Rakeesh!
Greetings endarkened-ones!
Intro
I am YX. Hail and well-met. You may know me from the discord. I am a warlock player who enjoys a wide range of content. I have completed all raiding content in Turtlewow and I am a vigorous PvPer. I also spend much time in the Open World and dungeons. Most importantly, I often spend my time speaking with other warlocks, both in my two raid groups as well as in the warlock guild, Ered'Ruin.
I have been thinking of reasonable changes to the warlock class for some time, mainly for the sake of identity and quality of life. I feel I have a responsibility to try to help inform warlock class changes, since I am one of the few warlocks with the mentioned range of experience who is also vocal in this process.
I believe that while the warlock class is not in a bad spot, there are still issues that are just as glaring as those of any other class. I will be writing about those issues, what changes are needed, and what outcomes my suggestions would bring.
Before that, I would like to make clear my goals:
1.) See Destrofire fully realized (it is so close to being there)
2.) See Destrolink brought up to par by way of range adjustments
3.) See Affliction become a late game option (by way of a modest rework)
4.) Achieve 0 completely useless talents in high frequency pathways (row 2,3,4 of Demonology in the context of DS/RUIN)
5.) See our mana issues addressed (specifically immolate, but also our AoE spells so as to regain some parity with the mage class post 1.16)
6.) Establish a clear design philosophy for the warlock class
Starting at home for me with
Destrofire
It is still not there. It just needs a couple finishing touches.
Immolate's absurd (ABSURD!) mana cost means that you cannot meaningfully participate in long fights as all other warlock speccs can. This is the biggest block to destrofire in dungeons currently.
In PvP destrofire suffers for its immobility and lack of protection. I also see destrofire as having less burst potential than fire mages in PvP. I would argue that their survivability is very, very near to the same.
Mobility issues are compounded by the "rotation". You have to always be hard casting (ABHC) immolate. 36 yards is not enough.
Generally, the playstyle is such that as the fight progresses, you draw nearer and nearer (or your target draws nearer to you) and you set up a finish with a shadowburn combo. Thats where destrofire's lethality is: close range. That's fine, I am not asking to change that. I quite like the dance.
But, that window of approach is just too short against a melee class. Getting kited by more mobile casters (hunters and mages and shamans), while needing to start a fight with a hard cast, makes destrofire generally a poorer choice in bgs than any other established pvp specc. We are one of the big three RDPS classes. We should have 1 specc with 41 yard range too. It would bring a lot of identity to the class, and (IMO) to fire as an elemental force in wow.
Lastly, I think that soulfire could see its CD reduced (thinking 15-20 seconds) to bring (some) parity w/r/t fire mages. This is mainly so that it could see use with precasts for dungeons pulls with high prio targets. It would be cool to fit into the rotation. Disclaimer: shadowbolt will always be part of the destrofire rotation and thats fine, thats vanilla m9, embrace it.
To sum up: destrofire fire spells at 41 yard, immolate mana cost, some consolidation in talents, some reduction to SF's cd.
NF/Conflag
This specc embodies everything I love about vanilla warlock. It is destruction incarnate. A true glass cannon that spits shadowflame. Its a wild ride. Lets make intuitive pathways to bring this specc to more users. This specc can pop eye tentacles like no other, let me tell you. We can make this specc a thing in niche PvE too, by consolidating destrofire a bit and (ideally) addressing range talents.
Demonology
Oof.
We think of two things immediately when we hear demonology warlock: SL in pvp and DS in raiding. The tree is also used to supplement destrofire and deep affliction builds. This is what we should design around.
Soullink: Its great in duels. Too good. But that's it. Contrary to popular perception it is not a PvP specc beyond this, except in very specific scenarios (solo node guarding). SM/RUIN is the superior PvP specc and this has always been the case. This is primarily due to burst potential, but I would argue that range plays an important role. It certainly contributes to the bad feel. If you want to specc soullink and pvp, you have to take a spriest itemization route and go drainlink. Destrolink is fully unusable in BGs due to being range capped at 30.
'
In the context of soullink, demo tree has some glaring cases of total uselessness.
Improved succubus is good for seduction duration and lash of pain boost is ok (not really value wise) but nothing else about this talent affects anything.
I suggest we remove invis duration and make it so soothing kiss applies a debuff that reduces targets melee hit chance by 3-6-9%. Or the talent just flat out increases her dodge chance by 5-10-15%. She gets 1 shot anyways, and you have to give up good talent real estate at that row. It's a meaningful trade and synergizes with destro fire usage + adds open world application. Increase range on seduce would be incredible too. 7/14/20%. With increased pet hit boxes it is often difficult to get her to seduce a target without aggroing.
People clamour for improved felhunter, so here are my suggestion for that (following rule of threes format of other pet talents, so pick 3):
-paranoia up a level or a half level of stealth detection per point.
-increases duration of corrupted blood by 5/10/15s
-increases range of devour magic by 2/4/6yrds
-increases healing received by felhunter from devour magic by 10/20/30%
-10/20/30% chance on hit apply corrupted blood
Last notes for deep demo:
Spellhit for pets is needed if we want to see pets participate in dungeons.
Pets fighting mobs/players should do something. That is the goal: meaningful participation in combat. Thats what people tell me all the time. Pets barely even offer pushback currently. Warlock pets are also much too slow. They are slower here than classic. I would like to see a talent added to late demo that increases pets movement and melee pets attack speeds by 10/20/30%. This is an important point.
I propose that each pet (or at least not-imps) apply a debuff upon hit. The felhunter could apply tainted blood. We could bake an effect into succ's kiss as I mentioned to achieve this. VW effect could take a lot of routes.
DS: The biggest change needed with demo, is we have to make the second, third, and fourth row of demo give benefit to DS based specs. As it stands the pet buffs we are required to take are totally inconsequential. This is a failure of design. Even minor side benefits would make DS feel so much better to specc as. I propose things like a little bit of MP5 from fel intellect and hp5 from fel stam. Even the amount equivalent to max level regen food would be enough for me.
Here are some ideas for filler talents that would not imbalance demo, but would offer at least some benefit to a DS raider:
-Soulstone could see a talent.
-Shadowward also makes sense.
-Moving master summoner down a bit. I like it before fel domination tbh.
-Could also move improved enslave down. DS + Enslave is a great combo. the talent tree should reflect that.
Warlocks In Turtle Wow (Yx's Comprehensive Warlock Adjustment Guide)
Warlocks In Turtle Wow (Yx's Comprehensive Warlock Adjustment Guide)
Last edited by Triana on Fri Jan 07, 2022 10:47 pm, edited 12 times in total.
Re: The Future of Warlock (Yx's Comprehensive Warlock Adjustment Guide)
Affliction
Affliction is a mess. It's a hot mess. People want more dots, but I don't see that as particularly realistic. Overall, it needs identity. I think this can only be done through either tacking on capstone effects or else full replacement of manatap.
Generally, I'm in the camp that favours changes that lean into our drains more. These changes could be balanced around/paired with range changes.
As far as the look for affli: I like plague aesthetic. I think a lot of clues in vanilla wow point us in this direction. None of this is necessarily important to give affli a chance in raids at 31+ points, but it gives me a starting point.
I think Nightfall could be instructive in where we want to take 31 point affliction.
My issue with nightfall for (deep) affliction is that it incentivizes crit. I don't like that interaction from a gameplay perspective, for deep affli. For SM/Ruin, great, but how can we lead affli to focus on raw spell power, kind of how spriests geared pre 1.15?
What if 31 point affliction is something like: nightfall now automatically inflicts an automatic whomp SB equivalent, but that damage can no longer crit. Like a plague burst or something. Maybe it inflicts a drain vulnerability or something, if we want to push for an alternative rotation.
The trouble is in balancing something to compete with improved shadowbolt. Its placement makes things difficult.
Generally, I see the direction for affli in raids as heightened utility. We have curses and talents to improve to get us there, but what we really want is some other utility that the rotation of the affliction lock is bringing beyond that.
I think nature damage/vuln pairs nicely with affli for thematic reasons.
Disease is nature damage. The worst spookiest diseases in PL's/Naxx collectively occupy a space inbetween shadow and nature. I think thats just right-on. Maybe drainlife (to justify a debuff slot) itself provides a nature vulnerability. When your lifeforce is being sapped how likely is your body to respond to poisons/natural conditions?
Curses
They deserve to be cleaned up. The affliction talent tree is just goofy. The twowdevs went a long way in making demo less goofy so I’m feeling confident. We like a bit of niche and interesting-- thats vanilla appeal. We don’t like whatever is going on with CoEx.
Weakness as a flat melee haste reduction could work alongside new haste changes. I agree that it would be cool for it to mirror tongues. it works this way in retail and functions well, based on their haste system at least. We may have to reduce duration, if we do.
In my opinion all of the curse talents need reworks/replacements.
It’s unavoidable if we’re serious about giving affliction identity and use beyond SM/Ruin.
I’d like to see a talent deep in affli that adds a special effect to each of the existing big vulnerability curses. They’re such an important part of warlock raiding and its the wheelhouse of affliction. Its a missed opportunity blizzard never did anything like that.
We could address changing raid comps/raid needs with stuff like talented nature vuln to CoE, or maybe Reck increases crit dmg bonus by a very small margin(?).
Id like to see amplify reworked alongside the tree in ways that bring identity. Maybe with interesting effects, off the top of my head: it applies CoW as an aoe cone. (a la ray of enfeeblement). Amplify agony is about all that affli meaningfully does for curses, so we won’t change that.
I’d like to see improved CoA removed/reimagined. I think add 1/2 ticks just like imp SWP and that can be the bone thrown to the affliction "moar dots" camp.
Capstone
From a gameplay point of view, I think that a dark consecrate would be a great addition to the tree as we have seen with other pservers. If not, then I suggest some multi dot application as a replacement capstone. Maybe Affli could be our shadow aoe specc.
Affliction is a mess. It's a hot mess. People want more dots, but I don't see that as particularly realistic. Overall, it needs identity. I think this can only be done through either tacking on capstone effects or else full replacement of manatap.
Generally, I'm in the camp that favours changes that lean into our drains more. These changes could be balanced around/paired with range changes.
As far as the look for affli: I like plague aesthetic. I think a lot of clues in vanilla wow point us in this direction. None of this is necessarily important to give affli a chance in raids at 31+ points, but it gives me a starting point.
I think Nightfall could be instructive in where we want to take 31 point affliction.
My issue with nightfall for (deep) affliction is that it incentivizes crit. I don't like that interaction from a gameplay perspective, for deep affli. For SM/Ruin, great, but how can we lead affli to focus on raw spell power, kind of how spriests geared pre 1.15?
What if 31 point affliction is something like: nightfall now automatically inflicts an automatic whomp SB equivalent, but that damage can no longer crit. Like a plague burst or something. Maybe it inflicts a drain vulnerability or something, if we want to push for an alternative rotation.
The trouble is in balancing something to compete with improved shadowbolt. Its placement makes things difficult.
Generally, I see the direction for affli in raids as heightened utility. We have curses and talents to improve to get us there, but what we really want is some other utility that the rotation of the affliction lock is bringing beyond that.
I think nature damage/vuln pairs nicely with affli for thematic reasons.
Disease is nature damage. The worst spookiest diseases in PL's/Naxx collectively occupy a space inbetween shadow and nature. I think thats just right-on. Maybe drainlife (to justify a debuff slot) itself provides a nature vulnerability. When your lifeforce is being sapped how likely is your body to respond to poisons/natural conditions?
Curses
They deserve to be cleaned up. The affliction talent tree is just goofy. The twowdevs went a long way in making demo less goofy so I’m feeling confident. We like a bit of niche and interesting-- thats vanilla appeal. We don’t like whatever is going on with CoEx.
Weakness as a flat melee haste reduction could work alongside new haste changes. I agree that it would be cool for it to mirror tongues. it works this way in retail and functions well, based on their haste system at least. We may have to reduce duration, if we do.
In my opinion all of the curse talents need reworks/replacements.
It’s unavoidable if we’re serious about giving affliction identity and use beyond SM/Ruin.
I’d like to see a talent deep in affli that adds a special effect to each of the existing big vulnerability curses. They’re such an important part of warlock raiding and its the wheelhouse of affliction. Its a missed opportunity blizzard never did anything like that.
We could address changing raid comps/raid needs with stuff like talented nature vuln to CoE, or maybe Reck increases crit dmg bonus by a very small margin(?).
Id like to see amplify reworked alongside the tree in ways that bring identity. Maybe with interesting effects, off the top of my head: it applies CoW as an aoe cone. (a la ray of enfeeblement). Amplify agony is about all that affli meaningfully does for curses, so we won’t change that.
I’d like to see improved CoA removed/reimagined. I think add 1/2 ticks just like imp SWP and that can be the bone thrown to the affliction "moar dots" camp.
Capstone
From a gameplay point of view, I think that a dark consecrate would be a great addition to the tree as we have seen with other pservers. If not, then I suggest some multi dot application as a replacement capstone. Maybe Affli could be our shadow aoe specc.
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Bedsidetable
- Posts: 3
Re: Warlocks In Turtle Wow (Yx's Comprehensive Warlock Adjustment Guide)
I love fire destro. And I like all the suggestions you've made.
Quick question... How would you feel about a fire DPS spell like searing pain without the aggro?
It's cheap to caste and speccing into it the crits occur often and I get some nice damage. It's a shame we can't use it in groups because of the instant aggro.
Quick question... How would you feel about a fire DPS spell like searing pain without the aggro?
It's cheap to caste and speccing into it the crits occur often and I get some nice damage. It's a shame we can't use it in groups because of the instant aggro.