Warlocks - The next target of the combo point infestation. My thoughts.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if this will reach the developers but I felt that I had to at least try and get some sort of explanation regarding the changes to Warlock's play style in legion. This information is taken from what I have been able to test in the PTR. I'm certain many people will disagree with me and I welcome you to, I want to hear peoples opinions on this matter.

For those of you who don't know; all three Warlock specs now use soul shards. Soul shards are 5 'points' that a Warlock generates and then spends on various abilities in the primary rotation. If this sounds familiar to rogues, it is because soul shards are quite literally combo points that are spent in different numbers rather than the basic 1 - 5 choice that rogues have.

For an example in this I will refer to the new demonology class. Demonology in it's current state has the following in it's core rotation, assuming you don't take any of the ability talents and stick to the passives.
Shadowbolt (Or Demonbolt as it's the obvious single target talent in the 100 line)
Doom (15 sec dot that does damage when dropping off)

These are the only two abilities we have in our primary rotation that do not cost soul shards. Shadowbolt(Demonbolt) generates one soul shard every time you use it. You then spend these soul shards(combo points) on call Dreadstalkers and Hand of Gul'dan.
Call Dreadstalkers (Costs 2 soul shards)
Hand of Gul'dan (Costs anywhere from 1-4 soul shards and summons imps depending on how many you spend)

You then have empower demons, this causes all of your demons currently active to be buffed. Now my issue with this system has nothing to do with damage numbers, but everything to do with the way the class plays. There are now an abundance of classes that use some sort of points system they generate, be it shadow priests, paladins or arcane mages. Warlocks and Paladins are the most egregious example of how combo points are now being used as a band-aid to control a classes DPS.

The fun of a Warlock is their ability to make choices, but with combo points we are now placed into a position where there is an optimal way of spending these points and that must be what we spend our time doing, spending combo points. I personally do not find that this fits with a Warlock's class fantasy or playstyle. As a Warlock I do not need to build up power, I take it from an already existing well of power.

Most importantly I feel this impacts us on a gameplay level. It does nothing but detract from the difference of the three specs and makes them less enjoyable over all. In it's current state affliction now has two dots, and haunt has been removed from baseline to make way for Unstable Affliction that now costs a soul shard. It is my belief that this was done to make the combo points system viable, as having too many spenders would exceed the amount of soul shards we can generate.

Ultimately I feel that combo points have been an overall negative effect on the class's fantasy and gameplay. If they are required for demonology to function then I can accept it purely for that spec, but I do not feel it was necessary to pigeonhole the other two specs into the same combo points system.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you find it interesting even if you don't agree.

P.S. Who ever designed the new balance druid, you are a golden god. Excellent work.

- I omitted going into the way talents effect the class as I feel they don't address or fix the issue of combo points and in many ways only exacerbate the problems I've addressed.

Edit - Removed the line about backdraft as I was incorrect. Thank you for the correction.

[demonicpanda]

Much more akin to chi than combo points, but welcome to months ago. Pretty much everyone has moved to either a rage mechanic or a combo points mechanic.

[Feuerbart]

Warlocks had shards since forever in ever changing form. For destro they were called sparks for some time. So what? Warlock is more or less the same as it´s been. Besides from a very pet heavy demo spec.

Nothing new here with locks.

[Deleted]

you still have a really good part of decision making involved and your example is flawed because you take the least rotation flexible spec in a ST scenario

Demo's flow of shards is not the canon among all the warlock specs

[Baconeggcheese]

We've had secondary resources for quite some time now, the difference is that they've been normalized across all 3 specs. I'd disagree with your assessment, I think it comes from a distinct lack of knowledge / experience with the new specs.

For instance you say:

I also suspect that the backdraft change for destruction is due to soul shards and this has fundamentally damaged the spec. We can throw out less incinerates and this leads to less of our secondary resources being generated.

Incinerate doesn't generate shards, and backdraft is still within the spec just as a talent... but that has no relevance to shard generation since the spells backdraft affects don't generate shards.

Lastly its a bit late for this kind of feedback, unless something is fundamentally / egregiously wrong they've already wrapped up the large sweeping mechanics changes phase and have long since moved on to tuning and minor tweaks.

[Deleted]

Incinerate doesn't generate shards, and backdraft is still within the spec just as a talent... but that has no relevance to shard generation since the spells backdraft affects don't generate shards.

Lastly its a bit late for this kind of feedback, unless something is fundamentally / egregiously wrong they've already wrapped up the large sweeping mechanics changes phase and have long since moved on to tuning and minor tweaks.

You are correct, I removed the line. As for how late the feedback is, I'm just interested in peoples discussion of it as I personally don't find the new iterations of Warlocks fun, but that's just me.

[demonicpanda]

We've had secondary resources for quite some time now, the difference is that they've been normalized across all 3 specs. I'd disagree with your assessment, I think it comes from a distinct lack of knowledge / experience with the new specs.

For instance you say:



Incinerate doesn't generate shards, and backdraft is still within the spec just as a talent... but that has no relevance to shard generation since the spells backdraft affects don't generate shards.

Lastly its a bit late for this kind of feedback, unless something is fundamentally / egregiously wrong they've already wrapped up the large sweeping mechanics changes phase and have long since moved on to tuning and minor tweaks.

Shame the ignored all the warlock feedback before they left the mechanics change phase.. though it's pretty much their SOP..

[Baconeggcheese]

Shame the ignored all the warlock feedback before they left the mechanics change phase.. though it's pretty much their SOP..

I wrote books of feedback and they addressed damn near everything I mentioned in some way shape or form. Not everything I agree with, and some changes were fairly out of left field but basically everything of significance was addressed.

Not saying they specifically listened to me, but I feel like the books I wrote which were some of the most up voted things in those threads (which isn't saying much) were absolutely not ignored.

[Gaidax]

Yes, there were quite a few changes based on feedback. Some ideas in feedback almost 1-to-1 went in, like Summon Infernal being trigger for Lord of Flames and original Reverse Entropy being shit and Mana Tap being mandatory in it's row and many more.

Every time I see someone speaking in absolutes it is instant BS alarm triggered... "They ignored all feedback"

[Baconeggcheese]

Yes, there were quite a few changes based on feedback. Some ideas in feedback almost 1-to-1 went in

Hell even reap soul was overhauled into EXACTLY what the testers were suggesting.

[Deleted]

Shame the ignored all the warlock feedback before they left the mechanics change phase.. though it's pretty much their SOP..

I don't think it's fair to say they ignored all feedback, we've seen them make changes based on feedback. Maybe more people preferred the resource changes, not sure.

[ComputerNerd]

If you look at the mechanics you will see that we were like combo points also utilising generators and spenders.
You have abilities which generate some resource, and some that spend it.
It just unlike combo points were not always generated in the same distinct values as the spends.

We have had soul shards, embers and demonic energy all using some variation of that.
So you can't really call it an infestation just with the latest version, as it was always that ever since we got secondary resources.

[bio347]

For those of you who don't know; all three Warlock specs now use soul shards. Soul shards are 5 'points' that a Warlock generates and then spends on various abilities in the primary rotation. If this sounds familiar to rogues, it is because soul shards are quite literally combo points that are spent in different numbers rather than the basic 1 - 5 choice that rogues have.

Theoretically, if you distill things down or stretch them out far enough, you can make anything resemble anything else.

And, I mean, I understand that the word "literally" has become rather flexible in today's lexicon but Soul Shards cannot literally be combo points when you immediately turn around and say that they're consumed differently.

The funniest part is that in Legion rogues don't even necessarily have five combo points to anchor your superficial comparison - they can opt into having either six or eight if they wish to.

[Jessicka]

I don't think Affliction and Destruction have changed enough to warrant this particular complaint. Affliction does feel a bit different for sure, but in terms of resource spend it's pretty much the same with UA simply replacing Haunt. How different it is, is variable dependent on talents.

Demonology on the other hand, it is a combo point system and it's a system I've never liked since I first experienced it trying Assassin out in Diablo 2 (it's probably been around much longer, but that's where I learnt it). It's why I never got along with Rogues. It's shifted from a very dynamic, responsive spec to a very repetitive and rigid one; and that's my major issue with it. There's plenty of buttons not a lot happening with them, even if you pick up all the active talents, that actually break up the rhythm, and there's not a lot you can do to react and respond to changes in the encounter.

I think that, combined with the slow ramp up, slow switching, and poor mobility, that that poor dynamism and responsiveness will prove to hamstring it even further; and ultimately that it will be a very limited spec when it comes to dealing with actual encounters. But then, these issues are far from new concerns.

[Deleted]

You guys call it a "combo system" right now, yet if they made it a bar similiar to energy/mana/focus and add "generates 20 shadowpower" to shadowbolt, or "summon 1 imp for every 20 shadowpower" to Hand of Guldan, you probably wouldn't have noticed it :P

Other than that, I agree with OP, at least for Demonology - the system is even worse, rogues regenerate energy, which can be used to spam generators more quickly if they had some downtime, warlocks will always have to start from 0/have no way to increase their shard generation to make up for the time they lost.

[Alienshroom]

Literally every post above this one is posted by people who have never played a Warlock beyond a garrison mission donkey that they boosted to 100.

[Deleted]

After reading peoples replies here I am beginning to lean more in the direction of Affliction and Destruction not being quite so affected as I initially thought, but I also agree with the sentiment on Demonology having it's flaws.

[Cwimge]

Remember when chaos bolt only cost one ember. Peppridge farm remembers

[Alvito]

Remember when chaos bolt only cost one ember. Peppridge farm remembers

It did take a little getting used to costing 2. Luckily soul shard generation is so much faster then embers are in live. Even with a cost of 2 they come up quicker. The only real change is before if you wanted to you could spam off a few chaos bolts now you will get 3 at best, unless something procs not spending them.

[Cwimge]

It did take a little getting used to costing 2. Luckily soul shard generation is so much faster then embers are in live. Even with a cost of 2 they come up quicker. The only real change is before if you wanted to you could spam off a few chaos bolts now you will get 3 at best, unless something procs not spending them.

The cost I could adjust to in time, I actually miss the days when chaos bolt wasn't the overwhelming majority of my damage. Before charred remains became the norm and all of our damage was baked into it I enjoyed casting immolate, conflag and incinerate. What I object to, strongly enough to have picked the "reroll" option for, is that it's no longer burning embers. I hate that all warlock specs are being hauled backwards in the name of "class fantasy" Pandaland moved destro to a unique place thematicly, the green fire chain helped move things along as well.

But now it's like I'm a level 10 lock in wrath again. Shackled to soul shards, all but forced to use a pet, and then forced to use the imp. I hate shards, I hate the grimsac nerf, I hate charred remains, the secpter of sargaras and all the godforsaken RNG being bolted onto the spec I know and love. I'm already giving legion a year, until flight is no longer being held hostage to compel the playerbase, I might as well look for a class that doesn't disgust me as well. So far it's looking like rogue