Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Gohzerlock]

How big (or small) of a nerf is this?

Might be a big enough nerf to make wild imps glyph not mandatory?

Soul swap 3 sec.. lol

[darkarches]

Cannot understand yet what they have in mind for demo and destro. These changes seems a bit weird to say at least...

I'm hoping they have more planned and just have yet to release the rest of the info. They're just making us fill in the holes for now.

[Cebel]

Well that's a huge nerf to Demonology AoE when not in melee range..

When are we ever not in melee range to aoe lol? Immo aura is kind of a big deal =/

[Deleted]

This new Harvest Life is absolutely terrible. Who in their right mind would ever take it as a talent over the other two?

They need to make it into a debuff/dot with a short cooldown (like a suped-up original Siphon Life).

idd, from a pve pov its close to a pointless talent now, sure its not bad for pvp but its not even a choice for pve.

[Lionor]

I'm not overly affected by warlock changes anymore (went through my drama season with the original KJC nerf) but I can't help but notice a trend:

Mage changes --> QQ --> Reverted
MW Monk mana nerf --> QQ --> Too big a change mid-expansion - scraped
H. Pala mastery nerf --> QQ --> Reverted

Warlocks --> Remove a fun mechanic which changes gameplay --> Screw up a spec (Destro) --> Nerf the current top performer (Demo) --> Remove more fun stuff (Harvest Life, Portal CD) --> Completely change the mechanics of a spec mid-expansion (Affliction).

Top-notch stuff!

[Cebel]

Soul swap 3 sec.. lol

Yea, that seems really really dumb. Whats the point of soul swapping if you have to spend the next 3 globals refreshing your dots anyways, the only upside is agony will start at a 10 stack lol.

[Deleted]

Might be a big enough nerf to make wild imps glyph not mandatory?

Soul swap 3 sec.. lol

it could also have something to do with the new AD, being able to cast those imp swarms faster with DS up etc. but yeah it does look a lot like a nerf to make the glyph less mandatory.

[Cebel]

I'm not overly affected by warlock changes anymore (went through my drama season with the original KJC nerf) but I can't help but notice a trend:

Mage changes --> QQ --> Reverted
MW Monk mana nerf --> QQ --> Too big a change mid-expansion - scraped
H. Pala mastery nerf --> QQ --> Reverted

Warlocks --> Remove a fun mechanic which changes gameplay --> Screw up a spec (Destro) --> Nerf the current top performer (Demo) --> Remove more fun stuff (Harvest Life, Portal CD) --> Completely change the mechanics of a spec mid-expansion (Affliction).

Top-notch stuff!

They havent really nerfed demo until today by taking a whole 1 imp away from our imp swarm... i wouldnt say its THAT big of a nerf...

Destro is going to get compensated, we just dont know how yet, people need to stop panicking over that

and they didnt change the mechanics of affliction at all... like what?

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it could also have something to do with the new AD, being able to cast those imp swarms faster with DS up etc. but yeah it does look a lot like a nerf to make the glyph less mandatory.

The abilities cooldown was not lowered, and DS does not reduce the cooldown of imp swarm either, def feels like theyre trying to make it not mandatory, but honestly, what is wrong with a few mandatory glyphs? The rest of our glyphs suck. If glyphs are literally going to be this useless, just make them cosmetic changes only, or get rid of the entire system.

[Deleted]

Yea, that seems really really dumb. Whats the point of soul swapping if you have to spend the next 3 globals refreshing your dots anyways, the only upside is agony will start at a 10 stack lol.

well the only thing this change does, is that you have less time to exhale, and lets be honest, 3 secs is more than enough time to inhale, select a target, and exhale.

[PickleballAce]

I'd rather they just get rid of the Imp Swarm glyph and make it a baseline ability.

[Deleted]

and they didnt change the mechanics of affliction at all... like what?

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The abilities cooldown was not lowered, and DS does not reduce the cooldown of imp swarm either, def feels like theyre trying to make it not mandatory, but honestly, what is wrong with a few mandatory glyphs? The rest of our glyphs suck. If glyphs are literally going to be this useless, just make them cosmetic changes only, or get rid of the entire system.

They did, they made Haunt our filler instead of MG, Fel Flame decent damage for when you're moving, and changing the level 90 talents has a huge impact as well.

[Shadowygoodness]

They havent really nerfed demo until today by taking a whole 1 imp away from our imp swarm... i wouldnt say its THAT big of a nerf...

Destro is going to get compensated, we just dont know how yet, people need to stop panicking over that

and they didnt change the mechanics of affliction at all... like what?

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The abilities cooldown was not lowered, and DS does not reduce the cooldown of imp swarm either, def feels like theyre trying to make it not mandatory, but honestly, what is wrong with a few mandatory glyphs? The rest of our glyphs suck. If glyphs are literally going to be this useless, just make them cosmetic changes only, or get rid of the entire system.

I think the EA glyph removal/change (TBD) is probably the biggest hit to Demo.

OT: Still waiting for a glyph to give fel flame old dot extension...

[Deleted]

They havent really nerfed demo until today by taking a whole 1 imp away from our imp swarm... i wouldnt say its THAT big of a nerf...

Destro is going to get compensated, we just dont know how yet, people need to stop panicking over that

and they didnt change the mechanics of affliction at all... like what?

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The abilities cooldown was not lowered, and DS does not reduce the cooldown of imp swarm either, def feels like theyre trying to make it not mandatory, but honestly, what is wrong with a few mandatory glyphs? The rest of our glyphs suck. If glyphs are literally going to be this useless, just make them cosmetic changes only, or get rid of the entire system.

i completely agree, the imp swarm glyph is prolly the only glyph we have that might be a dps increase when we use it properly. other classes have "plenty" of glyphs that are dps increases, we have 1.

[Spektroman]

Chaos bolt has a bunch of problems, one of them being it always crits, the only other spell like that is lava burst and lava burst crits for about 50k in PvP.

Not that I want to be "that guy" but without Dark Soul / PvP trinket, Chaos Bolt ALSO hits for about 50-60k in PvP. And unlike Lava Burst and Pyroblast, it cannot be made to be instant cast. The only real advantage Chaos Bolt has over pyro / LB is that it scales with both crit and mastery. Even then, as far as PvP goes it's back to Chaos noodle like it was in cata. Most of the time I spend my embers on healing, not damage. I can get conflag crits hitting for about the same as a Chaos Bolt. It's that bad.

[Kildragon]

Backdraft should just be a straight damage buff rather than anything fancy with cast time reduction.RoF needs to generate embers on 2 targets. Destro is supposed to be the "cleave" spec with Havoc. RoF is a huge part of that.The immolate/conflag change is pretty much neutral in embers gained per unit time. No real reason to change that.Simultaneously making CB easier to cast in PvP and reverting the nerf against players is only asking for trouble down the road.

We need the cast time reduce on Backdraft for CB and incinerate in PvP. Hence a small reduction to the cast time reduc and a damage buff instead. Take the cast time reduction out completely and a glyph like my proposed CB glyph would be mandatory.

I can get on board for RoF on two targets though. Would be nice for cleave.

How is the immolate/conflag change I proposed neutral? Immolate only crits about 43% of the time and it gives one ember per crit tick, no? If it gives two already, then have it keep that but buff both incinerate and conflag to 2/4 gained instead of 1/2. Or just make immolate give an ember per tick and 2 per crit but leave conflag and incin. No matter what, we need an increase, and I'm basically going through all the options, none of which you've agreed with. Do you just never publicly agree with people? I'm trying to give solutions and with you, not against you.

As for CB, the proposed glyph would change one of the biggest issues with CB. People see big crits and go HELL NO! TO THE FORUMS! Make our crits lower but more often and people will have less to complain about. It's as much about public perception of the spell as it is about actual damage. At that point reverting the nerf would also make sense since people wouldn't be freaking out.

[Brusalk]

When are we ever not in melee range to aoe lol? Immo aura is kind of a big deal =/

When a fight's mechanics dictate that you cannot possibly be in melee range?

Going into MoP they made a HUGE deal about making it so Demo no longer had to be in melee range. Not to mention that now there are tons of raid abilities which only target ranged. It seems that they're forcing Demo back into melee range. First they remove the 500% area increase for Immo Aura 100% of the time from MF (which meant you could kinda AoE when not in melee with Immo), and now they remove the only AoE ability Demo had access to that could be used from ranged.


I'm starting to get a bit antsy about Destro changes. If we don't get to actually test them how are we supposed to be able to see how Destro will perform in a raid. They've already tested a ton of the 10man Normal raid encounters but we've yet to hear even a peep about Destro changes forthcoming in like a month.

[PickleballAce]

Source? Because my sources say the complete opposite.

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...14656250302464
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...72108046057474
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...57210099511296

Every single time GC has responded to someone's mention of RoF and ember generation on Twitter, he has stated he wants to put that ember generation somewhere else to compensate. Not once, anywhere at all, have I seen an official Blizzard post, in any form whatsoever, state they wanted "Chaos Bolt to feel special".

You guys are both kinda right.

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...65455603081216

Destro shouldn't struggle to get embers, but the point of the rotation is to build up to CB not mash it all the time.

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...65262405054464

I suspect we may rather buff damage than embers, since the latter just turns into spam CB, but we'll see. It's early.

[Kildragon]

They did, they made Haunt our filler instead of MG, Fel Flame decent damage for when you're moving, and changing the level 90 talents has a huge impact as well.

Uhhh what are you smoking? You only ever cast haunt with under 3 seconds left in the previous haunt debuff for the damage increase. You'll still be casting MG in between. They just made MG not 50%+ of our damage. Fel flame buff is not a mechanics change, just a buff to moving since we lost KJC. The KJC change is big, but it needed to be changed.

[Cebel]

They did, they made Haunt our filler instead of MG, Fel Flame decent damage for when you're moving, and changing the level 90 talents has a huge impact as well.

haunt isnt your filler anymore than it already was, what? These changes did not change the overall mechanics of the class... did it change up a priority system... sure. Thats not changing the mechanics.

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When a fight's mechanics dictate that you cannot possibly be in melee range?

Going into MoP they made a HUGE deal about making it so Demo no longer had to be in melee range. Not to mention that now there are tons of raid abilities which only target ranged. It seems that they're forcing Demo back into melee range. First they remove the 500% area increase for Immo Aura 100% of the time from MF (which meant you could kinda AoE when not in melee with Immo), and now they remove the only AoE ability Demo had access to that could be used from ranged.


I'm starting to get a bit antsy about Destro changes. If we don't get to actually test them how are we supposed to be able to see how Destro will perform in a raid. They've already tested a ton of the 10man Normal raid encounters but we've yet to hear even a peep about Destro changes forthcoming in like a month.

any fight where theres ranged aoe, come 5.4, youre gonna go affliction because of MF seed ( which is absolutely insane right now ), especially if its a 10 second burst window of aoe... Not to mention the only fight right now you even use MF on as demo is durumu. Lei Shens mechanics make you stay out at range, and then as a demo lock you run in while they get gripped, I cant think of a single fight in recent memory that you couldnt be in melee range of the AoE.

[Azutael]

I wish they changed immolation aura, I know it's a very iconic spell for metamorphosis. But still, the whole concept of being a ranged class, that needs to go into melee to do proper AoE can be kinda annoying.

Why not change immolation aura, make it cast-able on self or another (enemy) target. Probably not needed to keep the "cast on self" element if you could cast it on an enemy though, but just to keep that warlock feel.

I'm starting to get a bit antsy about Destro changes. If we don't get to actually test them how are we supposed to be able to see how Destro will perform in a raid. They've already tested a ton of the 10man Normal raid encounters but we've yet to hear even a peep about Destro changes forthcoming in like a month.

It is a bit worrying for sure, to not get any insight. Hopefully we won't simply end up with a band-aid fix.