This is probably the best iteration of affliction i've played, well done devs
The only thing that really is bad about this specc is that the pets die so fast
Affli lock should just have both Shadowbolt and Drain Soul at once, like in the past. First being a regular filler, DS existing for sniping shards.Would solve so many problems.
I miss Soul Flame both in terms of DPS on low health mobs as well as just cool visual / effect. Altogether, this version of Affliction is decent, but I will never forget MoP's Soulburn and Soul Swap, had so much fun both in PvE and PvP.
The loss of Soulflame and my pet Infernal is annoying me a lot. Affliction doesn't play bad at all, it is also competitive. It just isn't as engaging anymore. No shard sniping, reduced health tanking. Functional, but unspectacular.
what are the "Soul Sap" and "Grimoire of Supremacy" (near the end) about? are they suggestions? well they are cool as hell
Oh sure, affliction is now squishy. it's not blood DK it's only vengance DH. Can't survive raid wiping mechanic anymore and has lower hps than healer. Unplayable!...Also comparing fear to poly? You can fear target, cast on him all your dots and it wont break. And what is 14% to 21% on spellsteal? Nothing, especially when you can spellsteal some nonsence that is still "magic" I'm talking to you frost Dks.
Yeah, I miss my Infernal. Also, I miss Life Tap, regardless of how OP it was to have a never-ending mana pool. If they would bring back those two things, I'd be over the moon.
Not terribly happy with this. I enjoyed my the play style in Legion very much. This BFA version seems too squishy, too mana dependent, and i want my infernal back, dang it.
The pet being squishy seems like a massive oversight to me, and I agree that a few of the spells should have been baseline - overall it's more fun to play than the Legion variant, but still not up to the fun of BC or Wrath. I can't stand the drain soul (read: mind flay) mechanic at all, I'm quite happy to send shadow bolts to the bosses face until the bitter end, just give me back the nightfall proc sound and make the shadow bolt look interesting again.
Aff lock will suffer from the "less than" problem - after being so OP in Legion, players will feel it is not as good now. This is how I felt about MW Monk after MoP. To solve that problem, I usually skip the spec for an xpac or two... here's hoping that demo lock doesn't stink ;)
I can admit that aff was a little OP in Legion, but I am waaaay too squishy now. I got one shotted by a hunter! A HUNTER! I played primarily for pvp and this is a pretty unacceptable transition. I can hardly get through the darkshore wq's and world pvp used to be one of my favorite things. This doesn't bode well for War Mode and I was really looking forward to this feature. I generally like most of the changes they've made even if they are taking some getting used to. I like actually having to cast more than one spell for a change haha. I really think they need to tweak our soul leach or our rate of healing. I am good with not having both like in Legion, but to be this squishy now is really frustrating. I realize the "less than" effect, but I think we got hit just a little too hard. Having said all that, I am sure we will get some tweaks..either at BfA launch or through some of the Azerite traits. Gluck all!
For me, with these changes feel awkward the affli spec. I understand the reason of the rework, since in Legion was way too much low player and 0 class/spec balance so affli was OP really. (survivability, versatile style). But with the current casting time overhaul (haunt, deathbolt, shadowbolt) there is a problem. Does not feel like a dot class. Feel like the unholy little brah' of the destro lock (what is a joke-green-fire-mage basically... ).A few changes required for not feel like clockwork during sandstorm (e.g.: 0 smoothness). I admit that, the changes are better, than in Legion - even if I liked pretty much the mega-OP version of affli - because it feel more fair against other spec/classes. There are really good things, but basically, the talents pretty much not-in-done-state (imho). Half of it just simple useless or break the gameplay/rotation what is way too stupid. Also, not adding back some of the artifact capabilities is just way too much nerf. What hurts the most is the AoE damage potential loss because of the damage calculation changes (no soul flames, stupidly useless seeds...). As the logs showed, affli locks going as primary target hunter / pure ST fighters. I would be more happy if I can see more changes on other classes and specs (what broke af currently) instead of nerf-nerf-nerf again and again the lock.
I feel like the talent choices put Aff where DKs were prior to their initial release.Here are 3-4 buttons for DoTs.Here are another 3-4 buttons for things to do after DoTs are up.Here's 1 filler button, 1 AoE button, 1 bust DPS button, and a lot of utility spells. Enjoy the mini-games! Also, you have to move because you're melee (slightly different for ranged warlocks).They were eventually trimmed down with diseases (dots) being baked into melee strikes. Not that our dots should be baked into a series of spells but the sheer amount of extra, and in some cases undertuned, abilities that bring DPS close to someone who has chosen passives feels unrewarding and much like sub rogues. Sub rogue rotation was a nightmare and on near-perfect execution was slightly even with the other specs on average execution.Props for removal of the dot-dot-dot-DL-DL-DL rotation and I love the new SB animation.
I'm think shadow embrace must re replaced by "Life Tap" talent, channeled spell applying stacking damage or haste buff. And replacing "sow the seeds" with "soulflame" is very interesting
We just should have both drain soul and shadow bolt as baseline, shadow bolt as filler and drain soul to drain low hp target we say we should get drain soul version as baseline together with shadow bolt not because of surival - cuz we want god damn basic drain soul mechanic without healing and btw STFU you are annoying .
and i love the author of these articles, they appearently know the classes , arent fans of slow, boring 3 spam clicking rotations ( well no one is fan of that ) and has nearly the same thoughts as I
they turned aff into a sequence macro spec, thx blizz. its even more boring than it was before, we lost so many tools that let the player choose different ways to do dmg in certain situations. now the dmg between the bosses with adds and the single target boss is almost the same and thats ^&*!.