Thoughts on 3.1 Affliction

Aside from briefly popping online to prepare for a work related project, which I obviously can't write about here, I haven't logged in since the Naxx run detailed in my previous post. Well, actually, while running a standup comedy night on ventrillo I did spend time grinding water elementals between Arathi Basin matches on Arnoux -- who ding'd 38 by the way. But her recent adventures have hardly been worth writing home about. Or worth writing the internet about, as the case may be.


Doesn't stop me from arbitrarily selecting this screenshot to break up the wall of text though!

After the comedy-a-thon was over though, I spent maybe twenty or thirty minutes talking about my thoughts on the future of affliction warlocks to my buddy Kolrawn, who has been too busy tanking for me on his prot pally to really keep up with all the warlock rigmarole. After working through all my thoughts on the matter, I realized it might be something you, my imaginary groupies, might be interested in hearing about.

As a disclaimer, I should note that I haven't been on the PTR, so I haven't actually been able to get any testing done. Any opinions I hold at this point are largely speculative, and based on the latest warlock changes that I'm aware of.

Blizzard's aforementioned intention to simplify the affliction rotation has, unfortunately, come to pass. Not only is Siphon Life being removed as a damaging spell, but now Immolate and Unstable Affliction occupy the same 'slot' on a target, meaning only one of them can be active per warlock at any given time. These changes effectively remove two spells from my active rotation.

What's left is Shadow Bolt > Haunt > Corruption > Curse of Agony > Unstable Affliction > Shadowbolt Spam. Corruption is obviously removed from the rotation after the first cast, meaning that affliction will become roughly a 4 button spec. This is starting to feel a lot like the 3-button days of Burning Crusade.

Particularly annoying is the sudden lack of timer synergy between dots. Right now Siphon Life and Curse of Agony are cast together, because they have similar timers. Same thing with Unstable Affliction and Immolate. The way this caused the rotation to work out was something like two shadow bolts, then haunt, then two dots, then two shadow bolts, then haunt, then two dots, and so on. Very comfortable and easy to work with. Now that the timers of each dot are so astoundingly disparate, it seems likely that switching between shadow bolts, haunt, and dot refreshment may become a bit hectic. But it's far too early to actually say.

Supposedly the upside of this simplification is that it will allow affliction warlocks to do better damage on bosses that require a lot of moving. The oft-heard complaint about affliction is that it is the 'Patchwerk-spec,' and that it doesn't really excel in any other fight. Speaking from my own experience however, I've found this to be absolutely untrue. I certainly do my best damage on Patchwerk -- find me a class that doesn't -- but I frequently top the meters on a variety of other bosses. Sometimes I don't, but that's just the way the game works. Different classes and specs excel in different situations. It would be terrible game design if one class was able to top DPS 100% of the time.


I actually ended up in second place overall for this fight, but the fact that I was able to lead by a significant margin after such a large percentage of one of the most rotation-jarring fights in the game is a clear indication of affliction's versatility.

Frankly, since this change will cause a larger percentage of our overall damage output to rely on Shadow Bolt, I think we're going to see a DROP in DPS for fights which require a lot of moving. At least dots kept on ticking away when we were too busy to cast. But again, such speculation is perhaps getting a little ahead of myself; particularly considering some of the other buffs the tree is getting.

I might say that I look forward to figuring out the best rhythm for the new affliction once patch 3.1 hits the live realms, but that would be a lie. The longer I get to play with my belovedly complex affliction spec, the happier I'll be. I mean, I'm a crotchety old man; you expect me to welcome change?

Curse of Reform

So as the hardcore fans I pretend that I have probably noticed, the rotation being used in the screenshot I posted recently is different from the one I advocated in my post on casting rotations. And for the non-imaginary among you, you'll note that I'm using Curse of Agony instead of Curse of Elements. In forum threads entitled "LS has sold out!!!11eleven" the more astute of my imaginary idolaters no doubt pointed out repeatedly that there is clearly a boomkin in that party, rendering Curse of Elements pointless, and freeing me up to use Curse of Agony instead. And while this is very true, it's not actually the reason for the change in my preferred curse. The truth of the matter is, I have reformed.


As part of my reformation, I've decided to use only level 70 gear from now on.

Before the imaginary flame wars continue, let me explain myself. The catalyst for my decision was the recently announced changes to affliction. Most notably among them, the fact that Corruption and Siphon life are going to be combined into a single casting time. This change comes in response to the fact that Blizzard believes the current affliction rotation to be 'too complicated.' And in truth, affliction warlocks have possibly the most complicated rotation in the game right now.

I love that complexity though. I realize the removal of one global cooldown from the active rotation won't completely kill that complexity, but it will simplify it somewhat. It will make affliction more accessible to all the people who stopped playing their warlock because it became 'too hard.' And before that happens, I wanted to get in a few hours of play with the most difficult rotation I'll ever be likely to have. And I wanted to kick ass with it.

So does this mean that once the rotation is simplified, I'll go back to using Curse of Elements like a good warlock? Nope. While I will, of course, still use it if I feel the situation calls for it, I've noticed that, as of late, I seem to be the only one benefiting from it much. My group/guild is positively notorious for never once having a max level mage that wasn't 'too good' to run things with us, and most of the DPS we DO have is of the physical variety. Hunters, Death Knights, Rogues, and so on. Curse of Elements certainly helps them a little (arcane shot comes to mind) but given the rather significant increase in personal DPS that I've seen since talenting and glyphing properly for Curse of Agony, I think it's time for me to officially replace CoE with CoA*. Not to mention the fact that the boomkin I ran with in that screenshot seems to be playing much more actively again, so this might not be the last time I run with her!


Note the prominent percentage of damage CoA did

So, for those imaginary fans of mine who strive to emulate my play style to the best of their ability, here's my new casting rotation. It's been modified for my newfound lack of trinkets with use function, as well as my new curse preference:

1) Cast one Shadow Bolt, causing the Shadow Embrace effect.

2) Cast Haunt, causing both that debuff, and a second stack of the Shadow Embrace effect.

3) Cast Corruption (I now have this bound to Ctrl+3, since if haunt is re-applied properly, it only needs to be cast once in any given fight. Moving it here allows me to keep my subsequent rotations rooted in keys 1-7. 8 is a little hard for me to reach.)

4) Siphon Life

5) Curse of Agony

6) Unstable Affliction

7) Immolate

8) Re-apply dots as necessary, avoiding clipping (re-casting a dot before it has 100% completed.) Cast haunt whenever it's up--don't worry about clipping it. If not otherwise occupied, be casting Shadow Bolt. Life tap / Dark Pact when you've got a moment of free time too short to cast a shadow bolt in.


*I honestly never thought I would say that.

Changes on the Horizon!

Extra! Extra! Changes for warlocks are a-coming!

I was planning to do a post today about how to select gear as a warlock at any level, but the information which was just release means I'll have to save that post for another time. For now, lets dive right into the changes announced, and my thoughts on them.

Improved Shadow Bolt – this talent now provides a 5% spell critical strike buff (similar to Improved Scorch)
This is clearly in response to Blizzard's stated concern that Improved Scortch was, as they put it, "too much of a unique snowflake." That said, I'm not sure how happy I am about this change. On the face of it it seems very obviously to be a buff, but if this new function of the Improved Shadow Bolt talent removes the OLD function, then this is probably going to work out as a nerf for affliction warlocks. On the bright side, perhaps, it might make shadow destro / shadow demonology a more viable choice (provided more changes are enacted) which will certainly be beneficial to people who don't like casting nothing but fire spells these days.

Improved Soul Leech – this talent now provides Replenishment (similar to shadow priests)
I'm pretty happy about this change. It will add some badly needed utility to the destruction spec, which I'm always happy to see. Furthermore, it turns destruction warlocks into a mana battery, which makes them more attractive for raids. Move over shadow priets! We're here to take your raid spot. =P

Drain Soul now has a chance to produce Soul Shards even if the target doesn’t die.
I'm not quite sure what this means, but I'm really happy to see that blizzard is continuing their recent trend of making soul-shards less of a pain in the ass. Between resummoning your pet after every death, making firestones, summonging people, passing out healthstones, and soul-stoning the healer, I'm ready to accept any change that makes acquiring some souls easier in situations such as PVP, and instances with very few trash pulls.

Siphon Life no longer as an active ability but the talent grants the old Siphon Life effect to Corruption.
What precisely this means is a bit confusing. Fortunately Blizzard explained it a bit further later on. So it seems that the simplest way to put this is that Siphon Life will no longer be a button on your action bar; rather, it will simply be automatically applied when you cast corrupion. Two dots, once cast. Good news for everybody who thinks affliction is too complicated, so-so news for everyone who relishes in that complexity. I can only imagine that the new Siphon Life will join corruption in being re-applied by Haunt.

Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Weakness have been combined into one spell.
More curse combinations! If these keeps up, the debuffer class will only have a handfull of debuffs left. Still, this conjunction of two semi-useless debuffs will hopefully be more useful than their contingent parts were.

Consume Shadows – this Voidwalker ability is no longer channeled but has a cooldown.
Nice little quality of life buff here. No longer will we have to stand still while our voidwalker heals himself. Instead, he can run along beside us while he regens health!

Several other warlock talents have had their ranks reduced, their effects changed or removed. This list includes but is not limited to Demonic Empathy, Shadow Embrace, Eradication, Suppression, and Pandemic.
I'll avoid speculating as to what exactly these changes are. My sincere hope is that the shadow damage buff afforded by Shadow Embrace has been increased, that the amount of dots Pandemic applies to has been improved, and the internal cooldown of Eradication has been lowered. I'm also wondering if, perhaps, suppression is being combined with Cataclysm. Damn, I speculated. >.>

Additional new talents have been added.

I trust they are as generally promising as these have been! =D

Obviously, as the blue post points out, this is all subject to change. I remember there were a LOT of things in 3.0 that I was looking forward to with great anticipation; things which never saw release on a live server. Still, this is at least a good indication of things to come, and we can always hope that things will only improve for the better as this patch is developed further.

In closing, I'd like to thank Blizzard from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank them for being more open with us--the community--than they have been in the past. It makes the game much more fun for me to be able to follow the development process in something like real-time. And I further think it is our duty, as the World of Warcraft fan community, to respect Blizzard's decision to be more open with us. We should respect it by remembering that they could have easily kept all of this secret from us until it was more finalized. We should respect it by not bitching if a change we liked is reverted before the patch goes live.

Where Went the Warlock Quests?

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 1, I met a lady standing in the graveyard behind the chapel today. She looked scary. Beside her was a dark man, with a wicked little creature dancing beside him. She had a task for me--much like everybody else around here seems to have. Like a fool I took her at her word. I hunted down and killed three people--defias scum, no real loss I suppose. But when I returned to her she revealed that what I took from them had never been hers in the first place; she revealed that the defias theives had played right into her hands by stealing a book that she had wished to steal herself. I'm unaware of how I should feel about this...but she taught me something in exchange...

Back in the day, there were class-quests. Why the hell did they quit making those? Granted, many of them were stupidly easy, and those that were not easy had somewhat lackluster rewards (I imagine to placate those who wouldn't be able to find groups.) But they added a depth and immersion to the classes and to the game itself that I simply don't feel from level 61 onward.

Astien's Journal; Level 10, 'At green-stached codger Blackwrench gave me some bit about needin' ta head ta the ol' stormie city to talk ta some tall bastard 'bout getting meself a blueberry. Fucker said he'd fallen in with some pretty young thing and lost 'is shiney bauble. Now it's my job ta go get it back jes cuz these tallies can't keep it in their pants. Nether blasted assholes must not be gettin' enough air bein up so high likes they is.

Going to the trainer and simply learning new abilities has no charm, no flair. I certainly understand why it's necessary for most of a class' abilities. After all, if we had to quest for every single one, than most people wouldn't bother getting half, or more, of their spells--but blizz had a good balance in vanilla WoW, why'd they abandon it altogether?

Arnoux's Journal; Level 20, Men of honor and goodness, the blind one was right in questioning their existence--for there are none. Their race is week; subject to the whims of their flesh-bound form. In all the world only two were said to exist, and even those two cursed me as I cut their hearts from their chests. What honor can there be in such an ignoble entrance to death? I was fortunate that the Succubus accepted my offering despite the impurity of weakness with which it was tainted.

Not just abilities either. I remember gathering shards of a crystal from Shadowfang Keep and Blackfathom Deepths (I think) to forge an off-handed item with some killer stats. And back before all the gear was re-itemized in patch 2.3 (when spellpower and other stats were added to low level gear) the bloodrobe was one of the best pieces of non-endgame gear in vanilla WoW. I know at least a few warlocks who stuck with it until Outlands. (Though I managed to upgrade to the Robes of the Lich myself.)

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 53, I was working with the druids in the Fel Wood today, trying to use my knowledge of demonic magic to help them reverse the demon-taint that pervades the land. We made only a little progress, but that's not important. Far more noteworthy than my continued failure to apply my knowledge as a force for good is this pompous little gnome I met. He promised me the ability to summon a guardian of immeasurable physical strength if I helped him out. While the gnome's petty ambitions are of no concern of mine--perhaps this knowledge he promises will prove the key to unlocking Fel Wood's cure!

Wait, wut? (Yes, I was a terrible warlock in those days.)

There are a lot of mechanics blizzard has abandoned as time has gone on, thanks to WoW's development team has learned and evolved. On most issues, I applaud them for that. I may be a fan of the old, more hardcore-oriented content, but speaking in terms of the big-picture, I think most of blizzard's decisions have been for the better. Making raids more accessible, creating more 5-man endgame content, giving classes like druids and pallies the ability do do something other than heal--these are all excellent things.

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 60, I constructed the cage as I was instructed, and used the device Mr. The Decrepit had me build to ensnare one of the legion's Doomguards here in the tainted scar. Thank The Shadows Lord Kazaak no roams there. As promised, I learned the secret of summoning and controlling one...but the secrets that were imparted to me fill me with fear. Such terrible power at my fingertips, with a cost only a demon would be able to bear upon his conscience. I wonder, not for the first time, if the path I have chosen will leave anything left of my soul.

On this matter, however, I think the devs made a mistake. I'm certainly not an experienced game designer, but I'm familiar enough to know that adding 2 or 3 quests for each of the ten classes would not be a terribly difficult thing to do. Certainly not as difficult as many of the other projects blizzard undertakes. An NPC here or there, some quest text, toss a named mob into some unused bit of real estate and boom.

Sentaigrehsk's Journal; Level 70, Today I helped my young student Moreven master her Dreadsteed. For months she's collected spell components, bartered with demons, and ventured into lethal danger, and today I watched as she single-handedly subjugated a Nathrezim with the skills I have taught her. My eyes welled with tears at the sight...and I'm not sure if it is my pride in her for succeeding, or my shame in myself for enabling her to do so.

Given that two expansions have gone by since the last class quest, with one or two exceptions, I doubt we're going to see any more of them in the future. However, if Blizz is listening, then please heed the words of this humble old warlock, and give me back this little bit of immersion that you abandoned. I don't care if the rewards are absolutely worthless, or if there are no rewards at all. I just want my class to feel special again.