Affliction - 100 talent and new T20 bonuses.

[Coldfire989]

Regardless of the shadow bolt bs...

The execute talent is pretty lame, and very lazy. I hope that gets changed really soon. "up to" being the key phrase here.

I doubt it will change as some have said they probable dont really have or want to take the time to design something brand new.

[Demonpuke]

Good news everyone! SL is buffed to 450% SP!

wouldnt that buff totally negate the use of the new talent DE? seems counter-intuitive

if SL is doing so much damage it becomes the mandatory talent in all situations ST and MT

its all in limbo right now so its all good fun speculation.

[Deleted]

wouldnt that buff totally negate the use of the new talent DE? seems counter-intuitive

if SL is doing so much damage it becomes the mandatory talent in all situations ST and MT

its all in limbo right now so its all good fun speculation.

Shadow embrace would ve better on longer fights (with malefic) or multidotting (with WiA).

EDIT: Or maybe, I hope, a legitimate 0 difference in multidotting. Pick DE if you don't like having to refresh many dots, pick SL if you're the kind of person who liked 3.0 affli. Then you can spec also into Contagion and try to maximize UA uptime on multi, or ACorr and relieve yourself from the pianist job.

[Fleckens]

Give affliction an arguably(way stronger but slightly less situations it works in) better twist of fate, one of the few things that priest is used for. And yet still not a single priest change, it really does seem like they just want warlock to be a better priest in every single way.

[Grizelda]

Interesting.

I expected them to replace SE with an old ability like Soul Swap. I didn't expect them to raid the PvP talents.

I was hoping for a talent or tier set that reduces our GCD. It would help tremendously with multi target fights. I think we used to have reduced GCD through talents pre Cata but I forget.

[Joryy]

Give affliction an arguably(way stronger but slightly less situations it works in) better twist of fate, one of the few things that priest is used for. And yet still not a single priest change, it really does seem like they just want warlock to be a better priest in every single way.

It is significantly worse than twist of fate.

Twist of fate procs a buff that effects all of your damage. It's up most of botanist and tich. This only effects actual execute damage. The existence of a single add that dies will make twist better.

[TheLimonTree]

In what world does it make sense for a demon "hunter" to change into a demon? dumb af

A: Because they use their immense power against them
B: Because they are both hunters of demons, and demons who hunt

[Pelleas]

So, assuming we take the new Haunt and the new SL for ST, what is our new rotation?
It's going to feel weird to put 3 DOTs, then at least 1 UA and have shards left for spamming haunts? Or, are we just using 1 haunt for the 30% damage buff and spam DOTs/UA on that?

[Deleted]

So, assuming we take the new Haunt and the new SL for ST, what is our new rotation?
It's going to feel weird to put 3 DOTs, then at least 1 UA and have shards left for spamming haunts? Or, are we just using 1 haunt for the 30% damage buff and spam DOTs/UA on that?

Pretty sure haunt has a 30 sec cooldown, so not sure how much spamming you are going to see. Unless you are talking about adds dying?

[Kirroth]

So, assuming we take the new Haunt and the new SL for ST, what is our new rotation?

Remember that the new build took the SS cost off Haunt. So assuming you take Haunt and SL, which I have no idea if that's a good build or not, I think the rotation logic would look something like this.

Maintain Agony, SL, and Corr with that priority order.
Cast Haunt, then dump all your SS on UA.
Continue to cast UA whenever a SS becomes available as long as UA's full duration is less than Haunt's remaining duration.
Once the above is no longer true, start pooling SS until Haunt comes off cooldown and only cast UA to prevent capping.
Channel Drain Soul as filler.

Depending on if Haunt has a significant travel time or not, you might be able to optimize by casting a UA then Haunt then the rest of your UA. I'm also seeing people talking about taking Phantom Singularity and Haunt together, because PS's duration is reduced by Haste so it should easily fit entirely within Haunt's buff. The trouble with that is that the cooldowns don't align. Is it still powerful when only one in three PS aligns with a Haunt? I dunno.

- - - Updated - - -

As a follow up, it's very hard to say anything concrete about 7.2.5 rotations because Afflic's whole damage profile is changing. The MG nerf and 15% buff will have the effect of spreading out a lot of damage that tied up in UA. That means the theorycrafters will have to sim a whole permutation of rotations, talent builds, and legendary choices. And there's no reason to do that till late PTR when the numbers are more finalized.

For example, Corruption's relative damage increase means that Absolute Corruption has gained ground on Contagion. Enough ground to make it a viable alternative? ("Viable" meaning "A difference of only a couple percent theoretical DPS" and not "A difference of 5%-10% total DPS".) What about AC plus Sac's Dark Strike stacked together? What's the performance and playstyle like if you focus your talent picks away from UA and go WiA/AC/SL?

It's going to take some time and work to sort out the answers.

[transparent]

As a follow up, it's very hard to say anything concrete about 7.2.5 rotations because Afflic's whole damage profile is changing. The MG nerf and 15% buff will have the effect of spreading out a lot of damage that tied up in UA. That means the theorycrafters will have to sim a whole permutation of rotations, talent builds, and legendary choices. And there's no reason to do that till late PTR when the numbers are more finalized.

For example, Corruption's relative damage increase means that Absolute Corruption has gained ground on Contagion. Enough ground to make it a viable alternative? ("Viable" meaning "A difference of only a couple percent theoretical DPS" and not "A difference of 5%-10% total DPS".) What about AC plus Sac's Dark Strike stacked together? What's the performance and playstyle like if you focus your talent picks away from UA and go WiA/AC/SL?

It's going to take some time and work to sort out the answers.

Hah, I was literally in the process of replying to you to ask exactly that, I was wondering how this will affect AC over Contagion. AC will definitely get a big boost from the damage increase, especially in council and cleave fights, but I always keep harking back to Haunt affecting all damage to the affect target. That being the case I would think that Contagion would still be the choice to go with due to it's synergy with Haunt and Death's Embrace or SL.

However, perhaps MG could still be a good choice with AC since it free's up GCDs for extra UA casts, so there's that as well.

[Kirroth]

However, perhaps MG could still be a good choice with AC since it free's up GCDs for extra UA casts, so there's that as well.

There's a lot of factors to consider, not least of which is the bosses in Tomb of Sargaras. For example, that theoretical WiA/AC/SL build? It's free from any sort of committed UA burn phase, which raises your mobility. That might or might not be very valuable. It's also going to be very strong on cleave or council fights, but there only look to be a couple of those in Tomb.

Simcraft is not anything I ever mastered, certainly not to the point of programming it to sim new potential rotations. So I'm just pondering hypotheticals while waiting for the real theorycrafters to do their work.

[Sheevah24]

i don't understand why anyone would pick Phantom Singularity over Sow the Seeds...

The ONLY situation i can think of is Spellblade . Anywhere else, PS will be a waste because the target you cast it on will mostly likely die before PS does even 70% of it's dmg .

And Forcing us into Soul Harvest feels wrong . Past experience shows us that Blood Lust is cast at the beginning of most fights. And we don't wanna be popping SH on pull because Agony has got to ramp up. One might say we might be able to barely fit SH duration with full stacks of Agony before BL expires but then we lose all the trinket procs. See where i'm going with this?

Death's embrace, while it is a rushed exchange for Soul Effigy,it could still have it's uses. And anyone who would expect Blizzard to actually make up a whole new game-changing lvl 100 talent was just hoping in vain. It's logical.

I suppose the dmg increase will start at 35% dmg at 35% hp and ramp up to 50% when the target Reaches 20% hp. Makes sense. and it would be OP to start at 50% anyway.

[Deleted]

Apparently the ramping effect means it only hits 50% when the target is almost dead at 1% health lol

Just what affliction needed, a new ramping effect lolol

What a joy to use in PUG groups where they kick "low dps" after the first couple of wipes with the boss at 90% or over.

[Demoros]

I was hoping for a talent with some % of refreshing dots, instead of another damage buff! This talents is a stronger soul effigy that works on movement but only if target is under 35% hp on cleave it can be pretty strong since unlike se it works on every target as long as they are ≤35%! It can be strong on single target and on aoe (this depend on our ability to dot everything)! I wonder how it can be on Etraeus! Be ready to see it nerfed in the near future!

[Kirroth]

i don't understand why anyone would pick Phantom Singularity over Sow the Seeds...

The ONLY situation i can think of is Spellblade . Anywhere else, PS will be a waste because the target you cast it on will mostly likely die before PS does even 70% of it's dmg .

You're missing several points. One is that a lot of the time, people are assessing the talent row for single target damage potential. In that regard Sow the Seeds has zero value, and PS seems a competitive choice with Soul Harvest for one GCD every 40s. Also note that PS can be buffed by both Haunt and Death's Embrace.

Another point you miss is that in a raid fight you throw PS on the boss and let the large AoE hit the adds. While worrying about it ending early is a valid concern, it's a concern for dungeon trash pulls not raid boss fights.

[Deleted]

Yes, but we all know how Blizz reacts to AOE talents people use in their single target rotations - they "do a Rain of Fire" on it

[Kirroth]

Yes, but we all know how Blizz reacts to AOE talents people use in their single target rotations - they "do a Rain of Fire" on it

Cooldowns are different from rotational abilities, in that regard. They don't seem to have a problem with things like Cataclysm or Meteor being a ST damage increase to use.

[Zaroch]

I don't know what you guys are complaining about, these all look fantastic changes to Affliction's gameplay.

If you can't see how useful Death's Embrace is going to be you are probably not raiding in a serious level. Do you not remember how Surrender to Madness SP were the Belle of the ball when it came to ranged casters? This talent is going to be invaluable in progression raiding. People are going to bring Affliction warlocks just because of this talent.

They've removed the shard cost from the Haunt which makes it a totally viable talent in encounters where there are priority adds coming out regularly.

Switching the places of SL and PS makes much more sense in terms of selecting between single target and burst AoE. Also PS is no longer competing with other more powerful talents in the 100 row.

And those tier bonuses are just amazing compared to their earlier iterations. New corruption shard generation might be even better than our current T19 4P bonus. And the new 4P is both powerful and playstyle altering.

Overall I am really happy about those changes.

Edit: I should also add my only concern is Death's embrace starting at 1% when the boss is at 35% and reaching 50% when it is at 1%. It should be changed to something like 20% at 35% and then ramping up to 50%.

[Deleted]

Is the 450% SL damage a bug? Seems weird to be that high.