My opinion on how affliction should be

Classes Warlock
1

After careful reiteration on my ideal aff redesign, here is the polished version of what i personally think affliction should play like in the current version of wow.

Step 1: addressing dots and their application.

  • unstable affliction is no longer a 1 target dot, it is uncapped just like corruption and agony. It’s dot damage will be tuned to be in line with corruption but hellcaller will increase it’s damage ( more on that later).
  • seed of corruption and vile taint have been removed. New talent: *Seed of Malevolence, 30s cd, 1.5s cast. Applies UA, corruption and agony to all enemies within 20 yards of your target. Infirmity now makes SoM apply the respective utility curses. Soulburn application makes SoM instant.
  • Phantom singularity removed. Soul rot cd reduced to 30s, soul rot now grants 3 shards ( no longer tied to shadow of death/soul harvester).

Step 2: solving single target and the mobility problem.

  • haunt has no cd, is instant cast and costs 1 shard. It is now affected by our mastery and all talents which previously affected rapture now affect haunt too ( things like succulent souls, malign omen, focused malignency etc).
  • Withering bolts now also affects haunt and oblivion.
  • Oblivion now benefits from our mastery , it’s cd has been decreased to 30s to better fit our cadence and now refreshes refreshes dots on it’s target. Channelable while moving.

Step 3: addressing hero talents.

  • with the changes to haunt , necrolyte teachings ( soul harvester) now affects haunt instead of sbolt. The nightfall bonus portion remains unchanged.
  • shadow of death now grants the 10% damage buff that uses to be infirmity.
  • hellcaller’s mark of xavius now also affects unstable affliction and agony ( centering the hero spec around stronger dots).

Step 4: fixing pvp.

  • jinx now also applies UA.
  • rampant affliction has been removed.
  • impish instincts has been changed. It now grants a 2nd charge of port instead of lowering it’s cd on damage.
  • rot and decay has been removed. It’s functionality will be baked into the spec tree as the new improved haunt.
  • soul swap has no cd ( it already costs a shard, no need to double tax).
  • essence drain now makes drain life a dot that lasts 10s and doesn’t require channeling but adds a 10s cd to it.

These changes should be enough to fix the spec in almost all endgame content.

Although the general tree remains unmentioned, it is probably the one that needs the most change but i’ll leave that one for another post.

Please let me know your thoughts !

3 Likes
2

Start with Legion Affliction as a base and go from there. That’s my opinion and the last time Affliction was fun imo.

2 Likes
3

Or not.

We dont need antiquated playstyles. We need NEW, modernized class structures.

4

Is your intent to still have aff single target refreshing dots in aoe or are you also thinking the durations of agony and UA should be more than 30s? Also, I see a lot of times when tanks pull things in stages for one reason or another, 30s seems like a big window to require 3 globals to include any adds in your damage rotation.

edit: wow, I have no idea how blizz decided this ancient alt would be make the most sense for my avatar.

5

I’d rather we get the old soulburn soulswap interaction but i know that’s never going to happen.

As for seed you’re right i should’ve said 15s instead. As that’d be easier than making all our dots 30s ( which i’m not a fan of tbh).

However i still think siphon life needs a big buff, it’s still too weak.

6

I like some of these idea, but I’M also a fan of having 1 powerfull DoT that can is restricted to 1 enemy only.

These ideas would probably be really good for PvE, But I’M not sure the group rot strategy would work well in the current PvP meta. I feel like its either, the spread DMG is easely healable and meaningless, or too oppressive.

7

That’s why i wanted soul harvester to be the burst spec and hellcaller the traditional heavy rot playstyle. The way the current hero talents are is barely a sliver’s distinction between playstyles.

8

Not really because you removed the single target modifiers.

UA and Haunt serve as single target damage boosts to ensure that when we can’t cleave we can still deal good damage to one target.

By making UA uncapped, and Haunt a spender, you leave no damage boosts for single target. Affliction would need to be tuned to deal enough damage in single target to be competitive, but because it has no single target modifier, it means it can deal that damage to ALL targets and completely dominate in damage

This is what happened in legion, and why we have the current design.

9

Wdym? Haunt being a st spender with no cd is enough. You can spam it on the move even.

Tuning will obviously have to be changed here and there, can even buff haunt’s damage buff if need be but that’s the easy part tbh, mostly seeking fluidity in combat.