It is a bit boring being back in WoW after several months just to see that Blizzard still havent done anything to improve Affli. Boring old Destro Rain of Fire spam seems like the way to go, yay us.
Here are three solutions:
UA = Unstable Affliction
Affli shouldnt be a bursty class, but there is literally no burst dmg for totems in either Brackenhide Hollow or Uldaman. There is a solution, although I would not prefer it, it would be to remove the CD of Soul Swap and preferably also the GCD… but I see how the removal of the GCD could make it might be OP. Because of the CD on soul swap, using soul swap to nuke down e.g. a totem would entail dropping all your stacks of malefic affliction from the boss. Personally I think this would entail way too much clicking.
A better solution would be for Soul Swap to actually copy all your dots, including unstable affliction. Let´s just say that the next time you cast UA, the other UA, the one you decided not to refresh becomes unstable and explodees (or something), just so you cannot keep refreshing 2 UAs.
The best solution would be to track malefic affliction onto your UA rather than on the target. If a target dies with UA or as long as you keep refreshing UA you keep your stacks of Malefic affliction. This was actually “play tested” because this was an unintended bug in the game for a while, however I and I bet many others that got to try out this bug really enjoyed it. It wasnt broken, it just fixed a lot of issues with Affliction Warlock. See:
Other issues that need to be addressed:
SoC cast time is also too long or make it instant. There is no way to dump shards when we have too many. Feels bad when you are overcapping your shards and have no way to dump them. Demo has Hand of Guldan to dump shards and Destro has instant cast Rain of fire.
Hopes:
Malefic Rupture should be castable when moving, at least in PVE.
Soul Swap is way to go there, it helped me alot. In VP cooldown is missing few seconds 1 or 2 times, and it’s better to not play Malefic Affliction with this talent. Having to pay Soul Shard and being 30 cooldown is weird to me. Removing Soul Shard cost and reducing it’s cooldown a little could be a way.
Best would be to remove Malefic Affliction stacking and make it flat damage buff, making Dread Touch and Doom Blossom works with this change is not a problem. 3 stack delay gameplay brings nothing to the single target and cause only trouble to balance/fix outside of it.
SoC in 2023 is boring as hell and not fun to play when you need to spam it (outside of damage value) but I understand maybe someone likes it.
It’s too much, but on the other hand Balance / Shadow can spend their power spend with instant spells in AoE.
Assuming, Blizzard does not mind that Affliction is bad performing since BFA and unable to fix it outside working on Shadow/Balance.
Hard to consider 9.0 as Aff was just overtuned in all content and was quickly nerfed.
I think the problem was not Malefic Rapture base damage but amount of available dots which made it over-scaling in damage (Agony, Corruption, UA, SL, PS, Soul Rot).
Shame they did not chose direction of reducing amount of dots or cap it at fixed value, possible we would be in better Affliction state right now.
In 9.1 was ok in AoE but dog in single target what also made it unplayable in high keys.
Best fun I had was end of BFA and end of Shadowlands due to the amount of haste an set bonuses.
I think Soul Swap should also last longer. I did heroic the Forggoten Experiments in the new raid yesterday and Soul Swap only worked if i used it at like 0.5% and literally spammed button when the next boss arrived. It didnt even work for the last boss. We want soul swap for these RP situations too, where other classes dont have to ramp up in the same way. At the moment Soul Swap only lasts 10 seconds, I think it could last 20 seconds without being game breaking.
yeah honestly. However, I quite enjoyed the bugged version of malefic affliction. I think that iteration was good too.
I quite like what the ability does, the problem is that it is way too slow. They could just make it instant in my opinion. rain of fire is instant, so why not SoC.
Meh let’s not make simple things too complicated. Otherwise we will receive what we have. Blizz is not so deep on Aff design to make fancy things, they should start with make spec working.
To make short summary mine SoC in binded into “F” key since Shadowlands. Last week had to replace keyboard cause mine “F” key drop off keyboard.
SoC does good things due to it’s mindless playstyle. All you need to play around are 4 Agony dots due to the DR on Soul Shards generation, outside of it you can spam Seed as hell as it will do same flat damage no matter what talents you will pick deep into tree. Instant or not it would be only fix to the movement damage, not fix of playstyle.
To not misunderstand, I’m up for any QoL improvements, but after 10.0.7 Warlock “fixes” I’m worried that devs things Aff is in good state, shame that it is as it is.
Right now Shadow is best Aff we could possible ever get, it has it’s problems for sure but still it’s way ahead… current Shadow is like BFA Affliction with only difference that it’s working due to some few extra talents.
I got my shadow priest to 70 yesterday and got it geared up to 407 ilvl. Holy hell is it fun to play, the smooth gameplay, the splendid visuals. Summoning tentacles and faceless ones and angry ghost swarms. Such a joy. Meanwhile affliction is THE most visually boring spec in the game and it’s painful as hell to manage dots. They really need to update affliction, don’t know it it needs a full rework but it could certainly use a visual update and a sort of soft rework at least.
SP is now the master dot class. Affliction dots to maintain are the most hardcore thing in a game that could have been designed. It is so painful i literally have cramps on my fingers and my eyes/brain/hand coordination at maximum and reward is the bottom DPS. Affliction is the hardest spec to play in the game and it is the least rewarding one. Such a shame it has so much potential.
let’s not make simple things too complicated. Otherwise we will receive what we have. Blizz is not so deep on Aff design to make fancy things, they should start with make spec working.