I’ve gotten up to 1771 rating. Obviously, I need to improve, but I’ve never encountered another affliction lock in the 400+ games that I’ve played in any of the shuffle matches. Is the spec really that rough to play at lower MMRs?
Yes, it is. At any MMR, but earning a low MMR as affliction is equivalent to top 5% MMR as a melee…
I hit high 1600’s and I rely on my other DPS to focus fire to finish off a target and people just do NOT listen or care. I dropped 200 MMR in a single night to either horrible heals and/or people just not working as a team. Solo’s is frustrating big time
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The spec is super nerfed defensively, so that all the silence stuns are only for you, it is impossible to go up as long as you are the focus. All your defensive and offensive are from one school only. SR is other school.
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Agreed if they do not want to buff dmg then more defensives and more armor could help to not get 100% shut down
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yea affliction has been my main spec since 2004. Despite my dedication to the spec we are very underwhelming in pvp and it is very hard to climb especially if you are like me and just use pugs.
This spec REQUIRES a fair amount of contribution from fellow teammates in solo shuffle which you will likely not get alot of cooperation because even though you are the target and weakest link your teammates will ignore your target despite knowing that you will be the enemy target and you are responding from experience.
This is especially true with classes that the community deems OP yet blizzard does not, for example demon hunter and warrior will NEVER listen to your target calling in solo shuffle because they are so used to just picking a target and killing them.
Then everyone says affliction is just fine the way it is and blizzard doesnt give 2 shizz about doing the job we all pay them to do
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It’s going to be even tougher starting today since Soul Rot will now be shadow damage instead of nature. If kicked on the long cast Soul Rot, you’ll have no other schools to cast.
I understand that nature damage didn’t really make much sense lore wise but… it would be nice if they went fire instead. Little things like this make the spec harder to play in pvp, not easier. Being trained by melee makes it incredibly hard to cast the main spell that our set bonuses are based around.
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Playing against caster cleaves / hybrid comps are usually a breeze. Soon as two competent melee glue themselves to me I just hate my life as aff in the arena. The only time it hasn’t been that way is when I’m playing with a really really good healer that is absolutely on top of peeling but ~1700s it’s basically pve rotations from teammates.
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Update: Thanks for the feedback everyone. I almost got up to 1900 today, but I got a really rough matchup against a hunter/melee shuffle on the Enigma Crucible map. The MMs damage was a lot, and it was tricky to LoS him while staying in LoS of my healer (of course while the melee beats on me)
Other than that, I’ve been pretty much winning against everyone double melee matchup now (I got better at refreshing dots and dragging them away from their healer while weaving in CCing to slow down their pressure).
I may be mistakes but the Que system tries to not put more that one spec in each game.
I’ve been paired with other locks, but they are usually Destro or Demo.
Affliction is a love it or hate it type of spec which already means a lot of players wont pick it up.
But right now Demo and Destro are both just so strong. Unless you’re an Affliction fanatic there really isn’t a reason to play it. I love Affliction. But I respecced to Destro this season because it’s undeniable how much damage you pump with little to no effort. It literally felt like I took weights of my legs and could finally run.
Hence why I said spec not class.
Aff can be paired against destro/demo
Demo can be paired against destro/aff
Destro can be pared against demo/aff
OP update: I hit 2k today. So happy 
In retrospect, I think my biggest problem was positioning (porting/gateway while staying in range of my team) and pushing in vs retreating ahead of time if I get focused/swapped on.
Another BIG reason for my wins are my communication macros that I spam at each matchup so my teammates know how to coordinate play w/ me (I have separate macros for different enemy matchups). The teammate dps needs to understand that aff is a rot spec, and staying alive instead of zerging and being too offensive = win
I really feel like warlocks are way too squishy in PvP and the defensives really need to be looked at especially when up against double melee comps. It’s disgusting how a warlock can get killed in a matter of seconds even when double walling at near full hp with Unending resolve and dark pact.
The 20% increased healing should to be added back to demon armor and armor value should be doubled with many healers simply being incapable of keeping up with melee damage even when free casting heals and using defensive cooldowns.
Soul link nerf and improved soul link nerf in pvp needs to be removed, warlocks are way too squishy whether with or without a pet to justify nerfing these defensives by 50% in PvP.
Mortal coil heal nerf needs to be removed. A 10% heal once every 45secs which is also affected by MS is very weak as it’s our only instant heal outside of a 1 time use health stone.
Dark Pact should be reworked to have a shield equivalent to 20% of your total health versus 20% of current health. It’s very bad as a defensive coming off cooldown when your already near death is basically useless.
Dark bargain a 3 min damage immunity should be added back.
Shadowfury talent should be an instant cast.
Shadowflame talent should immobilize (seriously who actually uses this in it’s current state?)
DR for interrupts needs to be added as it gets beyond ridiculous trying to get a cast off with 2 melee + resto shaman windshear/grounding totems and all 3 on the team spamming every interrupt/micro cc possible even with precog.
Kaivax said this about warlocks on the war within alpha forums: Warlocks provide powerful utility and have access to incredible survivability and mobility has usually been their weakness in exchange for those strengths.
^ I really don’t feel like we have “incredible survivability” as described especially in PVP. That may have been the case in the distant past, but I feel like PvP survivability is just in the gutter currently.
UA 1 target limit needs to be removed and dot durations should be 20secs minimum. So many globals are wasted refreshing short duration dots. The low duration of dots and 1 target limit of UA has made rampant afflictions, jinx and rot & decay pvp talents basically essential with no room to opt for anything else.
UA dispel damage needs to hit harder and silence duration should go up to at least 5 seconds.
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Hard agree. If they’re stuck on warlock being a tanky turrent, they need to beef up some of the survivability and what not, especially in pvp. Pve is a whole other issue considering you seem to be having to move more and more in mythic plus or raiding to avoid mechanics. Always disliked the “pre plan” with gate and portal. Can only pre plan so much, especially in pvp, and dislike that playstyle. I don’t know why they’re so against re adding a version of Kil’jadens cunning when there’s other ranged classes that have similar abilities. Would help out a lot, and don’t see how it would be overpowered at all in the current state of the game.
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Warlock overall is one of the tankier casters in PvP, next to boomkin, ele, and spriest.
You need to use your cooldowns wisely as lock, or you’re cooked. Especially as afflic.
Im 2330 rn as affy in solo, just need to use your cds correctly and run when needed. I went 6-0 in a lobby that was double assa rogue/ww 100% an awful lobby for me but made it so hard for them to attack me they didnt bother chasing me
Its mostly because of poor design…you will catch every stun, interrupt, silence, and what not. Its terrible to play as a warlock and not as fun. The irony is blizzard never listen they give things the class doesnt want or need cough Malific Rapture Cough while removing critical things like casting circle, precognition, or deathbolt. even our defensives have been removed like demon armor. Lets not forget our wonderful health stone…can only be used once during combat. People don’t play warlock because the class has too many holes in it.
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The amount of mental acrobatics I have to create in order to open windows for doing damage is insane at times.
I am 90% sure that this season is the last season I ever SS as Aff. It’s just not worth it. 4 out of 5 lobbies are with 3 melee, so every match is either one of them on me or both of them on me. Unless I get a random glad level healer on an alt, ain’t no one gonna be able to sustain heal someone through 2 melee smooth brains pushing on a lock. Sometimes I am able to get them to stop by just constantly teleporting over and over and over and just running around. They swap to the teammate.,… Who stands little chance since most of the healer CDs were used on me. I go to open up with CC and damage and one or both of them immediately jump on me again. Which wouldn’t be so bad so bad except all of THEIR CDs and CC’s are off CD mean mine are not (except fear… the CASTED cc)…
If I don’t get a few seconds to get a few actual casts off… Like, I don’t even need drain soul… Just enough time to get UA and Haunt up with any kind of consistency, I would be willing to tolerate the harrassment and abuse. The fact that melee sacrifice NOTHING to cc, the fact that Aff Lock is the only spec in the entire game that is ENTIRELY ONE SPELL SCHOOL (like wut?) just makes us the best possible target.
I went from 1688 to 1372 simply because I was unable to get more than handful of actual casts off. And those were all fears… That was it… fears and dots.
2’s and actual 3’s are far more fluid. And I don’t feel quite as violated. SS just makes me feel like I was rufie’d and bent over a dumpster then left there.