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

[Zharradan]

i'm rerolling if we don't get felflame back. mage looks awesome right now.

[Nerraw]

I can live without fel flame if they actually makes the rest of the class fun again. Right now it's just not fun for me to play.

And no, fun != OP.

[mitbrandir]

cant cast fel flame like a good player would.

A good player would set up things so that they won't have to move a lot at all.

[Deleted]

It's quite funny though that no one has mentioned the main reason why Felflame is needed.
It isn't so much needed as a filler for on the move, it's more needed for it's direct damage and it's instant for stuff like destroying totems etc.
That's the main use for felflame, not providing minimal damage while moving because I agree that especially in PvE casters should learn to minimize movement again, it requires more skill then pressing buttons in the right order and is more fun aswell.

[Nerraw]

It's quite funny though that no one has mentioned the main reason why Felflame is needed.
It isn't so much needed as a filler for on the move, it's more needed for it's direct damage and it's instant for stuff like destroying totems etc.
That's the main use for felflame, not providing minimal damage while moving because I agree that especially in PvE casters should learn to minimize movement again, it requires more skill then pressing buttons in the right order and is more fun aswell.

We've been saying that for a while. I think most of us has just given up on that argument because seemingly no one has been listening.

[saucywench]

As an AD user i find the removal of fel flame very strange. What are we supposed to cast while moving now? Im really just confused wtf are we going to do while moving?

affliction - transformation complete - started with changing into channeling class, then they gave us kjc only to take it away. ele/sp spec
and they want us to cast a dot while moving? is that a freakin joke man? i mean seriously? oh i gotta run spam corruption spam it!

demo - cant move unless its using meta form. this sucks bc you lose all your fury when you have to move. cant cast fel flame like a good player would.
pretty confused about that and what were going to do... i guess not play demo

destro - i actually have no idea what were going to cast while moving... i simply cannot think of something we could be doing... maybe taking a drink of our beer bc the stress of not having fel flame has led us all to be alcoholics

i mean seriously wtf are they thinking?

Pretty much how it was in BC. You'd cast an instant dot or swing your weapon lol

- - - Updated - - -

Is that really still the case for Melee? It seems to me they have no shortage of gap closers and movement speed abilities for PvP and PvE.
That and Hit boxes are generally ginormous now.

And how often are Melee given the job, "Hey, go get that short-lived add 100 yards away."

The running still exists for melee. Just recently returned to my Paladin after years on my hunter and shaman, in SoO even with gap closers and bigger hit boxes I still found myself running around to adds and being out of range for ability targeting.

[Turturin the Warlock]

A good player would set up things so that they won't have to move a lot at all.

Perhaps good players know how to not be targeted by juggernaut barages, foul stream on dark shaman, heroic shockwave on nazgrim, malkorok smashes, siegcrafter sawblades, paragon caustic amber, and on and on?.

You make it sound as though moving a lot and often is a choice in the current raiding environment. In reality it's a requirement dictated by encounter design, not a choice made by bad players.

[Deleted]

I understand there should be a dps penalty for casters when moving. On the other hand, not having anything to press is just plain boring and stupid decision on Blizzard's side.

[Alexieel]

I am totally fine with the removal of Fel Flame. Warlocks were playable and viable before Felflame, and will be playable and viable after Felflame is gone.

And some of you forget - not only we lose mobility, every other caster loses mobility, too.
If you just can refresh your dots, have to spend fury or cast conflag+Rain of fire, other casters just lose as many dps when they move.

I rather have to think about when I have to move, about my positioning to move as little as possible, then just spam Felflame.

[PickleballAce]

And some of you forget - not only we lose mobility, every other caster loses mobility, too.

"every other caster" really only means Shaman. Mage mobility has not been greatly affected, Frost and Fire still have a ton of it. Boomkin and Spriest mobility benefits from the changes to snapshotting.

I rather have to think about when I have to move, about my positioning to move as little as possible, then just spam Felflame.

If you're not thinking about your movement on Live you're doing it wrong. If you're not specced into KJC you should already be limiting your usage of Fel Flame and planting your feet as soon as you can. We're not really raising the skill cap any by removing Fel Flame. It's not reintroducing any behavior that we shouldn't already be familiar with.

[Alexieel]

"every other caster" really only means Shaman. Mage mobility has not been greatly affected, Frost and Fire still have a ton of it. Boomkin and Spriest mobility benefits from the changes to snapshotting.



If you're not thinking about your movement on Live you're doing it wrong. If you're not specced into KJC you should already be limiting your usage of Fel Flame and planting your feet as soon as you can. We're not really raising the skill cap any by removing Fel Flame. It's not reintroducing any behavior that we shouldn't already be familiar with.

So what can Spriest doing during movement? Spam SW:P for minimal damage.
Balance can only spam their one dot and their Starsurge if it procs.
Eles should be able to unleash Elements if not on CD, a Shock if not on CD and instant Lavabursts.
Warlock can cast Rain of Fire, and Conflag for Destro; refresh dots for Affli; "waste" Fury for ToC.

The aspect to destroy totems etc I can only say, that I was fine with my WL in PvP during WotLK and BC, didnt played him in PvP afterwards.

[Jessicka]

I am totally fine with the removal of Fel Flame. Warlocks were playable and viable before Felflame, and will be playable and viable after Felflame is gone.

Except that none of our specs has as many instants as we had prior to FF. ToC is less than ideal for Demo, Demo and Aff both lost instant Shadowbolts from Nightfall/Corruption Glyph, Destro no longer has Doom or Corruption.

And some of you forget - not only we lose mobility, every other caster loses mobility, too.
If you just can refresh your dots, have to spend fury or cast conflag+Rain of fire, other casters just lose as many dps when they move.

Again, as Rethul pointed out, it's only Shaman that have lost out. Mages are largely unchanged, SPriest and Boomkin have actually benefited from changes.

I rather have to think about when I have to move, about my positioning to move as little as possible, then just spam Felflame.

But you do that anyway, because FF is always going to be a loss. It's a completely false argument. The movement FF covers is invariably unplanned and unplannable. There's not even room for Destro to use Globals in planned stutter-stepping.

[A Dark Knight]

Warlocks have always been easy to play, and always will be, like the majority of caster-types. Heck, back in TBC Sunwell all we had to do was apply curse of shadows, and then spam shadowbolt.

tbc locks were easy yes, but i think you forgot demo dragon soul

[Alexieel]

Except that none of our specs has as many instants as we had prior to FF. ToC is less than ideal for Demo, Demo and Aff both lost instant Shadowbolts from Nightfall/Corruption Glyph, Destro no longer has Doom or Corruption.


But you do that anyway, because FF is always going to be a loss. It's a completely false argument. The movement FF covers is invariably unplanned and unplannable. There's not even room for Destro to use Globals in planned stutter-stepping.

Except that you could not count on those 4% (iirc) chance to happend during movement. And since after our 3/2 Dots you could only spam Shadowbolt as Filler for Demo/Affli, you couldnt save those proccs for movement.
Destro lost Doom (what you do not want to refresh, so not ideal for movement) and Corruption, but gained instant Rain of Fire, iirc.

With the AddOn we are going to have a DPS loss if we move for a long time (>2GCDs), right now we have a DPS loss if we move aswell.
The DPS loss might me be higher in the AddOn, but if the rest of the numbers are tuned around this, I do not care. if we go from 70% dps during movement to 0% dps during movement, but in the end we are competive overall, I really dont care.

[Jessicka]

Of course you couldn't, but if you knew you were going to have to be somewhere soon, you would move a few steps while you cast them to be closer to where you needed to be. That's precisely the skill, the planning and the stutter stepping you're talking about. Right now, there are just less opportunities to do that.

[Deleted]

We've been saying that for a while. I think most of us has just given up on that argument because seemingly no one has been listening.

Yep but the flawed PvE arguements still keep on coming while it isn't even a problem there.

[Chickat]

Kil'jaedens Cunning should just reduce damage done by 50% while moving, but making our filler castable on the move.

[lunchbox2042]

It's a general change across the board that caster's are losing the ability to cast while moving. I believe the design philosophy here is to close the gap between wanting to take a ranged and wanting to take a melee.

Unless you're a Boomkin or Mage right?

[DechCJC]

Meh one tiny thing I always do as a caster is make sure i'm auto attacking the boss while i run around it, tiny dps increase but it's something lol.

[luckydevours]

And some of you forget - not only we lose mobility, every other caster loses mobility, too.

I hear this bullshit argument all the time. Let's see why it's actually completly wrong:

So what can Spriest doing during movement? Spam SW:P for minimal damage.

What do you mean that they can spam instant spells for minimal damage ... like something we could do with FF until it was removed? Besides that with the right talents Spriests can become one of the most mobile caster in the game: CoP makes Mind Blast instant, SI procs instant Mind Blast cooldown resets and SoD lets them save up to 3 instant Mind Spike procs. Combined with two instant SW: Ds while executing i think that is plenty to do while moving.

Balance can only spam their one dot and their Starsurge if it procs.

You mean they can also spam something like FF?

And lets not forget mages: All specs have Blink and Blazing Speed for quick movement. Frost has up to three FoF procs (Ice Lance does more damage than FF even without FoF charges now!), instant FFB procs and optional talents like Ice Nova and Comet Storm if all that is not enough. Fire has Inferno Blast (now with two charges), instant Pyroblasts, optional talents like Living Bomb, Blast Wave or Meteor, and if they actually run out of instant casts they can cast Scorch while moving and try to fish for even more Pyro procs. Ice Floes for casting while moving is hardly even needed since Arcane is actually the only spec not equipped with a fuck-ton of instant casts and even they have PoM and Arcane Barrage from time to time.

Eles should be able to unleash Elements if not on CD, a Shock if not on CD and instant Lavabursts.
Warlock can cast Rain of Fire, and Conflag for Destro; refresh dots for Affli; "waste" Fury for ToC.

So it's actually down to warlocks and Ele shamans who got their mobility nerfed and have to rely on rotational cooldowns or dot refreshes now to deal damage while moving while other specs like Frost, Fire or Shadow have become more mobile than they were ever before. And you say to us that you cannot see the double standard here?!

The aspect to destroy totems etc I can only say, that I was fine with my WL in PvP during WotLK and BC, didnt played him in PvP afterwards.

I couldn't believe but there is now a spec in the game which has no instant direct damage spell at all and which has to spend precious resources to even deal direct damage, and this spec is Affliction!