| World of Warcraft Discussion General Discussion about anything relating to World of Warcraft and the Warlock's place with in... |
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October 16, 2009, 02:50 PM
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#1 (permalink) |
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What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
Logically, I see it this way, and I think Blizz is starting to, as well: The harder it is to execute maximum potential (i.e. Feral DPS, Affliction 3.0), the higher the potential should be. So with that being said, as a Warlock now of 3.5 years, I have seen us go from having a pet that literally hit as hard as fully raid-geared Fury Warrior (Felguard in 2.0) to Shadow Bolt spambots, to watching little DoTTimer bars with probably the least mobility in the history of WoW, to Fire Turrets, to Demons. So logically: Highest DPS potential SHOULD BE: Meta/Ruin builds. Why? You have positional requirements, that may be going away, but you also have to balance when to blow Meta, keeping your Felguard alive (if he dies and loses his buffs your DPS goes toilet-ward) and being completely and totally reliant on healers to sustain your DPS. Buff or no buff, this is far and away, despite using no spell unique to the tree, the hardest spec to do the best damage with. And this is ignoring that it's the highest DPS AoE Build in wow. This is based on single target. Destruction: This should be no more than 5-10% behind Meta due to its pet-reliance and how poor ranged-pet AI is. It's similar here if the imp dies. Much more self-sustaining due to Replenishment/ISL/SL and overall lower mana costs..... Affliction: This is painful to say because the class description indicates this should be our defining tree. However, it has no real pet synergy nor reliance on it. The single buff it provides (ISB) is totally dropped from your rotation below 25% (screwing the raid) and it's near unkillable in raid environments due to Siphon Life, a potent Drain Life Osh*t button, and Haunt. Mana isn't even a consideration as you almost immediately recoup health lost to life taps. This should be a flat 10% behind destruction and 15% behind demonology. I know this sucks, but they need to give you options to remove the healing and add further damage to things. That's the way I see it. I know that they say that this line of thinking is wrong, but perhaps they could remedy this situation here because unless they get rid of Haunt altogether, Affliction still is going to have trouble moving compared to the other builds. |
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October 16, 2009, 03:18 PM
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#2 (permalink) | |
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Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
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Also, I viewed Demonology as being a big bag of tricks, that allowed you to situationally assess the encounter and bring out the appropriate pet. Back in my MC days as I was waiting on Firey Cores and the like to make my FR set, the Master Demonologist buff from the Felpuppy made me viable for Rags. Succy for the second boss in Shadow Labs (which I ran daily, some times repeatedly looking for those damn D3 Shoulders that never-ever dropped). here's my beef at the moment. All DPS trees should be Raid Viable (and healing and tanking trees on other classes being raid-viable goes without saying), AND be centered around the end tree talent with NO preference to the other Trees as a "secondary" tree (atleast for the pure DPS classes). In the case of Demonology this should be Meta. The problem is Blizz decided for asthetic reasons to NOT make Meta a perma-form ala Moonkin Form and Shadow Form. Despite constant problems with Demonology, they refuse to reconsider their earlier decision. All fixes to date seem determined to push a hybrid Demo/Destruction spec on us. Now, I have NO problems with hybrid specs being viable, I just think that first and foremost, Haunt, Meta, and Chaos Bolt specs should be viable BEFORE we start playing around with hybrid specs. And that's before we get to the new "soul shard system" that is just the Rune System for Warlocks. BLEH. #blizzardfail. |
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October 16, 2009, 03:47 PM
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#3 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Fizzik 80 Blood Elf Warlock Dunemaul US PvP Guild: Ghosts of Damnation Profile: Blizzard Armory Talent Spec: 0/13/58 |
Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
I'm not sure that difficulty to play should or would ever be the reason one class/tree should out DPS another. The classes should all be challenging and fun to play in their own right without pidgin holing people into one or the other based on their personal skill. Ideally any skill player should do better than any run-of-the-mill player in any class. I think that Blizz is going this way as well. The best example is Affliction. Affliction pre-3.1 was the hardest lock spec to play well (and maybe the hardest of all class specs). Juggling 7 dots with SB and DS below 25% was tough to do in any fight where you didn't have the luxury of staring at your DoT timer of choice without dying in the fire. By the logic of 'the more difficult the spec the greater the DPS', this should have remained as it was (when I finally learned how to play it, no one could beat my Afflic lock even if they outgeared me). Instead, Blizz simplified the rotation. So if all classes/specs should be equally challenging to play well (design philosophy, only... to manage this in reality would be very difficult) but accessible enough to play at a so-so level, then the dividing line should be different. To me, the differentiator should be flexibility/raid enhancement. The more flexible a build/class is (hybrids are the best example), the less DPS relative to a 'pure dps class' they should do. By the same token, raid utility should be a trade off for personal DPS. You can either bring the ultimate raid buff (Demonic Pact?) or the most kick-ass dps, but not both. By this logic, for Warlocks, DPS order should be Affliction > Destruction > Demonology. |
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October 16, 2009, 03:56 PM
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#4 (permalink) |
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Character Info
lilsteele 80 Human Warlock Terenas Euro PvE |
Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
@Tragik I totally disagree with you. The DPS potential of a build should not depend on how hard it is to execute it. In my opinion, each build should have a similar base dps potential. From ther one could have certain specializations, e.g. if one tree is particularly bursty and the other one has higher AoE potental that would be pretty fine. Ideally all trees should be equally fun to play and should have a rotation that requires a reasonable amount of skill to execute. If a certain spec turns out to be one-button-spam, the spec should be redesigned to be more diversified, not it's dps nerfed. |
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October 16, 2009, 04:03 PM
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#5 (permalink) |
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Character Info
Cadavro 80 Undead Warlock Zul Jin US PvE |
Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
The subject of talent tree balance is one we discuss very often on this forum. I was wondering if other classes were experiencing the same thing as us. I mean, is it a common problem? Are other classes as limited when it comes to the specifics? If we only consider pure DPS classes, where do we stand compared to them? If I understand right, Mages out-DPS us, but only have one viable raid spec. What about Hunters? |
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October 16, 2009, 04:15 PM
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#6 (permalink) |
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Character Info
lilsteele 80 Human Warlock Terenas Euro PvE |
Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
fire and arcane seems to be good for mages atm, although it used to be that only fire is viable. Frost raiding is dead since a while As far as I know. Hunters I think have two viable specs, and from what I hear it's somewhat gear dependent which one is better. No clue about rogues. Hybrid classes: DK's seem to have the problem that Unholy is neither good for dps nor for tanking. Concerning endgame tanking I think only Blood is viable, and probably the same holds for dps. Priests don't really have a viable dps spec, but I think two good ones for healing |
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October 16, 2009, 04:54 PM
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#7 (permalink) | |
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Re: What SHOULD be each build's strength and weakness in PVE?
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Steele, I also agree with you, to a point. If you make everything similar to balance (use Nuke X, Y procs, use Nuke Y) for casters and it was uniform because as long as the mechanics aren't at least very similar across everybody, which enables perfect balance, then it will be impossible to fix. NOW, AS PURE'S, my personal suggestion would be very simple: Make a high, pure DPS tree that provides no raid buffs. It must be high DPS in all facets of everything (AoE, Single Target). Next you would have a utility build that would provide the buffs and still solid damage. Lastly, you would have a tree based around maximum survivability that would be setup to provide some surivivability earlier in the tree, but additional survivability much lower in the tree. I'm not going to say how to lay this out, or even try to compare to what's going on, but Warlocks, as a pure DPS class should be given choices that helps to compensate for the fact that, especially now, getting geared up isn't that difficult. Since you, or mages, or hunters have to completely reroll to heal or tank, it would only make sense that pures did get this kind of treatment. Not to make them overly powered in any single facet of the game, but to, at the very least, provide something other than Red DPS, Blue DPS, and DoT DPS. At least that's my personal feeling. |
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