One of the better debuffing classes i had the experience to play a little of was Radiation Defenders from CoH. Not only did they have debuffs that spread out to the entire group affected, but the could heal and do some damage as well. They were very good imo.

An interesting topic and one that I've thought about as well but of course being a priest, I always thought a "debuff spec" would have been a natural focus to give to Discipline. Blizzard even to seemed to almost go down that road a bit early on in development when priests had sleep and there were spells like Shadow Word: Befuddle and Shadow Word: Fumble in the spell tables (although they were never implemented, you can still find references to them via thottbot).

One of the reasons I went priest at launch was the hope that Blizzard would find a way to continue that thought process of giving priests a sort of enchanter/cleric hybrid spec.

But I think stupidly overpowered debuffs like Shaman/Beastlord slows from EQ kind of scared the devs away from debuffs in general which is why we have so few to begin with, much less an actual debuff specialist.

Curse of Weakness denies Curse of Shadows, Curse of the Elements, Curse of Recklessness and Curse of Tongues – while you could bring a 4th or 5th Warlock who has obtained that talent (which most Warlocks do not pick up) - having a Warrior spend 10 rage for the same effect is debatably more feasible.

Unfortunately most Warriors (of course, nobody here ; ) don’t know they have them, and any mention of support abilities is met by a chortle. I remember talking with the “best” warrior on my server, title due to PvP with a healer rubbing him off, who claimed that Demoralising Shout was a negligible buff in PvE, comparing it to fortitude and mentioning mob weapon damage. While the normal mob -> boss mob scaling is relatively hidden, I was perplexed.

Talking more about WoW’s Warlock: One problem with their debuff system is it was designed as if the Warlock buffs were really powerful, when in reality this is not the case. In legacy the curse restriction was only really warranted to get more than one Warlock in the raid.

Something I brought up before was having a kind of innate Amplify Curse providing a very brief (we’re talking a few seconds) extremely strong version of the curse, adding some strategy, defining the class as the ultimate debuffer but not forcing Blizzard to balance encounters around them due to the duration. Of course this was just a daydream and TBC drastically pointed the Warlock in the direction of Mage#2 – though I don’t deny they fixed a heck of a lot of problems in the process.

Another, lesser, problem is the blandness of Warlock debuffs, but that’s another rant entirely.

I quite liked my Necromancer in Diablo 2, and my support characters in Final Fantasy and Disgaea, but these aren’t really doing anything different than what World of Warcrafts Warlock does. They’re just doing it with larger numbers – and these larger numbers in a game where 10% increases damage is incredible (making me wonder why they continue to keep them multiplicative), would break the game.

This is how I see, blizzard is looking for a way to address consumables and because of that I think there is a unique opportunity for them to add more debuffs into the game that when ALL added together work out essentially to the equivilent of being fully potted up. Of course you'd need to address consumables in general after that probably by doing 1 elixir OR flask and nothing else or something similar.

As for how to get the debuffs in, well I think warlocks are a good candidate right now, they do have high damage but you could work the skills around such that the warlock would be so busy keeping his debuffs up his overall damage would suffer so the warlock is presented with a choice, debuff the crap out of everything and do paladin-esque damage or dps the crap out of everything and not have the "consumable advantage".

Right, That's why I said CoT is more versatile, not that it's better for healing reduction. It slows down heal spells cast, allowing them to be fully interrupted if you wish, and it slows down all other spell casts as well.

It doesn't work on those two Kara bosses, but it works on pretty much all trash and on the channelers on Mag (who are casting things other than just heals.) CoT is pretty darn powerful in both pvp and pve (and in pve a mob can't decurse it of course) in terms of dramatically reducing the damage done by a caster.


Only if the deep affliction warlock is trying to pick up non-raiding talents. Look at my build in the armory, you'll see deep affliction with imp CoW. I don't feel like I sacrificed anything at all to get it, as I feel it has far more raid utility than, say, soul siphon (and I could drop imp HoT if I wanted soul siphon, I just have it there for heroics.) 42/1/18


That said, I agree with the later poster that demo is easier to apply than CoW given what a lock gives up. I never said that you should always use CoW.

I was merely replying to the incorrect statement that imp demo is more effective than imp cow -- it's not, they're equivalent debuffs, and which has fewer downsides is always going to be fight-dependent. (and as above, I maintain that it's easier for a lock to pick up imp CoW since we give up no raid utility or true dps with those two points, whereas a warrior has tougher choices to make.)

We switch to imp CoW partway through on Gruul for instance, since none of our warriors has imp demo (all prot, no dps wars), but use demo up until then because we want the extra DPS from CoA and there's absolutely no need for imp demo/imp cow until near the end of the fight anyways. (it's just extra insurance really near the end too.)


If I had the faith that Blizzard would create a solid debuffing class I'd agree with you. As it is, I think removing the destruction tree would just produce a very poor damage class, and the "curse debuff" tree wouldn't actually have that much different playstyle-feel from the dot tree. (this is one advantage to the primary dps classes: we have more dpsing-method options than do the hybrid classes, without exception. Shaman is closest to being an exception, as they have a melee tree and a casting tree, but they've only really become an exception since the elemental buff with TBC.)

As it is, I think the "debuffer" description is just as outdated and should be ignored as the claims that mages should be the one and only top magic dps, or that priests should have sole reign over raid healing, etc. etc.

Blizzard has diluted class roles like buffing, debuffing, healing, damage, etc. pretty heavily across all classes and the more time passes the more diluting they are doing. What varies is the methods in which each class does each role, the amount of each they can do, and a handful of trick ponies that a class might have.


Removing the restriction (in pve) on multiple curses by a single lock would be extremely pleasant indeed, and let us feel more like a debuffer. It could easily be balanced dps-wise by appropriate nerfs also (you now can assume every lock is spending the cooldowns to put up a damage curse and balance appropriately.)

Net change would be that bringing a single lock would provide "all" the debuffs, but I'm not sure why that's bad? Or perhaps weaken the base debuffs and put a (single!) talent in mid-deep affliction to provide the current versions, so all locks can throw up the baby versions but your affliction lock can get you the good ones.

If the class is ever to the point again where you only bring us for the curses, then only bring one lock -- it's demoralizing and unpleasant to know you're only there to cast a single curse and then try desperately not to bring down the raid too much the rest of the time with your presence. (I'm looking at you, debuff limit)


Also don't confuse fire-destruction with what else the destruction tree can provide. Shadow-based 41/0/20 and 21/0/40 are both incredibly viable pve builds that aren't just spamming nukes when played right.

Your beef is actually probably with 0/21/40 based around fire, than with the destruction tree per se, and that's relying more on the fact that demonic sac exists rather than on the destruction tree being what it is. Without sacrificing that imp, you can't push warlock nuking powerful enough to start to approach dots, even with the total combined power of the destruction tree.

Kyth:

Best post in the thread!

The trouble is that prot has a very hard time being useful if there is nothing that needs to be main tanked. It's a great spec for 2 warriors or so, but beyond that? Hard to justify if we're going to continue to see "dps matters" fights. Even then, having 2 prot warriors on say gruul instead of a prot warrior and a feral druid cuts into your damage.

I respec quite a bit. Mostly because the warrior spec changes what you can do fairly dramaticly. One of the most irritating portions of being a warrior is that some talents are just awkwardly placed. Improved Demo Shout and Enrage are both awkward for fury warriors. (aside - enrage should be in arms, dual wield spec or imp execute should be the prereq for flurry, there's no reason to tie flurry (a pve skill) to enrage (a pvp skill) except to hassle people /end aside)

That said, warrior debuffs/buffs are really solid - the trade off is to put them up requires you to be very much on top of the mob/player in question, which is hard to do in many cases, as well as the hidden "this is hard to get for mediocre returns" issue with the talents. Potency in wow seems to vary with difficulty of use, at least for the non-direct role stuff.

The real problem with designing a "pure debuffer" class or a "pure healer" class is that it's very very very hard to design multiple solo progression paths for leveling that balance out the utility of the pure-non-primary-path roles well. Wow's primary path is "damage mob to zero hp, collect loot" so every class has to be able to do that to level, and then it becomes harder to give other stuff. In a damage primary game, debuffs are, generally, dangerous. If the primary way to progress in the game was healing, then hp buffs would be dangerous. etc. That said, I think many of the "jobs" games for single player do a decent impersonation of the debuffer class.

I'm eagerly awaiting the first mmo that tries (successfully) to implement a non-damage based progression for the solo-play. Heaven forfend we have something implement multiple solo progressions. I think the end game that grows out of that initial curve would be very interesting.

Exactly, the one prot warrior (MT) can pick up all the needed debuffs that are required, and your DPS warriors can pick up unbridled wrath.

One, I think it's less valuable than imp CoW (based on how our warriors are spec'd, yes. Also see the point above that I may never have explicitly stated about having to be in melee range of the mob periodically -- that can cause problems sometimes, and CoW as a backup is nice) or shadow embrace. I have, however, forwarded that spec on to them and asked if it's an option if they care about imp CoW so much .

Two, I think its value is very questionable based on what tree it's in and how little value it provides in a 25-man raid (3% across so few people): you want your deep affliction warlocks to be using CoA, not another curse, just damage-wise, and it's annoying that Blizzard stuck it in the same tree as the strongest CoA/CoD and didn't give us a way in that tree to dodge (even by a bit) the curse restriction. I'd be more likely to drop imp CoA than imp CoW down the road, just due to how rarely you can cast CoA (and I'd pick up malediction permanently then.)

Three, we already have a lock or two with it, and we haven't seen many mages at all on recent raids, so all we really care about is CoS (additional 3% on top of 1-2 mages.... CoE is already of questionable value with 1-2 mages.)

Four, when we last talked about specs, we decided a 1-point HS was more important than pulling points into Malediction, given its low boost, so there you have it. Maybe the wrong decision, but it's made our tanks happy.


I tend to spec back into it (malediction) and lose imp HoT, although as I said above, that's harder now with pulling a point out to pick up 1-point HS.

I respec a lot to make minor point tweaks.

Farming with this spec is really annoying (no non-interrupt at all), but that's what I have alts for.




To bring it back on topic, #2 above is a tension that I don't think needs to exist in the class.

My idea floated above of weakening the base curses, letting all warlocks cast as many as they want (include a pve restriction if you like, we're used to that), and then giving Affliction warlocks a way to bring them up to current strength avoids it. Heck, you could use the malediction talent for it (even at 3 points. What I don't want to see is something horrible like 5 3-point talents to pump all your curses back up. The split up "improved this curse" "improved that curse" is irritating enough when they provide such a small boost.)

I, for one, am glad that the debuffs in this game arent stackable as they completely ruined City of Heroes. It got to the point that stacking debuffs trivialized all of the content, as many of the best debuffs were auto hit, and as such, two people could clear content designed for 8 with little to no downtime. This extended into PvP where players could be bursted down faster than a player could press the hotkey to heal.

Since playing that game and coming to WoW (and reading these forums), I'm convinced that having a serious debuffing class through highly synergized debuffs or stacking debuffs would generate balance issues between players attempting content with the dedicated debuffers and those without and this would further exacerbate the difficulty of content design that people are already questioning; ie: content for casuals vs raiders, boss difficulty, anti melee mechanics.

It's a combination of factors: one being uninspired combat systems and PvE design, another, that things become even more insipid when you have very distinct class roles with little overlap; and, of course, hard opportunity costs.

Uninspired game system design is something that isn't going to go away, and is perhaps becoming even more prevalent. MMOs require such huge budgets to be successful now and really need a mass-market appeal to recoup those costs. To create really inspired gameplay, you're going to want complex, non-deterministic AI; a deep, robust soft counter system for players and monsters alike; and, basically, several layers of complexity that simply aren't desired or even fun to a huge chunk of your playerbase. If you want mass market success, a vast majority of your content, for the vast majority of your players, needs to be very easy. Sure there's a demographic that wants to play a bunch of games of parallel, iterated RPS in every encounter to find an advantage and win, but most players don't want to think that hard, they just want to bash the monster and get the treasure and 'have fun' with their friends without having to invest themselves so heavily in the game. Issues like accessability and pacing are much, much more important to an average player than the depths of your combat system.

That said - the place that debuffs are most interesting is within robust combat systems, where they're able to pick apart different layers of offense and defense and, in the process, make things fall apart. If things aren't robust, you end up with very one dimensional characters - there aren't layers to pick through, everything's utility is obvious - and without a lot of choices, encounter design starts to take what everyone knows is going to happen into account. That usually neuters debuffs something fierce, or makes them almost required. That's especially true if you have dedicated debuff classes, that don't have other options, and if other classes can't fill those roles. You have a half attack speed debuff in your game? Every boss you design with physical attacks is going to have that on it. Either design with that in mind, or let people trivialize the encounter. As someone else mentioned, it's very similar to the consumable problem.

Those problems become less of an issue if you have really hard opportunity costs - basically, lots of really strong choices and strict limitations on what you can bring. That typically means strict party size limits and having to make hard decisions during character design. Consider the difference between 5 man instances and the demands put on what individual characters contribute, and the old 40-man raids (where half of your characters were basically 'whatever reduntant heal/DPS guy').

Also keep in mind scaling issues - spending a character on a hard debuff for a boss is a much bigger deal in a 5 man instance than in a 25!

There are some other hard issues as well, such as PvP/PvE balances and AI/aggro, but it's way too late for me to keep rambling at this hour. =)

Peace,
-CxE