Our Affliction Warlock Writer, Kalamazi, breaks down every aspect of these change including the removal of Malefic Affliction and the buff to Seed of Corruption. If you’re wondering whether you should dust off your Affliction Warlock in 10.1.5, then look no further as we talk all things Affliction.
Recently however, Affliction received a 3% aura buff in an early raid tuning pass, (essentially invalidating the nerfs that occurred in 10.1) making it a much stronger option. While it is not seeing as much play as Demonology or Destruction currently, it is not too far behind in terms of raw damage. When it comes to gameplay however, that is a different story. Thankfully, Patch 10.1.5 looks to be addressing most of Affliction’s awkward rotational gameplay.
Developers’ note: The number of casts required for Affliction to be properly setup is high and something that can feel especially punishing in multi-target situations and PVP. We are replacing Malefic Affliction and implementing changes to Dread Touch and Doom Blossom to make Affliction’s rotation more accessible and less punishing.
-Malefic Affliction has been removed.
-New Talent: Xavius’ Gambit – Unstable Affliction deals 15/30% increased damage.
-Xavius’ Gambit is located in Malefic Affliction’s previous location.
-Unstable Affliction damage increased by 10%.
-Dread Touch has been redesigned – Malefic Rapture causes targets suffering from your Unstable Affliction to take 30% additional damage from your damage over time effects for 8 seconds.
-Doom Blossom has been redesigned – When Seed of Corruption damages targets suffering from your Unstable Affliction, they explode for Shadow damage.
-Seed of Corruption’s cast time has been reduced to 2 seconds (was 2.5 seconds).
The Removal of Malefic Affliction
Affliction has suffered from slow ramp-up times since the launch of Dragonflight and that is primarily due to Malefic Affliction. The talent required you to cast Malefic Rapture three times once your DOT effects had all been applied to receive the full buff to Unstable Affliction. You would then have to Rapture one final time (4th cast) to trigger Dread Touch, which increased all DOT value further. Due to Affliction playing Vile Taint, there were times in your opener where you simply did not have enough shard generation to even trigger Dread Touch early in your opener, leading to a tremendous loss of damage. If your Unstable Affliction were to fall for whatever reason, you would them have to reapply it and cast Malefic Rapture 4 more times once again, which was nearly impossible due to the nature of Dread Touch, which requires you to Rapture once every 6 or so seconds, to maintain the effect.
The removal of Malefic Affliction and the introduction of Xavius’ Gambit is a massive quality of life change for Affliction. The punishing playstyle of Malefic Affliction maintenance is gone and it essentially allows you to move your Dread Touch around to any target at will. Previously, if you were to cast Unstable Affliction on a new target, you would lose all of your Malefic Affliction stacks. This made priority target swapping for Affliction nearly impossible, as it had to begin ramping its damage once more through multiple Rapture casts. The changes to Soul Swap in 10.1 did help a bit (allowing you to maintain Malefic Affliction) but when that target died, you had to move Unstable Affliction back, and begin stacking Malefic Affliction all over again. This playstyle (coupled with average damage) led to Affliction being one of the least played specs in all of Dragonflight.
With the introduction of Xavius’ Gambit, all of the Malefic Affliction stacking that Affliction had to deal with is thankfully gone! You simply apply your Unstable Affliction to a target and cast Malefic Rapture once, which then instantly triggers Dread Touch on the mob. This is a MASSIVE quality of life increase for Affliction, and greatly reduces both its ramp time as well as increases its potential when it comes to priority target swapping. You are even able to have multiple Dread Touch debuff active by moving your Unstable Affliction around and Rapturing onto different targets. While that might not be “optimal” gameplay, that kind of rotational freedom has not existed for Affliction since the inception of Malefic Affliction. The 10% damage increase to Unstable Affliction is there simply to offset the roughly 10% damage loss between Malefic Affliction and Xavius’ Gambit, so it is not a damage buff. These changes are massive for Affliction in both PVE and PVP. the spec no longer has to contend with dreadfully long ramp-up time, and can also now bring strong priority target swap damage.
Doom Blossom and Seed of Corruption Changes
Ever since the loss of Decaying Soul Satchel and Field of Blossoms, Affliction has felt incredibly slow when it came to casting Seed of Corruption in AOE. While a good portion of our damage in AOE was carried by Soul Flame, being able to deal actually burst AOE was awkward with Seeds 2 second cast time. Many players opted to talent into Dark Harvest (a nerfed version of Decaying Soul Satchel) but sadly, it still left seed feeling awkward in situations where the ability was to be spammed, often with the pack dying before you had exhausted all of your shards. With Seed of Corruption cast time being hasted, my current duration is now 1.5 seconds on PTR compared to 1.9 on live. This means that in the time you cast 4 seeds in 10.1.5, you would have cast just over 3 comparatively in 10.1.
The changes to Doom Blossom are also quite welcome, and end up being a DPS increase in AOE based settings compared to where the ability is at in 10.1. With the way that Seed of Corruption with Sow the Seeds works, in a pack with 3 or more mobs, EACH Seed of Corruption explosion will also trigger Doom Blossom. In current testing, Doom Blossom has made up roughly 13-15% of my damage in AOE (the majority being Seed of Corruption), which is a substantial increase from where it has been. The only real downside to this change however, is that it no longer provides any value in single target, due to it only proccing off Seed of Corruption. In its 10.1 form, it states that “If Corruption damages a target affected by your Unstable Affliction, it has a 10% chance per stack of Malefic Affliction to deal (78.2% of Spell power) Shadow damage to nearby enemies”, nearly enemies also means itself. It did not make up a substantial amount of our damage in single target, but having some contribution to it was nice. In the end, its apparent that Blizzard wants that rows Capstone talent to be a choice between single target in Dread Touch or AOE Doom Blossom and they have done a great job with the changes to both.
Closing Feedback
All of the changes that Affliction is receiving in Patch 10.1.5 have been well received. The removal of Malefic Affliction is a welcome change, making our ramp time much shorter and Unstable Affliction/Dread Touch maintenance much more forgiving. The reduction to Seed of Corruption cast time is a change that has been frequently asked for from the community, and Doom Blossom also looks to be a very strong option in AOE.
If I were to give two small points of feedback for future development changes, they would be based around Vile Taint and Siphon Life. Vile Taint had its cooldown increased from 20 seconds to 30 in late beta, which has made multi/re-dotting in AOE awkward. With its current 30 second CD, you have to manually refresh every Agony that was applied via Vile Taint roughly 5 seconds before Vile Taint comes off CD. This takes time away from casting Seed of Corruption or other DOT based maintenance spells, which is exceptionally awkward. If Vile Taint’s cooldown were returned to 20 seconds, this would be another incredible quality of life increase for Affliction and would make playing it in M+ feel much better.
Siphon Life is often at the forefront of Affliction button bloat/generally disliked ability conversations, but I think the reasoning behind it is often misinterpreted. Yes, having to maintain another DOT in single target can become a bit annoying in certain settings and Affliction’s rotation also does indeed feel a bit bloated, but I think the largest issue stems from its interaction with Malefic Rapture, and the fact that is shares a “choice” talent node with Absolute Corruption. Simply put, the more DOTs you have on the target, the more damage that Malefic Rapture does. This also means that in settings where Grim Reach is played, it is a DPS gain to apply Siphon Life to your main target (in AOE) and then have Grim Reach essentially extrapolate that value out onto other mobs it’s hitting with Eye Beam. Even without Grim Reach being played in certain M+ builds, Siphon Life is typically always chosen due to how much of a DPS increase it is in single target. Absolute Corruption is an iconic Affliction ability, but has seen very little play all of Dragonflight due to how strong Siphon Life is in both single target, as well as two target. Having an extra DOT on 2 mobs means that Malefic Rapture is now dealing more damage to both mobs, which is certainly more than what Absolute Corruption will do. You then also have the issue (as mentioned above) of Siphon Life being the best choice in M+ settings, where Absolute Corruption has historically been the better option.
Siphon Life has seen many different forms over the course of its lifespan. In Wrath, the ability was a passive effect that healed you whenever Corruption dealt damage.
While this form of Siphon Life would obviously be a downgrade to what we have now (not being a DPS increase), I think there is certainly a form in which the ability can be converted into a passive. Potentially something along the lines of “Siphon Life increases damage dealt by Agony, Corruption and Unstable Affliction by X%, healing you for X% of the damage done over X seconds”. There would obviously need to be tuning done both it and Absolute Corruption to balance them in their own respective settings, but a version like that captures what “Siphoning Life” sounds like. It also helps combat Affliction button bloat and makes both Siphon Life and Absolute Corruption competitive.
Regardless of if Affliction receives anymore changes in Patch 10.1.5, the spec looks to be in a much healthier spot heading into the Patch and eventually 10.2. With it seeing very little play this expansion, I would certainly not mind a future where Affliction is the “best” Warlock spec.
About the Author
Hello! My name is Kalamazi, and I am a Warlock content creator focused mainly on PVE content. I recently joined Liquid and have previously cast multiple Race to World First events. If you have any questions feel free to stop by my Twitch and ask! You can also find me on Youtube, Twitter or in my Discord.
