KJC change in WoD Alpha test

[Strun]

I killed Kanrethad Ebonlocke... for this?

[Deleted]

Rebalance lvl 90 talents around AD and 2 new talents.

I'd remove AD too, not because it's broken, just because it's bland and not really worthy of a talent spot.

An additional charge on a dps CD is pretty lame for a talent and was only changed into that because they were having trouble balancing things. I'd rather, if they finally get around to fixing that talent tier, they weren't bound by an existing one - it might be better for that talent tier to have a completely fresh start from the ground up.

[Aethilus]

I understand the need for the KJC nerf but honestly ever since I thought about it I figured I'd want something like this:

Kil'jaeden's Cunning -- Passive, 5 charges, Whenever you move while casting a spell or cast a non-instant spell while moving, one charge is consumed and that spell may be cast while moving. 12 second cooldown per charge.

I figure that gives you 5 spells per minute or 5 spells moving all at once during a movement heavy portion of a fight. It also makes it so KJC is not Spiritwalker's grace. Obviously the number of charges and/or cooldown could be changed.

[Jessicka]

I'd remove AD too, not because it's broken, just because it's bland and not really worthy of a talent spot.

An additional charge on a dps CD is pretty lame for a talent and was only changed into that because they were having trouble balancing things. I'd rather, if they finally get around to fixing that talent tier, they weren't bound by an existing one - it might be better for that talent tier to have a completely fresh start from the ground up.

Disagree, I think it's a brilliant, simple talent idea that adds an extra bit of depth to gameplay, without adding a keybind. I'd love to see some love for the other two, but now we're into open testing, I think we can rule that out. MF hasn't even been mentioned. KJC was a problem, but they don't seem to want to see it in the context of the issues with the alternatives.

[Archmage Alodi]

i leveled a warlock just for kjc aaaand it's gone....

[a C e]

i leveled a warlock just for kjc aaaand it's gone....

If you main a warlock............your gonna have a bad time

@Aethilus
On topic , I really like the 5 charges and the 12 second cooldown per charge is fair. Blizzard seems to like the charge mechanic, could someone pass this idea by a GM? I want to see their opinion

[Deleted]

I think this is very justified "nerf". Blizzard removed a lot mobility from other classes as well and I don't see why warlock should be any different. This shouldn't even be seen as "class nerf", its more like design style blizzard is aiming for.

I'm speaking strictly about pve, not pvp. There is many posts like "omg warlock is going to trash can", "omg warlock unplayable for progression", "omg gotta reroll again". Seriously guys we dont know anything about encounter design or dps balance at this point. Maybe you would have hard time in encounter which includes 20x Iron juggernauts, 15x Imperial Vizier Zor'loks and one pink ballet dancer Garrosh, which spins at the speed of sound with "kill that warlock" fixates. Such encounter just doesn't exist and I bet wont exist.

Maybe I'm just getting general opinion wrongly, but KJC wasn't the thing which made warlocks "op". Even if the KJC didn't exist, warlock dps would still be out of hand. In SoO there ain't any high movement fights. If you have to move a lot you're (your raid is) probably doing something wrong or just doing a lot of unnecessary movement.

Kil'jaeden's Cunning -- Passive, 5 charges, Whenever you move while casting a spell or cast a non-instant spell while moving, one charge is consumed and that spell may be cast while moving. 12 second cooldown per charge.

I figure that gives you 5 spells per minute or 5 spells moving all at once during a movement heavy portion of a fight. It also makes it so KJC is not Spiritwalker's grace. Obviously the number of charges and/or cooldown could be changed.

KJC might not be Spirit walker's grace with this design, but it certainly reminds me of mages Ice floes. I think at these values this would be too good. If played correctly it wouldn't really be any different from KJC. Actually if this would allow CB casts it would be better than current KJC, at least for destruction. Anyway I don't see why demo and affliction would even use KJC even at its current form.

Edit: Btw listened to Justin Timberlake - Cry me a river while writing this

[Deleted]

Disagree, I think it's a brilliant, simple talent idea that adds an extra bit of depth to gameplay, without adding a keybind. I'd love to see some love for the other two, but now we're into open testing, I think we can rule that out. MF hasn't even been mentioned. KJC was a problem, but they don't seem to want to see it in the context of the issues with the alternatives.

I can respect that, I appreciate it's lack of another keybind and how subtley it can add to things with saving the second charge for a situation where it's really needed etc, but the talent seems to become pretty lackluster on long fights - one extra DS is great when the fight is short, but on something like H-Garrosh where you're in the fight forever it seems pretty lackluster.

I just think they can do far more interesting things with talent choices than that and DS seems like a prime example of a concession with the original, admittedly crap design not working out and them bandaid fixing it with something bland but balanced.

Certainly the talent I have the least of a problem with, but I'd have thought they could do better, especially for a final talent tier where most other classes seem to get something cool there.

There is many posts like "omg warlock is going to trash can", "omg warlock unplayable for progression", "omg gotta reroll again". Seriously guys we dont know anything about encounter design or dps balance at this point.

Really? I've not seen many posts in that vein, most people seem fully aware that warlocks are going to be fine - every expansion we seem to begin with a series of nerfs, we're never underpowered.

Peoples problems tend to be either
a) Destruction specifically will suffer in movement fights
b) Fel Flame has been removed while KJC is staying, and FF was a significantly more balanced spell which also filled in other roles, totem killing being the most obvious. Totems are now immune to afflictions spells unless changed.
c) PVP concerns
d) Fun concerns, some people think more mobility is just more fun. I don't agree and think KJC is a load of mindless arse, but whatever floats their boat.

I've seen very few people thinking warlocks are going to be unplayable. Like you said, KJC wasn't (imo) what made warlocks OP, most of the fights we've been brokenly good on weren't due to our mobility - not that it didn't help.

What bothers me is point b and a little of d - blizzard are removing a perfectly fine movement filler and insisting on remaking KJC, which has been broken for an entire expansion. Some of our specs will be left with little to nothing to press while on the move, and it feels "wrong" to not be pressing something - it doesn't have to be a huge damage increase but it's nice to be able to tap out a fel flame or two during movement to feel like you're still doing SOMETHING as opposed to bleeding out damage.

I'd much rather have my placebo Fel Flame than blizzard removing that and for some reason insisting on sticking with KJC.

[Jessicka]

Yeah, it can definitely get lost in very long encounters, that's a similar issue with MF; usually there'll be 1 or two phases across an encounter where it could be useful, but for most of the fight it'll be sat wasting away off-cooldown. In those cases AD is just better because it covers that phase anyway.

My feeling is that they think a big part of the issue regarding the spread of take up across that tier is the view that "KJC is OP" and that by nerfing it, it'll somehow 'fix' the alternatives by redistributing players to them. While I don't agree lvl 90 talents necessarily need to be 'big things', take a look at the present Mage talents of an example of a talent row that actually becomes an impediment to how you played prior to that point, I certainly also don't like the 'hammer the highest nail down' means of trying to balance them; that only leads to the whole row ending up with no impact.

[Deleted]

Peoples problems tend to be either
a) Destruction specifically will suffer in movement fights
b) Fel Flame has been removed while KJC is staying, and FF was a significantly more balanced spell which also filled in other roles, totem killing being the most obvious. Totems are now immune to afflictions spells unless changed.
c) PVP concerns
d) Fun concerns, some people think more mobility is just more fun. I don't agree and think KJC is a load of mindless arse, but whatever floats their boat.

Yes I think you are right in this. What I meant with my rant was that people tend to localize problems to warlocks and how the changes would play out with current design. Maybe I'm just wrong. What I think:

a) From warlock specs yes, but if we take other spell casters in the context. Fire mage is the only one which has real on the move spammable filler. Of course every class got something to do on the move, but so does destruction. Good use of portal, conflagrate and RoF. Though I wish they would lower mana cost of RoF and make it so that you could have like 3x RoF's which you could place so that they can cover same area. Like it used to be at the start of Mop, if my memory serves me right. Of course it would be great if the RoF wouldn't be dps upgrade in single target if you can cast something else. Bringing FF back is also another option.
b)I agree that FF was indeed useful and I wouldn't mind if they removed whole KJC thing and just made FF as talent
c) I don't thing it has that huge impact on pvp. Losing fel flame was big hit to pvp, but not that many players even used KJC in arena/bg (I'm speaking of experienced players).
d)Yes this is always tricky topic. What exactly is fun? This might sound rude but I think that people with movement OCD should consider playing melee or hunter

What bothers me is point b and a little of d - blizzard are removing a perfectly fine movement filler and insisting on remaking KJC, which has been broken for an entire expansion. Some of our specs will be left with little to nothing to press while on the move, and it feels "wrong" to not be pressing something - it doesn't have to be a huge damage increase but it's nice to be able to tap out a fel flame or two during movement to feel like you're still doing SOMETHING as opposed to bleeding out damage.

I'd much rather have my placebo Fel Flame than blizzard removing that and for some reason insisting on sticking with KJC.

I can understand that placebo effect and the feeling of "doing something wrong" when you're not pressing any buttons. Fel flame indeed could fill that spot. Though we'll see how much we even need to cast spells on the move. Depends highly about encounter design. I would be fine with angelic feather like spell which would increase my movement speed or double teleport or something. It doesn't even have to be damaging spell.

Maybe I'm bit masochist, but I would also be fine even with current design. I like that you get punished when you make a bad call. Like you lose dps if you move badly on encounter.

[xuros]

I wonder how fights in SoO with lots of movement will work out for us in 6.0. I know for fkghts like Garrosh I strafe to the stack points for weapon placements while nuking, Same for Sha when going for a rift, Malk for puddles, Thokk in the kite phases, and so on. Since overall its going to be less casting when you have conflag on CD while moving I assume that they may increase the damage of our spells to compensate.

Just a thought.

[Soulzar]

I find it funny that Locks are always used as the example of being OP for having a talent like KJC, when ELE shamans currently have 5.4 KJC and 6.0 KJC baseline...

F&B Inncinerate is the only difference...

[PickleballAce]

I find it funny that Locks are always used as the example of being OP for having a talent like KJC, when ELE shamans currently have 5.4 KJC and 6.0 KJC baseline...

F&B Inncinerate is the only difference...

Well, we're OP because we do awesome fucking damage and we get to be pretty mobile as well on Live.

But it does show how you can have a ton of mobility, in the case of an Ele Shaman, and not necessarily be that great overall.

[Nighthaven-]

I doubt Warlocks are OP in 'numbers' because of KJC and Fel Flame.

It is more to blame Snap-shooting with Pandemic and very large resource pools where 'spenders' almost always can be used in optimal conditions.

[PickleballAce]

That's true. That's why -- in response to the changes made to Warlocks and other casters going into WoD -- I'm more concerned about fun factor and utility than our performance.

I'm sure we'll be fine on meters no matter what, but I am concerned about high mobility fights becoming boring. One can say there's no skill in casting on the move, but there sure as shit ain't a lot of skill in empty globals...and learning how to minimize movement is DPS 101 stuff.

[Deleted]

I find it funny that Locks are always used as the example of being OP for having a talent like KJC, when ELE shamans currently have 5.4 KJC and 6.0 KJC baseline...

F&B Inncinerate is the only difference...

Maybe because Ele Sham is pretty shit right now? They provide some great cleave, and some off healing and utility, but one of the worst single target (you need to go Enhance for that). Ele's damage on the move is getting nerfed and Blizzard commented Warlock and Elemental were going to get hit the most hard on the damage on the move. No more Lightning Bolt on the move. No glyph for it either. And yet the Ele Sham community (IIRC it was an Elemenal Shaman from Temerity) did some preliminary theorycrafting, noting it wasn't a huge DPS loss.

Strangely I don't see the Warlock community calculate their DPS loss at all ...

[Crisius]

Strangely I don't see the Warlock community calculate their DPS loss at all ...

Whipped together a heavy movement sim without fel flame, 25k iterations. Then a patchwerk.

[Nighthaven-]

Are there simulations without Snapshotting?

[Soulzar]

Maybe because Ele Sham is pretty shit right now? They provide some great cleave, and some off healing and utility, but one of the worst single target (you need to go Enhance for that). Ele's damage on the move is getting nerfed and Blizzard commented Warlock and Elemental were going to get hit the most hard on the damage on the move. No more Lightning Bolt on the move. No glyph for it either. And yet the Ele Sham community (IIRC it was an Elemenal Shaman from Temerity) did some preliminary theorycrafting, noting it wasn't a huge DPS loss.

Strangely I don't see the Warlock community calculate their DPS loss at all ...

My comment had nothing to do with DPS or the state of Shaman DPS. Just simply noting that when people talk about Casters casting while moving, KJC and Warlocks are always the example used to say Casting while moving is OP which I found interesting given that outside being able to AoE trash on the move, Shaman have the better "cast while moving" toolkit.

Obviously, I know its due to people hating our position on the DMG meters, which is not the result of KJC.

[Deleted]

My comment had nothing to do with DPS or the state of Shaman DPS.

Yeah, it does.

Lets play a quiz.

A) Warlock movement
B) Elemental movement
C) Warlock DPS
D) ???

Now you may guess variable D in this comparison.

Shaman have the better "cast while moving" toolkit.

Celestalon said in the Finalboss interview (which was quoted on MMOC frontpage) Warlock and Elemental were going to get the biggest nerf on their movement DPS. Not sure what he or you thinks is #1 or #2 right now; both get nerfed hardest, that is what matters.

Obviously, I know its due to people hating our position on the DMG meters, which is not the result of KJC.

Hating theory is pure speculation and lacks proof, numbers & statistics, and more important its a red herring ie. irrelevant.

If your damage is too high, its easy to nerf, so if its not fixed between patches I assume it is deliberate.

UVLS being nerfed for Warlock, yet RoO not for Feral, gives us a peak in how Blizzard addressed mid tier the issue of Warlock DPS in SoO because they don't like to nerf specs mid tier. At all. So it was considered severe enough, unlike say Discipline as it is.

- - - Updated - - -

Really? So if we replaced Shadow with Arcane, how would you argue for this then? "Just go healing!"

The way we done it is we replaced healer with a SP to push the DPS while still providing off healing. Just go Disc is an option a lot of 10 man SPs had to go for throughout MoP (not the least at the expense of other healers, opening up the spot for OP clothies). When I had to do this, I just quit the game, because I don't like healing that much to play it 9 or 12 hours a week and I find Disc in particular incredibly boring. YMMV.

Arcane Mage could easily go Frost with Mastery build right now. Else, fix haste caps, akin to Destruction <-> Affliction. Fire is the outlier, Fire going from UP to OP due to scaling might be fixed with Multistrike secondary stat + less gems available. Arcane loses NT's GCD multidot, lowering their damage on the move. Finally, pures do get a little bit of flexibility from their talent tree. That together with their 3 specs will almost always mean they're overall better than a hybrid's DPS specs. Which is fair enough and yet the difference should not be huge (MoP cloth comparisons).

I get you say casuals don't care about that, cause if the casual likes to play Destruction he's gonna play Destruction. Fair enough, but you can't have it both ways. Don't come with this bullshit the casual cares about their DPS because no, in this very case they don't. They're refusing an available option for them to do more damage. The rest of the world will take the best option available, and if you neglect the other pure specs, then pures have always a major advantage over hybrids. I don't think that is how stuff is being designed or tuned. I'd like to add its good if the best spec of a pure alternatives, to provide people who love one spec a patch to shine in.

Accept it whether or not you can get it into your tiny shell: the secondary stat flexibility is not there equally for dps.

I know Warlocks had to gem and enchant for Affliction in Firelands, and then on Raggy had to gem and enchant completely different for Demonology. Such extreme cases aren't there right now for Warlocks, best secondary stat being Mastery. From what I've gathered, Blizzard wants at least all secondary stats to be useful for every spec meaning haste for Warriors, crit for Frost Mages. As such there is evidence which suggests Blizzard regards such as an issue, one to fix, albeit not of major importance. It surely took them time.

Just switch talents... right. Fel Flame is not the equivalent of a flavor talent no matter how much you would like to believe it is. It is bread and butter for every Warlock spec, it's not damage - it is resource generation.

I thought you had issues with FF being removed for Destruction. I thought you were talking about resource generation for Destruction. Now you're talking about entire Warlock spec.

It is a core Warlock ability that is not there, and the current KJC doesn't does even remotely solve movement impairment without Fel Flame to a tiny degree.

I am not so sure about that, I think the choice between an extra Dark Soul versus temporary 100% of your stationary damage on the move is rather compelling on movement heavy fights where the DPS matters during movement. Take Siegecrafter for example. On wave #8 you could use KJC and move backwards at the same time. If you can turret (later on farm, most likely, or with a lot of CC) you can just stick with AV. However it doesn't make it a strong talent choice by default, and you need to time it. Since movement heavy fights are a niche, most fights are light movement which is where Destruction isn't affected much by this change.

What you lack brain capacity to understand: Warlock does not have DAMAGE-PROCS on the move

Wait, now you're again talking about Warlock in general. Nightfall should work fine on light movement, and Shadowburn & Havoc offer resource generation on the move albeit situational it can aligned with procs (if those occur on move). Ignoring Shadowburn and Havoc for a moment, procs on heavy movement without KJC are problematic for Destruction either way (with or without Fel Flame).

and Fel Flame doesn't deal any significant damage, it generates resources for our slowly filled large resource-pool.

And because we're tuned around that slow but steady resource-generation, we do not have boosted stationary-output as direct damage as other classes which they have on demand/ quick.

What do you mean? On heavy movement, Arcane loses its RoP and Ice Floes can only do so much. They might even have to use ABr before heavy movement cause of otherwise stacks dropping off. WoD Destruction keeps its resources. It does not generate more, but it also does not lose them. If you need those resources right after the heavy movement, you pool it, a luxury Arcane doesn't have apart from its burst CDs. Arcane would need to rebuild its RoP and rebuild its resources after heavy movement. And Arcane doesn't have a pet, loses its multidot on GCD.

Stop insisting that Destruction has the same ramp up time for burst without resources/ embers than eg. Arcane.

I never said this, I said Arcane suffers from heavy movement.

Stop insisting that Fel Flame is direct damage on the move and the equivalent of damage procs.

I never said this either. Simming takes into account the mechanic of Fel Flame. My simming suggests a very minor DPS loss for Destruction, and rather strange DPS gain on heavy movement. The results are public, well documented, and should be reproducible [you should see a similar trend with your Warlock, as I also simmed Brusalk's to verify), and I welcome feedback. Amount of feedback received thus far: Zero. None. Nada.

By all means scoff it off if you want, but the level you're at is theorycrafting before tuning pass.

Stop insisting that the current KJC solves this issue.

Current as in live or WoD? Commented on WoD's KJC above.

Put simply,
if that is faulty design for classes that do not have choices, it is equally faulty for Pure classes as they are neither meant to 'find something else to do' even if they can just switch spec and do their role regardless.

Who are you kidding, are you being realistic here? Not at all! If you use Power Infusion as Shadow you're doing it wrong in almost every situation. If you want to insist on using that you shall suffer the consequences. If you insist on using MF as Affliction, again that is your choice. If you don't want to play Demonology on Ragnaros HC progression not only is this your choice. If you played Destruction on Lei Shen HC progression you were doing it wrong, too. In every case it isn't only your loss, its your team's loss as well. I played with people who refused to swap spec in the past most notably a Fire Mage who refused to go Arcane on Spine. When facing the most difficult content this attitude won't get you very far whereas for almost all other content and the vast majority of the playerbase, gear can and will make up for the suboptimal choice. The result is the heavy movement issue for Destruction -which is already a niche- is even more a niche due to how the playerbase plays the game and the situations where it does matter the player is expected to adapt. This adapting does not require a reroll!

If supposedly healer classes had only healing specs, I would find this agreeable in a nut-shell because then it would be fair. You don't receive: "I need three working specs in each different role under any circumstance as I don't have a choice as a hybrid"

You do have choices as a hybrid -at least as Shadow- because the flexibility lies within the talent tree. Pures flexibility lies within having 3 different specs, playstyles, in addition to talent tree choices.

That is what you're implying. Tell me what you are actually arguing for/ against in a simple line and I'll happy to tell you that your parallel comparison is shit again.

My stance has not only been consistent, its a stance I developed over a longer period of time, and used last when comparing all DPS specs' performance and scaling in tier 14 after finding out Holy did more damage than Shadow in Heart of Fear. To my surprise I found Shadow scaling at 90% of the median, and Warlock/Mage at 115% to 118% of the median. Of course I picked the best Priest talents, as well as the best Warlock and Mage specs and talents. This is what every bleeding edge raider does, so why bother about specs which perform subpar? And if you do, why bother complaining about a niche (heavy movement)? Its like me complaining SWI isn't good for heavy movement. No shit, if it were, everyone would always take it and its already the default choice as it is.

If you think this is good design because you're fortunate to have a choice, then you're stupid.

Ah, then I'm stupid, OK thank you for mentioning this, the lack of logical fallacies totally convinced me

Healing during movement isn't always important (currently, arguably it is), and also nerfed in WoD.

Those talents do not equalize the current KJC and Fel Flame removal as a work-around.

Yes, as a matter of fact they do. DI and SoD (FDCL) allow instant damage on the move but this means no Mindbender (excellent when you lack GCDs) or SWI (the best when you need single target burst and can turret, unless Council fight where FDCL is better). PI isn't good unless you do short burst, like maybe on the legendary cloak boss if you overgear it. DI is movement friendly, except you need to turret for SWI, and you lose the option for ToF which is an execute and multidot mechanic you can game. So if you want to go for more movement, this almost always comes with the price of ditching the better option.

Your tools are T5 (GoSup), T6 (KJC), and other specs and the entire Warlock community is waiting for your numbercrunching on why Destruction wouldn't be viable. Instead of arguing here, know you can make a valuable contribution in that way instead.