I really got sad when I see we get a nerf to our survivability in the 7.1 ptr notes. Removing our ability to stack demon skin and pact to increase our mobility, so we get a spell that should've been baseline instead? Circle isn't even a mobility increase. By mobility we need the ability to do damage and move, not teleport once without casting.
This is the wrong way to go.
affliction here...
1) to "ease" the ramp up, please make agony ramp up faster when using drain (e.g. 1 drain life//soul tick = 1 extra tick)
2) don't punish us for mechanics.. bosses disappear and reappear after some time.. guess what happens? adios agony stacks! I would welcome to have agony stacks be "tied" to the warlock.. something like a "buff" that lasts a certain amount of time (60 seconds raid, 30s in dungeon... reason being that there are mechanics that make the boss "unattackable" for long period of time) and gets refreshed every time the agony ticks and basically with that buff when you can your next agony, it will keep the "stacks" tied to the buff.. meaning that if i get the buff from an agony with 15 stacks, I get a buff for 60 seconds that IF i apply another agony, that agony will start out with 15 stacks... This would be useful for dungeon (where targets die too fast for agony ramp up) and for dungeon//raids when there are some mechanics that would make the dot fall "off" and you would have to re-apply it from 1 stack after 1 minute or so...
3) shard generation... this ia all across the board (sans demonology that has some way to "have" a flow of generation...), 3 shards start was a good start to have a "stable" opener, but i would welcome a shard generation that is 2//3 times faster.. reason being that by raising the shards generation, as afflock you get more UA uptime, thus you get either more direct damage (ua stacking) or damage buff (ua talent that augment damage taken on target).... similar consideration applies to destruction: with a proper structured shard generation, they can actually pull off the rain of fire, and they can pull out a steady amount of chaos bolt..
4) pet.. now this is a tricky one, but i'm under the impression that felhunter shadow bite is not taking into account ua for the increased damage based on dot numebr
5) singularity cd should be 30 second to make it a worthwhile for aoe heavy encounter.. either that or buff the damage it pulls off...
6) effigy.. cool idea, but..... it should not aggro the mob.. until you actually DEAL damage through it... additionally I would REALLY welcome some way to target your own soul effigy effortlessy...
7) raise a bit the dmg of siphon life.. as things stands, siphon life damage contribution is really way too minimal.. or at least change it so that it deals a more significant damage against target of higher level than the caster (thus effectively making it have a separate function from pve to pvp.. in pvp is minor dmg + self sustain, whereas in pve is an actual dmg spell)..
8) artifact.. now this is a tricky part.. first of all, the golden talent.. after the removal of the souls to "proc" the talents, those golden talents feels weirdly "TOO situational" to be golden traits...
I think the following improvement would make sense:
- soul flame should have a secondary effect: "while under the effect of reap, every 10 seconds any target afflicted by at least two dots" deals soul flame damage to himself and aoe (just like if it died)
- wrath of the consumption should have a secondary effect: "while under the effect of reap, every 10 seconds your damage over effect deals 2% increased damage, stacking up to 5 times"
- increase the "soul" leakage when fighting a boss... meaning that when fighting a boss you should get a soul for utalesh every 15 seconds with a diminish of 2.5 seconds for each dot effect on the boss, up to a minimum of 10 seconds.. meaning that in a patchwerk condition you get 9 stacks in 90 seconds, whereas in a non patchwerk conditions in 90 seconds you get between 6 and 9...
9) can we have some way to deal damage in burst when needed? even with a generous cooldown? something like "consume half the current duration of all dots, deal 200% of the damage" witha 40 sec cd... as it stands between the ramp up and all, IF there is an add to burst down that only a selected few can hit, you might as well stay on the target as to deal damage you have to:
- cast agony
- cast corruption
- (cast siphon??)
- cast ua (if talented for added damage AND if you have enough shards)
- drain life/soul
which means that you have to use at best 2 GCD and a channel OR 3 gcd, 1 cast AND a channel... to start dealing your full damage to an add that might be wiping the raid if not killed fast enough... honestly, it's not the best way to play it...
Points 1-2-3-7 are more damage things that can be made to improve affliction, 8 is about the artifact feeling void after the last round of pruning in the beta, whereare other points are QOL improvements..
demonology..
i tried it, and it's a nice spec but..
1) to deal GOOD damage you need too many WA... i mean.. it's exagerated the amount of reliance on addons for this spec to function properly..
2) make the demon lasts a bit longer...
3) make demonic empowerment a self buff with a certain duration and automatic application to any demons that is summoned... it will last on the demons as long as the "buff" lasts on you.. say 30 seconds? 15? anything is better than doing:
dread stalker --> empower --> demonbolt --> demonbolt --> guldan --> empowerment --> dread stalker --> empowerment and repeat, basically casting almost every time demonic empowerment between one spell and another.... you basically transformed a buff into a filler.... whereas instead demonbolt was supposed to be the filler//generator
4) clunky change of target....
destruction:
1) chaos bolt hits like wet noodle... raise the base damage or the coefficient contribution...
2) mastery... basically the way mastery works, makes mastery an unwanted stat.. and no, while as the blue saids, it will "even out" in the long run, we already have to deal with "crit chance" when we need to burst something down quickly, you want to add to us another layer of randomness for what purpose? should destro lock tell to the RL "leave me on the boss, i cannot burst anything down willingly??"
1) to "ease" the ramp up, please make agony ramp up faster when using drain (e.g. 1 drain life//soul tick = 1 extra tick)
2) don't punish us for mechanics.. bosses disappear and reappear after some time.. guess what happens? adios agony stacks! I would welcome to have agony stacks be "tied" to the warlock.. something like a "buff" that lasts a certain amount of time (60 seconds raid, 30s in dungeon... reason being that there are mechanics that make the boss "unattackable" for long period of time) and gets refreshed every time the agony ticks and basically with that buff when you can your next agony, it will keep the "stacks" tied to the buff.. meaning that if i get the buff from an agony with 15 stacks, I get a buff for 60 seconds that IF i apply another agony, that agony will start out with 15 stacks... This would be useful for dungeon (where targets die too fast for agony ramp up) and for dungeon//raids when there are some mechanics that would make the dot fall "off" and you would have to re-apply it from 1 stack after 1 minute or so...
3) shard generation... this ia all across the board (sans demonology that has some way to "have" a flow of generation...), 3 shards start was a good start to have a "stable" opener, but i would welcome a shard generation that is 2//3 times faster.. reason being that by raising the shards generation, as afflock you get more UA uptime, thus you get either more direct damage (ua stacking) or damage buff (ua talent that augment damage taken on target).... similar consideration applies to destruction: with a proper structured shard generation, they can actually pull off the rain of fire, and they can pull out a steady amount of chaos bolt..
4) pet.. now this is a tricky one, but i'm under the impression that felhunter shadow bite is not taking into account ua for the increased damage based on dot numebr
5) singularity cd should be 30 second to make it a worthwhile for aoe heavy encounter.. either that or buff the damage it pulls off...
6) effigy.. cool idea, but..... it should not aggro the mob.. until you actually DEAL damage through it... additionally I would REALLY welcome some way to target your own soul effigy effortlessy...
7) raise a bit the dmg of siphon life.. as things stands, siphon life damage contribution is really way too minimal.. or at least change it so that it deals a more significant damage against target of higher level than the caster (thus effectively making it have a separate function from pve to pvp.. in pvp is minor dmg + self sustain, whereas in pve is an actual dmg spell)..
8) artifact.. now this is a tricky part.. first of all, the golden talent.. after the removal of the souls to "proc" the talents, those golden talents feels weirdly "TOO situational" to be golden traits...
I think the following improvement would make sense:
- soul flame should have a secondary effect: "while under the effect of reap, every 10 seconds any target afflicted by at least two dots" deals soul flame damage to himself and aoe (just like if it died)
- wrath of the consumption should have a secondary effect: "while under the effect of reap, every 10 seconds your damage over effect deals 2% increased damage, stacking up to 5 times"
- increase the "soul" leakage when fighting a boss... meaning that when fighting a boss you should get a soul for utalesh every 15 seconds with a diminish of 2.5 seconds for each dot effect on the boss, up to a minimum of 10 seconds.. meaning that in a patchwerk condition you get 9 stacks in 90 seconds, whereas in a non patchwerk conditions in 90 seconds you get between 6 and 9...
9) can we have some way to deal damage in burst when needed? even with a generous cooldown? something like "consume half the current duration of all dots, deal 200% of the damage" witha 40 sec cd... as it stands between the ramp up and all, IF there is an add to burst down that only a selected few can hit, you might as well stay on the target as to deal damage you have to:
- cast agony
- cast corruption
- (cast siphon??)
- cast ua (if talented for added damage AND if you have enough shards)
- drain life/soul
which means that you have to use at best 2 GCD and a channel OR 3 gcd, 1 cast AND a channel... to start dealing your full damage to an add that might be wiping the raid if not killed fast enough... honestly, it's not the best way to play it...
Points 1-2-3-7 are more damage things that can be made to improve affliction, 8 is about the artifact feeling void after the last round of pruning in the beta, whereare other points are QOL improvements..
demonology..
i tried it, and it's a nice spec but..
1) to deal GOOD damage you need too many WA... i mean.. it's exagerated the amount of reliance on addons for this spec to function properly..
2) make the demon lasts a bit longer...
3) make demonic empowerment a self buff with a certain duration and automatic application to any demons that is summoned... it will last on the demons as long as the "buff" lasts on you.. say 30 seconds? 15? anything is better than doing:
dread stalker --> empower --> demonbolt --> demonbolt --> guldan --> empowerment --> dread stalker --> empowerment and repeat, basically casting almost every time demonic empowerment between one spell and another.... you basically transformed a buff into a filler.... whereas instead demonbolt was supposed to be the filler//generator
4) clunky change of target....
destruction:
1) chaos bolt hits like wet noodle... raise the base damage or the coefficient contribution...
2) mastery... basically the way mastery works, makes mastery an unwanted stat.. and no, while as the blue saids, it will "even out" in the long run, we already have to deal with "crit chance" when we need to burst something down quickly, you want to add to us another layer of randomness for what purpose? should destro lock tell to the RL "leave me on the boss, i cannot burst anything down willingly??"
12/09/2016 20:17Posted by ZyndrasIssues i have with the warlock:
- clumsy gameplay mechanics : which will not be changed until next major updates, if we're lucky
- visual not being updated: aka Green Fire visuals
- lazy talents : taking baseline spells to go in our talents, while other classes got new ones
- unnecessary pruning : bye bye water walking warlock mount, bye bye Dark Soul
- ramp up time : in demonology for example, you have at least 14 seconds before STARTING doing your average damage
- aoe : Destruction was aoe king in Mop, now we have to gimp our solo damage to do aoe when others classes don't have to (hello to you fire mages)
- RNG ressource gathering : a secondary ressource, necessary to our dps rotation tied to RNG (except for Demono)
- RNG mastery : Chaos Bolt, Destruction's big hit spell, now hit like a wet noodle if you're not lucky
- ZERO communication from Blizzard : many of these problems have been said since Alpha and there have been zero response or explanation from Blizzard, hence people getting the feeling their feedback goes in the trash can.
Lastly, I would like to open a discussion here about Metamorphosis. I perfectly know this topic will never be addressed before the end of Legion yet I cannot help but complain about it. Please keep in mind this is just my complaint, not other Warlocksâ.
Metamorphosis was so core to the concept of Demonology: it was the way to go for some caster who also lets demonic energies into himselfâŚsometimes falling into their hands like Kanrethad Ebonlocke did. Or like Illidan did in the Vault of the Wardens.
Metamorphosis was brought to us in Wrath of the Lich King and was changed to an active ability in Mists of Pandaria. Throughout the years, we saw plenty of Warlocks using it: Kanrethad (who also invented Dark Apotheosis through that magic), TeronâGor (in Auchidoun, when he uses the powers of Demonology in normal or heroic difficulty, he uses Metamorphosis), and even the casters in Hellfire Assault (they transform using Metamorphosis at 50% health). And these were Warlocks, not demon hunters. Our Metamorphosis is not the same as the gloriously customized one the Demon Hunters got. It draws from other powers of the Legion.
Furthermore, we are lore wise entitled to use it. It is mentioned in The Legacy of the Masters (part 1) that after the defeat of Illidan atop the Black Temple, Kanrethad brought the secret of this demonic transformation to the council of the six mastersâŚand thatâs why we got the ability in Wrath of the Lich King.
So we basically got stripped of a most iconic Warlock ability for the sole purpose of Demon Hunters to have their nice cooldown. Letâs face it: Metamorphosis did not bring more complexity to the spec than it currently has, with all the Demonic Empowerment, Doom, and Demon tracking we must do. And why not have a spec that is harder to master! Its better than the RNG Sh!t we got, since RNG is an aspect that requires no skill nor do we have controll over.
But do you, fellow warlocks, want to hear about the ultimate backstab? While Demon Hunters were already implemented and our Metamorphosis removed, we got to face GulâDan at the Broken Shore. And next to him, was an Eredar Sorceress (Lady Keletress)âŚwith Metamorphosis wings. The same model as weâve always had. Not the Demon Hunter one. And she was a WARLOCK.
So when are we getting beloved Meta back??????
I don't get why people disliked this so much. This is literally the best post in the entire thread. I honestly feel like people who dislike the old Demonology have never even played it for more than a few minutes. How on earth can anyone like the way it currently is more than the awesomeness that it was before. It was so nicely executed and totally felt like the spec was in your control.
Meta was cool, but apparently it didn't fit the class fantasy according to blizzard. They wanted us to be more focused on summoning/empowering demons(MASTER SUMMONER), instead of mainly being focused on turning into a demon.
It was obvious that they were going to remove metamorphosis from demonology warlocks when they introduced the demon hunter.
It was obvious that they were going to remove metamorphosis from demonology warlocks when they introduced the demon hunter.
15/09/2016 10:21Posted by SosseriMeta was cool, but apparently it didn't fit the class fantasy according to blizzard. They wanted us to be more focused on summoning/empowering demons(MASTER SUMMONER), instead of mainly being focused on turning into a demon.
It was obvious that they were going to remove metamorphosis from demonology warlocks when they introduced the demon hunter.
It wasn't obvious at all though, because they bothered to do an entire questline (for the green fire) about it, kept putting it into our faces with various NPCs having Meta and building up the "class fantasy" of demonology to be what it used to be. And then BOOM out of nowhere locks should no longer be able to use Metamorphosis because f*** you people who actually love the spec so much, that's why.
I'll do something short, easy to read with really easy things to do :
1) general warlcock PVE
our 3 min cooldown have to do more damage, and have no shard cost.
ATM, when you use 2 shard at pull for service + doomguard you almost don't feel like it"s worth
2) Destruction: this spec has a mastery problem, and chaos bolt doing not enought damage for the soul shard / cast time required:
i suggested that chaos bolt should always use mastery at the highest value ( or at a highter value, like 50 to 100% instead of 0 to 100% if always 100% is too high ) . this way, first you correct the low damage of chaos bolt, second you make mastery more desirable
3) afflliction
artifact weapon has to pop souls again. The whole gameplay of affliction is to have mobs who die around you. You suppressed the souls but dint think about revamp the whole artifact trait? this is strange
I admit the first iteration of beta, with souls having a lot of hp to kill wasn't the best, but current state is worse.
Perhaps souls appearing and dying over time on their own, or having very few hp, or being instant kill by the artifact weapon skill, just to proc artifact traits
4) demono has to have a total revamp.
biggest problems of the spec are: too static and rigid, demons diversity, demonic empowrment being the " buff to maintain at all time " the most annoying you ever created, when you said that you didn't want this kind of spell anymore
For beginning, let's start with little simple things:
instant dreadstalkers
demonic empowrment as a selfbuff during 15 to 30sec ( up to you) making us summon more powerfull demons as long as we have this buff
Hand of guldan popping different kinds of demons ( like the old glyph or army of the dead )
Grimoire tier talent revamped ( grimoire of service should make us have a permanent second pet, grimoire of supremacy should make us be able to summon both doomguard and infernal, on shorter cd )
5) general warlock PVP
the whole tanky pvp caster is just not viable because what's the point of being a static tanky caster if you can't cast
stun stun stun silence kick stun, dead
living longer to just behing able to do NOTHING longer is bad design
add coolddown, add real CC ( like INSTANT shadowfury), add some snare ( come on the only caster without snare and movement cd ? )
reduce ability of melees dps to stick on us, and just annihilate our gameplay with kick stun kick, jump in your back, repeart
And it should be ok
thanks
1) general warlcock PVE
our 3 min cooldown have to do more damage, and have no shard cost.
ATM, when you use 2 shard at pull for service + doomguard you almost don't feel like it"s worth
2) Destruction: this spec has a mastery problem, and chaos bolt doing not enought damage for the soul shard / cast time required:
i suggested that chaos bolt should always use mastery at the highest value ( or at a highter value, like 50 to 100% instead of 0 to 100% if always 100% is too high ) . this way, first you correct the low damage of chaos bolt, second you make mastery more desirable
3) afflliction
artifact weapon has to pop souls again. The whole gameplay of affliction is to have mobs who die around you. You suppressed the souls but dint think about revamp the whole artifact trait? this is strange
I admit the first iteration of beta, with souls having a lot of hp to kill wasn't the best, but current state is worse.
Perhaps souls appearing and dying over time on their own, or having very few hp, or being instant kill by the artifact weapon skill, just to proc artifact traits
4) demono has to have a total revamp.
biggest problems of the spec are: too static and rigid, demons diversity, demonic empowrment being the " buff to maintain at all time " the most annoying you ever created, when you said that you didn't want this kind of spell anymore
For beginning, let's start with little simple things:
instant dreadstalkers
demonic empowrment as a selfbuff during 15 to 30sec ( up to you) making us summon more powerfull demons as long as we have this buff
Hand of guldan popping different kinds of demons ( like the old glyph or army of the dead )
Grimoire tier talent revamped ( grimoire of service should make us have a permanent second pet, grimoire of supremacy should make us be able to summon both doomguard and infernal, on shorter cd )
5) general warlock PVP
the whole tanky pvp caster is just not viable because what's the point of being a static tanky caster if you can't cast
stun stun stun silence kick stun, dead
living longer to just behing able to do NOTHING longer is bad design
add coolddown, add real CC ( like INSTANT shadowfury), add some snare ( come on the only caster without snare and movement cd ? )
reduce ability of melees dps to stick on us, and just annihilate our gameplay with kick stun kick, jump in your back, repeart
And it should be ok
thanks
I play Affliction Warlock at this moment and I have to say: most of the class is fun and well designed. The only issue I can see right now is with burst damage.
If you go heroes or mythics with friends who know how to play then your damage is abysmally low. Simply because mobs are dead before you have any chance to have your first seed explosion. Bosses are down to 20% before Agony reaches 20 stacks, and therefore your damage can never normalize.
Additionally loosing a 20 stack of Agony really hurts the damage, and there are many factors that can cause you to loose it despite excellent gameplay like random stuns, or team mates not freeing you from effects like the prison in time.
I therefore suggest to add two additional skills to the Affliction Warlock to compensate this:
Shared Pain (new spell)
Sacrifice 50% of your maximum health to affect the target with Agony at its maximum intensity. If cast on a Soul Effigy it will also be cast on the Soul Effigy's target.
This will allow the Warlock to participate in the first 30s of burst damage in raids and vs. mythic bosses. The cost of 50% health is significant enough to make this not viable in PvP, but thanks to the strong self-healing not much of an issue in PvE.
Group Effort (new talent)
Your Seed of Corruption now triggers on all sources of damage, even those of other players.
This will allow the Warlock to deal his damage in strong AE dps situations. As the seed still needs the damage to explode, it will have little to no effect in other situations.
In addition the run speed toggle is currently mostly useless, as it drains health so fast that you can barely walk around the corner without dying. I'd suggest to change this so it does standard damage that will not bypass your absorb shield. This will allow to sprint for a few seconds without loosing health, and therefore make this a useful yet still balanced talent.
If you go heroes or mythics with friends who know how to play then your damage is abysmally low. Simply because mobs are dead before you have any chance to have your first seed explosion. Bosses are down to 20% before Agony reaches 20 stacks, and therefore your damage can never normalize.
Additionally loosing a 20 stack of Agony really hurts the damage, and there are many factors that can cause you to loose it despite excellent gameplay like random stuns, or team mates not freeing you from effects like the prison in time.
I therefore suggest to add two additional skills to the Affliction Warlock to compensate this:
Shared Pain (new spell)
Sacrifice 50% of your maximum health to affect the target with Agony at its maximum intensity. If cast on a Soul Effigy it will also be cast on the Soul Effigy's target.
This will allow the Warlock to participate in the first 30s of burst damage in raids and vs. mythic bosses. The cost of 50% health is significant enough to make this not viable in PvP, but thanks to the strong self-healing not much of an issue in PvE.
Group Effort (new talent)
Your Seed of Corruption now triggers on all sources of damage, even those of other players.
This will allow the Warlock to deal his damage in strong AE dps situations. As the seed still needs the damage to explode, it will have little to no effect in other situations.
In addition the run speed toggle is currently mostly useless, as it drains health so fast that you can barely walk around the corner without dying. I'd suggest to change this so it does standard damage that will not bypass your absorb shield. This will allow to sprint for a few seconds without loosing health, and therefore make this a useful yet still balanced talent.
If the 7.1 you will no longer have Demon Skin + Dark Pact, give us ISTANT Shadowfury to compensate, at least this PLEASE!
I'm currently playing as Demonology and whilst I like the whole lore of being some bad-!@# demon summoner sending hordes of my minions (Not my guild members, nope. If you guys are reading this by any shot, yes, you will receive the buff of my Demonic Empowerment.) to deal damage to the enemy... It doesn't really hit hard.
Things I think are pretty neat: The whole summon demons and letting them fight for you. Gives a good image of tearing open the fabric of reality and letting forth slavering felstalkers and maddened imps to dish out damage to whatever is in the way. The skills that we use are also pretty nice! Who wouldn't want to cast doom on some poor unfortunate soul, eh? A physical withering or some sort of despair debuff with a chance to fear would be really nice to see, just with how inevitable death and doom may be. Gives it a bit of flavor, a bit of punch and a bit of 'wooh, unpredictability!'.
Things I think are decent: We get a skull artefact that talks to us in a tone that is pretty fun. Could use a few more lines when engaging certain things, and I haven't really checked with other demons yet whether there is some engaging dialogue (Felguard just growls something about there being a need for killing, and I would imagine that my succubus would be like 'I have an appointment for my nails, please, let us dip them in the blood of the innocent'. Then again, I have always seen my succubus as sort of a secretary, meant to keep the foolish from bothering my ignoble corrupted self.)
Things that need change: The whole soul shard thing. I can barely get off a 4 Soul shard Hand of Gul'Doom (No, that is not a boss mob... yet.) and push Demonic Empowerment before I'm seeing the Felstalkers form, and have to hit Thal'Kiel's little skull toss (By the power of Demonskull, or something. Minus sexy buff hunk form. Just skin and bones, honestly.) before the imps fade. That seriously needs a buff, because if the whole kit is tooled around ramping up health and minions... having like 4 minions disappear before you can get the nuke off... is very lacklustre. That's sort of like 'Oh hey, we're not going to see the Beatles, but we're going to be seeing the Happy Colours Amateur Band.' and that just feels pretty crappy. There is just too much Empowering to be done. It guzzles mana like an alcoholic in an all-you-can-drink bar with unlimited refills. I can get the whole class fantasy of using your life to fuel your mana, but I think there should be a palpable reward for that. It just goes '10% health gone, 33% mana gained! Whoo!' and nothing really exciting, like a short-term buff that goes 'You have channeled your own physical health into your mana pool! You gain a 5% damage buff!' for like 5 seconds. Of course, that can be abused by people who want to keep that debuff up all the time, but I don't really feasibly see people just doing that unless they want to waste a global cooldown on that stuff (I'd imagine they do crap DPS that way too.)
Things I believe need change: The talents for Grimoire could definitely have their soulshard cost removed. Demonology is currently Haste-Dependant to a massive factor to get those Demonbolts/Shadowbolts out to keep gaining those soulshards. Keeping Doom up on a target requires actually watching the debuff and going 'oh god, I need to refresh it, QUICK! MIGHTY HAND OF DOOM, CURSE THIS LOWLY MURLOC WITH BAD FATE!' and then seeing in 16 seconds like a single tick of 160.000 damage hit... Which is kind of underwhelming.
I'd add some sort of mechanic to Doom to make it a bit more interesting to actually keep up on a target, instead of making it something that people who are absent-minded like me, forget about. (I do horrible DPS, I know. I am lucky my guild is very accepting of that. The whole 'kicking warlocks due to sub-par DPS' from heroic thing is absolutely atrocious. Had that happen three times in a row.) Make Doom tick for less, every five seconds or something. Add random little effects like a bit of fear, or a bleed effect that pops up for like... 20.000 damage. Something to actually show that the creature we have cursed with Doom, is actually feeling doom. (Now, I don't advocate for a whole cinematic of the sky ripping open and some invisible shadow hand reaching down to the terrified creature to grasp its ethereal soul or whateveryoumaycallit and then instill it with a terror that only fades after a certain amount of damage has been done... but that would be pretty kick-$%^.) It needs changing, yes. Make it tick more, do more damage and such.
And that's it for the PVE part of things.
PVP-wise, I haven't really had much of a chance to really go into the proving grounds of martial zeal that we call Arena's, but I've done a few battlegrounds and found that it is pretty nice to send a whole flock of demons at someone... But that the warlock's have zero utility when someone disables their demon. No sudden interrupt that just leaps out of a portal and goes 'DIE SILLY MAGE! I AM HERRREEEE TO EAATTT YOURRR SPELLZZZZ!' like a shaman's spell redirection totem does. Or at least, one of those things that isn't talented in. I believe paladins still have Rebuke or something in Ret spec, and in paladin prot spec they toss a shield that silences... but yeah, Warlock's silence capacity is fully contained within their demon. The felhunter. Also known as Bitey McChewface. If it's dead, it's dead.
Hunters can summon a whole herd of their own animals, and Demonology warlocks just summon a small flock. I'd say... Give us an ability to open a portal to whatever place demons roam, some legion world, put a little enslavement rune on it, and let loose the tide of demons. (That would make sure that warriors get something else to focus on if they start leaping at you with their fierce weapons that are the size of a poor undead's upper body.)
But these are just my thoughts. I do hope that it's been of some use to people and well... If you've all read through this and have found some amusement in my brief tale of woe and doom, healthstones are found in the healthstone font over there.
A succubus leans against a desk, idly checking her nails, the wicked lash at her side hanging there with flesh still in the hooks of its business end. She looks bored, yet the fel glow of the font of Healthstones illuminates her facial features, lending a wickedness to her appearance.
A small tag is clipped on to the upper part of what could be called her 'outfit' with 'Hi, my name is-' written in bolded letters, clearly made by some goblin printing press, the elegantly scrawled runes burning the mind with whatever demonic name is written there. The Sayaad gave a brief glance, before huffing softly and muttering something under her breath about having a thankless job before straightening out and flashing her most business-like grin, showing sharp teeth and a cruel glint in those blue eyes. "Get your healthstones here! The Master has graciously sacrificed a thousand gnome souls to ensure that all will share in the deliciousness of their souls. He is not liable if you suddenly start breathing fire, thinking about your party members in a murderous way or accidentally grow wings. It's vegan and eco-friendly too!" The brightness of her smile is at odds with the murderous glee in her eyes.
Enjoy!
Things I think are pretty neat: The whole summon demons and letting them fight for you. Gives a good image of tearing open the fabric of reality and letting forth slavering felstalkers and maddened imps to dish out damage to whatever is in the way. The skills that we use are also pretty nice! Who wouldn't want to cast doom on some poor unfortunate soul, eh? A physical withering or some sort of despair debuff with a chance to fear would be really nice to see, just with how inevitable death and doom may be. Gives it a bit of flavor, a bit of punch and a bit of 'wooh, unpredictability!'.
Things I think are decent: We get a skull artefact that talks to us in a tone that is pretty fun. Could use a few more lines when engaging certain things, and I haven't really checked with other demons yet whether there is some engaging dialogue (Felguard just growls something about there being a need for killing, and I would imagine that my succubus would be like 'I have an appointment for my nails, please, let us dip them in the blood of the innocent'. Then again, I have always seen my succubus as sort of a secretary, meant to keep the foolish from bothering my ignoble corrupted self.)
Things that need change: The whole soul shard thing. I can barely get off a 4 Soul shard Hand of Gul'Doom (No, that is not a boss mob... yet.) and push Demonic Empowerment before I'm seeing the Felstalkers form, and have to hit Thal'Kiel's little skull toss (By the power of Demonskull, or something. Minus sexy buff hunk form. Just skin and bones, honestly.) before the imps fade. That seriously needs a buff, because if the whole kit is tooled around ramping up health and minions... having like 4 minions disappear before you can get the nuke off... is very lacklustre. That's sort of like 'Oh hey, we're not going to see the Beatles, but we're going to be seeing the Happy Colours Amateur Band.' and that just feels pretty crappy. There is just too much Empowering to be done. It guzzles mana like an alcoholic in an all-you-can-drink bar with unlimited refills. I can get the whole class fantasy of using your life to fuel your mana, but I think there should be a palpable reward for that. It just goes '10% health gone, 33% mana gained! Whoo!' and nothing really exciting, like a short-term buff that goes 'You have channeled your own physical health into your mana pool! You gain a 5% damage buff!' for like 5 seconds. Of course, that can be abused by people who want to keep that debuff up all the time, but I don't really feasibly see people just doing that unless they want to waste a global cooldown on that stuff (I'd imagine they do crap DPS that way too.)
Things I believe need change: The talents for Grimoire could definitely have their soulshard cost removed. Demonology is currently Haste-Dependant to a massive factor to get those Demonbolts/Shadowbolts out to keep gaining those soulshards. Keeping Doom up on a target requires actually watching the debuff and going 'oh god, I need to refresh it, QUICK! MIGHTY HAND OF DOOM, CURSE THIS LOWLY MURLOC WITH BAD FATE!' and then seeing in 16 seconds like a single tick of 160.000 damage hit... Which is kind of underwhelming.
I'd add some sort of mechanic to Doom to make it a bit more interesting to actually keep up on a target, instead of making it something that people who are absent-minded like me, forget about. (I do horrible DPS, I know. I am lucky my guild is very accepting of that. The whole 'kicking warlocks due to sub-par DPS' from heroic thing is absolutely atrocious. Had that happen three times in a row.) Make Doom tick for less, every five seconds or something. Add random little effects like a bit of fear, or a bleed effect that pops up for like... 20.000 damage. Something to actually show that the creature we have cursed with Doom, is actually feeling doom. (Now, I don't advocate for a whole cinematic of the sky ripping open and some invisible shadow hand reaching down to the terrified creature to grasp its ethereal soul or whateveryoumaycallit and then instill it with a terror that only fades after a certain amount of damage has been done... but that would be pretty kick-$%^.) It needs changing, yes. Make it tick more, do more damage and such.
And that's it for the PVE part of things.
PVP-wise, I haven't really had much of a chance to really go into the proving grounds of martial zeal that we call Arena's, but I've done a few battlegrounds and found that it is pretty nice to send a whole flock of demons at someone... But that the warlock's have zero utility when someone disables their demon. No sudden interrupt that just leaps out of a portal and goes 'DIE SILLY MAGE! I AM HERRREEEE TO EAATTT YOURRR SPELLZZZZ!' like a shaman's spell redirection totem does. Or at least, one of those things that isn't talented in. I believe paladins still have Rebuke or something in Ret spec, and in paladin prot spec they toss a shield that silences... but yeah, Warlock's silence capacity is fully contained within their demon. The felhunter. Also known as Bitey McChewface. If it's dead, it's dead.
Hunters can summon a whole herd of their own animals, and Demonology warlocks just summon a small flock. I'd say... Give us an ability to open a portal to whatever place demons roam, some legion world, put a little enslavement rune on it, and let loose the tide of demons. (That would make sure that warriors get something else to focus on if they start leaping at you with their fierce weapons that are the size of a poor undead's upper body.)
But these are just my thoughts. I do hope that it's been of some use to people and well... If you've all read through this and have found some amusement in my brief tale of woe and doom, healthstones are found in the healthstone font over there.
A succubus leans against a desk, idly checking her nails, the wicked lash at her side hanging there with flesh still in the hooks of its business end. She looks bored, yet the fel glow of the font of Healthstones illuminates her facial features, lending a wickedness to her appearance.
A small tag is clipped on to the upper part of what could be called her 'outfit' with 'Hi, my name is-' written in bolded letters, clearly made by some goblin printing press, the elegantly scrawled runes burning the mind with whatever demonic name is written there. The Sayaad gave a brief glance, before huffing softly and muttering something under her breath about having a thankless job before straightening out and flashing her most business-like grin, showing sharp teeth and a cruel glint in those blue eyes. "Get your healthstones here! The Master has graciously sacrificed a thousand gnome souls to ensure that all will share in the deliciousness of their souls. He is not liable if you suddenly start breathing fire, thinking about your party members in a murderous way or accidentally grow wings. It's vegan and eco-friendly too!" The brightness of her smile is at odds with the murderous glee in her eyes.
Enjoy!
Affliction -PvE
Affliction plays actually quite good but some things that are disturbing:
- Haunt or Life Tape should be a baseline ability, the rotation works better with an additional cast
- As Affliction warlocks we have only little burst, especially in the 25% where it can sometimes be crucial that the Boss die fast, we can not convince, the old Drain Soul mechanics with more damage at 25% had very positive aspects
- Change of the talent with Demonic Circle and Demon Skin are not good, the rest T45 talents convince generally not particularly for PVE ... neither Mortal Coil nor Howl of Terror, Shadowfury has a better use for some situations as both
Terror Howl is in my opinion a pure PvP talent and can´t use in raids or instances because you are quickly deadly after the use.
Maybe T45 Demonic Skin / Demonic Circle / Mortal Coil and T75 Dark Pact / Burning Rush / Shadowfury be better because you have the selection between Movement / Toughness / Crowd Control - make Howl of Terror a baseline ability (a better Fear) or a PvP talent
- Sweet Soul doesn´t feel good, because if health stones are so bad that health potions simply heal 200k more and no one in the raid, therefore, used a stone
A General thing that bothers me is our class mounts, I really like to ride on my class mount but also like the other mounts, but I can not define it as one of my favorites because it is only available for warlocks. But I can still specify mounts as favorites that need a profession. I do not see a big difference.
Affliction plays actually quite good but some things that are disturbing:
- Haunt or Life Tape should be a baseline ability, the rotation works better with an additional cast
- As Affliction warlocks we have only little burst, especially in the 25% where it can sometimes be crucial that the Boss die fast, we can not convince, the old Drain Soul mechanics with more damage at 25% had very positive aspects
- Change of the talent with Demonic Circle and Demon Skin are not good, the rest T45 talents convince generally not particularly for PVE ... neither Mortal Coil nor Howl of Terror, Shadowfury has a better use for some situations as both
Terror Howl is in my opinion a pure PvP talent and can´t use in raids or instances because you are quickly deadly after the use.
Maybe T45 Demonic Skin / Demonic Circle / Mortal Coil and T75 Dark Pact / Burning Rush / Shadowfury be better because you have the selection between Movement / Toughness / Crowd Control - make Howl of Terror a baseline ability (a better Fear) or a PvP talent
- Sweet Soul doesn´t feel good, because if health stones are so bad that health potions simply heal 200k more and no one in the raid, therefore, used a stone
A General thing that bothers me is our class mounts, I really like to ride on my class mount but also like the other mounts, but I can not define it as one of my favorites because it is only available for warlocks. But I can still specify mounts as favorites that need a profession. I do not see a big difference.
my favorite spec is destruction.
this is what i dont like:
this is my feedback about Demonic Gateway if you want to check it! :)
http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17613393195#post-1
this is what i dont like:
- 1. too much RNG dependent
2. Chaos Bolt doesnt do a lot of damage anymore , feels powerless (i want it to be a long cast and hit hard , like glacial spike or full moon)
3. Demonic gateway swapped for demonic circle (make demonic gateway a talent and demonic circle default)
this is my feedback about Demonic Gateway if you want to check it! :)
http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17613393195#post-1
Affliction â PvE
I love the survivability and pretty stable damage output. I don't have many dmg holes or downtime. The mobility is nice, as always :)
Seed of corruption only âworksâ on low life packs (other packs I dot individually and keep everthing up), but they die too fast and don`t trigger with dmg from partymembers. So I feel like i have basically no AoE. When everything is right though and 5 seeds blow up in short succession its nice, but chances of that happening is 1 in 10. And I miss Soul Swap to apply a copy of dots to a second target. Right now the ramp up time on groups with more life is bigger and dot uptime harder to manage.
There is no burst in any form. A 3 min cd or something would be nice for fast killing boss adds or the 25% boss phase.
The artifact weapon wants me to speedrun a dungeon. In multiple situations the group paused before a boss to fill up on mana or wait for a cooldown and I am siting behind my screen watching the souls I am loosing. Not very satisfying. To just kill one rare or something big in the world it feels kinda useless too.
I love the survivability and pretty stable damage output. I don't have many dmg holes or downtime. The mobility is nice, as always :)
Seed of corruption only âworksâ on low life packs (other packs I dot individually and keep everthing up), but they die too fast and don`t trigger with dmg from partymembers. So I feel like i have basically no AoE. When everything is right though and 5 seeds blow up in short succession its nice, but chances of that happening is 1 in 10. And I miss Soul Swap to apply a copy of dots to a second target. Right now the ramp up time on groups with more life is bigger and dot uptime harder to manage.
There is no burst in any form. A 3 min cd or something would be nice for fast killing boss adds or the 25% boss phase.
The artifact weapon wants me to speedrun a dungeon. In multiple situations the group paused before a boss to fill up on mana or wait for a cooldown and I am siting behind my screen watching the souls I am loosing. Not very satisfying. To just kill one rare or something big in the world it feels kinda useless too.
Demo lock here.
I think Darkglare should be a permanent pet for AoE fights and replace it with a big cooldown like summon a powerful demon (Pitlord maybe?) for 1 minute and after that minute it breaks the chains and kills you for summoning it (Just like the idea behind surrender to madness why not something like that for a class that has been sacrificing people since vanilla)
Also change demonic empowerment to a (1min?) cooldown and mastery to "demons last % longer"
I think Darkglare should be a permanent pet for AoE fights and replace it with a big cooldown like summon a powerful demon (Pitlord maybe?) for 1 minute and after that minute it breaks the chains and kills you for summoning it (Just like the idea behind surrender to madness why not something like that for a class that has been sacrificing people since vanilla)
Also change demonic empowerment to a (1min?) cooldown and mastery to "demons last % longer"
PvP Affliction (mainly from playing a lot of beta arena):
1. Warlocks feel too easy to stick to. I know the class fantasy is supposed to be immobile but tanky, however as of right now, I just feel underpowered - not with regard to class balance or number output, but weak. It's like I am getting picked on by melees, because they know they can tunnel me down whilst keeping almost 100% uptime. Even if I am tanky, that does not feel fun. I feel underpowered in comparison.
2. Soul Shards feel limiting, not empowering. I really do not like having to rely on Soul Shard regeneration in order to cast basic spells (such as Unstable Affliction). They limit me as a player when they should empower me. I really liked having a choice to empower my demonic circle cast back in the days. It was not necessary, but a choice you could make to handle tricky situations.
3. I don't feel like a threat. If I am getting tunneled, there are way too many interrupts or stuns to reduce my damage to a minimum, because I can not protect my dots with Unstable Affliction. Moreover, the ramp-up time on locks is way too long and easily countered. People who start dispelling dots early and interrupt the lock a lot do not have a hard time healing my damage. That just feels frustrating and in the end, I feel powerless.
4. The Artifact traits are almost negligible for PvP. It's all about scoring the first kill in arena - a lot of the Artifact traits only empower you after having scored a kill - 2/3 golden traits, especially. In addition to that, the overall Artifact design of Ulthalesh is awesome and fits the class identity well, however, it feels way too random and unreliable in arena. Overall, it is too reliant on proccs and if these don't trigger, you are left frustrated and weak.
5. Too little Utility. When looking at the talent choices, I often feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would love to spec into more utility (for example Mortal Coil or Howl of Terror), but if I do, I feel punished too much as Demon Skin is, sadly, way too important with regards to the tanky-but-immobile philosphy. Making some talents baseline again was requested often and while I do realise it might not be the best option, I feel it is necessary.
All in all, affliction locks do feel distinct from its other specs (which is awesome) and the philosophy of a caster who rots people down over time is there, but realised poorly. In a lot of situations I just feel weak - melees tunnel me down and I have very little in my repertoire of skills to react. I chose to play warlock in Burning Crusade because the class felt like a badass, someone you shouldn't be messing with and in some way like an anti-hero. As of now, I feel like I'm being bullied in arenas constantly because people know "oh, there is a Warlock. Let's tunnel him into the ground because he can't do anything about it."
This class is so awesome, I wish to see it stronger again - not necessarily in numbers or overall class balance, but in playing it - it feels like I am being laughed at by other classes.
1. Warlocks feel too easy to stick to. I know the class fantasy is supposed to be immobile but tanky, however as of right now, I just feel underpowered - not with regard to class balance or number output, but weak. It's like I am getting picked on by melees, because they know they can tunnel me down whilst keeping almost 100% uptime. Even if I am tanky, that does not feel fun. I feel underpowered in comparison.
2. Soul Shards feel limiting, not empowering. I really do not like having to rely on Soul Shard regeneration in order to cast basic spells (such as Unstable Affliction). They limit me as a player when they should empower me. I really liked having a choice to empower my demonic circle cast back in the days. It was not necessary, but a choice you could make to handle tricky situations.
3. I don't feel like a threat. If I am getting tunneled, there are way too many interrupts or stuns to reduce my damage to a minimum, because I can not protect my dots with Unstable Affliction. Moreover, the ramp-up time on locks is way too long and easily countered. People who start dispelling dots early and interrupt the lock a lot do not have a hard time healing my damage. That just feels frustrating and in the end, I feel powerless.
4. The Artifact traits are almost negligible for PvP. It's all about scoring the first kill in arena - a lot of the Artifact traits only empower you after having scored a kill - 2/3 golden traits, especially. In addition to that, the overall Artifact design of Ulthalesh is awesome and fits the class identity well, however, it feels way too random and unreliable in arena. Overall, it is too reliant on proccs and if these don't trigger, you are left frustrated and weak.
5. Too little Utility. When looking at the talent choices, I often feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would love to spec into more utility (for example Mortal Coil or Howl of Terror), but if I do, I feel punished too much as Demon Skin is, sadly, way too important with regards to the tanky-but-immobile philosphy. Making some talents baseline again was requested often and while I do realise it might not be the best option, I feel it is necessary.
All in all, affliction locks do feel distinct from its other specs (which is awesome) and the philosophy of a caster who rots people down over time is there, but realised poorly. In a lot of situations I just feel weak - melees tunnel me down and I have very little in my repertoire of skills to react. I chose to play warlock in Burning Crusade because the class felt like a badass, someone you shouldn't be messing with and in some way like an anti-hero. As of now, I feel like I'm being bullied in arenas constantly because people know "oh, there is a Warlock. Let's tunnel him into the ground because he can't do anything about it."
This class is so awesome, I wish to see it stronger again - not necessarily in numbers or overall class balance, but in playing it - it feels like I am being laughed at by other classes.
From an Affliction pve point of view:
Talents
The talents almost seem TOO powerful, in the sense that without certain talents your performance in a given scenario is really gimped. For example, without Sow the Seeds you can forget about pulling any worthwhile amount of damage on trash (specifically aoe), as your untalented Seed takes too long to explode (compounded by the cast time) to really be worthwhile.
Soul Effigy is another example. It is a really great (although clunky in its current iteration) idea, and a significant dps gain on bosses, but without it your damage on bosses is... meh.
As for the specifics: I believe Demonic Circle should be baseline, for the simple reason that, even though as Affliction we do have a fair amount of mobility, the ability to instantly reposition to avoid X ability (not to mention the pvp implications) should not be mutually exclusive to a very powerful shield for when things go south. With the raids opening up soon, these small utilities actually make a big difference on progression encounters (you know, the ones where it's you and a healer left with 10 seconds before the boss enrages at 1%). Being able to quickly reposition then is of immeasurable worth. Also the fact that you have to unclick the buff (in other words cancelaura macro) defeats the object of removing the simple two spells - as a player you still need to click two things to reposition it.
Haunt, in its current state, has no place in any content. The problem is not the amount of damage, but the cooldown along with the lack of any secondary effect. I suggest the following: Make it a baseline ability, either as a filler (damage numbers would obviously need to be reasonable), so that as a player you need to choose between healing yourself or doing more damage, or as a form of controlled shard generator with a cooldown (gives a shard when mobs die / gives a shard when it expires / anything that gives us more control over out shard generation).
OR
Keep Haunt a talent, but make it buff your dots on a target like it did back when it was released in WotLK (or make it a reliable shard generator as mentioned above). This could come with a soul shard cost so that you have to choose between another UA or a Haunt. This would make it a viable alternative to the other two talents.
Drain Soul needs its execute mechanic back. While it does have a place on some encounters, it just feels like a different coloured Drain Life with slightly bigger numbers at the moment. There's no real excitement to using it other than numbers.
Grimoire of Sacrifice should grant you the pet you sacrifice's strongest ability (ie: interrupt from felhunter, cauterize from imp) - basically whichever ability your Command Demon would use should make Command Demon perform that ability. In a world where interrupts are super important, being a dps without an interrupt is just silly.
Soul Harvest currently feels underwhelming, although on bosses with adds that need to be burned down I suspect it might come to the fore (jury is out on this one until the raids roll in).
Burning Rush, while handy, simply costs too much health to be of any type of use. Either the health cost needs to be lowered or it needs to eat your shield first (possibly make it use current health so that it costs less when you're on low health?).
Soul Effigy is simply very clunky to use. It's a pain to target sometimes, pets sometimes randomly decide to go after it, its positioning is weird and putting you in combat with the mob is... unfun. I suggest that it either becomes a mobile thing that follows you around, or that follows its target around (it is attached to their soul, after all). Make it aggressive so that it's easier to see with nameplates (custom mods excluded). Possibly make it so that it duplicates whatever DoTs you have on the target (at least when you summon it) - this should help a fair bit with ramp time.
Phantom Singularity needs a shorter cooldown to be a consistent contender. It's great in AoE but just doesn't compare to Effigy when it comes to bosses (this could depend on encounters, of course, I can see it shining on encounters with regular adds). Imo it should not pull mobs you're not in combat with - just a simple QoL change.
Artifact
It's quite simple with this really (although I believe this has a much wider and bigger impact): The artifact (and golden traits, by extension)was designed around the old souls escaping ability, but doesn't seem to have been adjusted after the change. While I get that there would have been... difficulties... with the souls, there needs to be a replacement of some sort for this. Right now you're basically praying that there will be adds on a fight (that someone else kills, because we don't have the burst to burn them down, I should add) to be able to get benefit from your artifact. If you wipe on a boss you can forget about doing good dps since you will start with zero souls to harvest.
The artifact, in its current state, doesn't feel like it empowers the consistency that a dot-based playstyle should provide, and in fact makes it feel really inconsistent.
In short, the artifact needs to be adjusted to compensate for the loss of souls to kill (or that simply needs to come back).
Talents
The talents almost seem TOO powerful, in the sense that without certain talents your performance in a given scenario is really gimped. For example, without Sow the Seeds you can forget about pulling any worthwhile amount of damage on trash (specifically aoe), as your untalented Seed takes too long to explode (compounded by the cast time) to really be worthwhile.
Soul Effigy is another example. It is a really great (although clunky in its current iteration) idea, and a significant dps gain on bosses, but without it your damage on bosses is... meh.
As for the specifics: I believe Demonic Circle should be baseline, for the simple reason that, even though as Affliction we do have a fair amount of mobility, the ability to instantly reposition to avoid X ability (not to mention the pvp implications) should not be mutually exclusive to a very powerful shield for when things go south. With the raids opening up soon, these small utilities actually make a big difference on progression encounters (you know, the ones where it's you and a healer left with 10 seconds before the boss enrages at 1%). Being able to quickly reposition then is of immeasurable worth. Also the fact that you have to unclick the buff (in other words cancelaura macro) defeats the object of removing the simple two spells - as a player you still need to click two things to reposition it.
Haunt, in its current state, has no place in any content. The problem is not the amount of damage, but the cooldown along with the lack of any secondary effect. I suggest the following: Make it a baseline ability, either as a filler (damage numbers would obviously need to be reasonable), so that as a player you need to choose between healing yourself or doing more damage, or as a form of controlled shard generator with a cooldown (gives a shard when mobs die / gives a shard when it expires / anything that gives us more control over out shard generation).
OR
Keep Haunt a talent, but make it buff your dots on a target like it did back when it was released in WotLK (or make it a reliable shard generator as mentioned above). This could come with a soul shard cost so that you have to choose between another UA or a Haunt. This would make it a viable alternative to the other two talents.
Drain Soul needs its execute mechanic back. While it does have a place on some encounters, it just feels like a different coloured Drain Life with slightly bigger numbers at the moment. There's no real excitement to using it other than numbers.
Grimoire of Sacrifice should grant you the pet you sacrifice's strongest ability (ie: interrupt from felhunter, cauterize from imp) - basically whichever ability your Command Demon would use should make Command Demon perform that ability. In a world where interrupts are super important, being a dps without an interrupt is just silly.
Soul Harvest currently feels underwhelming, although on bosses with adds that need to be burned down I suspect it might come to the fore (jury is out on this one until the raids roll in).
Burning Rush, while handy, simply costs too much health to be of any type of use. Either the health cost needs to be lowered or it needs to eat your shield first (possibly make it use current health so that it costs less when you're on low health?).
Soul Effigy is simply very clunky to use. It's a pain to target sometimes, pets sometimes randomly decide to go after it, its positioning is weird and putting you in combat with the mob is... unfun. I suggest that it either becomes a mobile thing that follows you around, or that follows its target around (it is attached to their soul, after all). Make it aggressive so that it's easier to see with nameplates (custom mods excluded). Possibly make it so that it duplicates whatever DoTs you have on the target (at least when you summon it) - this should help a fair bit with ramp time.
Phantom Singularity needs a shorter cooldown to be a consistent contender. It's great in AoE but just doesn't compare to Effigy when it comes to bosses (this could depend on encounters, of course, I can see it shining on encounters with regular adds). Imo it should not pull mobs you're not in combat with - just a simple QoL change.
Artifact
It's quite simple with this really (although I believe this has a much wider and bigger impact): The artifact (and golden traits, by extension)was designed around the old souls escaping ability, but doesn't seem to have been adjusted after the change. While I get that there would have been... difficulties... with the souls, there needs to be a replacement of some sort for this. Right now you're basically praying that there will be adds on a fight (that someone else kills, because we don't have the burst to burn them down, I should add) to be able to get benefit from your artifact. If you wipe on a boss you can forget about doing good dps since you will start with zero souls to harvest.
The artifact, in its current state, doesn't feel like it empowers the consistency that a dot-based playstyle should provide, and in fact makes it feel really inconsistent.
In short, the artifact needs to be adjusted to compensate for the loss of souls to kill (or that simply needs to come back).
So i have a HUGE issues with the new mastery and the soulshards for destro!
They say that it will avrage out, but if we get bosses like Archimonde where we needed to nuke the boss to 70% before 2 doomfire we will be fked!
Before prepatch we had some wipes cause of RNG. Some of our 1. mil DPS mages got shadowfel burst, then we would not have enugh DPS wich resaults in a wipe.
Now lets add our warlocs RNG into the mix! before i always knew my chaosbolt would hit for around 600-700K. I would also know that i would get out 5 chaosbolts in the window of the ring on pull.
What is gonna happend now?
Well first i wont know if id get 1 chaos bolt or more. I will not know how mutch dmg i will be able to do to an add.
We would have more factors into the mix...
RNG is an elemelement of the game that we have no controll over. RNG does not require skill eather wich makes "skillcap" none existant.
PS: Crit does NOT equal mastery!!!
They say that it will avrage out, but if we get bosses like Archimonde where we needed to nuke the boss to 70% before 2 doomfire we will be fked!
Before prepatch we had some wipes cause of RNG. Some of our 1. mil DPS mages got shadowfel burst, then we would not have enugh DPS wich resaults in a wipe.
Now lets add our warlocs RNG into the mix! before i always knew my chaosbolt would hit for around 600-700K. I would also know that i would get out 5 chaosbolts in the window of the ring on pull.
What is gonna happend now?
Well first i wont know if id get 1 chaos bolt or more. I will not know how mutch dmg i will be able to do to an add.
We would have more factors into the mix...
RNG is an elemelement of the game that we have no controll over. RNG does not require skill eather wich makes "skillcap" none existant.
PS: Crit does NOT equal mastery!!!
15/09/2016 16:07Posted by GumdropsFrom an Affliction pve point of view:
Talents
The talents almost seem TOO powerful, in the sense that without certain talents your performance in a given scenario is really gimped. For example, without Sow the Seeds you can forget about pulling any worthwhile amount of damage on trash (specifically aoe), as your untalented Seed takes too long to explode (compounded by the cast time) to really be worthwhile.
Soul Effigy is another example. It is a really great (although clunky in its current iteration) idea, and a significant dps gain on bosses, but without it your damage on bosses is... meh.
As for the specifics: I believe Demonic Circle should be baseline, for the simple reason that, even though as Affliction we do have a fair amount of mobility, the ability to instantly reposition to avoid X ability (not to mention the pvp implications) should not be mutually exclusive to a very powerful shield for when things go south. With the raids opening up soon, these small utilities actually make a big difference on progression encounters (you know, the ones where it's you and a healer left with 10 seconds before the boss enrages at 1%). Being able to quickly reposition then is of immeasurable worth. Also the fact that you have to unclick the buff (in other words cancelaura macro) defeats the object of removing the simple two spells - as a player you still need to click two things to reposition it.
Haunt, in its current state, has no place in any content. The problem is not the amount of damage, but the cooldown along with the lack of any secondary effect. I suggest the following: Make it a baseline ability, either as a filler (damage numbers would obviously need to be reasonable), so that as a player you need to choose between healing yourself or doing more damage, or as a form of controlled shard generator with a cooldown (gives a shard when mobs die / gives a shard when it expires / anything that gives us more control over out shard generation).
OR
Keep Haunt a talent, but make it buff your dots on a target like it did back when it was released in WotLK (or make it a reliable shard generator as mentioned above). This could come with a soul shard cost so that you have to choose between another UA or a Haunt. This would make it a viable alternative to the other two talents.
Drain Soul needs its execute mechanic back. While it does have a place on some encounters, it just feels like a different coloured Drain Life with slightly bigger numbers at the moment. There's no real excitement to using it other than numbers.
Grimoire of Sacrifice should grant you the pet you sacrifice's strongest ability (ie: interrupt from felhunter, cauterize from imp) - basically whichever ability your Command Demon would use should make Command Demon perform that ability. In a world where interrupts are super important, being a dps without an interrupt is just silly.
Soul Harvest currently feels underwhelming, although on bosses with adds that need to be burned down I suspect it might come to the fore (jury is out on this one until the raids roll in).
Burning Rush, while handy, simply costs too much health to be of any type of use. Either the health cost needs to be lowered or it needs to eat your shield first (possibly make it use current health so that it costs less when you're on low health?).
Soul Effigy is simply very clunky to use. It's a pain to target sometimes, pets sometimes randomly decide to go after it, its positioning is weird and putting you in combat with the mob is... unfun. I suggest that it either becomes a mobile thing that follows you around, or that follows its target around (it is attached to their soul, after all). Make it aggressive so that it's easier to see with nameplates (custom mods excluded). Possibly make it so that it duplicates whatever DoTs you have on the target (at least when you summon it) - this should help a fair bit with ramp time.
Phantom Singularity needs a shorter cooldown to be a consistent contender. It's great in AoE but just doesn't compare to Effigy when it comes to bosses (this could depend on encounters, of course, I can see it shining on encounters with regular adds). Imo it should not pull mobs you're not in combat with - just a simple QoL change.
Artifact
It's quite simple with this really (although I believe this has a much wider and bigger impact): The artifact (and golden traits, by extension)was designed around the old souls escaping ability, but doesn't seem to have been adjusted after the change. While I get that there would have been... difficulties... with the souls, there needs to be a replacement of some sort for this. Right now you're basically praying that there will be adds on a fight (that someone else kills, because we don't have the burst to burn them down, I should add) to be able to get benefit from your artifact. If you wipe on a boss you can forget about doing good dps since you will start with zero souls to harvest.
The artifact, in its current state, doesn't feel like it empowers the consistency that a dot-based playstyle should provide, and in fact makes it feel really inconsistent.
In short, the artifact needs to be adjusted to compensate for the loss of souls to kill (or that simply needs to come back).
The stack thing doesnt work. Test it yourself. i did.
Get 12 stacks, hover your mouse over it, it will say 120%, then use a corruption on something. watch 1st tick. x dmg, then activate reap, it should have gained 120% increase, but will only get 10% increase like if you had 1 stack. So something is in error.
Test it.
Its my biggest gripe with Affli atm. something is bugged or an error in text.
15/09/2016 17:20Posted by Happymadman
The stack thing doesnt work. Test it yourself. i did.
Get 12 stacks, hover your mouse over it, it will say 120%, then use a corruption on something. watch 1st tick. x dmg, then activate reap, it should have gained 120% increase, but will only get 10% increase like if you had 1 stack. So something is in error.
Test it.
Its my biggest gripe with Affli atm. something is bugged or an error in text.
The stacks are only supposed to increase the duration, not the damage (5 sec longer duration per soul consumed)
I believe the tooltip on the buff is incorrect (would be pretty OP if it worked like the buff tooltip said).
15/09/2016 17:20Posted by Happymadman
The stack thing doesnt work. Test it yourself. i did.
Get 12 stacks, hover your mouse over it, it will say 120%, then use a corruption on something. watch 1st tick. x dmg, then activate reap, it should have gained 120% increase, but will only get 10% increase like if you had 1 stack. So something is in error.
Test it.
Its my biggest gripe with Affli atm. something is bugged or an error in text.
Indeed, the buff does NOT give 10% per stack but 10% flat. And it could be that that is more then just a tooltip bug.
Think about it: 120% damage increase at 12 stacks seems like a lot, but it takes a long time to build up that amount of stacks unless there is a lot of AoE and our damage is really low. It would not surprise me if thats the case and the reason the damage for affliction is as low as it is.
I just read this post, and am really wondering what on earth the devs are thinking:
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749088032
Sorry Blizzard, but even on a none movement, cleave fight where adds are spread out and in wich affliction warlocks can DoT 2 or 3 targets with medium to high HP pools we will not be competitive vs other classes. Our DoTs just do not do that kind of damage. And thats on a fight on wich we should be on the higher end of the DPS charts due to the mechanics of affliction.
On single target fights, even when there is a lot of movement, we will not "shine" in such a way the low DPS itself is countered by high upkeep. And in AoE we just sit there, cast for 2-2.5 secs and see SoC not go off because the mobs are dead before the damage treshold is reached, and giving us 0 damage overall....
And mind you, it isn't just affliction. In know that frost DKs for instance also are in a bad position. So warlocks are not alone in this.
http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20749088032
Sorry Blizzard, but even on a none movement, cleave fight where adds are spread out and in wich affliction warlocks can DoT 2 or 3 targets with medium to high HP pools we will not be competitive vs other classes. Our DoTs just do not do that kind of damage. And thats on a fight on wich we should be on the higher end of the DPS charts due to the mechanics of affliction.
On single target fights, even when there is a lot of movement, we will not "shine" in such a way the low DPS itself is countered by high upkeep. And in AoE we just sit there, cast for 2-2.5 secs and see SoC not go off because the mobs are dead before the damage treshold is reached, and giving us 0 damage overall....
And mind you, it isn't just affliction. In know that frost DKs for instance also are in a bad position. So warlocks are not alone in this.