Aff Lock - Feedback

Classes Warlock
1

I play a warlock in Raid and i find all three specs fun at times. I am not going to talk about how locks compare to other classes for damage here. this is purely about how it feels when you play as affliction.

I play the best spec for the fight. I have noticed every fight is favoring Affliciton and its not because its fun to play right now. Id like to elaborate how my enjoyment and many others, in fact every lock Ive had conversations with have pretty said.

  1. Aff requires a lot of management. More than any of the 12 classes that i have played and i have all 12 classes as alts. The pay-off for the management is also not their. It is not enjoyable to have 3 modifiers that buff ur damage by 28%. Its such a high percent of ur value and maintaining it is very tedious and often not in ur control.

  2. The opener is worse than ever before and not fun. the opener for raiding requires you to put up all ur dots then channel then go back into casting spells. it feels exactly like bfa but worse. its a worse version than the playstyle of BFA.

  3. shadows embrace. this is by far the worst part of the entire playstyle and i believe this is the main issue with the feel of the warlock. the maintenance this requires is terrible on multiple target situations. since affliciton is the best spec for every encounter for the raid it makes the MT fights a royal pain in the butt.

  4. the randomness of shards and procs. more than 10% of ur damage can vary based on if u get good procs or not. does ur shard proc during ur opener? does ur lego proc during ur opener? does ur lego proc and ur shard gen is high during the opener? all this variables that have nothing to do with how u push the buttons and effect ur damage by 10% or more feels bad.

  5. its not consistant. have a perfect opener one pull vs the next can vary wildly. it can be such a huge diffference in dps. not just because u crit, but because of the rng nature of how it is. its not consistent.

  6. its the best spec for every situation. that just feels bad to be forced to play aff for ST and MT. there is no choice. its afflicition or ur dps drops by more than 20%.

I believe this class needs a rework from where it is now. its not enjoyable to maintain 3 modifiers on one target and on multitargets. and the damage is so vastly different that u have to play it in that manner.

thank you and i hope to see changes.

2 Likes
2

I’ve only ever main’ed warlock from late BC until now. This is the worst state I’ve ever seen affliction it in, especially the opener.

5 dots to maintain - 2 on cast timers.
4 Cooldowns (+2 for trinkets + Potions) - none of them on the same CD window ranging from 45 sec to 3 minutes.
A debuff that provides 10% increased damage but stacks to 3 and requires a filler spell.
A shard dump nuke that is underwhelming, has no cleave, and no utility.
No AOE that isn’t on CD, long cast time, or requires a shard. not to mention it needs to be proc’ed after the cast.

I would like to see:

  • 1 or both of siphon life or phantom singularity needs to go. Either combine them or roll its damage into Unstable, Affliction, Agony, and Corruption. Roll its healing into Haunt. (I prefer Phantom Singularity to be removed).
  • Increase DoT damage and reduce Malefic Rapture damage. Make Malefic Rapture refresh Corruption, Agony, and Unstable Affliction.
  • Make Drain Soul Baseline again and make it the execution spell it used to be in WoTLK.
  • Give us Soul Swap back for cleave and multi-target.
  • With Drain Soul baseline you have a free 15 talent space.
  • With Phantom Singularity gone move Haunt up to 35. Now we can take Dark Caller or GoS. Now you have a free 45 talent space.
1 Like