So how's affliction in brf?

[xuros]

doesn't do too bad on hans and frans, my guild has 1 aff and 2.5 demo and the aff usually beats us on H&F. He also lives in the 60+ percentile for his ilvl and is usually up higher

If you are good with shards soulburn haunt shines on 2-3 target cleave fights.

[kamuii]

What? According to Sims Aff is our top ST spec, it also has a long history of underperforming in said sims and being far better in real encounters. It's just the way its made as a DoT spec with a pet, it's basically immune to movement, and can spread damage everywhere. Always has been, always will be strong; it only gets eclipsed when something else is tuned miles ahead - then they usually get nerfed and Aff remains.

According to sims? Well, before destru/demo buff, affl in practice was #1 single target. Affliction remains untouched in 6.1 so I'm not sure where the affl buff he's referring to is. Affliction dotspreading is mediocre at best, relative to boomkins, unholy dk, surv hunter, monks, and fire mage, maybe demo even though affliction dotspread is supposed to be one of its niches.

[Jetjaguar]

lol other classes have had better "dotspreads" than affliction since wrath so I really don't agree with that being one of it's "niches"

Aff has always had UA cast time, at one point had 5 dots to manage, had to keep shadow embrace debuff on top of dots for effective damage as well as spell damage debuffs that hopefully other classes would maintain

[kamuii]

lol other classes have had better "dotspreads" than affliction since wrath so I really don't agree with that being one of it's "niches"

Aff has always had UA cast time, at one point had 5 dots to manage, had to keep shadow embrace debuff on top of dots for effective damage as well as spell damage debuffs that hopefully other classes would maintain

Are we just skipping the whole 2 years of MoP expansion where affl dotspread was Godly. Affliction dotspread was amazing as well in cata since that was before they allocated such a significant chunk of damage to MG. I can't remember all way back in vanilla/bc but affliction dotspread was always good/Godly til this expansion.

If dotspread isn't supposed to be one of afflictions niches, then it has no niche. Mediocre everything.

Is it good at st? Nope, average.
Good at sustained cleave? Nope, average.
Good at aoe? What aoe?
Good at burst cleave? LOL
Good at burst ST? LOL

[Jetjaguar]

Are we just skipping the whole 2 years of MoP expansion where affl dotspread was Godly. Affliction dotspread was amazing as well in cata since that was before they allocated such a significant chunk of damage to MG. I can't remember all way back in vanilla/bc but affliction dotspread was always good/Godly til this expansion.

If dotspread isn't supposed to be one of afflictions niches, then it has no niche. Mediocre everything.

Is it good at st? Nope, average.
Good at sustained cleave? Nope, average.
Good at aoe? What aoe?
Good at burst cleave? LOL
Good at burst ST? LOL

What happened in mop was a huge oversight in regards to snapshotting and the resulting response from blizzard was radically changing soul swap, the dot spread itself still wasn't better than what other classes had. Affliction dotspread wasn't "amazing" in cata, it was really really really reliant on a glyph that they ended up nerfing after the tier it was introduced. You still had to invest 3 GCDs and maybe 4 if you needed the spell damage debuff.


Affliction's burst ST with lust is actually still extremely high. It's why people played affliction for Mythic Butcher. Burst Cleave? What? When is that ever needed? Affliction's niche was debuff management and that is what has been taken away from them, largely due to the constant nerfs to shard regen

[kamuii]

What happened in mop was a huge oversight in regards to snapshotting and the resulting response from blizzard was radically changing soul swap, the dot spread itself still wasn't better than what other classes had. Affliction dotspread wasn't "amazing" in cata, it was really really really reliant on a glyph that they ended up nerfing after the tier it was introduced. You still had to invest 3 GCDs and maybe 4 if you needed the spell damage debuff.


Affliction's burst ST with lust is actually still extremely high. It's why people played affliction for Mythic Butcher. Burst Cleave? What? When is that ever needed? Affliction's niche was debuff management and that is what has been taken away from them, largely due to the constant nerfs to shard regen

Half the classes burst st is extremely high with lust.

Every dot class had snapshot to their advantage.

Every class has to manage debuffs

Debuff management is not a niche

Burst cleave? Lets see just off the top of my head, brakenspore sporeshooters, Garrosh mindcontrol.

Lol dot spreading it self wasn't better? Dotspreading is dependent on how easy the dots are to apply and howmuch total damage the

caster did from those dots they could spread. Affliction was by far highest in terms of % damage done by dots that can be spread.

Even if affliction dotspread was like every other dotspreader. To say affliction didn't have a dotspreading niche would be same as saying no one has a dotspreading niche.

Not only that, your whole premise basically says "affliction dotspread was like everyone else if we ignore the 2 out of 4 expansions where they were good-godly dotspreaders."


Either way affliction has no niche in WoD. Which makes it useless.

[Jetjaguar]

Every dot class had snapshot to their advantage.

No other class had a broken ability that circumvented the intended gameplay mechanic behind snapshotting to do completely unintended amounts of damage

Half the classes burst st is extremely high with lust.

Affliction's was one of the highest though. That's why people played it on Butcher

Every class has to manage debuffs

Rogues manage 1 debuff, mages manage 1 debuff, hunters manage 0-1 debuffs, both druid specs manage 2 debuffs, dks manage 2 debuffs that auto apply from other abilities, shadow priests manage 2, 3 if they take VEnt which auto refreshes, Shaman manages 1 debuff, warriors manage 2 debuffs at most, monks manage 1 debuff, paladin has 1 debuff that they only have to think about managing on >1 target..... hmm that's weird.... all those numbers are less than what modern affliction has to manage, and MUCH less than what affliction historically had to manage... almost like affliction was always designed as a debuff class

Debuff management is not a niche

It's a core gameplay mechanic of the class, and is what the class had to do to perform extremely well, and something no other class really had in common with them

Burst cleave? Lets see just off the top of my head, brakenspore sporeshooters, Garrosh mindcontrol.

I'll give you garrosh MCs, but what? Brackenspore sporeshooters? do people even know what cleave means anymore? I think what you mean to say is that affliction isn't good at fast swapping to low hp adds

Lol dot spreading it self wasn't better. Dotspreading is dependent on how easy the dots are to apply and howmuch total damage the caster did from those dots they could spread. Affliction was by far highest in terms of % damage done by dots that can be spread.

Soul swap itself was only ever good when the glyph was a 15 second CD and didn't remove dots off your main target. It made affliction very good on 2 target fights but even then, it saved you 1 gcd every 15 seconds. Soulswap being able to circumvent snapshotting is the only reason why affliction dot spreading became as prevalent as it ended up being in ToT/SoO. I mean, I'm pretty sure the whole problem here is you think affliction dot's just dont do enough damage as they used to on an average fight. The 1 GCD saver from soul swap still doesn't compare to things like pestilence, serpent spread, or inferno blast, all of which spread dots better, all of which spread extremely powerful dots, all of which have existed for far longer than WoD

But aff's weakness is just the damage output which at most is related to shard generation rather than dot spreading. After 6.1, aff will probably find its place on fights like oregorger, gruul, iron maidens, and probably blackhand

[kamuii]

No other class had a broken ability that circumvented the intended gameplay mechanic behind snapshotting to do completely unintended amounts of damage

Really, because even with that "broken" ability, affliction damage was good but not broken. Not until SoO.

Affliction's was one of the highest though. That's why people played it on Butcher

People play affliction on butcher because they can get indefinite amount of soul shards off adds that explode. I can't say a 4min fight is "burst" st. Burst st is more like primal elementalist.

Rogues manage 1 debuff, mages manage 1 debuff, hunters manage 0-1 debuffs, both druid specs manage 2 debuffs, dks manage 2 debuffs that auto apply from other abilities, shadow priests manage 2, 3 if they take VEnt which auto refreshes, Shaman manages 1 debuff, warriors manage 2 debuffs at most, monks manage 1 debuff, paladin has 1 debuff that they only have to think about managing on >1 target..... hmm that's weird.... all those numbers are less than what modern affliction has to manage, and MUCH less than what affliction historically had to manage... almost like affliction was always designed as a debuff class

Except debuff management alone does not give locks a competitive advantage in any situation. Not only that, having to manage 1-2 more buffs than other classes does not make it any more difficult.

It's a core gameplay mechanic of the class, and is what the class had to do to perform extremely well, and something no other class really had in common with them

Doesn't matter if its a core mechanic. It's not a niche unless its better at something than other classes.

Soul swap itself was only ever good when the glyph was a 15 second CD and didn't remove dots off your main target. It made affliction very good on 2 target fights but even then, it saved you 1 gcd every 15 seconds. Soulswap being able to circumvent snapshotting is the only reason why affliction dot spreading became as prevalent as it ended up being in ToT/SoO. I mean, I'm pretty sure the whole problem here is you think affliction dot's just dont do enough damage as they used to on an average fight. The 1 GCD saver from soul swap still doesn't compare to things like pestilence, serpent spread, or inferno blast, all of which spread dots better, all of which spread extremely powerful dots, all of which have existed for far longer than WoD

No, the whole problem is affliction has no good points. It's either average at something or bad at something.

But aff's weakness is just the damage output which at most is related to shard generation rather than dot spreading. After 6.1, aff will probably find its place on fights like oregorger, gruul, iron maidens, and probably blackhand

They allocated a decent amount of damage to MG which takes away dot spreading damage. Affliction is one of the lowest ST right now, since they are not buffing affliction in 6.1 they will still be one of the lowest ST.

[Voidism]

It feels like Affliction is penalized with restraints that were relevant before snapshotting was 'removed'. Things like slow shard generation feels like an unnecessary restraint nowadays. An excessive penalty for the pre-WoD era game mechanics.

[striderZA]

Affliction's burst ST with lust is actually still extremely high. It's why people played affliction for Mythic Butcher.

While you are correct, I think it has more to do with infinite shards from the water strat, which 98% of guilds used to kill it.