Afflication and 7.1.5

[Sartre]

Can anyone on the PTR test this affliction build on ST, and compare it to (Mg+Cont+SiphonLife+SC)?
http://ptr.wowhead.com/talent-calc/w...ffliction/cjAc

I am well awared of its ups and downs (well... mostly downs. It's a funny build), but I can't log on right now because of work, and I'm curious to see how it performs vs the current PTR "cookie-cutter" ST build.

[Deleted]

why is everyone thinking that they will nerf the grasp?
really, what does a affliction warlock bring to the table richt now?

AoE -> takes too long to dish it out
singletarget -> not high enoughn ot to mention in fights where you have to switch on smaller adds.

with the recent changes you can actually REALLY focus on damage and if we would be #1 in singletarget... that would be a statement from blizzard.
we still cant switch to smaller adds, but we actually have sth to work with as it seems.

[Deleted]

has any1 else on the ptr noticed that our golden traits wrath of consumption and soul flame doenst seem to work or maybe its just me?

[Deleted]

I'm not worried at all, because I don't think there is still room for a class to get any worse than we are currently are.

I thought that after I was thoroughly disappointed with the MOP revamp and thought, hey, at least WOD couldn't get any worse.
I thought the same thing after WOD WAS worse because, hey, at least in Legion they finally recognize the spec needs some major changes and DOT's should be the priority.

Yet here we are.

They still seem to insist Soul Effigy is salvageable despite warlocks liking it no more than mages did.
They also seem to view ramp as a particular problem. It's not neceserily so - Shadowpriests are incredibly popular for raids right now despite them only being able to dish out the numbers during their (self)execute range. Ramp isn't a problem if you actually deliver over the course of the fight - the problem is affliction doesn't.
What I wouldn't give to go back to WOTLK / Cata design with a proper execute cycle and a slow but steady and respectable performance on the meters.

[erinthea]

Yep reported it the drain soul talents do nothing as well thats 4 traits not working

[Deleted]

I feel like the latest ptr changes are the first really positive ones affliction has gotten, at least in terms of addressing problems rather than just band aiding by bumping numbers on a few of our dots.

My initial feeling from testing on ptr is they went a little extreme with the MG buff to 80% though its much closer to where it needs to be than at 20%. I think the goal ought to be to make it so MG,conduit build is competitive enough so that people who find effigy insufferable can do decent single target without having to run it. Right now at least MG,contag,SC was comfortably beating build I use on live of Writhe,AC,SE. It may be that thats ok since MG gets punished pretty heavily for movement compared to Effigy builds, personally I wouldn't be surprised if MG was reined in a bit to say 60%.

Contagion change made total sense, makes it vs AC an actual choice, only real question is why on earth it was ever nerfed in the first place. Didn't really test mana tap change since its not sort of talent I really want to be using unless I absolutely have to, but it looks like it should be comparable to other 2 now in this iteration if you like maintenance buffs.

Regarding seed changes, would have preferred Siphon life just going baseline but at least now especially in mythic + its less compromising to not run StS. Seed costing a shard I don't think will be too much of a problem again particularly in M+ where you usually have a good supply of shards.

Really only thing left on wishlist now is to fix the bugs with artifact and maybe some improvements to souls particularly at start of fights.

[Tuskchi]

I honestly see a problem with SoC costing a shard and how UA works. In the previous UA version, where u had one dot, u had an excess of shards and that was fine to have a powerful AoE costing a shard. The current version is also fine, as a 5 shard UA spam can often result to the best as u get of a "burst" damage and help our really slow ramp.

However, the future version, where both cost shards, will put us in a situation, where during boss, some adds spawn and you don't have enough shards to put 2-3 seeds out. My wlock doesn't have any legendaries, but there are often times where I sit for 10+ seconds with 1 shard, after I've used up my 5 for an "UA burst".

[Deleted]

Demonic Empowerement is too great mechanic to change! Unlike the crit for Fire Mages LOL ...

I'm wondering ... am I the only one who plays with a Instant Shadow/Demon bolt after casting DE? That's like a must have talent for me and since DE is just above 1sec cast ... I summon demon -> DE -> Instant Bolt ... and build Soul Shards that way

U would see a huge dps increase if u combo ur casts i always do demonbolt to 4 shard and if the dogs proc that makes Them free cast HOG then dogs and DE and for a opener build five shard so that when u cast imps and free dogs u have one leftover shard to pop Doomguard and then Empower Them always try to combo did wonders to my dps

[Sjeletyven]

I really like the way they are giving us back the standstill drain "nuke" spec while not buffing multitarget, which was in a good place, out of proportions. 7.1.5 looks good

[Raex]

My initial feeling from testing on ptr is they went a little extreme with the MG buff to 80%

Gonna go ahead and assume your "testing" is on a target dummy with 0 movement.

[Mejren]

^Tuskchi UA having separate dot each time its applied is a buff to fatal echos, each one has a chance to refresh itself (12% with reap).
With the current PTR MG if it does go live and hopefully it does, combined with SC stats weights will shift. Haste will be more favorable (more ticks while drain is up, more shard regen) +4 set T19 shards won't be an issue.

[Deleted]

has any1 else on the ptr noticed that our golden traits wrath of consumption and soul flame doenst seem to work or maybe its just me?

I've been posting for three weeks in the PTR Bug Forum about it. Also, Drain Soul hasn;t benefitted from the artifact traits that are supposed to increase it's damage and healing since they released the first 7.1.5 PTR.

But they did find time to fix a tooltip.

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It may be that thats ok since MG gets punished pretty heavily for movement compared to Effigy builds, personally I wouldn't be surprised if MG was reined in a bit to say 60%..

Malefic Grasp is actually a niche talent. It is wrecked when you have to move at all, because it doesn't do shit if you're not channeling drain soul. For movement fights it will be beaten hands down by Writhe and Effigy and if you hate Effigy so much then you will use Haunt not Grasp.

In any fight where you can significantly multidot Writhe blows Grasp out of the water. People tend to underestimate how strong Agony is compered to our other dots, Writhe quite literally doubles the power of our best dot. And it synergises with Effigy, because Writhe affects all Agony including the one on Effigy. Plus Effigy gives you more shards, whereas Grasp doesn't.

Grasp isn;t as powerful as it first appears. Sure you can get big numbers on a trainign dummy, but in actual raids those numbers get constrained a LOT. it's like mage Rune of Power, you see 50% damage increase lulwut, then you hear all the mage complaints about it because almost no actual boss fights let you stand in one place and freecast. The same applies to Drain Soul.

That's almost certainly why they increased Grasp to 80%. Anything lower and Writhe+Effigy are the go-to single target build...and affliction was bottom of the heap on single target damage with that. The goals were to increase affliction's single target and have that accomplished with a talent loadout that allowed players to not use Effigy.

So Grasp + Conduit have to be significantly better than Writhe + Effigy, and Malefic Grasp is hurt very badly indeed by movement, whereas Writhe and Effigy are very good for movement fights. Ironically affliction is one of the most mobile specs in the game.

It goes to show just how bad affliction;s single damage is when it get so badly left behind by classes that lose a lot when they have to move. Something like Renferal or Guarm should be good for affliction, because when they move around a lot and force players ot move too, it really screws people, particularly melee. And yet affliction does badly in them, despite it;s mobility advantage. Now imagine a Patchwerk where affliction doesn;t even have that advantage, you get a truer picture.

When you get melee classes like rogues doing so well despite movement screwing them to some extent, you see why Grasp is so strong. It won;t be anything like as powerful when you're not ona trainign dummy

The original 20% was garbage. Writhe in Agony beat it under any condition, even a training dummy.

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Gonna go ahead and assume your "testing" is on a target dummy with 0 movement.

And don;t forget they are now ladling out buffs to other classes like there's no tomorrow, I mean, flat 10% buffs to rogues, enhancement shammies....

Suddenly that 500k+ damage for affliction doesn't look out of place at all. What's amazing is that they are leaving destruction where it is and nerfing demo lol

My "we'd rather you didn;t pla demo" sense it is tingling again

[Sjeletyven]

It goes to show just how bad affliction;s single damage is when it get so badly left behind by classes that lose a lot when they have to move. Something like Renferal or Guarm should be good for affliction, because when they move around a lot and force players ot move too, it really screws people, particularly melee. And yet affliction does badly in them, despite it;s mobility advantage. Now imagine a Patchwerk where affliction doesn;t even have that advantage, you get a truer picture.

Joking right? For guarm i can see it, Affliction is a bit below demo for the 80 percentiles and up as a "lower middle of the pack" spec.
For Renferal? That fight was tailored to affliction. It is one of the BEST specs you can bring. Extra shards, endless reap stacks, WoC refresh on demand, what more could you want?

[crimsonhead]

I'm curious as to why no one has brought up Norgannon's Foresight....I know it's a leggy but frankly even with the new change in 7.1.5 I can see this being as a DPS increase for us in addition to another actual DPS legendary. I have NF and I can tell you it's amazing in it's current iteration. It procs all the time for aff and dest and I absolutely love it, it feels like having KJC again. I think these boots and MG will make things very interesting. Yes, you will have to stand for 5 sec or so to activate the proc but when you do you can free run and cast and channel (in the current form, NF buff does not get removed while channeling) to your hearts content. I am curious to see how all this pans out and if the 80% goes to live, if so I think I know what I am taking.

Originally Posted by Nebiroth99

It goes to show just how bad affliction;s single damage is when it get so badly left behind by classes that lose a lot when they have to move. Something like Renferal or Guarm should be good for affliction, because when they move around a lot and force players ot move too, it really screws people, particularly melee. And yet affliction does badly in them, despite it;s mobility advantage. Now imagine a Patchwerk where affliction doesn;t even have that advantage, you get a truer picture.

Joking right? For guarm i can see it, Affliction is a bit below demo for the 80 percentiles and up as a "lower middle of the pack" spec.
For Renferal? That fight was tailored to affliction. It is one of the BEST specs you can bring. Extra shards, endless reap stacks, WoC refresh on demand, what more could you want?

I mean, wouldn't it depend on difficulty? I did heroic EN last night and the adds were honestly dying too fast even as destruction. I understand the WoC stacks and the constant feeding for reap souls but I am curious to know how an aff lock vs a dest lock does on that fight as I think the mileage dest gets is a lot more for a lot less.

[Deleted]

you also need to factor in a talent like absolute corruption on movement fight as that talent will increase the uptime of MG significantly by converting gcds used to apply corruption into extra channeling of DS with MG, a benefit that effigy+writhe doesnt get, well atleast not to the degree of a MG build.

[Sjeletyven]

I mean, wouldn't it depend on difficulty? I did heroic EN last night and the adds were honestly dying too fast even as destruction. I understand the WoC stacks and the constant feeding for reap souls but I am curious to know how an aff lock vs a dest lock does on that fight as I think the mileage dest gets is a lot more for a lot less.

Add dmg doesnt matter, and you still get benefit from doing agony +soc->ua on them for soulflame dmg+procs. The power of reap+WoC for affliction atm makes us the best at doing boss dmg when adds are present. Only max surrender play comes close. You use adds to get more boss damage and its insane. With hero on pull i can be on 750k dps when she enters bird phase the first time (approximatly 2 minutes into the fight).
Destro isnt even close.