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

[KrazyK923]

I hit a nerve it seems.

Ok great. Glad you addressed anything I said.

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All of it? No I don't have that good of a memory. There was a shit ton of iteration that happened over months, I couldn't possibly remember every change.

Off the top of my head:

Soul harvest used to just give you 5 soul shards.
Reverse entropy originally did not have the .5 second reduction.
Cataclysm, fire and brimstone, and roaring blaze were all on different talent rows.
Mana tap was waaaay the shit stronger to the point where we'd never have taken the other talents.
Lord of flames went through a few iterations.
The affliction artifact soul mechanic was completely different and was changed to verbatim what was suggested in feedback.
Harvester of souls was originally a trait that would randomly make drain soul hit everything with corruption on it.
Wrath of consumption duration was very short originally.
Absolute corruption didn't increase corruption damage.
Demonic empowerment originally only buffed 3 mobs and power trip instead made it buff all mobs.

There was plenty more, just what I can think of. I was actually shocked at the amount of change we saw based on feedback during the alpha, it was far more than I'd ever seen in previous xpacs.

It was for Destro broseph.

[Lucrece]

Last I checked, Destro also has FnB, Cataclysm, Lord of Flames (which I still dislike, never been fond of 5+ min cd's), Mana Tap, Reverse Entropy.

So, yeah, he did give you some examples.

Destro feels fine, my only wish would be to reduce the mastery variance ranges, make Demonfire channel the 15 bolts to everything affected by immolate (not split them), and for Cataclysm to see a reduction in cast time and cooldown (30 sec more like it).

And give us our choice of goddamned demons back, or make Grimoire of Supremacy actually good. I don't want to be stuck with a tiny, almost invisible imp.

In fact, Affliction and Demo are in far more need of help than Destro is. Destro is close to being what it should be.

All specs need the ridiculous Life Tap spam with absurd mana costs removed. I'm not sure why we're the only caster who needs to pay health and globals to have mana to cast spells that are no stronger than what other infinite mana casters have.

If Life Tap is a thing, then the cost should be compensated by a benefit (a buff to your next spell cast or what have you). Sacrifices have to have gains.

And a damned update to our green fire animations (and demonbolt using green fire as well), with a complete update of affliction's visuals.

[Jessicka]

The affliction artifact soul mechanic was completely different and was changed to verbatim what was suggested in feedback.

You keep saying this, but that doesn't make it good, and I'm sure it wasn't the only suggestion. The spec has too many RNG proc/stack/resource mechanics, and too many 'on death' mechanics. You asked for this and wonder why the spec has such inane ramp up? This is why it's for designers to design and testers to test.

[Irian]

The specs are designed well enough, so it seems to just be balance.

I've personally had the opposite experience, and that's why I kind of approve of people giving Blizzard shit about the current state of warlocks.

As destruction I can pull solid burst, my cleave is awesome and when RNG blesses me my DPS can be monstrous. The problem with that being that I can never rely on this because I feel as if the class is balanced around the inevitable gearpoint where you may as well remove Incinerate from your bars, and yet we have artifact talents that involve buffing it in power. Shadowburn is also largely for utility, dungeon efficiency and pre-840+ smoothing and yet it's a talent where it would be a huge boom to QoL as a baseline ability as it has little to no place in our single target rotation.

There's also the tiny little issue of demonic empowerment that everyone begged Blizzard on the official forums not to go through with because it feels archaic and crappy design. There are so many better ways this could have been implemented but as it stands it is seriously one of the most awkward design decisions I think I've seen Blizzard do thus far. Again, though, Demonology's stellar ST makes the awkwardness somewhat fine, but the design is horrendous.

That's the thing. Our damage is fine but our talents are fucking abysmally designed in such a bizarre way where we have many talents across the class that are actually completely useless in some aspect of gameplay. Things like Wreak Havoc, Fire and Brimstone, and Sow the Seeds can actually be a dead talent given a certain fight and I've played every other class fairly extensively and at worst seen 1-2 classes with talents like this whereas Warlocks have multiple. Being forced to choose between whether we want AoE or Cleave instead of empowering these aspects of the class to go from decent to great like most classes is the biggest flaw, combined with really...anti-fun gameplay (yes subjective I know but I would guess that many would agree)

[Baconeggcheese]

It was for Destro broseph.

What I said wasn't, it was for the class. I play a class not a spec.

Also some of the destro changes I could remember are in there.

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You keep saying this, but that doesn't make it good, and I'm sure it wasn't the only suggestion.

It wasn't, what I wanted was effectively the same thing EXCEPT it would still have a static 30s spawn rate for the souls with no rng procs and be balanced around that. It would have made for a completely different situation and what I feel significantly better design. I was afraid they were going to do what they ended up doing, but at the end of the day its still infinitely better than what the mechanic originally was.

But the feedback was fairly universal that people wanted it in this form with minor differences like the one I mentioned.

[Keldion]

The "please be constructive part" is infuriating.

The feedback was there since beta, pages and pages of constructive feedback, hundred of people warning them of the incoming issues in long detailled posts, mostly ignored.
Then release come and ship a mediocre destro and unfinished Affli/Demono and people are mad. As they should imo.

I wish that I could have expected a better response, but it's Ion answering the feedback. Maybe he believes misfeasance is doing us a favor compared to his past performance.

[Snes]

Looking forward to the Warlock buffs after several months of sluggish testing so we can catch up in gearing.

[Count Zero]

Looking forward to the Warlock buffs after several months of sluggish testing so we can catch up in gearing.

I finally got up to around 842 ilvl (still a couple mythics to do this week and some world quests), and I've found that groups really just don't want Warlocks.

I mean, yeah, I realize I don't know why I'm getting declined, but when I see a group that still needs one or two dps and is asking for 825+ and I'm 842 ...

Even the tanks and healers in my guild pretty much just want to bring Demon Hunters, who just shred through the trash.

[Lucrece]

I finally got up to around 842 ilvl (still a couple mythics to do this week and some world quests), and I've found that groups really just don't want Warlocks.

I mean, yeah, I realize I don't know why I'm getting declined, but when I see a group that still needs one or two dps and is asking for 825+ and I'm 842 ...

Even the tanks and healers in my guild pretty much just want to bring Demon Hunters, who just shred through the trash.

Unholy DK's have better aoe than demonhunters, as do WW monks. Fire mages and hunters are perfectly competitive as well.

It's not just warlock. Any class with shitty ramp up to aoe, like balance druids and elemental shamans and feral druids get turned down.

So let's not pretend like this is a unique warlock problem. They just fucked up big time on aoe tuning across the classes.

And this QQ about melee is getting ridiculous. For entire expansions melee have gone unwanted, getting spots for CM's was a nightmare, and the one expansion where melee might actually be desirable over stacking ranged, people cry that the sky is falling.

Don't worry, ranged will probably still be better than melee in raids for progression. At least melee will have a niche to excel in for 5 mans.

[Deleted]

Will Destro mastery be buffed? Cuz it's pretty frustrating that there is such a HUGE difference in stat values. Haste is worth more than the double the value of mastery. Now I need to find Crit/Haste on every piece since the other 2 stats are insanely inferior. I had 2 trinkets ilvl 840 (Caged Horror) and 845 (Corrupted Starlight) with both mastery on them. After switching to a simple haste/int trinket and Devilsaur's Shock-Baton I did 24k more DPS even though both of those items are 10 ilvlsl less.

Just make mastery less chaotic instead of what I have now 0 to 80% extra damage. Change it to 40-60%. Make a lower scale instead of only an upper scale.

[Requimortem]

Looking forward to the Warlock buffs after several months of sluggish testing so we can catch up in gearing.

Buffing bad mechanics isn't going to salvage the class.

[DarkArchon]

One of the reasons why i no longer play WoW....Don't overhaul what is not broken, something dev team can never grasp... They need to turn back the clock and make Locks what they were in LK and early Cata...They need the community to vote on when they liked that class the most, then take that and improve it's core. This stuff is 1-2-3 simple it blows my mind.

[Count Zero]

Unholy DK's have better aoe than demonhunters, as do WW monks. Fire mages and hunters are perfectly competitive as well.

It's not just warlock. Any class with shitty ramp up to aoe, like balance druids and elemental shamans and feral druids get turned down.

So let's not pretend like this is a unique warlock problem. They just fucked up big time on aoe tuning across the classes.

And this QQ about melee is getting ridiculous. For entire expansions melee have gone unwanted, getting spots for CM's was a nightmare, and the one expansion where melee might actually be desirable over stacking ranged, people cry that the sky is falling.

Don't worry, ranged will probably still be better than melee in raids for progression. At least melee will have a niche to excel in for 5 mans.

I get what you're saying, and I have seen others point similar things out - but I'm just reporting on my own experiences here.

[wooters]

See? You are full of shit. You are even getting called out by others, not just me. It's not "white-knighting", it's fucking decency and integrity. I have no idea what you are trying to achieve by literally making up shit.

If this is true...where the fuck are your posts with strong criticism of how the destruction spec function in its gameplay. either you indeed are a deliberate or deluded white knight, or you flat out don`t have a clue of what quality is with regard to gameplay.

there is basically NOTHING in the destro gameplay that requires actually having a brain. our dps are only a product of gear and how quickly we are able to move our fingers. ridiculous is what it is... and this reaction of the community was destined to come

[Baconeggcheese]

where the fuck are your posts

I'm honestly still waiting to see anything mildly constructive come out of you, since you've just been filling the forum with shit posts for months now.

[pkm]

One of the reasons why i no longer play WoW....Don't overhaul what is not broken, something dev team can never grasp... They need to turn back the clock and make Locks what they were in LK and early Cata...They need the community to vote on when they liked that class the most, then take that and improve it's core. This stuff is 1-2-3 simple it blows my mind.

In theory yes, but no matter what there will always be people complaining. It's just how it is.

[Deleted]

I'm honestly still waiting to see anything mildly constructive come out of you, since you've just been filling the forum with shit posts for months now.

Well, he isn't really wrong about destruction lacking some interesting things. Incinerate is entirely isolated, immolate is a simple dot, conflag is a builder with a cooldown that just deals damage and chaos bolt is a finisher that just deals damage.

Backdraft and Roaring Blaze adds some interaction to conflagrate, one of which was baseline before Legion. I honestly don't see why that had to become a talent, nor Shadow Burn for that matter. It's not like destruction is brimming with cool interactions as is. The few we have are through talents, because generating soul shards is not a cool interaction between spells.

I know destruction can perform decently at the moment, and there is a difference between a good destruction warlock and a bad one. Very much of that difference can be found in talent choice, gear, and not making obvious mistakes (Overcapping charges / shards, not using havoc, etc.).

I just really wish that we would sometimes have a reason to do things certain ways, baseline. Like, if you pick Backdraft, you would likely not want to use two conflagrates back to back, since you would just lose out on the haste bonus. We have almost nothing of that sort, unless I'm completely mistaken.

Edit: I've also mentioned this before, but what is even the point of having three different types of dimensional rifts, when we can't control which one appears? All of them are also entirely single target damage, which leads to the most obvious way to use them: Initial burst, or for mobile DPS. Not interesting at all.

[Deleted]

Edit: I've also mentioned this before, but what is even the point of having three different types of dimensional rifts, when we can't control which one appears? All of them are also entirely single target damage, which leads to the most obvious way to use them: Initial burst, or for mobile DPS. Not interesting at all.

Class Fantasy.

Snarky remarks aside, I think rifts are pretty damn great - I just wish they'd been added without changing destruction so much from MOP / WOD (bar killing CR).

Destruction has always had two main issues for me since the revamp. It's felt like it was a button short of a full rotation and it had mobility issues. The rifts slotted in so god damn well, giving you an extra instant that you could use to help out on movement if your conflag charges were expended or being banked and just giving you another thing to mix up the rotation with.

Why they needed to change so much is beyond me, but not surprising since it seems to be the same treatment affliction got in MOP. The other two specs needed work, the third one got some (arguably unhelpful) attention.

Rifts are a really good addition though. It's a tool that covers one of destro's weaknesses but the cost of using one willynilly in movement instead of banking them for more ideal burn times makes it a much nicer way of covering mobility than KJC or anything in that vein.

[Deleted]

Class Fantasy.

Snarky remarks aside, I think rifts are pretty damn great - I just wish they'd been added without changing destruction so much from MOP / WOD (bar killing CR).

Destruction has always had two main issues for me since the revamp. It's felt like it was a button short of a full rotation and it had mobility issues. The rifts slotted in so god damn well, giving you an extra instant that you could use to help out on movement if your conflag charges were expended or being banked and just giving you another thing to mix up the rotation with.

Why they needed to change so much is beyond me, but not surprising since it seems to be the same treatment affliction got in MOP. The other two specs needed work, the third one got some (arguably unhelpful) attention.

Rifts are a really good addition though. It's a tool that covers one of destro's weaknesses but the cost of using one willynilly in movement instead of banking them for more ideal burn times makes it a much nicer way of covering mobility than KJC or anything in that vein.

I won't argue that it is nice to have the rifts. I just wish they were more interesting. As it stands, the shadow bolt version is just plain annoying to even be a possibility, if you want to burst something down. I doubt any other class would be thrilled by having their primary "Nuke shit" ability have a 33% risk of being a 15(ish?) second dot, instead of a few seconds nuke, that they had no control over.

Have you played other classes in Legion? Because whenever I play other classes, I see all kinds of interactions that allow you to perform better if you utilize them correctly. As a destruction warlock, there is basically nothing, with a few talents being the exception.

I do like being tanky, having a tanky pet, and I've also invested too much time to switch main. I want to play warlock. Unfortunately all three warlock specs have some serious mechanical issues right now, and I hope they will fix them. With what Ion said about Demonology (D2 necromancer), I'll probably end up being demonology when those changes make it into the game. Unless of course destruction also gets a bunch of cool changes, which I am very much doubting.

[Volitar]

Warlock damage isn't nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be but holy shit does it feel like ass to play.