Demo: Why fewer buttons doesn't mean it needs to be less complex

[Jessicka]

There's a paradox with Warlocks on Live, many people complain of the complexity, and some have drawn the conclusion that that's down to the number of buttons we have to press. However, many people love the class for precisely the reason that having many buttons makes the class 'complex'.

I actually don't entirely agree with either stance. The complexity in the class is drawn from the conditionals under which each button is pressed, not that any specific button needs to be pressed at all: I wouldn't find pressing 1111111111 any easier or harder than hitting 1234567890 sequentially for example.

So let's take a look at the spells we use, and the conditionals under which they're triggered:

•Metamorphosis - Close to cooldown/Vulnerability
•Immolation Aura - In melee range, under Meta
•Demon Soul - Cooldown
•Doomguard/Infernal - Max procs/Vulnerability
•Immolate - When it isn't already applied
•Hand of Gul'dan - As close to cooldown as possible
•Bane of Doom - When it isn't applied, under max procs, within the last 15s if you have the same number or more procs, immediately after dropping if you have fewer procs
•Corruption - When it's not already applied, within the last 3s duration
•Shadowflame - When within melee, on cooldown
•Incinerate - If molten core is up
•Soul Fire - If Decimation is up/Soulburn is up
•Shadow Bolt - nothing else to do/Shadow Trance procs
•Life Tap - movement/mana low
•Fel Flame - movement with plenty of mana

What if we could combine some of those triggers under which you use those spells? Would it really make the spec less complex? Afterall, we're still responding to something to make a different keystroke.

Secondly, are those conditionals interesting? Do they add something to the game, or take something away if we can't meet them?

Starting from the top:
Immolation Aura - Melee range. I don't think this is a great conditional, it's a one strike button and we can't always make use of it. It's a frustration when we can't, and not hugely interesting when we can if it's just against a single target - it's a very passive ability to the point that many people actually macro it to Meta to save button space and a keystroke anyway. I don't feel like I'd miss it, because I don't on the many encounters I can't make use of it anyway.

Immolate - We hit this once in a single target rotation, or apply it across multiple targets when possible. I would certainly miss it from the latter.

Hand of Gul'dan - Refreshes Immolate, pressed on cooldown. What's wrong with refreshing Immolate manually? We managed fine before Cataclysm, and I'd contend that hitting Immolate to refresh in the final two seconds was harder and more interesting than this means of reapplication. I wouldn't miss it, I'd just press Immolate instead.

Bane of Doom - For a spell cast 4-5 times an encounter, that's a lot of conditionals. The conditionals make it interesting certainly, but for what it is, a single global that infrequently I can take or leave. On the whole, it's not adding all that much to the overall complexity of the spec.

Corruption - Bread and butter spell. Don't ever leave me

Shadowflame - Melee range is annoying, short cooldown, actually yeah, I like it when I can use it.

Incinerate - Just one conditional. On Beta it's gone and Soul Fire is filling that conditional, alongside Decimation. The trigger is still there, so which spell we hit because of it doesn't really matter so much. Fel Flame could as easily fit under that trigger as any other single target nuke.

Soul Fire - There are a couple of conditionals here, but Soul Shards are gone for Demo, and it now activates under Molten Core as well as Decimation. We're loosing therefore MC under Decimation, which is something I will miss, because having it come in during Cataclysm was actually one of the things I found nicer about the spec.

Shadow Bolt - filler, bread and butter of the spec. I'd miss it sorely.

Life Tap - Could be (and will be) used a bit more often.

Fel Flame - Could be more useful.

Looking back at it, we could drop 4 keys (Doom, HoG, Incinerate, Immolation Aura) from our action bars quite comfortably without really loosing anything by way of complexity or flavour in playstyle. The rotation would be tidier, looking somewhat like this:

•Metamorphosis - Max Fury/Vulnerability
•Dark Soul - Cooldown
•Doomguard/Infernal - Max procs/Vulnerability
•Immolate - When it isn't already applied (Now in effect Shadowflame DoT effect)
•Corruption - When it's not already applied, within the last 3s duration
•Shadowflame - As the new HoG (a short cooldown as per Shadowflame on Live, but with 40 yard range and not refreshing Immolate)
•Soul Fire - If Decimation is up (under Molten Core?)
•Shadow Bolt - nothing else to do
•Life Tap - movement/mana low
•Fel Flame - movement with plenty of mana (Under Molten Core?)

Also, there is now in addition thought to be played with the use of Fury and Meta, as well as the Glyphed application of Wild Imps. The rotation under Meta could also be varied slightly to give it a different feel along with it's use of Slash.

Thoughts?

[Obsidian9]

I agree with the premise that condition requirements of spells lends more complexity than the number of buttons to press. Of which Incinerate for demo is the perfect example, as we would have to react to MC whether it was attached to Incinerate or Soul Fire which might as well be consolidated.

I think that the rotation you have on the bottom could still use another cd/dot/debuff/proc (cd so people stop crying about burst, I don't know that HoG needs to go personally). It does however preserve the primary essence of demo (tell me Immolate would not be auto refresh city again) as Doom/Incinerate/Immolation Aura bring little to the table. I am however not abundantly qualified to comment on that part though as I avoid demo most of the time 9other than keeping in reasonable practice) as I find it dull on live.

[Jessicka]

I wouldn't want Shadowflame/HoG refreshing Immolate, it would just be short 12s cooldown as it is on live, but not have the melee range limitation. Clarified the OP.

[Deleted]

Warlocks only appear complex because the rest of the classes are super straight forward.
I actually prefer having HoG refresh immolate, and think something similar to the destro tree would make it feel more fluent, atm it feels like you either have to refresh one spell or use another spell that's come off CD.

[smegdawg]

If we have one DoT, it should have to be manually refreshed.

If we have two DoT's, one should be manually, and one refreshed by another spell.

The rest of the buttons I would agree with. Although, I do enjoy having shadowflame and HoG.

[Torq]

The problem isn't the relative complexity of the class, it's the lack of fluidity in the current rotation. There wouldn't be anything wrong with having more buttons, so long as it became more fluid to use, not less; which really highlights the issue so far. Warlocks have gotten more complex over time, but in such a way we have become less fluid as a result.

Slimming down the spec is the easiest way to make it more fluid. Yeah, we'll get simplified in the process, but the issue isn't how complex we are, it's how inorganic the rotation currently is.

If I were to express the proper priority in as the body of a loop in code (for example), I would not be surprised to see it exceed a hundred lines. That's a bit much for something we're essentially iterating over thousands of times per fight.

[Kompakt]

What do you mean by "fluid" though. I have seen that word so many times now, and nobody explains their ideal definition of "fluid". To my mind, the current rotation is plenty fluid. What most people who say they want a more fluid rotation actually want, is something solid. Rigid. Stable.

And also, what do you mean by inorganic? Can you apply some specific examples of how our rotation is more inorganic than others, paying close attention to the word you chose to use?

[n0n3]

I wouldnt like immolate as another dot to manually refresh,it would feel too close to affliction, personally i think they could work a bit with metamorphosis, lets say when u enter meta, u gain a buff that boosts your carrion swarm and once u leave demon form you gain another buff that will hasten your next shadow bolts depending on much time u were in meta, or maybe once u leave metamorphosis, all targets nearby and current target would get affected by corruption/doom and depending on how much fury u had when u left demon form the duration/dmg of that dot would be higher. My ideas might be stupid and i dont mind if ppl dismiss them coz they'll affect the game in a bad way, its the best i could come up in 5 mins of thinking about it.

L.E. imo a rotation should have a maximum of 4 buttons in it with another 2 cds to look after

[Torq]

What do you mean by "fluid" though. I have seen that word so many times now, and nobody explains their ideal definition of "fluid". To my mind, the current rotation is plenty fluid. What most people who say they want a more fluid rotation actually want, is something solid. Rigid. Stable.

Basically, my definition of fluid involves fewer variables in each step along the way. Maybe you would count that as more rigid, but it involves more readily apparent choices for each next step you take (i.e. you can more readily flow from one step to the next in your rotation). As it stands, not noticing a single buff can make the difference between casting one spell or the other, which can severely impact your dps. I guess my take on Demo right now is that it's too reactive, and there's little-to-no room to really plan ahead, because we're so very RNG-based (buffs, procs, impending doom, etc, etc).

You might feel like a virtuoso when you nail it flawlessly, but you still feeling like you're playing Aphex Twin rather than Mozart.

And also, what do you mean by inorganic? Can you apply some specific examples of how our rotation is more inorganic than others, paying close attention to the word you chose to use?

An organic rotation is kinda what I described above. It tends to build off itself, and move from one thing to another with relative ease. An inorganic one is one that tends to have dramatic shifts in priority based on some reactive element, such as a proc. To look at it a different way: the order in which you cast your spells can dramatically change at nearly any moment, and all you can do is react.

Don't get me wrong. I actually enjoy the spec as it stands. However, the current trend is for it to get more and more complicated; more variables in every decision. I don't think it's a bad thing that it gets simplified in that sense to some degree. If anything, the changes to the DoT mechanics might be enough to satisfy me (since, if I'm not mistaken, everything updates per-tick now). However, I also understand that I rather enjoy things to be more complex than most people; and I like having to react to things.

Furthermore, that's also my biggest struggle with the class; I spend so much attention reacting to my own buffs that I hardly have any time to react to the encounter itself. So while I enjoy playing the class, every fight ends up feeling the same, since I'm not really paying much more than the bare minimum of attention to the fight itself. This, in turn, leads me to become entirely bored with content more quickly, because it really all blurs together and ends up being basically the same thing. The only measurable difference between encounters is if they require burst or not.

[Torq]

I guess DEMO will have some MARVELOUS situational burst, now....

I give up with this feedback, reading so much nonsense aka " I love the mage arcane gameplay " makes me want to puke....

I don't think anyone is saying that in this thread. Quite the opposite, actually.

[Deleted]

There's a paradox with Warlocks on Live, many people complain of the complexity, and some have drawn the conclusion that that's down to the number of buttons we have to press. However, many people love the class for precisely the reason that having many buttons makes the class 'complex'.

I actually don't entirely agree with either stance. The complexity in the class is drawn from the conditionals under which each button is pressed, not that any specific button needs to be pressed at all: I wouldn't find pressing 1111111111 any easier or harder than hitting 1234567890 sequentially for example.

The complexity of a class is drawn from the conditionals under which the buttons are pushed AND how many buttons you have to push.

When you have to press 20 skills, while 15 of those have a 1-5 minutes cooldown, the class has a lot of skills but isn't complexed.

Pressing 1111111111 (or 1231231234) is NOT the same as pressing 1234567890. Not when those 1234567890 are skills on a short cooldown. Same way as using just 4 skills isn't the same as using the 14 we have now. There is a balance that makes a class "not too complexed, not too simplistic". Warlocks in TBC were just "CoE+spam shadow bolt" (211111111111 rotation)... now THAT was simplistic.

So complexity is a conjugation of 2 factors: number of skills to use + how often you use them.

Personally, i am glad with the changes they implemented.

[Kompakt]

Basically, my definition of fluid involves fewer variables in each step along the way. Maybe you would count that as more rigid, but it involves more readily apparent choices for each next step you take (i.e. you can more readily flow from one step to the next in your rotation). As it stands, not noticing a single buff can make the difference between casting one spell or the other, which can severely impact your dps. I guess my take on Demo right now is that it's too reactive, and there's little-to-no room to really plan ahead, because we're so very RNG-based (buffs, procs, impending doom, etc, etc).

You might feel like a virtuoso when you nail it flawlessly, but you still feeling like you're playing Aphex Twin rather than Mozart.

Your definition of fluid is completely at odds with everyone elses. RNG is what makes it fluid, unpredictable, and prevents it from being boring as hell. What you describe here are steps to make the spec easier for incompetent people to play. My suggestion is play something else.

An organic rotation is kinda what I described above. It tends to build off itself, and move from one thing to another with relative ease. An inorganic one is one that tends to have dramatic shifts in priority based on some reactive element, such as a proc. To look at it a different way: the order in which you cast your spells can dramatically change at nearly any moment, and all you can do is react.

Don't get me wrong. I actually enjoy the spec as it stands. However, the current trend is for it to get more and more complicated; more variables in every decision. I don't think it's a bad thing that it gets simplified in that sense to some degree. If anything, the changes to the DoT mechanics might be enough to satisfy me (since, if I'm not mistaken, everything updates per-tick now). However, I also understand that I rather enjoy things to be more complex than most people; and I like having to react to things.

Furthermore, that's also my biggest struggle with the class; I spend so much attention reacting to my own buffs that I hardly have any time to react to the encounter itself. So while I enjoy playing the class, every fight ends up feeling the same, since I'm not really paying much more than the bare minimum of attention to the fight itself. This, in turn, leads me to become entirely bored with content more quickly, because it really all blurs together and ends up being basically the same thing. The only measurable difference between encounters is if they require burst or not.

Everything you want in the spec is apparently just to make it more predictable and boring to play. The fact that it's not just a sequence of buttons to nail down is what makes it fun. If you just want to master a sequence of buttonpresses, that's fine, you already have plenty classes and specs you can play, so go play those. I don't want your desires ruining an actually fun class and spec though. I like it when I actually have to stay awake to play something, maybe I'm weird like that.

[Deleted]

In my opinion, the complexity of being a damagedealer limits the complexity of the boss-encounters.

All I did on Illidan was spam shadowbolt, more or less. Yet that time of my raiding life was AMAZINGLY AWESOME, where as Dungeon Soul HC, where my dps comes from 10 sources (Corr, Immo, BoD, Conf, CB, SF, Incin, Shadowflame, Shadow Burn, Fel Flame) strikes me as the most dull tier ever released, full of bossfights without any content.
Makes me think of FatBoss' 1 min guide to dragon soul youtube video. It really sums up the experience imo.

While exploring your class in depth to find the most efficient way of dealing damage is alot of fun, I would much prefer saving up 4 burning embers to strike down that beast that pops up every 1 minutte + 5 seconds for each shield broken and -7 from each gong rung divided by 11 for every raidmember death and multiplied by 20 for every curse dispelled in between the 4th and 5th tick.
In essence, I do like complexity to the extend that it keeps me updating my theorycraft, but not to a point where bossfights become ultraxion so that I may focus on which button to press next in my arsenal of spells and incantations.

[Jessicka]

Basically, my definition of fluid involves fewer variables in each step along the way. Maybe you would count that as more rigid, but it involves more readily apparent choices for each next step you take (i.e. you can more readily flow from one step to the next in your rotation). As it stands, not noticing a single buff can make the difference between casting one spell or the other, which can severely impact your dps. I guess my take on Demo right now is that it's too reactive, and there's little-to-no room to really plan ahead, because we're so very RNG-based (buffs, procs, impending doom, etc, etc).

You might feel like a virtuoso when you nail it flawlessly, but you still feeling like you're playing Aphex Twin rather than Mozart.

You're describing 3.3.x Destruction here. It was fun the first few times, but it very quickly became flat and predictable.

An organic rotation is kinda what I described above. It tends to build off itself, and move from one thing to another with relative ease. An inorganic one is one that tends to have dramatic shifts in priority based on some reactive element, such as a proc. To look at it a different way: the order in which you cast your spells can dramatically change at nearly any moment, and all you can do is react.

Don't get me wrong. I actually enjoy the spec as it stands. However, the current trend is for it to get more and more complicated; more variables in every decision. I don't think it's a bad thing that it gets simplified in that sense to some degree. If anything, the changes to the DoT mechanics might be enough to satisfy me (since, if I'm not mistaken, everything updates per-tick now). However, I also understand that I rather enjoy things to be more complex than most people; and I like having to react to things.

Furthermore, that's also my biggest struggle with the class; I spend so much attention reacting to my own buffs that I hardly have any time to react to the encounter itself. So while I enjoy playing the class, every fight ends up feeling the same, since I'm not really paying much more than the bare minimum of attention to the fight itself. This, in turn, leads me to become entirely bored with content more quickly, because it really all blurs together and ends up being basically the same thing. The only measurable difference between encounters is if they require burst or not.

If an organic spec builds off itself, then Demo does just that to the nth degree; just about everything you do with it has a proc and reaction to it. It is arguably a little overgrown because every off shoot leads to a whole new ability. I've already said that needn't be so, but I'd say only Shadowflame really feels forced, but then that's not really intended anyway and is the singular ability that doesn't offer any new conditions or triggers.

There are plenty of new mechanics that will offer QoL improvements, not least dynamically updating stats for Guardians and Meta. The extra control over Meta from Fury too will elminate the RNG and possibility of the ability overrunning it's usefulness as it does on Spine. I'm not sure about DoT damage updating, they always said they didn't do that because of the PvP implications of Dotting up multiple targets, and retroactively activating a trinket for massive damage, I can see that being brutal in RBGs. I also believe the reason DoTs are switched off for Meta is to prevent stance dancing to maximise their power at refresh, so if it works that way now on Beta (it didn't last I checked), I doubt it would end up going live.

As to reacting to buffs, it's the decisions you take with them that make it interesting and make you pay attention to the fight; saving MC procs for an incoming add to burst down, taking baby steps with Shadow Trance procs to get better positioning, rolling Decimation off adds, and just timing cooldowns with vulnerabilities. All those things and more are a decision to make to flow with the encounter. With 3.3.x Destruction, I ended up tunneling the action bar so much I'd miss most of the fight and I recall looking up on more than one occasion wondering why a spell wouldn't go off only to realise the boss was dead. That really took the edge off quite a few kills.

[Torq]

Your definition of fluid is completely at odds with everyone elses. RNG is what makes it fluid, unpredictable, and prevents it from being boring as hell. What you describe here are steps to make the spec easier for incompetent people to play. My suggestion is play something else.

Hah, and now the personal attacks start.

Typical.

Look, unpredictability is not fluidity. Those two are nearly antonyms. "fluid" refers to the flow from one state to the next, something with the current Demo does not do, not in the slightest. A proc at the end of a cast can drastically change the priority of your next few actions, even as you're reaching for the key to do what used to be the next most important thing. That's not fluid. That's hectic, disorganized, and unpredictable.

There are ways of making the spec unpredictable without sacrificing fluidity, if that's you thing. But anyone calling the current state of the spec "fluid" is pretty much deluding themselves.

Everything you want in the spec is apparently just to make it more predictable and boring to play. The fact that it's not just a sequence of buttons to nail down is what makes it fun. If you just want to master a sequence of buttonpresses, that's fine, you already have plenty classes and specs you can play, so go play those. I don't want your desires ruining an actually fun class and spec though. I like it when I actually have to stay awake to play something, maybe I'm weird like that.

You're still on this tangent that I want the spec to be boring, which is not what I stated at all. It just needs to have more fluidity to it, and less JOHN FUCKING MADDEN. There's a huge leap between "less chaos" and "boring," but you seem to think it's just a small step to the left, and that I'm calling for a jump to the left.

You might like a chaotic, entirely unpredictable rotation, and that's fine. I actually enjoy those. They're just not practical. When one proc can make or break your dps on a progression encounter, it's almost inexcusable.

You're describing 3.3.x Destruction here. It was fun the first few times, but it very quickly became flat and predictable.

Ehhh, not quite what I was aiming for.

If an organic spec builds off itself, then Demo does just that to the nth degree; just about everything you do with it has a proc and reaction to it. It is arguably a little overgrown because every off shoot leads to a whole new ability. I've already said that needn't be so, but I'd say only Shadowflame really feels forced, but then that's not really intended anyway and is the singular ability that doesn't offer any new conditions or triggers.

Overgown is exactly the point I'm trying to make. You're right in that nearly everything has a proc and a reaction, but the problem is that they're all starting to bleed into each other, and overlap.

There are plenty of new mechanics that will offer QoL improvements, not least dynamically updating stats for Guardians and Meta. The extra control over Meta from Fury too will elminate the RNG and possibility of the ability overrunning it's usefulness as it does on Spine. I'm not sure about DoT damage updating, they always said they didn't do that because of the PvP implications of Dotting up multiple targets, and retroactively activating a trinket for massive damage, I can see that being brutal in RBGs. I also believe the reason DoTs are switched off for Meta is to prevent stance dancing to maximise their power at refresh, so if it works that way now on Beta (it didn't last I checked), I doubt it would end up going live.

I think they changed their minds about the DoT damage thing, due to it not really making any difference. In fact, in battlegrounds, it's even more brutal to stack procs and spend their entire duration dotting; you just spent 15 seconds throwing out 10+ super-charged DoTs, compared to popping a trinket and having your existing DoTs (some which will expire, others only getting the first few seconds) of power, then reverting back to normal.

I can see that one going either way. I think, since they're changing the update mechanism, they'll balance PvP accordingly.

As for Meta, I think they might be leaving the % damage scaling intact, so it will only update on refresh, instead of every tick. I could be wrong, though, as I'm still not sure about that whole "Touch of Chaos" thing that's still lingering around.

As to reacting to buffs, it's the decisions you take with them that make it interesting and make you pay attention to the fight; saving MC procs for an incoming add to burst down, taking baby steps with Shadow Trance procs to get better positioning, rolling Decimation off adds, and just timing cooldowns with vulnerabilities. All those things and more are a decision to make to flow with the encounter. With 3.3.x Destruction, I ended up tunneling the action bar so much I'd miss most of the fight and I recall looking up on more than one occasion wondering why a spell wouldn't go off only to realise the boss was dead. That really took the edge off quite a few kills.

See, I find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum (as I've already laid out). I spend most of my time watching power auras, since the fight is pretty much already laid out. There's nothing to react to when you have 2 minutes to react to it.

[Raugnaut]

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasnt Immolate and Bane of Doom been removed from Demonology, and you can either have Corruption, which is a short duration, 3 sec tick dot, OR Doom, long duration, 15 second tick? Thus, it seems your post about Bane of Doom, Immolation, AND Incinerate in MoP for Demo are relatively redundant.

[Kaizers]

I think demo on beta actually works ok, it's not overly complex and it could use a little spicing up but it's not bad.

[Jessicka]

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasnt Immolate and Bane of Doom been removed from Demonology, and you can either have Corruption, which is a short duration, 3 sec tick dot, OR Doom, long duration, 15 second tick? Thus, it seems your post about Bane of Doom, Immolation, AND Incinerate in MoP for Demo are relatively redundant.

I know Immolate is going, I'm pointing out that it doesn't really need to go. It is kinda being rolled into Hand of Gul'dan as Shadowflame, effectively removing the initial cast. It seems strange at the moment though that the Shadowflame DoT is only half the duration of HoG's cooldown, as it imbalances the distribution of MC procs. I'd rather see HoG and the Shadowflame DoT as seperate spells though for multidotting purposes.

[n0n3]

If u like dots play affliction, we dont need another xpac with demo or destro having more dots than affliction.
If they want to add more spells to our rotation i want it to be a direct damage spell not a dot.

[Jessicka]

If u like dots play affliction, we dont need another xpac with demo or destro having more dots than affliction.
If they want to add more spells to our rotation i want it to be a direct damage spell not a dot.

I'm suggesting 2 DoTs (which we're very close to having anyway). Affliction has 3, so we wouldn't have more.