Button bloat: Why not Soul Swap?

[Jessicka]

I'd add Agony and UA to that list for Affliction, and Conflagrate to Destruction's. Not sure I'd regard Immolate as signiture for it though, used it for so long in the other specs; it'd be like saying Shadow Bolt was signiture for Demo.

[Elise the Seeker]

Soul Swap needs to be removed point-blank. Applying dots manually should be the way it stays. It was amazing in cataclysm but it's not needed and honestly people got too used to the way it worked in MoP. Also, to compensate, damage of dots would also most likely increase and that's what everyone has been crying over most of MoP.

[Deleted]

You seem to be confusing signature spell with a spell being part of your base (single target) rotation.

And you seem to be confusing "signature" with unique, which is not the definition.

Indiana Jones' hat is signature, he isn't the only person to wear a hat like that.
Hawkeye's signature weapon is a bow, he's not the only person to use a bow.
Superman's signature strength, flight, laser eyes or even the huge S on his chest, all not unique, all still signature pieces of the character - he wouldn't be Superman without them.

If this argument has stemmed from you misusing a diablo definition instead of the actual, English meaning of something then right, fair enough - silly me.

It's nothing to do with nostalgia, it's a fact that a classes image is built up over it's past, and something that's signature is exactly that - it's something heavily associated with whatever you're talking about, which is inseparable from the image it's built up over the years. You can't just ignore that, nor can you claim something that's been there five seconds is iconic since it hasn't had time to be associated, admitedly SS has been there a bit longer than 5 seconds, but it's still not the first thing I'd put on a list of iconic abilities.

Would you call symbiosis a signature ability for druids on MOP launch just because it was unique? As opposed to things like their HOTs, JUST because priests have renew so it's not unique?

Its good you realize Affliction is a dot spec. Now, guess what dot specs are good at? Multidot. Guess what spell is a major contributor to the uniqueness of Affliction's multidotting? Soul Swap

The ONLY thing SS has contributed to mutidotting is making it the most monotonous garbage ever.

Affliction was just fine at multidotting and had a complete monopoly on it in previous expansions, with gameplay that consisted of more than one button.
Soulswap at first was almost USELESS in multidotting due to it's cooldown, and it's modern implementation is one button spam - yeah, forgive me if I don't consider that to be the pinacle of multidotting.

And you can't just scrap dots just because affliction has 3 of them.
Corruption, their vanilla dot that regenerates resources and used to proc nightfall.
Agony and it's ramping stacks.
Unstable affliction which used to be at the end of the affliction talent tree and well known for it's damage on dispel being the bane of pvpers, but hey - that's not iconic, right?

[Deleted]

Wiktionary: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/signature

Wikipedia:

distinctive, characteristic indicative of identity

In Diablo, the signature spell is spammable and often not the one which drives the spec, but a filler (which is actually a term which much better describes its purpose than signature). Consider you run a Wizard and you use a CD reduction Archon build. Would you consider whatever your signature spell is [provided you even got one] as being... signature? Would you consider your Wand being a signature spell in Vanilla or TBC? No, no. The signature is Archon.

Since about 25% of WoW is PvP, some dispel mechanic you never see in PvE is pretty much irrelevant. I'd say PvP is almost irrelevant anyway because the games primary focus is PvE, but I know a lot of PvP players would disagree with such. You could do the following: globally, let PvE pretty much define, PvE let PvE define, and then let PvP define separately.

I don't care if you find something boring, what others call efficient. I find Mind Sear and Chain Lightning boring AoE, yet they are highly efficient.

Even without dot snapshot, Affliction with its 3 dots is going to have quicker their dots up than other classes even if they only got 2. That makes Soul Swap the motor behind multidot. You could say, Affliction is a dot spec, but the only reason it does good damage on single target fights like IJ and Malkorok is because of its huge burst coupled with dot snapshotting. On council fights it does even far better. It is other specs like Feral and Rogue which prefer to do single target because that is their niche. So for a dot spec like Affliction, its power lies mostly in multidot. That is its signature.

And about past, I already told you, I have a rich past in Warcraft, and I don't care about it in this context. I look at either MoP as it is, very recent past (1 patch ago maybe), or the direct future (WoD) in other words the present and its direct surroundings. I have zero interest in nostalgic blabbering because I don't see it being relevant. I mean, you do realize a lot of players from Vanilla.. quit? Signature spells can change over time as classes get changed.

[eScar95]

I'd say PvP is almost irrelevant anyway

Stopped reading there.

[Deleted]

distinctive, characteristic indicative of identity

Right, so not "unique", right? Which is your main reason for slating things like dots, because they're not a unique mechanic and you seem to think that means they can't be a signature ability.

And about past, I already told you, I have a rich past in Warcraft, and I don't care about it in this context. I look at either MoP as it is, very recent past (1 patch ago maybe), or the direct future (WoD) in other words the present and its direct surroundings. I have zero interest in nostalgic blabbering because I don't see it being relevant.

Unfortunately you can't do that, it's got nothing to do with "nostalgic blathering", so please cut with the buzzwords and borderline ad hominem. You seem to have a base misunderstanding of what "signature" means, you can't just "untie" it from it's past, signature is something heavily associated and intrinsically tied to something. That invariably means it's past needs to be taken into account since association has an awful lot to do with time.


Affliction is not affliction without dots and drains.
Affliction is, has and is arguably a better affliction without soul swap.

I think that sums up my argument as succinctly as possible, and it's baffling as to how people would think otherwise when it's been everything the class has been for the last 10 years nonestop.

[Jessicka]

The historical issue with target switching for Affliction was broadly caused by Shadow Embrace and Haunt (the latter being on a cooldown), not the application of DoTs themselves, just the baggage that went with them. That is why it was fine in Cataclysm, as it shortened the ramp up between switching only slightly. Since Shadow Embrace went away, and that Haunt was made spamable, so much of the ramp up just went away instantly, allowing the spec to effectively burst straight onto a new target, rather than wait 6 seconds for 3 Shadowbolts, plus another 1.5s for Haunt if it was off cooldown. It's made what was a traditional weakness of the spec into one of its great strengths; now with all this talk of what is and is not signiture, I fail to see how you can't see how that this very much goes against the grain of what the spec has always been about. It's just another example of Blizzard 'double dipping' on fixing an issue and creating a new problem in the process.

[Deleted]

Stopped reading there.

75/25 rule.

- - - Updated - - -

Right, so not "unique", right? Which is your main reason for slating things like dots, because they're not a unique mechanic and you seem to think that means they can't be a signature ability.

Unique is the panacea of distinctive which could mean if you find UA signature, then Soul Swap is the king of signature.

I already explained that for me, its the motor under the hood, the major cogwheel which not only keeps the rat running.

UA's dispel mechanic is rather poor in that regard. in ~75% of the gameplay it is completely and utterly irrelevant.

Unfortunately you can't do that, it's got nothing to do with "nostalgic blathering", so please cut with the buzzwords and borderline ad hominem.

Yes, it has everything to do with that, and it is you who tried an ad hominem here:

I'll give you a clue, it wouldn't be a spell that has been here for an expansion or two. All of your choices seemingly being from WOTLK or later is alarming, the spec was the most characterful warlock spec for a lot longer than that.

Which doesn't really mean much to me because like I said I probably played the original Warcraft when the lot of you here were still in diapers. On the notion of ad hominem, you are not a moderator and if you think it is feel free to report.

Your stance also completely neglects people switch games, class, specs.

You seem to have a base misunderstanding of what "signature" means

No, we have a disagreement about it, and you tried to pull an argument of authority cause you played Affliction since Vanilla or something, which isn't a compelling argument I'm afraid.

you can't just "untie" it from it's past

I don't have to, Blizzard does, by evolving the game.

signature is something heavily associated and intrinsically tied to something. That invariably means it's past needs to be taken into account since association has an awful lot to do with time.

You seem to live in the past and seem to define a spec on its history, while I only define it on its very recent past, current, and very recent future. Compare it to a painting. Would you keep referring to its earliest state while, yes what is now is defined by that, but so much has been changed, details added, fine grained, accents added and removed, that you would still put a lot of weight on how it used to be? You should not; you should look at the grand picture as it currently is.

The bad news for you I suppose is welcome to MoP, oh sorry Vanilla and TBC is over.

Affliction is not affliction without dots and drains.
Affliction is, has and is arguably a better affliction without soul swap.

I am happy for you, you have an opinion. I have bad news though: not everyone agrees with your opinion. Blizzard certainly doesn't seem to, and likes Soul Swap for Affliction. "Nanana."

I think that sums up my argument as succinctly as possible, and it's baffling as to how people would think otherwise when it's been everything the class has been for the last 10 years nonestop.

Newsflash: the game changes. Multidot became a lot less powerful after Cataclysm. My own spec is much less of a dot spec than it was in the past and in WoD it will further receive more details not in the least a dotless spec, as the painting gets more detail.

[Tziva]

Please cut it out with the snide/condescending comments and bickering.