Calling all Affliction Locks

[Applenazi]

Clearly there's a disconnect between your experience and what the specs capable of.

Yes, there is clearly a disconnect between what the spec is capable of and math... wait, what? Firstly, multi-rank 1's tend to find success every season, crazy I know. Secondly, and most importantly, I again fail to see what this has to do with my feedback regarding Affliction.

Are you saying that 2/3s of THESE locks golden artifact traits DON'T require units dying to proc? That seems unlikely.

Are you saying that THESE locks have a shorter cooldown on Unending Resolve? Maybe they have a special cooldown that only rank 1s get or some other method of achieving the same amounts of mitigation as the other specs?

Are you saying that the unstable affliction they cast, using a preconfigured template, that has a maximum stack as well as a maximum possible damage cap, hits harder than the rest of ours?

God this is all some pretty amazing shit. So what you have done is, instead of forming a rational and grounded argument, simply said PPL PLA AFF LOCK STILL SO U WRONG. I understand it's easier for you to simply spout vague insinuations based on shit I never said but that's not very interesting from my perspective--be a bit more thoughtful.

I still play Affliction, the fact people still play affliction means it exists without flaws and no feedback can be given? If demo or destro also have issues they feel need to be addressed then I would implore them to submit feedback.

[Lucrece]

They just need to give us demon skin + dark pact back, bake in demonic circle baseline and put back how of terror back into the 3rd slot for the CC tier (and give shadowfury to affliction as an option, so the 3 talents are CC talents).

Demonic Circle should also be a 10 minute duration aura....

[Deleted]

Same as other I think the most annoying part about affliction is how they randomly removed the dispel protection. Affliction has always been about UA and how you could protect your own dots and your team mates. Now with the newest change they encourage others to dispel without any repercussion and it hurts the spec extremely much.

Personally I've never seen this spec in such a bad shape and I wont touch it unless it gets a decent redesign (preferably not from a lead balance designer that plays on a fucking tablet).

[Baconeggcheese]

multi-rank 1's tend to find success every season

I hear it helps when you're playing a spec capable of rank 1.

I understand it's easier for you to simply spout vague insinuations

I just get the gyst from seeing your responses to others that there's no point in trying to engage in reasoned discussion with you, so I don't. It appears you've made a decision, and it's not really up for debate so there's not a whole lot of point in trying.

[muto]

but shadows have no need to switch specs for better dps because their dps works on both single target and adds. also shadows have the benefit of being able to switch to a different role, which is far more valuable in a raid setting than switching from one mediocre damage spec to another mediocre one. also how is it good design that warlock "gets" to switch specs based on enounters when so many other specs do not have to do that? also even if you are fine with switching specs around for encounters that still leaves you with sub-par gear thanks to different specs having different stat weights. also why do you ignore his point about artifact traits being outright useless on many encounters? do you say that is a good spec design? again if you think that is proper design then how do you explain that this isn't the case for many other specs, including specs of that same class?

1.Shadow is dogshit at AoE
2. None of the specs are mediocre. They excel at one thing in particular, but are not good in everything across the board. Demo wrecks single target. Destro wrecks cleave. Affliction wrecks mass AoE.

[Applenazi]

I hear it helps when you're playing a spec capable of rank 1.

Never claimed anything contrary to this, your reading comprehension skills are fucking garbage.

I just get the gyst from seeing your responses to others that there's no point in trying to engage in reasoned discussion with you, so I don't. It appears you've made a decision, and it's not really up for debate so there's not a whole lot of point in trying.

Right, you have yet to form a single relevant point because you choose not to, makes sense.

[Lucrece]

1.Shadow is dogshit at AoE
2. None of the specs are mediocre. They excel at one thing in particular, but are not good in everything across the board. Demo wrecks single target. Destro wrecks cleave. Affliction wrecks mass AoE.

Demo is not even close to wrecking single target.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=95&boss=1853

Nythendra, mediocre at best.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=95&boss=1841

Ursoc mythic. Still mediocre.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...1&difficulty=4

Ursoc heroic (no cleaving). Barely above average.


I don't get why people keep saying demo is great at single target when what they mean is that it isn't absolute dogshit at single target like destro and affliction.

And to have that middle of the pack single target?

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=95&boss=1873

Ilgynoth.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...t=95&boss=1876

Elerethe



Pretty dogshit aoe. The other bosses where you consider them as cleave fights, demo is strictly mediocre.

Demo virtually excels at nothing. It is the worst of the 3 specs.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statistics/10#dataset=95

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...95&keystone=10

Look at where the two specs for warlock are sitting 95th percentile at keystone 10. Bottom. Destro barely gets to the top of the bottom quarter.

So tell me again what warlocks excel at, because only destro seems remotely good by warlock standards.

Which is good for people who like to play destro, but pretty crappy for everyone else.

We're not talking "good" as in being like shadow priest/fire mage, those need to be nerfed hard. I'm talking good as in enhancement shaman/rogue/frost DK/WW monk good. Actual middle, not "barely scraping by to get a glimpse at middle" middle.

[muto]

I don't get why people keep saying demo is great at single target when what they mean is that it isn't absolute dogshit at single target like destro and affliction.

95th percentile. Yeah okay. Because most people are parsing in the 95th percentile. Set it to 50 and look at the results.

[Locknrollen]

@Applenazi

I think you should learn to accept when youre wrong, and take cunstructive criticism. Which there has been alot of in this thread.
Youve been defensive and answering insulting, since the first response.

I get that youre really proud of your post on the Wow forums. but the people there praising your posts are usually not very educated in the subject. The people here have made it obvious that you're in the wrong with your op and it could use a rewriting.

Its time to grow up.

[Orwell7]

95th percentile. Yeah okay. Because most people are parsing in the 95th percentile. Set it to 50 and look at the results.

Uhm... I've set it to 50.
Do you, mr. naked man?
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...=1841&sample=1

[Deleted]

2. None of the specs are mediocre. They excel at one thing in particular, but are not good in everything across the board. Demo wrecks single target. Destro wrecks cleave. Affliction wrecks mass AoE.

The three warlock specs are mediocre. They all excel at one thing in exchange for being poor at most other things. Demo wreck at asingle target but it's poor at aoe , target switching and has no burst on adds. Destro is good at cleave and the best at priority adds, but it's poor at aoe and single target. Affliction is great at sustained aoe, but it's bad at virtually everything else

These add up to being mediocre, in generally terms, the only thing that stops all three lock specs from being bad is that they are exceptional in a specific niche.

Moreover, as the post you're replying to points out, the main effect of this is a constant pressure to switch talents and specs between bosses and even trash, because the warlock talents are excessively restrictive and basically mean to be good at one thing automatically makes you bad at another - affliction, for example, you have to choose between AOE or single target: you cannot do both effectively with any talent build. Moreover, speccing into single target feels pointless because even if you do it's still poor

This is probably intentional and Blizz think of it as making talent choices "interesting" and "significant" (plus, of course, the endless round of time and gold sink tomes you need add up to more hours played), ditto pushing people to switch specs = more hours grinding for gear (as they have different stat weightings) and more hours grinding for artifact power.

It's not a huge issue so long as there's a level playing field.

But there isn''t.

We've also got in the game some god-classes/spec who excel at darn near everything. Fire mages and MM hunters do not feel pushed into saying "oh dear, single target, I need to go arcane or beast mastery for this", then the next minute they are "ah, cleave, time to go frost/survival" and then "ah, time to go back to fire/marksman again"

Moreover, their talents aren't as restrictive either. A fire mage can take living bomb or unstable mind to minmax but it's not a huge thing either way. They can take living bomb and get very decent aoe, not quite as good as an afflock who has to be fully aoe talented, but close: but the fir emage will absolutely crap all over the afflock for everything else. Ditto hunters, barrage is a pretty respectable single target talent - whereas affliction has sow the seeds (utterly useless for anything other than aoe) vs siphonlife, or destro has to take FnB (again, zero use for anything other than aoe)

This is one reason why warlocks have trouble finding groups, particularly for M+. They are niche specialists, and they are competing for a place against others who are excellent all rounders; you can't change talents or specs in + modes, so the all-rounder tends to be the more attractive. Even in raids and other dungeons, groups have no patience for talent swapping as many of the other players do not need to. Nor do many of them feel impelled to gear up and learn to play three different specs - which might include playstyles they dislike intensely

And when we say "excel" I think we should look at the overall picture. Warlock specs excel in their own niche compared to the other warlock specs; they don;t necessary "wreck" anything compared to other classes, and that niche specialisation comes at a huge cost that others just aren;t paying at all.

- - - Updated - - -

95th percentile. Yeah okay. Because most people are parsing in the 95th percentile. Set it to 50 and look at the results.

Warlocks look even worse in those percentiles because the ease of playing a fire mage or mm hunter over a demo or afflock starts to feed into the results. You have to have a hell of a lot more skill and effort to max up a demolock compared to a fire mage.

Affliction pure single target is very easy, but the difficulty and micro-managing rise exponentially as you add in more. Particularly if you look at Soul Effigy, even a two-boss cleave fight turns into keeping up up dots rolling on three targets at all times, with one of them in a fixed position with a range limit.

Unfortunately Blizz seem to adopt this "on paper you're as good as a fire mage and we don't care if playing demo is so much harder that hardly anyone manages to reach this hypothetical equality"

[Applenazi]

@Applenazi

I think you should learn to accept when youre wrong, and take cunstructive criticism.

Wrong about what specifically...? Oh and don't forget how. 'What' and 'How', without those you aren't really debating anything, you're just a dipshit.

Infracted - Woz

[Deleted]

i have been in a pretty negative position also, but i really start to like affliction more and more.
i will write my few cents here, as i can not post in the US forums, i am from germany.

with that said, in my opinion the damage is fine. you are NOT as far behind that
your damageoutput is a deep concern for any competent raidleader.
in fact you can keep up a good portion of your damage while moving around.

what blizzard has to somehow get right is the way other people think of the afflictoinspec.
because even if i am "only" the average dd, there are other benefits for every afflictionlock in the raid.
i think it is safe so say that the affliction warlock is the only specc/class with a selfsustain as good,
as you wont really need more than a few hots and a heal now and then to be fully functional the whole bossfight.

that HAS to get into the minds of those other players. and i really hope that blizzard will provide encounters/content
when such things matter!
there are not many classes that can provide that.

can post any link yet, but my last xavius (HC) was around 350k dps, without flask/food.
my gearscore is around 864. and the details of that fight prove my opinion,
i absorbed more that half of the damage i took that fight by myself.
that is not only a "nice to have" thing. it is a clear discharge for the healers.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately affliction and destruction do have a serious damage issues when it comes to single target, it is quite simply bad and pretyt much at the bottom

Basically it seems this is because affliction liek destruction is tuned around multi-target fights.

Inmy view Blizzard made a big error when they gave destruction wreak havoc and tied all affliction damage into dots. Wreak Havoc means either destruction is either very weak in any fight where it cannot cleave, or it is competetive where it cannot cleave and hence overpowered when it can. Blizzard opted for leaving Havoc'd damage to be full power, and tuned around that, so that destrucrion competes where it can cleave and sucks where it can't. It would have been way better to have stronger Chaos Bolts and Incinerates and a modifier so that Havoc reduced them by say 20% to stop cleave damage getting out of control.

This would have meant destruction was a far more versatile spec and was not critically reliant on a fight having cleave mechanics. As it is, destruction - liek affliction -suffers horribly when it cannot cleave (or in affliction's case multidot)

Look at any fight where warlocks cannot cleave/multidot and they are generally keeping the tanks company. And this doesn't mean they are top when they can cleave/multidot. They tend to get beaten even in encounters that play to their strenghts.

Whereas mages, hunters, etc, they just excel at everything and are not reliant on a fight mechanic to flatter them. A fire mage does such good damage they do not have to lean on any sort of crutch like being able to effectively double it via a gimmick like Wreak Havoc to excel.

IMHO all the warlock specs are poorly designed.

[Deleted]

Yeah ... No ...

Balancing has always been part of the game. Nerfing, Buffing and flatout breaking a spec ( in positive or negative manner) has always been part of the game ... Removing iconic abilities and gameplay IS ALSO part of the game regardless if we like it or not.

If you don't like what your class/spec is now. Stop playing, no1 forces you and no1 ( from blizzard) is obligated to compile your expectations and create the game so it's interesting and playable FOR YOU.

Once they lose their subs, they will have to re-think, because this is - money, but until then yelling "Blizzard, do the game the way I like, because I pay you " is REALLY silly.


And this is coming from me,a PvPer who had 36 key-binds as warlock in TBC ... Now I have 15?

BC warlock was just two button rotation in pvp

I do agree on your opinion, this senseless entitled whining in every class forum is obnoxious. If you have issues with a spec, talk about it, no need to whine and pretend like Blizzard is conspiring against you for whatever fucked up reason you conjured in your mind. Every subforum is the same, some people even complain without understanding the basics of the specs (like those elemental shaman casting lavaburst without flameshock :facepalm.

If you don't like a spec, you can't threaten blizzard of anything aside for quitting. They won't tailor gameplay for your personal desires or even the desires of 50 people on a forum. I'm all for less pruning but its obvious they won't change anything at the core until the next expansion. And being whiny about it won't help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJKnSxMgAvE

[Deleted]

@Applenazi

I think you should learn to accept when youre wrong, and take cunstructive criticism. Which there has been alot of in this thread.
Youve been defensive and answering insulting, since the first response.

I get that youre really proud of your post on the Wow forums. but the people there praising your posts are usually not very educated in the subject. The people here have made it obvious that you're in the wrong with your op and it could use a rewriting.

Its time to grow up.

all the "constructive" criticism towards apple has been just random insults and people being defensive about their spec. Nothing really "constructive" about them, while apple has been providing facts and even done the math for them. Every single constructive critizism provided by some1 has been already proven wrong.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately affliction and destruction do have a serious damage issues when it comes to single target, it is quite simply bad and pretyt much at the bottom

Basically it seems this is because affliction liek destruction is tuned around multi-target fights.

Inmy view Blizzard made a big error when they gave destruction wreak havoc and tied all affliction damage into dots. Wreak Havoc means either destruction is either very weak in any fight where it cannot cleave, or it is competetive where it cannot cleave and hence overpowered when it can. Blizzard opted for leaving Havoc'd damage to be full power, and tuned around that, so that destrucrion competes where it can cleave and sucks where it can't. It would have been way better to have stronger Chaos Bolts and Incinerates and a modifier so that Havoc reduced them by say 20% to stop cleave damage getting out of control.

This would have meant destruction was a far more versatile spec and was not critically reliant on a fight having cleave mechanics. As it is, destruction - liek affliction -suffers horribly when it cannot cleave (or in affliction's case multidot)

Look at any fight where warlocks cannot cleave/multidot and they are generally keeping the tanks company. And this doesn't mean they are top when they can cleave/multidot. They tend to get beaten even in encounters that play to their strenghts.

Whereas mages, hunters, etc, they just excel at everything and are not reliant on a fight mechanic to flatter them. A fire mage does such good damage they do not have to lean on any sort of crutch like being able to effectively double it via a gimmick like Wreak Havoc to excel.

IMHO all the warlock specs are poorly designed.

fire mage is not great at single target, its quite average. MM hunter is not that good single target either, its a strong AOE spec. Elemental is a pure AOE spec. Shadow is pure single target and suck at aoe.

Now tell me, where do you get this idea that other dps classes have everything in one spec with strenghts everywhere and barely no weaknesses? Tell me which one please, even fire mages are not great at everything,far from it. God forbid you guys actually have to chose talents for each situation instead of facerolling the same cookie cutter build you people obsess so much about. Thats the purpose of talents, to adapt, not to just pick the best build and begone. I wished I had that much choice as MM hunter where its all AOE spec or nothing with sidewinders or shadowpriest being tunneled into a single lvl 100 talent.

- - - Updated - - -

all the "constructive" criticism towards apple has been just random insults and people being defensive about their spec. Nothing really "constructive" about them, while apple has been providing facts and even done the math for them. Every single constructive critizism provided by some1 has been already proven wrong.

You might want to avoid this ultra biased bullshit you know, it almost sounds like some multi account backing shit.


Whining is whining. You just chose to ignore that people actually offer feedback and do not merely insult the op, its the other way around. But hey feel free to spin things to your own mindset and join the whine train

[Applenazi]

Whining is whining. You just chose to ignore that people actually offer feedback and do not merely insult the op, its the other way around. But hey feel free to spin things to your own mindset and join the whine train

What am I whining about? If you wish to insult me do it directly, and honestly some specifics for fucks sake. Why do people feel the need to drag this out so god damned much. If you have an issue with me or the content of my statements then provide a specific quote as well as a detailed grievance, this shit isn't that fucking hard.

Also I feel extremely confident multiple accounts is a violation of this forums TOS so if you feel I or the user above is guilty of that then I would suggest contacting a mod or admin.

all the "constructive" criticism towards apple has been just random insults and people being defensive about their spec. Nothing really "constructive" about them, while apple has been providing facts and even done the math for them. Every single constructive critizism provided by some1 has been already proven wrong.

Right? One kid asked for numbers, got them, and immediately ran away. Another kid said I was wrong but couldn't list what I was wrong about, and yet another kid told me I've made a decision about something, although fuck knows what, and as such there was no point forming a cogent statement about anything at all. Again, I know MMO-Champ is just one big fight but so far I haven't even been able to get a simple framework of what exactly people are trying to fight about.

[Nadiru]

I just wanna know where Blizzard gets off saying Warlocks are all about the tankiness when Mages have as many baseline survivability tools than Warlocks do, and you have to stretch for Demonic Gateway:

Warlocks
-Shield Wall
-Soul Leech
-Gateway

Mages
-Ice Barrier
-Blink
-Ice Block

Is Blizzard counting Healthstones as a survivability tool? Is that their line of thinking?

[Applenazi]

I just wanna know where Blizzard gets off saying Warlocks are all about the tankiness when Mages have as many baseline survivability tools than Warlocks do, and you have to stretch for Demonic Gateway:

Warlocks
-Shield Wall
-Soul Leech
-Gateway

Mages
-Ice Barrier
-Blink
-Ice Block

Is Blizzard counting Healthstones as a survivability tool? Is that their line of thinking?

I think having healthstones be 1 use per combat session, at least for Locks, was a huge misstep. If I could sweet Souls every 2 minutes in the arena I personally would feel satisfied with our defensive kit but 1 healthstone for the duration of an arena really diminishes the base stone and Sweet Souls as a whole.