Affliction AOE

[Nightstorm]

So I just leveled a lock, picked up full 670 pvp gear to start off with. I went into ashran to maybe get some conquest and have fun. What I found is that if I agro the little spiders that are in packs of like 6, despite the fact they are a lesser mob, I will die from them. I have no AOE that can take care of these little critters. Seed is a no go and cata is a waste to pickup just so I don't die to little spiders.

Long story short seed of corruption needs help bad.

[Zerach8]

SoC is something that an Affl lock doesnt use at all nowadays...if u are forced to use it u are better of playing other two specs...so yeah, SoC needs help

[karatakor]

Seeds of corruption isn't working since what, cataclysm?
With WOD they broke also the swap thing, and don't get me started on the DOT's management...
Is there even a person in charge of the warlock development, does he actually play it live? Seriously?

[striderZA]

Seeds of corruption isn't working since what, cataclysm?

SoC was fine in MoP, since you could have both SoC and SB:SoC on a target and they were copied with Soul Swap. Soul Swap was completely broken with the changes in 5.4, the WoD changes were definitely necessary. Not to say that they couldn't have done something to improve shard regen, but the new Soul Swap actually requires you to make a gameplay decision in stead of just pressing one button and doing 2 million DPS.

[Zerach8]

problem i see is that SB:haunt and Soulswap dont really work together because u might get shard starved due to bad rng and loose more dps than if u didnt swap at all...its wierd and doesnt feel like it promotes any smart gameplay, totally down to rng if swaping is worth it or not =/

[zmp]

At least SB:SoC had some potential in 6.1 with its "auto reapply" on Drain Soul bug. I do hope SoC gets to shine again someday (wishful thinking).

[Jessicka]

SoC was fine in MoP, since you could have both SoC and SB:SoC on a target and they were copied with Soul Swap. Soul Swap was completely broken with the changes in 5.4, the WoD changes were definitely necessary. Not to say that they couldn't have done something to improve shard regen, but the new Soul Swap actually requires you to make a gameplay decision in stead of just pressing one button and doing 2 million DPS.

Soul Swap was broken only because of snapshotting, the old model would not produce anything like the results it produced then without it. Now it's barely useable; especially when specced Soulburn: Haunt.

Seed of Corruption, the problem here is that theoretically, on paper in certain given circumstances of very prolonged AoE it's actually pretty good; but in any practical sense of real encounters, it's just worthless.

- - - Updated - - -

problem i see is that SB:haunt and Soulswap dont really work together because u might get shard starved due to bad rng and loose more dps than if u didnt swap at all...its wierd and doesnt feel like it promotes any smart gameplay, totally down to rng if swaping is worth it or not =/

Exactly, they run absolutely counter to each other's design. In the circumstances you need to Soulswap, you'll use SB:Haunt, so won't likely have the resources to use SS. If you want to use Sac or Serv (high movement) because you're going entirely single target, you won't be bothered about using SS anyway.

[Zerach8]

they could easily replace one of the two 100 talents (cata, DS) with something that removes the shard cost from soul swap...SB:H will still win on ST but u can easily use swap if u spec differently and u dont get the SB:H benefit.

[Socialhealer]

affliction isn't supposed to aoe, check destro/demo see how their aoe is top fucking notch, no point in giving affliction amazing spread target and aoe that's a thing called overpowered.

[Zerach8]

dont see your logic behind "not being supposed to aoe"...even if u dont have swap on cd, ramp up time from swaping around (2 globals per target) wont make affl viable over destro or demo on burst aoe and destro is already king of aoe with Charred remains and demo was heavily nerfed with the loss of t17 4pc overall reduction in power of our spells.

So at best, affl remains mid tier in aoe and very good on 1-3 targets sustained, destro still favored on fights where u can shadowburn+havoc often (which is quite many this tier)...and demo is well mid tier everywhere with its versatility...but its getting changes in 7.0 so no way to say for sure

[FecundDecay]

"Not supposed to be" my fucking ass. There are encountered designed around AoE, affliction should be able to do it.

Granted, throwing a SB Seed onto a group target and then hitting the whole group with Cataclysm does a decent amount of damage, but it's stupid that we have to pick between SB haunt and Cataclysm, and Seed really isn't useful on its own. It takes way too long to blow up, and even if you try and stack them up it does pretty piss damage for how much casting time it takes.

Affliction is in a good place right now for PvE, but we need MAJOR help in the AoE department and the RNG bullshit with soul shard generation is just plain stupid.

[Mindcrime]

Affliciton AoE is pathetic and has always been a supplement to our multidotting capabilities. Since that was neutered we lost any means of AoE. Seed should, instead of exploding after a certain damage threshold, act more as a dot where each tick pulses AoE damage. Would be easy to implement and balance, while staying true to the feel of Affliction.

[karatakor]

they could easily replace one of the two 100 talents (cata, DS) with something that removes the shard cost from soul swap...SB:H will still win on ST but u can easily use swap if u spec differently and u dont get the SB:H benefit.

This is a really good idea!
And I still believe SOC should detonate after a short period of time without any extra damage.

[Deleted]

That would be great, a target with Seed of Corruption sends out waves of damage on each tick and preferably infection them with Corruption too (like DK diseases). Have to limit it to one active at any one time though, multi-seeding would be absurdly strong

Seed of Corruption used to be just fine until they brought in that idiotic change where only the caster's only damage sets them off.

Now it's a joke, I really don't see any reason why a spell with a long cast time, long travel time and high mana cost needs to be further crippled; not when you compare it with multishot/barrage (20 second cooldown lol), bladestorm, divine storm etc

Theoretically good, in practise is useless, you just never get to set up that cascade of seeds going off that make it look good on paper

Even if you take Cataclysm, which has an ridiculously long cooldown, long cast time and it's fixed position, everythin ghas plenty of time to move out of the area when the tanks play their usual "lets play headless chicken" routine with adds

About the only time Cataclysm is fun is in the room with the demons and the gateways, I usually manage to dump a Cataclysm+SB:SoC on them and then can't see anything as I have about 25 lots of each dot running

They should lower the cooldown and cast times for Cataclysm for affliction. Destru and demo don't need Cataclysm, they've both got strong aoe

I like the idea of Seed acting like a AOE totem thingy though

Destru's base AOE only spell is shit too since they nerfed it, but you can just use Charred Remains + Fire and Brimstone

Hell, giving Affliction Soulburn: Drain Soul where it affects all targets wihin so many yards would work too, be in line with the ethos of affliction, and look kinda cool

They won't tho

[Jessicka]

affliction isn't supposed to aoe, check destro/demo see how their aoe is top fucking notch, no point in giving affliction amazing spread target and aoe that's a thing called overpowered.

Well that'll be great when Artifacts are spec specific. The binary strengths and weaknesses of our specs won't be supportable in that environment.

[striderZA]

Soul Swap was broken only because of snapshotting, the old model would not produce anything like the results it produced then without it. Now it's barely useable; especially when specced Soulburn: Haunt.

Seed of Corruption, the problem here is that theoretically, on paper in certain given circumstances of very prolonged AoE it's actually pretty good; but in any practical sense of real encounters, it's just worthless.

I think even without snapshotting, the shard cost is more or less justified. But as you said, SB:H forces you to use shards extremely sparingly, eve more so with DS executing only granting you one shard. There's really no other surefire method to regain shards other than DS, which is part of the problem, I've been at 1/4 for over a minute at times unable to refresh SB:H because of shard RNG. That's why I'd really like to see either a change to add sniping with DS (i.e. two shards rather than one, or something), or something else that's not so dependent on RNG.

- - - Updated - - -

Well that'll be great when Artifacts are spec specific. The binary strengths and weaknesses of our specs won't be supportable in that environment.

I cringe to think about how much work it's going to be to maintain and optimize three artifacts on my main.

[Jaman]

affliction isn't supposed to aoe, check destro/demo see how their aoe is top fucking notch, no point in giving affliction amazing spread target and aoe that's a thing called overpowered.

Nobody is saying Affliction's AoE should be 'top-notch'. But it should at least be functional and have a reason to be on your actiion bar.

[Taalyn]

I think even without snapshotting, the shard cost is more or less justified. But as you said, SB:H forces you to use shards extremely sparingly, eve more so with DS executing only granting you one shard. There's really no other surefire method to regain shards other than DS, which is part of the problem, I've been at 1/4 for over a minute at times unable to refresh SB:H because of shard RNG. That's why I'd really like to see either a change to add sniping with DS (i.e. two shards rather than one, or something), or something else that's not so dependent on RNG.

- - - Updated - - -



I cringe to think about how much work it's going to be to maintain and optimize three artifacts on my main.

This is why I'm heavily considering Demon Hunter. Only 1 artifact unless I feel like tanking dungeons.

[Deleted]

Well that'll be great when Artifacts are spec specific. The binary strengths and weaknesses of our specs won't be supportable in that environment.

C'mon, you should be more jaded than that by now.

[Jessicka]

C'mon, you should be more jaded than that by now.

I'm not expecting them to be much, if any less binary to be honest; but it will likely become apparent quite quickly that it's untenable and it'll be the endless complaint that's we're stuck in one spec because it's sufficiently versatile whereas the others are too boxed into their niches and not worth upgrading their artifacts for, meanwhile waiting on promises that they'll fix it for the next expansion.

Or, they'll endlessly buff/nerf the specs so we never have a decent artifact because we keep investing in the 'wrong' one.