Affliction state in 6.0 and my own thoughts on a redesign.

[sasofrass]

With the changes to DoT effects coming in WoD, it seems to really take away the skill aspect of affliction and the spec will feel really lack-luster. I asked Ghostcrawler if there are any plans to redesign affliction and he told me "no".

If you are unaware, DoT effects will no longer snapshot and will be dynamic. This was posted by Xyronic (http://bit.ly/1ccsVVF) where he says that Kris Zierhut has said that all DoT effects will no longer snapshot. Unless this is untrue, this will really hurt the affliction spec, making it a no-skill class and a very boring one at that.

I was a bit bored myself and was thinking about a redesign. I came up with my own, so I will share it.

Unstable Corruption
Instant Cast
Corrupts the target with unstable power, inflicting 1500 (+200% of SP) Shadow damage every 1 second for 20 seconds. Each time Unstable Corruption deals damage, it's potency is decreased by 10%.

Malefic Grasp
Channelled Spell
Binds the target in twilight, causing 500 (+100% of SP) Shadow damage every 1 second over 4 seconds. Each time Malefic Grasp deals damage, the potency of Unstable Corruption is increased by 100 (+5% of SP) and extends the duration of Unstable Corruption by 3 seconds (up to a maximum of 30 seconds).

Agony
Inflicts agony on the target, causing 800 (+125% of SP) shadow damage every 3 seconds for 24 seconds. Each tick of your most recently applied Agony has a 20% chance to restore a soul shard with each failed tick gaining an additional 10% chance to restore a soul shard.

Haunt
1 Soul Shard
Instant Cast
You send a ghostly soul into the target, dealing 2000 (+250% of SP) Shadow damage and preventing your Unstable Corruption from losing it's potency for 8 seconds.

Drain Soul
Instant Cast
Must be under 25% health.
Drains of the soul of the target, causing 250 (+75% of SP) shadow damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. Each time drain soul deals damage, it has a 20% chance to restore one soul shard and increase the duration of all Unstable Corruption spells by 3 seconds (up to a maximum of 30 seconds).

Seed of Curruption
Instant Cast
Embeds a demonic seed in the enemy target. After 4 seconds, or if the target dies, the seed will erupt, causing 300 (+90% of SP) to all enemies within 10 yards of the target.
Soulburn: Your seed will now hit up to 5 enemies within 10 yards.

Soul Swap
1 Soul Shard
Instant Cast
You copy your Shadow damage-over-time effects from the target, preserving their power and duration. For the next 10 seconds, the next targets you cast Soul Swap: Exhale on will be afflicted by the copied Shadow damage-over-time effects. You can not Soul Swap: Exhale to the target of which the effects were copied.


Mastery: Potent Afflictions
Increase the potency of Unstable Affliction cast by Malefic Grasp by 20%.

*Abilities not mentioned would be unchanged

I personally feel it would allow for a more exciting gameplay, as you can ramp up Unstable Corruption very high and do well sustained damage. The skill portion of this spec would be to use your cooldowns/trinkets/procs appropriately during MG to get as much of a damage increase to your UC as you can while haunt is up.

Hey, I did this for fun. Let me know your thoughts and how you'd redesign the class if you could.

[Deleted]

IMO affliction wasn't fun since MoP anyway, so it doesn't really surprise me. It feels really clunky to have only 3 dots and a short-duration channeled spell. And I also agree, those changes make it even worse. Regarding your redesign, I can't play affliction and have fun at the same time while there still is MG around and haunt being dependent on soul shards.

[slickwilly]

affdots already makes it a trivial spec to play.

[weakdots]

affdots already makes it a trivial spec to play.

yet there is still glaring disparitys even amongst the top ranking players who all presumably use it(i think this is great and not happy about the change at all). its like saying reforgelite/mr robot making reforging trivial yet every idiot knows of these things and still fail to use them properly.

[Deleted]

So you want to take UA and corruption from us? What is the fixation of removing dots from THE dot spec of wow. This redesign is even more shifting the dmg from dots into MG.

[Last Starfighter]

IMO affliction wasn't fun since MoP anyway, so it doesn't really surprise me. It feels really clunky to have only 3 dots and a short-duration channeled spell. And I also agree, those changes make it even worse. Regarding your redesign, I can't play affliction and have fun at the same time while there still is MG around and haunt being dependent on soul shards.

Stop using the word clunky. I swear, ppl use it for everything they don't like now. Affliction is streamlined and pretty smooth. Especially now since you can put 3 dots on ur target at once. And MC is way less "clunky" than shadow bolt. Haunt dependent on ss? Welcome to our new resources.

- - - Updated - - -

yet there is still glaring disparitys even amongst the top ranking players who all presumably use it(i think this is great and not happy about the change at all). its like saying reforgelite/mr robot making reforging trivial yet every idiot knows of these things and still fail to use them properly.

This. "Addons play the game for you". Okay, then why are you pulling 40k dps and dying from dumb shit every pull.

[shamantime]

Stop using the word clunky. I swear, ppl use it for everything they don't like now. Affliction is streamlined and pretty smooth. Especially now since you can put 3 dots on ur target at once. And MC is way less "clunky" than shadow bolt. Haunt dependent on ss? Welcome to our new resources.

- - - Updated - - -

This. "Addons play the game for you". Okay, then why are you pulling 40k dps and dying from dumb shit every pull.

Could have put it less harsh but I absolutely agree with you.

[wholol]

With the changes to DoT effects coming in WoD, it seems to really take away the skill aspect of affliction and the spec will feel really lack-luster. I asked Ghostcrawler if there are any plans to redesign affliction and he told me "no".

If you are unaware, DoT effects will no longer snapshot and will be dynamic. This was posted by Xyronic (http://bit.ly/1ccsVVF) where he says that Kris Zierhut has said that all DoT effects will no longer snapshot. Unless this is untrue, this will really hurt the affliction spec, making it a no-skill class and a very boring one at that.

I was a bit bored myself and was thinking about a redesign. I came up with my own, so I will share it.



I personally feel it would allow for a more exciting gameplay, as you can ramp up Unstable Corruption very high and do well sustained damage. The skill portion of this spec would be to use your cooldowns/trinkets/procs appropriately during MG to get as much of a damage increase to your UC as you can while haunt is up.

Hey, I did this for fun. Let me know your thoughts and how you'd redesign the class if you could.

Tbh some of the things you suggest seem interesting, but I'd like to say that if all of the things you suggested are released all affliction spells will be instant cast with the exception of MG being channeled, I personally feel it would be alright but for pvp uses it would have too much mobility and freedom with having nothing interruptable with the exception of fear and MG.

Tbh I'd say remove the haunt soul shard cost since having that talent which requires a soul shard to proc SB : haunt will need double shards to apply a buffed haunt , which kinda seems over the top imo.

[Schirmy]

With all due respect, OP, that is awful.

2 DoTs? Affy should have at least 4; also Haunt still costing a Shard saddens me, I want the Cata/LK version back; and MG should be scrapped forever.

[Deleted]

wtb syphon life as 4th dot

No srsly, Ill pay to blizz my whole life savings, errr full 50 bucks.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure he said "all other spells not mentioned remain unchanged".

So unstable affliction remains the same.

[wholol]

wtb syphon life as 4th dot

No srsly, Ill pay to blizz my whole life savings, errr full 50 bucks.

I really miss SL : <

Tbh SL woulda given us that extra dmg we needed since current dots are so floppy outside DS, but ye this is only pvp , don't jump me raiders !

[sasofrass]

You would still have unstable affliction. Corruption would become unstable corruption. DoT Damage by itself would not be as lethal because unstable corruption requires a ramp up in damage with MG, so the spec would require channeling to really up your damage.

I thought it sounded like an interesting playstyle and at least gives you things to watch for.

[cabana]

That sounds like a PvP nightmare waiting to happen.

[Deleted]

Either don't remove dot snapshotting, or if they refuse to budge on that, give us siphon life and immolate back (or something to replace it, I know some people won't want a fire spell).
Remove SB:SS or put it on some sort of system that throttles its use a lot. I appreciate it for avoiding bullshit like SOD where we had NO burst, but I found multidotting far more enjoyable when you were throwing dots up manually, deciding what was worthwhile based on how many targets.

Bonus points for scrapping MG and giving SB back. Absolutely detest channeled filler and dots having parts of their damage baked into it.

Most fun I had with affliction was WOTLK Naxx (not that the raid was good, but the spec was awesome).
Later WOTLK and Cata were pretty great too.

MOP was the first time in my playtime that I've been unhappy with the spec, and I've played it since I hit max level back in classic, I grew to be okay with it thanks to DOT snapshotting giving me something to feel engaged with, removing it is scary sounding, especially when the only "reasons" proposed (addons and dmg output) are both fresh "problems" that ONLY cropped up in MOP, DOT snapshotting and it's use has existed a lot longer than that.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure he said "all other spells not mentioned remain unchanged".

Huh my bad!

That sounds like a PvP nightmare waiting to happen.

I can totally dig the Bill Murray avatar with that sentence


@OP
Now when I think about it I can dig it somehow. The high stacking of DoTs would make it somehow an enjoyable pve spec, and add a 4th dot and I could see myself liking this design.

Remove SB:SS or put it on some sort of system that throttles its use a lot.

I think SB:SS and the new SS are much of a culprit in the op part of multidoting. It fixed the only weakness multidoting had- and it was the build-up time. IMO affliction was NEVER about burst or quick dot application, but of a slow build-up that leads into a very high sustained spec and eventually giving both a great arena spec and good DPS. MoP litteraly homogenized the spec with very cheap fixes.

Bonus points for scrapping MG and giving SB back. Absolutely detest channeled filler and dots having parts of their damage baked into it.

yeah, stacking shadow embrace (?) was a pretty good single target technique

[OokingDooker]

You would still have unstable affliction. Corruption would become unstable corruption. DoT Damage by itself would not be as lethal because unstable corruption requires a ramp up in damage with MG, so the spec would require channeling to really up your damage.

I thought it sounded like an interesting playstyle and at least gives you things to watch for.

This is what people do not want. This would make affliction shit in pvp, and not exactly fun in pve either.

[Deleted]

Affliction is streamlined and pretty smooth..

Problem #1

Especially now since you can put 3 dots on ur target at once.

Problem #2

And MC is way less "clunky" than shadow bolt.

No, shadow bolt wasn't clunky just because it was from a different spec. MG is, because of how channeled spells work.

Haunt dependent on ss? Welcome to our new resources

And problem #3.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

Welcome…to the future. A pity you are too late to stop it. No one can stop Blizzard now! Selama ashal'anore!

LET THE GUTTING OF OUR FUN MECHANICS COMMENCE!

[Werst]

Aff without snapshotting should be more about execution. I think one possible way to evolve that is shorten dot duration making people refresh more and filler spell less. I'd prefer shards to be a bit more fast in/fast out in playstyle or at least tighter rng protection than what we have now.

I would leave aff mostly as is though I would do the following:
*Drain soul is now a short duration dot, instant, high damage (closer to soul reaper than shadowburn) if something dies with it on it = you get shards, grants 1 shard on its expiration regardless.
*Ramp up the RNG protection on shard regen or make us regen one per a flat time while in combat. Spending shards should be where our new dps gains come from with snapshotting gone. I would much rather see generation increased thus spending increased with proper use.
*Soulburn SoC spreads dots to targets within the blast radius, regular SoC can no longer be spread via SS, instantly detonates upon impact.

You could go instant on UA, it honestly wouldn't change much in pvp where you are casting it once and SS'ing it everywhere. Its not a huge deterrent nor are dispels as problematic with the cooldown. With the interrupt proliferation and CC proliferation I think a baseline amount of a caster's toolkit needs to be instant these days. The proper balance here is also dependent on what melee get to keep in terms of uptime and interrupts on locks plus what other range get for their instant/useable damage kit in pvp. Changing the UA glyph to trade cast time for kickback would be one way to go.