Is Aff BfA Warlock that bad?

[Mehrunes]

I find it so weird that people feel so strongly about this.

Probably the least important part about how the spec plays.

How though? It's filler. The spell you use the most. Even more so with Shadowbolt, since it's shorter cast time and you end up casting more of it. Dots may be the bread and butter of the spec mechanically and thematically, but when it comes to how the spec plays and how it feels, the filler may have a much higher impact. And since Shadowbolt is the longest non-channel filler, it may feel like bad. It also has no movement benefits of a channel and, given the dot nature of the spec, people may find it to be thematically off.

[StayTuned]

The fuck? I came here trying to find a discussion about Affli BfA. All I was able to find are three posters stroking each other's.

[Cainium]

Rot and Decay is what I was talking about but I couldn't remember its name and was/am at work and couldn't look it up. It used to prolong all dots at once with drain life but now doesn't. With drain soul it prolongs each individual dot one at a time (ex: first tick agony, next tick corruption, next tick UA) I didn't see health funnel anywhere in my spell book and assumed it was removed. If it's still there and I missed it all 20 times I looked through than that's good. I wasn't a fan of doing the twist.

Ok, have to check rot and decay again 'cause im leveling with it and was under the impression that it exactly does what you are saying it was supposed todo.

[Baconeggcheese]

How though? It's filler. The spell you use the most. Even more so with Shadowbolt, since it's shorter cast time and you end up casting more of it. Dots may be the bread and butter of the spec mechanically and thematically, but when it comes to how the spec plays and how it feels, the filler may have a much higher impact. And since Shadowbolt is the longest non-channel filler, it may feel like bad. It also has no movement benefits of a channel and, given the dot nature of the spec, people may find it to be thematically off.

Its the least important spell in your kit and the more targets there are the less you cast it.

I get preferring one over the other, if I had to pick one I'd probably pick the channel... but there's people who are acting like the spec is just unplayable to them, like if the filler is the heart of the spec and it simply cannot play well unless its one or the other depending on what side of the fence they are.

I find it inconsequential at the end of the day, its literally just the spell you cast when there are no other more important spells worth casting. I just don't get the reactions I've seen out of some people about it. like dude I was quoting said it was unplayable without shadowbolt, which is just silly.

[lanesia24]

That's more than Nebiroth as Affliction, our resident affliction "expert" and chronic doomspeaker.The whole point and hilarity of it.
.
And yes, i only do Aff at M.Eonar, because duh and M.Agrammar when we have no locks for slow. Otherwise I care little about this window licker spec.

I consider this thread a pretty nice success, which hopefully prevented new guy from being intimidated by inevitable Aff dedspek bullshit he'd get spilled with.

It's apparently a window licker spec yet you can't play it well? Lolz.

[Gaidax]

It's apparently a window licker spec yet you can't play it well? Lolz.

More like I don't give a flying fuck about it. I need actual decent spec for like 1 fight I do last 3 months, not some padding shit for fights that never mattered to begin with like Eonar.

The only thing I give a damn about last 3 months or so is Argus for mount, that's all.

[Deleted]

More like I don't give a flying fuck about it. I need actual decent spec for like 1 fight I do last 3 months, not some padding shit for fights that never mattered to begin with like Eonar.

The only thing I give a damn about last 3 months or so is Argus for mount, that's all.

You forgot posting incessantly on MMO-C, usually in amusingly ego-infating manner. So there be 2 things you care about.


Infracted for trolling.

[Malix Farwin]

Anyways. Numbers are strong for Affliction in beta. Destruction is probably the strongest dps spec in beta and affliction seems to be veeeery strong numbers wise.

Of course we have no final numbers. But they recently nerfed nearly all good dps and buffed affliction and demo. Both buffs were a surprise to me because both specs currdntly perform really well in the heroics and m+0 i did.

For pvp i wont argue. But i did one bg on the new pvp realm. The 3 warlocks including me were p2/3/4 in kills/overall damage, i died only once. I picked defensive talents and got into several duels with elementals/mages/warriors and they couldnt kill me evem once. Some of them could escspe before i could kill them.

I beg to differ. Destro destroys them in every category and Affliction's strongest dmg is actually from Single Target and maybe Multi-Target. The problem with that is Destro beats them in both effectively making them useless.

AoE is a joke as well so the defacto M+ spec is also Destro.

[Veyne]

Hello. I recently level up my first warlock ever. I really enjoy it and i was affly all the way from 0 to 110. I really, really enjoyed it.

As soon as i hit 110 i went directly to random BGs and oh boy, i liked it! I officialy made it my main for BfA a month ago and came here and read that aff warlock is getting destroyed in BfA broke my soul.

Is really that bad? Demo and Destro are that much better? Is any hope affly can be any good? Jesus i cant beleive this!

PS: Sorry for my english.

I'm not sure whose posts you've read saying affliction is bad, all three Warlock specs are probably tied for #1 spot in enjoyability across ranged and melee as a whole (top melee spec being Fury Warriors).

I see you mention random BGs, so if your focus is in PvP content, I can't speak on that because I just don't do PvP. But from a PvE perspective, Affliction in BFA, no matter how you spec it, is LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than Legion Affliction. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to play Affliction on Live is if you're obsessed with numbers, because the spec feels like wading through molasses.

Even if you choose Drain Soul to replace Shadow Bolt, it's a much cleaner, more polished spec. But with Nightfall, Siphon Life and Haunt, you've always got something to manage, and it feels great. Right now, I'm in a toss up between Creeping Death for overall fun enhancement, or Dark Soul: Misery to stack with Dark Glare for insane ST burst.

The biggest difference from a PvE perspective in survivability is the loss of the self heal from Drain Soul, but to be honest, Affliction had ridiculous self healing while still pumping out top damage, and pretty much no other spec in the game could self heal like that without DPS sacrifice, so I'm not gonna mind that loss.

- - - Updated - - -

They said the goal is for you to maximize UA up time though, basically making it a maintenance buff. So I can't imagine they'll leave people too shard starved.

The shard generation rate is high enough that you'll pretty much always have a shard to spend on keeping UA up full time, but I find myself having better results pooling shards until 4/5 (which honestly does not take long) before keeping UA up as much as possible so I have a full set of UA's up during Darkglare/Dark Soul: Misery.

[Malix Farwin]

Feels like Legion to me but with shadowbolt, and some actual interesting talent choices and not having to deal with the fucking buff anymore, so all in all I'd say it's in a better place

Talent choices are actually a lot less interesting then they are in legion. i could switch talents depends on the encounter but in BFA beta so far your choices are pretty static.

Tier 15 you are prolly gonna pick the filler you like more. Tier 30 Prolly Absolute for AoE and WiA for everything else. SL cannot really compete at the moment unless its buff but if it is buffed it runs the risk of taking WiA's place in cleave fights.

Tier 45, lol burning rush. Tier 60 lol, Phantom Singularity. Tier 75 Demonic Circle for Raids, Dark Fury for dungeons.

Tier 90, Shadowy Embrace or Haunt(preference) and Sacrifice will be lol like it is in legion.

Tier 100, Soul Conduit only with Deathbolt otherwise Creeping Death for everything but AoE raid encounters(even then it depends on the type of AoE encounter).

[Veyne]

I find it so weird that people feel so strongly about this.

Probably the least important part about how the spec plays.

Actively casting a filler spell rather than setting-and-forgetting a 6 second channel has extremely different feels, as far as gameplay goes.

Incidentally, I was always a supporter of having a channeled filler for Affliction because it thematically makes sense, until I actually got it and decided that I did not like the way it felt in the slightest.

[Malix Farwin]

Actively casting a filler spell rather than setting-and-forgetting a 6 second channel has extremely different feels, as far as gameplay goes.

Incidentally, I was always a supporter of having a channeled filler for Affliction because it thematically makes sense, until I actually got it and decided that I did not like the way it felt in the slightest.

spaming that 1 key like every other caster is more compelling gameplay?

[Cyberthug32]

Remember when affliction was considered bad, or the lowest of the three specs in Legion?

It will all balance out and be adjusted, I expect to see Destro get some tuning as well.

[Veyne]

spaming that 1 key like every other caster is more compelling gameplay?

It's all a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to say one gameplay style is superior to the other. I'm simply stating that to me, casting a spell every 2 seconds is more enjoyable than channeling a spell for 5 seconds (correction from my previous comment).

[Cainium]

It's all a matter of opinion. I'm not trying to say one gameplay style is superior to the other. I'm simply stating that to me, casting a spell every 2 seconds is more enjoyable than channeling a spell for 5 seconds (correction from my previous comment).

Well, the channel time is nothing set in stone. And you are free to restart the channel every two seconds if pressing the button is so important .
But playing Aff in BfA, with Nightfall, Shadow Embrace, and Siphon Life is as follows:

Dot, Dot, Dot, Dot, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Dot, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Dot, Dot, Dot, Shadow Bolt, (Nightfall) Shadow Bolt, Dot and so forth. The problem is the hyped triad of Shadow Bolt, Nightfall and Shadow Embrace doesn't allow much more "depth", which is a problem for the spec as a whole, even if one can opt-out of it by picking drain soul.

I've played with shadow bolt and the spec feels dramatically slower than with drain soul, for 2 reasons:
- As soon as the time to die of a trash pack is below 2 seconds you don't have anything todo. Refreshing DoTs is pointless, SoC is pointless, SB is pointless, Deathbolt/PS are a waste.
- At the next pull you'll miss the shards for the opening burst 'cause you can't snipe them anymore or accelerate your damage using MG to ensure the mob dies within the UA window to get that shard back too. This is problematic for AoE with SoC and opening burst with Darkglare/Deathbolt (if talented).

I don't see the "button smashing" and "faster paced playstyle" most people who like SB are talking about. For me it got slower, much slower, even with Creeping death talented.

I don't mind a hard casted filler in general. Many specs have that. But then drain soul has to go completly and the rest of the spec has to be designed around a hard casted filler which it currently is not. It's legion aff with shadowbolt.

[Veyne]

It's legion aff with shadowbolt.

And for many of us that alone is a massive improvement. But yes, it is a very polarizing choice.

[Deleted]

Personally I like the new destro spec. Also I somewhat like the new affliction as well. I really dislike the new demo though...

[xskarma]

Let's keep the thread on discussing Affliction from here on out and not eachother. Enough is enough.

[Coldfire989]

Remember when affliction was considered bad, or the lowest of the three specs in Legion?

It will all balance out and be adjusted, I expect to see Destro get some tuning as well.

You would be wrong. Just because Destro is the better Lock Alex doesn’t meant anything will happen tonit at all.

[Baconeggcheese]

Actively casting a filler spell rather than setting-and-forgetting a 6 second channel has extremely different feels, as far as gameplay goes.

Incidentally, I was always a supporter of having a channeled filler for Affliction because it thematically makes sense, until I actually got it and decided that I did not like the way it felt in the slightest.

I'm not saying it isn't different, I'm saying I find it weird that people feel so incredibly strong about it.

I have a preference as well, but one or the other isn't going to make or break the spec for me. While others have literally said the spec is "unplayable" with one or the other.