With Dragonflight’s talent revamp I’m hoping to see the original patch 5.0.4 version of Malefic grasp as a replacement for shadowbolt. I know malefic rupture is kinda the same thing on a mutli-target level, but it lacks the same kick as channeling a death beam that has a synergy with haste.
It was an ability that made stacking mastery feel good as, if your dots did more damage, then MG was going to make them force tick for more damage and, with haste, make it work that much faster.
Malefic Grasp
1.5% of base mana, plus 1.5% per sec 40 yd range
Channeled
Binds the target in twilight, causing 4 Shadow damage over 4 sec.
Every 1 sec, when Malefic Grasp deals damage, it causes all of your other periodic Affliction damage effects to instantly deal 30% of their normal periodic damage.
The spell was later nerfed to the ground until it became a simple 'Your drain soul makes your dots do X% more damage" and the spec just hasn’t felt the same since.
It’s not a numbers game for me as much as it is a mechanical, class flavor feeling that comes from knowing that I’m casting a spell that’s interacting with the rest of my kit in a both functional and visually pleasing way.
I guess tossing dots and mindlessly spamming Malefic rupture until i’m out of soulshards just doesn’t feel or look good to me.
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I think Malefic Rapture is a poor ability, whilst it is effective numbers wise, it had no visual flair at all. I throw my hands in the air and some numbers appear? Lackluster.
I made several posts throughout Shadowlands Beta and onwards that aside from the single target issue MR seriously needed more visual flair.
Literally just thicken the lines and give them some extra particles around it and It’d be fine.
I really like MR, especially with Focused Malignancy, but unfortunately MR is now a dead spell. With Seed and Vile Taint increasing Agony Stacks and even Applying Agony you will literally not use MR for AOE. And for single target we will be forced back into the obnoxious spazziness that is the Deathbolt Rotation.
MR is a really great spell and the best use of Soul Shards Affliction has ever had. Truly. And it really sucks that they’re basically just going to make it a dead spell.
Agreed, single target has always been our biggest issue, outside of BFA where we could only ever do single target. I hope DB is just deleted from the game.
Malefic Grasp was a fun way to supplement our single target while also playing into the DOT class theme. Always fun to see all those numbers (even if they’re little) just drain out of a target.
I’m also a huge proponent that Affliction filler should be a channeling spell. It makes refreshing dots and stuttering stepping so much smoother and more satisfying. Again, really plays into that class theme of withering your enemies away with AFFLICTIONS.
Agreed, Mop is by far my favorite version of affliction and seems to be a great starting point to build a great spec.
Personally I just hate malefic rapture playstyle and made me stop playing what was my favorite spec in the game before. Still think it should be an option since a bunch of people also prefer that type of bursty playstyle. Just not forced on everyone.
Even on aoe it always felt weird to me. It mostly want to do the same thing as seed of corruption and we just end up spamming what does better damage. Making the other resources’ spender almost irrelevant.
I think one of the bigger issues with MR is that it isn’t clear, and probably hard to balance, the best usage for shard spending at various numbers of targets. If they’re set on keeping it, then maybe they should cap the number of targets it hits so you could have MG as a single target spender, MR for say 2-4 targets, and then seed spam for 5+. They would be able to balance our single target, cleave, and aoe output independently.
I agree. The mop version had the whole kit. Seed for AoE, multi-dot for cleave and balancing dumping haunts for nukes while maintaining the haunt debuff for your existing dots for single target–with Malefic Grasp as a filler to tie it all neatly together.
