Affliction is in a TERRIBLE state right now. I know that I originally began playing a Warlock due to how Affliction played in TBC PvP. I was happy to see Affliction work fairly well for much of Cataclysm as well. Although we may defend the state of Demonology because we are Warlocks and Demonology is our last viable arena spec, we have to face the facts: it doesn't require any casting whatsoever and it is not a fun playstyle (I don't like spamming Fel Flame all game waiting for my 2min Dark Soul to come off of CD to do some burst with CWx2.)
Affliction required much more skill, was much more fun to play, and had a better overall feel.
Right now, Affliction multi-DoTing does little to no damage in PvP and subsequently produces no pressure whatsoever. Most of this can be attributed to the fact that Malefic Grasp now does ~45% of your single-target damage as Affliction. This is the WORST thing that could have ever happened to Affliction in PvP short of being unable to cast DoTs simply because we have to use a channel to get ANY damage out in PvP, and idiotically enough, that channel is in the same school as almost every other Affliction spell: Shadow.
I suggest that they do the following to fix Affliction PvP without adversely affecting Affliction PvE (which I realize is fine momentarily):
- Reduce Malefic Grasp damage significantly, make it do slightly more damage than Drain Life so that we can have the option to viably use Drain Life as a filler in PvP rather than Malefic Grasp since passive regen is important for Warlocks due to things like Blood Fear and Life Tap.
- Remove the Soul Shard cost on Haunt. Put it back on an 8 second cooldown. Add the heal back in.
- Double the Glyph of Siphon Life's healing from 20% to 40% and bake the glyph into the baseline spell of Corruption. We need some passive regen of our HP back simply because we'd "fizzle" our selves while damaging without it. No one EVER complained about this in Cataclysm, why was our passive regen crippled?
- In exchange for nerfing Malefic Grasp's damage significantly, increase the damage of DoTs such as UA, Agony and Corruption significantly. Bring back multi-DoTing. Yes, this may increase the damage of Affliction on some fights in PvE, but the Malefic Grasp nerf should make it so that damage overall in PvE is reduced (where you're generally training a single target.)
- This one may sound like a stretch, but ADD SHADOWFLAME BACK IN. Why was this EVER removed? Fun to use, 70% slow, and just imperative for Affliction control overall.