[BETA] Demonology Warlock Discussion

[Baconeggcheese]

I guess here is a point where I am confused on, and you can try to enlighten me. How does a talent that says Doom ticks spawn 2 Imps not imply extra damage for AoE? I found that row to have a fairly intuitive choice between passive AoE damage increase via Multidotting and active AoE from pressing Implosion.

Do you find multidotting and parsing its gains unintuitive?

The Inquisitor row I do think is valid, it is more difficult to parse that Demonbolt does more damage with more targets since that isn't a direct mechanic. Demonic Servitude should be a more clear passive AoE choice, but most likely isn't because many players aren't used to using the Infernal.

Doom Isn't aoe (without a talent that modifies another spell), so I'm not sure why a new player is expected to look at a doom talent and think *oh, that's an aoe talent* and not *oh, that's a multi-dot talent*. Not to mention the point that imps are again not aoe until modified by either a talent or an artifact trait.

You'd be surprised how multi-dotting in and of itself isn't intuitive to many people as well. It's not exactly uncommon for a fairly new player to an mmo to get so caught up in trying to figure out their spells and talents etc that it never even occurs to them that the can have a dot running on 2+ targets at the same time. That's something I can live with though, as its a simple enough concept to get where they won't need to alt tab and look up a guide to understand it.

[Zinnin]

You're comparing a major 3 minute DPS cooldown that will have a significant impact on the encounter, with a few seconds of filler?

The use case of both of those and the way players discover the difference is the exact same. At X targets button A does more damage than button B, I don't find having to make the decision between Demonwrath and Shadow Bolt difficult more murky, and I feel the same way about Doomguard and Infernal, especially now that the duration is lower and there is a good chance what I'm AoEing isn't going to be dead for the majority of the duration of the Infernal.

[Gnarilex]

DE changes they said they were going to make are in as well. No charges or cooldown. Still has a 1.5 second cast time.

[Novx]

You're missing the point entirely. The game really isn't punishing you for making a wrong decision. You'll muddle through with those few percent losses 'because they have a cool aesthetic', and it won't do you any harm; that's not discovery. It's catering to a tiny, minute proportion of players, at your level where there's scope for discovery; for most, there aren't enough hours in the week to 'still be learning' when 99% of the information is on this very forum.

Below that level, you then join LFR, or an LFD raid or dungeon with your Infernal out, someone else is going to tell you eventually. And even if you ignore them, if the differences are so small, how are you going to discover and see the difference from one fight to the next wasn't a better group shortening the fight, getting a set bonus, or switching to the Doomguard. Again, that's not really discovery, that's probably just kidding yourself, waiting for your preferred talent to shine, accidentally or otherwise. The only way you'll learn it doesn't work is when it clearly doesn't work, and then you'll look at it and think, as myself and Bacon do, "this is stupid". You don't have room for smoke and mirrors anymore.

And yes. You damn well should remove the Infernal "decision" since it's only been one once, in Heart of Fear as I recall, since you made it one. And that was mostly for the Infernal Awakening impact which as far as I'm aware no longer exists in Legion - it wasn't even the fucking pet that did it. It just makes the Infernal feel redundant and pointless, and a stupid waste of a keybind while we wait for a niche where it works. It was never, ever a good idea.

I am genuinely confused by your argument. By your logic Blizzard and the design team should make it impossible for a player, regardless of skill level, to make poor decisions. There are going to be wrong talents and abilities and to a degree it is a players choice to inform him/herself and make the right decisions and there is going to be a point where players go "hey, wait, this infernal sucks ass I should use a doomguard instead" and while I agree it can be mildly infuriating at times to see a lot of people making these small mistakes it doesn't mean that they should just make it so only 1 build exists. Talent synergy is something that is important in my opinion and when you end up with so many offensive talent tiers as we have in the current iteration of Alpha there are going to be a lot of people trying different things in order to see what is best. Keep in mind that just because we are the 1% of players that heavily theory-craft our classes and want to push the most efficient damage (and this goes for a large majority of various class forums be it here, IV, or the official forums, that doesn't mean that we are the majority. Yes, we understand that certain talents (ie: Soul Harvest) as Demo are just not well designed currently and that it isn't going to be the talent that we go to all the time...or ever....probably ever....but another player may like using it despite how flawed it is. That doesn't make it the right choice but the important thing is that if a player, let's call him John, if John decides "I want to use Soul Harvest" they need to make sure that SH isn't so bad that it is the equivalent of Mannoroths Fury as Destruction in Siege of Orgrimmar last expansion or the talent that came before Archimonde's Darkness that for the life of me I can't remember currently in ToT.

If an ability such as Infernal exists and is a 5-10% damage loss in most scenarios that is perfectly fine in my opinion because it means that over time as an average player learns more about his or her class that means they will evolve how they play by doing things like swapping to Doomguard and understanding more things like proper talent optimization.

My biggest concern going into Legion is that talents need to not be more than a 2-4% damage gap between each one and that gap can't increase much beyond that because of how many offensive talents we are going to have. If you have 5 talent tiers where there is a 2-4% damage gap between optimal and sub-optimal talents (so for the sake of math lets use 3% as a base) you are only ending up with a 15% damage loss from talents and to be honest with all things considered that isn't that bad. There are going to be people who choose talents like DemServ over Demonbolt because it is something that is a lot more passive and it lets them not need to worry about maintaining optimal pet usage but the important thing is to make sure that rather than hurting players who choose to play worse talents they need to reward players who can use "harder" talents and abilities but not by too much so as to not make entire talents dead. In a perfect world we would have a talent for ST, a talent for Cleave and a talent for AoE but that isn't always going to happen because this game isn't black and white.

I personally couldn't care less if Blizzard were to come out tomorrow and go "We are removing Infernals", honestly it wouldn't matter to me because I haven't summoned that pet in over 3 years but removing such an iconic thing that has been in this game for so long would probably strike a nerve to certain people. Let them have their infernals, if they want to use it be my guest, if not - great, they are showing that they want to better themselves as a player. As it stands now Infernals are not optimal to use in 99% of cases and most of the people that use it (ie: LFR raiders) don't understand that but that is the reason that optimization in raids such as LFR don't need to exist. They aren't there for the cutting edge where people need to optimize everything and Blizzard let people use what they want.

There are a lot of variables to take into account for and part of those variables is the player him/herself. You can't just assume that everyone will be able to play at the same level because that isn't how the game works and just because something works for you it isn't going to work for everyone. That is the flaw with "optimal talents" and "optimal abilities".

edit: holy shit thats a lot of words...I probably repeated myself a few times but /shrug.

[Jessicka]

The use case of both of those and the way players discover the difference is the exact same. At X targets button A does more damage than button B, I don't find having to make the decision between Demonwrath and Shadow Bolt difficult more murky, and I feel the same way about Doomguard and Infernal, especially now that the duration is lower and there is a good chance what I'm AoEing isn't going to be dead for the majority of the duration of the Infernal.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Firstly I'm not convinced of Doomguard/Infernal replacing Dark Soul anyway, not least because it doesn't help the multidotting/cleaving situation, at all - it's a penalty I'm not sure any other class pays when cleaving and the Infernal in a ham fisted way to 'fix' this will only help us so long as targets are stacked? Secondly because I've just never felt their sharing a cooldown has been good design, this new iteration absolutely isn't changing that.

- - - Updated - - -

I am genuinely confused by your argument. By your logic Blizzard and the design team should make it impossible for a player, regardless of skill level, to make poor decisions. There are going to be wrong talents and abilities and to a degree it is a players choice to inform him/herself and make the right decisions and there is going to be a point where players go "hey, wait, this infernal sucks ass I should use a doomguard instead" and while I agree it can be mildly infuriating at times to see a lot of people making these small mistakes it doesn't mean that they should just make it so only 1 build exists. Talent synergy is something that is important in my opinion and when you end up with so many offensive talent tiers as we have in the current iteration of Alpha there are going to be a lot of people trying different things in order to see what is best. Keep in mind that just because we are the 1% of players that heavily theory-craft our classes and want to push the most efficient damage (and this goes for a large majority of various class forums be it here, IV, or the official forums, that doesn't mean that we are the majority. Yes, we understand that certain talents (ie: Soul Harvest) as Demo are just not well designed currently and that it isn't going to be the talent that we go to all the time...or ever....probably ever....but another player may like using it despite how flawed it is. That doesn't make it the right choice but the important thing is that if a player, let's call him John, if John decides "I want to use Soul Harvest" they need to make sure that SH isn't so bad that it is the equivalent of Mannoroths Fury as Destruction in Siege of Orgrimmar last expansion or the talent that came before Archimonde's Darkness that for the life of me I can't remember currently in ToT.

If an ability such as Infernal exists and is a 5-10% damage loss in most scenarios that is perfectly fine in my opinion because it means that over time as an average player learns more about his or her class that means they will evolve how they play by doing things like swapping to Doomguard and understanding more things like proper talent optimization.

My biggest concern going into Legion is that talents need to not be more than a 2-4% damage gap between each one and that gap can't increase much beyond that because of how many offensive talents we are going to have. If you have 5 talent tiers where there is a 2-4% damage gap between optimal and sub-optimal talents (so for the sake of math lets use 3% as a base) you are only ending up with a 15% damage loss from talents and to be honest with all things considered that isn't that bad. There are going to be people who choose talents like DemServ over Demonbolt because it is something that is a lot more passive and it lets them not need to worry about maintaining optimal pet usage but the important thing is to make sure that rather than hurting players who choose to play worse talents they need to reward players who can use "harder" talents and abilities but not by too much so as to not make entire talents dead. In a perfect world we would have a talent for ST, a talent for Cleave and a talent for AoE but that isn't always going to happen because this game isn't black and white.

I personally couldn't care less if Blizzard were to come out tomorrow and go "We are removing Infernals", honestly it wouldn't matter to me because I haven't summoned that pet in over 3 years but removing such an iconic thing that has been in this game for so long would probably strike a nerve to certain people. Let them have their infernals, if they want to use it be my guest, if not - great, they are showing that they want to better themselves as a player. As it stands now Infernals are not optimal to use in 99% of cases and most of the people that use it (ie: LFR raiders) don't understand that but that is the reason that optimization in raids such as LFR don't need to exist. They aren't there for the cutting edge where people need to optimize everything and Blizzard let people use what they want.

There are a lot of variables to take into account for and part of those variables is the player him/herself. You can't just assume that everyone will be able to play at the same level because that isn't how the game works and just because something works for you it isn't going to work for everyone. That is the flaw with "optimal talents" and "optimal abilities".

edit: holy shit thats a lot of words...I probably repeated myself a few times but /shrug.

I'll reply more full tomorrow, it's late and I'm tired. I'm not saying players should be able to get things wrong; they can do that all day in the encounters themselves or picking a sub-optimal setup for a given encounter. They shouldn't however be led into traps where 2 talents actively work against each other. Nor should they really be compelled to take X talent just to make Y talent work.

[Deleted]

DE changes they said they were going to make are in as well. No charges or cooldown. Still has a 1.5 second cast time.

Standard Alpha Build.
No significant changes for Warlock just a name change for a Talent...

[Number1gentleman]

it's so funny to read the new alpha changes on warlock class

1. Summon Dreadlord Name changed from "Summon Inquisitor" to "Summon Dreadlord"

2. Call Fel Lord Name changed from "Call Fel Lord " to "Call Fel Lord"

lol that's it? and yet people in the forum keep saying that they're listening to our feedback.

[Gnarilex]

Standard Alpha Build.
No significant changes for Warlock just a name change for a Talent...

I liked the inquisitor... Also curious why we can control a nathrezim now. Is the inquisitor going to be the glyphed demon for it now with the rest of the old GoSup demon models?

[Overtaker]

As far as the Inquisitor -> Dreadlord spell naming change, does that:
A) mean its going to remain as the same model?
B) (and if not) maybe hint that the inquisitor might be moving towards a permanent option?

Just wondering, thanks

[Number1gentleman]

Standard Alpha Build.
No significant changes for Warlock just a name change for a Talent...

come to think of it, NO. it's a CLASS fantasy.
we are a warlock class. there's no way a warlock can cast a shadow"FROST" spell. that spell belongs to death knight or frost mage.

[login]

I knew this build wouldn't bring too much new stuff. It usually takes them a few weeks to get another build out, but this one came out very quickly. I think that's why it didn't bring that many changes with it.

also why did they change the 100 talent summon inquisitor? Don't get me wrong I think it'd be awesome to summon a dreadlord but I thought that warlocks couldn't control them like other demons.

[Number1gentleman]

As far as the Inquisitor -> Dreadlord spell naming change, does that:
A) mean its going to remain as the same model?
B) (and if not) maybe hint that the inquisitor might be moving towards a permanent option?

Just wondering, thanks

A. I just googled dreadlord and it looks like one of those mob in black temple

B. I have a feeling that it will turn into a cosmetic glyph

[Fearsom1992]

it's so funny to read the new alpha changes on warlock class

1. Summon Dreadlord Name changed from "Summon Inquisitor" to "Summon Dreadlord"

2. Call Fel Lord Name changed from "Call Fel Lord " to "Call Fel Lord"

lol that's it? and yet people in the forum keep saying that they're listening to our feedback.

this alpha build sucks like all the feedback locks have been giving for weeks gets ignored ;-; but hey if marks complains with half the pages it gets instant changes -.- I can't help but feel ignored as an alpha tester tbh xD

[Baconeggcheese]

Its so much larger of a mob too, which is terrible for clutter.

[Gnarilex]

come to think of it, NO. it's a CLASS fantasy.
we are a warlock class. there's no way a warlock can cast a shadow"FROST" spell. that spell belongs to death knight or frost mage.

Maybe you should read the tooltip better. It was the inquisitor that was casting the shadowfrost spell on targets we doomed. Also how did you not know what a dreadlord looks like?

- - - Updated - - -

this alpha build sucks like all the feedback locks have been giving for weeks gets ignored ;-; but hey if marks complains with half the pages it gets instant changes -.- I can't help but feel ignored as an alpha tester tbh xD

Definitely not the only spec to be receiving that treatment. That's been shadow priest since the beginning of alpha.

[Xandy]

Its so much larger of a mob too, which is terrible for clutter.

I agree it's a bit too large, I like the inquisitor better anyway

[Netherspark]

How many years have people been begging for Dreadlords? I expected a little more... excitement.

[bio347]

Definitely not the only spec to be receiving that treatment. That's been shadow priest since the beginning of alpha.

Don't look now, but there are several classes that got a small amount of notes this go 'round. DKs got two wording changes and two minor adjustments, for example, which I would argue is a fair bit worse than Demonology getting one of the things that we literally argued for pages about earlier in this thread.

In fact, it's almost like there are other reasons to push an alpha build besides class changes!

(Also, if you go look at wowhead, "Call Fel Lord" was changed from "Call Fel Lord <NYI>", which is actually pretty important.)

[Gnarilex]

How many years have people been begging for Dreadlords? I expected a little more... excitement.

I like the inquisitor. Why did they have to take away one to give us the other?

- - - Updated - - -

Don't look now, but there are several classes that got a small amount of notes this go 'round. DKs got two wording changes and two minor adjustments, for example, which I would argue is a fair bit worse than Demonology getting one of the things that we literally argued for pages about earlier in this thread.

In fact, it's almost like there are other reasons to push an alpha build besides class changes!

(Also, if you go look a wowhead, "Call Fel Lord" was changed from "Call Fel Lord <NYI>", which is actually pretty important.)

I already looked ._. This patch is just one big pile of disappointment so far.

[Number1gentleman]

Maybe you should read the tooltip better. It was the inquisitor that was casting the shadowfrost spell on targets we doomed. Also how did you not know what a dreadlord looks like?

lol that's why I said they changed inquisitor into dreadlord; shadowfrost spell into shadowvolley spell to match our "CLASS FANTASY"
and I forgot what a dreadlord looks like... >_< it's been a while since the last time I played WoW

PS: found the thread that talking about it
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...guard-infernal

edit : speaking of class fantasy. we were fighting Kanrethad Ebonlocke to get the green fire in MoP, right? does that mean he's a demon hunter (with metamorphosis form) who can summon demons (warlock). A mix between 2 classes.