[Warlocks] Changes for 9.0

[evertonbelmontt]

Imagine you could start giving feedback about your class and what you would like to see in 9.0 pre patch, so they can start already working with it. What you want the most?

Try to be clear in what you want, not giving just some vague idea.
If possible, separate per spec, IN ORDER OF PRIORITY OF WHAT YOU WANT THE MOST.

I'll start. In order of priority.


Affliction

1 - Drain Soul (viable) or Malefic Grasp or any kind of channeled filler again. Casting Shadowbolt always felt like crap EVER and atm it has no interaction with your rotation or spec in any way, and it's also more annoying to people playing at 200+ ms.

2 - Demonic Circle baseline.

3 - Anything that you can cast while locked. Afflic having only 1 school of magic doesn't work for PVP. I think it's the only spec in the game that still has that downside. Maybe bring back Fel Flame for minimal damage and totem destruction.

4 - Either seed of corruption gets better damage, or we get better AoE. I understand afflic can't have a nice AoE, but we need at least a proper AoE. Dungeons at the start of the expac already feel like crap with low haste. Maybe a cataclysm that applies agony would also be amazing. I think shadowpriests have that in some kind of form, almost sure.
Anyway, you get it.

5 - Dark Pact should consume 20% of your MAX health instead of current, and if you don't have 20% max health, then whatever you have left. Say you are at 8% hp and use it, you then consumes whatever it has left but giving you 1 HP instead of killing you.

6 - Demon Armor as a passive if selected, or even baseline AND passive. Being an active talent is just annoying when you think about it. You just press one button once you log in, it's easy to forget and sometimes it bugs and disappears, so why not make it always active when you have that chosen or if it's baseline? We've seen how warlocks were bad without Demon Armor and if you forget to press it, it's basically an always taken talent and they've said they want talents to be choices.



Destro

Don't play as much, except for PVP. Can't really complain in PVP but my god I hate how SLOW this spec is. You can't move but since you hit hard when it matters, I doubt they'll ever change this as it's intended. It just feels like crap.



Demonology


1 - Baseline Interrupt.

2 - Implosion gone. It just doesn't feels good sacrificing damage to deal damage. No matter if it's a dps gain, it's like you're giving up some of your damage to deal damage, it feels bad specially when you compete with Demonic Consumption which suffers from the same problem but at least you can see big numbers so it doesn't feel as bad... In theory it was good but I rather have an "Imp Command" where you ask all your imps to throw fireballs arround the target of your choice, same radius as Implosion. Kinda like "Channel Demonic Fire" from destro.

3 - Demonic Circle baseline.

4 - Portal Rework. The idea is REALLY cool but it's counter intuitive as hell. It messes up your rotation, it costs a shard to summon AND has a cast time. Like, seriously? Remove the shard, cast time AND make it summon demons according to the number of shards you spend instead of WHEN you spend.
I'm sure they can think of something way better than what it is now.

5 - Dark Pact rework as described in Aff section.

[Angrie]

Only going to comment on Demo:

1. Just make felguard's axe toss also interrupt.
2. I like implosion personally, just took awhile to get used to it.
3. YES!
4. I have never even used this talent. I saw the cast time and shard cost and immediately thought "NOPE!". Remove cast time and shard cost.
5. Never use this anymore, used it back in the day. Sounds fair to be 20% max over current HP.

I would like to see tooltips updated. Ex: Summon Dreadstalkers, it annoys me not knowing how much damage they are going to do.

The spec overall feels good, i just think there's a lot of cosmetics that can be done via glyphs to summon different demons. Would like to see a glyph that:
1. combines 3 imps into 1 bigger imp // 3 Hellfire satyrs // 3 Man'ari eredar
2. dreadstalkers into shivarra // Rogue satyrs // Ur'zul
3. commander into a Nathrezim // Imp Mother // pit lord.

[Cathbadh]

Affliction:

1) Bring back drains as the default filler
2) Circle as baseline for sure
3) Bring back a modified version of Soul Swap to use as our AoE. It'd need some sort of modification to keep it from being the default for council fights though.

Demo:

1) Axe Toss needs to have a built in interrupt
2) Make Explosive Potential a core class feature and balance damage around it. The spec is so incredibly fun as a fast paced machine gun caster

Destro:

The spec needs something to make it stand out. Also as much as I like Havoc, it either needs a significant rework or removal as I think it holds the spec back.

[Orwell7]

They already have changes in mind and nothing we can do here or the official forums can change their decisions.

If you want a topic where you dream about a good game with nice and engaging systems you can, just be mindful that it won't happen.

[xblubbx]

So here's my bet. Demo still won't get a baseline interrupt in 9.0 but the dungeons are gonna get scaled down significantly as far as kick requirements are concerned.

[Nefastus]

Demonic circle is no longer a basic skill? I haven't played in years but is it locked to a certain spec now? It was the best spell introduced from classic to Wrath really.

[JustaWarlock]

Affliction:
3) Bring back a modified version of Soul Swap to use as our AoE.

No. Just no. Probably one of the worst suggestions about fixing affliction's aoe I've read.

[evertonbelmontt]

Demonic circle is no longer a basic skill? I haven't played in years but is it locked to a certain spec now? It was the best spell introduced from classic to Wrath really.

Demonic Circle is a talent nowdays.


@Orwell

They change a lot of things in beta stages of the expansion, let alone design iteration phases.
Now is the time when they are still thinking what they will keep and what they will change along with the gear system progression of 9.0 and behold.

[Nefastus]

Demonic Circle is a talent nowdays.


@Orwell

They change a lot of things in beta stages of the expansion, let alone design iteration phases.
Now is the time when they are still thinking what they will keep and what they will change along with the gear system progression of 9.0 and behold.

Ugh, thats so silly! Didn't know they did that, that skill is a must.

[Kyphael]

I want Affliction pruned to make way for Necromancers!

[Dovay]

Imagine you could start giving feedback about your class and what you would like to see in 9.0 pre patch, so they can start already working with it. What you want the most?

Try to be clear in what you want, not giving just some vague idea.
If possible, separate per spec, IN ORDER OF PRIORITY OF WHAT YOU WANT THE MOST.

I'll start. In order of priority.


Affliction

1 - Drain Soul (viable) or Malefic Grasp or any kind of channeled filler again. Casting Shadowbolt always felt like crap EVER and atm it has no interaction with your rotation or spec in any way, and it's also more annoying to people playing at 200+ ms.

2 - Demonic Circle baseline.

3 - Anything that you can cast while locked. Afflic having only 1 school of magic doesn't work for PVP. I think it's the only spec in the game that still has that downside. Maybe bring back Fel Flame for minimal damage and totem destruction.

4 - Either seed of corruption gets better damage, or we get better AoE. I understand afflic can't have a nice AoE, but we need at least a proper AoE. Dungeons at the start of the expac already feel like crap with low haste. Maybe a cataclysm that applies agony would also be amazing. I think shadowpriests have that in some kind of form, almost sure.
Anyway, you get it.

5 - Dark Pact should consume 20% of your MAX health instead of current, and if you don't have 20% max health, then whatever you have left. Say you are at 8% hp and use it, you then consumes whatever it has left but giving you 1 HP instead of killing you.

6 - Demon Armor as a passive if selected, or even baseline AND passive. Being an active talent is just annoying when you think about it. You just press one button once you log in, it's easy to forget and sometimes it bugs and disappears, so why not make it always active when you have that chosen or if it's baseline? We've seen how warlocks were bad without Demon Armor and if you forget to press it, it's basically an always taken talent and they've said they want talents to be choices.



Destro

Don't play as much, except for PVP. Can't really complain in PVP but my god I hate how SLOW this spec is. You can't move but since you hit hard when it matters, I doubt they'll ever change this as it's intended. It just feels like crap.



Demonology


1 - Baseline Interrupt.

2 - Implosion gone. It just doesn't feels good sacrificing damage to deal damage. No matter if it's a dps gain, it's like you're giving up some of your damage to deal damage, it feels bad specially when you compete with Demonic Consumption which suffers from the same problem but at least you can see big numbers so it doesn't feel as bad... In theory it was good but I rather have an "Imp Command" where you ask all your imps to throw fireballs arround the target of your choice, same radius as Implosion. Kinda like "Channel Demonic Fire" from destro.

3 - Demonic Circle baseline.

4 - Portal Rework. The idea is REALLY cool but it's counter intuitive as hell. It messes up your rotation, it costs a shard to summon AND has a cast time. Like, seriously? Remove the shard, cast time AND make it summon demons according to the number of shards you spend instead of WHEN you spend.
I'm sure they can think of something way better than what it is now.

5 - Dark Pact rework as described in Aff section.

So basicly for affli and maybe destro, make them simmular to how they where back in mop?

[evertonbelmontt]

So basicly for affli and maybe destro, make them simmular to how they where back in mop?

Not in the slightest.

Afflic in MoP had Soul Swap, could cast while walking and had malefic grasp. It's a complete shift in design and that's not what I asked. MoP also had snapshot which the spec revolved arround, and only worked because of it at the time.

Destro had FnB toggle, Ember Tap, could cast while walking and was more fast paced than now, but was overtuned.

How is it equal to MoP design?

Legion was way better design wise than BfA for comparisson.

[Rahim]

My wishes for Affliction:
1. replace shadow bolt with a chanelled spell. nvm how its called

2. fix our aoe: not just the damage, but the rotation too. my idea is:
- make seed to instant cast
- add a new ability which makes our chanelled filler to hit all target affected by corruption around the initial target in x yard. it can be a passive, something like the demise trait (agony tick make the chanel to hit all target, stack up x time) or an active (cost one shard make next x chanel to hit all target)

With this you can simply spam out some instant seed for mobs with low hp, or for higher hp packs: use seed only to keep up corruption, maintain agony on some target for shard generation and use the filler to damage all mob.

3. competitive dps talents for different situations: except the lvl30 row, currently we did not have any real choice in the dps talents

4. more stable/predictable shard generation: i did not have big problems with the current way, i just prefer when i have a more direct control on resource generation (like for demo spec)

+1: rework UA or darkglare:however i like both spell how its works now, the interaction between them feels a little bit ankward for me: to maximixe damage during darkglare you have to pool up shard for 5 instance of UA, so i forced to do less damage(during pool up shards) for some time to do bigger damage later for a short period(during DG)

[Uzkin]

Destro hasn't been fun since the start of Legion, so I'd wish they made destro fun again.

They could either 1) bring back MoP destro (both in the visuals/theme a la Burning Embers and the related fire aura, and the actual gameplay mechanics) or 2) completely revamp the spec from scratch by putting some heart into it. MoP destro would be the safest route but I'd be fine either way.

[Loveletters]

I'm really surprised people liked Drain Soul as the filler for Affliction. I don't get it.

[Jutath]

Destro hasn't been fun since the start of Legion, so I'd wish they made destro fun again.

They could either 1) bring back MoP destro (both in the visuals/theme a la Burning Embers and the related fire aura, and the actual gameplay mechanics) or 2) completely revamp the spec from scratch by putting some heart into it. MoP destro would be the safest route but I'd be fine either way.

Man I really miss that burning aura, it just looked bad-ass more so in green.

[Malikath]

I'm really surprised people liked Drain Soul as the filler for Affliction. I don't get it.

Spreists fed-up with being useless i guess.
SB should have the deathbolt effect rolled into it based on mastery.

[asil]

I'm really surprised people liked Drain Soul as the filler for Affliction. I don't get it.

Maybe it's because in terms of functionality a drain is better for both PVE and pvp. Shadowbolt isn't even relevant, it doesn't interact with the spec at all. To put it into perspective how basically useless sbolt is and how irrelevant it is in terms of maximizing your dps? I got a #7 or 8 parse on mythic jaina. If I had used 0 shadow bolts my parse would have dropped to like #9 or 10.

When drain was your filler, it interacted with your spec, drain uptime was important, shard sniping was important. Drain soul, across the board, is just better, it feels better to play with, it interacted with the spec better.

Blizzard gutted aff in BFA, the spec is less fun to play mechanically and just feels stupid. The only people I ever saw complain about drain soul were people that were too bad to play MG on movement fights.

[StyxzTheSage]

I wrote a whole new design paradigm for this class while on the train lol.

Not gonna post it all (and who gives a shit really), but I will say this.

Aff:
- Let us choose whether to drain or bolt, tie both to DoT damage, and make them each viable, if fight/gear dependent. Maybe you'd bolt for bursty stuff like trash or nuking single targets with big dps phases. Maybe you drain multi target fights, or fights with periods of increased haste.

- Let us choose to spec for more dots or less, but maybe harder hitting dots (creating synergy between whatever talents support drain or bolt builds).

- Make the pet worth it, or get rid of it.

Destro: (don't play this spec really)

- Everything we do should make Chaos Bolt a stronger and more satisfying button. We should look forward to every cast.

- Really lean into the spec's cleave potential. Give us a way to sustain Havoc; ie maybe crit dot ticks increase duration of Havoc by a couple seconds or something.

- This spec should have the strongest sustained AoE of the three. With the largest area of effect to boot (Manaroths Fury). Infernals raining down, Fire and Brimstone, RoF, Cataclysm... I'm trying to geek out anytime I see 5+ targets.

Demo

- Should continue to revolve around big, short cd abilities.

- Make Nether Portal baseline, and build our rotation around both it and Tyrant.

- Add the Inquisitor as an alternative to the FG. Maybe make him weaker at cleave and AoE, but more ST.

- Let us spec for fewer, stronger demons or a horde of medium-weaker demons. Give talents to support either play style, and couch those talents in NP (so it summons big guys or tons of small ones.) And by big demons I do mean named ones. We can accidentally summon Prince Malc now. Let us purposefully pull Mag if we want.

- Related, let us build for pet twisting, or a mix of summoning and dots (with a stronger doom, shadowflame). Demo should be the jack of all trades lock spec, without excelling at anything all at once. I love its strong sustained ST niche and would keep that around.

- Remove soul shards and replace with an updated take on Demonic Fury. Call it summoners trance or something. Build with SB and DB, spend on HoG and NP.

Class

- Introduce class talent trees. We've basically had cheap versions of a two tree system since legion. Just do it. A big, old school tree shared by all specs. The newer, style trees for each individual spec. Would vastly increase build diversity between the specs.

- Baseline interrupt. Or give more of our pets interrupts.

- Buff healthstones. Maybe increase caster damage a little when one is used. Nothing strong enough to track, but helpful enough that folks will use the damn things.

- I'd consider giving each spec its own secondary resource again. I mentioned a demonic fury revive. We already have burning embers back. It just makes sense imo.

[Shandalar]

Warlock is a dead class and it will be the same in the next expansion.

Just deal with it and reroll.