My favorite specs in the game since as far back as WotLK have always been Demonology and Affliction. at least in a general sense. Safe to say, it sucks to see just how unequivocally useless Affliction is at the moment. It really doesn’t accomplish anything well and it doesn’t seem like they know what they want its role to be other than DoT damage. I think they need to carve out a more defined damage profile for the spec.
A good example would be how Outlaw is generally geared towards cleave DPS, Elemental is good for 3-5 targets, etc.
Affliction’s single target sucks, and its 3-5 target DPS is honestly even worse. Nothing lives long enough for you to do your full damage, unless you’re running very high keys. But the joke is, even when the targets do live long enough and you manage all your DoTs and cooldowns perfectly, you still do insanely mediocre damage. I’d say in terms of difficulty, it’s somewhere between intermediate and difficult to play, so the payoff is also not there in ANY way lol.
It’s not that complex but performing mechanics while managing four DoTs on different timers and plus all the other class mechanics/cooldowns isn’t always easy and the game doesn’t reward you at all.
I don’t understand how they can look at this spec and thought it was ready for patch launch, let alone the expansion.
It can have good burst AOE but you need a lot of gear and again, this is basically its only strength. It also doesn’t do this any better than Demonology or other strong caster specs (even average ones).
It’s also very bad in PvP. It can be a lot of fun to play against people who don’t know what they’re doing, but Demonology is better in every sense I’d say. It doesn’t pack enough of a punch unless left alone to freecast in an open setting with no one utilizing LOS. It’s also hard to play in the sense you’re managing dots on 2-3 targets while trying to live & land kills vs 2 melee. Not really an enjoyable experience for me.
Destruction is better too, because you play the same exact way vs melee except all your damage is instant and massive, which is better than both slow and mediocre. Just a thought for whoever is designing Affliction in PVP, no disrespect intended but I’m not sure what the appeal is unless you’re just loyal to playing the spec, and can find a way to make it work at a high level.
I’m definitely not the authority on the spec or class but if you ask me, it’s one of the worst specs in PvP. It really is just straight garbage tier. All three Hunter specs and all three Mage specs are infinitely better in my opinion. DHs and DKs absolutely demolish you, LOL. Windwalkers will have 90% uptime on you while a Ret Pally is smashing your face in with Divine Shield up the entire time. Even if I’m wrong on how bad it is in PVP, it just feels so unfun to play. On top of this, your tier set bonus is near worthless for PVP while other specs get insane bonuses that snowball over the course of the match and yours is just nonexistent.
It’s honestly just an altogether garbage spec, for a LONG time it seems. It’s not really good for anything. Maybe 1v1 PVP or niche scenarios where you need to stay alive/survive as a DPS but other than that, you have zero practical reason to switch to your Affliction build at any point. In PVP or PVE.
Better yet, play literally any other damage spec in the game for anything you want to do or accomplish, and you’ll be much better off.
It sucks to say because again, in its heyday it was probably my favorite spec in the game.
Blizzard, can you at least be honest and tell the Warlock community if any meaningful changes or reworks are coming to this spec to make it rewarding to play? I understand you have your own design direction, but we also are loyal customers. I’ve been playing this game since I was 13 years old.
Is anything going to be done in this expansion to fix Affliction?