Mists of Pandaria: All Specs - Page 7

Daeluin · 03/27/12, 1:05 AM

Just to make our intent clear, the Glyph of Demon Hunting isn't intended to turn Demonology warlocks into a tanking spec. You won't be able to queue as a tank for Dungeon Finder for instance and won't have the survivability or tools of say a Protection paladin.

Historically, warlocks felt tankier than other casters and could even off-tank some encounters. We have made an effort in Mists to recapture some of that flavor. A warlock with this glyph should feel like they are about as effective tanking as an Arms warrior who pulls out a shield and swaps to Defensive Stance, or a Feral druid who goes into Bear form. You might be able to off-tank adds or pick up an actual boss for a short period of time if the tank goes down.

To make warlocks an actual tank would take more significant changes. For example, we want tanks to have to pick up separate tanking gear than their DPS gear (this is even true of druids) and want tanks to have to give up some of their DPS potential in exchange for their survivability. In short, it needs to be a commitment, and that's the sort of thing that needs larger gameplay changes than just a glyph.

That shouldn't stop the glyph of Demon Hunting from being fun though. As you can probably tell, we are trying to make even the major glyphs more about character customization and fun.

Source

Well this post is a bit of a let down, and more than a little confusing. The current direction has a full tank toolkit, far beyond what would be needed as a gimmick tank. It also doesn't address the issue of it being a glyph that makes you completely worthless at dps in order to be a backup in case a tank goes down temporarily. That just seems like bad design to me. It immediately becomes something zero people will use because it makes you sacrifice being competitive at your role in order to... what? It's very odd.

• Meaning · 03/27/12, 1:25 AM

It makes sense in the frame of reference of leveling, either out in the world or in dungeons. As long as they make it plain that a warlock is never going to be a viable main tank for a raid - outside of the occasional gimmick encounter, that is.

Although, if we do end up being viable in dungeons, either leveling or at the level cap, it would be awful nice to be able to queue in the tank roll. But then again, it sends very mixed signals.

Bonestorm · 03/27/12, 4:34 AM

As some of you have pointed out, the glyph of Demon Hunting in your beta build doesn't deliver on what I described above as the design. The newer version of the glyph, hopefully available in the next beta build, allows a warlock to toggle in and out of the off-tank / survival mode, more like the druid going Bear or the warrior going Defensive.

The new shapeshift granted by the glyph is called Threatening Presence (PH) and adds Taunt and Fury Ward to the normal Metamorphosis toolkit. You still get the damage reduction from mastery instead of the damage boost from mastery while in this form. You can also choose to go into normal Metamorphosis even if you have the glyph. Let us know how it feels.

We appreciate all the feedback and passion on this topic. We expected this glyph would serve a pretty niche community and were surprised at how many players were excited about it. We are still in beta and are still very much experimenting with what kind of gamplay we can deliver in glyphs.

Source

If is this viable for off-tanking certain fights/phases and a toggle-able stance, than it presents the same balance problems that caused them to split feral into two trees. And they would have to nerf it pretty hard for it not to be, a meta lock has much higher armor on beta than prot specs + soul link + baseline shieldwall even before taking the glyph into account.

Either way, I can't see how this could ever go live as a glyph, when they've gone out of their way to idiot proof talents/glyphs otherwise. DPS locks using this glyph in LFR/etc would be exactly what they've been working to avoid, and to the highest degree.

I think this will end up either: removed, made partially baseline in demo (taunt + maybe the threat stance), or (unlikely at this point) made into it's own spec.

Nfariessence · 03/27/12, 8:50 AM

Originally Posted by Meaning

It makes sense in the frame of reference of leveling, either out in the world or in dungeons. As long as they make it plain that a warlock is never going to be a viable main tank for a raid - outside of the occasional gimmick encounter, that is.

Although, if we do end up being viable in dungeons, either leveling or at the level cap, it would be awful nice to be able to queue in the tank roll. But then again, it sends very mixed signals.

I'm going to go on the line and say this is the stupidest thing Blizzard has simply ever done with regards to warlocks, and one of the most oxymoronic posts I've seen by a Blue.

It makes no sense in leveling, because you can't queue as a tank.
It makes no sense mid-encounter, because to have the glyph installed means you do no DPS in your primary role.

They've turned it from something that was within a hairs breadth of reach of viability (number tweaking more than anything else) into a joke glyph for walking around Stormwind as a demon and maybe make soloing obsolete content a little easier. I simply can't believe they would release this, be silent for almost a week on the topic, and then come through with this.

Tyvi · 03/27/12, 9:24 PM

Originally Posted by Bonestorm

Either way, I can't see how this could ever go live as a glyph, when they've gone out of their way to idiot proof talents/glyphs otherwise.

I wonder what drawback this glyph is going to have, maybe have the new form cost a specific amount of Demonic Fury? Or maybe reduce all damage done after you leave the form for x seconds and/or while you are in it? (Just cutting the mastery benefits is probably not going to be enough; they'd just create another Feral Druid clone otherwise.) A cooldown is probably also going to be necessary, something like 3 or 5 mins?
In the end, something has to be done to prevent people from swapping into that form willy-nilly just for the damage reduction, then out again without using it for the tanking purposes.

Either way, unless the DPS cost of using this form is high, I don't think there will be a single Demo lock not speccing the glyph, if only for the additional personal CD.

Nfariessence · 03/27/12, 9:41 PM

If all they wanted in the first place was a way to give warlocks a chance to "be able to off-tank adds or pick up an actual boss for a short period of time if the tank goes down", then all they needed to do was give warlocks a taunt with a 5 minute cooldown that gave them 75% reduced damage taken for 30 seconds if the taunt is successful. Why go through the trouble of putting in a glyph, and a stance, and swapping around a bunch of spells/etc.

Stupid backpedal is stupid. But it's pretty pointless now.

Cybsled · 03/27/12, 10:21 PM

The part that was most "wtf?" was when he said they were surprised by how popular the idea was and thought only a niche amount of players would use it.

Honestly at this point, they would be complete fools to not actually invest in this and make it a "legit" tanking spec. If that means 4 different specializations like druids are needed, then fine.

AmPriS · 03/28/12, 6:13 PM

Originally Posted by Cybsled

The part that was most "wtf?" was when he said they were surprised by how popular the idea was and thought only a niche amount of players would use it.

I think by niche group, he meant warlock players.

krekot · 03/29/12, 1:35 AM

Beta changes

Skills:

Command Demon: Most powerful spells changed:
Imp: Cauterize Master
Voidwalker: Disarm
Succubus: Whiplash
Felhunter: Spell Lock
Felguard: Felstorm
Create Healthstone: Now restores 20% of your maximum health, instead of 45% of the creator's base health.
Curse of Enfeeblement: Now reduces physical damage by 20%, down from 30%.

Demonology:

Demonic Leap: Wording removed: "Using this ability activates Metamorphosis."
Metamorphosis: Now transformation grants increased damage dealt by 10%, instead of increased benefit of Demonic Fury.
Metamorphosis: Cursed Auras: Now reduces physical damage by 20%, down from 30%.
Nether Plating: While using a Demon Form (was Metamorphosis), your armor contribution from items increases by 400% (was 600%), the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks is reduced by 6% and the duration of stun and snare effects is reduced by 20% (was 50%).

Glyphs:

Glyph of Curse of Exhaustion: Curse of Exhaustion now reduces the targets movement speed by 50% (was 70%), lasts half as long and has a 10 second (was 20 second) cooldown.
Glyph of Demon Hunting: Grants the ability Threatening Presence. You imbue yourself with Demonic energies, reducing damage taken by 5% and allows the use of various demonic abilities. In addition, Soulshatter taunts your target, Twilight Ward will absorb all schools of damage and Demonic Slash is shorter range and generates fury.
Glyph of Shadowflame: Now applies a 50% movement speed slow to its victims, down from 70%.
Glyph of Soul Swap: Now has a 30 sec cooldown, up from 20 sec.

Cybsled · 03/29/12, 7:34 AM

Ouch, big nerf to the "tank lock". Granted, they were pretty OP in their original configuration, but now we have non-scaling damage reduction and would need to depend on armor value (which has also been reduced) and other damage mitigating abilities, like fury ward.

Randomklng · 03/29/12, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by Cybsled

Ouch, big nerf to the "tank lock". Granted, they were pretty OP in their original configuration, but now we have non-scaling damage reduction and would need to depend on armor value (which has also been reduced) and other damage mitigating abilities, like fury ward.

The tooltips ripped from the database are misleading, it does indeed scale with gear still. In the same gear that I talked about previously, I now get 39% mitigation against all damage while under Threatening Presence (TP), plus armor from Nether Plating. Meta also still scales with gear, and i still get a 78% damage bonus while under its effects. So it would appear they have halved our mitigation from mastery.

Other than that rather large nerf, which frankly was necessary, there are a few other changes:

They fixed the amount of damage done as a tank
TP and meta are both unique stances and have a mutual 10 second cooldown that activates upon leaving either form.
Auto attack in meta and TP restores demonic fury at a rate of 5 per hit.
Demonic slash in TP has a 4 second cooldown, but you can charge up to 3 at a time
Hand of Gul'Dan now gives demonic fury while in TP or meta, previously it didn't.
Harvest Life now costs demonic fury in addition to mana, so it can't be spammed anymore.
TP has a different skin, which is blue instead of purple.

They have still failed to deliver on their stated intentions. This is more of a large nerf that turns us into second class tanks then an oh shit button. In fact, if you are currently in meta you can't even use this as an oh shit button because it's got a 10 second cooldown.

Nfariessence · 03/29/12, 12:06 PM

Originally Posted by Randomklng

I now get 39% mitigation against all damage while under Threatening Presence (TP)

Does TP trigger Nether Plating? Is that 39% inclusive or exclusive of armor?

Randomklng · 03/29/12, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by Nfariessence

Does TP trigger Nether Plating? Is that 39% inclusive or exclusive of armor?

Exclusive. I have ~51k armor which is about 66% physical mitigation. I updated my other post to be more clear as well.

krekot · 03/29/12, 1:48 PM

Are you still reforge to mastery or try to dodge?

If I understand your posts you have 51k armor which give you 66% psysical mitigation + 39% mitigation against all attacks from mastery, so you have 105% mitigation?

Nfariessence · 03/29/12, 1:51 PM

Originally Posted by krekot

Are you still reforge to mastery or try to dodge?

If I understand your posts you have 51k armor which give you 66% psysical mitigation + 39% mitigation against all attacks from mastery, so you have 105% mitigation?

I'm sure it's multiplicative instead of additive. That means that you're taking about 21% damage from melee attacks, 61% damage from magic attacks (before Soul Link of course).