Afflic (lol), feral, even shadow all had their DoTs neutered, in favor of more direct nukes (I consider devouring plague more of a direct nuke than a DoT)
Why did blizz in SL decide that Dot classes were the devil and needed to be purged?
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Stuff dies too fast in m+ in some instances.
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I wouldn’t say blizzard hates those specs or dots, its that stuff dies to quickly for it to be good in dungeons. I’m sure they’re good in raids and pvp.
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im not talking about good vs bad. I’m talking about how DoT classes had their damage moved from ACTUAL DoTs to more direct nukes.
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DoTs have always been hard to balance because they are nearly worthless when facing packs of mobs that die quickly. You either don’t have long enough to dot up every target or your dots do not get any where near their full duration and thus do less damage.
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The answer is pvp. People kill someone, then die 10 seconds later due to dots and they complain loudly about how unfair it is.
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Dot classes are hard to balance with non-dot classes, especially in keys where mobs and bosses live for a different amount of time, you can put dots on several or few mobs depending on ten circumstances, etc.
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The scaling of direct damage is presumably a lot easier to balance compared to dots. Especially in scenarios with multiple targets that live long enough to actually get full duration/value out of the dots. And as pretty much everyone else has mentioned, the value of dots falls of a cliff when you’re fighting things that don’t live that long.
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I fully agree with you.
People were really excited for Aff going into SL, but Malefic Rapture is just another spender tool designed for a moment of burst.
Yeah, UA stacking as the “cash in” moment in BFA wasn’t exactly exciting, but at least it was still DoT focused.
In PVP Aff still revolves around DoT’s at least, with haste stacking + rapid contagion. But in a dungeon I feel worthless outside of pressing Malefic Rapture.
Fire Mage is another victim. It used to be about generating high Ignites and then using Combustion (I believe, pre-rework) to apply a second DoT that would literally melt the target.
But now Combustion is just a burst window and Fire mage revolves around insta casts.
Granted Fire mage has had insanely OP moments since this rework.
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The constant nerfs to DoT’s since legion disagrees with that statement.
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DoT damage is tricky to balance. It’s fine in a raid encounter where DoTs are basically just a maintenance buff for your DPS rotation, but even then a lot of encounters have important burst windows that would favor other classes. And for keys, Blizzard has to balance DoTs between players doing keys where pulls might last 15 seconds, and keys where some trash packs are three groups at once lasting 90 seconds.
How do you balance that? Blizzard’s solution is to turn DoT classes into direct damage classes. It’s not perfect… in fact its quite awful, but how else do you manage it?
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Even the combo point system has problems in fast dungeons. You can go in with white damage and a combo builder, but by the time the points accumulate, so you can use a finisher, the mobs dead. At least the combo points carry from mob to mob.
It’s just less fun to play that way.
Demo is an interesting DoT/nuke hybrid. The demons almost act as DoTs, only they switch targets with the warlock. It would be fun to see more classes work that way.
Mythic+ killed dot specs
Dot specs are only viable in way later high keys when packs live long enough to get a dot rotation on all mobs
Affliction unfortunately turned into another “builder-spender” playstyle that pretty much all specs are turned into now-a-days
DoT specs died when mythic+ “burst” onto the scene…every spec has to be “burst” or it’s not viable
I like super hard dungeons, don’t get me wrong, just not against a timer…the timer being the make it or break it is what killed DoT specs, to be specific…if Mythic+ was just ramping mob difficulty INSTEAD of a timer then DoT specs would be viable in them without issue…just increasingly harder hitting, higher health mobs should have been the “make it or break it” metric in mythic+
I’d MUCH rather have super hard packs that take coordination, cc, priority targeting…you know, strategy over “timer, go go pull more, pull bigger! go go!” ANY day…
…of course, though, increasing difficulty/health of mobs instead of timer wouldn’t be marketable as a, LOL, E-Sport. Another way E-sports push made the game worse…but that is for another time.
All just imho, of course, yours may differ
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…?
DoTs aren’t bad because they’re not viable on high keys. DoTs are bad because they’re not strong in low keys, and most players play low keys, and bad players are very vocal.
I play with an enhancement shaman in my group and they’re actually quite good in keys - they’re no destro lock of course but they do reasonable damage once you’re playing on keys where mobs last long enough for them to spread their flame shocks around and properly ramp up. But the wider majority of players play on low keys where mob packs blow up instantly and so mastery stacking and flame shock spreading is weak, and Shaman’s more bursty build doesn’t keep up, so Enhancement Shaman are often perceived as weaker than they are, when the reality is that they’re definitely viable to push for rank 1 titles.
What the %%%% are you talking about?
You clearly haven’t done some of these Fortified pulls on a 26+ difficulty level. You have pulls where a cast getting off will mean either a death or a full party wipe. Assigning every single one of your party to every single one of the mobs and having a priority on what spells need to be interrupted. Using kicks, stuns, knocksback, disorients, to prevent any spells or else facing a wipe… that’s way, way, WAY more coordination than “CC all the mobs and then the entire party kick the one spell that is cast”.
You’re completely off the mark about this bub.
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They could have DoT increase in an execute window.
They could bring back snapshotting.
They could bring back Warlocks soul-swapping mechanic so they don’t reset their DoTs every single trash pack.
They could baseline the effect from Wrath of Consumption for DoT focused specs, just on a weaker scale, which would empower your DoTs for like 5 secs when an enemy dies. This wouldn’t effect raid DPS or boss damage a whole lot, and it would give a satisfying “explosive” effect on trash packs that die quicker.
They could have you “cash in” on your DoTs so that you consume their damage and cause the targets to explode with AOE.
They could add utility to DoTs.
The new talent trees could have ways for DoT’s to cleave damage.
Or a way to apply to more than one target. One of the biggest issues for Aff is having to tab and apply every mob with Agony. Imagine a talent that applies it to the two nearest enemies.
That’s just me spit balling from 5 minutes of thinking. There are multiple people paid a lot of cash to think of these solutions.
There’s a lot they can do if they embrace DoTs as the core mechanic. The issue is DoTs are currently a fairly boring apply & forget mechanic.
That’s exactly what I meant…DoT specs do not function in low keys and don’t until you get into super high keys
So they had to take away the DoT damage and make it Burst damage to make old school dot specs semi viable at lower keys
Affliction or any old true dot specs got laughed at in keys due to their horrid damage until bosses that take longer
This is for high keys, not for lower keys which is what a majority of people run and the “DoT” specs are designed around lower keys and to function there(which they of course function higher up from there). And no, I haven’t done those high keys, not that I couldn’t, I just HATE the “timer” aspect which, again, even in high keys, inherently creates a “go, go, go, timer is running out!” mentality
If you read what I wrote, it’s a general statement that encompasses ALL levels of mythic+, not just super high keys. And how the functionality through ALL(even lower) keys is what nuked all former true DoT specs
I guess the solution is to do what Blizzard did for enhancement Shaman - give them an optional mechanic that allows them to focus on a more bursty rotation for lower keys, and then they can play their “true playstyle” in higher keys.
Time will tell if the new talent trees allow that level of depth of design.
With Bear getting Twin Moonfire, this wouldn’t surprise me very much.
I’m not sure why they invert CoA though. Front-load all the damage and have the backend do less. Make reapplications do nothing while that DoT still exists.
That would work, and I’d be okay with that solution, but just in my own opinion, I still don’t like the fight against the timer, no matter what, that timer is there and the only purpose for it being there is to support E-Sports and viewing Mythic+
I don’t like “timer” enrage mechanics that cause failing…I like “difficulty” enrage mechanics that determine success/failure. I want skill to determine things, not a timer(yes, skill is part of a timer system but it’s still a timer that says pass/fail).
Take old Warlock green fire quest, I did that in bottom budget lfr gear and it was brutal but insanely fun…no timer…sure you could get overwhemled if adds/packs lived too long and others spawned or other mechanics happened overlapping, but that is not a “timer” still, that is a skill thing, a multi-tasking thing. Beating that with crap gear after over a hundred attempts and reworking strats, etc, was a goose bump adrenaline pumping moment…
WTB more of that, not “did you beat the timer?” “yes or no?” “no, you fail”