8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[Count Zero]

Yeah, I don't really understand the hatred toward Drain Soul. I really liked it, but if people hate it, and they're in the majority, then Ok, I'll deal with Shadow Bolt again.


The thing I liked the most about Drain Soul over Shadow Bolt was the ability to short-cast Drain Soul to help improve movement. Shadow bolt, you can't short-cast it...

Split seems a lot more even since the discussion has continued.

I wonder what your average, casual (not at all using that pejoratively) Warlock thinks. Or will think, since people who read forums and PTR patch notes are in the overwhelming minority (and people who POST on forums are even a fraction of that fraction).

[Deleted]

Split seems a lot more even since the discussion has continued.

I wonder what your average, casual (not at all using that pejoratively) Warlock thinks. Or will think, since people who read forums and PTR patch notes are in the overwhelming minority (and people who POST on forums are even a fraction of that fraction).

I'm a casual, I absolutely do not understand the obsession with Shadow Bolt some of you guys have. It's a clunky long cast direct damage filler, i.e. the most boring type of spell even possible to have in a game. Now it will also have Shadow Embrace. Yay.

DS was good because ticks mean no time wasted on movement and shards from execute. That's two benefits gone, in exchange for a return to maintenance buff that drops any time the fight requires you to do something for several seconds.

Generally I would guess even mediocre warlocks, if playing Aff, expect to be kings on multi-target fights, especially if there is a lot of movement or mechanics to react to. All relative to their play environment, e.g. blue parse casual lock playing in a blue parse casual guild and so on. We're getting a filler with 3 real downsides (ok, one that could be potentially mitigated w/ Nightfall) that detract from that. What's the upside of SB, aside from nostalgia?

[Deleted]

What's the upside of SB, aside from nostalgia?

I'm totally on the fence about this subject, either is fine with me tbh.

I think one of the main issues is not DS itself but when you start adding mechanics like malefic grasp to it, it then becomes a problem. MG build i would argue is actually worse on movement right now than what you describe a downside to shadowbolt would be. Reason being is that because so much damage is held behind having to have MG on the target dots are weaker baseline, but it also creates particular playstyles to maximise said MG damage i.e the drain cycle system that we have now for ST, which alot of people really dont like. Its boring, RNG dependent on procs that it becomes very frustrating from parse to parse. You can do literally the exact same rotation and make no mistakes but do 200k less or more dependent solely on Reap and Fatal Echoes procs.

Having a shadowbolt filler should, in theory, allow more of that damage to be funneled back into baseline dots and make us feel less fucked over by not being able to stand and channel which is a 25% damage loss. Missing a few shadowbolts from movement with still powerful dots ticking on the target is not going to cripple your dps like MG can. Even with shadow embrace (duration tbc) but i would imagine it is in the ~8s range only requires you to sneak out 1 shadowbolt to keep it up, something that should be fine to achieve in all bar the most movement intensive fights or RP interludes, where it happens to everyone so your all fucked anyways.

Then when you do have high movement fights there are talents that allow you to mitigate things even further i.e WiA, Haunt and Deathbolt (where movement is on a timer this will be the best talent imo).

Back in the day alot of these talents were birthed because of negative effect pve co-efficients that were having on pvp, a classic example was frost mage mastery. Frost was an un-viable pve spec because the mastery made it impossible to balance without it being hilariously OP in pvp (Frostburn you do x% more damage to frozen targets). It was the same with affliction, they needed away to still make afflictions dots powerful without it breaking balance in pvp thus malefic grasp was conceived because shifting a large portion of dot power behind a channel allowed them to still hit really hard in PvE but was balanced in PvP with the amount of stuns/interupts and disruptive cc you can put on the lock to shut that damage down.

Now they have templates and separate pvp modifiers there is no reason we cannot return to the days of dots being super powerful since they can just adjust the numbers for pvp without effecting pve at all. So in turn fillers become that, just fillers, not a ramp mechanic designed to throttle the damage and make you feel weak without it.

And then there is always the fact that some just like to press a button every 2 seconds, which you can do with DS right now, it just feels a little silly doing so.

[evertonbelmontt]

DS or DL is better because:

- It scales much better with haste.
- Way less impact on those like me who plays on high latency (200), compared to majority of you with 60. We can spam DS midcast to minimize this.
- It adds depth with sniping as a shard generator.
- It fits better as a drain/dot spec.
- You can cast it and get a tick or two before moving, Shadowbolt is either a "yes or no" thing and feels like shit when you have to cancel the cast "almost there". And it happens, even if you plan for it.

What does SB has going for it?

- It's a direct damage nuke, can go through totems and such.
- Has synergy with Nightfall getting instant cast.

That's it?


PS: not counting heals because this can be easility tunned down or even cutted.

[elgarta]

Absolutely no changes to Demo when they said it would be one of the few classes getting a major overhaul? It looks like Aff and Destru got more fucking work done on it than Demo.

You realize this is a leak from an internal version of the game for testing right? It isn't a release build that is going live on Tuesday.

I mean heck, you do realize that right?

[Biomega]

there is no reason we cannot return to the days of dots being super powerful

WiA is already only slightly behind MG on ST. With people sporting Mastery values of 170% or more, I daresay DoTs are already super powerful. I suspect that they are considered TOO powerful, and that as a result Shadow Bolt will come in as a mitigating factor to frontload more damage into a direct nuke rather than automatic, movement-independent DoTs which btw are also what's behind the ludicrous MT scaling of Affliction. DoTs will be nerfed heavily, that is what I suspect is behind these changes as a whole.

[Deleted]

WiA is already only slightly behind MG on ST. With people sporting Mastery values of 170% or more, I daresay DoTs are already super powerful. I suspect that they are considered TOO powerful, and that as a result Shadow Bolt will come in as a mitigating factor to frontload more damage into a direct nuke rather than automatic, movement-independent DoTs which btw are also what's behind the ludicrous MT scaling of Affliction. DoTs will be nerfed heavily, that is what I suspect is behind these changes as a whole.

Well that's for them to decide in terms of how much the proportional damage they want SB to do as a whole. Having a large portion of that overall damage in a direct nuke spell however goes completely against what they said their plans for each spec focusing on its niche would be in the water cooler post.

And i would say the artifact weapon is the real elephant in the room regarding the scaling issue for current affliction, try playing the spec without using reap at all, it will be a very different situation when that is gone.

[Biomega]

Having a large portion of that overall damage in a direct nuke spell however goes completely against what they said their plans for each spec focusing on its niche would be in the water cooler post.

"Niches" are entirely artificial, though, and by no means equal. What are those "niches" supposed to be? "Single target"? "Multi target"? Those two are not in any way equal, simply because no raid tier is ever going to be 50% ST fights which are often one-dimensional and boring and as a result rarely more than a handful of fights. As a result the supposed "multi-target" niche becomes disproportionately more powerful to have, assuming you don't nerf the respective classes' non-niche damage into the ground - which is not going to happen, because there would be a riot if a class like Affliction was dead last on ST meters even if it tears up MT. As I've said in many places, the trend towards homogenization happened for a reason - people don't want to play in raids full of class stacking and hyper specialization, where they get subbed out or ridiculed (or both) because another class happens to match the current progression fight's "niche" better.

I think this is the usual Blizzard "campaign promise" talk. Yeah yeah, you want classes to have identities, yeah yeah, all super cool and awesome and interesting and somehow balanced, too. We get it, people need to buy your product. But the reality is that this will be almost impossible to actually put into workable practice.

[FelPlague]

Absolutely no changes to Demo when they said it would be one of the few classes getting a major overhaul? It looks like Aff and Destru got more fucking work done on it than Demo.

most likley havent touched it yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Soulfire should have been a demonology spell. Destro's hardest hitting spell should be chaosbolt, and it makes no sense to dilute their burst by introducing a spell that works just like chaosbolt but does 40% more spell damage, which means chaos bolt will have to be balanced around that output.

its a cooldown, so it wont touch chaos bolt at all really.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

DS or DL is better because:

- It scales much better with haste.
- Way less impact on those like me who plays on high latency (200), compared to majority of you with 60. We can spam DS midcast to minimize this.
- It adds depth with sniping as a shard generator.
- It fits better as a drain/dot spec.
- You can cast it and get a tick or two before moving, Shadowbolt is either a "yes or no" thing and feels like shit when you have to cancel the cast "almost there". And it happens, even if you plan for it.

What does SB has going for it?

- It's a direct damage nuke, can go through totems and such.
- Has synergy with Nightfall getting instant cast.

That's it?


PS: not counting heals because this can be easility tunned down or even cutted.

I think it's just being able to press a button more often makes the spec feel more interactive. The long draining downtimes when I can just take my hands off the keyboard are the reason I don't really enjoy affliction in its current incarnation.

[derpkitteh]

Affliction is getting so much death-themed abilities... had to check three times whether I was reading Warlock changes or Death Knight changes

you know, i like the ideal of affliction being like the orc necrolytes. using fel-infused death magic and stuff. that's pretty damn cool.

i actually could see getting a horrifically powerful death bolt off if you've got enough haste. slam like four unstable afflictions and then annihilate their anus with the death bolt, that'll feel pretty yummy.

[Count Zero]

I think it's just being able to press a button more often makes the spec feel more interactive. The long draining downtimes when I can just take my hands off the keyboard are the reason I don't really enjoy affliction in its current incarnation.

Can't you just have an empty keybind you spam if you really need to spam something ?

Being earnest here. I don't want Drain Life/Soul gone just because people want to spam a button.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Can't you just have an empty keybind you spam if you really need to spam something ?

Being earnest here. I don't want Drain Life/Soul gone just because people want to spam a button.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for the change, I'm perfectly happy letting people enjoy affli and myself enjoying demo. I'll be interested to see if I like the new playstyle more if it goes live, but I'm perfectly happy for you guys to have your drain spec.

[Count Zero]

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for the change, I'm perfectly happy letting people enjoy affli and myself enjoying demo. I'll be interested to see if I like the new playstyle more if it goes live, but I'm perfectly happy for you guys to have your drain spec.

lol I feel like I'm talking about it more than I'm worried about it. I really like Drain, both thematically and lore wise, but I won't, like, be mad about it being gone.

Just - if we lost it as filler / execute (like if they brought it back just in that capacity) / even if we lost it entirely (like even just as a low-damage heal), I'd like it to be for a good reason, and not as a random prune victim or because people want to push their filler every 2.5 seconds instead of every 4 seconds.

[Wickedevil]

Anybody else want standard burst/execute mechanics back for all classes and specs. Thinking WoD here, where one mechanic works great at higher health, and another mechanic works great at lower health.

I kinda miss that, death's embrace is cool and all, but it doesn't change gameplay at all.

[Deleted]

"Niches" are entirely artificial, though, and by no means equal. What are those "niches" supposed to be? "Single target"? "Multi target"? Those two are not in any way equal, simply because no raid tier is ever going to be 50% ST fights which are often one-dimensional and boring and as a result rarely more than a handful of fights. As a result the supposed "multi-target" niche becomes disproportionately more powerful to have, assuming you don't nerf the respective classes' non-niche damage into the ground - which is not going to happen, because there would be a riot if a class like Affliction was dead last on ST meters even if it tears up MT. As I've said in many places, the trend towards homogenization happened for a reason - people don't want to play in raids full of class stacking and hyper specialization, where they get subbed out or ridiculed (or both) because another class happens to match the current progression fight's "niche" better.

I think this is the usual Blizzard "campaign promise" talk. Yeah yeah, you want classes to have identities, yeah yeah, all super cool and awesome and interesting and somehow balanced, too. We get it, people need to buy your product. But the reality is that this will be almost impossible to actually put into workable practice.

Niche as in focus upon their strength i.e dots, there post was more about the identity of the class so by that affliction should be focused on the majority of its damage coming from dots, not nukes ergo having SB as a lion share filler of the damage doesn't really fit with that. Destro being huge nukes so immolate being nothing other than shard gen and shit damage, they long cast big co-efficient spells like soul fire coming back.

Whether they manage to stick to that design philosophy we will see.

[Maleific]

Soul Leech is also getting nerfed, and DR is a joke of a defensive. 40% on a 3 minute CD is only enough now because we're always at max health, that won't happen in 8.0

4% Burning Rush needs to change if they tune down self healing.

It's *only* 40% because we have other things (like soul leech) propping us up. If we're too squishy, they'll probably buff us.

So much doomsaying over losing rediculous self heals, if we have to heal ourselves it should come at a dps cost, like everybody else.

RE SB vs DS: SB above 80% with DS execute always felt more appropriate.

RE the 'people just want to spam SB' thing. Most people deal with the aff's relatively low APM by refreshing DS early anyway.

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Being earnest here. I don't want Drain Life/Soul gone just because people want to spam a button.

Afaik a lot of people clip DS to do just that.

[Gaidax]

So much doomsaying over losing rediculous self heals, if we have to heal ourselves it should come at a dps cost, like everybody else.

TBH, I could not give a flying fuck about Aff because I hate the spec with passion, so by definition I am not a doomsayer. It's basically more of a raised eyebrow moment at people who cheer at what is pretty much a net downgrade.

For me it's pretty much a /shrug thing.

[Maleific]

TBH, I could not give a flying fuck about Aff because I hate the spec with passion, so by definition I am not a doomsayer. It's basically more of a raised eyebrow moment at people who cheer at what is pretty much a net downgrade.

For me it's pretty much a /shrug thing.

It's probably intended to be a downgrade. Ofc some people like eing overpowered and will kick and scream when the nerf bat comes along.

[FelPlague]

I do find it silly once you drain soul someone it just constantyl turns you to face them, no need to turn, i do quite like that, but see how others can find it stupid.
as stuff with a shadow bolt, if they LOS you, then your attack misses, but drain life, get it off, then they hide, it still keeps ticking.