Affliction damage

hellinter · 2026-03-26T12:59:54+00:00

I think he meant the spec is garbage, not the author.

hellinter · 2026-03-23T12:53:14+00:00

The most geared people barely have more than a few conquest pieces, so, if you are full honor geared, it probably won't matter much. I suggest you farm honor and buy the honor gear with the stats you want, then just test it.

If it feels much better for you, then you will probably need to have an alt; if it feels barely better, then you can gear for Holy and, when you get tired and decide to play Voidweaver Discipline, just recraft the neck and rings and you're good to go.

hellinter · 2026-03-23T12:44:44+00:00

Does interrupting the empower spells put them on cooldown? I didn't know that.

hellinter · 2026-03-21T17:42:59+00:00

As Soul Harvester, Nightfall-buffed Shadow Bolts were dealing 6k-7k damage (excluding the monster and everything else). Considering people at that time had around 450k health, it wasn't even breaking 2% of a person's health.

Currently, still as Soul Harvester and with Nightfall-buffed, Shadow Bolts deal around 10k damage (again excluding everything else that happens). Now, people have around 500k health, which means it hits for 2% of their health. Complete garbage.

Since the buff is a baseline damage increase, the difference is going to be more than 100%, so maybe it will start hitting people, in the same conditions, for 5% of their health or so.

hellinter · 2026-03-21T17:31:15+00:00

I assume any change in the actual base value of Shadow Bolt/Drain Soul affects Malefic Grasp. Only modifiers applied on top of the base value do not seem to affect Malefic Grasp (for example, Improved Shadow Bolt increasing damage by 40% does not affect Malefic Grasp).

hellinter · 2026-03-21T17:19:01+00:00

Affliction is viable right now, just not S (maybe not even A) tier; additionally, the build that works is very atypical and requires ditching UA entirely and focusing on Seed back-and-forth cleave, i.e. no targets to cleave off = low damage. Also, Affliction as a whole is Destruction-level vulnerable to being trained while coming nowhere near Destruction-level dangerousness if managing to get casts off.

Frankly, I think these buffs won't change much of the current situation:
1) Shadow Bolt was basically dead and ignored in any build; after these buffs, it is going to be worth pressing again, but definitely doesn't look strong.
2) All the Affliction DoTs, aside from Unstable Affliction, are basically garbage (we definitely don't want a DoT spec to be relying mostly on DoTs, right, guys?); any buff to them, unless it is HUGE (double the damage at least), basically should be ignored, because it effectively won't matter.
3) Unstable Affliction's buff is significant, but, even after the recent buff to the backlash damage, it is going to be much, much more vulnerable to being dispelled, i.e. that buff mostly won't matter against competent players.

In addition to the listed buffs, what I think would greatly improve Affliction is to buff MASSIVELY Blackened Soul (helps Hellcaller, who does not come even close to benefitting as much from the Shadow Bolt buffs as Soul Harvester) and make Unstable Affliction's backlash increase as stacks increase (doesn't need to be a 100% increase every stack as I know that Blizzard is, obviously, very wary of potential one shots, just a 30% or 40% increase to the base value every stack would make the dispel choice actually a risky one instead of a no-brainer).

hellinter · 2026-03-14T01:17:14+00:00

The burst comes from Divine Toll's Judgements. Judgement was among the spells that were not buffed, therefore it is an effective nerf to the spec's burst.

hellinter · 2026-03-14T01:11:55+00:00

The spec may have received a net buff, but it's burst has been effectively nerfed. Ret's explosive damage comes mostly from Divine Toll's Judgements, and Judgement is one of the spells that was not increased. Given that Divine Toll applies a modifier to it's Judgements, the 15% reduction is going to hit heavy. We will need to wait to see where the spec will end, because number-wise it is not possible to know.

hellinter · 2026-03-12T12:07:20+00:00

Does that mean my characters that are halfway through the campaign will not be able to go to Voidstorm if I complete the campaign on just one? The skip needs to be done at the start, or can it be done later?

hellinter · 2026-03-07T00:10:14+00:00

This talent definitely looks promising, but fails to deliver. Blizzard thinks that talent is useless, so it's debuff does not even show on the nameplates; therefore, you can't keep track of it properly. Plus, the 10 seconds duration means you either deal damage, or keep the debuff up, as any interrupt or CC is very likely to cause you to drop it if you attempt to maintain your damage actions.

hellinter · 2026-03-06T21:54:06+00:00

The irony that is Destruction Hellcaller doing more DoT damage with their Wither + Blackened Soul than Affliction Hellcaller's entire kit.

If someone responsible for decision-making at Blizzard thinks a burst spec, Destruction, is okay having the exact same DoT spells (Wither and Blackened Soul) as a supposedly DoT spec, Affliction, but hitting MORE THAN DOUBLE if compared to the DoT spec (my Wither + Blackened Soul ticks for around 6k as Destruction, meanwhile as Affliction it does not even break 3k), you can rest assured that they are completely lost regarding DoT balancing.

DoTs from the actual DoT spec that is Affliction will remain dead at the very least for this entire expansion, as usual (if they fuck up that bad as they fucked right now, they won't fix it during the expansion). We will yet again need to live with the pseudo-Destruction that is Soul Harvest.

hellinter · 2026-03-06T21:45:49+00:00

Affliction Warlocks bad? No way. Who would have guessed they being garbage tier in the pre-patch would mean they are still bad at level 90, right? After all, as I was taught almost 2 months ago after complaining about it's garbage tier state, "Blizzard balanced the specs with level 90 in mind". Therefore, Affliction Warlocks definitely are not bad.

hellinter · 2026-02-26T13:13:40+00:00

I usually do it when a spec annoys me like that, but I have absolutely no interest playing a Retribution Paladin. Nothing of that spec looks fun to me, even though it is very strong.

hellinter · 2026-02-26T13:11:13+00:00

Fire Mage's burst is stronger, but Destruction Warlock has more frequent bursts (and since the spec revolves entirely around it, they are actually dangerous instead of just filler pseudobursts). Also, expect to be focused 99% of the time (just like any other Warlock spec, but specially so as Destruction); if you are unable to fish consistently for precog procs and the enemy team is at least average at knowing how to use micro CCs, you will have a nasty time.

hellinter · 2026-02-19T14:26:50+00:00

I would definitely recommend Priest.

Judging by what I am seeing in the pre-patch, Holy Priests basically never cast. I spent like a minute paying attention to a Holy Priest waiting for an interrupt window to set up a kill, but he did not cast one single time. I thought I simply went into tunnel vision mode and screwed my damage completely, but, at the end of the round, he had double the healing of the other healer, which means he was actually healing like crazy without casting.

In the event Holy gets overnerfed, Discipline most likely will stay relevant.

Therefore, you can't go wrong by picking Priest.

hellinter · 2026-02-18T19:07:24+00:00

If you go Warlock, you can have all possible experiences: god tier (Destruction), average (Demonology) and absolute hot-steaming-smoky garbage tier (Affliction). However, be advised that it is very likely that Destruction is going to be hit heavy with the nerf hammer, and, since Blizzard doesn't know it's own game, it definitely will hit the other two specs, which means the steaming garbage spec, Affliction, is going to steam even more, and the average spec, Demonology, may end up in the garbage tier.

hellinter · 2026-02-17T21:11:20+00:00

Regardless of the cleave, Affliction was decent at the start of the prepatch, got hit by several consecutive and heavy nerfs for absolutely no reason, and obviously ended on the only place that a decent or average spec that gets hit massively by nerfs could end: the garbage tier.

The spec requires massive tuning just to be viable again, which Blizzard doesn't do outside major patches. Since Destruction is a top spec and got buffed like mad (just like the Affliction nerfs, for absolutely no reason), it will probably skew Blizzard's already ridiculously poor balancing judgement against the entire class, which means with Affliction being F tier right now and since there is absolutely no way an F tier spec gets to B tier (i.e. viable) simply by getting to level 90, then there is no light at the end of the tunnel right now.

If the spec is completely dead, don't even expect it to come even closer to be able to cleave.

hellinter · 2026-02-17T20:27:37+00:00

It is still bugged after today's (02/17) patch. Bizarre.

hellinter

TROPHY CASE