Warlock Discussion with Senior Technical Game Designer Kris Zierhut.

[dissidence]

If they were to remove snap-shotting, I'm wondering what sort of system they would use to caluclate the damage the dot would do. The immediate thing that springs to mind is some sort of dynamic ignite style calulation, considering the number or dots, as well as the number of procs we have, that would be a whole lot of math to run during encounters for overlapping buff power and duration conditions. I would worry we'd end up with some in game issue, unless they have already looked at this and figured it can be done. Anyone any other idea's on what they mite do with dots if they remove snap-shotting.

Dissident.

[deviantcultist]

If they were to remove snap-shotting, I'm wondering what sort of system they would use to caluclate the damage the dot would do. The immediate thing that springs to mind is some sort of ignite style calulation, considering the number or dots, as well as the number of procs we have, that would be a whole lot of math to run during encounters. I would worry we'd end up with some in game issue, unless they have already looked at this and figured it can be done. Anyone any other idea's on what they mite do with dots if they remove snap-shotting.

Dissident.

It will most probably be a system that should have been along from the beginning of the game, meaning that DoT tics would be calculated as if they are auto-attacks for melee. Therefore, each tick will reflect on the stats you have at that instant. Similar to how haste did not scale with DoTs in the past, this is DoT snapshoting is another outdated drawback related to DoTs. That is why I am losing my mind by seeing people grasping on that inconvenience in such a persistent way.

[Werst]

An item squish wouldn't change snapshotting one bit. Remember its going to be a percentage thing all around so in 6.0 pre WoD nothing would change in terms of your haste/crit/mastery percentages or relative spellpower. Snapshotting is one of those things that used to be a small enough gap to be okay as a skillcap metric. Now its become so far out of hand that it makes the spec (or any dot reliant spec) too hard to balance.

I would rather blizz focus on improving the secondary resource generation system as a skillcap while avoiding button bloat. Obviously aff, demo, and other dot specs are going to need some buffs to offset this change. I feel like a secondary resource system that rewards skillful use is a better driver of dps than RNGods of trinkets aligning with cooldowns or whatnot. If you ignore doom demo is closest to this model already where the skillcap is how you spend your secondary resource. Its also pretty widely accepted as the highest skillcap. I think a more flexible priority casting system is better than a simpler rotation based on little more than RNG procs.

In liquidsteel's example above you would see BB proc, cast an empowered haunt, and stack the buff from the skill with the duration of the trinket proc. Still skillful use but the delta isn't so massive and you aren't so at the mercy of RNG trinkets to define your entire parse. Perhaps its just personal preference but using an instant spell to snapshot the moment of highest power in terms of procs into a semi longterm gain is more addon whackamole than gaming skill. I think something like non doom demo blowing soulfires during a BB proc or trying to land those chaosbolts at 10x stacks is far more skillful than just going SB:SS since there is some actual casting involved. The gain isn't also as huge meaning you don't have to be tuned around the assumption of shapshotting.

I really like the idea of a dark caster with dots and drains. Those dots and drains should be powerful enough to be really damaging on their own. They shouldn't need a buffstorm made semi permanent to hurt. Execution of the fight should return as a better metric than just how many buffs you were able to stack at once then bounce around as long as possible.

[Last Starfighter]

It will most probably be a system that should have been along from the beginning of the game, meaning that DoT tics would be calculated as if they are auto-attacks for melee. Therefore, each tick will reflect on the stats you have at that instant. Similar to how haste did not scale with DoTs in the past, this is DoT snapshoting is another outdated drawback related to DoTs. That is why I am losing my mind by seeing people grasping on that inconvenience in such a persistent way.

It's not an "inconvenience" it keeps you active. It gives you the control to push the spec. Convenience can be good, but convenience has also drained alot from this game. And dot snapshotting being removed is going to make affliction a spec that'll put you to sleep.7

- - - Updated - - -

DoT snapshotting is a relic of out of date game technology. The second they gave dots dynamic updating it should have been removed. I'm glad it's finally gone, maybe I'll actually enjoy playing a dot class again, it used to be my favorite play style.

No it isn't a "relic". Because it hasn't been done very long. It's newer than the old way derp. The new way will be the "relic" when they take snapshotting away. Ppl say this for everything they don't like nowadays.

-Derp bad design
-Derp relic
-Derp clunky

But they're just excuses.

[Shahad]

I really don't understand what they want to achieve with warlocks be redesigning them again. Affliction I could see if they remove DoT snapshotting. But both Demo and Destro are an absolute joy to play and just overall work really well. Their design is pretty much spot on.

[pokeadott]

Just alter shard generation to mimic ember generation and approach the spec like Destro for resource mgt. Have big trinket procs? Cast Haunt to max them while they're up (alla CB). Otherwise just hold shards unless you're in danger of capping. Balance Haunt damage and shard regen accordingly. Skillcap becomes similar to Destro where you weigh your current resource count and procs vs. anticipated future procs and resource gains and fight mechanics to determine spending patterns.

Still has a skillcap (yes, lower), less reliant on addons, less ability to game utlra powerful procs for unintended consequences.

[Baconeggcheese]

Unless they do some pretty big tuning / mechanics changes to Aff and possibly demo it'll be destruction-central for the entire xpac *IF* this dot snapshoting goes through.

[Shahad]

Unless they do some pretty big tuning / mechanics changes to Aff and possibly demo it'll be destruction-central for the entire xpac *IF* this dot snapshoting goes through.

The only one that really needs rework would be Affliction. It doesn't really matter for Demo as much IMO.

[Deleted]

This game is way to hard.. Im a HC raider and would love a "Whipe 100 times and get a button that 1shots the boss".


OT: I see warlocks as one of the funniest and most "rewarding when played properly" class and that is what makes warlock great. I want more skillbased gameplay and I think the 3 warlock speccs have brought the essence of what every class should have. 3 speccs that all are viable options for every fight, not really for a HC raider but we still have 3 speccs that all are good at their own thing. I've heard that the 3 different specializations was ment to be like Demo>affli>destro in difficulty which i find is really great.


If they simplify our speccs any more I wount be able to enjoy the class as much as I do right now.

[Kashii]

It will most probably be a system that should have been along from the beginning of the game, meaning that DoT tics would be calculated as if they are auto-attacks for melee. Therefore, each tick will reflect on the stats you have at that instant. Similar to how haste did not scale with DoTs in the past, this is DoT snapshoting is another outdated drawback related to DoTs. That is why I am losing my mind by seeing people grasping on that inconvenience in such a persistent way.

At what point does the server explode b/c DoT's are constantly being recalculated?

To be honest, they should just give all Dot's a 6 minute duration so we can cast them at the start of the fight, put our elbows on the Malefic Grasp keybind and do something more compelling until the end of the encounter.

[deviantcultist]

It's not an "inconvenience" it keeps you active. It gives you the control to push the spec. Convenience can be good, but convenience has also drained alot from this game. And dot snapshotting being removed is going to make affliction a spec that'll put you to sleep.7

That is why they should direct our focus to something that is compelling and convenient at the same time. For example, an idea might be for us to keep track of our dots while dealing with an another mechanic that builds up our performance and provides a decent skill check in the long term. Dunno, have a deeper approach towards Soul Shards?

- - - Updated - - -

At what point does the server explode b/c DoT's are constantly being recalculated?

I am wondering about that as well. Although I believe that given that they haven't done that for so long, there might be a new addition to the programming on their part. From my perspective, I think that proc based management of DoTs emphasizes all too much in calculation and chance rather than actual immersion in your gameplay and interaction with the environment. For example, a sub rogue/feral druid deals with a challenging gameplay, yet the difficulty lies in gaming affinity instead of calculations. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against calculations, all that I am implying is that in an active environment, the best should be distinguished through class tools and not addons.

[Kashii]

...I am wondering about that as well. Although I believe that given that they haven't done that for so long, there might be a new addition to the programming on their part....

I could be wrong but iirc the whole snapshotting thing came about exactly BECAUSE of (potential) server issues - not because the devs thought it was awesome game play.

In the end, we are lucky in that we have two other DPS specs so that if Aff totally blows due to the DoT change we can revert to a spec that utilizes DoTs as a resource generator rather than a meaningful damage source.

[Thelxi]

They should just revert affliction to exactly what it was in cata, post ISS obviously. UA, choice between doom and agony, corruption refreshing itself, haunt on CD and keep 3 stacks of shadow embrace on as many targets as your skill and addons allow. Simple but deep enough to make a big difference between a bad and good afflock.

[Kagecamia]

I hate the dot snapshotting compenent.

But what I fear is that blizz will nerf us based on a broken mechanic rather than tackling that and that specific issue alone.

Just look at UVLS. It was an OP trinket and problematic for balancing to begin with. Instead of working with the trinket, we got the blunt of the nerf bat.

[Vathral2]

I was with Xyronic (the poster in the OP's link) during that discussion, I'm just sad he left me out of his OP since I brought up some of the questions he got info on (I just arrived back home, Xyronic was posting during the event, so he beat me to a lot of the information) ; ;

I didn't really read the whole thread (this one in particular), but I figure I throw in my two cents for some of the reasoning behind why they said that to us.

They wanted to remove dot snapshotting because they felt that if it had stayed in the game, the class would scale out of control and it would be too good. He said that some of the top players compared to the average player (affdots is part of the issue to blame) were over 30% ahead on most of their internal data dps wise. The idea was that he said top players would get the addon, and absolutely min/max their dps based off the values, and that he was not okay with it at all.

He also said that if he wishes, he would nerf warlocks again right now, but that after 2-3 nerfs, he's just not bothering because they admitted they screwed up on warlock scaling, but will leave it as they are, so unless they go back on the word they shared with us at that table, we should expect to stay as is.　also for some helpful information for at least the remainder of the current tier based on what we know already, its aff > destro > demo for the 3 dps specs, anything that's currently out right now information wise is wrong and that's what we should go by at least for single target. I'll post more as I settle in, I kinda retained a little more info from the discussion than what was posted, so I can try to fill in some blanks.

[Kagecamia]

So in another thread here http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...r-Kris-Zierhut the op sat down and talked to Kris Zierhut. He only mentioned one thing about warlocks but it seemed like a lot and if you have been playing your lock for a long time you will know we get gutted every expansion and it is basically like learning a new class every time. Well it seems like WoD will be no exception.

-He agrees that warlocks are too OP (Affliction specifically ) and their skill cap is WAY too high with dot snapshotting. He wants to rip up the warlock changes (with the basic idea intact - i.e. the different secondary resources) and rebuild the class.
-DoT snapshotting removed.

Nothing I didn't already expect.

You see people don't like having their class pretty much rewritten each expac. Personally I am getting tired of this on my lock for the most part. Fix us as needed but if you just scrap and rebuild us each expac, it's gonna get old.

Fix the other classes that need a spec revamp before they fuck us up again....

[ringpriest]

I really don't understand what they want to achieve with warlocks be redesigning them again. Affliction I could see if they remove DoT snapshotting. But both Demo and Destro are an absolute joy to play and just overall work really well. Their design is pretty much spot on.

You see people don't like having their class pretty much rewritten each expac. Personally I am getting tired of this on my lock for the most part. Fix us as needed but if you just scrap and rebuild us each expac, it's gonna get old.

Fix the other classes that need a spec revamp before they fuck us up again....

I agree with you both. I found warlock changes to be one of the best, if not the best, things about MoP. The thought of having my current favorite class (that virtually everyone appears to be satisfied with) rebuilt after just being successfully rebuilt is not just sad, it's mind-bogglingly dumb. All I can think of is that the dysfunctional corporate "piss over everything you touch so everyone knows it's yours" mentality is in control at Blizzard.

[Advo]

I can definitely see this being an expansion where other classes gain 'things' while warlocks actually lose things we have in MoP.

For affliction, I would not be surprised if they rip malefic grasp out and put shadowbolt back in. The vibe all expansion is that they haven't liked MG since shortly after it was introduced. Or perhaps re-jig a current dot, such as Agony becoming Agony Bolt, which on strike applies a stack of Agony on the target up to 10 (and have neither MG nor SB).

For demo, I would imagine wild imps will be flat out gone. Hopefully though in exchange, they can make this the spec where our demons actually feel powerful.

Somehow I don't see destruction changing very much at all, because its simple.

[mystogunn]

I would not be surprised if they rip malefic grasp out and put shadowbolt back in.

That would be a very good change. Although warlocks got nerfed at beginning of every tier because of OP trinkets from stat inflation, malefic grasp and it's scaling had a huge role in this too. Warlocks are currently one of the best, if not the best, classes that scale with gear because of how malefic grasp works. Replacing that with Shadowbolt would solve many problems.

I really think they should not get rid of snapshotting because item squish will solve the problem which didn't come up till MoP trinkets and shadowbolt would solve scaling issues.

[Kagecamia]

He also said that if he wishes, he would nerf warlocks again right now, but that after 2-3 nerfs, he's just not bothering because they admitted they screwed up on warlock scaling, but will leave it as they are, so unless they go back on the word they shared with us at that table, we should expect to stay as is.....

Compensate afflic and the other dot based specs for the loss of dot snapshotting. Otherwise locks and by extension other dot based classes will fall behind burst classes and specs.

While that at least gives us a better idea regarding their plans for the class, I am not holding my breath. I've fallen into their promises before and only ended up being disappointed. It is foolish if they are going to completely rewrite our class again...other specs need the attention much more.