Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Rayaleith]

Ok I think that there are no game designers left for wow. These changes are shocking. Really, they try hard to make a well designed class much worse. What the fuck with this fel flame? Do they have ANY plan or direction for the warlock class? They heard people complaining that fel flame on the move will hurt affliction's empowered dots and that was caused from destroying KJC... and they... change fel flame! Of course it does not matter if fel flame extending immolate was very ok for destruction. It is perfectly ok to lose out last instant spell for PvP and/or low level content etc.

They are trying to make MF more attractive. Well it is more attractive (till we see the first immolation aura adds rape videos) but it will not work with F&B immolates and incinerates. Well... That might hurt. (This is the spirit I guess. To hurt).

I won't talk about redneck stepchild of the classes and such but it seems to me they do not know what they want with the class. They started make changes with the "ok man we'll see where it goes" mindset. Let's hope they will do some good to the remaining time till the release. I am still shocked.

[Kathranis]

I wrote out a longer, more thoughtful post about my feelings in the consolidated feedback thread on the official forum. I'm gonna repost it here:

The more I think about these changes (and after seeing Ghostcrawler's twitter response there) the more angry I'm getting about this.

I've been maining this warlock since the start of BC, and I've always just rolled with the changes. Never really complained at all.

This is actually the first time I've considered shelving this character since I started playing it. If I start leveling now, I can get an alt to level 90 before 5.4. I even finally bought the cloth heirlooms for my priest and mage, which are each only level 12.

I seriously don't understand the reasoning here.

Okay, I mean, I get that they didn't intent for every warlock to pick Kil'jaeden's Cunning. They didn't want every warlock to be moving while casting. I get that.

However, what I don't understand is why they then made it the only desirable talent in the tier. Archimonde's Vengeance is a joke, and Mannoroth's Fury has situational utility at best.

Hell, I don't even understand the names for those talents. What do any of those characters have to do with those mechanics? Why not design talents that are thematically linked to those characters? But I digress.

So, we've got this talent which almost every warlock is taking. It's even pretty much mandatory if you want to kill Kanrethad and get your green fire. And here's the thing: it's actually really fun. It completely changes the way you play your warlock. It's basically a new playstyle, unique amongst casters: lots of hard casts and channeled spells, but you still have decent mobility while you're using them.

Well, we have this talent for most of the expansion, people get used to it, people enjoy it. Blizzard even balances warlock DPS around having it, because all of the warlocks are picking it. It starts to feel integral to the class. I know that whenever I switch to MF, I can't wait to get back to using KJC.

Anyway, towards the end of the expansion, Blizzard finally decides that too many warlocks have been using this "unintentionally" fun ability for too long. Not enough people are picking the other two talents, so naturally it's time to gut the one that people actually like. Not buff the other two, no way. Why would they do that when they could just have three talents that are equally unappealing?

So they nerf KJC, and it's a terrible change which I personally hated, though I could at least wrap my brain around the reasoning. What I can't understand is why they also nerf Mannoroth's Fury, a talent which is only marginally useful to begin with, but I suppose it's part of their scheme to make all three talents equally unappealing. If they didn't nerf it, it would become the only desirable talent, and they can't have that.

So, thankfully, myself and my warlock brethern are quick to speak out about how crappy this change is. How spiteful it seems. How it guts something which, sure, maybe turned out to be better than they originally intended, but was nonetheless extremely fun. Insert hundreds, probably thousands of complaints.

And now, Blizzard's response is, "Okay, we're still going to nerf them, but we'll nerf them ever so slightly less. And to make up for it, we're going to nerf some other stuff too! But we'll phrase it like a buff!"

Seriously, what's the reasoning here? I can't grasp it. Why would you take our only instant cast -- keep in mind that instants can be cast while moving -- and nerf it by adding a cast time to it and removing its functionality (refreshing DoTs), when our complaint was that you're taking away our mobility? We can already cast it while moving, and it lets us refresh some of our hard cast DoTs without having to stop and hard cast them again.

Where is the logic in that nerf? I can't find it. Most of our abilities are already hard casts. That's what made Kil'jaeden's Cunning so fun, don't you get it? Having a lot of hard casts, balanced around the fact that we still have some mobility while using them. That's a fun and unique playstyle for a caster.

If the problem is that the mobility while casting is unfair or unbalanced, make Kil'jaeden's Cunning baseline and balance the class around it, even at the expense of DPS and PvP viability, because the playstyle is frankly far more fun with KJC than without it.

If the problem is that you just plain don't want us to have complete mobility while casting, then by all means, find a way to nerf Kil'jaeden's Cunning without completely gutting the fun factor. Don't nerf one of our very few instant casts, which is already our "mobile filler" spell. Just take our existing hard cast filler spells (Malefic Grasp, Shadowbolt, Incinerate) and let us move while casting them. Maybe even make a passive on KJC requisite to do so.

If the problem is simply that too many people are taking this single talent, and that goes against your desire to eliminate cookie cutter specs, then either rework the entire tree such that all three talents are desirable, or buff the other two talents so that they're desirable alternatives to Kil'jaeden's Cunning. Under no circumstance should your solution be gutting the one desirable talent in the tier, to make the other two look better by comparison.

Sorry that this became a wall of text, I got a bit carried away.

[Multiabuse]

I have mixed feelings about the Fel Flame changes.

It feels more like a concession to Warlock's who "really" like cast bars while moving, but it doesn't address the fundamental problems with the spell. I would rather have an instant to get me by in movement phases than to lose the only "meaningful" one we have left. I'm glad to see the dot extension mechanic removed, but adding a cast time - regardless of increasing the damage - removes the only spell we have on demand to kill totems, etc, since they are immune to dots and drains of all types. Personally, I use fel flame all the time in low level content. I feel keeping it instant cast is much more useful than giving it a cast time and letting us cast it while moving.

[Taiknee]

Looking specifically at Affliction, we're lowering the bonus damage that Malefic Grasp provides and moving that damage over into Haunt and the DoT effects themselves to compensate.

KJC change makes me sad. Fel Flame being a cast-time spell makes me depressed. At least they finally listened to the feedback and moved more Aff damage into the DoTs, though I'm done with my lock in 5.4..

[Nicola]

KJC change makes me sad. Fel Flame being a cast-time spell makes me depressed. At least they finally listened to the feedback and moved more Aff damage into the DoTs, though I'm done with my lock in 5.4..

I doubt that will make it live, and if it does, it will likely get nerfed quickly. They did a pretty big nerf to corruption and doom a while ago due multi-dotting being too strong, so buffing DoTs now and thus increasing the damage we get from multi-dotting seems a bit weird.
It's a nice change if the increased DoT damage will go live, which again, I doubt will happen. Putting more damage on haunt on the other hand, is a stupid change imo.

[Deleted]

Putting more damage on haunt on the other hand, is a stupid change imo.

Yup, every time they try to tinker with haunt I can't help but sigh, do they not realise that this makes us more dependent on being rooted? Isn't that what these changes are trying to alleviate? Do they have anyone who knows how warlocks work over there?

[Deleted]

Inc, reverted DoT buffs because half of the fights in SoO are multidot fights..

Also turning fel flame in an even worse version of itself?
What the hell will happen to Demo's fel flame/void ray?

What a shit way to fix something that aint broken.

[Deleted]

Absolutely clueless devs. Shock horror.

[Deleted]

@Zarach: You want a stable class? You might as well reroll, Warlocks have been a rollercoaster class since the dawn of time.

Sorry Gihelle, i have my warlock from 7 years now, this is my main and i have no alters. raiding 3 hours a day for more than 6 years. i don't want reroll , i only want to have my warlock stable and don't change my play style every 4 months.

[Deleted]

- So... FnB is basically dead now ? And 100% more damage only to RoF... meh. And what about the original design of the lvl 90 row, "indirect damage increase" talents ?
- I hope there is a nice compensation coming for Destro ember generation after the RoF nerf... Gameplay-wise it won't be, I fear.
- Fel Flame as Destro was Instant with 1s GCD. Now 1.5s cast time ?? Bye bye the "instant 25% to 19% Fel Flame to go in exec range" when questing :'(
- I don't PvP but that Fel Flame change seems great to be interrupted.

[Lethl]

This is actually funny... KJC got nerfed. Then they change FF from instant to cast time ability, for the fun of casting an ability while moving. "FF has gotten a small damage buff" Ofc it needs a huge dmg buff, it takes 1.5sec longer to cast the damn abilitiy now. For lvl 90 talents I probably just gonna stick with AV, if i even gonna choice any lvl 90 talents at all. Already got enough of these one use 1-3min cd abilities. For what we know, AV ending up as 1min cd aswell, Then i will just leave the 90 talents unused.

This class havnt changed at all. Its still as it always have been. give 1 ability there, another here. nerf there. talents shouldnt be mandatory. yet all talents for warlock is mandatory for pve. KJC got nerfed, everyone tok the talent. Just as almost everyone tok gosac to some degree. Its a petclass GC said, no talents should be mandatory he said, next thing gosup is the new mandatory. I know its early PTR, but seriously.. the lock class is a joke to you all blizz. Get your group together, and do something about it. Dont just throw random stuff at the class all the time, and then fix it for next patch. Or should i say, nerf it, and nerf another thing aswell for every new patch that you releasing..

[Werst]

PVP fel flame is a horrible idea. You are going to lose the only spell aff can cast when locked out of shadow (which is a constant problem). Its a straight up nerf for destro. I don't see why the devs have an obsession against locks having to be casting 100% of the time. I mean honestly what is the difference between having to stand still to use our powerful spells or CC (fear) and having mobile MG/shadowbolt/incinerate *baseline* vs casting FF constantly while on the move? Just give locks baseline fillers with KJC as a spiritwalker's grace.

OR you let FF keep the dmg bump, let it be instant, minor glyph to turn on/off dot refresh, cut its mana cost for destro 50%, and give aff back mobile haunt with maybe a glyph for UA that makes it instant but removes the dispel kickback.

Having something, anything, we can use instantly is dare I say critical to warlock fun factor and practical use of the class...especially in pvp.

[Nivrax]

I doubt that will make it live, and if it does, it will likely get nerfed quickly. They did a pretty big nerf to corruption and doom a while ago due multi-dotting being too strong, so buffing DoTs now and thus increasing the damage we get from multi-dotting seems a bit weird.

This. And IF it stays, you can bet your green fire on it that we will be balanced around doing comparable damage to others on multi-target fights and completely worthless on single target.

[Deleted]

Is the Blizzards perceived problem with KJC PvE or PvP? If its PvP why not make KJC dispellable?

[ComputerNerd]

Is the Blizzards perceived problem with KJC PvE or PvP? If its PvP why not make KJC dispellable?

Despite a regular assumption to be PvP, I actually believe the problem to be both.

[Gorthan]

I don't get it. Why change so much a class when making the fillers castable on the move would be the simplest solution?

All this mess looks everyday more like "we don't like something that's right and rather than make it live will screw everything else".

Bah.

[jackvii]

The real puzzle lies in the support of the Fel Flame change.

It was put in the game because we had zero instant damage and subjected ourselves to lock out to kill totems. It was a niche that needed to be filled even if it was situational. The loss of that utility is pretty harsh across the board on all fronts.

Also, Chaos Bolt could never be instant cast without reducing it's damage to 'barely better than incinerate' and we find ourselves using it because we have no use for Embers otherwise, much like when it was never cast in Cataclysm.

[Stormcall]

Seriously, what's the reasoning here? I can't grasp it. Why would you take our only instant cast -- keep in mind that instants can be cast while moving -- and nerf it by adding a cast time to it and removing its functionality (refreshing DoTs), when our complaint was that you're taking away our mobility? We can already cast it while moving, and it lets us refresh some of our hard cast DoTs without having to stop and hard cast them again.

When the KJC nerf was first announced, everyone was complaining that they had "nothing" to cast while moving. Myself, and a few others, pointed out Fel Flame was given to us specifically for that purpose. EVERY SINGLE RESPONSE to that statement was "we can't use FF it refreshes our dots and makes them weak!". Now that dot refresh feature is removed, and...people are unhappy about it?

Giving it a cast time is stupid, but removing that "functionality" was, prior to the change, something people seemed to be all in favor of.

[Shauni]

Everyone knowing of affliction really works could have tell that using fel flamme while moving was a bad idea. So for them this change is not that bad.
BUT :

Destruction and demonology, on the other hand, weren't impacted that much by it.
For Destruction it even was a good thing because hardcasting immolate and refreshing while moving where equal.
Pvp players can now be silence by BOTH school.

So removing the dot snapshot is globally not a bad thing. Making it castable is a bad, BAD idea. So this change can only have a bad reception.

[Apero]

Whats your guys problem with felflame casttime? Its 1.5s base, the same as now 1.5s gcd instantcast (except it can interrupted in pvp, but i do only pve so meh).

Or is it 1s gcd baseline for all 3 speccs atm? Even then, with the haste on the t16 gear, we will probably reach 1.1s casttime or something. The only thing im wondering about is if they lowered the manacosts. Otherwise im fine with these changes. (no fnb buff with mf is stupid tho)