Blizzcon: Warlock chat (NEW TALENTS IN FIRST POST!)

[Deleted]

Gateway is going to either be removed or copied over to some other class.

I disagree with this, it's nice to bring additional utility outside soul stones considering we don't have a raid cool down. They can make it better though, faster set up time and charge rate for starters.

[Grizelda]

Or they could just make them work. That would be nice too.

If they would just spend this expac fixing warlock bugs and idiosyncrasies that would probably be good enough for me.

[Deleted]

Tanking spec needed o yeah !!!

Warlock flying mount ???

Moar variety//use of demons (customized maybe, change color, high armor etc etc etc of demons... Dreaming is for free)

[Soulzar]

Destro proc for felflame which say doubles the ember bits generated to make the single target rotation a bit exciting.
Fire and brimstone reworked to be less clunky (IMO)

What on earth do you find "clunky" about hitting a binding to turn it on and continuing the same rotation? It has to be one of the most basic (yet powerful) designs for AoE going.

[Jessicka]

I disagree with this, it's nice to bring additional utility outside soul stones considering we don't have a raid cool down. They can make it better though, faster set up time and charge rate for starters.

Disagree all you want, GC already said it's made Warlocks almost mandatory. They'll either spread the utility out to someone else, or take it away altogether, most likely the former rather than the latter.

[Deleted]

Disagree all you want, GC already said it's made Warlocks almost mandatory. They'll either spread the utility out to someone else, or take it away altogether, most likely the former rather than the latter.

Why do you think that these are the only 2 options? They could make them less useful, like lowering the max charges from 5 to 2, or reducing it's range from 70 yards to 40 yards, or making them generate charges at a slower rate, or all of these and/or some more. Changes like these would limit their utility enough so that bringing warlocks isn't mandatory. Other classes (like priests or monks) can also buff someone else's speed (or stampeding roar aoe lol).

[Chrispotter]

Uhhh, wat

5 doomguards at once? Instant soulstones? Passive KJC, old MF and a free instacast every 5 pet attacks? The only way you're going to see anything close to any of these if on a private server

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So why am I sacrificing my pet and gaining an ability and not MERGING with the thing? A great change in the next expansion of the game would be changing it so you merge with your pet, changing your playstyle similar to stances. I merge with my Voidwalker and I'm sturdier, I merge with my Succy and I have more CC and can stealth for a short period of time, merge with felhunter for the drains, silences, and spellsteal specialties, and merge with imp for the straight up glass cannon nuking.

THAT would be fun, interesting, and would be totally unique.

You think having a free spell instant cast every ~ 10 seconds is that much more OP than 2x dark soul or the current KJC? You can easily change it to 10 souls of power needed, doubling the time between each instant cast. Doesnt seem that OP to me.

All my suggestions seem like they are OP but really they can be tuned to not be OP in various ways, and they all IMO seem like fun things that could be added to the class.

[Baconeggcheese]

I could definitely see them removing gateways or making it useless or something. They've already changed it a handful of times over the xpac and have never settled on something they like. I really think they just hate the idea of the thing all together.

The thing really does make warlocks become a certain level of "mandatory" to deal with some mechanics, there's fights in all 3 tiers of this xpac where that shows.

[Jessicka]

Why do you think that these are the only 2 options? They could make them less useful, like lowering the max charges from 5 to 2, or reducing it's range from 70 yards to 40 yards, or making them generate charges at a slower rate, or all of these and/or some more. Changes like these would limit their utility enough so that bringing warlocks isn't mandatory. Other classes (like priests or monks) can also buff someone else's speed (or stampeding roar aoe lol).

Difficult to see how much you could nerf it before it becomes sufficiently less useful that it's not mandatory, but useful enough to still be... useful.

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I could definitely see them removing gateways or making it useless or something. They've already changed it a handful of times over the xpac and have never settled on something they like. I really think they just hate the idea of the thing all together.

The thing really does make warlocks become a certain level of "mandatory" to deal with some mechanics, there's fights in all 3 tiers of this xpac where that shows.

Not sure I agree, I think they love the concept (especially when you consider the amount of iterations they went through to get it to work), I think it just had a much bigger impact than they anticipated - especially after the months of "OMG what's this useless shite????" QQ after release. That's why I think passing it around is probably more likely than removal.

[pokeadott]

Not sure I agree, I think they love the concept (especially when you consider the amount of iterations they went through to get it to work), I think it just had a much bigger impact than they anticipated - especially after the months of "OMG what's this useless shite????" QQ after release. That's why I think passing it around is probably more likely than removal.

From a PvP standpoint, I really doubt they will give out gateways in any format to another class - that's waaaaaaaay too many team reset options available. From that same standpoint I really hope they get rid of them altogether. Arenas where you can get a gate down at the start vs. ones where you can't (entirely dictated by map and opposing team comp) are basically akin to playing 2 entirely different classes.

Just kill the spell entirely and give us some other form of utility or self escape.

[xskarma]

I fear Gateway will be our class's Vanish, and they'll just keep working on it but never getting it completely 100% working at all times.

I think the thought they'd give it to another class is probably a good one, but I have no clue how they'd do it in a way that doesn't look stupid. Only logical class is Mage, but I don't think giving them more mobility is a good idea.

[Grizelda]

Maybe they could make Gates an engineering thing as well.

Engineers could make them and sell them to raids with no locks. Kinda like Drums.

[deviantcultist]

My 3 wishes go like this:

1) Anima magic for Affliction
2) Demon Hunter flavor for Demonology
3) More shadowy feel for Destruction

Anyone with me?

[Zelk]

Honestly I'd be happy if affliction aoe was changed, I don't really like seed of corruption as it is.

[Jessicka]

I fear Gateway will be our class's Vanish, and they'll just keep working on it but never getting it completely 100% working at all times.

I think the thought they'd give it to another class is probably a good one, but I have no clue how they'd do it in a way that doesn't look stupid. Only logical class is Mage, but I don't think giving them more mobility is a good idea.

It is the logical choice, I think it would definitely be a 'pure' thing much as healing/mitigation cooldowns tend to be for hybrids, so maybe a new pet thing for Hunters, or shadowy trick thing for Rogues?

[Baconeggcheese]

@xelk: Oh my gawd yes! I can't even think of a time this entire tier where it was worth using SoC when you were playing aff... Pretty much any fight where the aoe was at all important was better played as destro... They really need to do something about aff aoe.

@gatewaydiscussion: I think the whole *give it to another class* thing is really illogical. Unless they kept it on locks and then started giving it to others but that seems kinda silly. The thing isn't so off the wall useful on every single fight that locks have any more utility than some other classes with major raid cooldowns. They really just need to give a couple of the other classes something useful to bring to raids because there's only a couple that have no raid utility.

[Count Zero]

I think we could all agree Afflic and Demo aoe need to be updated ... but how ?

For Demo I think maybe make Hellfire / Immo Aura cast on your target, like Mind Sear.

Maybe something for Afflic like Fire and Brimstone that turns Corruption and Agony (and UA ?) into Seed spells, and maybe switches Malefic Grasp to Shadowbolt Volley ... I dunno. Just tossing things at the wall here.

[Jessicka]

I think we could all agree Afflic and Demo aoe need to be updated ... but how ?

For Demo I think maybe make Hellfire / Immo Aura cast on your target, like Mind Sear.

Maybe something for Afflic like Fire and Brimstone that turns Corruption and Agony (and UA ?) into Seed spells, and maybe switches Malefic Grasp to Shadowbolt Volley ... I dunno. Just tossing things at the wall here.

Just so happens that I made a post about how to deal with Demonology's AoE right here! \o/

[Werst]

I would agree in theme that demo could have more damage from its demons/Feltard, however blizz first needs to truly fix pets and encounters. Until they do that we need sac as a grimoire option and I'd prefer if we were not overly invested in pets. Its more a lack of faith in blizz pet v encounter skill than a overall direction for the spec.

Destro is actually probably the most sorted out spec mechanically right now in terms of "easy to learn, hard to master".

Aff feels like it will never balance well so long as we have snapshotting, uber powerful RPPM trinkets, and so much damage potential tied up in CD stacking.

Demo is probably the most cluttered with the most potential for improvement.

ALL the specs I predict will be less mobile in the future as I'm pretty sure the macro direction is to make casters more turret'ish thus giving melee back some of their niche. Hopefully this goes along with a reduction to melee gap closers/interrupts/CC in pvp but that's a whole other discussion.

[Count Zero]

I feel like snapshotting is a huge problem. On one hand, it's one of the few ways to raise the skillcap. I think we can all agree there needs to be a way to differentiate between less-skilled/somewhat-skilled/very-skilled players, and knowing how to play to the game's mechanics is one of them.

However, as others have mentioned, yeah, it makes balance for Aff a nightmare. Either we're poor at single-target but good at multidot, or we're good at single-target and god-mode at multidot. I realize that snapshotting is only part of this issue ... they did some work on it by pumping more power into Haunt and having MG buff our dots (essentially) ... but, yeah, when you get these uber procs and can spread them around ...

I realize I'm in the overwhelming minority with regard to trinks. It seems like most everyone else wants super powerful trinkets that only ever proc exactly when they want them to line up with cds, whereas I would prefer somewhat-strong RPPM trinks. People are just obsessed with simulated dps and can't handle RNG. I really don't get it. I think the real problem is how powerful trinkets are. If you don't want RNG, then you don't want an RPG -- but, yes, too much of our dps is tied to RNG. It should be some but not as much as it is.