Right now affliction is really underperfomring in M+ it’s main problems as I see them are:
- low dps in 3-5 target counts that make up the majority of pulls,
- low swap dmg (there seems to be a ton of dungeons this season that ask you to swap and quickly kill an add/totem or the team wipes), maybe I’m just bad but I have feel like an active detriment to my team when I play aff on these fights.
*long aoe cast times,
- having to manually reapply dots in multitarget. This is really aggravating and unfun gameplay, neither clicking around, tab targeting, nor mouseovers work well. I love the spinning plates of managing dots in single target or spread cleave, but in an aoe setting it is awful.
Ideas:
- Buff inevitable demise, it’s way undertuned right now, but it could be a great solution to the 3-5 target niche if it was good.
- Rework the right hand seed of corruption → agonizing corruption talent progression. Perhaps bring sow the seeds into the baseline seed (very rare to take one without the other anyways), change sow a cast time reduction talent, and make agonizing corruption also extend agony’s duration. This would solve many of the issues that make affliction so ineffective in M+
- Unnerf and/or introduce other powers to summon darkglare. Having it buff haste (like a mini dark soul misery) or dot haste would be one option. This is a very unsatisfying cooldown, which should feel powerful.
- Return dark harvest to its 5% per target power level. I could see the worry that with the shorter time on soul rot this would be a problem, but aff is way underperforming in M+ so I think this would be fine. You could then actually feel the haste (which would make it more fun) and it would really help with seed cast times as well.
- Rework soul swap so that it can help you swap targets without destroying your main target DPS. Maybe have it duplicate your dots and let you have to unstable afflictions up on two targets (but without being able to reapply on one). I’m not sure here but I feel like this is supposed to be the tool for this but it is not working.
3 Likes
Pretty sure all they need to do to fix aff in mythic+ and make it fun is allow agonizing corruption to extend agonys on all the targets hit by the seed explosion.
1 Like
Aff was over nerfed back in 10.7, I called it and we’re seeing the results now. Affliction is Dumpster Tier in M+, literally the worst spec in the game. No exaggeration.
Fixing Seed cast time and/or Damage is a good start.
Undoing DarkGlare nerfs is also another key component I feel would help strengthen the Affliction AoE/ST damage profile.
The other issue that has been mentioned is Affliction Tier set is severely underwhelming compared to the other specs that is Demo/Destro. So maybe fixing the Tier bonus would take Affliction in the right direction.
3 Likes
Agreed and on top of the nerfs they “fixed” a bug that was that was in for so long the sims have put it in. Time for a Aff rework IMO.
3 Likes
The whole class needs a rework. It’s the least fun i had playing lock in a long while. I really really really really hate with a very strong passion the “rework” of demono. I liked the gameplay where the dogs and imps were doing more damage and the tyrant less. Now it’s back to you better have your class trinket and 4 pieces and not miss your tyrant or else gg. I kinda like aff but the damage is not there. I like destruction in two target cleave but in aoe i dislike it a lot.
2 Likes
I honestly find destro so mind numbingly dull… affliction still needs a rework but if it were viable in mythic plus I’d have far more fun playing it rather then destro.
1 Like
with how much aff has to manage already i dunno if ID is a good idea without at least removing the SL DoT. do that and i agree.
in regards to the rest of your suggestions. Affliction isnt THAT bad in dungeons it just seems worse because of representation. A little can go a long way with affliction and there are easy short term fixes like reducing the cast time of seeds and taking away SL that could go a long way with it and while the other stuff you mentioned sounds nice i honestly do not think is required.
Our tier makes vile taint do 66% more damage and every other spell do 10% more damage on a 25s cd that is increased when we pop our cd. Our tier is actually insane for mythic+ so not sure where you getting that from.
I out damage destro locks on 2 target mythic fights as aff it is def a HUGE single target class and it has HUGE cleave if your play it properly. The only thing lacking with aff is its 3+ targets and huge ramp up time (40+ seconds) due to Dread Touch and other things.
They really just need to make Agonizing Corruption pulse ticks and refresh the stacks when seed hits and you will have on the strongest classes in the game.
To me the main pain point of atm is entirely on dread touch and the amount of globals / shards you need to reapply it each back or to an enemy that is a priority add however soul swap has too long a cd to actually bring it back to the boss after. I believe for this they should just reduce soul swaps cd to 6 seconds and the time it holds dots to 30 seconds.
Unfortunately, blizz does not want affliction to be viable in mythic+. You cannot look at how aff plays in keys and tell me blizz cares about it at all.
Good suggestions though. Allowing aff to maintain agony in aoe with VT would be huge. Of the caster dot classes, it seems like we are the only one that has to tab dot tab dot etc. Reworking the tree so you can take soul swap w/ soul flame would be nice too.
1 Like
The fact that Absolute Corruption is never taken says it all. The reason for AC’s existence is Mythic Plus - there should be no reason to EVER take Siphon Life in dungeon running.
Darkglare needs to go , bring back Dark Soul Misery in its place.
Malefic Rapture needs to go , bring back Malefic Grasp in its place for ST.
Now you reinstate Unstable Affliction (with Contagion baked in or as a talent choice) to its rightful place as your cleaving shard spender - multiple targets but only one per target. Cast a second on the same target and it overwrites the first with Pandemic.
And for the love of god get rid of Shadowbolt for Affliction , no one wants it !!
I do think absolute corruption should be made the play in AOE and spread cleave situations. Maybe make it count for 1.5 dots for MR?
Grasp and UA spender are not the solution - it wouldn’t make aff good in M+ and it would kill what currently makes aff good in raid. MR is a great tool and moving to something that you have to channel to do dmg is a step backwards for the spec.
really tough to bring power to Absolute without making it completely replace siphon life because it saves you GCDs. i think they whole talent choice(both SL and absolute) should be redesigned, SL should be a passive and absolute should be replaced with something more aoe focused without the perma corruption application.
We know they could fix aff, as SP does just fine in m+. Its just blizzard being blizzard.
lower the cast time of seed or make it cost 2 shards and buff the damage so we can actually shard dump in a timely manner thanks
1 Like
I can’t believe the 10.5 changes want Affliction to stand there and spam Seed of Corruption. It’s nuts.
EDIT: I’m actually lauging. They’ve lost their minds.
2 Likes
I think good gameplay for aff would be for every mob pack pull i could do a ground circle that applies 3 dots to each mob then choose 1 bigger/focused mob to apply 2 bigger dots to, them mal rupture all of them, then filling rotation with a good shard builder that extends dots
If they just gave us s a way to maintain agony in aoe without tab dot tab dot etc. it would improve the gameplay of the spec massively.