Warlock Discussion with Senior Technical Game Designer Kris Zierhut.

[Werst]

If you look at a simC profile of affliction at the "time spent" column you see that aff spends far too much of its time channeling either DS or MG which "feel" essentially the same. Yes some fights you do a bunch of soulswapping or whatnot but when aff is played in its basic fashion the ratio of filler:dot maintenance is too high on filler. I'm kind of just going on the notion snapshotting is gone and pandemic is going out for all dot centric specs/classes.

As for drain soul in PVP how often do you *really* get to channel a shadow spell for long enough to get shards? Every stream, tourney, etc I watch combined with my own more modest experience is that you hardly get to cast period. The inability to cast issue seems to also get worse the lower down in MMR you go thus by the time you are in the 1500-1800MMR that most people pvp in you not only are less skilled than the tourney folk/have less peels but lower MMR brackets are chok full of cleaves that can make for a near 0 casting environment. 4 seconds of casting on a single spell school spec just isn't going to happen for 99.9% of the population. At all MMR's aff really lacks finishing power in pvp and a potent instant dot (as described in my earlier post) would do that.

I am okay with snapshotting going away though I think blizz needs to not fall into the trinket trap again. Their goal should be more passive gains with weaker procs since cooldown stacking is what made some specs get really out of control this expansion. Lightweave or engineering are procs but they are fractional to what you get from a trinket now. Maybe as a last hurrah final tier thing they can get back go over the top trinket procs but for now they probably need to do future trinkets closer to illustration of the dragonsoul than BBoY.

As for the mobile casting angle I think that can't be answered in the vacuum of just warlock spec balance. Its entirely dependent on what melee is getting for their "niche" and especially what other ranged are getting. Since it appears hunters, ele, and mages are still going to keep their mobile dps intact (if not expanded) for WoD I can't see KJC being toned down. I could see KJC going to a passive free filler with a on use that works on all spells.

Right now demo has multiple ways to spend its DF/spells...soulfire makes the spec interesting since you can use it to either build DF or spend it vs ToC. Aff needs something similar to give it choices to make that are situational. I think shorter duration dots, making DS an execute dot, and tighter shard regen bad RNG protection are a good way to start. If the different buttons you press to dps feel more different then the effect is you are less bored hopefully.

[muto]

So they finally realized that 80% of Warlocks are Destro.

[Jessicka]

If you look at a simC profile of affliction at the "time spent" column you see that aff spends far too much of its time channeling either DS or MG which "feel" essentially the same. Yes some fights you do a bunch of soulswapping or whatnot but when aff is played in its basic fashion the ratio of filler:dot maintenance is too high on filler. I'm kind of just going on the notion snapshotting is gone and pandemic is going out for all dot centric specs/classes.

I don't feel like just looking at the profile tells the full story, as you're actually juggling DoTs to put together 10s+ overlaps to put Haunt into, rather than just mindlessly spamming MG.

I will give you that DS and MG are too 'samey' - I bitched about this endlessly during Beta, it's why I prefer Shadow Bolt - the execute does change, though as you go to 100% Haunt uptime and SB:SS to keep all your DoTs up, with obviously the longer channels. It is different, but switching from short channel to long channel doesn't really feel that great for me.

I am okay with snapshotting going away though I think blizz needs to not fall into the trinket trap again. Their goal should be more passive gains with weaker procs since cooldown stacking is what made some specs get really out of control this expansion. Lightweave or engineering are procs but they are fractional to what you get from a trinket now. Maybe as a last hurrah final tier thing they can get back go over the top trinket procs but for now they probably need to do future trinkets closer to illustration of the dragonsoul than BBoY.

Trinkets aren't a trap, so long as they're powerful and worth reacting to, you're keeping a good chunk of the 'snapshotting' gameplay, by making sure you have the resources and other cooldowns necessary to fully exploit them. Losing snapshotting just means you're not carrying over those effects far longer than intended. If you tone them down, there's less loss, and less reason to react and make use of them and that really would lower the skill delta.

As for the mobile casting angle I think that can't be answered in the vacuum of just warlock spec balance. Its entirely dependent on what melee is getting for their "niche" and especially what other ranged are getting. Since it appears hunters, ele, and mages are still going to keep their mobile dps intact (if not expanded) for WoD I can't see KJC being toned down. I could see KJC going to a passive free filler with a on use that works on all spells.

Agree, this can't be looked at in direct comparison to other classes tools. Shaman don't have Gateways or Portals, and Mages don't have any self healing of note; just as examples.

Right now demo has multiple ways to spend its DF/spells...soulfire makes the spec interesting since you can use it to either build DF or spend it vs ToC. Aff needs something similar to give it choices to make that are situational. I think shorter duration dots, making DS an execute dot, and tighter shard regen bad RNG protection are a good way to start. If the different buttons you press to dps feel more different then the effect is you are less bored hopefully.

Strong trinkets give you that choice of resource use. It's what makes the class so strong, being able to spend resources 100% when we can get best use from them, I don't think any other class can do that quite as we do.

[Baconeggcheese]

So they finally realized that 80% of Warlocks are Destro.

This tier.. last tier it was demo and the tier before that it was aff...

[Werst]

True that without snapshotting powerful trinkets are less of a problem and we know meta gems/LMG are going away. Much like destro having a skill cap around landing that chaosbolt cast at exactly 10x BB stacks where the penalty for missing is bigtime damage loss. My issue with trinkets is they have gone from a contributor of damage like most any other piece of gear to something as important as a weapon. Look at pvp trinkets...they contribute but they aren't the massive drivers of dps that pve trinkets have become. That combined with the upward racheting of having to keep topping last tier's trinkets = gearslots that probably make/break certain specs even without dot snapshotting.

Mobile casting between ranged can be looked at to the extent it matters on fights moreso than utility. The whole toolkit matters but the whole damage toolkit is where the overwhelming bulk of that relevance is. Locks being durable is nice but it doesn't matter if we don't perform as well as others due to mobility. Similarly if you are alive and the whole raid is dead does it really matter? You pick out pure utility things which do not equal damage performance. More relevant is how much of the toolkit is instant, how much of the rotation/time is spent casting those spells, how much damage comes from those instants, etc. Hunters are 100% either mobile, instant, or a BMF pet....hard to top that. Mages have always had more instants and based on the lvl 100 designs so far seem to keep the "flavor" while locks have to cast on our quasi similar spells.

Strong trinkets magnify the demo effect but the ability to spend or build via SF, ToC vs Soulfire, and the HoG weaving are all aspects that make demo more interesting to play be it naked or bis trinkets. True DF/shards/embers all let locks take special advantage of trinkets or other strong buffs which is a large reason why locks have been strong this expac to a certain extent. My point is that if blizz tried to make aff's casting/spending options more interesting or just broke up the channeling monotony more the spec would still skillcap well without button bloat/"Rube Goldberg DPS machine syndrome" or snapshotting mechanics of the past.

Also its worth mentioning many of us here have played locks for years or even the better part of a decade....many of us play at a very high level or at least high personal competency level. What feels "hard" for us isn't exactly reasonable for someone who isn't so experienced. I don't want my class to be mindless but I don't want it to be so niche that it goes half extinct and gets marginalized by the devs for 2 more expansions. Destro isn't a bad model for the "easy to learn/hard to master", demo is probably too high a skillcap on the whole, and aff without snapshotting is probably closer to destro but is just lacking that bit of fun "feel".

[Deleted]

I don't want my class to be mindless but I don't want it to be so niche that it goes half extinct and gets marginalized by the devs for 2 more expansions.

If only we had multiple specs that could offer a variety of play styles to attract people. Oh, wait.

I'm fine having a simple spec, destro fits that niche pretty well. Hell, all warlock specs can be played "poorly" and get half decent results.

The problem is, as you said earlier, trinkets have went completely out of control and turned minmaxing from "minor dps gain used by skilled players that want to eek out every digit of damage possible" to "Minmaxing is now just the "right" way to play the class and anything less is garbage".

You can get by playing affliction without banking SS for trinket procs and just launching haunt on CD, likewise with demonic fury and embers. Minmaxing by using them at the optimal times is obviously a better way of playing, but it's certainly not required for LFR or Flex's trivial requirements and probably not needed for normals outside of late instance bosses in poor gear, which I imagine the "poor" players are going to be getting brickwalled by tactics earlier in the instance rather than dps checks that require better minmaxing.


There's what, close to 20 other dps specs out there? I just see very little reason to completely remove a mechanic that has been a staple of affliction for years now because one spec in 20 catered to a slightly higher skill level than everyone might like. Every other statement by GC in the past has mentioned how it's important to offer a range of difficulty levels to cater to multiple audiences, that includes having a high end as well as a low end.
I agree wholeheartedly that the numerical advantage gained from snapshotting has gotten out of control, but that's not the mechanics fault, that's shoddy design, inflated ilevels, an over saturation of procs and their syncing in the pull.
That can be remedied without gutting a mechanic that has worked fine for years.


Besides, I'd much rather be marginalised than have attention if MOP's "revamp" is what we can expect, a prime example of change for the sake of change and a completely sloppy design that they've had to spend the entire expansion trying to patch up, and it's still plagued with problems.

[Deleted]

Besides, I'd much rather be marginalised than have attention if MOP's "revamp" is what we can expect, a prime example of change for the sake of change and a completely sloppy design that they've had to spend the entire expansion trying to patch up, and it's still plagued with problems.

I hope they actually listen to the beta feedback, unlike during the mop one...

[Jessicka]

If only we had multiple specs that could offer a variety of play styles to attract people. Oh, wait.

I'm fine having a simple spec, destro fits that niche pretty well. Hell, all warlock specs can be played "poorly" and get half decent results.

The problem is, as you said earlier, trinkets have went completely out of control and turned minmaxing from "minor dps gain used by skilled players that want to eek out every digit of damage possible" to "Minmaxing is now just the "right" way to play the class and anything less is garbage".

That's a result of the snapshotting people are so hellbent on defending at any cost.

You can get by playing affliction without banking SS for trinket procs and just launching haunt on CD, likewise with demonic fury and embers. Minmaxing by using them at the optimal times is obviously a better way of playing, but it's certainly not required for LFR or Flex's trivial requirements and probably not needed for normals outside of late instance bosses in poor gear, which I imagine the "poor" players are going to be getting brickwalled by tactics earlier in the instance rather than dps checks that require better minmaxing.

Again, the strength of snapshots has made that the game, rather than the mechanisms themselves which have been eroded by nerfs which flattened their impact.

There's what, close to 20 other dps specs out there? I just see very little reason to completely remove a mechanic that has been a staple of affliction for years now because one spec in 20 catered to a slightly higher skill level than everyone might like. Every other statement by GC in the past has mentioned how it's important to offer a range of difficulty levels to cater to multiple audiences, that includes having a high end as well as a low end.
I agree wholeheartedly that the numerical advantage gained from snapshotting has gotten out of control, but that's not the mechanics fault, that's shoddy design, inflated ilevels, an over saturation of procs and their syncing in the pull.
That can be remedied without gutting a mechanic that has worked fine for years.

We had weak procs for years which were seldom exploited and capitalized on. You could, as you request above, broadly ignore them without much loss, but make a small gain if you were very good at it. Do you not see that you're asking for snappshotting because it does exactly what haunt should be doing, and lamenting that it does not? And that Haunt can't do it because we're balanced around the extra damage we gain from snapshots.

Do you also not see that nerfing trinkets would do nothing to help Haunt do exactly what you're asking it to do? And remove the benefits and need to snapshot, thus effectively removing the very mechanics you're trying to defend by proxy.

It is absolutely the correct choice to remove snapshotting. It will make banking those shards for strong procs worthwhile, and at the same time reduce the impact of RNG if you don't get them as you won't be so strongly depending on them. It is something that will do exactly what you're asking for. Why oppose it?

Besides, I'd much rather be marginalised than have attention if MOP's "revamp" is what we can expect, a prime example of change for the sake of change and a completely sloppy design that they've had to spend the entire expansion trying to patch up, and it's still plagued with problems.

I can't disagree that I'd rather see polish than revamp, that's something that applies to the whole game. That seems the intent of WoD in general.

[Ossandran]

Sorry, but what is "DoT snapshotting" I'm having trouble understanding the reference... I'm also not very good at affliction... Watching your DoT timers or something?

[xskarma]

I hope they actually listen to the beta feedback, unlike during the mop one...

Problem is that beta feedback needs to be on things that can actually still be changed, and not the kind that calls for complete changes in design philosophy or complete class changes when the game is allready in Beta or even calls for downright brokenly overpowered mechanics, cause I saw PLENTY of that in Mists beta. Xelnath even made a topic about it at one point trying to discuss with us what kind of beta feedback was useful, and more importantly how to always supply more then just anecdotal evidence, and always try to see potential bigger picture between classes.

With that in mind, I think Mists beta was HIGHLY constructive for us on these forums, with getting certain things to Xelnath and trying to convince him of some of the problems we were facing. Not everything worked out as he and the rest of the design team had hoped, but it certainly wasn't for lack of listening to the community during beta.

But you are a PvP'er (and affliction & Arena player by the look of things) so I guess from your point of view they completely ruined the class in Mists and only at the end slightly made up for the things they broke. That's a rather limited viewpoint on the class though, when compared to all the things you can possibly do and all the levels at which you can do it. Plenty of things worked out very well with the redesign.

[deviantcultist]

Rip up the warlock changes (with the basic idea intact - i.e. the different secondary resources) and rebuild the class.

How exactly are they gonna do that? I mean, there is no way to "revert" any changes and on top of that, they said that there won't be any major class changes. Given this statement, we are to expect another big revamp to a different direction (?).

[kardacz]

Removing SB:Soul Swap altogether and making Haunt cost mana instead of a shard is a good point to start.
This would put Haunt back into a normal rotation and it's Soul Burn effect could be used during procs.

Make Malefic Grasp a 1,5 sec cast, but instead of additional dot ticks let it do X damage + Y damage for every dot on the target. It'd do less damage then old Shadow Bolts, but the shorter cast time would mean a smaller penalty when you have to move. Something like the old Searing Pain but with a dot multiplier.

An additional dot wouldn't hurt. Like someone said before make Drain Soul a dot that gives a shard each 4th tick. This would give us a new spell, make Drain Soul useful above 20% and below 20% it changes into an execute.

This scenario would require some new shard spenders with SB:SS and Haunt gone and provide a stable shard generating source not based on a random proc, just like our two other specs.


And then I woke up and realized it will never happen.

[Schirmy]

Removing SB:Soul Swap altogether and making Haunt cost mana instead of a shard is a good point to start.
This would put Haunt back into a normal rotation and it's Soul Burn effect could be used during procs.

Make Malefic Grasp a 1,5 sec cast, but instead of additional dot ticks let it do X damage + Y damage for every dot on the target. It'd do less damage then old Shadow Bolts, but the shorter cast time would mean a smaller penalty when you have to move. Something like the old Searing Pain but with a dot multiplier.

An additional dot wouldn't hurt. Like someone said before make Drain Soul a dot that gives a shard each 4th tick. This would give us a new spell, make Drain Soul useful above 20% and below 20% it changes into an execute.

This scenario would require some new shard spenders with SB:SS and Haunt gone and provide a stable shard generating source not based on a random proc, just like our two other specs.


And then I woke up and realized it will never happen.

Keep dreaming!

You never know. :P

[Gorthan]

True that without snapshotting powerful trinkets are less of a problem and we know meta gems/LMG are going away. Much like destro having a skill cap around landing that chaosbolt cast at exactly 10x BB stacks where the penalty for missing is bigtime damage loss. My issue with trinkets is they have gone from a contributor of damage like most any other piece of gear to something as important as a weapon. Look at pvp trinkets...they contribute but they aren't the massive drivers of dps that pve trinkets have become. That combined with the upward racheting of having to keep topping last tier's trinkets = gearslots that probably make/break certain specs even without dot snapshotting.

Mobile casting between ranged can be looked at to the extent it matters on fights moreso than utility. The whole toolkit matters but the whole damage toolkit is where the overwhelming bulk of that relevance is. Locks being durable is nice but it doesn't matter if we don't perform as well as others due to mobility. Similarly if you are alive and the whole raid is dead does it really matter? You pick out pure utility things which do not equal damage performance. More relevant is how much of the toolkit is instant, how much of the rotation/time is spent casting those spells, how much damage comes from those instants, etc. Hunters are 100% either mobile, instant, or a BMF pet....hard to top that. Mages have always had more instants and based on the lvl 100 designs so far seem to keep the "flavor" while locks have to cast on our quasi similar spells.

Strong trinkets magnify the demo effect but the ability to spend or build via SF, ToC vs Soulfire, and the HoG weaving are all aspects that make demo more interesting to play be it naked or bis trinkets. True DF/shards/embers all let locks take special advantage of trinkets or other strong buffs which is a large reason why locks have been strong this expac to a certain extent. My point is that if blizz tried to make aff's casting/spending options more interesting or just broke up the channeling monotony more the spec would still skillcap well without button bloat/"Rube Goldberg DPS machine syndrome" or snapshotting mechanics of the past.

Also its worth mentioning many of us here have played locks for years or even the better part of a decade....many of us play at a very high level or at least high personal competency level. What feels "hard" for us isn't exactly reasonable for someone who isn't so experienced. I don't want my class to be mindless but I don't want it to be so niche that it goes half extinct and gets marginalized by the devs for 2 more expansions. Destro isn't a bad model for the "easy to learn/hard to master", demo is probably too high a skillcap on the whole, and aff without snapshotting is probably closer to destro but is just lacking that bit of fun "feel".

could you please write this in the entrance of Blizzard's headquarters? Big, very big.

[Werst]

I think the chaotic resources choice makes "haunt costing mana with a CD instead of a shard" a solid option. However it screws with haunt as a limited resource model or skillcap use thing. Thus maybe just change chaotic resources to make the change to haunt but only when spec'd into it. 2x shards for 15 seconds of 15% damage is a bit steep in terms of cost:gain.

I find demo interesting simply because there are multiple ways to dps in the spec. Spend or build with soulfire, ToC or soulfire, etc...all of it is interesting even naked. For WoD I might get rid of corruption and just extend shadowflame's duration 6'ish seconds. That would keep a skillcap for HoG weaving but finally separate out corruption to affliction and let demo focus more on pets/forms/etc.

I know people like snapshotting for affliction but the extreme love of the mechanic didn't see to crop up until it took us into seriously powerful territory. So its kinda like saying "I love you" to a chick only after you find out her family is worth millions. You can play the casual angle or the elitist angle but ultimately however you look at it the delta between a normal player and a top player is just too big and impossible to balance. That is why snapshotting is going away.

When you really think about it snapshotting is almost a crutch. The same way demo:UVLS was a crutch in that you did it right once at the start of a fight and periodically thereafter and a single dot carried your damage via an army of imps who did a ton of damage passively and fed you more DF than intended at the ilvl. Playing demo now without that is much harder since you have to do the damage moreso than your imps. Right now if you SB:SS when all the procs happen (instant cast I might add) your damage is carried by dots. You have to press the right button once then go back to channeling. Playing aff without snapshotting for high damage will actually likely be harder since you have to scavenge dps from lots of smaller sources that make you play tighter overall.

[Deleted]

I think the chaotic resources choice makes "haunt costing mana with a CD instead of a shard" a solid option. However it screws with haunt as a limited resource model or skillcap use thing. Thus maybe just change chaotic resources to make the change to haunt but only when spec'd into it. 2x shards for 15 seconds of 15% damage is a bit steep in terms of cost:gain.

The buff you get actually lasts 30 seconds, so its not as bad. But still, I've definitely gone over 30 seconds without a shard before so asking for 4 a minute on top of additional 'normal' haunts does seem quite steep.

Assuming this is a buff which we strive for 100% uptime (I think that is the intention).

[Teva]

"He agrees that warlocks are too OP (Affliction specifically ) and their skill cap is WAY too high with dot snapshotting."
I hope he is Joking cause it's the only thing that makes affliction fun, and If you have any simple addon (affdots etc) to watch trinket proc's it's not even hard. This makes me want to stop playing affliction and current destro is boring on most fights.

I think the only reason that Affliction is so OP at the moment is that trinket proc's are so big 15k int or 23k int with the stat squish they will lower, I thought they could do something with it without removing it completely..

[Xorn]

The problem with snapshoting is multi-layered.

1) Pandemic- with this mechanic it allowed us to hang on to our procs for much longer
2) Stronger procs- trinkets in MoP have a much greater effects on our damage than any other trinket that wasn't named "Moonwell Chalice"
3) Malefic Grasp- this ability amplified the effects of both Pandemic and our procs even further, creating some insane scaling

Any one of those things on its own would not have been enough, but the synergy between them is what caused the current state of Affliction. While I don't like the change to dot snapshoting, it might be a necessary evil as it both made some trinkets too good, while at the same time being penalized rather harshly for not having them.

[Werst]

Teva, the stat squish is percentage based so we will see the same % of haste/crit/mastery in theory. I'm sure they will also do a bunch of balance tuning with the 6.0 pre WoD patch too which makes much of the debate largely irrelevant. Even if they did the 6.0 pre WoD patch and the stat squish separately so we have the exact same spells the percentages wouldn't change a bit. If you did 300K dps before you'd do 12K dps after but your targets would have 96% less HP and the secondary stat ratings would also go down by 96% so if you had 30% haste before you'll have 30% haste after. In this case aff's dots could easily get to the 300%+ range (on trusty affdots) just as easily just the overall intergers are lower but the problem would be identical. The problem of balancing affliction.

Aff has the easiest time taking advantage of the clutter of powerful CD's/stacking CD's right now. Its not just trinket procs (which are more powerful than they have ever been as a function of ilvl) its a 30% haste legendary meta, its 20% troll racial, 30% haste darksoul, its the combined effect of how haste is calculated that makes for the crazy figures. You can take the stuff out (as they are with the meta gem slot) for 6.0 but sooner or later this problem would come up again. Min/maxing around a 1.9K int engineering use or lightweave/jade spirit proc is more on the magnitude of balance devs can work around. Not the 300%+ we can easily stack up with cumulative procs/CD's.

Honestly, in the realm of game changes or nerfs locks have endured this isn't even that big of a deal. This may well not even be a nerf just a gameplay change which is nearly inevitable given we are end tier coming up on another expansion.

[Deathgoose]

I miss how they removed so many of the baseline DoT's all specs had before MoP. I primarily play as Demo, and whenever I am in pure caster form (Not Meta and not pseudo-tank form) it doesn't feel quite as enjoyable as Cata.

But, eh, maybe that's just me.