Divergent

"Drastic and unexpected changes that impact negatively on parts of the player base is something we should try to avoid as much as possible."
~ http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7616602806?page=2#26

A continuation of the old thread.

Original post here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9280508340?page=1
Second thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9280358645?page=1
Third thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9282218881?page=1

Currently Blizzard's position is to support the nerf on Warlocks with very little fundamental backing besides that "it seems too good".

Currently Holinka has been quoted for supporting the very same mechanics for Hunters for no other reason as it being a "niche", disregarding the fact that we are in an extremely similar situation.
~ https://twitter.com/holinka/status/344942951031504896

As of now the class has very little mechanics to deal with the problems removing passive KJC will cause, and the revamped version will not change this situation as it will not be chosen most of the time. It leaves Warlocks with less mobility than Spriests or Boomkins, and leaves our 90 tier worse than Mages to the point where we can actually not select a talent and feel nearly no difference.

The simple fact is that the constant, passive ability to perform a complete DPS rotation while moving was never intended to be a core feature of the Warlock class. Those who remember the early days of Patch 5.0 will recall that, initially, Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning actually increased cast time whenever it was triggered. In those days, that extra cast time made the talent so unattractive that very few players actually took it. We decided to try it as only a snare instead, but that has had the opposite effect: in Patch 5.3, virtually all Affliction Warlocks are using Kil’Jaeden’s Cunning. Remember, we want talents to be meaningful choices. If one talent is far and away superior to its neighbors, there’s a problem. There were also some very strange side effects (such as the ability to cast something like Fear while ducking in and out of line of sight).

Now, as I mentioned, the ability to always cast on the move wasn’t intended as a core Warlock feature (otherwise, it wouldn’t have been a talent). However, that doesn’t mean we want Warlock DPS to plummet every time there’s a fire on the ground. One thing that may have gone under the radar is the fact that the new version of KJC is not on the global cooldown, and can be cast while another cast is already in process. So, for example, you won’t have to interrupt a Chaos Bolt to activate KJC should you need to react to something in a hurry.

Furthermore, it’s a change that we’re certainly going to balance around. Remember, we’re very early in what is likely to be a lengthy PTR cycle. There’s plenty of time to tweak and tinker with it. In fact, a recent change made internally allows Haunt to be cast while moving by default. The goal is most certainly not that Warlocks lose out on a ton of DPS or lose viability in raid encounters. We do encourage you to hop on the PTR, experiment with it, and tell us what think once you’ve gotten some hands-on time!

~ Lore

First off, thanks for the response, even if it was mostly copy paste. However, not only is being able to activate it on the move/cast nearly useless, casting Haunt on the move is something that the Afflic rotation would never do. It is a pointless change. We've given you 100 pages of feedback, and the feedback is nearly unanimous; do not go through with this change.

NOTE: I would like to remind every poster here to be civil. We've done an excellent job on keeping the peace in this thread and have gotten SimC posters, popular Lock poster, many Twitter responses, and apparently lots of Blue attention. I would like to emphasize to, while not putting the rage away, not let yourself get carried away and post in a way that pushes the hope of reversal farther away. We can still show the devs that they're desperately, horrifyingly wrong about trying to implement this change, but we can do that with class.

"Drastic and unexpected changes that impact negatively on parts of the player base is something we should try to avoid as much as possible."
~ http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7616602806?page=2#26

A continuation of the old thread.

Original post here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9280508340?page=1
Second thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9280358645?page=1
Fourth thread here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9280998834
(Third thread was locked, then re-opened and the fourth thread locked)

Currently Blizzard's position is to support the nerf on Warlocks with very little fundamental backing besides that "it seems too good".

Currently Holinka has been quoted for supporting the very same mechanics for Hunters for no other reason as it being a "niche", disregarding the fact that we are in an extremely similar situation.
~ https://twitter.com/holinka/status/344942951031504896

As of now the class has very little mechanics to deal with the problems removing passive KJC will cause, and the revamped version will not change this situation as it will not be chosen most of the time. It leaves Warlocks with less mobility than Spriests or Boomkins, and leaves our 90 tier worse than Mages to the point where we can actually not select a talent and feel nearly no difference.

General — Does granting range players the ability to retain more and more damage on the move (as illustrated by the upcoming Lightning Bolt changes in 5.3) make it harder and harder to design encounters where melee DPS are not trailing behind?

Traditionally, the melee advantage was being able to do damage while moving, but now a lot of ranged are also good at movement. We could certainly go back in and prune a lot of cast-on-the-move and instant spells from casters, but on the other hand we know players think those abilities are fun and you can even argue that having to stand and “turret” as a combat mechanic feels a little dated. There is also a continuum here: casting Lightning Bolt while moving isn’t a big balance problem, but something like passive Kil’jaeden’s Cunning might be.

Rather than making casters terrible at moving, we’d rather develop a niche that melee are really good at. For example, we could emphasize that melee are really good at cleaving multiple targets, or they could be more survivable, or both. We are going to explore these ideas more.

~ http://www.icy-veins.com/forums/topic/2178-patch-53-interview-with-the-wow-design-team/

Ghostcrawler has been actively defending the change on his Twitter, so I advise you to look there for more follow ups to his/Blizzards position. Generally, no factual reason has been presented as to why the team considers it a different situation for Hunters. Their reasoning being that they want to find Hunter's a niche, and expect allowing us to have mobility is homogenization (ironically, changing us to have mobility like every other caster seems more like homogenization).

Ok seriously, I thought this was some lofty April fool's joke, but guess what? Flit across the time stamp of the post over here, it's a picture of his twitter: http://tinyurl.com/2g9mqh. All I have to say is WOW, GC, WHY?. You are actually jetting the game towards the stupid whiners who thought it's such "GENIUS" idea to soar back to the crappy old days?

Let me clear the air for you people, VANILLA was horrible; you nostalgic little wanna-be's, the game sucked it all sucked, and I don't give two potatoes about what you think of flight form and how it ruined the game. It made the game BETTER. Nothing more needs to be said.

Hello forum community. I'm glad you're reading this thread, as we all know that the future of WoW depends on one update that has been completely ignored by Blizzard up to this point. It's obvious that we need this update to sustain the game; subscribers are slowly leaking out by the severals, and the gradually declining wad of cash used to support this game is drifting away, away into the sun. The sun of agonizing agony and long evening nights spent alone drawing stick figures of you fighting that end-of-expansion raid boss that was never meant to be. We can't let this happen, as a community we must stand up and let Blizzard know that marmot punting must be put into the game. Marmot punting, the sport of gods and pandas and godly pandas, is the surefire way to draw people back to the game we love. Marmot punting provides several benefits to all aspects of gameplay that no other update could bring. For example, PvP; imagine the added dynamics of a fight that be instilled when punt able marmots that stun for 67 seconds or do max health +1 damage upon impact; we'll bring the rush back to PvP with our furry flying fluffballs of fury (that will be the "channeled" spell and it will have a decent AoE radius) marmots will of course have different abilities like causing earthquake, kicking the other team in the privates, making an inaugural address and much more! The marmots will add so much fun to the typically dull experience of PvP and we as a community will never be able to look back. Think of the balance! Yes, there will be class based marmots but overall they are easier to balance than classes but will have so much flavor to them it's unbelieberable, and PvP will finally be about your skills in marmot punting as the community has always asked for. And of course they'll change colors, that would be stupid. But oh, see that? Now it appeals to all those pet collecters! Tired of the lack of qt pets available to you? Go pick up your pokeballs and catch ALL the marmots, all the different shades and class marmots, struggle with your friends to defeat and capture the deadly Illidan marmot as he fires his lazors of "NOT PREPARED" at your futile attempts to capture him alive because you were NOT PREPARED and he was VERY PREPARED. Marmots will be all the rage and every single pet collector on Azeroth will need every single one to decimominate the planets. Of course you might think of PvE and you think of "Oh how will this help me?" I'mg lad youa sked because marmots love you and will help you love you and they'll be puntable marmots of friendship which when kicked can be sent spiraling into the heads of enemies to randomly debuff your enemy or place a HoT on yourself called "bit by a marmot" because it turns out that the marmot you just punted was a WEREMARMOT and as we all know weremarmots are some of the deadliest creatures that roam the face of Azeroth and you just got BIT. Your wounds heal quickly but soon you turn into a weremarmot and have to avoid and nip the feet of your enemies as they attempt to punt you. You're really only running away from the inevitable as marmots always get punted, but imagine the detail and sophistication this will add to boss fights. Imagine facing off against the sha of infidelity in the body of a marmot, boldly going where no marmot has gone before because he kicked you that far. Overall I think I've made my point that marmots are obvious the necessary next step for WoW and without them...I just don't think we can survive. This update is needed! If we don't get it, what is going to stop us from leaving! I know Blizzard introduced an item, and I know this was on obvious hint at the development of the activity as a larger (and hopefully the prevalent activity in WoW so please support me and the marmots because we can make a change.