MR is a dead spell now?

Classes Warlock
1

I’ve played a Warlock exclusively, and almost exclusively Affliction, since Patch 1.11. So this isn’t my first rodeo and I’ve seen how much can change or not change throughout a Alpha/Beta and can spot problems relatively early.

I don’t have the DF Alpha and the talents for Lock just recently dropped but I can already see many problems. The biggest one being the return of Deathbolt (with a whopping cost of 3 shards) with a blue post implying they intend to make that our primary single target rotation.

Through Deathbolt and its modifying talents we aim to give Affliction an interesting alternative to Malefic Rapture when the situation calls for single target damage.

:face_vomiting: Worst rotation for Affliction of all time.

And with the new talent Agonizing Corruption and Vile Taint now applying Agony (both of these I really like) and many other talents buffing Corruption and supporting big dot damage (also things I like) it really feels like they’re pushing us away from MR and into a more DB/Seed/Darkglare setup. Very similar to how we were in BFA. :face_vomiting: Again probably the grossest rotation for Affliction because of Deathbolt. Damage based on time remaining on so many DOTs is just an obnoxious mechanic.

There are talents to support MR for AOE and Single Target and adding more Seeds and using VT for AOE wouldn’t be bad. But it’s still very early and tuning can go any which way, including a path where MR becomes worthless. Perhaps I am being dramatic because of my extreme distaste for Deathbolt but this is the same Blizzard who openly admitted to nerfing Demo into oblivion in WoD because they were too lazy to balance it and then just ripped it from us to give to Demon Hunters. And they haven’t made any effort to even give MR a desperately needed graphics update, biggest sign of them trying to phase it out.

I love Affliction for the unique flow it has and MR is one of the best iterations it has had. Despite the, understandable, criticism of it being a boring builder/spender I still think it feels fluid and works well with our class fantasy. There are paths that can make MR more interesting and dynamic and I want to see those options instead of slapping an over tuned Deathbolt on us and calling it a day.

2

Deathbolt has a cooldown and a high cost, but you can use MR to fish for a proc to make it cost no shards.

MR will still be used to maintain stacks of Malefic Wrath to make Drain Soul/Shadow Bolt strong.

MR casts will buff agony damage for 6 seconds.

MR will extend dot durations.

It’s still going to have plenty of uses and reasons to be cast, but it won’t necessarily need to be as large of a portion of damage as it currently it.

3

I think the question is if MR is fit for purpose still. I’d rather see a clearer dichotomy between SoC as the aoe spender and a ST spell be it something like Rapid Contagion or returning to a Legion-like version of UA.