8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[Crayola Memes]

I think the effect of incinerate looks really cool, but they should add maybe 2 more fire lines to it.

[Challenge]

Comparing the affliction spec and shadow priest spec in BfA. I think Blizzard decided to make spriests the "dot king+heavy burst" and affliction is the "hybrid dot caster" class.
Their VT does more damage per second than UA (and it lasts 24sec which is the equivalent of 4UA and 4 soul shards)
Their SWP does as much as Agony (more due to shadow apparition)
Their Void Entropy does as much damage as VT per second (more than corruption+siphon life together).
They get insanity form for heavy burst. We got flat increase in damage from our pet.

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You re right to say that we can't qq since we havent seen the nerf from other classes. However, I can assure you that a caster without mobility and deffensives will get ravaged by melees even if they nerf their damage by 50%.

All 3 lock specs currently in pvp are viable with the lowest mobility in the game. Defensive wise we have literally the exact same abilities are we do in the live build, only destro is going back to the non artifact 3 minute unending resolve version instead of a 1 minute version. Which speaking of, I think its a bad design for pvp, shield wall and kick immunity for 8 seconds every 1 minute lol. Rather they find a more creative and less crude way to make destro playable in pvp.

But anyway has there ever been a pvp season where warlocks didnt have at LEAST 1 top tier pvp spec? I can only think of S5 which was a shitshow regardless. Warlocks have always been good and I'm sure we'll be more than fine.

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Can we not in this thread? It's about changes, not to air gripes and suspicions or to psychoanalyze Blizzard devs.

Thats his shtick, opening with general sky is falling phrases or nothing constuctive to add to the topic at hand. Some people just like to be controversial for the sake of it without reason.

[Nemah]

Warlock should get a disarm option, as should shadow priests since those are the two casters who can't kite melee worth a damn.

In the good ol' days, the VW had it. Fun times.

[Ifeanychukwu]

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.

It's alpha fam chillax.

[Kithelle]

It's alpha fam chillax.

Hard to have faith in the Devs when they haven't earned it...

[Kagthul]

It's alpha fam chillax.

ahh.. the venerable "its alpha! itll change!" 'comeback'.

I will remind you that almost nothing changed from the Legion Alpha to live... there is stuff that is STILL broken with the Aff Artifact.

Same with WoD.. same with Pandaria.. etc, etc, etc.

The "its alpha", "its beta", "dont worry its still two months to live!" crowd never cease to amaze me with how little they learn.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Hard to have faith in the Devs when they haven't earned it...

Well you can either hope for the best or wallow in self pity until the expansion drops. I'd personally rather be hopeful. Hopefully the devs will listen to beta feedback a little more this time around and most players will be happy with what they do in the end but the most we can do now is be patient.

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ahh.. the venerable "its alpha! itll change!" 'comeback'.

I will remind you that almost nothing changed from the Legion Alpha to live... there is stuff that is STILL broken with the Aff Artifact.

Same with WoD.. same with Pandaria.. etc, etc, etc.

The "its alpha", "its beta", "dont worry its still two months to live!" crowd never cease to amaze me with how little they learn.

That is true in some aspects and totally and completely false in others. Just because every single person didn't get exactly what they wanted doesn't mean changes aren't made for the better. Warlocks went from being one of the weakest specs in the first tier of Legion to practically dominating the rest of the expansion. There will most certainly be changes to every class and spec. Not everyone may like those changes but it is what it is.

[Challenge]

I played spriest demo rsham to 2k no voice easily with a 70%+ winrate, we farmed double melee. Adding a disarm would just make it that much better and potentially be op to those 2 specs together. Demonology already has the most CC of any lock spec with a 30 second ranged phsyical 4 second stun that comes from a pet (which is OP if you ask me).

Overall silences have also been phased out of the game which was kinda the direct counterpart to disarms. I think only boomkins, sin rogues, and shadow priest still have silences? I know warriors used to have one, monks had a psuedo one on their interupt, all rogue specs used to have garrote, DKs used to have strangulate, hunters had silencing shot, locks/mages had blanket silences, probally some others im forgetting.

If they are committed to making certain classes have specific sets of CC, such as shamans/monks/warlocks being the ONLY classes who provide AoE stuns, I could see disarms making a comeback IF they also make silences relevant again. (which they seem to be doing, look at this sin rogue talent http://bfa.wowhead.com/spell=196861/iron-wire

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I will remind you that almost nothing changed from the Legion Alpha to live... there is stuff that is STILL broken with the Aff Artifact.

I will remind you that quite a lot changed from Alpha to live, just not everything you wanted. Whats broken with the aff artifact you say?

[Kagthul]

Well you can either hope for the best or wallow in self pity until the expansion drops. I'd personally rather be hopeful. Hopefully the devs will listen to beta feedback a little more this time around and most players will be happy with what they do in the end but the most we can do now is be patient.

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That is true in some aspects and totally and completely false in others. Just because every single person didn't get exactly what they wanted doesn't mean changes aren't made for the better. Warlocks went from being one of the weakest specs in the first tier of Legion to practically dominating the rest of the expansion. There will most certainly be changes to every class and spec. Not everyone may like those changes but it is what it is.

Because of the nature of the class (half the damage is front-loaded in DoTs, procs, and pets) it has ALWAYS scaled well with gear, and with the rampant mudflation in Legion, this was simply a mathematical certainty.

Nothing actually -changed-. Blizzard just cant figure out how the fuck to do math and scale specs correctly, so you get constant damage tunings and percentage tweaks.

Mechanically, though... almost nothing changed from the very first Alpha build of Legion until right now.

I have zero faith that Blizzard is going to change their direction on anything we're seeing in the BfA Alpha. Because the past 6 expansions have all shown that to be true. Every. Single. One. What you see now is where Blizzard is going. The only thing that will change will be some numbers.

On the Demo front, ill grant that we MAY see some more/bigger changes over the Alpha because they already said Demo was getting a major overhaul and very likely just haven't gotten it into the Alpha yet because its a lot of changes. But for Aff and Destro, i'd bet you real money that what you see now is what you get in September when this shitfest goes live.

And just because its effective doesn't make it interesting or fun. Ive played Aff since the Vanilla beta, and in its current state it is so mind-fuckingly boring and un-fun i can barely stand to log in once a week to do the 3 Invasions + Greater Invasion.

[Kithelle]

Well you can either hope for the best or wallow in self pity until the expansion drops. I'd personally rather be hopeful. Hopefully the devs will listen to beta feedback a little more this time around and most players will be happy with what they do in the end but the most we can do now is be patient.

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That is true in some aspects and totally and completely false in others. Just because every single person didn't get exactly what they wanted doesn't mean changes aren't made for the better. Warlocks went from being one of the weakest specs in the first tier of Legion to practically dominating the rest of the expansion. There will most certainly be changes to every class and spec. Not everyone may like those changes but it is what it is.

Devs didn't listen to a damn thing about Demo the whole Legion Alpha/Beta and their response to it finally in live was to throw in the towel...told us to not play it and will fix it in Legion.

Damn right I'm upset that after sticking their thumbs up their asses for a whole expansion and still have nothing to show for it up to today.

[Kagthul]

I will remind you that quite a lot changed from Alpha to live,

Lets see that list then. Go ahead, ill wait. Since i already looked into this forever ago, i know you're completely fucking wrong, but go ahead.

just not everything you wanted.

No, literally nothing changed. AFTER it went live, almost a year later, some talents moved tiers, and a new talent was added. That's IT.

Whats broken with the aff artifact you say?

It will STILL randomly place you in combat if you have even a single soul stored.

And if there are any souls VISIBLE near you? Have fun being stuck in combat 20-30 seconds at random, just because.

Five of the traits DO NOT DO what their tooltips state, and never have, not even in the first Alpha build.

Do you just.. not pay attention?

[Avellon]

I don't see any way for a warlock to recover mana now, on destro at least, how does it work on Alpha now? No more mana regenerating skills? Since Life Tap no longer gives mana and that chaos bolt talent is gone. How does mana recovery work for warlock in this first alpha build?

[FertsBlert]

I don't see any way for a warlock to recover mana now, on destro at least, how does it work on Alpha now? No more mana regenerating skills? Since Life Tap no longer gives mana and that chaos bolt talent is gone. How does mana recovery work for warlock in this first alpha build?

Same as every other caster, mana is not your resource (except Arcane Mage sort of) mana regens faster than you can spend it.

[Avellon]

Same as every other caster, mana is not your resource (except Arcane Mage sort of) mana regens faster than you can spend it.

Oh, I see, so they're changing mana regen too, because now you consume mana pretty fast, at least on destro.

[bio347]

Oh, I see, so they're changing regen too, because now you consume mana pretty fast, at least on destro.

Not regen, they just made our spells much cheaper than they are now. They currently cost way more mana than, say, mage spells, because we have Life Tap to recover it. No more LT, no more really expensive spells.

[Challenge]

Lets see that list then. Go ahead, ill wait. Since i already looked into this forever ago, i know you're completely fucking wrong, but go ahead.

Just off the top of my head without even looking anything up, demonic empowerment changed quite a few times from being a charge based cooldown to being spamable.

Soul conduit replaced servitude, servitude replaced old supremacy

old aff artifact would summon actual attackable souls you had to tab target to get your souls from

soul harvest used to instantly generate 5 shards instead of the DPS cd it is now

A number change but infernal was MASSIVELY buffed from only being usable as a pvp stun/+10 target CD to being very strong in 3 target situations

I'd look up the alpha notes and give you all exact changes but honestly its a lot of effort from my side to appease a frothing chimp whos going to play no matter what they do in BFA so I dont care that much.

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Oh, I see, so they're changing mana regen too, because now you consume mana pretty fast, at least on destro.

Mana will probally only be used for utility/survivability spells like drain life, not for DPS skills

[Maleific]

Just off the top of my head without even looking anything up, demonic empowerment changed quite a few times from being a charge based cooldown to being spamable.

Soul conduit replaced servitude, servitude replaced old supremacy

old aff artifact would summon actual attackable souls you had to tab target to get your souls from

soul harvest used to instantly generate 5 shards instead of the DPS cd it is now

A number change but infernal was MASSIVELY buffed from only being usable as a pvp stun/+10 target CD to being very strong in 3 target situations

I'd look up the alpha notes and give you all exact changes but honestly its a lot of effort from my side to appease a retarded frothing chimp whos going to play no matter what they do in BFA so I dont care that much.

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Mana will probally only be used for utility/survivability spells like drain life, not for DPS skills

Portals went from a 1.5 sec cast time to instant.
Lord of Flames went from Rain of Fire to Summon Infernal/ Meteor Strike.



And sacrifice was basically removed from affliction.

[Duckz0rs]

In other news; Shadowburn is officially not tied to Conflag atm on alpha and has 2 charges, which is awesome. I think gahddo posted an image of it on the discord.

[Maleific]

In other news; Shadowburn is officially not tied to Conflag atm on alpha and has 2 charges, which is awesome. I think gahddo posted an image of it on the discord.

I hope it stays that way, i miss shadowburn sniping.

[Cyclone Duke]

Looking forwards to having old sacrifice back, especially getting the demon's ability again. Reminds me of back in TBC where you'd take 5/5 Bane and sacrifice your succubus for shadowbolt damage, huge single damage numbers.

Will be nice to have the damage self-baked as a flat % boost instead of the aoe-only option we have now, fun to try make CB go as high as it can.
Will be especially nice to be able to sacrifice different pets to get different abilities - I never have an interrupt as destro since we need to use our imp, at least with this talent we can take spell lock or singe magic into our kit.