#0 - Oct. 6, 2006, 4:06 p.m.
Why was the cast time added to UA?
Kalgan:
There was too much of a disparity between cast time requirements for affliction warlocks versus destruction warlocks. So, although affliction locks still have far less of a stand-still requirement relative to destruction locks, increasing the UA cast time and adding the backlash talent to destruction helps reduce the discrepancy somewhat.
In addition, we felt that UA's side-effect was strong enough that without a cast time an affliction lock could too easily keep an enemy team peppered with UA's with little risk to themselves.
The above were contributing to a trend we were seeing in our alpha test toward mostly affliction locks(particularly for pvp).
Community:
1. Why was Lasting Afflictions removed? Its was a very nice boost to the Affliction Warlocks repertoire and I'm just curious as to why the Devs felt it needed to be removed.
2. What is the role of the Fel Guard? Will he replace any current pet or simply be a "do everything" pet? Will he be a viable and useful pet in raids? Will there be a Demonic Sacrifice added for the Fel Guard?
3. Can you tell us more about how pets will scale with gear? Is the scale perhaps a percentage of certain stats, like stam, int, and +dmg?
4. How will the new Crit Rating and Resilience system work? How will talents that increase Crit chance and bonus damage be affected by this?
5. With the changes to the Crit system, will there be any other game mechanics altered that we should know about, like resists?
6. How do the devs feel the new Destruction tree and the addition of Incinerate will affect Shadowbolt? It seems that some of the higher talents in the Destruction tree affect Shadowbolt, yet incinerate is arguably more powerful than shadowbolt with those talents. The only point I can see using shadowbolt at that point is against enemies with high fire resists.
7. Why do the Devs insist on keeping the Improved Firestone talent? I understand that firestone can be useful somewhat when leveling up, but at level 60 there are much, much better items to use in its place. It just seems to me that it would be a waste of talents and I doubt very many warlock use it.
Kalgan:
1. After considerable testing, we found that it was one compounding factor too many. Affliction build damage and efficiency was too far beyond the balance point we were trying to achieve. Sometimes we go too far. =[
2. I suppose you can think of the Fel Guard as a replacement to the Voidwalker (for the most part). We've given him the key tools the voidwalker, and more. As one would expect, his damage is also pretty impressive with the new pet scaling.
3. Yes, the pets scale as a percentage of key warlock stats (like the ones you mention).
4. Resilience decreases your chance to be crit, and reduces the amount of damage crits do to you (both effects apply to spell and melee crits). Talents that affect crit chance still do what they always did, they increase your crit %.
5. Resists haven't been changed.
6. Incinerate is intended to be a viable fire alternative to Shadowbolt in terms of dps and efficiency. We're ok with it if one turns out a bit stronger than the other if you're specce'd more in one direction than the other.
7. Yes, Improved Firestone needs help. It hasn't been a high-priority issue though, if you don't like the talent, don't spend points on it.