Unhappy with Warlocks? Use the upcoming Dev Q&A #LegionQA

[ThePhantombox]

"Destro is fine"

Destro is average as long as you never have to move.

If you could label which bosses you never have to move on, I'd appreciate it.

I'll be waiting.

You talk about people getting out of the MoP/WoD mindset. Do you realize why people are in that mindset? Because they changed the entire spec around Chaos Bolt after Cataclysm. And then proceeded to nerf it every single time they balanced in MoP/WoD. Now we should be focusing on Immolation and pet management?

That's the fantasy for Destruction? The spec with the function of its fucking fantasy in its name? A dot and a pet? What a fucking joke.

Just give us back Cataclysm Destruction. I have no idea why they thought the idea of Conflag being a bursty spell was so anethema to Destruction. When its literally a fire explosion. Which sounds much more "Destruction" than watching something tick away with fire damage while your imp shits out firebolts at it.

Piss right off with your bullcrap dismissal of problems as "hurp oh its just dem panda whiners!"

Also I don't even like Demo (Before or after Legion) but its pretty fucking sad that apparently their spec fantasy is just summoning a bunch of weak imps. Everyone knows the sign of a powerful summoning Warlock in the game is one who just summons the weakest demon over and over again.

It should have been some mechanic where you build up a resource to summon a very powerful demon, like a Pit Lord or a Dreadlord, for a short period of time. Like Chaos Bolt mixed with Void Form. Two separate playstyles that alternate when you your bigfuckingdemon is out. Even the Observer (or whatever other name they gave it) as the 100 talent is pretty underwhelming in terms of Demonic power.

For a guy who keeps going "waaah I'm leaving," you sure do a bad job of actually leaving.

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Anywho, I guess I'm late to the party with this whole Q/A nonsense. Sue me, but I've got Watcher's back on this one. Except for the destro mastery, fuck that. But honestly I think most of the things he said were fair.

Also letting us start with 3 soul shards would be dope as fuck.

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Didn't address Afflictions' 2 garbage gold traits... =(

ALSO STOP WITH THIS FUCKING MEME PLZ.

[Teroch]

Quote Originally Posted by Atreyis View Post
Didn't address Afflictions' 2 garbage gold traits... =(

ALSO STOP WITH THIS FUCKING MEME PLZ.

Here's the thing, the two gold traits really are not what they were designed to be. They're not garbage but they were designed when the artifact released souls periodically and you alone could target them and kill them. Killing them would activate the gold talents. They didn't like the way it worked and they didn't like the way it made people play, because you pretty much wanted to be in melee so you could splash damage them instead of targeting them. The talents are still quite useful on mythic trash, and they're useful on fights that have a considerable number of adds, but any fight that is single target or does not have a consistent number of adds the gold traits do nothing. They were originally designed to be useful in any fight situation. They are not, and that's why people complain.

[Gaidax]

Soul Flame is amazing trait, I wonder what will people say if Blizzard listens to the feedback how bad/useless it is and removes it.

[Cainium]

Soul Flame is amazing trait, I wonder what will people say if Blizzard listens to the feedback how bad/useless it is and removes it.

I hope that they don't do that. My mythic guild group already makes use of it . Everytime there are lots of very small adds the tank says "i pull them into the next trash pack so the warlock can make BOOM", and i'm 1st in DPS with a huge gap to the 2nd after that.

What Blizzard could address is that you can crash the game with that trait in areas where are tons of mobs which just die from a single explosion. In the withered scenario there is a room with lots of small eggs and spiders. I put corruption on one egg and after that egg "died" my GTX 1080 drastically went down in FPS 'cause of the heavy amount of chain explosions happening. In the end the game crashed with 0FPS and i had to restart it... another time i crashed an old instance while soloing 'cause i pulled half of the dungeon and wanted to blow it up in one go. Couldn't login for half an hour until the server reset the instance ...

For me, those "clunky" mechanics which can be heavily abused initially brought me to the warlock class. I didn't like the very smooth playstyle of MoP locks except the Soul Swap abuse. I like it when my guild mates say "what the f*** have you done there?", 'cause locks require "more" than just pressing barrage like hunters and go afk.

[tithian]

Did you even watch the video? He didn't say there wasn't any, he said it was extra work sorting out the useful feedback from the random noise of QQ and /signed spam. With the unspoken implication that if you don't have something useful to say it's better for your class to say nothing and let the useful feedback stand out.

Yeah man, it was extra work, it's not as if people are getting paid to interact with the community. It's all volunteer work in the forums... oh wait.

There are literally 3 threads in the official forums, with most posts being multi-paragraph constructive criticism, while the rest being "I agree with X". No rage, no frustrations, at least in the first 2 ones before people started to feel like the feedback was getting ignored anyway. The community managers only had to copy-paste the highly rated posts (most of which were saying the same things) and pass it over. But that would imply they would have to do their jobs, and we can't have that now.

[Gaidax]

There are literally 3 threads in the official forums, with most posts being multi-paragraph constructive criticism

Quite a lot of the criticism is neither constructive nor true, people have a tendency to make shit up, so real issues get drowned in a bunch of literal non-issues and noise.

It's not easy to differentiate between real deal and bullshit, as these are often mixed together. Fine examples are all those feedback posts with like 10+ bullet points, some of it is true, but a lot of it is literally a dishonest effort to produce volume - i.e. things that are not really issues or not even exist at all added to beef up the post and out of all that maybe like 2-3 points were really good serious issues raised.

I would really love to have people realize that in this case quality > quantity and stop being all over the place - instead of dilluted feedback posts with 10 random issues - give posts with 3 top issues and that's it - no drama, if this would be done - it would have been better for everyone.

[Deleted]

Soul Flame is amazing trait, I wonder what will people say if Blizzard listens to the feedback how bad/useless it is and removes it.

It's not much use in most dungeon boss encounters though. The main effect is to increase affliction's AOE, where it is already strong.

It's almost as though the two Gold traits were designed around having a steady supply of adds to provide the buffs/damage via Reap Soul, and now they are bad because Reap Soul got changed to not provide said adds.

Soul Flame and Wrath feel very much as though they are traits designed to balance out affliction's traditional "weak on AOE, strong on single target"

Except affliction is already strong on sustained AOE, and weak on single target. Those Gold traits are providing boosts where it's not needed, and not helping where it is needed.

Few boss encounters in dungeons will benefit except marginally from either. Raids might be different, but as noted above, we don;t want to go back to a "great in raids, dead everywhere else" model.

The devs themselves specifically mentioned that 5-mans are a problem for warlocks, perhaps not so much destruction, but for sure affliction and demo.

Those Gold traits aren;t garbage, but they need updating to synergise with Reap Soul - or something else, or get replaced - because that's very obviously how they were supposed to work.

[Count Zero]

It's very frustrating for him to even cite the bad posts as part of the problem. Like, how are the people who only make good posts supposed to react to that ?

[Cainium]

Except affliction is already strong on sustained AOE, and weak on single target. Those Gold traits are providing boosts where it's not needed, and not helping where it is needed.

On fights like Rokmora in Neltharions Lair Wrath of Consumption helps where it is needed. Small add fights where our DoTs bring nothing more than single target dps and every other class benefits in some way from the adds. In every single dungeon there is a boss where we can benefit from either one of those traits, or both. And Soul flame is not sustained AoE, it's burst AoE.

Must they be flat damage increase which is useful in every situation? NO, thats just numbers tuning outside of those.

[Deleted]

Did you even watch the video? He didn't say there wasn't any, he said it was extra work sorting out the useful feedback from the random noise of QQ and /signed spam. With the unspoken implication that if you don't have something useful to say it's better for your class to say nothing and let the useful feedback stand out.

It's hard to not respond to that by saying if they hadn't let locks go live in the state they are in now but had actually listed to the Beta feedback they wouldn;t have to wade through 200 pages of rage.

It's really not hard to see why people are so mad, you just get the impression rightly or wrongly that everything is being ignored.

Locks have gone into the expac in a pretty poor state for reasons which have been expounded at such length there is no need to repeat them. A simple Blue post a few days ago saying "we're aware that warlocks have some issues and we're working on some fixes" would have massively calmed things down.

I think it's the wall of silence that gets to people. They for sure can;t respond to everything, but behaving like the Divine Emperor who occasionally exits from the secluded palace to issue edicts only serves to fuel the rage.

A simple one line post from a Blue would have calmed things down a hell of a lot. Just saying we hear you, we know there are issues, they'll be addressed.

[sugarfree]

They have the audacity to use the word 'communicate' when talking about warlock feedback when it is exactly the opposite of what they are doing.

Is Chaos Bolt still going to suck in PvP? Are we still going to accept the fact that Destruction, where it's supposed to be a sustained damage burst spec is now being tuned around RNG and a dot? I am not here for a 3 second cast time spell that is too expensive and risky to cast just to hit lower than an instant cheaper Pyroblast.

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Watch them buff Immolate and the Imp to adjust Destruction's numbers.

[Deleted]

The devs want Warlocks to feel like the tanky class, while Mage is the more mobile class. Fair enough, I can get behind that. How do they envision that working out in raids where that tankiness becomes meaningless?

[bloodmoth13]

*Sigh*

So many people complaining about balance issues instead of gameplay issues, thats the useless feedback they talk about, they stated they will work on numbers before or during raids and that they are working on bugs atm.

"Destruction sux becos chaos bolt hits like noodle" is a balance issue, not a gameplay issue.
"Warlocks are falling behind other classes due to the ramp up time they all experience" is useful feedback.

a thousand people supporting a shitty argument doesnt make it a good argument, it just makes it a widely supported shitty argument, and often detracts from the real issues.
"Demonic empowerment would feel better as an instant cast with 2 charges" would have been a much more useful statement than "YOU DONT CARE ABOUT MEEEE"

Anywho, it seems that they did get the message atleast

[Gaidax]

The devs want Warlocks to feel like the tanky class, while Mage is the more mobile class. Fair enough, I can get behind that. How do they envision that working out in raids where that tankiness becomes meaningless?

In raids extra tankiness does not become meaningless, this extra layer of safety is very helpful when content is actually challenging.

[Deleted]

Demonology Warlocks have some ramp up time, need to get out Demons, so it takes a while

Demo has too much rampup.

It would be nice if you could build up your demon army over the first few fights and then plow throw a few fights.

Let's give demo more rampup, that will fix things. How about a few fights long until all your demons are out?

Mobility is another concern that has been raised, but it probably won't be changed much.

No mobility buffs. You have your amazing survivability! What do you mean it's only two absorb shields, and that any other pure dps with a cheat death or ice block has far more real survivability and utility than you in any heroic+ raid?

Destruction Warlocks don't like the way their Mastery feels, which is valuable feedback, but it is somewhat like Crit. You have a mastery that gives Chaos Bolt some RNG, but in most situations it will average out over time.

We don't care that everyone hates destro mastery, we're not changing it. Did you wipe because you couldn't burst down an add because your spells decided to do half damage? LOL JUST AVERAGE IT OUT BETWEEN WIPES

So basically the only change we can expect is 3 soul shards at start for demo. Amazing.

[Tya]

Can't really blame warlocks for being pessimistic. The class gets 3-4 "revamps" per expansion which renders most feedback useless as any improvements don't stick around for long, and you literally never know what you're going to be playing with every passing patch.

[Gaidax]

So basically the only change we can expect is 3 soul shards at start for demo. Amazing.

You were explicitly told that this specific change is done because it's easy to hotfix, but it is not the only thing they want to change.

[Deleted]

In raids extra tankiness does not become meaningless, this extra layer of safety is very helpful when content is actually challenging.

It is completely meaningless as far as DPS is concerned. You're not going to stand in fire and keep DPS'ing just because you take slightly less damage than a mage. You're still moving just as much as any other ranged dps, while not having the tools to do so.

[Deleted]

In raids extra tankiness does not become meaningless, this extra layer of safety is very helpful when content is actually challenging.

I think he meant "meaningless" in that your survivability is no higher than a mage's (less actually, Iceblock) when it comes to boss abilities that are meant to one shot you. Moreover, most "move" abilities carry some sort of penalty aside from hurting you: generally, tanky or not you've got to move because if you don;t you die, or you get stunned, or you inflict damage not only on yourself but on your party as well, and saying "hey I can take this and Drain Life to heal back up again" won;t win you any friends amongst all the other member who get hurt anf the healers who have to top them off again.

The philosophy of "locks don;t need to move cos they are takny and can take it" has a very strong tendency to fall down due to the either one shot (a warlock won;t survive Helya's breath any more than a mage, just take very slightly longer to die) or the other penalties they tend to attach to things

So in essence your strength is nullified, you have to move tankiness or not, and of course, you pay very heavily for it.

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You were explicitly told that this specific change is done because it's easy to hotfix, but it is not the only thing they want to change.

Any significant changes won;t come until 7.1

We;ll get some QOL changes like that, which help a little, plus some flat buffs

Actually, affliction isn;t reall ybad at all except for the rampup penalty making it unattractive in 5-mans and "kill that quick" fights, but it's single target is pretty low, thanks in part to the Gold trait andReap Soul thing.

[Gaidax]

It is completely meaningless as far as DPS is concerned. You're not going to stand in fire and keep DPS'ing just because you take slightly less damage than a mage. You're still moving just as much as any other ranged dps, while not having the tools to do so.

That is incorrect, plenty things that make people break their casts to sidestep are relatively small sources of damage in the ballpark of 15-20% of your total HP. In case of Warlock you can block these passively with Demonic Skin and bring that shield back up with DPS pretty fast.

As for heavier sources of damage - as a matter of fact, Dark Pact+Unending resolve effectively triples you eHP and are on very low cooldown, I see no reason why you can't pop these and instead of moving just block whatever was flying your way. One thing that people forget about that in case of a Warlock it costs you nothing to do so, while Mages/Hunters/Spriests and such effectively have to stop DPS when they pop their immunities or reductions.

Basically, claiming it is meaningless is just not true - you can game around it a lot in raids especially with its ludicrously low CD.