[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[xskarma]

I'm glad, considering in pve that'd mean that either UA would have to be tuned so that it wasn't worth spamming back and forth between life tap and UA over doing other things, or it would be the aidsiest gameplay ever.

Aff set bonuses look pretty silly, flat dmg to UA and increased chance for agony to proc a shard.

Hmm true, we'd just tap when we need a shard and let our healers deal with it.

Flat, boring bonuses often turn out ot be the best in practice, so I'm okay with boring set bonuses. Better than getting some outlandish new tech feature that is either buggy or doesn't actually increase your damage in any significant way (thinking Class trinkets here for some classes).

First tier I'll happily take some boring, but working and significant bonuses. Let the fancy stuff come in a later tier when they are not also working on a whole rest of an expansion.

[Baconeggcheese]

I don't really need spec changing set bonuses when I'm receiving an entirely new spec as it is.

I also don't see them having room for much with affs current design unless the bonuses added quality of life since there's already so much to deal with.

[JV Chequer]

Boring Affli bonuses. Just flat QoL.

[xskarma]

I don't really need spec changing set bonuses when I'm receiving an entirely new spec as it is.

Yeah, that's my thinking too. We'll already get a whole rework of the spec, and on top of that get an artifact that will significantly impact what I can do, I don;t really need set bonuses on top of that to contribute even more changes. I'm okay with just flat out more damage and more proc chances.

[dholland662]

Oh no but warlocks can't be leaping about the place. I mean... it takes away from super shiny (yawn more like uber lame and super cheesy) Demon Hunters... (honestly I haven't seen anything about demon hunters that even comes close to similar as current demo locks meta... making the whole "demon hunters unique hur dur no more becoming demonic for warlocks" argument completely invalidated.) That isn't to say I don't think we shouldn't be summoning stronger demons in demonology. It's more of from a class fantasy/lore perspective warlocks have always been the ones becoming more and more demonic to me. (Gul'dan is a fine specimen of the abuse of fel magics)

Yea, this actually is kind of annoying me. The Demon Hunters totally blowing up our spot and being visibly corrupted by fel magic. I would assume warlocks would have signs of that by now.

I want some SWAG!

And also we didn't get any spell fixes. Just pvp talents. I'm worried that Blizzard thinks Affliction is fine.

[Soulzar]

And also we didn't get any spell fixes. Just pvp talents. I'm worried that Blizzard thinks Affliction is fine.

You shouldn't be. With only 1 of 3 specs available, it should be assumed the priority is getting the other specs hot glued together and out for testing... not making sure everything in Affliction is fixed for next build.

[Terryn]

No changes to afl last night except for UA now crashing the client

Time to keep thoughts flowing until we get a response from them.

[Soulzar]

No changes to afl last night except for UA now crashing the client

Time to keep thoughts flowing until we get a response from them.

I thought UA was crashing it at first too but it seems fine. Once I swapped Drain life to drain soul I had no issues with crashing using Cor/Agony/UA/Drain soul.

[dholland662]

You shouldn't be. With only 1 of 3 specs available, it should be assumed the priority is getting the other specs hot glued together and out for testing... not making sure everything in Affliction is fixed for next build.

Good point. I didn't think of that.

STILL COMPLAIN! All day, every day. Silence is compliance!

[Terryn]

Ran some things last night. Noticed some bug fixes but other than that still the same spec. Sow the seeds actually needs to be talented now.


Shard usage is still bugged and will drain 2-3 bonus shards some times.

[Cyberthug32]

If they fix the shard issue, and a few adjustments (maybe increasing the duration of our dots) then affliction will be in a good place.

Effigy also should be next to boss too.

[dholland662]

If they fix the shard issue, and a few adjustments (maybe increasing the duration of our dots) then affliction will be in a good place.

Effigy also should be next to boss too.

I like the idea of Unstable Affliction being a bursty DoT however. That can remain short. Or at least increase the damage wen it's elongated

[EliteNightKnight]

Tormented Souls periodically attempt to escape the Harvester - killing them refunds 10% mana.

Can anyone explain or give some details how artifact skill works?

[Esinar]

Tormented Souls periodically attempt to escape the Harvester - killing them refunds 10% mana.

Can anyone explain or give some details how artifact skill works?

Sure.

Approximately every 15 seconds or so, when you are in combat, a Tormented Soul (with about 11k health at level 100) will spawn next to the left or right of your character and will slowly drift forward for around 30 seconds and then it will despawn. If it is killed by any means before it despawns you will get 10% of your total mana and you will also gain a buff (which you get by also killing any enemy) called 'Deadwind Harvester' for 10 seconds that increases shadow damage by 10% and increases all you passive artifact traits by 100%... so for example say you have the 'Inherently Unstable' trait at 3 stacks (first trait), this gives a passive 10% increase for UA to crit. During the 'Deadwind Harvester' buff however this will be 20% increased chance for UA to crit.

[EliteNightKnight]

Sure.

Approximately every 15 seconds or so, when you are in combat, a Tormented Soul (with about 11k health at level 100) will spawn next to the left or right of your character and will slowly drift forward for around 30 seconds and then it will despawn. If it is killed by any means before it despawns you will get 10% of your total mana and you will also gain a buff (which you get by also killing any enemy) called 'Deadwind Harvester' for 10 seconds that increases shadow damage by 10% and increases all you passive artifact traits by 100%... so for example say you have the 'Inherently Unstable' trait at 3 stacks (first trait), this gives a passive 10% increase for UA to crit. During the 'Deadwind Harvester' buff however this will be 20% increased chance for UA to crit.

Thank bro. Is there any limit of souls that can spawn simultaneously, basically — can we have 100% uptime? Also, can we macros it like /target /cast ua /targetlasttarget for fast kill?

[dholland662]

After pvping with a friend on shadow priests I am very excited for the Affliction changes.

Not to brag but SP is pretty good at melting faces in pvp. Because the damage is centered around DoTs. Most shadow priest raiders will rarely use their channels or what have you. So the damage is balanced largely aroud the DoTs.

The same is going to be true of Affliction in Legion, removing Haunt and making DoTs buff our channel rather than vice versa means we wont be confined to needing a synergy of filler and debuffs on a target to do close to our best damage.

This makes us more versatile ( the big issue with affliction for a long time imo). More Mobility, more multidotting.

All because removing of Haunt and how our channel spell works currently.

Although Haunt was cool and Haunting Spirits a great animation that adds a lot to the affliction fantasy, so I hope they rework it in subsequent updates or expansions. Maybe make it a buff or a DoT on its own

[Inshabel]

I haven't read back 46 pages so sorry if this has been covered already, but does anyone think recasting UA 5 times (10 times if you spec Soul Harvest) to be fun gameplay? I'm sure it will be insane "burst" especially when combined with Mana Tap but it seems this basically ensures that you shouldn't touch UA unless you're capped on shards, and then recast the same spell 10 times, atleast we wont be gimped if we're unable to keep up Haunting Spirits up due to shard starvation (I'm a bit sad to see this is still so random for Affliction)

[Deleted]

Why would this make you wait until you have 5 shards? Same dpc and globals spent whether you spend them as they come or wait till 5.

[Deleted]

You might have a trinket proc up, boss may be in a vulnerable state, or you may simply want to kill something ASAP.

Plenty of reasons.

[Baconeggcheese]

but it seems this basically ensures that you shouldn't touch UA unless you're capped on shards

I get the impression that their intention is for you to be casting agony / corruption frequently enough with all the different targets that you'll be almost constantly getting compound interest stacks. And since compound interest only affects the next UA, you'll likely be practically keeping it up regular as a third dot as opposed to a nuke.

Remember compound interest increases its dmg by up to 50%, and if you kill something then I assume the harvester buff would bring it to 100%, which would mean you'd absolutely want to be constantly gaming that.