Is anybody else concerned about the direction Affliction is heading? They said they want to reduce the significance of channeling Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul which so many have asked for and i'm totally agreeing with that. But this is what they actually did:
- Nerfed MG and DS damage by 40%.
- Almost exclusively buffed the damage and damage modifier of Haunt ... by 50% WTF!!!
- A little but meaningless buff to dot damage which doesnt even compensate for former nerfs to Corruption.
- Instant application of all dots in one move became even more powerful and less expensive.
- Increased the generation rate of Soul Shards in single target situtations.
This is not what i expected when these changes where originally announced. How i would have done it:
- Nerf MG and DS damage.
- Exclusively increase damage of dots to compensate.
- Leave Haunt as it is: A 30% modifier has a significant but not to strong impact as a burst mechanic.
- Remove the ability to apply all dots instantly to encourage casting and prevent overpowered multitarget performance.
- Keep or even reduce the rate of generating shards in a single target situation.
In my opinion Affliction should be first and foremost about dots. I really liked the situation in WotLK and even Cata. Five different dots seems overkill to me too and even having three powerful and distinctive ones is better than four copies of the same spell. But MoP dots are weaker than ever before. Part of considerable dots is having a sense of accomplishments if you apply them especially to more than one target. But in 5.4 all we are going do is spam that Soul Swap button, either with our without using Soulburn. I really liked this ability in Cata when it was a low cooldown ability to quickly swap targets, not the go-to tool to spread dots.
I'm glad they realized that filler spells were a too big part of our damage but now the spec will be all about maintaining a high uptime of Haunt and even spamming it in some situations. The combination of more shards and a buff to Haunt will give it the same significance that channeling MG previously had. I supposed this spell was a possibility to give some parts of our rotation a considerable but reasonable emphasis but now it buffs large parts of our damage by nearly 50% ... our damage will be weak if it is not applied, like it is now without casting filler spells.
Please tell me what you are thinking about the PTR changes.