WOD Alpha Patch Notes

[mediocregatsby 18]

source http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor™-alpha-patch-notes-4-3-2014

 

• Intellect no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with spells.
• The base chance to critically strike is now 5% for all classes. There are no longer different chances to critically strike with melee, ranged, and spells.
• Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.
• All players now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance to glance, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included).
  • Creatures 4+ levels higher than you still have a chance to avoid your attacks in various ways, so as to discourage you from attempting to fight enemies that are much stronger than you.
• Hit and Expertise bonuses on all items and item enhancements (gems, enchants, etc.) have been converted into Critical Strike, Haste, or Mastery.

 

• Warlock
  • All of the various Soulburn effects are learned together with Soulburn, instead of at different levels.
  • Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of the Elements now affect all enemies within 10 yards of the target.
    • Metamorphosis: Cursed Auras has been removed.
    • Curse of Exhaustion and Curse of the Elements no longer gain a benefit from Soulburn.
    • Fire and Brimstone no longer applies to Curses.
  • Drain Life no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.
  • Drain Soul has been removed.
  • Fel Flame has been removed.
  • Health Funnel no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.
  • Metamorphosis: Void Ray has been removed.
  • Metamorphosis: Carrion Swarm has been removed.
  • Pyroclasm has been removed. The altered behavior it granted for Chaos Bolt is now baseline to Backdraft.
  • Seed of Corruption now replaces Rain of Fire for Affliction Warlocks.
  • Soulshatter has been removed.
  • Unending Breath no longer gains a benefit from Soul Burn.

• Warlock
  • Blood Horror’s cooldown has been increased to 60 seconds (up from 30 seconds) and now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects.
  • Felhunter: Spell Lock now only interrupts spell casting and no longer Silences the enemy.
  • Mortal Coil now shares Diminishing Returns with all other Mesmerize effects.
  • Observer: Optic Blast now only deals damage and interrupts spell casting. The ability no longer Silences the enemy.
  • Sear Magic’s cooldown has been increased to 30 seconds (up from 20 seconds).
  • Succubus: Seduction and Shivarra: Mesmerize now have a 30-second cooldown.
  • Terrorguard no longer casts Terrifying Roar when it dies.
  • Unbound Will’s cooldown has been increased to 2 minutes (up from 1 minute).
  • Voidwalker: Disarm and Voidlord: Disarm have been removed.

Warlock

Warlocks received a number of cut abilities (see Ability Pruning above), but remain relatively unchanged. They saw the most change of any class in Mists of Pandaria, and so were in need of less revision this time around.

We did feel that Warlocks brought too much unique Raid utility, so decided to tone down Healthstones and Demonic Gateway. We moved Healing Potions and Healthstones into a cooldown of their own, and made them usable once per combat. For Drain Life, we reduced the base healing somewhat, but massively increased the effectiveness of the Glyph which increases its healing, so as to help open up more potential Drain Life use in ideal situations. And lastly, we simplified Shadowburn a bit.

• Healthstone's cooldown will now not reset until the player leaves combat. Healing from this ability can no longer be a Critical Effect.
• Demonic Gateways no longer have charges (up from being limited to 5 charges). Every Party or Raid member can use them once every 90 seconds (up from 45 seconds). The maximum distance apart they can be placed is now 40 yards (down from 70 yards).
• Drain Life now heals for 30% less than before.
• Glyph of Drain Life now increases the healing of Drain Life by 100% (up from 30%).
• Shadowburn no longer generates any mana.

Warlords of Draenor Class Perks

Warlords of Draenor doesn't really add more abilities to the game but will introduce perks for your existing abilities! Each level, from level 91 to 99, you get a random perk (that you don’t already know). By 99, you learn them all, but different players will get them in a different order.

All

Improved Demons - Increases all damage done by your demon pets by 20%.

Affliction

Improved Life Tap - Life Tap grants an additional 20% mana.

Empowered Agony (NYI) - Your Agony now stacks up to 12 times.

Enhanced Haunt - Your Haunt lasts an additional 2 sec.

Improved Corruption - Your Corruption deals an additional 20% damage.

Improved Unstable Affliction - Your Unstable Afflction deals an additional 20% periodic damage.

Improved Malefic Grasp - Your Malefic Grasp deals 100% additional damage on targets below 20% health.

Enhanced Nightfall - Increases your chance to trigger Nightfall by 5%.

Empowered Drain Life - Health gained from your Drain Life grows by 10% each time it heals you.

Demonology

Empowered Drain Life - Health gained from your Drain Life grows by 10% each time it heals you.

Improved Molten Core - Molten Core reduces the cast time and mana cost of Soul Fire by an additional 25%.

Empowered Demons - Grants your demon pets an additional 10% haste and 10% critical strike chance.

Improved Shadow Bolt - Your Shadow Bolt deals an additional 20% damage.

Enhanced Corruption - Your Corruption generates 1 additional Demonic Fury each time it deals damage.

Empowered Doom - Your Doom has an additional 20% critical strike chance.

Enhanced Hand of Gul'dan - The radius of your Hand of Gul'dan is increased by 2 yards.

Improved Touch of Chaos - Your Touch of Chaos deals 20% additional damage.

Destruction

Enhanced Chaos Bolt - The cast time on your Chaos Bolt is reduced by 0.5 sec.

Empowered Immolate - Your Immolate deals 100% additional damage when it initially strikes the target.

Improved Conflagrate - Your Conflagrate deals 20% additional damage.

Empowered Incinerate - Your Incinerate has 20% additional critical strike chance.

Improved Ember Tap - Your Ember Tap heals you for an additional 20%.

Improved Shadowburn - Your Shadowburn deals 20% additional damage.

Enhanced Backlash - Physical attacks against you have a 15% increased chance to trigger Backlash.

Enhanced Drain Life - Your Drain Life now generates Burning Embers.

Edited April 4, 2014 by mediocregatsby

[mediocregatsby 18]

honestly not a whole lot of changes for us yet, relative to other classes.

 

the removal of drainsoul, felflame, voidray, carrion swarm, and soulshatter is interesting though.

they'll have to do a slight rework of soulshard regen if drainsoul is gone. 

felflame... well honestly i'm not sure what that means. we just dont get to hardcast anything on the move without KJC?

voidray is crap since they didnt fix that stupid fury cost nerf after the felflame cost nerf.

carrion swarm was pretty sick honestly. i loved bursting things down with it for huge fury gains but i guess it was too confusing for noobs since it was a DPS loss usually.

and soulshatter removal, wtf man! i remember when soulshatter cost a soulshard, only dropped 50% threat, cost some HP, and had a 5 minute cooldown back in burning crusade. i was really liking the MOP soulshatter :[

 

nerfed our pets for PVP but i dont care about that.

 

the healthstone nerf is understandable. gateway nerf is actually kind of a buff assuming we dont need gateways going more than 40 yards.

[mediocregatsby 18]

damn the class perks are really sweet looking. not sure how good ours are compared to other classes though. and i guess MG just replaces DS as execute for affliction now.

[Lockybalboa 618]

Nothing huge, nothing I'm going to lose sleep over. Only thing I'm a little bummed about is Metamorphosis: Carrion Swarm. Using it to push kids off of the middle ground in EoTS was super fun.

[vaeevictiss 17]

I gotta say, im a bit bummed by some of this. Now ive been playing since vanilla and have dealt with the good and the bad, and know a lot can/will change before it goes live, but still lol.

 

For years and years we wanted an instant cast DD spell...and now they take it away.

 

They already were screwing up Aff with the snapshotting thing, now they get rid of its execute? Not to mention no word on shard regen.

 

HS thing is a minimal bummer, at least we didnt loose em like mages lost their stones.

 

Soulshatter is not something i honestly used much this xpac due to the threat changes for tanks, but it was a nice "Oh Shit" button for that occasional big crit.

 

 

Either way, im sure a lot of this will change, always does.

[Zagam 1,982]

Fel Flame won't stay away - it's too valuable in PvP and PvE clearing totems and small HP things like banners.  I'll bet you 4 Soul Shards.

 

I'm for almost every change.  Demonbolt still has to go.  Every change, even non-Warlocks, is essential.  The healing fix, removal of tank utility and DPS, and the CC correction have been long overdue.  DPS balancing will come soon. 

 

For Destruction, NOTHING has changed.  CB will cast a little faster at level 100 and Incinerate has a neat effect that will have some working with Crit builds to explore, but nothing else exciting.

 

Demo lost a bit of its toolkit with Carrion Swarm going away.  Fuck Void Ray - that spell sucked ass anyways.  I'm still curious to see what happens with Demonbolt, Imps, and Doom.  Something will have to give at some point to correct the RNG swings without snapshotting.

 

Affliction got some interesting changes such as Agony going to 12 and the removal of Drain Soul.  With the removal of snapshotting, Affliction will literally be your 3 DoTs, Haunt, and Malefic Grasp.  Everything else will be residual utility stuff.  I'm HOPING for a glyph that allows MG to be replaced by Shadowbolt, but it's not going to happen.  Nightfall will need to be adjusted for the loss of guaranteed Soul Shards via Drain Soul. 

 

Lots to come.  Exciting times soon.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Affliction just became 100% mobile with Drain Soul gone which is nice.

Fel Flame removal sucks.

Mana regen on Shadowburn being removed will cause problems.

[Moozedude 47]

I wonder why they keep Grimore of Sacrifice around if they don't want us to use it.  Swap it out for something else now, while you're fixing everything else.

[Zagam 1,982]

Affliction just became 100% mobile with Drain Soul gone which is nice.

Fel Flame removal sucks.

Mana regen on Shadowburn being removed will cause problems.

Affliction also lost its Soul Shard replenishment system.  Without Soul Shards, I find it difficult to see how Chaotic Resources can even be a decision.  100% mobility means you're assuming you HAVE to take KJC.  Fights could be limited in mobility.  You also can't cast Unstable Affliction or Haunt while moving, so mobility won't be infinite.  The mana regen loss of Shadowburn is without any point because they're going to adjust mana costs.  I've never gone OOM as a Destruction Warlock - Shadowburn's mana refiller just tops me from 80% to 100%.  I still don't think Fel Flame will be gone permanently.  It pidgeon-holes every spec into KJC and that's EXACTLY what they wanted to avoid.

 

I wonder why they keep Grimore of Sacrifice around if they don't want us to use it.  Swap it out for something else now, while you're fixing everything else.

How can you infer that they don't want us to use it?  Giving us the choice to use it and having it be competitive is reason enough that they're letting us use it.  Not following your logic here.

[Desos 18]

I wonder why they keep Grimore of Sacrifice around if they don't want us to use it.  Swap it out for something else now, while you're fixing everything else.

 

Maybe they buff the alternatives. Actually that will happen with the level 91 Draenor Perk " Improved Demons":

 

 

 

All

Improved Demons - Increases all damage done by your demon pets by 20%.

But nerfing it without leaving open a niche for a talent would be bad design. Maybe they will tweak/replace it.

[Gravyspasm 70]

 

 

massively increased the effectiveness of the Glyph which increases its healing, so as to help open up more potential Drain Life use in ideal situations.

 

 

Oh, good...we're going back to spamming drain life as a filler again until the nerf it back down so we stop.

[Astynax 24]

Will miss the portals sometimes..... Other than that, can't see much they hit. I agree with Zag though, Fel Flame is required. It's essentially our only readily available instant cast, instant damage spell in any spec. Removing it altogether makes KJC almost required, unless we see lots of fights with very very little movement. 

 

Wondering how they'll work soul shard generation.... Personally expect to see a buff to nightfall, and the damage aspect of MG. Without that, I can't see Aff being viable next xpack.... Might see the shard refund effect passively? This CAN'T be all they're doing to Aff, (and by that, I mean, if this IS all they're doing to it, they nerfed it into the ground.)

[Zagam 1,982]

Don't look too far into the damage stuff.  They have a LOT to implement in regards to how much damage people do.  There will be tuning done, but expect all specs to be viable.  Don't look at damage modifications in notes and assume calculations done now will mean anything in the future.

[Astynax 24]

Oh, for sure. My point is, essentially, that they need to do two things in order to keep affliction competitive:

 

1. Make it not playable by a trained monkey to decent DPS potential.

 

2. Modify our damage via some amplification (be it scaling, spells, what have you) so that we don't have insanely weak numbers after the opener.

 

 

Edit: found what I was looking for, lol.

 

• Enhanced Haunt - Your Haunt lasts an additional 2 sec
• Improved Malefic Grasp - Your Malefic Grasp deals 100% additional damage on targets below 20% health.
• Enhanced Nightfall - Increases your chance to trigger Nightfall by 5%.

 

 

Weird how they're trying to get Drain life into our rotation.... or, at least, it appears as such.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Astynax

[Zagam 1,982]

Drain Life won't be in the rotation.  The second that Drain Life becomes a viable DPS choice, it makes Warlocks immortal.  Remember how long DL lasted as a filler in early Cata?  Yeah, not long.  It'll be a utility spell at best - not an optimal DPS choice.

 

Affliction won't be interesting in my opinion.  Nothing snapshots, so your opener will be EXACTLY 20 seconds if you use Dark Soul.  After that, your stuff IMMEDIATELY falls off.  Fortunately, that's what every other class's openers will look like as well.  Affliction's playstyle will be on perfecting your rotation - not prioritizing reapplication of DoTs with procs. 

 

The short version of snapshot removal is that classes go back to ROTATIONS.  This reduces the value of Pandemic but still makes it awesome.  Instead of reapplying a DoT and maximizing a proc, you'll only have to worry about reapplying a DoT ANYWHERE in the last half of its DoT cycle.  "Clipping" a DoT early will be a DPS loss because of a lost GCD. 

 

For example, today, you'd use Affdots to make a decision on reapplying UA.  Sometimes, it'd be advantageous to reapply it while it still has 18 seconds to go if the bonus is large enough.  In WoD, this won't even happen because Affdots would essentially read 100 all the time since everything updates dynamically.  Thus, updating UA at 18 seconds remaining would be a loss because you wouldn't get the maximum 14 additional seconds upon application.  All other DoT classes will go back to reapplying DoTs on the last tick while Warlocks get the cushion of getting to do it anywhere between when they fall off and half of the original duration (7 seconds for UA, 8 seconds for Corruption, 12 seconds for Agony). 

 

DPS loss in MoP - overwriting a powerful DoT

DPS loss in WoD - letting a DoT fall off or reapplying a DoT too quickly

 

WoD's Affliction DPS method will be VERY accessible to all.  It's MUCH easier to keep DoTs up than worry about how powerful they are.  This will remove abuse, reduce the value of trinkets, and make openers less ridiculous.

[Astynax 24]

Very much so. I love aff, and dearly hope it's a viable, and interesting, spec in WoD, but if the rotation is actually THAT simple.... you won't find me playing it unless the numbers are overwhelming. Hopefully blizz will add something (read anything) to make this spec more than "maintain dots, cast haunt @ 4 shards/procs, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG."

 

 

As for DL, I meant the way they're adding lots of strange aspects to it, to be a spell that warlocks basically never use. It now generates embers, for example. Something like, currently, IJ drops seige phase, shock pulse, I DL to heal myself, while the healer focuses someone else. It seems they want to boost our already significant self healing.

[Recklessfear 33]

As far as MG and drain soul being removed, could just throw DS' effect on MG. 

 

"2 ticks below 20% hp refunds a shard"

 

Demo perks as leveling up looking prettttty nice

[Zagam 1,982]

Very much so. I love aff, and dearly hope it's a viable, and interesting, spec in WoD, but if the rotation is actually THAT simple.... you won't find me playing it unless the numbers are overwhelming. Hopefully blizz will add something (read anything) to make this spec more than "maintain dots, cast haunt @ 4 shards/procs, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG, MG."

 

 

As for DL, I meant the way they're adding lots of strange aspects to it, to be a spell that warlocks basically never use. It now generates embers, for example. Something like, currently, IJ drops seige phase, shock pulse, I DL to heal myself, while the healer focuses someone else. It seems they want to boost our already significant self healing.

Playing Affliction will be based on your talents.  It will have a very Diablo-esque feel in that you can create different builds based on your playstyle.  For example, you could take KJC, Chaotic Resources, and Grimoire of Sacrifice for pure single target damage.  This would keep your mobility high, increase your damage via Chaotic Resources and Soulburning Haunt, and it would boost your damage with GoSac.  You could also take KJC, Grimoire of Supremacy, and Demonic Servitude to be a pet based DoT class with a permanent Terrorguard and Observer.  Without Fel Flame, taking KJC is darn near essential, but if you got a Patchwerk type fight, AD would be a nice addition.  If they make it so Haunt has to be applied intelligently in cases like increased damage on bosses or keeping it up with every proc, then it'll feel like now where you stack buffs to maximize damage.  For example, Haunt now lasts 10 seconds with its powered up form at level 100.  This means exactly 2 Soul Shards maximizes your damage during Dark Soul.  That means if you have Dark Soul coming up in 30 seconds and you have 0 Soul Shards, you'll want to sit on your Soul Shards, pray for Nightfall procs, and hope you get some procs in order to maximize your Dark Soul.  Lots of nuances coming with these class changes.  Be prepared for my Warlock Mumble jam sessions to return as we hash things out and make sense of it all!

 

What you described would be a great way to use Drain Life.  Considering it generates embers, this means it's a valuable tool to maybe get an ember quicker to pop off an Ember Tap or use it to continue building embers while assisting your healers with high raid wide damage.  Remember, in WoD, healing is taking a major change - they want players to spend more time between 0% and 100%, not being topped off madly like it is done today.  The difference between life and death or a healer going OOM may be you using Life Drain after Life Tapping.  Our "already significant" self-healing isn't that significant.  Our MITIGATION is out of this world, but our self-healing is rather limited to a glyph that restores 0.5% of our max HP on Immolate ticks or using Soul Link to generate 3% healing based on damage. 

 

As far as MG and drain soul being removed, could just throw DS' effect on MG. 

 

"2 ticks below 20% hp refunds a shard"

 

Demo perks as leveling up looking prettttty nice

MG ticks too fast to generate Shards that fast.  If anything, you'd have to complete the entire channeling process which is what, 3 seconds baseline?  MG's tick interval is too fast to generate a shard like that.  4 ticks below 20% refunds a shard, perhaps.

 

All the perks are fantastic for leveling up.  It's going to be interesting to see how well you level up based on the randomness of perks received.  Affliction will still be garbage to level up as without an execute.  Demonology has always been clutch to level with as a permatank and mass pulling.  Destruction has CC, burst, executes, and healing.  If you were to get the CB cast reduction, increased Incinerate crit effect, and extra Ember Tap healing by level 93, Destro leveling could be done asleep.

[Astynax 24]

Definitely. I think it could make Aff not a completely annoying and proc dependent spec.... but it could also break it. lol. I'll definitely be sitting in on your mumble sessions. Part of my problem this xpack was getting such a late start on understanding the inner workings of things.

 

You're right. I was, partially, thinking of the fact that on progression, heavy damage fights, I often preemptively pop cookies, but that'll be a thing of the past. The point I was intending to make was that in addition to our huge DR cd rotation, which can currently mitigate most damage, we're now getting this. lol.

 

I agree..... MG generating shards is possible, but definitely not off the two ticks @ like half a second each.

[JvChequer 43]

I'm excited to Alpha and Beta.

I'm not looking for any dmg theorycrafting or stuff like this, that kinda of stuff like remove X or add Y it's pretty volatile in Alpha and Beta, I'm just curious about what Blizzard think to any classe and spec itself and how we gonna to play it.

 

Hope they give me a key to Alpha since I'm an useless MVP

[Twinkielock 15]

Drainsoul?  That's been the execute since forever.  

 

Other one, Fel Flame?  Too many PVP and PVE uses.  Hopefully it comes back.

[Liquidsteel 279]

Did I miss something?

Zagam you said with GoSup and Demonic Servitude we can have observer and terrorguard out together.

I thought it was one pet only.

[Zagam 1,982]

GoSup = Grimoire of Supremacy.  It makes pets upgrade.  Demonic Servitude is a new lvl 100 talent that enables your Doomguard or Infernal to be permanent. 

[Liquidsteel 279]

I'm aware of that. It was the way you said "pet based dot class with terrorguard and observer" which made it sound like two pets at once.

The perma terrorguard sounds like such a bland talent, was hoping for something better.

[Zagam 1,982]

... like two pets at once.

It will be two pets at once.  One normal pet + Terrorguard.  Two pets.  You don't think the Terrorguard becomes a new pet like a Felguard/Wrathguard, do you?  If so, some others may be confused.

 

The Demonic Servitude makes your Doomguard/Terrorguard NOT go away after 1 minute.  It has a 1 minute CD and lasts forever, much like UH DK pets.