[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[Deleted]

Hey Affli locks.

Destro lock here.

How you finding Affli?

[Baconeggcheese]

The guy in the video isn't in arena btw

The second half of that video is just him doing arenas.

[wholol]

Saw people saying that on the last page

- - - Updated - - -

Also, wholol.

I saw the discussion and Endless Affliction does do more damage however I like Soulburn for not needing so much cast time. Interrupt protection.

Or will casting circle make that unnecessary?

On beta at 110 I brought a healer target dummy friend who just stood there and let me test some stuff on him, I did 2 duels where I tested Soulburn and Endless Affliction in each, and the conclusion I reached is :

With unstable using 5 shards, 2x SB UA and 1 normal UA to compress the duration, still ticks for less than 5 stacks of Endless aff. UAs ( by barely a bit less ), when dispelled though Endless affliction was doing substantially more frontal damage.

Even with 6 shards , where you'd be able to 3x SB UA but not compress it still inferior to 6 stacks of EA. UAs.

The only time where it becomes equal or slightly better than EA in terms of ticks was on 7th shard ( that would require a lot of RNG) to pull off a 3x SB UA into 1 normal UA compression, but even still that's a far fetch, needless to say the least, even at 7 shards the dispel dmg is still slightly less than 7 shards EA UA frontal dmg upon being dispelled ( which is 100% a 1 shot at this amount of stacks ).

So either way EA provides symmetrical and efficient use of UA stacking while SB is asymmetrical and requires an odd number of shards to compete with EA, the only way SB becomes superior to EA is when you go above 8 shards ( 9 shards specifically ) because EA UA stacks are capped at around 7 shards due to duration and cast times, because 8 x 1.5 = 12, so when you finish casting your 8th cast your first UA would have expired, and haste doesn't matter here due to GCD anyways, so 7 stacks is the limit to EA.

So SB might be able to achieve more damage when going beyond the 7th shard, though that will rarely be the case as it relies entirely on soul conduit RNG and fishing for shards with agony in time to finish your compression before you lose out on enough time/ticks on your first UA.

Moral of the story is , Endless affliction is the way.

As for the last tier, Rot and Decay refreshes UA to 1 stack, so it's a total no go for UA stacking, although u could use to to keep 1 UA on off targets and refresh it during that, but that would mean u can't drain your nuke target ever.

Soul Swap removes dots from your main targets and copies to another, which is rather bad, though if they made it copy dots and paste like it did before it would be too strong of a talent cause you'd be able to dump 5+ shards and soul swap that UA to another making 2 people melt at the same time which is way too broken.

So Amplify afflictions is the way, although you could go with a Soulburn / rot and decay build and focus on keeping a SB/UA on several targets while refreshing, that would make a stronger dot that lasts longer for multi dotting purposes, which is why people don't take soul siphon ( it's such a bad talent at this point ).

[ThePhantombox]

Soul Swap removes dots from your main targets

Seriously!? What the hell is the point of it then!?

[striderZA]

Seriously!? What the hell is the point of it then!?

That's how Soul Swap worked in Cataclysm, unless you glyphed it.

[Kirroth]

Seriously!? What the hell is the point of it then!?

I suspect we're going back to a PvP environment where focused fire doesn't always equal a kill. Doing RBGs back in Cata we could have most of our team tunneling into one guy and they just wouldn't die because they had two or three healers spamming on them and maybe some defensive cooldowns running. That's when our team's target caller would count down for a target swap, at which point everyone switched fire to a new target that didn't have a stack of HoTs and DRs and mid-cast heals already on them and we hopefully secured a kill before the enemy healers could react.

Soul Swap is for moments like that, when you're doing a hard target swap and need damage on a new target NOW with as little ramp time as possible. For that purpose it excels. You don't have to cycle through your DoTs or wait for Agony to stacks, you just redirect your damage to a new target and continue unabated. You even knock off 6% of their max health to make up for the couple GCDs you used swapping the DoTs over.

That's what Soul Swap was originally for. It's right there in the name. If you want split pressure, then you apply your DoTs the hard way.

[Gaidax]

Seriously!? What the hell is the point of it then!?

Stacked Agony and burst switch of course.

[ThePhantombox]

I suspect we're going back to a PvP environment where focused fire doesn't always equal a kill. Doing RBGs back in Cata we could have most of our team tunneling into one guy and they just wouldn't die because they had two or three healers spamming on them and maybe some defensive cooldowns running. That's when our team's target caller would count down for a target swap, at which point everyone switched fire to a new target that didn't have a stack of HoTs and DRs and mid-cast heals already on them and we hopefully secured a kill before the enemy healers could react.

Soul Swap is for moments like that, when you're doing a hard target swap and need damage on a new target NOW with as little ramp time as possible. For that purpose it excels. You don't have to cycle through your DoTs or wait for Agony to stacks, you just redirect your damage to a new target and continue unabated. You even knock off 6% of their max health to make up for the couple GCDs you used swapping the DoTs over.

That's what Soul Swap was originally for. It's right there in the name. If you want split pressure, then you apply your DoTs the hard way.

Alright fair enough, although that does cut down on the shenanigans I originally had planned for the spell.

Now that I think about it though, why didn't they just bring back soul swap to pve with a similar design? Maybe make the cooldown a bit shorter, but it would solve the target switching problems pretty handily. Think about it, add about to spawn>inhale off boss>exhale onto add>inhale just before add dies>exhale back onto boss. That seems like it would be a pretty smooth way to handle situations like that.

[CuchuCachu]

On beta at 110 I brought a healer target dummy friend who just stood there and let me test some stuff on him, I did 2 duels where I tested Soulburn and Endless Affliction in each, and the conclusion I reached is :


So either way EA provide symmetrical and efficient use of UA stacking while SB is asymmetrical and required an odd number of shards to compete with EA, the only way SB becomes superior to EA is when you go above 8 shards ( 9 shards specifically ) because EA UA stacks are capped at around 7 shards due to duration and cast times, because 8 x 1.5 = 12, so when you finish casting your 8th cast your first UA would have expired, and haste doesn't matter here due to GCD anyways, so 7 stacks is the limit to EA.

Yea but I was wondering about interrupt protection. Unless we just are always going to take Casting Circle

[Kirroth]

Yea but I was wondering about interrupt protection. Unless we just are always going to take Casting Circle

You're looking at things in the old context, where everyone is racing to unload their burst first. Eating an interrupt now just ...doesn't matter as much. Sure, you're locked out a few seconds, but your DoTs are still ticking and you're not always hovering two or three GCDs from death. I've been deliberately baiting interrupts, waiting through the lockout, and then unloading because I know they can't stop me until their Kick comes off cooldown. It helps that the number of instant CC and knockbacks and other pseudo-interrupts has been massively cut back, so after that one interrupt you can be a lot more confident about getting spells off.

Which isn't to say Casting Circle doesn't have its place. It's just I think that place is Destro. While it'd be good for Afflic I really doubt it can match up to Essence Drain.

[CuchuCachu]

You're looking at things in the old context, where everyone is racing to unload their burst first. Eating an interrupt now just ...doesn't matter as much. Sure, you're locked out a few seconds, but your DoTs are still ticking and you're not always hovering two or three GCDs from death. I've been deliberately baiting interrupts, waiting through the lockout, and then unloading because I know they can't stop me until their Kick comes off cooldown. It helps that the number of instant CC and knockbacks and other pseudo-interrupts has been massively cut back, so after that one interrupt you can be a lot more confident about getting spells off.

Which isn't to say Casting Circle doesn't have its place. It's just I think that place is Destro. While it'd be good for Afflic I really doubt it can match up to Essence Drain.

I gotcha. Well that's good. It's how I wish affliction played for a long while.

I was either eager to see a change to where out DoTs act as catalysts and enhancements for other abilities or mechanics (like a shadow priest) or we go full hog with the DoT playstyle.

[Deleted]

Listening to people cry about affliction warlocks spreading their aids is more entertaining than the game right now. Just kidding, haven't had so much fun with my warlock since Cata. Or okay, UVLS was bonkers, and siege of Orgrimmar was fun for most specs. Insane numbers yo.

Either way, the gameplay of affliction is meh, but it's output is fun. Demonology relies on pet AI, but is moderately entertaining and destro actually is pretty neat.

[Gaidax]

Phantom Singularity damage doubled.

Just tried it in beta and it's absolute lolcakes on trash. It's like double cataclysm with huge range with immortality on top.

[Kirroth]

Phantom Singularity damage doubled.

Simple, but maybe that's enough to give it a niche. Effigy for ST, Singularity for large AoE, and Conduit for councils and small groups. Time to stock up on tomes for talent swaps mid-raid?

Also I'm realizing I don't know much about the nitty gritty of PS's mechanics. Is the effect stationary or does it move with the target? Does the effect end early if the target dies? It's been so worthless I never saw a detailed exploration of it.

ETA: A little testing and it looks like debuff on the target, but not a Magic debuff that can be dispelled. It moves with the target and ends early if the target dies. So you'd probably want to cast it on the boss in any raid or dungeon boss encounter. The 25y radius is pretty generous so I doubt range would be an issue unless you're deliberately splitting things up.

[Gaidax]

lolcackes let me tell you what I think, this will be a mandatory talent for nonsteamroll Mythic+ and Affliction will become new Fire Mage there especially now that Flame Patch has been eliminated.

Eager to try it more later today.

[Deleted]

lolcackes let me tell you what I think, this will be a mandatory talent for nonsteamroll Mythic+ and Affliction will become new Fire Mage there especially now that Flame Patch has been eliminated.

Eager to try it more later today.

I'm dreading the Warlock nerfs that will surely come. This just all sounds too good to be true.

[Kirroth]

lolcackes let me tell you what I think, this will be a mandatory talent for nonsteamroll Mythic+ and Affliction will become new Fire Mage there especially now that Flame Patch has been eliminated.

It certainly does offer potential. Among other things, PS offers a way to quickly and repeatedly detonate your Seeds without having to manage DoT stacks. Talent into Phantom Singularity, Sow the Seeds, and Absolute Corruption... that's some serious AoE. Once you unlock Soul Flame it just gets even better.

It's not something you'd want for every raid boss, but as you say for Mythic+ it seems to have a lot of potential all of a sudden. Also for World Questing, if you GoSup for the Infernal and round things up to kill them en mass.

[striderZA]

Phantom Singularity damage doubled.

Just tried it in beta and it's absolute lolcakes on trash. It's like double cataclysm with huge range with immortality on top.

Awesome.

Am I remembering incorrectly or did Contagion also receive a buff? For some reason I can't remember the damage buff being 15%.

[wooters]

before mythic + for thrash I`d probably go haunt, mana tap, sow, gosac and singularity for full aoe. absolute corruption won`t return much imo.. before things start live longer or if mobs tend to spread out..haunt for insta sow detonation and a nice addition overall. Talent selection will be very dependant of our groups dmg potential ofc..and setups like this would be pretty terrible ST lol so maybe not the way to go after all

Don`t understand why so many dislike affliction so far. seems rounded, varied and pretty well though out. the drains could maybe do more damage and/or more closer to the targets demise but I dunno. Buff to singularity was a nice surprise...doubt they will nerf it down again for a good while

[Deleted]

Awesome.

Am I remembering incorrectly or did Contagion also receive a buff? For some reason I can't remember the damage buff being 15%.

It's been 15% as long as I've been in beta at least (like 3 weeks or so) so it's unchanged by any recent patches. Diplomatic edit: Unless I'm completely off my meds!