Agony SUCKS!...

[AlexSkylark]

Am I the only one to think this spell just plain sucks as it is now?

It comprises a HUGE chunk of affliction DPS, it is almost the sole responsible for our complete inability to be useful in add fights (Horridon, I'm looking at YOU bro), it inflates our ramp up beyond measure, and it's ALSO the one spell you have to pay the most attention EVER because if it ever drops, you are screwed for the rest of the fight.

Do any affliction lovers around share my fristration and anger? should we #OccupyBilzzard and demand they rewrite the spell?

[Leyl]

What is this, I don't even...

Go do some push ups.

[Deleted]

No, we have 2 other dots without the rampup + this mechanics rewards skillful play.

[Deleted]

I totally agree, how dare they make it so that it is consistantly at maximum damage and needs a GCD every 24 seconds and can be refreshed more easily rather than having it build up to max damage at the end of the DoT making it not only fire and forget but also punishing to refresh even a tick early.

Sorry, but, yeah, personally I much prefer the current iteration to the Wrath/Cata model (or was it stacks in Cata? Didn't play much Affli). As for Multi-dotting being harder, they don't want DoT specs to become the kings on multi-target fights, so I can understand why they make it just that much less focused on DoTs and more on ST spells.

[Gobuchul]

if it ever drops, you are screwed for the rest of the fight

What? Even at a high gear level with procs up you're only going to lose 50-100k damage at most from letting it drop. Over the course of a fight that's maybe a couple hundred DPS, or a fraction of a percent. In what way are you screwed?

[AlexSkylark]

they don't want DoT specs to become the kings on multi-target fights, so I can understand why they make it just that much less focused on DoTs and more on ST spells.

Well, but to counter that they made the spec absolutely useless in anything that involves killing adds. That's just the opposite extreme, and it's just as bad.

[Khadjid]

Well, but to counter that they made the spec absolutely useless in anything that involves killing adds. That's just the opposite extreme, and it's just as bad.

You clearly have not played your warlock more than 5 minutes. SB:SS -> Haunt -> MG -> DS -> 4 shards for extra damage on anything that needs it.

Pretty much the only thing affliction is not amazing at is burst AoE for quickly dying adds/trash.

[Werst]

PVE agony is fine. PVP vs dispel happy comps/situations its pretty punitive actually. That said, nobody has ever been "burst" down by a dot or agony in history. You could probably just make it normalized or stack to 3x and it wouldn't hurt anything but its certainly not necessary. I'd do that mostly for pvp reasons...

[AlexSkylark]

You clearly have not played your warlock more than 5 minutes. SB:SS -> Haunt -> MG -> DS -> 4 shards for extra damage on anything that needs it.

Pretty much the only thing affliction is not amazing at is burst AoE for quickly dying adds/trash.

That what you mentioned does next to zero DPS in adds that die fast. which is well... almost every add in Throne of Thunder. We need AT LEAST 20 seconds of sustained damage (so agony stacks to 10) to deal an even slightly useful DPS on anything, and what adds nowadays stay alive more than that?

We are not simply "not amazing" at killing adds. we are USELESS at killing adds. And it's a predominant mechanic in the current content, which makes our spec utterly undesirable. That's my point here.

[Deleted]

Agony dropping off is absolutely not the end of the world, not even in a single target scenario. In fact if you have a super charged Agony running (lots of procs ++) it's better to let it drop off, dpswise, since in that way you'll get that last tick with 300% extra damage or whatever those buffs gave. You can also charge your Agony back up to 10 in very little time using Malefic Grasp.

And our burst is amazing ...

And affliction damage on Horridon is fine ...

[Nicola]

HC all parses: http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Horri...14/60/default/
Norm all parses: http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Horri...14/60/default/
HC top 100: http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Horri...14/60/default/
Norm top 100: http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/Horri...14/60/default/

Affliction is doing fine on Horridon, and most other fights with adds as well.
If you look at the top 100 you'll notice Affliction is below the other warlock speces and some of the stronger dotspeces, however, it's still far from useless, so I'm not seeing the problem here aside from a L2P issue.

I'm going to lock this as this is nothing more then a complaint thread. I suggest taking a look at http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...pecific-Guides as well.