Affi state in 5.2

[the avatar]

In regards to latest Grim Sac nerf, I will doing this: spec Supremacy until I drop 4pc t14 and then swap to Service as it will go back to lining up with Dark Soul and Blood Fury.

[Milmo]

Demo seems to be the go-to spec in 5.2, -15% on go-sac was really uncalled for and will most likely place aff in the middle of the pack on single target fights. Destro is absolutely butchered now while aff will still be good for multi-target fights.

[dakalro]

Actually destro seems pretty damn good on some of the new fights (at least one that I know of it's far far ahead of the other 2 specs). For single target/AoE demo may be the spec to use though.

[Deleted]

ye but with the new nerfs to gosac (affects destro a lot more than affli) we can't know how well it will perform.. simcraft results suggest it won't be so good though....

[Flashforcash]

Demo seems to be the go-to spec in 5.2, -15% on go-sac was really uncalled for and will most likely place aff in the middle of the pack on single target fights. Destro is absolutely butchered now while aff will still be good for multi-target fights.

ehm, so let me get your right - your saying a nerf which put us with the rest of the dps'er is uncalled for ? hmmmm, think you guys have been used to be topped all the time with just affi.

For me these nerf seems really good and place most specs close, but hope i wont have to play demo to much, freaking hate that spec since they changed it from cata style ;(

[Woeful]

Demo seems to be the go-to spec in 5.2, -15% on go-sac was really uncalled for and will most likely place aff in the middle of the pack on single target fights. Destro is absolutely butchered now while aff will still be good for multi-target fights.

I'm not sure why we are trying to talk about Demo in an affliction thread. Demo getting a -15% nerg on go-sac might be as simple as Blizzard saying. "It's a Demonology, we want you to use a Demon."

I saw someone say that the new buzzword is "scaling." Understood. Affliction with at least three of its main spells running at nearly 100% up time and another spell combination MG/SD running with a high up time is going to benefit from secondary stats more than other specs. Blizzard's challenge with affliction will be to make it competitive with relatively low equip and not allow it to be massively over powered at with higher gear.

[Last Starfighter]

So scaling is the incorrectly, overused buzzword of the expansion then.

I hardly ever see the word. But how is it used incorrectly?

---------- Post added 2013-02-27 at 12:47 AM ----------

In regards to latest Grim Sac nerf, I will doing this: spec Supremacy until I drop 4pc t14 and then swap to Service as it will go back to lining up with Dark Soul and Blood Fury.

That's one thing I don't like about 4 piece T14. The inability to line up with BF without negating the bonus outside of initial pull.

[Deleted]

But the reason we were top of the pack (not the best though) isnt the reason blizzard is nerfing affliction. And here where the inconsistency begins. They didnt nerf the overall dmg affliction is doing they nerfed a specific talent GoSac cause everyone as blizzard states was using that talent and not the other 2. As it stands now with the current nerf GoSup will probably be ahead and everybody will use that. So where exactly is the choice again. You cannot balance all 2 (GOsup. GoSer, GoSac) for all 3 locks speccs to do equal dmg. If that is the mentality of Blizzard why dont they balance GoSac for demonology then, its way behind i dont see and twicking there. So blizzard says one thing does anothe thing and never hears the community. Ask the warlock community wether they wanted a nerf on the GoSac everyone will say no. If it was a matter of affliction doing too high dmg then adjust affliction dmg but DO NOT NERF GoSac. (The 5% initial nerf was within limits, 15% is an overkill).

Blizard must clear the reason behind the nerf: 1) Affliction doing too much dmg
2) Tier talents should be equal on dps contribution
1 : As i said understandable reduce dmg output a bit. Nothing to do with GoSac. Community wants to keep GoSac as top option in affliction and this is for many reasons.
2 : 15% put GoSac behind so its a complete fail as no one will use it as for now. Also as i mentioned this is not happening with the other 2 speccs. In demo GoSac it not a viable option, why? In destro GoServ is not a viable option, why? So blizzard is calling for balances and they are only addressing affliction with GoSac.

[ZakAtack]

GoSac was so strong for Affliction it was considered part of the spec. It needed to be nerfed, and because pretty much everyone who was raiding seriously was going GoSac/Aff for almost all fights, nerfing the talent effectively did nerf the spec at the same time.

As for what's strongest now, what talents are useless, and what's viable, I'll wait until we get some more time with these changes and more solid numbers.

The sad thing is just how it goes, "oh sac is strongest, use it," Sac gets nerfed, "Sac is unviable, never use it!"

[Rtrain]

If I were Blizzard I'd be a little cautious about nerfing affliction even more. Affliction was even more dominant through Naxxramas but after that tier moved back to the pack.

Affliction was nerfed at the start of Ulduar and destro was buffed. A few days after ulduar came out they also nerfed conflagarate because it was doing absurd damage . That first week was really fun playing a warlock though.

Affliction should be fine, this GoSac nerf also nerfs our scaling slightly. Top end raiding as a Warlock next tier prob won't be pick one spec and play it for every fight. In a patchwerk style fight it appears Demo > Affi > Destro atm, but not by much. You can expect fight mechanics will dictate which spec is best, and that seems pretty balanced to me.

If you want to just play affliction for every fight, you can prob get away with it. It just won't be the most "optimal"

[Deleted]

GoSac was so strong for Affliction it was considered part of the spec. It needed to be nerfed, and because pretty much everyone who was raiding seriously was going GoSac/Aff for almost all fights, nerfing the talent effectively did nerf the spec at the same time.

As for what's strongest now, what talents are useless, and what's viable, I'll wait until we get some more time with these changes and more solid numbers.

The sad thing is just how it goes, "oh sac is strongest, use it," Sac gets nerfed, "Sac is unviable, never use it!"

I think you kinda missed the point i made. the fact GoSac being the strongest for affliction doesnt mean it has to be nerfed. This has nothing to do with respect on how much dmg affliction is doing and its a fail logic to connect them.
If Blizzard feels that affliction is doing too much dmg you reduce accordingly the whole specc.
If the point is to balance a specific talent you do so but you do not overnerf it which is what 15% is. It basically kills the talent choice and you end up where you started with no choice.

Specific choices on talents for specific roles (Raiding Pve) doesnt need to be balanced completely someone will be always on top. The community liked and preferred GoSac so why not keep it infront.

Take all classes, and talent tiers and tell me that Hunters for example arent choosing 1 specific last tier talent. Or Retris or whatever. The majority of classes are selecting specific dps talents from tiers that come on top. Is blizzard balancing every single one of those. NO. Why? Cause it cant be done something will always come on top. For affliction is GoSac. Community likes it and prefers it over the other 2 talents why not keep it. (Obviously Blizzard is not listening). GoSup is used for Demo and for Destro as top single target choices. GoSup is used for pvp in arenas for affliction and demo as top choices. So i do not see any imbalance between selection on that tier if you look outside the box and see the bigger picture. If something needs buffing for crying out loud is GoServ which is suboptimal in almost every scenario.

5% nerf was acceptable it balance things better. 15% is an overkill.

If blizzards believes affliction does too much dmg adjust affliction dmg not nerf GoSac.

[roflmfao]

Personally I think people are making too big of an issue over this. Yes it says a 15% nerf, however it is realistically a 7.5% dps nerf due to the fact it increases your dps by 35% instead of 50%, and your t15 bonus gives 5% of that back. When you also consider the fact that pets dps is not enhanced by mastery (unless someone can prove me wrong) GoSac can still be a pretty strong spec as gear increases mastery. The biggest problem we are having right now is that nobody can prove anyone right or wrong due to the fact that SimCraft isn't working properly.

[Kencredible]

I think you kinda missed the point i made. the fact GoSac being the strongest for affliction doesnt mean it has to be nerfed. This has nothing to do with respect on how much dmg affliction is doing and its a fail logic to connect them.
If Blizzard feels that affliction is doing too much dmg you reduce accordingly the whole specc.
If the point is to balance a specific talent you do so but you do not overnerf it which is what 15% is. It basically kills the talent choice and you end up where you started with no choice.

Specific choices on talents for specific roles (Raiding Pve) doesnt need to be balanced completely someone will be always on top. The community liked and preferred GoSac so why not keep it infront.

Take all classes, and talent tiers and tell me that Hunters for example arent choosing 1 specific last tier talent. Or Retris or whatever. The majority of classes are selecting specific dps talents from tiers that come on top. Is blizzard balancing every single one of those. NO. Why? Cause it cant be done something will always come on top. For affliction is GoSac. Community likes it and prefers it over the other 2 talents why not keep it. (Obviously Blizzard is not listening). GoSup is used for Demo and for Destro as top single target choices. GoSup is used for pvp in arenas for affliction and demo as top choices. So i do not see any imbalance between selection on that tier if you look outside the box and see the bigger picture. If something needs buffing for crying out loud is GoServ which is suboptimal in almost every scenario.

5% nerf was acceptable it balance things better. 15% is an overkill.

If blizzards believes affliction does too much dmg adjust affliction dmg not nerf GoSac.

Not to be controversial here, but I don't think it is fail logic to connect GoSac and Aff damage because GoSac does have something to do with how much damage Aff was doing. The nerf to GoSac does affect the whole spec. I'm not really sure how anyone can say the 15% nerf is overkill and kills the talent choice, unless you back it up with numbers, which you can't even do because the final tweaks haven't come out yet. How do you know 5% would be acceptable and 15% is overkill without running numerous sims over various styles of encounters. I'm not really sure how you can speak for the whole community and say they liked and preferred GoSac...they picked it because it was the highest dps choice. Giving it a nerf to make the other two more situationally viable I think is great. The more options the better. I don't have a problem with one typically being the optimal choice for the spec, and to be honest I think GoServ should be the highest overall because it actually requires you to press another button, and gives you a CD to time. The only sim numbers which I have seen on the icy-vein forums, show aff still on top (ultraxion style fight), with demo much closer and destro not as far behind as it was previously, and that was with GoSac. Until final numbers are released and results are simmed, all we can really do is speculate.
Personally I'm excited to have the option (hopefully) of picking other talents based on the type of fight. My main is a shadow priest, I select different talent choices in two tiers to maximize my dps for every single fight. My alt is an aff lock which I will be using it as my main come next patch. I love affliction because it plays so close to a naxx style shadow priest. But I think a lock, up till this point really was a pet class, not as much per se as a hunter, but like an unholy DK. I personally think the GoSac should be a 60, 90, or 120 sec CD where you sac your pet for a temporary burst and then resummon, but that is my personal opinion.

TL;DR...I'm not trying to start an internet argument, nor attack the quoted poster in anyway, but until final spell numbers are released and sims are run, I don't see how we can say that GoSac won't be useful, or got nerfed too hard.

[Deleted]

Now that supremacy is (supposedly) superior to sacrifice in 5.2, our stat weights have changed... In 5.1 we just stack mastery mastery and more mastery and then when you can, get to the 6.6k haste breakpoint.. but with supremacy are we just supposed to stack haste like we do with mastery now? or are we supposed to keep them more or less equal just with haste a bit higher?

[zey]

I've been reading a lot of "The sky is falling" posts about the affliction nerfs. Most of them seem to be built around the assumption that we will continue to use the nerfed GoSac. I was wondering how bad things really are if we simply switch to GoSup.

Napkin math, relying on simcraft numbers, for that they're worth:

DPS with live GoSac: 129776
DPS switching to GoSup: 120139

So the nerf from switching is ~7.5%

Then there is the haunt buff from 25% to 30%. Simcraft indicates a haunt uptime of 69%. This seems high to me, but lets roll with it. We first need to solve for our dps without any buff from haunt (x).

.31x + .69*1.25x = 120139
x = 102464

Then we change the multiplier to 30% to find our new dps with the buffed haunt (y).

.31*x + .69*1.3x =y
y = 123674

The haunt buff is less significant than I had imagined. The net nerf works out to be ~4.7%. It is probably slightly less than that given that I have a character with stat weights built around GoSac. A lesser emphasis on mastery should improve the situation. This analysis likely undervalues the haunt buff because you will have higher uptime during procs than outside of procs.

[Deleted]

One thing to remember is that we will have more crit on gear compared to t14, which is not ideal for affliction.

That said it seems to me that affliction is still slightly ahead, but fights where the mechanics favour demo it will be demo which is ahead. On the ptr atm on a dummy I'm actually doing more as demo then as affliction (in affl gemming and reforging). But my (limmited) raid testing experiences show affliction ahead on fights that favour affliction and demo ahead on fights that favour demo. For example affliction seems great for Horridon due to draining adds for shards (like WotE), while council seems like a great demo fight (4 full uptime dooms, extra knockback for spirit, great burst aoe for sand adds).

Destro might have it's spot as well if a fight is a great fit for it, but it's still a little behind in terms of dps compared to the other 2 specs afaik. However I have not really tried myself so take that with a grain of salt.

You make crit sound like a debuff.
Crit is still wayy better than Spirit (lol, infinitely better) and we still use Spirit items for BIS. In the end having crit on every single slot is fine, so long as the primary stat is intellect.
I hope they nerf demo hard to keep it from being viable. I would really hate to have to play that spec.

[roflmfao]

I hope they nerf demo hard to keep it from being viable. I would really hate to have to play that spec.

My thinking exactly! I love afflic, and destro is cool, but demo...meh. lol

[wfredlund]

Personally, I am fine with bringing GoSac down a bit. It falls inline with Blizzard's ideology of the new talent system. With a week (possibly) two before that release of 5.2, I think it may be a bit to early to really concern ourselves with it's performance vs. GoSup and GoServ.

[Sivick]

My thinking exactly! I love afflic, and destro is cool, but demo...meh. lol

I want to see demo buffed! i love the new demo spec

[roflmfao]

After seeing the new build we are down to 30%? WTF...are they slowly stepping this down from the original 50% hoping we wont notice? This is getting crazy now!

I am curious on the Haunt buff...wonder if this will also effect pet damage as it is looking like Aff/Destro are now being forced to have a pet out.