No, I actually hated stackable unstable afflictions. MoP affliction had its good moments but you’re right it def wasn’t great.
2 Likes
I played Affliction from Wrath to Legion.
I prefer having MR. It feels more substantively rewarding, makes the actual timing of DoT applications feel interesting and significant, and shores up otherwise gaping weaknesses in the spec’s capacities in M+.
1 Like
This is a glass half full/half empty situation.
See while you enjoy the interation with MR others do not as the priorty goes to it.
I personally dislike it, dot maintence for the sake of them buffing a burst button does not make it feel rewarding for me.
I want dot maintnece for the sake of overall uptime cause dropping a dot hurts and my filler shard button to just buff them if i even have to have a shard button.
God I hate shards on aff.
8 Likes
Yeah its kind of weird that affliction is being based around this new spell. You’d think they’d make Drain Soul/Shadow Bolt or Haunt the baseline spell that the class gets worked around but instead MR is literally forced on us as soon as we choose the spec.
2 Likes
Allot of people make the argument that rapture has to exists for mythic plus or burst situations.
But in reality blizzard has already shown that they have the tech to resolve this in the game without the (visually boring and thematically out of place) malefic rapture. All while not making dots go crazy on multi target.
And to this I turn to empowered single target and AoE versions of existing fillers.
Imagine an AoE Drain Soul that hits all targets with applied dots.
(Cough couch soul rot aoe drain life tech in game)
Example
Drain soul + Withering bolt style effect/ID style/Malefic grasp style + aoe dot code can = Rapture’s role on aoe and burst profile. while visually and thematically matching aff
Shadowbolt + Withering bolt/nightfall/ + aoe dot code can = Rapture’s role
While visually and thematically matching legacy/first gen aff with a shadow bolt volley
To further cement and confirm my idea
This code and design is currently implemented and being tested on the NEW DF talent Grim reach. Turning Darkglare’s single target eye beam into an AoE that does more damage per each dot on the target and only hits targets with the locks dots on it.
Game play wise aff stays about the same as it currently does build shards use shards to cast a filler that does empowered single target or empowered aoe damage.
Rotation wise almost the same as well instead of MR you cast an empowered Drain soul or empowered Shadowbolt.
The biggest thing this does is remove a button from our existing massive button bloat and confusion.
All while creating a compromise between the playstyle that clearly blizzard wants and the visually thematic play style allot of people like.
3 Likes
I just want MR to not benefit from Siphon Life so that I don’t feel like I have to use Siphon Life.
2 Likes
They’re not DoT spells though, they’re multipliers for MR. DoTs used to do decent damage and then a Drain Soul would be the mutiplier that would crank their numbers.
DoTs feel like extra pots or trinkets just to snapshot a spell. To completely gut a spec just for M+ is sad.
Would you like the idea of maybe Seed of Corruption spreading all DoTs on a target to other targets similar to the Havoc spell from Destruction, then a mass Drain Soul to crank their damage?
9 Likes
By that logic, even with Drain Soul, all DoTs are still just amplifiers for Drain Soul GCDs, the sole point at which you’re dealing your maximal damage per second.
- If a skill gives, say, a 20% damage bonus you would not otherwise have had access to, that resultant damage is still consequent uniquely to that damage amplifier. It doesn’t matter that the damage contribution from each GCD of Drain Soul gets siphoned off on Details to appear as if it were dealt by your diseases directly; the contribution is still unique to channeling Drain Soul.
The sole difference is which talents your full-damage / capitalizing GCDs scale with — those that affect MR’s base damage or those which affect the DoTs’ base damage.
-
MS: Your diseases erupt for flat damage per disease.
- Effect: that weaker / utility-focused diseases still see as much value on your capitalizing GCDs.
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DS: Your diseases deal X% more damage.
- Effect: You should trim your weakest / utility-focused diseases from your rotation if their tick + enhanced tick damage falls beneath the direct + bonus-disease damage value of an extra GCD of DS on all other diseases.
That’s it. That’s the only change. MR is just slightly more supportive of weaker / utility-focused afflictions because it gives a flat bonus to damage per capitalizing GCD instead of a percentile.
Firstly I said Drain Soul would multiply present DoT damage, not the other way around.
Secondly, do you not understand changing the mechanic of the spec? Shifting from a burst style gameplay to a more DoT and rot style? That’s the entire point of so many people not liking Malefic Rapture, otherwise why have DoTs at all? Just rework the class to be another Destruction spec or maybe a healing or tanking spec.
For Warlocks to have three specs with little gameplay difference between them isn’t very fun, that’s why Affliction was adored by so many, it played so differently. If i ever want to burst as a Warlock i go Destruction, why would i ever Malefic Rapture when i could Chaos Bolt?
1 Like
Unless you were planning to make Drain Soul no longer a channel, that is exactly what I responded to, i.e.
Drain Soul
Drain’s the target soul, dealing {175% of Spell Power} over 5 seconds. While active, your damage over time effects deal X% more damage.
That has the same “DoTs are just prep for your capitalizing GCDs” as MR. The only difference, again, is a matter of equity vs. equality. With MR, all DoTs contribute the same additional damage. With that DS, all DoTs simply contribute that X% more, meaning that there will likely be a point at which less powerful or utility-focused afflictions are not worth casting unless Drain Soul itself (direct + modifier) is weak.
Then why suggest a system that would function identically outside of perhaps making certain afflictions no longer worth casting due to the lost amped time on the others?
Just return the spec to nothing but the DoTs and a zero-interaction filler. Voila. Affliction would be (barrenly) distinct again.
1 Like
Numbers can be tuned.
Again, it’s shifting from a burst style gameplay to a dot and rot style. Currently Affliction doesn’t just feel flat gameplay wise it also looks visually flat with MR.
7 Likes
But nothing would change in terms of setup and capitalization. The playflow would be identical outside of having a lower APM (due to channels replacing casts). You’d simply be trading…
- barely resource-gated, more powerful AoE capitalizing GCDs
—for—
- un-gated, less powerful ST* capitalizing GCDs that are less forgiving of lower damage-per-second afflictions.
-
- Unless you change it to work en masse, in which case you’d have to completely retune Drain Soul’s base damage. And that would in turn create balancing concerns on your harder-hitting DoTs, especially any that could be spread (a la Seed of Corruption), since you’d be amping them directly.
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Depending on DS’s and procced Shadowbolts’ tuning, Shadowbolt would probably be gone outside of finishing blows on unafflicted enemies, since you’d no longer have any filler casts ever required for Shard generation, but that’s it.
You’re just trading one capitalizing GCD for another. Your replacement is no less “prep and then finally get full per-GCD damage on your capitalizing non-DoT casts.”
To be clear, I’d be fine with either. The tendrils of a mass Drain Soul would look better and more thematic to me, even. I’m just pointing out that you’ll still largely be playing as you did under MR, except with less control over your damage per GCD as you no longer have defined filler and burst (in your capitalizing GCDs), but instead just… middling capitalizing GCDs without any shard requirement. That’s definitely a downside, in terms of available capacity, but not a horrible one.
Respec. Nothing about affliction is exciting or fun. Nothing happens.
4 Likes
too much buttons and a lot of gcd’s for the poor results that other classes bring with 2 buttons and much better performance.
3 Likes
I don’t see Malefic Rapture having to exist for m+ when we can have a buffed version of seed + soul flame like we did in Legion. It’s fine for melee specs to have simplistic bursty AoE… meanwhile affliction is playing 5D chess to be mediocre at best in m+.
Let dots be the focus for spread cleave and single target instead of neutering them to make them work for AoE. Stop making Affliction a burst spec. Affliction was always THE rot spec for every expansion prior to BFA. Bring back Malefic grasp for single target and either make UA or Haunt our shard spender.
I don’t buy that strong dots can’t exist in expansions beyond Legion. I don’t want to play a game where every class has a homogenized damage profile just to make raid balance easier.
6 Likes
I think it’s a nicely designed solution for burst AOE situations like m+, but like many others, I’m not sure why they’ve continued making it the foundation of the entire spec(despite our seemingly endless feedback throughout and even pre-alpha)
5 Likes
In reality, Affliction should lose shards as an active resource. RNG shard gen feels horrible but people have gotten used to it. As a resource they are entirely tacked on and shoehorned into the rotation. Dot up and drain to fill can be hectic enough with mechanics going on, the rest of this is just extra stuff we don’t need. Aff is one of those specs, like marks, that should go back a WoD design, and be iterated from there.
7 Likes
Yeah I’m on the same boat. Honestly, I don’t actually know why they need to have shards for Aff. Like, Druids have multiple resources, with mana as the secondary resource for every one of them. Balance has AP, Feral has energy, Guardian has rage and Resto just have nothing but mana.
Resto Shaman has only mana compared to Ele and Enh who both have…whatever the Shaman one is called for the DPS.
Shadow has insanity to Holy and Disc’s just mana.
All of these classes show Warlock can actually be the same with Aff not having shards while the other 2 have shards plus mana.
10 Likes
I also hate it. As the only pure Dot spec why turn it into a DD caster?
Would rather shard spenders be a choice between:
- Extend all active dots by X seconds
- All active dots tick X% faster for X seconds
Simple choice in spending shards between more damage but over a longer time vs more damage now but dots run out sooner.
7 Likes
100% agree. Its why i dropped lock back at start of bfa
6 Likes