Hello,
I’m Warlock Affliction who focus mostly on M+ gameplay and I would like to share my opinions after a few months of new expansion. In my feedback I do consider only the PvE part of the game as I have no experience with PvP. Personally, the Affliction strengths should be:
- mobile souls master who bases mostly on instant and quick cast spells, including those on which he is spending his soul shards,
- calmful strategist of the battlefield, who spend most of the time of looking out of opportunities to deal most damage to its enemies with his powerful spells,
- spending period between casting deadly spells during combat to refresh his damage over time effects and gather soul shard to prepare to another harmful combo upon enemies,
- most dangerous when the enemy is weakening and close to death, using it as an opportunity to deal finishing damage.
Warlock Tree
General feeling: Few things had changed in the class tree with TTW expansion, likely for better. However, the possibility of creating different builds is very limited as there are many mandatory talents to take.
Demon Skin / Fel Armor – Having the option to take both talents at the same time kills their flavor to me. It could be interesting to see them as the choice node and buff then a little. In the distant past it was always only possible to have one of them active at the same time which brought this “choices matter” feeling.
Burning Rush / Demonic Circle – Burning Rush and Demonic Circle helps a lot with the Warlock mobility, but having both together with Demonic Gateway feels sometimes like too much. I would personally trade losing one of them to receive a stronger version of another. It could be interesting to see them as the choice node and then build up more talents around it - which would add some flavor. As an example the Abyss Walker and Fiendish Stride could be merged into single talent and update how they function:
- Abyss Walker could be changing how the Demonic Circle works; for example it could work like “Door of Shadows” from the Shadowlands. Sometimes a static point to which you can teleport is nice but having the possibility to “jump” to not a predefined place also has its value. Soulburn + Demonic Gateway is semi doing that but more in a clumsy way.
- Fiendish Stride changes in TWW made this talent questionable as the damage reduction part is not worth considering. Maybe additional speed increase or other cool “flavor thing” could be added.
Mortal Coil / Howl of Terror – These two could get an extra node down in the talent tree.
Demonic Embrace / Demonic Fortitude – Both are doing the same thing but with different values, could be one talent node instead of two separates.
Demonic Inspiration / Wrathful Minion – Both feel uninspiring and are located on the tree in such a way that is hard to skip or go around them. Pets’ damages are so minor that points spent on talents feel like wasted, only to be put to go further down the tree. Hard to find similar talents in Hunter’s tree who is also a pet themed class.
Accrued Vitality – Hard to imagine its usage. Even if doubled healing from the Life Drain still would be questionable talent to pick.
Lifeblood – Cool talents from the BFA which was fun to use back then. With its Leech value being nerfed and still costing 2-point it’s barely ever taken. Could possibly see a reduction of its duration down to 10 seconds and then tune its Leech value up and make it one point.
Shadowfury / Shadowflame – It could be interesting to see them as a choice node and to make Darkfury working with both. Unfortunately, Shadowflame is mostly not picked and some touch for refresh would be needed for this talent to be used.
Teaching of the Black Harvest / Demonic Resilience – Possibly mostly PvP talents which are never taken in PvE.
Affliction
With TWW expansion Affliction received significant talent tree overhaul which moved specialization in a better spot than before. What still makes specialization lagging is that the core gameplay didn’t receive any, or not enough, of focus. It’s not a secret that gameplay wasn’t fluid and enjoyable enough for a very long time.
At the start I would like to highlight that I’m very glad that Seed of Corruption spam has gone and my feedback will be not about making it come back. Also I don’t agree with the opinion of many that casting Agony directly or by Vile Taint should make Agony last long enough so it could be refreshed when Vile Taint will be back off cooldown. That road would lead Affliction to brainless simulator:
if Soul Shard and Tormented Crescendo > 0; then spam Malefic Rapture; else spam Shadowbolt/Drain Soul.
I agree that many times in M+ refreshing Agony is hard and good nameplate add-on is the fundamental for Affliction without which it’s very hard to step into gameplay.
Agony management
The ability to refresh Agony is one of the basic skills for Affliction players. Being able to filter out thru noise of nameplates, where and when Agony needs to be reapplied is one of crucial skill. It impacts both resource generation and damage of our Soul Shard spender ability. With TWW expansion we can see new talent which refers directly to that skill, Volatile Agony.
Volatile Agony, an interesting talent that in theory rewards for maintaining Agony correctly. Unfortunately, even if tuned properly its impact on the gameplay is low and mostly selected from the talent tree as there is nothing better to spend points for.
Nevertheless, Agony management is a key part of specialization and creating positive feedback to the player who is making it correctly is a good idea. Due to the Vile Taint, there are in the worst case scenario 8x Agonies to refresh at same time and being able to do that requires around 8x1.5=12 seconds when 0% haste value and 8x1.0=8 seconds with 50% haste value (+ human mistake factor). That causes many times some Agonies to fall off, maybe because you started refreshing 2 seconds too late or just maybe because nameplates are so crowded that it’s hard to correctly select the target.
Challenge to overcome would be to find a unique way, which is only Affliction like, but doing the same thing: improving gameplay quality around Agony without making it brainless. One solution could be to change Volatile Agony talent into: Refreshing Agony with 10 or less seconds remaining extends the duration of other active Agony by 2 seconds within 40 yards. With such a mechanic, the player is not relieved from having to refresh the Agony at multiple targets manually, but doing it feels less pressured as you are able to refresh all your Agonies just if you are willing to do it. With 2 seconds extension it would require casting 7 times Agony to pass Vile Taint cooldown so it would not become too powerful.
Vile Taint and Agony spreading
Since Dragonflight expansion Vile Taint is now also applying Agony to up to 8 targets in its area. That time it was a huge step in a good direction, but it also brought today’s confusion which occurs very often during M+ runs. In some way Vile Taint is both, damaging and offensive utility spell:
- Damaging; It’s damage over time effect and due to Malefic Rapture scaling with dots it adds up its value also there.
- Offensive utility; Applies Agony, like Shadow Crash and Curse of Exhaustion.
Very often in M+ situations it happens that you use Vile Taint in the middle of the combat and later its cooldown is not ready to use for the next pack to spread Agonies to new targets. In such a situation they need to be applied manually which is the least fun thing about Affliction at the start of the pull to do. I would be very happy to keep only Agony applying part of the spell and remove others, which includes Curse of Exhaustion as it’s overwriting other Curses which are already on the target. I wouldn’t miss also losing Vile Taint as the damage over time effect as we already have Soul Rot which is a more interesting spell, and its other talents directly work with Malefic Rapture damage.
Haunt and Shadow Embrace
With new expansion we came into a version of Affliction where spending 2 talent points is responsible for an 18% damage increase in single target by Shadow Embrace and Haunt. I’m not sure if any other class has access to so much power with so little cost. Being so, both talents are highly mandatory in any build, limiting flexibility in how to build a talent tree and giving additional frames over nameplate to track to, which Affliction have already full of.
Would not mind seeing Shadow Embrace and Haunt again as a choice node, same as it was in the old talent tree system. In such a case it would be possible to play an active spell with 10% damage increase reward, and passive one with 8% damage increase. Such a way would reduce the power gained behind both of those talents and give the opportunity to keep it passive for players who prefer it.
Corruption spreading
Would be welcome to see developers re-thinking how Corruption is applied to enemies in multi-target situations, with Seed of Corruption spam gameplay gone, spell feels clumsy and out of place and its Soul Shard cost is a crime. Overall I’m still thinking that Agony and Corruption should be combined into one spell, having them still separate when Absolute Corruption exists is like echo of the past. As I recognized in PvP there is already a way to spread Curses, Agony and Corruption within one global. This comes with the cost of one Soul Shard but the trend is clear; reduction of the amount of the dots.
Other
Oblivion – Interesting talent but barely taken. Here are my bullet points:
- Spell is not scaling with Mastery.
- 3 seconds of standing in place to cast it can be sometimes very restrictive.
- 2 Soul Shard cost for now is too much for what spell brings.
- Maybe it should generate two Soul Shards instead of having to spend two of them to cast it.
- Pure single target talent, no usage in aoe. Maybe if extend dots duration would be useful in M+
- Not clear when to use it? At the start of the pull? But then you need to cast Malefic Raptury to extend dots duration up to 6 seconds. Or maybe cast between damaging windows (when Soul Rot and Vile Taint dot is off the target)?
Perpetual Unstability – Never taken in PvE, cast time reduction is nice but not worth last-row point. Cast time reduction could be baked in into different UA talent like Xavius’ Gambit.
Hellcaller
General feeling:
Master of fel and shadow magic. Both the name and Satyr theme don’t match in my opinion.
Gameplay:
Damage-over-time play style is what Affliction lovers always wanted to see back, dots are impactful and Malefic Rapture is there to fill the burst gap, which together brings great results.
Utility choices:
Utility choices do not exist. Only combined Curses is ok but not that much interesting.
Soul Harvester
General feeling:
Overall I don’t think the result fulfilled mine expectations when we look at the name of the hero spec and its outcome. “Marvel Venom” is not what Soul Harvester should be, gameplay around Nightfall, Malefic Rapture and Soul Rot is fine, but the theme and animations I would like to see more are around souls, execution upon death and life stealing.
Gameplay:
Compared to Hellcaller’s damage-over-time base style Harvester seems to be focused on Malefic Rapture windows playstyle which was strongly embraced during season 3 and 4 of Dragonflight, due to the tier set and talent changes that time. As a huge fan of this playstyle I think a key part of it was lost, without Soul Rot being 30 second cooldown it’s hard to feel the same fun as in the past. Being able to popup every 30 seconds gave Affliction a unique, fun and niche playstyle. Would like to see it back.
Utility choices:
Very interesting choices, compared to Hellcaller there is not much to complain about.