Warlocks totally ignored during the Q&A

[Gaidax]

I read a lot of arguments about Dark Pact and how great defensive cooldown it is with its "huge" absorb pool and its very short CD. Well the thing is that if you use sacrifice as your grimoire then you need to sacrifice 20% of your own CURRENT health. I'm quite impressed that none mentioned that, since it makes this defensive cooldown a very different spell in the meaning that someone is going to have a different approach on when to use it. Given the fact that using cataclysm as the t2 talent, a lock has to cast lifetap every once in a while then this CD is not that great at all. In a situation where you are already low on health, dark pact is totally useless.

Say that you currently have 100k hp then dark pact will shield you for 20% of that, so in other words you get a 20k shield and that leaves you with 80k current hp instead. Yeah you can still survive that using a healthstone and/or drain life but this is a HUUUGE DPS loss and that doesn't even guarantee you that you will even make it in the end.

Let's be fair, if you wake up and use defensive cooldowns as a Warlock when you are at 100k HP, well then - Mage would be long dead under similar conditions, simply because to get to this 100k HP we need to chew through plenty of passive defenses we have and mage has not.

Yeah, popping Dark Pact at 100k HP left ain't gonna do much, but as one of my guildies says - it sounds like a "you" problem more than an actual issue.

Finally the part of HUUUGE DPS loss to survive is absolutely silly for two simple reasons, if you die it's a real YUUUGE DPS loss and Mages have to stop doing anything else to enjoy Ice Block as well, so I don't see how Warlock that channels drain to live is any more shafted than Mage that uses Ice Block.

I mean, come on, man? Warlock defenses are stellar compared to mages, it's silly it is even up for discussion.

[Deleted]

Destruction is, don't know if I agree about the others. That of course depends on your definition of solid. I had hoped we would see some bigger changes with 7.1, but at least the destruction PvP talents are getting some love.

Edit: The things said about unique utility makes me look forward to Blizzcon though, we will likely see some cool upcoming stuff for Legion there.

Yeah I wouldn't be expecting too much you know, its the same PR talk they use each time they want to calm down players and make them keep their subscription in hope that things get suddenly fixed. They won't. They never have. And class balance isn't even the only problem, they try to pigeonhole the discussions about the game solely on the basis of balance but the game has many more issues: it doesn't feel like an MMO, its too linear, on-rails and we are constantly hand holded by the developers which are apparently in charge of telling you how you should feel every minute of the game.

This whole expansion has taken on that marketing strategy of trying to keep people hooked on their game with things like RNG legendaries, RNG gear and promisses of fixing class mechanics. But all they say is to wait longer without any information at all about what they want to do. That is because they don't even believe in what they say, the directives they receive from the top of the company is to just steal time as much as possible to avoid players leaving (they will just like in WoD despite their attempts)

[Gaidax]

Yeah I wouldn't be expecting too much you know, its the same PR talk they use each time they want to calm down players and make them keep their subscription in hope that things get suddenly fixed.

Where in Q&A you heard that things will be suddenly fixed? I am sorry, but this dishonesty is just not right. He told you clear text that this will all take time and much of it will be well beyond 7.1.

If some people have unrealistic expectations based on whatever is in their own head, then of course it ends with disappointment.

And the whole expansion has taken on a strategy that people do need actual reason to be online and do stuff, because no.1 complaint about WoD was that there was nothing to do besides raiding. Is that a bad thing now?

[Dominus89]

People that say that mages have better survivability than warlocks are clearly clueless.

[Deleted]

Shadow is OP no question about it and it's going to be changed, Marks got a small nerf recently and will get some more, Fire too will go down.

Sure they will. I mean, the fact that they went totally untouched last time doesn't mean anything, and the fact that we've now had two Q&A's where the devs have practically admitted that artifacts have the effect of baking in imbalances and make it all but impossible to nerf down the top specs because everyone sensible is already playing them and it would mean a huge amount of complaints about invested artifact power

I said right from the start that artifact levelling would have this effect, that any advantaged spec or class would have that advantage entrenched - it doesn;t help that they waited until after the raids had opened and run for a week before doing anything, when it was blatantly obvious from Mythic modes that certain cpecs and classes were overtuned, so on top of artifacts we now have people playing Fire or whatever not only with their artifacts at level 26 or higher, but also a load of gear they have prioritised

I suspect the real attitude is who cares about underperforming specs and classes only a few people play them and we aren't going to risklosing subs off fire mages by nerfing them or having affliction locks with the potential to knock them off their pedestals

Dear lord, they even trotted out the "frost is really good, it's just that only the bad players are using it"

Well, of course, the good players are playing Fire. Because it's better.

I laughed out loud at this gem

"There is a large portion of the community that is looking to play the strongest thing. Those are the same people that are min-maxing and are trying to play at the cutting edge. Whichever spec is currently home to most of those people is going to get a natural bump in the results."

as though they were revealing some sort of revelation. And it's not min-maxers, the vast majority of players will gravitate to the strongest spec, which is made worse in this expac (not uniquely) in that the strongest ones also tend to be the easiest ones to play as well

WoW mostly reduces to numbers, players who are interested in anything beyond world quests will just go with whatever class or spec puts out the biggest numbers, frankly because one of the big aims of the game for lots of people is to be the "top performer" , which is one of ther main reasons that warlock is one of the least played classes in the whole game. And of course, just playing a strong clas sor spec and not a weak one always gives your raid or dungeon team an added advantage. It's not the only factor, but given equal skill and effort, a strong class is just a bigger asset than a weak one is.

[Dsc]

Homogenize all the things. bring the player not the class. (quote 2008-2009 when they dismantled the game)

That was a load of bullshit then, and still is. Flavor of the Month/years disagrees with their mission statement.

[SpikeySquad]

Not sure why but instead of addressing the warlocks issues blizzard totally ignored warlocks in the Q&A today. Input your comments!!

They have already commented on warlock concerns. There are multiple classes/specs with issues.

[Deleted]

People that say that mages have better survivability than warlocks are clearly clueless.

It's more that mage mobility is a bigger advantage than warlock survivability

Survivability tends to equate more to allowing more sloppiness over getting out of the fire, it's clear better to not be in the fire at all and have thr ability to cast whilst doing so, rather than having the ability to get a bit burnt and live but still be tied to long hard-casts you can't use whilst moving

[penquinn]

Only spec that is suffering is Afflic on single target.

are you under the impression destro is good at single target? lm aO

[Deleted]

They have already commented on warlock concerns. There are multiple classes/specs with issues.

They have responded to warlock issues by saying they want warlocks to be tanky and if that isn;t working to double down on it (and then in 7.1 remove a big element of tankiness in order to give us a third-rate Blink); that ramp is a massive issue and respond by giving us three shards but it looks like nothing else and virtually admitting that warlocks are undertuned and then in 7.1 nerfing affliction single target which is already one of the worst in the whole game

It's all "we want strengths and weaknesses"

What they didn;t say is that fire mages get all the strengths and warlocks get all the weaknesses lol

What exactly are fire mages or mm hunters weak at, burst, aoe, cleave? Do they have restrictive talent choices that compel them to choose to be good at one thing at huge cost to another?

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are you under the impression destro is good at single target? lm aO

lol

It isn't, it can't be, because if it was it would be wildly overpowered when you can use Wreak Havoc

Astonishingly, Blizzard actually managed to come up with a way to extend affliction's eternal issue of "competetive single target damage through dots makes them far too strong when you can dot up more than one thing, getting progressively more overpowered the more you can dot" to destruction

Quite an achievement really, destruction is massively dependent on one talent and situations where you can use it fully

Take away Wreak Havoc fights, go to pure single target ones and you will find destruction languishing near the bottom alongside affliction

To be sure, destruction still tends to win out but mainly because it is the only warlock spec that isn't carrying a massive rampup chain around it's legs and on-demand burst tends to win out over almost anything.

[Mehrunes]

I'm less concerned about lack of Warlock info in the Q&A and more concerned about 25th of October release. Less than two weeks. One more PTR build. So all their talks from the hotfixes and Warlock outlash PR management bullshit about how they are aware of Warlock having mechanical problems (that they had for entire Alpha and Beta and that they outright ignored only to admit they were wrong and that the players were right a month after release), but that mechanical changes need patches and not hotfixes (of course doesn't apply to cast time on Rain of Fire because even for a Classes that's obviously low priority for the design team there are some specs that are less low priority than others) has culminated in nothing. Unless they saved all the mechanical changes for the last build of the PTR, but that would mean they wouldn't be tested properly. And I'm not sure if even Blizzard, even with their little amount of care about Warlocks, is incompetent enough to do it.

[Maelmorda]

they could buff locks every week and you guys would still bitch and moan. lol, calm down the mellow drama.

[muto]

go to pure single target ones and you will find destruction languishing near the bottom alongside affliction

Uhhhhh no. Destro still shits on Affliction on single target.

[Deleted]

There isn't a whole lot to address tbh.

There's a lot of hyperbole and doomsaying on this forum, but warlocks are extremely solid right now.

We have two numerically solid specs and one with solid design.

If Fury warriors are getting mechanical fixes then I'd expect the same for demo, and afflictions in the worst state it's ever been in. It's not even a solid pvp, not is it living up to the pre-launch M+ hype.

Shadow is OP no question about it and it's going to be changed, Marks got a small nerf recently and will get some more, Fire too will go down.

Is Demo getting a nerf too or have you just returned to planet Earth?
It was only a few weeks ago that you were trying to pretend Demo was better / close to SPriest in strength.

[Fleuria]

1 tier where you aren't wildly overpowered where shit players can still be no1 and now actually have to do a little work to be good and it's all doomsaying, lmao you guys.

sure shadow has problems with damage but destroy that one talent and it's gg until they can severely revamp the other 2 useless ones that give no dps gain, even then it's only skewed by the top% of players that can use it really well and get to 2:00 or 2:15(where it becomes wildly stupid in damage)

[penquinn]

They have responded to warlock issues by saying they want warlocks to be tanky and if that isn;t working to double down on it (and then in 7.1 remove a big element of tankiness in order to give us a third-rate Blink); that ramp is a massive issue and respond by giving us three shards but it looks like nothing else and virtually admitting that warlocks are undertuned and then in 7.1 nerfing affliction single target which is already one of the worst in the whole game

It's all "we want strengths and weaknesses"

What they didn;t say is that fire mages get all the strengths and warlocks get all the weaknesses lol

What exactly are fire mages or mm hunters weak at, burst, aoe, cleave? Do they have restrictive talent choices that compel them to choose to be good at one thing at huge cost to another?

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lol

It isn't, it can't be, because if it was it would be wildly overpowered when you can use Wreak Havoc

Astonishingly, Blizzard actually managed to come up with a way to extend affliction's eternal issue of "competetive single target damage through dots makes them far too strong when you can dot up more than one thing, getting progressively more overpowered the more you can dot" to destruction

Quite an achievement really, destruction is massively dependent on one talent and situations where you can use it fully

Take away Wreak Havoc fights, go to pure single target ones and you will find destruction languishing near the bottom alongside affliction

To be sure, destruction still tends to win out but mainly because it is the only warlock spec that isn't carrying a massive rampup chain around it's legs and on-demand burst tends to win out over almost anything.

yeah wildly overpowered like all the other classes that do af uckton of cleave and single target.. WILDLY OVERPOWERED!!!!!!!!!

[Gaidax]

Sure they will. I mean, the fact that they went totally untouched last time doesn't mean anything, and the fact that we've now had two Q&A's where the devs have practically admitted that artifacts have the effect of baking in imbalances and make it all but impossible to nerf down the top specs because everyone sensible is already playing them and it would mean a huge amount of complaints about invested artifact power.

Which is a perfectly valid explanation in both cases. In Q&A they explained in clear text that they stopped Spriest nerf, because that would just make Spriests weak without alternative, which is a perfectly valid argument, on Hunters they nerfed Barrage 20% but they still consider it best option there meaning further changes incoming.

The only outlier is again Fire, where I am not buying the explanation of why apparently it looks good compared to other Mage specs. I do believe that Ion mixed up cause and effect. Fire does not look good because there are a lot of parses for it, but rather there is a lot of parses for it because it is genuinely good. Too good.

Back to reluctance to nerfbat things to the ground - it is sensible even if frustrating to the less lucky specs, at some point balance will come, but rushing it is a mistake that happened way too often.

[Deleted]

Let's be fair, if you wake up and use defensive cooldowns as a Warlock when you are at 100k HP, well then - Mage would be long dead under similar conditions, simply because to get to this 100k HP we need to chew through plenty of passive defenses we have and mage has not.

Yeah, popping Dark Pact at 100k HP left ain't gonna do much, but as one of my guildies says - it sounds like a "you" problem more than an actual issue.

Finally the part of HUUUGE DPS loss to survive is absolutely silly for two simple reasons, if you die it's a real YUUUGE DPS loss and Mages have to stop doing anything else to enjoy Ice Block as well, so I don't see how Warlock that channels drain to live is any more shafted than Mage that uses Ice Block.

I mean, come on, man? Warlock defenses are stellar compared to mages, it's silly it is even up for discussion.

You are seeing the tree and missing the forest here... The point is that if you take into account the (non existant) mobilty of the warlock and add it to a very unreliable cd as dark pact that HAS to be used when you are on full HP then mages are by far the top gun here. It doesnt have to do with "waking up" and using it at the "right time". Unless you are an oracle and can see the future or you know that you are gonna be 1shot, you don't know when to use dark pact. Shit happens and when it does a mage can certainly survive with its double blink and ice block but a warlock cannot.

Again the problem with the DPS is that a warlock needs to stand and cast, while a mage can build up with critical and run and just throw 500k on the run while blinking. THAT is the huge DPS loss. Even if using iceblock the mage will always be ahead in damage and will always survive to make even more.

[Deleted]

most classes were ignored during the Q&A weren't they? ( I only read the mmo champ post )

[Sunlighthell]

They have already commented on warlock concerns. There are multiple classes/specs with issues.

Oh look they commented on warlocks issues and also provided some ideas to fix it, but in 7.1 we can see only HUGE affliction nerfs with zero changes to mechanics they were talking about. But they commented!