Next week's balance changes

[Count Zero]

It's something, at least. Fix and update Afflictions outdated Artifact traits so 1- not everything is on kill and 2- return souls back or simply redo the traits entirely. If we still had the souls from before they took them out and replaced them with spheres then it wouldn't be so horrid. Maybe simply returning the souls back would work. Dunno.

I don't get how hard it is to fix those. Just make those things accumulate at a minimum rate even if things aren't actually dying, just like how we accumulate souls as a minimum rate even if things aren't dying. Maybe put an ICD on them since afflic is so aoe strong already. idk, hard for me to comment, I'm not too familiar with the traits in question

- - - Updated - - -

Affliction will already have one encounter reserved in Nighthold where it will be nuts just due to Soul Flame. In my opinion that is actually pretty okay, having a spec occasionally be nuts for specific use case, as long as this does not become a normal thing everywhere else.

I mean, you have Shadow Priests being nuts on Xavius because they can cheese and S2M twice in a fight there. Does not really mean it is such a huge gamebreaking problem in a grand scale of things. That said they did get some nerfbat to rein them in.

In an ideal world, Blizz's idea of certain specs shining on certain fights would be amazing. But they have competing philosophies that make it impossible. Fixed-size mythic and wanting to limit the total number of specs in the game (they could give everyone a fourth spec, including Demon Hunters, if they really wanted to - as well as adding Tinkers) speak to this, I think. Yet they have flex sizes below mythic and lots of tools to make pugging easier.

So for the vast majority of the audience, and even the vast majority of the raid audience, you wouldn't get the view of having a raid team where you see over the course of a tier that some specs are good for certain cases and not so good for others but that it all winds up evening out.

[DustWolf]

If you won't manage to do well with these buffs then you are a lost cause, plain and simple.

Both Demo and Destruction will be more than viable with these buffs and pretty damn good even. Affliction is the only that may still be lacking.

To be completely honest, it's not about viability for me.
I was doing pretty OK in EM last night, was mid of the pack, top 3 on nightmare dragons, as expected. We were always *viable*, I only have a problem with all this RNG destro has. Mastery needs to go and 1 guaranteed CB per 20ish s (2xcon) is just not enough. We don't have any other guaranteed SS builders. And that's what's bothering me most ... I really don't understand why they took the incinerate builder away

[iggyfloyd]

Chaosbolt is now instant and costs no shard.


I'm asking too much?

[Deleted]

I just noticed that they didn't change anything (for destruction) about pet damage or GoSac or anything like that. At first I thought it was a flat 11% damage buff, but with Rifts, Imps, Grimoire etc. missing it seems to be rather 7-8% (?) increase for destro. Has anyone done the math?

- - - Updated - - -

Chaosbolt is now instant and costs no shard.


I'm asking too much?

If you are looking for instant spells that hit as hard as chaos bolt and cost no shards then you have to go to the fire mage forums ^____^

[stomination]

Mechanical changes don't happen in a hotfix. This is a start at least. Really surprised fire mage wasn't touched though.

Because they had to buff arcane. If they nerfed fire arcane cudnt get a buff because of the whole one spec stays top thing.

[Count Zero]

I just noticed that they didn't change anything (for destruction) about pet damage or GoSac or anything like that. At first I thought it was a flat 11% damage buff, but with Rifts, Imps, Grimoire etc. missing it seems to be rather 7-8% (?) increase for destro. Has anyone done the math?

I think they're still trying to maintain niches. Destro's cleave is going to be pretty insane with these buffs. I mean, it basically double dips from those bonuses on most fights in EN.

At least I'm basically guaranteed a spot for Cenarius and Xavius progression now :P

[Lisa Frank Succubus]

Chaosbolt is now instant and costs no shard.


I'm asking too much?

Not at all if you're also asking for an immediate nerf.

[Deleted]

I think they're still trying to maintain niches. Destro's cleave is going to be pretty insane with these buffs. I mean, it basically double dips from those bonuses on most fights in EN.

At least I'm basically guaranteed a spot for Cenarius and Xavius progression now :P

Well true. To be honest I would actually nerf wreak havoc, because it impacts niche dps too much. This talent could shine some serious bad light on warlocks come next week. I expect Destro to take the top spot next week for dragons in EN.

Thought I am not one of those "each class need to be unique and have a fight they excelt at" kinda guy. I think all classes should be good at single target, aoe, cleave, movement, stationary etc.

I rather have a system where you say "okay now the best player decides who tops the meter" instead of "ok guys this is a single target fight now and Arms warrior is going to take the top spot if he doesn't fail and die"

But I am in a good mood today so lets not ruin it. I am actually thinking about becoming a 2 specc warlock with DEMO my ST specc and DESTRO my AoE cleave specc. Only problem is I don't have a shadow relict and I don't have any AP in my demo weapon

[Deleted]

Maybe yes, but let me ask you this, assuming hypothetically these traits stay, but Affliction will be a super competitive and maybe even one of the more powerful specs... would you truly give a damn about these traits?

Don't think so.

People really get too easily lost in unimportant details, are these traits dumb? Yeah, but it has no bearing on your bottom line provided the spec is tuned to deliver even without these traits contributing much.


Another good example is Demo in pre-patch - it literally owned... did it own because pre-patch gave it some sort of superior mechanic? No... it was simply overtuned thanks to some silly item combo and despite all of its mechanical deficiencies it owned very well just due to throughput. So basically with enough numbers tweaking it can reach the point where you simply would not give a damn about such details as specific traits and such, because you don't really even need them to succeed.

Which brings me to another point - if people are smart - they would switch their loot spec to Demo, I seriously expect it to grow into a monster once it gets its hands on specific legendaries and that is with all the mechanical issues and such.

Silly post, predicated on an idea that affliction will be so powerful it doesn;t matter that two of it's artifact gold traits don;t work, in which case any situation where they do work affliction would be massively overtuned

Also note how fast they nerfed demonology when they twigged how the tier and class trinket were making it stupidly strong

This is a "if granny had wheels" argument. Affliction is not overtuned, therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to point out that two of it's Gold traits are awful, mainly because they are designed to work with a mechanic that got chopped out. Blizz said they'd fix this, but did not, because it was too late.

Ai agree that the mechanic of killing escaping souls would likely suck (although one could have just macroed target soul cast agony and forget)

As it stands, having two gold traits based on having a steady stream of adds to build maint buffs sucks, because it will be stupidly OP in a fightlike Skorpyron, and it utterly useless on something like Ursoc. In an Ursoc fight two gold traits literally do absolutely nothing whatever.

[transparent]

This is how the updates should have read:

Affliction

Drain Life damage increased by 22%
Drain Life revised - Drain Life now has a 20% chance per tick to create a consumable soul.
Drain Soul damage increased by 22%
Drain Soul revised - Drain Soul now has a 20% chance per tick to create a consumable soul.
Corruption damage increased by 28%
Agony revised - Agony damage no longer stacks and does damage equal to 15 stacks over 18 seconds. - dumb idea, makes it just another DoT.
Writhe of Agony revised - Your Agony now deals 25% total damage up front when applied.
Unstable Affliction damage increased by 28%
Seed of Corruption damage increased by 10%
Seed of Corruption - cast time reduced to 2 seconds.
Siphon Life (Talent) damage increased by 18%
Haunt (Talent) damage increased by 25%
Phantom Singularity (Talent) damage increased by 20%

Demonology

Hand of Gul’dan impact damage increased by 28%
Demonwrath damage increased by 22%
Shadowbolt damage increased by 17%
Doom damage increased by 22%
Wild Imps damage increased by 20%
Dreadstalker attack power increased by 15%
Summon Dreadstalker revised - Summoning Dreadstalkers now also empowers all your demons, increasing their haste and health by 50% for 15 seconds.
Demonic Empowerment removed.
Felguard attack power increased by 18%
Doomguard (Demonology)’s Doom Bolt damage increased by 30%
Demonbolt (Talent) damage increased by 18%
Implosion (Talent) damage increased by 23%
Shadowflame (Talent) damage increased by 20%
Darkglare (Talent) damage increased by 22%

Destruction

Chaos Bolt damage increased by 20%
Chaos Bolt - base cast time reduced to 2.5 seconds
Incinerate damage increased by 23%
Incinerate revised - Incinerate critical strikes now have a 30% to produce a soul shard.
Immolate damage increased by 23%
Conflagrate damage increased by 23%
Rain of Fire damage increased by 23%, and cast time removed
Cataclysm (Talent) damage increased by 23%
Channel Demonfire (Talent) damage increased by 23%

Numbers might sound extreme, but this should put all three specs much higher and really, it will put them where Warlocks are suppose to be, with the other pure DPS classes.

[Slashkill]

Maybe yes, but let me ask you this, assuming hypothetically these traits stay, but Affliction will be a super competitive and maybe even one of the more powerful specs... would you truly give a damn about these traits?

Don't think so.

People really get too easily lost in unimportant details, are these traits dumb? Yeah, but it has no bearing on your bottom line provided the spec is tuned to deliver even without these traits contributing much.


Another good example is Demo in pre-patch - it literally owned... did it own because pre-patch gave it some sort of superior mechanic? No... it was simply overtuned thanks to some silly item combo and despite all of its mechanical deficiencies it owned very well just due to throughput. So basically with enough numbers tweaking it can reach the point where you simply would not give a damn about such details as specific traits and such, because you don't really even need them to succeed.

Which brings me to another point - if people are smart - they would switch their loot spec to Demo, I seriously expect it to grow into a monster once it gets its hands on specific legendaries and that is with all the mechanical issues and such.

Don't know if that's just me or it generally is how it is, but if the spec is performing magnificent AND I like the whole class flavor, I don't care that much for how mechanically broken it is. I tend to adapt to that. However, even if Aff perform is top notch and one of the golden traits is completely unused on certain fights, I would still feel not right about actually even going for it. But whatevs.

Demo is definitely going to scale out of control, but I'm too used to new destro, it feels like the perfect flow for me. Demo is what I actually loved about Legion warlock, but I absolutely despise two things in it: it's AoE and it's dependancy on the flow. I actually like no-FnB destro AoE very much, because it actually feels more complicated than it ever was. But again, that might be just me after all.

[Underverse]

sure they buffed our damage but the class is still aids to play mechanically all 3 specs

There will probably be more changes in the 7.1 patch that address mechanics, because yeah there are definitely some mechanics that need a hard look.

These changes are very positive, I have little doubt that we'll see more and better things to come.

[Slashkill]

>> Agony revised - Agony damage no longer stacks and does damage equal to 15 stacks.

That kills the whole point of Agony.

>> Summon Dreadstalker revised - Summoning Dreadstalkers now also empowers all your demons, increasing their haste and health by 50% for 15 seconds.
Demonic Empowerment removed.

This is plain dumb.

Other than that, your number tweaks look a little bit too huge.

[transparent]

>> Agony revised - Agony damage no longer stacks and does damage equal to 15 stacks.

That kills the whole point of Agony.

>> Summon Dreadstalker revised - Summoning Dreadstalkers now also empowers all your demons, increasing their haste and health by 50% for 15 seconds.
Demonic Empowerment removed.

This is plain dumb.

Other than that, your number tweaks look a little bit too huge.

In retrospect, yeah, the change to Agony is stupid, since it makes it just a simple DoT. Probably ignore the removal of stacks and keep it as is.

How come you think it's dumb for the Dreadwalkers also empowering demons? Wouldn't this remove the clunkiness of having to cast DE all the time?

Only issue I see with the damage increase is scaling in later gear levels. Just a thought tho.

[Soluna]

It is astounding you cannot understand how this game works in terms of the grouping aspect. Warlocks aren't being denied spots because "Well, you cannot hit this single arbitrary line" and this 10% buff gets us over that. It is that we are doing 30% less damage than a bunch of other classes. Why would anyone take a class that is doing 70% of the damage as someone else they could take? And then you are idiotic enough to state "well, complaining that since everyone got buffed that we suck is stupid because we got buffed" proves your lack of understanding of math. If we were doing 30% less than the top 3 specs, and both get buffed by 10%, we are actually further behind those top 3 than we were previously. And since, based on your post it is clear you won't understand that as truth, let me explain with examples with made up numbers. For the sake of simplicity, lets say that the top 3 specs were averaging 100k DPS and Locks were averaging 70k dps (which is the same disparity we've had). If both are buffed by 10%, that means that the top 3 go to 110k while Locks go to 77k. That means instead of being 30k DPS behind, we are now 33k DPS behind. Because a 10% buff to someone doing a lot more damage is worth more than a 10% buff to a class doing a lot less damage.

The buffs were nice and all and shows they understand what a shit state we were in but it is not nearly enough. Mechanical issues aside, we were behind by WAY MORE than 10%. Affliction, the shittiest of the 3 specs numerically by a decent enough margin, got the same level of buffs as the other specs (slightly less than Destro which was vastly outperforming it). And arguing that "Well, Locks should just change specs for literally every fight" is a bullshit reasoning when basically no other class needs to change specs that much. And even when we do change that much, we still aren't topping meters.

You claim that the reason that everyone here is doing poorly is because "you all suck", yet what seems more likely? That the 95% of people saying that we are weak all suck and you are some magnificent outlier or that you, as an outlier topping meters, just play with people who suck? The latter is far more likely, statistically speaking. And hey, I get you don't want to admit you run with crappy players because either they are friends or you do it intentionally you make yourself feel better so you can be in a "best of the worst" kind of position. But it doesn't change the fact that all the complaints regarding Locks and these buffs are legitimate, even if your mind is too small to comprehend it.

You basically wrote a wall of bullshit. I know how percentages work, but in my opinion we aren't 30% behind everyone. If you take Simcraft as anything credible then you are an idiot. How many fucking fights have you seen lately that are pure patchwreck? And even if there is one per tier, fuck this shit, who cares if you are TOP of the TOP on a random mid-tier boss fight? If you are 30% behind all other classes, aside from maybe brokenly op fire mage then you suck.
Also indeed, I don't play with the world first players but if I can play as top compared to 90% of the playerbase then locks are fine.

[Dominus89]

This forum is pure aids

[Lights90]

I'm surprised they gave moonkin more buffs than Warlocks, and it seems Demo got more buffs than Affliction?

This just isn't true.

[Jondar]

Well first you gear is top notch across, the board you have a pure haste ring, a naraxas and 850 haste trinket + legendary belt.
Most logs are private this week , but you did well in your raid group.

Nynthendra you were 3rd in your guild with 245k dps , your dps at 4:51 my kill time was 260k dps that would still put you at 9th at my guild , beaten by all hunters and mages is a given if they are skilled.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...pe=damage-done

Logs if you want to check. Warlocks are fine, other classes are better so if you press your keys better than them, good for you.

Uhh, what? If the hotfixes were in place and he was at 260k at your kill time, the % buffs would put him at third. Which is more than fine for a cleave spec. And even without the buffs, being at 260k puts him about 20k DPS behind the Mages and Hunters in your group - not just 9th. 20k DPS. Do you really think that's the difference between broken and balanced? 20k? You're in a group that's ranking high 90s for the most part, which won't apply to 99% of the people complaining about locks not being able to compete? Why exaggerate the gap? Like. yeah, a gap exists.. but there's nothing really wrong with classes being better than ours, so long as we can be close and put up relevant numbers. Which we can, and will be able to even more so with these buffs.

[Deleted]

You basically wrote a wall of bullshit. I know how percentages work, but in my opinion we aren't 30% behind everyone. If you take Simcraft as anything credible then you are an idiot. How many fucking fights have you seen lately that are pure patchwreck? And even if there is one per tier, fuck this shit, who cares if you are TOP of the TOP on a random mid-tier boss fight? If you are 30% behind all other classes, aside from maybe brokenly op fire mage then you suck.
Also indeed, I don't play with the world first players but if I can play as top compared to 90% of the playerbase then locks are fine.

If you have a look at this week's heroic logs you'll find that the best scoring Warlocks are roughly 10 to 40% behind the best scoring classes/specs for every encounter. Even Destro, the god of two-target-cleave, gets crapped on by Spriests in the Dragons encounter and doesn't end up in the top50 of parses.

Bottom line is: If you're a top DPS in your raid as a Warlock, the other DPS are probably not worth their salt.

[Gaidax]

Chaosbolt is now instant and costs no shard.


I'm asking too much?

Just about right.