Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Deleted]

* They increased our dot damage and lowered our malefic grasp damage to make up for the loss of MG up time.
* They removed Fel Flame's dot renewal and increased its damage.
* They did not lower Drain Soul's damage, imagine how sick that'll be with the buffed dots in the execute phase.
* I never considered SoC bad. I know that misconception has been widely spread...

I.e: As things are now (5.3), yes Affliction requires KJC. Everything about that changes and I imagine that on PTR we don't need KJC, because of the reasons stated above.

What's with the 60 second debuff on Demonic Gateway though? I wonder what they have in mind...
Are warlocks going to be that kind of class that you bring in once every 60 seconds and then put them in the corner while everything they have comes back off cooldown?
60 secs cooldown here, 60 secs cooldown there.. oh and there. And there! And over here!

Last time i checked they reverted the change on buffing our dots and lowering malefic grasp dmg. They only buffed FF dmg a bit.
I never said they lowered DS dmg. What i propose is to make DS tick every 1 sec instead of 2 sec as it is now.
So our aoe is a 1 button spamming that hits relatively low compared to what other classes bring and it has a cast time. We need some instant aoe spell to combine it with seed.

And just to comment on the guy that said i was exaggerating when i said that Affliction is unplayable without any kind of KJC talent. So you are saying that on live if you do not select KJC you can do competitive dps. With or without the talent the difference its huge for affliction as it is in live atm and i think everyone that has played affliction beyond lfr agrees with that. If not most probably you have no idea what your talking about.

Tys

[Jessicka]

Last time i checked they reverted the change on buffing our dots and lowering malefic grasp dmg. They only buffed FF dmg a bit.
I never said they lowered DS dmg. What i propose is to make DS tick every 1 sec instead of 2 sec as it is now.
So our aoe is a 1 button spamming that hits relatively low compared to what other classes bring and it has a cast time. We need some instant aoe spell to combine it with seed.

And just to comment on the guy that said i was exaggerating when i said that Affliction is unplayable without any kind of KJC talent. So you are saying that on live if you do not select KJC you can do competitive dps. With or without the talent the difference its huge for affliction as it is in live atm and i think everyone that has played affliction beyond lfr agrees with that. If not most probably you have no idea what your talking about.

Tys

They have never posted any figures in regards to adjusting Haunt/DoT/MG damage. It was a statement of intention to do so.

Seed is pretty instant if you SB:SW your dots onto the first target, it'll detonate your first Seed really quickly. You also have Rain of Fire which was given for pretty much that express purpose.

Since all Warlocks use KJC, there's no current data to suggest it isn't competitive; although data from prior to 5.1 when no Warlocks used the talent suggest that the spec was completely playable without.

[Nivrax]

Seed is pretty instant if you SB:SW your dots onto the first target, it'll detonate your first Seed really quickly. You also have Rain of Fire which was given for pretty much that express purpose.

It costs 2 shard to start AoE then. Soulburned Seed exploding on impact would actually be very nice QoL chance. RoF is only there for things like Lei Shi and flushing stealthers, even for Destro it deals low damage (buffed +50% with immo), for Affli it requires channel and cost so much mana you have to tap after each cast.

[The Penguin]

Not sure if this is current, but if it is; it looks like the "Political Currency" Xelnath once mentioned is being burnt by someone to force Warlocks to be gimp.


Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer reduces movement speed, and will now allow the Warlock to cast Incinerate, Malefic Grasp, and Shadow Bolt while moving. is no longer a passive ability. Kil'jaeden's Cunning now has a duration of 15 seconds with a 1.5 minute cooldown.


Can anyone confirm if this is the latest iteration, or a older one?

[Deleted]

Not sure if this is current, but if it is; it looks like the "Political Currency" Xelnath once mentioned is being burnt by someone to force Warlocks to be gimp.


Kil'jaeden's Cunning no longer reduces movement speed, and will now allow the Warlock to cast Incinerate, Malefic Grasp, and Shadow Bolt while moving. is no longer a passive ability. Kil'jaeden's Cunning now has a duration of 15 seconds with a 1.5 minute cooldown.


Can anyone confirm if this is the latest iteration, or a older one?

The latest will be what ghostcrawler said : KJC no longer reduces movement speed and Will be a passive ability but only allows to cast incinerate, mg and shadow bolt.

For me this is a fair adjustment.

[Singularity]

The latest will be what ghostcrawler said : KJC no longer reduces movement speed and Will be a passive ability but only allows to cast incinerate, mg and shadow bolt.

For me this is a fair adjustment.

I agree. Hope it stays this way.

[Chrispotter]

Soul leech capped at 15% max hp .
Demonic gateway giving you a 60 second debuff =/. We are gonna be a low-mid tier class next patch.... GG.

[Deleted]

They have never posted any figures in regards to adjusting Haunt/DoT/MG damage. It was a statement of intention to do so.

Seed is pretty instant if you SB:SW your dots onto the first target, it'll detonate your first Seed really quickly. You also have Rain of Fire which was given for pretty much that express purpose.

Since all Warlocks use KJC, there's no current data to suggest it isn't competitive; although data from prior to 5.1 when no Warlocks used the talent suggest that the spec was completely playable without.

idd, it wasnt said specifically but was hinted that they wanted the penalty of taking KJC that they were unable to take MF or AV, so since we are currently nerfed based on the fact that we are taking current kjc, it would stand to reason that we will get atleast some buffs, well destro and afflic atleast but we'll have to wait and see if that will happen tho.

also with the nerf to RoF's ember generation, i could see them making immolate into a "normal" ember generator similar to incinerate, where it will generate 1 ember bit pr tick and 2 pr crit, this would also greatly help us with aoe through FnB and should be compensation enough for the loss of RoF's ember generation.

[snaxattax]

We are gonna be a low-mid tier class next patch.... GG.

i can guarantee you that without further raw dps nerfs that warlocks will dominate the heroic progression charts in t16. their set bonuses are so much better than any other set it's as if warlocks are from a different game. plus warlocks are hitting zero points where they hit scaling walls as their base cast times are long enough to stack haste for days, and mastery stacking will still be amazing for destro until they nerf shadowburn ember generation.

[Deleted]

Soul leech capped at 15% max hp .
Demonic gateway giving you a 60 second debuff =/. We are gonna be a low-mid tier class next patch.... GG.

I'm baffled as to why either of those changes will hinder our performance.

I'm most interested in what happens to AV right now, with the way GC worded their changes (that the downside to KJC will be not taking either of the other talents), I'm worried AV will be a flat out dps increase similar to 5.0, where it was taken due to being a miniscule dmg increase v KJCs reduced dmg when moving, if KJC doesn't reduce damage while moving (and doesn't even have a snare), AV is going to have to be mighty potent to compare.

Which leaves me worried that the way to play a warlock will be to play demo, since it's already pulling ahead and doesn't need KJC one bit - if AV provides a static damage boost, that may well become the way high end is played - demo with AV.

Purely speculation ofcourse, but it's what worries me - affliction being too dependent on KJC that it's essentially a dps loss on fights with any degree of movement because AV is a decent enough increase.

Edit: Oh, and the obvious connotations of a damage increase that promotes taking damage yourself, THAT's going to be fun - I hope your healers never bitched about lifetap, because with that, AV and our nerfed shield, next tier might be fun for the healers if nothing else.

[Deleted]

im curious about what they will do to AV as well, and i sorta have the same worries as you nagassh. it would stand to reason, with the way GC said, that we'll be gaining some kind of stackable buff through dmg somehow, and it cant be too high or every1 will take that. could be something like 5/10% of our spell power with like 1% stacking every time you gets dmgd.

[Thelxi]

Is the demonic gateway debuff the same we have now just longer? Will it still be able to function like a ghetto misdirect?

[Deleted]

on ptr, if i just spam incinerate and spam fel flame, fel flame seems to be more dps. Will it be part of our rotation once backdraft is down?

[Deleted]

well if i remember correctly the debuff and the threat dump is one and the same, so im assuming that the threat dump now lasts for 1 minute.

[Shigma]

While i'm happy with the new KJC change , i'm really sad about the 60 sec CD on demonic portal. This is gonna make some things REALLY harder. (Specially soloing, and green fire boss come to my mind, while i know new ilvl will make it easier, will miss it still... as someone said before , its our "ghetto misdirect...)

I use to solo Zandalari Warbringers spamming void-lords and portal jumping, for expample (It may sound weird/hard but it is indeed really EASY). With this change i won't be able to do this anymore =(


This and soul leech changes will drastically hurt soloing/PVE situations and ofc PVP


EDIT: As somebody added, even if the threat dump now lasts the full 60 secs, i found it really more useful to be able to do it on a 15 sec basis, since resummoning voidlords on some fights was really useful/needed.

I guess Demonic Portal "was" one of the coolest features of this exp. , and with Blizz's filosfy with this kind of things , the fun lasted too much.

[Deleted]

I use to solo Zandalari Warbringers spamming void-lords and portal jumping, for expample (It may sound weird/hard but it is indeed really EASY). With this change i won't be able to do this anymore =(

With SL + SL you could solo them without letting your first void lord ever die, the real problem with soloing will be the nerf to SL being 15%.

[Strafer]

I'm happy with the new KJC change.

[Sylar Hao]

It's really bad for Destruction.

They need to nerf the damage bonus (or have it spec specific) and apply to all abilities for it to be even remotely balanced for each individual spec.

Or they could just make it affect Fire and Brimbstone as well or instead of Rain of Fire.

[Jessicka]

Or they could just make it affect Fire and Brimbstone as well or instead of Rain of Fire.

It doesn't make sense not to effect FnB, it's the bulk of Destro's AE damage and they want it to be a clear DPS win to take the talent for burst AE. By not effecting it, it's not quite so clear cut.

[Nomial17]

Id like to take a moment to suggest a KJC change. While i'm overall happy with the change, I still feel we can make it better, maybe to the point to where it wont be overhauled in an xpac.

What if....
KJC behaved differently for each spec:
Destruction : Gave a 30% chance to gain a stack of Backlash on incin or conflag hits
Affliction : Allowed MG and DS to be channeled while moving at 75% MS
Demonology : Gave Shadowbolt / ToC a % chance to reduce the cooldown of HoG by X seconds. OR Gave SB/TOC a % chance to trigger Improved MC (Making soul fire instant cast >> stacks up to 3 times)

Just an idea with some random numbers thrown in. Tell me what you think!

I personally think it'd be cooler if it behaved differently for each spec, since its harder to balance 1 talent to fill all 3.