Is it too late

Classes Warlock
1

Is it too late to fix some of the gcd bloat warlocks have? Or to move some of our damage back into dots? Affliction dps takes so much freaking setup to get going, especially in m+. You spend the entire time “setting up” and never getting anything off.

Then I watch literally every melee class just roll face, instant casts, damage up front.

It’s very, very frustrating. Maybe it gets better at +15 or whatever, but in +10 mobs don’t live long enough to kill them, and even with all my CDs it doesn’t compete a sinful brand DH popping meta on the pull.

Change mastery to be more damage the more dots are on things, reverse of resto druid mastery. Make drain soul count towards mastery and make the dots tick faster. Make MR a soul shard spender that empower your next spell.

SoC - also applies agony and SL when it explodes
Agony - Starts at full stacks
Drain soul - hits all targets with your dots on them.
UA - next UA is a separate dot, and doesn’t count towards your mastery or your UA limit.

Short summary: Dots are too weak, there’s too much setups compared to every other class got a weak payoff, and there are too many buttons.

7 Likes
2

I will say - I wanted to try Warlock but actually trying it in M+ with 470 iLvL - got me turned off and stopped running any M+. I just run PvP and Raid on him.

2 Likes
3

Its never too late. Everything rests on the developers to either snap out of their delusions of grandeur or with enough public outcry to persuade them to act. Take the recent changes to the covenant abilities for example.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/cant-use-my-covenant-ability-outside-of-the-shadowlands/668623/59

4

In BFA Affliction is just pretty bad for M+. In Shadowlands things are looking a lot better. With absolute corruption and Vile Taint there isn’t much to manage (Open with SoC, tab target agony, then VT into MR spam). If you use UA (and potentially Kyrian cov ability) to priority and shard snipe correctly, MR will usually make up for the ramp time. Of course it ain’t no Wilfreds but it’s far better than the nightmare that is BFA Aff AoE rotation.

Also got to keep in mind that as Shadowlands progresses Aff will scale really well. It’ll probably be one of the strongest specs by the later patches unless Blizzard decides to nuke us.

1 Like
5

I’m playing affliction in the beta right now, and what I’m seeing is straight garbage. 3 casts of MR, usually, per pack of mobs, and I’m under the healer in dps right as everything dies.

On bosses it’s not THAT bad, but again - if the boss doesn’t live for 2 minutes, I’m bottom dps.

End of run overalls, I’m 2/3 of a dps slot for +10 content. I’m not BAD at warlock, either. Obviously I could always be better, but it’s pretty frustrating to play all that setup and still be lowest dps.

3 Likes
6

I Miss Soul Sharded Soul Swaps. Would be nice to apply all our dots but burn a shard to do it.

1 Like
7

false. you are bad.

1 Like
8

You know, more sane warlocks would point out the flaws of your suggestions, how its either broken, or why it wouldn’t make sense (like, why even have Agony stacks if they already start at full stacks?)

But i think we should make some fun.

I totally agree that Seeds of Corruption should apply Agony and SL, maybe it should also apply Vile Taint as well, that way it frees space so i can pick Sow the Seeds and Absolute corruption instead of SL/VT.

Speaking of Absolute Corruption, it should make all dots last forever that way you don’t need to refresh them.

Drain Soul hitting on all targets is not broken at all, and you know what? i think it should work like the warlock execute with venthyr convenant, it executes bellow 20% health and above 80% health.

I mean, what is class balance am i right? and it’s not like warlocks are strong, we are the weakest class in the game /s.

1 Like
9

It’d be nice just to have a faster gcd. There’s a lot of debuffs to put out.

1 Like
10

Sorry, you must be new. There used to be a warlock mechanic where you spent a soul shard to “empower” your next spell. It also worked on a few utility spells. For example, you could empower soul swap to start a target with a fresh set of all your dots.

By contrast, my DK pushes one ability and everything in a pack of mobs now has dots. Time to go to town stacking up a debuff, which can then rupture, as my RP fills up, I can then dump it on instant cast AoE that makes my dots itch. I mean, other than wearing plate, it’s a freaking affliction warlock but better designed.

Here’s how every pull goes in m+. Seed, tab-agony, Vile Taint, Malefic Rapture, Malefic Rapture, UA snipe low mobs to feed more Malefic Raptures.

If it’s squishies, you do essentially no damage, because everything does before you get to the last step.

If it’s actual elites, you start closing the gap, because the DH STARTS the pull at 14K by pushing one button, but it does come down. The shorter the pull, the bigger the disparity.

Then it’s boss time. Great! 40% of our damage is wrapped up in pulling off Uber Drain Souls every 45 seconds, the rest is in a casted nuke. Your dots are probably below your trinket procs in terms of their contribution. It doesn’t feel right. None of it feels right.

Raids are a different animal, which is probably where your sarcasm about strength comes from. But even then, no one really likes needing 15 key openers. Affliction warlock BETTER be too dps because your managing 4 short dots and the Drain Soul and MR windows, not to mention the criminally short duration on Malefic Grasp.

I, personally, feel like I spend more time fighting the spec than anything else. Yes, landing a decimating + grasped full drain soul feels rewarding, but while that channel was happening you just lost two dots and your next 4 global are spent on maintenance.

Meanwhile, every other class is just nuking away with their builder + spender cycle. Their dots are applied automatically, and going ham on a tough pull doesn’t leave them gasping on the next one.

And why are we so FREAKING SLOW. Anything this slow needs to be able survive environmental hits. Either more tank or more zoom.

4 Likes
11

Agree with everything you’ve said except speed. Burning rush is pretty damn amazing, and any decent healers passive AOE or hots will for the most part outheal it when you need it on for a while.

I just wish it didn’t use a GCD to toggle it off. Damn that $%^& is frustrating.

It’s also worth noting that while affliction suffers worse, most casters suffer in low keys or on pulls where things die quickly.

I don’t really know how to fix Aff at this point in that regard. We all wish dots were a much higher portion of our damage. But that’d probably make the problem even worse, since more of our damage is relying on the extended setup, rather than getting a few AOE nukes off at the end of the pull. And we’d be way overpowered if we could get dots out much more quickly AND they did the majority of our damage.