Maybe in a month or so when the next one happens, could we please get a clear and direct explanation of what the specific design goals are for TWW Warlock specs?
The current sentiment is that all three specs should be immobile, but what is the upside for playing the most immobile caster in the game?
The game at the high end is far too dependent on the ability to quickly move out of ground effects, and leaving Warlock marginally more durable than other classes doesn’t do anything to make this more palatable.
Max damage throughput for the class hasn’t been able to compensate for this in a long while either.
What is the compelling reason to play a Warlock going into 11.0? All of the presently announced changes feel very uncoordinated and leave me wondering where the fun is supposed to be found in a class that can’t move, can’t live and continues to see toxic gameplay loops reinforced. (Malefic Rapture, Demonic Core reduction Part IV e.t.c.)
Actually the last post in regards to dev goals for warlocks was 14 days ago. It was posted in the development part of the forums to get feedback from TWW alpha. You can view it here.
While those are still somewhat general, it gives a good idea of what they say they are trying to accomplish.
Also, what survivability issues are you running into? In my experience, we are incredibly tanky and have a decent amount of sustain through self healing and absorb shields. We don’t have an immunity like turtle or ice block, but outside of that I don’t think we are lacking anything.
I disagree that they have given a clear picture at all of what the final product is supposed to look like. Everything so far has been incoherent, and doesn’t really address the vision for the class in practical terms - rather they’ve chosen to address one specific issue (extremely polarized Affliction tree for AoE and ST) and a few imaginary issues (“Players will probably enjoy hard casting more spells! - Make Demonbolt a moment!”, "Players probably want to press Malefic Rapture in AoE also! ")
To answer your question “what survivability issues are you running into?”, your experience is loaded because our viable spec (Demonology) has been stacking versatility this entire tier.
In TWW, we’ll take more than double the damage from using burning rush (all specs, thanks to the fiendish stride nerf), we will have to hardcast more spells, and we will probably need to stack haste and mastery again (new level cap stat scaling + reliance on hasted spell casts to do anything). We are going to be immobile, squishy again, and more than ever reliant upon standing still.
This is all lining up to be a very ugly expansion launch for Warlock, and I again beg to know what the vision for the class looks like. If mobility is an issue, will they commit to tuning our defensives to accommodate? Does that even help in high tier content?
Why can’t Affliction go back to throttled DoT damage instead of an unliked builder/spender mechanic? Will Demo abilities be tuned and capped to service the lower number of imps we’ll be able to have up? Can a pass be made at the destro tree to get rid of unfun abilities that we’ve been forced to use from tier set bonuses (CDF, Rift)?
It’s just unclear where they want the spec, and I think come 11.0 the class will continue to be irritating to play regardless of tuning. Hero talents don’t really cure the disease at the heart of all three specs.
They may not have said exactly what the final picture will look like, but they did have some clear examples of problems they want to address which will shape the final result. That’s pretty much what they’ve done for every class so far.
I don’t think they’ve ever said or implied they think players will enjoy casting shadow bolt more than free demonbolt casts, just that they are taking resource generation into account when tuning.
Buddy, sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re wrong. I’ve played destruction pretty much exclusively this expansion, so no, I don’t stack versatility. I still don’t have issues dying. Nice assumption though.
I don’t think they expect hero classes to cure anything, at least I don’t think I’ve seen them imply or state that.
If they are able to address a majority of the issues that they mentioned in the post I linked, I think that gives some clarity on the direction they are trying to go and it will fix a good chunk of issues that warlocks have complained about.
I’ve played destruction pretty much exclusively this expansion, so no, I don’t stack versatility. I still don’t have issues dying. Nice assumption though.
That’s great, and I’m glad Destruction was viable for you while doing Heroic raid and low keys.
Nothing I’ve posted about so far is ever relevant in the content your experience is drawn from (where anyone can live, and anything is viable to kill a boss or time the key).
Ah, first the assumptions and then the condescension when those assumptions turn out to be wrong. Nice job!
At what point are certain specs/class become unviable? Everyone can do a 20 right? 22s? 25s?
And again, sorry to burst your bubble, but I do still mythic raid. I’ve just had to swap characters on the mythic raid team because we lost a tank. I’ve achieved CE before. But yes, please tell me about me more about my lack of experience since you clearly know everything about me.
This is very hilarious, considering Destruction is the spec most used in high end Mythic+ and Destruction was used for a number of fights in Amirdrassil.
How are the clowns in this thread feeling now that they’re going to have to double down and defend the smoke and mirrors gutting of all three specs?
I posted this elsewhere, but it’s now become obvious that there is a vision for the class but they know we will hate it so they’re slow dripping the changes. Still no comprehensive “here’s why these changes make sense in the big picture” or “here’s the compensation for setting your gameplay loop back 15 years”…
The changes do make sense for their stated design goals though. They explicitly stated that they wanted to nerf our demonic core generation and they’ve certainly done that. They stated they wanted to tone down Destructions mega-scaling with target count, the Inferno change does that and removing Avatar of Destruction also does that (and they explained the other reason they removed Avatar). And they directly stated they were addressing Affliction being hard locked to either single target or AOE, which explains most of the Affliction changes.
It’s totally fine to disagree with their changes, and myself and i’d wager the majority of warlocks agree that their choices are…questionable at best. But it’s not like these things are coming out of left field, they stated their design goals and if you’re looking at them objectively you can see that their changes are mostly in line with those design goals. The design goals suck, but it’s all been pretty clear.
Do you not understand that this is not a design goal? It’s just another description of the change. It doesn’t add context, it doesn’t describe the actual design that change adds to.
“We’re removing some demonic core generation from this ability. Our goal is to remove demonic core generation.”
The post was titled “The Path Forward”. What do Warlocks look like at the end of this path? Nobody knows.
I mean…the design goal is “We want Demonbolt to feel like more of a ‘moment’” which intrinsically means they want us casting Shadowbolt more. That’s absolutely a design goal, they want us hard-casting instead of having as many instant cast Demonbolts as we have. That is absolutely valid as a design goal, their idea of Demonology is to have less peaks and valleys with cooldowns (removal of Nether Portal, butchering Tyrant) and to be less mobile with the amount of Core procs we have.
I hate those design goals, but they’re absolutely design goals even if you can’t grasp that.