Was it a mistake to add Affliction to Warlock?

Community General Discussion
1

I love the Affliction tree, but thematically it doesn’t seem to go with Demo or Destruction. Those two seem very Fel, and over the years Affliction hasn’t. I’m assuming they’re merged because in the early days Shadow and Fel were subconsciously treated similarly.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say that Affliction was pulled out from Warlock and they need to give it a second spec (whatever the class is called). What would you pick and why?

(Feel free to reject the premise, I’m just trying to chat)

2

I agree. Give the spec to DH. :crazy_face:

3

Needs more dots. I should juggle 8 icons at once.

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4

Fel wasn’t really much of a thing in 2004. Warlocks were about fire, shadow and demons. We didn’t even see felfire until TBC.

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5

Affliction is perfectly fine fantasy wise. It’s our only true dark spell caster. Spriest is all tentacles and void magic

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6

Which is what? neon?

Right, but the cosmological chart ruined everything

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7

I think you just don’t like affliction for some reason, too bad, it’s here to stay <3

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8

I’m going to reject your premise with extreme rejection. Affliction has been a part of the Warlock since day one. Since day one of Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2.

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9

Affliction warlock doesn’t even count as a caster.

10

I like it cause it’s the closest thing we have to a soul-based power albeit one that inflits maladies and corruption. I got a Troll Warlock who I feel fits aff cause it has a nice witch-doctor soul-splitting type vibe to it.

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11

I actually think aff is the true warlock and the other two don’t fit lol

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12

Yes, rework affliction to something more interesting and not “watch dots slowly burn enemies down” which ends up failing in M+ and they never get invited, and if they do, they end up being a carry cause dots do not do much requiring a lot of time to build up.

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13

Reject the premise.

I’ve always felt destruction was the odd one out, demo and aff both feel thematically more in line with my vision of warlock.

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14

Yeah, that’s probably right

IIRC they were shaman then, no?

Agreed. But I’ve been Affliction since 2005

15

I’ll fix it, have all your single target dots have an aoe variation like seed of corruption. Keep the soul shard spender for aoe, bring a new single target soul shard spender for boss fights or single targets. This should help quite a bit, not a cure but definatly a fix.

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16

Hey just because More code is outdated , it does not mean its not a form of communication

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17

Affliction was never ‘added’ to warlocks. It’s been around since day 1. That being said, it’s in a bad place ever since they nerfed dots and added Malefic Rapture as a ‘fix’. I suspect it’s because of pvp, since people would complain bitterly that they’d kill a warlock and the dots would kill them after.

The only way to make affliction make sense is to make the dots HURT. We don’t need a ‘dot exploder’ spell to make the spec work, we just need the dots to work. Until and unless they have the guts to do that, the other specs will feel better to play.

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18

Yeah demo and destro are very “Fel” themed

Affliction is more shadow and soul magic

It does seem to lean closer to necromancy than fel magic but it’s still close enough to fit warlocks

Personally I don’t mind the theme, but the current design of the spec itself is trash

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19

I reject affliction warlock from the caster class category

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