[Warlock] Action button bloat: Which spell would you choose to cut off

[Roose]

Warloks have too many good abilities now. Hard to pick out any that are redundant, just too many tools in the belt.

[Kathranis]

I think Warlock actions bars are actually not too bloated (I even have a couple empty slots).

If I had to get rid of anything, I think it would be the Curses. Just make those passively applied when you cast your DoTs.

I guess anyone asking for Enslave Demon to be removed didn't complete the green fire questline. And possibly isn't considering the likelihood of the next expansion being Burning Legion focused.

[Grizelda]

To be fair it really was bad back in the day, but now? No problemo.


As a matter of fact, I have some room cleared up so I'd like my Drain Mana back please.

[Grubjuice]

demo has a few more spells than it needs, Chaos Wave, Void Ray/Fel Flame, they be reduced in some way.

[mannenabo]

I would like to remove aoe heals

[Reposed]

I don't have any issues with button bloat, but if I had to say something (that actually gets used) it would have to be CoE.

/lol @ the guy who said to remove Fear... o.O

[Deleted]

I would remove nothing.

[Orloth]

Is this thread even serious? How can you honestly be complaining about minor spells, that you use once every now and then, or to buff your raid every 60min.
It's not that I don't agree, that making mandatory buffs become permanent auras (Dark Intent) would be nice, or CoE becomming some sort of passive abilities which is being applied to the enemy whenever you use a spell.

The only other option to reduce the button bloat would be to remove spells that you regularly use, which I'm definitely not a big fan of. It's actually one of the reasons, why I like WoW so much. It gives you so many great different ways to play your class.
Have you ever played other MMOs? Welcome to 6 button world..

I was in no way complaining, I was simply answering the OP. I looked at our current spell list to see what is expendable. Do not mistake that for complaining.

And button bloat does not give you other ways to play your class, it just gives you more buttons to push. There is still only one viable way to play.

[Anonymous1038853]

Twilight Ward (Bake it in if necessary. Warlocks already have a bunch of active survival abilities.)
Soulshatter (Relatively meaningless with proper use of the Gateway.)
Rain of Fire (Make Seed of Corruption comparable in terms of damage and utility, and make it replace RoF for Affliction.)
Health Funnel (Make it passive. Having to bind -AND- glyph this spell makes it babysitter bloat in my eyes.)
Drain Life (Bake this in to other abilities. It's ridiculous swapping between fillers just for a weak spell like this.)
Drain Soul (I personally feel that Affliction's rotation has enough abilities without this. It's effectively identical to Malefic Grasp.)
Curse of Exhaustion (The other two warlock specs have their snare built into a rotational ability. Feels weird to overwrite other debuffs.)
Imp: Flee (I just hate imps. No CC option for focus macros makes me a sad camper.)
Carrion Swarm & Demonic Leap (I personally hate that these two abilities require metamorphosis, but have no non-meta pairing.)
Note: I wouldn't remove either of these. I'd just make one use mana, and the other its metamorphosis equivalent. The CDs are a good throttle without the need of adding Demonic Fury consumption in addition. It would also bring demo mobility in line with the other specs.

Final Note: I feel like Mortal Coil should have been made baseline rather than Howl of Terror, so you'd be choosing between three AoE CCs, rather than two AoE CCs and a single-target one. Again, this is just a quality of life thing for keybind setups and the like. I guess if you wanted Howl of Terror and Shadowfury, you'd hate this suggestion. But then, if you wanted Mortal Coil and Shadowfury, you'd love it.

[FurtyIRL]

demo has a few more spells than it needs, Chaos Wave, Void Ray/Fel Flame, they be reduced in some way.

How do they bloat your action bars when they are the same buttons as other spells you use?

Logic fail

[Vulcanasm]

GC has been stating for quite a while the intent on reducing the number of abilities for every class. On the other hand, it risks unpleasing many players by removing abilities they used to like.

SO, if you were to choose one or two Warlock spells to be removed, which ones would it be?

There goes my shot!

Soul Burn - Soul Swap: Dots should be strong (including dot-cleaving). To put all of them at once should not come at a light cost. Additionally, it cause affliction to have a few more rotational buttons than the other specs (not saying that's necessarily bad).

Dark Regeneration : While it's a cool ability and easily macro'd with healthstone, it could just become a passive like the others in the same tier. Also, casuals probably take long until figuring out it can be macro'd.

All tier 60 talents: Completely disposable or replaceable. Tier 60 is a fail. Not saying they are bad abilities, but they are strange for warlocks.

Gateway: Overpowered and clunky

Twilight Ward: Meh

Just my opinions, though I see a lot of people share my views on about half of these:

1.) Dark Regeneration: Should just affect healthstone use, since everybody macro's this to /use healthstone.
2.) Agony, Corruption, and UA should merge down to 2 buttons, even if they apply 3 debuffs that get dispelled independently. Putting them on 3 buttons is a meaningless irritant; you need a DoT timer mod to play effectively, which means the spec design has fundamental problems.
3.) Twilight Ward: Useful for two general situations...Soul Link soloing and PVP with the set bonus. One of these is going away in 5.4. The other would work better if Twilight Ward *was* the set bonus, triggered automatically.
4.) CoE. Should be applied automatically by Immolate/Corruption.
5.) Malefic Grasp is horrible and needs to die. I'm not sure this has to do with button bloat, I just hate the play style. Give back my Shadow Bolts.
6.) Drain Life. It's just as easy to make the talent simply give Drain Life in its improved (5.4) form. I posit that in 5.4, anyone without the talent already won't have Drain Life on their toolbar.
7.) Dark Intent. Recasting buffs every death (or hour) is stupid. Just make them passive, no one wants to think about crap like that.
8.) Enslave Demon. This could be a glyphed version of Banish, no one would care about the change, and it'd free up a button.

[Deleted]

2.) Agony, Corruption, and UA should merge down to 2 buttons, even if they apply 3 debuffs that get dispelled independently. Putting them on 3 buttons is a meaningless irritant; you need a DoT timer mod to play effectively, which means the spec design has fundamental problems.

Wtf, even less casting dot casting for a dot class? The spec has no problems, if you need an addon to play a spec proparly its you with an issue. Affliction was fine back when there was even 5 dots.

[Werst]

I feel like each spec still has a little bit of bloat or cleanup that would improve the product.

Affliction:
*CoEx (when glyph'd) puts its snare on enfeeblement
*RoF gone from aff

Destro:
*F&B - each time RoF deals damage it triggers spellweaving (remember kalecgos buff in madness) thus making it a legit aoe but out of any single target and gets the ember generation elephant out of the room.

Demo:
*Corruption gone, shadowflame duration extended 3-6 sec, minor DF gain to filler nukes
*Void Ray gone OR have it work like a chain lightning (needs a new name then lol)

General:
*CoE needs to be handled better IF it stays around as a debuff. Demo's auras are fine just need to last longer/no DF cost. Aff could probably put it up via dots, destro puts it up via any nuke. That would make each unique feeling while still doing a similar role.
*Gateway - this is just too much of a hassle and balance nightmare! Remove it and tweak other stuff. Maybe our lvl 87 spell should be something like a 3 min CD to grant 2x shards, 500DF, 2x embers instead of gateway.
*Enslave demon if we aren't getting to have new skins or whatnot for them.
*MF in 5.4 - button bloat incarnate...like it as a passive better.

[Lethl]

GC said that he wanted to remove abilities that was on keybinds because we "had" to, and we almost never used.
Anyway, i think these is some that might end up beeing removed/ or changed.

Banish - i love this ability on water elemental or demons in pvp. Maby bake it into fear. We dont got much chance on using this for PVE.
Twilight Ward
Curse of elements/Curse of Enfeeblement/Unending Breath ( Make it an Aura )
Soul Link as passiv instead of active.
Eye of Kilrogg
Doomguard and infernal as pets instead of a dps CD (infernal as aoe pet) - Just feel like throwing them away is bad, would be nice with more pets.
Enslave Demon. (nice to have, but we barely use it)
ROF from affliction most likly.
Buffs as passive
Create Healthstone (keep soulwell)

These are just ideas.

[Flaks]

The warlock overhaul did make sure there's not a lot of button bloat for JUST THIS ONE CLASS. And yet even then there's still bloat what with the ridiculous amounts of defensive cds, multiple channel spells, and new talents.

But other classes like warriors and hunters need to have abilities cut/merged A LOT more than warlocks.

[ComputerNerd]

Naztrak,

Button bloat is a real problem, with the skills or capability of one player being able to manage them not proving otherwise.
You claim that you think before you write, but simply dismiss anyone who disagrees with you because YOU can manage just fine.
YOU do not represent everyone.

[Lethl]

*Gateway - this is just too much of a hassle and balance nightmare! Remove it and tweak other stuff. Maybe our lvl 87 spell should be something like a 3 min CD to grant 2x shards, 500DF, 2x embers instead of gateway.

I totally agree with you, just remove Gateway.. And i like your idea of the level 87 talent, I always felt that we was missing something like that. Balance druids got something Similar dont they?

[Deleted]

Naztrak,

Button bloat is a real problem, with the skills or capability of one player being able to manage them not proving otherwise.
You claim that you think before you write, but simply dismiss anyone who disagrees with you because YOU can manage just fine.
YOU do not represent everyone.

If their "ideas" are a direct nerf into my viability I have every right to disagree with people. There is a big difference in merging MG/DS which are almost the same and flat out removing good spells or even promoting less actual casting. I may also get pissed when people don't really understand what button bloat is, so they wish to remove spells one never uses which is a crucial spell for one (enslave/banish in kanrethad scenario any1?)

Truth be hold, I may sound obnoxious- but this kind of threads really hit the spot when I fear what future xpacs might bring, or better said, remove. If its a true that someone sometimes from the devs scrolls some forums then I fell threatened.

[PickleballAce]

I don't think we need to remove anything, but it's been a long time since I haven't had a Naga. I definitely would rather not push passive talents like Mannoroth's into active ones like they are. GC talking about button bloat rings kind of hollow when they pull that stuff. At least KJC was saved.

That said, when they push new expansions, the idea is to give us cool new spells to keep us invested in the game. Without some pruning, even the most beastly gaming mouse is going to run out of places to put things eventually.

Other classes have it worse though.

[Lou Sanders]

Curse of the Elements reallllly needs to go. They should just change Corruption/Immolate to passively add the +5% magic damage when they're active.