The problem with destruction is that it still relies too heavily on actual cast time spells to start combo's off.
I don't understand where there aren't some "night fall" type talents in destruction, such as giving immolation ticks a chance to proc insta cast incinerates or soul fires. (Think of the synergy with shadowflame here)
Why is the succubus still so fragile? You'd think that a demon who's able to disappear would be a bit more nimble and harder for melee to hit. Why not give her a passively high evasion rate?
Why does she die in basically 3 hits?
Why does seduce share DR with fear still?
Why does seduce, which is a channeled spell, have a cast time on top of that?
Why am I not impressed with shadowflame yet? It the secondary burn effect of putting immo on all those targets at nice, but I'm seeing further potential in this spell here.
Why is there not an improved conflag that can ignite all immolated targets at the same time withing X distance of the target? Wouldn't that make shadowflame (a destruction spell) more attractive, and more fun, to use? Especially with the pyroclasm change.
I look at hunters and get excited to use explosive shot. 15% increased crit chance and chance to stun on top of that? Instant cast? 6s cooldown? Doesn't require a dispelable debuff to be on any of the targets first? Can launch it from 41 yards away? Knowing this, does an improved conflag ability really seem that over the top?
Why is soul fire still boring to use? It's a copy/paste version of pyroblast, without a lot of cool talents to support it really, plus it costs a shard! Why can't chaos bolt just be a massive (and shardless) upgrade to soulfire?
Snares are the bane of warlocks, and always have been. Getting snared on my warlock is far, far more annoying than any other class I've ever played. We have no intercept, intervene, snare reduction talents, heavy armor, blink, teleports, or shape shifting abilities. We simply have to eat it, every time. In fact, the class is designed around eating melee damage constantly. Plus, we don't even have a good counter snare. Or at least we didn't, until we got the new Curse of Exhaustion.
Look at Fel armor (now demon armor). This armor was obviously designed with pvp applications in mind that we'd be taking hits constantly in pvp, which is why we get the pretty massive +healing received bonus. Why, then, do we not have snare-based defensive talents? Why not a talent that makes us take less damage while snared, or something that triggers when we get snared?
Why do we have so many improved demon talents early in the demo tree? Who actually takes improved succubus and improved voidwalker? Who cares about improved imp other than hardcore raiding guilds that want the smidgen of extra raid HP? Why can't we just have improved minions, sort of like demonic empowerment?
What's the deal with improved fear? Isn't it really only useful against rogues that CloS? Is that the main purpose? My problem with landing fears is being constantly interrupted/kicked/pummeled, or fear immune feral druids, BM hunters, death knights, and warriors. The resist problem went away with spell pen on pvp gear. This talent could be better, such as a cooldown making your next fear effect unresistable, uninteruptable (outside of stuns) and a horror effect on a cooldown.
Why does grim reach have to be so inaccessible to destruction, who arguably needs the longer range fears and curses even more?
Why is Malediction still so horrible?
Why is improved lifetap still not a tier 1 talent for affliction? It needs to be more accessible to destruction, which needs it far more than any of the trees.
Why did we get nether protection in destro instead of some sort of melee protection abilities instead, which is what it needs the most?
Why is improved immolate still a horrible waste of points, and is only taken to pick up conflag?
Why can't you just roll imp soul leech into soul leech? That talent has always been lacking since the beginning of TBC simply because the healing portion often gets over healed.
Why is shadow and flame (a mostly pve talent) still a prereq to shadowfury (a mostly pvp talent)?
Why does shadow fury cost a ridiculous amount of mana when A) It's mostly a pvp talent, and B) It's really only typically used on a low number of targets (usually just 1 half the time) as a spell interrupt, or to chain a fear after it?
And finally: Why does haste still not decrease the amount of time dots need to run their full effect?
I must say that after reviewing a lot of the changes for warlocks this expansion, I haven't really been impressed. Socio knows how underwhelmed I've been with the lock changes.
11 comments:
Haha! I knew you'd come back to my favorite class again. I'll post again the link to a compilation of stuff arguing about haste scaling.
http://watcherskeep.blogspot.com/
That aside, I'm glad there are people like you testing Blizzard's product. A good half of the posts I read about either in the beta or normal wow forums is either needlessly complaining about the CM, asking for an "I-Win" button, poorly worded, a key-logger, or a cry for nerf.
I wish no one ever cried nerf. It's not fun to be nerfed, and more people should realize it. Warlock's have such bad stigma because of the way their class functions and it isn't fun to know that other classes want you nerfed.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your no bull-#$*# attitude and thoughtful ideas. May the devs think as highly of you.
Amen.
I can see why people are so annoyed to read my blog now, with the number of glaring problems that still exist with the Warlock class. Hopefully you, Bibdy, and the others in the beta can set them straight... even if Bibdy is a direct opponent of DoT scaling to a degree.
I've kept most of my beta opinions to myself because I expect a big change to gameplay, like what BC did to vanilla, but perhaps not as extreme. However, a couple things I can confidently say are that:
-Demo is boring, deep Demo is even more boring
-Affliction used to be a poorly scaling spec that was taken anyways for utility, but now that the utility is not unique, it's just a poorly scaling spec.
-Destruction looks clunky.
-Warlocks have gained significant tools to help deal with BC's melee. WotLK's melee, on the hand, will probably be a whole different story.
-FFS do something about Improved x pet, Improved Enslave Demon, Master Conj, etc.
BTW if you've read my blog and seen ideas that might transfer well somehow, feel free to post it to them as feedback. My blog's more speculative and not really for feedback, but there might be a viable idea or two in there.
Will do.
Im really thinking of switching mains from my lock to my mage if they dont redo basically every single talent there is no point of having a lock anymore
i just hope the devs read what you wrote also looks like Affliction might get a little love Koraa posted.
"There will be a new talent in Affliction in an upcoming build.
Keywords: "DoT" and "Crit" (Well, sorta) "
Oh don't worry. Even if they don't respond to it there, I'm 100% sure they read it.
"There will be a new talent in Affliction in an upcoming build.
Keywords: "DoT" and "Crit" (Well, sorta) "
IE. Drainlife/souldrain, oh look...shadow priests.
Amen!
I have pretty much quit playing my lock for many of these reasons and is not fun right now. They need to do some serious work or there will soon be a mass exodus of the class.
Awesome post. I'd like to add that, while the spirit changes are supposed to "normalize" mana regen, giving locks spirit is going to betray the Idea of the class: locks are supposed to be inefficient, burnout leeches, whose basic stat is stam. If mana is such an issue, why not make improved soul leech a trainable skill for all warlocks? or a low tier affl talent? Let fel armor scale with stam instead. Spirit is biological regen, something for druids. The spirit penalty in the original demonic embrace is fundamental...
Here is the change
# *New Talent* Pandemic - Each time you deal damage with Corruption or Unstable Affliction, you have a chance equal to your spell critical strike chance to deal 33/66/100% additional damage.
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