Going back to the roots of Affliction warlock

[cristos]

Warlocks and developers,

Affliction is a spec I fell in love with the moment I laid my hands on it several expansions ago. I wish I could feel the same way about affliction in legion but the play style just isn't engaging.

I want to enjoy it but I just can't, It feels flavorless no matter how much I try. I know I'm not by myself when I make this statement and I'm sure more affliction warlocks feel the same.

I remember how enjoyable and fluid everything used to feel about affliction, How the rotation felt like there was synergy with every spell and applying my dots/playing the spec was fun.

To be honest, I probably would never leave my computer or ever quit world of warcraft if affliction was still functioning as it did in Warlords of draenor. Blizzard you did well with affliction warlock in WoD, Despite a few small things it fun to play. Bring us back to the roots of affliction it desperately needs it.

I only wish I could say the same about legion affliction, I do appreciate the work the developers have put into the spec but I just don't feel as though it's working or enjoyable like it used to be.

It feels dull and unfinished too many spells have been pruned which gave the class flavor, depth and made it immersive to play.

Recently I came across a blue post specifying if we had any feedback for classes not to make any suggestions but rather to address the issues and present them as simply as possible.

So to take that advice into consideration and my attempt to simplify the core issues with it as much as possible are below. Unfortunately they cannot be addressed in a few simple words but here is my best attempt.

- Rotation-

Affliction is intended to be a dot class which I completely understand and have no issue with. After all this is why I fell in love with the spec from the start.

-Unstable affliction- Isn't enjoyable to cast, What this is doing is giving us the illusion of applying more dots when they're unneeded. The developers wanted to strengthen dots but this goes against the spec philosophy of strong dots and our class fantasy. Having to apply several UA's (eg. 2-5+) is not strengthening dots. It's giving us a false illusion of strong dots and having to apply more to temporarily have strong dots. I don't feel as though the class fantasy for affliction should be spamming several UA's.

UA shouldn't be a dot you spam which builds up into a nuke after you spend your full resource bar on it. It should be a spell you apply and leave until the pandemic value.

This adds unnecessary casting for affliction, Our dots should be strong and they shouldn't need to be stacked for them to do their job. I don't want to be sitting there spamming unstable affliction on a target over and over.

Give us back the old unstable affliction which never cost us soulshards and some respectable dispel protection on it.

It makes multidotting a nightmare when soulshards no longer become an issue. You cannot spend shards quicker than they accumulate as a result of trying to refresh your dots resulting in a dps loss and overcapping soulshards.

-Haunt-

A baseline spell which should have never been added as a talent. It should be a mandatory baseline spell, This was our second castable dot which essentially was one of our hardest hitting dot's. It was a fantastic shard spender and the damage was equally rewarding for spending a soulshard. Essentially what UA is trying to function like now but requires several casts and is not fun to use.

I don't recall a time where I was ever soulshard capped with haunt and soulburn:haunt.

Unstable affliction on the other hand I've lost count..

Unstable affliction feels like a waste of soulshards as does every other spender for our soulshards in legion. The damage was perfect and casting haunt was engaging because we knew when that haunt was cast a nice bit of burst damage was on it's way, Better yet it could be empowered with soulburn (haunting spirits).

We never needed to maintain 100% uptime on haunt neither because of the wonderful talent (haunting spirits) arguably one of the best we've had to date.

Haunt should be reinforced and brought back as one of our hardest hitting dots as baseline for a soulshard but we shouldn't be able to maintain 100% uptime on it because of our limited resources.

-Soulburning-

To keep this as simplified as possible, Soulburning was the perfect addition to affliction. Burning/Consuming the souls of our fallen foe to empower our spells and gain benefit from them.

Extremely fitting for the warlock class fantasy, Drain there souls to a tusk with drain soul and then consuming the souls you've captured.

I want to strengthen my dots by soulburning then casting and applying dots not spamming UA until I'm out of soulshards.

If we're forced to have layers of something it may as well be a mechanic that is universal among several spells not just a mindless UA spam.

Now soulburning is a meaningless and unused honor talent which I'd like to see make a return as a baseline ability once again.

We could Soulburn + Soulswap to apply all of our base dot's, Soulburn + Summon demon to get an instant cast for our demon in an oh shit moment, Soulburn + Teleport to gain increased movement speed in sticky situations and finally my favorite Soulburn + Haunt to empower haunt applying a reasonably long aura which increased all dot damage by 20%. Not only was this engaging trying to maintain but it was rewarding and it gave you a reason to haunt.

All of these small things here were fun, It gave warlock flavor and it was an immersive experience. There was reason behind every action and a good reason not just spending shards for the sake of it because you were over capped or at risk of being over capped.

-Haunting spirits-

Arguably the best talent affliction has had to date, 90% + uptime was crucial for a high parse.

It was not only reliable but it did just as it said, No layers of RNG for this amazing talent just the rng of waiting for soulshards to accumulate before you could soulburn then get the haunt out.

Yes the soulshard generation could have been worked on a little to improve it but generally 90% uptime on haunting spirits was achievable and was more than enough for a high parse on warcraft logs.

20% extra damage was great and it felt like my dots were actually doing what they should be when this was active.

It paid off in the end, It was rewarding and well worth it.

It is and always will be the perfect replacement for soul effigy. We could do as we wished in a boss encounter or a dungeon, If we seen more enemies we could apply our dots to we could take a walk to them to dot them up.

Soul effigy is an affliction warlocks leash, We're tied to it and cannot do what we did with haunting spirits.

Why create an extra target for us when haunting spirits did less but better so we were actually able to apply our dots to real enemies not an inanimate object, It was enjoyable to play with.

Once effigy is another false illusion for the affliction warlock.

Haunting spirits is the talent that made me fall in love with affliction.

The mesmerizing purple souls swirling around you, To the satisfaction of soulburning then casting that haunt.

In pvp you knew when that soulburn:haunt was coming it was bad news, The pressure from this talent is what affliction needs right now. The health pools currently in pvp are enormous and all our dots are currently tickling health pools.

-Soulshards-

Definitely a fitting resource system for affliction, If only there were another way to spend them.

Hmm..... (Soulburning)

Now that soulburning is gone our resource system looses it's flavor. It's just a warlocks "combo points" if you wish.

Give us reason and some enjoyment to spend these.

Why do our demons cost 1 soulshard to summon now when in previous expansions they never used to. Warlocks are now the only class required to spend a valuable resource on summoning a pet. This is wrong and should never have been introduced. Why is there a cost to summon if they aren't instant?

For a demon that is obligatory to have active otherwise we loose significant damage, It should not cost a soulshard. This is unfair to warlocks plain and simple.

That's what soulburning was for. It gave us a meaningful but fun way and reason to spend soulshards.

-Defensives/CC-

So in legion warlocks finally seen something that should have been implemented long ago baseline. Our soul leech.

But in the process of this we lost a bunch of our CC capability, For example think back to some of the precious cc/defensives we've lost.

-Dark bargain
-Baseline demonic circle
-Blood horror
-Death coil
-Shadowfury (no cast time)
-Baseline curses

So blizzard, Personally I enjoy the class fantasy of the immobile tanky caster. Nothing is at all wrong with your philosophy and fantasy you're trying to enforce except 1 thing.

Our defensive capabilities and toolkit for them. As it stands, Fear is all we have for our baseline kit which is acceptable unless talented into more cc. But our options of CC is extremely lackluster.

Mortal coil and now that shadowfury has been given a cast time it is no longer considered viable in competitive pvp.

Being immobile is fine, But having limited cc capability to defend ourselves or provide utility to our team is not.

Hunters are getting traps back, Rogues are getting shroud of concealment back.

What about us?

If you would like to reinforce us to be tanky and extremely immobile we need some more options. For starters demonic circle should be baseline, Being forced to choose between survivability and CC is absurd.

I encourage the developers to spend some time as a warlock to give us their impression on how they are in a real life scenario.

Being a fear spamming bot in pvp isn't enjoyable, Warlocks have always been the rogue like caster with plenty of control in pvp.

We lost a lot of that control in WoD, For what I ask?

We have no mobility and don't offer much utility in the way of CC compared to our counterpart the mage.

If you want us to be immobile could we please have some of this cc back, Blood horror for example was great against melee we desperately need something like this back.

Dark bargain even?

Cast time removed from shadowfury, demonic circle teleport baseline and the return of blood horror, I wouldn't ask for anything else. We are in desperate need for something more to spice up pvp and offer just a little more fun/utility.

Once again all of this just seemed to be synergistic with our class fantasy.

- - - Updated - - -

I ask honestly what is/was more enjoyable to play..

This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvEJ3r9GjdQ&t=1245s

Or this I ask honestly what is/was more enjoyable to play..

This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvEJ3r9GjdQ&t=1245s

Or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV_XlK2jl9Q

[muto]

Affliction is perfectly fine in its current state bar a few talents like Soul Effigy, Haunt, and Soul Harvest. I feel like these should be replaced with more interesting and viable options. Other then that I am really enjoying the current play style of Afflction.

[Deleted]

Same its really awsome to play imo and Played right is really strong Even single target im on top of meters

[cristos]

Same its really awsome to play imo and Played right is really strong Even single target im on top of meters

What classes are you playing with to top the meters on single target?

Not to discredit your claim but affliction isn't the strongest of classes single target. What's your ilvl?

[Jessicka]

This sounds like a very similar case to my own "They changed too much, I don't recognise my character anymore." You're just going to have to accept it's gone, probably forever, and find something else, even if its not WoW.

[cristos]

This sounds like a very similar case to my own "They changed too much, I don't recognise my character anymore." You're just going to have to accept it's gone, probably forever, and find something else, even if its not WoW.

This makes me beyond sad

[Pokeypenguin]

This sounds like a very similar case to my own "They changed too much, I don't recognise my character anymore." You're just going to have to accept it's gone, probably forever, and find something else, even if its not WoW.

Eh, I disagree, all 3 warlock specs were good/fun to play/mechanically solid in WoD and I have been playing warlock since vanilla. Just about all the changes they made for legion were both terrable and unwarranted.

[cristos]

Eh, I disagree, all 3 warlock specs were good/fun to play/mechanically solid in WoD and I have been playing warlock since vanilla. Just about all the changes they made for legion were both terrable and unwarranted.

I believe she meant something different to what you're thinking. She mentioned it's a similar case to her own, Her case being the same predicament I find myself in now with the state of warlocks.

Too much pruning and mechanically they were more enjoyable in WoD.

[Pokeypenguin]

Yep, I misunderstood.

[Deleted]

If you're soulcapping with UA you're bad as hell.

"Unstable affliction feels like a waste of soulshards as does every other spender for our soulshards in legion."

Yeah, Chaos Bolt feels suuuuuch a waste... Incinerate is much better.

[cristos]

If you're soulcapping with UA you're bad as hell.

"Unstable affliction feels like a waste of soulshards as does every other spender for our soulshards in legion."

Yeah, Chaos Bolt feels suuuuuch a waste... Incinerate is much better.

Very constructive post regarding the state of our class, If you feel coming to a thread to insult others is more important rather than you positively contributing to potentially make our class better with feedback by all means continue to do so.

When you quoted my statement in relation to a waste of soulshards it was in reference to affliction not destruction. Not sure if you picked up on that by reading the thread title?

[kornoth]

There is someone who enjoyed affliction during wod... i didn't know there was.
I played affliction since the beginning and between vanilla and wod which are the worst iteration of affliction, i'll choose vanilla.
The best state of affliction was during MOP, especially the beginning, even if we dépended on some gear ( like lei Chen trinket).
It was really good during woltk too. Not bad during cataclysm.
And you can say what you want but it's good right now in légion, if we can get rid of soul effigy for something better i'll take it. But the state of affliction on the ptr is really good, even on single target.

[Sot4]

I partially agree with you cristos, it's just MoP affli > all other expanssions for me at least, very engaging and skill capped and fun to play.

I agree on the Soulburn part, but what u didn't mention yet was Soul Swap (with snapshotting), my favorite spell, hell I miss Soul Swap in PvE...

[cristos]

I partially agree with you cristos, it's just MoP affli > all other expanssions for me at least, very engaging and skill capped and fun to play.

I agree on the Soulburn part, but what u didn't mention yet was Soul Swap (with snapshotting), my favorite spell, hell I miss Soul Swap in PvE...

Same here!

I miss it dearly, Hopefully we get some dev attention with this post.

I really don't know what else to do in an attempt to reach out to the developers at this point.

This post is up in the warlock forums on battle.net too.

MoP affliction was fantastic, I enjoyed the depth it had.

The double distance gateway and animations for placing it, Baseline curses, Drain life granting soul shards in a different way compared to WoD.

It was great and I just feel with every class I play there is so much missing from their toolkit.

They went way too overboard with affliction and warlocks in general with pruning.

Flavorless is the word that comes to mind with affliction. No soulswaps, soulburning, no immersive talents.

Just 3 dots and a UA spam.

[Violetti]

Guys did we play the same affliction lock in wod? It was utter trash gameplaywise. Keep 3 dots up an hope for rnd shards to cast SB:Haunt.

As someone who never really liked affliction(outside of mop because it was just too much fun to be op as fuck)I was very sceptical of affliction myself, and actually it's pretty fun.

I liked the idea of Soulburn, but It never deliverd to its potential to make a bigger pool of spell different. Instead it just gave us an other button to press on the opener to instaapply dots.

Flavorless is the word that comes to mind with affliction. No soulswaps, soulburning, no immersive talents.

What talents are you talking about lol. There was not a single talent that made affliction more "immersive", instead made the class less of it.

[Baconeggcheese]

Warlocks and developers,

Not sure if you did, but you should really be posting on the PTR forums and not here if you have any intention of trying to reach blizzard. While they *might* look on mmo-c every once in a while its not going to be anything like speaking directly to them on the official forums.

-Unstable affliction- Isn't enjoyable to cast

I agree with the sentiment, but not so much the reasoning. For me it isn't enjoyable to cast because it feels very flat as a spender. For our other specs the spenders are very visceral. Chaosbolt has a very aesthetically pleasing animation and chunks things when it lands, for demo you spend shards on what are effectively dots but you get these physical manifestations that are relentlessly attacking the target.

With UA you apply a debuff, the targets health doesn't get chunked and there's no visual. I see that being more the issue in it not being satisfying than anything else.

-Haunt-

Again agree with the initial sentiment and not so much your reasoning. Haunt was a tool that kept dots base strength lower so that aff didn't scale to shenanigans in multi-target. They replaced what haunt was doing in the kit with soul effigy, which was a good idea on paper but not great in practice.

I wanted to see it move towards what it was in cata and replace soul effigy, which is almost what happened for 7.1.5. Will see what they do in the future.

-Soulburning-

Soulburn > soulswap forced dot strength to have to be weaker baseline due to removing ramp. The saving grace of that interaction was snapshots, which no longer exist.

Using soulburn to power up individual dots is basically recreating snapshots as well, which is something blizzard is wholly against.

-Haunting spirits-

Soulburn haunt was a standard maintenance buff that was almost universally hated by the warlock community. It's no different than mana tap or empowered life tap that we're about to get, people freaking hate these things.

They're not good design, and soulburn haunt was easily one of the worst iterations in that it completely removed any thought or management from your shard spending due to you needing to constantly bank shards in order to keep this buff up. It also added significantly to the RNG frustration because you had no control over your shard generation which meant keeping this buff up was entirely RNG based and not skill based and people absolutely hated that. You'd constantly see feedback stating as much for the entirety of wod.

This should never come back, and they could do with getting rid of mana tap / empowered life tap as well.

[Dwill]

Snip

I agree with you on all your points. The only thing that is on your point about Soulburn and snapshotting is the fact that Blizzard's stance on the issue of snapshotting in general seems somewhat inconsistent, as can be seen with the interaction between Feral Druids' bleeds and their self-buffs which is like you said basically recreating a form of snapshotting.

[Xeranath]

I acknowledge the pruning is painful, but honestly, I'm enjoying Aff in legion a hell of a lot more than I did in wod.

[Baconeggcheese]

I agree with you on all your points. The only thing that is on your point about Soulburn and snapshotting is the fact that Blizzard's stance on the issue of snapshotting in general seems somewhat inconsistent, as can be seen with the interaction between Feral Druids' bleeds and their self-buffs which is like you said basically recreating a form of snapshotting.

Afaik ferals are extremely limited, and that specifically is part of their identity. IIRC they're basically a ST spec a la demo, as opposed to what aff was capable of doing with snapshots in the past. Very different things.

[dickiescoob]

Just gimme 3 dots, haunt with its dot buff, and a filler.. wotlk was my favorite AFF, followed by BC/cata. Mop/wod were OK to me, but I also didn't enjoy snapshotting