GC on Life Tap - what a damn joke

[Jessicka]

I see little problem in the posted comment from the mentioned Blizzard community representative

Nor did he go into any detail as to why it feels fine for Demo, no advice on how to conserve it better. For now, the Demo spec is far more complicated than it is on live given we now have to factor in damage per cast time, damage per fury cost and how that will impact on how long we'll remain in Meta while mana regenerates given how quickly we can end up in a position of making Life Tap our every 3rd cast. As it is, Wave of Chaos and Immolation Aura are unusable, since doing so will limit you to about 10s of Meta uptime from 1k Fury.

[Protoman]

1) Scaling issues means life tap will cost more and more
2) Having to tap as much as we are, even outside of Affliction, means we will just be a burden to our healers
3) Drain Life doesn't even return the cost of Life Tap at higher gear scaling

And that's not all... chance are, before a "burn phase" you will want to top off, this can be a huge chunk of health. In Live I would spend about 60% of mana to top off... 75% is extreme.

A big fourth point too:

4) You can think that gear will go up making a higher absolute health cost "justifiable" for the same amount of mana, since healers are "supposed" to heal you more. But this means that if you go with a group with lower-geared healers (either a pug or a lesser-geared group), then the lock becomes nothing but a burden that would be better off replaced.

Also, think of this: Now that we are a burden to undergeared healers (and not much more), and since the more gear we have the more of a burden we become, from a raid-leading perspective, why the fuck should the lock deserve a single piece of gear before the healers are fully geared up? In fact, why do they belong on the roster at all then?

Dude, you're totally ignoring the self heals that locks get. Just look at the talents. T1 you have a talent that heals you thru your regular spells and also harvest life... a buffed aoe version of drain life that basically gives you ~20%HP over 6 sec. T2 gives mortal coil which is 15%HP every 45 sec. Then there is spec stuff like Destro has Ember tap which heals 15%HP for 1 ember.

1. Yea true, but if it was static then penalty would be less later on and easier to spam. Your self heals are also based on %HP so it balances out.

2. Maybe some, but w/ self heals and mebbe a hot it prob won't be an issue.

3. Not sure what you mean by scaling, cause they are both based on %HP. Life tap always takes 20%HP, and Drain Life always gives 12%HP over 6 sec.....if afflic and using soulburn I think it will give you 30%HP.

4. Again, w/ self heals I don't think it will be that bad.

[Itisamuh]

Dude, you're totally ignoring the self heals that locks get. Just look at the talents. T1 you have a talent that heals you thru your regular spells and also harvest life... a buffed aoe version of drain life that basically gives you ~20%HP over 6 sec. T2 gives mortal coil which is 15%HP every 45 sec. Then there is spec stuff like Destro has Ember tap which heals 15%HP for 1 ember.

1. Yea true, but if it was static then penalty would be less later on and easier to spam. Your self heals are also based on %HP so it balances out.

2. Maybe some, but w/ self heals and mebbe a hot it prob won't be an issue.

3. Not sure what you mean by scaling, cause they are both based on %HP. Life tap always takes 20%HP, and Drain Life always gives 12%HP over 6 sec.....if afflic and using soulburn I think it will give you 30%HP.

4. Again, w/ self heals I don't think it will be that bad.

Look at the talents again, most of them cost health in some way. Locks definitely aren't getting more self healing compared to how much more self damage they'll be doing. But even without factoring in, the point is that life tap will be a bigger nuke on YOURSELF as you gear up. It's not as bad as that horrible change proposed a few years back, I was one of the people vehemently opposing it on the forums until they changed their minds. It doesn't scale negatively in that way this time, but still, it's negative in effect. The cost of life tap must be calculated using base health, or else it's punishing to gear up. And now, with all these talents that cost extra life, it's going to be even worse.

[Jessicka]

4. Again, w/ self heals I don't think it will be that bad.

With Glyph of Siphon Life as well, there's some more self healing. However, I don't think being railroaded into taking talents and glyphs to offset mana regeneration is good design. They're meant to feel like a bonus, not mandatory, and certainly not bandaids for poorly balanced mechanics.

Also doesn't make Soul Fire Soul Fire Life Tap a fun execute either.

[Szemere]

I don't know why everyone is going around derailing the discussion to something that is totally not the issue on page 1, same as GC did in his bluepost.

The issue with GC's response is, he only replies to the easy part to reply to "mana costs have to be balanced out still". Well derp, beta is beta. However, the complaint is about the core redesign of Life Tap.
GC doesn't talk about the fact that gaining more Stamina, is actually becoming bad for warlocks, seeing as they will take more damage. THAT part has been left to the side of the road. The mana:health rate of Life Tap will go down while gearing up, and you'll still have to lifetap as much on low gearlevels as on the highest gear levels. That isn't good design, especially since Life Tap is now one of the only ways to get mana back for Demo and Affliction.

Now sure, demo and affliction might need to life tap a bit more or less than intended, however, that is not the real issue, and still needs to be balanced. The issue is the silly as hell healthcost, seeing how it will now cost % max HP, rather than a % base HP. Sure you might get selfheals, but that doesn't change the fact that you have to keep healing up increasingly larger amounts of health, while getting the same amount of mana back.

[A Dark Knight]

Again with people shooting out their mouths while in beta

[Hellfury]

Again with people shooting out their mouths while in beta

Cause mr Troll is in beta where you discuss mechanics see mechanics in bold, not numbers.

You rather discuss mechanics when game goes live? When there is bigger chance for the devs be buzy with something else

[Deleted]

For those that remenber Dark Pact late ICC when was more viable I actualy was a fan of that.

Dark pact didn't give the spell power buff though did it?

[Obsidian9]

Dude, you're totally ignoring the self heals that locks get. Just look at the talents. T1 you have a talent that heals you thru your regular spells and also harvest life... a buffed aoe version of drain life that basically gives you ~20%HP over 6 sec. T2 gives mortal coil which is 15%HP every 45 sec. Then there is spec stuff like Destro has Ember tap which heals 15%HP for 1 ember.

1. Yea true, but if it was static then penalty would be less later on and easier to spam. Your self heals are also based on %HP so it balances out.

2. Maybe some, but w/ self heals and mebbe a hot it prob won't be an issue.

3. Not sure what you mean by scaling, cause they are both based on %HP. Life tap always takes 20%HP, and Drain Life always gives 12%HP over 6 sec.....if afflic and using soulburn I think it will give you 30%HP.

4. Again, w/ self heals I don't think it will be that bad.

Why do you post on a subject you don't even know about? What does destruction have to do with lifetap when it is using chaotic energy regen and the loss in damage from that ember is huge for that ember tap. Harvest life will likely be a dps loss. Thus we will either be balanced around throughput without harvest life thus we will operate at health loss or we will be balanced around harvest life and do more damage when being fed heals both are bad. Soul Leach can't counter the scaling of LT with hp most likely. We likely will be LTing more than once every 45 sec so mortal coil does not of set the cost enough

What he means by scaling is that LT takes a % of your health to give a % of mana. % mana is static % health is scaling thus LT has negative scaling.

[psr1620]

Look at the talents again, most of them cost health in some way. Locks definitely aren't getting more self healing compared to how much more self damage they'll be doing. But even without factoring in, the point is that life tap will be a bigger nuke on YOURSELF as you gear up. It's not as bad as that horrible change proposed a few years back, I was one of the people vehemently opposing it on the forums until they changed their minds. It doesn't scale negatively in that way this time, but still, it's negative in effect. The cost of life tap must be calculated using base health, or else it's punishing to gear up. And now, with all these talents that cost extra life, it's going to be even worse.

Dark Regeneration/(Possibly) Soul Leach
Mortal Coil
Sacrificial Pact/Dark Bargain - I'm not quiet sure if Sacrificial Pact absorbs dmg from Life Tap, but can easily be tested

I'm quiet happy that there are talents that cost health, I like the idea of a negative for the positive, but there are more than enough ways to recover the health. you can also use your 3-charged healthstone.

Not to mention these can be used in combination.

However, if the concern is scaling, I have no say in it.

[thrill]

Dark pact didn't give the spell power buff though did it?

It did, with the same glyph.

[Hellfury]

Dark pact didn't give the spell power buff though did it?

At first it didnt, then blizzard gave it and Dark pact became viable even surpassing Lifetap for those that were doing to crit as 2nd stat instead of Spirit

[Rude Hero]

What's wrong with life tap costing more health as your gear scales?

You don't get more mana as your gear increases, but your mana pool isn't growing, so it's equivalent to having it give you more mana as your item level increases.

As your gear increases, your abilities that heal you become more effective and the spells that your healers heal you with become more effective as well. Maybe it should give a larger static amount (numbers are made to be tweaked) but I believe the overall concept is sound.

[Protoman]

What he means by scaling is that LT takes a % of your health to give a % of mana. % mana is static % health is scaling thus LT has negative scaling.

Thanks but I know how LT works lol. I get it, the HP amount consumed goes up with gear but the mana back will always be the same since mana doesn't change. I was replying to his comment, not LT tho. He said "Drain Life doesn't even return the cost of Life Tap at higher gear scaling". Drain Life scales the exact same as LT, both are based on %HP. DL gives you 12% HP for one channel (13.2% w/ fel armor), and LT costs 15% HP. It will be the same amount at any gear level.

Harvest life will likely be a dps loss. Thus we will either be balanced around throughput without harvest life thus we will operate at health loss or we will be balanced around harvest life and do more damage when being fed heals both are bad. Soul Leach can't counter the scaling of LT with hp most likely. We likely will be LTing more than once every 45 sec so mortal coil does not of set the cost enough

You have to take either Harvest life or Soul Leech. And locks prob will be balanced around these talents since they seem to be there specifically to help counter the HP loss of LT as well as the few other HP cost talents. I don't exactly see how doing more damage if you are fed heals is a bad thing, but early content it would be wise to self heal so healers can save mana anyways.

One Harvest Life channel will give ~20%HP which is more then enough to make up for a LT, and yea it will prob be a dps loss during that period but in the long run you can keep doing DPS.

Soul Leech isn't a dps loss though since it's based on your main spells, and the HP gain scales based on damage done. This may or may not be enough, really depends on if the damage scales better then your hp increase.....and how often you have to LT.

Mortal Coil is basically a free LT every 45 sec, so it definitely helps. There are a few other ways to get some HP back, like for afflic you can use Soulburn DL to get 30%HP back which is 2 LT's. Then there it the corruption glyph which gives some HP back on each tick.

Look at the talents again, most of them cost health in some way. Locks definitely aren't getting more self healing compared to how much more self damage they'll be doing. But even without factoring in, the point is that life tap will be a bigger nuke on YOURSELF as you gear up. The cost of life tap must be calculated using base health, or else it's punishing to gear up. And now, with all these talents that cost extra life, it's going to be even worse.

For some reason the resource costs aren't showing on the talent trees, but from what I can tell it's mainly just T4 that costs HP and those are PVP talents. I also thought about LT being base HP instead of total HP, and it could work as long as it doesn't scale too well. Depends alot on how high our HP pools will get compared to base, like LT could start at 15% but after a few patches it will only cost 8% making it alot easier to spam....they would have to find some middle ground.

I'm not against improving LT, but most of the self regen mechanics are also based on %HP and so will scale equally with LT. If mana costs are lower so that you don't need to LT very often then it might end up being balanced. The HP you lose will go up but it will always be 15%, not like the % of your HP pool will be more. And so a Mortal Coil will always be a free LT, and so will a DL/HL.

[Cantheal]

I agree. Warlocks should not have to use life tap and they should also do something so when i am on my arcane mage i do not have to keep stoping dps to Evocate to get mana back. I could do so much more damage if i did not have to waste this time and would be alot easier if I didn't have to mana my mana and stuff.

[Inactivity]

Ok, let's summarize changes from Live to Beta:

1) We lose Soul Link - 20% mitigation
2) We lose Life Tap scaling with health - mana return no longer increases with stamina
3) We lose Mana Feed - massive passive Demonology mana regeneration - note that life-tapping is sometimes still needed in certain situations as Demo
4) We lose Fel Armor self-healing
5) We lose increased mana pools scaling with gear

This is replaced by:

1) More HP-costing talents that scale against HP increases
2) Three self-regeneration talents from which we pick only one, one (harvest life) of which is situational and is a DPS loss
3) A most likely worse version of Soul Link that requires DPS loss to regenerate health, or some cooldown-based defensive abilities
4) As gear (mostly haste) increases, we will be life tapping more and more especially since our regeneration is not tied to procs, nor does our mana pool/regeneration scale at all. Hence we lose more with gear.
5) We become a big liability to healers, and hence do not deserve shit for gear until healers get each and every of our pieces in a raid group first, so they can afford to heal our raid-health-draining-asses.

[Obsidian9]

Thanks but I know how LT works lol. I get it, the HP amount consumed goes up with gear but the mana back will always be the same since mana doesn't change. I was replying to his comment, not LT tho. He said "Drain Life doesn't even return the cost of Life Tap at higher gear scaling". Drain Life scales the exact same as LT, both are based on %HP. DL gives you 12% HP for one channel (13.2% w/ fel armor), and LT costs 15% HP. It will be the same amount at any gear level.




You have to take either Harvest life or Soul Leech. And locks prob will be balanced around these talents since they seem to be there specifically to help counter the HP loss of LT as well as the few other HP cost talents. I don't exactly see how doing more damage if you are fed heals is a bad thing, but early content it would be wise to self heal so healers can save mana anyways.

One Harvest Life channel will give ~20%HP which is more then enough to make up for a LT, and yea it will prob be a dps loss during that period but in the long run you can keep doing DPS.

Soul Leech isn't a dps loss though since it's based on your main spells, and the HP gain scales based on damage done. This may or may not be enough, really depends on if the damage scales better then your hp increase.....and how often you have to LT.

Mortal Coil is basically a free LT every 45 sec, so it definitely helps. There are a few other ways to get some HP back, like for afflic you can use Soulburn DL to get 30%HP back which is 2 LT's. Then there it the corruption glyph which gives some HP back on each tick.



For some reason the resource costs aren't showing on the talent trees, but from what I can tell it's mainly just T4 that costs HP and those are PVP talents. I also thought about LT being base HP instead of total HP, and it could work as long as it doesn't scale too well. Depends alot on how high our HP pools will get compared to base, like LT could start at 15% but after a few patches it will only cost 8% making it alot easier to spam....they would have to find some middle ground.

I'm not against improving LT, but most of the self regen mechanics are also based on %HP and so will scale equally with LT. If mana costs are lower so that you don't need to LT very often then it might end up being balanced. The HP you lose will go up but it will always be 15%, not like the % of your HP pool will be more. And so a Mortal Coil will always be a free LT, and so will a DL/HL.

Apologies I misunderstood what you meant on LT/drain life comment.

Doing more damage if you are fed heals is a bad thing depending upon how much increased damage it is as that leads to class stacking for one. Also it leads to that being the "right" way to do things. Thus then the majority of lock parses are higher which then returns to nerfs or class stacking. Blizzard has yet to give a class with a higher cost more damage, it is a fine idea in theory but they have yet to buy into that model.

It is doubtful that Soul Leech will scale equally to LT giving it diminishing value. Depending upon the exact scaling as we move along it might just be relegated to farm bosses which is contrary to talent design.

[Deleted]

4) We lose Fel Armor self-healing

Soul Leech is almost the same, maybe even stronger then felarmor

2) Three self-regeneration talents from which we pick only one, one (harvest life) of which is situational and is a DPS loss

You forget mortal coil, which is a 15% HP reg every 45 sec.

5) We become a big liability to healers, and hence do not deserve shit for gear until healers get each and every of our pieces in a raid group first, so they can afford to heal our raid-health-draining-asses.

I wasn´t able to test the selfheal of Soulleech yet because it just heals for 1 HP on dummies, but i think that a big part of lifetap should be healed by soulleech. Now on lvl 88 i´m healing myself for 2,8k hp each shadowbolt, and 4k with each soulfire while LT drains around 40k HP.
Also take a look at cata: DPS at cata start: around 20k with about 110k hp. end of cata: around 50k dps with 160k HP. While the damage doubled, the HP just increased by about 50%, that means, if MoP will be about the same, with better gear the selfheal of soulleech will raise even more than the HP costs of LT

[Deleted]

Soul Leech is almost the same, maybe even stronger then felarmor

And if you take Soul Link - and you should take it in pve, given how powerful the MoP version is - you get twice the healing of Soul Leech!

5) We become a big liability to healers, and hence do not deserve shit for gear until healers get each and every of our pieces in a raid group first, so they can afford to heal our raid-health-draining-asses.

Actually, and again with Soul Link (and even not counting the 10% Fel Armor buff), we'll probably be the easiest class to heal in pve. Because we'll get all the aoe healing that our pet receives.

[Inactivity]

Actually, and again with Soul Link (and even not counting the 10% Fel Armor buff), we'll probably be the easiest class to heal in pve. Because we'll get all the aoe healing that our pet receives.

And when our pet goes Kaboom on Madness...?

It seems pets aren't good with always avoiding AoE damage (90% as it should be) meaning we just take double damage anyway. Of course, in PvP, Soul Link is a massive no-no since it makes us double-dot-able.