Replacing Death Bolt with Rapid Contagion could work fine, assuming it’s changed to only hit a single target with the haste. Replacing Rapture with it runs into the exact same problem of our main shard spender functioning as both a ST and AoE button.
The spec plays perfectly fine right now. It ate some huge nerfs after 9.0 that never got addressed, but that’s an issue of tuning and not design.
With RC, the play would be to pool 5 shards, then hit RC into a Deathbolt. Then every 2 minutes it’s a buffed up version after a Darkglare. Oops, no rot.
Withering Bolt is far less of a problem than Malefic Wrath and Decimating Bolt. Whithering Bolt is exactly Malefic Grasp just with the numbers shuffled around. It was a very clever disguise, but Malefic Grasp actually was just a buff to Drain Soul, and since it attributed the damage to dots instead of Drain Soul itself, everyone was fooled and loved their filler heavy rotation.
Change it back, it’ll still play the same.
You can extend doom with the pandemic window, but seed of corruption will still only explode once if you try it. It’s the worst kind of nuke. A long cast, followed by a delay before it even does its very direct, no dot at all, burst damage. It fits the spec even worse, but everyone seems to understand it’s a useful tool in the kit.
Death Bolt needs to be removed, entirely. There is no reason for this talent to be in the game at all. It was BFA terrible design and then it moved into PvP, then for some bad reason they decided to make it into a PvE talent again instead of keeping it in the PvP section of the tree.
I agree, it is far less but it’s still a pain in the bottom because we don’t need buffed up fillers. We need fillers to buff up the rest of the DoTs, instead.
Yes and no, WB works on itself, not on the rest of the DoTs. It’s like saying looking left and looking right are the same exact thing, but they’re not. Withering Bolt makes your filler more powerful per DoT, it functions the same in that they’re both ST things. It’s different because MG made your DoTs, the other 2-4 DoTs you had up on the target, do more damage instead. It gave those DoTs the spotlight over Drain Soul/filler being in the spotlight itself.
This is the issue; fillers are fillers, they aren’t the main cast and they aren’t there to be nor supposed to be the main star of the show, but with WB it’s trying to force DS into being the main character/star of the show. Bad design decision.
No, MG buffed your other DoTs while you channeled Drain Soul. In all of its versions, your other DoTs on the targets were buffed either through more ticks during DS, or directly more damage while channeling DS into the target.
I think there were 2 different versions of MG:
DS buffing DoTs directly, giving them more damage while channeling DS.
DS forcing ticks for partial damage, and there were 2 different versions, 1 for 20% normal tick damage the other for 30%.
I think that was it, or as far as I could remember that was it, anyways.
This also fit the fantasy, too, and even if they did fool us, that’s fine I guess. I don’t see how buffing your other DoTs with DS up actually made your DS doing more damage, but I never paid as close attention to that. It fit the theme, it felt good to press that button, it had a better animation, so all boxes were checked.
That’s why I said I think most of us just think of it more as a Corruption spreader than anything else. Like, I don’t even play StS, I played VT in mythic+ n whatnot because it was more DoTs/rot. Nonetheless, yeah like I just see SoC as a way to spread Corruption to 3-5 targets so I don’t have to press 2-4 more globals.
With that 1 talent in the DF tree to make it give more stacks of Agony, I think everyone is now fully a lot more acceptable of it, too, as it buffs up your hardest hitting DoT to not take so long ramping.
And they could do the same with Rapture to just keep everybody happy without changing how the spec plays. It plays very smoothly ever since the 2-set came out.
Let Rapture be a dot, or leave a dot buff behind, or anything that’s more ‘thematic’ for a rot spec instead of a burst of damage, and a lot of the problems with it will go away. That’s indicative of it being a spec that plays well but feels off thematically. Fix the theme, don’t break the playstyle.
You could even bring back the old MG graphic from mop to channel on everything while theme-appropriate Rapture is up. Everyone would lose their minds over that.
That’s fine, I think at some point somewhere in here I said they could rework MR to being a DoT or force DoT ticks or something else akin to DoT instead of doing direct damage, but you’re right. If they did something like this, most people who hate MR would come to love MR then since it would fully fit the style thematically. Like, we get expectations when we see specs are “Damage over Time” centric, which when you read Affliction’s description, that is what you read. “specializes in damage over time and drains” nothing in it about direct damage things, yet your biggest damage ability comes from direct damage, which makes absolutely no sense and throws newer players trying the spec out off. It also throws off people who stopped playing in BFA that decided to come back to try the spec they loved in Legion, WoD or MoP and go “what is this nonsense. My DoTs don’t do much…of anything…”
I fully agree with you here, they would lose their minds and enjoy the spec. But yeah, it’s not fully like “we hate rapture because it’s rapture” it’s more in line with “we hate a direct damage spell doing more damage than any of your dots, and being a direct damage spell over just doing dot damage, buffing dots or something else entirely to make your dots better” kind of thing. It again just doesn’t make sense thematically, regardless of how the modern game operates, this takes your spec into a 180 design from what people expect.
Yea, they’ve been told a million times. They never listen. They got rid of MG, the fun predecessor of MR, because they felt it healed too much, allowed locks to avoid mechanics, yadayada. “Fun Detected!”
Here’s an idea, dear Blizzard, give us the game play back. Tune the numbers to be more reasonable in your eyes . . oh wait . .that’d take time away from in-house pub crawls and all the lawsuit inducing fun that came with it.
Their laziness, inspirational bankruptcy, and ineptitude, is breathtaking.
Eh, I just prefer to bash design philosophies over anything else and design decisions. For some bad reason they decided that instead of just making DoTs tick faster and harder they wanted to try and do something else with a DoT spec. I do give them credit for trying something else, I just hate that they decided to do direct damage. I want to know why they reworked MR into a direct damage spell instead of just making it force DoT ticks or keep to the original design. Just like “bleh, the original design was a better fit to the theme of the spec. you just needed to balance it out better was all” but they scrapped it and reworked it into a direct damage spell, instead.
There are myriad ways to change the spec without having it be all about burst. I wrote up this whole post (My dream for affliction), but there are even more…to name a few:
Make applying DoT’s via AoE easier (New Vile Taint is a good first step, things like lowering SoC cast time is another)
Make DoT’s last longer so reapplying them isn’t so tedious and detrimental to damage
Have an ability like Life Tap/Soul Tap instantly refresh/increase all DoT damage at the cost of the Lock’s life/resources
Make the spec more utility focus so DoTs & debuffs increase the effectiveness of teammates’ abilities
DoT’s become stronger as the target is missing life
Give affliction a single burst spell on a 30-60 second cooldown (personally I think Shadowburn fit that gap nicely)
The list goes on an on. The problem is blizzard it taking shortcuts to make their lives easier at the cost of player fun. They’ve streamlined class design to the point that they all more or less play the exact same.
Let Rapture be a dot, or leave a dot buff behind, or anything that’s more ‘thematic’ for a rot spec instead of a burst of damage, and a lot of the problems with it will go away. That’s indicative of it being a spec that plays well but feels off thematically. Fix the theme, don’t break the playstyle.
Was also thinking if Malefic rapture was kind of a combo point spender where the more you spend the more you get. Cost 1-3 shards, 3 shards would be like a full rapid contagion, 1 shard would be mini but good for m+ (shorter living mobs). That way it doesn’t just feel like a build up shards and spam, spam, spam, spam, spam. It will build up your abilities and spend the one shard dump on it, aleviating some of the gcd bloat.
Putting in my post for removal of Malefic Rapture -
would also like to throw in in how much I hate the malefic wrath lego/talent as well. ( the upkeep is so tedious and we already have so much button bloat this just pushes it even further in DF.
Agreed, dislike MR and would love to see it removed from my rotation.
Here’s an idea I just thought of.
Make drain soul (or, if blizz were to bring back MG in some form, then MG) the baseline “gimme” first talent. Make either UA or Haunt (or hell, maybe even both?) be the shard spender. While the drain soul/MG would be the main filler, shadowbolt does stay as a possibly used spell via nightfall procs. All pretty straight forward stuff that I’m sure most affliction locks would agree with
Now, for the new idea I had - do keep MR, but redesign it. Have MR be a talent that comes after nightfall, and can only be reached via nightfall. MR now replaces shadowbolt, keeps the same overall idea of being a “damage on your dotted targets based on number of dots present”, but lower the damage done, increase shard cost to 3 or 4 (or hell even 5), and increase the cast time - basically, make it not worth casting under normal circumstances. BUT have it affected by nightfall - with MR replacing shadowbolt, the nightfall interaction is that nightfall makes MR instant cast, and lowers shard cost to 1 (or even to 0).
Then remove malefic wrath, and adjust the other MR related talents to work with this new MR (and work with shadowbolt if MR not talented) or just remove everything else on the tree that deals with MR.
I’ve been thinking, and aside from the thematic problems with MR I think a big part of the reason I dislike it is the playstyle caused by MR’s interaction with PS/SR and CDs. Instead of using MR as the situation calls for it, once mobs are fully dotted, maxmizing targets, the focus is purely on maximizing shard casts when the windows are open. The only way I can think to change that would be to increase the damage done per dot, but cap it at 4 dots. Obviously that would not feel good to those that enjoy our current 2minute mage style. I think the only way we’re all going to be happy is if they implement some mutually exclusive talents at the bottom of the single target branch to offer rot/lazer/nuke options.
Yeah, burst windows are meh, even worse for DoT spec designs imo. No DoT spec should be designed around burst spec windows or anything. Yes, it helps with the skill gap and it helps people from being omgomegaboredwtfamidoingwithlife, but seriously speaking here, they should not be designed in this context. I know people will go “but encounters demand it” encounters demand an add being killed in 4-10 seconds, all of this goes entirely against DoT spec nature, itself, as they’re more meant for sustained/boss damage over add damage. This is why, before, you only brought 1-3 DoT specs into your raid group, or if it was a super super tight DPS check, 0 into your raid group for that boss fight.
People don’t like this, but it’s the truth, they are not designed around these types of fights. Blizzard, though, can also help us out with this in that instead of making an add require 6 seconds to die, it now requires 15 seconds to die. Extending timers like this makes DoT specs completely fine, as you can’t get much damage out in 6 or less, but in 15 you can very easily crank out damage. This still ties into “kill add fast” it’s just not “kill add at break neck speeds or die” kind of thing. Again, though, that would be on them to design encounters with this in mind.
Personally when I did mythic in Legion, yes different expansion but Aff has historically literally always had this same problem in raid environments because the very nature of DoT specs don’t change. In Legion, if anything required dying in 6 or less seconds, I didn’t touch it. I kept gunning the boss and other things down and let my raid group handle those adds. I threw an Unstable Affliction, but that was it.
“they don’t fit in with the nature of the game now” that’s fine, because thematics are more important half of the time. The reason people get turned off the spec is because it doesn’t make sense when you play it. Some people don’t care how it plays, as long as it does damage. That’s fine, but I argue that is not the casual player nor the majority.
You can go look at WCL and look at mythic+ n look at raids and see the number of people playing the spec. Part of that reason is thematics doesn’t make sense, the other part being that it’s a damage issue, too. People do care for damage, yeah, but spec mechanics are very important.
MR windows means the damage is centered in burst moments, which many people playing DoT specs don’t find to be fun, nor entertaining, but rather more annoying than anything else.
Or just get rid the DoTs that have CDs on them, thus killing the need to maximize around those timers, thus killing the “burst” moments. Then you can MR whenever you want at that point, be it 5 shards or every shard you get.
Mage is there, Destro is there, Demo is there.
That along with offering options to make the CDs no longer a CD and instead just give ramping power that starts a bit lower n scales up, like with the perma doomguard pet in Legion. It turned your 3 minute Doom/Infernal CD into a perma pet so you never had to worry bout it. Creeping Death getting the same wording and workover as Rapid Contagion, but like “Makes all DoTs tick 20% more frequently” kind of thing and not mess up shard gen or reduce it, would be one way to solve it, too.
Please…
I do not want to have Drain Soul as our main spell. I don’t like its visual and its boring to use. At most i want it to become a Shard generator, that was what the spell used to be anyways.
Drain life is way cooler and more fun to use than drain soul.
I think MR just needs to do something else. Something more fun and with improved graphical Flare.
Why?
Well it is a very boring spell and doesn’t feel great to us. Its visually boring/ dull and doesn’t feel exciting to press over and over again.
Idea one:
I for one would prefer to have Unstable Affliction as the main spell again, but with no UA stacking! plz no.
How about just having Malefic Rupture enhance UA’s DMG depending on how many soul shards we use/ shatter? Idea for this would be down bellow.
1.5 sec cast
eats all shards currently stored. Total stored shards = 5.
All Unstable Afflictions on targets gets enhanced.
Bring down the PVP talent for UA and put it in AFF talent tree.
Idea two:
Similar to Idea one, but having it affect Agony and affliction as well.
leave UA multi-target back in the PVP talent tree for now.
(changed this since we are targeting other dots, not just UA)
Idea three
Malefic Rutpure Could become a Passive Debuff that interacts with our dots.
the more shards used, the stronger the debuff.
1.5 cast time.
30sec cd.
I am thinking as a single target debuff. But if people prefered multi, then we can change it to that maybe.
“Rupture the target’s soul, making them more subsiptible to your afflictions and curses.”
mini Idea 3.5 – Keep it a singel target debuff, but allows it to spread with talents. When spreading to other targets with afflictions on them, their duration time gets increased by a flat amount etc.
Idea Four
Make it like to Impending Catastrophe. pretty much copy it, but with a bit twist.
*keep dmg dot. make it do more or less - let balance decide.
remove curses part.
make it apply your dots instead, even UA. (agony, AFF, UA).
Visual Aspect of shattering soul shards (Idea 1, 2, 3).
Make the animation of you destroying soul shards.
The more soul shards you destroy, the stronger the visuals get.
Pretty much it visually indicates to you and the target how big of a pump the UAs will be now.
Visual could be warlock casting circle. Shards floating above the warlock. Shadow/chaos energy flows into the shards as they slowly shatter/explode. End souls fly out. More shards are being used. the more intense the effects etc.
It’s a shame because a lot of the mythic+ changes like the new vile taint, soul flame, and seed increasing agony stacks look incredibly promising. But the single target side of affliction still looks like something I hate.
I’d rather have UA as a shard spender in ST or Soulburn: Haunt and the big payoff is maintaining dots/debuffs and draining with malefic grasp. I would be okay with MR being an aoe shard spender. I would also like a choice node between darkglare for AoE and Dark Soul: Misery for ST. Darkglare has never fit affliction, the only time it felt good to press was when we were using deathbolt (which sucked) in BFA.
Maybe, but at least this time around they’ve finally fixed Creeping Death, as well as did a nice number of changing to that Affliction tree. I’m proud of them for listening to that, at least.
I’m pretty happy, but yeah some of them can’t be happy until MR is gone. Would I rather see MR reworked? Sure, but at least this point in time we got more DoT/rot/sustained damage.
PvE may not fully have Rapid Contagion, but with CD it’s a better version of it at least since it’s perma, not bursty on a CD. Now hopefully they fixed the no shard increase thing it had going with it, too.
Also from the looks of it PvP you can have both Creeping Death and Rapid Contagion together, at least that’s what I’m getting from this, so that’ll be fun too.
