How do you even enjoy affliction?

[Biomega]

I haven't leveled under the new system but that doesn't sound right to me. Warlocks tend to be quite potent even at low levels, and even though they don't beat some of the top classes like Arcane Mage you should be a lot higher than that.

Many people think Affliction is this brainless spec where you just chill as things die - not so. It's very micro intensive. You need to be on your toes to squeeze out damage where you can by making use of mechanics like Drain or UA refunds, to keep your Shoul Shard count up and convert as many shards as possible into damage. One of the biggest DPS losses is overcapping Soul Shards, and you should never do that. Pre-Mastery (i.e. before lvl 78) the DoTs hit like wet noodles, but they have their place. Haunt substitutes for the lack of DoT damage by providing more front-loaded nuking.

UA hits very hard. It's your go-to nuke whenever possible. It should refund 1 Soul Shard if a mob dies with UA (any number of them) on it. You can spam it freely on things that will die quickly and leech free ticks as you drain it to death. Haunt, of course, should be spammed as much as possible and in ways that makes use of the on-death cooldown reset - careful not to cast it on mobs that die before it actually hits, though. Haunt is not a DoT - many people think that, because Affliction. It's a direct damage nuke.

If you pull a lot of mobs, using Corruption becomes viable. If things live for the full duration, Agony, too, though that should be rare outside of bosses. You can also just put up Corruption with free GCDs e.g. when moving.

Lastly, Seed of Corruption is generally quite good IF you have the mob count - 3 mobs with the Sow the Seeds talent, 5 mobs without. Below that count, stick to UA.

It can take some getting used to, sizing up the combat situation and determining what yields the most damage. How long will things live? Which mob will live the longest? Where should I dump my UAs to get the most ticks but also the refund? What should I snipe with Drain Soul? When should I put up DoTs on which targets? All this comes with practice.

[Atraxxa]

Hi,

At 63 level, I gave up on Affliction, because everyone in the instances is doing twice the damage, and the DoT's don't work as well, when the mobs go down so fast.

I won't even try Affliction with my 110 Warlock (915 gear) because I do not trust the damage, and the last thing I want is to embarrass myself in a heroic/mythic, by showing I only did 10% of the damage, while a tank and another melee did almost 30% each! The disparity is insane and I haven't really found any good information that shows how one can address that ... they all ask for information that, in the end, is almost the same ... and I am not sure that there is a good way to improve this.

Mostly I do Demonology when solo around Argus, and then switch to Destruction for raids. Instances, normally I might make a switch or two during the many fights, but I did not see, for example, any major difference in the Kill'jaen fight between Demonology and Destruction at all ... except that with Demonology, I lost a lot of precious moments when he moved to the other side and I had to move my character around again, since he was facing the wrong direction now. It is almost always anywhere from 90% to about 180% out from the front of the character! This change started -- as far as I can tell -- with the Legion Expansion. My warlock and Shadow Priest, both have the same problem, and are both basically retired right now, as there is no information anywhere to help improve that, and a few folks think that the mobs moving is my imagination, not the game's.

This, kinda reminds me when I BETA'd Dark Ages of Camelot (can't even remember its name properly now!), and they had a Hunter there that did pretty good damage for the fights all around, however, in the PvP side of things, that amount of damage was too much, and they decided to nerf the Hunter, and all of a sudden those were at the bottom of all dps listings and a lot of folks were disappointed. I thought it was a shame that the game could not address their differences between PvP and PvE properly and allowed a vociferous group that did not stay in the game and quit before everyone else to dictate directions in their game, which went down hill from there and badly so ... it did not last very long.

Basically, I would like to see the damage content evened out some more ... or these different "styles" for each class are worthless and a waste of code!

There are so many things wrong with this post I'm not sure where to start, the main thing you should try to understand is that affliction is a "dot" based spec therefore it has "ramp up time". It will never complete at lower levels and even at lower mythic dungeon lvls compared to burst classes like DH or Monk. All their dmg is frontloaded. Where affliction shines is on longer fights or really high health mobs, for example Fortified, tyrannical weeks. Affliction is king there, but to me it sounds like you are meter chasing and not taking the time to see how the class works anyway so I'm afraid we are spinning our wheels for no reason.

[Deleted]

Basically affliction DOES compare very badly in any situation where the mobs die quickly. It has alway sbeen the same. The harder the content, the more affliction shines. Affliction in "easy" content suffers terribly from it's ramp times, because almost every other DPS class has a load of instant front'loaded damage

In low-level content thi ssimpyl means everything just dies to everyone else spamming their AOE or nuke abilities before your dots have time to do any real damage. This is exacerbated by the fact that Agony has a veyr long ramp mechanic, and doesn't hit hard until it's up to it's full ten ticks (or 15 with Writhe)

It's always been like this. Affliction starts out feeling pretty good in normal/heroic/mythic dungeons but feels progressively worse in that level of content as everyone else starts to gear up. You reach the point where everything is dead before you've even managed to cast seed of corruption. When thta happens you have to resign yourself to affliction really being a highe rkey M+ spec and raid spec. Only in those situations do the mobs/bosses have enough health to mitigate affliction's ramp and to allow it;s strengths like dotting everything up come into play.

If you're meter chasing then you're in for a bad time as affliction in low-level content. Affliction is king in high-level content, because whilst it starts very low at the beginning of a fight, it catches up and then surpasses many othe rclasses because affliction's damage output is sustainable, whilst they blew their cooldown nukes at the start.

It is very much a tortoise and hare situation. In raids/high M+'s. the tortoise wins, as it is about endurance. In low level content, essentially sprint races the hare leaves the tortoise way behind.

Thing is, there's no real way around this for a DOT class. Ramp is inherent in the basic design.

[Osiria]

Mechanically, it feels good.

Appearance, aesthetics, etc, are utter garbage. Feels like I'm casting nothing. Or playing some sort of "interface game", since all I see is debuffs appearing under the enemy HP bar.

Blizzard really *have* to change their design in terms of how expressive DoTs are supposed to be. I don't get this "DoTs must feel like pointless extra globals thanks to the insignificant spell effects".

[ydraw]

Done.



Giving it a try ... but first effort was not very good ... still same results.

Tank 32.1%
DPS 29.1 %
DPS 25.6 %
Warlock 11.2%

Drain soul 63.6%
Corruption 25.5 %
Unstable Affliction 3.6% (mostly named and higher levels)
Haunt 2.7%

At low levels haunt should be a much bigger part of your damage. Make sure you cast it on the mob that will die first, so it can reset the cooldown and you can cast it again. If you are over 60 already just take sow the seeds and spam seed of corruption/drain soul.

When mobs start living longer than about 10 seconds each is when you can start casting agony on them. Before you get to those levels I wouldn't bother casting it except on bosses.

But in the meantime on dungeon bosses, you should go something like this:

Agony, Corruption, UAx2, Haunt, Drain Soul until haunt falls off. If you have more shards you can cast more UAs. Basically save 3 shards for your next haunt, so you can go UAx3, Haunt, Drain Soul again.

[Linri]

class lore, and i really enjoy dots
to me this is the apex of warlock

it has been dumbed down a lot, but it used to have a lot more going on

[Realmerc]

i have to be honest here, if you actually think aff is easy to play and very dull..

you're probably very bad at this spec or you''ve been playing it for too long.

aff is one of the most dynamic spec in the game on ST, purely because the procs, RNG for souls and shards, and the core play isn't about dotting things up and spamming shards when you get them, is to adjust your playstyle accordingly with the resources you have. And this system gives you so much room and freedom to change your rotation based around different situations.

Your example of DH/Balance druid are the opposite of fun to me, because they all have extremely predictable rotations.

For example havoc DH, press 1 to spend fury (chaos strike), press 2 if you need to generate fury (felblade/demon's bite), press 3 on CD( eyebeam/blade dance). that basically explains Havoc's rotation for 99% of the situation.

is that fun to you? then so be it. but aff has so much more depth and things to offer than you think it is.

[Challenge]

RNG for souls and shards, and the core play isn't about dotting things up and spamming shards when you get them

This literally is what affliction is. Its a low APM, low risk/skill, high reward spec.

[Crudence]

Affliction is fun on many targets. On singletarget it is a bit mediocre. However, it is hella fun in pvp, it is fun just questing and dotting up everyone and their mother. You are basically invincible since the drain heals you for so ridiculously much. I have more problem understanding how you play DH. Only played as Havoc, but that took me 2 days until I just couldn't handle it anymore. It looks cool and the mobility is good, but god damn it is boring.

[Unlockmyhrt]

Probably the most boring spec I’ve played next to balance

[valky94]

the last time i enjoyed aff as a spec was the first patch of MoP, havent touched it since then, only in a couple of fights in legion, in PVE that is, i play it in PVP because its stupid in BGS

[xpose]

Yeah, affliction is extremely bland and boring. Too bad it's the top lock spec.

Blizzard had to make them top because of how shit they were at launch. Spec is boring as fuck

[Pensylvestor]

I don't know if I'd say it has been dumbed down a lot. Multi dotting and single target largely have the same skill gaps as they have had in the past. People like to remember MOP affliction as being this ungodly trinity of great damage, high skill ceiling, and fun to play, but the truth is it wasn't really any more complicated or more nuanced than aff is right now in Antorus.

For instance a lot of the rank 1s people got on protectors back in siege (the ultimate multi-dot shit storm) they would get a good snap shot and literally just fucking press soul swap for the entire remainder of the fight. I remember looking at the logs and seeing what this guy did to get a rank 1 and going "holy shit, he literally just fucking soul swapped/mg'd the entire fight".

Even now in antorus, maybe with the exception of hounds and gorothi (the two easiest bosses in the instance) there are so many small things you can do that can have a tremendous impact on your damage like sniping imps on PK to get full shards while not capping shards, but also not missing snipes on imps at the same time.

On kin'garoth, largely a single target encounter, a "supposedly" super easy/brain dead area for aff locks, you can see pretty big differences in peoples' dps. There is another lock in my raid who does around 400-600k less than me consistently on that fight. He was doing the simple things I told him to do (save soul harvest/shards for the beginning of the add phase), sims for around the same amount as me, and he didn't have low dot uptime or anything major, and yet was getting absolutely shit on. I looked at his logs and he was making some minor errors that just added up over time. Not saving enough reap for the add phases, not saving enough shards for the add phases, using reap during down time incorrectly outside of trinket procs or big drain cycles, low drain soul up time (meaning he was probably moving or refreshing way too much), completely ignoring trinket/concordance procs, not using gateway/port properly, etc...

He was doing all the things people say brain dead aff locks are supposed to do (just keep dots up and spam ua and drain rite guis? haHAA), yet he was doing around 25ish% less damage than he was supposed to be doing.

Brain dead spec is a brain dead spec though I guess, right?

[Biomega]

Brain dead spec is a brain dead spec though I guess, right?

It's a psychological defense mechanism. People feel threatened in their self-worth if they're out-DPSed, and even though class balance has never been perfect at any point in the entire game, they still have this subconscious fear that it's personal. That it's THEM. And so they turn it around and project, and everyone who does a lot of damage must be doing so because the spec is "braindead" and "it's boring anyway" and "how do you even enjoy affliction?".

Nobody attacked them, I guess it's just a preemptive strike against their own feelings of inadequacy.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

It's a psychological defense mechanism. People feel threatened in their self-worth if they're out-DPSed, and even though class balance has never been perfect at any point in the entire game, they still have this subconscious fear that it's personal. That it's THEM. And so they turn it around and project, and everyone who does a lot of damage must be doing so because the spec is "braindead" and "it's boring anyway" and "how do you even enjoy affliction?".

Nobody attacked them, I guess it's just a preemptive strike against their own feelings of inadequacy.

Nah, I gave it a go and it was the least fun I've had in the game since I last picked up my hunter. If you enjoy it, fine, but I don't hate affli because it's better than demo, I just find it super dull.

[Trend]

Nah, I gave it a go and it was the least fun I've had in the game since I last picked up my hunter. If you enjoy it, fine, but I don't hate affli because it's better than demo, I just find it super dull.

If you're parsing well and finding it "super dull", hats off to you. More likely you're parsing sub 20% and you find it dull because the really interesting and challenging aspects of the spec are things you don't want to touch. Certainly it should not appeal to everyone, but the use of "dull" indicates no understanding of damage optimization.

[Baconeggcheese]

the really interesting and challenging aspects of the spec are things you don't want to touch.

Out of curiosity, what do you consider those things?

[Zelk]

dots are cool my man

[AwkwardSquirtle]

If you're parsing well and finding it "super dull", hats off to you. More likely you're parsing sub 20% and you find it dull because the really interesting and challenging aspects of the spec are things you don't want to touch. Certainly it should not appeal to everyone, but the use of "dull" indicates no understanding of damage optimization.

I'll admit I'm not the best player, and was trying to learn the spec pretty much on the fly, but regardless if the base gameplay doesn't grab me I can't imagine that clipping DS or whatever is going to excite me much more.

[ablib]

When I first leveled a Warlock about 5 years or so ago, I leveled as Affliction and loved it. Now it's about as shitty, clunky and butchered as Shadow Priest is.