1. #1

    Aff pvp after 5.4

    Alright I know there is a 5.4 warlock thread already but everyone is arguing and talking about PVE I don't PVE, with that being said does anyone know how affliction is looking for 5.4? With the dmg increase to haunt and our dots I find myself excited but I don't want to be disappointed once it goes live. So anyone that actually knows how affliction is please tell me your thoughts! Thank you in advance.

  2. #2
    Affliction will have better spread pressure and better single target burst but will be a lot squishier once people are geared with the new seasons gear. Demo still has no damage outside of meta and people will still shut you down every 2 minutes and then laugh at your weak damage the rest of the time. And destro needs its damage on all its core abilities buffed because its damage is as laughable as non meta demo and chaos bolt needs to either have its cast time lowered or gain some form of instant proc. Other than that its what one would expect based on the patch notes.

  3. #3
    I see and I understand where you are coming from but we are getting healed for 3% of all the dmg we do plus our own self heals along with un ending resolve. I can't imagine we will be that bad. But i guess only time will tell!

  4. #4
    We're squishy vs. cleaves atm, and it's going to be worse in 5.4. We probably won't take SL vs. cleaves anyway (Pact or DB vs. non casters will be superior imo). That being said, Aff burst dmg is stupid unless they nerf it (they probably will). Just play with a rogue or a mage for ridiculousness if they dont

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Natixsphere View Post
    I see and I understand where you are coming from but we are getting healed for 3% of all the dmg we do plus our own self heals along with un ending resolve. I can't imagine we will be that bad. But i guess only time will tell!
    3% of the damage we deal isn't that much healing. I think with 20k average dps "someone correct me if I'm wrong" it equals about 600hps which with our health pools doesn't equal much. Battle fatigue really needs to get looked at if healing is how our defensives are gonna be balanced "like it was in the past". Sac pact,drain life,dark regen, and healthstone all took huge hits and with a new tier of gear to increase damage with the same defenses I feel that next season we will have to be babysat by our team mates to be successful like we had to in the past. And that's great for the handful of R1 and multi glad locks out there. But the rest of us get to beat our heads on our keyboards because we can't counter the mongoloids out there who are destined to make our season a living hell.
    Last edited by Lucidious; 2013-07-23 at 05:02 AM.

  6. #6
    Aff seems to be having some burst problem with Haunt, but hopefully it will get addressed before the patch goes live and we're hotfixed to nothingness. Also, Destro is kind of waiting for a numbers pass at this point. To be quite honest, Chaos Bolt needs a decent buff.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    To be honest, aff is very playable as of right now if we are talking 3's comps or 5's or maybe even 2's with the correct healer. Wlock is quite tanky but dots are no longer a laughing matter, dark soul trinket dots and spread em especially with the new soul swap is pretty good, and haunt hits pretty hard aswell. Overall i am okay, we are getting baseline howl, so we have spammable fear, shadowfury probably, and howl plus a blanket silence which can shut down a healer for a decent amount of time. I reckon aff is going to be the most viable spec in 5.4.

    As far as destro goes , yeah the dmg is laughable, nerfed powershots hit for more instant starsurges hit for more. Plus the cast time is so long its just stupid. Allow us to spend 2 soul shards on an instant cast 1 like 2 soul shard pom or something. Destro is the only casting spec left in pvp and we have nothing in return, even getting nerfed in KJC so we can get losed so easily on our 4 minute cb casts.

  8. #8
    Is the Pvp Power nerf to Chaos Bolts reverted yet? Thats basically whats killing destro pvp atm.
    Anyway I am already having a blast with Afflic in 5.3 in BG's. Its gonna get even better in 5.4

  9. #9
    Aff is going to be the new glass cannon. It will have better burst than destro with some actual pressure. However we are still the easiest class to burst down even with soul link. HPS after battle fatigue means we don't even get 1K hps out of things and when focused (almost constantly) that number faceplants even further. The inherent dangers of a spec that can do quite a bit of damage yet also dies super easy is that you are guaranteed to be the first target always. That just isn't a fun playstyle unless you have some R1 glad buddies following you around everywhere you go. Pets are waaaaay too squishy. Battle fatigue neuters every single "survival" mechanic we have yet we can't scale it back with PVP power. You need to either give locks the same pvp power scaling for our healing as we get off our damage or just exempt percentage based healing/absorbs on warlocks from battle fatigue. Its not like locks can escape any melee so we need to be proportionally tanky as we are unable to escape.

  10. #10
    Thank you guys for the responses! From what I have gathered ill just need to make sure I either run RLS for peels and with the rogue buffs should be a lot better or shadow play for the spread pressure and off heals from the shadow priest.

  11. #11
    Aff/ele should be quite a bit of burst and offhealing. Maybe with a Hpal or tree? You basically need someone who can really make the other team pay if they park melee on you while a healer pillars. Shadowplay could work too but not quite the burst of ele which is what the game is devolving into. I'd probably rank it aff/ele (tree or hpal) > rls > shadowplay.

    I just see aff/ele pulling off brutal target swaps and ignoring an ele to park on a lock can legit get mongo melee killed. LSD1 could easily make a comeback. I don't see demo having enough burst but you could run demo/ele if cleaves are really really bad in your battlegroup. Probably run aff gosac vs caster/dot comps, demo vs cleaves since the ele can do most of the burst heavy lifting and what you would need from demo is reliable (compared to say destro) while giving you a lot more escapes. Pets are just too easy for dot comps to kill.

  12. #12
    Deleted
    any one mind do a quick list for me whats changing for aff in 5,4?

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Mortaz View Post
    any one mind do a quick list for me whats changing for aff in 5,4?


    Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
    Warlock (Forums, Talent Calculator)

    Fel Armor: Reduces damage taken by 10%. Increases total health by 10% and the amount of health generated through spells and effects by 10%. Passive.

    Howl of Terror: Howl, causing 5 enemies within 10 yds to flee in fear for 20 sec. Damage caused may cancel Howl of Terror. When hit by a damaging attack, the cooldown on Howl of Terror is reduced by 1 sec. Limited to 5 targets. Warlock - LvL 30 Talent. Instant. 40 sec cooldown. Instant. 40 sec cooldown.

    Soul Leech (Destruction): Your Incinerate, Fel Flame, Shadowburn and Chaos Bolt spells grant you and your pet a shadowy shield that absorbs 10% of the damage dealt for 15 sec.

    Talents

    Breath of Gul'dan: Demonic breath deals 1,068 Shadow damage and applies Shadowflame to all enemies in a 10 yard cone in front of the caster. Shadowflame Reduces movement speed by 30% and deals [ 876 + 13.7% of Spell Power ] Shadowflame damage over 6 sec. Generates 2 Demonic Fury every time it deals damageSends a cone of dark energy before you, reducing the movement speed by 0% of all enemy targets within 10 yards for 6 sec. Warlock - LvL 30 Talent. 6% of Base Mana / 100 Demonic Fury. Instant.20 sec cooldown.

    Kil'jaeden's Cunning: You can cast and channel while moving, but each cast reduces your movement speed by 15% for 6 sec, stacking up to 2 times. Warlock - LvL 90 Talent. Warlock - LvL 90 Talent. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown.

    Mannoroth's Fury: Increases the area of your area of effect damage spells by 500%. Warlock - LvL 90 Talent. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown.

    Item Set Bonuses

    Item - Warlock T16 2P Bonus (New) Conflagrate has a 20% chance to increase the critical strike chance of Immolate and Incinerate by 15%. Unstable Affliction critical hits have a 40% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 30% for 10 sec. Soul Fire has a 20% chance to increase you and your pet's damage dealt by 20%.
    Item - Warlock T16 4P Bonus (New) When a Burning Ember fills up, your critical strike chance is increased by 15% for 5 sec. Haunt has a 20% chance to refund its shard when expiring. Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos have a 20% chance to also cast Hand of Gul'dan at the target.

  14. #14
    New (old) soul link back to give us 20% dmg reduction/transfer. 10% less dmg from trinket set, loss of 10% passive dmg from fel armor.

    Nerf to gate.

    Huge buffs to haunt, decent buffs to UA/Agony, broken buff to Archimonde's Darkness, buff to CC with howl baseline and 45s coil available (which is awesome, it used to be 90s).

    Affliction is already decent in 5.3 (not fotm or broken, but certainly playable). The spread pressure will be ridiculous in 5.4, and *I dont think* (note that I havent done any testing to confirm - just based on numbers above) we will flop too hard to cleaves.

  15. #15
    Mortal Coil is already on a 45 sec CD. Since MoP.

  16. #16
    Cleaves can still dump unhealable damage into afflocks. With 60 sec gateway you just can't get away on your own and a single melee can drop you in a stun through "defensives". That is wearing 2x pvp trinkets and full pvp gear. Didn't try 2x pvp gear and hardcore resilience gemming but I don't think that will make or break the difference. Still feels like you'll die the first time your healer is in a CC they have to sit. Really feels like gate should be 15 sec, 20 tops, for the lock (who cast the gateway) with the 60 sec being for everyone else. That would fix the issue of the lock needing a gateway while it was too strong for the team.

    Harvest life change will not fix pvp since you don't get to channel. Unless I missed a tooltip about it being immune to interrupts or something its still just going to get you shadow locked without any healing. PVE I think it will enable quite a bit of reactive defense particularly with high haste setups. If aff can get peels I think it will be a decent spec but that rachets up the skill (not even the lock's...the team's to baby sit the lock) and makes it the first to be targeted in any situation.

    Spread pressure is higher than live but with only instants you still will not kill even an afk person in less than 30 seconds if not closer to twice that. You will wrack up some numbers but I doubt a healer will feel truly pressured unless you get a chance to cast/channel. At that point aff hurts quite a bit which is why it will comp with something that can give it a chance to cast (mage/rogue) or something that is capable of killing someone on their own if ignored (ele especially).

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Werst View Post
    Cleaves can still dump unhealable damage into afflocks. With 60 sec gateway you just can't get away on your own and a single melee can drop you in a stun through "defensives". That is wearing 2x pvp trinkets and full pvp gear. Didn't try 2x pvp gear and hardcore resilience gemming but I don't think that will make or break the difference. Still feels like you'll die the first time your healer is in a CC they have to sit. Really feels like gate should be 15 sec, 20 tops, for the lock (who cast the gateway) with the 60 sec being for everyone else. That would fix the issue of the lock needing a gateway while it was too strong for the team.

    Harvest life change will not fix pvp since you don't get to channel. Unless I missed a tooltip about it being immune to interrupts or something its still just going to get you shadow locked without any healing. PVE I think it will enable quite a bit of reactive defense particularly with high haste setups. If aff can get peels I think it will be a decent spec but that rachets up the skill (not even the lock's...the team's to baby sit the lock) and makes it the first to be targeted in any situation.

    Spread pressure is higher than live but with only instants you still will not kill even an afk person in less than 30 seconds if not closer to twice that. You will wrack up some numbers but I doubt a healer will feel truly pressured unless you get a chance to cast/channel. At that point aff hurts quite a bit which is why it will comp with something that can give it a chance to cast (mage/rogue) or something that is capable of killing someone on their own if ignored (ele especially).
    Werst, have you played on the PTR? Mind me asking what mmr?

    -Cleaves are only really scary for affliction right now (live) if they contain a hunter to cc the healer while they burst. Hunters should be nerfed down from their overlord status (although im not convinced yet they will be) next season. Honestly, even with gateway its not like any casters can actually kite melee anymore. Gap closers have gotten a lot more powerful than gap openers.
    -Drain life is only barely on my bars right now, and harvest life wont change that.
    -Spread pressure is going to be *way* higher. I play disc right now, and affliction teams already do very strong pressure during cd's. Will probably return to more of a s10 style where the lock is rotting the team, and relying on his partner (rogue/ele/mage) to burst something down from half health in a swap. 2 dark soul's will synergize really well with dance/solar beam/gargoyle.

    The totemic restoration change yesterday is the biggest lock buff of the expansion (and priest buff too).

    I honestly think they are going to increase the base resil for next season. This promotes longer games, and would be another buff to affliction. I havent seen this confirmed anywhere, but having played lots of games this season, i dont possibly see how we could increase ilvl without increasing defensives.

  18. #18
    Deleted
    Harvest Life change is good. Life drain will be a usefull ability. It seems fair that instant cast abilities will not put pressure enough to get a kill...
    I don't really understand your point because warlock 5.4 (especially affliction will be a LOT Better).
    I'm going to test on PTR right now and post some feedback.

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