Why can't we play any way we want?

[Deleted]

I was thinking the other day how talents were supposed to be a matter of choice. A matter of what you enjoy the most.

Why isn't that the case?

My attention turns particulary to Grimoire Tier and lvl 100 tier.

Let me give you an example.

I love to play petless affli. Not because I don't like pets, but because to me, affli always seemed the least "demony" and playing it without a pet seems natural to me. So why can't I play with GoSac? They are perfectly capable of balancing the grimoirs, so why can't they balance the grimoire so we could just pick whatever we like?

Another example to me is Destro. For some reason, I feel Cataclysm is "The Destro" spell and I like how it fits with the overall kit of Destro both thematically and functionally. However, if I took Cataclysm to a boss fight, I'd get booted out of a raid and rightfully so. They scrapped the old talent system, because it didn't provide any choice what so ever. Yet here we are, two exapansions later and there is no choice once again.

It's either you will take this Grimoire or gimp your DPS, or in the second case, you will rely with 25% of your DPS on absolutely boring and horrible looking pet (granted, I like playing Destro with Imp.. but again, there is no choice). Demonic Servitude is all around very problematic talent and ideally, it should have never existed. It is so flawed, that not only it kills and possibility of choice - you can't choose any other talent if you don't want to severly gimp yourself. But what's even worse you can't even choose any other pet - and moreso, not only you can't choose any other pet than those provided with this talent, you can't even choose the Infernal, because he is simply inferior to Doomguard.

Essentialy, we have been given a Demonology core spell in the form of a talent. It works exactly the same as Summon Felguard works for Demonology. It's like hunter getting a 100 lvl talent that allows them to have a better pet as a Marksman than as Beastmaster.

I don't know why they even came up with this talent, whether it was laziness or a fan service, but it was in any case a greek gift.

I don't want to use Doomguard as Destro.. hell, I dont want to use him at all. For some reason, Infernal is the "fun pet" to me, but Doomguard is just plain boring.

I'm curious as to how they intend to rebalance the 100 lvl tier and if they ever allow as to go petless if we choose so.

[Nadiru]

The short answer is that blizzard doesn't want you to play a single spec through a raid. They want you to respec to suit the upcoming fight.

[Terahertz]

The short answer is that blizzard doesn't want you to play a single spec through a raid. They want you to respec to suit the upcoming fight.

Unrelated to warlocks, but why does blizzard want this playstyle? It seems really stupid and quite frankly I freaking hate it. I'd go as far as to make it so you have to go to your class trainer in order to swap out talents. It just seems stupid to me.

[Fanatik]

I was thinking the other day how talents were supposed to be a matter of choice. A matter of what you enjoy the most.

Why isn't that the case?

Because that is not the case. Talents are just tools to get the job done. Sure the passive talents aren't really "fun" but neither is pressing a button once a minute or two.

My attention turns particulary to Grimoire Tier and lvl 100 tier.

Let me give you an example.

<snip>

So there isn't a use for GoSac in this tier, but I'm sure their will be an encounter will you will be able to use it. I've used every Grimoire except Sac/Syn in highmaul. Choices can still be made.

Another example to me is Destro. For some reason, I feel Cataclysm is "The Destro" spell and I like how it fits with the overall kit of Destro both thematically and functionally. However, if I took Cataclysm to a boss fight, I'd get booted out of a raid and rightfully so. They scrapped the old talent system, because it didn't provide any choice what so ever. Yet here we are, two exapansions later and there is no choice once again.

If you get kicked in a group over your talent choices, learn from it by making a better decision based on the encounter and move on. If you felt you made the right decision, consider it a blessing you were kicked and move on. There are times where cataclysm is really nice (koragh adds can usually be tanked in a predictable spot as long as your tank knows where the last suppression field was placed, or brackenspore fungus if you are light on melee since its spawn location is typically on the stacked raid) but the encounters right now just aren't designed for 3-6 targets for it to be able to shine

It's either you will take this Grimoire or gimp your DPS, or in the second case, you will rely with 25% of your DPS on absolutely boring and horrible looking pet (granted, I like playing Destro with Imp.. but again, there is no choice). Demonic Servitude is all around very problematic talent and ideally, it should have never existed. It is so flawed, that not only it kills and possibility of choice - you can't choose any other talent if you don't want to severly gimp yourself. But what's even worse you can't even choose any other pet - and moreso, not only you can't choose any other pet than those provided with this talent, you can't even choose the Infernal, because he is simply inferior to Doomguard.

Take the grimoire that does the job. GoServ is really nice when you want to exploit windows of damage (koragh recharge or helping take down the shield faster). GoSup for those fights involving nonavoidable movement (imperator). GoSac for turreting. GoSyn for fights that give haste mechanics such as brackenspore blue shrooms. The argument of infernal vs doomguard doesn't hold water either. Solo'ing the infernal is nice with gosup (combined with flames of xoroth for the lay on hands on death, never losing threat). I could see gosup infernal being strong in CM's on those massive first pulls as it also provides an aoe stun. Again, it's about using the right tool for the right job.

Essentialy, we have been given a Demonology core spell in the form of a talent. It works exactly the same as Summon Felguard works for Demonology. It's like hunter getting a 100 lvl talent that allows them to have a better pet as a Marksman than as Beastmaster.

The grimoire tier is about where do you want your dmg to come from, yourself, your pet (passive or on-demand), or both. It is not always the case that GoSup will be the choice to make. I personally took Serv this week on koragh because we were heavy on magic sources and were far enough ahead on the shield to warrant more damage on during the recharge. I took Demon Bolt + GoServ just to help our guild get through the phase 3 aberrations faster on imperator heroic.

I don't know why they even came up with this talent, whether it was laziness or a fan service, but it was in any case a greek gift.

I don't want to use Doomguard as Destro.. hell, I dont want to use him at all. For some reason, Infernal is the "fun pet" to me, but Doomguard is just plain boring.

I'm curious as to how they intend to rebalance the 100 lvl tier and if they ever allow as to go petless if we choose so.

If you don't want to use it, then don't. But understand that it has a purpose and if the encounter design can benefit from that choice, you should probably go with it. When they first introduced DServ as a possible 100 talent, everyone knew it would be strong if they were going to keep KJC neutered. It is a fine talent but probably wouldn't be used as much if they would just reduce the summoning cooldown on the non-dserv versions. I also don't see how the infernal is any different than the doomguard. At 4+ cleave targets that are grouped for a significant period time, you substitute dg for inf. Utility goes from a single target interrupt to a multitarget stun. /Yawn.

Now lets get back to the real issues of this class, banish and enslave being useless (especially after today's aberration hotfix).

[Orloth]

The short answer is that blizzard doesn't want you to play a single spec through a raid. They want you to respec to suit the upcoming fight.

Which isn't actually the reason (even if it were true, which I also doubt).

The actual short answer is that it is impossible to have everything perfectly balanced in performance without also making it exactly the same mechanically. If you want the specs to just be recolors of the same rotation, and the Grimoires to just be reskins on the same Demon (not even demons at that point, as they would all do the same thing) then you could have anything you wanted and it wouldn't matter to balance. But in order for Affliction to be the Dot spec, it needs to also be good at things that Dot specs are good at.

With that said, the talents (accept for the 100 tier, but they've said that will be looked at for 6.1) are all balanced close enough that unless you are in the top percentile of play, you CAN play what you want.