So there seem to be a huge elephant in the room right now when it comes to warlocks and PvP: Chaos Bolt. And everyone seems to be arguing about it.
Here is the issue with this ability:
FOR THE WARLOCK'S TARGET, the ability can be extremely frustrating to deal with. The reason for that is that if you fail to interrupt a cast, it WILL pretty much rock your world. There is nothing "fun" with being blown up by a single spell.
FOR THE WARLOCK, the ability can be extremely frustrating to deal with. The reason for that is that in current PvP a 3 seconds cast that shares a very limited ressource with your self-healing is extremely easy to shut off. The fact that all our damage is loaded into it means our damage outside that one cast is laughable. Delay, CC, interrupts, knockbacks, reflects, magic absorbs (AMS/CoS), and even sheer pressure, forcing the lock to Ember Tap, are all enough to ensure the warlock will have an extremely aggravating time getting the cast off at the opportune moment.
Now don't get me wrong, its really satisfying to see that big $?%! land on some unsuspecting folk in a BG or a low ranking arena match, but at the end of the day, its a all-or-nothing mechanic, and thats never good for anybody.
So here is my suggestion to fix the frustration on both sides of that spell:
What this does:- Reduce Chaos Bolt's damage
- Reduce Chaos Bolt's casting time
- Buff ember generation
- Chaos Bolt gains a proc, allowing the use of a single Shadowburn (at x% potency, x not necessarely being 100) above execute range
Destruction warlocks get to keep their identity as the burst-on-demand spec and Chaos Bolt gets to keep its role as our burst setter. Our burst is now split between 2 different skills, but it becomes less susceptible to disruption. No one gets hit by 180k+ damage spells anymore, yet warlocks can still put out serious pressure. Makes Ember a more interactive ressource (destro is straight up boring right now in PvE).
Numbers would need tweaking, but what would you guys think of the overall design?