8.0 Warlock changes from Beta

[Deleted]

yeah, from that point of view i get your point bcoz you could spam soulfires all day by simply taking power siphon alone atleast on fights with low movement as demonic strength in that row should make up for the loss of dps while moving, but there will definately be situations where overloaded or even the scourge bombers will be the best option.

my only problem with demo on alpha atm is that there isnt a go-to ability for aoe, as crappy as demonwrath was, it was still a nice thing to have as something is still better than nothing, but i guess HoG is suppose to solve that since it hits for a ton and is the only option outside of our 45-90 sec cds, i do like the idea of demonic consumption with power siphon+nether portal/inner demons as it allows for a ton of imps to be summoned(8-16ish) and then be sacced for your demon commander for massive aoe(ofc depends on how big a buff the commander gets pr imp), altho i think the cd is a bit too long atm, i feel like they could add something like reducing the cd of the commander by 1 sec pr. demon sacrificed when taking demonic consumption.

With Demonic Strength Felstorm becomes 15s cd (if the 5000% works as 50%). But yes, everything looks pretty much single target. Maybe HoG should spawn Imps for each target it hits and maybe only 1 set has a chance for MC procs? (Our Imps will blot out the sun!!!!).

[Deleted]

It's not fine when the differences are in the order of 50-60%. Aff warlocks and Mistweaver monks are doing 4m+ AOE dps in high M+ keys, while other specs are around 2.6m. That's way too much of a difference to be fair and it's only out of pure laziness that they can't balance it better than that.

You have attributed a statement to me that was made by someone else.

However, in response: affliction warlocks are shit in normal/heroic/low key dungeons because everything dies way too fast to get the damage out. Many classes have an instant AOE, afflocks are stuck with a 2+s cast and it uses a resource.

The effect you are noting is simply that afflocks can do high AOE when they can sustain it; a lot comes from spready Corruption around, and you also get the effect of how you are drowning in shards and can keep up Reap and Wrath for long periods too.

[Deleted]

It's not fine when the differences are in the order of 50-60%. Aff warlocks and Mistweaver monks are doing 4m+ AOE dps in high M+ keys, while other specs are around 2.6m. That's way too much of a difference to be fair and it's only out of pure laziness that they can't balance it better than that.

It's not just as simple as just tuning numbers tho is it? If it was then im pretty certain they would tune accordingly. It is far more complex than that because of each classes unique class mechanics.

How would you balance it? Take a fury warrior for example with all their damage front loaded into short cooldowns, lets have them doing 4m sustained dps then suddenly on a short fight they are doing 8m, that's not fair on the warlock doing 4m sustained either? Oh lets give him a burst cooldowns so his damage is also front loaded.

And so on, we all end up just playing the same spec with reskinned spells and colours. There is always going to be difference in how damage is delivered, affliction is fucking trash at low level keys, short lived adds etc, its called a weakness, all classes have them, sure some need addressing, but what you are asking for is basically the moon on a stick, its just not going to happen.

[Deleted]

All artifact abilities are gone except for those turned into talents.

It's their shit ass pruning all over again. I can't believe they took shadow priest's void torrent and balance druid's moon spells, since those spells were even more integral to the gameplay of those specs.

No its not pruning. We where told since we got to know about artifacts that they would be temp. Sorry

[Maleific]

Pretty sure Power Siphon will get a cooldown, maybe 30 secs?.

[Baconeggcheese]

that is a gross simplification tho as it does more than just that, it also significantly increase your shard generation, almost doubling it and dont try to downplay the importance of mobility for a spec like demo, not to mention that it isnt just 1,5 sec vs gcd but it is also gcd vs 4 secs as you need to cast twice the amount of shadow bolts to generate the same amount of shards as a single soulfire, ofc you do have a point that if you look at only the gains of an instant cast soulfire vs a hardcast molten core soulfire but when you then add the fact that you'll completely remove shadow bolt from your rotation, then it becomes a different matter entirely but getting more and better mobility is HUGE for demo and the potential synergy with demonic comsumption and nether portal/inner demons makes this particular combo quite potent.

Youre confusing the mobility talent with the one that gives you mc procs which are two different things while not following the context of the quote.

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All artifact abilities are gone except for those turned into talents.

It's their shit ass pruning all over again. I can't believe they took shadow priest's void torrent and balance druid's moon spells, since those spells were even more integral to the gameplay of those specs.

Its the 2nd build of alpha and we havent seen any of the azerite abilities. Classes are clearly in a not even close to finished state. This is the time for feedback saying how important x and y is to z not rage mode about what hasnt happened yet

[Rafalga]

You have attributed a statement to me that was made by someone else.

However, in response: affliction warlocks are shit in normal/heroic/low key dungeons because everything dies way too fast to get the damage out. Many classes have an instant AOE, afflocks are stuck with a 2+s cast and it uses a resource.

The effect you are noting is simply that afflocks can do high AOE when they can sustain it; a lot comes from spready Corruption around, and you also get the effect of how you are drowning in shards and can keep up Reap and Wrath for long periods too.

sorry to jump in the middle but, who exactly cares about low level stuff? it's like saying Affli doing crap dps at level 40 offsets the %50 overall dmg difference in lvl 110.
As you said "Afflocks can do high AOE when they can sustain it" which is like always in m+ 18-19 and up. Who cares if its low in mythic 10 lol.


edit; Also there is a comparison regarding short burst CD based spec like Fury above. We are talking about OVERALL dmg at the end of the m+ run. Those "bursts" evens out around 2.5-3M at the end unlike affli which starts at 4M and finishes at 4M.

[Moggie]

Each of the specs should have their own major summon. Destruction has Infernal, that's cool. Demonology should have a proper, melee Doomguad. And Affliction should have a Dreadlord that casts dots and shadow bolts.

They kind of already did this way back when. Aff = Felhunter/Observer, Demo = Felguard, Destro = Imp.

It’d be nice if they simply gave locks more pets to choose from. Kindalike Hunters, but maybe only have 3 possible summons at a time like, select a range, melee, tank pet to store. Requires going back to some location to switch out a demon. Could be neat to add a healer pet in there...lol. Okay, I’m going back to my coffee.

[Baconeggcheese]

Something to remember is that we wont be tied down to specific specs like in legion meaning itll be ok if spec A is bad at X because we can always swap to the spec B like we did in every other xpac.

[Deleted]

With Demonic Strength Felstorm becomes 15s cd (if the 5000% works as 50%). But yes, everything looks pretty much single target. Maybe HoG should spawn Imps for each target it hits and maybe only 1 set has a chance for MC procs? (Our Imps will blot out the sun!!!!).

The CD of Felstorm is 45 seconds on live, so that would make it a 22.5 second CD. Not that that matters seeing as Felstorm has a 1 min CD on alpha.

I would've loved a 15 sec cd felstorm though

[Deleted]

The CD of Felstorm is 45 seconds on live, so that would make it a 22.5 second CD. Not that that matters seeing as Felstorm has a 1 min CD on alpha.

I would've loved a 15 sec cd felstorm though

The cooldown was 30sec on the alpha vids I've seen. However the 5000% cooldown reduction from Demonic Strength didn't do anything to change the 30 seconds.

[Lucrece]

Youre confusing the mobility talent with the one that gives you mc procs which are two different things while not following the context of the quote.

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Its the 2nd build of alpha and we havent seen any of the azerite abilities. Classes are clearly in a not even close to finished state. This is the time for feedback saying how important x and y is to z not rage mode about what hasnt happened yet

The issue is short of restoring those abilities ouright, the alternative to the niche they perform is to institute a passive for ap generation or insanity decay, which is a decidedly worse design option than the active abilities.

It is worrisome how they thought taking away these spells and putting them as competing talents or in the case of moon spells removed altogether would cripple the rotation of those specs.

Balance druid’s rotation is outright mindnumbing without the moon spells to manage; it’s that bareboned. They should be adding to these specs, not removing or replacing. Warlock has the luxury in that for most of its specs the artifact abilities were unremarkable.

[Khrux]

Balance druid’s rotation is outright mindnumbing without the moon spells to manage; it’s that bareboned.

Balance is a bit of an outlier though, as the vast majority of artifact abilities were anything from 30secs to 1.5mins in cooldown and were generally designed as a throughput CD to increase dmg for a period of time, provide on demand burst or generate resources.

Balance is the only one I can think of that was a legitimate rotational skill, as in used every few secs similar to say Elemental blast for Shamans. Its a button you would definitely miss as a Balance when just performing your rotations. While Spriest isn't suddenly broken without Void Torrent, it was used to prolong Void Form uptime and they are moving Spriest away from ~90% uptime in BfA anyway so they don't need a baseline Torrent and shouldn't miss a button thats only pressed every 60secs.

For warlock, destro's rifts were pretty close to balance's Moon spells in terms of frequency of use and function. They helped with resource generation, fleshed out your rotational buttons and were nice for movement but I won't miss Affliction's/Demo's artifact ability in the slightest.

[Deleted]

The cooldown was 30sec on the alpha vids I've seen. However the 5000% cooldown reduction from Demonic Strength didn't do anything to change the 30 seconds.

youtube.com/watch?v=

1Y3haJ1o7EM?t=5m14s

Just paste those bits together in your URL.


I'd love to see some demons specifically for certain roles for in the rotation. e.g. Dreadstalkers cleave talent, permanent inquisitor talent that attacks all targets hit by doom (No Hand of Doom mechanic = limited amount of targets that can be hit.)

[Deleted]

sorry to jump in the middle but, who exactly cares about low level stuff? it's like saying Affli doing crap dps at level 40 offsets the %50 overall dmg difference in lvl 110.
As you said "Afflocks can do high AOE when they can sustain it" which is like always in m+ 18-19 and up. Who cares if its low in mythic 10 lol.


edit; Also there is a comparison regarding short burst CD based spec like Fury above. We are talking about OVERALL dmg at the end of the m+ run. Those "bursts" evens out around 2.5-3M at the end unlike affli which starts at 4M and finishes at 4M.

You might be surprised ot hear this:

The majority of players neither raid nor play high level keys (compared to their gear levels).

Unfortunately, the minority who play high level keys that are highly challenging to their gear levels and who raid (particularly in heroic/mythic levels) tend to focus on what is relevant to the content they experience.

[Turturin the Warlock]

Something to remember is that we wont be tied down to specific specs like in legion meaning itll be ok if spec A is bad at X because we can always swap to the spec B like we did in every other xpac.

Yes, count me among those who won't miss spec-locked Artifact Power, legendaries, and relics.

[Lucrece]

Balance is a bit of an outlier though, as the vast majority of artifact abilities were anything from 30secs to 1.5mins in cooldown and were generally designed as a throughput CD to increase dmg for a period of time, provide on demand burst or generate resources.

Balance is the only one I can think of that was a legitimate rotational skill, as in used every few secs similar to say Elemental blast for Shamans. Its a button you would definitely miss as a Balance when just performing your rotations. While Spriest isn't suddenly broken without Void Torrent, it was used to prolong Void Form uptime and they are moving Spriest away from ~90% uptime in BfA anyway so they don't need a baseline Torrent and shouldn't miss a button thats only pressed every 60secs.

For warlock, destro's rifts were pretty close to balance's Moon spells in terms of frequency of use and function. They helped with resource generation, fleshed out your rotational buttons and were nice for movement but I won't miss Affliction's/Demo's artifact ability in the slightest.

If gaming voidform for uptime is not going to be an essential portion of shadow gameplay, the spec will be totally empty. It is virtually a 2 dots cast mind blast and then mindflay kind of spec. It has no depth if it isn't striving to maintain voidform uptime, of which void torrent is an essential tool.

Void Torrent also gave spriest a hard hitting nuke in one way or another. They can shift the damage to mindblast, but due to its frequency it will never give shadow priests the burst they were capable of achieving in pvp as well with it.

[Deleted]

youtube.com/watch?v=

1Y3haJ1o7EM?t=5m14s

Just paste those bits together in your URL.


I'd love to see some demons specifically for certain roles for in the rotation. e.g. Dreadstalkers cleave talent, permanent inquisitor talent that attacks all targets hit by doom (No Hand of Doom mechanic = limited amount of targets that can be hit.)

That vid shows 30sec cooldown (seen it before)...

[Inshabel]

sorry to jump in the middle but, who exactly cares about low level stuff? it's like saying Affli doing crap dps at level 40 offsets the %50 overall dmg difference in lvl 110.
As you said "Afflocks can do high AOE when they can sustain it" which is like always in m+ 18-19 and up. Who cares if its low in mythic 10 lol.


edit; Also there is a comparison regarding short burst CD based spec like Fury above. We are talking about OVERALL dmg at the end of the m+ run. Those "bursts" evens out around 2.5-3M at the end unlike affli which starts at 4M and finishes at 4M.

So you're saying 10 keys are as irrelevant as leveling? That's not elitist at all, you need to get to a certain gear level before you can do 18 keys, kinda hard to get there if your class is inherently bad at low keys and noone will take you, it's not like leveling where you can progress on your own after all.. 10 keys might be far beneath your superior skills, but it's still group content without matchmaking..

[Deleted]

So you're saying 10 keys are as irrelevant as leveling? That's not elitist at all, you need to get to a certain gear level before you can do 18 keys, kinda hard to get there if your class is inherently bad at low keys and noone will take you, it's not like leveling where you can progress on your own after all.. 10 keys might be far beneath your superior skills, but it's still group content without matchmaking..

Boosted a WL last sunday. Right now he is ilevel 943. Did 1 +10 Key (my own) last week. None this week (+9 -> +12 -> +14 - +15, failed timer because pug DPS on tuesday 11 pm is bad). Wont to +10 keys again. The thing is WL is not bad at low keys, he is bad at keys where everything dies instant. If your group struggles to do +10 in time, then trash packs will live long enough for the dots to tick. If you kill everything in the rogue/warri/monk burst in a +17, your DPS will suck.

Its a matter of the group. And yes +10 is irrelevant if you want to push keys, because you can do up to +15s with the argunit gear.