Warlock Q&A Follow-up

We don't think curses need a massive rework. Probably the biggest problem is not many can compete with CoA.

Demonology could stand a little more complexity to the rotation. It's the same problem BM hunters have, where if the rotation is simple and the pet doesn't have much to do, then you're bored, but if the rotation is complex and you get into a fight where you do have to manage the pet a lot, then you feel like you're getting pulled in multiple directions.

As we hinted at in the QA, the demon design is still more or less pick one before the fight starts. We could see a model though where you swapped them in and out more often depending on changing conditions in the fight. Demonology could then be the best at that. However we also wanted to make sure Demo had the best pet, so it's hard to have the best pet on the one hand and also want to put it away often for an Imp or Felhunter.

As with all the pure damage classes, it's relatively easy to mathematically prove who has the highest dps and the community tends to pick that spec, even if the difference is only a few percentage points. The best luck we've had is with making some specs better on some boss fights than others, but then people just tend to pick the spec who is better on most boss fights.

It would be pretty easy to punch up numbers to where the Felguard does so much damage that Demo wins out over the other specs. That doesn't really solve the problem though. We can try to get it closer to the other specs, but then inevitably a set bonus or something will push things back towards inequality again. It's not at all an easy problem to solve, from a high-level design POV.

Q u o t e:
Okay, set bonuses will boost some specs more than others. But the amount of difference doesn't have to be as big as some bonuses are.

Totally. I didn't mean to imply that they were.

But imagine for a moment that we nailed it. Destro, Demo and Affliction are within 1% dps in a raid situation. Now imagine that all of the caster gear of that their just happens to have stats that benefit Destro. Imagine there is a set bonus that benefits Destro more. Now things aren't within 1% again, and except for those very loyal locks who just love one tree over the other, most of the population switches.

The only way I can see to really prevent that is just to make sure one spec does better in some situations than another. Perhaps you have a fight that requires a ton of movement, so Affliction's dots win out. Imagine you have a fight with a ton of adds and you need every tank possible and Demo wins out. But even in this case, if there are two of the first fight and one of the second, then most locks would tend to go Affliction. At the worst, maybe they would utilize dual-spec.

This is not a problem with locks alone. Rogues, hunters and mages all have the same problem, and to a lesser extent, warriors and DKs. Something like Feral vs. Balance works slightly better since they both do dps but do it in such different ways that they require different gear and different skill sets and players are less likely to stampede to the one with a slight dps advantage.

We still think curses are fine. Could some of them be more interesting? Sure. Is that the most pressing problem we should look at on locks? Probably not.

Q u o t e:
Lol, my thoughts exactly. The only reason why a warlock would spec demo for endgame is for the demonic pact buff to increase raid dps. Other than that pretty gem I can't think of a single reason why one would ever choose demo over affliction or destro at this point.

That was exactly my point. It's very hard to come up with compelling niches for where a warlock would think "I really want to be Demo in this situation." But I'd argue the same thing exists between Affliction and Destro. Earlier in LK Affliction "won." Now things have shifted back to Destro.

Again, this is not a lock specific problem. For awhile Arcane felt like a better spec for high-movement fights, of which there were many. Now depending on who you talk to, Arcane just flat out "loses" to Fire. The suggestions players tend to make involve the constant tweaking of spell damage, coefficients or talents up or down until everything is within 1% (or whatever) again. I just don't know how realistic that is or if there's a better way to do it.

Q u o t e:
You are correct, of course, it would be very hard to keep all specs within 1%. The problem is, that's not what people are asking. People aren't usually asking to be within 1%, they just want their favorite spec to be useful and not feel as though they are gimping their raid by their very presence. Unfortunately, this is often the case with many specs, and even an entire class in the case of our poor hunter friends.

That may be sufficient for you. That may be sufficient for a lot of players. But I don't think it would be sufficient overall. The question to ask yourself is at what point would you abandon the highest dps spec for your favorite dps spec? 10%? 5%? 1%? For a lot of players, they just want to know what the highest potential dps spec is and care less about the magnitude of the differential. You can just say those players are dumb and we shouldn't cater to them, but I can tell you a lot of players feel that way.

Q u o t e:
Not a single other class in the entire game has to give up personal DPS in order to provide a benefit for the group.

I think you are exaggerating to make a point, and a lot of classes could easily disagree with you. :)

Q u o t e:
What we're asking you to do is not use the fact that a lot of players will always use the top DPS spec as a reason not to bring the other specs close enough that the rest of us can reasonably play the way we want to.

I'm saying "close enough" is in the eye of the beholder. Some players in this very thread say Affliction is close enough to Destruction and others disagree. I'm not saying we won't buff Demonology. I'm saying buffing Demonology to where it feels like a valid option to Destruction and Affliction puts it in a very narrow window. Buffing Demonology to a point where it is still 10% behind Destruction might not convince many players to change specs (except for those who just love Demo).

Q u o t e:
Why does Ghostcrawler keep dodging questions about warlocks in pvp at the moment.

Because I am answering questions from other players who seem to think for some reason that their questions are just as legitimate as yours. :)

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