BFA Affliction

[Wheeler]

The only "complex" thing about that setup is maximazing deathbolt damage. Everything else is "keep buff/debuff" up which is super easy with some DoT timers.

Yes. I'm not saying I cannot do the rotation. I AM doing the rotation.

What I'm saying is that it completely spits in the face of the design philosophy of the game post-MoP, and as someone with a multitude of alts I've messed around on, it's a stark contrast to all of their "best" specs, clearly crafted using this design philosophy. I don't feel it was intentional to let it go live in this manner, and I completely expect some changes to the spec by the time 8.1 rolls around.

[Deleted]

Let me put it another way: Everyone thinks their own class is clunky. Go check any class forum. There will be more than one person saying that the spec "feels clunky" or "MoP version of X spec was much better" or "this spec is missing something". Everyone complains. It is like this every expansion.

This guy is being attacked right now but we actually has way more insight on this than most people do.

He has a strong point though. If you pay attention to any class on these forums they all are complaining on the same subjects more or less. And no matter which one you try to reason with they all respond the same. They attack you and tell you you're wrong and explain why "their" class/spec deserves more attention/tuning/better etc. Or why their class/spec isn't doing as well/ as fun as X class/spec.

It's particularity why users on class forums don't share their same opinions that they do here on other class forums. They only choose to discuss with their own aka people who will agree with them.

It's also why there will never be "true" class balance.

[Mamut]

@Wheeler
So Im spending more and more hours on dummy practicing all 3 specs and I have to agree with you Wheeler.

Demo and destro feels generally ok (I love demo, shame they overdo those nerfs) but when I switched to affli and tried deathbolt build for the first time I was like "What the hell is going on". I had to move some stuff from my main bars and put them in mouseover bars because simple I did not had enough space for all this active talents on my new clean UI. Then I had to reorganize my keybinds. Maybe with time I will get used to this mess but atm it feels like I dont have time for anything except refreshing dots.

[Misuteri]

I think after playing a warlock for so long I have to say the following....

- TBC was the most fun I had with demonology.
- Cataclysm was the most fun I had with affliction.
- MOP was the most fun I had with destruction.

Personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

[Wheeler]

I think after playing a warlock for so long I have to say the following....

- TBC was the most fun I had with demonology.
- Cataclysm was the most fun I had with affliction.
- MOP was the most fun I had with destruction.

Personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

I agree. Cata had the best balance of being engaged with the spec (Affliction) without it being a complete UI timer spec.

- - - Updated - - -

@Wheeler
So Im spending more and more hours on dummy practicing all 3 specs and I have to agree with you Wheeler.

Demo and destro feels generally ok (I love demo, shame they overdo those nerfs) but when I switched to affli and tried deathbolt build for the first time I was like "What the hell is going on". I had to move some stuff from my main bars and put them in mouseover bars because simple I did not had enough space for all this active talents on my new clean UI. Then I had to reorganize my keybinds. Maybe with time I will get used to this mess but atm it feels like I dont have time for anything except refreshing dots.

It just feels so unintended with the way that Destro and Demo play. UI's absolutely help, but they're completely required for Affliction right now.

[Deleted]

I enjoy more this affly than legion's. More buttons more fun for me

[Quarts]

Affliction is feeling fun on pulls, and after that, it's pretty lackluster in terms of being able to min/max. My main complaint is that Shadow Embrace and Haunt do basically the same thing and having a 1% difference between the two just does not separate them in terms of play style. I would have liked to see Haunt cost a Soul Shard and do maybe 12-15% increased Shadow damage, making it something you actually have to think about, rather than just pushing a button when it falls off.

In my opinion, there should be two version of Affliction:
1) One based around Shadow Embrace/Drain Soul that is played much more as a passive, "I don't feel like thinking right now" spec that will do consistent damage, but you will not be min/maxing in many situations.
2) A Haunt/Deathbolt build that requires a lot more thinking behind it and treating Haunt similar to Reap Souls, where you have actual Unstable Affliction cycles.

It's just a personal thing, the spec feels like it's alright, but has some room for improvement.

[Ordaine]

In my opinion, there should be two version of Affliction:
1) One based around Shadow Embrace/Drain Soul that is played much more as a passive, "I don't feel like thinking right now" spec that will do consistent damage, but you will not be min/maxing in many situations.
2) A Haunt/Deathbolt build that requires a lot more thinking behind it and treating Haunt similar to Reap Souls, where you have actual Unstable Affliction cycles.

It's just a personal thing, the spec feels like it's alright, but has some room for improvement.

I was thinking this exact thing last night while running dungeons.
That and how lackluster seed feels.
Most things die before it has a chance to proc, leaving a waste of a shard as well as zero dps to show for.
Soul flame clearly needed to be nerfed. I mean one corruption and you could top the meters in seconds, but still I wish they would have done something to seed to make it more useful.
Perhaps pop when the mob dies instead of just flat going to waste?

[evertonbelmontt]

I need some time to muscle memory haunt and maximize deathbolt. Made an aura for haunt but still keep missing 90% uptime. Other than that I'm good.

But they do need to push Haunt further. If it stays this poorly tuned I'm not gonna bother with it because SE does the same thing and its passive. Or even use the sac grimoire and its also passive.

Deathbolt feels rewarding, but mostly because the othet choices feels lackluster.
Haunt feels meh, I wanted to play with it and give it a chance but I don't see it getting real for raiding if it's not improved in dmg.

[asil]

I honestly like the new affliction. I like not depending on reap to do damage, the RNG element seems seriously reduced and aff overall feels easier to play "well."

[Fotmwarlock]

How long has it been since howl of terror was in the game? PvP seems very difficult against big groups

[Metaslave]

I think after playing a warlock for so long I have to say the following....

- TBC was the most fun I had with demonology.
- Cataclysm was the most fun I had with affliction.
- MOP was the most fun I had with destruction.

Personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

I never once specced demo in tbc, what was special about it? I agree with the rest though.

How long has it been since howl of terror was in the game? PvP seems very difficult against big groups

About 4 days ago.

[Gaidax]

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but there's just too much going on for Affliction right now, with the way things are looking currently talent-wise.

Agony
Corruption
Siphon Life
Haunt
Unstable Affliction
Phantom Singularity
Doomglare
Deathbolt
Shadowbolt (Which you're never really going to get to cast anyway with all these DoT's you'll be constantly refreshing).

It was faceroll in Legion, but it's absolutely gone the other way now.

Consider it " just prepatch things" case, right now it somehow fell into almost all rows all actives being best, but when we will be 120 things will change a lot by themselves because there won't be legendaries and we won't have maxed out stats and obviously inevitable tuning.

I'm pretty sure there will be builds which are mostly passive and are still great for people who don't want bajillion actives on bars in the priority list.

[Cainium]

I need some time to muscle memory haunt and maximize deathbolt. Made an aura for haunt but still keep missing 90% uptime. Other than that I'm good.

But they do need to push Haunt further. If it stays this poorly tuned I'm not gonna bother with it because SE does the same thing and its passive. Or even use the sac grimoire and its also passive.

Deathbolt feels rewarding, but mostly because the othet choices feels lackluster.
Haunt feels meh, I wanted to play with it and give it a chance but I don't see it getting real for raiding if it's not improved in dmg.

Interesting, i'm on the exact opposite opinion.

Haunt is good 'cause you have to keep an eye on it to maximize its uptime. Missing a cast or casting it too late is a straight DPS loss that cant be made up for anywhere else.

Deathbolt is boring. It is basically just cast on CD as haunt is, and for that its the best dps talent in that row.

I was on the train that DS will be superior in dungeons - maybe that kicks in when we hit 120. But atm no one needs extra shards on trash 'cause either it lives so long that agony can create enough of them or the trash dies so fast that one can't cast more than a single SoC.

For me, the whole talent layout is flawed.
- For what it does, Deathbolt should be baseline. It's too good to pass by.
- Absolute corruption competing with WiA and SL makes it useless. Maybe on encounters where things can get out of range, but with the loss os Sacrolash thats its only niche.
- WiA and SL on the same tier is about the same effect in a different shape -> More DoT damage, one passive, the other one active. I can imagine WiA surpasing SL on long living AoE due to GCD limits. So again, very niche use for WiA.
- The next tier is a no brainer choice. Haunt on ST, SE on multitarget, GoSac on AoE. For SE one can't pick creeping death or is forced into drainsoul to keep it up on multiple targets. Very bad anti-synergy here IMO. If it turns out that creeping death is more damage on multitarget than SE at 120, SE has the potential to become a dead talent.
- StS, PS and Vile Taint. Vile Taint does less damage than PS + 2 other shard spenders (one can use VT twice but it costs soul shards). So its super niche if the 30%(!) slow is "required" which will almost never be the case. StS is straight out less damage than the others, has no ST value at all. Looks like another potential dead talent to me.
- SC, Creeping Death and Dark Soul. Nothing much to say here. Creeping death until we find a use case for Dark Soul. Why bother with SC? We don't have that much use for extra shards as we had in legion. Constant damage is our thing again, not small burst windows. Those shards aren't even useful for deathbolt 'cause casting more UAs reduces the uptime on our others DoTs making the castet additional UAs almost useless for deathbolts damage.

In legion we had some "choice". Every talent, except Haunt, GoServ and GoSac, had its place. We could shift our damage in different directions without being totally gimped in another situation.

I really don't like that direction and i think thats nothing what tuning can fix 'cause how the talents are organized.

[Misuteri]

I never once specced demo in tbc, what was special about it? I agree with the rest though.

It was as close to playing a hunter as there has been for warlocks in my opinion. In 5 mans it was so powerful that you could pull aggro off your tank with a fel guard pretty easily regardless of their gear (Pally tanks were the exception.). You could farm all day long with it pulling almost as much as you like/could when elemental farming was a main source of income. It was also incredible for farming level 60 content. Scholomance was good for 200-300g a run and that used to be very good money. On a speed run basis it was the best for old content.

Not many if any classes or specs were so rounded for solo and small group play. It was also viable for farming current raid content when not too many classes had a viable 2nd DPS spec.

[Deleted]

shadowbolt feels so incredibly WRONG

they should have made SB the Talent and not DrainSoul

[Biomega]

Haunt is good 'cause you have to keep an eye on it to maximize its uptime. Missing a cast or casting it too late is a straight DPS loss that cant be made up for anywhere else.

But isn't it 15s duration 15s CD? It's not "maximizing uptime", it's just another maintenance buff. You know, the thing people complained about being so incredibly boring about Affliction.

[Cainium]

But isn't it 15s duration 15s CD? It's not "maximizing uptime", it's just another maintenance buff. You know, the thing people complained about being so incredibly boring about Affliction.

It is 15sec CD 15sec duration. So the thing is: You precast it, it's 15sec on the target. It comes off CD and you don't instantly use it -> lost uptime. I'm sure that there are people out there who can't manage 4 DoTs and 4 CD based abilities to their maximum potential.

I might should have said "good" in relation to what Aff has as a toolkit right now, not in relation to what Aff had in the past.

[Biomega]

To me the main problem is that we have so much stuff going on, but it's mostly just a hectic struggle to get everything up on everything, rather than smart decision-making and taking advantage of synergies. As people have pointed out, even things like Deathbolt turn into mere "press on cooldown" maintenance abilities, since trying to aim for specific timings is apparently worse damage than just maximizing cooldown. Same with Haunt - it's not an amplification window we plan around, it's simply another maintenance ability we try to squeeze in at max uptime. To me, that's just glaringly bad design.

[Deleted]

I'll just say that for the first time in 6 years I'm happy with affliction and if anything wish some of the talents like Siphon Life and Haunt were baseline.

I can completely understand Biomega's complaint that there aren't enough "smart" decisions to be made, but back in WOTLK I remember the go-to advice was that if you START casting a Shadowbolt you don't interupt it because the loss in cast time isn't worth it, part of the appeal was trying to juggle everything so that you never ended up in that situation, but if you did it wasn't catastrophic. Aiming for specific timings isn't "worse", the timings just aren't "stack up a huge Death Bolt", it's "make sure you take advantage of pandemic so you're not trying to refresh dots when Haunt comes up" etc.

Destruction should be filling the role of a proc reaction class with damage windows, I'm happier with affliction feeling like a juggling-fest.

If anything I'd like more throwing in. I really wish both Shadowbolt talents were baseline. If people are somehow struggling with too many actives then there are (ideally) marginally suboptimal / competitive passives to talent out with like the Agony stacks or even infinite corruption if you really want less, I think that's a much better class design than having to pick actives (and praying they're not dreadful) to get more than a handful of buttons on your bars like destruction feels.

That's more or less how affliction was during 5-dot Naxx, Immolation was worth keeping up IF you could fit it into the rotation without making mistakes, but if keeping up a 5th dot caused you to make errors it wasn't worth it. Likewise, if keeping up afflictions current stuff is more than you like, the 2nd talent row is literally +0 dots, -1dot or +1dot. If the tuning isn't completely whack then I'd hope you gain more from +0 or -1 if +1 causes you to make mistakes.