For the longest time I've stood torn between Affliction and Destruction as my primary spec, until I was taught (read forced) to learn how to Affy I got by in the ICC period by spamming my fire like any other destro player- and until I tried Affy it was good. But once I -did- try playing as Affy I quickly forgot the limited-in-spell simplicity of Destro and sunk into my shadow-damage wonder from mid ICC all the way up until pandaland hit.
Now, at first, when the patch had only just hit I thought Affliction was the shit, a shiney new spell that filled the role of shadow bolt -and- drain life as dps and filler both? it seemed insane. But as time went on and I had a chance to feel out the spec a bit more I came to realize something. Four soul shards you need drain soul or a lucky proc to restore? Haunt requiring said shards to cast? and an appalling lack of automatic refreshes on corruption and the lucky UA? my beloved, flowing Affy had become sluggish and slow, chunky and infinity less fun to play while Destruction had been given a work-over and whole new mechanic with a resource that felt fun to use and made for some rapid-fire gameplay? Destruction was not only more fun to play- but now all of a sudden it had the numbers to back up a position as a viable spec. Nothing ever felt quite so fun as laying down a rain of fire, blowing all my embers on some FoB aoe before backing up to spam harvest life between refreshing my rain and AoE immolate. Whereas Affliction was stuck with a slow moving seed, yes the damage did seem higher, back to where it had once been- but with that came a sense of slowness, seeds no longer popped as briskly as before and while Malifc grasp is very much an awesome spell..it had started to feel like the reason my dots had copped some bland changes.
So my question is this...has anybody else found Affliction no longer as fun..or at least dependable to play in the wake of the changes to it and Destruction? I understand Affy still seems to hit harder, but this has less to do with numbers and more with my spec now feeling similar to how Demo once did. Highly dependent on procs and luck while still seeming clunky and somehow unwieldy