I hope so. I've been advocating them adding Slam (or Rend) to the Felguard for a while now. It's about the only ability/-ies it could get that isn't broken, off the top of my head (maybe replace its Cleave with Shadow Cleave, though?). I don't think I need to explain why Pummel and Hamstring are a bit too good for it, do I?
Go ahead, on the hamstring part anyway. Giving the felguard a snare would lessen a demo warlocks reliance on CoE, meaning they could pick up metamorphosis and still have a snare. It would be a little unbalanced if it had both no cooldown and a long duration like hamstring, but look at the snare they gave hyenas as a hunter pet:
Tendon Rip Rank 6
25 Focus 5 yd range
Instant 20 sec cooldown
Tears at an enemy's legs for 49 to 69 and reducing movement speed by 50% for 6 sec.
I can't see how something like that would be too good for the felguard.
Go ahead, on the hamstring part anyway. Giving the felguard a snare would lessen a demo warlocks reliance on CoE, meaning they could pick up metamorphosis and still have a snare. It would be a little unbalanced if it had both no cooldown and a long duration like hamstring, but look at the snare they gave hyenas as a hunter pet:
I can't see how something like that would be too good for the felguard.
I'm still a little shaky about the idea, even though they're giving Hunters a form via Hyenas (though why they'd use a Hyena over Concussive Shot, let alone a Ravager's STUN, I don't know). I mean, snare is nice and all, but we CAN put out quite a bit of damage, especially when you factor dots in.
On a completely different note, I've come up with some shenaniganry regarding the Soul Shard revamp that Xentik and I posted a bit back. If you care to read/feedback, go here: Warlock Soul Energy System. In particular, I've finally pinned down something that seems more appropriate for the Succubus than Soothing Kiss (how many of you actually USE that, even with the attack slow aspect?).
Soothing Kiss: byebye
Vampiric Bite: Deals Shadow damage to the target, healing the Succubus for 50% of the damage dealt. Usable only if the target is at 20% or less health. 5 second cooldown.
Bumps her DPS on wounded targets, giving her a meaningful ability and "makeup time". Most early combat is spent doing CC, and she'd usually be out for Humanoid areas; against bosses she'd just help ramp up DPS some.
I'm still a little shaky about the idea, even though they're giving Hunters a form via Hyenas (though why they'd use a Hyena over Concussive Shot, let alone a Ravager's STUN, I don't know). I mean, snare is nice and all, but we CAN put out quite a bit of damage, especially when you factor dots in.
On a completely different note, I've come up with some shenaniganry regarding the Soul Shard revamp that Xentik and I posted a bit back. If you care to read/feedback, go here: Warlock Soul Energy System. In particular, I've finally pinned down something that seems more appropriate for the Succubus than Soothing Kiss (how many of you actually USE that, even with the attack slow aspect?).
Soothing Kiss: byebye
Vampiric Bite: Deals Shadow damage to the target, healing the Succubus for 50% of the damage dealt. Usable only if the target is at 20% or less health. 5 second cooldown.
Bumps her DPS on wounded targets, giving her a meaningful ability and "makeup time". Most early combat is spent doing CC, and she'd usually be out for Humanoid areas; against bosses she'd just help ramp up DPS some.
Looks good, just a couple comments regarding Blizzard adopting and implementing this:
Getting another bar for the soul energy would require some extra changes including UI changes that might make it less desirable to implement.
They've stated several times that they don't want to remove Soul Shards from spells (including pets), which means we likely need to keep the SS cost on utility spells.
For the first, if we go with a stacking buff for the mechanism and just set the max number to the max soul energy we're good to go.
For the second, we can just tweak the Soul Shards you have to be slightly cheaper, give slightly less energy, and stack to say 10. Then we can leave the SS cost on pets and utility spells, making it more likely Blizzard will consider the idea.
Looks good, just a couple comments regarding Blizzard adopting and implementing this:
Getting another bar for the soul energy would require some extra changes including UI changes that might make it less desirable to implement.
They've stated several times that they don't want to remove Soul Shards from spells (including pets), which means we likely need to keep the SS cost on utility spells.
For the first, if we go with a stacking buff for the mechanism and just set the max number to the max soul energy we're good to go.
For the second, we can just tweak the Soul Shards you have to be slightly cheaper, give slightly less energy, and stack to say 10. Then we can leave the SS cost on pets and utility spells, making it more likely Blizzard will consider the idea.
On the UI: Not really. They've already headed this direction with Death Knights (one for Runic Power, another "bar" for Runes). I imagine that a similar approach would solve this problem. It's not like any other class needs to know or care how much "Soul" we have right then and there, would they? I know I've certainly never had the "out of shards, I suck" issue come up during combat. Just during mass summoning.
As far as the numbers go: those were just rough figures about how useful/powerful something should be (ex - the UA part of "Soulshape"; seems KIND OF GOOD to need only a small investment).
The problem, though, is would such a system even play very well? I've been trying to do simulations (most of them admittedly in my head), but without my own computer that's been a pain. At the utter least, though, both of our approaches have the net effect of 1) freeing up an entire bag slot (hallelujah); 2) allowing more diverse spell effects and talents to be made (see what I wrote about our pets, Banish and Curse of Doom in the document).
On a completely different note, I've come up with some shenaniganry regarding the Soul Shard revamp that Xentik and I posted a bit back. If you care to read/feedback, go here: Warlock Soul Energy System. In particular, I've finally pinned down something that seems more appropriate for the Succubus than Soothing Kiss (how many of you actually USE that, even with the attack slow aspect?).
I still don't see anything that would allow a Warlock to soulshatter after the first wipe on a boss.
I still don't see anything that would allow a Warlock to soulshatter after the first wipe on a boss.
That's part of what having the "new" Soul Shards is for (and why the number is set to 25): when you need a boost or really need to do something like Soulshatter. They're meant for emergencies; Drain Soul (and some of the theoretical talents/abilities) are meant to tide you over and you store that energy into Shards for when you really need it most. My intention was something along the lines of trash gives you the ability to "refuel" (nothing new here, right?), then you do a little Queen Bee storage with the shards, and before the boss pulls make sure you're topped up. There's a few spells that use it that would be ideal to spam the supply you have (Soul Fire 2.0 and Shadowburn, to name a couple), but they're more the exception than the rule.
Also, do you really need a 50% threat wipe on a boss, assuming the boss doesn't threat wipe already? Even 20-30% of your accumulated threat should be sufficient to get you away from the top slot with a substantial buffer, shouldn't it?
On the UI: Not really. They've already headed this direction with Death Knights (one for Runic Power, another "bar" for Runes). I imagine that a similar approach would solve this problem. It's not like any other class needs to know or care how much "Soul" we have right then and there, would they? I know I've certainly never had the "out of shards, I suck" issue come up during combat. Just during mass summoning.
As far as the numbers go: those were just rough figures about how useful/powerful something should be (ex - the UA part of "Soulshape"; seems KIND OF GOOD to need only a small investment).
The problem, though, is would such a system even play very well? I've been trying to do simulations (most of them admittedly in my head), but without my own computer that's been a pain. At the utter least, though, both of our approaches have the net effect of 1) freeing up an entire bag slot (hallelujah); 2) allowing more diverse spell effects and talents to be made (see what I wrote about our pets, Banish and Curse of Doom in the document).
Well, they still need to design a bar that lets you see the soul energy and mana simultaneously for starters. As far as implementation data-wise goes it may be that all characters have the capacity to have mana/rage/energy/runic power simultaneously. If this is the case then it's much simpler on the back end to implement it. Either way it's not a big deal, I just want whatever will make it most likely they'll do something about shards.
Play-testing in Beta is the perfect place to find out if it's an entertaining mechanism, so don't really need to worry too much about it. Furthermore, it'd have to blatantly suck to be any less fun than our current soul shard system.
Also, do you really need a 50% threat wipe on a boss, assuming the boss doesn't threat wipe already? Even 20-30% of your accumulated threat should be sufficient to get you away from the top slot with a substantial buffer, shouldn't it?
Actually, my experience is that if the MT is geared for avoidance rather than threat then Soulshatter's current 50% threat wipe is often only enough to buy a destro lock a couple of minutes before they're threat capped again. With soulshatter on a 5 min cooldown, less threat reduction would be utterly useless.
Also, do you really need a 50% threat wipe on a boss, assuming the boss doesn't threat wipe already? Even 20-30% of your accumulated threat should be sufficient to get you away from the top slot with a substantial buffer, shouldn't it?
Yeah as Destro 50% is needed. Or atleast now it is. Not sure if it will stay the same with Destro changing to fire. Possibly they will make some sort of aggro drop for destro that is passive.
Looking over it, I think the proposal for a revised Soul Shard system is a little too complicated. I'd say try for something that can be explained in one paragraph if we want any shot of seeing it implemented. Maybe:
Drain Soul changed to 5 second channel, generates 1 Soul Energy per tick, and does 80-90% of SB's DPS. A warlock can hold up to 10 Soul Energy and Soul Energy is not lost through death. All spells that used Soul Shards use 1 Soul Energy instead. A new spell allows a warlock to create a Soul Shard using 10 Soul Energy. Soul Shards can be used like a potion (2 minute cooldown, possibly same timer as mana/health pots) to restore 5 Soul Energy. Soul Shards still don't stack but also still have no limit on number carried.
That gets things moving, has minimal mechanical impact except to move the system to something that is a lot more flexible. I think from a place like that, talents and spell will naturally be developed that make better use of Soul Energy. Things like maybe Shadowburn costs 1 Soul Energy but returns 2 if it kills. But I think getting the base system changed is really the big hurdle, we all can think of a ton of great improvements once Soul Shards stop being something we all groan about. After all, Soul Shards were supposed to be a warlock's "third resource" and they really don't fulfill that role at all.
I must say, I like the idea of a soul-energy system much more than the current "Fill my bags plex!" system.
While it's true that there isn't specifically a mechanic he's implemented to regain soul-energy w/o a mob nearby, it's entirely possible to plan one out.
Say, for example:
Soul Siphon:
10% base mana
5 minute cooldown
20 yard range
21 second duration, Channeled.
Cannot be cast in combat
The Warlock begins to channel soul energy from 7 friendly creatures around him. While channeling this spell, all friendly creatures lose 1% of thier health and mana every 3 seconds. Creates 1 Soul Shard every 7 seconds, and slowly refills the warlocks soul bar while channeling.
Sure, it's not raid friendly, as everyone starts losing health and mana before boss-pulls. But it will allow the warlock to gain 3 shards, and gives him a bunch of soul energy to use. Requires 7 people, so that it's not a 5-man spell.
Or:
Ethereal Presence
Passive, ghost effect.
While in spirit form, you gains 5 soul energy every 5 seconds. There is a 5% chance to create a soul shard instead of granting you soul energy.
edit: I think it would also be pretty neat if there was a visual representation for soul energy, something that slowly orbited/swirled around you to indicate you have at least 1 soul energy remaining.
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<zyl> ....
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Has anyone noticed the changes to the talent calculator? Apologies if it's already been posted, but I didn't see it mentioned amongst the Soul theorycrafting. Per mmo-champ:
Affliction
* Curse of Exhaustion range increased from 30 yards to 36 yards.
* Haunt casting time reduced from 2 seconds to 1.5 seconds.
Demonology
* Demonic Empathy reworked: When you or your per is critically hit, the other has a 33/66/100 % chance to have their casting or attack speed increased by 30% for 8 sec. (Previously gave 2/4/6 % increased damage for the next 3 spells or abilities when you or your pet critically hit with a spell or ability
* Metamorphosis cooldown increased from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. You transform into a Demon, with full health and mana. While in Demon Form, you gain Demonic abilities and your armor is increased to 360%, but your pet is no longer summoned. When leaving Demon Form, your health and mana is returned to normal and your pet is re-summoned. Lasts 45 seconds. (Previously transforms you into a Demon, increasing your armor by 360% and reducing the duration os stun and snare effects on you by 50%. While in Demon Form, you cannot cast spells, but you gain unique demon abilities.)
Destruction
* Bane no longer reduces casting time of Haunt.
* Eternal Flames reworked: Now called Fire and Brimstone. Increases the damage of your Immolate spell by an amount equal to 5% of your spell power, and the critical strike chance of your Conflagrate spell is increased by 5% is the immolate on the target has 5 or fewer seconds remaining. (Previously increased the damage done by your immolate on your target by 1%, and your Searing Pain and Incinerate spells increase the damage of your Immolate on the target by and additional 1/2/3/4/5 %, up to a total of 20%.
* Chaos Bolt cooldown reduces from 12 seconds to 8 seconds. Sends a bolt of Chaotic Fire at the enemy, dealing 1012 to 1278 Fire damage. Chaos Bolt cannot be resisted, and pierces through defensive immunities. (Previously sends a bolt of chaotic fire at the enemy, dealing 990 to 1256 Fire damage. Chaos Bolt cannot be resisted, and pierces through all absorption effects.)
Haunt gets a lower coefficient again (while no longer tied to Bane, we're still being forced to take Bane anyway), Metamorphosis is back to a high cooldown, and Eternal Flames is gone. I don't think I like the sound of Fire and Brimstone; the bonus doesn't seem to be that huge and it seems like it would be mandatory to waste a Backdraft charge on a new Immolate.
edit: Per the talent calculator, FaB seems to be 5% per point, for a total of 25%.
I don't get why they needed to make Haunt get a higher coefficient through Bane.
Why not just...you know...give it a higher coefficient than a normal 1.5s cast spell? Or is that just lunacy?
It's always easier to have a spell acting according to base mechanics whenever possible. Why else have base mechanics, instead of custom-setting each spell's coefficient individually? In this case, Blizz probably wanted to reduce reliance on non-Affliction talents... though they did it wrong.
To teach and to learn, to laugh and make others laugh. This is my purpose, and any day in which I don't wasn't worth the time it took to get through.
Is there, like, any chance at all we can get Shadow Bolt moved to Affliction? They clearly want Destruction to be Fire-heavy, and for Affliction to still rely on Shadowbolt spam. If it counted as an Affliction spell and maybe had some talents juggled (add SB to Fel Conc for instance) then maybe Affliction could finally not be tied to the hip of Destro.
Is there any rhyme or reason to how the different DoT spell coefficients work? Every DoT effect seems to have its own system. Not to mention that they've messed with Fireball and Frostbolt coefficients in the past.
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
Is there any rhyme or reason to how the different DoT spell coefficients work? Every DoT effect seems to have its own system. Not to mention that they've messed with Fireball and Frostbolt coefficients in the past.
In theory, it's based around a 15 second duration.
In practice there seem to be so many special cases that it ends up being "do whatever the hell they want" anyway. Having higher-than-normal coefficients on Haunt and Chaos Bolt (and, for fairness sake, Arcane Barrage for Mages) seems perfectly justified, since they're 51-point talent abilities with cooldowns.
I don't know what's so bad about Conflag only requiring Immolate on the target and Eternal Flames renewing the Immolate DoT. Its a 10 second cooldown. Absolute worst-case scenario is you do Immo-Conflag and 10 seconds later do another Conflag without having to stop and cast Immolate. PvPers would just gain a bit more mobility as Destruction. What on earth is so wrong with that? The damn thing still has no dispel protection and the spec already has enough stop-and-cast spells in the bolt spells. You're not going to kill somebody with instant casts alone.
Better yet, reduce the Immolate DoT timer to 10 seconds (or increase Conflag cooldown to 15 seconds), that way PvPers have a choice: Keep Conflag saved for the end, so that you can keep rolling it without having to stop and cast Immolate again, or burn it early for burst, but means you have to stop and cast Immolate again if you want to use another Conflag later on.
Of course I can imagine a lot of latency problems with the cooldown and DoT timer being so close together.
Last edited by Bibdy : 08/04/08 at 1:47 PM.
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
I think you misread the talent, it's 5 seconds or fewer meaning, not within the first 5 seconds.
When I first read it I thought the crit chance was on Immolate not Conflag, and my reaction was "Wow, there's a Master Conjurer level talent right there." It's still kind of a crappy talent, and I think you're right, they really don't know what to do with the tail end of Destro right now.
My favorite idea with Eternal Flames is just a simple 20/40/60/80/100% chance for Conflag to not eat the Immolate debuff, wh8ich would let us use those 10 or so points we spent on Imp Immol thru Backdraft without making spell rotations too weird.
I don't know where your getting this '40-52%' thing from.
AFAIK the talent increases Conflages crit based off how long is left on the dot. Since it's a 15 second duration, waiting till there are 4 seconds left, then conflagging will give you the crit chance increase. re-casting your immolate, waiting for that 4 seconds remaining means the cooldown *will* be up for conflag.
If your waiting 10 seconds on the dot, that's far more than 52% of your SP. I don't recall the tick interval, i assume it's 3 seconds, so that would be 76-88% of your SP, assuming you wait the maximum amount of time
edit: Beaten.
I agree with you though, they just don't know what to do. They seem very fixated on Immolate though, and nothing else. Just because it increases incinerate damage, doesn't mean it has to be the only spell they can improve.
Why not improve shadow further in the tree, along with fire? Or, if they want to make fire the premier Destro spec, why don't they just make it even more clear, and give us more fire spells to play with/effects after casting fire spells?
I'd like to see some slimming down of the bottom end of destro talents. If you want to get DS, you can't spend much there, so you start cutting the less-dps talents. Shouldn't there be a more pvp-path for destro, and a more PvE path? seems like it's all mixed together.
Last edited by Helot : 08/04/08 at 1:51 PM.
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<chaith> Looks like i logged in at the right time
<zyl> ....
<zyl> I pressed enter half a second after you logged on.
Oh right...duh. Okay, that's definitely better than what I was thinking. Certainly not PvP-worthy, but decent.
What if it made Conflag have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of refreshing Immolate if Immolate was at 5 seconds or less? That wouldn't always be beneficial in PvP, since Conflag is more frequently used as part of a burst chain (and you're going to want Backdraft going CONSTANTLY), but for PvE, it would be fantastic.
Then again...Conflag's 10 second cooldown implies it would always be up right on the mark when Immolate would have 5 seconds left, meaning you could get infinite conflags on a single Immolate - which I think is what they want to avoid, but I really don't see why they are trying to stay away from it so fiercely. So, if you're PvPing and you wait to use your first Conflag at that point, then you're rewarded with many more Conflags without having to refresh Immolate, but only if you have that kind of patience. It introduces some strategy, though. Should I wait and get the infinite-Conflags-and-don't-spend-as-much-freaking-mana-on-immolates benefit, or blow my load early for some burst and kill the guy before he kills me? Also remembering it can be easily dispelled and Destruction is more often than not a 'kill him before he kills me' spec.
Last edited by Bibdy : 08/04/08 at 1:55 PM.
There's always free cheese in the mouse traps, but the mice there ain't happy.
What if it made Conflag have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of refreshing Immolate if Immolate was at 5 seconds or less? That wouldn't always be beneficial in PvP, since Conflag is more frequently used as part of a burst chain (and you're going to want Backdraft going CONSTANTLY), but for PvE, it would be fantastic.
I would be ecstatic with this, it would certainly make me stop worrying about Destruction so I can get back to whining about the stuff wrong with Affliction.
Oh right...duh. Okay, that's definitely better than what I was thinking. Certainly not PvP-worthy, but decent.
What if it made Conflag have a 20/40/60/80/100% chance of refreshing Immolate if Immolate was at 5 seconds or less? That wouldn't always be beneficial in PvP, since Conflag is more frequently used as part of a burst chain (and you're going to want Backdraft going CONSTANTLY), but for PvE, it would be fantastic.
Actually it's very PvP worthy.
Giving Conflag a 20-25% higher crit chance is like ignoring resiliance. Given that a high resil player reduces the chance to crit by 10%+, increasing a nuke's crit chance (assuming it's not dispelled) is just more burst damage. And PvP is all about burst.
Destro will be more viable in PvP with the new trees. Nether Protection, F&B, backdraft, all are great for pvp. The one thing we don't have is dispell resistance, on anything, which would be nice to see.
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<chaith> Looks like i logged in at the right time
<zyl> ....
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08/03/08, 2:05 AM
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