So I’ve been thinking about this for a while now while reading through all the Shadowlands feedback for Warlocks. I can only speak for Destruction, because I’ve not read that much about the other specs really. There were a lot of good suggestions for improving spells, which could be balanced around big mana costs.
First of all bring back Life Tap and make it relevant again. Also fulfills the class fantasy a little more once again.
I was thinking about making Shadowburn reset on kill, but make it cost A LOT of mana. Or make Fire & Brimstone baseline, but when using (Chaosbolt with) it, make it cost a lot of mana. I’m sure there are many other possibilities for Destruction and the other specs as well. What do you guys think?
DPS have resources to dps in Retail, things are different in classic though.
It’s not only classic. Life Tap was removed as recently as in BFA.
Healers should NOT have inf mana regeneration because its used as a soft enrage EG people take too much damage? Healers get OoM and we wipe
That is true, but I’m not talking about healers. The way mana works for healers is completely fine. I want mana to have a purpose for warlock once again! Which worked very well until BFA. If DDs have a second resource anyways, then whats the point of them having mana.
The only way this would make sense, if mana management would be a thing for all other mana-based dps as well. (Mage, Shaman, Priest, Paladin, Druid)
However the way the game works currently, just punishing warlocks with mana management is a bad idea. Imagine a Demo lock, having to manage mana, shards, imps and demonic core stacks at the same time…
I love life tap locks cast very strong spells so naturally it makes sense they’d use more mana like arcane mages and it’s one more thing you can choose to press while you are on the move and can’t cast they just need to make a pvp talent that makes it MUCH less punishable in pvp and it’s all good
The only way I see to make mana a large and important resource for warlocks which require the sacrifice of life for mana is to make them the strongest caster in the game.
This means that paired with a pocket healer they’d smash the dps meter at the top spot, since they could go all in 100% of the time being sustained by their healer.
I don’t play Demonology and said that I can only speak for Destruction. Can’t tell if demo is fine at the moment or not. But I won’t say that Life Tap ruined your rotation. It was something you can easily use while moving, in which case you couldn’t cast any other spell than conflag anyways.
Don’t care, dps usually have other resources to manage. If we also make mana relevant, than it’s gonna get boring, sitting around doing nothing is not my type of fun.
Lifetap is like doom. It’s an old ability that we kept though the ages, even if it made nonsense. I mean, in PVE, we’re taking way more passive damages. So if you have to choose between DPS and life, then there is no point playing DPS or putting those DPS checks.
Lifetap was a good pruning, it makes nonsense. If you really like that spell, then you have Classic.
Change mana with fel. Bring Life Tap back, give it a greenish animation, let it be something like “sacrifice x amount of life and tap into fel energies: regenerating 20% fel over 10 seconds”.
Not sure what your point is, that because an ability that fits the warlock theme was removed then it’s a good thing to remove more abilities like that?
Also i’m not saying we need it, paladins don’t need auras either, rogues don’t need poisons, etc
What I tried to say, is that sadly, lifetap is a relic from the past that we kept in our kit through the expansions, even if it’s objectively a bad spell, like doom.
Why does it makes nonsense in modern wow ? Because mana is now irrevelant, because what matters is pressing the right spell at the right time, rather than managing mana.
I’m not against making mana revelant again, I’m just scared that blizzard can’t find a perfect middle ground between current op mana regen and classic awful mana regen, so I do prefer they don’t try fixing what’s not broken. When they try doing so, they most of the time end up breaking what was not initially broken (Demon warlock before Legion).
You can say that about everything.
Corruption is an outdated mechanic and it’s boring to use.
Healthstone is an outdated mechanic and it’s boring to use.
Fear is an outdated mechanic and it’s boring to use.
etc
If your description is so empty that can apply to anything, then you have no argument.
Not sure how it’s an objectively bad spell, this means you have objective criteria to define good and bad spells.
Spells generally aren’t bad on their own, it’s about how they fit in our toolkit, a spell that deals 10k damage, 1.5 cast and no cd can be good, however if another spell that deals 20k, instant cast with no cd exists, this means the former one is bad now. This seems to be the problem with doom, it doesn’t have a niche where it can shine now.
For life tap however, it would be useful with today’s toolkit, as destro you don’t have much to do on the move, except conflag which has a cd, demo is even worse.
Also i’m not saying warlocks should use mana, because that can be seen as a relic from the past, but as an example Life tap can provide soul shard fragments instead.
