Try to cast a spell. Interrupted. Then interrupted again. Then interrupted again.
Try to LoS around a pillar and use curse of exhaustion to kite. Melee uses one of their 16.5 gap-closing abilities. Get focused even harder.
Try to fear. Get CC’d. Try to fear once more. CC’d again.
Try to get these melee off me by using teleport. Get 0.05 seconds of a break before all 3 enemies focus me harder than a fat kid on cake.
Use a healthstone. Does nothing. Try to use unending resolve + drain life spam to survive.
The “healing” from the spell is like drinking from a garden hose with a kink in it.
Dead.
254 rounds of this.
Such an immersive and enjoyable experience. So fun.
Part of it is a skill issue. Sure. I mean, it’s the first time I’ve actually tried arena seriously. Will be the last.
Honestly feels like there is ABSOLUTELY no reason to play anything but a demon hunter, paladin, monk, or warrior. They always have the upper hand. Being able to bubble and lay on hands every arena round? What idiot developer thought this was acceptable, but using a soulstone wasn’t?
Fighting a team with multiple paladins is like one of those bosses in Dark Souls or Elden Ring with 3 extra life bars. Such trash.
Affliction is actually all I’ve ever played. I don’t like the other two specs.
I don’t have any problem getting to the 1700’s bracket, but it’s like at that point, the meta kicks into overdrive and it feels like my class should just be disabled from queing any higher. Just make it purely for melee at that point, because that’s all that ever wins.
While that might be true, it’s a complete joke that only one spec is suitable for PvP.
I shouldn’t have to be funneled into one particular playstyle for one of the “pillars” of the game.
(not saying you’re claiming that, but just a statement against the unfortunate way things are now)
There are comps demo is better but overall destro isn’t bad 90% of them
Your issues w interrupts gets easier because you can get kicked on fire and then fear or chaos bolt or get kicked on fear and cast fire spells or chaos bolt. You also have the best self peels in the game with havoc coil into infernal /shadow fury
Both Destruction and Demonology are among the best PvP casters. Even Affliction is not that bad, but even if it were, having 2 out of 3 specs be excellent in PvP is a blessing.
I sympathize but disagree. We PvP junkies pay for a product whose value has very little to do with how hard or how smart the devs work, and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect them to succeed at balancing every spec to be viable, feel fun to play, and feel fair to fight. I’d rather they triage the 1-2 completely role-redundant specs per pure/halfpure class
Casters are infinitely harder for worse players to play compared to melee.
As you get better, casters get better.
There is a lot of take in, but locks are not that bad right now and it just takes time and energy to practice and learn how to play better.
You are also playing aff, which is harder than demo or destro to play, more to focus on, and you are less able to carry teammates with plays and more reliant on teammates for peels. Also, not to be mean, but you are only 1700 with not many achieves, which means you are still sort of new to PvP as a whole and there is A LOT to learn and just learning 50% of the stuff you need will result in higher rating gain and an easier time.
and if you are interested, I can play with you in arenas on one of my mages if you want to learn more
In all seriousness, try moonkin. Its playstyle is similar to afflock, but with more kill pressure and less rot.
You’ll still get focused all the time and are a lot squishier, but if you land a cc it sticks instead of breaking/getting dispelled. Also you lose soulburn port, but can shift and run, so it FEELS better in between goes, but goes themselves are harder to survive.
You may enjoy it!
In all seriousness, the majority of the playerbase agrees with you. There’s a big reason those classes are SO much more popular than ranged (more popular, NOT stronger) and it’s because they’re a lot simpler to just pick up and play. Most of them do have genuinely high skill caps, but all of them can do what you described; pick a squishy caster and run it down, win or lose.
Tbh warlock is better than monk and warrior and on the same level as ret.
You need to know how to create space(yes even tho melee have a lot of mobility this is possible.) while also knowing how to create counter pressure.
If you don’t know how to do these things then you will get run over and want to play a different class.
Recently on my hpal I had a lobby with an affliction, ret, warr, ww and holy priest.” At around 2500mmr. The warlock went 5-1.
2 lobbies before this I had an aff lock on nagrand go 4-2 vs dh dk warrior preservation at 2400mmr.
Affliction definitely seems strong in solo shuffle with how fast dampening ramps.
You need to pair it with soulburn and it’s a 800k heal.
Need to pair it with soulburn and soul rot and it’s pretty much lay on hands
If you amp curse before curse of exhaust it’s a 70% slow but amp cursing to disable crit is usually higher value.
You should be soulburn porting the opening pop after pact and then gateway when they connect again and then using amp curse crit reduc when they connect again and trying to get off precog drain life’s after that by recognizing enemy kick patterns while also coiling them off of you for peels when they finally do connect big damage
Yes the absurdly low skill floor classes are ultra annoying. The hand holding in making glad"accessable" only created welfare glads who gas light constantly because they know what they are. The whole philosophy needs to be gutted out of the dev team, and the skill floor for those classes and BM hunter need to come way up.