NEW Alpha Build Notes for Warlocks

[Soulzar 42]

Did Wowhead let me down?  I specifically looked up the DF cost before posting lol.

 

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=603/doom

 

I didn't think about globals saved being washed by cast time of Cataclysm.  That further helps keep it in line, but ramps up significantly for every target over ~3-4, which is not often outside of trash :/

[Soulzar 42]

I also do not like the way Demon Bolt is designed to only refund when dropping below 40.  Here is a copy/paste of an idea i thought of this morning..

 

Perhaps something along the lines of upon leaving Meta, 30% of the DF consumed by Demon Bolt is refunded. So if you cast it once to prevent capping, pop out and get 90 back. If you get a proc and dump your whole fury bar, you get 300 back. That's obviously very rough and has about 5 minutes of thought put into it, but would remove the need to fully cap and fully deplete to use the spell to its max potential which goes against the grain of how you want to manage your fury.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Soulzar

[Zagam 1,982]

COMPLETELY agree with you on bouncing out and getting refund regardless.  Metamorphosis already has a 10 sec CD to prevent abuse of this mechanic.  Remember, snapshotting goes out, so you won't be going in and out for Hand of Guldan anymore unless you want to stay in Meta for the duration of Shadowflame, which may not be a bad idea.  I'm not 100% sure we'll go forward with the model of saving up DF and spending it in one big chunk with Dark Soul or trinket procs.  I think it might be more optimal to play it how I do which is constantly weaving in and out of Meta depending on procs.  I pop into meta and spend DF if I get a 2pc proc, Dark Soul, or a PBI proc (usually with Dark Soul).  I also pop Meta right away when BBoY procs and use ToC up until 6 stacks, 2 Soul Fires at 7 stacks and 8 stacks, and then ToC at 9/10 stacks and pop out of Meta.  If Demon Bolt only gives DF return if you go below 40 DF, it would shift the dynamic of how you play by forcing you to stay low with DF. 

 

I have a hunch you won't want to cast it with high DF unless you 100% know you're going to be going until you're out of DF to get refund.  It also makes you wonder if there won't be some compounding return system.  You obviously couldn't spam Demon Bolt, get your refund, pop back into meta and unleash DBs again - but it'll make it to where you only cast it once per meta which feels...kinda lame.

[Liquidsteel 279]

I responded to your post on MMO-C but will reply again here, Soulzar.

 

I much prefer your idea, but perhaps it could also have a secondary clause, in that it refunds the Fury either a) 10 seconds after using it (time can be decided) a bit like old haunt with its heal, or b) immediately upon exiting Meta, if this was before the time period was up.

 

Sometimes we might want to burst for the full 20 seconds of Dark Soul, so this way it would prevent us dropping out of meta.

[AstanoVidatu 4]

Personally, and I know this is just alpha notes.. but I am worried about the dmg nerfs.  It wouldn't be so bad if the spellcasts were being shortened. That way instead of a 300k dmg shadow bolt  that takes 2.5 sec to cast, we get a 250k shadow bolt but only takes 2 sec to cast  that would be fine.

 

But keeping the same cast time which feels like a car that hasn't had an oil change in 300 thousand miles trying to start up and run AND cutting the dmg down at the same time? That feels a little painful.  That's like being in a race and saying "Ok, so I've made some adjustments before the race here, it will now take 20% more time for you to accelerate as much as the other racers, 

but your top speed is even lower than theirs as well. So even when you do accelerate fully (finally) you won't be able to reach a competetive speed anyways so it doesn't really matter how long it takes you to get started.

 

We are a DoT class, and making our dots do less damage (unless they keep the longer durations to balance it out)

really hurts. And making our shadow bolts do less damage without shortening the cast time to even it out hurts also.

But seeing as how things could change 27 more times between now and even beta let alone launch, I won't worry about it.. yet

[Soulzar 42]

I am not sure I am following what you mean.  If you want your cast time to be relative to the dmg it does, nothing is changing.  The DMG to MobHP ratio should remain the same to what it is now, the numbers will just be smaller.  Relative power for cast time or resource cost should remain consistent.

 

I think everybody may go through a bit of depression when we see a CB hit for 30k instead of 3m, but I am sure it wont take long for it to feel the norm again.

[Zagam 1,982]

Personally,... yet

Do NOT worry about any damage scaling at this point.  You'll only be disappointed or wrong later.  Everyone is being squashed down.  Bosses will still die somewhere between 3 and 15 minutes. 

[Kazistrasz 216]

I wouldn't mind having a couple more longer, 15-minute multi-phase fights. Saving them just for end-raid bosses does make them feel epic, but why have only one epic fight per tier/expansion?

[mediocregatsby 18]

because they are god awful to progress on. having more than 1 difficult marathon fight per tier would be sad times.

[Lockybalboa 618]

because they are god awful to progress on. having more than 1 difficult marathon fight per tier would be sad times.

 

 

See for me it isn't the length of a fight that pisses me off. I love me a good long ass fight. It's the Spirit Kings (AKA: Reset Kings), Blackfuse when I have to run a 200m dash to get to the fight, or Paragons where I have to run a 500m, or Elders in ToT where I have to MOUNT UP and run a 2k, shit even Horradon was a 1k mount-n-run. Those are the fights that piss me off. When 30-50% of my progression time is spent running from the spawn to the fight, makes me rage the fuck out.

 

There is no reason why I should be made to do that shit. The players have been asking Blizz for years to put in better portals/spawn locations in to raids, but they love to ignore us on one of the easiest to do QOL changes they could ever make for raiders.

[Gnar 26]

There is no reason why I should be made to do that shit. The players have been asking Blizz for years to put in better portals/spawn locations in to raids, but they love to ignore us on one of the easiest to do QOL changes they could ever make for raiders.

 

It got so bad for us for Thok (300 wipes in total now which was very unusual for us) that I unglyphed my Soulstone and just put it on the highest haste healer.  We have two druids and a DK so it seemed like the best plan especially since I babysit the portal for Thok and do belts for Siegecrafter.  Overall, never happy when I have to get people to click my fucking portal when someone accidentally zones in....

[Kazistrasz 216]

I don't think long fights are bad to progress on at all. At least long fights we can always mass res after each wipe. Short fights only give you the opportunity to mass res every other wipe, forcing the long ass run when everyone has the debuff or a lengthy session of single res.

[Soulzar 42]

Long fights are not so bad as long as the final phase doesn't have something stupid like having to kite an exploding death star into a boss within a window of 1s.... lol

[Gnar 26]

New question and not sure if has been asked.  With the new DoT system, will the small last ticks work the same for their specials for warlocks?  Immolate crits generate an ember, Doom crits generate an imp, Corruption procs Nightfall? If so, won't this make breakpoints still alive and well?  Saw a similar question for Druids so seemed like a question to ask here as well to see if any alpha locks have been testing.

[Zagam 1,982]

Special effects will still happen.  There are NO BREAKPOINTS AT ALL.  The extra DoT that comes will function like any other DoT.  Also, as a reminder, this DoT will only happen if you let a DoT run its course.  With Pandemic, or whatever they call it in WoD, you should be reapplying your DoTs before they fade since everything is dynamic.  If you let a DoT fall off, you made a critical gameplay mistake.  When you reapply, there will be a DoT timer recalcluation when you will get a partial tick - this tick is only partial in terms of damage done - it can still behave like a normal DoT in regards to special mechanics.

[Soulzar 42]

I suppose technically if you let your dot fall and instantly reapply you may gain extra "rolls" at spawning an imp as example via multiple partial ticks vs those partials being rolled into a single full tick...

 

But the downtime between the partial tick and reapplication would surely add up to be a bigger loss

[Soulzar 42]

To address the fact that Cataclysm's secondary effect of applying your spec DoT is greatly diminished for Aff and Destro since they have AoE options for those DoTs already built into the toolkit (granted at a resource cost), do you think it would be too powerful for Cataclysm to apply both Immo and Corruption regardless of spec?

 

Let Affliction and Demo see Immolate again, if only once every minute, and Destruction Corruption.  Add a little of the flavor back that was lost when they made them spec specific.

 

This change would do nothing to lower how much more powerful it could be for Demo if AoE Doom remains a thing, but I feel could help address the apparent weakness of the talent for the other two.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Soulzar

[Zagam 1,982]

Corruption for Destro would do as little, if not less damage for Destruction than it does currently as Demonology, which is laughable.  Immolate for Affliction would hit for so little that its damage would be laughable.

 

The fix to make Cataclysm an attractive choice is to boost its damage high.  The problem with that is seeing it in PvP, although with a 2.5 second cast, anyone who stands in the reticle is...well, cataclysmically dumb (or CC'd).  IMO, if you want to make it good for Destro or Aff, you make each mob it hits generate a Burning Emberbit for Destruction and grant 1-2 Soul Shards as Affliction.

[Gnar 26]

I suppose technically if you let your dot fall and instantly reapply you may gain extra "rolls" at spawning an imp as example via multiple partial ticks vs those partials being rolled into a single full tick...

 

But the downtime between the partial tick and reapplication would surely add up to be a bigger loss

 

This is more what I was getting at.  Doom has a long base duration between ticks and last a very long time on the target.  If you went from 0 haste on gear to 1 haste on gear, you get an extra tick, and therefore a chance just like any other tick to get an imp.  With Doom's increased chance to crit in WoD, this could easily be exploited if proven to be a DPS gain and would bring breakpoints back if the haste levels are viable for the other abilities as well. I understand reapplying DoT's is now going to become downtime filler if the duration is below 30%, but I don't see how this can be overlooked as an option of playstyle. Obviously a risky playstyle as mechanics and procs might not line up with wanting to reapply in this way, but the off chance you have no procs, demo form is ready and the CD won't affect you, and there is no chance of death, why wouldn't you just cast a filler then add Doom when it falls?

 

I realize this may all sound silly and extremely situational, but my point is that this should be addressed. These ticks are a  percentage of damage, why not also make them a percentage of a special proc as well? Seems to simple to overlook in my eyes, especially with all the classes that have these types of mechanics.

[Zagam 1,982]

These ticks are a  percentage of damage, why not also make them a percentage of a special proc as well?

Because you can't proc 2/3 of an Imp or 2/5 of a Soul Shard. 

 

I think I understand what you're saying - you're trying to game the system in order to 'create additional ticks' by casting them at a particular time.  I *THINK* what they will do (if they are smart) to prevent this type of gaming is to re-calculate the DoT when you cast it and not allow it to do a partial tick.  What it might do is recalculate the tick interval and do it on the same tick interval and accumulate fractional ticks until the end.  In this fashion, you'd never "create" new ticks but would still gain the full benefit of every tick.

 

Example with Doom (60 second duration, assume 30% Pandemic limit)

Cast 1: T=0 -> T=60, 4 ticks, 0 fractional ticks

Cast 2: T=45 -> T=105, 4 ticks, 0 fractional ticks.  This is because the recast comes directly on a tick interval, so you'd still get the tick, a new rounding time, but nothing changing.  Let's change the tick timing.

 

Cast 1: T=0 -> T=60, 4 ticks, 0 fractional ticks

Cast 2: T=50 -> T=110, 4 ticks, 1 fractional tick

 

What I imagine would happen in this scenario is you would get a tick at T=45.  Recasting the DoT at T=50 wouldn't give you a tick at T=65.  Instead, it would happen at T=60 and conserve the 1/3 fractional tick leftover.  At T=75, another full tick.  Let's assume you let this run out.  At T=90, a full tick.  At T=105, a full tick.  At T=110, you'd get the leftover fraction of a tick. 

 

I don't think they're dumb enough to let us continuously spam Doom to "force ticks" over breakpoints.  Breakpoints are essentially gone.  When you cast a DoT, you will get x damage over t seconds, period.  It will always be evenly distributed with fractional ticks making up for any 'missed' ticks you'd normally have.  Doom will ALWAYS apply a 60 second duration unless you cast it before Pandemic's maximum effect would apply, which will be a DPS loss.

 

Also, the 20% extra Crit chance on Doom isn't going to suddenly give you an endless river of Imps.  Remember, at the beginning of the expansion, you'll be lucky to see 15-20% crit rating unless you pour your stats into Crit alone.  This will make your Imp proc rate around 40%, which falls in line with what we see today.  The 20% extra Doom crit chance is their compensation for us not being able to snapshot Doom anymore.  Snapshotting Doom right now can give you an extra 15-20% Crit rating with the massive amount of Intellect you snapshot. 

 

For later parts of the expansion, modifications to the % proc isn't completely out of the question.

[Kazistrasz 216]

What they're talking about doing with moonkin DoTs at the moment is either giving partial ticks a full chance to tick or giving it a partial chance. For Doom, I'd imagine this would be either proc a imp if a 60% partial tick crits or just have a 60% chance to trigger the proc if a 60% partial tick crits.

 

You wouldn't get a partial tick in the second instance.

 

Cast at 0, get ticks at 15, 30, 45, and 60. When you reapply at 50, you'll still get that tick at 60, and the 60 seconds is added onto that. It checks the time after the next tick against the pandemic threshold (78 seconds) and cuts it off based on that. The extended time isn't added to the instant you cast.

 

Assuming constant tick speed of 15 seconds, so no haste procs during, you'd have to refresh it before the second tick at 30 in order to have it clipped by Pandemic and given partial ticks. 

 

It's the reason you can actually make Immolate show 23 seconds remaining right now if you're hitting pandemic refreshing it right after a tick (where you'll have 2 seconds left to the next tick when you refresh and add the remaining time to 21 seconds after that next tick at 2 seconds).

 

If you want partial ticks, look at a DoT with a wonky duration, like Agony every two seconds. At a tickspeed of 2 seconds and base duration of 24 seconds, if you refreshed it for whatever silly reason after 13 seconds (after 6 ticks), you'd get the next tick at 14 seconds and add the 24 to the then-remaining 10 seconds for 34, which would be clipped down to 31.2 seconds. You'd get that 7th tick plus 15 more ticks after it followed by 60% of a tick (1.2/2.0).

[Gnar 26]

Because you can't proc 2/3 of an Imp or 2/5 of a Soul Shard. 

 

I think I understand what you're saying - you're trying to game the system in order to 'create additional ticks' by casting them at a particular time.  I *THINK* what they will do (if they are smart) to prevent this type of gaming is to re-calculate the DoT when you cast it and not allow it to do a partial tick.  What it might do is recalculate the tick interval and do it on the same tick interval and accumulate fractional ticks until the end.  In this fashion, you'd never "create" new ticks but would still gain the full benefit of every tick.

 

More like 100% chance on crit for imp on full tick

                50% chance on crit for imp on 50% tick

 

Then comes the question of if I let Doom drop and have 1 haste on my gear will it be like I just said with a very very small % chance for an imp on crit for that last tick or will i get an imp on crit regardless of the tick's %age.

 

What you just said is another way of breaking the new system, trying to refresh at exact moments to maximize ticks.  This was brought up in mage forums as well I believe to ask about how living bomb would function with this system, and if refreshing at 30% exactly would maximize bombings (which was said it would not but that's only due to the living bomb expiration effect being straight forward).

 

I guess just trying to explain this through text is tedious especially with numbers like 30%.  The point isn't the 20% increased Doom crit chance or if letting DoT's fall in WoD would be dumb or anything like that.  Examples aside, my question goes back to if I have a % of a tick, how will my specials based on periodic effects function with it?  What I have heard from druids is that it works like a full tick, which leaves room for exploits because it is not a full tick.  I brought it to this forum mostly because the druids in the alpha can barely play their class currently and I trust locks a lot more...

[Kazistrasz 216]

In order to try to game the partial ticks, you need a few things.

 

For one, you need to know your tick speed. For another, you need to either not have haste procs or have something that can tell you when your ticks are occurring and when you'll be getting a partial.

 

I suppose you also need to have a long enough window on that partial tick to be able to refresh after the last full tick, but before the partial tick. If you're too early, you lose the partial tick. If you're too late, you lose uptime which defeats the purpose of even trying to game it. Of course, if your partial tick is too long, you're also defeating the purpose of gaming it, as you're just that close to a full tick.

 

This is, again, assuming full proc chances on partial ticks.

[Soulzar 42]

Affliction

Haste Attunement (New) You gain 5% more of the Haste stat from all sources. Warlock - Affliction Spec.

 

Demonology

Mastery Attunement (New) You gain 5% more of the Mastery stat from all sources. Warlock - Demonology Spec.

    

Destruction

Critical Strike Attunement (New) You gain 5% more of the Critical Strike stat from all sources. Warlock - Destruction Spec.

 

Destro:

Wonder if it really will be "All Sources"....  Raid Buffs?  What about the 35% Crit from GoSac?  Dark Soul?

 

I never really thought about it until just now, new GoSac is like permanent Dark Soul... but stronger by 5% lol

 

Anyways, So with GoSac 35% and the 20% Crit perk for Incin, and any base crit.. we'll be at ~60% without even touching Crit as a gear choice.  Regardless of the attunement buff implying crit for gearing, wont haste be a very strong option?

 

Charred Remains lets you triple dip on ember generation and with that much obtainable crit through talents, haste would seem like the stronger option... especially if we are generating so any embers that we'll be casting a lot of CB's.

 

Demo is still looking to focus on Mastery, but Mastery doesn't scale resource generation so we'll still be wanting high haste... and Affliction naturally loves it as well.

 

Seems Mastery > Haste > Crit could work best for all 3 specs, regardless of the Attunement bonuses.

[Kazistrasz 216]

I'd imagine when they say "Critical Strike stat" they mean the rating. Still think it's a BS move to just funnel all the specs into a particular stat rathe than just designing great classes and letting us figure out what's best.