I am a tad confused. You say that you only have two options in the Class tree for DPS, yet you completely leave out Soulkeeper/Inquisitor's Gaze? Am I reading something wrong or is that literally a damage ability, and in the case of the Inquisitor's Gaze even a completely passive one?
For a DPS class like the warlock, a choice between a throughput talent and a non-throughput talent is a no-brainer. And that makes putting throughput in the class tree very dangerous.
Really wish the return of the 0.5s GCD on curses / dots would return for affliction. It was part of the spec since classic -> Legion, and even then it remained as a pvp talent and the spec would suddenly come alive and feel fun again whenever you entered one of those pvp world quest towers.It's removal has been one of the most anti-fun things to happen to the spec, multidotting has went from what I enjoyed the most about affliction to being the least enjoyable part of the spec and contributed towards multidotting essentially being 1 dot - since AC becomes mandatory and that precludes SL. With UA being capped at 1 target all that's left is agony.Hoped the GCD reduction would finally return with a new look at talents, but seemingly not. Upsetting.
I think Xyronic is absolutely correct and I sincerely hope the devs are paying attention. Unfortunately, my real life was so busy that I was unable to learn destruction or demonology. As a result, I have really payed the price for playing affliction because it sucks. In fact, it has been a bad affliction for the player since the beginning of Battle of Azeroth. Currently, I see two major problems with affliction. First, the spec needs to be properly balanced because it has been unplayable throughout Shadowlands since the Malific Wrath nerf. Second, fix AOE. Increase the damage and make it easier to play.I can't even express how frustrating it has been to do everything right in a boss encounter and end up at the bottom of the dps and sometimes even below the tank. It's not my playing ability because in Battle of Azeroth I was upper-middle and later at the top of the dps. Not a single intelligent raiding warlock in the game would play affliction in Shadowlands with the exception of aoe in M+. The last time affliction was a viable spec (but not great) was in the last expansion and that was with single and cleave targets only (AOE has always been bad and very awkward to play). At that point, affliction was at least in the middle of the dps ratings with single target. However, I have to admit that affliction became overpowered once the corruption gear buffs were introduced later in the Battle of Azeroth (which i loved), but knew was only temporary. Affliction's problems began with the major nerf to Malific Wrath. I still remember the devs saying, " affliction is a dot spec therefore it shouldn't have a nuke". OK, fine, but then be sure to increase the dots enough to make up for the nerf. As a result, affliction became unplayable for raiding and has remained unplayable. Please fix it.My humble suggestions:Single/Cleave targets: 1. Restore Malific Wrath's power or eliminate it completely. 2. Be sure to properly balance the spec. The wheel doesn't have to be reinvented here.AOE: Cast a seed and have it place corruption (and possibly agony) on all mobs around the target, same as other classes. Make Drain Soul and Shadow Bolt AOE spells.Almost forgot....improve the self-healing.
Regarding Aff and its ST dps problems:Why is it so hard to bring back the talent that increases dot dmg taken by like 80% if you channel drain soul onto it?Just make it so that if you use shadow bolt, it applies a 3s debuff.Since both are single target only spells you cast when nothing else is rdy, it fits perfectly. And people have been asking for it since the start of BfA.And we really need some changes for Siphon Life.The spell feels incredible bad to press.It does very very low dmg, no noticeable healing and is just a malfic rapture fooder and gcd bloat that becomes even worse if there is more than one target.And while many people have been asking to bring Soul Swap back, why bring it back in such a state?It doesnt apply all dots, is on the gcd and costs a soulshard.So all it does is saving you 2 gcds, one being a very short cast, but it costs one soul shard.Make it apply all dots and remove that shard or keep the shard cost but make it apply all dots and Shadow Embrace or Haunt (if specced into it).Another thing is:Why remove the current Aff 2pc set bonus and replace it with the 4pc bonus?Everbody was complaining about the Aff 4pc bonus bc it did nothing in AoE and being only a small gain in ST.Where the 2pc bonus was not really a big dps gain but a huge quality of life gain with the dot extension on our spender.
I wish for affliction warlock could choose between using malefic graps or drain soul, both should replace shadow bolt when picked so I can choose between both gameplays or make dots GCD 0.5s. Gorefiend's Resolve is useless from my point of view no one is going to use that talent. Something like pandaria gameplay (with drain soul and soul swap) with a bit of legion gameplay would be nice. I also still don't understand why burning rush is a talent it should be baseline. And because Curses of Enfeeblement is far from the mortal coil and shadowfury branch, will pvpers lose talents from the final branch because they want to have more cc? or will the curses be sacrificed for the cc?
I feel that the Warlock tree (left one) is kinda strange in choices when you want to sacrifice your pet in the affliction tree (right one).Makes you pick some useless talents for pets allong the way imo.
The best thing they could possibly do is to take a page from Affliction's genuinely most successful, non-gimmicky eras: Wrath and (more notably) Cataclysm. Shadow Bolt should be the main filler, Drain Soul should be the execute under 25%. They could put some random choice talent for folks that really want to be a shadow priest and have a full channel filler only, and it should be balanced to be equal to (or slightly inferior to if not capable of equaling) sbolt filler. And before anyone brings up MoP: Face it, channel only Aff was a failure. The ONLY reason it succeeded in MoP was because of DoT snapshotting (with AffDots), and that will NEVER return. MoP-era Affliction died the very second they removed DoT snapshotting, the only change WoD made to the spec (aside from pruning Malefic Grasp which did nothing different at all from Drain Soul), and it was the most unpopular the spec has ever been to this day. This spec has always revolved around three strong DoTs w/ SBolt filler, and it was always at its most popular and successful with it in place. But it needs a real execute too, and Drain Soul was the perfect answer for that for years. Also, Malefic Rapture should be removed, with Haunt in its place as the entry talent. SoC should be reverted to its old faster cast time as the AoE of choice. Shadowflame should actually apply a DoT, but not one worth casting on single target. Having to move into melee range was more than fine during Wrath/Cata, and it isn't the danger today that it was back then since threat no longer exists, and health is normalized. And finally, Doom should be an option on the Aff tree, reverted to its Cata design as a big nuke dot that hit 4 times over 60 seconds instead of the joke countdown it is now.