Affliction is the worst developed spec of all 30 specs in cata

[SektheGnome]

I have faith that the spec/class will be okay once all is said and done and 4.0 is released. (or soon thereafter)

However,

The last set or two of changes to Warlock on PTR make it seem as if Blizzard isn't quite sure where they want Warlocks to stand. That's the only part that worries me. IE nerf to a number of abilities that we consider the core of the spec or class, to then turn around the next week and revert the nerfs to some degree. Bit rollercoaster-ride-ish if you ask me.

[Tobyone]

So? There always has to be a worst. If you think about it, it could be even worse for warlocks, all 3 of their specs could be bad.

[sugarfree]

Warlocks are one of the most well developed classes as far as specs go. All have a very distinct flair while still utilizing some core concepts that unify us as a class (demons, dot focus, soul shards, badassery). Our primary issue going into Cataclysm was the uselessness of Demonology in PvP, which seems to have a lot going for it so far. We have the Felguard Axe Toss and the CC component of Hand of Gul'dan to remedy that issue. Also, the general change to length of fights will counteract how badly one interrupt can completely screw you. Despite the depressingly long cast time of Hand of Gul'dan, this is all very, very promising.

The only problem with Affliction, which has a fantastic kit for pvp and pve, was target switching... which is largely fixed with Soul Swap. I think a lot of people knocking this ability haven't seen the Glyph of Soul Swap, which allows you to retain your DoTs on the original target.

Are you in beta or in ptr? Because I'm not quite sure if HoG increased cast time to 3 sec from 2 sec is a nerf or just a bug. Can anyone confirm???

Although I still disagree with affliction's target switching problem. It's still not fixed as long as Shadow Embrace is still there. And with how unclear what Affliction's filler is, if it is really DL, then this talent pretty much on a pending revamp.

[ComputerNerd]

Drain Life is not the affliction filler, when will people take the hint.
Shadowbolt will remain as such, just the buffs to drain life are there for the primary reason of taking a slight dps loss if you are in need of regaining the health back from life tap.
The buffs to its damage are there so that it beomes a viable choice as an alternative to your filler, without being a major dps loss, just enough of one that you have to make a decision.

[Deleted]

"No exiting changes or new stuff."

You are correct, the changes are not exiting, they are here to stay, and they are awesome, especially Soul Swap. Here is a list of awesome new things that Affliction has access to:

Dark Intent
Soul Swap
Demon Soul
The new Soul Shard system
Useful Doomguard and Infernal summons
New Seed of Corruption
Curses being split so we don't have to sacrifice DPS for CoE

All of these are fantastic changes, and all effect Affliction.

3. If you don't like slow damage, why are you playing Affliction? It's a DoT and control based spec. If you want to wtfbbqblowpeopleup, spec Destruction or roll something else.

You are excited about Dark Intent? you click on someone and then buff them how is that possibly fun? Affliction has no extra control, it in fact has less than the other trees. Affliction will have to do massive pvp damage like it does now or it wont be viable which I think is bad design.

[Jessicka]

You are excited about Dark Intent? you click on someone and then buff them how is that possibly fun? Affliction has no extra control, it in fact has less than the other trees. Affliction will have to do massive pvp damage like it does now or it wont be viable which I think is bad design.

It adds an extra dynamic of gameplay, whereby picking the right guy will increase your DPS more then picking the wrong guy. In other words, it'll do more to seperate the good players from bad ones.

As for Affliction's current requirement to do massive damage, it will be massive sustained damage that will be required from anyone, Affliction will still I'm sure be very capable in that respect, because that's what the tree does best, and I don't see anything in there that changes that. How many times does it really need to be reitterated, that fast ramps ups and burst will no longer be what PvP is about?

[5648945621]

An extra damage boost that primarily takes place in raids is not a nerf. Using this logic (or lack thereof) then your damage is "nerfed" by not have every other classes buffs outside of a 25 man raid.

yes, it is obviously a nerf since our dmg will be balanced around it and we wont be able to keep up the buff in pvp and while soling.

The cost of the spell was reduced by 5% of base mana, so the ratio of mana to cast time is barely changed. This actually ends up being a bonus because you won't have to cancel drain life early as often to refresh a falling dot. Canceling a 17% base mana spell after two or three ticks is wasted mana. I'm much happier with a three second 12% base mana spell.
Same as above.

ok, you have no clue about why they nerfed it. they nerfed it because blizz probably considered channeled spells through LOS a issue. its not about mana at all.

Self healing needed to be nerfed as part of the push towards less burst damage. The self healing in LK only doesn't feel OP because of how easy it is to get blown up in a short period of time. The current self healing rates in Cataclysm would be grossly, obscenely OP simply because of how much longer it will take to down someone.

wrong again. they nerfed self healing because they wanted healers mana to matter. our self healing will be balanced around outhealing life tap dmg, so you still need as much healing as everyone else, witch is stupid because it removes the whole point of self healing. drain tanking in pvp wont work at all.

It also seems to me that you are basing your comments on the PTR, which is ridiculous because now that healing is based on percentages, using LK healthpools to gauge the effectiveness is nonsensical.

shadow priest self healing is unchanged.

This is a valid complaint about the balance of the specs, but another spec having more healing doesn't make Affliction poorly developed.

affliction IS supposed to have A LOT more self healing then destruction, and when destruction have more self healing then something is woring.

Pretty much all 1.5 second CD CC got the same nerf, so this is a worthless complaint.

it just another thing blizz have done to make pvp more noob friendly. they want it to be easy to interrupt. however it seems no one as any issues interrupting my 1.1 sec fear.

Dispels aren't supposed to be a joke in Cataclysm like they are in LK. This change is, like the change above, perfectly in line with the changes other classes received in regards to dispels.

wrong again. they removed the self dispel from felhunter because they didnt want the felhunter to be the obvious pvp pet. however this was just stupid as imp is supposed to be a pve pet and they could just have buffed the other pets instead of nerfing the felhunter. we will still use the felhunter for the silence, so we basically lost the ability to dispel CC from ourself witch was a very fun thing to do.

This is just a simple case of looking a gift horse in the mouth. Soul Swap is awesome and brings an entirely new dimension to Affliction. Now you are just being a crybaby.

i wont do the math for you but you save exactly 1 sec by using SS insted of recasting your dots. even GC admitted SS had issues.

I'll spec for it, because it's a badass ability. I don't really see spending one point so that you can have what is easily the coolest AoE ability that warlocks get as an argument against Affliction. This makes Affliction epic.

the reason its still in the talent tree is because they havent come up with anything else. if you want a top dps spec, that talent is useless. except for fights with adds maybe.

With Cataclysm health pools, this is more health than you think it is. No, I don't want more Dots and the ramp up time that comes with them. More DoTs means more cast times for the same amount of damage. I'll take my damage packaged neatly in the Dots we do have thank you very much.

it will still heal for less then it does now at lvl 80. 50% of the time it doesnt heal you at all so on averange it heals for 1% hp. if you whine about more dots when soul swap will take care of that , why do you love dark intent so much then?

"and make Haunt a dot, so Soul swap will take care of that. maybe affli can be fun again then."

Haunt isn't a DoT. I don't want it to be a DoT. I want it to be Haunt. I don't know why you have a hardon for having forty DoTs to put up. You whine about ramp up time, and then whine about how you want more DoTs in the same breath. This is because you are a whiner.

i rolled a lock because we had many dots. if youre gonna argue about why i think having many dots is fun.. well lol.

"Yeah, a real glaring discrepancy there.

it is still 1 of the specs with least talent points so it doesnt make my point invalid

This is just a whiny, pathetic complaint. This is a positive change for game balance. I'll take balance over some pretend notion of 'stealing life" any day. You are still doing damage and getting life in return. The fact that the numbers aren't identical is one of dumbest complaints I've ever heard about anything in my entire life.

no its not whiny. its what made the spell interesting in my opinion, and you cant argue with that.

If you look at the stamina numbers on Cata gear, and what you would have to gain by "stacking" stamina, you would see that doing so would cost you far more useful stats anyway. Again, a really dumb argument. I'm seeing a pattern here. It's as though you expended all your intellectual might on the first few fallacious arguments.

what reasons did locks have to stack stamina in TBC? not much, but they still did it. now in cata we will have a very valid reason to do it, so i definitively see that happening.

Affliction is and will continue to be fantastic against melee. If you currently have a lot of trouble with melee as Affliction, I just feel sorry for you.

if youre playing vs any equally skilled and geared melee except pala, they should beat a affli lock. its a fact.

Fights last longer in Cataclysm. One interrupt won't give someone enough time to instagib you from full health anymore. The fact that you don't seem to be able to process that we won't be level 80 with the same gear as today is starting to get irritating by this point.

No, they wont kill us in a single interrupt, so what? it will still give them a huge advantage against us witch will most likely cause the lock to lose.

You are correct, the changes are not exiting, they are here to stay, and they are awesome, especially Soul Swap. Here is a list of awesome new things that Affliction has access to

im sorry but if you really think dark intent is awesome... we WILL be balanced around it so its definitively a nerf to pvp and solo dmg and the spell itself is REALLY bornig, even pain in the **S

2. You. Will. Have. Psychotically. More. Health. In. Cataclysm. Fights will be muuuuuch longer. How many times has this been stated? Three thousand? Four Thousand?

are you stupid? if they go live with the dmg on ptr atm, the burst is gonna be worse then it is now, even with increased health pools.

3. If you don't like slow damage, why are you playing Affliction? It's a DoT and control based spec. If you want to wtfbbqblowpeopleup, spec Destruction or roll something else.

2 words. shadow priest.

[Jessicka]

yes, it is obviously a nerf since our dmg will be balanced around it and we wont be able to keep up the buff in pvp and while soling.

Because damage is balanced around soloing? I can assure you a Healer will not put out as much damage as a DPS class while soloing. Is this fair? Does anyone actually care?

ok, you have no clue about why they nerfed it. they nerfed it because blizz probably considered channeled spells though LOS a issue. its not about mana at all.

"Probably"? You mean you have no clue either. If it was a channeling issue, then what about SPriests?

wrong again. they nerfed self healing because they wanted healers mana to matter. our self healing will be balanced around ourhealing life tap dmg, so you still need as much healing as everyone else, witch is stupid because it removes the whole point of self healing.

shadow priest self healing is unchanged.

Where has this been written? They nerfed it because they still want healers to have to heal us, rather than just 'leave group 5 to heal itself'. What about Haunt? Self healing from that is still based on damage done.

affliction IS supposed to have A LOT more self healing then destruction, and when destruction have more self healing then something is woring.

Again. Haunt.

it just another thing blizz have done to make pvp more noob friendly. they want it to be easy to interrupt. however it seems no one as any issues interrupting my 1.1 sec fear.

So what? How does this apply only to Affliction? When a nerf is universal, it's not a nerf.

wrong again. they removed the self dispel from felhunte because they didnt want the felhunter to be the obvious pvp pet. however this was just stupid as imp is supposed to be a pve pet and they could just have buffed the other pets instead of nerfing the felhunter.

No, Imp is no longer meant to be just a PvE pet. That's the point.

i wont do the math for you but you save exactly 1 sec by using SS insted of recasting your dots. even GC admitted SS had issues.

Yes it does, but it also means you can copy paste all your DoTs, UA included while moving and without risk of interuption. That's pretty potent.

the reason its still in the talent tree is because they havent come up with anything else. if you want a top dps spec, that talent is useless. except for fights with adds maybe.

By picking it up, you don't loose any DPS talents.

it will still heal for less then it does now at lvl 80. 50% of the time it doesnt heal you at all so on averange it heals for 1% hp. if you whine about more dots when soul swap will take care of that , why do you love dark intent so much then?

Because DI actually means you need more knowledge of the game and your raiding group beyond which buttons you need to press in which order to get the most out of your class.

i rolled a lock because we had many dots. if youre gonna argue about why i think having many dots is fun.. well lol.

You want more DoTs, and less ramp up. lol?

it is still 1 of the specs with least talent points so it doesnt make my point invalid

Holy Priests have the least at 36.

no its not whiny. its what made the spell interesting in my opinion, and you cant argue with that.

Your opinion is just that. It doesn't mean it works within the mechanics of the game.

what reasons did locks have to stack stamina in TBC? not much, but they still did it. now in cata we will have a very valid reason to do it, so i definitively see that happening.

We also had a very valid reason to stack stamina in 3.0. Because of resilience changes, and damage scaling we no longer need to. Cataclysm will reassert that need for balance between damage and effective health, and maintain it throughout every tier.

if youre playing vs any equally skilled and geared melee except pala, they should beat a affli lock. its a fact.

What?

No, they wont kill us in a single interrupt, so what? it will still give them a huge advantage against us witch will most likely cause the lock to lose.

Only in 1v1. This game isn't balanced around 1v1, nor will it ever be. Furthermore, Warlocks have the tools to CC in a 1v1 througout the duration of being silenced, unlike any other class.

im sorry but if you really think dark intent is awesome... we WILL be balanced around it so its definitively a nerf to pvp and solo dmg and the spell itself is REALLY bornig, even pain in the **S

I doubt it'll end up a substantial nerf in PvP in order to maintain some semblance of balance. Furthermore, PvP isn't just about damage. Soloing is irrelevent.

are you stupid? if they go live with the dmg on ptr atm, the burst is gonna be worse then it is now, even with increased health pools.

So many mechanics don't work on PTR at the moment this comment is just retarded. Mechanics first, numbers later.

2 words. shadow priest.

Go roll one and QQ about channeling latency issues.

[Renovo]

For what it's worth, I'm switching mains from Resto Druid, which I've mained since TBC, to my original Warlock, because I didn't feel they were introducing anything new with the Cata Resto changes. Not screaming nerf here, but they just seem to have taken a class I loved and made it less fun to play... so I'm coming -back- to Warlock, and leaning affliction.

[5648945621]

"Probably"? You mean you have no clue either. If it was a channeling issue, then what about SPriests?

Mind flay is already a 3 second channel. As for the rest of your post.. rofl

[Jessicka]

Mind flay is already a 3 second channel. As for the rest of your post.. rofl

That's not why they changed MF.

Also. No come back other than rofl? If I'm wrong about any of what I've said, please correct me.

[5648945621]

people qqued about drain mana through LOS and thats why they nerfed it to 3 sec, same with drain life.

[Deleted]

Mana drain was changed because it was too long at 5 seconds with only one los check at the start.

also they kind of fixed channeled spell latency with the spell queue

[Alianthos]

Anyone saying "my class is a fail fix it" needs to try fury warriors on beta / ptr.

But yeah, its... beta / ptr. Why so serious ?

[Deleted]

It adds an extra dynamic of gameplay, whereby picking the right guy will increase your DPS more then picking the wrong guy. In other words, it'll do more to seperate the good players from bad ones.

As for Affliction's current requirement to do massive damage, it will be massive sustained damage that will be required from anyone, Affliction will still I'm sure be very capable in that respect, because that's what the tree does best, and I don't see anything in there that changes that. How many times does it really need to be reitterated, that fast ramps ups and burst will no longer be what PvP is about?

It is not hard to go elitist jerks and find out who is best served by the buff also is too op for certain classes. You sound like a fan of affliction's dot everyone and do unhealable damage model but I am not, I think new mechanics are needed to add some more skill to the spec. Burst will always be a part of pvp and in cata if an ele and destro lock burst you at the same time without cooldowns you will die.

[boseguy22]

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[Jessicka]

people qqued about drain mana through LOS and thats why they nerfed it to 3 sec, same with drain life.

Well, I await the Drain Soul QQ with baited breath then if people are going to be below 25% long enough to use it.

---------- Post added 2010-09-20 at 04:46 PM ----------

It is not hard to go elitist jerks and find out who is best served by the buff also is too op for certain classes. You sound like a fan of affliction's dot everyone and do unhealable damage model but I am not, I think new mechanics are needed to add some more skill to the spec. Burst will always be a part of pvp and in cata if an ele and destro lock burst you at the same time without cooldowns you will die.

There's more than just picking 'the right class', you will need to know your raid group and people you're playing with.

Lastly, I actually prefer Destruction for PvP.

[5648945621]

Well, I await the Drain Soul QQ with baited breath then if people are going to be below 25% long enough to use it.

and that is kinda the point of drain soul. to not be able to los it. what about kill shot witch is basically instant death when below 20% hp and you cant interrupt it.

[ultimar235]

So you think Affliction is fine for cata Jessicka? I can't tell wheter you argue points for the hell of it or wheter your actually excited for the changes?

I play affliction live with around 6.2k GS, and I just hope affliction turns out as great as you envision. I have major doubts about affliction in cata but it's early days still..

[Deleted]

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