Poster: Lasider at 9/30/2005 3:48:32 AM PDT
Subject: Thank you devs for the changes to warlocks |
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I'd like to get a few facts out there before explaining why the patch is wonderful for warlocks.
I'm a level 60 undead warlock in an upcoming big guild (beaten onyxia, majordomo, working on Rag). I have no BWL gear, and I'm definitely not fully geared out from MC and other places.
My build is Shadow Mastery/Ruin (the build which was specifically being nerfed)
I have roughly +325 damage gear without my talisman, 500 with. This means I'm still about 150 to 200 damage short of my "ultimite gear".
1.)The nerf to our crits was needed. My highest Shadowbolt crit is 4336. This crit was on a Molten Destroyer, with no shadow vulnerability from a priest, no flask of supreme power or elixir of shadow power, no 30% pvp buff. This was simply the ability of the class, no outside buffs.
My highest Soulfire crit when I was destruction specced was for ~5800.
There is no way to say that these number don't need some sort of nerf, and I'm by no means the ultimate in damage for a warlock. Other classes can get attacks which hit this high (namely warrior's execute) but they require specific situations which often mean the attack's super damage was overkill anyway. Our huge damage can happen with our first spell, with every spell. It can one shot any cloth/leather/mail wearer and most plate wearers. This needed a nerf.
Not only that, but huge crits are a BAD thing in raids, as they will pull agro. Warlocks have little means of reducing our agro (unless demonology built or having a full set of nemesis) so I'm always looking for ways to get less crit chance, and higher plus damage for more even consistent damage.
2.) The nerf to our crits did not "ruin our dps." My chance to crit with my current gear is 16%, which means ruin was adding 8% to my overall dps longterm. Now it will be adding 5.24% to my overall dps longterm. Meaning it is a 2.6% dps nerf from my current ruin build. This still isn't enough of a nerf to put me down even one slot on the damage meters for our raids. These same numbers apply for any build, not just shadow mastery/ruin. It is a /slightly/ higher nerf to builds which rely heavily on imp searing pain with it's higher crit chance.
My highest burst dps in MC on a single target was just over 11,000. With the new nerf to ruin, I'd be looking at doing 10,200. Wow... what a nerf.
3.) Our dots are wonderful now. My full array of dots can now kill a level 60 mob in around 20 seconds. That is impressive. It also increases our raid dps now that we have 16 debuffs to work with, especially in fights with multiple targets. These dots are also now more effective in pvp. Of course a well organised guild group using decursive can often remove them quickly, many groups cannot, and as long as you don't spam dots while 3 paladins are around un-crowd-controlled, these are great in pvp as well.
4.) Death coil is /exactly/ the defense we needed. Not only does it do damage and heal, but it is an uncounterable 3 second crowd control which is instant cast. That's enough time to squeeze off a shadowbolt/shadowburn, or an immolate/searing pain/conflagrate combo. These can deal a lot of damage. It can also give you time to get out of range to start kiting with curse of exhaustion if you have that build.
The argument that a 3 second fear ruins its usefullness in instances is also wrong. You'll have to be mindful of it, and not fight within a few feet of the agro radius of other mobs, but if you pull the mobs back even a little bit, 3 seconds is not long enough to get adds.
5.) The change to soul link is not as bad as it might seem. While you will absorb slightly less damage with your voidwalker, honestly the ability to have roughly 12000 to 15000 hp effectively with 2 voidwalkers and their shields is a bit overpowered. This ability still gives you 50% damage reduction to melee attacks (with demon armor and cloth) and 30% against magic, which is comparable for physical damage to a dual wielding warrior, and better than a warrior for magical damage.
Here's the cool part about the new reduction however. When using soul link with a pet besides VW, the pet will still absorb it's full life total before you die, giving you just as much survivability. However, it will not die as fast, giving you more use from your pet. Take for instance, the succubus. For me, I have right at 4000 health, and my succubus has about 1700. These numbers would be higher if I were demonology, but as is, that's where they stand. With old Soul Link, by the time I reached 2300 health, she would be dead, and I'd lose her dps and extra crowd control ability. Now, by the time I reach 2000 hp, she'd still have just over 700 hp. She would still die a bit before me, but I'd get to use her longer, and if I won the fight, there's a better chance that I'll still have her alive, and not have to waste the mana/shard to summon her again.
I'd just like to say one more time, I love the changes and I'm really excited for the future of warlocks. This patch fixes a lot of the balance issues with our class, both negative and positive. Now all we need is to have the fear/lag bug fixed, and a few other minor bugs such as a BG spawning the wrong pet, and to have our soulshards become a slightly smaller annoyance, and we'll be the most enjoyable versatile class in the game.
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-test&t=79414&p=#post79414 | | | Poster: Kalgan at 9/30/2005 12:30:00 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Thank you devs for the changes to warlocks |
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Thanks for the feedback. We do have some more tweaks to make before these changes go live (and one change that won't be until patch 9). So, I'd like to hijack this thread and provide some updates...
1. We've listened to the feedback that Death Coil's mana cost is now a little high, so we'll be toning that down somewhat (565 mana for rank 3 as of the next test server build). In addition, the tooltip is being updated to clarify that the fear effect cannot be countered.
2. Soul Link's mana cost is being reduced to 20% of base mana pool rather than 30% (however it will still transfer 30% of incoming damage to the pet).
3. Initially, we had planned to reduce ruin to a 1.8 damage multiplier and in patch 9 also fix the bug that allows resistance lowering effects (ie: Curse of Shadow and Curse of Elements) to drop the target's resistance below zero (this was never actually intended). However, rather than "nerf" both abilities, we plan to make the following changes instead.
First, Ruin will retain its 100% bonus (this will be updated in the next test realm build). However, in patch 9 we expect to make several resitance related changes. Resistance-lowering effects will no longer be capable of reducing the target's resistances below zero. However, in order to ensure that Curse of Shadow, Curse of Elements, and any other resistance lowering spells continue to be useful against a wide variety of targets, they will now also increase Shadow and Elemental damage (respectively) done to the target.
Although this damage bonus will not provide as much damage to low-resistance targets as the current resistance-lowering effect does (this is the "nerf" part to reduce shadowbolt spam damage), it still remains a useful spell in many circumstances (since it still increases damage dealt to the target from primary sources) while also eliminating the potential for massive damage spikes caused by crits on vulnerable targets doing double the normal critical damage (which tend to be bad for both raid agro management and for pvp balance). In addition, other elemental attacks that previously garnered little benefit from negative resistances will now see a greater benefit from Curse of Elements (ie: Frostbolts).
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