Affliction is Still Underperforming.

[wholol]

You do know that Blizzard can now balance PVP separately? PVP cannot be used as an excuse now for Affliction doing shit DPS.

As for dungeon/leveling, tanks get to mow down dozens of mobs at the same time with ease AND they get to solo dungeons as well. There are specs way more efficient than Affliction at those things yet Affliction is supposed to be balanced AKA punished for its self-healing?

When you alter gameplay by , for example, swapping circle with demon skin for the sake of fake mobility because apparently warlocks can't take circle in raids at the moment due to reasons unknown it does affect pvp.

I understand the fact that warlocks feel immobile and this is especially emphasized in raids but the real question is do we rly need to fall into the same format of "mobility" as mages ? this is the very basis of the homogeneous process that blizzard has fallen into in the past expansions and ended up reverting in legion for the sake of fantasy.

I don't see them taking a step backwards as they never seem to alter their mindset until an expansion has at least run its' course.

[Cempa]

Affliction filler as Drain Life uses a ton of mana which in tern requires a tap which costs a global .. lost globals means lower DPS right?

If demo has drain life, why can't affliction have shadow bolt back with an instant proc chance?

[Jessicka]

Affliction filler as Drain Life uses a ton of mana which in tern requires a tap which costs a global .. lost globals means lower DPS right?

If demo has drain life, why can't affliction have shadow bolt back with an instant proc chance?

Life Tap isn't lost globals so long as it's replenishing mana. It's actually an opportunity to move.

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So it is "tanky" which means nothing really, and it is "mobile". Demon Hunters/rogues/wars/feral are all pretty mobile. They also do a lot more damage. What exactly is your point.

All I'm reading is affliction shouldn't be good because reasons. Never did I say Affliction should top all meters. You though are the one that seems to think that they shouldn't be competitive at all, just because I can cast 2(3) dots with 15+ second durations while moving. Fire mages can cast a lot of shit while moving also you know.

You're comparing that mobility with melee, who can't hit a target 40 yards away; or multiple targets 80 yards apart.

[Morgan Pain]

affliction will never be S tier, or even A tier. it has too much self healing

The self heal that warlocks provide is somewhat consistent, but we have no burst selfheal like almost every other class. warlock selfheal looks good on paper, ive even specced my artifact for max selfheal trying to compete in arena, but it aint worth shit. I suspect that selfheal is bugged or not working as intended.

Up against demonhunters in arena who dish out 5-8 mill damage in 2 global lockdowns whats the point anyway..

[Deleted]

Affliction still underperforms, some of those buffs should have been 25% ormore (hell, if they can give SP's 80% on one of their abilities...)

I'd have much rather seen Drain Soul/Life buffed by 50% or more than buffs to Corruption, Agony, Phantom Singularity

The buffs we got lock affliction even more into it's "great at Mythic trash, sucks at everything else" niche. Thanks in part to the stupid talent system where afflocks have to take Sow the Seeds to do AOE but it's totally useless for single target, and our single target being hideously low anyway.

As an afflock I just feel like the trash-bitch with no other purpose.

A fir emage can take aoe with minimal losses to their single target, where they can afford to take a loss anyway.

These changes are a bandaid, they address problems affliction doesn't have, and don;t adress issue sit does. I'm baffled why they went for across the board small buffs, when affliction needs targetted big ones. Notably single target, 10% on dots will do veyr little there, you'll still be way, way down on the totem pole.

Yeah yeah switch specs, except in M+ you can't.

[Jessicka]

Affliction still underperforms, some of those buffs should have been 25% ormore (hell, if they can give SP's 80% on one of their abilities...)

In defence of Shadow Priests, they're not overperforming, and they're not the easiest spec on the roster; already getting a lot of *nyargh missed that spell by a nanosecond to keep Void Form just that little bit longer*. I'm not even using StM yet, so those misses would be literally fatal. :|

Mind Sear as it was, was hitting for nothing, 1.8x nothing is still pretty much nothing.

I'd have much rather seen Drain Soul/Life buffed by 50% or more than buffs to Corruption, Agony, Phantom Singularity

The buffs we got lock affliction even more into it's "great at Mythic trash, sucks at everything else" niche. Thanks in part to the stupid talent system where afflocks have to take Sow the Seeds to do AOE but it's totally useless for single target, and our single target being hideously low anyway.

As an afflock I just feel like the trash-bitch with no other purpose.

A fir emage can take aoe with minimal losses to their single target, where they can afford to take a loss anyway.

These changes are a bandaid, they address problems affliction doesn't have, and don;t adress issue sit does. I'm baffled why they went for across the board small buffs, when affliction needs targetted big ones. Notably single target, 10% on dots will do veyr little there, you'll still be way, way down on the totem pole.

Yeah yeah switch specs, except in M+ you can't.

There's a cascade effect if you buff one spell and then it's DPET overtakes something else and then you just break the entire rotation. Buffing everything by a bit just prevents that happening, so I can absolutely see why they do it. Nor am I going to cry about having my multi-target damage buffed so I can excel even more at that, particularly as it's arguably more important than pure ST will ever be.

This isn't the final tuning pass, so I'm going to see where the buffs put us. It's not like I have some dilemma over which spec to pick.

What I want to see is Haunt scale with Mastery and Haste one way or another to make sure it remains viable as gear improves. It adds something to the rotation that's fun, and it's basically our only piece of up front damage so it counters some of the ramp up issues the spec has; it can actually hit pretty hard with Contagion up and Reap Souls active (only just getting used to it, but it's above Corruption as a damage source). On shorter fights that actually makes a difference, rather than waiting for half the fight for Agony to completely stack to see the benefit from Writhe.

As for fixing it where its strong and nothing where its weak; 'doubling down on strengths' is what they said... It's hard to argue that that is exactly what they're doing.

What I do feel is a problem is still that Soul Flame and Wrath of Consumption take up too much of our DPS 'pie'; it's unnecessary to have 2 on-death mechanics and hard to make them both feel 'meaningful' without them doing exactly that.

[Deleted]

Tbh they should make WoC on soul consumed.

[Locki]

Something that surprises me in all of this is how no attention has been brought to the Legendaries for our class. I'm seriously dreading the day I end up with instant Demonic Gateway, as it's bound to happen with the shitty luck I've been having recently.

On another note, fix aff artifact please

[Atreyis]

Something that surprises me in all of this is how no attention has been brought to the Legendaries for our class. I'm seriously dreading the day I end up with instant Demonic Gateway, as it's bound to happen with the shitty luck I've been having recently.

On another note, fix aff artifact please

I'll probably be rocking those pants right there with you as I have no doubt they will be my first legendary as well.

[Mhorrg]

From a Heroic Dungeon perspective:

I'm pretty happy. I can keep up with most of the ranged classes though I still get blown out of the water by melee DPS (but that's expected, I'm safer than they are so I do less damage).

I don't expect to do top DPS as I'm nigh unkillable and can even off-tank certain mobs with self-healing, so I think where I am is pretty good right now.

[dondzon]

Effigy is still our best top talent i think, but i think it's better to use GoSac then GoSer in raids. If you place effigy near the boss it does aoe dmg too. And this build helps alot in heroics and mythics, so you don't need to swap all the time. But, i am not sure about Contagion and AC, which one to use? Is't much of a hussle with effigy to keep dots up all the time. Is it that much boost for ours dps? And with Contagion, what is real rotation? Cast UA w/e i have soul shard?

[Rodneydoritn]

warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/17381219/latest#

These are the fights for last night's normal clear. We are moving on to heroic tonight but looks like we are in a good spot with these updates/buffs. I've always found that my lock scales better then any of my other classes with gear. Haste/Mastery go so well together and once we get into the tier bonuses we will be fine.

This is a good change from last week's raid and I can feel a big difference in my numbers. I wish that siphon life would become baseline giving us the opportunity to take the seed talent.

We need to find some information on trinkets and how they effect us better - proc based damage or stat stick with int/mastery over a fight.

The above post has a good idea with GoSAC and stacking effigy under the boss.

I would love to see blizzard implement an ability that applies agony at max stacks with maybe a 30-45 second cooldown.

[Deleted]

warcraftlogs.com/rankings/character/17381219/latest#

These are the fights for last night's normal clear. We are moving on to heroic tonight but looks like we are in a good spot with these updates/buffs. I've always found that my lock scales better then any of my other classes with gear. Haste/Mastery go so well together and once we get into the tier bonuses we will be fine.

This is a good change from last week's raid and I can feel a big difference in my numbers. I wish that siphon life would become baseline giving us the opportunity to take the seed talent.

We need to find some information on trinkets and how they effect us better - proc based damage or stat stick with int/mastery over a fight.

The above post has a good idea with GoSAC and stacking effigy under the boss.

I would love to see blizzard implement an ability that applies agony at max stacks with maybe a 30-45 second cooldown.

You do realize that you do 223K on Ursoc and are amongst the top affliction warlocks while Shadow Priests, Warrior, Mages, Rogues do 450-500K on that fight? They are easily doubling your dps.

I don't mean to be rude but how can you suggest it is fine?

[Jacpierre]

You're comparing that mobility with melee, who can't hit a target 40 yards away; or multiple targets 80 yards apart.

And you're ignoring that melee can cleave through the majority of their attacks. That they don't take a minimum of 5 seconds to deliver a full hit. That they hit a single target for more than we can hit multiple targets.

Balance can cast and move. So Can Mages. All mage specs have multiple instances, as well as Ice Floes, which seems pretty mandatory for pve. Shaman can tab shock and get instant lava procs. Affliction can hit 2 to 3 dots while moving. There is no burst damage, and those dots have long durations, so unless there is a whole hell of a lot on the screen that others cant get to that require us to do nothing but tab dot, our "mobility" isn't really an issue. On bosses like Ursoc or Nythendra I'm not really moving anymore than anyone else. If my 3 dots did so much damage that I doing a ton more than any other spec on a cleave fight you'd have a point, but If I have to bust my ass balancing dots to come close to another spec who is able to tunnel a single target, and move in and out of things, then that isn't really balanced.

[pkm]

You realise flamestrike is a dps loss on anything under 8 targets, right?

You do realize this is actually a heavily debated topic and not everyone can come to a conclusion yet, right?