According to the datamines, in next phase, fire locks get +10% damage on top of the already existing +65% fire damage, as well as +30% haste from the conflagrate rune. They also naturally increase the damage of what seems to be one of the best AoE abilities in the game (Immolation aura). On top of this they also get Ruin next phase which will be immensly powerful since Destro wants to stacks crit.
What does Affliction get? Our DoT’s can now crit (for +50%, not +100%), and we get a mechanic that adds absolutely nothing other than making it easier to reapply dots without losing DPS. These two runes constitue a DPS increase of about half your crit chance for the DoT portion of your DPS, which would be about 1-3% in total right now. We also get UA that doesn’t stack with Immolate, but I find it hard to believe it will even compete with Immolate given the +85% damage it recieves from fire.
Looks like this phase again all Warlocks has to go fire. Here’s a tip; Nobody rolled Warlock to be a mage with no utility. Give us some Affli/Demo runes for gods sake. You are so afraid that DoT’s will become OP that they have no chance to compete at all. Even in cleave scenarios where DoT builds should shine, we aren’t competitive at all in phase 1. And there’s nothing indicating that it will be better in phase 2.
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I will reroll feral because they will be broken even their epics has super broken ability, dont know why they add something specific to them as pvp reward. Other rewards not even close to that weapon. I might go with shaman too if they are good in terms of scaling but i will come back at phase3 as lock because where we get felguard rune and soul link + instant corruption combination as talent thanks to more points and ofc unstable affliction rune with dot crit rune combination is super worth to mention
Phase2 is uber trash for lock. and blizzard never do something fast so i cant spend my 3 months waiting for an upgrade.
If it is blizz game just reroll to be happy.
They are so determined to make Destruction the spec that I am starting to think they might remove magic type immunity later on. It would be an epic fail to have to switch to the wet towel specs when it comes to MC and BWL.
And frankly the game plays so fast right now I think dots barely have time to do anything except on bosses. Maybe this is why they favor Destruction so hard, it would be cool for Afliction to keep up but it has a lot of catching up to do.
Well i never think like that i was thinking with pvp arena logic but you might be right.
These days if we check popular games everything is happening so fast. And meta in terms fo gaming industry moba deathmatch etc. So people tend to choose fast playstyle over classic slow and farming style of old rpgs.
Maybe they are kinda speeding up the game slowly to be prepared for the future gaming but still using classic game as a main source makes no sense.
AND
There are so many useless spells let say buttons ( they are useful in terms of rpg figures ofc) things in wow. They are created with the logic of 2000s.
They need to decrease number of buttons etc. to catch the new gaming standards but they are doing opposite of this. They are adding new runes and new active spells for each class so it is hard to understand the logic behind. Especially at 60 each class will have “op” new 8 10 abilities and balancing of 200new spells will be imposible.
I agree 100% affliction needs some love…i dont like the playstyle of fire lock using rain of fire on my rotation.
Lets see i hope they release more than belt and boots slots so we can get UA from wrist also…Hope it pumps!
I would love a Rune that revamps Agony somehow and make it strong spell cause its kinda meh.
Feels like they just slapped something stupid (Lake of Fire) onto another stupid and mana-intensive ability (Rain of Fire) which we use in a stupid way (by instantly cancelling it) to make a Warlock DPS build viable. I mean cmon, +40% fire damage is just ridiculous. Incinerate also has the same issue. It’s just Shadowbolt but provides +25% all fire damage. It also has less mana cost, less cast time (with no talent investment required), and more damage (even without the +25%). It’s just lazy design.
Warlock was probably one of the most played classes at the start of SoD, but now it’s one of, if not the, least played class. Fire is viable but boring. So people just move on to other more fun classes. We don’t have any major talents in Affli or Demo that will turn the tables. It’s all up to the runes to do that. And from what we’ve seen so far, there’s nothing that will change things up.
I tried affli and refuse to play destro as is. Firedestro is boring (imo) and can’t be played outside of raids. Bad for open world (no regen) and unplayable in pvp (no instants).
Problem with affli on top of bad dps is / will be button bloat. I hoped they made a rune saying Corruption applies all dots (drain life, siphon life, agony, UA). Because atm we are looking at haunt+ua+corruption+drain life+agony+siphon life+proc SBs. Its way too much (even with everlasting affliction). It lacks aoe as well.
It feels better than spammin incinerate + CB all day but still, there should be a middle ground.
Personally I like having many buttons to push. The 3D chess of maximizing damage output with many targets is really fun imo. But considering how fast all fights are in SoD, I have to agree with you. Also if you juggle multi target DoT’s like that, you expect that to show in the DPS meter but that’s not the case at all.
They could make Drain life add Siphon life, and Corruption add CoA in case no other curse is already on there for instance. I had hoped we got Seed of Corruption as well as a book/rune. If we make Seed of Corruption apply Corruption on all targets it hits, bam, Affli is viable in AoE again while still keeping up with the affli theme. It doesn’t even have to make any damage while detonating.
Bah anyway. There’s so many ways they could make Affli interesting and they chose these boring and weak runes. Such a shame.
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You can’t even use it. If you’re in a raid as lock you’re using recklessness so you literally miss an entire shadow dot if you’re affliction as a baseline. It’s terrible design.
Well i dont care about pve cause wtver runes they implement or wtver nerfs they do the bosses always die and the raids are easy.
I mostly care for pvp bgs and open world duels.
I want game to be balanced on pvp and have lot of close duels and good fights that have counterplay.
Love it when the blood gets pumpin 