I just want it gone.
Makes affliction feel next level clunky.
I miss the old Dot and drain soul.
(inc b4 go play classic lol)
43 Likes
Inb4 MR Is fine… cause it is
4 Likes
Then dont play affliction. Problem solved.
3 Likes
Agreed. I will come back to warlock when that piece of doodoo abomination is gone.
11 Likes
I alt aff lock, but I honestly don’t see why people hate it. It seems like a solid way to spend your shards and it rewards you for having your dots up. Sure you aren’t a full 100% dot rot spec, but good luck trying to do anything in the game when your entire spec is just a ramp.
7 Likes
I don’t hate it as much as I hate say, SLice and dice on Assassination or, sadly, demonology as a whole so there’s that.
2 Likes
Cause we’ve played previous iterations of Affliction that didn’t have MR and it felt infinitely better.
23 Likes
time to press the panic button!
My main was a warlock until MoP, but I’ve always kept up with my old lock main and I can honestly say that for me Malefic Rupture felt like something that should be part of Seed of Corruption. Basically when your Seed of Corruption goes off it would do extra damage to each target based on how many dots were on them. This of course would hurt afflictions spread AoE niche but it just feels like this more closely mimics that traditional style of the spec that is even popular on classic realms.
1 Like
This is looking at things from a numbers perspective, as in damage is the be all end all and results are the only thing that matter.
If someone gave you money just randomly on the street, and never told you where it came from or how they got it, would you take it? Probably. Now, if they told you they robbed a bank for it or they sold drugs for it, they robbed kiddos, something bad, would you still take it? Chances are no.
Why is this? Many people would not take it because of it being a bigger pain that it brings, but it all boils down to feelings. Some people would take it still, yes, because money is money. It’s value is determined by the person holding it and all, not how you obtained it. It doesn’t matter the method to which you obtained it, only the result which is what you do with it.
Many people are not like this at all, actually, and are bound by feelings. This is why the “where” and “how” are important. They matter to your feelings. Tying this back into WoW here: it’s the same thing. Results matter a bit but moreso to many players who play this game based off of feelycraft, the results do not always justify the means.
This is where we have split differences. As to many of us, MR just sucks. It doesn’t fit, it feels bad to press, etc. but it all boils down to the literal feeling of the spec and the feeling of that button, our feelings. Mathematically speaking, yes you and others who think only in terms of results and numerically speaking this is a better concept, however, since many more people play this game through their feelings than through math, this isn’t the case in the slightest.
I say in other posts about thematics, right? That is the feelycraft side of things; it’s the theme and fantasy. It’s the feeling of the spec from the rotation, the buttons how they come together to make the spec actually flow nicely, feel good to press, feel good to play, etc. It’s all feelycraft stuff that doesn’t care about the results as much. It’s about the method to which you obtain those results more.
100% full dot rot spec fits with the theme and fantasy. It makes the spec come alive and feel good playing it. It doesn’t adhere to what the game currently is or the direction, it adhere’s to how you feel playing the spec. This is not a numbers or mathematical approach, this is purely feelings involved, or at least 70% feelings I’d say at the very least.
Do you know why legion felt good? No, the numbers thing felt good to some people, that helped out a bit to those who play for feelycraft, sure, but if you literally took the entirety of Legion’s Aff and copy pasted it into DF without the artifact weapon there to tune its numbers insanely high, you would still have many many many people having fun and happy playing it.
Why is this? It felt great. You were a DoT into draining playstyle and your drains magnified your DoTs that were on the target. This feeling is what people want and desire. The feeling of rotting your enemy down via DoTs n Drains. MR does not fit this style, at all actually. The result is the same, but the method is totally different.
This is also why I say things like “high skill players” or “cutting edge players” to a lot of them, results are the only things that matter, not the method as they will adapt to whatever method is available. A lot of people do not adapt to this, nor care about the results anywhere close to as much as the high end players do. They care about the method moreso and how it makes them feel playing the spec.
If the spec is bad feeling, but the numbers are high, then yeah they will stick to playing the spec, maybe, but otherwise that’s why you have low representation of numbers of specs. Their feeling with the spec is gone, so people stop playing the spec and go to something else, instead. Some people stop playing it because numbers are important, not denying that, but the number of players who care more about the actual number end result vs the method is a lot lower.
One argument I hear against this is: but covenants. Covenants weren’t your entire toolkit playstyle like talents are. Also, many people detest using Burning Rush and so played Nightfae because it provided more mobility, not because it was more damage. If Necrolord was more mobility and less damage but Nightfae was more damage and less mobility, I think a lot more people would have played Necrolord, then, over Nightfae as it feels good to blink through things.
Another thing to note about Affliction: We want it to be a full rot spec, but about the Drain Soul stuff; Drain Soul is and always should be a filler, not your main damage source. Withering Bolt is an atrocity because it makes your filler ultra powerful. People don’t want that, it’s a filler. This is the same, to me, as people taking a support character in a show and literally replacing the star of the show with a support character for a full season. It’s annoying and stupid. You have your main cast, main characters which are your other DoTs. Support cast/characters are there to enhance them, not to detract from them. Fillers are not there to become powerful, they’re there to be support.
The feeling it brings is not fine. Looking at it from a numbers lens, yes it’s fine. Looking at it from a feelings lens, no it’s not even remotely close to fine.
This is the ultimate difference between people who hate MR and people who don’t mind MR. It’s a game of feelings, and the feelings for MR aren’t there. They’ve been gone since the design iteration into making it a nuke over DoT amplification. Blizzard lost that fight the moment they decided to turn MR into what it is now over what it was first. And while they keep trying to iterate on this, it’s not going to resonate with a lot of players who want to play Affliction for the dot n rot/drain theme.
14 Likes
I’d still take it
I figured. Some people would still take it, regardless. I think most would not actually take it, but if they didn’t know, then I’m sure most people would actually take it. A lot of people use feelings to play this game, though.
I was with you until this. I like drain soul, and I’ll always talent into it to replace shadow bolt because of all the reasons you mention: feeling.
I love the class fantasy of a spooky dark wizard that defeats their foes by literally sucking the life out of them. Drain soul (and drain life, for that matter) always felt very thematic to me, and because of that, it feels good to press for me. Withering bolt lets me lean into that fantasy mechanically even if drain soul is just a filler. For me, soul-sucking is one of the highlights of the spec. 
6 Likes
I agree, I just think Malefic Grasp fits the “damage over time” better because:
- Drain Soul is a filler. Fillers aren’t supposed to do a lot of damage.
- Drain Soul, talented into Malefic Grasp, makes all of the other DoTs the star of the show. You are debuffing an enemy so they take more DoT damage from your other DoTs, empowering them to the next level while you’re channeling into them.
Though, they could just make it a choice node between: WB and MG, so you can choose which style of ST drain you want; a debuff to make other DoTs more powerful or a debuff to make your filler more powerful at the expense of your other DoTs. I just want my MG talent, though, to be able to be chosen.
2 Likes
Literally copy and paste wrath affliction and wrath demo into 11.0 please.
I’m sick of hating my main
9 Likes
It’s really this simple lmao. Wrath/Cata had some of the best iterations of affliction.
It’s like once we went into MoPs rework, they just don’t know how to make it work like it used to anymore.
8 Likes
I look back at MoP and what it did to Affy and the spec felt good, but not great. It never quite sat right with me how its resource was RNG dependent. Whether it was Haunt, Soulburn Haunt (this was the worst), UA, or MR. I miss how smooth Wrath and Cata were. I personally had the best time in Cataclysm on Affy, just because of how the spec played. Looking past all the obscenely overpowered times we’ve had as a spec.
3 Likes
Love wrath aff, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t fit the current game. I think they’ve made strides trying to adapt the DoT specs to modern gameplay(primarily on the melee toolkit such as unholy or assassination), but in doing so, have made things so overly complicated w/ maintenance buffs and other “tack on” passives/effects. In the future, I’d really like to see them go back to the basics of Agony + Corruption, and then fully rebuild affliction from the ground up
Affliction now is a sad hollow shell of it’s former self. DoT spells are now just damage multipliers to snapshot a burst spell… a BURST spell. 
At least go back to Legion, where drain spells multiplied the damage of the DoTs.
We already have Demo and Destro for a more burst style gameplay, Affliction was the unique spec of the three and probably the most iconic.
I’m convinced anyone who actually enjoys MR, never played Affliction before BFA.
14 Likes
For raiding when bosses take a while to die then no MR is fine, and soon as you hit M+ MR is a necessity.
2 Likes