Belated WotLK Warlock Wishlist
Posted October 27, 2008 at 04:49 PM by Warpy
Updated November 16, 2008 at 03:27 PM by Warpy (Still has typos! >.<)
Updated November 16, 2008 at 03:27 PM by Warpy (Still has typos! >.<)
Like any old fogey, I’m always going on about the good ‘ol days, and why we need to bring them back. In particular, I’m remembering the month before the release of The Burning Crusade, how excited we all were about the new content, and how much fun we were having trying out and planning new specs. Other warlocks, particularly our hardcore PvPers, were having a blast with the new affliction tree, but I wanted to try out a felguard! And it was a blast. I could finally solo elites and do all those Cenarion Field Duty quests!
I look forward to trying out all three of the new 51-point talents this time but I know that this time, my toon isn’t going to be able to do anything he couldn’t do back in WoW 2.4.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elitistjerks.com
So here’s my thought, let’s go with an old idea that has worked before, that is key to the success of several classes now. It doesn’t involve any ideas new enough to be risky, and should be easy to tune with a month’s worth of Public Test Realm data. Not that it will even be tried, but this is my rant!
Make us hybrids!
Affliction (DPS/healing): If I’m in a group, have the healing from my Haunt spell go to the person with the lowest percentage of their max. health. It would be a different effect from a chain heal, arguably better, but it’s on a cooldown, and Blizz might add a range. In PvP, that healing could be a life-saver for the team-mate who is being focus-fired (if I get focus-fired, I probably shouldn’t cast Haunt).
One problem I noticed with Haunt while raiding Black Temple and Sunwell in WoW 3.0.2 is that the healing, which is considerable, usually isn’t useful to me personally. Drain Life is still necessary when I take a lot of damage at once, because I can control the timing. Siphon Life is adequate to recover health lost to Life Tapping.
I really wouldn’t mind seeing other, darkly-themed healing abilities for affliction warlocks, or all warlocks. We’ve got health stones and soul stones, so arguably, we’re in the healing/rezzing business already. I’m trying to think of a good replacement for our rather useless level 75 spell, Shadowflame, that isn’t yet another generic DoT or nuke. Some kind of healing/cleansing/buffing spell might be nice.
Demonology (Tanking/AoE DPS): The best solution for Metamorphosis, I believe, is to go back to the original idea that most of the warlock’s abilities are replaced with new ones, rather like a shapeshifting druid. Like a druid, however, the capabilities of the new form must be adequate for a boss fight in a progression raid. It should not have a cooldown or duration.
Blizzard seems reluctant to give us pets like Beastmaster hunters have. Seems like those can do almost as much damage as a player-character and bring utility to a raid. So rather than buffing our damage (something else Blizzard seems to fear doing with warlocks), perhaps Metamorphosis should allow warlocks to fill another role: tanking.
As with the original model, shapeshifting gives the warlock a different set of abilities, but this time make sure that they're adequate for tanking raids (if the warlock has decent gear). The demon form already has lots of non-ranged AoE damage (Immolation/Shadow Cleave), extra mobility (Charge), a taunt, and some damage resistance. Now, crit and hit are the same for spell and melee. Use spell power for AP, armor, defense, and dodge rather than making them a function of original caster armor and make sure the other abilities scale with warlock-appropriate gear.
This change would appear to require extensive re-writing of the demonology tree, but many lousy talents were pruned out and yet more remain. Recycle ideas which couldn't fit in to the Death Knight template or old ideas from the days when warlocks could wear leather armor and melee. There’s room in the Demonology tree for both metamorphosis-oriented talents and pet-oriented talents.
None of the current pets actually help a tank and may be a distraction (Blood Pact does not scale enough to constitute help). The original version of Metamorphosis banished the warlock’s pet. This was a problem partly because most of the talents required to be able to buy Metamorphosis are intended to buff the pet! If we went back to the banish-the-pet version of Metamorphosis, have multiple forms of most demonology talents, one form that buffs the pet when the warlock is in human form and another that buffs the metamorphosed warlock (or enables him/her to buff the raid).
One talent that should be removed from the Demonology Tree (because it doesn’t fit with the others) is Demonic Sacrifice. It may well be appropriate as part of the Destruction Tree.
Destruction (DPS/DPS/More DPS): This spec shouldn’t be a hybrid. But it shouldn’t be lower DPS than any of the mage or hunter specs either. It’s currently not set up to provide any utility except the few that warlocks can all do, and after the whole Can’t-Run-Sunwell-Without-100%-ISB-Uptime fiasco, I’m pretty sure Blizzard’s not going to give it any more utility. This spec needs to be able to DPS like a BC rogue, a BC rogue without interrupts, aggro-transfer abilities, Vanish, Expose Armor, etc.
To do all that damage, destrolocks need to concentrate, and micromanaging a fragile imp isn't practical unless that imp contributes a lot of DPS or utility. By level 80, a pet won't be a decision, it will be a distraction to a well-geared destrolock. As gear improves, and warlock pets provide less and less of the warlock’s DPS, Demonic Sacrifice, even in its nerfed state, seems increasingly appropriate. Move it over to the destro tree. Alternatively, get rid of DS and let pets buff a destrolock's damage.
Likewise, the more DoT durations, cooldowns, etc. warlocks have to monitor, the lower our DPS is, and the further our performance is below simulations. Conflag is reported as a DPS loss even against target dummies for some players because it’s so distracting to keep track of.
The cooldown and the broken tooltip are the only major difference between Chaos Bolt and Incinerate right now; Chaos Bolt does 10% more damage, but it’s another cooldown to keep track of and another button to press. Chaos Bolt is the crown of the destro tree, let it at least apply a hefty debuff to the target.
Scaling with Gear
All specs didn’t scale equally with gear in The Burning Crusade, nor do they do so now, despite Blizzard's best attmepts. So have haste make DoTs tick faster (haste currently favors destro builds). If warlock pets' damage doesn't scale better with caster gear than it did in The Burning Crusade, enhance their utility or let us sacrifice them (boring!). The imp still needs more damage mitigation (haven’t tested the succubus).
Hybrid Builds Not for Hybrid Roles
The above very much favors builds that include the 51-point talents. But for so long, the most popular end-game raid builds have not included the top tier of talents: SM/Ruin or Ruin/Master Demonologist, then 0/21/40 (Demonic Sacrifice/Shadow and Flame) and 40/0/21 (Malediction/Ruin), because there were mid-tier talents that were better once a warlock had certain stats on their gear.
The WoW 3.0 version of the affliction tree has explicit synergy between Haunt and lower-tier talents, and Chaos Bolt is the most powerful warlock nuke currently. It looks like Blizzard actually wants us using the 51-point talents. Having two of those talents actually allow the warlock to play a role besides DPS, and the third to DPS better than we could with any other spec, would cause us to use them even late into the expansion.
The above are proposed as raiding specs, particularly ones that would make us good candidates for progression raids. Hybrid builds (no 51-point talents) would be for DPS and would still be fun, with great possibilities for PvP, solo play, farm raids, and 5-man instances.
Total Comments 7
Comments
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actually 40/0/21 was always a piss poor spec when I was playing aff. At least you.A. was a great 41pt talent, it worked well in both pvp and pve. Of course by the time you got to Hyjal anything in the aff tree was less dps but at least aff still did very good overall damage if played well.Posted October 27, 2008 at 11:24 PM by Anij
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The warlocks in Sunwell had so much haste and crit on their gear that their DPS went up if they dropped UA and added Ruin (and more Shadow Bolts). Those folks were there to provide Malediction-enhanced CoE for their shadow priests and their 0/21/40 warlock buddies.
Now that we can use healer gear (much of it pure spellpower), I'm hoping affliction stays viable longer, but it may be harder to compete with healers for good gear than with mages. In any case, the Tier 7 warlock helm, Heroes' Plagueheart Circlet, is heavy on haste, which is twice as useful to destro as to affliction.
Posted October 28, 2008 at 12:08 AM by Warpy
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Love the hybrid ideas warpy, as certain i am that blizz won't actually implement them post it on the forum for the off chance someone reads it and thinks it is as awesome an idea as it is. Affy healers ftw!Posted October 28, 2008 at 09:13 AM by Seraph
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No touchy my Haunt!
What I think would be interesting, however, would be a reverse Drain Mana spell. Where we could give our mana to someone else.
But... I'm not sure I want to be a mana battery like the old days of yore in EQ with Necros who ended up as nothing but mana batts in raids.Posted October 28, 2008 at 09:50 AM by XavronMG
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Drain mana actually being some use would be swell too. Actually i know this isn't a forum but does it scale at all?Posted October 29, 2008 at 05:29 AM by Seraph
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Yeah I'd imagine at that gear level it did become a dps increase. As far as drain mana, it's nice...but I've always found it easier to just tap and DL the mob to be more efficient...if your looking to make the player oom, it's more efficient to just kill them...even if they are a healer :- /Quote:The warlocks in Sunwell had so much haste and crit on their gear that their DPS went up if they dropped UA and added Ruin (and more Shadow Bolts). Those folks were there to provide Malediction-enhanced CoE for their shadow priests and their 0/21/40 warlock buddies.Posted October 30, 2008 at 11:35 AM by Anij
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You are not alone! Akasha posted a Ghostcrawler link about how drain mana hasn't scaled an hour after you asked!Quote:Originally Posted by SeraphDrain mana actually being some use would be swell too. Actually i know this isn't a forum but does it scale at all?Posted October 30, 2008 at 12:11 PM by Warpy
