5.4 KJC changes.

[The Penguin]

Blizzards stated reason for the nerf is that it is not acting as intended. KJC is acting as intended. Yes, almost every warlock picks it because MF is situational and AV sucks. So there really isn't much choice. In the past, they have stated and actually implemented making a talent choice that all players pick into a baseline ability. Why not with KJC? Why nerf it?

Warlocks of MoP are not the warlocks of Vanilla, BC, Wrath, or Cata. My lock was raised during Wrath and I know this. The MoP overhaul and balancing of the class was with KJC. Many players have come to like the playstyle of warlocks and it has made playing this class more enjoyable. KJC and being able to move while casting has become warlocks unique "shiny". This nerf only homogenizes our class. What makes us different than mages? Not much if this nerf goes through.

So, the class has been balanced around us being able to cast and move. Our DPS is not the best, but we are holding our own. So, it is not OP. If it was truly OP and game breaking, you would see lock stacking and WoL would be filled with locks. But it isn't. So, by nerf'ing KJC our DPS will be nerf'd to the ground. This will be from 2 primary issues. First, we wont be able to cast as many spells as we can now. Obvious issue, less spells cast = less DPS. Destro has 1 instant cast spell. The others range from 1.25 secs to 2.6 seconds at current gear and hast levels. Affliction can instant cast the 3 DoT's by using soulburn soul swap which requires a shard. These DoT's, by themselves, are weak. You have to use Haunt and use Malefic Grasp which is a channeled spell to get the DoT's to do any real damage. Second, which I feel is the bigger issue, is the hit our secondary resource regen will take. Soul shards and Burning embers are regenerated by casting other spells. Since we will not be casting as many spells as we do now, our shard and ember regen will be low. Destro use embers to cast chaos bolt which is our nuke and Afflic uses them to cast haunt and to soulburn the DoTs onto targets. So, less haunts and less chaos bolts mean way less DPS. Now add that to the fact we are not going to be casting as many spells as before, you can easily see how warlock DPS will be the lowest of any DPS spec. Currently, Blizzard has put the nerf onto the PTR but no compensation in our other spells. Instant cast haunt is useless if you don't have the shards to cast it.

So, in my eyes, Blizzard rushed the nerf out ASAP without thinking it through. And now they are stumbling trying to defend the nerf. If you have noticed, GC has not answered a single twitter about the nerf and Lore has made one post. This in a weeks time. They have no plans to balance this. They nerf'd mannoroths fury to a CD just to say, "well all 3 level 90 talents are similar as they are all a type of cooldown". Mannoroths fury wasn't broken. No one ever had an issue with it. It was a passive ability to increase our AOE spells radius by 500%. And they left poor archimondes vengeance alone. So, now, looking at the three talent choices after the nerf, almost every lock will still be taking KJC since the other options are horrid. So, in the end, Blizzards stated reason for nerf'ing KJC fails. No warlock will be really choosing any other talent but KJC still, because even the nerf'd version is better than the other 2 options.

Truer words never spoken. Well said!

[Rife]

It wont make much difference to the fight at all. Any difficulty increase from not being able to dps while moving, will be more than offset by dps gains from gear we have by that stage.

You dont need to stand still to cast charge, singe, felflame breath, purge magic etc etc.

Is that the special gear that no other class gets? I can't wait till im 600 ilvl in my raid filled with everyone else stuck at 530.

I hope that the sheer stupidity of your post is made clear by my sarcasm.

[Deleted]

Do people just stick their head in the sand and forget about how brokenly OP KJC makes warlocks on a huge number of fights compared to any other caster?

KJC getting nerfed is completely justified, it was just a matter of time

[TyrianFC]

Is that the special gear that no other class gets? I can't wait till im 600 ilvl in my raid filled with everyone else stuck at 530.

I hope that the sheer stupidity of your post is made clear by my sarcasm.

Its the gear that comes with.... the next raiding patch. In case you didnt make the connection, the KJC nerf is coming with a new patch (!) - which contains a new raid and new set of gear upgrades. Think a little - huge dps increases come with new gear from a major raiding patch, enough to offset any relatively modest losses from changing KJC.

Please - to avoid embarassing yourself any further - think before you post. I hope the sheer cynicism of my post helped to drive the point home.

[Deleted]

Do people just stick their head in the sand and forget about how brokenly OP KJC makes warlocks on a huge number of fights compared to any other caster?

KJC getting nerfed is completely justified, it was just a matter of time

Which fights would those be?

[Rife]

Do people just stick their head in the sand and forget about how brokenly OP KJC makes warlocks on a huge number of fights compared to any other caster?

KJC getting nerfed is completely justified, it was just a matter of time

This argument is getting a little old.

Why should all casters have inferior mobility to that of melee and hunters? Why should scorch and lightning bolt be castable while moving and no warlocks should be able to cast anything while moving?

Don't forget that the entire class is currently balanced around being 100% mobile and MF is only taken for fights where mobility is not an issue. You cannot expect warlocks to remain viable with that mobility taken away with no alternative given.

It's also worth noting that the only spec that MIGHT remain viable after the current 5.4 changes go through will be Demo which will only work because it has a large part of its rotation made up of instant casts.

Affliction has the most casted spells and the least amount of instants out of any caster in the game and will have the worst mobility of all casters in 5.4. That isn't going to work.

I think a lot of Warlocks agree that KJC might be OP but it's required at the moment for affliction and taking it away might seem like a good move in the long run but there is currently no alternative. The spec simply won't be viable without it and all we have at the moment is a perceived promise that affliction and destro will be re-balanced around this lack of mobility. The scary thing for me is knowing that such a re-balance for affliction in particular, would take an almost entire spec overhaul. Such potentially drastic changes need more constructive discussion and input with less useless posts from the uninformed if we want to see affliction see anything positive in 5.4.

Its the gear that comes with.... the next raiding patch. In case you didnt make the connection, the KJC nerf is coming with a new patch (!) - which contains a new raid and new set of gear upgrades. Think a little - huge dps increases come with new gear from a major raiding patch, enough to offset any relatively modest losses from changing KJC.

Please - to avoid embarassing yourself any further - think before you post. I hope the sheer cynicism of my post helped to drive the point home.

I don't see how this could not be a troll post.

Are you seriously contending that warlocks gain more from stat gains and therefor scale better than any other class or spec in the game, so much so that such scaling will make up for the loss of KJC in 5.4?

I bet you have factored in current gear scaling for all dps specs as well as their proposed changes for 5.4 and have data to back this up? If you don't then your claim is as stupid as it sounds.

Also, your post would be optimistic, not cynical if you think gear scaling will magically account for any "relatively modest losses from changing KJC".

[Deleted]

This argument is getting a little old.

Why should all casters have inferior mobility to that of melee and hunters? Why should scorch and lightning bolt be castable while moving and no warlocks should be able to cast anything while moving?

Don't forget that the entire class is currently balanced around being 100% mobile and MF is only taken for fights where mobility is not an issue. You cannot expect warlocks to remain viable with that mobility taken away with no alternative given.

It's also worth noting that the only spec that MIGHT remain viable after the current 5.4 changes go through will be Demo which will only work because it has a large part of its rotation made up of instant casts.

Affliction has the most casted spells and the least amount of instants out of any caster in the game and will have the worst mobility of all casters in 5.4. That isn't going to work.

I think a lot of Warlocks agree that KJC might be OP but it's required at the moment for affliction and taking it away might seem like a good move in the long run but at there is no alternative. The spec simply won't be viable without it and all we have at the moment is a perceived promise that affliction and destro will be re-balanced around this lack of mobility. The scary thing for me is knowing that such a re-balance for affliction in particular, would take an almost entire spec overhaul. Such drastic changes need more constructive discussion and input and less useless posts if we want to see affliction see anything positive in 5.4.

How about you plan your movement throughout the fight instead of doing random 360noscopes for the simple fact you have KJC, affliction worked fine prior to the buff to KJC at the expansion release

[Rife]

How about you plan your movement throughout the fight instead of doing random 360noscopes for the simple fact you have KJC, affliction worked fine prior to the buff to KJC at the expansion release

We've been over this a few pages back.

I can't plan when my trinkets proc.
I can't plan when I need to Haunt.
I can't plan when I proc soulshards.
I can't plan when to move.

Affliction didn't "work fine" prior to the KJC buff which is why it was buffed. .
It also didn't have significant GoSac and Corruption nerfs on the books either.

The only movement planning that will occur in 5.4 is the plan to never play Affliction or Destruction and instead to always be spamming ToC as Demo when warlocks need to move.

[TyrianFC]

Oh the melodrama is strong with this one.

Rife - we know you want people to believe the world is ending. But it's not, and people dont believe you. If you dont sit down we'll just continue to dismiss these melodramatic rants, they only serve as amusement for so long.

There are plenty of ways a KJC compromise could be reached with Blizzard. Coming to that resolution wont happen unless the intelligence of the debate put forward is raised. I'd be happy to accept a KJC change that drained resources (fury, shard, ember) in addition to movement penalty.

[Deleted]

We've been over this a few pages back.

I can't plan when my trinkets proc.
I can't plan when I need to Haunt.
I can't plan when I proc soulshards.
I can't plan when to move.

Affliction didn't "work fine" prior to the KJC buff which is why it was buffed. .
It also didn't have significant GoSac and Corruption nerfs on the books either.

The only movement planning that will occur in 5.4 is the plan to never play Affliction or Destruction and instead to always be spamming ToC as Demo when warlocks need to move.

Were you the weird kid at school

[xskarma]

The personal attacks stop right now or I feel forced to start infracting people.

People can have their opinions, and you are free to discuss them and prove them wrong, but we are NOT making these arguments personal by ridiculing the person making the argument, instead of their argument itsself.

[Deleted]

Problem is not the change itself, it's that blizzards one announced "fix" to the loss of dps from this change is at odds with what warlocks are all about.
Warlocks are now all about waiting for the absolute optimum time to use their most powerful abilities and this is why lots of warlocks are looking at the haunt change with a lot of disdain for blizzard devs because it certainly shows a lack of understanding at best.

In 5.0 we had more powerful dots and more damage through GOsac. When these two were nerfed, warlocks were not given more damage elsewhere. We simply could just do less damage with more uptime.

Problem now is that blizzard have seen no reason to address warlocks needing 100% uptime because when we needed it, we had it.

I could understand if blizzard came out and said warlock DPS is too reliant on two things in tier 15, firstly, a lot of uptime is needed with no insta cast procs and instant cast spells that actually make you do less damage. This does not bode well for the statement "warlocks should not be able to do a full rotation while moving"
Secondly, having 2 specs so heavily reliant on one trinket to be competitive.


I would actually say the 2nd of these is the bigger concern because UVLS is either BiS for warlocks throughout tier 16 or it is nerfed (more likely) and then along with the change to KJC reducing uptime and without any serious thought given to how warlocks do damage, the end result is not good.

It all seems to stem from "warlocks should not be able to cast while moving" - This statement is philosophical in nature. Not driven by mechanics.
In order to apply this statement to design, which of course is blizzards job, they need to redesign the way warlocks work because as mentioned earlier they are so reliant on uptime.
Requires a lot more work than the haunt change and is probably too big a change mid expansion.

Either redesign warlocks for 5.4 or keep live and wait until 6.0.
I vote for the latter.

[BatteredSausage]

Its the gear that comes with.... the next raiding patch. In case you didnt make the connection, the KJC nerf is coming with a new patch (!) - which contains a new raid and new set of gear upgrades. Think a little - huge dps increases come with new gear from a major raiding patch, enough to offset any relatively modest losses from changing KJC.

Please - to avoid embarassing yourself any further - think before you post. I hope the sheer cynicism of my post helped to drive the point home.

Its not just warlocks that get a new raiding tier next patch, you do know this yes?

[Kagecamia]

Were you the weird kid at school

5.0 Afflic didn't have the nerf to corruption nor the nerf to Grim Sac. If you really want to turn back the clock to the 5.0 KJC, the nerfs to corrup and Sac need to be reveresed.

Someone said it on this forum or another thread that they gave us superior mobility as a compensation for the nerf in our damage. So now they need to buff our spells by a lot, in terms of damage and resource gen (Hellfire without MF is going to suck big time, same for RoF for destro), to compensate.

---------- Post added 2013-06-16 at 03:33 PM ----------

Oh the melodrama is strong with this one.

Rife - we know you want people to believe the world is ending. But it's not, and people dont believe you. If you dont sit down we'll just continue to dismiss these melodramatic rants, they only serve as amusement for so long.

There are plenty of ways a KJC compromise could be reached with Blizzard. Coming to that resolution wont happen unless the intelligence of the debate put forward is raised. I'd be happy to accept a KJC change that drained resources (fury, shard, ember) in addition to movement penalty.

Not defending anybody here, but don't you think that just biting your tongue and picking your battles and holding your opinion about others will benefit everyone altogether? This doesn't just go towards you but everyone in the thread.

If we descend into just calling each others names over and over, than this thread might have been useless.

We will see some concrete data on the ptr once raid testing begins. And then we can panic honestly. In the meantime, we should work together to work on a solution for this pressing issue facing our class.

[Jessicka]

5.0 Afflic didn't have the nerf to corruption nor the nerf to Grim Sac. If you really want to turn back the clock to the 5.0 KJC, the nerfs to corrup and Sac need to be reveresed.

Someone said it on this forum or another thread that they gave us superior mobility as a compensation for the nerf in our damage. So now they need to buff our spells by a lot, in terms of damage and resource gen (Hellfire without MF is going to suck big time, same for RoF for destro), to compensate.

---------- Post added 2013-06-16 at 03:33 PM ----------



Not defending anybody here, but don't you think that just biting your tongue and picking your battles and holding your opinion about others will benefit everyone altogether? This doesn't just go towards you but everyone in the thread.

If we descend into just calling each others names over and over, than this thread might have been useless.

We will see some concrete data on the ptr once raid testing begins. And then we can panic honestly. In the meantime, we should work together to work on a solution for this pressing issue facing our class.

They won't revert the Sac nerf, which actually with the move to pet use improved mobility. It was also compensated with a buff to haunt.

Further, on PTR we have gained HoT baseline, something that's been completely ignored.

[Phollux]

They won't revert the Sac nerf, which actually with the move to pet use improved mobility. It was also compensated with a buff to haunt.

Further, on PTR we have gained HoT baseline, something that's been completely ignored.

Why wouldn't we ignore a baseline HoT? It's a spell thats completely irrelevant to PVE content.

[Szarala]

They won't revert the Sac nerf, which actually with the move to pet use improved mobility. It was also compensated with a buff to haunt.

Further, on PTR we have gained HoT baseline, something that's been completely ignored.

The damage buff to Haunt actually -increased- reliance on KJC

[Rayaleith]

It is unbelievable how this topic has been derailed. You fight each other like you have a saying of what will happen to KJC! Well... you don't. They said they will balance our spells/whatever to our new reality. What is the meaning of crying over the corpse of KJC. And of course the others that come in here to mock people that were using KJC, well (sorry for this Mr admin) but you can go @$#% yourselves Suggestions is better than crying now.

Lock is still the best class. This change nerf your damage not our supreme utility nor the super fun of our super cool specs. And if they fix it somehow the worst thing that would happen is learn to adjust. So what?

Oh and please. The one that talks all the time like he/she is in the Blizzard development/design team. STOP talking like that. At least be humble enough to state that this is your personal opinion. You have the worst experience of the fights in here but you still talk like a professor. Really...

[luckydevours]

Do people just stick their head in the sand and forget about how brokenly OP KJC makes warlocks on a huge number of fights compared to any other caster?

KJC getting nerfed is completely justified, it was just a matter of time

I dont see warlocks being op in ANY encounter in ToT because oft KjC, if anything it makes them viable in the first place. Nerfs to both GoSac and Corr cut afflictions performance down to a reasonable degree and destruction has never been a strong single target spec. Demonology - our best option in many encounters - doesn't even rely on KjC and performs just fine, like many other casters in this game with a seizable amount of strong instant spells or casting-while-moving mechanics.

[Aschark]

I can't help but feel that it's been talked to death by us at this point. Any intelligent warlock knows the score, and it's looking grim for Affliction.

Not much we can do for Affliction and level 90 talents in general but hope people stop being stupid, I'm afraid.

Buff dots back up? Buff sacrifice back? Rework the entire way Affliction plays? There's a lot of inherent problems baked into the spec right now, and honestly they should just be leaving it be until the expansion ends. It's not outperforming Demonology (which doesn't rely on KjC), and Destruction wins in the niche fights (Primordius). It has abhorrent AoE, loses on multitarget encounters, and doesn't have high levels of burst. Kind of makes you wonder why it's such a massive problem when the spec is so obviously lacking, really. If warlocks were raping the PvP scene maybe I could see it, but they aren't.

Who knows.