First things first.
I’ve been playing affliction since the burning crusade, both in pve and pvp, and i must say these changes are… underwhelming.
Going into legion and into bfa i was a strong advocate that unstable stacking was not fun, impossible to balance in pvp due to the backlash proc and would make either super overpowered or underpowered in both aspects of the game.
In legion we didnt “notice” affliction weakness due to the strong artifact traits we had that made us pmuch the best spec during the expansion after a rough start but in bfa and with the artifact traits gone we see how poorly tuned and designed the spec feels.
This WILL be the same in shadowlands because the core problems of the spec are not being adressed.
First problem
The shard system.
We have no way to generate shards in a non random way, so having spenders like malefic rupture makes no sense, specially in a AOE situation where you have to spend a shard for: seed of corruption, vile taint if specced, and then we have one shard left for one malefic rapture.
A fix for this problem would be having a spell generate shards or add corruption to the shard generation.
Second problem
Dots in general.
Both in Legion and BFA for dots to hit for some sort of damage you need 2 interactions: Unstable affliction and Haunt.
This was never the case previously, we had haunt wich increased dot damage by 20%. This seems a small “thing” but when in a m+, raid or even arena the setup takes way too long for it too be worth.
While every other class starts at 200km/h warlocks start at 20km/h and when we are reaching the 200km/h the mobs are already dead.
Going into Shadowlands this is still true, we already have to setup dots, we shouldnt need 2 spells to interact with dots and now wich malefic rupture yet again another spell that needs setup in order to do damage.
Also, dot duration surely needs to be increased, playing in classic with SL lasting for 30 seconds, agony 18 or so and corruption around 25 feels much smoother than live.
Fix for the problem? Make dots hit harder, last longer and make haunt the dot interaction as a BASELINE spell. Oh and … unstable affliction limit 1? really? common, allow us to use UA on every mob.
Third problem
Trying to make us a burst spec.
Yet another thing that has been done since legion, first through UA stacking, then through deathbolt and darkglare.
We never were and never will be a burst spec so stop trying that, in a fortified week everyone should want an affliction warlock for m+ but that is not true right now and will be the same in SL.
Malefic rupture and soul wrack (not yet implemented) are yet another try to make us burst when we dont need that.
If we want to burst we got 2 other specs, demo and destru that can do that, stop trying to make every spec have everything.
Both deathbolt and darkglare should be completly removed, shadows embrace, nightfall, haunt and drain soul should be baseline.
Nightfall procs would bring the “burst” we are missing and drain soul the execute we had from wotlk>wod.
If dots hit hard, haunt makes them hit harder and in the end we got either shadowbolt/drain soul or malefic grasp the class stays in a good place ST wise.
In aoe scenarios just buff seed of corruption explosion and the class is fixed…
fourth problem
The unprunning not being enough.
Lets face it, warlocks had it worst than every other class and we are not getting half of the things warriors are getting for example.
After this first unprunning we still:
- Dont have a reliable slow or root (only class in the game)
- Affliction still cant kill totems in pvp or pve
- Only class that all spenders (shard using abilities) are casted
- Only spec that only have one school of magic (shadow)
Fifth problem
Super squicky in pvp.
Right now affliction is non existent in pvp outside of battlegrounds.
We just die to “air”, if a breeze comes in an arena game we die.
For a spec that needs to rely on atrition to win this is rather… anti climatic.
This can be fixed, like a lot of warlocks said, by giving soul link baseline. One change that we have been asking since legion. One. We are not asking to be unkillable, we are asking to be viable in pvp…
So now ill just resume everything i would like changed in SL.
- deathbolt removed
- Haunt baseline, either as shard spender or as a cooldown
- Slow or root baseline (curse of exaustion would fix this) and no, succubus is not a reliable slow
- Dot duration increased, while i love dot gameplay i dont like to spend 70% of my globals redoting in pvp or 50% in pve (SL should be 30 secs, corruption 25 secs, agony could stay at 20 secs)
- With dot duration increased syphon life could be baseline
- Searing pain, fel flame or immolate could make a comeback to let us have more than one school of magic in pvp
- UA backlash for dispell needs to be WAY higher, i would say it should be the damage of a full duration UA
- Malefic rupture damage needs to be lower and dot damage higher
- Malefic rupture should be a shard spender but for aoe scenarios, haunt would come handy for single target and making you choose between aoe and st
- Seed of corruption shouldnt cost a shard untalented, if it does cost a shard then we dont need malefic rupture for aoe, just make seed explosion do a lot of damage
- Dark soul baseline
- Shadows embrace and nightfall baseline passives
- Drain soul baseline, like… it has been in the game since classic blizzard
- Soul link back as a talent (even if pvp talent)
- Tongue tied seems that is either going to be extremly overpowered or underpowered for pvp and shouldnt be a pve talent, at most a pvp talent.
- Where is the “draining life” part of the post you did about warlocks? cause malefic rupture does damage but doesnt heal you, you got drain life and syphon life and one of them is a talent… doesnt add up to what you said on the class change post.
- Demonic sacrifice should return hp like in mop or just make it baseline and replace the talent with soul link, also it shouldnt do more damage than our dots in a pvp scenario…
- Demon summons are 6 seconds in shadowlands, this change makes sense if we get fel domination back, else it makes 0 sense from a M+ or arena POV.
Im not asking for everything on the list but some are extremly easy to add without adding binds:
Dot duration, haunt, nightfall, soul link , embrace baseline and removing deathbolt and darkglare would be enough changes for the class play way better than in these last 6 years in both pve and pvp.
Bring back affliction warlocks as one of the most fun specs i’ve played, cause im looking more and more to my arms warrior…
Share your thoughts on the class and what you are liking in SL and what you would like to see added
for this spec.