Affliction Warlock design that respects the spec’s identity idea. Having Unstable Affliction as a core DoT that can be actively drained instead of just maintained would give the rotation way more depth and decision-making while keeping everything rooted in the fantasy of draining life and spreading suffering. This would feel like a true, dynamic interaction between life-draining and decay, rather than a passive rotation with filler abilities.
How This Could Work in Practice:
- Setup Phase: Apply Agony, Corruption/Wither, and Unstable Affliction as your main DoTs. Each of these should feel significant and impactful in its own right, building up the suffering on the target.
- Sustain Phase: Maintain and refresh your DoTs efficiently, making sure UA is always up. You’re focusing on keeping the target rotting and decaying with your DoTs while making sure your uptime is as high as possible.
- Drain Phase: Channel Drain Soul (or a similar channeled spell) to siphon uptime out of UA, causing its remaining damage to rapidly tick out, this could make drain soul, or new spell added for this function to maybe work as main spender instead of malefic rapture:
Single-Target: Draining UA consumes 2 seconds per tick, forcing its remaining damage into an accelerated burst.
AoE Variant: Instead of just transferring damage, draining UA detonates it, spreading damage to nearby enemies, like a controlled version of Seed of Corruption. - Pandemic Window Management: You now have a choice—do you drain UA just enough to hit the Pandemic window and refresh for efficiency, or drain it fully for a big AoE explosion in multitarget fights? This creates a moment-to-moment decision that feels rewarding for players who manage their resources carefully.
UA Becomes a Core Mechanic Again rather than an afterthought.
Your Channeled Spells Feel Purposeful rather than just filler. Every channel of Drain Soul or similar abilities has direct meaning to your overall damage output.
Burst Becomes More Dynamic, with choices between big single-target drains and AoE detonations. The Pandemic mechanic adds extra strategy to your uptime management.
DoTs Stay the Focus, rather than being reduced to just Malefic Rapture fuel. Your DoTs are your primary source of power and should feel meaningful.
More Skill Expression & Decision-Making, rewarding players who manage their timings and sustain mechanics.
This design would actually feel like you are weaving together agony, decay, and suffering into a perfect symphony of death. Instead of just maintaining DoTs and pressing a spender, you’d be actively siphoning power from your target.
Burst Window and Dark Glare Interaction:
When you enter your burst window, after summoning Dark Glare, your DoTs would flare up aggressively. This could trigger variations of smaller, more interesting DoTs that add additional debuffs or buffs. For example, you could have DoTs that apply short-duration debuffs to enemies, or you could get buffs that extend the duration of your other DoTs or increase their damage for a limited time. These secondary effects would make the Dark Glare phase feel rich and rewarding.
During this burst window, the primary goal would be to hold your DoTs’ uptime while they decay faster and more aggressively. This could be achieved through abilities like Soul Rot to ramp up DoT damage, or even cleaving with Drain Soul to help extend your DoT durations while maintaining high pressure. You would also be aiming to hit the UA Pandemic Window, refreshing it at the optimal time, so that when the Dark Glare phase concludes, you’re still maintaining maximum pressure.
Additionally, hitting the Pandemic Window of UA would not only refresh its own duration but Dark Glare would add time to your other DoTs as well, lining them up for maximum damage across your entire rotation. This would mean that multiple Pandemic refreshes could be necessary to keep all of your DoTs alive and ticking through the entire Dark Glare window, making the burst phase a delicate balance between refreshing UA and extending your other DoTs.
This creates a high-risk, high-reward element, where timing your UA Pandemic refreshes correctly could mean a massive boost in your overall damage, while failing to juggle your DoTs could result in them falling off before your burst phase ends.
The rotation would become a delicate balance of strategic DoT maintenance, resource management, and explosive power as you tap into your warlock’s full potential. This would finally give Affliction back its sense of depth, where each action feels purposeful, and the reward comes from expertly managing your DoTs and decisions throughout the fight.