Aff just got nerfed.

[Deleted]

Skorpyion is a unique once in a lifetime bossfight, just like the first few arcway trash groups that blow up in chain reaction style with your soul flame trait (a GOLD trait that is useless 99% of times in raids) our AE is in line with other classes in most other situations, the 5 million dps also requires you to play the boss wrong (standing on the spawnpoint of the adds) which is only possible if you are way overgeared / your dmg doesnt matter anyway. We are not the best cleave class, we are not even the best multidot class, look at the only multidot fight in nigthold (hc botanist), we are getting raped by shadowpriests. Not sure where you get this from. Shadows easily deal ~600k more dps on that boss and they dont even have to reapply every dot manually.

Agree on Scorp: A well-played Fire mage easily out-dpses us there if cheesing meters (tank at spawnpoint).

Botanist is a different story, especially in mythic: While the in-game dps meters might show a different story, the logs show aff locks far at the top, because cheesing on the other adds is non-relevant dps (individual mobs heal to full when 1 dies).

If we are 100% honest with ourselves, a nerf to affliction was merited. The extent of it, though, and especially the stupid attempt to revive effigy that is contrary to the T20 set are just wrong. No clue what this haunt change is targeting. With Haunt costing a shard, and not benefitting at all from any weapon trait, it will always be inferior to a simple UA.

Well, Destro was good first tier, Affli second, I guess Blizzard's logic is: Let's make Demo best in the 3rd tier, then we're really fair

[lonely zergling]

Agree on Scorp: A well-played Fire mage easily out-dpses us there if cheesing meters (tank at spawnpoint).

Botanist is a different story, especially in mythic: While the in-game dps meters might show a different story, the logs show aff locks far at the top, because cheesing on the other adds is non-relevant dps (individual mobs heal to full when 1 dies).

If we are 100% honest with ourselves, a nerf to affliction was merited. The extent of it, though, and especially the stupid attempt to revive effigy that is contrary to the T20 set are just wrong. No clue what this haunt change is targeting. With Haunt costing a shard, and not benefitting at all from any weapon trait, it will always be inferior to a simple UA.

Well, Destro was good first tier, Affli second, I guess Blizzard's logic is: Let's make Demo best in the 3rd tier, then we're really fair

I didnt claim affliction warlock isnt top on mythic bota. The dude I replied to claimed affliction warlock is the best cleave spec/multi dot spec. Its not the case if we look at the only availabe multi dot fight (HEROIC botanist).

[vaeevictiss]

I prefer we didn't get ST DPS tied to MG.

I like WiA playstyle far better. I was so much more mobile.

i really like the WiA/AC playstyle from a movement standpoint. The problem is it is nowhere near as strong as MG/Cont. They shouldnt have to nerf the top spec to get us to play the second best spec. How about nerfing the top spec then increasing the damage of Agony and Corr?

[Baconeggcheese]

Aaaaand now I'm back to not knowing where to spend my AP. Great. Might as well flip a coin at this point.

Personally I got all my gold traits and am now dumping in destro because its my preferred spec.

The knowledge ramp is so insanely high over time that any short term gains are pretty meaningless in the long run. Blizz did a really good job with reworking AP in 7.2.

If I were you, I'd do the same as what I did. Get gold traits in any specs you may play / care about and then just dump into your favorite spec.

[Lucrece]

i really like the WiA/AC playstyle from a movement standpoint. The problem is it is nowhere near as strong as MG/Cont. They shouldnt have to nerf the top spec to get us to play the second best spec. How about nerfing the top spec then increasing the damage of Agony and Corr?

Oh I don't disagree, the baseline damage of dots needs to come up.

DoT specs should always dominate sustained single target imo anyways. Demo and affliction need to sit at the top of ST. Anything less and there's no point to it. Granted affliction shouldn't be doing mroe ST than demo because demo is a true turret with less cleave potential than affliction.

Personally I got all my gold traits and am now dumping in destro because its my preferred spec.

The knowledge ramp is so insanely high over time that any short term gains are pretty meaningless in the long run. Blizz did a really good job with reworking AP in 7.2.

If I were you, I'd do the same as what I did. Get gold traits in any specs you may play / care about and then just dump into your favorite spec.

Yeah, my guildmates are sitting at like 45-46 traits in their main weapon.

I'm sitting at 42 affliction, 42 demo, and 43 on destro (and will continue to dump there).

Of course my frost mage guildie sees no reason to dump on anything more than frost because frost is retarded and knowing how effective mages are at campaigning to get their way I don't see that changing too much into the future.

People complain about warlock output but for the shit mobility we have with no double blinks or ice block cheese we SHOULD be doing more damage when we get to plant and cast than some mage or hunter who just don't have to give a shit.

Seeing ice lance do more damage than a chaosbolt gives me heartburn.

[Count Zero]

Personally I got all my gold traits and am now dumping in destro because its my preferred spec.

The knowledge ramp is so insanely high over time that any short term gains are pretty meaningless in the long run. Blizz did a really good job with reworking AP in 7.2.

If I were you, I'd do the same as what I did. Get gold traits in any specs you may play / care about and then just dump into your favorite spec.

Well without knowing what to do and with bag space in limited supply I've just been dumping big tokens into Aff and small ones into Destro

[Scroff]

If they would make a statement that explains the intent of the changes then there would be less FUD amongst locks. I guess what they're aiming for is to allow us to choose between nuking short lived adds with haunt, multi-dot in council fights with writhe, and tunnel ST with grasp. I think that's great, I do enjoy switching up talents to match the situation. But tell us (and balance the outputs)!

However I don't think that the T20 bonuses play well into the above so it feels like there isn't joined-up thinking in the afflock design department.

[Deleted]

Would have been nice for affliction to be viable for at least one raid progression race lol. These massive overnerfs plus the fact we effectively have no set bonuses in tomb mean affliction will fall to middle to lower pack for single target and only really be strong on near non existent council style fights. Good news is they always listen to feedback though, much like the new set bonuses have been open to feedback.

I also have to wonder how long that fatal echoes bug has been in place, considering it took then about 5 months to fix Wrath of consumption to actually double under reap with me constantly reporting the bug from mid September, also pretty sure Harvester of Souls is still bugged to this day.

[dmon83]

With the next tier, afflocks would have probably streaked even further ahead than 10 points if Malefic grasp stayed at 70%. The simple fact of mastery being so cheap to get extra % damage on dots that applies before MG is massive. It's already so easy to get to 120-150% mastery, I can see top afflocks getting 200% mastery in Tomb. So Malefic grasp would have ended up being effectively an extra 210% dps off of tooltip dps. Now it'll stay at about the 150% dps increase that it's at now.

[Count Zero]

If they would make a statement that explains the intent of the changes then there would be less FUD amongst locks. I guess what they're aiming for is to allow us to choose between nuking short lived adds with haunt, multi-dot in council fights with writhe, and tunnel ST with grasp. I think that's great, I do enjoy switching up talents to match the situation. But tell us (and balance the outputs)!

However I don't think that the T20 bonuses play well into the above so it feels like there isn't joined-up thinking in the afflock design department.

Quick note about intent would have been great ... whether they think Aff needs to be brought down or are they just rebalancing. Considering the specs have been on a buff/nerf rollercoaster this xpac (that I seem to have always been on the wrong side of) I really think this was warranted.

[syllabic]

The blue post on the front page say " We’re rapidly iterating on these changes (and some of them are already outdated compared to our internal test environments) but please give us any feedback you can on what you see"

Don't get your panties in a bunch so fast.

MFW someone actually believes blizzard when they say this

Oh sweet summer child

[Baconeggcheese]

MFW someone actually believes blizzard when they say this

Oh sweet summer child

Blizzard absolutely reads and acts upon constructive feedback where they can, and they very clearly are rapidly iterating on changes as we've already seen things change mechanically from one build to the next for destro.

[skitzin]

While I agree completely that Blizzard has let us down many a time, most of the issues this tier relate to unfun mechanics and terrible talent options rather than throughput. Complaining about damage at this point is just wasting time and making it harder for them to filter out more useful talent/mechanics feedback.

At the same time feedback on damage is still important.

You can have the best mechanics ever but they ultimately don't mean much if the numbers aren't backing it up. And given that this set of changes are a mixture of both damage changes and mechanical changes it would be fair to give feedback on both.

I do agree that whining is worthless as people just automatically tune that out of mind and sight. But I still feel like feedback with or without numbers stating that you feel an ability to be weak or that your overall damage feels weak to be still valid feedback.

=====
On topic feedback:

For example, I feel that the nerf is a bit too much given that the current T20 bonus basically pushes for an MG style play. We could say that this is balancing an ability that is set to get powerful but I do feel like it might be too far particularly without any decent options competing for ST/AoE fights in that tier range.

Additionally, I would point out that I feel the changes to Haunt are in following a trend that further pushes people towards MG style play.

Essentially Haunt will now compete with UA for shards. This means less UAs which has the potential to further reduce our damage.

The issue is that affliction is currently designed around pumping out as many UAs as possible, taking into account artifact and relic boosts, over the course of a fight. To that end, we already avoid taking GoServ for the same reason that it costs shards which are better spent on UAs.

So I do wonder how the hell this is meant to make Haunt more attractive on any fight that isn't heavy movement?

Couple this with the changes to Soul Conduit which means less shards via that particular talent means our shard budget it getting a lot tighter.

Nothing wrong with this but I am spending a shard on something I want to know that I am getting my money's worth so to speak.

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard absolutely reads and acts upon constructive feedback where they can, and they very clearly are rapidly iterating on changes as we've already seen things change mechanically from one build to the next for destro.

I think their main focus will be destruction sadly.

Whilst I do not doubt it will do wonders for that particular specialization I cannot help but wonder how crude the changes will be for the other specializations and in fact even classes that are not getting this level of focus. And frankly I have significant doubts of exactly how much attention Blizzard will put into other specializations such as affliction. :/

[Xorn]

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/11#boss=1863

Have fun. Elemental and Shadow are much weaker at single target.

Ok. Who gives a shit? It's not about damage, it's about not having to farm ap and legendaries for three different specs

[Lucrece]

Ok. Who gives a shit? It's not about damage, it's about not having to farm ap and legendaries for three different specs

Not to mention it's idiotic to bring ele into the discussion when ele is an aoe/cleave colossus and one of the best m+ classes to boot.

World race guilds stacked shadow priests.

How many locks you saw in the top 3? A single destro lock (Bangerzdots) from Method.

[Extremities]

good, fuck affliction

and don't even get me started on this clunky shit spec deprived of its class fantasy, aka demo

Fuck Affliction? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean many others don't and that also doesn't mean it shouldnt be viable. With a 30% dmg nerf, that is Massive for a class that's designed to be a stationary turret. Blizzard has their head up their asses with this change. This has to be one of the largest dmg nerfs Ive seen in all my years of playing this game. That is huge.

[Deleted]

Not to mention it's idiotic to bring ele into the discussion when ele is an aoe/cleave colossus and one of the best m+ classes to boot.

World race guilds stacked shadow priests.

How many locks you saw in the top 3? A single destro lock (Bangerzdots) from Method.

There hasn't been a affliction lock present for any end boss world first kill all expansion, I can't be bothered to check them all but I'd be surprised if there's one for any first boss kill barring joke bosses that get rushed down.

[xuros]

I find it odd that people are shocked that aff is getting the nerf bat. The spec is one of the best at nearly everything. Something had to give.

- - - Updated - - -

Fuck Affliction? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean many others don't and that also doesn't mean it shouldnt be viable. With a 30% dmg nerf, that is Massive for a class that's designed to be a stationary turret. Blizzard has their head up their asses with this change. This has to be one of the largest dmg nerfs Ive seen in all my years of playing this game. That is huge.

Why isnt it viable? Can still go with other talents and still do a shit load of damage. WIll not be the OP MG shit but good players will still do well...

[Baconeggcheese]

I think their main focus will be destruction sadly.

Which makes sense, since destruction by far got the least attention during alpha / beta as well as after launch. It was the very last spec they released on the alpha and received very little changes all the way up til now outside of minor tuning and the one talent swap.

I was very active during alpha and saw an absolute ton of change happen to both aff and demo. It was by no means perfect, but they have been under a microscope receiving pretty significant changes this whole time.

Based on what sigma talked about, I'm expecting them to just shift power back to the dots so that aff becomes more of a multi-dot spec again instead of a ST turret. Personally I see no reason for warlocks to have 2 overlapping specs that are both just single target dot specs. So I'm happy to see them potentially moving aff back to its roots.

I mean, don't you think the tuning on MG is a huge red flag in the first place? When you need your dots to be buffed by a whopping **70%** in order for a talent to be viable, doesn't that give you pause?

Whilst I do not doubt it will do wonders for that particular specialization I cannot help but wonder how crude the changes will be for the other specializations and in fact even classes that are not getting this level of focus. And frankly I have significant doubts of exactly how much attention Blizzard will put into other specializations such as affliction. :/

Considering the heavier changes aff / demo received early on, I don't find it surprising that the changes will likely be smaller going forward vs destro only just now getting the amount of attention affliction / demonology got going back as far as alpha.

Aff and demo really just have 1 thing each that people really hate. Whether or not they'll touch that this .5 patch or wait until the next is up in the air.

[burek]

Affliction went over the top because of this change alongside with new traits. However they left fury warriors with their broken trinket completely untouched, they left frost dks completely untouched for 7.1.5 like they did it with spriests in 7.0.3 and 7.1, now it seems they leave affliction almost untouched in 7.2. until tomb release which is completely irrelevant now because mythic race is over, progression for many guilds is over, etc.

Actually progress is over for only 100 guilds, the vast majority of mythic guilds are still progressing