Warlock Bugs

• Nicarras · 12/12/08, 2:10 PM

I started a thread on the oForums about some of our common bugs. To increase the visibility of our issues, as well as obtain more info from the people at EJ that avoid the oForums like the plague, I wanted to post this here too and then keep that post updated as people here find more pressing and confirmed bugs. We all know that they read this forum too, so as always, the more places we can report info to them the more likely we are to see fixes worth their way in.

oForums Thread
World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> [Warlock] Current Bugs

OP from that thread for those that cannot read there.

GC et all, here is a short list of some of the major bugs that Warlocks are seeing/dealing with. A comment about these or what else you would like from us (WWS, screenshots, etc) for these problems would be nice as these are hurting our performance in raids.

These are primarily the Aff bugs since that is what I have the most experience with, although some of these are cross-spec issues.

1. Shadow Embrace:

well documented and I think you are aware so hopefully that fix is coming along. Unless this is the magic 'stop bringing aff locks and eating up all the dubuff slots' check you have implemented

The bug mirrors the Unholy Death Knight's problem with Ebon Plague. Only one Affliction Warlock is able to gain the Shadow Embrace debuff per target.

2. Immolate:

When Immolate is clipped (meaning a new Immolate will land on the target before the old Immolate has expired on the target), the new Immolate sometimes does not land and it forces a recast. This is reported as happening even to people that are hit capped (myself included) for Immolate. We are then forced to waste mana on a recast once we finally notice that it did not land. Most of us are precasting to refresh it so that Immo should land right as the old one is expiring so that the timing is very precise. Immolate 'missing' the target like this is becoming quite a large problem and nuisance.

My personal Immolate uptimes vary from Unstable Affliction, anywhere from 2-13% and this is absurd because I'm casting them back to back 100% of the time, so their uptimes should be next to identical. Any large variance is due to Immo not landing (UA is always higher).

Tested and Found not a bug.

3. Corruption: At times, even while Haunt is on the target, people are noticing Corr falling off the target for what seems to be no reason at all. This ends up having the same implications as the Immolate bug from above.

[edit 12/12/08]

4. Drain Soul:

While attacking multiple mobs, if while casting DS on one target, one of the other mobs happens to die first, DS is then canceled on your current target.

[/edit]

[edit 12/17/08]
After more testing we are showing that there is no bug with how Corruption falls off. Seems the way to correct it is to ensure that haunt is refreshed before the last tick of Corruption happens. How we do this...seems that we will still have issues with it falling off. Old bug 3, while listed is invalid now.

5. People are reporting issues with how pets engage targets, in that they do so early and usually resulting in their death. While we can say that we need to manage our pets better, and this may be partly true, we are left wondering what changed that we have to micro manage our pets more now. More testing is required for this issue.

6. Pet Pathing:

A handful of patches ago pet pathing was improved in that, for example, if you were to jump down a ledge, the pet would teleport right next to you. Now we are back to it trying to find a proper 'run' path to you, usually resulting in the pet despawning. ie. Thaddius ledge.

7. Corruption and Everlasting Affliction:

When a Corruption is refreshed via Everlasting Affliction it reverts the base coefficient from 120% back to the original 93.6%. This results in a quite dramatic DPS decrease.

[/edit]

Those are the main bugs that bother me the most night in and night out of raiding. Also in regards to making the Aff rotation less of a science. Remove the Siphon Life spell and add the healing to another spell, ie. Corruption also heals for X% when talented.

We have a discussion on EJ going on about this thread as well. Plenty of more examples and evidence to these bugs.

Warlock Bugs

People are also reporting that Haunt is behaving like the bug with Immo, can we have some people test that? I rarely, if ever, clip Haunt so I really havent seen it. I'm also away from WoW (zomg) all weekend so I'll only have forum access :o

PSGarak · 12/12/08, 2:49 PM

You will want to edit your post to describe the spell more explicitly. Experience has shown, to the frustration of both the players and the devs, that we can't always assume they know what we're talking about. I can think of at least one instance of a conversation along the lines of "Why didn't you fix the bug?" "Which bug?" "Don't play dumb with me, you know what bug." "No, we really don't." (the conversation I'm thinking of was about hunter disengage) Lhivera's discussion with GC on shatter combos also shows they don't know what our common terms mean, or have a different understanding of them.

Therefore:
1. Describe the bug. To whit, say explicitly that only one affliction can get the benefit of shadow embrace per target.
2. Make sure they know what clipping means. Spell out exactly the bug is causes by refreshing immolate before the duration expires.

Thanks for posting this. I appreciate what you're doing and I'm glad you're taking initiative. I'm just trying to make sure that it works, and that means keeping the jargon and wink-nudge to an asbolute minimum.

• Nicarras · 12/12/08, 3:01 PM

I updated the wording and explained clipping in the OP. Thanks for the tips and hopefully this catches their eye. These things are quite frustrating.

Melbuframa · 12/12/08, 3:03 PM

I can confirm 1 and 2 as you described them; I have also seen #3 happen. its strange and completely random, Corr does in fact sometimes not refresh even though haunt is on the target. Someone else on here was talking about it and did some calcs and thinks it happens when haunt lands near the end of Cor.

Haunt clipping is fine. Never had an issue with it.

oresteez · 12/12/08, 3:10 PM

I was experiencing the immolate bug last night...even with exact timing, the 2nd immolate was randomly not sticking..

(and i'm 0/41/30....so this is quite a problem for an incinerate spammer, because I don't realize immolation isn't on the target until after I've already started my next incinerate....)

DiamondTear · 12/12/08, 3:24 PM

I practically always clip haunt and my corruption never falls off as long as I'm hit capped. It is indeed like Melbuframa said, it takes a few seconds for haunt to refresh the corruption debuff, so if you cast it too late, it will fall off. I assume this is working as intended to avoid problems with ticks.

Ravelvan · 12/12/08, 3:42 PM

4. Drain Soul: While attacking multiple mobs, if while casting DS on one target, one of the other mobs happens to die first, DS is then canceled on your current target.

In my experience it is possible for the Drain Soul bug to happen when anything other than your Drain Soul target dies, including other raid members. I had it happen on Patchwerk (only 1 mob) right as our MT died.

In case it helps any, it can be seen happening in this video at ~4:23:
Patchwerk - FileFront.com

Or a screenshot for convenience.

Edit:

2. Immolate: When Immolate is clipped, the new Immolate sometimes does not land and it forces a recast. This is reported as happening even to people that are hitcapped (myself included) for Immolate. We are then forced to waste mana on a recast once we finally notice that it did not land. Most of us are precasting to refresh it so that Immo should land right as the old one is expiring so that the timing is very precise. Immolate 'missing' the target like this is becoming quite a large problem and nuisance.

The Immolate bug is actually evident in the same video at ~2:19. If you download the 200MB version (yes, I seem to suck at knowing how to compress videos well) and play frame by frame and watch my combat log, you can even see that I DID NOT clip the last tick of Immolate. It is very very close, but the last tick of Immolate actually goes off, followed very closely by the direct damage portion of the next Immolate -- at least according to the combat log and MSBT. The Immolate DoT, however, is not reapplied. Is it possible that the debuff actually stays on for longer than the last tick of damage, and refreshing during this short period of time is what causes the bug?

Screenshot of Immolate Bug- In case 200MB is too much of a nuisance.

Edit2:

3. Corruption: At times, even while Haunt is on the target, people are noticing Corr falling off the target for what seems to be no reason at all. This ends up having the same implications as the Immolate bug from above.

As if there couldn't be a more perfect video of warlock "bugs", this is also shown in the video at ~4:20. You can see exactly what KingSpeedy has said below: the last tick of Corruption occurs with 2.8s left on my DoTimer, and as such seems to fall off early, even though in reality it has done all of its potential damage. I agree though, it is sort of annoying, and it would be nice if the debuff would just stay on the target and do nothing other than provide the possibility of being refreshed.

• KingSpeedy · 12/12/08, 3:45 PM

A lot of the Haunt/Corruption issues stem from how Haunt refreshes. For example, a regular Corruption will tick at (time remaining): 15, 12, 9, 6, 3, 0. Haunt refreshes the duration, but doesn't reset the time between ticks (Corruption will always tick every 3 seconds, even if it was refreshed). Therefore, its possible to have Corruption ticking at: 17, 14, 11, 8, 5, 2. After the final tick occurs, even though there are technically 2 seconds left on the duration, the DoT will fall off because it has no further effect. This gives the appearance that the DoT wasn't refreshed properly or that it was pushed off, when in reality it has simply run it's course and faded. Not waiting until the last second to cast Haunt seems to be the best remedy to this problem.

pghiocel · 12/12/08, 4:25 PM

Ravelvan & KingSpeedy: Both are great explanations. Should probably post in that threat!

Turboteckel · 12/12/08, 7:10 PM

Has anyone ever come accross drain soul doing damage that seems to be incorrect with what it's supposed to do?

I was checking out the difference in damage on a level 83 dummy yesterday and I got some strange numbers.

I'm not sure whether this is because it is at 1hp or that SCT handles overkill incorrect or anything yet though.

Just wondering if anyone ever seen any anomalies in it.

Also my WWS reports always show mitigation around 4%, does CoE not completely eliminate most bosses resistances?

Zitar · 12/12/08, 7:29 PM

The drain soul bug has been around for along time. During early BC while farming I would round up 5+ mobs dot them up then drain soul a random one. You would be returned the mana from imp drain soul even though you didn't have the one that died targeted. They fixed that bug, but never bothered to fixed the actual bug.

Darkstarrz · 12/12/08, 8:12 PM

I have also made forum posts on the damage dealing forums and the suggestion forums about 1, 2, and 3 which I have experienced first hand since I started raiding affliction. I am hit capped too myself, and have found it very disapointing especially because we run with two affliction locks. It has become a race for us to see who can get shadow embrace up first whether it means casting haunt over shadowbolt first just to scam the buff from the other affliction lock.

DiamondTear · 12/13/08, 3:10 AM

Originally Posted by Turboteckel

Also my WWS reports always show mitigation around 4%, does CoE not completely eliminate most bosses resistances?

Bosses don't actually have resistance in most cases, they are just +3 level so they resist partially like they would with resistance.

Originally Posted by Darkstarrz

It has become a race for us to see who can get shadow embrace up first whether it means casting haunt over shadowbolt first just to scam the buff from the other affliction lock.

You shouldn't start with shadowbolt anyway, so that's a positive change

• Nicarras · 12/13/08, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by DiamondTear

You shouldn't start with shadowbolt anyway, so that's a positive change

Actually you should.

Starting...SB->Haunt, stacks SE fully before you start your first wave of DoT casts

dcpwns · 12/13/08, 2:49 PM

I saw on Thaddius in our WWS that my UA ticked harder then my corruption. So I am guessing something is off there with how it refreshes with the +% dmg modifer given on the fight.