World of BurstCraft: The only strat?

[Boshtastic]

I am a Hunter so when the real potency got taken out of our burst I wasn't so upset until I learned that warrior burst, for example, while being nerfed was left fairly intact.

As it seems to be the only tactic being used right now even in BG's where you have the support of others, I would like to know what is being done to level out burst over all classes and give different tactical options.

And also does anyone agree with the title??

[Damax]

you clearly missed the last few hotfixes about warrior didn't you?

warrior burst came from Taste for blood which was able to stack 5 times for 500% dmg increase on heroic strike. with 5.1 they limited it to 3 stack of TFB (taste for blood) lowering it to 300% and yesterday they lowered it to 1 stack (100%) which basically puts heroic strike to the level of slam.

Warlocks chaos waves was dmg reduced by 33% as well as costs reduced by 33%
Chaos bolt was made so the extra damage from grimoire of sacrifice (25% extra damage) is done over 3 sec instead of instantly.

Mage's huge shatter combo's where also nerfed. Basically using glyph of fire blast it was possible to frost bomb > pet root > Frostbolt > fireblast for some crazy dmg. now if you use the glyph to control when frost bomb burst it loses 50% dmg. which trust me is not attractive in anyway.

[Nicola]

you clearly missed the last few hotfixes about warrior didn't you?

warrior burst came from Taste for blood which was able to stack 5 times for 500% dmg increase on heroic strike. with 5.1 they limited it to 3 stack of TFB (taste for blood) lowering it to 300% and yesterday they lowered it to 1 stack (100%) which basically puts heroic strike to the level of slam.

Warlocks chaos waves was dmg reduced by 33% as well as costs reduced by 33%
Chaos bolt was made so the extra damage from grimoire of sacrifice (25% extra damage) is done over 3 sec instead of instantly.

Mage's huge shatter combo's where also nerfed. Basically using glyph of fire blast it was possible to frost bomb > pet root > Frostbolt > fireblast for some crazy dmg. now if you use the glyph to control when frost bomb burst it loses 50% dmg. which trust me is not attractive in anyway.

Yes, but nonetheless, the burst of several classes is still to high, making everything with little burst or very hard to pull off burst not viable in competive play

[Boshtastic]

you clearly missed the last few hotfixes about warrior didn't you?

warrior burst came from Taste for blood which was able to stack 5 times for 500% dmg increase on heroic strike. with 5.1 they limited it to 3 stack of TFB (taste for blood) lowering it to 300% and yesterday they lowered it to 1 stack (100%) which basically puts heroic strike to the level of slam.

Warlocks chaos waves was dmg reduced by 33% as well as costs reduced by 33%
Chaos bolt was made so the extra damage from grimoire of sacrifice (25% extra damage) is done over 3 sec instead of instantly.

Mage's huge shatter combo's where also nerfed. Basically using glyph of fire blast it was possible to frost bomb > pet root > Frostbolt > fireblast for some crazy dmg. now if you use the glyph to control when frost bomb burst it loses 50% dmg. which trust me is not attractive in anyway.

Actually yes I did miss them (been away for work for a week), but having played yesterday I noticed that in spite of these changes burst is still the only tactic utilized.

Also doesn't seem to have slowed warriors down much!

[FraQture]

Actually yes I did miss them (been away for work for a week), but having played yesterday I noticed that in spite of these changes burst is still the only tactic utilized.

Also doesn't seem to have slowed warriors down much!

As said above Taste for Blood was nerfed, a warrior with 5 stacks and every single cd up could crit for your entire hp pool. Go look it up on youtube and you can see that the nerf was indeed needed.

[Deleted]

Warriors are much better atm than they were with TfB stacking to 3 or 5. However, they're still on a similar level OP as mages/locks.

2nd wind needs healing reduced and shockwave either needs a cast time or a longer CD. Sustained damage should get a buff though because outside of this control warriors are gonna suck if they don't get that. Burst is ok, it's their control that's retarded.

Lock/Mage no comment. They're still out of control and should still get nerfed.

[Boshtastic]

As said above Taste for Blood was nerfed, a warrior with 5 stacks and every single cd up could crit for your entire hp pool. Go look it up on youtube and you can see that the nerf was indeed needed.

I know I said I have been away for a week, not the entire expansion.

I also said that in spite of this, burst is still the only strat being used.......... the topic of the thread.

[Deleted]

It's not like 5 stack tfb was super common anyway.. RNG.
I never liked the idea but i like that they are making abillities work different in PVP than in PVE.
Hopefully this is something that they will keep on doing.

[str8ac3]

I believe blizzard is nerfing class burst 1 by 1 but they made pvp trinket a 1 min cd to have some kind of burst while other cd are down which is a plus in my book, what they did to warrior is ok but it was all RNG with that 5 stack but with everthing pop with reck a 3stack taste for blood would hurt. I say they problem is trying to balance pvp around PvE cause top damage right now in PvE are Rogues and they get crap on in arena.

[Damax]

I know I said I have been away for a week, not the entire expansion.

I also said that in spite of this, burst is still the only strat being used.......... the topic of the thread.

Burst is the only way to kill anyone when healers are so strong and dps are also very strong. health pools quickly go up and down not slowly. thus a surprise burst before healer can act is the only way to kill something.

Strategies like drain mana are gone, hunter lost viper sting and priest now lost mana burn (boo) healers specially resto druid have infinite mana so there's no way substained damage (aff warlock) wouldn't be able to be outhealed unless you control the healer or get a big burst.

[TJ]

It's not like 5 stack tfb was super common anyway.. RNG.
I never liked the idea but i like that they are making abillities work different in PVP than in PVE.
Hopefully this is something that they will keep on doing.

By the amount of complaining you'd think it happened in every arena game, but everyone loves to exaggerate in WoW.

Shockwave needs a higher cd, that's all it needs. Whoever suggested giving it a cast time.. not a chance.

[Nicola]

Warriors are much better atm than they were with TfB stacking to 3 or 5. However, they're still on a similar level OP as mages/locks.

2nd wind needs healing reduced and shockwave either needs a cast time or a longer CD. Sustained damage should get a buff though because outside of this control warriors are gonna suck if they don't get that. Burst is ok, it's their control that's retarded.

Lock/Mage no comment. They're still out of control and should still get nerfed.

Do you mind if I shoot you in the face with a shotgun?

The only sole reason to take a warlock to PvP is blood fear and healthstones, they got nothing to offer.

Affliction hardly does any damage
Destruction can't cast chaosbolts due the long casttime, other spells simply do to little damage
Demonology only has 2 chaoswaves every 2min, which will 90% of the cases not even bring someone to half health.

So again, do you mind if I shoot you in the face with a shotgun?

[asb]

By the amount of complaining you'd think it happened in every arena game, but everyone loves to exaggerate in WoW.

Shockwave needs a higher cd, that's all it needs. Whoever suggested giving it a cast time.. not a chance.

It didn't have to be 5 stacks for it to do broken damage though. I've still died to hard switches at 3 stacks. It's not like TFB HS is like a chaos bolt or something--it was just a really, really hard-hitting ability (and off the gcd) that got tacked onto burst that's retarded to begin with. I've seen shockwave hit me for well over 100k when a warrior swiftys and switches to me, and I've seen a fair few heroic leaps for over 50k.

I think--just maybe--shockwave could do with a damage reduction on top of a longer cooldown (unless it's a much longer cooldown). Look at a rogue, where kidney shot costs energy, combo points, and does zero damage. I know comparing abilities from different classes is usually not worthwhile, but it just seems like such a mongoloid ability--you can't accidentally DR it, it's worth hitting on cooldown for either damage output or its stun, it costs you nothing, and it's AoE just for good measure.

Do you mind if I shoot you in the face with a shotgun?

The only sole reason to take a warlock to PvP is blood fear and healthstones, they got nothing to offer.

Affliction hardly does any damage
Destruction can't cast chaosbolts due the long casttime, other spells simply do to little damage
Demonology only has 2 chaoswaves every 2min, which will 90% of the cases not even bring someone to half health.

So again, do you mind if I shoot you in the face with a shotgun?

Yeah, he probably minds if you shoot him in the face with a shotgun. Settle down, 'Murrica.

Warlocks aren't exactly good aside from blood fear, but destro is certainly playable. No, you won't sit there and turret CBs, but you can land them if you don't have two interrupters sitting on you. It helps to play with a mage, since people tend to tunnel them as a top priority. Besides that, you've got an aura mastery and blood fear and one well-timed CB ends the game (just to be clear, I mean coordinated with teammate damage). I feel like you're dismissing chaos bolt because you just assume it'll be stopped every time instead of actually working at it. If it were easy to land, it wouldn't do so much damage.

[Venaliter]

Shockwave needs a higher cd, that's all it needs. Whoever suggested giving it a cast time.. not a chance.

I agree with this.

Burst is the only way to kill anyone when healers are so strong and dps are also very strong.

I'd amend this statement to say it is shamans and paladins who are strong healers. Disc/Holy/Mistweavers are rather weak.

Strategies like drain mana are gone,

More's the pity.

Do you mind if I shoot you in the face with a shotgun?

Just rude. Or ignorant. or something. Flagged.

[Nicola]

Yeah, he probably minds if you shoot him in the face with a shotgun. Settle down, 'Murrica.

Warlocks aren't exactly good aside from blood fear, but destro is certainly playable. No, you won't sit there and turret CBs, but you can land them if you don't have two interrupters sitting on you. It helps to play with a mage, since people tend to tunnel them as a top priority. Besides that, you've got an aura mastery and blood fear and one well-timed CB ends the game (just to be clear, I mean coordinated with teammate damage). I feel like you're dismissing chaos bolt because you just assume it'll be stopped every time instead of actually working at it. If it were easy to land, it wouldn't do so much damage.

First of all, I'm not from US >.>

Secondly, I'm not sure at what rating you play, but when playing against glads, the chances of getting a chaosbolt cast during dark soul is close to 0.
At 1.5k rating, where you fight against people in blues that can't interrupt properly, sure destro is sort of viable, above 2.2k, nope.

Chaosbolt only does enough damage when using cooldowns, cooldowns that only last 20 seconds. Trust me on this, it's very easy to prevent someone from casting it in such a small time frame. Those 20 seconds you have dark soul up, their whole team will do whatever they can to prevent the damage, which, on it's own is not deadly compared to the burst other classes have.

[asb]

First of all, I'm not from US >.>

Secondly, I'm not sure at what rating you play, but when playing against glads, the chances of getting a chaosbolt cast during dark soul is close to 0.
At 1.5k rating, where you fight against people in blues that can't interrupt properly, sure destro is sort of viable, above 2.2k, nope.

Chaosbolt only does enough damage when using cooldowns, cooldowns that only last 20 seconds. Trust me on this, it's very easy to prevent someone from casting it in such a small time frame. Those 20 seconds you have dark soul up, their whole team will do whatever they can to prevent the damage, which, on it's own is not deadly compared to the burst other classes have.

Yeah, I saw the location in your profile after I'd posted but decided to leave it. Still seems like a 'murrican thing to say.

I can admit I'm a ways off from glad range atm, but I'd like to think I still have a pretty good grasp on game balance. I'm by no means saying warlocks are an exceptional PvP class; they're definitely middle-of-the-pack at best. The thing is it's not always as clear-cut as good players will always stop my damage. They certainly will if they have something available to do so, but a big part of that will be comp-based. Against a shaman team, you're probably right (and I realize these are pretty common). Without tremor though, blood fear goes a long way to grabbing some easy trinkets, which means you can set up CC over your burst later on. Then there's the flipside of that--you could use dark soul to bait a bunch of trinkets/cooldowns so your mage (or whatever) can get a better setup shortly afterwards.

I sympathize with you, your class isn't good. You're really just a gimmick delivery system for blood fear, which in itself is massively broken (as far as a single ability can go, anyway). Hopefully they'll rework/remove blood fear and do something to make warlocks work again (UA eats a whole dispel maybe? idk). I agree with you for the most part, I just don't think warlocks are completely unplayable at the moment. You just kind of have to play support for one of the t1 classes, I'd think.

P.S. TBH I don't even know how hard CB hits now. Since the influx of demo players mostly died out, I don't see many warlocks. I've seen a couple while watching streams and it seems like a CB still does the majority of a healthpool with DS, but honestly I can't remember the last time I was hit by one.

[Baconeggcheese]

Chaos bolt does the exact same dmg it did before, the difference being if you take GoSac that extra 25% is done as a dot over 3s instead of immediate.

Chaos bolts dmg was never super scary like people blew it out of proportion, it was only scary when you had DS, 6 backdrafts, at least 3 embers, DS + trinket (when it was twice as strong) and possibly berserking. All those stories of CHAOSBOLT 1SHOT ME AMAGA! was in those situations vs under geared players.

The amount of set up time to make that happen is ridiculous though. What other classes will do to you in the time it takes for you to get that set up is silly, and as said as soon as you get that setup you're looking at getting cc'd through DS. Demo is still completely viable if you were using it as the utility spec it is and not just riding the chaoswave bandwagon.

ANYWAY blizzard *is* gradually making things less bursty / instant cast / OP heals and moving in the sustained direction 1 step at a time which is the smart way to do it. Balance comes through tweaking, trial, and error not just hard fast massive buffs / nerfs / reworks. I saw that 30% healing reduction thing coming from a mile away as a swtor player blizzard has been copping swtor on a bunch of little things this xpac, and they're gradually making this games pvp into swtors (making all the same mistakes though MUCH slower fixing it on blizzards end) which I personally think is a good thing. If they fix the burst I'd LOVE to see the resolve system in this game as diminishing returns is severely dated.

[Deleted]

Ghostcrawler mentioned alot reliable changes to burst in 5.2.

[Matt0193]

Ghostcrawler mentioned alot reliable changes to burst in 5.2.

GC mentions alot of things, that doesn't necessarily mean things will be better.

[kharyll]

Ghostcrawler mentioned alot reliable changes to burst in 5.2.

you could easily filter that "a lot" out of that sentence.