For a small moment I knew what it was like to be a demon hunter or rogue

[JustaWarlock]

And then they gutted malefic rupture with a stealth nerf they couldn't even be bothered telling us about amongst their walls of text explaining changes for all the other classes

[Baconeggcheese]

Not sure what you mean by the title.

Did they just do a numbers tuning pass on it or?

[bloodwulf]

Dude, as a warlock main, Malefic Rupture was too good, and the nerf in the long scheme of things wont be that significant. In the beta, Affliction was literally the highest burst dps in the game. We will survive.

[JustaWarlock]

Dude, as a warlock main, Malefic Rupture was too good, and the nerf in the long scheme of things wont be that significant. In the beta, Affliction was literally the highest burst dps in the game. We will survive.

I agree it was too good - it allowed affliction to keep up with DH/Rogue burst AOE which we all know is a major no-no.

I am just annoyed they stealth nerfed it, as it was the only thing propping up Affliction damage (our dots hit for nothing, other than UA).

[bloodwulf]

I agree it was too good - it allowed affliction to keep up with DH/Rogue burst AOE which we all know is a major no-no.

I am just annoyed they stealth nerfed it, as it was the only thing propping up Affliction damage (our dots hit for nothing, other than UA).

We were magnitudes better than Rogues and DH. DemonHunter is terrible right now in the beta, and Rogues are little better. This nerf is not going to hurt us much at all, especially once we start getting mastery as it is affected by Mastery now. I think it seems like you got a vendetta against two classes and think one 33% nerf to spell coefficient is going to ruin us.

[JustaWarlock]

We were magnitudes better than Rogues and DH. DemonHunter is terrible right now in the beta, and Rogues are little better. This nerf is not going to hurt us much at all, especially once we start getting mastery as it is affected by Mastery now. I think it seems like you got a vendetta against two classes and think one 33% nerf to spell coefficient is going to ruin us.

Affliction has gone all of BFA with no AOE to speak of, while Rogues and DH have been able to faceroll massive numbers for the entirety of BFA. It would have been nice to feel like a real AOE class for once.

[bloodwulf]

Affliction has gone all of BFA with no AOE to speak of, while Rogues and DH have been able to faceroll massive numbers for the entirety of BFA. It would have been nice to feel like a real AOE class for once.

And we still will. This nerf will not kill that. This is one nerf that was bringing an outrageously powerful spell in line. If you played beta and thought its previous performance was acceptable you are delusional.

[sensei-]

And we still will. This nerf will not kill that. This is one nerf that was bringing an outrageously powerful spell in line. If you played beta and thought its previous performance was acceptable you are delusional.

Not true. What this nerf does is kills affliction, because it’s trash compared to Destro now. That is, unless Destro gets a stealth nerf next.

[LordVargK]

Doesn't Afflictions damage stem from drain soul anyway? Or was that fixed? Yes, it's aoe might be weakened, but still it should be fine.

You can switch specs almost freely now, so play a warlock not just a spec.

[sensei-]

Doesn't Afflictions damage stem from drain soul anyway? Or was that fixed? Yes, it's aoe might be weakened, but still it should be fine.

You can switch specs almost freely now, so play a warlock not just a spec.

Freely? So you won’t farm spec specific legendaries and potency conduits? Make no mistake, when mythic raid opens you will have one spec decently game ready, not multiple, and you’ll continue farming ranks for that spec.

This nerf could be a 10-15% ST nerf, and more on AoE. Only problem is, it’s kinda important to be able to do some AoE when gearing through dungeons.

And by the way, Decimating Bolt got nerfed as well.

We still have destruction.

[bloodwulf]

Not true. What this nerf does is kills affliction, because it’s trash compared to Destro now. That is, unless Destro gets a stealth nerf next.

If a 33% nerf of coefficent values while the ability is now added to mastery kills it for you, then sure dont play affliction. This wont break it.

[Ashnazg]

Affliction has gone all of BFA with no AOE to speak of, while Rogues and DH have been able to faceroll massive numbers for the entirety of BFA. It would have been nice to feel like a real AOE class for once.

Legion. Affliction AOE was <3

[Lucrece]

Legion. Affliction AOE was <3

Only in low keys. Soulflame was garbage in higher keys.

Affliction was a single target turret until the end of Nighthold, and then it went from single target turret to spread cleave god.

The fact is, affliction barring tuning has always been a worse shadow priest.

Come shadowlands, shadow priest will be a far superior DoT class. Zero ramp up on their dots, only 2 dots to apply to multiple targets, talents that allow them to easily spread their dots, on a class now with more self healing and mitigation than an affliction warlock.

As long as affliction's damage gets diluted into 3-4 dots, one of them with a ramp up mechanism on top of already being a dot, it will be a worse dot spec than shadow priest if the brute force of numbers aren't there.

[lonely zergling]

Only in low keys. Soulflame was garbage in higher keys.

Affliction was a single target turret until the end of Nighthold, and then it went from single target turret to spread cleave god.

The fact is, affliction barring tuning has always been a worse shadow priest.

Come shadowlands, shadow priest will be a far superior DoT class. Zero ramp up on their dots, only 2 dots to apply to multiple targets, talents that allow them to easily spread their dots, on a class now with more self healing and mitigation than an affliction warlock.

As long as affliction's damage gets diluted into 3-4 dots, one of them with a ramp up mechanism on top of already being a dot, it will be a worse dot spec than shadow priest if the brute force of numbers aren't there.

Affliction in legion also was the king of sustained aoe dmg with the old beefy seed of corruption if you specced into sow and elp, sure you also had the singletarget and cleave focused talent setups for some dungeons but you always had the choice to go full aoe mode for where it made sense.

Now seed isnt worth spamming at all and wasnt for whole of bfa, thats one of the main issues with affliction. Seems like they wont adress seed being uselss in shadowlands either.

Imho they should just scrap seed and commit to our dots being the main source of dmg even in bigger pulls, make darkglare also do some aoe if a certain amount of dots are active or something.

[JustaWarlock]

Seed will never be worth casting in SL.

[sensei-]

Seed will never be worth casting in SL.

Affliction will never be worth playing in SL.

[Malekius]

It's not a nerf, it's tuning. Numbers were all over in Beta, and soon other classes and specs will be tuned as well. Granted, they might miss the mark, as Blizzard often does, but everyone is going through that soon enough.

[MrHappy]

it was massively imbalanced. we knew that there' no way it would make it in that state to live. Our execute damage made warriors look like they were hitting with fuzzy mittens. Why are you surprised that this changed occurred?

[sensei-]

it was massively imbalanced. we knew that there' no way it would make it in that state to live. Our execute damage made warriors look like they were hitting with fuzzy mittens. Why are you surprised that this changed occurred?

Because unless other affliction abilities get buffed to compensate the spec sucks. As it stands right now in m15+ keys On beta, even fortified where affliction should be better, affliction is average at best, and that's being polite. In good groups it's getting carried.

But average dps doesn’t cut it when your utility is also average at best. And let's face it, compared to the usual high key and MDI suspects, Warlock doesn't bring any utility that's required.

Nothing's really changed in the big picture. You walk to a pack in M+, you need to set up 7-8 GCDs of casts before you can even Rapture for the first time, and now it hits like a noodle. And the dots don't do any damage, so at the point of the first Rapture cast you are well behind the tank in overall damage done. But by the time you get to Rapture, the pack is already down to about 20% hp left with other classes front loading their damage on to it. I mean, even sub rogues do about 2x the damage affliction does in M+. Affliction is trash tier again in M+. Maybe it's a raid spec because of execute, but we're talking about beta where everything is possible. It was possible to fix Affliction to be useful again in competitive M+, but they failed, so the status quo remains.

[JustaWarlock]

it was massively imbalanced. we knew that there' no way it would make it in that state to live. Our execute damage made warriors look like they were hitting with fuzzy mittens. Why are you surprised that this changed occurred?

I mean, I agree that it was overtuned and would be nerfed, but it was only overtuned for a warlock ability. It did the sort of damage melee classes such as DH and Rogues do as a matter of course. For some reason, massive AOE sustained damage with no ramp is fine for melee classes, but massive aoe damage that requires setup first is somehow sacrilege for affliction to have.

The issue isn't that tuning has happened in beta. The issue is that warlocks have been largely ignored since the tranistion to beta with none of the key issues being addressed. Even basic things such as only having 1 viable covenant choice.

MR was propping up affliction, and now it's been put in its place we don't even have that. SoC is dead, MR needs many globals to set up to do less aoe than melee facerolling and even then shard generation is so poor atm you can only get a couple off before being shard starved and/or the mobs already being dead.

We're a dot class with noodles for dots.