Discussion - Warlock class overview

[ComputerNerd]

Wow. OK. Does any other caster DPS class have mana issues/need to use a similar mechanic?

I don't understand the game play value of bringing back life tap. I understand how it fits into the new lock theme..but pausing the fun (dps) especially during a cool down or high damage phase to life tap seems wrong.

Since all are going to use it, we cant discount the idea of talents to work with it.
Plus we can't be certain it works exactly as it does now.

[Dnusha]

I just realised something.

7.0 Conflagrate 8 sec cd, generates 1 soul shard
6.0 Mind Blast 9 sec cd, generates 1 shadow orb

7.0 Immolate 30% chance to generate 1 soul shard if crits
6.0 SW: Pain (Auspicious spirits) 100% chance to generate 1 shadow orb if crits

7.0 Chaos bolt, 2 shards, massive shadow damage
6.0 Devouring Plague, 3 shadow orbs, massive shadow damage

7.0 Destro warlocks are going to be 6.0 shadow priests! 7.0 shadow priest are going to be 6.0 demo warlocks!

Going into Legion, our guiding purpose is to strengthen the distinctive identity of each of our 12 classes and their specializations. The scope of these efforts includes making cosmetic improvements, enhancing existing abilities, adding new abilities, replacing too-generic abilities with more iconic ones, adjusting rotations to better reflect spec identity, and even completely redesigning some specs to carve out a strong identity where previously there was none.

[Lethl]

I just realised something.

7.0 Conflagrate 8 sec cd, generates 1 soul shard
6.0 Mind Blast 9 sec cd, generates 1 shadow orb

7.0 Immolate 30% chance to generate 1 soul shard if crits
6.0 SW: Pain (Auspicious spirits) 100% chance to generate 1 shadow orb if crits

7.0 Chaos bolt, 2 shards, massive shadow damage
6.0 Devouring Plague, 3 shadow orbs, massive shadow damage

7.0 Destro warlocks are going to be 6.0 shadow priests! 7.0 shadow priest are going to be 6.0 demo warlocks!

I was thinking about that too. But Mindblast hit harder, SW:Pain is instant, DP instant.

[Deleted]

I just realised something.

7.0 Conflagrate 8 sec cd, generates 1 soul shard
6.0 Mind Blast 9 sec cd, generates 1 shadow orb

7.0 Immolate 30% chance to generate 1 soul shard if crits
6.0 SW: Pain (Auspicious spirits) 100% chance to generate 1 shadow orb if crits

7.0 Chaos bolt, 2 shards, massive shadow damage
6.0 Devouring Plague, 3 shadow orbs, massive shadow damage

7.0 Destro warlocks are going to be 6.0 shadow priests! 7.0 shadow priest are going to be 6.0 demo warlocks!

Destro Warlock is absolutely nothing like Shadow Priest.

[Kalmakk]

Aye, the artifact talents and class talents will have a huge impact. Imagine being able to multidot on every fight, even single target bosses, because you got souls regularly trying to escape and stuff. Pretty cool. Every artifact will have a similar gimmick I assume that will add to the playstyle, or maybe, because warlock changes are so simple compared to other classes, we just get the cooler artifacts.

Indeed, I'm not sure I like how much we're relying on the Artifacts to complete our rotations (Doesn't it just inherently mean they'll have to rebuild everyone's specs for the expansion after Legion?) but it certainly makes me feel less morose about what the blog portrays. Having said that... I still think Destruction's changes will leave me benching the spec entirely if it's not changed during beta. I switched away from Fury and Arms warrior this patch simply to get away from the RNG fests. Seeing them brought wholesale over to Destro now makes me a sad Orc.

[Keldion]

I'm looking forward to seeing Affliction's gameplay, but the choice of Drain Life as its filler leaves me wondering if the other two specs will lose this element of self healing.

As stated before by other members, Demonology has weird choices and interactions that need to be addressed - such as holding Hand until one can recast Call Dreadstalkers. Otherwise, I'm holding judgment until the spec-specific talents are revealed.

Destruction appears to be a case of reinventing the wheel. There is enough RNG on Immolate shard generation; baking extra rolls of the dice onto the mastery can only rob the player of any sense of control over their performance. What the hell was wrong with smooth ember generation, anyway? This implementation of Soul Shards feels like a square peg being forced into a round hole.

[Baconeggcheese]

I think pvpers need to look at it differently. And not bitch. From what I gather, the mastery will be baseline normal via law of large numbers. However, you may get lucky, and by happenstance completely fuck someone's day with a super chaos bolt. It really does fit the fantasy, a destro lock just starts throwing shit till something sticks.

So, out of 10 hits, you might get 2 duds, and 2 that make their health drop faster than a hot potatoe.

I don't even want to think about pvp at the moment since it's getting an entirely different system on top of all the other info we haven't gotten yet.

I mean... chaosbolt should do more dmg per CB for its resource budget than it currently does with the shard system they're switching to, which has obvious problems in pvp when looked at in a vacuum... but we have no idea wtf the pvp picture is gonna look like. `

[Dnusha]

Destro Warlock is absolutely nothing like Shadow Priest.

Oh yeah? go read 7.0 class overview mate, maybe you will change your mind. I for one don't want to pray to rng gods in the next expansion asking for crit on my sw p immolate.

[Kalmakk]

This implementation of Soul Shards feels like a square peg being forced into a round hole.

With a hammer, breaking both the peg and the hole in the process.

[Capsupplier]

I think Affliction's artifact trait "Souls of the Damned" may actually alleviate a lot of the RNG problems it seems to imply with this blog. It says you get back 10% mana for killing fleeing souls.

To me, this sounds like a distraction from the actual fight. A mini game.

[Kalmakk]

To me, this sounds like a distraction from the actual fight. A mini game.

It has the potential to stray into that territory. I feel like you'd only bother with the souls on a single target fight, and let natural multidotting do the job for multi target.

Seems a little tongue in cheek to imagine that the single target rotation is so bare bones they have to add additional targets for you to cast on so you don't get bored.

[Irian]

It's as good as I could've hoped for. I absolutely love what they said with the affliction revamp as it's what I've wanted from destruction, and why I haven't enjoyed the spec in a long time. A big reason the "drain life filler" afflock in cata was fun to me - for how short of a time it lasted - wasn't because of a channeled filler, but because of the survivability that came with it.

I always tied affliction in with DoTs being your main source of damage, augmented by life-draining and tankiness. When they lost that, it felt like the spec lost a lot of its identity.


I'm still really disappointed by the direction they're taking Demonology, but I intend to have a somewhat optimistic outlook. Demonology Warlocks have changed so much and frankly I despised the way Metamorphosis ended up becoming a "demon stance" rather than a cooldown, so I can't be too bummed that it's gone, but the new abilities sound extremely passive and not all that exciting. Haste and health buff on your demons? Really?

[Grizelda]

It has the potential to stray into that territory.

It only regens mana right? Why am I messing with that if I have Life Tap? Sounds like trouble.

[Brusalk]

It's actually worse the more I think about it, and spriest already was a pain to play (at least when I played it in 6.0 / 6.1).

Incinerate = mind spike filler, maybe, hopefully it'll fill soul shards, I dunno. I'm also curious about how many soul shards they'll let us keep. I'm kinda feeling like the cap might be much higher than the 4 we have now in affliction. Maybe if they let us stack up to 8 or 10 soul shards, then destruction might play much more smoothly, and allow us to spam chaos bolts for a few times in a row when trinkets proc, etc. We'll have to wait and see.

Affliction has 5 soul shards baseline. I saw this when I leveled a warlock on the blizzcon demo machines, as well as one of the spells listed in the preview. Most likely a similar story for the other 2 specs.

[Kalmakk]

It only regens mana right? Why am I messing with that if I have Life Tap? Sounds like trouble.

You missed the other implication further in the thread. Escaping souls will supply (potentially) a more reliable way to farm soul shards by putting Agony on them all.

[Novx]

Woz and I have decided that in the interest of keeping the forum a bit cleaner in terms of discussion that we would make 3 "Meta" threads, 1 for each spec, in regards to the changes in Legion.

Demonology: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ock-Discussion

Destruction: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ock-Discussion

Affliction: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ock-Discussion

The purpose of this isn't to limit discussion but more to make it so we don't end up with 6 threads on the exact same topic. If you want to discuss something very specific or a niche topic, such as how the heirloom looks, or something similar to that feel free to make a new topic but let's try to keep everything nice, clean, and civil.