Sunday, November 14, 2010
Expanding Horizons
In an effort to keep posting on here (as opposed to closing the blog down due my general lack of interest in WoW) I've decided to expand my subject matter somewhat. So that being said you'll probably start seeing posts on here about PC games as a whole and maybe even some music every now and again too. I figure those are the things I'm most passionate about and as such I'll have a decent amount to say about both. I'll make sure to toss a tag in the title if it's not clear what the post is about so if you happened to be repulsed by my taste in music, or only want to read about WoW it will be easy to skip for you. Never fear, however, as I will always hold true to the "no Livejournal bullshit." doctine. You'll get my opinions, reviews, criticisms and rants, but never will you hear about me or my life. I'm boring, but the things I like are awesome so I'll just stick to that ;)
Sunday, October 10, 2010
A Change Of Pace?
So, I think I'll be playing a Disc Priest in Cataclysm. Whoa! I know, big change for Mr Warlock Blog guy. "Why?" you ask? Several reasons, really.
1) Cataclysm is more of the same. Sure, incredibly polished more of the same, but more of the same nevertheless. Blizzard hit their formula and are pretty well sticking with it. More power to 'em, but I've been playing Warlock since 2005. It's 2010. 5 years is a lot of time to play one game and an even longer time to main the same character. A change of pace is very much needed less I lose interest in the whole game.
2) The Soul Shard system. What a letdown. Maybe it will be further developed, but if the entirety of beta is any hint as to the future attention devoted to this class mechanic then I'm quite disappointed. Right now it feels like a minor perk, not a fully fledged feature. There aren't nearly enough Soul burn effects, and even if there were I'm not sold on the methods of replenishing shards.
3) It's good to be the healer. Not so much the getting focused down in PvP (that happens often enough on the Warlock too) but the ability to fill a needed role is great. I can't count how often I've wanted to run BGs with Draele and some others DPSers, but we could never find a healer to come along. Add on top of that the ability to *sometimes* get other players to listen and cooperate and it's looking pretty positive overall.
4) Affliction is becoming more and more like any other caster. Soul Swap & self healing to are the areas of note. Soul Swap essentially removes the huge play-style distinction between Affliction and most other casters. Ramp-up time. Long ramp-up time is a weakness, a weakness offset by other strengths, such as high self healing. Self healing has been neutered both in numbers and stated as an intentional design goal by Ghostcrawler.
Essentially the play-style is moving more towards the generic "attack target. do damage fast. kill target" The reason I was drawn to the Warlock class in the first place was that low damage/high longevity style available to the old SM/DS Voidwalker sacrifice spec. That's ancient history now and any vestiges of the SM/DS and SL/SL styles that were still around with WotLK are diminished even further with Cata. The Warlock class has simply moved in a direction that no longer interests me. Nothing really unique is being added to the class and the aspects of it I previously enjoyed have been eroding away since BC. It's not being butthurt over a nerf, they come and go, but when the core design philosophy behind your class/spec alters course with what you love then it's time to move on.
Add on top of that Discipline gaining Evangelism, Archangel, and Atonement (on top of PI, Penance, and Borrowed Time) it's really looking to be way more up my alley. A nice mix of healing and damage =D
1) Cataclysm is more of the same. Sure, incredibly polished more of the same, but more of the same nevertheless. Blizzard hit their formula and are pretty well sticking with it. More power to 'em, but I've been playing Warlock since 2005. It's 2010. 5 years is a lot of time to play one game and an even longer time to main the same character. A change of pace is very much needed less I lose interest in the whole game.
2) The Soul Shard system. What a letdown. Maybe it will be further developed, but if the entirety of beta is any hint as to the future attention devoted to this class mechanic then I'm quite disappointed. Right now it feels like a minor perk, not a fully fledged feature. There aren't nearly enough Soul burn effects, and even if there were I'm not sold on the methods of replenishing shards.
3) It's good to be the healer. Not so much the getting focused down in PvP (that happens often enough on the Warlock too) but the ability to fill a needed role is great. I can't count how often I've wanted to run BGs with Draele and some others DPSers, but we could never find a healer to come along. Add on top of that the ability to *sometimes* get other players to listen and cooperate and it's looking pretty positive overall.
4) Affliction is becoming more and more like any other caster. Soul Swap & self healing to are the areas of note. Soul Swap essentially removes the huge play-style distinction between Affliction and most other casters. Ramp-up time. Long ramp-up time is a weakness, a weakness offset by other strengths, such as high self healing. Self healing has been neutered both in numbers and stated as an intentional design goal by Ghostcrawler.
Essentially the play-style is moving more towards the generic "attack target. do damage fast. kill target" The reason I was drawn to the Warlock class in the first place was that low damage/high longevity style available to the old SM/DS Voidwalker sacrifice spec. That's ancient history now and any vestiges of the SM/DS and SL/SL styles that were still around with WotLK are diminished even further with Cata. The Warlock class has simply moved in a direction that no longer interests me. Nothing really unique is being added to the class and the aspects of it I previously enjoyed have been eroding away since BC. It's not being butthurt over a nerf, they come and go, but when the core design philosophy behind your class/spec alters course with what you love then it's time to move on.
Add on top of that Discipline gaining Evangelism, Archangel, and Atonement (on top of PI, Penance, and Borrowed Time) it's really looking to be way more up my alley. A nice mix of healing and damage =D
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Warlock Preview Review
Fel Flame (level 81): Quick-hitting spell dealing Shadowfire damage. This is similar to the mage ability Frostfire Bolt, in that the lower of the two resistances (in this case shadow and fire) on your target will be used for calculating its damage. Additionally, Fel Flame refreshes the duration of Immolate and Unstable Affliction. Our goal for Fel Flame is to provide a spell that's good for mobility and for use by Destruction and Demonology specs. Also, did we mention it uses green fire? Yep. Instant cast.
Definitely my favorite of the new skills. Warlocks have always lacked a simple untalented instant damage spell. I'll appreciate it to finish off mobs while soloing/leveing. Refreshing UA/Immo is a definite plus as well. I actually hope this skill gets a short cooldown, 10s or so, otherwise the damage will be so poor nobody would spam it anyway. Might as well give it a short cooldown and make the damage decent.
Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.
Can you say uninspired? It's a direct ripoff of Focus Magic. To be honest I hope this ability doesn’t make the cut. I’d rather see a self-oriented defensive cooldown. Too many of our defenses are based around doing something to our enemies, enemies who often enough aren’t capable of being affected by said defenses (See CloS, AMS, Zerker Rage, etc.), but NOT something like Iceblock. Maybe “Demonic Inversion” 3m cooldown. For 8 seconds all damage dealt to you instead heals you for that amount. I like the idea of something like this because it doesn’t render us invulnerable, it doesn’t CC our opponents, they’re still able to CC us and apply any debuffs they like to us, or even switch targets, but it simply keeps us from dying, and if they don’t pay attention and stop attacking it puts us in an advantageous situation health-wise, potentially topping us off.
Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.
Not enough information to truly tell at this point. I’ll hold my judgment for later, but it definitely has potential.
• Summon Demon + Soul Burn = summon the demon instantly.
• The ability Fel Domination will be removed (because Soul Burn accomplishes the same effect).
No, no, no. These two make me a very sad panda. It will simply result in even more pets getting gibbed, and the Warlock being unable to use Shards for anything but getting the pet back out. Other classes know this and will pursue this strategy even more fervently. IMO either keep Fel Domination in game, or drastically reduce the base summoning time on demons. I’m talking 5 seconds, with Master Summoner bringing it down to 3 seconds. If this were done Fel Domination could be removed, and the Warlock class could actually be balanced around switching pets to suit the situation. Soul Burning a pet could be more of a clutch move "I need to seduce something NOW" etc.
• All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.
Nice. Good to see innate DoT scaling. I’m not a huge fan of the concept of no-clip DoTs as it does lower the skill cap, but I can look the other way on this one.
• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.
Great change, though the “Bane” spell classification sounds silly. Just call them “Agony” and “Doom” and simply apply the same mutual exclusivity that UA/Immolate have.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Affliction
Spell Damage
Spell Crit
Shadow DoTs
Demonology
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Demon Damage
Destruction
Spell Damage
Spell Critical Damage
Fire Direct Damage
Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.
Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.
Fire Direct Damage: The damage caused by Fire direct damage spells is increased.
Roughly what I expected to see. It would be nice to have more interesting mastery bonuses, but they’re appropriate enough so I won’t complain. I would say I’d like to see Affliction & Demonology’s Crit and Haste bonuses swapped. I’ve seen Demo Locks ask for the Crit, and I can say as Affliction I’d prefer the Haste.
Not a bad set of changes. I’m disappointed somewhat, mostly regarding the Dark Intent & Fel Domination issues I previously spoke of, but overall a good preview.
Definitely my favorite of the new skills. Warlocks have always lacked a simple untalented instant damage spell. I'll appreciate it to finish off mobs while soloing/leveing. Refreshing UA/Immo is a definite plus as well. I actually hope this skill gets a short cooldown, 10s or so, otherwise the damage will be so poor nobody would spam it anyway. Might as well give it a short cooldown and make the damage decent.
Dark Intent (level 83): Increases the target's chance for a critical effect with periodic damage or healing spells by 3%. When the target lands a crit, you get a buff to your damage for 10 seconds. This effect stacks up to three times.
Can you say uninspired? It's a direct ripoff of Focus Magic. To be honest I hope this ability doesn’t make the cut. I’d rather see a self-oriented defensive cooldown. Too many of our defenses are based around doing something to our enemies, enemies who often enough aren’t capable of being affected by said defenses (See CloS, AMS, Zerker Rage, etc.), but NOT something like Iceblock. Maybe “Demonic Inversion” 3m cooldown. For 8 seconds all damage dealt to you instead heals you for that amount. I like the idea of something like this because it doesn’t render us invulnerable, it doesn’t CC our opponents, they’re still able to CC us and apply any debuffs they like to us, or even switch targets, but it simply keeps us from dying, and if they don’t pay attention and stop attacking it puts us in an advantageous situation health-wise, potentially topping us off.
Demon Soul (level 85): Fuses the warlock's soul with his or her demon. This provides warlocks with a self-burst cooldown to use. The specific effects granted by Demon Soul depend on the demon chosen. Demon Soul lasts for a certain number of charges or until it expires (around 20 seconds), depending on the demon used. 2-minute cooldown.
Not enough information to truly tell at this point. I’ll hold my judgment for later, but it definitely has potential.
• Summon Demon + Soul Burn = summon the demon instantly.
• The ability Fel Domination will be removed (because Soul Burn accomplishes the same effect).
No, no, no. These two make me a very sad panda. It will simply result in even more pets getting gibbed, and the Warlock being unable to use Shards for anything but getting the pet back out. Other classes know this and will pursue this strategy even more fervently. IMO either keep Fel Domination in game, or drastically reduce the base summoning time on demons. I’m talking 5 seconds, with Master Summoner bringing it down to 3 seconds. If this were done Fel Domination could be removed, and the Warlock class could actually be balanced around switching pets to suit the situation. Soul Burning a pet could be more of a clutch move "I need to seduce something NOW" etc.
• All warlock damage-over-time (DoT) spells will benefit from crit and haste innately. Haste will no longer act to reduce the DoT's duration, but rather to add additional ticks. When reapplying a DoT, you can no longer "clip" the final tick. Instead, this will just add duration to the spell, similar to how Everlasting Affliction currently works.
Nice. Good to see innate DoT scaling. I’m not a huge fan of the concept of no-clip DoTs as it does lower the skill cap, but I can look the other way on this one.
• Curse of Agony and Curse of Doom will be converted into Bane of Agony and Bane of Doom. Bane spells are considered magic instead of curses. This means you will be able to cast one Bane (e.g. Bane of Agony) and one Curse (e.g. Curse of Elements) on a single target.
Great change, though the “Bane” spell classification sounds silly. Just call them “Agony” and “Doom” and simply apply the same mutual exclusivity that UA/Immolate have.
Mastery Passive Talent Tree Bonuses
Affliction
Spell Damage
Spell Crit
Shadow DoTs
Demonology
Spell Damage
Spell Haste
Demon Damage
Destruction
Spell Damage
Spell Critical Damage
Fire Direct Damage
Shadow DoTs: The damage caused by Shadow damage-over-time spells is increased.
Demon Damage: The damage caused by pets and Metamorphosis is increased.
Fire Direct Damage: The damage caused by Fire direct damage spells is increased.
Roughly what I expected to see. It would be nice to have more interesting mastery bonuses, but they’re appropriate enough so I won’t complain. I would say I’d like to see Affliction & Demonology’s Crit and Haste bonuses swapped. I’ve seen Demo Locks ask for the Crit, and I can say as Affliction I’d prefer the Haste.
Not a bad set of changes. I’m disappointed somewhat, mostly regarding the Dark Intent & Fel Domination issues I previously spoke of, but overall a good preview.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Some Cataclysm Spell/Talent Ideas
You guys know me. I love to make up spells and talents. Here's the latest round of changes I'd implement for Cataclysm. All of these given to Warlocks together would probably be OP, but 1-2 of them would be very fun and appropriate.
Transference
Instant cast. 3 minute cooldown. Affliction tree/Shadow spell school. Learned @ level 82.
Transfers all negative status effects with their remaining durations from you to your target.
Warlocks are pretty heavily based around debuffs. What better than being able to clear debuffs off yourself and throw them back at your target? In a way it's like a reverse Spell Steal. Mages take buffs from their enemies and put it on themselves, Warlocks send debuffs from themselves and put them on their enemies. This one could be a lot of fun and add a new dynamic to Warlock PvP. 3 minutes might be too short of a cooldown. Or "all debuffs" might be too strong. It could work with a much shorter cooldown but with only 1 random debuff. 45s cooldown to x-fer 1 debuff could work as well.
This ability opens up all types of uses. Getting pounded on by a Warrior? Got Rend, Deep Wounds, Hamstring and MS on ya? Wait until right after the Warrior recasts MS then use transference. You can now be healed up without MS on you and the Warrior is covered in his own debuffs as a nice bonus. Or you're fighting another Affliction Lock. Imagine the metagame around this ability. Whoever uses Transference first actually loses out. You both have UA/CoA/Corruption on each other. You use Transference and the other Warlock recasts his DoTs on you and then uses his. You now have 3 sets of Warlock DoTs on you. Nasty!
Curse Mastery (Master Demonologist of the Affliction tree)
5-points talent in Shadow Mastery's current location since we know SM is a goner.
Through study of the dark arts you have enhanced your curses. Empowers your curses with the following effects:
Curse of Agony: Gives your Curse of Agony a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply Curse of Elements to your target as well.
Curse of Doom: Reduces the duration and cooldown of your curse of Doom by 4/8/12/16/20 seconds.
Curse of Elements: Additionally increases the amount of health you steal from the target by 3/6/9/12/15%
Curse of Exhaustion: Increases the slowing effect of your Curse of Exhaustion by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.
Curse of Tongues: Increases the mana cost of spells by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Curse of Weakness: Increases the energy, focus, rage, and runic power cost of abilities by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Posted an idea similar to this before. I still like it so I tweaked it a bit and reposted.
Hellfire (Revamped)
5 minute cooldown. Is now a buff, no longer channeled.
Surrounds the caster with Hellfire for 8 seconds. While Hellfire is active 50% of the damage that would be dealt to you by sources within 10 yards is instead dealt back to them.
Simple concept here, really. Makes Hellfire not suck. Anti-melee defensive cooldown. Two birds, one stone.
Transference
Instant cast. 3 minute cooldown. Affliction tree/Shadow spell school. Learned @ level 82.
Transfers all negative status effects with their remaining durations from you to your target.
Warlocks are pretty heavily based around debuffs. What better than being able to clear debuffs off yourself and throw them back at your target? In a way it's like a reverse Spell Steal. Mages take buffs from their enemies and put it on themselves, Warlocks send debuffs from themselves and put them on their enemies. This one could be a lot of fun and add a new dynamic to Warlock PvP. 3 minutes might be too short of a cooldown. Or "all debuffs" might be too strong. It could work with a much shorter cooldown but with only 1 random debuff. 45s cooldown to x-fer 1 debuff could work as well.
This ability opens up all types of uses. Getting pounded on by a Warrior? Got Rend, Deep Wounds, Hamstring and MS on ya? Wait until right after the Warrior recasts MS then use transference. You can now be healed up without MS on you and the Warrior is covered in his own debuffs as a nice bonus. Or you're fighting another Affliction Lock. Imagine the metagame around this ability. Whoever uses Transference first actually loses out. You both have UA/CoA/Corruption on each other. You use Transference and the other Warlock recasts his DoTs on you and then uses his. You now have 3 sets of Warlock DoTs on you. Nasty!
Curse Mastery (Master Demonologist of the Affliction tree)
5-points talent in Shadow Mastery's current location since we know SM is a goner.
Through study of the dark arts you have enhanced your curses. Empowers your curses with the following effects:
Curse of Agony: Gives your Curse of Agony a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to apply Curse of Elements to your target as well.
Curse of Doom: Reduces the duration and cooldown of your curse of Doom by 4/8/12/16/20 seconds.
Curse of Elements: Additionally increases the amount of health you steal from the target by 3/6/9/12/15%
Curse of Exhaustion: Increases the slowing effect of your Curse of Exhaustion by an additional 2/4/6/8/10%.
Curse of Tongues: Increases the mana cost of spells by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Curse of Weakness: Increases the energy, focus, rage, and runic power cost of abilities by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Posted an idea similar to this before. I still like it so I tweaked it a bit and reposted.
Hellfire (Revamped)
5 minute cooldown. Is now a buff, no longer channeled.
Surrounds the caster with Hellfire for 8 seconds. While Hellfire is active 50% of the damage that would be dealt to you by sources within 10 yards is instead dealt back to them.
Simple concept here, really. Makes Hellfire not suck. Anti-melee defensive cooldown. Two birds, one stone.
Friday, January 8, 2010
I'm Alive
Nothing to post about for the past few months really. Once Cataclysm info starts rolling out (a few more weeks is my guess?) I'll definitely start posting more regularly. In the meantime it looks like spammers have taken up residence in the comment section of the most recent post before this one. They're like squirrels, they are.
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