I’ve been wanting to play Affliction since I found out how smooth and satisfying so much of it was since DF… and I completely understood why it sucked in random dungeons and Heroics since things didn’t live long enough.
But now that I’m running Mythic 0s with things that do live 30 seconds or more… it still feels very underwhelming. The tanks I’m playing with are (obviously) playing it safe, and just pulling one group at a time. It just feels impossible to compete with Demo under this circumstance, with all your damage tied to a 1 minute cooldown while only hitting 3-4 mobs. You just seem to fall a little short when you’re at your best… and Demo doesn’t have this “once a minute I’m good, the rest of the time I’m a wet noodle” thing going on.
Was this spec literally designed only to perform well by professional players who are pulling way more than most players should realistically be able to handle, where I can always hit at least 8+ targets with Seed/VT/SR… taking advantage of Aff’s uncapped AOE… as that feels like the only way I can get the kind of value out of the spec that justifies me not playing Demo.
But want to hear from other folks - now that S1 has officially kicked off, how has Aff been feeling in Mythic dungeons? Is this a skill issue on my part or are others struggling to make an impact for groups who are only running the dungeons as expected rather than at a lunatic pace?
I’ve been testing SH, it’s alright, feels fairly smooth to play but yeah your big windows are SR and SR+DG. I don’t feel completely useless outside of SR, as long as I can get off a VT/SoC and dump a few raptures. Def feeling Demo might be the play for some lower keys, just have to wait and see, especially as other classes also start gearing up alongside us. Might exacerbate the issue.
Affliction is strong, the content is just too easy still. Those tier lists arent for M0
Boss dmg will reflect as I’m on top often.
Unfortunately for now Destro or Demo will probably feel better going pack to pack. I find myself switching back to Destro for M0 or heroics, open world and even t8 delves now.
Edit: was top 5 dmg for the first 6 bosses with my guild in Normal raid as SH affliction. It does some damage.
Stop holding your cooldowns for the perfect moment. Just send them.
A lot of your damage comes from soul rot for SH and Malevolence for Hellcaller. Make sure you aren’t sitting on them for long or your dps is going to reflect that.
My guild has went in on m0, raid, and T8 delves. Aff def felt bad on trash with 25 ppl in raid cuz it all blew up, outside packs I had ST and VT up for where i could see myself in the top 7 or so.
Having communication helps too though, in voice or just taking a second to explain your potential throughput to the tank. You just have to be social and explain cuz many people don’t realize what aff can do now. As long as the healer and team are comfortable with it, just tell the tank to pull 2 to 3 or more packs, then less, then more. Most listen to me and it works out in m0
In raid though, Aff damage is really good. Really good. Especially with how mobile a lot of these fights are
Yes, I am finding in Raids, Aff is damn good - I’m still not great at it, having just started maining it and still not really knowing the fights, but every so often it clicks and I’m in the top 5 before skill issues (like missing pandemic windows on Agony) bring me back down.
I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something grossly wrong in 5 man content, because I feel like I do hit the windows quite well there… yet find myself fairly underwhelmed by the result. Sure, once a minute, the DPS bars settles around everyone else’s or even edges them… but then the next pull, I’m fighting with the tank while everyone else seems to be just fine.
One of my biggest issues, maybe - sometimes the next pull will be less than 30 seconds after the previous and even VT is still on cooldown and will come off cooldown when the enemies on the 2nd pull are 70%. Usually I’ve already just tried to dot these ones up manually to the best of my ability (Seed, then tab targeting Agony), but would you rather save VT for the next pack or just use it to finish dotting up the existing ones?
Aff is too strong for the M0! I’ve been doing very well in the Raid, usually top 3 in almost every fight, once the scaling of M+ really starts to hit, Aff will get stronger and stronger. Give it a try when the season actually starts, people will start to do bigger pulls too so it’s even better
Yeah, in 0s, and even sometimes in M+, you just have to accept that there are times where your cooldowns aren’t going to be available and you are going to do bad damage on that specific pull. In higher keys, 70% will usually be fine to drop your VT on, but in 0s it’s usually better to just hold it for next pack.
When I run into this situation I’ll usually just do the minimum maintenance damage, essentially toss a seed and tab agony, and just try to use these low damage pulls as a chance to make sure my shards and CDs are lined up and ready for the next one.
Even still, when doing these minimum damage pulls due to Afflic CDs, I’m thinking it would just be better overall to go Demo for M0 and return to Afflic for raids and higher levels of M+.
I have no problems with affliction. Even with smaller pulls if you run your rotation right you are competitive. I don’t always out DPS lets say a ret paladin or a frost dk on aoe pulls, but I rarely drop more than 10% behind them. I make up for it on boss fights where over the course of the fight, no matter what, I end at the top of damage for 90% of the mythics i have done.
I’m definitely noticing that if I’m in a competent group I’m better off running Demo. When stuff lives long enough, though, the ramp on Affliction is nuts.