Hi! I am a shadow priest looking to dig into afflic. I like the gameplay better but the class have almost no animation in combat. The spender is fun but FEELS lackluster compare to shadow apparition from priest. Could affliction get a more appealing anim on spender? Something that makes them FEEL strong and badass
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Personally I’ve always liked the lack of animations from a thematic standpoint. Whenever I’ve played affliction, I pictured my character as a devious caster sitting back in the shadows slowly rotting away her enemies.
Drain Soul/Life and shadow bolt have enough animations. Plus Agony has a little thing over the head of the enemies last I checked.
I actually think MR looks pretty cool when you have multiple targets. Little lackluster on single-target though.
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MR has a new animation in Beta, similar in coloration to Seed of Corruption.
I just want Malefic Grasp back as a glyph for Drain Soul. Or at least Drain Soul updated.
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Was thinking the same thing. Malefic Rapture is simply a total bore to watch. Half the time i can’t even see it. Flic definitely needs some help in this department.
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Malefic rapture looks epic when you have seeded a huge group like the ton of mobs in ToS before the end (with the eyes). If not you can honestly barely see it which is whack.
I miss old shadow spell animations tbh. The green, purple and black energy emanating from your hands was cooler than the higher pixel purple stuff they have now. The whole rework of void energy being solely purple is odd to me and makes shadow spells look lackluster. If anything, shouldn’t void energy be black since it is literally devoid of light that would illuminate color?
Maybe I’m late to the party or Affliction got some new animations.
I noticed that enemies now having a chaotic green/purple swirl that increases with each dot we put on them. And it looks badass.
Also noticed that at the end of a Malefic Rapture cast, a big purple flame shoots out of their heads.
I hope this sticks around.
One good thing about having minimal noticeable animations is that in PvP combat (specifically world, and battlegrounds), you hardly ever get noticed unless you’re the only one around.
I’ve had times where I fully dot 4-5 different people and no one turns to me. I then proceed to MR and even that isn’t flashy enough to warrant people’s attention, even as they fall to the ground pondering on what just happened.
There is beauty in simplicity.
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Yeah each DoT has a unique visual effect now. Unstable Affliction causes a swirling purple shadowy effect, Agony causes a purple glowing effect, Siphon Life causes a purple cloud effect and Corruption causes a purple/green sparkle effect.
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If only it looked like Malefic grasp "wishes*, loved that animation
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The major boon of Affliction is not being a purple Pig Pen.
Since I never see anyone mentioning it, I will say: Affliction animations are mostly a reuse of previous effects.
I remember in Legion, when Mages, Moonkins and other classes got brand new animations. When we asked about Locks and at the time their 14 year old visuals, we got from Blizzard a “We are saving the best for last”.
The “new” animations came in, and the first thing I noticed was the sound. Before we had unique sfx for each skill, but it got changed to very generic and bland sounds.
New animations, the good:
•Seed of Corruption had a good new animation and sound.
•Drain Life: this one was beautifully made. Useless as a heal in PvP and not the filler in PvE, so we can’t appreciate it much, but not the point 
New animations, the bad:
•Deathbolt at first was a Demonbolt animation, then was a recolored Mortal Coil.
•Destro’s Soul Fire is a reused Pyroblast
•Teleport was the same with a new bland sound, inferior to the original.
•Shadowbolt got an inferior animation and sound, from something shadowy with the Skull and ominous sound, to a Glitterbolt with once again bland sfx.
•Destro’s Incinerate went from a Fiery-weaving-serpent with a powerful wooosh sound, to a puny Super Mario Fireball.
•1st version of Malefic Rapture’s animation is reused from Deathgrip, 2nd version (curently on Beta/PTR) is reused from Seed of Corruption.
And a reminder, we lost the animation for having the max number of Destro’s Burning Embers and it was given to Fire Mages.
This is from the top of my head, and there are probably more, but I think I made my point clear. It’s just my opinion, but to me it seems Warlock’s animations and sfx are not receiving the same amount of love and effort as other classes, for quite some time already. Seems rushed and/or lazy.
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