Season 13 discussion & Warlock PvP Guide.

[Nicola]

Derp, I failed a bit with merging stuff. Time to move it back.

[Feelsgood]

Generally I would like to see locks cast more not just soul burning & swapping shit out of everyone. That way they could be way easier school locked than it is now. In order to fix it I think that cd should be added for like 30secs on soulburn+soulswap like it has been done with locks pets, basically revert this to where it was back in cata, that worked out well, that will make locks use 1 major glyph and forcing them to go along with it if they want to swap dots on 2nd target without removing dots from previous one. Remove UA glyph that reduces its casting time for the same reason of forcing them to cast more. Nerf malefic grasp by 30-40% and buff UA and Corruption dmg up to approximately 30%. That way it should overall make dot dmg more effective and rewarding and maybe nerfing single target dmg a bit because of malefic but dot dmg buff should be decent compensation for it. This might work out well for pvp by not affecting pve side for locks so much. What do you think?

They are won't to buff affli dmg in PvE. If they nerf MG and buff dots this means that multidoting in PvE grows up -> it's pure dps increase in the current realities.

[pkm]

What are the drawbacks to being demo over the other specs? What does demo do that the other specs can't?

[Nicola]

Demo bring decent (AoE) burst that's hard to stop due it all being instant, a bit higher mobility due demonic leap, better survivabilty against melee with meta and a mortal strike debuff.
However it has terrible sustained damage that is easily countered with dispels, auras can get dispelled/spellstolen and is very dependent on pets.

Aside from those 2 chaos waves every 2 minutes, you bring very little damage to the table. It lacks the finishing power, cleaving and self sustain of a destruction warlock and the sustained damage and pressure of an affliction warlock while having to deal with pets that have a terrible AI.

[Schirmy]

Started playing some Destro MLS around 2k MMR, feels 100% better than Affy.

[Griffeth]

Was watching Maldiva play LSD a bit today, seems to be doing OK but they were getting wrecked by PMS pretty badly. They could get targets low but couldnt finish them off. Not sure if it was a comp problem or if Cdew is just that damn good.

I was running Destro/Rogue for 2's and that was pretty nice. Could blow up a target if we could get a sap off on the off target.

[Szarala]

Generally I would like to see locks cast more not just soul burning & swapping shit out of everyone. That way they could be way easier school locked than it is now. In order to fix it I think that cd should be added for like 30secs on soulburn+soulswap like it has been done with locks pets, basically revert this to where it was back in cata, that worked out well, that will make locks use 1 major glyph and forcing them to go along with it if they want to swap dots on 2nd target without removing dots from previous one. Remove UA glyph that reduces its casting time for the same reason of forcing them to cast more. Nerf malefic grasp by 30-40% and buff UA and Corruption dmg up to approximately 30%. That way it should overall make dot dmg more effective and rewarding and maybe nerfing single target dmg a bit because of malefic but dot dmg buff should be decent compensation for it. This might work out well for pvp by not affecting pve side for locks so much. What do you think?

so.. wait.. you want to make affliction -more- susceptible to lockout? And you want to nerf burnt soul swap when the very problem is that aff doesn't put out as much pressure as it should?

Honestly, I can't think of a way to buff Aff for pvp without overbuffing them for pve without rethinking aff's role in pvp; that is to either make them tankier (they're tanky enough for a cloth caster, really) or give them more control (and I'm steadfast against buffing -anyone's- CC honestly).

Shard regen in pvp is atrocious (especially small-scale pvp where you can't SB:SoC or tab dot a bunch of targets) so no one is spamming SB:SS and if they were, the three dots on their own kinda tickle without haunt (which costs a shard and another lockout opportunity) and malefic grasp (-massive- lockout opportunity, single target).

[felcommander]

So in cata me and my GM (priest) started playing shadowplay, we got decent around 1850 or so and then our shaman ended up leaving, turns out though another shaman in guild has been gearing up so last night we got some games in. I did some as destro and others as affliction, we did a lot better with me as affliction.

So basically I'm wondering whats currently better for shadow play destro or affliction?

[Simplexity]

So in cata me and my GM (priest) started playing shadowplay, we got decent around 1850 or so and then our shaman ended up leaving, turns out though another shaman in guild has been gearing up so last night we got some games in. I did some as destro and others as affliction, we did a lot better with me as affliction.

So basically I'm wondering whats currently better for shadow play destro or affliction?

I'm at 2k with that comp as Affliction with some rather inexperienced players. You can also play it pretty well as Demo. I've tried it as Destro for a few games, but since spriests don't really offer the peels to help you get casts off, I'm not a fan of it.

[Griffeth]

Affliction with shadow priest is VERY strong due to the constant pressure put out. Spriest doesnt give the support needed for Destro to get the damage out that it needs to.

[icecoldsir]

Its honestly not that strong, played the comp to 2050ish this season and stopped.

If your set on playing it though definitely go Affliction, spriest does not have the peels destro needs to get CB's off.

[Griffeth]

Why did you stop playing it Ice? I am curious why people would give up on a comp they were playing in favor of another? Is it just not strong enough against these current high burst teams?

[felcommander]

Its honestly not that strong, played the comp to 2050ish this season and stopped.

If your set on playing it though definitely go Affliction, spriest does not have the peels destro needs to get CB's off.

Ya I have no delusions about hitting anything higher than 2k, I'd love to hit it but going well past that isn't too big an issue. My main concern is there seem to be more triple dps teams which used to give us problems back in cata so just wondering how to deal with it? Obviously they go for the shaman our normal strat is to get on the melee and make them blow as much as they can before hitting our shaman in the face but with affliction damage now a days is much harder to score a kill first.

[invader]

Generally I would like to see locks cast more not just soul burning & swapping shit out of everyone. That way they could be way easier school locked than it is now. In order to fix it I think that cd should be added for like 30secs on soulburn+soulswap like it has been done with locks pets, basically revert this to where it was back in cata, that worked out well, that will make locks use 1 major glyph and forcing them to go along with it if they want to swap dots on 2nd target without removing dots from previous one. Remove UA glyph that reduces its casting time for the same reason of forcing them to cast more. Nerf malefic grasp by 30-40% and buff UA and Corruption dmg up to approximately 30%. That way it should overall make dot dmg more effective and rewarding and maybe nerfing single target dmg a bit because of malefic but dot dmg buff should be decent compensation for it. This might work out well for pvp by not affecting pve side for locks so much. What do you think?

wouldn't work dude unless they make your dots undispellable.. against classes that can dispel (which is most healers and some dps classes) Aff is really hardwork and can make matches become a yawnfest draw or loss ;p.. and if your not against classes that can dispel your likely to be locked down a lot so ya know all swings and roundabouts like ;p

[Werst]

Aff *could* be fixed for pvp and not touch pve....just devs lack some imagination or desire to try them.

1. Make MG, DL, and DS uninteruptable like hunter shots
2. UA and haunt dispels grant a shard
3. Scaling increase on dots from pvp power...possibly tied to a glyph that halves the power and CD of darksoul (1 min cd, 15% gain) since the delta between darksoul and non darksoul is so huge you could buff pvp power scaling more if darksoul was less potent but more frequent.

That would give aff a far more useable pvp toolkit and not one thing on there impacts pve in the slightest. Even the darksoul change is simply a playstyle shift which should be net neutral damage wise.

[Feelsgood]

Aff *could* be fixed for pvp and not touch pve....just devs lack some imagination or desire to try them.

1. Make MG, DL, and DS uninteruptable like hunter shots
2. UA and haunt dispels grant a shard
3. Scaling increase on dots from pvp power...possibly tied to a glyph that halves the power and CD of darksoul (1 min cd, 15% gain) since the delta between darksoul and non darksoul is so huge you could buff pvp power scaling more if darksoul was less potent but more frequent.

That would give aff a far more useable pvp toolkit and not one thing on there impacts pve in the slightest. Even the darksoul change is simply a playstyle shift which should be net neutral damage wise.

Totally agree with 1 and 2. Wanna see some of these changes. The buff on DS probably too huge. The dots only need a PvP power scale factor buff. Btw make agony always at 10 stacks when you put it on a player.

[Nicola]

Totally agree with 1 and 2. Wanna see some of these changes. The buff on DS probably too huge. The dots only need a PvP power scale factor buff. Btw make agony always at 10 stacks when you put it on a player.

1 and 2 are so overpowered I wouldn't even bother playing affliction with such changes.
Making the spell that brings 60% of your damage uninterruptable? Hunters deal very little damage with their "casted" abilities compared to the amount of damage that we deal with MG.
Having UA and Haunt give a soul shard on dispel is just silly as well since you can just instantly apply it again, making dispelling rather pointless. Dispelling DoTs needs to be punished, not to be made useless.

I agree with 10 stacks Agony though, it would be a nice - but a still too small - damage buff.

[Flharr]

Balancing aff dot damage around a different pvp power formula is super good, just like they did to mages with frost bomb... It's pretty dumb that DK dots deal considerable more damage than our dots and all they have to do is lolbloodboil and spread aids to the whole team...

I've been playing MLPaladin as destro in 3s lately, we are getting close to 2.2k right now, but our biggest problems are teams with

A) resto shaman, freaking tremor totem is such a big cockblock, and since our mage is constantly getting trained its not so easy to get those pollys off. If hes any decent he will ground my CBs, wich is not hard at all considering 3sec cast time, not to mention wind shear... against melee cleaves I can afford the fear -> CS or CS -> CB, but when we are facing wizard comps its more complicated.

b) Rogues... I have yet to come up with a good counter against rogue teams opener, it seems like it doesnt matter how much I peel, they will get my pally bubble pretty fast, after that its pretty gg.

[Feelsgood]

1 and 2 are so overpowered I wouldn't even bother playing affliction with such changes.
Making the spell that brings 60% of your damage uninterruptable? Hunters deal very little damage with their "casted" abilities compared to the amount of damage that we deal with MG.
Having UA and Haunt give a soul shard on dispel is just silly as well since you can just instantly apply it again, making dispelling rather pointless. Dispelling DoTs needs to be punished, not to be made useless.

I agree with 10 stacks Agony though, it would be a nice - but a still too small - damage buff.

Hunters damage very much depends on their focus. Their abilities costs focus even if these abilities are instant. Making the one channeling cast an uninterruptable is not OP. We are still need to cast such spells as Fear, Haunt, UA, DL, DS, summon demon and the gateway. PvP is not PvE where you can just stay and doing ur best... there are much factors where you must control/los or so... and u have not so much time for spent to cast ur filler. In our case making dispelling pointless much better than get punish for dispelling them. We have now a good dispell protection. Making it better may cause imbalance and a huge whine on the off forums. P

sry for my english

[Nicola]

Hunters damage very much depends on their focus. Their abilities costs focus even if these abilities are instant. Making the one channeling cast an uninterruptable is not OP. We are still need to cast such spells as Fear, Haunt, UA, DL, DS, summon demon and the gateway. PvP is not PvE where you can just stay and doing ur best... there are much factors where you must control/los or so... and u have not so much time for spent to cast ur filler. In our case making dispelling pointless much better than get punish for dispelling them. We have now a good dispell protection. Making it better may cause imbalance and a huge whine on the off forums. P

sry for my english

Yes, but unlike us, hunters only get a rather low amount of dps from SS/CS compared to the 60% we get from channeling MG with all dots up. A hunter not using SS/CS for focus will still deal a a good amount of damage while we deal rather little damage without MG. The original post also mentions making DS and DL also uninterruptable. Not to mention that since they are channeled spells, you only require LoS at the beginning.
As for the dispelling, it's overpowered. Not only do healers take a big hit whenever they dispel, you can instantly reapply all of your dots. Together with MG being uninterruptable you'll be dealing insane damage, which is just grossly overpowered as the only thing that can stop you is keeping you in a long CC chain.