Pet abilities changed in Legion alpha?

[Netherspark]

Looking through the PVP talents for Demonolgy I see that one of the options is Singe Magic - an abiltiy the Imp has baseline at the moment.

Has it been removed from the Imp then? And what other changes are there to other pet abilties?

[Kirroth]

Digging into WoWhead it looks like the Imp still has Singe Magic baseline. The difference is the baseline version removes one magic debuff on a 10s cooldown, while the talented version removes all magic debuffs on a 15s cooldown. So they probably just need to tweak the name of the talented version to make it clear it's an improved version.

Checking the other baseline pets, the Felhunter is losing Devour Magic, and the Voidwalker is getting a new basic attack. Instead of Torment which deals damage and costs 50 Energy it's listed as having Consuming Shadows which "drains health from all nearby enemies" and costs 20 Energy. So that might be both an upgrade to multi-target threat and a little bit of self-healing, which would be super cool.

Also looking at the Felguard's abilities, the wording on Legion Strike is different. If accurate, instead of being meteor damage that's split between targets, it's now a frontal cleave that does full damage to all targets hit.

[Kadria]

Sounds pretty cool for the void walker. Wonder what the other pets are going to have?

[eScar95]

@Kadria, there is no talent for good ol' Voidy.

http://beta.wowdb.com/pvp-talent-calculator#m

[rshamrock]

thats unfortunate

[ThePhantombox]

Digging into WoWhead it looks like the Imp still has Singe Magic baseline. The difference is the baseline version removes one magic debuff on a 10s cooldown, while the talented version removes all magic debuffs on a 15s cooldown. So they probably just need to tweak the name of the talented version to make it clear it's an improved version.

Checking the other baseline pets, the Felhunter is losing Devour Magic, and the Voidwalker is getting a new basic attack. Instead of Torment which deals damage and costs 50 Energy it's listed as having Consuming Shadows which "drains health from all nearby enemies" and costs 20 Energy. So that might be both an upgrade to multi-target threat and a little bit of self-healing, which would be super cool.

Also looking at the Felguard's abilities, the wording on Legion Strike is different. If accurate, instead of being meteor damage that's split between targets, it's now a frontal cleave that does full damage to all targets hit.

Did the Felguard ever have an ability called Legion Strike? I know they have mortal cleave or something along those lines. The one that reduced healing. By the way, is that still in the alpha?

Edit: Nvm it looks like they just renamed it.

[wholol]

This might be off topic but since we lost soulburn and other abilities across the specs, have we lost the ability to instant summon pets on a cd ?

[bio347]

Did the Felguard ever have an ability called Legion Strike? I know they have mortal cleave or something along those lines. The one that reduced healing. By the way, is that still in the alpha?

Edit: Nvm it looks like they just renamed it.

Both currently exist. Mortal Cleave is simply the Wrathguard's (stronger) version of the Felguard's Legion Strike.

This might be off topic but since we lost soulburn and other abilities across the specs, have we lost the ability to instant summon pets on a cd ?

It doesn't look like there's any instant pet summons anywhere, no. All permanent demon summons cost one soul shard (but no mana) and have a 2.5s cast time (down from the current 5s).

[wholol]

It doesn't look like there's any instant pet summons anywhere, no. All permanent demon summons cost one soul shard (but no mana) and have a 2.5s cast time (down from the current 5s).

I see, well thanks for clearing that up for me, guess locks are gonna have some hard times in the pvp department come legion given all the current flaws in pvp design on alpha.

[ThePhantombox]

I see, well thanks for clearing that up for me, guess locks are gonna have some hard times in the pvp department come legion given all the current flaws in pvp design on alpha.

To be honest, the new way is a bit better. With the exception of destruction, locks seem to have a pretty easy time getting shards, and the short cast is decently easy to get off in arena by ducking behind a pillar, (same cast time as mages' water ele) and you don't have to deal with the 1 min cooldown it used to put on all your summons.

Both currently exist. Mortal Cleave is simply the Wrathguard's (stronger) version of the Felguard's Legion Strike.

Didn't realize that, thanks.

[wholol]

To be honest, the new way is a bit better. With the exception of destruction, locks seem to have a pretty easy time getting shards, and the short cast is decently easy to get off in arena by ducking behind a pillar, (same cast time as mages' water ele) and you don't have to deal with the 1 min cooldown it used to put on all your summons.

I'm more worried about melee mobility being too high for some class or the absurd dmg on others that would take out pets faster than we can summon them.

Given that melee's seem to be in a favorable position with the coming of yet another melee class, the expectation of melee cleaves is a given, not to mention the loss of CC across the board and the loss of some major survival cds( like circle being a talent on the same row as dark pact, the loss of SL for everything but demo, and the loss of blood horror / Sfury, pretty much all means of self peel against melee is gone, unless we are tanky and I mean TBC lvl tankiness, we're gonna get dumpster-ed in the early stages of the expansion.

I mean ye sure if we stack 5 UAs we'll be deadly, gl with that on any respectable level of pvp.

[Arganis]

It doesn't look like there's any instant pet summons anywhere, no. All permanent demon summons cost one soul shard (but no mana) and have a 2.5s cast time (down from the current 5s).

I swear this xpac is nothing but steps backwards for warlocks. I guess it's back to people nuking your pet down in 5 sec and you being petless for the rest of the fight.

Nothing but bad news. It's like whoever's in charge is resentful at all the improvements that were made and wants to reverse them all as "useless bloat". I couldn't believe their explanation for demonic portal. Warlocks are tanky so it's ok? What is this WLK??

[bio347]

I swear this xpac is nothing but steps backwards for warlocks. I guess it's back to people nuking your pet down in 5 sec and you being petless for the rest of the fight.

I mean, having a base 2.5s, mana-less summon is a pretty decent quality of life change - particularly so for Demo and Destro who are less able to leverage their current instant summons in a lot of situations. I'd rate it as a decent step forward for what I do with my time in WoW.

[PickleballAce]

I'd rather have the choice of burning a shard for an instant summon or saving a shard and having the normal cast time.

The shard cost is far more prohibitive than what we're gaining from it being mana-free.

[purebalance]

I'm more worried about melee mobility being too high for some class or the absurd dmg on others that would take out pets faster than we can summon them.

Given that melee's seem to be in a favorable position with the coming of yet another melee class, the expectation of melee cleaves is a given, not to mention the loss of CC across the board and the loss of some major survival cds( like circle being a talent on the same row as dark pact, the loss of SL for everything but demo, and the loss of blood horror / Sfury, pretty much all means of self peel against melee is gone, unless we are tanky and I mean TBC lvl tankiness, we're gonna get dumpster-ed in the early stages of the expansion.

I mean ye sure if we stack 5 UAs we'll be deadly, gl with that on any respectable level of pvp.

As long as the ret and dk whining isn't listened to it'll be ok. All on their forums they seem to think they should be able to do 100% damage 100% of the time.

- - - Updated - - -

I swear this xpac is nothing but steps backwards for warlocks. I guess it's back to people nuking your pet down in 5 sec and you being petless for the rest of the fight.

Nothing but bad news. It's like whoever's in charge is resentful at all the improvements that were made and wants to reverse them all as "useless bloat". I couldn't believe their explanation for demonic portal. Warlocks are tanky so it's ok? What is this WLK??

Even then they weren't. First season of WotLK while Arcane mages, rogues and DKs were blowing people up they said resilience will fix it. Then when Ulduar hit and locks actually had decent resilience they had conflag nerfed in less than 48 hours because it was hitting a little hard on rogues and rogues claimed they shouldn't have to wear resilience.

[ThePhantombox]

I'm more worried about melee mobility being too high for some class or the absurd dmg on others that would take out pets faster than we can summon them.

Given that melee's seem to be in a favorable position with the coming of yet another melee class, the expectation of melee cleaves is a given, not to mention the loss of CC across the board and the loss of some major survival cds( like circle being a talent on the same row as dark pact, the loss of SL for everything but demo, and the loss of blood horror / Sfury, pretty much all means of self peel against melee is gone, unless we are tanky and I mean TBC lvl tankiness, we're gonna get dumpster-ed in the early stages of the expansion.

I mean ye sure if we stack 5 UAs we'll be deadly, gl with that on any respectable level of pvp.

Well since you mentioned affliction, let's take a look at the things we're getting.

Soul effigy has some very interesting applications in arena. Besides being a way to add a little extra pressure to a healer or something, we can target it, which means we can use it with soulswap to pre-dot behind LoS and also instantly reapply 20 stacks of agony to a target (If agony keeps its stacks I'm assuming UA would as well, despite them working differently).

Healthstone got massively buffed, drain life got buffed, our passive heal increase *I'm pretty sure* got buffed, our reap soul cd doubles as an offensive and defensive cd, we can now talent into a persistent 5-second spell reflect (that's stupidly broken and I fully expect them to change it to how warrior's works) or into a regenerating shield for physical damage. Curse of tongues lets us slow down heals and weakness lets us reduce damage when someone is getting trained. We lost some cc sure, but we gained a ton of new and interesting tools and I'm quite excited to see how a high level player would be able to utilize them.

[wholol]

Well since you mentioned affliction, let's take a look at the things we're getting.

Soul effigy has some very interesting applications in arena. Besides being a way to add a little extra pressure to a healer or something, we can target it, which means we can use it with soulswap to pre-dot behind LoS and also instantly reapply 20 stacks of agony to a target (If agony keeps its stacks I'm assuming UA would as well, despite them working differently).

Healthstone got massively buffed, drain life got buffed, our passive heal increase *I'm pretty sure* got buffed, our reap soul cd doubles as an offensive and defensive cd, we can now talent into a persistent 5-second spell reflect (that's stupidly broken and I fully expect them to change it to how warrior's works) or into a regenerating shield for physical damage. Curse of tongues lets us slow down heals and weakness lets us reduce damage when someone is getting trained. We lost some cc sure, but we gained a ton of new and interesting tools and I'm quite excited to see how a high level player would be able to utilize them.

Some of the things we are getting are interesting,and I'm not worried in the least about our ability to pressure, simply said I'm worried about the lack of mobility combined with lack of peels in case said new and interesting abilities are not enough to provide us with what we need vs for example, demonhunters, as I'm sure pvp will be flooded with those for a while.

[ThePhantombox]

Some of the things we are getting are interesting,and I'm not worried in the least about our ability to pressure, simply said I'm worried about the lack of mobility combined with lack of peels in case said new and interesting abilities are not enough to provide us with what we need vs for example, demonhunters, as I'm sure pvp will be flooded with those for a while.

Fair enough, though tbh the shit that really seems to fuck locks over in pvp is stops for casts and strong defensive cd's. Demon hunters don't have much of either, besides a stronger wind shear. I fully expect locks to just be able to out damage race demon hunters, and even if they LoS us what are they going to to? They don't have any kind of on-demand heal.