6.0+ Affliction Warlocks or 4 Button Chumps
I’m continuing my on and off again relationship with Warcraft. After recently receiving an email to come back for 7 days of free time, after the 6.0 patch, I jumped at the chance to play with the new changes. I’ve glanced over changes here and there but never really jumped into them to see how the Affliction spec of the Warlock class seemed to work. So I decided to read up on Wowhead for the changes and then Icy Veins for the new rotations and such. That’s where it started getting bad.
Affliction, for me, has ALWAYS been about Dot management and control. Add in the drains for health and mana as well as souls then followed up by shadowbolts to the face when Nightfall proc’d and you made me a happy Warlock. From my reading on forums from long time Affliction Warlock players, this was the same feeling they had. 6.0 has killed that old feeling.
Affliction is no longer fun, in my opinion.
There are currently 4 abilities our DPS evolves around:
Haunt – DPs/damage buff
Agony – instant Dot
Unstable Affliction – casted Dot
Corruption – instant Dot
Drain Soul – Filler
There is a Soulburn: Haunt at level 100 that you will pop first to open with in the rotation making this a 5 button rotation with cooldowns, but even then you are back to the same rotation you have before. There is a little more mechanics in that rotation to watch but it’s basically your setup. This is your standard solo out in the world quest rotation as well as your raid rotation.
So basically the Affliction Warlock has been boiled down, the fun removed and left with a spec that everything it can do all on a single action bar.
My 7 free days ends tomorrow. Even with how crappy I feel the Affliction spec is I have hope for the class heading into Warlords. Destruction looks fun and even demonology seems to have so interesting fun in it so i’ll be giving those a shot as I WILL be re-subbed to the game at the end of my free time and giving the class my attention.
Let’s just hope it gets a little better and they bring the fun back…hello Shadowbolt Please!
Lock4Life 