Warlock WoD Talents - A Glimpse Into the Future

[SparkSovereign 61]

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/status/437323467516424193
 

Relevant.  Beta should be... exciting.

[Kazistrasz 216]

TBH, I expect a Chaos Bolt nerf for WoD anyway. They may be getting rid of DoT snapshotting, but unless they specifically make CB not count temporary stat gains, it will still do just what it does right now. But, hey, we can always hope they just let it go live as is. Think about it... a council fight or fight with lots of adds in the opener... DS up... both trinkets proc... and letting a Chaos Bolt go on all of them at once...

 

aslfgkjhasdfg

 

Sorry, I need to go change my pants now.

[Guest garmeth06]

Not sure why they want to get rid of dot snapshotting, it significantly raises the skill cap and depth of this game where standard rotations aren't mechanically difficult to execute as is.

 

The only time where it is really silly, from what I can see on raidbots, is afflic on fallen protectors and dark shamans, other than that snapshotting isn't absurdly strong and all dot classes are going to need significant buffs to compensate. 

 

This will also lower the skill cap by far in arena, knowing how to keep empowered dots ticking for as long as possible can possibly account for the difference in somebody who's 2k or somebody who's 1800.

 

I mean, look at shadow priests and boomkins, snapshotting certainly hasn't made them overpowered in arena or pve, lol.

[Zagam 1,982]

Snapshotting going away will require HEAVY balance rework.  They may be 'fixing it' by incorporating it into the item squish.

 

The problem is that classes are balanced are snapshotting right now.  Affliction and Destruction are very close in 4-5 minute fights, but if you remove snapshotting, Destruction would CRUSH Affliction hands down.  If they got rid of snapshotting, they'd have to buff all of the DoTs a certain percentage or create some filler that did a larger portion of damage.  If they were to remove snapshotting tomorrow, they'd have to do something like increase Haunt's damage by 250% or increase UA and Agony's damage by 75%.  It would make their burst even more outrageous but they wouldn't hold onto it past the 20-30 seconds that all buffs are up instead of snapshotting Agony to make it last over 60 seconds.  The good news is that they won't do this tomorrow.  The bad news is that they will do it with 6.0 when they remove Hit and Expertise creating a completely different feel and playstyle. 

 

For Affliction, this will make recasting DoTs trivial and non-chalant.  You'll just need to make sure they don't fall off. This removes the skill of reapplying when they are powerful to make them last as long as possible.  For Demonology, this won't really do anything since we don't snapshot with UVLS anymore.  It will still drop Doom's damage and Crit chance for the first 90 seconds.  For Destruction, it will make a very small change in DPS.  Affliction's rebalance will take quite a bit of effort.  I'm also not sure how things will dynamically update - how will a DoT mechanic change in the middle of its duration if Bloodlust is cast?  Will it automatically decrease the tick interval?  What if you get an Intellect proc in the middle of tick intervals - will there be a damage bonus built in for procs that happen between ticks?

 

It sounds like they're decluttering all the calculations, but removing a skill-capping mechanic such as this will make things quite frosty in terms of paying attention.  Get ready for those rotation macros to come back in.

[JvChequer 43]

Actually, since Affdots/WA, managing your dots don't require skill at all. iT'S just a press-button game and knowledge about which procs u could count on next seconds.

I like the idea that they're removing snapshot and I hope they focus on other thing to improve affliction priority list.

Even if they changed nothing, affliction would still be balanced right now in this patch, just not so OP in some fights.

Edited February 24, 2014 by JvChequer

[Zagam 1,982]

Just because you have a window on your screen showing you your DoT spell power doesn't mean it removes the skill component of the game.  If Affdots didn't exist, players would go back to the more complicated time of building Weakauras for every single proc in order to determine when DoTs were at their max.  Affdots didn't make awesome players better - it made mediocre players great.  The awesome players just have an easier time tracking the power of procs.

 

If they removed snapshotting and changed nothing else, Affliction would be worse than a Prot Warrior with no Vengeance.  Affliction is not OP in any regard except for Protectors.  Just because it has the best ranks on WoL doesn't mean it's OP.  It appears that way on WoL because Affliction has the best opportunity for RNG star-aligning type scenarios where everything lines up.  In that regard, snapshotting makes Affliction better when RNG lines up for it.  Removing snapshotting would cripple Affliction more than people know.

[SparkSovereign 61]

 

 

I'm also not sure how things will dynamically update - how will a DoT mechanic change in the middle of its duration if Bloodlust is cast?  Will it automatically decrease the tick interval?  What if you get an Intellect proc in the middle of tick intervals - will there be a damage bonus built in for procs that happen between ticks?

I expect it will work exactly the same way melee classes, totems, and pets do; tick damage and time to next tick both computed at each tick using your current stats.  (For melee/pets, replace "tick" with "white attack".)  I can't remember offhand if time to next tick is recalculated if you get a buff between ticks, but that should be a pretty small effect since they we're unlikely to see a TR-style short, massive haste buff that procs constantly next expansion.  (I think the way Celestalon put it was "I don't know what we were thinking".  Given that that was the same patch that brought us UVLS, me either...)

 

I forget where, but they said they're aware massive rebalancing is necessary for DoT classes to compensate for snapshot removal.  I also vaguely remember seeing that boomkin's actual mechanics will still snapshot, but trinket procs won't.  (I expect the technical solution is to have it fire a slightly different spell if cast during eclipse or what have you.)  They might do something similar with Affliction, which absolutely does need some more actual gameplay to compensate.  Snapshotting might've been trivialized by Affdots, but it was still gameplay.

 

Ultimately, though, I'm not terribly qualified to talk about what the snapshotting change is going to mean, because I don't competitively play my warlock; I competitively play my elemental shaman.  My DoT does about 300k over its entire 30 second duration and is upkept primarily because it procs Lava Surge.  And shares a CD with a my instant cast nuke.  I can't even compare apples and oranges, this is more like comparing apples and starfish.

[Guest garmeth06]

IIRC, thats exactly how dots worked in wrath of the lich king. The only stat that would actually snapshot would be crit %. One could get a trinket from heroic pit of saron, nevermelting ice crystal, use the on use crit and have a 90% crit chance for the entire fight with corruption refreshing from shadowbolt. Trinket was almost best in slot for that reason alone.

 

I believe spellpower and haste updated per tick, or else I was playing affliction terribly wrong !

Edited February 24, 2014 by garmeth06

[Soulzar 42]

I think the F&B CB will consume two embers, one for CB and one for F&B.  You will not be able to spam it as neither spell is an ember generator.  You will need to weave CB's between normal F&B Ember generators.  We will get some sweet burst from Conflag - CB - Conflag - CB!  Doing back to back AoE CB's will fizzle you out of F&B (but would be some sweet ass burst!)

 

Imagine ...Cataclysm -> Double CB/Conflag    

 

Not sure I like the new Demo version of Chaotic Resources.. though the old one broke demo game play.  I don't think I see the vision of this re-work yet.  

 

I feel they could leave infernal as it is today if it had say 3-5 charges on a min cd.  Let infernal awakening be its effect with its aoe more side benefit.  Let us drop a stack of infernals for an aoe group!    The whole demonic servitude talent seems off yet anyways.  A Talent that modifies a shitty non spec specific talent just screams that non talented infernal/doomguard will remain crap

[Kazistrasz 216]

I think the F&B CB will consume two embers, one for CB and one for F&B.  You will not be able to spam it as neither spell is an ember generator.  You will need to weave CB's between normal F&B Ember generators.  We will get some sweet burst from Conflag - CB - Conflag - CB!  Doing back to back AoE CB's will fizzle you out of F&B (but would be some sweet ass burst!)

 

Imagine ...Cataclysm -> Double CB/Conflag    

 

Not sure I like the new Demo version of Chaotic Resources.. though the old one broke demo game play.  I don't think I see the vision of this re-work yet.  

 

I feel they could leave infernal as it is today if it had say 3-5 charges on a min cd.  Let infernal awakening be its effect with its aoe more side benefit.  Let us drop a stack of infernals for an aoe group!    The whole demonic servitude talent seems off yet anyways.  A Talent that modifies a shitty non spec specific talent just screams that non talented infernal/doomguard will remain crap

 

FNB CB is part of Chaotic Resources, so we can't use it with Cataclysm.

 

I'd rather Infernal just do slightly more per target in AoE and have a separate CD from Doomguard like it used to.

[Desos 18]

They work on to make Multistrike procs mimic the original spell. Imagine a wave of FnB CBs followed by a smaller wave of CBs while you prepare the next wave of CBs, all that green glory.

[Zagam 1,982]

Hopefully the effect is only seen by you.  They said they were going to try to reduce spell effects in raiding to not strain your computer - so I hope they stick with that.  I don't care to see everyone else's duplicated spells.

[Soulzar 42]

I actually really dig the echo effect on Ele sham.  Seeing all those extra casts fire off makes you feel like you are doing so much dmg :D

[Kazistrasz 216]

I want you all to close your eyes and imagine what you'll see when you have multistrike and FNB Chaos Bolt.

[Lockybalboa 618]

[Zagam 1,982]

Safe to say Locky has a picture to go with any situation.

[Lockybalboa 618]

You may now bask in my glory

 

[Alphric 7]

What if chaotic resources for demon bolt, instead of being a separate button was a proc on shadow bolt, like once you hit a certain amount of demonic fury or x happens it "procs" and your next Shadowbolt is turned into a demon bolt. Or something to that nature?

[Liquidsteel 279]

No that would suck. It would take the control out of being able to use it as a burst fury dump (at a sustained DPS loss, according to the devs).

[Alphric 7]

Well is demon bolt so good that it'll be considered mandatory? Because demo will probably never use servitude.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Way too early to tell. It looks decent though but just seems like it could be a bit clunky, especially in the first tier when Fury generation is noticeably lower.

 

Depends on what the trinkets are like and how Fury generation will actually be once the dust settles. 

 

I wouldn't count Servitude out for Demonology either. We have a perk which increases pet damage by 20%, and this should scale nicely with our mastery. I can see Servitude being very good for entry level gear.

[Zagam 1,982]

And Blizzard has already decided Demonology stacks Mastery because of our Attunement:Mastery ability, so Servitude shouldn't be written off, although it likely will because it's the "passive" talent.  It'll be acceptable as a talent for those not min/maxing and just want a solid DPS boost.

[Alphric 7]

Cool cool, I guess I just had that thought that it wasn't the wrathguard so it'll be shit lol.