most mobs live long enough . Especially if I can multi-dot.

Persevere. This will pick up in Legion, where you can time your CD (from the Scythe) with Phantom Singularity and Sow the Seeds, and where you have 2 gold dragon artifact talents to help you: one deals damage around every mob you kill, so on a big pack of weak trash you have lots of explosions, the other lets you boost your overall damage from killing adds, so you fuel yourself by killing adds and push the dps into the the boss.

You're probably still not going to be the ace of burst AoE, but these things will prop you up (and can really do some badass damage on fights where you get a steady stream of adds to feed you).

[Uzkin]

Hey there,

I really got a Problem with getting in any amount of DMG in my daily heroic. The Mobs go down so fast, my Dots, and my only AOE, Seed of Corruption are just useless. Even most bosses die so fast, that Agony won't stack up to 20 stacks.

How do you deal with that? What Talents would be the better choice for that? Don't want to change my Specc to Destro, the new Destro is just not my playstyle .

P.S.: My DPs in Raids is fine, since most mobs live long enough . Especially if I can multi-dot.

Destro wouldn't be a good choice, anyway. It might even be worse than affli actually. The Legion changes made destro MUCH WEAKER in daily heroics (compared to how it was in WoD or MoP)

It now has much slower AoE, much slower Havoc application, much slower (and weaker) Shadowburn casts all of which ensure that destro is now dramatically nerfed vs. trash. At the same time the removal of Backdraft from baseline, removal of Dark Soul, the lessened ability to pool Chaos Bolts, and the lolrng mastery ensure that boss dps is horribly low as well.

In summary, Legion destruction is total crap (in comparison to WoD destro) in current daily heroics. This problem will no doubt be present in "overgeared" content in Legion, as well. It is annoying when they destroy parts of a versatile, nicely functional spec like this

[Nhiosis]

Destro wouldn't be a good choice, anyway. It might even be worse than affli actually. The Legion changes made destro MUCH WEAKER in daily heroics (compared to how it was in WoD or MoP)

It now has much slower AoE, much slower Havoc application, much slower (and weaker) Shadowburn casts all of which ensure that destro is now dramatically nerfed vs. trash. At the same time the removal of Backdraft from baseline, removal of Dark Soul, the lessened ability to pool Chaos Bolts, and the lolrng mastery ensure that boss dps is horribly low as well.

In summary, Legion destruction is total crap (in comparison to WoD destro) in current daily heroics. This problem will no doubt be present in "overgeared" content in Legion, as well. It is annoying when they destroy parts of a versatile, nicely functional spec like this

Destroy is completely fine in heroics. Really actually pretty phenomenal.

The thing is, MoP and WoD destro are gone. I miss them too, but comparing does nothing for us now.

We just have to adapt.

[Uzkin]

Destroy is completely fine in heroics. Really actually pretty phenomenal.

Destro is nowhere near 'phenomenal' in current (prepatch lvl 100) heroics. And that's what the topic was about. You can do some damage with the Shadowburn/GoSac spec but basically the spec is way too slow now at pumping out damage: most other dps classes/specs can burst down the trash much faster while, at the same time, still have much higher burst damage vs. the (quickly-dying) bosses. This is one aspect of destro that was pretty thoroughly ruined by the Legion changes.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Hey there,

I really got a Problem with getting in any amount of DMG in my daily heroic. The Mobs go down so fast, my Dots, and my only AOE, Seed of Corruption are just useless. Even most bosses die so fast, that Agony won't stack up to 20 stacks.

How do you deal with that? What Talents would be the better choice for that? Don't want to change my Specc to Destro, the new Destro is just not my playstyle .

P.S.: My DPs in Raids is fine, since most mobs live long enough . Especially if I can multi-dot.

Maybe this won't make you feel better, but affliction's AOE burst in legion with the artifact gold trait soul flame and the talent sow the seeds is very very strong. soul flame itself covers when stuff dies fast and allows you to still do huge damage.

Just wait a few weeks

[Kirroth]

Maybe this won't make you feel better, but affliction's AOE burst in legion with the artifact gold trait soul flame and the talent sow the seeds is very very strong. soul flame itself covers when stuff dies fast and allows you to still do huge damage.

Just wait a few weeks

Also, don't take end of expansion overgearing to be a representative sample of how dungeons will play out in the next expansion. Those mobs and bosses aren't going to die anywhere close to that quickly once we're through the gear reset. It'll take a year or two before heroic dungeons are melting that quickly. And when they do? It won't matter, because heroic dungeons will be the new LFR. What's going to matter is boss adds in the third tier or high level Mythic+ dungeons where the mobs have scaled up along side you.

The crazy instant AoE burst that's melting heroic dungeons is an aberration with a very short lifespan. Don't worry about it too much.

[Nhiosis]

Destro is nowhere near 'phenomenal' in current (prepatch lvl 100) heroics. And that's what the topic was about. You can do some damage with the Shadowburn/GoSac spec but basically the spec is way too slow now at pumping out damage: most other dps classes/specs can burst down the trash much faster while, at the same time, still have much higher burst damage vs. the (quickly-dying) bosses. This is one aspect of destro that was pretty thoroughly ruined by the Legion changes.

Huh. Weird then. I usually start a pull out with a havoc double chaos bolt and a shadowburn snipe or two, and lead the charts by a mile or more. It's becomes even better if I go into a group of trash with full shards. 100k dps is pretty normal, but maybe that's bad? I don't know. I figured I was doing well.

[xpose]

Affliction should not even bother trying to dot trash that dies within a couple seconds, the build is not designed for quick burst type instances.

- - - Updated - - -

Huh. Weird then. I usually start a pull out with a havoc double chaos bolt and a shadowburn snipe or two, and lead the charts by a mile or more. It's becomes even better if I go into a group of trash with full shards. 100k dps is pretty normal, but maybe that's bad? I don't know. I figured I was doing well.

People are still learning the builds so its not surprising we see "this build is complete trash" because there's a clear difference in talent choices when doing 5 mans/pvp/raiding.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all the input, will give the new destro another try, maybe it is love in second-sight .

[Uzkin]

People are still learning the builds so its not surprising we see "this build is complete trash" because there's a clear difference in talent choices when doing 5 mans/pvp/raiding.

FYI, the talents I mentioned ARE the best talents for current 5man heroics...

[TheLimonTree]

GoSac + Sow the seeds + life drain to pop the seed. On short lived adds(not even sure why you care about dps on these) the splash from GoSac will get you on the board. On longer lived adds, keep your agony up if only just for shards, your main DPS will still come from Seed and GoSac cleave.

If you're running haunt that's a quick way to pop them too!

[PowerOfTwo]

Mmmm, soul flame is sort of propping up Afflicitons AoE right now, tho i'd look at soul flame as fire Nova 2.0 basicaly. Once soul flame starts going of it's likely AAAALOT of it's damage will be overkill as the rest of the pack is on 10-20% hp by this point, buuuuuut if you can pop a pack of rats on "Deathcaller" / Boss, that's fairly decent damage. On the other Hand StS + GoSac + PS (it's damage got doubled recenlty) IS fairly good damage tho not exactly on Brostorm levels of burst if anything live ~8 sec mark OR MORE , expect to be toping those meeter easily.

Aff weakness realy is Patchwerk fights, wich there are none of in the first Legion tier, the problem Aff has IMO is it's Legiondaries are by far the worst of the bunch so rngesus willing you'll be able to play Aff for tier one but don't actualy keep your loot spec on Aff, keep it on Destro / Demo

[Deleted]

Mmmm, soul flame is sort of propping up Afflicitons AoE right now, tho i'd look at soul flame as fire Nova 2.0 basicaly. Once soul flame starts going of it's likely AAAALOT of it's damage will be overkill as the rest of the pack is on 10-20% hp by this point, buuuuuut if you can pop a pack of rats on "Deathcaller" / Boss, that's fairly decent damage. On the other Hand StS + GoSac + PS (it's damage got doubled recenlty) IS fairly good damage tho not exactly on Brostorm levels of burst if anything live ~8 sec mark OR MORE , expect to be toping those meeter easily.

Aff weakness realy is Patchwerk fights, wich there are none of in the first Legion tier, the problem Aff has IMO is it's Legiondaries are by far the worst of the bunch so rngesus willing you'll be able to play Aff for tier one but don't actualy keep your loot spec on Aff, keep it on Destro / Demo

How many legendaries can you equip btw.? Was it one, or two? The afflictions ones are *really* lackluster compared to Destro, but how likely is it to get legendaries in the first place? Will pretty much everyone at least have 1?

As for Soulflame, these were my thoughts too but after paying attention to how mobs die in AoE fights, it's still very useful and will start chain reactions. Some specs have decent ST damage while doing AoE and that's basically where Soulflame should become interesting, 1 targets dies early and another might follow and so on and so forth.

[Deleted]

How many legendaries can you equip btw.? Was it one, or two? The afflictions ones are *really* lackluster compared to Destro, but how likely is it to get legendaries in the first place? Will pretty much everyone at least have 1?

As for Soulflame, these were my thoughts too but after paying attention to how mobs die in AoE fights, it's still very useful and will start chain reactions. Some specs have decent ST damage while doing AoE and that's basically where Soulflame should become interesting, 1 targets dies early and another might follow and so on and so forth.

1 at launch, after 1-1.5 months of doing class hall advancements you can equip 2.

While I do not know 100%, from what I gathered most classes has legendaries with decent dps upgrades, 1 who is a massive and some niche/utility.

For Aff, I think the legendaries actually look fine. The general warlock legendary (http://www.wowhead.com/item=132379/sindorei-spite) is insane, this one looks good too (http://www.wowhead.com/item=132394/h...ternal-disdain) as it both gives you more dmg on your best dot aswell as more shards.

Remember getting a legendary is 80% that you recieve a max ilvl item (895 in the nightmare/launch patch) - and is basicly a mythic titanforged (+15) item. The remaining 20% is the effect. If you get a legendary like this http://www.wowhead.com/item=132378/s...hs-dark-strike - it has some utility, and is a BiS item.

[Deleted]

After they put the legendary vendor back in beta, I was able to test a couple of them for Destro, and I have to say, they are all rather lackluster:
- Additional shard from fire spell --> proccs rather badly
- Split chaos bolt --> proccs badly and does not apply eradication debuff
- Havoc one is nice to avoid respeccing
- Rain of Fire one is interesting, but very difficult to see a benefit.

[Deleted]

After they put the legendary vendor back in beta, I was able to test a couple of them for Destro, and I have to say, they are all rather lackluster:
- Additional shard from fire spell --> proccs rather badly
- Split chaos bolt --> proccs badly and does not apply eradication debuff
- Havoc one is nice to avoid respeccing
- Rain of Fire one is interesting, but very difficult to see a benefit.

excuse me? If the item description is to be trusted

It's 15% for the fire spell legendary, which is *a lot*.
30% for the Chaosbolt one which will lead to an additional chaos bolt every second cast due to havoc.