Affliction is "conceptually broken" (Or... maybe not)

[Goatonlb]

Lets all stop quoting TinyJustice, it's been done 14 times already.


On topic:

Here's another explanation from Blizz.

Warlocks in Cataclysm
Sorry, we just don't agree that that is a problem. It doesn't really matter if the talents are in a tree with a different name than your spec as along as the talents are useful, and those 15 certainly are.

To reiterate, we like Affliction using Shadow Bolt. We don't want Affliction to rely so much on Drain Soul because that feels a lot like a Shadow priest, and we don't like any class casting nothing but dots. So Shadow Bolt is sticking around. We also don't have a problem with Shadow Bolt being a Destruction spell and being buffed by the Destruction tree. Furthermore, we have no problem with Destro using something other than Shadow Bolt even though it's a Destruction spell. Finally, we don't mind that all of those talent points buff one spell. It's a really important spell! If you had to spend 15 points to buff a spell that was a trivial amount of your damage it would be a bigger deal, but then I'm fairly sure nobody would make that talent point investment in the first place.

All of those arguments seem like they offend your logic or something, which isn't enough grounds for us to want to change it. Different classes work differently. Mages focus on a school of magic while warlocks focus more on a source of damage (dots, pets and nukes) but even in that case, that doesn't mean they focus on their damage source to an extent that the mage focuses on Fire, Frost or Arcane (and in Cataclysm all mages will care a lot about Arcane Missiles in any event). We are really trying to resist class homogenization and having talent trees constructed similarly for every class works against that goal. Not similar is fine. Not functional is not fine.

What does bother us is having to get both Affliction and Destruction versions of hit, threat reduction, pushback resistance and range in addition to the crit damage from Ruin. Our plan is to put generic (affects all spells) talents for hit and pushback resistance in the first tier of Demonology and then just make the spells longer range so there is no need for a range talent. We're getting rid of all threat reduction talents. With the extra Cataclysm talent points, you should have more than enough points to get some in Demo and Destro as Affliction, and in fact we're leaning towards warlocks being one of those classes that does invest a little in all three trees. (Though again, not to the extent that you have no flexibility.)

If you're one of those warlocks who just really, really wants Affliction or Shadow Bolt to work differently, well, you have my apologies. No doubt if you were in our shoes you might design different talent trees. I have tried to explain our choice for the design above.

[Omedon]

Lets all stop quoting TinyJustice, it's been done 14 times already.


On topic:

Here's another explanation from Blizz.

Thanks for bringing that quote into this discussion, Goatonlb, I was just thinking of it this morning(read it before I went to bed)

Specifically: "What does bother us is having to get both Affliction and Destruction versions of hit, threat reduction, pushback resistance and range in addition to the crit damage from Ruin. Our plan is to put generic (affects all spells) talents for hit and pushback resistance in the first tier of Demonology and then just make the spells longer range so there is no need for a range talent. We're getting rid of all threat reduction talents. With the extra Cataclysm talent points, you should have more than enough points to get some in Demo and Destro as Affliction, and in fact we're leaning towards warlocks being one of those classes that does invest a little in all three trees. (Though again, not to the extent that you have no flexibility.)"

All in all, this is a net gain, IMO. Fully "supported" (threat, range, pushback) , doing "what we do" requires a detour of 9 talent points in two different trees, 2 points of which (some would argue more) we can't even feasibly look at. Given that quote, our "detour" is now pushback only, and is a maximum of 5 points... albeit in a 3rd tree. I can absolutely handle that. The only hidden kick in the ass there, though is the idea of moving generic hit into demo, coupled with the idea that cataclysm raid tiers will apparently be defined by "need more hit". At least I think I recall reading that somewhere. So long as they aren't both 5-point dump talents, we should be in a good spot, though.

[DotDotDot]

[color=purple]
2) Said channeled spells should crit, like mind flay. Currently shadow priests are better affliction locks than affliction locks, on a mechanical/conceptual front.

Imagine how overpowered Drain soul crits would be during the execute phase, i do agree with you, we spend to much time casting shadow bolt, and not enough playing with DoT's and channeled spells, but there wud need to be a lot of changes for it to work. My drain souls personally are ticking for 25-28k on bosses, as much as i wud love it, imagine how high the crits wud be

[Goatonlb]

Hit will probably be mandatory. You're right, they did say that hit will matter throughout each raid, and not just something you can cap at a certain value and be done with it for the expansion. There will still be attractive talents in the other trees, and there will always be a "best" spec based on what's available.

We WILL have 51 points in Affliction, but do we know if only 45 are mandatory DPS talents, and that the last 6 aren't flavor/fun talents that just happen to boost our Mastery to cap @ 51? Maybe 51 points is simply the max we NEED, but don't necessarily WANT. Then we'll be looking to the other trees in search of some DPS increasing talents, and there we'll find that we have these extra points to dump into things like +Hit/Pushback in the Demo tree and such. That they think Affliction will be the tree that goes a little down all 3 suggests that 51 points is as much as we'll want to ever spend in the tree.

I do wonder though, if they'll make the trees sharp enough that every last talent point isn't simmed to be best, where there is actual interesting choices. 76 points to spend, 51 Mandatory in one tree, how much of the remaining will be (self-respecting) mandatory DPS increases?

[RustyFingers]

Well, i don't agree with this thread as i pull well over 11K dps on my affli warlock. But that's my opinion.

[Omedon]

Well, i don't agree with this thread as i pull well over 11K dps on my affli warlock. But that's my opinion.

Because recount totally has a "flavour/concept" setting... :P

[gherkin]

I hope GC's recent post puts this to rest. To paraphrase him (since the full text is on the previous page):

"Yep, we understand your position, but as the designers we don't think it's a problem because we can design around it. Sorry if you feel that the location of your spell in your spell book matters. It doesn't matter because we make it not matter."

[wrathofdoom]

they are fixing alot of stuff in cata, but 2 things are only getting worse afaik, witch is ramp up and shadow school lockout. because:

dark intent is a new ramp up spell for us that will be a requirement for us to do good dps, not to mention dark intent gotta be the the most boring new spell in cata, id rather not have it so i dont have to deal with another ramp up.

ferals and ret palas will get a interrupt, its already a pain for affli locks to fight classes with interrupts and its just as much pain to fakecast 24/7

something else i never understood is why they removed two of our dots. WHY??? i love having tons of dots. we had too much passive dmg from dots or what? too many dots to refresh/cast on each enemy? locks used to be unique with having loads of dots but not anynore..

[Negrido]

I have been playing a warlock since vanilla. Back in the day I was SM/Ruin. I then switched to aff when UA was made available and we started chipping away at Kara. I have been aff ever since and I fell that the spec is more or less fine as is. With only slight grievances.

I like using shadow bolt, I like switching to drain soul, I like the procs. I don't like the drop in complexity. I am worreid about things like lame masteries, and more spells like fel flame, shadow flame, and dark intent.

[TacoIndulgence]

Aflic still good for PvP and its had its ups and downs in PvE.
Cant have every spec for a class good at everything.

[TheBlackSun]

Affliction is amazing in PvE, in fact with the corruption mechanics, i would call it slightly broken, especially with Bloodlust.
Um, Dark intent is the warlocks FM..... i don't see what there is to bitch about.
Fel flame gives us something to do during movement phases.
The reason we don't use drain soul except for at 20% is that would make us Spriests. I personally like the Afflict niche in caster Dps, and from what I've read of Cata, its just going to get better.

[wrathofdoom]

Dark intent is boring, unnecessarily and just gives us more ramp up/buffs after we die in BG
fel flame sounds ok
if demon soul will be any good and fun, depends ofc on what effects it will give us...

[Gnarwhale001]

a more powerful spell is already active

[Stannislaus]

Playing affliction in wrath naxx was fun as hell. So many dots to manage, it really felt good when you ended a fight with really consistent dps and uptime on dots. Freakin sweet.

That being said, I always pulled Heigan as soon as he came back off his platform from all my dots ticking while we were dancing (and of course me reapplying them) throughout the dance.

Despite the changes I think affliction is definitely my favorite lock spec to play. It really puts mages to shame, instead of just spamming a nuke then a proc (arc anyway), your primary function is to keep the dots up, then nuke away in the downtime. With enough experience (i.e knowing when exactly to start casting UA to not clip it, reapplying after a DS tick, letting CoA tick that last time), maximizing your dps with it is more satisfying than any dps class I've played.