Warlock WoD Beta test - General chat

[Mammon]

Never seen an official answer about the 5.4 SS change, but my theory is that they wanted to fix the small annoyance that was pulling the DoTs out/triggering the CD by accident.

[Tya]

Snapshotting is one of those things that we cry about now and romanticize but prior to this expansion it has never presented a balance issue. Sure it was a good vs better skillcap (prior to T15/T16) but it wasn't a huge lifechanging gain. When you compare even from cata or T14 its not the kind of difference you see now in SoO. You easily can see what 300% to 500% from affdots between baseline and everything lines up perfectly moment? I kind of agree with the devs it wasn't as much skill as addon dependency combined with over the top trinkets/metagem/racials/etc...

When you combine the lack of mobility (a separate issue/discussion) I think the skillcap isn't going to be refreshing when your bboy weakaura reads 10, soulswapping between haunts/MG's, and praying to the RPPMGods as much as keeping uptime of things during high mobility fights the devs are fond of. I don't want boring raids, nor the Rube Goldberg cata demo setup...focusing on situational awareness to max uptime on a simpler rotation simply promotes a more well rounded type of skill.

As for races I think JV is pretty much on the mark depending on how they tune the undead proc. Had some IRL things take me away from the game but I'm simply not enthused about the state of warlocks going into WoD. Almost to the point I'm not sure I want to come back. If I do it will NOT be HC this time just with friends and no more killing myself to do everything, grind every rep, push push push, etc.

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but still.

Snapshotting isn't fun. And more importantly, it isn't intuitive.

"Need to refresh corruption. Ah now my trinket procced, better refresh corruption. Ah now my other trinket procced and Dark Soul is ready, better refresh corruption".

There are other, better ways that skill could be added to affliction. Personally I'm not sad to see snapshotting go.

[JV Chequer]

I agree, Snapshoot it's popular just because there's addons because without it's just hell for manage and other point it's affliction it's boring how it works today and Snap it's the only "thing" left.
So I think the main problem here it's not the removal of Snap but how affliction it's nowadays.

[Gorthan]

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, but still.

Snapshotting isn't fun. And more importantly, it isn't intuitive.

"Need to refresh corruption. Ah now my trinket procced, better refresh corruption. Ah now my other trinket procced and Dark Soul is ready, better refresh corruption".

There are other, better ways that skill could be added to affliction. Personally I'm not sad to see snapshotting go.

I agree too. I've never been a fan of that particular gamestyle but it was great to distingiush between good and casual players. The current state of destruction is a much better idea.

[Zevoa]

I think the question was why soul swap was changed in 5.4 in the first place. For no apparent reason they made it extremely powerful. The stuff that's going on at protectors etc. wouldn't be possible without that change in 5.4

I find it funny that you'd think it was intentional. I highly doubt they foresaw how it would be used. Same deal with UVLS and when Soul Swap was bugged in ToT.

[Dnusha]

explosion have to take place during MF buff to benefit from it.

[Smoothmeduso]

from what little i understood KJC or Archimonde for 90 both specs.

For 100, Demonbolt did more for me atleast as demo than the other 2.

As Destro I enjoyed both servitude and charred remains, but Im pretty sure that with tier17 set bonuses and better gear that charred will pull ahead massively (with sacrifice ofc, use supremacy for servitude)

What do you guys think about the chances that some of the talents being switched around? The post stood out at me when the blue notes containted, it didn't feel right to us for demonology to not use pets. I am thinking maybe Servitude will end up being a passive or level 90 talent. It seems Demonbolt is loved by the population of demo locks, maybe it will become a Demonology spell without being talented. I know some of the things I am saying seem unreasonable but imagine using demonbolt and also having demonic servitude. Demonic Servitude being fully scaled and tuned.

[pvw1075]

You know I didn't get beta access but when I was playing around in PTR the other day I noticed one of my dots would crit for 100k?!
Didn't have any addons, but I'm guessing aff's dmg can't be that bad!

[Nerraw]

You know I didn't get beta access but when I was playing around in PTR the other day I noticed one of my dots would crit for 100k?!
Didn't have any addons, but I'm guessing aff's dmg can't be that bad!

We're not concerned damage-wise. We're concerned mechanics-wise. Affliction is boring as hell to play after the changes.

[Novx]

You know I didn't get beta access but when I was playing around in PTR the other day I noticed one of my dots would crit for 100k?!
Didn't have any addons, but I'm guessing aff's dmg can't be that bad!

Were you attacking a lower level target dummy? Even if level 90 damage tuning is perfect that doesn't mean a thing considering we are talking about level 100.

[Baconeggcheese]

We're not concerned damage-wise. We're concerned mechanics-wise. Affliction is boring as hell to play after the changes.

Affliction is boring as hell to play now as well. It's easily our most dumbed down spec that can be equated to 3 buttons.

you have your dots + ss which will all be lumped into 1 "button", you snapshot them when obvious procs come up which does not require affdots to be able to figure out.

You have haunt which you cast after you snapshot a good proc.

and you have mg.

woo boy that was super complex.

[Nerraw]

Affliction is boring as hell to play now as well. It's easily our most dumbed down spec that can be equated to 3 buttons.

you have your dots + ss which will all be lumped into 1 "button", you snapshot them when obvious procs come up which does not require affdots to be able to figure out.

You have haunt which you cast after you snapshot a good proc.

and you have mg.

woo boy that was super complex.

Well, it was more interesting previously of course. They're simply not improving on things, just making them worse.

[Baconeggcheese]

Well, it was more interesting previously of course. They're simply not improving on things, just making them worse.

What would you say made it more interesting previously?

I didn't play cata or wotlk which is when a lot of people romanticize it, we're back to hard casting dots so what else was in their kits?

[pvw1075]

I don't imagine most specs have too much flair to them now a days.
But I see the point, I still enjoy it. Maybe I'm just dense.

[Jessicka]

What would you say made it more interesting previously?

I didn't play cata or wotlk which is when a lot of people romanticize it, we're back to hard casting dots so what else was in their kits?

Affliction in Cataclysm wasn't much different to Wrath, it was very smooth and polished Single Target, it could be described as being a bit dull. However, as you added more targets, it became vastly more interesting as you had to cast your DoTs most of the time thanks to the CD on SS, and you had Shadow Embrace to manage as well.

You managed movement through Nightfall procs (instant Shadow Bolts) as well as your DoTs and Life Tap, and of course there was the Drain Soul execute that really meant something back then.

It was also imperitive that you refreshed before the last tick, because unless you had serious proc-goodness, it was going to be a DPS loss to refresh any sooner, which meant you really watched your timers. Similarly Haunt, initially, you watched the timer to refresh it before it dropped until they buffed its impact, and then you hammered it on cooldown. The timers being all different ensured there was never a consistent "rotation" of abilities; it was always priorities.

In WoD, there's no Shadow Embrace, which is probably a good thing in respect to ramp-up, but does leave less to manage across multiple targets - you won't have the Haunt procs to make this viable. The main issue is monotony and rigidity

There's no random procs to provide and instant Shadow Bolt to break up the 'feel' of channelling constantly; you stop channelling only to refresh DoTs. The extention through a Perk to Haunt's duration, combined with the nerf to Pandemic mean that the only way you're going to get the necessary overlap between the two spells is to always cast them together creating a feeling of 'rigid rotation' and temptation to just make a /castsequence macro. Yes, there's the other two DoTs on different durations, but with Pandemic, Agony is pretty much 'every other UA, Haunt' with Corruption in between. Importantly the randomness is gone to keep you 'on your toes', or give a sense of feeling some kind of 'reward' from Nightfall - rather than punishment and frustration from not getting a proc.

The execute is gone, so there's no sense of coming to the end of the encounter, sense of overpowering the weakened target etc. The switch from casting Shadow Bolts to the slow final drain was a big deal. But it's gone entirely in WoD - at least in MoP, the extra Shards you gain during the execute do give a sense of feeling something changes.

[fguru482]

I dont know for sure but

I started out with icc. Looked up elitist jerks site. Topped meters easy

Cata came. I had to work a bit harder to become good. Managed

Mop. I had to worker a bit harder to become good. Probly a few weeks before muscle memory caught on. Added a cpl proccs at a time and boom. Managed

Now they are basically taking all that hard work away i find it hard to believe ill get the same rush out of topping meters knowing that every class is dumbed down

I will still get a rush from gear and downing bosses but the wipes in-between will be excruciatingly painful


I guess im just jaded and need to move on. Sc2 has been keeping me busy

[Baconeggcheese]

Tbh that sounds largely the same to me as wod besides shadows embrace being replaced by sb: haunt which is easier to manage since it's on you instead of on the mob and has a much longer duration.

Definitely see how the execute would feel massively different though, and we don't have anything to use for movement yay...

I did play in 4.3 right before mop released, so I guess I have played the aff people love a bit if it hadn't changed much. I remember the sb stacking debuff and just spamming haunt on cd.

Now they are basically taking all that hard work away i find it hard to believe ill get the same rush out of topping meters knowing that every class is dumbed down

Now imagine as a new player thinking they'd have to go through all that experience before they'd really compete and having their elitist seniors lording over them for having played longer. Not a good design to keep the game moving forward.

[Moggie]

What do you guys think about the chances that some of the talents being switched around?

Pre-release? Zero chances. 6.1+, 1 in 3 chance. 7.0, 100% chance.

[Nerraw]

Now imagine as a new player thinking they'd have to go through all that experience before they'd really compete and having their elitist seniors lording over them for having played longer. Not a good design to keep the game moving forward.

We have three dedicated dps specs. There's no reason to not have one that takes a bit of extra effort.

[Gihelle]

So we're not supposed to have a hard to master, engaging spec because that doesn't appeal to new players? No offense, but that's bullshit.

God forbid people would want to learn and improve instead of having the reward instantly given to them...