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