5.4 KJC changes.

[miasmah]

the argument that no caster should be able to cast and move may sound logical and fair on a general level
However, if you understand affliction spec, you realize that removing KJC at its current state and leaving rest of Affliction unchanged will actually make Affliction unplayable and broken.

If Blizz wants to change KJC mechanics, thats fine, However they need to revamp the affliction spec altogether in terms of DOT damage numbers, Fel Flame Mechanics, haunt mechanic and Shard procs.

Bottom line is, if they want to increase the skill cap of affliction by tweaking KJC, that's fine. As long as the rest of the Aff spec is re-balanced as well so that a good player can still pump out decent DPS.
What wont be fine, is if they change KJC alone and end up breaking affliction completely.

[warlockSTAR]

This change is even worst than I thought it would be.

[Shiekyerbooty]

I certainly hope they don't

I never really cared for, and still don't like this new talent system, I felt that KJC was very fun and usefull, it actually made the other horrible changes they made to warlocks bearable

[Jessicka]

Reading through this again, I am exasperated by it.

Got a few updates for you guys. Standard disclaimer applies that this is all still in early testing and subject to change.

Fel Flame has gotten a slight rework. It now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can always be cast while moving. Also, it no longer extends the duration of damage over time effects (and, as such, no longer causes them to lose their "snapshotted" stats) and has gotten a small damage buff. The intent here is that you should be able to use this to keep up some damage when you need to move, but you'll want to stick to your standard rotation otherwise.

As I noted earlier, this is a nerf to PvP exposing us further to interupts and worse, double school lockout. It's also a nerf to Destruction and Demonology where DoT maintenance for their resource generation overides their damage.

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. We still want Malefic Grasp to be your primary filler for single target DPS, but this will make it a bit less punishing when you can't afford to channel it (especially in PvP). Haunt will once again be interrupted by movement, in favor of the Fel Flame change.

It's obvious the damage from Aff is down to the synergy between Haunt and MG, buffing Haunt wont really make all that much difference. Further, buffing DoTs on the back of having Corruption nerfed due to overstrong multidotting seems like a backward step.

There's been a couple adjustments to the level 90 talents as well. Both Kil'Jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury have had their cooldowns and durations lowered to 60 and 10 seconds, respectively. Mannoroth's Fury now only applies to the core AoE damage spells (Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire), but increases their damage by 100% while active in addition to the range increase. Note that Rain of Fire is being changed to no longer generate enough Burning Embers to be worth using in a single target rotation (so, Destruction shouldn't feel forced into Mannoroth's Fury).

These should hopefully be hitting the PTR in the next build. Once again, please remember that we're very early in the 5.4 development process. Any or all of this may still change before the patch goes live.

Mannoroth's Fury is also necessary for Demonology when you can't actually get close to AoE; it's the reason we kept Hellfire when they were considering switching to RoF. As for MF and Destruction's single target rotation is absurd, it makes no difference there, but we'll still use it the moment a second target wanders into range. Selling it as a QoL improvement is a little disingenuous.

[Gorthan]

I am sorry if this has already been said since I didn't bother to read all the pages but why don't they just make the filler spells be able to be used while casting with KJC? Would make sense to me if it was like that. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents

Multiple times.

It looks too easy and, reasonable to be done.

[Rayaleith]

Multiple times.

It looks too easy and, reasonable to be done.

That might make KJC a bit useless comparing to MF in PvE.

[Fanatik]

From the affliction thread, appropriate here as well

So let me see if I understand this correctly...

Fel flame is now a 2-school scorch (double lockout on interrupt? another spell with cast time for destruction? How does this affect void ray?)
Fel flame has a cast time of 1.5 seconds and can be casted while moving (was instant with 1.5s gcd, now interruptable and has cast/flight time)
Fel flame DoT extension is removed. This means proc refreshes after a pandemic refresh will cost us 3 gcd's instead of 2 for affliction.
Fel flame damage will be buffed, but the amount of damage will not sway you away from your spec's filler.
DoT damage receiving a compensation increase. DoT damage was previously reduced to balance multi-target cleaving, so either the compensation isn't very much or it will eventually be reduced once the patch goes live.
Malefic grasp damage reduced and redistributed into Haunt/DoTs. Will Drain soul follow with the same redistribution and will GoSac be balanced to compensate for the damage loss to MG?
Haunt's damage compensation won't be enough to make up for the loss in Haunt+MG uptime.
Haunt not castable while moving just means you can't move for the next 9.5 seconds or your damage tanks.
The 10/60 change for KJC/MF is a change to balance cooldowns with raid mechanics. Its still terrible.
MF now affects fewer spells (doesnt include HoG, Chaos Wave, Carrion Swarm, Void Ray, FnB) and there is no way the 100% damage increase makes it to live (RoF and Hellfire/IAura DPET makes them part of the single target rotation).
Nothing yet on ember compensation for the RoF nerf.
Nothing yet on UVLS being inevitably nerfed.
Nothing yet on shifting soul shard use from soulburn soul swap to something else
Nothing yet on a fix for Agony soul swap snapshot.
Nothing on nerf to Soul Leech capping at 30% hp on the PTR (bug perhaps?)
I'm still not using Archimonde's Vengeance, which goes against blizzard philosophy of taking damage to do damage...

I personally have no confidence in my class at the moment. I've played my lock since vanilla, from the glory days of SL/SL to the dark days of "Global the warlock". KJC was one of the greatest quality of life changes blizzard made to this class since they removed soul shard farming (hopefully they don't read this and get an idea), and casted movement will be missed. Just a reminder though:

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler

@johnlvarner Knowing game rules is critical for PvP. Asking players to learn new rules (run from the dying lock!) in mid-season is harsh.

#Xelnath2013!!!!!!!

[Deleted]

It's obvious the damage from Aff is down to the synergy between Haunt and MG, buffing Haunt wont really make all that much difference. Further, buffing DoTs on the back of having Corruption nerfed due to overstrong multidotting seems like a backward step.

The real punchline is that buffing haunt is counterproductive - the more damage tied into haunt, the more we NEED to be rooted after casting a haunt, since that's where our damage comes from, ergo, the more being unable to channel MG if forced to move is a problem.

Trying to sell us it as part of the post trying to compensate for KJC is just misleading, it's essentially still MG damage, just only available during haunt uptimes - the damage moved to dots is all we've gained while mobile.

For the people worried about the ROF removal, you (hopefully) don't need to worry - it was announced that they were planning it ages ago, at the time they said they'd be compensating ember generation to remain the same, they just wanted ROF out of the single target rotation since it was unintuitive (though I personally feel the rotation without ROF is too empty).

[Jessicka]

The real punchline is that buffing haunt is counterproductive - the more damage tied into haunt, the more we NEED to be rooted after casting a haunt, since that's where our damage comes from, ergo, the more being unable to channel MG if forced to move is a problem.

Trying to sell us it as part of the post trying to compensate for KJC is just misleading, it's essentially still MG damage, just only available during haunt uptimes - the damage moved to dots is all we've gained while mobile.

For the people worried about the ROF removal, you (hopefully) don't need to worry - it was announced that they were planning it ages ago, at the time they said they'd be compensating ember generation to remain the same, they just wanted ROF out of the single target rotation since it was unintuitive (though I personally feel the rotation without ROF is too empty).

The idea of more damage while stationary to offset loss during movement is basically what Mage T90 talents are about, it's not necessarily a bad thing so long as it genuinely translates to that.

Trying to sell the utility nerf of Fel Flame as a compensatory buff though is rather annoying. It would be hilarious though if their answer to fix my above concerns would result in the reimplimentation of Searing Pain replacing FF for Affliction

[Fanatik]

Trying to sell the utility nerf of Fel Flame as a compensatory buff though is rather annoying. It would be hilarious though if their answer to fix my above concerns would result in the reimplimentation of Searing Pain replacing FF for Affliction

Only to be reverted once mages complain that we have a bonus 50% crit chance on our scorch. Come 5.5, we'll be hearing how 50% crit was unintended and they completely scrap fel flame and searing pain and return us back to stutter stepping, shadow bolt, and shadow trance for all specs!

[Gorthan]

Greg Street ‏@Ghostcrawler


#Xelnath2013!!!!!!!

so that's the reason why they are changing so much our mechanics? If only i wasn't a warlock it would be very amusing.

[Purpleisbetter]

My prediction (as the damage shift from MG to dots was way too easy to predict) is to give and additional effect to FF:

FF also deals some dot damage like MG for affliction, more resources for Destro and Demo.

[Uzkin]

There is very little wiggle room in the current affliction/destruction design. KJC wasn't given to warlocks in a whim; it was made necessary due to the redesigned warlock (affli/destro) playstyle in MoP. These specs were designed to revolve around long casts or channeled spells to generate damage and resources. Obviously, that didn't work in the current PvE or (especially) PvP environment. So, Blizzard fixed this the usual way: counter the broken mechanics by a single powerful ability (which, if considered in vacuum, is OP). They have taken the same approach e.g. in trying to fix the monk and rogue PvP. Consequently, KJC is an integral part of affli and destro in their current form.

So, take away KJC and you are either left with two broken specs (affli/destro), or you have to pretty much redesign the class mechanics again. While I've always been slightly against the talent, I feel it is too difficult to change it now in the middle of the expansion and adjust the class design accordingly. The required changes would simply be too major. Any single change to compensate for the KJC nerf will just break the specs in question elsewhere. Adding cast time on Fel Flame won't work for obvious PvP reasons, in particular it will completely kill destro (if it isn't already). Increasing DoT damage will again result in too powerful multidotting for affli. Etc.

Out of the three options: (a) leave the talents as is until 6.0, (b) break KJC and MF without major gameplay changes (--> destro/affli get CATACLYSMED again), (c) break KJC and MF while trying to compensate it with one or two changes (--> replaces an issue, unhindered mobility, by another, e.g. OP multidotting) ... I am in favor of (a).

[Deleted]

Prettymuch, KJC is the current equivalent of Blood Fear - a bad talent, but a crutch that's keeping us level with everyone else.

[Professor Chaos]

The idea of trying to viably play destruction without it against any kind of half decent melee team in the games' current state is just laughable.

[TyrianFC]

KJC wasn't given to warlocks in a whim; it was made necessary due to the redesigned warlock (affli/destro) playstyle in MoP.

You wish.

KJC was given to warlocks simply because the dev's went all out in the warlock revamp for Pandaria. They knew they had to boost the population and gave warlocks a bunch of the funnest and coolest tools. KJC was one of them. And you know what? It worked. Warlocks are the flavour of the expansion.

From their POV im sure they knew all along it was too good and that players should have never had it in the first place. The warlock revamp has been a smashing success (in the terms of growing and revitalising the warlock playerbase) and now they have just decided is the right time to reign in some of the ponys given to warlocks.

And nobody likes having their pony taken away, as shown by this thread.

[Uzkin]

You wish.

KJC was given to warlocks simply because the dev's went all out in the warlock revamp for Pandaria. They knew they had to boost the population and gave warlocks a bunch of the funnest and coolest tools. KJC was one of them. And you know what? It worked. Warlocks are the flavour of the expansion.

*You* wish. Affliction PvP simply died out at the start of MoP without KJC.. heck, even with it it pretty much died out. Destro with its huge cast and ramp-up times was only viable due to the equally huge damage from a successful CB cast. But that is gone now, too, the opportunity cost of a CB cast is way too high and KJC is the only way for the spec to achieve anything at PvP any more (esp. with the nerf to MF).

[Deleted]

You wish.

KJC was given to warlocks simply because the dev's went all out in the warlock revamp for Pandaria. They knew they had to boost the population and gave warlocks a bunch of the funnest and coolest tools. KJC was one of them. And you know what? It worked. Warlocks are the flavour of the expansion.

From their POV im sure they knew all along it was too good and that players should have never had it in the first place. The warlock revamp has been a smashing success (in the terms of growing and revitalising the warlock playerbase) and now they have just decided is the right time to reign in some of the ponys given to warlocks.

And nobody likes having their pony taken away, as shown by this thread.

you do know that KJC when it was given to us, was so craptastically bad that no1 took it?

[Deleted]

And you know what? It worked. Warlocks are the flavour of the expansion.

Any legitimacy to that claim?

Last time I checked warlocks were still at around the same population, only beating monks.

I also don't get how you can be claiming it's both not necessary AND too good

I'll say it again, warlocks are not miles ahead of other classes on any encounters that we use KJC because of it. That means

a) Either KJC isn't "too good" because it's not making us any better than everyone else
b) KJC is good, but we apparently need it just to keep up with everyone else, ergo it IS necesary

and don't even PRETEND warlocks are doing particularly well in pvp right now, let alone without it.

If you're going to sit there claiming that KJC is some overpowered talent, can you at least offer some basis for that other than your gut feeling?

[Nivrax]

You wish.
KJC was given to warlocks simply because the dev's went all out in the warlock revamp for Pandaria.

Look at Raidbots and change time back to older patches. See something interesting? Through 5.1, 2 specs are absolutely destroying everyone else, Arcane and Affliction. This was back when Affli was balanced as turret spec, expected to loose ton of damage by moving, and having higher dps when it can stand still. Since the tier didn't require that much movement, both Affli and Arcane were dominating the meters (with Affli having extra edge on multidotting fights).

5.2 hits, we're no longer outshooting everyone. In fact, both Boomkins and Shadowpriest, who have 'so much problems' with movement, are just behind Affli, who can cast everything on move, and is gaining most from smart usage of procs of all. We are balanced now around not loosing dps on move at all.

Is it so hard to grasp that taking away KJC now means that Affli either needs to be akin to Arcane Mage and get massive Malefic/signle target buff (way more dps than anyone if able to stand still, loosing ton through movement bringing it back to around what other specs are doing on actual fights) or will simply fall off charts?