Been away for a while. Is Afflic decent for pvp yet or is it still trash?

[syphonlife]

Title says it..I am looking to run my lock after a while away I ran demo when I left (after the chaos wave nerf) and still did quit well, is Aff stil the (you need someone to help u kill someone or keep you alive spec?) or has it gotten any either real healing or burst yet? any help from you fellow locks would be appreciated

[Zeekbabz]

If you want to play warlock in PvP, you should go find a private realm - because GMs on live realms hate warlocks, so we are literally the least viable class in PvP.

If you want affliction-like play style, reroll shadowpriest. They are retardedly op and won't get nerfed, like warlocks will the upcomming patch.

[guff]

I have the opposite view of Zeek. Warlocks are really strong at the moment, both in teams and solo. Though aff may not be the strongest specc, i think it should work perfectly fine if you get used to it.

Anyways, warlocks will out-class most opponents and have a great opportunity to outskill the rest. Give it a shot

[Aniza]

Both Warlocks and Shadowpriest issues will be adressed in 5.3:

Warlock:

- A new set bonus on the PvP gear that increases the damage of Corruption, Agony and Unestable Affliction by 10 %.

- Glyph of Siphon Life has been redesigned. Glyph of Siphon Life now heals the Warlock for 0.5% of their maximum health when Corruption or Immolate deal periodic damage.

- Haunt now refunds a Soul Shard when it is dispelled.


Priest:

- Mass Dispel no longer dispels magic effects that are normally undispellable. Cast time has been decreased to 0.5 seconds, down from 1.5 seconds for Discipline and Holy Priests.

- Void Shift had its cooldown decreased to 5 minutes, down from 6 minutes for Discipline and Holy Priests. For Shadow Priests, cooldown has been increased to 10 minutes, up from 6 minutes, and the spell is no longer usable while in Arenas or Rated Battlegrounds.
Glyphs

- Glyph of Mass Dispel has been redesigned and no longer reduces cast time. The glyph now enables Mass Dispel to dispel magic effects that are normally undispellable.

Sources:
1. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/913...able-3_22_2013
2. https://twitter.com/holinka/status/323903906470043648 (PvP set bonus for locks, the 10% number is from checking the PTR)


So I guess warlocks are in a hopeless state, and won't ever get buffed?

Edit: a Shadowpriest nerf this big also means an indirect buff to us. While i'd prefer the Cataclysm playstyle without Malefic Grasp, this is the way affliction works atm. 5.3 will be better for us and we'll just have to live with the changes.

[Rorke]

I think Affliction will be better in 5.3 just because of the nerfs to Shadow. Shadow is currently superior to every caster especially a caster such a affliction that purely relies on sustained pressure.

If you want you can just download the ptr and test out Affliction. It's probably not as bad as people make it out to be but its probably still going to be inferior to Destruction and Demonology. Although, I don't play a Warlock, what the hell do I know.

[Aniza]

I think Affliction will be better in 5.3 just because of the nerfs to Shadow. Shadow is currently superior to every caster especially a caster such a affliction that purely relies on sustained pressure.

If you want you can just download the ptr and test out Affliction. It's probably not as bad as people make it out to be but its probably still going to be inferior to Destruction and Demonology. Although, I don't play a Warlock, what the hell do I know.

Not sure about it being inferior to the other specs anymore, these buffs seem to close the gap. But it's all up to the comp one's running ofc.

This post by Chanimals is really good: http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/23...0#entry3878199 (reply #33)

[Deleted]

Destruction is the go-to spec atm and that says it all...
Chaos Bolt crits for 100k if you have all cooldowns running, somewhat less than a BM hunter's pet and alot less than a Power Shot. Both of which are uninterruptable.
We do have great survivability though, but not great enough to survive or tank the pressure put on us by warriors, DKs or hunters.

Not only is Chaos Bolt mind-numbingly hard to get off, but it is also exceptionally unrewarding when you do manage to get it off. From 100% to 0% it would require you to land 5-6 Chaos Bolts, which just isn't realistic.
As Affliction Second Wind will outheal you, as things are now, so no point in playing that, unless you healer can somehow kill warriors.

[jupiteran]

affliction pvp is good albeit could be better. i run wsd for 3's and do ok and in reg bg's its fun just gotta know who to go after. like mages/chickens/s priests/ pallies.
its fun seeing dispel happy healers getting silenced.

[Cirayne24]

Dispel protection is still good, but at least from a RBG stand point Destro is far superior for bursting call targets down.

[Millie]

- Glyph of Siphon Life has been redesigned. Glyph of Siphon Life now heals the Warlock for 0.5% of their maximum health when Corruption or Immolate deal periodic damage.

I don't run this glyph so maybe I'm thinking something incorrect here but I'm pretty sure 20% of my corruption's damage is quite a bit more than the 2000 heal you'd get with 400,000 health.

[Szarala]

I don't run this glyph so maybe I'm thinking something incorrect here but I'm pretty sure 20% of my corruption's damage is quite a bit more than the 2000 heal you'd get with 400,000 health.

are you taking resil into account?

also, I'm still not at all convinced the set bonus change is a net buff. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the longer cd on UR is -huge- (more for the interrupt protection than the damage reduction)

[Cirayne24]

I don't run this glyph so maybe I'm thinking something incorrect here but I'm pretty sure 20% of my corruption's damage is quite a bit more than the 2000 heal you'd get with 400,000 health.

Just a quick check, unbuffed..no procs on a target dummy (so 0 resil) Immolate hit for ~10600 and ticked for ~2040 hp. So with procs/buffs and resil at a static 65%, it will change.

The change would make it static, and may heal more against targets with resil.

If anyone can back that up or say otherwise let me know...busy writing my final so I can't really do much.

**Edit**
Forgot to mention Battle Fatigue. I believe that also will affect the heal.

[Kirroth]

Afflic's PvP weaknesses have been often overstated. Yes, you need protection from your team to be highly effective, but unless you're only doing pug BGs you should be able to get that protection. It doesn't have the same monster burst of Destro or Demo, but at the same time you're not forced to spend time building resources. Afflic can burst from a cold start and gets a decent amount of that burst back on a kill. Those aren't traits to write off casually.

Destro makes for great vids because Chaos Bolt is more dynamic than channeling someone down, but don't write off Afflic as worthless. As always the best spec to use is the spec you'll enjoy playing and can play with skill.

[Szarala]

Afflic's PvP weaknesses have been often overstated. Yes, you need protection from your team to be highly effective, but unless you're only doing pug BGs you should be able to get that protection. It doesn't have the same monster burst of Destro or Demo, but at the same time you're not forced to spend time building resources. Afflic can burst from a cold start and gets a decent amount of that burst back on a kill. Those aren't traits to write off casually.

Destro makes for great vids because Chaos Bolt is more dynamic than channeling someone down, but don't write off Afflic as worthless. As always the best spec to use is the spec you'll enjoy playing and can play with skill.

For many people, random BGs make up the bulk of their pvp, and those people that play Aff can tell how much spectacular fun it is to have a "personal" rogue and/or DK permanently glued to their ass every match.

The biggest weaknesses are keeping separation and susceptibility to lockout, with the former being a major contributor to the latter.

I think making CoEx 50% baseline would help (would make taking that shard-eating glyph less mandatory, and honestly is there any real reason for it still being 30%? Part of me thinks this is an overlooked remnant from when we had Shadowflame). Maybe move the interrupt protection of Unending Resolve to its own ability with a much shorter CD. Maybe give us a castable fire spell to juke with.

edit: oh, and reduce the ridiculous health penalty to Burning Rush to make it at least -somewhat- competitive to the other separation talents.

[Ailerist]

Tired of hearing these carebear comments about how ull enjoy this or that depending on what you like. What a load of trash, like seriously. Back in 5.2, my dk was same gear, same IL as my lock. Blood plague and and Frost fevor tick for more then all 3 of my dots combined. This is assuming 55 and change pvp power for both think my lock is actually at 56 towards 57ish due to gems and 22k and change spellpower. Dk's can roll up and guess what not only does his dots do more then afflic his oblit and frost strikes can crit as much as my lock can doing a chaos bolt in pvp, instantly, repitiously. Now with 25% nerf to corruption, sure u can put silence pressure on healers and dot people up but thats about it. Anyone in a rbg is gonna smash ur face in for lulz or totally ignore u cauz you dont do shit. And believe me, if its a choice for the healers to focus heal you or another, you can sure as shit bet that ur screwed. Try affliction for urself, duel some people. Hell, duel a healer because healers can out dps u in pvp. Quite infact, a resto druids moonfire ticks for more then corruption and actually has a solid damage component to it. So in the end, the answer to the op's question is, no affliction is garbage.

[Nicola]

Just gonna leave this here as it seems people are unaware of this, but currently the healing done by Siphon Life is calculated on the damage you'd do on 0% Resilience.
The new Siphon Life is a nerf for Destruction and a minor buff for Affliction ( Mainly due MG ticks healing for more). Demonology remains somewhat the same, I'm too lazy to calculate if it's a minor nerf or a buff.

[Sonicator]

Also remember that the 25% corruption nerf before, makes this buff for us do 2% more dmg then we had prenerf. And even prenerf aff was kinda terrible. So we gain very slight dmg bonus while losing very slight survivability (20sec off UR).
Also I'm quite sure with the new siphon life is a nerf after all due to them buffing Battle Fatigue from 30% to 45% (even after calculating the benefit from pvp power to healing)
Even if Im wrong on that one, they glyph is still trash, cause if you get healed for 900 or 1k isnt really going to save you.

But yeah, affliction is quite trash. Played quite a lot of 3s as RLS, and 90% of the time when we got someone low and rogue got peeled of, the target lived due to not having any burst to finish the player off. Yes, you do massive amounts of dmg on scoreboard, but its useless dmg that doesnt matter. Only real class that has some consistant dmg that really pays off in the slightest is dk. Consistant pressure is pretty much dead in this game and replaced with burst. Guess one of the better comps for aff locks is shadowcleave, which can do quite well, but it still can have the problem of finishing someone off due to the nature of how its dmg works.

Guess their at least buffing haunt to give a shard back if dispelled, but how often in reality you can have haunt up on target, when most of the time its beneficial to bank shards for sb:ss. If your going for kill sure, you should use haunt, but if everything get dispelled and you get 1 shard, your most likely going to want dots back up on the target instead of just haunt.