Destro vs. Affliction in 7.2.5/ToS

[Baconeggcheese]

That's a hundred percent wrong and I'm wondering why you'd say that

Because it was, nothing you've mentioned is outside of what I mentioned in my tiny tiny priority list. That tiny tiny priority list is absolutely correct in how you played the spec. There is nothing complicated about maintenance, which is all the spec was. Adapting to trinkets was literally just pressing soulburn -> soulswap when your procs happened, which you used a tracker for. And then following up with haunt.

And to make matters worse, affdots even trivialized the need to know how powerful 1 proc was vs another, to the point where literally anyone could pick up the spec and play it to its max potential without needing to know much of anything about the spec or need to learn much about the fight to adapt the spec to it. It was actually braindead easy to pull off if you knew how to set up a buff tracker or just downloaded affdots.

I'm still waiting for what was difficult or complex about the spec, because I'd genuinely like to know. I've given you the entire priority list on how to play it already, which again is correct. So I need you to provide me with the secret strats that I apparently didn't know the entirety of mop.

[Gangresnake]

Because it was, nothing you've mentioned is outside of what I mentioned in my tiny tiny priority list. That tiny tiny priority list is absolutely correct in how you played the spec. There is nothing complicated about maintenance, which is all the spec was. Adapting to trinkets was literally just pressing soulburn -> soulswap when your procs happened, which you used a tracker for. And then following up with haunt.

And to make matters worse, affdots even trivialized the need to know how powerful 1 proc was vs another, to the point where literally anyone could pick up the spec and play it to its max potential without needing to know much of anything about the spec or need to learn much about the fight to adapt the spec to it. It was actually braindead easy to pull off if you knew how to set up a buff tracker or just downloaded affdots.

I'm still waiting for what was difficult or complex about the spec, because I'd genuinely like to know. I've given you the entire priority list on how to play it already, which again is correct. So I need you to provide me with the secret strats that I apparently didn't know the entirety of mop.

Every WL spec had tiny priority list. That specific tiny priority list still required timing, anticipation and adaptation. Much more than everything we had in WoD/Legion so far.

How did affdot trivialized the "need to know how powerful 1 proc is" more than any other spec ? Or even not "need to learn much" about the fight ?

Just asking "How is that complex" and then linking me the basic icyveins is a bit too easy. You could link me your favorite spec and I could do the same, as no spec in wow is truely complex. Just like I did with destruction above : It's essentially the same 3 buttons checklist system with much less RNG and need for adaptation, and yet you consider it above aff for reasons that elude me. Maybe you could share your personal strats yourself ?

The only way you can evaluate the "complexity" is with simple comparison. Take a good honest look at warlock spec over the years and realize that MoP aff is much closer to the top than it is at the bottom. Personally, I'm confident I'd put it in #1, but well, matter of taste.

[Gaidax]

lol?

You are kidding yourself if you think that. 5.4 Aff was pretty much in the rails machine, what's worse is that you just had to actually do something 20% of the encounter and then the rest 80% you could as well go near afk.

You highly overestimate the complexity of waiting for the addon show you when the time is right and then pretty much doing set list of tasks at that moment.

[Deleted]

Surprised they did not nerf it more, because that trait is bullshit.

And without it, affliction's aoe is bullshit. We lean on soulflame because Seed of Corruption had ridiculously long cast times, aoe trash is half dead by the time it's finished crawling across the spellbar as everyone and their mom spams their instant aoe.

My suspicion is that they nerfed flame to make up for the fact that the spread corruptions do 20% more damage, but in reality you only get a coupl eof ticks, but above that, phantom singularity will be a go-to talent cos it;s ok for ST and aoe.


But hey, I bet the "hey guys nerfing Hauntis fine cos they increased damage another 5% across the board stop complaining!" are feeling pretty lame right now.

[Nivrax]

I'm bit worried that if Affliction doesn't trump Destro dps in most situations it might end up being 'dead' spec and we'll have same migration when nearly all Fire mages had to go Frost. We're back to square one with Aff doing slow ramp up damage with no way whatsoever to deal with fast switching or bursting, requiring rest of raid to carry you, and if Destro can do it providing same or better dps then well, Affliction doesnt really have spot in raid.

Soul Flame (and Seed) nerf will also hurt in Mythics while melee continue rolling face on keyboard. I really wish they never allowed such degenerate strategy on Scorpion because all it does is bring ignorant idiots blaming Soul Flame as being OP. Such stacked aoe situation will never occur, just by the fact Scorpion cheese fry most computers with massive lag. The only aoe fight this tier is Spellblade and on that fight my Seeds do 20% of my damage with Soul Flame doing merely 2%.

[Deleted]

I'm bit worried that if Affliction doesn't trump Destro dps in most situations it might end up being 'dead' spec and we'll have same migration when nearly all Fire mages had to go Frost. We're back to square one with Aff doing slow ramp up damage with no way whatsoever to deal with fast switching or bursting, requiring rest of raid to carry you, and if Destro can do it providing same or better dps then well, Affliction doesnt really have spot in raid.

So, what exactly is different here from 7.0 --> 7.1 where kind of exactly the opposite happened (Destro went from best to worst)?
Affli always had a worse priority add focus potential than Destro. And I don't think that has changed much with 7.2.5. MG increase is lower but base dmg of dots is higher (incl. UA), so effectively you can still do the UA-->UA-->MG stuff on short-living adds or if it is absolutely paramount that one shorter-lived add dies in time, then you could even spec into Haunt to buff it even more.

You will most probably have to have at least 2 specs raid-ready anyway if you want to min-max, 3 specs if you want to do it to the fullest, altough I have lost quite a bit of faith in Demo being any good in mythic raiding due to the high movement requirements of modern encounters.

[Uzkin]

What makes Soul Flame difficult to balance is that it scales as O(N²) as a function of number of enemies N, whereas most other AOEs only scale as O(N). Thus, if Soul Flame gets nerfed so that it is balanced for large-N fights (with N greater than, say, 15) it will also simultaneously become extremely weak in most encounters (with N less than, say, 8). And it would still remain extremely OP when N becomes huge (say, 25+). I.e. it will become a niche talent, super-weak at the majority of encounters while remaining super-imba-OP at those rare "trash swarm" encounters.

So why nerf it? It is now quite balanced on live for most AOE encounters. Afflocks will still wipe out the Scorpyron trash instantly after the nerf, they will just do 5M instead of 6M dps but the end result will be the same (= adds wiped out instantly once the SF detonations start). The nerf will just serve to shoehorn the talent towards this particular niche, it does nothing to fix the reason why it's so OP at swarm fights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation

[Deleted]

Soul flame damage is also 80 % of the time massive %overkill damage and just looks good on padding, I'm more annoyed at the seed nerf and the 5 % they took back from basic abilities.

[Deleted]

I don't even know what Blizzard is doing anymore, were seeds REALLY that strong that they needed a nerf? And why did the take aways the 5% again? Last time I checked Aff wasn't doing so hot compared to demo and other ST tunnel specs.

[Deleted]

As Uzkin points out, Soul flam eis only "overpowered" on big trash fights, like the blobs at the start of Arcway. In normal M+ affliction's aoe is pretty poor, mostly because of the absurdly long cast times and the detonation requirement. Seed of Corruption doesn;t even hit very hard, certainly not enough to justify the way it works, which is actually a stupid hangover from when it exploded instantly and it was very strong, making warlocks kings of aoe (like mount hyjal), or pretyt much essential on that boss in Karazhan behind the bookcase.

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I don't even know what Blizzard is doing anymore, were seeds REALLY that strong that they needed a nerf? And why did the take aways the 5% again? Last time I checked Aff wasn't doing so hot compared to demo and other ST tunnel specs.

Simple, because they are forcing us into a multidot specialist spec. They have backed the damage into the dots, and as they have always found, if you do that, you have one of two things:

Competetive damage on multi-target fights but bad damage in single fights

or

Competetive damage on single target fights that goes wild when you have more than one target because you can double or triple it

The only real solution to this is to have relatively weak dots but buff them up with a pure single target ability, which is either storng in itself or strenghtens your dots.

Malefic Grasp, for example, cannot increase your multidot damage.

They have stated in th epast that "it's Ok for some specs to feel they have a disadvantage in some fights" (even if they totally fail to apply this evenly, having some classes feel poor in most fights and others that have no weaknesses)

What we've got now is affliction going back to being a council-type fight specialist, what a shame that Sargeras is almost all single target, cleave and priority add fights. And none of them apparently feature little adds

So affliction will be back where it was in Emerald Nightmare, remember how that felt on Nythendr aor Ursoc

[Shodan30]

Soul Flame was massively underpowered no matter how you look at it. nerfing it makes no sense.

Take this specific example. Know that trash pull in the nighthold after trillix, but right before the courtyard where the Captain is pathing around? It's like 20 guards that all come at once.

If i pull them all with a seed, and immediately drain so i get the soulflame explosion at the same time everyone else is doing there aoe's, i *always* get massively outdamaged on the meters for that specific fight by other classes. they only last a few seconds, but for burst AOE, what i just described is the optimal example.

The loss of the 5% buff hurts...and I cant help but feel this is a reaction to the new legendary's Stupidly OP ability. "But with this legendary that only a few will be lucky to get, warlocks are OP!!!" so nerf em all. Seen it happen way too much.

[Deleted]

As anothe rposter said, soul flame's freaky mechanics mean that it has gotten a reputation from thing slike the arcway blobs as being "incredible", but most of the time it is mediocre because it is chained to seed of corruption and because of the way it becomes less effective with fewer mobs in a steeper way than most other aoe. Most of which is also instant cast.

Seed's damage in no way at all justifies it being so damn slow.

[Walrock]

Well, I think the switch to Destro feels better after every new build...

Now it's just waiting for the stat priority in tomb.
If Destro needs mastery bc of his 4pc, we maybe able to play Aff/Destro with the same gear.

[Deleted]

As Uzkin points out, Soul flam eis only "overpowered" on big trash fights, like the blobs at the start of Arcway. In normal M+ affliction's aoe is pretty poor, mostly because of the absurdly long cast times and the detonation requirement. Seed of Corruption doesn;t even hit very hard, certainly not enough to justify the way it works, which is actually a stupid hangover from when it exploded instantly and it was very strong, making warlocks kings of aoe (like mount hyjal), or pretyt much essential on that boss in Karazhan behind the bookcase.

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Simple, because they are forcing us into a multidot specialist spec. They have backed the damage into the dots, and as they have always found, if you do that, you have one of two things:

Competetive damage on multi-target fights but bad damage in single fights

or

Competetive damage on single target fights that goes wild when you have more than one target because you can double or triple it

The only real solution to this is to have relatively weak dots but buff them up with a pure single target ability, which is either storng in itself or strenghtens your dots.

Malefic Grasp, for example, cannot increase your multidot damage.

They have stated in th epast that "it's Ok for some specs to feel they have a disadvantage in some fights" (even if they totally fail to apply this evenly, having some classes feel poor in most fights and others that have no weaknesses)

What we've got now is affliction going back to being a council-type fight specialist, what a shame that Sargeras is almost all single target, cleave and priority add fights. And none of them apparently feature little adds

So affliction will be back where it was in Emerald Nightmare, remember how that felt on Nythendr aor Ursoc

Yeah thats exactly what i was trying to get at, seems like i will be destruction full time now since i cant be bothered playing the aids spec thats called demonology.

[Deleted]

Demo might actually be top spec in Sargeras becaus eit has massive single target damage that has hardly been touched at all, the only caveat is that you pay a movement tax.

Plus from my point of view demo sucks ass. I just hate how slow and clunky it feels, even worse ramp than affy and dots with legs, and cast times. And gawd help us demonic empowerment. Really weird how they acknowledged DE is just toxic to play and then nerfed the T20 demo armour which reduced the DE spam at least a bit.

I think though that destro will struggle somewhat. Sargeras mostly does not play to it;s strengths, and although Havoc has been modified a bit, it's still the central feature of destro, which is a cleave specialist. The pure ST damage seems lacklustre, for the simple reason you can still double it with Havoc. Just not as much as before.

[Deleted]

[] and although Havoc has been modified a bit, it's still the central feature of destro, which is a cleave specialist.

More like a 10 sec burst cleave specialist'ish. If the cleave target is up for ~20-30 sec Aff will be better, which is kinda sad tbh.

[Lucrece]

More like a 10 sec burst cleave specialist'ish. If the cleave target is up for ~20-30 sec Aff will be better, which is kinda sad tbh.

Why?

DoT specs should reign supreme on longer lived adds, otherwise what's the point of not being a burst spec?

[Deleted]

Demo might actually be top spec in Sargeras becaus eit has massive single target damage that has hardly been touched at all, the only caveat is that you pay a movement tax.

Plus from my point of view demo sucks ass. I just hate how slow and clunky it feels, even worse ramp than affy and dots with legs, and cast times. And gawd help us demonic empowerment. Really weird how they acknowledged DE is just toxic to play and then nerfed the T20 demo armour which reduced the DE spam at least a bit.

I think though that destro will struggle somewhat. Sargeras mostly does not play to it;s strengths, and although Havoc has been modified a bit, it's still the central feature of destro, which is a cleave specialist. The pure ST damage seems lacklustre, for the simple reason you can still double it with Havoc. Just not as much as before.

Tried out destruction on heroic kiljaeden ptr last night and what do you know we are actually okay in singletarget and doing really well in cleave and light aoe (if the tanks are leaving the mobs in your rain of fire that is). I'm at work right now but I might be able to link logs when im home. After yesterdays testing I think destruction will be doing really well in Tomb, that is if blizz doesnt decide to fuck us over in the last minute like they often do.
I also Tested RE with the new Ring and our beloved belt and it actually felt really amazing playstyle wise, don't know about the efficiency in dps since i didnt bother testing out mana tap because i despise it and it needs to die in a fire like soul effigy finally did.

[bskgrg2]

Did every single mythic PTR test so far, affliction will 100 and 10% be better for progression on every single boss we've seen so far. All of you people that are thinking destro is the better of the specs need a reality check. The other warlock in my guild and myself we're topping every single boss fight as aff. Aff trumps destro single target, and it specifically trumps destro in high health multi target encounters.
Goroth- aff
Inquisition - aff by a mile(multi target)
Harjatan- aff by a mile
Sisters- aff but destro might have potential (I haven't seen past phase one so I can't tell if destro has potential)
Lady- aff by a mile (multi target)

If there's any warlock spec that has potential it's demo, the st demo sims with RR are off the charts so it might be used on maiden, fallen avatar and goroth if you want.

[Deleted]

Did every single mythic PTR test so far, affliction will 100 and 10% be better for progression on every single boss we've seen so far. All of you people that are thinking destro is the better of the specs need a reality check. The other warlock in my guild and myself we're topping every single boss fight as aff. Aff trumps destro single target, and it specifically trumps destro in high health multi target encounters.
Goroth- aff
Inquisition - aff by a mile(multi target)
Harjatan- aff by a mile
Sisters- aff but destro might have potential (I haven't seen past phase one so I can't tell if destro has potential)
Lady- aff by a mile (multi target)

If there's any warlock spec that has potential it's demo, the st demo sims with RR are off the charts so it might be used on maiden, fallen avatar and goroth if you want.

If it plays out like that, I feel sorry for aff players, it will be a even bigger hit by the nerfhammer, no way blizzard are gonna let aff be as dominant in ToS as with NH.