203 replies to this topic

[Nadagast]

Nycto, on 20 December 2012 - 05:03 PM, said:

I don't think so, i've been playing destroagain recently with a ridiculous amount of resilience and it's strong (strong in terms of warlock atm...). Every game i just play very slowly, don't chaos bolt too much because i will have to ember tap a lot generally, but the sustained from immolate/incinerate/conflag is pretty high.  It can also punish people well with chaos bolt with cd's etc.

I feel its the most viable at the moment because it has the best survivability with decent sustained damage and the option to burst, which the other 2 specs lack imo.

(By no means is destro close to what a sp, mage etc brings though, but i think you can manage to do well with it providing you don't make any mistakes during games)

I've found Demo to be far better than Destro, and be much better at surviving as well.  Sac Pact Demo with a Wrathguard with Demon Training glyph gives you a 300k shield every minute.  Combine that with double port, Axe Toss, knock, and leap, and you're pretty strong at surviving.

The damage seems pitiful when you play it, because so much of it is in pets and Doom/Corruption, spread out over huge periods of time.  But the damage is kinda there, and the burst when popping your Dark Soul is still reasonable.  Although I usually just play around keeping Doom up, more than actually doing the Dark Soul 2x Chaos Wave against most teams that don't have 2 curse dispels.

The more I try Aff the more I'm convinced that the #1 problem by a significant margin is the survivability, particularly against cleaves.  It's just fucking awful.

Edited by Nadagast, 04 January 2013 - 03:14 AM.

[Nadagast]

You're right, Sac Pact isn't very good for non-Demo specs, because they don't have a super high HP Wrathguard to shield with.  I am interested in your Destro Shadowplay.  Last time I played it, we lost to Feral/Spriest/RSham.

When you say, "if I cast 2 incinerates that crit with a conflag" what are the actual chances of that happening?  The chance to crit 2 incinerates in a row with current gear levels is like 1-2%, I think.

[Rith]

I like demo just because of the survivability mentioned. Also  The felguard stun is amazing, the pet utility alone makes it great. Doom crits for 100k and chaos wave with the 1 minute trinket is pretty reliable burst.

Edited by Rith, 04 January 2013 - 07:27 AM.

[saffie]

I'm actually doing okay personally as affliction, even though it isn't that great vs cleaves, playing with a paladin really helps. Perhaps people kinda gave up on it too early, but yeah it isn't all that fun to play tbh, but I feel the same way about demo so.

[Breez]

I personally enjoy demo the most, just because of the utility it has. Dont see point playing affliction atm.

[Nadagast]

Anyone have any good talent/pet/glyph combos for living vs cleaves as Aff?  I feel like if Aff could live vs cleaves, it'd be an okay spec right now.  I've been experimenting with Soul Link + GoSacrifice, starting with a soul linked VW and disarming, then immediately sacrificing it for the last stand sacrifice ability.  It seems okay, but an Imp seems really good vs cleaves too, so I've been trying Supremacy Imp + Dark Bargain.  I think I like the Imp better, but dispels are just so iffy, considering all the random CC your Imp can get caught in.

[Snackumz]

i have just been using darkbargain and saving it till the last moment. kfc is still pretty iffy. i havent really been trying so i haven't been playing all the same caliber teams you have been playing nada. but i did cheese around as LSD and just outcleave the cleaves, which i found to be the best possible alternative to getting cleaved

edit: i feel that your voidwalker idea could work, but instead of soullink just use darkbargain maybe? darkbargain is a fun last resort.

Edited by Snackumz, 08 January 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[saffie]

you can go service and make a voidwalker to disarm. But overall you really cant ever win vs KFC as a warlock whatever you do they just kill me when I have all my cds up through them all. Also you can't win vs cleaves just by trying to survive you need to be causing pressure as well trying to score a kill asap because you are dead meat when you run out of defensive cds anyway. Also I really hate dark bargain as a spell, its just way too unreliable, and imp "dispel" isnt really dispel it just dispels stuff like poly/trap/blind that gets broken with damage so I its not so reliable vs cleaves, especially ones with no hunter in it is it?

[Railander]

saffie, on 08 January 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

you can go service and make a voidwalker to disarm. But overall you really cant ever win vs KFC as a warlock whatever you do they just kill me when I have all my cds up through them all. Also you can't win vs cleaves just by trying to survive you need to be causing pressure as well trying to score a kill asap because you are dead meat when you run out of defensive cds anyway. Also I really hate dark bargain as a spell, its just way too unreliable, and imp "dispel" isnt really dispel it just dispels stuff like poly/trap/blind that gets broken with damage so I its not so reliable vs cleaves, especially ones with no hunter in it is it?

how is dark bargain unreliable? the only bad thing about it is you cant use while silenced (or was it interrupted?), but can while stunned etc. IMO its a very strong cd

[Athená]

The biggest issue I have with aff is the survability, it doesnt matter what we do vs a kfc it is all in vain.
The reason why soul link isnt that appealing either is that locks have no pet healing unless they spec into it?
I remember lock pets always being fine unless actually being focused, right now they just die from random dots.
50% on soul link is way to much for you to just let it on either..

[saffie]

Athená, on 08 January 2013 - 03:05 PM, said:

The biggest issue I have with aff is the survability, it doesnt matter what we do vs a kfc it is all in vain.
The reason why soul link isnt that appealing either is that locks have no pet healing unless they spec into it?
I remember lock pets always being fine unless actually being focused, right now they just die from random dots.
50% on soul link is way to much for you to just let it on either..

Its not %50 it doesn't wor that way, its more like %20 but you give up a defensive cd to get it, and people hitting your pet actually hurts you a lot.

Railander, on 08 January 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

how is dark bargain unreliable? the only bad thing about it is you cant use while silenced (or was it interrupted?), but can while stunned etc. IMO its a very strong cd

Against a team with constant pressure up you end up being fucked after dark bargain because of the dot, like say KFC, they can kill me with the dark bargain dot+hunter and wariror hitting me with no cds up while my healer spam heals me.

[Athená]

They should rework sacrificial pact to give a higher shield not based on pet health or just a higher percentage for aff, so its somewhat useful outside of demo.
And make dark bargain do the damage of a longer period of time, say 16 seconds. Right now its just a stay of execution because against cleaves  you WILL die to their damage combined with the dot.
Change soul link to how it always worked and make it baseline.
Put coil and howl on different tiers.
Imo soul leech should be baseline.

Edited by Athená, 08 January 2013 - 04:35 PM.

[saffie]

Thats kinda too much to ask, I think blizzard should start fixing things in small pieces and hotfix them if its not enough. baseline soul link would be enough to fix warlocks by itself, but I really want blood fear to change places with howl.

[saffie]

Nycto, on 08 January 2013 - 08:28 PM, said:

One thing that was working for me yesterday vs kfc with hpal was sacrificing sucubus, seduce warrior fear paladin pressure hunter, i was playing a warlock with bad gear so my damage was meh but it worked well, we could survive for along time and i feel had my gear been better our pressure would have been so much higher on the hunter.

What mmr was that I dont see getting seduces off vs a hunter and a warrior that is above 2.2k, even if you do its too easy for hunter to interrupt you afterwards.

[Nadagast]

Nycto, on 09 January 2013 - 12:22 AM, said:

Just 2.2, our mmr is like 2300 or so, i know another splay that does this it actually works, sure the hunter can stop it but he can't stop every single one and then the spriest is free

I gotta agree with Saffie... The way my games go vs cleaves I need to just be out of LoS/running--I don't have time to get in 30 yard range of the Paladin while seducing the Warrior and hoping that nothing interrupts me (if I get interrupted I'd be in big trouble).

I guess it sounds like it'd be good for taking command of the game ~30 seconds in after their CDs are done and you're caught back up, but the game is so easy at that point that I think I'd just rather have the extra stuff for surviving the CDs.  (Like Imp dispel or something)

Seduce could be useful in Shadowplay with Shadowfury.  That would let you get easy Seduces on the Warrior behind a pillar, huh?  Hm.

I wonder if simply using a GoSupremacy Succubus would be possibly good vs a cleave.  You could seduce the opener and blood fear the paladin as he came in to dispel.

Edited by Nadagast, 09 January 2013 - 03:02 AM.