Final Boss Warlock Episode

[Gaidax]

About Not, you can use his aproach to explain to RL that the upside of being a lock is that you CAN soak some things, and if they want you to move out of everything because healers will have one less person to worry about, tell them to fu** off, err, I mean, link them the vod!

There isn't any need in VoD - simply show Damage Taken from logs a guild takes and that will shut down any argument. Warlocks casually absorb about half the damage they take throughout the fight and sometimes even more.

I mean my last Illgynoth Mythic kill today - I took 55 million damage in total and absorved 26 million damage and you know what's the kicker - this 26 million are self-absorbs, only tanks absorbed more and no other DD besides another warlock were even close, like second best, apart from other lock, self-absorbed 10 million damage, then comes 7 million and the rest barely absorbed a mil or two.

If I got targeted by things like blobs, I just tanked them in Dark Pact until it was my time to move to the Eye, then I took double blossoms easily and basically was generally indestructible taking damage that would make any other class belly up.

Result? 2nd lowest actual damage taken.

[Terryn]

I'm not gonna criticize anyone because I don't think I could've done better in their place, instead, I'll congratulate Terryn because he really said what should have been said.

And you can see how he tries to put it in a way that doesn't sound angry or complicated.

About Not, you can use his aproach to explain to RL that the upside of being a lock is that you CAN soak some things, and if they want you to move out of everything because healers will have one less person to worry about, tell them to fu** off, err, I mean, link them the vod!

About Pyre... All I can think about is his LEGS. OH MY GAWD. DAYUM LEGS.

Glad someone found my retarded babbling helpful.

[Deleted]

well for starters I have no idea about how PVP works and I don't even want to touch it at all. I'll just have to use a portal GCD instead of a shield CD in 7.1, it really doesn't change much.

[Gaidax]

Well you might want to get used to around 1.25m shields +40& reductions as we've not going to keep that combo in 7.1

You may not be informed, but Demon Skin hardly even matters in raids, most of your stacked absorb is happening simply because of baseline Soul Leech and passive absorption such as Destro Mastery or Demo SL. Because you DPS the crap out of things, you stack shield insanely fast so all one will effectively lose is 5% extra HP worth of shield cap, that's all.

And whatever it is - Dark Pact stays and it's absolutely insane really with it's 1 min CD and in between having 2 million shield or 1.9 million shield... well it does not even really matter.

I'd argue, we will avoid even more damage anyway simply by the grace of the fact that we will have Demonic Circle back, which will allow us to get out of shit at a press of a button.

[Krokar]

Stand in shit for days sounds about right. Most of the time im up there in the top absorbs even over a LOT of tanks. DP, Soul Leech, and Legendary Neck I just stand in all the poo. Healers love me, almost never need heals.

[Woz]

So first off, Not was saying that warlocks are tanky and that he just stands in things and expects people to heal him. This was the same attitude that Blizzard stated in a blue post and the apparent design behind the class in exchange for mobility. What Not fails to cover, perhaps doesn't realize (maybe lack of mythic raiding?) that there are mechanics DESIGNED to kill you. Not only that, even if you CAN stand in things, they will stun you, knock you back, silence you, or deal damage to other people or cause problems for other people (cough HoV and Wardens boss). So really, you CAN'T stand in things and your group often gets upset with you for standing in things.

a) I don't "stand in everything" but I do stand in a lot more than other raid members can purely because of Warlock "tankiness". These things that are designed to kill you don't actually kill me and a number of things don't knock you back, silence you etc. I'm pretty sure I have Mythic raiding experience (cleared first week?). A lot of the times healers have told me specifically I can stand in things.

Pyro also made a point that Burning Rush is great for Cenarius because it negates Scorned Touch put out by the Twisted Sisters. Which I agree! It's awesome! And then Not replies with "well I'll just stand in it and get healed because it won't kill me". This tells me he does not understand how the mechanic works. Scorned Touch does ZERO damage to you when it's on you. It does like 1 million damage to people who get hit by someone ELSE'S and then REAPPLIES the debuff to the person who got hit. So not only are you screwing someone over by not moving and dealing damage to them, but standing in a Scorned touch just spreads the debuff. So he really didn't sound like he knew what he was talking about there.

Sarcasm eludes you, I suppose.

Next issue was again with Not (there seems to be a theme here) and originally when he was asked how Demo was he basically said he has no complaints and that it's fine. He was then asked about movement and how Demo plays out with that and he again said it's a non issue.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Demo is a turret spec that is completely inflated by simcraft (surprise.... this was addressed by Terryn) and it loses tons of dps with every mechanic that you have to deal with.

I don't have issue with Demo mobility at all. There are plenty of things that you can do that are beneficial as Demo during times of movement. Feels like you should perhaps look into those things. Plenty of people play Demo and have no issue with mobility.

So overall, I felt like the entire podcast (interview?) was a recap of like 75% of the stuff that is already on MMO Champion and then ignoring and bypassing the real problems like mechanics and poor design choices.

This is what was asked of us. Bay is trying to move his class/spec focused FinalBoss episodes into a more informational stream/video than anything else and less of a have fun between the guests.

The podcast in general felt really underwhelming and feels like unless you get someone who addresses all the real issues we'd have a better chance to have our mechanics fixed. I also just what to emphasize that I don't want to cry and whine until I do 2x the damage as a mage, I just want to do close to what other classes do without feeling like I'm pulling teeth through the entire process. If I did 80 - 85% of what the top classes were doing but it didn't require me to wade through broken mechanics and movement punishing raid abilities, I'd be perfectly ok with that.

What real issues would you like to have addressed? I do competitive damage on nearly every fight as Demo so I'm not sure exactly where you're coming from with this.

Saying "your healers will heal you" is a bunch of shit from Not. That's pretty selfish and while we can take a bit of a better beating ( I am usually one of the last to die on a wipe ) you should't be purposely standing in shit and take away heals from classes that can't really absorb like we can.

If you can stand in it and not die with your absorb you shouldn't be taking any additional healing if it's being absorbed...? In most high end guilds healers WILL heal you until it becomes an actual serious issue.

Do any of those locks actually play affliction or do they all play demo and destro?

Also, SOUL EFFIGY IS STILL BUGGED IF YOU HAVE MORE THAN 1 AFFLICTION IN A RAID (about a rare as seeing 2 unicorns fucking, but hey, warlock bugs aren't even on their list of things to fix!)

@Terryn plays Affliction xd

I do understand how it works. I regularly abuse DP and make it a habit to soak mechanics LIKE the flower so others dont have to. My point lies in the fact that many mechanics don't kill you but PUNISH you for standing in it as I stated above (stuns, knockbacks, things that kill others etc) and that's what I feel Not has glossed over.

And after reviewing the replies, yes you guys are probably right. Not is probably trying to not make the video entirely negative but the issues felt ignored but I stand by the warlock discord usually completely denying the issues we have.

I guess I should be more angry about how Warlock sucks when it really doesn't.

My problem with the episode is that it was basically 2 hours of them reading their guides out to us. The video must have dedicated a good 20 minutes just to them explaining the artifact route. There was very little discussion itself, particularly between the warlock players, which is disappointing when I think Final Boss provides a unique context for interactions between top players (or just getting deeper into their thoughts on things) which past warlock episodes have showcased pretty well. This one isn't really worth watching if you already frequent class forums and know the ins-and-outs of 7.0 warlock.

That's what Bay wanted us to do, to be fair.

The demonology was pure BS and make believe, I cringed when he argued that doom was the best thing ever. The affliction and destruction sections were both fun and informative, and accurate. My warlock have yet to do any encounter in EN on mythic and what they said were true to some degree.

I never said Doom was the best thing ever? I said it was very strong and it is. I'd love to hear what you thought was make believe though.

[Nadiru]

What real issues would you like to have addressed? I do competitive damage on nearly every fight as Demo so I'm not sure exactly where you're coming from with this.

I'd like Demo and Destro to not require 30% haste to be playable. Balance, too.

[SxLongshadow]

I'd like Demo and Destro to not require 30% haste to be playable. Balance, too.

Didn't know we needed that to be playable.

Woops, I should probably stop progressing.

[Auracle]

OP,

Hopefully without sounding overly critical:

It's very easy to nitpick individual comments if you isolate them - it's a politics 101 smear tactic. If I assume that you weren't intending to do that simply to attack Not (and to a lesser extent the others), that leaves me with the impression that you disagree with his opinion on the spec, and that's fine. However, I think it's very important to realize the distinction between opinions and factual claims when debating these things. Not had both in his discussion and I heard his opinions prefaced with disclaimers each time he voiced one.

I believe he gave you a segmented breakdown of responses to each of your claims above. If you check his replies, you'll see that theme clearly throughout.

There's not a lot of positive or constructive output that can come from a post structured like yours is. Next time you feel yourself winding up because you've been upset by something, take some time to wind down and if you're genuinely unable to conceive of an opinion that might be different to yours, pursue further information on the matter in a civilized fashion. YMMV but in my opinion, you'll get far more out of life that way.

[Dwoggurd]

I think it is suspicious that all warlocks were wearing sunglasses.

[Gaidax]

I'd like Demo and Destro to not require 30% haste to be playable. Balance, too.

I have 20% Haste and 116% Mastery, did not prevent me from getting 99% and 98% on Nythendra and Renferal last night.

[Xeranath]

This podcast was not meant as an in depth view of all glaring issues warlocks face. You can head to the official wow forums if you want that. This was more of a basic overview of the class, which would have probably been better if it had been earlier, but I'm sure Bay is a busy boy. And if you don't recognise Not being a little tongue in cheek there, well....

Was entertaining anyway.

[FoxMaccloud]

IMO they sounded like they had a gun pointed at their head xD
Its almost like Blizzard ordered these famous warlocks to say warlocks are fine...

[Lucrece]

You may not be informed, but Demon Skin hardly even matters in raids, most of your stacked absorb is happening simply because of baseline Soul Leech and passive absorption such as Destro Mastery or Demo SL. Because you DPS the crap out of things, you stack shield insanely fast so all one will effectively lose is 5% extra HP worth of shield cap, that's all.

And whatever it is - Dark Pact stays and it's absolutely insane really with it's 1 min CD and in between having 2 million shield or 1.9 million shield... well it does not even really matter.

I'd argue, we will avoid even more damage anyway simply by the grace of the fact that we will have Demonic Circle back, which will allow us to get out of shit at a press of a button.

Now, if we could have old demonic circle without the cancel aura macros back....

[Deleted]

Anyone doubting how ridiculously tanky warlocks are compared to other classes should try another class. My main is a warlock but I've raided a bit of heroic on my elemental shaman alt, the difference is night and day. Sure there are things which as a warlock you don't want to continually stand in, but as a warlock I'll calmly finish my cast and wait for my next instant cast coming up to move, whereas as a shaman I have to move right that second and cancel my cast or it's game over. I'm the only warlock in my raid and I'm frequently top 3/4 of non tanks on damage taken but almost always dead last when you take away the amount absorbed by my shields.

There are definitely some mechanics that require you to move right away, but there are a lot more that as a warlock have some flexibility.

[Deleted]

well I completed 7/7 mythic tonight, cenarius got ganked and xavius two hours later. I think im completely in agreeance of how Not says that warlocks are good and can just literally stand in shit asmuch as we want.

450k Absorb shield from the passive regening shield, and a 1.4mil Absorb on a 1 min CD paired with 40% dmg reduction just makes me not literally give a single fuck about abilities in mythic since they won't even go through my shields.

2.4m HP and 2m Absorb shields +40% damage reduction is what we have at 875 ilvl ish.

On the subject of mobility, we have Demonwrath to cast WHILE RUNNING , I have no problems with moving from shit to somewhere else and casting Demonwrath to gain shards or lifetap during this time. Recasting doom, applying Darkglare, movement we also can completely plan, and ignore mechanics as I pointed out earlier because of we are tanky as a Rhino.

Shame they are taking that away in 7.1. No more passive regen absorb shield if you want the cooldown one. And is not the massive shield for demo dependent on utilising the buffed health of demons which is being reduced by 60% in DE

Neve rmind, you get a poor man's Blink. Which you have to precast. In a fixed position.

It's all part of the "we want you to be tanky, if it's not working we want to double down on that strength".
"Oh, neve rmind. We are taking away your tankiness and giving you demonic circle. Good luck with those 2.5second hardcasts rotations bye"

- - - Updated - - -

Stand in shit for days sounds about right. Most of the time im up there in the top absorbs even over a LOT of tanks. DP, Soul Leech, and Legendary Neck I just stand in all the poo. Healers love me, almost never need heals.

You won;t be doing that in 7.1 and not everyone has that legendary

[tithian]

Terryn and Pyro were extremely likeable and definitely knew their stuff, but Not came out as smug AF.

Pyro didn't really say anything different than what he was already saying in his own videos, but Terryn's segment was extremely insightful. Do we know if he regularly posts content somewhere?

[Lucrece]

Terryn and Pyro were extremely likeable and definitely knew their stuff, but Not came out as smug AF.

Pyro didn't really say anything different than what he was already saying in his own videos, but Terryn's segment was extremely insightful. Do we know if he regularly posts content somewhere?

?

How was Not smug? He gave his opinion, and his parting message to prospective demo warlocks was one of encouragement to persevere. How is that smug? He's just a fairly mellow guy so his deadpan might rub you the wrong way.

I'm not particularly fond of how demonic empowerment works right now or responding to movement with life tap or demonwrath, but just because he disagrees as a far better player does not make him smug.

[Deleted]

Shame they are taking that away in 7.1. No more passive regen absorb shield if you want the cooldown one. And is not the massive shield for demo dependent on utilising the buffed health of demons which is being reduced by 60% in DE

Neve rmind, you get a poor man's Blink. Which you have to precast. In a fixed position.

It's all part of the "we want you to be tanky, if it's not working we want to double down on that strength".
"Oh, neve rmind. We are taking away your tankiness and giving you demonic circle. Good luck with those 2.5second hardcasts rotations bye"

- - - Updated - - -



You won;t be doing that in 7.1 and not everyone has that legendary

How many times does Gaidax have to repeat that we still have soul leech skin baseline?! We're going to have a 15% vs a 20% shield. Sure demonology will have a slightly smaller shield than they do now, but demonology also already have soul link so they are much more tanky than the other specs anyway. Demon skin is actually not that great a talent in a raiding environment, it's only the default choice because the other two talents are completely useless compared to, "I guess that's a little bit better than what we already have".

[SpikeySquad]

I think all 3 did a good job (thank you!) though yeah it does seem that everything is pretty much covered in the guides and I cannot say I learnt anything. However, yes it was more informative than the old format.

What I do want to comment on is how top players/guilds and less successful/a lot more casual ones tend to differ. My healers struggle already so I will not stay in something that I do not have to (and if I did I would naturally get trouble).

Secondly mobility/movement. On Nythendra and Ursoc as two decent examples. I think I have to move 2-3 times what Not seems to on his videos due to our choice of tactics (I do not dare use Burning Rush). Let alone when other players mess up and/or decide to cuddle and I have to/choose to move away. So while Not does find Demo mobility fine then many lesser players, including me, will not. Sure I have options but the numbers do start falling.