WoD Beta Affliction Discussion

[Jessicka]

more shards from removing the nightfall cap(recent corr casted) will certainly help smoothen out the spec and buff the amount of shards from drain soul on adds dying or replace the shard cost on soulswap with charges is needed too i think. once these thing has been done, all it really needs is a buff. afflic is certainly still far off from being a viable spec and tuning is needed.

The problem is, removing the cap or increasing proc chances in any way leaves you in a position where with 'enough' Haste or targets you'll be generating enough Shards to maintain 100% Haunt debuff up time. After that point, Shards lose their value entirely, and any notion of 'skill' in managing them disappears entirely, since you can't do better than 100% uptime covering absolutely every proc and encounter event - it simply becomes a fourth DoT timer to manage.

The whole point is to want more. The spec has been, and will continue to be balanced around 60-75% up time as we go through the tiers. That's fine; if the spec is underperforming (I've seen nothing to suggest it is, quite the opposite), then it'll be buffed in ways that aren't Nightfall proc increases.

We must remember to, that the proc chance was cut to allow for the so called "perk" that increases Haunt duration. I don't think that was good design, shorter Haunts allowed more flexibility in the rotation between extending DoTs through Pandemic; and you actually cast Haunt more which felt good and more meaningful as you got more out of it. It is what it is though, these are things I complained about these things the entire Beta. Affliction though as a spec was frankly, otherwise broadly ignored for feedback.

If we could get a Glyph that reverts that switch, increasing Nightfall proc chance by 2% and cutting Haunt duration by 2s; I'd be all over it.

[Zulantu]

More shards would be a QOL thing, like paladins and their holy power, but it's not going to fix any underlying issues.

It will feel a tad better under niche circumstances, but it will NOT fix the issues affliction has, which there are plenty of.
I can understand people wanting more shards, but I can only say that it's better to focus feedback on other things, because it's hard enough getting Blizzard to go back on bad changes as is and the door is closing rapidly now beta is over. The last thing I want to see is another crappy handout from Blizzard like when Drain Soul was used as the name for that horrible filler instead of MG because people spent ages complaining about that instead of the fact that Drain Soul was cut in everything but name, and our on demand shard generation and execute phase died with it.

tldr; complain about things that matter, extra shards is nice but won't fix anything.

The two other problems are soulswap and AoE. The idea for soulswap working on a charge based system seems quite nice and fits the way HoG and conflag do. How do you fix affliction's AoE without buffing too much into dot's?

[Deleted]

fixing afflic's aoe isnt that hard, the most straightforward way is to simply buff seed of corruption and be done with it, also as i mentioned earlier, you could make soulswap into something similar to the dk's pestilence which would spread all dots around fast or you could give afflic something similar to the dk's old wandering plague that gives your dots a chance to cleave every1 within a certain range, there are plenty of options.

[Santoisms]

also as i mentioned earlier, you could make soulswap into something similar to the dk's pestilence which would spread all dots around fast or you could give afflic something similar to the dk's old wandering plague that gives your dots a chance to cleave every1 within a certain range, there are plenty of options.

I love this idea, like I said before RIFT Warlock had an ability called Radiate Death which spread all dots to on current target to all surrounding targets, it had a 45 second cooldown I believe and it gave their definition of the Warlock some solid dot cleave but not too OP. I also think Affliction needs an execute dot, like a Shadow Word: Death.

[Novx]

I love this idea, like I said before RIFT Warlock had an ability called Radiate Death which spread all dots to on current target to all surrounding targets, it had a 45 second cooldown I believe and it gave their definition of the Warlock some solid dot cleave but not too OP. I also think Affliction needs an execute dot, like a Shadow Word: Death.

So in other words, Blood Boil.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50842/blood-boil

[Santoisms]

So in other words, Blood Boil.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50842/blood-boil

Yeah very similar. I thought the idea worked and I loved the RIFT Warlock gameplay. They also had an execute DoT called Death's Door which was very similar to SW: Death from spriests. I really believe Affliction should be about 4-5 dots + Haunt, reactive procs and a filler. The Spriest that I boosted last week has a better rotation / more fun than Affliction nowadays, i'll be shelving Aff for WoD other than one or two fights in Highmaul.

[Deleted]

sadly, i doubt we will see any of the changes we've seen/mentioned here, there are certainly a lot of decent ones that wouldnt be OP.
as long as the shard regen for afflic is as low as it is, ill be shelving afflic too.

[Santoisms]

sadly, i doubt we will see any of the changes we've seen/mentioned here, there are certainly a lot of decent ones that wouldnt be OP.
as long as the shard regen for afflic is as low as it is, ill be shelving afflic too.

Affliction needs something and glad to see a lot of Warlocks thinking the same thing. Affliction is so boring now from a gameplay perspective as well as the rotation problems that were mentioned above.

[Deleted]

id even settle for a proc that allows you to cast a free haunt, just to give it some much needed depth which would also help out with the shard starvation problem. personally, i think they nerfed nightfall bcoz of the t17 afflic setbonus which wasnt needed at all.

[Werst]

Affliction does need a proc and I agree with almara a shard free instant haunt would be the logical choice. (compare to a FFB/icelance/etc) Balancing aff on T20 levels of haste during the first tier isn't acceptable either. Kinda doubt blizz cares, we are just so far to the bottom of their QoL fixit list its never going to make the radar. Blizz has left specs more or less dead for tiers before, I see no reason why they will sweep in to the rescue now.

[xskarma]

With Beta officially being over and release imminent I think it's time we stop using the Beta threads and start fully using the Spec guide stickies.

For Affliction please continue discussion in this thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-Warlock-Guide



CLOSED.