[BETA] Affliction Warlock Discussion

[Fearsom1992]

Wouldn't prepull effgy be better since you don't waste almost 2secs of down time casting it ?
Ok yea i see blood relics for shadow incantations so you could get (3 points in and 3 relics is 12% shadow damage under reap soul) and i see 3 for perdition ( 40% under reap soul since it doubles passives right?) too, so we are haste>mastery? Does haste increases dot tick, speed shard and cPI procs?

[nerdzrool]

Wouldn't prepull effgy be better since you don't waste almost 2secs of down time casting it ?
Ok yea i see blood relics for shadow incantations so you could get (3 points in and 3 relics is 12% shadow damage under reap soul) and i see 3 for perdition ( 40% under reap soul since it doubles passives right?) too, so we are haste>mastery? Does haste increases dot tick, speed shard and cPI procs?

Yeah forgot effigy has a cast time.
Yes haste increases all of that.

[Fearsom1992]

apparently someone said on the legion beta forums that the damage of warlocks or affi isn't calculating right into the combatlog/skada right now.

Yea opener for affi and destro feels so weird I think destro has more shard gen than affi maybe because of soul snatcher and high crit of immolate?

[dholland662]

The UA change is a good sign imo. Means they are still tweaking.

Whether or not the change is good depends.

Single target it is likely a nerf. Unlike Fragment of the Dark Star in WoD we wont have 100% uptime on UA. Our casts f UA will be limited.

That matters.

However for adds it is a buff. Which may be enough since add switching was affliction's most glaring weakness

[Deleted]

TBH the change is in line with the new philosophy they have for UA, it being no longer a standard dot, but rather a... staggered nuke? I agree it's not so great for pvp.

Btw, this means we're scaling with haste less, now. Would it be noticeable? What's the rough % damage, on a single target, w/ Effigy, from all our sources?

[wholol]

I don't know how I feel about UA being a spender, if you don't pick up siphon life, and you pick absolute corruption, the only things you are looking forward to on single target ( outside UA stacking ) are refreshing agony and draining life ? how bland :s

[baldian]

However for adds it is a buff. Which may be enough since add switching was affliction's most glaring weakness

I do not understand why everyone says it's a buff. UA works exactly as before.

they just cut after the 4th tick (which means no extra tick). Its a big nerf.



Ps: they did the same with doom for demono this build. (cut after 1 tick)

[Fleckens]

I don't know how I feel about UA being a spender, if you don't pick up siphon life, and you pick absolute corruption, the only things you are looking forward to on single target ( outside UA stacking ) are refreshing agony and draining life ? how bland :s

Yeah i was actually enjoying playing with siphon life and haunt while leveling but it seems it won't be the best for dungeons and raids as you get more damage out of the other talents but it leaves with you not very many abilities to use.

[Darkheart]

I do not understand why everyone says it's a buff. UA works exactly as before.

they just cut after the 4th tick (which means no extra tick). Its a big nerf.



Ps: they did the same with doom for demono this build. (cut after 1 tick)

It doesn't work like before. Its duration is now reduced by haste.

It's a buff because you can do the full amount of damage in less time. High priority ads usually need to go down so fast. If you have to wait 8 seconds for full damage to be dealt, that ads might have been already dead. If you can deal the full damage in 4 or 5 seconds, it makes a huge difference. UA can now *almost* function like a chaos bolt. Burst damage.

Think about encounters such as Gorefriend Heroic/Mythic and how affliction can once more be viable in progression just as Destruction.

[Baconeggcheese]

It doesn't work like before. Its duration is now reduced by haste.

It's a buff because you can do the full amount of damage in less time.

Unless they changed something to make it fundamentally different than how dots worked in the past, all this does it make it so that it doesn't gain additional ticks / partial ticks so that the dot remains at the same duration to remove break points.

Which means it doesn't gain damage from haste as all the other dots do, it simply just does less damage now. Which is fine, its beta so designs will change and it will be balanced around this change... it's just in no way shape or form a buff.

[baldian]

It doesn't work like before. Its duration is now reduced by haste.

It's a buff because you can do the full amount of damage in less time. High priority ads usually need to go down so fast. If you have to wait 8 seconds for full damage to be dealt, that ads might have been already dead. If you can deal the full damage in 4 or 5 seconds, it makes a huge difference. UA can now *almost* function like a chaos bolt. Burst damage.

Think about encounters such as Gorefriend Heroic/Mythic and how affliction can once more be viable in progression just as Destruction.

No,

BEFORE :

with 1k haste : 5 tick in 8sec (4 tick in 6.4sec)

with 10k haste : 10 tick in 8sec (4 tick in 3.2 sec)


AFTER:

with 1k haste : 4 tick in 6.4sec (no extra tick and same burst for the first 4)

with 10k haste : 4 tick in 3.2 sec (no extra tick and same burst for the first 4)



ps:numbers are not correct. this is just to give an idea of ​​how it works

[Darkheart]

No,

BEFORE :

with 1k haste : 5 tick in 8sec (4 tick in 6.4sec)

with 10k haste : 10 tick in 8sec (4 tick in 3.2 sec)


AFTER:

with 1k haste : 4 tick in 6.4sec (no extra tick and same burst for the first 4)

with 10k haste : 4 tick in 3.2 sec (no extra tick and same burst for the first 4)



ps:numbers are not correct. this is just to give an idea of ​​how it works

I'll wait for some proper testing and post the findings.

[Deleted]

Unless they changed something to make it fundamentally different than how dots worked in the past, all this does it make it so that it doesn't gain additional ticks / partial ticks so that the dot remains at the same duration to remove break points.

Which means it doesn't gain damage from haste as all the other dots do, it simply just does less damage now. Which is fine, its beta so designs will change and it will be balanced around this change... it's just in no way shape or form a buff.

I must say, I like this change. Sure we get less benefit from haste (only cast time/GCD for UA) and it is basically a Chaosbolt spread over X ticks that get faster with more haste.

It does allow us to deal more damage to short lived adds that would normally die and not get the full 8 sec duration. The mechanic really becomes Ignite now with the stacking of UA.

[Deleted]

I must say, I like this change. Sure we get less benefit from haste (only cast time/GCD for UA) and it is basically a Chaosbolt spread over X ticks that get faster with more haste.

It does allow us to deal more damage to short lived adds that would normally die and not get the full 8 sec duration. The mechanic really becomes Ignite now with the stacking of UA.

But how often will this help, 8s for a single add is really not a lot. It would work on AoE spells (burst), but single target? While their are encounters that involve single target nukes, *most* of the time, these adds live for ~15s and longer, at least during progression.

for example, how long are the shields on Blast Furnace-adds dispelled again? 20s-30s?
You could easily dump your SS on them and enjoy the additional damage-ticks from haste. I believe the opportunities where you can make use of the additional ticks outweigh the situations where you need the faster tickrate, because you *are* allowed to stack UA now. (otherwise, it would've been a different story)

[Deleted]

But how often will this help, 8s for a single add is really not alot. It would work on AoE spells (burst), but single target? While their are encounters that involve single target nukes, *most* of the time, these adds live for ~15s and longer, at least during progression.

for example, how long are the shields on Blast Furnace-adds dispelled again? 20s-30s?
You could easily dump your SS on them and enjoy the additional damage-ticks from haste. I believe the opportunities where you can make use of the additional ticks outweigh the situations where you need the faster tickrate, because you *are* allowed to stack UA now. (otherwise, it would've been a different story)

That is true, more ticks would be preferable, however we'd be balanced around having extra ticks.

The calculation of the ignite mechanic does become a lot easier with a fixed amount of ticks. UA adds damage to the "UA Pool" and haste procs would complicate this, if we get more ticks as the pool is spread between all ticks. It's just a different DoT mechanic. Not the end of the world IMHO. It also snapshots Mastery/dmg boni/etc. And this just lowers the value of haste, or balances it with the other secondary stats if you will.

[Duckz0rs]

That is true, more ticks would be preferable, however we'd be balanced around having extra ticks.

UA was tuned to having extra ticks with the previous mechanics. It'll have to be re-balanced now to propagate the fact that Haste gives UA no extra damage whatsoever.

[Deleted]

That is true, more ticks would be preferable, however we'd be balanced around having extra ticks.

The calculation of the ignite mechanic does become a lot easier with a fixed amount of ticks. UA adds damage to the "UA Pool" and haste procs would complicate this, if we get more ticks as the pool is spread between all ticks. It's just a different DoT mechanic. Not the end of the world IMHO. It also snapshots Mastery/dmg boni/etc. And this just lowers the value of haste, or balances it with the other secondary stats if you will.

I don't know, I personally believe that stats shouldn't have downsides... the fact that UA's duration is affected means that certain talents will be weaker too depending on how much haste you have. (or scale significantly less than other stats)

Which game was it again that made dots tick harder depending on how much +haste you had? (was it WoW? I can't remember, I only playtested warlock a little during MoP and now Legion)
Well, it certainly is helping UA to become something similiar to "chaos bolt".. and affliction needs something like that. It's just weird to have a talent like contagion, which - as far as I know - is not a X second debuff on it's own and depends on having UA active.
It's also weird to have a stat determine how much burst I can do... isn't that something a talent or skill should do?

"oh, I need more burst damage here to be viable, let me grab my +haste gear"

For example, why didn't they add something similiar to shadowburn (with a cooldown or SS cost) for affliction that deals some damage on its own and will pop all the remaining damage on your dots if you use it.
I believe that something like this would've been a much, much cooler mechanic and still very easy to use.

edit: Oh I remember which game has a dynamic +%haste mechanic with DoTs, it's Diablo 3 isn't it?
As far as I know, they don't snapshot there either and the game is still calculating stuff correctly, so it shouldn't be much of a problem for them to balance around that.

[Deleted]

I don't know, I personally believe that stats shouldn't have downsides... the fact that UA's duration is affected means that certain talents will be weaker too depending on how much haste you have. (or scale significantly less than other stats)

Which game was it again that made dots tick harder depending on how much +haste you had? (was it WoW? I can't remember, I only playtested warlock a little during MoP and now Legion)
Well, it certainly is helping UA to become something similiar to "chaos bolt".. and affliction needs something like that. It's just weird to have a talent like contagion, which - as far as I know - is not a X second debuff on it's own and depends on having UA active.
It's also weird to have a stat determine how much burst I can do... isn't that something a talent or skill should do?

"oh, I need more burst damage here to be viable, let me grab my +haste gear"

For example, why didn't they add something similiar to shadowburn (with a cooldown or SS cost) for affliction that deals some damage on its own and will pop all the remaining damage on your dots if you use it.
I believe that something like this would've been a much, much cooler mechanic and still very easy to use.

If they make "contagion" an X's buff on target, that problem would be solved.

The burst doesn't differ too much with more haste tbh, but it does extend it if UA stayed at 8s.

I'd say Mastery is more of a buff to UA Burst now though, haste only increases the GCD/cast time.

But in the end we want to have CI stacks to use with UA and that means we want to stagger the UA's.

[wholol]

I recently discovered that an unholy DK specced into dots can out-spread an affliction lock, and has stronger dots :|

I don't wanna be pessimistic but it is kinda sad.

( I think the main part to why I'm so annoyed by this is because UH actually feels fun to play now in comparison to legion aff ).

[Baconeggcheese]

It does allow us to deal more damage to short lived adds that would normally die and not get the full 8 sec duration.

I find it odd you say this in response to that post, but again... unless they changed something to make it fundamentally different you simply do not do "more damage to short lived adds". You do the same damage based on duration and less overall damage.