5.1 Warlock changes

[Sylar Hao]

After reading the feedback on this new destro spell, I would suggest these small tweaks (assuming you're sticking with the stun effect).

45-60 sec cooldown, 4-5 sec single target stun on a target affected by immolate or RoF, no ember cost.
Affected by FnB to stun all targets around your target, full duration on immolated/RoF targets, half duration on non-immolated/RoF targets.

- Removes the requirement of embers with the trade-off of making it single target, but retains the aoe effect with at the ember cost.
- AoE portion is more forgiving with only requiring one target to be under the effect of Immolate/RoF, but more effective if the targets are affected.

That would be pretty nice.

[Grubjuice]

So what did i miss over the last few hours?

A new spell... some sort of either knock back or stun for Destro?

[gez]

ah yea, actually im in acampaign to get both, one being destro unique and the other baseline to all spec( carrion swarm) aff needs it =( also destro, and if you ask me why giving 2 ccs to destro and 1 to aff well aff have SB demonic circle

btw, if you name it cataclyms and you decide to make it single target change the name, i mean cataclyms should be for an aoe spell some destructive force that comsume everything that it touch not just one person T.T

[PickleballAce]

What if it did a strong knockback instead of a 5 sec stun?

Oh... and it's currently got a very cool name...

I wouldn't mind another AoE stun, but I do kind of agree that it tramples a bit on Shadowfury's niche.

A knockback on the other hand, even though the Succubus has one....and not much of one....I think would be pretty appropriate. If it's a powerful knockback in line with Thunderstorm then I think that would feel more like its own animal.

A single target stun I think could work in the destro toolkit, too.



There have been some good suggestions in this thread, and some welcome changes coming. To add to that:


- Maybe the Seed of Corruption detonation time is here to stay, but is there any chance we could get the cast time of SoC cut down a little bit?

[Brusalk]

I wouldn't mind another AoE stun, but I do kind of agree that it tramples a bit on Shadowfury's niche.

A knockback on the other hand, even though the Succubus has one....and not much of one....I think would be pretty appropriate. If it's a powerful knockback in line with Thunderstorm then I think that would feel more like its own animal.

A single target stun I think could work in the destro toolkit, too.



There have been some good suggestions in this thread, and some welcome changes coming. To add to that:


- Maybe the Seed of Corruption detonation time is here to stay, but is there any chance we could get the cast time of SoC cut down a little bit?

SoC should either have it's damage threshold reduced, it should proc off of all damage, or it should be instant cast. Any one of those changes would make me quite a bit happier with the spell. As it is it takes forever to set up and affliction has no real burst AoE damage as a result.

[jamesbond2013]

Am i the only one not comfortable with adding more CC to the game? right now its pretty bloated across all classes. there should be a reduction in them. i hate stuns. none of them have damage threshholds. the way burst is, a player could lose nearly all of its health thru that 5second window, and if cooldowns or trinkets are down he will die. especially in things like bgs where you can have 2-4 people beating up on you. there really needs to be more parity on either all defensive cooldowns can be used while stunned,feared,CC or none of them can be. some abilities can be used during these times like dispersion, others cant.

[Fallensaint]

I can confirm that Demonic Gateway appears to have either a much larger despawn range or no despawn range out in the open world, however it's a bit buggy. It doesn't appear to be able to generate charges for use, I was able to use the gateway once (immediately after summoned, which was odd), but it wouldn't work afterwards and no visible charge orbs appeared. I tried to get into the Temple of the Jade Serpent to see if it's behavior changed while inside an instance, but unfortunately I got stuck on the loading screen and can't get back on currently.

[Deleted]

Am i the only one not comfortable with adding more CC to the game? right now its pretty bloated across all classes. there should be a reduction in them. i hate stuns. none of them have damage threshholds. the way burst is, a player could lose nearly all of its health thru that 5second window, and if cooldowns or trinkets are down he will die. especially in things like bgs where you can have 2-4 people beating up on you. there really needs to be more parity on either all defensive cooldowns can be used while stunned,feared,CC or none of them can be. some abilities can be used during these times like dispersion, others cant.

I wholeheartedly agree, however in Mists of Pandaria, the arms race for CC's, Gapclosers and cooldowns have got out of control, wheras our own have been reigned back to the target level.

So far Xelnath is playing by the rules and guidelines setout as the idea for MoP, to reduce CC across the board, to make standing still and casting more important... Unfortunately it appears Xelnath is the ONLY developer who is doing this, mages, boomkins, shadowpriests, shamans and even hunters have only gained mobility, CC and cooldowns since MoP launched.

If we stick to the "Less CC for MoP" model, then yes, warlocks are quite alright! However in Arena, we come up against all of these other classes who simply have all the skills to pay the bills!

As far as this new stun/knockback goes, it will be interesting to see...

I would however vote for a "conflagrate" type effect, like that of Trial of the King in Mogu'Shan vaults, rather than a stun or a knockback.

A stun would set your Shadowfury on DR, a knockback would need to be on a 10second cooldown (Hah, exaggerating I know) as the amount of gap closers would make this a pretty pointless ability.


//Conflagrate — The Korgesh Chief inflicts Fire Damage on a random player. While Conflagrated, the victim suffers Fire Damage every second and is Disoriented. When Conflagrate ends it passes to any creature nearby.//
(Does not break on damage)

Either way, i'm content that it's being addressed...
I must say though, that as a destruction player, it seems a little selfish of me not to consider affliction, considering it's in the same boat now that almost all of its DPS is tied to Malefic Grasp.

[wholol]

regarding the new stun/ knockback ability :

1) if it's a stun, is it considered physical or magic debuff? ( i want to know if it can be dispelled), and does it DR with other stuns ? ( especially shadowfury) ?

2) if it's a knockback, does it slow or daze like ele shammy's aoe knockback ? or is our just simply a knockback with nothing else?

[Phoenexis]

No knock-back (very unreliable in many cases), stun on unique DR would be nice. 45 second seems great. Make it have no ember cost but should be affected by FnB. Thank youz!

---------- Post added 2012-10-13 at 09:52 AM ----------

As for Havoc, make a macro that includes mouseover and focus and you'll see wonders.

---------- Post added 2012-10-13 at 09:54 AM ----------

And yes, Xelnath has been following what GC asked of him. Everybody else did the complete opposite.

Also, do you plan on reducing the disparity between Chaos Bolt's damage and ramp-up/costs? Whenever someone wants to use something else, they feel extremely penalized, unlike any other class/spec with resources.

Alsom what about FoX? Didn't you mention that you aren't happy about it? Any hopes of including abilities that use ember bits instead of full embers?

[Deleted]

No knock-back (very unreliable in many cases), stun on unique DR would be nice. 45 second seems great. Make it have no ember cost but should be affected by FnB. Thank youz![COLOR="red"]

That would be really nice, the problem is that there is too many gap closers, stuns silences and instant cc.

If you have a big knocbak, what´s the difference between your knockback and your pet´s knocback? or between you and a elemental shaman?.

I apreciate the work xelnath, but a knocbak wont let us cast more chaosbolts (warriors...), what about a semi blind?

Flames from the hell, you summon Green fire from the hell, blinding your current target for 4 seconds, your spells (like rain of fire and inmolate) does not break it.
Something like a ranged dragon´s breath, single target, can be affected by FnB but doing it doubles the cooldown and makes it cost an ember(or two if it strikes too many targets), no ember cost.

Speaking about arenas, yes you are right, as destro you can only jump around spaming fel flame and conflag, because there are just double melee teams everywhere, you try to pop cds and hit for 150k (wich i find low, considering its every 2 mins, cost an ember and its a 3 sec cast time) and they just blanket silence you, charge you scatter you, etc.
The only thing you can do next is ember tap till you die, because chaosbolt without cds doesnt create enough pressure (good luck casting one vs melees).

So i switched back to affliction just to realize our pressure is no longer good, we need to malefic grasp everything to do a little bit of dmg,
anyway, thank you xelnath for taking care of our class, and please take a look at the unstable affliction glyph!!

[Jessicka]

regarding the new stun/ knockback ability :

1) if it's a stun, is it considered physical or magic debuff? ( i want to know if it can be dispelled), and does it DR with other stuns ? ( especially shadowfury) ?

2) if it's a knockback, does it slow or daze like ele shammy's aoe knockback ? or is our just simply a knockback with nothing else?

How about a Glyph to choose; Stun or Knockback?

How about Carriorn Swarm baseline?

[Deleted]

No news is good news if you're a warlock. And some buffs on top of that (GoSac, KC)!
Gateway change is confusing, it can be useless 10 minutes longer now?

It's hardly useless, just hard to use atm, especially in PvP... Although I have had a lot of use with it in regular quests, raids and dungeons, battlegrounds and even arena. I would love it much more if it didn't despawn when you were 100 yards away though, or if the cast time was a bit shorter, but it's far from useless.

Love the change for grimoire of sacrifice, might not have a CD on it now if you die too quickly in a battleground...

Also, what is this new destro spell you guys are talking about? Can't seem to find the name or anything about it?

[Deleted]

If this new Aoe Stun has to use an ember, why not modify FnB+Conflagrate to do it ?
FnB+Conflag has little use right now both in PvE (it does less damage than FnB+Inci, and it doesn't give Embers back) and PvP (I guess... ?).

... this way you could figure out how to finally implement a Flamethrower ! Castable while moving to improve a bit the spec's mobility.

[Deleted]

Mortal coil base line and replace it with cripple which acts as a magical root/slow on a cd? Not really convinced we need more cc, more of a problem of generating quick shards/fury/embers on demand, but hey ho I don't pvp much.

[blazzing]

hey xel

just wanted to ask you about Twilight Ward
I think the absorb amount is way too low specially in bgs when the shield is gone by just 1 hit from the other classes.
any buffs for this ability ?

sorry for my english

[Zinnin]

So about Kil'jaeden's Cunning....

Even with a 'huge' buff bringing the cast speed slow down to 30% from 50% it is still virtually useless for both Demo and Destro. Simply put, fel flame does more damage, doesn't snare you, and doesn't require putting a talent point anywhere to use. Using my gear on a target dummy you get the following numbers:

Demo-
Shadow bolt -10 fury, 6600 mana, 11.8k damage per second
Shadow bolt with KJ - 6.7 fury, 4400 mana, 7.8k damage per second
Shadow bolt with KJ 5.1 - 7.6 fury, 5076 mana, 9k damager per second
Fel Flame- 10 fury, 10000 mana, 12.3k damage per second

Destro-
Incinerate - .5 emberbit, 30k mana, 17.4k damage per second
Incinerate with KJ - .33 emberbit, 20k mana, 11.6k damage per second
Incinerate with KJ 5.1 - .38 emberbit, 23k mana, 13.3k damage per second
Fel Flame - .66 emberbit, 40k mana, 12.5k damage per second

For Demo Fel flame actually has a higher DPCT then shadow bolt normally! Apparently its high mana cost and the fact it updates corruption (which can be good and bad) keep it from being better then shadow bolt. However, clearly we aren't losing a whole lot of damage just switching to fel flame for a global or two for movement. That isn't even counting all our instant cast spells in our normal rotation.

Unless KJ becomes a tool that will enable us higher mobility for long periods of movement (the 6s isn't anywhere near long enough, instant cast spells already at our disposal cover that) or is no longer tied to a cooldown it will be useless compared to the other two talents (mainly MF).

Now, it is a 'decent' talent for affliction, but I think that is just showing how bad affliction has it when it comes to mobility currently and is something the spec is lacking, not a good indicator that KJ is fine. (I think a glyph that is something like 'Every time you cast fel flame you get a stack of a buff that enables Malefic Grasp to be cast while moving, Stacks to 2, lasts 10s)


Along those same lines, I think Kil'jaeden's cunning could just be redesigned with a stacking buff concept in mind. I was thinking something like:

Kil'jaeden's Cunning
You can one stack of Kil'jaeden's Cunning every Xs. Allows you to cast while moving, casting a spell removes a stack. Stacks up to X

This allows it to be a mobility increase for every spec, while not relying a cooldown to be useful. It also makes it so our mobility doesn't skyrocket, just adds enough to be useful. I could also see just allowing casting while moving 100% of the time, with a snare but no cast speed slow for base spells only (MG, SB, Incin), this way we have a replacement for fel flame for movement. If nothing else WTB duration doubled, cooldown raised if it has to be.

[Abominatus]

I think there are probably a fair number of people, myself included, who won't take KC for PvE as long as it still has a snare attached to it. One of the key components to successful PvE play is always going to be the ability to move out of the bad stuff as efficiently as possible or into the good place as quickly as possible. Taking a talent which handcaps my ability to do that makes no sense to me, even if it were to theoretically improve my DPS by some small amount under those circumstances. At best, I'd be trading some small amount of personal DPS gain for healer mana, and that strikes me as fundamentally selfish and A Bad Thing(tm).

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

[Zinnin]

I think there are probably a fair number of people, myself included, who won't take KC for PvE as long as it still has a snare attached to it. One of the key components to successful PvE play is always going to be the ability to move out of the bad stuff as efficiently as possible or into the good place as quickly as possible.

There is basically three types of movement in PvE.

First is the slow movement getting in position for things to come. This is the kind of movement that currently KJ is completely useless for because you can just slowly move there during Conflags \ Soulburns or Life Tap \ HoG \ ToC.

Then you have the 'Oh shit, fire is hot' type of PvE movement, that is only going to be maybe 2 global's long, this is where just pressing Fel Flame is clearly superior doing to just as much, if not more damage, and having no snare.

The last kind of movement is the World in Flames, Attenuation, Get Away! type of movement were it is a prolonged movement phase that requires steady movement at a high pace. Kil'jaeden's Cunning 'should' be for these phases, because it is basically useless for the other two types of movement we are going to see. However 6 seconds of movement is just not going to be worth it for these types of phases because its essentially two casts and then your 3rd will most likely break due to no longer being able to cast while moving.

So far the only use I have gotten out of this talent, is cheesing LoS in pvp with chaos bolt (starting cast, moving behind pole, moving back out right as it finishes).

[Phoenexis]

From what I've seen, people justify KjC's use by the situation that happens once every full moon: That time when you finished 90% of the cast and need to move right away.

---------- Post added 2012-10-13 at 02:57 PM ----------

How about a Glyph to choose; Stun or Knockback?

How about Carriorn Swarm baseline?

I don't think Carrion Swarm is good enough. It requires melee range, and knock backs aren't what they used to be, especially without snares.

I had previously proposed to return to the Cata CC model and implement Shadowflame, Ranged targeted Howl of Terror, and something else.

If anything the best choice would be to give Death Coil to all specs and replace with something like Shadowflame, although it should be more powerful.

However, in the end, other classes should have their CC reduced if PvP is to become actually playable.