Prepatch day 1 - Affliction in dungeons

As expected, there were some login issues.

According to wowhead, affliction should feel about the same as before prepatch. After today I must say that I totally disagree with that. Even though we didn't have that many changes, having a new spender (malefic rapture) that works totally different from the previous one (unstable affliction), feels very different. And it has new synergy with the whole spec. For every dot you have on the target, it deals more damage.

We still have some of the same issues as before with ramp-up-time. But when our dots are out, we actually do nice damage in AOE! Our damage pattern has changed alot. In BFA my damage was higher on bosses than on trash, compared to the others. This time I was lowest on every boss and had some nice aoe spikes. In spread cleave it was really good.

I tried out a few different talents and essences. The first round I was so shard starved, but changed to lucid minor. It helped a lot. Using soul conduit also helped. But then I lost the dark misery burst. I also used the new Dark Caller talent, which makes the dark glare be a 2 min cooldown. It was acually pretty nice, and made me not hold on to it for too long, as I tend to do. Guess I have to play a bit more different builds to see what I like best.

I saw Kalamazi's newest video about affliction, where he was really doing high damage. But his build was around using the blood of the enemy essence, which I don't have since it's a pvp reward. And the azerite traits were heart of darkness, which I don't have on my highest pieces since they're not from Ny'Alotha. But hopefully I will be able to do ok with other stuff.

We started on a 14 and climed up to a 17 with +1 each time. Because we all got more used to the class changes. I think I performed one of my worst dungeons ever. I was constantly looking at my buttons, not sure what to cast when where. In Atal Dazar I acutally managed to fall down from the bridge. And of course, I died to the fire in the stairs. But when we did the 17, I had managed to understand the spec a bit better, and didn't stress around doing strange stuff.

I had to clean up my buttons ui. Because I got SEVEN new buttons there... Three curses, fel domination, create portal, teleport to portal and malefic rapture. Can't say I used my filler much. Only on single target. I was really worried about the 6 seconds pet summoning. But today, every time I needed to resummon it, my fel domination (shorter demon summon) was off cooldown. So it was actually ok.

So what does the new affliction feel like? I don't know yet. But at least it feels rewarding when you manage to dot the right amount to pull high rapture damage. It feels afwul if you are low on shards, but super fun when you have enough and your dots are out. There are lots of stuff to keep track of. I cought myself spamming unstable affliction several times, even though it now has a limit of 1.