The concept for Afflicted is interesting enough, but it so obviously claps the coffin shut on role-immobile classes that lack heals and dispels this week. Groups are technically able to get by with a mixed comp of have and have-nots, but the optics are so far weighted toward it being a better situation to just invite five players that can eliminate adds with ease. I spent most of today unsuccessfully applying for group invites. Why on earth would anyone invite a Rogue over a Druid this week?
This affix needs immediate design review. Holy crap.
Itās pretty bad. Affixes should not be class-based. IMO, they should not even be something that only 1-2 players have to deal with. They should affect the entire group and it should be on each player individually to handle the affix, via some sort of mechanical execution that isnāt just playing the right class. Nobody should be able to expect someone else to do it for them -Otherwise weāre right back to the old āHealer affixā explosive problem.
Both afflicted and incorporeal have this problem. Whatās worse is that they arenāt even trying to spread them around, thereās classes that are good at both affixes (mage, shaman, paladin) and thereās classes that are bad at both affixes (DK and Warrior). If you arenāt the right class youāre gonna have trouble finding groups.
I disagree, in fact this week is so easy it feels like one of the best push weeks we have had this season. Afflicted is such a non-issue itās kind of a joke.
And to be honest that might be thanks to Cleanse for me having such a short CD and being instant cast compared to last week having to stop and hard cast Repentance on the incorporealās.
You are not much higher than me in keystones so I am not sure what you are laughing about by this?
Personally I disagree, I will take this over season 1 any day of the week. I am actually enjoying season 2ās affixes as opposed to season 1 which I could not be bothered to enjoy.
Maybe its easier for me as a healer, but afflicted wasnt an issue at all, at most you need two heals at the most to take care of them. You really only need two people at most to handle them, but even then not really, once again its a healer affix, so weāll end up taking care of it solo.
And see, I kinda get why Rogues and Warriors are bummed about that because it makes them less enticing to take than say Paladins or Shaman since we can also handle the affix. But yeah, I think its very easy. It takes hardly anything for me as a Pally just to mouse over and cleanse one. In fact, the tank I roll with him and I usually do it so the healer can just focus on healing XD
I will agree that visibility wise they are a huge step down from Incorporeal, that is for sure. They are a lot more subtle.
Also, my mouse over macros worked on them for cleansing. Whatās your current mouse over you were using?
This is what Byuck is missing with his comments. Itās easy for a DPS to scan the room for afflicted, but as a healer people die if your attention drifts for too long. Ordinarily this isnāt a problem, but hereās the worst part of afflicted: they like to spawn around corners or in clusters of mobs.
I was desperately trying to m/o dispel one in Halls earlier on my WW monk, and for some reason it wouldnāt let meā¦and so it went off. End of the run, I had 16 dispels, boomkin had 19, and the healerā¦had zero.
If it werenāt for the fact that I had just healed VP twice on my shaman, Iād have said something, but the problem with healing this affix is when the afflicted are NOT immediately visible. If you need to actually look for more than 1 second, the healing stress piles up a lot.
So all that said, it kinda grinds my gears when DPS say the affix is fine. All you need to do is spam a rotation; a healer needs to keep people alive, and the recent heal nerf seems much more apparent when combined with this affix.
As stated, Iāve healed and DPSād the affix. Melee is harder than ranged since ranged get a bigger picture of the area, but melee is easier than healer when it comes to dealing with afflicted.
If it spawns around a corner it is a non-issue because the cast can be LoSāed. Like, had a pair spawn on the second pull in Freehold (the pull you LoS around a building anyway) and we were able to completely ignore it.
Plus, healers donāt even need to think about the affix if only one spawns and a DPS can just AFK mouse-over delete them instantly.
No, I mean it spawns out of YOUR LoS as a healer, and if it goes off your entire group will get hit. The entire problem is that I donāt see it. To give you perspective, the stairs before the worst trash pull in VP. on the side of the stairs is where they tend to spawn. Well now I know, right? Itās still bad.
Calling it a non-issue because you LoSād it once is completely beside the point.
ā¦2 spawn far more often than 1. Either youāre lucky, or unaware. It also depends whatās going on when they spawn; if itās a big pull itās that much worse
Also, Iām sure youāve healed before, but donāt talk about how a healer deals with them when you donāt seem to know. I had 29 dispels in one VP and 27 in the other, with maybe 20 split between everyone else IIRC.
I donāt heal, but I have soloād some of the affix double-spawns as a DPS evoker in two 19s tonight.
If I have my 8 second dispel up I can get one instantly. If I do not need to dispel a more threatening DoT in the next minute, I can get both of them with two instants. If I need to, I can technically get three with Expunge/Cauterizing Flame/Verdant Embrace+Living Flame but three never spawn.
In the Vortex Pinnacle, we had myself and a SPriest dealing with all of the spirits and in Freehold I dealt with half of them and the healer got the other half.
Then againā¦
I got 31 spirits with a dispel (not counting the time healing them)
Healer got 33 spirits, the remaining 33 dispels were for other effects in the dungeon (mostly enrages). The affix was barely even a thought.
Thatās great. If Poison cleansing totem is up itās simple for me as well, or if no one is dying and I can see them I can heal the other one. Second point is the crucial part, however.
So you have experienced VP Afflicted. All I can say, is that the first 2 bosses + some of the trash takes enough of my attention while healing, and sometimes the afflicted are difficult to spot if I was just looking at health bars the moment before they spawn. Perhaps ādisorientingā is the word, but my eyes darting between health bars and looking for afflicted is extremely stressful.
I realize your point is that your healer didnāt need to dispel them, and that is definitely ideal. However, if we combine that point with a point others have made, the problem does become more clear to me: classes without a dispel cause even more of a mess.
If you can coordinate your double dispel with others it may work out, but again, it all comes down to messy pulls and hidden afflicted.
In the end, all I want is for them to be easier to see; Incorp was a lot better for me due to this, even as a healer. My perspective is largely from healing VP twice though, and I realize not all dungeons areā¦pure white or have little corners for them to spawn in.
Iād encourage you to not tell me what the healer was thinking unless they told you themselves. : \
