Or is it just an outdated concept in the ever-growing instant gratification culture?
What does Affliction need in order to be PvP-viable?
In my opinion, it needs two things:
A full set of DoTs needs to be life-threatening. Probably not 100-0 capable, but 100-80 is a total insult. Our concept is to apply our DoTs, and then multitask our plethora of tools elsewhere, testing our opponents’ abilities to handle thinigs in their “given time frame” of the DoTs.
Less chores to achieve our intended output. If I have to sit there and spam Haunts, Unstable stacking (luckily being removed), and channel some sort of Drain, all just to deal some semblance of relevant DPS to make a healer have to even give a crap… … then I CAN’T be doing anything else. Which, in my opinion, is contradictory to our class’s purpose of being a sort of “supportive DPS class/spec”.
To look at the extreme example as a good guideline… If I’m in a BG, why am I even dotting things? A Corruption won’t go 50% through its duration before 5 Demon Hunters GCD that same target. It’s a world of instant gratification, and I’m worried that Affliction will never find a place again.
I DO believe that the solution is as simple as numbers. I also don’t want the chores, but if we can at least threaten someone’s health pool over 15 seconds, then Affliction can have a purpose again. I’m glad to see Aff is getting exactly damage buffs for Shadowlands, but I admit concern on whether or not it’ll be enough? Guess we’ll see? (And depends on everyone else’s damage buffs, too.)
Curse of Exhaustion and better protection against dispels
Revert Demon Armor nerf
Baseline Demonic Circle should help
Will Endless Affliction no longer be a PVP talent since we can only UA one target at a time?
Sounds like they’re helping our multitarget in M+ but without UA 5 stack Dreadglare or Inevitable Demise, not sure how we’ll ever burst anyone in PVP
In my opinion, the last time this was good was in BC and for multiple reasons.
It had a 41 yard range, and putting someone in combat dismounted them. Additionally, Warriors did not have Heroic Leap, and there were no DK’s or DH’s, lol. So it actually meant something to do it.
I hadn’t thought of your points regarding Aff survival. I forgot about Destro’s mastery giving variable damage reduction. (Do PvP Destro’s stack Mastery and Vers?)
Yeah, I dunno. I mean, I don’t think we should ever be bursting someone in PvP though, TBH. I think we should have consistent periods of that middle-ground DPS constantly running. That’s always been the entire concept, in my mind anyway.
What do you guys think about Essence Drain? 25% reduced damage taken if you can maintain the debuff. (Though I’d like to see it last a few more seconds, and not be a magic effect, perhaps. Because right now, trying to maintain it takes away from doing a lot of other things.)
My issue with affliction is the mana. When in a large grpoup PVP you run out so fast and have to sit. I am on the dummy and run out in like 45sec-60sec. Otherwise I would be playing it all the time.
Considering affliction is getting a bit of a rework in shadowlands I’d say it’s definitely got a future. I’m hoping destro and demo gets some love too. It’s not looking too good for them atm.
Honestly if they didn’t nerf vers, aff would have been pretty good to play late xpac. Corruption could use a buff and it would help a ton imo. Swapping fear from a shadow school to a horror or chaos school would help also, since aff has no interrupt protection like in legion.
Man I’m not sure about that at all. As mentioned above, Afflictions issues are much more about other things than their dps. I understand how absolutely stupid destro is, but have you actually tried to go into just a random bg as affliction in the past couple months? I was optimistic before I tried it and thought it couldn’t be THAT bad. It is the most quadriplegic feeling spec I’ve ever played. You can get a few dots off on a couple people maybe, and then a rogue opens and warrior leaps on you and youre just done with absolutely nothing you can do to hope to survive it without a pocket healer in your lap. Sure positioning plays a big part in that, but everyone has been conditioned to not let the warlock free cast by this point, regardless of spec. Destro can at least peel for itself and is beefy enough to live. I really wish aff had better defensives so I can play it again but who knows if that will ever happen.
You might need more verse. I run 25% haste and 24% vers unbuffed on my aff. I’ve been queueing aff rls with my buddy, granted we haven’t qd in 3ish weeks, but 1800-2k was our mmr usually. Most games didn’t feel completely one-sided. We made mistakes thatblost us games but overall it wasn’t that bad. Bgs are different, but I’m usually top damage and surviving isn’t too bad.
I mean that’s fair, it’s been at least before mother sold corruption’s that I attempted it, without full verse or even close. Pretty much applies to every spec in the game at this point, and I also never did try arena. All I know is playing against melee cleaves as destro is annoying enough while barely able to move, and after my bg’s experience was NOT about to try it. And I do know there are a few people that play it at high CR at least, and I fully believe every class CAN be played to a decent enough rating, it just takes so much more work and finesse and misery to hopefully find success.
Honestly. Vsing melee cleaves as aff is almost better sometimes. You can put out decent pressure with corruption and agony alone. You just need to kite + coordinate defensives with your healer more. This was before mother sold corruptions, I didn’t have any vers or haste corruptions and it was fine. With verse amps it would be a lot better.
Haha it sounds appealing enough to give it a go but I can’t help but feel this is a psyop to convert destros from the most broken to one of the weakest specs in the game to restore order to the arena. But if you’re serious, what are your ideal partners’ specs? I’d imagine you’d want something that will be a big enough threat to where they have to be the main kill target, but also aff doesnt have near the peel destro does if they need it…soo maybe not? Idfk. Troll or not tell me your strats lol
You’re the kill target 90% of the time, but it’s typical rls specs. Aff/sin/rsham. Save fear drs if they kidney your rogue/sham. Just rot the team down with dots + ms, get the rogue to kidney healer almost on cd. If it’s in your los you use phantom on the healer, if it’s behind pillar you just spam uas onto a diff target. Defensively you wanna pop your port on enemy cds or have rsham pop a wall on you/root the melee when you port so they can’t jump back onto you instantly. It was pretty bad at the start cause my friend is new to healing and arenas so we struggled a bit, but I taught him the basics and we figured it out. Me and the 1 rogue we queued with were 2300 cr as rls in legion with me on lock or rsham, so we just did the same strats we did back then and it works.
Damn well thats pretty impressive let alone in this meta but see that’s what I mean. Good players with their class will perform decently well and be the exception. I have never even been above 1900 so someone like me or lower would take a miracle, or 100s of games to climb. Or maybe i should stop being a pussy pessimist and see it as a challenge but the path of least resistance is right in front of me with destro. Which I even hate myself for playing. Alright last question and then i may go try skirmishes or something. If you had to pick 1 set of azerite traits and essences to use in a general build, what would you run?
It took like 300ish games to get up there and teach my friend how to rsham. Honestly the only way to get better is to q a ton of games. I gonwith 3x sudden onset and 3x inevitable demise. Drains can be used defensively or offensively so I like to have it in my back pocket to survive vs some comps. Aff is pretty unforgiving but I enjoy it moreso than 10ish mins games of destro.
Afflic is really fun in 3’s. But as pointed out above–it has a lot of weaknesses.
Here are just some of my thoughts playing it–only 1600 cr in 2’s and 3’s cuz pushing other toons (1900).
Endless affliction feels necessary, and conflict and strife is just really good. Helps shore up lack of defensives.
Haste vs Mastery== Haste is amazing in 2’s because it gives you an actual burst window and around 0.8 second UA’s. Mastery is OK in 2’s–but I have found much more value in 3’s (playing with a feral, spriest, or ele) as you spend a majority of your time running and dotting. Just makes them do absurd dmg (sudden onset trait).
Breath of the Dying major. I play with this in 2’s and 3’s when I feel confident I can run without CnS because it provides much needed burst pressure outside of darkglare windows.
I have toyed around with Vision of Perfection major in 3’s and it can lead to some nice burst, however you generally want CnS and breath gives you a less RNG burst.
Mortal coil vs Circle—I run coil into any double melee comp. Yes circle can port you away better and they will have less uptime on you, however, coil gives a much needed relief for there burst. Too many of the double melee comps will just let you port, and just leap, dash, horse, wraith, etc to catch you. I run circle in every other comp that isn’t 2 melee.
Obviously vers is your second stat.
Talents:
Drain soul is mostly a trap. Mostly. If you know you’re going deep into dampening then you can actually take this cuz once you hit below 20% you will snipe people. Probably not in 3’s haven’t tried it there.
Deathbolt cuz big burst.
Writhe in agony>Absolute Corruption>Siphon Life. Siphon life is another dot to maintain, healing is marginal, and means you have to reapply 3 dots instead of 2.
Demon Skin most of the time. Dark pact if you know they have huge burst windows and are geared (above 500k hp). Otherwise the shield isn’t worth it.
Phantom Singularity because yes.
Already talked about Dcircle and mcoil. Depends on match up
Haunt in 3’s if you are not the target, otherwise grimoire of sac… Shadow’s embrace if your not the target and running drainsoul.
Dark Soul: Misery. Creeping death is mostly a trap, and soul conduit is meh.
PvP talents
Endless Affliction
Netherward
Demon Armor
Gateway Mastery
Essence Drain–potentially. I would only run this if you are using drainlife often, and maybe running inevitable demise trait. You can use this as a filler too, it’ll just be kicked and you wont be able to cast it alot.