Ele/Demo PvE: Totem of Wrath in 3.2.2

#0 - Sept. 14, 2009, 10:05 p.m.

I'll start off by stating the obvious. Elemental is getting buffed this patch. The changes are looking to be a pretty considerable DPS increase, and it is one that scales. It's not perfect, but it does at least have the potential to keep elemental in a state no worse than we've been in since 3.0.8. Not sure exactly to what extent, and that will only come via more testing.

So let's put our DPS aside for a moment until we have more interesting data on that, and talk about something else. I'll keep this short, because I see it as a very simple issue that has a very simple fix - even if it does make a world of difference:

Totem of Wrath is the same now as it was when we first hit 80. At first, ToW was all but required for raids. You NEEDED an Elemental Shaman, or your raid was missing out on something, and you would only use an alternative if you had no other choice. Demonic Pact, however, has improved rougly 300%, and is now outclassing ToW once some threshold of gear is crossed by the warlock - and is creating the same situation, only with the warlock occuping the shaman's previous raid spot.

Both of those situations are problematic, and are the sole example left in the game of one specific spec being "required" for an optimal raid group.

I propose something very simple - that the two buffs be made equal at all levels of content. The specifics are largely unimportant - as long as they're equal in effectiveness, it should work out the same way. Doing so means that you can take an Elemental Shaman OR a Demonology Warlock (or both) to a raid - but you'll never feel like you're missing out if you're lacking whichever one is currently the "right" choice for the spell power buff.

Ghostcrawler

#41 - Sept. 15, 2009, 8:57 p.m.

Strawberry makes great posts, as usual.

We want to solve the discrepancy between ToW and DP before Cataclysm.

Demonology needs to be brought because it does competitive dps, not because it has an awesome buff. Or even better, you should want the Demo lock because the player playing it is someone you want to play with. Nobody should get brought because they have an awesome buff but are otherwise a liability. You should be able to get most of the buffs and debuffs you really need in a number of different raid configurations, and ideally even taking two players of the exact same spec won't feel like a mistake. The game should be in defeating the boss, not assembling the group.

Ghostcrawler

#193 - Sept. 16, 2009, 8:23 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Q u o t e:
Why did gc take a buff elemental totem post and turn it into a buff demo warlock post? He states the strawberry makes great posts, then completely ignores the point he was making, besides a 1 line cheap cop out "Oh, it needs to be fixed sometime".

Because the entire issue is rather interwoven. It is not an easy fix without repercussions to several other specs.

You see, people that like playing Demo really like that the DP buff has out scaled ToW because as a class warlocks are thought of as being a "pure" DPS class. That means that warlocks are always stuck with the flavor of the month spec that provides max DPS. For once an alternative spec (not counting those that are used on gimmick fights) has become viable and many warlocks like having this option. But the gain of the Demolocks is coming at the expense of the Elemental Shaman. Its not the easy to fix issue so many seem to believe it is, or at least its not easy for some that like finally having options.

I said ToW vs. DP is a problem that we want to fix. We aren't ready to discuss potential fixes yet so there's not much I can add to that topic.

We don't think Elemental (or Shadow for that matter) are as low as a lot of players of those respective specs seem to believe, but both received small buffs. While it wasn't necessarily our intention, both of those tweaks happen to be relatively tricky to theorycraft out, so the jury is still out on what kind of buff they will provide or if they will be considered "enough."

Some posters then tried to justify Demos's low dps because of their great buffs, but that isn't the way we actually want the game to work.

All classes should have buffs. All damage specs should do competitive dps, with the exception that the four pure classes should do slightly higher dps. Different versions of the same buff should not feel wildly different with regard to talent expenditure, personal dps loss, up time, duration or scaling. We will continue to work to improve all of those issues. However, in almost all cases, individual skill, gear and group coordination will have a larger effect on your performance than anything we can do to buff your class.

P.S. I feel the need to reinforce that "should not feel wildly different" does not mean "identical." We generally don't like things between classes that are identical.

Ghostcrawler

#199 - Sept. 16, 2009, 8:44 p.m.

Q u o t e:

So are you going to buff Demonology in 3.2.2 or not? Inquiring Locks wanna know.

Questions like that aren't good ones for me to answer. If we say we plan on doing it and then don't follow through for some reason or another, then we have "broken a promise" to the community. If we had concrete plans that we were ready to talk about, we would. I'll leave it as we think Demo dps is too low in a raid setting.