WoD Beta Demonology Discussion

[Jessicka]

That's fairly annoying. I haven't read this much negative response about locks in a long while.

Sad thing is, it's far from just Warlocks.

[Zevoa]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14505440501

Blizzard has no direction.

[Gihelle]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14505440501

Blizzard has no direction.

I'm pretty sure their direction is, make this game so mindless that even your standard LFR mouthbreather can look like he's playing properly.

Addons and overall mastering aspects like watching for procs and snapshotting too hard for the average joe? You're being discriminated because you can't do those properly for any reason? No problemo, we'll just remove them. Please keep paying us !

One time during WotLK Naxxramas I was joking around with a new Logitech controller that I had gotten as a gift and decided to play WoW using it. Besides movement, it was actually not too bad (of course the DPS was drastically lower but hey, it was a joke and it made me laugh at the time)... it's a scary thought that if I wanted to, I could do that again in WoD. And probably do close to the DPS I did with a keyboard.

[Nerraw]

Knowing that several other classes/specs makes me both feel a little better and a lot worse. A little better because we're not completely alone, but a lot worse because it seems there won't be a whole lot of challenge left in playing any class in the game anymore.

[Jessicka]

Knowing that several other classes/specs makes me both feel a little better and a lot worse. A little better because we're not completely alone, but a lot worse because it seems there won't be a whole lot of challenge left in playing any class in the game anymore.

This. It concerns me for the wider game as a whole. Not many players are actually all that willing to switch specs, nevermind characters if they're no longer finding the game fun. Which is fair enough. Why if they're no longer enjoying a spec they've been playing for 10 years, should they expect to find another class fun enough to hold their interest? What incentive is there to even try, given the time needed to re-level and rebuild your Garrison in order to be viable and catch up?

[Deleted]

The weird part is... If people can't perform very well without AddOns ...

Why the fuck not overhaul your player teaching and interface entirely instead of trying to make it fit the old UI that has not worked in 8 years by cutting a shitton of abilities and complexity? >_>


Tried my XBox Controller on PTR btw. Works perfectly if you know your class and practice a bit.

[venomRED]

Tried my XBox Controller on PTR btw. Works perfectly if you know your class and practice a bit.

Wow...I cannot believe I'm considering this...but that would be interesting to try.

[Deleted]

Wow...I cannot believe I'm considering this...but that would be interesting to try.

I was interested from a game design perspective of how viable it'd be. It's surprisingly well working and actually way more effective to use "on the move" with some classes (tried Demo, Mage, Hunter, Rogue and Warrior with it)

Use your X to jump, sticks for mouse/wasd as well as both mouse keys (L3,R3), bind your most used spells to the other 3 buttons, the cross works as your menu selection (or trinkets and such if you prefer that) and LB/RB & LT/RT are your modifier keys.

Bags and such are a bit of a pain to control properly.

Quite comfy thou - might actually level WoD with that.

[Gorthan]

Tried my XBox Controller on PTR btw. Works perfectly if you know your class and practice a bit.

This is probably the best way to describe the current state of the game.

[Hellfury]

Demo with the current iterations of Demonbolt and 2set bonus iteration with HOG to be pretty engaging, rewarding and fun, but the other 2 specs are in shambles.

[Baconeggcheese]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/14505440501

Blizzard has no direction.

I'm not sure, the guys own post very much shows a direction.

See I played this game called Gunz a while back, and it had a massive skill curve entry barrier. It was like one of those fighting games where you have to press 8 buttons in rapid succession to do 1 move, and you were doing that constantly to do any movement. This was great fun for those who have been playing the game for quite some time, as it made the combat unique and interesting vs other shooters but because the entry barrier was so steep, the game died to attrition over the years.

Blizzard recognized that making the game more and more convoluted as the years go by coupled with players getting more and more douchey / elitist towards new players with every passing year is hurting the game. When they announced this xpac and what would come with it my initial reaction was *holy shit they're finally getting back to basics and trying to improve the base quality of the cake instead of just layering it with more icing!*

So to answer that dudes question: The design intent is clearly to make the rotations intuitive and easy to learn so that the entry barrier isn't what it currently is. Easy to learn hard to master is the direction.

Vanilla through WotLK the game saw nothing but massive sub increases, and I know at least from vanilla - BC we had literal 1-2 button rotations for damn near every class. There was still better and worse players, people who did more and less damage, depth still existed despite people acting like that's impossible with 4 button rotations.

Make game inviting to new players? New players stick around! Make game uninviting to new players? New players don't stick around.

[Urgganzish]

I'm not sure, the guys own post very much shows a direction.

See I played this game called Gunz a while back, and it had a massive skill curve entry barrier. It was like one of those fighting games where you have to press 8 buttons in rapid succession to do 1 move, and you were doing that constantly to do any movement. This was great fun for those who have been playing the game for quite some time, as it made the combat unique and interesting vs other shooters but because the entry barrier was so steep, the game died to attrition over the years.

Blizzard recognized that making the game more and more convoluted as the years go by coupled with players getting more and more douchey / elitist towards new players with every passing year is hurting the game. When they announced this xpac and what would come with it my initial reaction was *holy shit they're finally getting back to basics and trying to improve the base quality of the cake instead of just layering it with more icing!*

So to answer that dudes question: The design intent is clearly to make the rotations intuitive and easy to learn so that the entry barrier isn't what it currently is. Easy to learn hard to master is the direction.

Vanilla through WotLK the game saw nothing but massive sub increases, and I know at least from vanilla - BC we had literal 1-2 button rotations for damn near every class. There was still better and worse players, people who did more and less damage, depth still existed despite people acting like that's impossible with 4 button rotations.

Make game inviting to new players? New players stick around! Make game uninviting to new players? New players don't stick around.

Wait? the reason depth existed in BC and to a large extent WOTLK was because there were much more expansive toolkits available to good players, affliction could use immolate and breath in a lot of cases to add more dot dps. you had the ability to do weird hybrid builds 40/21-41/20 builds, there was more choice so there was skill separation.

Do you really think there is any skill to aff anymore? heck to destruction? haunt, channel, dots...pretty much it, heck theres no on use trinkets anymore either....sigh...

Dont get me wrong im all for simplification so new subs have no problem picking up the game, but oversimplification will cost them more established players over the long run.

[Baconeggcheese]

Wait? the reason depth existed in BC and to a large extent WOTLK was because there were much more expansive toolkits available to good players, affliction could use immolate and breath in a lot of cases to add more dot dps. you had the ability to do weird hybrid builds 40/21-41/20 builds, there was more choice so there was skill separation.

Do you really think there is any skill to aff anymore? heck to destruction? haunt, channel, dots...pretty much it, heck theres no on use trinkets anymore either....sigh...

Dont get me wrong im all for simplification so new subs have no problem picking up the game, but oversimplification will cost them more established players over the long run.

Again.. most specs had 1-2 button rotations... we had LESS choice back then by far outside of a few special cases. There was no real choice with the old talents please don't be one of those people. Using my mage as an example, I spent the entirety of vanilla - BC either spamming fireballs and keeping scorch marks up, or spamming frostbolts if the mob was fire immune. This was the case for most classes, you had barely anything you pressed and that was it.

Yes there is skill at all levels... Just like there were better and worse players when the game was in its most dumbed down form...

What I don't get is the dude in that blizz forum post is from a guild in good standing, and I know at this level that most people we recruit do good damage. It's not hard to do good damage. When people pass trials in my guild and typically guilds at or around our level its not because they destroyed the meters, but because they excelled at mechanics while still being able to do damage.

Dps is not what separates the top end raiders from the average player, its being able to do mechanics properly and doing the damage that matters while still doing good overall dmg. Something that will still be lost on the average or new player while they're too focused on padding their way up the meter.

[Hellfury]

its there a preliminary BIS list for Demo?

[Urgganzish]

Again.. most specs had 1-2 button rotations... we had LESS choice back then by far outside of a few special cases. There was no real choice with the old talents please don't be one of those people. Using my mage as an example, I spent the entirety of vanilla - BC either spamming fireballs and keeping scorch marks up, or spamming frostbolts if the mob was fire immune. This was the case for most classes, you had barely anything you pressed and that was it.

Yes there is skill at all levels... Just like there were better and worse players when the game was in its most dumbed down form...

What I don't get is the dude in that blizz forum post is from a guild in good standing, and I know at this level that most people we recruit do good damage. It's not hard to do good damage. When people pass trials in my guild and typically guilds at or around our level its not because they destroyed the meters, but because they excelled at mechanics while still being able to do damage.

Dps is not what separates the top end raiders from the average player, its being able to do mechanics properly and doing the damage that matters while still doing good overall dmg. Something that will still be lost on the average or new player while they're too focused on padding their way up the meter.

Agree completely...especially with the 1-2 button rotations in BC I was more referring to affliction honestly, destruction sac pet was that lovely sbolt turret haha...olden days...

[Gaidax]

Agree completely...especially with the 1-2 button rotations in BC I was more referring to affliction honestly, destruction sac pet was that lovely sbolt turret haha...olden days...

And that's what actually brought subs, people do not want to become octopus to play the game, in TBC my warlock was basically a 2 button class in PvE and I enjoyed TBC a lot, while Cataclysm with its insane 7 skills priority list for Demo not including boosts and pet controls was simply too much to have fun, it was tedious and required heavy modding to do good.

Incidentally it is Cataclysm when we started getting those truly bullshit rotations and when people state jumping ship, so I welcome ability pruning and streamlining, because you definitely don't need to bind 24 buttons to have fun.

[fguru482]

Agree completely...especially with the 1-2 button rotations in BC I was more referring to affliction honestly, destruction sac pet was that lovely sbolt turret haha...olden days...

As a long time warlock i have to disagree. I think it is more important to max dps while keeping oneself alive. Not the other way around. We are warlocks, not ele shamans or shadow priests. Thats why we have shields and passive dmg reductions and over 1 million health and healthstones. If we ever get ourselves into trouble by focusing too much on dps then we have several ways to save ourselves

That is what being a warlock is all about.

[Deleted]

And that's what actually brought subs, people do not want to become octopus to play the game, in TBC my warlock was basically a 2 button class in PvE and I enjoyed TBC a lot, while Cataclysm with its insane 7 skills priority list for Demo not including boosts and pet controls was simply too much to have fun, it was tedious and required heavy modding to do good.

Incidentally it is Cataclysm when we started getting those truly bullshit rotations and when people state jumping ship, so I welcome ability pruning and streamlining, because you definitely don't need to bind 24 buttons to have fun.

I really had LOTS of fun with demo in cataclysm (and affliction at the beginning of wrath where you had 5 dots), but I guess that's not the case for everyone.
I'm still happy with current beta demo however but I will very likely never be friends with scarred remains destruction and the revamped affliction.
And while I did play the good old shadow bolt turret during tbc, I wouldn't want to go back to that.
scarred remains destructions feels like there is no way to fuck that up, cause you can't cast chaos bolt at the wrong time if you can cast chaos bolt all the time. revamped affliction just feels like vanilla.

[venomRED]

Dps is not what separates the top end raiders from the average player, its being able to do mechanics properly and doing the damage that matters while still doing good overall dmg. Something that will still be lost on the average or new player while they're too focused on padding their way up the meter.

Bingo. Well said, man. I'll take a middle-of-the-charts dps'er who can keep themselves alive and execute mechanics properly over a chart-buster any day of the week. That mentality has worked for every raid team I've led since TBC, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.

[Baconeggcheese]

Anyone having mana problems with demo?

I'm finding I oom constantly. It's not preventing me from doing competitive dmg, but I feel like I'm just life tapping all the time on my premade 100.