Removal of fel flame (what are we supposed to cast now?)

[Jessicka]

Hardly, I remember DS/Ruin in TBC, I had a curse and life tap I could use on the move, that's about it. Did not affect our meters topping that much, we just had to optimize movement.

You could also press Corruption, Agony.

WoTLK was the same really, except I raided as Demo there (which was pretty awesome as long as you don't suck). And it definitely did not have many tools for movement there either.

Nightfall procs from Glyph of Corruption, Corruption itself, Doom, Life Tap.

Both much longer lists than Destruction's 'Conflagrate, Rain of Fire'.

All those tiers put together had far less movement than Hans and Franz and the Railyard have between them.

Also I am on heroic blackfuse ATM, and again, I claim that apart from Sha, you don't have a fight with real serious movement in SoO.

That's why you've taken this long to get to it. I quit raiding at that point nearly 6 months ago before 4/4 upgrades. Sha is actually pretty light. Enjoy Klaxxi though if you're raiding 25s.

[Deleted]

To be fair, the final 3 are the ones with some of the most movement and the ones I would almost always take kjc on.

[Gaidax]

You could also press Corruption, Agony.


Nightfall procs from Glyph of Corruption, Corruption itself, Doom, Life Tap.

Both much longer lists than Destruction's 'Conflagrate, Rain of Fire'.

All those tiers put together had far less movement than Hans and Franz and the Railyard have between them.


That's why you've taken this long to get to it. I quit raiding at that point nearly 6 months ago before 4/4 upgrades. Sha is actually pretty light. Enjoy Klaxxi though if you're raiding 25s.

Corruption had cast time in TBC (unless you took improved corruption talent which was suboptimal) and Agony would overwrite Doom, so nopes.

WoTLK corruption and life tap as demo and that's it (would not want to overwrite buffed Doom and glyph is unreliable at best), so again no.

Again you are making lack of Fel Flame a gigantic issue, while it's not. Throughout history we managed just fine without it and we will keep doing it just fine. And if you want to tell me TBC and WoTLK raids did not require movement, I'll laugh at you.

And don't push me on my progress, I am not soloing stuff there and our guild is taking it slow and nice with two times per week raiding and three weeks of vacation we took recently.

[Baconeggcheese]

Also I am on heroic blackfuse ATM, and again, I claim that apart from Sha, you don't have a fight with real serious movement in SoO.

I killed heroic garrosh 25m on november 1st 2013, I used kjc on a bunch of fights.

Even now when we 3 hour clear on farm I actually just leave KJC on all the time out of laziness.

Again you are making lack of Fel Flame a gigantic issue, while it's not. Throughout history we managed just fine without it and we will keep doing it just fine. And if you want to tell me TBC and WoTLK raids did not require movement, I'll laugh at you..

I'm not sure if jess changed her tone on this but I believe she was with us before in that nobody is complaining about our damage capability without a spell to cast while moving. We're complaining because mechanically it feels horrible. I do not want to go back to the days of pretty much having nothing to cast with some of thee most movement heavy fights I have ever seen coming up in WoD.

[Crisius]

Also I am on heroic blackfuse ATM, and again, I claim that apart from Sha, you don't have a fight with real serious movement in SoO.

Oh, so you're the one consistently wiping the raid by dropping bad sawblades and not running away with the laser?

I'd argue that KJC is a necessity, or at least an high to extreme DPS increase under most circumstances, on fights like Sha of Pride, Dark Shamans (stacking specifically), Malkorok, Siegecrafter, Paragons & Garrosh. Trying to argue anything else just shows you're plain ignorant.

And as said in above post, wanting fel flame back is not as much about losing DPS - DPS can be tuned. It's about extended periods of movement where you really have nothing to cast whatsoever. It does not feel good to simply run. I'd rather they lowered destruction standstill DPS (not that it's not already low enough) and gave us a low-damage filler to cast on the move instead.

[Jessicka]

Corruption had cast time in TBC (unless you took improved corruption talent which was suboptimal) and Agony would overwrite Doom, so nopes.

WoTLK corruption and life tap as demo and that's it (would not want to overwrite buffed Doom and glyph is unreliable at best), so again no.

You cast them in your rotation allowing you to stutter step. If you don't want to include Doom/Agony or Nightfall procs then you can exclude Conflagrate from the list for Destruction because that should be on cooldown.

Again you are making lack of Fel Flame a gigantic issue, while it's not. Throughout history we managed just fine without it and we will keep doing it just fine. And if you want to tell me TBC and WoTLK raids did not require movement, I'll laugh at you.

And don't push me on my progress, I am not soloing stuff there and our guild is taking it slow and nice with two times per week raiding and three weeks of vacation we took recently.

I was only raiding 3 nights...

As Bacon points out though, the issue isn't so much about damage; I explained a couple of pages back why each spec isn't so badly effected by not pressing a button:

- Affliction has good mobility because it's a DoT heavy spec, and has quite a few instants in it's rotation.
- Demonology has decent mobility if you don't piss too much Fury away on spamming ToC during movement; but it does have that option for light movement.
- Destruction lacks many instants, but has some wiggle room thanks to being energy based.
- All specs have pets to contribute a portion of their damage even while the player is inactive.

Mobility isn't completely horrible in any spec, much of the issue is with 'play feel', being put into situations where there just isn't a button to press. A complaint Moonkin and SPriests have made (also DoT specs!) and the developers responded by giving them a button to press in those situations.

So I'm well aware of what we have "built in" to mitigate the effects of movement. Destruction could conceivably benefit from higher mana costs or slower regen to make mana management more of a 'thing' and use some downtime to run and regen. But the simple fact is that the mana regen ended up where it is because until it reached the point it is at now, players were bitching about empty globals. Empty globals the spec gets when you're dodging trains while trying to keep Fury pooled for AoE. Empty globals where you already have RoF up and Conflag on cooldown while you're running from conveyor to conveyor. Empty globals when you have everything dotted up, a full mana bar but need to go stack on 'star'. Empty globals on a class played as global capped for 10 years.

Fel Flame does not, did not, would not, and is not expected to allow 100% dps on the move. KJC actually doesn't allow that either on Live. We'd still lose DPS from moving suboptimally. But it would feel a lot less punishing - even though it's probably not as punishing as it feels anyway.

[PickleballAce]

Even if we didn't "need" something like Fel Flame, part of why many of us are upset is that Blizzard has seen fit to let virtually every other caster have something spammable on the move.

If we don't need it, why do they? When specs like Frost and Fire have spammable mobility spells AND a plethora of instant cast procs AND their own KJC (with less of an opportunity cost), I don't see anything wrong with us requesting Fel Flame.

Affliction's DoT counterparts in Shadow and Balance not only share that advantage of having DoTs tick while they move, they've got direct damage attached to a DoT as well as their own instant cast procs (see a theme there?) for mobility.

[fguru482]

Even if we didn't "need" something like Fel Flame, part of why many of us are upset is that Blizzard has seen fit to let virtually every other caster have something spammable on the move.

If we don't need it, why do they? When specs like Frost and Fire have spammable mobility spells AND a plethora of instant cast procs AND their own KJC (with less of an opportunity cost), I don't see anything wrong with us requesting Fel Flame.

Affliction's DoT counterparts in Shadow and Balance not only share that advantage of having DoTs tick while they move, they've got direct damage attached to a DoT as well as their own instant cast procs (see a theme there?) for mobility.

I havent played much of anything besides a warlock. I wasnt aware that other classes had a fel flame ability to use. That makes me even more upset and confused about the removal of ff.

I just try to focus on locks. It just feels right to have ff. Its like its a part of our race.

Destro is basically a mage with warlock aoe and a cpl portals. Although for some reason warlocks are unable to teleport which has always dumbfounded me.

[PickleballAce]

I tried to put together a list of spells that each caster has in their kit to aid damage on the move, with some caveats included. Obviously there is a great deal of subjectivity here. I tweeted this to Celestalon, so hopefully he gets it.

Let me know if I missed anything.

This is a list comparing "Damage on the move" abilities amongst Caster DPS in Warlords of Draenor.  I've tried
to make this list inclusive and unbiased, but there are inherently a lot of differing opinions over what constitutes 
"mobility".  Feel free to tear me apart.

Hunters are not included, but are obviously in their own world in terms of mobility.

Spells that actively contribute damage or facilitate those that actively contribute damage are emphasized, 
hence the omission of spells like refreshing group buffs, crowd control, offheals/dispels, and survivability
cooldowns, etc.

Cooldown spells limited to two minutes or less.

Short range effects like Cone of Cold/Dragon's Breath/Arcane Explosion/Frost Nova/Hellfire are not included.

Melee swings are (obviously) not included.

Character-moving spells like Blink, Displacer Beast, Demonic Circle: Teleport are not included.

Permanent minions like Totems, Demons, and Elementals are not included.

I'm less concerned about the overall volume of abilities that each class has, and more concerned about the 
overall effectiveness.  Compare a single filler spell that is spammable vs. three instant cast spells each on a
long cooldown.  The latter has the advantage of volume, while the former may actually be more effective.  
There are talents included in the same tier which may appear to increase the volume of options, but are 
obviously mutually-exclusive.

[*] = Spells marked with this can more-or-less be cast infinitely on the move and include a direct damage
component.


DRUID - BALANCE
[*]Moonfire: spammable DoT with direct damage component.
Starsurge: instant w/ charges. 
Shooting Stars: proc adds charge to Starsurge.
Starfall: instant cast, 10 second recharge.
Force of Nature Treants: level 60 talent


MAGE - ARCANE
Fire Blast: instant cast direct damage, 8 second cooldown.
Arcane Barrage: instant cast direct damage, 3 second cooldown, consumes Arcane Charges.
Presence of Mind: Causes next spell to be instant, 90 second cooldown.
Ice Floes: level 15 talent, allows casting while moving based on charges.
Nether Tempest: level 75 talent, target-limited DoT.
   or
Supernova: level 75 talent, instant cast AoE direct damage, charge-based.
Mirror Image: level 90 talent, instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Arcane Orb: level 100 talent, instant cast, 15 second cooldown.


MAGE - FIRE
[*]Scorch: spammable direct damage spell, 1.5 second cast and can be cast while moving.
Inferno Blast: instant cast direct damage.
Pyroblast!: procs instant cast Pyroblast.
Combustion: instant cast, 45 second cooldown.
Ice Floes: level 15 talent, allows casting while moving based on charges.
Living Bomb: level 75 talent, spammable DoT.
   or
Blast Wave: level 75 talent, instant cast AoE direct damage, charge-based.
Mirror Image: level 90 talent, instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Meteor: level 100 talent, instant cast, 45 second cooldown


MAGE - FROST
[*]Ice Lance: spammable direct damage.
Frozen Orb: 1 minute cooldown.
Fire Blast: instant cast direct damage, 8 second cooldown.
Brain Freeze: procs instant cast Frostfire Bolts.
Ice Floes: level 15 talent, allows casting while moving based on charges.
Ice Nova: level 75 talent, instant cast AoE direct damage, charge-based.
Mirror Image: level 90 talent, instant cast, 2 minute cooldown.
Comet Storm: level 100 talent, instant cast, 30 second cooldown


PRIEST - SHADOW
[*]Shadow Word Pain: spammable DoT with direct damage component.
Devouring Plague: resource consuming DoT with direct damage component.
Shadowy Apparitions: essentially a DoT attached to Shadow Word Pain.
Shadow Word Death: instant cast direct damage, 8 second cooldown, requires execute range.
Surge of Darkness: level 45 talent, procs instant cast Mind Spikes.
   or
Mindbender: level 45 talent, reduces Shadowfiend cooldown to 60 seconds.
Shadowy Insight: level 75 talent, procs instant cast Mind Blasts.
Cascade: level 90 talent, 25 second cooldown.
   or
Divine Star: level 90 talent, 15 second cooldown.
   or 
Halo: level 90 talent, 40 second cooldown.


SHAMAN - ELEMENTAL
Earth/Flame/Frost Shock: instant cast DoT or direct damage, shared 6 second cooldown.
Lava Surge: proc that allows instant Lava Burst casts.
Unleash Flame: instant, increases damage of next fire spell.
Spiritwalker's Grace: 2 minute cooldown, allows casting on the move for 15 seconds.
Ancestral Swiftness: level 60 talent, next cast becomes instant, 90 second cooldown.
Liquid Magma: level 100 talent. Empowers totem, 45 second cooldown.


WARLOCK - AFFLICTION
Corruption: spammable DoT with no direct damage.
Agony: spammable DoT with no direct damage.
Soul Swap: resource consuming DoT application
Kiljaeden's Cunning:  level 90 talent, 1 minute cooldown, allows casting on the move for 8 seconds.


WARLOCK - DEMONOLOGY
Corruption: spammable DoT with no direct damage.
Doom: resource consuming DoT with no direct damage.
Hand of Guldan: instant cast, 15 second recharge.
Touch of Chaos: instant cast, resource consuming direct damage.
Kiljaeden's Cunning:  level 90 talent, 1 minute cooldown, allows casting on the move for 8 seconds.


WARLOCK - DESTRUCTION
Conflagrate: instant cast, 12 second recharge
Rain of Fire: instant cast, 6 second AoE DoT
Shadowburn: instant cast, requires burning embers and execute range
Kiljaeden's Cunning:  level 90 talent, 1 minute cooldown, allows casting on the move for 8 seconds.

http://pastebin.com/DvGU03Sv

[fguru482]

Thats all great. But for me taking kjc isnt an option.

Also ele shamans losing their ability to lightning while moving? News to me

Maybe they plan on not making ridiculous fights like heroic sha. That wouldnt upset me bc those types of fights arent fun to me.

God they didnt even have a patchwerk fight the entire fucking expansion. Unreal man.

[PickleballAce]

Thats all great. But for me taking kjc isnt an option.

Also ele shamans losing their ability to lightning while moving? News to me

Maybe they plan on not making ridiculous fights like heroic sha. That wouldnt upset me bc those types of fights arent fun to me.

God they didnt even have a patchwerk fight the entire fucking expansion. Unreal man.

Ele Shaman did indeed lose mobile lightning bolt. The "replacement" for it is a re-worked Unleash Flame but that's nothing more than a short CD that doesn't do any damage of its own. I believe the Shocks are still on a shared cooldown so they don't have a ton of options.

I can't dig it up now, but several months ago Celestalon responded to someone on twitter and the gist of it was that the expectation of them making fights require less mobility was a misunderstanding in the community, so I wouldn't expect them to reverse the direction of more dynamic fights.

That list only goes over the basics, since I'd assume Celestalon is familiar with exactly how the spells actually function.

Most striking to me, not surprisingly, are the options available to Fire and especially Frost Mages. Spammable casts on the move AND powerful instant procs AND Ice Floes AND a number of instant cast talents. They'd have to add Fel Flame and more just to get us to that level. Even Arcane is decent other than the fact that they'll probably still be tethered to their Rune of Power.

Boomkin and Spriest are more limited but they still have spammable instants that do direct damage, which goes a long way toward making a spec feel at least somewhat useful on helter skelter even if Shadow Word: Pain is about as dull as it gets.

Looking at that list, I really don't see why Fel Flame is so offensive an idea now. Aff and Destro are so underwhelming.

[Jessicka]

Thats all great. But for me taking kjc isnt an option.

Why not exactly? I am genuinely curious.

[Deleted]

Why not exactly? I am genuinely curious.

Alergic to demons I guess?

[Jessicka]

An epic tail of Warlock mobility... http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13923622375

The class as a whole, pets and resources
First off, the class is a pet class, this offers a distinct advantage off the bat; our minion or minions will happily keep on hitting things just so long as it's in range and not invulnerable. Something many players will find themselves struggling to do for a variety of reasons, from encounter mechanics, to sneezing fits. It's baseline damage right there, and it is going to happen.

Secondly, all our specs are heavily tied in to secondary resources, with huge flexibility in when and how to spend them; and spend them while we're dodging Annihilates is not that time. That means significant spikes of our damage are happening when we can plant ourselves, safe in the knowledge that MCs have already gone out and there's a good few seconds until the next time DBM is going to yell "Run away little girl". By contrast, less is there to be lost during filler-spam time if a Sawblade does land on me.

One might suggest the very basis of our mechanics lend ourselves to being pretty forgiving towards movement and other mechanics that prevent us dealing damage. And I'd agree, but some specs fair better than others.

Affliction, best of the best
Always has, always will shine with high movement. It has both the advantages above, and a lot of damage rolled into DoTs, which will keep on ticking even while you're asleep, so long as you don't snooze too long.

Also, with Corruption, Agony, Life Tap in its rotation, there's a good amount of opportunity for good old fashioned 'stutter step' movement during globals.

Lastly, overwhelmingly its resources come from Corruption ticks, which is instant cast and will provide returns while moving, so it can spend them best while its planted to make best use of spiking Haunt/Drain Soul bonuses stacking during those times.

Demonology, solid for light movement, wasteful for heavier times
As with Affliction; theres good solid basal damage from DoTs, Shadowflame (now I believe officially Hand of Gul'dan, but I will continue to refer to it by its old name such to prevent confusion with the missile that delivers it), Corruption, Doom. And of course there's the menagerie of minions; Our Fel/Wrathguard, our Doomguard/Infernal, and all those Wild Imps.

These also return a lot of our Demonic Fury, which we will want to spend primarily on Demonbolts and Soul Fires. However, Shadow bolt is still also a major contributor of this resource, so moving around does actually serve to make this more scarce.

There are a number of instants at our disposal in our rotation; Hand of Gul'dan, Corruption, Doom, Life Tap. And uniquely the spec has Demonic Leap. So there's room for some of that stutter-stepping, and at a pinch, a big jump to cover a big chunk of ground inside a global.

There's also the much vaunted Touch of Chaos. We can use this in Meta, it's instant cast and spammable. It's fine for light movement, however this is not normally an ideal use of a limited resource that's being made more limited by the fact you're moving and not using Shadow Bolt. You really don't want to waste it then find when you can plant and pop your cooldowns, that there's none left for Demonbolt/Soul Fire.

But when you can plant and spend those resources, that is when so much damage is going to happen.

Destruction, poor, but misunderstood
Unlike Affliction and Demonology, very little of its damage and resources come from Immolate, the specs only DoT.

Most damage comes from Chaos Bolt, and most resources from Incinerate.

The only scope for stutter-stepping is Conflagrate, which has a 1 second GCD.

On the face of it, this makes for utterly terrible mobility.

The "ace" it has is that it's Energy driven, so "in theory" there's time below 100% mana to be moving without loss. In practice, the regeneration rate is so high that the actual room for movement with this is tiny.

Again though, such a high proportion of damage comes from Chaos Bolt which even on Live you can only use while planted, that technically, so long as resources are there, you shouldn't suffer too much with light movement.

The problem comes with heavy movement when you end up Mana capped and are generating zero Embers.

Talents
We have one talent to boost movement speed, Burning Rush, which costs a lot of health - I would not recommend using this in dungeons with an undergeared healer. Otherwise, I like it and wouldn't use anything else on that row unless healers were seriously slacking with dispels.

And we have one ability that allows us some limited time to cast while moving. Kil'Jaeden's Cunning. I feel like this is getting a seriously bad press from some quarters, which is grossly unfair. Anyone whos played a Shaman will know exactly what sorts of fights, and where exactly on those fights they're going to press Spirit Walker's Grace - and that won't always be macroed with Ascendence. I can see macroing KJC with Dark Soul will be popular though, but I don't think we need to argue too much over how optimal that will be - sometimes ideal, sometimes stupid.

For the first time, Warlocks will have an aggressive mobility button, it will take time for players to adjust to it. It is though, situational, and that's the rub; we're not yet in the content to see the situations properly, so its hard to see where a new ability is going to fit in. Just take a look at the initial reaction to Demonic Gateway; in retrospect it proved useful, albeit situationally.

Overall, I'm quite positive about it.

But I still feel like we need Fel Flame back
In spite of all of this, for the first time in 4 years we'll be without a reactive mobility button. Something to hit when you're targetted by Shadow Crash, and KJC would be wasted and probably wanted for a different phase.

It might even be argued that we have fewer buttons to press than in the past for pre-emptive movement; Affliction and Demonology no longer has instant Shadow Bolt procs to offer moments of stutter stepping; Destruction lacks Corruption and Life Tap for that same planned movement.

For Destruction and Demonology though, the main issue is about resources rather than damage while moving. As I noted above, pooling resources for when we can plant ourselves and concentrate damage is an important part of all of our specs. If we can't at the very least maintain nominal resource generation while moving, it also follows that it hurts us when we do get the opportunity to plant ourselves; so it's a double hit - less damage while we move, less resources to deal damage when we don't need to.

Affliction has a different issue in that it otherwise entirely lacks a direct damage spell; you don't want to DoT up your friend while they're Mind Controled, and several encounters, especially dungeons, have 'totem' mechanics to which DoTs and Channels cannot be applied. In that respect I'd actually happily take Searing Pain back as a cast-time higher DPS alternative due to the different needs of the spec; but Fel Flame all around just seems less messy.

Those are very practical reasons. But there's also the 'fun' reason; it just feels lame to be put in a situation where your only option is to run and forget your rotation.

[Grizelda]

I'm thinking that we are beating a dead horse.

Someone at Blizz has a vision and they are set on it.

[Nerraw]

Someone not playing a warlock for the past two-three expansions.

[mordale]

I'm thinking that we are beating a dead horse.

Someone at Blizz has a vision and they are set on it.

what for us to suck ass on any fight like the current ones?
a proactive mobility effect is useless in most cases.
KJC is functionally useless now thanks to being against AD.

we need some form of reactive mobile offense, whether that being returning KJC to its live function or returning FF, cause the fights in WoD continue the trend of "move or die" style random character-targeting AoEs.

[Baconeggcheese]

I'm thinking that we are beating a dead horse.

Someone at Blizz has a vision and they are set on it.

^This, which is why I haven't really been hounding celestalon or anything.

The only 3 really egregious things I think should really get changed at this point is KJC's mechanics as that design is obviously flawed from past abilities doing the same thing. And SB haunt / SS because improved soulfire mechanics still aren't compelling gameplay and having to use two shards on either is ridiculous.

It'd also be nice if they gave charred remains +1 max ember but that would be icing.

[fguru482]

Alergic to demons I guess?

Haha mista u sooo funnnnyyyy!!!

The alternative isnt demons anyways?

Ad is op right now. Also it offers freedom to burst whenever you want

Helps for soloing eng on heroic garrosh altho i dont always need it

Warlocks were given like 7 shields so standing in shit isnt always bad for locks. Its the shit that kills you ya gotta move for and that my friend is when we need fel flame

Gg

- - - Updated - - -

^This, which is why I haven't really been hounding celestalon or anything.

The only 3 really egregious things I think should really get changed at this point is KJC's mechanics as that design is obviously flawed from past abilities doing the same thing. And SB haunt / SS because improved soulfire mechanics still aren't compelling gameplay and having to use two shards on either is ridiculous.

It'd also be nice if they gave charred remains +1 max ember but that would be icing.

They are completely ignoring this issue. We have to keep complaining or we wont ever get it back. Thats how blizz works bud.

[Crisius]

They are completely ignoring this issue. We have to keep complaining or we wont ever get it back. Thats how blizz works bud.

I wish I could argue against this, but it's been proven time and time again that the only way to make Blizzard realise the flaws of their re-imaginings is to either complain or simply wait until they see the warlock populations dramatic drop when their changes go live.

Unless they simply tune warlock damage to be incredibly high and one of the most worthwhile classes to be brought to mythic raiding, I don't see much of a point in bringing warlocks in Warlords. Gateways are nerfed, healthstones are nerfed, mobility is nerfed. Hopefully cleave and aoe will stay good, but that might aswell end up in bringing warlocks to cleave-encounters and just sitting them out on any fight where mages would be better suited. (High healing requirements, mobility fights)

I may be overly pessimistic, and I won't argue we, or I, know any specifics without further tuning. But I do have a bad impression of how locks are gonna play out for now.