Let's talk about Archimonde's Vengeance

[Deleted]

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Now, how to convince GC to stop trying to balance the unbalanceable and adopt this.

[Deleted]

I think Archimonde, Mannoroth and Kil'Jaeden would turn in their graves seeing what terrible stuff is linked to their names.

[Medieve]

It's the 'other' talent on the 90 tree that no one takes and no one talks about because it's accepted as bad without dispute or discussion. We all know it's bad, but when GC said recently that 'pressing AV during the big AE' is skill, and that in 5.4 it wont reflect, I think it's obvious that its underutilisation needs explaining much more clearly. So here goes with a nice bullet pointed list:

- It's not always clear what it does and doen't proc from because:
a) Environmental damage like the ubiquitous 'standing in lava' doesn't, as there is no source to reflect it back to.
b) "The big AE" is sometimes cast by the boss, and sometimes it's just a timed effect.
- "The big AE" is usually mitigated by cooldowns, which cooldowns your raid group is using will impact tremendously on the overall effect of AV.
- It promotes standing in bad regardless due to this lack of clarity.
- Used actively it adds to button bloat and begs the question of whether to use it or a defensive cooldown for the Big AE (I'm sure your healers love you for the former).
- The overall effect is numerically intangiable. Passively it's like 2 additional fillers over the fight and 'on use', I can't imagine it being much more.

Pre-5.1 the reason we took it was a lack of alternatives, we knew it was bad then and it's still bad now. The fact is, that 'on use' I'd rather press Unending Resolve or Healthstone than be considering whether this big damage counts as boss attack and will offer a sub-1% overall DPS boost. In fact, it's not even a consideration players should be tempted to consider since it's promoting bad and dangerous play.

The talent needs a complete overhaul.

This is the feedback from the beginning of Beta (I know, I said approx. the same thing a week or so after Beta began). They wanted a PvP talent, something that punishes people tunneling locks, since they can be shut down by their own hard-casting relatively easily, but can't balance it with a flat % reflect. It'll either do too much or too little, the middle ground is too fine and shifts greatly between classes. Talents like that are impossible to balance well and consistently even within a tier. They also made using the actual ability too punishing. The risk isn't worth the reward, since even the current graphic will tell someone to bugger off if they don't have an addon shouting it themselves.

If the talent still reflected some damage while on CD, it wouldn't be so bad. It would reward proper timing without you feeling like you wasted it if it wasn't timed perfectly. Or they can find some nifty math to calculate damage reflection so it's a bit steadier as ilevel's increase. A warrior getting their PvP weapon feels the effect of that % jump keenly, which forces Blizzard to keep the % at a low balance end just to keep it from being too strong down the road.

Personally, I'd like to see it reflect no damage passively (Didn't they axe Ret aura BECAUSE it was thoughtless, passive damage?) and make it's on-use depend on how much damage you're taking that can be reflected in one large Finger of Death animation to the attacker on a reasonable cooldown (Not too long, not too short, depends completely on how strong the finger is). I'm generally against more buttons to push for locks, but in this case it seems reasonable. Stack a buff on you, probably up to % of max health, that forces you to either use it to try to push an attacker off, or risk death waiting for it to stack up to wonderfully damaging levels. Even the cooldown could increase as the damage increases, giving players the option to use it at lower levels so they feel like they don't have to cap (I'm assuming a cap is necessary, else, one-shot). It's a level 90 talent, some complexity can be worked in by then. Not everything has to be simple.

It's easier than you think.
People already figured this out.

Just make it reflect 50% or MORE from single target only. No more standing in shit. Bosses don't target players (normally. Well, the point is they shouldn't be doing that). The only thing it would create is room for those crazy Dark Apotheosis trying to tank Raid Bosses (what's impossible, btw, without 6% crit reduction and proper gear/better damage reduction).
But, as everyone should know, not every talent would be great for PVE AND PVP.

During the Beta, when we were discussing the same thing, we came up with having the talent only reflect damage that requires a primary target, you being the primary target, and only the primary target. So general AoE wouldn't be reflected, or things like a mage bomb detonating next to you. This also helps balance the PvE end, since AoE doesn't have a specific target for the most part (although there are some pools that are dropped based on player position, but that can be worked going forward as target player's grid and drop there instead of simply player, which they have done to many abilities already anyway). The biggest reason the passive is so low is because AV reflects most sources of damage, which leads to the feeling you gotta stand in bad to do the most with it. Take care of that, it'll be more consistent and much easier to balance well.

[Gohzerlock]

Wish this talent could be more like touch of karma, I really like the idea others have stated with guardians being lvl 90 talents. There isn't really a lot of good use for infernal and a pitlord would be amazing, the only concern I would have is us being balanced around guardians kinda like when doomguard was op in cata. Also you'd have to think about how supremacy would affect suggested lvl 90 talents.

[Deleted]

Also you'd have to think about how supremacy would affect suggested lvl 90 talents.

Shouldn't make a difference really, if they want to dump some supremacy damage into guardians, they can - if not, boil it into your "real" pet and make any supremacy changes cosmetic only in terms of guardians.

[Brusalk]

Wish this talent could be more like touch of karma, I really like the idea others have stated with guardians being lvl 90 talents. There isn't really a lot of good use for infernal and a pitlord would be amazing, the only concern I would have is us being balanced around guardians kinda like when doomguard was op in cata. Also you'd have to think about how supremacy would affect suggested lvl 90 talents.

Having the 90 tier be all about guardians would enable a different option for the level 75 tier. (Or even if they were maintained as current, though it'd be neater with new 90 talents centred around the type of guardian you have)

The stated problem with GoSac/GoSup/GoServ is that GoSac has to be passive otherwise it fits the same role as GoServ. This means that they have a crap-ton of balancing problems around GoSac (as we've seen demonstrated over and over again this entire expansion).

They could have 3 level 75 talents:

1. GoSup (Better pets. More passive damage all the time)
2. GoSac (No Pet for a period of time. Master is temporarily stronger, and as a passive effect all specs get a version of Demonic Rebirth)
3. GoSum (Grimoire of Summoning, or something. Guardians are greatly buffed as a result.)


This transforms the level 75 tier of talents into the questions:

"Do I want to have more sustained damage? GoSup."
"Do I want to have more burst damage often, or are pets bad on a fight? GoSac."
"Do I want to do a crap ton more damage for 1 minute of the fight? GoSum."

It also solves the whole conceptual problem of GoServ vs GoSac and their purpose. (And GoSup/GoServ being very similar in purpose)



Alternatively, GoSup could be merged with GoServ, where you have one type of pet out all the time, and you temp-summon the other type. For example you always have out a Voidwalker, but you summon a Voidlord temporarily. A glyph could switch which one you have out permanently and which type is summoned. Though this idea kind of negates the entire point of removing GoServ.

[Deleted]

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Now, how to convince GC to stop trying to balance the unbalanceable and adopt this.

Genius.

Unfortunately Blizzard isn't famous for its intellect! *Removing KJC cuz moving while casting, adding Fel Flame with cast time being castable while moving* says hi.

[darkminaz]

Spec av and get 3 spells
1) called, Vengeance of Doom, or whatever. a Spell that lasts 10min (20sec cd) and reflects 5% of all dmg to the current target, only useable on Npc's. While this is active the passive effect of AV is disabled.
2) the current acitve effect
3) the current passive effect

(i don't mind if they delete part 2 though) since well i tested it on some fights in lfr basicly since i was bored and gues what it didn't do anything at all :P

[Subetei]

Archimonde's vengeance could summon Archimonde's ghost... like a second doom guard etc. That would make it comparable to the other two and cost something if you didn't take it. Make it good single target dmg without messing with the spell reflect ability.

[Algekevin]

No longer active, only passive, and the locks will get a "vengeance" type of mechanic which gives spellpower instead.

[Jessicka]

No longer active, only passive, and the locks will get a "vengeance" type of mechanic which gives spellpower instead.

Something based on damage taken is dumb. Its clear though that with the new kjc on fillers that it needs to offer something like 3-5% more throughput than kjc to be worth thinking about.

[blackblade]

It'd be neat if it worked more like Touch of Karma, but Warlocks are already pretty high in the "Steal everyone else's awesome shit" department.

[Jessicka]

With this change, we can make the "penalty" of taking KJC that you don't have Mannoroth's Fury or Archimonde's Vengeance, which should result in more damage output in cases where movement is less critical (and we're working on some changes to Archimonde's Vengeance that should help with that). We're also still planning on buffing Fel Flame in a way that helps lower the impact to mobility caused by choosing one of those talents over Kil'Jaeden's Cunning, without nerfing it for PvP purposes.

Promising news.

[Jessicka]

Cool.
This kind of design model is as much "choice" we're ever gonna get from this talent system though. "Choice" because it's not real choice. In a single target fight you HAVE to choose the single target talent, in a AOE fight you HAVE to choose the AOE talent, in PVP you HAVE to choose the PVP talent, and so on.

My feelings exactly, those kinds of things might as well be baseline because you wont use them outside their niche and thus wont feel the loss of missing out on them when not specced into them.

The penalty of taking a talent should be that you don't have the other two. I think that's probably the major issue behind the tier as it stands right now.

[Gorthan]

How about make it reflects party damage? Not that much on solo but not bad in pve and pvp ^^

[Deleted]

Cool.
This kind of design model is as much "choice" we're ever gonna get from this talent system though. "Choice" because it's not real choice. In a single target fight you HAVE to choose the single target talent, in a AOE fight you HAVE to choose the AOE talent, in PVP you HAVE to choose the PVP talent, and so on.

That's how the new talent system works.

T1: Take soul leech because it's overpowered
T2: Are there adds that need stunning? Shadowfury, otherwise take the 15% heal
T3: Some actual choice, but still dependent on what dmg you expect to take (bit hit every 1 min, sac, otherwise SL)
T4: unbound will if you need a snare / stun removal, otherwise burning rush
T5: Burst, standard, "is your pet going to despawn and / or are you playing demonology / high ember gen encounter" - do some math
T6: Are you AOEing y - MF, n - KJC

All talents are based on a fight by fight basis, why people think "Unless you're wanting to use everything all of the time, it should be baseline" is beyond me, ESPECIALLY when we can ALREADY only use one minion per fight due to the shared cooldown, might as well make it a talent system, fix the infernal and add a pitlord people have been asking for. You pick what you need for your role on the fight, there's enough variance, especially with the above talents, to warrant some choice.

Jinrokh, sure - you take your single target.
Horridon? Suddenly you're left choosing between a single target boost, AOE on the adds or a potentially nice cleave for adds / wargod
Council you might benefit from the single target on sul, or maybe you'd prefer cleave etc

Far more choice than you'd get out of most talents, since there are plenty of fights that require more than just one talent type, either way - anything is an improvement over our current mess of talents at 90.

[Anonymous1038853]

Isn't the obvious answer to make Archimonde's Vengeance into a complete redirection ability? Like Touch of Karma, the damage would be redirected to the enemy target instead of the warlock. This would make the talent have the same damage output, and in turn act as a mitigation ability as well. Cooldown might want to be lowered a bit, though, given that Touch of Karma is a complete damage redirection, but has both a shorter cooldown and a longer duration (and is also baseline for Windwalker Monks). Maybe not, though.

[Nazmina]

I just got an idea for AV. How about making it a pure passive, when hit with an unavoidable attack you have a x% chance to transform your felflame into a more powerful spell dealing z% more damage and maybe deal an additional effect based on spec.

The idea here is to make it a retaliation ability that while a passive talent, isnt in it self passive. AV in its current for is boring because the only way to actively make it work for you is to intentionally take more damage. By making it give you a player controlled retaliation ability you let the talent do something active without bloating your bars with another keybind.

Making it transform Felflame into a retaliation spell prevents you from auto retaliating if it was say a basic filler spell that you probably would have hit anyway. This should have the potential to make it useful in pvp and pve (though %change would need to be tweaked for pvp)

[Mctriple]

AV should replace unending resolve. Make it reduce damage taken by 90% and reflect the full (unreduced) amount of damage back at the attacker(s). And maybe make it increase the amount of damage reflected, or lower the cooldown on it so it can be used more frequently on predictable damage.

This would make it more "rule breaking" which is what the devs were aiming for with the final tier of warlock talents. Big damage? Warlocks can stand in it, not die, and even benefit from it.

[Fanatik]

AV should replace unending resolve. Make it reduce damage taken by 90% and reflect the full (unreduced) amount of damage back at the attacker(s). And maybe make it increase the amount of damage reflected, or lower the cooldown on it so it can be used more frequently on predictable damage.

This would make it more "rule breaking" which is what the devs were aiming for with the final tier of warlock talents. Big damage? Warlocks can stand in it, not die, and even benefit from it.

Will never work for pvp.