Affliction Cata Spec

[Impurath]

Would Improved Soul Fire be worth it as affli? 15% haste boost when the boss is above 80%

[Seezer]

I will correct you, the level cap is 85. You also need to be 85 to pick up Demon Soul to have tried it.

Fel Flame isn't about damage, it's about keeping dots from dropping - it's about Quality of Life. Dark Intent is a much more complex talent than FM. I actually quite like the sound of the new spells, but I am very dissapointed that not one of the trees has delivered a single thing Blizzard promised.

No, the level cap on PTR is still 80. On beta it's 85. But he was talking about PTR.

---------- Post added 2010-09-28 at 03:49 AM ----------

Would Improved Soul Fire be worth it as affli? 15% haste boost when the boss is above 80%

No. It won't. We're not going to be short on haste in cata. Improved soul fire doesn't actually buff soul fire, and there aren't any other talents that will buff it in the afflic tree. Plus, the points are going to be better off with dark arts. And soul fire will have a long cast time. So the increased haste for 15 seconds isn't worth it.

[gherkin]

Standard affliction spec for PVE will be 32/3/6, which sadly goes against everything they've talked about for the last 6 months. Barely any free points.

I suspect this is why Cataclysm was delayed...

[Jessicka]

Standard affliction spec for PVE will be 32/3/6, which sadly goes against everything they've talked about for the last 6 months. Barely any free points.

I suspect this is why Cataclysm was delayed...

I hope that's the case. It also seems some of the talents across the board are needlessly expensive just to soak points up; Mana Feed and Siphon Life specifically; although there are also some questionable ones. Also hoping they're thinking of some more Soul Burns while they at it.

[Vaez]

31 point talent trees leave no imagination, there is NOTHING else you can take as affliction for pve environment. its just boring and crap. Am goin demo in cata anyway, summoning meteors on peoples head ftw and a little more creativity in last few points.

how are they any worse than current trees? just because there are a ton of "our dmg is increased by x%" doesn't make it more creative. There does need to be a bit more bloat in our trees tho

[allforone]

Standard affliction spec for PVE will be 32/3/6, which sadly goes against everything they've talked about for the last 6 months. Barely any free points.

I don't think that will be the spec. Currently the Succubus outdpses the felhunter so there is no reason to spec into Dark Arts, leaving 32/0/6 with 3 points free. Though the logical points to take would be to throw one or two into fel synergy and the rest into demonic embrace to improve the self-healing.

[gherkin]

I don't consider those "free points". I was implying the 31 points were no-brainers. It is not a "Take Eradication, Pandemic, Haunt, and Death's Embrace and spend the rest wherever" spec like they intended. It's a "Take these because they are all significant dps gains" and the alternatives are easy to work around. Nightmare effect on fear? Run a timer and refresh when its about to wear off. Curse of Recklessness? Bring the class that has this buff already. Improved Howl of Terror? You have to give up dps to get this, unless you use the Dark Arts points here, but this will just anger your tank when all the mobs run screaming in every direction.

[allforone]

Yeah, definitely. All the talents in a chosen tree are so obvious into PvE or PvP intent, you can now pick up any spec and any class and be able to find the cookie cutter spec just on your own. IIRC though GC mentioned at the start of the whole tree overhaul (in his wordy and I think sometimes intentionally distracting style) that they did want to have cookie cutter builds in the main tree, with the "options" on the last ten points you spend outside of the tree.

Let's be frank though and consider the devs, having everyone capable of either one or two pvp and pve specs per tree makes their balancing job a hell of a lot easier. They don't have to react to specs that one guy of a million finds and posts(like SL/SL) The tree overhaul isn't for us. It's for them.

[gherkin]

SLSL wasn't something someone tripped over. It was a mandatory reaction to the instagib "KILL THE WARLOCK" arena strat that worked every single time. Dying too much? Get more survival. Still dying? Completely gimp your dps and see what happens. It works but the matches take 20 minutes? Well at least it works.

And I don't really care about how many combinations there are, I just want the choice to be there. Currently my choice in Affliction is pet damage VS Howl of Terror, or Jinx/Shadow and Flame VS Exhaustion/Improved Fear. They're no brainers and not options. The other options are basically mandatory in order to be competitive in PVE DPS or PVP utility.

[allforone]

SLSL wasn't something someone tripped over. It was a mandatory reaction to the instagib "KILL THE WARLOCK" arena strat that worked every single time. Dying too much? Get more survival. Still dying? Completely gimp your dps and see what happens. It works but the matches take 20 minutes? Well at least it works.

And I don't really care about how many combinations there are, I just want the choice to be there. Currently my choice in Affliction is pet damage VS Howl of Terror, or Jinx/Shadow and Flame VS Exhaustion/Improved Fear. They're no brainers and not options. The other options are basically mandatory in order to be competitive in PVE DPS or PVP utility.

Everyone wants choice, even if it's merely the illusion of having it.

From the perspective of the devs though, this change to talent trees makes their job far easier. Now they don't need to spend time analyzing every talent to make sure that it doesn't make something else overpowered. Now they know that talents beyond tier 2 cannot be reached by any other spec. There are a few "hard choice" points in all classes in all specs, things that determine PvE/PvP. This makes THEIR job far, far easier. It's a slap in the face to us. Now all of a sudden we're not capable of handling the big expansive talent trees that we've had for the last 4 years. Now all the Talent shrubs all have very obvious points where devs can tweak and easily balance things.