Warlock patch 5.4 discussion

[Cebel]

:O

15%?

That's way, way too low...

ya, a 105,000 absorb shield ( assuming soul link/sac ) is awful.... oh wait nerp. Our survivability is what made us OP if anything, this is a well deserved nerf

[Brusalk]

ya, a 105,000 absorb shield ( assuming soul link/sac ) is awful.... oh wait nerp. Our survivability is what made us OP if anything, this is a well deserved nerf

It's a 85k shield on my 540 ilevel warlock, that requires 850k damage be done (with specific spells) before it's even at that amount.

Not only are you assuming the two most optimal talents to maximize the amount, you're not even including how long it takes to build up to such a shield.


For comparison my shadowpriest can put up a shield instantly for 72k every 15 seconds at the cost of a GCD. (12 if glyphed)

[shinewaylee]

so big nerfef, you can see it acceptable, lol. Let's nerf lock once again.

[WarlockJack]

It's easily doable without gateway if you tank the felhunters behinds the gateway and let the pitlord tank everything else

I'm doing it as affliction. Fel hunters arent a problem for me at all. Its the threat i keep building up which gateway is very useful for.

[Deleted]

Blizzard continues more and more to show their incompetence. They implement a new talent and after the duration of 1 patch they realise but guys its too good we have to nurf it and then they nerf it to the ground lol. 30% on soul leech is acceptable 15% its just like a tickle. I mean i will get an 80k shield. Wow thats a game saver. People will just go back to dark regeneration. And then blizzard will like ok noone takes this talent again lets buff it once more and so on.

[Rayaleith]

Exactly. Great players have always been able to studder step in movement to apply the quick casts and I think executing that is much better than dealing with a self snare.



What if you have no embers when you need to move? What if you have pooled emebrs and no procs? Do you really want to be forced to burn your emebrs anytime you need to move? The whole point of fillers while moving is that they are your lowest DPET to keep things in check. The whole reason its being looked at is because being able to unload your biggest nukes while moving is not balanced.

Incin on the fly is the best solution IMO, we still generate embers, lose minimal dps over your standard rotation, and cast it more frequently than any other spell in our rotation as it is. Odds are, you would have been casting it for that global anyways.

We do that with fel flame as destro if we need to move. At least this is what I do. As destruction I use KJC only in encounter that my (LONG CASTING) Chaos Bolt might be interrupted by knockbacks and similar mechanics. Otherwise I prefer MF.

[Deleted]

Okay, soul leech is now useless. :P No way this is going live. Portal debuff now 60 seconds? Wow..

60 second cooldown to teleport? Yeah, that just killed what might have remained of the spell... Anyone else who thinks this is a PvP nerf primarily? Could barely find a use for it in PvE to begin with.

---------- Post added 2013-06-21 at 09:04 AM ----------

I'm going to cry if we have to start using Dark Regeneration and Mortal Coil. We probably have most abilities that we have to use during encounter. Soul link and Soul leech have been so godlike because they are passives. I have like 22 buttons hotkeyed that i use almost each fight, I can't really add any more spells unless i start adding more hotkeys and learn to use them

How can you only have 22 hotkeys as a Warlock? O.o I got up towards 70 or something.

[Deleted]

15% soul leech sounds a bit heavy handed, 30% sounded pretty fair, if they REALLY felt they needed to nerf it more (and I get it, it's still strong and requires no "work" like Dark Regen does), then I'd have thought they'd stop at 25%, more than that seems madness, I'll go back to my DR + HS shenanigans.

Turning AV into vengeance after such a huge survivability nerf baffles me too, haven't they just been fiddling with tank vengeance because they don't want them trying to take more dmg to do more dmg, and now they're giving a damage dealer that ability?

Gateway comes out of the blue, it's already killable - more than a 30 second CD on that seems like it'll just turn into a mechanic so rarely used it's pointless, at which point I'd have prefered some of it's OTHER limitations removed, ie; let it transport 10 people, reduce it's cast time or make it unkillable again. Not sure what prompted that, it's been useful on like 2 encounters per tier so far, very useful, but still only two.

Not sure how much I want to complain though, I almost regret complaining so much about KJC since I think it's arguably TOO strong now, and its justified turning MF into some weird dps GAIN instead of just situational area increase, and god knows what's happening with MF. I worry that view KJC as being too "mandatory" to keep around due to the community backlash, and I'd much rather see that entire talent tier scrapped since they've shown incapable of balancing it over an entire expansion almost at this point - it's obviously got problems that require a rebuild of either two or all of the talents, giving them a cohesive design.

[Nivrax]

I wish they just scrapped the whole gate usable in PvP and balance around that, even Xel said he was very close of cutting it out. I hate being only class that is tied to presetting TWO spells before battle to have chance kiting anything. Though maybe the 60sec change is step in that direction, but it messes with PvE that way.

[Shiennar]

15% soul leech sounds a bit heavy handed, 30% sounded pretty fair, if they REALLY felt they needed to nerf it more (and I get it, it's still strong and requires no "work" like Dark Regen does), then I'd have thought they'd stop at 25%, more than that seems madness, I'll go back to my DR + HS shenanigans.

Turning AV into vengeance after such a huge survivability nerf baffles me too, haven't they just been fiddling with tank vengeance because they don't want them trying to take more dmg to do more dmg, and now they're giving a damage dealer that ability?

Gateway comes out of the blue, it's already killable - more than a 30 second CD on that seems like it'll just turn into a mechanic so rarely used it's pointless, at which point I'd have prefered some of it's OTHER limitations removed, ie; let it transport 10 people, reduce it's cast time or make it unkillable again. Not sure what prompted that, it's been useful on like 2 encounters per tier so far, very useful, but still only two.

Not sure how much I want to complain though, I almost regret complaining so much about KJC since I think it's arguably TOO strong now, and its justified turning MF into some weird dps GAIN instead of just situational area increase, and god knows what's happening with MF. I worry that view KJC as being too "mandatory" to keep around due to the community backlash, and I'd much rather see that entire talent tier scrapped since they've shown incapable of balancing it over an entire expansion almost at this point - it's obviously got problems that require a rebuild of either two or all of the talents, giving them a cohesive design.

Depends on point of view, we have developed tactics that evolve specificly around the gateway either Negating a certain part of the encounter or simply simplifying it beyond oblivion. Examples would be Megaera, Ji'Kun, Dark Animus, Qon, Lei Shen and to some extent Twins.

[Deleted]

Fair enough, my groups only made major use out of it on Qon and Ji-kun, used it a bit on Lei'shen normal for a while to quickly reach our quadrants, but soon found it wasn't really necessary - haven't done heroic twins or dark animus yet, so can't real comment on those, perhaps I was playing it down a bit too much.

[Deleted]

Turning AV into vengeance after such a huge survivability nerf baffles me too, haven't they just been fiddling with tank vengeance because they don't want them trying to take more dmg to do more dmg, and now they're giving a damage dealer that ability?

would that mean that we get spellpower every time we get unavoidable/single target dmg equal to say 5/10/15% of the dmg taken and it stacks up to a certain percentage of our overall spellpower? atleast thats how i understood GC's answers if they are turning it into a vengeance like talent.

[Deleted]

How can you only have 22 hotkeys as a Warlock? O.o I got up towards 70 or something.

I'm wondering the same o.O. I have over 30 keybindings on my mouse alone.

With the Soul Leech nerf I'll be building my shield to around 100k, which is still good.

Let's whine more about Mannoroth's Fury instead .. Why would they remove a passive talent that did so little, yet felt so right?!

[Jessicka]

would that mean that we get spellpower every time we get unavoidable/single target dmg equal to say 5/10/15% of the dmg taken and it stacks up to a certain percentage of our overall spellpower? atleast thats how i understood GC's answers if they are turning it into a vengeance like talent.

I was thinking it'll be more like Incanter's Ward. Passive DPS buff and active Vengeance like mechanic.

[Deleted]

I will address affliction mostly at my post. Although blizzard reverted somehow the change in KJC still they fail to understand a lot of things. I believe that the majority understand that KJC is a bad talent but it is something you cannot drastically change midwya of the expansion. What they are suggesting now, Malfic grasp, incinerate and shadow to be cast on the move while you have KJC. These spells should have been baseline for locks to be casted whilst moving. Especialy for affliction. There is no chance you will do any kinda of competetitive dps (and am not referring top dps) withought being able to cast malefic grasp on the move. It is how they designed affliction for Pandaria. So my suggestion is:

Malefic grasp: Baseline castable spell on the move.
KJC: Cd based like initially implemented maybe they can add a small speed increase aswell in there. Since you can already cast 2 instant dots plus malefic grasp on the move, taking the talent would not fill mandatory. It will be useful for those fights that will require heavy movement during execute phases in order to cast drain soul. You can even make the talent spell specific with charges. When you use it you can cast unstable affliction and drainsoul on the move and add something like 3 charges.
AV: I liked one idea someone said make it a charge based spell. It charges up when you are hit from dmg and you use it on demand for an incremental increase in dmg or soemthing along this lines.
MF: Its better to be a cd based as they are making it but they have to increase its duration to 15 sec i believe.

Affliction still suffers from aoe mechanic. Seed of corruption is very bad for aoe especially with the limited aoe range atm. Affliction need to have one more cd based (on the lines of 10-15sec) spell that produces snap (burst aoe). We do not need to spread corruption with SS:Seed. Get that portion of dmg that we get from corruption ticks buff it up a bit and put it in another spell.

Drainsoul ticks need to go down to 1 sec instead of 2 sec. Especially with the changes that are coming. Keep the shard regeneration at 2 ticks so they stay as live.

I again stress the fact that Affliction (as it stands now) is unplayable without any kind of KJC talent. 5 sec malefic grasps and 10 sec drain souls are just too retaining for affliction. 90% of the fights require medium to heavy movement.

Tys

[Deleted]

Fair enough, my groups only made major use out of it on Qon and Ji-kun, used it a bit on Lei'shen normal for a while to quickly reach our quadrants, but soon found it wasn't really necessary - haven't done heroic twins or dark animus yet, so can't real comment on those, perhaps I was playing it down a bit too much.

It's not needed for HC twins. It can be useful for HC Dark animus, depending on matter swap soakers.

The thing with gateway is, on some fights where it's 'essential', this 60 sec CD could make a difference.

For e.g. HC Lei Shen p3... gateways are of vital importance, and being able to use a charge every 60 secs makes it more like a 'oh shit' CD rather than something you need to use according to your tactic.

[Deleted]

I will address affliction mostly at my post. Although blizzard reverted somehow the change in KJC still they fail to understand a lot of things. I believe that the majority understand that KJC is a bad talent. What they are suggesting now. Malfic grasp, incinerate and shadow to be cast on the move while you have that talent should have beend baseline for locks. Especialy affliction. There is no chance you will do any kinda of competetitive dps (and am not refering to top dps) withought being able to cast malefic grasp on the move. It is how they designed affliction for Pandaria. So my suggestion is:

Malefic grasp: Baseline castable spell on the move.
KJC: Cd based like initially implemented maybe they can add a small speed increase aswell in there. Since you can already cast 2 instant dots plus malefic grasp on the move, taking the talent would not fill mandatory. It will be useful for thoughs fights that will require heavy movement during execute phases in order to cast drain soul. You can even make the talent spell specific with charges. When you use it you can cast unstable affliction and drainsoul on the move and add something like 3 charges.
AV: I liked one idea someone said make it a charge based spell. It charges up when you are hit from dmg and you use it on demand for an incremental increase in dmg or soemthing along this lines.
MF: Its better to be a cd based as they are making it but they have to increase its duration to 15 sec i believe.

Affliction still suffers from aoe mechanic. Seed of corruption is very bad for aoe especially with the limited aoe range atm. Affliction need to have one more cd based (on the lines of 10-15sec) spell that produces snap (burst aoe). We do not need to spread corruption with SS:Seed. Get that portion of dmg that we get from corruption ticks buff it up a bit and put it in another spell.

Drainsoul ticks need to go down to 1 sec instead of 2 sec. Especially with the changes that are coming. Keep the shard regeneration at 2 ticks so they stay as live.

I again stress the fact that Affliction (as it stands now) is unplayable without any kind of KJC talent. 5 sec malefic grasps and 10 sec drain souls are just too retaining for affliction. 90% of the fights require medium to heavy movement.

Tys

* They increased our dot damage and lowered our malefic grasp damage to make up for the loss of MG up time.
* They removed Fel Flame's dot renewal and increased its damage.
* They did not lower Drain Soul's damage, imagine how sick that'll be with the buffed dots in the execute phase.
* I never considered SoC bad. I know that misconception has been widely spread...

I.e: As things are now (5.3), yes Affliction requires KJC. Everything about that changes and I imagine that on PTR we don't need KJC, because of the reasons stated above.

What's with the 60 second debuff on Demonic Gateway though? I wonder what they have in mind...
Are warlocks going to be that kind of class that you bring in once every 60 seconds and then put them in the corner while everything they have comes back off cooldown?
60 secs cooldown here, 60 secs cooldown there.. oh and there. And there! And over here!

[Jessicka]

I again stress the fact that Affliction (as it stands now) is unplayable without any kind of KJC talent.
Tys

That is a ridiculous hyperbole.

[Deleted]

Hmmm, 15% seems too low. We'll have far larger healthpools in the new tier obviously, that's why 30% made sense (lol at 100%, I reckon we'll have ~700k+ hp unbuffed, SL would be insane), but 15%? Man, that's low...

Also, the 60 second debuff on gateway does make sense, although it kinda puts our level 87 ability in the dumpster. I guess they didn't like people forming strategies around our portal. I hope they make it something like 30 seconds.

And lastly, MF will be beyond bad for Destruction if it's not going to include FnB spells. Not to mention that Affliction will never take it, ever. I think the only time I ever took it in this expansion was at Elegon to game the orbs.

[Singularity]

Nice, it appears we'll be able to cast Incinerate while moving!