So tired of malefic rapture

[Lynaith-moon-guard]

Malefic Rapture has got to be THE worst (or among the worst) spells in the game when it comes to visual feedback. My character waves her hand in the air and damage happens. I guess there’s a projectile that travels at the speed of light that you might see every now and then. It makes me feel disconnected from the gameplay in a unique way that makes me hate each time I push the button.

Thematically, it’s incongruent. Affliction is supposed to be about causing an opponent to waste away (hopefully quickly). What does a mini-nuke have to do with afflictions?

Malefic grasp was a better version of a filler ability for both of the above reasons. I personally was not a fan of unstable affliction being a spender, but I’d consider even that better than what we have now.

I’ll also have maybe a bit of a hot take about Vile Taint, too. Seed of Corruption requires us to spend 1 soul shard, plant our feet, and trigger the explosion, but it has no cooldown. I don’t see why Vile Taint needs a cooldown at all. Agony still has its place as an instant cast spell that can be used to tag or refresh stacks on the run. Individually tab-refreshing dots on enemies is awful gameplay that doesn’t have a place in modern WoW imo.

Lastly, back to MR - affliction feels like garbage in open world content because it is backloaded on damage. Destro has tools to do immediate heavy damage. Demo is in between, with some upfront and some backloaded damage. Affliction (without cooldowns) involves dot, dot, dot, then spam MR. By the time I do that, I’m effectively doing half the DPS of my demo spec. Demo pets are dots that don’t expire when the enemy dies, so in my view, demo is strictly better in a lot of content for that reason alone.

Playing other classes makes the deficiencies even more apparent. In the past, affliction was the go-to DoT spec, but these days I’d rather play my assassination rogue.

I’d like Blizzard to get rid of MR and give the whole spec a makeover.

[Strausswylde-moon-guard]

@Snozay-area-52

Throwing up dots and spamming a filler isn’t viable in today’s game.

What about 1 DoT and spam filler?
^coughs in destro^

[Snozay-area-52]

@Magniwl-zuljin

I think it’s harsh because the primary focus of the critique of affliction is both directed at it’s poor quality of life in lower level m+ dungeons (12 and under) and its theme – both of which top end players do not care about.

And some classes will never be strong at mplus especially lower end.

@Magniwl-zuljin

At lower levels, damage profiles and the conversation on which class has an easier barrier to entry is always top of mind, especially considering the meta has shifted heavily toward burst oriented specs in lower dungeon levels. Saying that their opinion doesn’t matter, or is weighted less, since whatever damage they do they’ll likely time the key for instance (this is stretching what you are saying, I understand), is leaving their personal feelings of why the class feels bad to play in the lurch.

Like I said. Low end content isn’t something I care about. They are entitled to their opinions but at the end of the day affliction in a plus two isn’t something they should be focused on.

@Magniwl-zuljin

Destruction has been exceptionally strong and highly represented in many MDI tournies, but it’s never filtered down to be meta in lower level keys, yet people still complain about inferno vs cataclysm (because of lower level keys).

To be fair people complain about literally everything.

@Magniwl-zuljin

Their gripes are arguably more important than what us top level players think. I’ll always be riding the meta wave regardless, wheras most players of this game will not be.

100% disagree. People’s doing content that it doesn’t matter are the bottom of the totem pole. You don’t balance a class around what people in low levels are struggling with.

[Blaster-balnazzar]

There really was no reason to add malefic rapture to begin with.

For AOE the fix is easy - remove the soul shard cost requirement of seed of corruption and buff the aoe damage to the point that it’s worth spamming when you have 3 or more targets.

For single target just have decent shadow bolts like soul harvester currently has and buff dot durations to be 21-30 seconds at a minimum.

Implement a dot spread mechanic with a soul shard requirement similar to the PvP talent jinx except have it spread out all of your dots to targets that are bunched up.

Remove the single target UA requirement - we should be able to cast this spell on as many targets as we desire.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Blaster-balnazzar

There really was no reason to add malefic rapture to begin with.

Making the spec viable in todays game is a pretty good reason.

@Blaster-balnazzar

For single target just have decent shadow bolts like soul harvester currently has and buff dot durations to be 21-30 seconds at a minimum.

Your suggestions lack any type of burst and would cripple the spec in high end content.

It’s just not a good idea.

[Blaster-balnazzar]

Hate to break it to you, affliction is already performing poorly at high end game. Being a stationary turret tied to a RNG resource is bad design and not fun in an increasingly mobile game, so hard disagree and affliction is performing poorly in its current state.

Not sure why you think a spec should be built around a burst window. It’s not fun or exciting having to wait several minutes for cooldowns to come back up while doing crap damage in between especially with tons of scenarios that can shut someone down for that said window.

Various tweaks can easily be made to make affliction strong by removing rapture, increasing SOC damage, with increased shadow bolt damage and aoe shadow bolts to make it viable so we can agree to disagree.

Affliction was more then viable well over a decade before Malefic Rapture was added, so it’s a bad argument to say it wouldn’t be viable if it was removed.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Blaster-balnazzar

Hate to break it to you, affliction is already performing poorly at high end game. Being a stationary turret tied to a RNG resource is bad design and not fun in an increasingly mobile game, so hard disagree and affliction is performing poorly in its current state.

It’s not performing poorly. It’s just that Destro is performing better. That’s a tuning issue and fight design thing.

@Blaster-balnazzar

Not sure why you think a spec should be built around a burst window. It’s not fun or exciting having to wait several minutes for cooldowns to come back up while doing crap damage in between especially with tons of scenarios that can shut someone down for that said window.

Because burst is what’s needed in high end content. I’m sorry but this kinda stuff matters in content that you don’t do.

If you use your cooldowns in a bad spot that’s on you. That’s a personal issue not a spec issue.

@Blaster-balnazzar

Various tweaks can easily be made to make affliction strong by removing rapture, increasing SOC damage, with increased shadow bolt damage and aoe shadow bolts to make it viable so we can agree to disagree.

Removing rapture would do more harm than good for the spec.

@Blaster-balnazzar

Affliction was more then viable well over a decade before Malefic Rapture was added, so it’s a bad argument to say it wouldn’t be viable if it was removed.

The game now isn’t the same as the game was then. You have to have a very low understanding of how the game works to even say something as out of touch as that.

No offense but you don’t really have any credibility or idea of what you’re talking about.

[Strausswylde-moon-guard]

@Blaster-balnazzar

affliction is already performing poorly at high end game.

Our 3 specs are middle-ground, not “performing poorly”.
We won’t always be OP.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Strausswylde-moon-guard

Our 3 specs are middle-ground, not “performing poorly”.
We won’t always be OP.

What wcl shows is Destro high middle aff middle middle and demo low middle.

So aff isn’t even the worst performing spec of the three.

I’m hoping for some solid tuning changes soon.

[Gapoopatron-tichondrius]

Waving my hand and damage happens sums up hellcaller affliction for me. I mean it’s so disconnected and isolated that blackened soul is not even affected by your classes crit gains. It’s the lowest crit in your spell book and you don’t even see the numbers triggering.

[Blaster-balnazzar]

Other than being a rapture fan boy, please explain why you think it’s needed. You’ve so far have provided no arguments on why you think it should stay.

No offense, but you seem to be really short sided on the fact that other spells can’t be tweaked to compensate for MR removal and are under the delusion that the game is so radically different post legion.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Blaster-balnazzar

Other than being a rapture fan boy, please explain why you think it’s needed. You’ve so far have provided no arguments on why you think it should stay.

Because there are certain times where burst is needed during damage Amps.

Court is a great example. Burst for the adds burst for the phases the bosses take increased damage.

Like I said those things aren’t a big factor in heroic and below but it actually matters for mythic.

@Blaster-balnazzar

No offense, but you seem to be really short sided on the fact that other spells can’t be tweaked to compensate for MR removal and are under the delusion that the game is so radically different post legion.

I never said there can’t be tweaks. I said MR is needed to give the spec burst.

Like I said.

@Snozay-area-52

No offense but you don’t really have any credibility or idea of what you’re talking about.

[Gapoopatron-tichondrius]

I don’t really disagree with the on demand aspect, I just think everyone’s feels the way it actually interacts with your spell kit is boring, and the gameplay loop is boring.

It really needs a visual response rework, there’s not even a difference between a rapture modified from 1 dot, versus 5. When the damage difference is light years.

Master of drains is the master of little purple turd flames invisible on mobs.

[Blaster-balnazzar]

Your still under the delusion that the game is radically different post legion.

By your own admission tweaks can be made justify the removal of MR starting and your argument falls apart at this point.

Going forward should look into a mirror when you try argue another player doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Funny how no offense and then proceeding to offend statements work like that.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Blaster-balnazzar

Your still under the delusion that the game is radically different post legion.

And you’re still under the assumption you know what you’re talking about.

PS raiding in this game has changed since legion to become harder. You barely raid at a heroic level so this is something you have zero experience in.

@Blaster-balnazzar

By your own admission tweaks can be made justify the removal of MR starting and your argument falls apart at this point.

Tweaks to tuning. I never said anything about removing MR.

@Blaster-balnazzar

Going forward should look into a mirror when you try argue another player doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Care to explain how a CE level player doesn’t know what they are talking about? Just because you aren’t understanding it doesn’t make me wrong.

@Blaster-balnazzar

Funny how no offense and then proceeding to offend statements work like that.

I mean if I wanted too I could point out your green and gray parses in heroic but I wasn’t trying to be mean.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Gapoopatron-tichondrius

I don’t really disagree with the on demand aspect, I just think everyone’s feels the way it actually interacts with your spell kit is boring, and the gameplay loop is boring.

I can understand that. End of the day not everyone is going to be happy and it seems like people are mad they can’t just spam dots and then spam a filler like shadow bolt and do insane damage.

Game just doesn’t work that way anymore.

@Gapoopatron-tichondrius

It really needs a visual response rework, there’s not even a difference between a rapture modified from 1 dot, versus 5. When the damage difference is light years.

Master of drains is the master of little purple turd flames invisible on mobs.

I’m all in support of an MR visual rework. Won’t argue against that at all.

[Gapoopatron-tichondrius]

We find common ground!

[Magniwl-zuljin]

@Snozay-area-52

100% disagree. People’s doing content that it doesn’t matter are the bottom of the totem pole. You don’t balance a class around what people in low levels are struggling with.

You don’t balance a class based on the 1% either, you balance around perception and the outcome that the majority of players at end game feel. Whether that ends up being balancing around heroic raid output or 5+ keys then so be it.

On the design aspect, you 100% do design classes and specs around what the majority of people will end up playing, and it’s an undisputed fact that affliction warlock does not correspond with the given thematic outline shown in game. If this means that they switch the actual wording in the choose specialization window, then it will actually show that they have a uniform approach to how they design the spec. At the moment the flavour text does not read “damage over time and burst damage”.

@Snozay-area-52

I never said there can’t be tweaks. I said MR is needed to give the spec burst.

Like I said.

This is just completely innacurate – you can design burst without instant snap damage. There is no class in the game currently that does so much burst that you can’t spread out “burst” damage in either raid or m+ over the span of 5-6 seconds. This is also why classes like frost deathknight, which doesn’t have “burst” are able to do high damage over time on multi target without snap damage. There is no qualification that burst damage must mean instant damage at all, especially with a class that has dots as it’s main focus.

Rapture is not needed to create those burst windows at all. What it doesn’t do is fit the theme of drains and dot damage outlined in our thematic blurb.
EDIT: This doesn’t mean I think rapture should leave, I actually think that a universal shard spender that deals with all of our dots is significantly better than previous iterations of affliction – what I do mean is that it should affect our dots, rather than our dots affecting rapture.

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As for whether affliction is underperforming, yes it is underperforming at the top end (you literally can not say that I don’t know what I’m talking about for this either, or at least you can try and I can slam you with my credentials) for various reasons, one of which is it hinging on funnel damage.

Farm =/= progression settings, and affliction was severely underperforming during actual progression setting and before you could abuse funnel damage on the fights that it’s poor at (broodtwister / rashanan / bloodbound). Moreover, silken court significantly skews stats to the point where affliction is placed higher than it actually is, and without silken court and it’s literally perfect damage profile for affliction, it would be in the bottom 5 specs. Even more telling is that affliction is slightly behind destruction on court, even with it being the best setting possible for affliction.

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Going into the next patch, affliction is so far behind it’s peers that it’s simming nearly 50% less in pure single target than the highest spec (fury). Obviously this comes with a host of caveats, but the implication is that blizzard is tuning affliction around its funneling capacity and it’s ability to have exponential scaling in multiple targets which is ludicrously niche, especially with it’s ability to only do this type of damage on targets lasting >10s.

[Snozay-area-52]

@Magniwl-zuljin

You don’t balance a class based on the 1% either, you balance around perception and the outcome that the majority of players at end game feel. Whether that ends up being balancing around heroic raid output or 5+ keys then so be it.

Wrong. You 100% balance around the top players because those are the players that are playing to to the max potential. Not balancing around the top causes massive imbalanced at the content it matters. You might be able to DESIGN around lower levels of play but you 100% do not ever balance around them.

@Magniwl-zuljin

On the design aspect, you 100% do design classes and specs around what the majority of people will end up playing, and it’s an undisputed fact that affliction warlock does not correspond with the given thematic outline shown in game. If this means that they switch the actual wording in the choose specialization window, then it will actually show that they have a uniform approach to how they design the spec. At the moment the flavour text does not read “damage over time and burst damage”.

If you think using dots to empower MR isnt fiitting the theme thats a personal opinion.

@Magniwl-zuljin

This is just completely innacurate – you can design burst without instant snap damage. There is no class in the game currently that does so much burst that you can’t spread out “burst” damage in either raid or m+ over the span of 5-6 seconds. This is also why classes like frost deathknight, which doesn’t have “burst” are able to do high damage over time on multi target without snap damage. There is no qualification that burst damage must mean instant damage at all, especially with a class that has dots as it’s main focus.

Its not. You need said instant snap damage for particular instances.

@Magniwl-zuljin

Rapture is not needed to create those burst windows at all. What it doesn’t do is fit the theme of drains and dot damage outlined in our thematic blurb.
EDIT: This doesn’t mean I think rapture should leave, I actually think that a universal shard spender that deals with all of our dots is significantly better than previous iterations of affliction – what I do mean is that it should affect our dots, rather than our dots affecting rapture

Disagree.

Now you are making an argument based on feelings. That feeling being that the theme doesnt fit with how MR works. You dislike how MR works not that it works.

@Magniwl-zuljin

As for whether affliction is underperforming, yes it is underperforming at the top end (you literally can not say that I don’t know what I’m talking about for this either, or at least you can try and I can slam you with my credentials) for various reasons, one of which is it hinging on funnel damage.

Considering its not even the worst lock spec currently. Is it a top performing spec in the top ten? No I never said it was. Is it down so bad it cant be played? No.

@Magniwl-zuljin

Farm =/= progression settings, and affliction was severely underperforming during actual progression setting and before you could abuse funnel damage on the fights that it’s poor at (broodtwister / rashanan / bloodbound). Moreover, silken court significantly skews stats to the point where affliction is placed higher than it actually is, and without silken court and it’s literally perfect damage profile for affliction, it would be in the bottom 5 specs. Even more telling is that affliction is slightly behind destruction on court, even with it being the best setting possible for affliction.

Thats because afflictions on demand damage isnt as good as destros for the damage amps. Even as BM my ideal CD timings are when adds come out.

@Magniwl-zuljin

Going into the next patch, affliction is so far behind it’s peers that it’s simming nearly 50% less in pure single target than the highest spec (fury). Obviously this comes with a host of caveats, but the implication is that blizzard is tuning affliction around its funneling capacity and it’s ability to have exponential scaling in multiple targets which is ludicrously niche, especially with it’s ability to only do this type of damage on targets lasting >10s.

I 100% agree all three lock specs need some tuning changes going into next patch. Tuning / spec design are not the same thing.

[Ozimov-area-52]

@Snozay-area-52

I said MR is needed to give the spec burst.

Many have shared ideas that accomplish this without the need to rely on MR. A pvp talent which was removed ( rapid contagion) used to be a proper shard dump for the spec only in pvp. It accelerated dot tick drasticly which in a way filled the burst damage you are talking about.

Or something akin to swiftmend for dots. It’s not rocket science really, these mechanics already exist.

The argument many of us are trying to bring up is that affliction should be centered around dots, which has been it’s identity since it’s inception. The way MR currently is makes the spec a MR identity with dots centered around it.

Also , do us all a favor and stop breaking down every sentence into quotes, it makes u look ridiculous. For real.