KJC change in WoD Alpha test

[Nighthaven-]

Fact disagreement.
If the minimum benefit KJC is nothing, and under most circumstances virtually nothing for all aspects of the game, how can that remotely compare to AD? Even MF has a 'higher' minimum value.

[Jessicka]

Fact disagreement.
If the minimum benefit KJC is nothing, and under most circumstances virtually nothing for all aspects of the game, how can that remotely compare to AD? Even MF has a 'higher' minimum value.

There are no encounters, other than Patchwerk, which is 7 years old now? Where the benefit from KJC is zero.

[Nerraw]

Ultraxion.

[Jessicka]

Ultraxion.

Got me. 2 Encounters in 7 years, definitely a significant indicator of an increasing trend in fight mechanics.

Also worth pointing out, that without Fel Flame, AD and MF have a couple more steps to climb before they reach the KJC base; also meaning they have less room to overtake it, since their ceiling benefit isn't being raised either.

[Nighthaven-]

There are no encounters, other than Patchwerk, which is 7 years old now? Where the benefit from KJC is zero.

Only for Destruction, and then is not usually numerically comparable and relevant, limited to HC only with a few exceptions on Normal, and limited to PvE only.

It is seemingly popular for 'lesser players' in both PvE and PvP as it makes gameplay easy, convenient and more fluid, yet it doesn't provide anything of real value.

Definitely not 'universal'

[Deleted]

yet it doesn't provide anything of real value.

Except Destruction's resource generation is directly tied to its filler spells, and Fel Flame's mana cost is punishing in periods of prolonged movement.

Many fight's on heroic (if you've done them, especially the last few, I'm guessing you haven't) have many periods where movement is unavoidable, even if planned for. Cutting down Incinerate usage and substituting for Fel Flame, even with the addition of an extra Dark Soul, can often lead to a DPS loss.

You talk about things in a vacuum as if movement is never an issue, however it is something that needs to be strongly considered in terms of talent choice for optimizing DPS. Many are in agreement that AD offers the highest ceiling, but you cannot base KJC worth on a perfect scenario for a different talent.

[Urgganzish]

Its really fun to see Celestalon and the DEVs spin their wheels on KJC, they're literally stuck in a rock and a hard place, by gating damage to a large extent on filler ticks they now have to figure out how to help movement and at the same time not over buff our dots. Ultimately they're going to realize that the current live iteration of KJC is the most balanced especially when it comes to their design philosophy.

[evertonbelmontt]

Its really fun to see Celestalon and the DEVs spin their wheels on KJC, they're literally stuck in a rock and a hard place, by gating damage to a large extent on filler ticks they now have to figure out how to help movement and at the same time not over buff our dots. Ultimately they're going to realize that the current live iteration of KJC is the most balanced especially when it comes to their design philosophy.

It's to seem legit that they were actually considering removing fel flame instead of KJC in the first place.

[Moruff]

You guys are spending so much effort discussing the benefit of kjc on live in a thread about kjc being changed in wod alpha. Sorry if I've missed the point because I've only gone back a couple pages. In fact, because of the removal of ff, it's making kjc look like a much more viable option since high movement is going to be so much more punishing.

[Turturin the Warlock]

You guys are spending so much effort discussing the benefit of kjc on live in a thread about kjc being changed in wod alpha. Sorry if I've missed the point because I've only gone back a couple pages. In fact, because of the removal of ff, it's making kjc look like a much more viable option since high movement is going to be so much more punishing.

I think you are missing the point. The combination of the two changes takes away basically all mobility for 52 secs per minute. The complaint is inter-related. There's a few people in the thread suggesting KJC isn't powerful on live anyway, I think it's safe to say most warlocks and certainly the devs disagree with that argument.

As to your assertion that taking away FF makes KJC more appealing, can you find me a fight where movement only happens once per minute and then lasts for 8 seconds? Movement tends to occur more often than that and in short bursts. So the current double whammy of losing the more powerful KJC and also losing fel flame feels like it will be overly punitive.

[Moruff]

I think you are missing the point. The combination of the two changes takes away basically all mobility for 52 secs per minute. The complaint is inter-related. There's a few people in the thread suggesting KJC isn't powerful on live anyway, I think it's safe to say most warlocks and certainly the devs disagree with that argument.

As to your assertion that taking away FF makes KJC more appealing, can you find me a fight where movement only happens once per minute and then lasts for 8 seconds? Movement tends to occur more often than that and in short bursts. So the current double whammy of losing the more powerful KJC and also losing fel flame feels like it will be overly punitive.

Even if movement isn't in neat 8s intervals every 60s, it's still appealing to be able to have at least some movement dps when you want it. You don't need to take full advantage of it every cooldown as soon as it comes off cooldown. Let's say you take AD and you do a fight but end up having to move for a total of say 20+s total of DS, then it might be feasible to take kjc. Just an example, clearly situational and not all inclusive. In fact may change fight to fight, attempt to attempt. I'm not saying always go kjc, but having very few options for movement dps otherwise, it increases its usefulness compared to KJC on live.

Also, there was a time when warlocks didn't have FF at all, so we would cast dots or just move without casting anything. We would have more reason to set up portals in good spots to gain a tiny bit of dps. Whatever it may be. We had a luxury for a while, and now they are taking it away. Doesn't really seem like a big deal to me, but I can understand others' finding exception.

As far as I could tell, people are discussing how strong KJC on live is compared to AD. Not sure how that relates to KJC in WoD. That's all my post was about really.

[Fenzha]

Alot of us here are actually on the beta so we do know how KJC is currently in the beta, the only thing we don't know is the fight mechanics we would be applying it to.
With the removal of fel flame and the heavy nerf to KJC even now we can see it is going to be bit of a problem.

[Jessicka]

You guys are spending so much effort discussing the benefit of kjc on live in a thread about kjc being changed in wod alpha. Sorry if I've missed the point because I've only gone back a couple pages. In fact, because of the removal of ff, it's making kjc look like a much more viable option since high movement is going to be so much more punishing.

I think the power gap presented isn't big enough, it would be fine if the other talents offered greater relative benefit. I believe that to be true both on Live, and on Beta where the lack of Fel Flame weakens those alternatives even against a weaker KJC. That's why I don't believe in FF as a talent to replace KJC is a viable option - it would still weaken AD/MF.

- - - Updated - - -

Only for Destruction, and then is not usually numerically comparable and relevant, limited to HC only with a few exceptions on Normal, and limited to PvE only.

It is seemingly popular for 'lesser players' in both PvE and PvP as it makes gameplay easy, convenient and more fluid, yet it doesn't provide anything of real value.

Definitely not 'universal'

I'll just draw a picture.

[Nighthaven-]

Except Destruction's resource generation is directly tied to its filler spells, and Fel Flame's mana cost is punishing in periods of prolonged movement.

Many fight's on heroic (if you've done them, especially the last few, I'm guessing you haven't) have many periods where movement is unavoidable, even if planned for. Cutting down Incinerate usage and substituting for Fel Flame, even with the addition of an extra Dark Soul, can often lead to a DPS loss.

You talk about things in a vacuum as if movement is never an issue, however it is something that needs to be strongly considered in terms of talent choice for optimizing DPS. Many are in agreement that AD offers the highest ceiling, but you cannot base KJC worth on a perfect scenario for a different talent.

Fel Flame still provides equal resource generation, it is not mana sustainable, but you can pair it with managing Conflagrate better.

You seem to be forgetting that a second Dark Soul also boosts resource-generation massively.

KJC still doesn't solve your numerically critical spell: Chaos bolt, you only lose filler(s) - and if you loose chaos-bolt paired with strong fading proc, you didn't have any 'better' time with KJC. and why would you pop Dark Soul when you may move suddenly, especially when you can delay DS with no penalty with AD.

When DS is that critical for any Warlock spec, and you lose incredibly much by not pairing it with the obnoxious strong trinket procs, but you still are forced to cast DS without AD (with the exception of the sync on pull) - those fillers are even less worth.


As for PvE, I've only ever used Demonology for all content and heroics, but I've used the other specs for PvP. KJC is popular for the lesser arena players (as well as PvE), but your filler is not anywhere near dangerous (as it is numerically bad), and that is why all the greater Warlocks pick AD - it wouldn't surprise me if this is also the case for most PvE fights also (that most of the best logs use AD - however I haven't checked this).


- You cannot base KJC worth on forced movement under the worst timings either.

Movement is never that severe that AD is completely useless/ you were delayed for more than 1m30s from popping DS, but the RNG from timing that one DS with KJC can be terribly bad, and it is most likely completely random. You may also never get any relevant use of KJC either.


And when the ceiling of KJC is only comparably high to AD for Destruction only (if it is at all), it isn't a universally strong talent.


@ Jessicka

...and?
That graph is only applicable to Destruction. And why should KJC provide nothing in circumstances when it can't provide a thing? No other class talent does that. Even Druids HoW provides a flat 6% stat.

[Jessicka]

@ Jessicka

...and?
That graph is only applicable to Destruction. And why should KJC provide nothing in circumstances when it can't provide a thing? No other class talent does that. Even Druids HoW provides a flat 6% stat.

It's not only applicable to Destruction; even as Demo with it's better mobility, you can still benefit from it since ToCs for movement are still sub-optimal Fury spend - especially at lower gear levels where Fury is less readily available. I think you're massively overestimating the value of one, single Dark Soul, especially on longer fights toward the end of an instance. And I think we've all experienced the RNG of waiting for that perfect storm of procs to use it on, that never ultimately occured, and just leaving it until the execute.

I agree, perhaps KJC shouldn't have that 0 benefit, but right now MF is mostly that for all specs anyway.

[Xanatas]

any chance that reintroducing fel flame?

[striderZA]

even as Demo with it's better mobility, you can still benefit from it

MF/AD outweighs KJC for demo by a huge margin. Without fel flame it's another story, but still the small amount of Fury gained from casting a minuscule amount of Shadow Bolts over the course of a fight is nothing compared to lining up a second Dark Soul with a strong trinket proc or having MF for bursting down a set of adds.

[Jessicka]

MF/AD outweighs KJC for demo by a huge margin. Without fel flame it's another story, but still the small amount of Fury gained from casting a minuscule amount of Shadow Bolts over the course of a fight is nothing compared to lining up a second Dark Soul with a strong trinket proc or having MF for bursting down a set of adds.

The difference is like 2% on Patchwerk. Is that huge?

[striderZA]

The difference is like 2% on Patchwerk. Is that huge?

Pretty sure that snapshotting an extra 10-stack black blood with Dark Soul coupled with Soul Fire spam / MG / Drain life channeling is more than 2%, unless you're talking 5-6minute+ kills.

[Jessicka]

Pretty sure that snapshotting an extra 10-stack black blood with Dark Soul coupled with Soul Fire spam / MG / Drain life channeling is more than 2%, unless you're talking 5-6minute+ kills.

Right, so it's great on a short fight when you're lucky with procs. I'm pretty sure I'd already made that clear anyway, so I'm not going to dispute that, I'm saying that's the fucking problem with it.