One of the main problems with affliction PvP right now is the lack dispel protection. Unstable Affliction was added in The Burning Crusade, with the damage caused from dispelling Unstable Affliction far exceeding the damage of the DoT itself. Unstable affliction acted as a deterrent so healers would not spam dispel our main (nearly all) source of damage output. Currently, the DoT portion of UA does ~20%+ more than the backlash damage from a dispel. (~12k vs ~10k)
With the upcoming patch 8.2 changes, the honor talent Endless Affliction basically causes Unstable Affliction to last ~18 seconds, with only the first 8 seconds of the debuff doing damage.
With this design, the best thing a healer can do is to dispel UA as early and often as possible in order to minimize the damage taken by his team.
With the changes to defensive dispel in Mists of Pandaria, healers can clear a target of all debuffs with a single ability.
Affliction warlock damage is currently designed around stacking as many debuffs as possible on the target, especially Unstable Affliction. It is extremely unrewarding to have your greatest source of damage completely countered with the press of a single button. It takes 5 or more globals to build up meaningful damage, only to be completely countered by an instant ability, and with very little backlash.
Please consider buffing Unstable Affliction backlash damage so it can properly perform its function of punishing healers for dispelling our only source of damage.
^^ this basically sums it up and I 100% agree ,this would be fastest and easiest way to fix the issue.
I’m just worried that blizzard doesn’t know how to actually balance this at all. Explaining why they haven’t adjusted it.
If damage backlash tuning is the issue change it to something else.
Example make the target dispel Immune for x amount of seconds stacking for each UA dispelled from the target. make the backlash instead apply a heal absorb for the amount of damage that would have been the current back lash damage.
While Something like that wouldn’t directly hurt the healer. Like the current damage backlash does.
It could lead to some interesting play.
Dispel a 5 stack of UA target gets a
X size healing absorb shield and is nonremovable for x seconds.
this makes the healers waste many getting through the shield -
opens windows for dps burst to occur or rot from another dps and allows the lock to re-apply its damage without fear of it being instant removed again.
I would be afraid that even with a buff to UA healers could merely heal through our negligible dot damage. I am 110% behind buffing UA dispell dmg, but we would also need tuning to create pressure. We are lacking I feel in both fronts. ID fixed one of those fronts but got nerfed to oblivion. Now we just don’t have anything.
I topped out at about 2300 as aff in 2s/3s a few months ago, trying to persevere and make it work as different comps. Eventually I quit the game entirely from frustration for about a month, then came back and tried destruction, which was infinitely easier.
Affliction in M+ is just okay, trash mobs usually die before our damage can ramp up unless you have high stacks of the Inevitable demise trait. We do pretty good on bosses if we have cooldowns up though.
When priests and shammies just run around random BGs dispelling my DoTs on CD no matter how many stacks of UA are on the target, you know something is wrong with the class.
I see you played aff to 2200 and then came back to aff around the 2350 cr which would probably be 2400 mmr. Out of the 10 next games you only lost 4. Which is insane to even pull off wins at that mmr and even more insane having a 60% win rate. What comps were you finding viable with aff and what was your strat with said comp?