Warlock Discussion with Senior Technical Game Designer Kris Zierhut.

[Akraen]

Leave Warlocks as-is, and use them as a benchmark for other pure design.

Mages, rogues, and hunters would kill to have the attention locks have had. That's not to say there aren't some improvements to be made, but I hate to see you guys get a rehaul again for your sakes mostly.

[The Penguin]

GC is a middle aged man working for Blizzard to earn his living and his reputation. I seriously doubt be is on a childish agenda like some preteen...

I would absolutely love to believe that. The only problem is that Tigole and Furor who are the same way, and now also incidentally back on WoW; spent 3 years making Paladins worthless for anything but healing and said many times they were not "supposed" to dps and that only Warriors were legitimate Tanks. Some people just remember the past only too well and are as a result only too aware of how Blizzard handles balance.

[purebalance]

DoT snapshotting is a relic of out of date game technology. The second they gave dots dynamic updating it should have been removed. I'm glad it's finally gone, maybe I'll actually enjoy playing a dot class again, it used to be my favorite play style.

This. All the people who claim it's "skill" use a plethora of add ons to TELL them when to reapply. It isn't skill at all. It's having an add play for you 99% of the time with these people.

[Deleted]

the removal of snapshooting will make afflic very boring to play, ill certainly be worried about how they will make afflic feel engaging without snapshooting, i heard talk about some compensation to afflic for its dumbed down gameplay in WoD but i dont know that person was just blowing smoke out of their ass or if it holds any truth to it. in any case they will need to add something for afflocks to react to or it will be too much of a faceroll spec, at the very least they will need to buff our dots to ensure that percentage-wise our doys still deal around the same overall dmg. its still early tho, and they have time to work on some ideas, and hopefully they will actually listen to the feedback we come with.

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This. All the people who claim it's "skill" use a plethora of add ons to TELL them when to reapply. It isn't skill at all. It's having an add play for you 99% of the time with these people.

think you missed the concept of addons, they dont play for you, they simply help you to play better, no1 forces you to use them tho.

[Deleted]

This. All the people who claim it's "skill" use a plethora of add ons to TELL them when to reapply. It isn't skill at all. It's having an add play for you 99% of the time with these people.

Dot snapthotting still existed well before affdots.

I didn't start raiding until a month or so into the expac, and was a good 15-20 ilvl behind my (very casual!) other raiders. I tracked my trinket procs and worked it out in my head whether it was worth refreshing.

I'm not saying this is hard to do by any means, but please remember that affdots hasn't been around for that long.

I'll admit it's usefulness increased when RPPM became a thing, but I didn't start using it until mid ToT when I needed to track crit dooms, and I did perfectly well without it before then.

[Jessicka]

the removal of snapshooting will make afflic very boring to play, ill certainly be worried about how they will make afflic feel engaging without snapshooting, i heard talk about some compensation to afflic for its dumbed down gameplay in WoD but i dont know that person was just blowing smoke out of their ass or if it holds any truth to it. in any case they will need to add something for afflocks to react to or it will be too much of a faceroll spec, at the very least they will need to buff our dots to ensure that percentage-wise our doys still deal around the same overall dmg. its still early tho, and they have time to work on some ideas, and hopefully they will actually listen to the feedback we come with.

Go play it without AffDots playing to max your Haunt/MG overlap. That's all I can suggest. If you don't find it engaging or interesting, then fair enough, but I'm just seeing so much butthurt about it becoming boring and lacking depth, followed by a description that bares so little resemblance to how the spec is intended to be played that it's just pointless trying to discuss it - because the motivation for the complaint is so blatantly about losing a very obvious crutch to power that is self evidently diminishing the true mechanics itself.

I forget who mentioned it, but the comparison with UVLS that offered up so much Fury as to render management meaningless is quite legitimate. DoT snapshotting is offering so much damage that it is clearly rendering Haunt/Shard management so unimportant that players simply aren't recognising it as the central part of the spec it was designed to be. To suggest that therefore this is some kind of retribution against a designer is fucking insane when it's actually allowing the spec design, rather than some global coding mechanic to shine through.

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I'll admit it's usefulness increased when RPPM became a thing, but I didn't start using it until mid ToT when I needed to track crit dooms, and I did perfectly well without it before then.

Are you suggesting watching your RPPM trinkets will cease to be a thing and that spending resources to get the most out of them won't matter? The reality is that you'll still watch them, you'll still spend your resources on them, you just won't be able to pad out their benefit long after they faded.

[Gorthan]

Are you suggesting watching your RPPM trinkets will cease to be a thing and that spending resources to get the most out of them won't matter? The reality is that you'll still watch them, you'll still spend your resources on them, you just won't be able to pad out their benefit long after they faded.

This will depend on how the new trinkets, or proc mechanics, will be implemented in the next exp. I remember the "old school" trinkets with passive stats and random procs (no main stats). For what we can tell now, devs want to create a game where watching your procs isn't relevant.
And i'm happy of this because i've never considered it funny. And it's totally out of control.

[Deleted]

Are you suggesting watching your RPPM trinkets will cease to be a thing and that spending resources to get the most out of them won't matter? The reality is that you'll still watch them, you'll still spend your resources on them, you just won't be able to pad out their benefit long after they faded.

Eh? I was saying that affdots wasn't really that helpful until 2x RPPM trinkets and RPPM meta gem made it harder to keep track of just how strong your current dots were in relation to current procs.

[Grizelda]

I don't understand people saying they need AffDots.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great add on and I'm not a worlds first player...but you just need to remember how strong your Dots were 20-30 seconds ago. If I can remember you can remember.

I do use timers, but I feel that's just taking info and putting it in a more accessible place.

I don't mean to put down peeps who use it. I like that the UI is so customizable.


The existence of AffDots does not mean DoT snapshotting is broken. The impossibility of balancing with DoT snapshotting I DO understand.

[Akraen]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...094?page=8#154

(mages tanking with spell steal)

At levels 91-100 all classes get modifications to their spells, which includes having more utility. If you lobby for increasing pet utility as well, and then lobby for Observer: Clone Magic to be changed, so that master gets the buff; then we might replace the mages in their fights.

You already do replace mages in every situation so I guess it'll remain that way.

[Jessicka]

This will depend on how the new trinkets, or proc mechanics, will be implemented in the next exp. I remember the "old school" trinkets with passive stats and random procs (no main stats). For what we can tell now, devs want to create a game where watching your procs isn't relevant.
And i'm happy of this because i've never considered it funny. And it's totally out of control.

They want watching procs to be relevant, it's just easier to balance them when every spec gets roughly the same benefit. Rather harder when half the specs get 20s of proc, a couple get 35-40s benefit and another is getting a full minute.

I don't understand people saying they need AffDots.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great add on and I'm not a worlds first player...but you just need to remember how strong your Dots were 20-30 seconds ago. If I can remember you can remember.

I do use timers, but I feel that's just taking info and putting it in a more accessible place.

I don't mean to put down peeps who use it. I like that the UI is so customizable.


The existence of AffDots does not mean DoT snapshotting is broken. The impossibility of balancing with DoT snapshotting I DO understand.

The existence of AffDots doesn't mean snapshotting is broken, it does mean it's significantly easier to exploit than intended which does all kinds of weird things to balance. The alternatives; like attempting to break such addons from working, or removing trinket procs and Pandemic from the game would effectively remove snapshotting anyway, while also removing other aspects of gameplay that people consider compelling (with no guarantees that attempting to break AffDots would even work for long before someone found a workaround).

It is just the cleanest method of fixing it to remove it altogether because it means you can keep all the other things.

[Grizelda]

Hmmm let me rephrase that.

The ubiquity of AffDots should not on it's own necessitate Snapshottings removal. It's not that mandatory.
I make this point because several posters mention that if you need an add on to play properly something is wrong.

I do agree with you however. I will miss it but it's removal does seem the cleanest method.

[Deleted]

DoT snapshotting is offering so much damage that it is clearly rendering Haunt/Shard management so unimportant that players simply aren't recognising it as the central part of the spec it was designed to be. To suggest that therefore this is some kind of retribution against a designer is fucking insane when it's actually allowing the spec design, rather than some global coding mechanic to shine through.

that is really a clueless commment if ive ever seen one, if anything dot snapshotting makes shard management even more important, since you want to manage your shards for those times when you have powerful dots up, its the removal of dot snapshotting that makes shard managment utterly pointless coz you wont get anywhere close to the same benefit as you would with dot snapshotting.

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They want watching procs to be relevant, it's just easier to balance them when every spec gets roughly the same benefit. Rather harder when half the specs get 20s of proc, a couple get 35-40s benefit and another is getting a full minute.

and that is a very valid intention but that was exactly what dot snapshotting did, it made you watch for procs by default, i find it hard to believe that removal of snapshotting will do anything other than make trinket procs less worth watching.

[Grizelda]

that is really a clueless commment if ive ever seen one, if anything dot snapshotting makes shard management even more important, since you want to manage your shards for those times when you have powerful dots up, its the removal of dot snapshotting that makes shard managment utterly pointless coz you wont get anywhere close to the same benefit as you would with dot snapshotting.

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You will still want to save shards for procs, you just have less of a window.



I'm assuming we won't have to recast in order for the DoTs to benefit from proc. Other-wise FUCK this.

[Hatelocker]

and that is a very valid intention but that was exactly what dot snapshotting did, it made you watch for procs by default, i find it hard to believe that removal of snapshotting will do anything other than make trinket procs less worth watching.[/QUOTE]

It will make trinket proc less worth watching but will also make it much less punishing for people who do not trinket proc. Blizz has on several occasion tried to lower the difference between really good players and average players who do not do everything perfect. Currently with warlocks the difference between a top tier lock and someone who doesn't really know what they are doing is absolutely massive. Blizz absolutely likes it when really good players can game the system and do more damage. However, they get upset when these differences are the size of many countries like we see currently.

Removal of snapshotting fixes quite a few problems for Warlocks but it very much, imo, leads to a much more boring class to play as what else do we have to play with other than executes. Our entire class is basically:

1) Making the most of our trinkets
2) Gain resources from dying adds.

#1 will take a huge hit with the removal of snapshotting and I believe they are going to tone down #2 to more reasonable levels. That would make us much much easier to balance, less of a punishment for poor play, less reward for great play and possibly a much more boring class. I think it makes good sense from their standpoint but I just hope that once is all is said and done the class is still fun as it is a game after all.

[Deleted]

Sounds like Zierhut and GC are butt hurt that Xelnath made the class fun to play after four years.

I, for one, loved the old way Warlocks were. If you met a Warlock, you could at least be sure he went through the same trauma you did and as such was bound to know how to play the class. Also I miss DoTs in Destruction. A LOT. And who took my Soul Fire >.< Also each Spec felt like a Warlock. Now we play Warlock (Demo), Shadowpriest (Affli) and Arcane Mage (Destro).

The class was fun to play before. For me personally a lot more in the case of Destruction. I'd rather not have had so much streamlining and retard-friendly design in the spec. The overhaul of Demo though was godsend.

They just used two words that everyone should dread in these years in combination with Warlocks: "More accessible." And I for one dislike a lot of the changes. Not all, mind you, but A LOT.

[lockedout]

With dot snapshotting removed, I just don't see how it's possible to play affliction without falling asleep before boss fight ends.

Because watching affdots or any other dot tracking add on made you not fall asleep?
It's not like having an add on telling you what to do is engaging.

[PickleballAce]

I, for one, loved the old way Warlocks were. If you met a Warlock, you could at least be sure he went through the same trauma you did and as such was bound to know how to play the class. Also I miss DoTs in Destruction. A LOT. And who took my Soul Fire >.< Also each Spec felt like a Warlock. Now we play Warlock (Demo), Shadowpriest (Affli) and Arcane Mage (Destro).

Meh, remember Cata? Name this spec....

Three Dots, including Doom and Corruption
Shadowbolt as your filler
A short cooldown nuke
Used Felhunter as a pet




Affliction= Three Dots, Nuke Filler, short cooldown nuke, proc'd instant nuke, soul shards as resource, felhunter pet
Demonology= Three Dots, Nuke Filler, short cooldown nuke, proc'd hasted nukes, soul shards as resource, felhunter/felguard pet switching
Destruction= Three Dots, Nuke Filler, two short cooldown nukes, proc'd instant nuke, soul shards as resource, imp pet and..............ISF


Not that they didn't have their differences....like Metamorphosis or Affliction having Agony to multidot with....but the three specs had a lot less originality and more of a blending together with maybe a few things to keep them distinct. Of course, we're arguing over opinions here.

[Jessicka]

that is really a clueless commment if ive ever seen one, if anything dot snapshotting makes shard management even more important, since you want to manage your shards for those times when you have powerful dots up, its the removal of dot snapshotting that makes shard managment utterly pointless coz you wont get anywhere close to the same benefit as you would with dot snapshotting.

and that is a very valid intention but that was exactly what dot snapshotting did, it made you watch for procs by default, i find it hard to believe that removal of snapshotting will do anything other than make trinket procs less worth watching.

It's no different. You still want to watch them, and to get the maximum benefit you need to manage resources more carefully so you can get the new DoTs up (if they lack sufficient duration) and Haunt up in the smaller window in order to maximise the benefit. You get less benefit overall, but slacking on it means you lose an even greater proportion of it than you do today.

Besides that, you're still looking at 'shard management' not the mechanisms of timer and Haunt management. It really does not seem to be within your comprehension as to how things are intended because you're so blinded by snapshotting.

[sinderborn]

Playable? yes. Perfectly playable? no.

Raiding has meant using addons for a good while now, this is no longer the good old days when using the basic UI was perfectly acceptable, and more importantly, something Blizz designed around. We're past that, Blizz designs raid encounters and raid gear (trinkets/tier bonuses/etc.) around the assumption that if you are invested in raiding you will be using addons. They still make encounters in a way that someone can do the encounters in a basic way without too much outside help, but don't expect or demand to be able to do everything in this edge pushing part of the game in a basic UI without help from addons.

You're making Perfect the enemy of the playable... Dot Snapshotting and Tic micromanagement are huge performance boosters. Doing Hand of Gul'Dan right (clipping the last tic) vs. just keeping the spell on CD is something like a 40% boost to that spell's damage. before haste and before tricks with Metamorphosis on the second HoG. Doom snapshotting UVLS has an even larger impact. Corruption's impact on snapshotting is probably the least, but even there, if you've got the molten core proc's to burn, the affect is double digit percentages.

First question: Assuming identical gear, how big of a difference do you want between a competent player (one who understands his rotation and does not waste GCDs) and the optimal heroic raider-bot who uses add-ons to micro his dots? From what I've read, the designers like 10-20% as the sweet spot. As it stands on live, the delta is much larger than that.

Second question: Assuming you're not in the "perfect raiders should be doing double damage in identical gear" camp, how are you going to get to that 10-20% sweet spot when snapshotting has such a massive impact?