Warlocks have a ridiculous amount of spells right now and some of them are so unnecessary. Especially on the class side of the talent tree.
Amplify Curse should be baked into Soulburn. That way soul burn can buff our curses without requiring a whole extra slot. It’s sort of a nerf because of the shard cost but the less button bloat the better.
Three Different Curses.
Tongues and Weakness should share one curse and smart apply depending on the enemies spec.
Fel Domination should just be removed and baked into the cast time of pets like it used to be. This is the worst button bloat of them all, considering once our pet is dead we’re screwed and resummoning one is too much. It feels mandatory.
Micro management on warlock is absurdly annoying. This is some quality of life changes that would make the class feel better.
Button bloat hasn’t been a “thing” ever since we could competey and freeley re-arrange our UI in nearly any way that we could want now.
For example, I have a seperate little dock for my curses off to the side that I click on manually so as to not need to have them on my main skill bars.
Similarly other utility spells like Amplify Curse, Unending Breath & Demonic Circle, Soulstone, Soulwell, etc. As well any cooldown, they don’t need to be on the main bars anymore. They’re off to the side on their own little grid, out of the way until they’re needed.
I feel as if bloat only comes into play when you have skills that proc and all have to be present at the same time, like with the current iteration of Shadow Priest, which is actually like playing whack-a-mole.
Affliction has a similar play style if they’re running that one talent, gosh, the one that does some damage with 6.66 percent chance to generate a soul shard if you catch a dot within 5 seconds of it fading. I do not know how comparable that is to Shadow Priests, but it seems similar on paper.
Of course, excepting UA if you’re running a talent that buffs/feeds off it, only Agony needs to be kept up at all times less you suffer a fair DPS loss as it rebuilds. The others could all fade and except for missing out on the extra DD and chance at a shard when reapplied if properly talented, there are no downsides.
Button bloat is a thing, though, but only if you don’t do what you do and separate the situational spells (Which I do, though I do not have to click on them excepting Soul well, Closet, and Demonic Gate, to use them. I have 28 hotkey’d abilities that fulfills that role of abilities, pots, and the like. And of those 28 keys, I only generally use 22 of them in every fight, but some only once or twice depending of what’s happening.)
Button bloat isn’t an issue, not properly setting up your UI and key bindings very much is an issue, and that’s on the player not Blizzard.
My god that 6.66% chance Satan reference meme talent is just hilarious to me hahaha. I’ve never taken it, once. Pandemic Invocation I think it is?
I also feel as if the button bloat mindset is rooted in a player’s mindset that “there is a button therefore I feel it needs to be pressed or else I’m playing wrong”. I mean unless you’re pushing 20+ keys, potentially, for an optimal rotation? Who cares. Except in cases where you need to be hitting a bunch of procs, then it’s an issue.
I think it’s interesting that bloat & procs are so intrinsically connected. Something for the devs to ponder.
I guess I truly appreciate Warlocks having a HUGE toolkit (even if more than a few skills are borderline useless in many situations), because I’ve grown out of that headspace of feeling the need to utlize all of my skills all of the time.
I mean my singing skills don’t help me do better UX Design at work but, it’s still kind of cool to be able to sing a tune. Ya know? And now that I think of it that might be it. Treating gameplay like a job.
Sounds like you guys replied before even reading the OP.
I’m not asking them to remove spells, or utility.
Curses are well used in PvP. I didn’t put a list of spells that needed to be deleted, I listed spells that could be baked into each other that work in a similar manner.
I’m not asking to lose doomguard summon, unending breath, corruption for demonology or spells that are baked in for fantasy.
Just because we can modify our UI doesn’t mean we have to force arthritis upon our hands to reach the skill cap. Or purchase a multi button mouse to proc every curse and alteration.
These are two practical QoL changes. If you PvE and don’t have to use your curses then fine this doesn’t apply to you.
I much prefer being able to choose the curse that I apply in pve and pvp. Smart cursing can never be a 100% accurate function and it died with impending catastrophe as it should have.
I would prefer not needing to waste my Soulburn buff and a soul shard on Amp Curse. This would be another negative change to our toolkit, imo.
My buddy mains a brewmaster and this is the same sentiment he has, especially comparing to other tanks. All Warlock specs feel alright in regards to button bloat. I am actually excited to run CDF in destro cause that is the one spec that feels quite bland in rotation to me.
Actually, a lot of what he said was bad and if you only play warlock through the lens of welfare mythic+ you wouldn’t know. His take hardly solves bloat, blyet heavily and negatively impacts depth. Nothing is wrong with a spell as long as it has a meaningful purpose and adds depth to gameplay.
I’m not even going to elaborate on how poor these suggestions are, they’re self explanatory beyond just playing warlock at a competitive level. Just absolute terrible design to nest two inherently different amplifying spells into one spell. Please do not bring us back to the stone ages with thinking like this.
When pets have the proper amount of agency, proper depth and power can be apportioned to them. Fel Domination accomplishes this. Don’t let your pet die, and you’ll be rewarded accordingly. Notice now that pet’s are mortal and cannot be mindlessly resummoned, we received tools that enhance class depth beyond resummoning the pet, e.g.: see the plethora of sustain and damage reduction talents that work to keep our pet alive and so much more.
I hate when Blizzard is right with saying the playerbase doesn’t actually know what they want. It’s such a condescending but alarmingly true statement.
Eh if any part of warlock needs to be revisited for bloat, it should be affliction. Merging Siphon Life into Corruption and then tuning MR accordingly is well overdue.
But yeah, this expansion has probably been the most some-what enjoyable to play destruction as. They could definitely benefit with having one or two more meaningful spells actually added to their baseline arsenal. Cataclysm or rain of fire, and maybe Dimensional Rift, should just be baseline.
Why would you be using Curse of Exhaustion on a shadow priest/mage/balance druid? Why would you use curse of tongues on a rogue, warrior, death knight? It’s not terrible design if it does what it already does, just makes it more manageable.
The fact that you’re validating longer pet cast times is such a pve perspective. In PvP no one in their right mind is channeling Health Funnel. Having your pet die in PVP is devastating, the cast time is too long.
If all you stick to PvE mythic then why are you so offended by changes that wont affect you? If you don’t agree you could easily discuss on the forums, instead you posted a miserable comment on how this was “a terrible post”.
Are you talking strictly about Destro and Aff? Health funnel definitely gets use in Demo.
Changing the curses to be a smart curse would affect pvp and pve. Relying on code to always make the optimal choice is not ideal. Having them separated gives the player agency to apply the curse that is most appropriate, especially if the enemy npc or player is a hybrid.
Yeah the bloat is ridiculous. No class should have more than 10 buttons to play. 5 for normal rotation, 5 for CDS. Like im not buying a 14 button mouse, and have to have a typing degree to play a dang game. Like come on blizzard. How do you expect older casual folks to play with 20+ buttons on every class that have to pressed every engagement?