Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Grubjuice]

@kildragon,

It is never with your logic or rationale that I argue, because your logic is always sound.
You do have to admit though, you are a bit of drama queen.

[Kildragon]

@kildragon,

It is never with your logic or rationale that I argue, because your logic is always sound.
You do have to admit though, you are a bit of drama queen.

I wouldn't say drama queen. I simply call things the way I see them. If I look at a situation like this from the perspective of a high level player, I'm going to evaluate the talents with a high level of play in mind. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word useless, simply because it's one of those buzzwords that I know everyone on here hates, but for some reason every person on here now considers me a drama queen because I called a talent useless in a very specific context. In any case, I'll just say that the talent isn't useless. It obviously does provide a benefit and some players will probably have a blast with it. So let's just get that whole part of the discussion out of the way. KJC is not useless, it just sucks.

Why? No serious progression player in PvE or high rated PvPer is going to take this talent, in its current form, when compared to AD and MF, and taking into consideration the other changes made to Warlocks. The only reason KJC is currently so good is that every single spell we have is affected by it. It makes movement 90% a non factor (not 100% cause you do get a movement speed debuff on live), and applies to just about any situation. Stutter stepping is redundant, timing your casts with not standing in fire (i.e. H Rag World in Flames) is not needed, you quite simply can do 100% of your normal damage AND utility (this one is important) while moving.

Especially in PvP, KJC was made ten times stronger simply by virtue of all your spells being able to be casted while moving, not just damaging spells. Pillar hump while casting fear, run away from that melee and his interrupt while casting CB, res your pet while pillar humping, make new healthstones on the move, etc. At the risk of you guys calling me a drama queen yet again, the value of being able to do all of those things while moving in a PvP setting is massive. Keeping your pet alive is almost a non issue since any idiot can run away for 4 seconds and hide behind a pillar. You used to have to actually find a safe spot and then summon and you will have to do so again come 5.4.

So even if they decided to make KJC affect all damaging spells again, it will be more than competitive in PvE, but it will still be slightly behind AD in PvP. Though I do have to admit that such a solution may be the most appropriate thing, keep the movement penalty out, and only let us cast damaging spells while moving. Any utility spell won't work. This will make the talent essentially what it is on live for PvE, but it will still keep it even with AD for PvP as well. On the other hand, they could always keep the fillers in there, then add all of the spells that aren't damaging. Can't cast CB while moving but can re-summon my pet. Not sure how that would work out, but it might make it attractive enough in PvP for people to consider taking it.

As it stands though, with KJC only affecting the fillers (not even the execute fillers Soulfire and Drain Soul), it's quite simply a garbage talent that no high level player will take.

[Grubjuice]

i would say at this point KJC is about as useful as what we would expect a Major Glyph could offer.

[Kildragon]

i would say at this point KJC is about as useful as what we would expect a Major Glyph could offer.

Seems like a fitting description. Blizz just needs to find the right balance with it. If they overdo it, it's easy for it to be considered mandatory or OP. The current scenario is the exact opposite of not enough.

[Deleted]

Just tested AD on the PTR :
- As anticipated you only recharge 1 charge at once
- Sorry to break some dreams, you can't use both charges together (in fact you can't cast Dark Soul when you already have the buff)


GoSac+Soul Link still gives 20% hp.

Also finally tested the nerf to RoF ember generation : got 104 emberbits in 360 ticks which is 52 procs of 2 emberbits = around 15% chance to get 2 emberbits by tick. Last time I tested that, back in March, the chance was around 20%. Maybe the nerf is not that bad ? (It would need a larger sample of course, if someone has too much spare time )

[Kildragon]

At least it's now confirmed, thanks Zum. Not that I'm disappointed, AD would've been OP and mandatory if it gave you double uptime on DS or if it let you stack them. I'm also pretty happy that they didn't butcher GoSac + SL.

[Brusalk]

At least it's now confirmed, thanks Zum. Not that I'm disappointed, AD would've been OP and mandatory if it gave you double uptime on DS or if it let you stack them. I'm also pretty happy that they didn't butcher GoSac + SL.

There's no reason GoSac shouldn't give the same benefits as the new Soul Link.

[Deleted]

I feel like we are being really ungrateful if we're complaining KJC can't compete with out other 2 talents :P

[Brusalk]

I feel like we are being really ungrateful if we're complaining KJC can't compete with out other 2 talents :P

If they're fixing it they might as well fix it right.

[Deleted]

I feel like we are being really ungrateful if we're complaining KJC can't compete with out other 2 talents :P

I feel like we should be ungrateful until the three talents are exactly balanced, that should take 4-5 more rounds of buffs :P

Dexter allowed me to do deeper tests for RoF :
LIVE : 1232 ticks, 506 emberbits : 0.41 emberbit per tick (consistent with March testings)
PTR : 1232 ticks, 314 emberbits : 0.25 emberbit per tick

[Szarala]

I feel like we are being really ungrateful if we're complaining KJC can't compete with out other 2 talents :P

Are we supposed to respond to nerfs with "thank you sir, may I have another"?

[Archimand]

I feel like we are being really ungrateful if we're complaining KJC can't compete with out other 2 talents :P

or we can cry like mages and get nerfs that went on ptr reverted even before patch went live

this is seriously depressing and retarded

[Brusalk]

I feel like we should be ungrateful until the three talents are exactly balanced, that should take 4-5 more rounds of buffs :P

Dexter allowed me to do deeper tests for RoF :
LIVE : 1232 ticks, 506 emberbits : 0.41 emberbit per tick (consistent with March testings)
PTR : 1232 ticks, 314 emberbits : 0.25 emberbit per tick

So practically in half. Wonderful.

[Deleted]

The new soul leech is so bad. Let's go back to wotlk's SL & ISL.

It would be great if the new soul link worked like in tbc (additional 5% dmg for both warlock & demon) & included wotlk's Fel Synergy e.g. give back 15% of warlock dmg as pet health, one can dream.

- - - Updated - - -

or we can cry like mages and get nerfs that went on ptr reverted even before patch went live

this is seriously depressing and retarded

Serioulsy mages never get nerfed more than a day: the fake nerfs are reverted in a hotfix in 24h top.

[Apero]

Did some demo stuff on the ptr.

75% less dmg in meta with amplification and dark soul up compared to before. Ridicoulus.

Plus glyph of EA does not work with corruption that is refreshed by demonic slash. (like it was before the 5.3 fix..)

Plus, they changed the 4 piece for demo, demonic slash does no longer trigger hand of guldan, it fires a chaoswave instead. That results in less fury and even less dps.

Lets qq like mages do to get that stuff reverted maybe? Atleast give us a flat 40% dmg increase for destro, and MAYBE we are close to mages in 5.4. (btw, arcan mutlidotting > affli multidotting? seems legit)

[Deleted]

At least it's now confirmed, thanks Zum. Not that I'm disappointed, AD would've been OP and mandatory if it gave you double uptime on DS or if it let you stack them. I'm also pretty happy that they didn't butcher GoSac + SL.

it isnt surprising that it works the way it does or atleast it shouldnt. how you'd come to the conclusion that it would result in double the uptime of DS is rather surprising or if it could stack. you might not be able to recast DS while its up but you can recast it when its over, resulting in some very long and strong bursts at the begining of fights and potentially very strong at the end of the fights, if ppl use their charges wisely, i think it will be come a bit more strategic how you'll use it, in order to get the maximum possible dps out of it.

[Xyronic]

Did some demo stuff on the ptr.

75% less dmg in meta with amplification and dark soul up compared to before. Ridicoulus.

Plus glyph of EA does not work with corruption that is refreshed by demonic slash. (like it was before the 5.3 fix..)

Plus, they changed the 4 piece for demo, demonic slash does no longer trigger hand of guldan, it fires a chaoswave instead. That results in less fury and even less dps.

Lets qq like mages do to get that stuff reverted maybe? Atleast give us a flat 40% dmg increase for destro, and MAYBE we are close to mages in 5.4. (btw, arcan mutlidotting > affli multidotting? seems legit)

It's pretty apparent why they changed the way Dark Soul : knowledge gave us Mastery - That + Amplify was way out of control. Doing 300k single target dps in ilvl 520 gear across a 6 minute fight just isnt right. Im assuming the EA corruption issue will be fixed soon - at least I hope so. Last, the change to the 4 piece I actually like. We'll be swimming in Molten Core procs now, which is awesome IMO.

[Deleted]

75% less dmg in meta with amplification and dark soul up compared to before. Ridicoulus.

yeah, coz going from 12k mastery to 55,2k when using dark soul with amp proc is perfectly alright, right? makes sense to change dark soul into a flat 30% mastery, would be horribly OP if they didnt, now its in line with the other specs. atleast the mastery buff isnt a flat % buff.

[Deleted]

So I just came to check what fun threads were on the front page and this caught my eye. It's annoying as hell as you'll see when you read.

This was the basically the same reasoning they used to justify taking away the usefulness of KJC with Warlocks in the first place and yet they're now messing with every ability affliction has and near enough redesigning how the spec works mid expansion and yet the changes they were planning to make with Mages are now being reverted and possibly left alone til close to end of the expansion...

It's abit hypercritical in my opinion and in truth has more then slightly p***ed me off after reading it.

I'll link the part that annoyed me personally.

Original link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9485908902

severe nerf to Pve Fire Mages


avatar
Summers
Target Source
#1 - 2013/07/15 06:57:00 PM

while I'm sure the recent nerfs to fire mages in the PTR are PvP related you must see that putting them through will drasticly hurt a class/playstyle that has already been hurt so bad it's almost impossible to stay competitive.

Presence of Mind When activated, your next Mage spell with a casting time less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell. This spell is not on the global cooldown. and is unaffected by Alter Time. Mage - LvL 15 Talent. Instant. 1.5 min cooldown.

This will basicly make it very difficult to near impossible the get a good combustion tick (good being anything from 20k to 25k ticks), not to mention break the current playstyle the common fire mage uses.

Glyph of Combustion Increases the direct damage, the duration of the damage over time effect and the cooldown of Combustion by 100%. 50%. Major Glyph.

Like I said it's hard enough to get a good combustion going as it is after the last nerf but with this change I suspect 20k ticks will become the new benchmark at the highest your average mage will see. Not to mention that it will be made that it won't line up with the CD of PoM anymore. We all know what will happen, either this glyph will become so undesirable that no one will use it anymore or having PoM will become so undesirable for what ever the "new" playstyle will be that no fire mage will take it.

If this change is PvP motivated I strongly encourage who ever thought this was a good idea to rethink how to go about it and think of a way to do "pvp only" changes liek was done to poly and just rethink it together.

If this is a PvE motivated change then someone over there needs to relook at some numbers because I can think of SO many other class/specs that need to be taken down long before fire mages. And no your top 1% raiding fire mages are NOT the correct mages to look at, they do no represent the majority of us, the AVERAGE fire mage.

Stop breaking PVE damage for the sake of PvP issues.

avatar
Lore
Community Manager
Target Source
#6 - 2013/07/15 11:44:00 PM

We'll be reverting both of these changes in the next PTR build.

avatar
Lore
Community Manager
Target Source
#29 - 2013/07/16 12:34:00 AM

Here’s a little more insight into our thinking here (and why the changes even popped up on the PTR in the first place):

We have a few concerns with how Fire is playing out at the moment. Fire scales incredibly well with gear, and we’re worried that they’ll end up doing way too much damage in high end gear. However, we’re trying to avoid just nerfing Fire’s scaling, as that would unfairly hurt any Fire mage who ISN’T in high-end gear.

We’re also worried that Fire is leaning too heavily on perfect cooldown usage. It’s awesome when a highly-skilled player is able to use all of their abilities to the fullest and be rewarded with a little extra damage. It’s significantly less awesome when failing to do so results in a massive loss of DPS. At the moment, Fire is extremely dependent on lining up all of your cooldowns (most notably Alter Time and Presence of Mind) to score massive Combustion damage. If you pull it off, you’re rewarded with a lot of damage. Mess it up, and your performance suffers dramatically. We’d like to tone down the differences between those high and low ends a bit.

We also think that Presence of Mind in particular is just too important to Fire right now. There’s really no choice in that tier – PoM is just too good compared to the other options. We want talents to be a choice.

Those are the issues we’d like to fix, and why the earlier changes hit the PTR to begin with. We may try other methods, or we may decide to just leave things alone for 5.4, but we do want to fix them.

[Deleted]

It's pretty apparent why they changed the way Dark Soul : knowledge gave us Mastery - That + Amplify was way out of control. Doing 300k single target dps in ilvl 520 gear across a 6 minute fight just isnt right. Im assuming the EA corruption issue will be fixed soon - at least I hope so. Last, the change to the 4 piece I actually like. We'll be swimming in Molten Core procs now, which is awesome IMO.

that would idd be quite nice, i often seem to have trouble building up MC procs, or rather never seem to have enough of them when the stars align with those DS+wush up at the same time.