5.1 Warlock changes

[gez]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

nice but wait, this means hitting CB outside DS/trinket will be like nothing but i will deal with it if we get our sustained burst buffed with inci and confla, also CB being 2 sec baseline to compensate the dmgs nerf just wondering i do agree that CB dmgs is beyond retarded but plz compensate the dmgs nerf

Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer increases the cast time of the spell GG lol just too op to be true

[alexw]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

Your getting 'ahem' reassigned?

In all honesty the way you have interacted with us here is how I think all the class dev work should be. Even if we/you don't agree its still good. So if your being 'reassigned' then its a sad loss to the player base.

Dunno if our support could be helpful in any way.....

[Deleted]

I really hope you will be compensating it with damage buffs somewhere. It is going to be a big nerf to our cleave capacities, which is supposed to be our niche.

[pokeadott]

CB w/DSnerf + replicatable burst buff = good for the game. Just hope we see our non-CB damage adjusted accordingly (preferably conflag, or a reworking of CB altogether). Really curious to see how this is implemented, but CB under optimal conditions is too good in arena. Fix is warranted.

Still don't dig how Cata is going live, but looks like that horse is dead. It's better than nothing and will be great in RBGs.

Sidenote: Av is still crap, single target 1% passive dmg is a terrible talent, but with a legit KC and a situationally decent MF I'm fine with that tier.

[Muezick]

but the damage will be compensated by buffing incinerate right?

I think everyone agrees will nerfing chaos bolt and buffing incinerate...

I hope they buff incinerate to compensate for a chaos bolt nerf. I don't play destro any more, but I would hate to see it become LESS viable in pve (Since it's already the least viable of the 3...though arguably, you can still do impressive things with it, the ceiling on destro is lower than demo/affli, afiak. So it's in a good place for folks who have trouble with dot management for affli or the clusterF that demo is(Not a bash mind you, I play and love demo). It enables them to still pull respectable numbers, and tbh warlocks have needed that for awhile, for to long they were a "Pro's only" class. But if they nerf destro's dps any more, it may become a liability to play the spec in pve during progress. I mean you already see zero representation for destro in the top 10% guilds.(<---Pulled this number out of my ass, it's a generalization).

[wholol]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

I see.

Does the nerf to chaos bolt's damage include a buff to something else , like cast time reduction on CB or increased dmg on inci or something to counter the nerf?
Also, is there anything related to affliction that can be done ? I'm not trying to squeeze your leg here , I just want to know if you think affliction is where you believe it should be in terms of overall package.

[gez]

CB w/DSnerf + replicatable burst buff = good for the game. Just hope we see our non-CB damage adjusted accordingly (preferably conflag, or a reworking of CB altogether).

Still don't dig how Cata is going live, but looks like that horse is dead.

plz just plz lol, nerfing CB and leaving it like that will hurt the spec pretty hard in both pvp and pve mostly pve.


also why are you getting reassigned, you are awesome doing your job losing you will a huge lose for the class.... i hope we dont get the guy who desing us in cata oh god no plz

[pokeadott]

plz just plz lol, nerfing CB and leaving it like that will hurt the spec pretty hard in both pvp and pve mostly pve.

They won't straight nerf CB damage without adjusting numbers for pve. It's also pretty easy just by reworking cast times and ember costs - tones down burst without affecting net. But whatever the solution, I just hope it buffs our non-CD spike damage to what other classes can pull off outside of 2min CDs. Really just hope we don't see compensation via a buff to incin or immolate. Yuck.

[wholol]

he's not getting reassigned, "other aspects of the game" means he's shifting his focus to something besides destro and pvp, since that's what cataclysm was mainly designed for, pvp.

[Deleted]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

We'll miss you Xelnath Hope you keep posting here now and again, and you manage to keep tabs on whoever will be working on warlocks! Loving the changes to Kil'jaeden's! And other class changes too. Been nice reading the discussions you've had here.

Or am I miss reading this, and you'll still be on warlocks, just other aspects. Like our epic quest?

[gez]

well thats was what i was trying to say, if they buff inci/confla dmgs and nerf CB and not DS/ trinket it will pretty much kill CB, what i think needs to be done is nerfing DS and CB scaling inte scaling dmgs and buffing the crit/mastery scaling then our CB aint gonna oneshot some one when i pop my 2 min GG macro

---------- Post added 2012-10-23 at 10:41 PM ----------

he's not getting reassigned, "other aspects of the game" means he's shifting his focus to something besides destro and pvp, since that's what cataclysm was mainly designed for, pvp.

i still dont like cata at all, seeing too much like an useless spell in arena (ATM) need testing to get a final conclution

and thx got hes not leaving oh dear lord, im ok with w/e you do but dont forget the PVP aspect of the game while you do other stuff and ty for caring

[Grizelda]

I'm trying to think of the least worst thing that he can nerf Chaosbolt with. Doesn't auto crit on players? Take it off of GoSac? I'd really hate to lose the awesome cleaving burst in such a target rich environment. Destro is so much fun right now.

[Laurufinwe]

If you nerf CB: Make CB what it was originally: Avoid shields.

If you can't do that than reduce the cast time.

[scmpoe]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

By arena viability I think you mean random bg viability considering armory ladders finally updated and warlocks look almost extinct on there.

Ppl complaining about chaos bolt are baddies in randoms who aren't pvp geared and complain that the warlock with all CDs and berserker just 1 shot them. Take a look at a site like arena junkies, ppl complain about a lot of things ATM but cb isn't one of them.

I don't mind a cb nerf if it gets compensated tho

[gez]

sad to see that theres only a few locks on the arena ladders, and is even more to know that xel is moving away from the pvp balance for a while but well lets see how this will end

[scmpoe]

Also I suggest a chaos bolt nerf as follows: no longer gets damage increased by crit. Cb outside of ds really doesn't hit that hard. Ds takes it over the top

[Hellfury]

Please take a last look at Demo's mana usage especially during molten Core procs and execute, Demo lifetaps too much vs affliction.

[Zharradan]

Also I suggest a chaos bolt nerf as follows: no longer gets damage increased by crit. Cb outside of ds really doesn't hit that hard. Ds takes it over the top

I disagree with this, just nerf its damage and buff incinerate...

[Crack the Sky]

I really hope Incinerate or something gets buffed because Chaos Bolt is the only thing Locks have going for them right now.

[Dalmasca1]

Archimonde's Vengeance is the ability that gives you single-target damage. It won't be going anywhere.

Also, this is probably the last burst of Class Design work that I'm going to be doing for a while. I burned too much political capital getting Cataclysm through to remain viable in my position. Chaos Bolt will be getting a damage nerf to reduce its Arena viability soon and I will be focusing on other aspects of game design.

I'm hoping it's just a reduction in intellect scaling. Reducing trinket/DS macro burst seems like the issue (much like hunters/warriors/mages), but nerfing DS itself would affect ember generation when not casting CB. That would reduce it's versatility. Moreover, CB scale with Intellect 4x as much as Crit. Keeping crit as an interesting/desirable stat is the better route.

Anyways, I expect a tweak to Incinerate, Immolate, or at least Fel Flame would be in order. Otherwise, I see two problems:
1) Reduced PvE dps in 1-2 target scenarios (destro's niche, right?)
2) Reduced burst in PvE and PvP. The burst reduction is fine, but the sustained dps still needs to be present.

Incinerate might not be a good target simply because they affect AoE so much more.

Alternative: Just shift some of Chaos Bolt's damage off into a small, short duration dot, kind of like the Conflagrate treatment in WotLK. Or is that too similar to Pyro for your taste?

Having said all that, I still think a rebuild of Archimonde's Vengeance to scale with the warlock's spellpower (and possibly increase as the warlock's health decreases) instead of scaling incoming damage would make more sense in both PvE and PvP.