Affliction Shadowbolt Buff .. Hu?

[Cempa]

Warlock (Forums, Talent Calculator, PvP Talent Calculator, Artifact Calculator)
Affliction

Shadow Bolt Sends a shadowy bolt at the enemy, causing [ 1 + 80% 160% of Spell Power ] Shadow damage. Warlock - Affliction Spec. 6% of Base Mana. 40 yd range. 2 sec cast.

[bmjclark]

Does affliction have shadow bolt at low levels? If not it's probably just some weird back end stuff that i wouldn't worry about.

[Cempa]

Too bad, SB is amazing .. its probably the most fun (single ability) for me .. SB+Nightfall would rock.

[Deleted]

They buffed shadowbolt for demonology spec.

[cafecito820]

Does affliction have shadow bolt at low levels? If not it's probably just some weird back end stuff that i wouldn't worry about.

According to Wowhead, you get Drain Soul at 13, and I know for a fact that the game changes your Shadow Bolt spell to Drain Soul if you're in Affliction spec (macros update automatically). So, I guess for 3 levels it might be a buff?

[Ichology]

They buffed shadowbolt for demonology spec.

How this wasn't obvious, idk lmao.

[xuros]

Nope, they didn't

Yes they are. Those numbers are ptr numbers and there is no reason to buff sb for aff since the 10 lvls or so you have its not worth the bother. Problem with datamined info is sometimes the specs are wrong. It happens often on these notes where they would have a corruption change listed for all three specs and so on.

[deanryan]

It makes alot of sense if it's for demo. This might mean we can go back to a sensible rotation rather than alternate SB and DE and that means less life tapping. I guess someone will have to do the maths...

[Nasuuna]

If you haven't played on the pbe leveling, shadowbolt does about 13 damage, costs 10% of your mana

a level 1 mob has 60 or so health.


That is the context

[FelPlague]

I wish affliction had shadowbolt
when a dk anti magic shields
all your dots drop, and you cant apply drain soul because it is a "dot"
so you literally just have to wait til their shield wears off, you cant dps it down. since you have no "castable spells" only "dots"

[xuros]

For entire expansions they were trying to move Demo from doing damage themselves to their pets doing damage. Hence Demonbolt and Grimoire of Synergy nerfs in past patches. And now all of a sudden in a last tier, before a complete revamp Demo is supposed to get, they decide to buff Shadowbolt by 80%, with no context and without nerfs to any other demonology spell.

Please, be serious.

Besides the fact that demo is one of the lowest played specs in the new raid right? Players have been bitching about how demo is so its safe to assume they are throwing them a bone with the buff. Its not going to be enough to make it worth using on most fights but it will close the gap a bit on a few. To assume that the buff to SB is truly a aff buff for the 10 levels where you do use it and where you fucking one shot everything already is crazy.

[Deleted]

Just check it on the PTR. It's not a low level affliction buff it's a buff to demonologys shadowbolt.

[xuros]

Demo is lowest played spec because plethora of other reasons, SB damage is the last one on the list. Buffing it will not solve any problems and won't make people play demo more. It's a low level affliction buff and nothing more than that. I also hope it's a Demo buff, but it's not.

PTR Demo SB 156,800
Live Demo SB 110k

So again, its a DEMO buff.

[xuros]

I sure do hope so, yet remain very skeptic about it. Well, we'll see when 7.3.5. goes live.

Yeah I just hope it sticks. after running a pickup raid and doing some world bosses the buff is very nice. Even demonbolts damage has gone up with the buff.

[bio347]

You know, this topic gets made literally every time this happens. This, in particular, is the version of the spell that shows up in the greyed-out Demonology tab in your spellbook while you're spec'd Affliction. I don't know why the datamining didn't pick up the other two versions like it usually does, but if SB was returning to Aff it'd have waaaaaay more notes to account for things like Artifact trait changes and whatnot.

[Biomega]

People always amaze me.

"Huh, why does it say Aff there with Shadow Bolt?"

Option 1: It's a typo and/or database error.

Option 2: They're making a fundamental change to a spec in a minor content patch, without prior announcement or explanation, adding an entirely new spell to a spec in the middle of an expansion that upturns everything we know.

"IT'S PROBABLY 2 IT MUST BE RIGHT RIGHT RIIIIGHT??!!!"

[Lushious]

People always amaze me.

"Huh, why does it say Aff there with Shadow Bolt?"

Option 1: It's a typo and/or database error.

Option 2: They're making a fundamental change to a spec in a minor content patch, without prior announcement or explanation, adding an entirely new spell to a spec in the middle of an expansion that upturns everything we know.

"IT'S PROBABLY 2 IT MUST BE RIGHT RIGHT RIIIIGHT??!!!"

Option3:

If you haven't played on the pbe leveling, shadowbolt does about 13 damage, costs 10% of your mana

a level 1 mob has 60 or so health.


That is the context

I'll go with option 3 as the most likely.

[Ibanism]

I miss when a filler spell are really filler, since MoP Aff lose tons of ST dps just from not being able to cast them(I’m kind of glad they nerf MG cuz now I can use WiA on heavy movement fight), before that that they account for like 5-10% of total ST dps, first raid for my lock was BWD and I really love that DL nightfall aff.