Make Haunt a DoT

[Deleted]

In terms of actual play making haunt a dot would alter our playstyle in wotlk slightly, since we would want to avoid clipping, rather than actively trying to clip. That would in turn reduce our output presuming that haunt was then balanced around constant uptime and still provided the 20% damage buff.

In Cata it would make no difference to our playstyle, as we would revert to trying to clip, but doing so as late as possible, as we should be doing now.

I can see the argument in terms of the definition of a dot vs a debuff, and in turn the definition of a dot class, but to redesign the mechanic of a spell with all the attendant balancing considerations with the intention of producing no noticeable change except in linguistic terms seems needlessly pedantic.

Edit:

I could justifiably describe it as 'shallow and pedantic' so I will!(Like this meatloaf.) That's not meant to offend; it's just a comment on the effort/result ratio of such a change.

[Dirich]

@5648945621

Once the feel vs playstyle point is clear, I will share my point of view about the "feel" matter.

1. Warriors (according to a previous poster) use 3 dots in cata. Those dots damage is surely low compared to lock/spriest dot damage.
2. My "feel" of a dot spec is given by using 2-3 dots AND by my damage being mostly based on those even when I stand still and use my filler ability. Altough I would like it more if nobody had as many dots as me to cast (like the example in point 1).
3. As a logical conclusion, I do not feel any warrior has a dot spec. Spriests have some heavy dot, but still I feel them as something in the middle between the "king of dots" (aka AffliLock) and the no dots (warriors & friends).

So, from the purely "feeling" perspective (either in pvp or pve): I would like 1 more dot for affliction to cast (I do not want Haunt or anyting else I already cast changed into a dot), but it already feels like a dot spec to me (and the only one in the game, at that).

[Ravemstr]

thats called a debuff, in order to qualify as a DoT it actually has to do dmg during its duration on the target; also DoT is short for Damage over Time, not Debuff Over Time

Yes, i know what it is, thank you! It still works the same though!

it doesn't feel like a DoT spec when you only have 2-3 dots ticking like most classes have.

Yes it does! Because you do a hell of lot more damage with the same 3 DoTs then they do. But... PVP wise you want a few more DoTs. Really?

So in PvP instead of spending 3 seconds to get 2 DoTs up that do X damage... you want to spend 6 seconds to get 4 DoTs up that do the same X damage? (You did state that Corr's damage should be lowered...)

What Affli misses in PvP is a nuke. Put it like this, you're fighting this guy. He's got like 2K left.
Do you want to...
- put DOT 1
- put DOT 2
- put DOT 3
- put DOT 4
- /lol, you'll be dead in like 4 seconds or so
Grand Total: 10 seconds to kill that guy.

Or...

- cast fast nuke
Grand Total: 1.5 second

??? But yeah... DoT isn't Ramp up! Lol!

[Adon]

why did they have to lower our dmg in pvp?

Because affliction was raping... and this was quite a long time ago. Do you keep up with you own class much??

and jeez haunt isnt a dot ffs?

No, it isn't a 'DoT' Its a debuff that makes your spec specific, buffed, DoTs more powerful. Do you understand math?

of course a damage-over-time spec shouldnt have more dots then a melee spec. makes sense right

Yup, perfect sense. Your dot based spec buffs your existing dots and gives you UA. I don't see UH deathknights getting extra dots... just a debuff to buff thier dots.

[Deleted]

exactly, the only difference would be that we would have more dots. why do you think we used to have so many dots before instead of just having 1 uber dot? because its more fun.

So if they would give you one dot ticking for 10000 you would be really bored, but if they would give you 10000 dots ticking for 1 you would be super exited?
Too many you say?
1000 ticking for 10? 100 for 100? 10 for 1000?

[5648945621]

oh my... you guys are just trying too hard (lold @Yetzirah)

you see everything from a pve pov. i want more dots because its more fun and it gives the spec more of a DoT feeling. i dont care about "it doesnt change gameplay" i feel that blizz has ruined affli locks when they removed our dots. A dot spec should bring down the hp of enemies evenly, not boom! -30%hp. if you know what i mean

[Deleted]

I do see what you mean. However, i think that Haunt has a dot feel to it already in terms of actual gameplay and that in terms of the actual mechanics of the spell it has a very affli feel to it. I prefer having distinct spells to sets of very similar ones. That's a matter of preference.

The question that people are discussing is that of changing Haunt. I think you'll find a lot of support for the 'gief more dots' idea; a lot of people were pissed off at losing Immo and SiL, but Haunt is just plain cool as it is and I wouldn't want to see it changed for the sake of semantics.

[Lucaya]

i can understand what 5648... means. i don't know how many of you guys have played warlock at 3.0 but it was a lot more fun back then. anyway i don't agree that haunt should do damage-over-time itself. i just want back my immolate and siphon life.

i do like shadow bolt as a filler like it was back then but i think we spend too much time casting shadowbolts today. the only thing we do besides shadowbolts is unstable affliction, curse of agony (which lasts pretty long) and cast haunt if it's off the cooldown.

[Ravemstr]

I do see what you mean. However, i think that Haunt has a dot feel to it already in terms of actual gameplay and that in terms of the actual mechanics of the spell it has a very affli feel to it. I prefer having distinct spells to sets of very similar ones. That's a matter of preference.

The question that people are discussing is that of changing Haunt. I think you'll find a lot of support for the 'gief more dots' idea; a lot of people were pissed off at losing Immo and SiL, but Haunt is just plain cool as it is and I wouldn't want to see it changed for the sake of semantics.

That! I would love to have another DoT to cast(big word "CAST") besides (another big word) Haunt. So we would have Curse, Bane, UA, Corr, Haunt AND one more. But Haunt is fine the way it is. Well.. a shorter travel time wouldn't hurt...

[5648945621]

yeah i would rather have SL and immo back then this but since they already removed it i doubt they will bring them back...

[Ravemstr]

They removed them for good reasons and since... we already get a new DoT in Cata... we won't see another one!

[Deleted]

They removed them for good reasons and since... we already get a new DoT in Cata... we won't see another one!

hmmmm? new dot?

[Ravemstr]

Bane + Curse... That counts as a new DoT!

[Deleted]

old dot with a new name... :P Curses aren't dots either, just debuffs

But ye, wtb my 3.0 affliction lock back! More dots = more fun for me

[shade3891]

make it instant instead, dont care if its not a DoT...
kinda hate cast time specially when moving around and its about to fall off $%@#

Can't cast while moving error

[Lucaya]

They removed them for good reasons

i think the main reason is that it's pretty easy to design the set-boni with "ua = affli and immo = dämo / destru" in mind (think of 4-t10-boni).

i don't think they removed it because the mayority of players didn't like it. i mean if you chose warlock but don't like or can't handle dots (which is paradox, i think ^^) then you have still the possibility to skill destru or demo. so i can't see the "too difficult; too limited" argument. there are 30 different playstyles in the game so why can't just one be like affliction 3.0 with more dot-casting than nukeing? i mean nobody is forced to chose this playstyle and a affli lock is actually what everybody associates with it.

[5648945621]

y they didnt like to have many dots they shouldnt be playing affli lock... lmao ^^ they should be playing SP. its sad that affli lost its unique style with alot of dots, we are not so different from SP's now.

[sugarfree]

I just want that damn travel time of the spell to go away. Not only is it annoying, but that stupid animation that looks like a ping pong ball is driving me nuts.

[ComputerNerd]

Still sucks to have a substantial damage multiplier effectively that we have to apply to a single target, while arcane mages can maintain one on themselves so suffering less from target switching.
Personally that is the sort of mechanism I would love to have, some self-buff/debuff which we have to maintain through some means.

[sicness]

Still sucks to have a substantial damage multiplier effectively that we have to apply to a single target, while arcane mages can maintain one on themselves so suffering less from target switching.
Personally that is the sort of mechanism I would love to have, some self-buff/debuff which we have to maintain through some means.

Honestly I'd like to see afflic locks get something similar to what fire mages just got, an ability to spread their dots to all nearby targets either on a cool down or low proc ability.