Is Affliction ready for DF launch?

[Biomega]

I even found a bunch of pages putting survival hunter at S tier. When did that happen?

This tier. It's considered an anomaly, resulting from interaction between the tier set bonuses and certain legendaries. Since those go away in DF, it'll drop back to meme tier, where it's been at any other time.

DO NOT make the mistake of looking at present-day live data - DF will shake things up, and rearrange the relative rankings considerably. Prepatch has many anomalous interactions that don't translate (covenants, tier sets, legendaries, etc.), so there will be wild differences between what things are on live right now, and what they'll be in DF. A lot of tier lists are using either live data, or outdated Beta data - anything from Beta that's older than 1.5 weeks (when the most recent tuning passes happened) is likely to be inaccurate at least in some respect. And live-game data is almost completely irrelevant for what DF live will look like.

Right now on DF Beta melee is king, but this is the tuning phase - we've had several tuning passes over the last weeks, and we're likely to get more before release. No one can promise that things will hold up compared to what Beta looks like right now, nor can anyone predict where things will end up on release.

[pahbi]

This tier. It's considered an anomaly, resulting from interaction between the tier set bonuses and certain legendaries. Since those go away in DF, it'll drop back to meme tier, where it's been at any other time.

DO NOT make the mistake of looking at present-day live data - DF will shake things up, and rearrange the relative rankings considerably. Prepatch has many anomalous interactions that don't translate (covenants, tier sets, legendaries, etc.), so there will be wild differences between what things are on live right now, and what they'll be in DF. A lot of tier lists are using either live data, or outdated Beta data - anything from Beta that's older than 1.5 weeks (when the most recent tuning passes happened) is likely to be inaccurate at least in some respect. And live-game data is almost completely irrelevant for what DF live will look like.

Right now on DF Beta melee is king, but this is the tuning phase - we've had several tuning passes over the last weeks, and we're likely to get more before release. No one can promise that things will hold up compared to what Beta looks like right now, nor can anyone predict where things will end up on release.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day its just a gamble, there is almost no way to make a meaningful choice.

All I can do is just keep looking at stuff, then roll the dice on launch day and hope I'm not wasting my time.

In the year 2022, is there no better way to do things that just roll the dice and hope you don't get the crap class/spec.

[SynDethroc]

Affliction, in my opinion, is the most fun it's ever been. I'm having a blast with it

[Biomega]

In the year 2022, is there no better way to do things that just roll the dice and hope you don't get the crap class/spec.

Honestly, assuming the current melee/ranged spread is narrowed (which everyone expects) you are probably good with anything EXCEPT Feral Druid, Survival Hunter, Ret Paladin, and Shadow Priest, which have historically been the underdogs and are currently also not exactly in a great spot.

Warlock is likely one of the safest picks, if not the safest. It's VERY rarely been shit in all 3 specs, and its utility practically guarantees a raid spot. M+ is the only weak spot, but that's true for most ranged, as M+ tends to have a melee bias.

Mage is another option if raiding is your priority - their buff will likely mean a guaranteed raid spot, and they may have a spot in M+ as well depending on setups.

If you want to play melee, Rogue is probably the way to go; since it's a triple DPS class, it's unlikely to be tuned in a way that makes all of them bad, and its M+ utility and damage are looking to be excellent yet again.

You can see the pattern: triple DPS classes tend to be safe, historically. Even if they're not THE top, they're almost always near it.

[Zyky]

Hey.

Just wondering if the warlock community has been trying out the class on test realms?


Is it ready for launch on the 28th Nov? or still far behind destro?

Let's be honest for a minute; Dragonflight isn't ready for Dragonflight Launch. Can't wait to see the frustration again, just like Shadowlands, just like BFA, just like Legion, just like WoD. Blizzard isn't putting out quality products anymore and they're pushing out games that aren't complete, beyond just WoW expansions.

[pahbi]

Honestly, assuming the current melee/ranged spread is narrowed (which everyone expects) you are probably good with anything EXCEPT Feral Druid, Survival Hunter, Ret Paladin, and Shadow Priest, which have historically been the underdogs and are currently also not exactly in a great spot.

Warlock is likely one of the safest picks, if not the safest. It's VERY rarely been shit in all 3 specs, and its utility practically guarantees a raid spot. M+ is the only weak spot, but that's true for most ranged, as M+ tends to have a melee bias.

Mage is another option if raiding is your priority - their buff will likely mean a guaranteed raid spot, and they may have a spot in M+ as well depending on setups.

If you want to play melee, Rogue is probably the way to go; since it's a triple DPS class, it's unlikely to be tuned in a way that makes all of them bad, and its M+ utility and damage are looking to be excellent yet again.

You can see the pattern: triple DPS classes tend to be safe, historically. Even if they're not THE top, they're almost always near it.

I guess as we get closer to launch, there will be more balance passes, then a final pass at launch, I'll just have to keep watch and make a final choice when the time comes.

[Biomega]

I guess as we get closer to launch, there will be more balance passes, then a final pass at launch, I'll just have to keep watch and make a final choice when the time comes.

That's a good play, for sure. Though to be fair, even final Beta data is not necessarily representative of live performance No guarantees in this.

[Morfoneusz]

As a warlock main I have a hard time playing affli now vs in SL. Right now there are to many spells to keep track on, with haunt and malefic grasp doing full rotation does not allow to refresh dots. Not to mention right now I'm still being burst in skirmishes by 2x arms or arms + feral with constant CC. It's just not possible to outheal that.

[Priestyboy]

As a warlock main I have a hard time playing affli now vs in SL. Right now there are to many spells to keep track on, with haunt and malefic grasp doing full rotation does not allow to refresh dots. Not to mention right now I'm still being burst in skirmishes by 2x arms or arms + feral with constant CC. It's just not possible to outheal that.

affli is one of the most broken speccs in pvp atm, and i dont think you use haunt in pvp?

[agentsi]

I know sim dps isn't the end all be all, but after trying Demo and Aff in M0s, Aff needs buffed, badly. Especially compared to other classes. Their AoE has massive ramp up, when compared to demo 1 button felstorm. With BL, I've hit 65kish ST dps in Demo, best I could ever muster with Aff was around 38k. Each fight lasted roughly 90 seconds, so I know it isn't a huge metric for this, but aff seemed to severely lag behind in both AoE and ST when compared directly to Demo. Either Demo is going to get nerfed hard, like a few other specs, combat rogue, enh shaman, evoker dps, etc, or they're going to have to buff Aff big time.

For what its worth, my sim dps on a standard patchwork fight, with same gear, talents aimed at ST dps only:

Demo 39.5k
Aff 31.2k
Destro 29.8k


Not saying they should all be identical, but there shouldn't be this much of a spread across 3 pure dps specs in ST only.

[Priestyboy]

I know sim dps isn't the end all be all, but after trying Demo and Aff in M0s, Aff needs buffed, badly. Especially compared to other classes. Their AoE has massive ramp up, when compared to demo 1 button felstorm. With BL, I've hit 65kish ST dps in Demo, best I could ever muster with Aff was around 38k. Each fight lasted roughly 90 seconds, so I know it isn't a huge metric for this, but aff seemed to severely lag behind in both AoE and ST when compared directly to Demo. Either Demo is going to get nerfed hard, like a few other specs, combat rogue, enh shaman, evoker dps, etc, or they're going to have to buff Aff big time.

For what its worth, my sim dps on a standard patchwork fight, with same gear, talents aimed at ST dps only:

Demo 39.5k
Aff 31.2k
Destro 29.8k


Not saying they should all be identical, but there shouldn't be this much of a spread across 3 pure dps specs in ST only.

affli will be stronger as soon as mobs dont insta die. But i doubt they will buff affli to much either way. Dots speccs are hard to balance, as soon as they are good in ST, they become god tier on spread.

[HansOlo]

As a warlock main I have a hard time playing affli now vs in SL. Right now there are to many spells to keep track on, with haunt and malefic grasp doing full rotation does not allow to refresh dots. Not to mention right now I'm still being burst in skirmishes by 2x arms or arms + feral with constant CC. It's just not possible to outheal that.

Keep track on = a question of skill and ... tracking. Work on your UI.