Affliction can't spend soulshards in BFA arena. Shadowlands too?

[Amariw]

In every expansion since MoP, affliction could cast to spend soulshards. But, in case it couldn't (melee with interrupts), it had less efficent but instant tools. In legion this took the shape of an honor talent which procc'ed instant seed of corruptions. Not as strong as unstable affliction, so you still tried to find opportunities to cast, but it gave you something where otherwise you couldn't cast nothing.

In BFA they took it away, for the life of me i don't know why (Aff was never considered OP and only somewhat strong for a short while of legion). And affliction became dead in pvp ever since.


Imagine a rogue without finishing moves or a warrior without rage spenders. That's how frustrating trying to pvp with affliction was this last year.

I want to stress that there is zero reason for this. The whole point of the inefficent spender is to be weaker than the normal rotation, so you aren't unstoppable and interrupts do affect you. By definition, it's not supposed to be too strong.

But the new Shadowlands spender seems to be a castable like Unstable was in BFA, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative instant tool. Sure, there might be an honor talent to fix this, but that's what i thought in BFA alpha too. I feel like we need to voice this as loud and early as possible, because blizz didn't get it last time and it doesn't seem like they do now.

The expansion has potential in other areas, and pvp vendors are back, we deserve to actually have a working class for them.

[Atrieus]

Its Alpha so there isnt much point comparing talents and such until we have seen and tested all the covenants.

As for Afflcition being Dead, yes Destruction is more popular, but Afflicition is not dead, there are plenty off Affliction Warlock above 2k in 2s 3s and RBGs.
Just because we have a spec that is more popular does not mean out others are bad.

Ive personally just leveled another warlock (different faction) and got to 1900 something in 2s
and mid 1800s in 3s, Not massively high ratings by any means, but the toons 2 weeks old.

Shadowlands seems to be bringing a lot of utility back, personally if we get Exhaustion back i will be happy as larry

[Amariw]

Its Alpha so there isnt much point comparing talents and such until we have seen and tested all the covenants.

As for Afflcition being Dead, yes Destruction is more popular, but Afflicition is not dead, there are plenty off Affliction Warlock above 2k in 2s 3s and RBGs.
Just because we have a spec that is more popular does not mean out others are bad.

Ive personally just leveled another warlock (different faction) and got to 1900 something in 2s
and mid 1800s in 3s, Not massively high ratings by any means, but the toons 2 weeks old.

Shadowlands seems to be bringing a lot of utility back, personally if we get Exhaustion back i will be happy as larry

It was alpha in bfa too once and yet they never gave back seed honor talent. They need to hear this as soon as possible. I'm honestly curious about your experience though. Are you ok with our toolset for pvp? What do you do if you're stunned during casting circle? Wait 60 while dotting and hope for interrupt jukes? I personally don't think it's ok we're the only class that can't spend resources when trained by melee and i find it really frustrating, but I'm (for real, no sarcasm) open to your perspective if you wanna share further.

My experience as a 2.1k 3v3 from legion, was that you wait for drain life 100 stacks, pray it doesn't get interrupted and the rest of the time you wiggle your thumbs because casting any more then a single unstable just won't happen, and even with full dots on everyone your dmg is abysmal because we're designed around being able to spend shards.

For the record, if you cba to reply, which is fine, i want to note that even if locks somehow work like this, it's still bad design. This design of not being able to use shards forces blizz to either give us some stupid burst gimmick like drain life azerite trait (which is gone in shadowlands and also doesn't fit a slow death specc like affliction), or make our instant dots overpowered to the point we just jump around and dot with no cd or resource limit while the enemy can't stop us. It's bad for us and it's bad for them and it leaves little room for choices on our part and counterplay on theirs.

[Lucetia]

It was alpha in bfa too once and yet they never gave back seed honor talent. They need to hear this as soon as possible.

Except you can't complain until they actually have all the talents implemented. A lot are just holdovers from BfA and stuff. Once it starts hitting Beta then it's easier to see and then form proper feedback. Since it's Alpha a lot is still NYI.

[Neuroticaine]

Imagine a rogue without finishing moves or a warrior without rage spenders.

imagine being a spellcaster and not having to cast spells.

[FelPlague]

affliction weas INSANE at the start of BFA till like 8.2 when they got nerfed... they were just mental in arean, what are you talking about?

[Felrane]

affliction weas INSANE at the start of BFA till like 8.2 when they got nerfed... they were just mental in arean, what are you talking about?

Some of the best lock players in the world just stopped playing the class. Affliction has ok in Legion but nothing great. BFA its been trash. If you are talking PVE then ya it was pretty good till 8.2. Destro has been really good most of BFA though.

[FelPlague]

Some of the best lock players in the world just stopped playing the class. Affliction has ok in Legion but nothing great. BFA its been trash. If you are talking PVE then ya it was pretty good till 8.2.

You must not have seen drain life burst.

[Felrane]

You must not have seen drain life burst.

Ya I remember it. I will admit it was pretty crazy, for about a week. The build up for the drain took a bit of time and games were pretty fast in 8.0 locks were punching bags till the Demon armor change. Plus with addons/weakauras just had to make sure to kick the drain life. If it didn't get nerfed and the lock Demon change came through it might have been a pretty fun build. Would most likely work like current Destro though. Stand in the middle and spam fears till you could burst ;p.

[Atrieus]

I can't say i agree, nobody even really used seed talent or casting circle. I know i personally never used either, but does that not show we had viable options, and yes the warlock toolkit is strong, there are always going to be classes better at X and Y but Warlock have a very strong core skillset.

Its far too early to worry about changes Alpha has been active for about 4 days. There will be 100s of changes before then. But from what i have seen i still think Warlocks overall are looking to be in a very good spot.

I mean, as far as pvp goes we are getting a talented Maledict, lets see how one ember burns before trying to make bonfires.

[Amariw]

I can't say i agree, nobody even really used seed talent or casting circle. I know i personally never used either, but does that not show we had viable options, and yes the warlock toolkit is strong, there are always going to be classes better at X and Y but Warlock have a very strong core skillset.

Its far too early to worry about changes Alpha has been active for about 4 days. There will be 100s of changes before then. But from what i have seen i still think Warlocks overall are looking to be in a very good spot.

I mean, as far as pvp goes we are getting a talented Maledict, lets see how one ember burns before trying to make bonfires.

I was 2.1k and used seed talent a lot vs melee. It gave you a lot of cleave dmg and corruption recast whereas otherwise you would just be running for your life doing nothing. Without this and with 60 sec casting circle, we simply don't have anything to do beside dotspam, our toolkit doesn't work vs melee. Unlike what some other poster said above, drain life trait was never dominant and barely all that strong for more then a month, there's a reason hardcore Aff streamers like Maldiva switched to dest and never switched back.

Back before BFA i thought like you, that there's no need to give feedback this early because surely it can't be the full kit. Then they removed seed talent, gutted casting circle, and left us with no instant shard spenders. They didn't change that many talents in BFA alpha and they already went on record saying shadowlands alpha isn't meant to have more class overhauls. Unless they see a big problem, what we see now is basically it. Trust me, them knowing this as soon as possible will at worst not cause harm, and at best actually let them fix it before shipping.

Lastly, talented Maledict? Where can i see that?

[valky94]

In every expansion since MoP, affliction could cast to spend soulshards. But, in case it couldn't (melee with interrupts), it had less efficent but instant tools. In legion this took the shape of an honor talent which procc'ed instant seed of corruptions. Not as strong as unstable affliction, so you still tried to find opportunities to cast, but it gave you something where otherwise you couldn't cast nothing.

In BFA they took it away, for the life of me i don't know why (Aff was never considered OP and only somewhat strong for a short while of legion). And affliction became dead in pvp ever since.


Imagine a rogue without finishing moves or a warrior without rage spenders. That's how frustrating trying to pvp with affliction was this last year.

I want to stress that there is zero reason for this. The whole point of the inefficent spender is to be weaker than the normal rotation, so you aren't unstoppable and interrupts do affect you. By definition, it's not supposed to be too strong.

But the new Shadowlands spender seems to be a castable like Unstable was in BFA, and there doesn't seem to be any alternative instant tool. Sure, there might be an honor talent to fix this, but that's what i thought in BFA alpha too. I feel like we need to voice this as loud and early as possible, because blizz didn't get it last time and it doesn't seem like they do now.

The expansion has potential in other areas, and pvp vendors are back, we deserve to actually have a working class for them.

play around unending resolve or casting circle

[Amariw]

imagine being a spellcaster and not having to cast spells.

Would be weird, because no spellcaster is like that or was. Before bfa, locks had tools to use shards when trained by melee and keep up some small pressure, but they still aimed to find casting windows when melees backed off or after some peeling/cc, and the enemy team aimed to stop that when possible. Now they do so little pressure with no artifact, seed talent or casting circle that you can just stay on them forever and the chances of getting a cast are abysmal.

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play around unending resolve and casting circle

Do you do that? How high did it get you? Do you find it good design to be able to cast once per a 3 min cd? I guess you don't play much if you mention circle, its a 1 min cd, all the enemy team needs to do is save stuns for it, cuzz they can interrupt you normally the rest of the time.

It still wasnt guranteed casts vs melee back when it was 30 min (sometimes worth taking though), but at least then it made them choose if they want to waste stuns or interrupts and possibly let you cast after, which was interesting. And as said, you had seed talent if they stayed on you forever. I get the feel you just read the spell descriptions and called it a day.

[valky94]

Do you do that? How high did it get you? Do you find it good design to be able to cast once per a 3 min cd? I guess you don't play much if you mention circle, its a 1 min cd, all the enemy team needs to do is save stuns for it, cuzz they can interrupt you normally the rest of the time.

It still wasnt guranteed casts vs melee back when it was 30 min (sometimes worth taking though), but at least then it made them choose if they want to waste stuns or interrupts and possibly let you cast after, which was interesting. And as said, you had seed talent if they stayed on you forever. I get the feel you just read the spell descriptions and called it a day.

demo and destro get fucked aswell by melees and interupts, if you dont like it play a different class, try playing with a different pet, CCs etc.

[Atrieus]

I was 2.1k and used seed talent a lot vs melee. It gave you a lot of cleave dmg and corruption recast whereas otherwise you would just be running for your life doing nothing. Without this and with 60 sec casting circle, we simply don't have anything to do beside dotspam, our toolkit doesn't work vs melee. Unlike what some other poster said above, drain life trait was never dominant and barely all that strong for more then a month, there's a reason hardcore Aff streamers like Maldiva switched to dest and never switched back.

Back before BFA i thought like you, that there's no need to give feedback this early because surely it can't be the full kit. Then they removed seed talent, gutted casting circle, and left us with no instant shard spenders. They didn't change that many talents in BFA alpha and they already went on record saying shadowlands alpha isn't meant to have more class overhauls. Unless they see a big problem, what we see now is basically it. Trust me, them knowing this as soon as possible will at worst not cause harm, and at best actually let them fix it before shipping.

Lastly, talented Maledict? Where can i see that?

I don't know why you think i am saying do not give feedback i have never said anything of the sort. All i have said is that warlocks are not in such a bad spot as you think they are.

And you mention Maldiva, he was literally playing affliction with a shadow priest a few days ago. As i said we are by far bottom of the pile.

As for the melee problem, this is normal and you have to play round it, do you not think giving us an ability letting us cast without issue would cause way more issues than it solves.

I dunno lets just agree to disagree here i doubt we will be able to come to a consensus.

[Amariw]

I don't know why you think i am saying do not give feedback i have never said anything of the sort. All i have said is that warlocks are not in such a bad spot as you think they are.

And you mention Maldiva, he was literally playing affliction with a shadow priest a few days ago. As i said we are by far bottom of the pile.

As for the melee problem, this is normal and you have to play round it, do you not think giving us an ability letting us cast without issue would cause way more issues than it solves.

I dunno lets just agree to disagree here i doubt we will be able to come to a consensus.

Its alright, we're both adults, no harm done because of some disagreements and i respect you regardless.

I think i failed to explain myself if you thought i wanted to give us free casting, though.

My intended goal was a tool that isn't as strong as casting, much like instant seeds were in legion or Soulburn: Soulswap was in MoP. Something that you use to add dmg when you can't cast at all, but at cost of resources that you might miss later when we could have found casting windows, creating choice. Interrupts would still reduce our effectiveness, but we'd have the option of using resources for a lesser effect if we finished using normal dots on everyone.

Beside just plain feeling bad being stuck on five soulshards for much of the match, the current toolkit skews balance towards our instant, counter-less DoTs without any limits, which is bad design for everyone involved whether its strong or weak.

If you disagree with that too, then like you said we'll respectfully agree to disagree.

Cool about Maldiva btw, didn't notice that.

[Atrieus]

Its alright, we're both adults, no harm done because of some disagreements and i respect you regardless.

I think i failed to explain myself if you thought i wanted to give us free casting, though.

My intended goal was a tool that isn't as strong as casting, much like instant seeds were in legion or Soulburn: Soulswap was in MoP. Something that you use to add dmg when you can't cast at all, but at cost of resources that you might miss later when we could have found casting windows, creating choice. Interrupts would still reduce our effectiveness, but we'd have the option of using resources for a lesser effect if we finished using normal dots on everyone.

Beside just plain feeling bad being stuck on five soulshards for much of the match, the current toolkit skews balance towards our instant, counter-less DoTs without any limits, which is bad design for everyone involved whether its strong or weak.

If you disagree with that too, then like you said we'll respectfully agree to disagree.

Cool about Maldiva btw, didn't notice that.

I dont really know what we could use though.
I feel if our dots are strong enough, which they should be as that is what the spec is about. I dont think we will need to pump out damage.

And by that i mean if our dots are rotting away, and with the option to spend shards to increase the pace of duration whatever it is, meaning you need to be shut down silenced stunned whatever, if we are still doing steady damage from our dots and if the healing absorb talent actually is a thing i dont think it will be such an issue.

To fix most of this the only option i can think of as a simple fix would be letting us cast mortal coil whilst stunned maybe without the heal to balance it a bit.

Were also all getting demonic circle back so that is also crucial, until the game settles down a bit its impossible to tell, i do beleive that currently affliction is looking to be in a really good spot, i mean were able to have 6? I think dots including covenant, not to mention we are getting curses back.

As you mentioned instants and such, the way im thinking currently, if you have a mage for example, full of dots, and curse of tongues on him reducing his damage (potentially) then being sat in a stun may not be as big of an issue. At least at face value and obviously thats a super basic example but you get the general idea.

[Sometus]

I dont really know what we could use though.
I feel if our dots are strong enough, which they should be as that is what the spec is about. I dont think we will need to pump out damage.

And by that i mean if our dots are rotting away, and with the option to spend shards to increase the pace of duration whatever it is, meaning you need to be shut down silenced stunned whatever, if we are still doing steady damage from our dots and if the healing absorb talent actually is a thing i dont think it will be such an issue.

To fix most of this the only option i can think of as a simple fix would be letting us cast mortal coil whilst stunned maybe without the heal to balance it a bit.

Were also all getting demonic circle back so that is also crucial, until the game settles down a bit its impossible to tell, i do beleive that currently affliction is looking to be in a really good spot, i mean were able to have 6? I think dots including covenant, not to mention we are getting curses back.

As you mentioned instants and such, the way im thinking currently, if you have a mage for example, full of dots, and curse of tongues on him reducing his damage (potentially) then being sat in a stun may not be as big of an issue. At least at face value and obviously thats a super basic example but you get the general idea.

I think you are missing the point of the problem though. Firstly, even if we are competitive, just as a scenario, if there is little to no variation or depth to our gameplay, what is the point of doing pvp? You will hit a point where you feel like you can't get that much better and are just hoping for goods enemy comps to gain ranks. For really competetively minded people that only wanna see ranks go up, and often flock to the flavor of the month class/spec, that might be alright but I think its a really weak excuse to say that "well at least we are competitive". Gameplay and fantasy behind the class you are playing be damned.

If it is gonna be like bfa and arena is a meleefest, locks will probably get pummeled from all sides, there needs to be a solution different from just a one time protection that lets you play your class for a few seconds. If your main gameplay in arena is jumping around will doing dots and not being able to cast, thats great gameplay right? But at least we are competitive I guess. It's pretty clear pvp is an afterthought, especially for casters, because they aren't taking into account the amounts of interrupts and mobility flying around and hitting you. For melee that of course is no problem, but for casters pve and pvp ist much more different. They depend on targets not rushing around the entire arena and always being on them and denying them their basic rotation. We don't just need more dmg, we need more options to handle situations, because that is not only what helps you survive but what makes it fun to play. Jumping around the arena while doing dots and not getting to cast, however strong the dots and however many there might be, is not fun at all.

[JustaWarlock]

Its Alpha so there isnt much point comparing talents and such

Don't worry guys! It's only alpha/beta/prepatch/9/pre-9.1 ptr/9.1/ptr/9.2/pre-exapansion/next expansion will fix it.

[Atrieus]

I think you are missing the point of the problem though. Firstly, even if we are competitive, just as a scenario, if there is little to no variation or depth to our gameplay, what is the point of doing pvp? You will hit a point where you feel like you can't get that much better and are just hoping for goods enemy comps to gain ranks. For really competetively minded people that only wanna see ranks go up, and often flock to the flavor of the month class/spec, that might be alright but I think its a really weak excuse to say that "well at least we are competitive". Gameplay and fantasy behind the class you are playing be damned.

I mean i already stated scenarios as to where things can get added and what not. I not once said jump around and do nothing, my point is we are a dot class and should never have burst or whatever it is available to us.

We already have alot of utility are extremely tanky and multiple other things, all i know is i will continue to play my warlock and im not complaining about anything currently.

So far in shadowlands from what ive seen.
Curses coming back.
Circle baseline
Shard spender for burst damage
Talented heal absorb.
Extra dots added in.

There is a lot more to cheer about than just negatives. There is always going to be flavour of the month and those players will always go play those specs, but this is a Warlock forum, so i dont think those players quite fit into the mold here really.

As for gameplay warlock have massive ammount going for them and were getting more back, if you dont enjoy the gameplay thats fine, but its one of 3 specs and if your the still not happy than i dont know what to suggest. Im aware we can be better in areas but we can certainly be in worse spots by a mile.

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Don't worry guys! It's only alpha/beta/prepatch/9/pre-9.1 ptr/9.1/ptr/9.2/pre-exapansion/next expansion will fix it.

Taking something entirely out of context does not make for a strong argument really. You already posted this exact thing in response to me on another post. If your reading what you want to read and not seeing the bigger picture im not sure how else to explain it dude.