Is Kalamazi part of the problem?

Watched this guy’s video that popped up on youtube today and he started off by saying something like “overall I’m really happy with where the affliction tree is”. This worries me a lot because, while the spec is playable and may hit the numbers that blizzard has decided it should hit, it is not at all in a good place from a gameplay perspective.

I worry that vocal people like him seem to agree with the devs and go along with what they want (which seems to be to FORCE malefic rapture on us) and don’t really address the issue with the Affliction not FEELING like it’s a rot spec, which is what it seems most of us want.

I appreciate the guy making content and being passionate, but it feels like he inadvertently is suckling the blizz teet in a weird sort of symbiotic relationship, which ultimately gives blizzard the impression that he represents the community. In reality, blizzard needs to understand that the spec is nowhere close to where it should be. They honestly need to almost completely rebuild it from the ground up. I wish they would hear that.

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I wouldn’t say Kalamazi is just happy to go with the devs decisions on things. He’s quite frequently called them out on bad design. In that very video you’re referring to he still heavily disagrees with the design of Nether Portal, for example. He was also one of the biggest advocaters for the removal or rework of Demonic Consumption.

Otherwise it’s entirely up to opinion. I didn’t look at the aff section myself, and can’t comment on it due to the fact that I myself do not play Aff, but it’s possible he might actually enjoy that playstyle

Other times Ive seen him just go with a “make the best out of a bad situation” thought process. When it’s certain nothing is going to change for the better he’ll try to make the best of it.

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What are you talking about? It’s like a thousand times better than SL and BFA Aff.

Like a thousand times better. The main issue, of course, is still MR but I really dont think they will rework the spender for us, however, we still got a huge win.

I do question his sanity, sometimes, though, with him dismissing the Haunt 20% DoT amp in pure ST but I think, for that, he’s looking only at what he thinks the numbers will be n whatnot whereas I just always play however I want regardless.

I can’t actually see him as part of the problem, as he has been advocating for rot style DoTs this entire time with us so yeah.

The only changes, now, I wish Aff would get would be for Rapid Contagion to be a choice node to replace MR as the spender and execute DoTs, and with execute DoTs, it beginning at 100% enemy HP for either a 0% damage or tick amp, and for every 1% HP loss the enemy has either 0.5% or 1% damage amp or tick speeds added onto DoTs for that target.

I’d personally prefer tick speeds, but the old execute we had was actually more DoT damage on top of mastery scaling up DoT damage more, too.

And the last thing being Malefic Grasp replacing Withering Bolt talent, cause fudge buffing filler damage, fillers should buff everything else.

With these I’d be perfectly happy with Affliction, then.

I actually like the way aff plays currently (DF). MR allows affliction to scale in aoe. The only thing I’d change is to create a single target shard spender as MR for single target feels off. But MR is fine to me outside of that. So don’t act like every warlock in the community shares your exact sentiments or act like Kalamazi’s ACCURATE take on affliction being massively improved isn’t a reality when it is.

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So that’s a fair take and while I think in aoe its gotten the biggest improvement area for the spec, and seems to play well.

In single target it basically plays the same as it does shadow lands.
which you seem to agree with most locks on this forum that really don’t like MR for single target it feels off.
For me I spent a while testing the most common single target rotation on DF and I spent so much time worrying about casting MR to keep dread touch up cause of its short duration. if they increased the duration of dread touch and reduced the damage % I would be ok with the trade off as it would be less time spent casting MR even if they are instant procs off the 4 piece talent node. it sucks breaking Drain Soul cast to keep this micro buff up.

allot like how the first short length version of shadow embrace felt in 9.0.
also like how it felt to play the first version of malefic wrath lego that was also short length cd’s

But he’s right though

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The biggest problem with MR being a single target spender is it hits too soft for a spender for single target because it would be too OP for packs of mobs I think it as this way in SL Beta if I remember correctly.

It honestly sounds like you, Bandiago, are just upset because he likes the MR build while you are still hoping to go back to a UA spender - Which I think in one of the videos he says he misses the legion aff build that dots do the damage in which he agrees with you. HOWEVER! He is providing feedback on what they are doing, not hammering them on, “Well since its not this, it sucks.” because that feedback is getting old and is not helpful! From the “give us meta back” to “Give us the UA spender back”, I’m pretty sure if that’s where the devs saw the specs going back to, they would’ve made that update by now. So, he is giving feedback on what they are actually willing to do, which IS helpful. Just because he isn’t siding with you, does not mean he is, as you put it, “sucking the blizz teet”. He is just accepting the fact that blizz is going a different direction with aff than he likes and is providing feedback on how it feels, the damage and design. That is honest feedback that does good for the community because that feedback actually makes differences. Hold onto your UA spender dream, but embrace the fact that blizz might not ever go back to it and if you want to do aff, you’ll have to work with the builds they offer. Just like how I and several demo spec lovers are doing with the meta dream: We hold on and wish for it, but we aren’t condemning a whole spec on it because it doesn’t have it.

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No because he is right lol the traditional rot spec is never coming back. People that require it just need to give up. Full rot specs can’t be balanced. If they are strong in single target, they are straight broken in multi target. Affliction in it’s current df state actually feels mostly good to play. Particularly in prior struggle places like mythic+.

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He’s right that it’s “better,” but IMO he’s wrong that it’s in a good place.

First off, I’ve said nothing about UA being a spender or “going back” to a particular iteration - you’re projecting and assuming.

With that said, your post kinda proves my point . Giving feedback on “what they’re willing to do” is what I’m saying the problem is as it 1) doesn’t address the issues with the spec and 2) indirectly gives the impression that the spec is OK or “in a good place”.

I completely disagree with what you’re saying - I think the devs need to hear, unequivocally, that the way affliction is set up around MR, is bad and not fun. Feel free to search for threads that mention MR to see pages and pages of players saying the same thing. I think he and others who have a closer connection to the devs’ ears that the spec is “less bad”, not that it’s “in a good place”.

The problem with people who don’t like MR is that they have no logical answer to creating a balance between single target and AoE if Dots were the only part of your DPS. Affliction was too difficult to balance which is why they added a secondary resource to control their spread target DPS easier in the first place. I honestly think if you just made MR a 3 second stackable dot, 90% of these kids would stop crying about it.

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so without getting too pissed off Since kala is one of my closest friends and trust me “suckling at the teet in some weird symbiotic relationship” is very much NOT a thing…

1 - They have entirely re-defined MRs role in the build. yes it spends shards. its basically an AOE haunt in situations you would ACTUALLY play aff.
2 - stop thinking aff needs ST. you cannot have your cake and eat it too. thats called legion . if you want a dot n rot spec, expect it to be AWFUL in ST and hit its stride at 3 targets so your dots are allowed to actually do things. If you are playing aff in ST you are actively choosing to kneecap yourself and unfortunately the only realistic answer is to press N and pick one of the other 2 weapons at your disposal. One tricks are dead in any competitive content on Pures.
3 -

its also the SAME players saying the same things. I’ve sat down and tried to talk to nearly all of them and the issue seemingly is only ever “the nuke playstyle” which they kinda murdered after 9.1 but now MR is a trigger word for ya’ll the same way deathbolt was initially when they tried to give you a ST spender. if MR caused your dots to flare up, but did the exact same thing, i doubt anyone would’ve cared about it cuz when you look at details it shows your dots on top when in reality its just the delivery of the damage getting reskinned.

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I think for me its the fast cast spammy nature of MR that causes me to dislike it. And the newest iteration of the single target rotation on beta/ptr just feeds into even more casts of a spell that just doesn’t feel like affliction. Mostly a dread touch problem imo - creating a 6 sec maint buff … while it buffs the dots and I can appreciate that - its just so short that if it stays the way it is. its really spammy.

But hey with how bugged aff is to actually play on beta and the lack of communication from blizzard on how malefic affliction and dread touch are supposed to actually work.
who knows really how it plays.

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Partly but I will say this: stop thinking in terms of damage numbers, though. It’s not really a “meters” thing. You guys can all be like “they took damage and put it in X profile” that doesn’t matter, at all.

The damage delivery is in the delivery method itself. It doesn’t matter what the result is, it’s in the method of delivery.

An example of this: If I were to rob a bank and then give you money, or even say I were to sell drugs to kids and then give you money, you would be fine taking it if you did not know the money came from drugs or from a robbed bank.

The money is money, it’s purpose is the same regardless of how it was obtained, however people will not take your money IF they find out that there was something wrong with the method to which you obtained said money, regardless of “money is money” it’s still not going to happen.

Results don’t justify the means, to a lot of people, and that’s in both games and in the real world. We are people, we have feelings, and when the method of delivery upsets us, it doesn’t matter how much damage or how awesome your spec is, if you don’t like how it plays then you don’t like how it plays.

This is the very case with Malefic Rapture, tying it back into the argument here. And I wasn’t specifically meaning this to just Cheeze, as he’s a fun person to converse with about this subject, too, but this spell, and the method to which you deliver the damage flat out goes against the theme of the spec. They could give it a different name, if it shows up in my combat log as not a DoT, if it doesn’t have ticks, increase my tick speeds, or affect my DoT damage in some way, it doesn’t matter it’s trash for the spec design that is Damage over Time.

That’s also why I keep saying: “if you can’t balance it, and stick to the theme, then get rid of DoT specs entirely” and just remove the spec, tell everyone “there will no longer be damage over time profiles, we are shifting away from that fully” or something and then be done with it, pull the rip chord from that.

I do get triggered, though, and it’s mainly because everyone who likes MR doesn’t like it for it’s feeling. They like it because it does numbers and makes up for something Aff never had since Legion: DoT damage.

They also, again, like it for a numbers reason most of the time. I get it, DoTs are difficult to balance but just because they’re difficult doesn’t mean blizzard shouldn’t pursue that path, at all. Not even remotely close of a decision, you go based off of themes. When specs have themes that fit in and make sense, players are happy. When they do good numbers and make sense, they’re very happy. When they do good numbers but don’t make sense, players are tired. They’re getting by based off of the numbers feeling but it’s more of an annoyance. When they don’t make sense and don’t do well in numbers, players are very miserable.

Make the spec thematically good, make it feel good playing it, make it put out at least decent numbers and you got a fantastic spec.

Also, we don’t like MR because it keeps trying to make stupid damage windows, which yet again goes against the nature of Damage over Time profiles. I understand the next counterpoint is people going to be saying:

“But you need CDs, and windows to keep things interesting.” You don’t, you think you do, but you actually do not.

This, right here, as I said before and will keep forever saying, feeling is how a lot of players play this game. If the spec doesn’t “feel” correct or right to play it, it goes against the player and makes it a miserable experience. The only saving grace, then, would be to literally make the spec powerful because if not, then it’s a dead spec, which is what happened to Affliction.

It doesn’t feel good to play and on top of that it doesn’t do that good of damage, either. In 9.0 it didn’t feel good to play at all, but it at least did good damage. In 9.1 and now, it feels better to play but still quite terrible.

Here’s my rating for Affliction over the past many expansions:

Scale of 1-10, 1 being very very bad, 10 being perfect. Spoiler: Nothing is a 10.

MoP: 7
WoD: 7.5
Legion: 8.5
BFA: -3.5
Shadow Lands: 3
Dragon Flight Beta so far: 7

Shadow Lands is much better than BFA, but it’s still quite honestly terrible. I think less DoTs and more emphasis on DoT damage, more emphasis on the few DoTs doing more.

WoD, for example, had very few DoTs and no UA spender and it was fantastic. Legion was ahead of WoD because Aff execute DoTs which felt fantastic. That shot the spec up an entire point on my scale. I also enjoyed the Effigy thing in Legion, but I did not enjoy how bad it was managed, as you had to set Focus to it to keep track of it, which was terrible.

It was great in PvP, though, to go against Rogues because you could still damage them through their stealth which felt so good to do. Finally could get them Rogues who keep killing me over n over n mocking me.

Also, the drain style in Legion was actually very fun. I enjoyed having Drain Life+ Drain Soul combined into the same spell, I didn’t need to worry bout healers keeping me alive. “Just heal the rest of the raid” I would tell them, so it felt good to actually play the spec and it was fun.

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i said affliction 3 times didnt i…crap. hello koolaid man

i have a call in like 2 minutes but ill write this because we’ve gone back n forth so much

  • i am not referring to the numerical value or “tuning” of MR. it is a meters thing, because if MR functioned as a 1second 1 shard consumed cast, but it made your DOTs flare up. same damage. same notion of scaling with more dots on the target, would your "

still exist.

cuz to me - it wouldnt. because now its “powering up” your dots and causing them to flare up for damage. right now its actuing as a way to amp your dots, which as you said is part of the theme. its all interacting with dots still, you are still a DOT class for all intents and purposes as you balance multiple damage over tiem abilites and must maintain them.

i agree - rapid contagion would be pretty sweet as a spender, its was a great idea and Kala most certainly agreed as well. at current time i do not see the MR as anything other than an AOE haunt (which could use a bit of a longer duration for maintenance’s sake).

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It would still exist, because the method to delivery still exists. That’s why I was saying before in the previous examples for real life that I have, how many people would take the money once they knew? The answer; not 0 but next to zero would take said money, then. This is why I was saying before about themes and the whole playing with feelings thing. A lot of players do just that, they play by their feelings or based on their feelings. If the spec feels good or makes them feel good playing it, they continue to play it. If not, they either still play it and keep going at it miserably or they just quit that character and find a new one or just quit the game entirely.

This was where I usually had beef with mythic raiders and high end players. Most of them just want to:

  • to be entertained first and foremost. They have a higher skill ceiling, therefore it takes more to entertain them. This is why simplicity or simple specs do not work. Aka: “I don’t want to drain all day. That’s boring.” This is where that argument comes from. The higher your skill level the higher the skill requirement gets set for the spec to be enjoyable.

  • “I want to be a team player and be able to do something to the adds when they spawn.” or " I don’t want to be kicked from my guild or raid team for this boss and/or more bosses because my spec can’t damage this add that’s supposed to die in 6 seconds. I, as a DoT spec, need to do super burst in that time to help or kill the add."

I haven’t found another reason outside of those 2, for people wanting a more complex spec or less simple spec, which this is where MR shines, though they could give Rapid Contagion to people and this would make the players feel so much better.

Nonetheless, in problem 1 that is a personal issue. Problem 2 can be easily solved by blizzard just by making adds that need to die have a bit longer of a window for them to die. By this I just mean instead of “this add needs to die in 6 seconds” it can be “this add needs to die in 15 seconds” instead. Still a short time, but it’s long enough that DoTs, themselves, can do stuff.

It’s still doing damage windows, as far as I can tell. Maybe if they shrink it down I guess from requiring 3 times to cast MR to just 1 I will shift my brain over from thinking about damage windows and PTSD with MR to it being something else, I guess.

I also miss my execute DoTs from legion, and get annoyed they haven’t given us that talent back yet.

3 things I’d love to have for Aff:

  • Rapid Contagion shard spender choice node to replace MR.

  • Malefic Grasp back for talent instead of Withering Bolt.

  • Execute DoTs back as a talent. Execute DoTs as in: “Starting at 100%, each 1% HP your enemies are missing your DoTs deal increased damage” or “have increased tick rates” over dealing increased damage. Starting at 100% for a 0% boost, increasing by either 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 or 1% per 1% missing enemy HP. I would prefer tick speed increases since Mastery increases damage. That way at enemy having 30% HP your DoTs tick either 17% faster (0.25 per 1%), 35% faster (0.5% per) or 52% faster (0.75) or 70% faster (1% per). Something like this would be cool

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A talent that boosts haunt’s effectiveness per soulshard you have could be an awesome sub for MR.

He is a realist and has the wherewithal to know we are staying with Malefic Rapture whether we like it or not.

Then there’s people like you who love to harp on lost causes and reliving the past.

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the endless whining about rapture is exhausting, its the same 10 people crying about it over and over, MR is fine.

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MR’s only issue isn’t even its fault, it’s always whatever maintenance buffs it gets attached to that’s the problem.