Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Deleted]

Funny, it was that stupid hotfix and the reasoning behind it that prompted me to quit wow with little to no desire to come back. That and the way my old guild did loot.

Same here. I resubed for 5.2. since I thought affliction pvp was gonna be a lot better after the disaster of the mop launch just to be fooled again. Mages? They got a fix after the patch with a minor "tweek" for pvp, and yet again it was a minor buff. Next time I will spend my money on heroin, since wow just kills me from inside how bad the devs are. The heading of 5.4. also shows that with the butcher of pvp 4pc set bonus

[Deleted]

On the mage forums they are expecting that cloak to scale with the arcane mastery, if this were true that would mean demo would get increased damage aswell

[Deleted]

How much % of your damage it does is irrelevant, because you can do your rotation properly or you can screw it up royally and the amount of dmg done by the cloak will be the same.

If it's supposed to do 67k with RPPM = 4, then the proc itself should be about 4.5k extra dps single target. If 4.5k dps is 3-4% of your total dmg, then you're doing barely over 100k dps.

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think you misunderstood what he wrote. it was 67k dmg over 4 secs with a rppm of 4 while aoeing.

[FurtyIRL]

so, true, locks tend to get nerfed a couple of days after blizz discover they are OP, mage get nerfed a couple of months after blizz discover they are a OP or not at all.

If mages aren't top damage the tears flow so thick and fast that any potential nerfs are quickly reverted ... to be fair, mages bring absolutely zero to a raid except damage though.

[whi]

think you misunderstood what he wrote. it was 67k dmg over 4 secs with a rppm of 4 while aoeing.

Not sure why you're bringing aoe here. Currently the proc is 1+200%sp over 4sec(5 ticks), can crit, doesn't gain ticks from haste and additionaly damage dealt is aoe. Base rppm for 608ilvl seems to be 3.23(it starts 2/2 upgraded now, so apperently blizz chose that solution). Obviously rppm scales with haste.

[Kagecamia]

If mages aren't top damage the tears flow so thick and fast that any potential nerfs are quickly reverted ... to be fair, mages bring absolutely zero to a raid except damage though.

And the funny thing is that mages have been asking for a large amount of utility, but to keep their damage the same as now >.>

I find it funny that I was among the crowd of people that told mages at the beginning of 5.2 that "gear and scaling will fix it". Once you are geared, your damage will be powerful and once again at the top of the meters. I was told "lollock doesn't know how mages are sucking right now." Look at WOL and just see how many fire mages there are again ranking on the fights that up until now locks were dominating in?

It's like fucking WOL during Dragon Soul. Gee I wonder who is at the top this week? Morchok, fire. Yor, fire, Warlord, fire, Hagara, fire, ultraxion, hey demo!, Blackhorn, fire, etc.

WoL don't show utility, at least not openly. Utility and damage are large portions of how a raid fight is cleared. I wish WOL said "Your raid used gateway 25 times throughout this fight. You prevented approx. 5 deaths. Grats!"

But honestly speaking, people really only look at the damage numbers more than anything else.

[Deleted]

Not sure why you're bringing aoe here. Currently the proc is 1+200%sp over 4sec(5 ticks), can crit, doesn't gain ticks from haste and additionaly damage dealt is aoe. Base rppm for 608ilvl seems to be 3.23(it starts 2/2 upgraded now, so apperently blizz chose that solution). Obviously rppm scales with haste.

try re-reading and you would know why i brought up aoe in that post.

and just to be clear, its base 3 rppm and it scales with haste and budget, with my 39% haste i would have about 4,17 rppm.

[Caides]

Legendary Cloak, for Affliction, is currently only proccing from Haunt, Fel Flame, and Soulburn: Soul Swap. It will not proc from Malefic Grasp channels, or DoT casts. Not sure if someone already mentioned it in the thread, but you can test it for yourself pretty easily. This is why the damage proc is moderately low as Affliction compared to other specs. I'd assume the same would be true for Shadow Priests.

[Deleted]

Legendary Cloak, for Affliction, is currently only proccing from Haunt, Fel Flame, and Soulburn: Soul Swap. It will not proc from Malefic Grasp channels, or DoT casts. Not sure if someone already mentioned it in the thread, but you can test it for yourself pretty easily. This is why the damage proc is moderately low as Affliction compared to other specs. I'd assume the same would be true for Shadow Priests.

yeah, hopefully they will fix this, its doing about 1% of my dmg as afflic, they seem to have nerfed the abilities with which we can proc the cloak.

[varren]

So, how is PTR demo supposed to work? With the RPPM change and EA glyph removal UVLS demo just feels dead. I assume we stack crit and then go for the 8094 haste breakpoint and then mastery? Trinkets are probably amp + ... well I don't know now since they destroyed the stacking int trinket.

Also how does opening burst work now without 2pc T15? Even without ever using Soul Fire I run out of fury with 5-6 sec still on DS. I assume we still want to save SF for later DS where we can pool fury and when 2pc 20% damage procs.

[sasofrass]

So, how is PTR demo supposed to work? With the RPPM change and EA glyph removal UVLS demo just feels dead. I assume we stack crit and then go for the 8094 haste breakpoint and then mastery? Trinkets are probably amp + ... well I don't know now since they destroyed the stacking int trinket.

Also how does opening burst work now without 2pc T15? Even without ever using Soul Fire I run out of fury with 5-6 sec still on DS. I assume we still want to save SF for later DS where we can pool fury and when 2pc 20% damage procs.

With the changes to RPPM trinkets not proccing at the very start, it probably will be better off to just hold your DS until you get procs, and at that time you should have pooled enough fury to have a full 20 seconds of DS and meta.

[Zevoa]

With the changes to RPPM trinkets not proccing at the very start, it probably will be better off to just hold your DS until you get procs, and at that time you should have pooled enough fury to have a full 20 seconds of DS and meta.

Also how does opening burst work now without 2pc T15? Even without ever using Soul Fire I run out of fury with 5-6 sec still on DS. I assume we still want to save SF for later DS where we can pool fury and when 2pc 20% damage procs.

It's very much feeling this way, especially with the lose of 2pc Soul Fires.

Initial opener is looking towards being more about generating fury, rather then blowing it all immediately, as is the norm with the way Demonology currently is on live.

Will likely see generate fury until RPPM procs -> Dark Soul -> Meta -> spend fury; especially since we are unlikely to benefit from Bloodlust during meta to the extent that we did in ToT.

[Kagecamia]

So, how is PTR demo supposed to work? With the RPPM change and EA glyph removal UVLS demo just feels dead. I assume we stack crit and then go for the 8094 haste breakpoint and then mastery? Trinkets are probably amp + ... well I don't know now since they destroyed the stacking int trinket.

Also how does opening burst work now without 2pc T15? Even without ever using Soul Fire I run out of fury with 5-6 sec still on DS. I assume we still want to save SF for later DS where we can pool fury and when 2pc 20% damage procs.

I saw that Sparkuggz mentioned the new demo and while the damage is still there, it feels pretty boring and dull for a good majority of the fights. Now with the new system for demo in 5.4, is it more or less like the abomination of ISF for Destro and the complicated rotation of demo in cata?

I do hope the afflic issues with the caster cloak is just a bug, b/c if it is, we might be pigeonholed into going in with gimped demo and destro that might not even be buffed for all we know.

5.2 was good for me because I love demo more than I ever will love afflic and destro. 5.4 breaks my favorite spec in the game and will definetly have me begin to question the logic of devs even more.

[Deleted]

Urgh, having to fish for that 10 second duration 2 piece bonus with soulfires will be annoying.

[TheBGreene]

See the below of the Dev Watercooler discussion for Warlocks...


Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Because Warlocks had so many changes coming into Mists of Pandaria, we had to iterate on a lot of these new mechanics throughout the expansion and tried to not change things too much for Patch 5.4. We did nerf Fel Armor for the same reasons we lowered the passive damage reduction of Balance Druids, Shadow Priests, and Hunters. We increased Fel Flame’s damage but removed its DoT extension, which had become a liability for Fel Flame in PvE rather than letting it provide damage on the move as it was intended. For Affliction, we shifted more damage to DoTs and away from Malefic Grasp. Malefic Grasp is a cool spell, and we like channeling it to increase DoT damage, but we felt like too much damage had been shifted away from DoTs, which hurt Affliction in PvP and made all Affliction locks have difficulty moving. We also simplified the Soul Swap mechanic slightly by removing the glyph and the initial damage component. For Destruction, we changed Rain of Fire to not be so essential to the single-target rotation by reducing its Ember generation. We made Howl of Terror baseline for all Warlocks because we thought they had lost too much of their Fear-based control package.

Our biggest challenge with Warlock talents was the level-90 tier, where most Warlocks chose Kil’jaeden’s Cunning (often to the frustration of raid leaders forced to deal with Slow-moving Warlocks). We removed the snare from KJC but reduced the number of spells it affected. The talent should help with movement but not guarantee characters never need to stop moving. We buffed Mannoroth’s Fury by allowing it to increase the damage as well as radius of area-effect spells, but on a cooldown so the Warlock has more control over the effect and so it’ll feel more potent when active. We decided we could not safely balance Archimonde’s Vengeance in its “damage reflection” kit, so we redesigned and renamed the talent to emphasize the Dark Soul cooldowns (with the intent that one talent needed to be attractive in fights with no movement or area damage).

In addition to these substantial changes to the level-90 row, we wanted to buff several unattractive talents. Harvest Life never had a strong niche, so we made it improve Drain Life rather than act as an area-effect Drain Life. We replaced Howl of Terror (now baseline) with a talent inspired by the Cataclysm version of Shadowflame that many players asked for. Demonic Breath is a cone-based snare. Soul Link was also returned to an older design which is easier to use and more powerful.

Thoughts?

[Alarinth]

I like how he cleverly danced around the whole part of Destruction.

[Deleted]

I was still hoping for something interesting to read in that blog but no.

I did laugh at :

We buffed Mannoroth’s Fury by allowing it to increase the damage as well as radius of area-effect spells, but on a cooldown so the Warlock has more control over the effect and so it’ll feel more potent when active.

A buff, seriously ?
Not for Destro at least, it has gone from being a solid talent on half the fights to being basically useless. Still hoping for a buff there.

For Destruction, we changed Rain of Fire to not be so essential to the single-target rotation by reducing its Ember generation.

... and ?

[TheBGreene]

I like how he cleverly danced around the whole part of Destruction.

I mean I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I just don't like most of the changes in general, even the "buffs" we get.

And from the looks of the gear and such it really makes me wonder if they want us stacking crit for the patch or something lol.

[PickleballAce]

Not much there that we didn't already know about.

[Deleted]

Exactly lol.

I mean I wasn't expecting a whole lot, but I just don't like most of the changes in general, even the "buffs" we get.

And from the looks of the gear and such it really makes me wonder if they want us stacking crit for the patch or something lol.

Affliction BiS list that someone posted some time ago only had ~1300 crit IIRC.