Blood Fear.

[jadenprince]

I think the new blood fear is a weak design for a nerf. Why don't blizz just increase the health cost of the spell? If a pet hits you during blood fear you have wasted a charge and the talent becomes useless.

[Gorkil]

Is there a reason Blizzard is re designing this spell this way? Why not leave the spell as it is in 5.1 and up the cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.

Seems to me, they would save themselves a whole lot of programming time AND locks would not lose a way to get a melee off them.

[Jessicka]

The reason it's being redesigned is because it's supposed to be a defensive ability, but everyone uses it offensively. It's absolutely a no brain skilless talent that can't get deleted quickly enough.

If you want to get melee off you, there are several tools available to you already:
- Tier 2 talent
- Pet ability (Knockback, Seduction, Disarm)
- Spec specific snare (Conflag, Shadowflame, CoEx)
- Teleport
- Gateway
- Regular Fear
- If you're Demo you can also use Leap.

If none of those work, then you have Unending Resolve, Tier 3 talents, Dark Regeneration, and Healthstones to help you sit through some of the damage.

Finally, the class is also receiving a significant buff to survivability in 5.2 with the change to Fel Armor that's gone under the radar with the change from Armor provision to flat 10% damage mitigation.

[Nicola]

The reason it's being redesigned is because it's supposed to be a defensive ability, but everyone uses it offensively. It's absolutely a no brain skilless talent that can't get deleted quickly enough.

If you want to get melee off you, there are several tools available to you already:
- Tier 2 talent
- Pet ability (Knockback, Seduction, Disarm)
- Spec specific snare (Conflag, Shadowflame, CoEx)
- Teleport
- Gateway
- Regular Fear
- If you're Demo you can also use Leap.

If none of those work, then you have Unending Resolve, Tier 3 talents, Dark Regeneration, and Healthstones to help you sit through some of the damage.

Finally, the class is also receiving a significant buff to survivability in 5.2 with the change to Fel Armor that's gone under the radar with the change from Armor provision to flat 10% damage mitigation.

...
Why!?

...

Anyway, to clarify a few things....

-Our tier 2 talents have a rather long cooldown compared to most cc spells useable by melee, not to mention, that both howl and shadowfury are very often used offensively and won't be available.
-Absolutely noone uses a voidwalker for serious PvP, nor do people use succubus, except for sacrificing and abusing a bug with KJC....
-The only snare that is somewhat useful against melee is glyphed CoEx, but since that requires you to be affliction, you are doomed anyway. Regular 50% help nothing against melee who have equal, or stronger snares.
-Teleporting is not always the solution, unless it's out LoS of melee or on higher grounds. Teleporting and still being in LoS will result in getting charged, getting leaped at, getting frozen on the spot or taking a kick to the face..
-Aside from arena, you won't have a gateway set up, and even in arena, you won't always have a gateway up if you get interrupted at the start of the game.
-A melee is on you, and you are going to hard cast a fear on them? Yeah, that will work.

Escaping a melee is not as easy as you think. Creating a temporary gap is doable, but if a melee is really after you, you'll end up dead unless you have partners that can safe your ass constantly. Aside from ranked games, warlocks are free kill, it requires little skill to kill one, simply due the fact that they have almost nothing that effectively works against melee.
And popping your defensive cooldowns, when a melee is not even using his offensive cooldowns, generally means you lose.

And that fel armor change, as I've said multiple times already, it's not going to change anything about our survivability against melee. Because we lose the armor bonus from it, we'll take roughly the same amount of damage from melee, not to mention that several melee speces are getting buffs to damage...

[Jessicka]

...
Why!?

...

Anyway, to clarify a few things....

-Our tier 2 talents have a rather long cooldown compared to most cc spells useable by melee, not to mention, that both howl and shadowfury are very often used offensively and won't be available.

And that's why having BF and those is unacceptable.

-Absolutely noone uses a voidwalker for serious PvP, nor do people use succubus, except for sacrificing and abusing a bug with KJC....

That's not an argument. Refusal to use doesn't stop them existing. Last I checked FH's blanket silence was effective against DKs and Enhancement Shaman anyway... but you'd use that on the healer - I'll get back to that though.

-The only snare that is somewhat useful against melee is glyphed CoEx, but since that requires you to be affliction, you are doomed anyway. Regular 50% help nothing against melee who have equal, or stronger snares.

70% Snare from Shadowflame is -very- effective against melee, Aftermath could use a buff. It's there though.

-Teleporting is not always the solution, unless it's out LoS of melee or on higher grounds. Teleporting and still being in LoS will result in getting charged, getting leaped at, getting frozen on the spot or taking a kick to the face..

I didn't claim it was always the solution... It's usually best used with the above snare.

-Aside from arena, you won't have a gateway set up, and even in arena, you won't always have a gateway up if you get interrupted at the start of the game.

Arena and Rated BGs are all that matter though, in the latter you probably wont have Gateway but you will have a lot more support available.

-A melee is on you, and you are going to hard cast a fear on them? Yeah, that will work.

Last on the list is a last resort, it's difficult, maybe even unlikely, but it's there.

Escaping a melee is not as easy as you think. Creating a temporary gap is doable, but if a melee is really after you, you'll end up dead unless you have partners that can safe your ass constantly. Aside from ranked games, warlocks are free kill, it requires little skill to kill one, simply due the fact that they have almost nothing that effectively works against melee.
And popping your defensive cooldowns, when a melee is not even using his offensive cooldowns, generally means you lose.

Ranked games are all that matter, and this is where I get back to the point on Felhunters. Sure, that's the pet you are most likely to pick to use the Spell Lock on the healer, leaving you short of the knockback/seduction/disarm, but this is where you'll also have support from your team and the chances of dying while you have that support to anyone not using cooldowns is pretty low. And in unranked play, there are fewer healers, and less coordination to actually gain anything from concentrating on silencing them; at that point the Succubus/Shivarra start to shine because you are more self reliant and the biggest threat is melee.

And that fel armor change, as I've said multiple times already, it's not going to change anything about our survivability against melee. Because we lose the armor bonus from it, we'll take roughly the same amount of damage from melee, not to mention that several melee speces are getting buffs to damage...

And has been said many times in response, most melee classes do some spell damage that is at present unmitigated, and nor is their caster support.

It may not be easy to get away from melee, but we do have tools to deal with it. You talk like BF is the only option, which it isn't and shows how utterly retarded it is by how easy it makes killing anyone, and not just melee, because it's unavoidable and uncounterable. Is it really fun, and the only way you can kill someone if you're able to give them literally no means of reply inside a very few globals?

[Natixsphere]

Blood fear should have never been implemented into the game. Is it fun? Hell yes it is fun and awesome but way to OP. It would be nice if they wer enot making the spell completely useless but blizzard doesnt really care about warlocks or pvp so what do you expect? I I wouldnt mind if they just increased the cd on the spell and let us have our normal fear aswell or make shadow fury or howl of terror a baseline ability and not something we have to spec into.

[Deleted]

Jessicka do you even play in arena's? you make it seem like it's easy to get a warrior off... and yea blood fear is skilless but deep freeze, psyfiend, ring of frost, etc isn't... not to mention that many classes had fearward/tremor/enrage/reflect etc... the only real cc we'll have is a fear that people will notice and just interupt/tremor and whatnot... the nerf is needed because it was too op, but they just ignore other op things... "hey lets nerf warlocks more because they're already low representated in arena"
they just listen (IF they even listen) to the whines... oh no chaos bolt does too much damage, but don't touch mages with their sick crits that can basicly global you...

[Natixsphere]

Jessicka do you even play in arena's? you make it seem like it's easy to get a warrior off... and yea blood fear is skilless but deep freeze, psyfiend, ring of frost, etc isn't... not to mention that many classes had fearward/tremor/enrage/reflect etc... the only real cc we'll have is a fear that people will notice and just interupt/tremor and whatnot... the nerf is needed because it was too op, but they just ignore other op things... "hey lets nerf warlocks more because they're already low representated in arena"
they just listen (IF they even listen) to the whines... oh no chaos bolt does too much damage, but don't touch mages with their sick crits that can basicly global you...

No she doesnt she ahs never been above 1500 which is why she doesnt know how difficult it really is to get melee off but the point still remains that BF is OP.

[Jessicka]

Jessicka do you even play in arena's? you make it seem like it's easy to get a warrior off... and yea blood fear is skilless but deep freeze, psyfiend, ring of frost, etc isn't... not to mention that many classes had fearward/tremor/enrage/reflect etc... the only real cc we'll have is a fear that people will notice and just interupt/tremor and whatnot... the nerf is needed because it was too op, but they just ignore other op things... "hey lets nerf warlocks more because they're already low representated in arena"
they just listen (IF they even listen) to the whines... oh no chaos bolt does too much damage, but don't touch mages with their sick crits that can basicly global you...

I know damn well it's hard to get a Warrior off, but that's a Warrior problem, not a Warlock problem because no other melee class presents anything like as much of an issue as Warriors do. The fact that Warriors present a problem does not justify Blood Fear as a crutch which when used offensively is not just OP against melee, but ranged and healers alike - while actually still not being all that effective against Warriors anyway.

[oland138]

Blood fear should have never been implemented into the game. Is it fun? Hell yes it is fun and awesome but way to OP. It would be nice if they wer enot making the spell completely useless but blizzard doesnt really care about warlocks or pvp so what do you expect? I I wouldnt mind if they just increased the cd on the spell and let us have our normal fear aswell or make shadow fury or howl of terror a baseline ability and not something we have to spec into.

^^

Howl of terror baseline would make a lot of sense. If they did that they could put something completely different from blood fear in tier 4, and move blood fear to tier 2. It would probably still need some sort of redesign though to make it fit in tier 2.

[Keldion]

And that fel armor change, as I've said multiple times already, it's not going to change anything about our survivability against melee. Because we lose the armor bonus from it, we'll take roughly the same amount of damage from melee, not to mention that several melee speces are getting buffs to damage...

If you can be bothered to do the math, you will find that the armor is a smaller bonus. It is also bypassed by non-physical damage and armor reduction effects (Colossus, Expose Armor).

[Deleted]

Is it so OP? Are warlocks dominating arena because of it? Last I checked we were the third least represented class in arena.

IMO its a fair trade off for normal fear having it instant and -10% health. Maybe slightly better but it has to be desirable in some way or no one takes it.

[Novx]

Is there a reason Blizzard is re designing this spell this way? Why not leave the spell as it is in 5.1 and up the cooldown from 10 seconds to 15 seconds.

Seems to me, they would save themselves a whole lot of programming time AND locks would not lose a way to get a melee off them.

You're right. Having Gateway, Howl of Terror and Demonic Port that can be used out of their LoS isn't good enough. Blood Fear is broken as hell, they need to fix our survivability in PVP. I do agree with the pet statement though (especially because of stampede)

[junn]

Make new blood fear horrify effect. Protects us against Warriors and DK's much better. Problem solved, you're welcome.

[Natixsphere]

Is it so OP? Are warlocks dominating arena because of it? Last I checked we were the third least represented class in arena.

IMO its a fair trade off for normal fear having it instant and -10% health. Maybe slightly better but it has to be desirable in some way or no one takes it.

Yes its an instant cc on healers that allows locks to play very aggressive. No Locks are not the best in game right now but instant ccs are OP no matter what.

[Nicola]

And that's why having BF and those is unacceptable.

No, it's not. You say we can't have a strong cc spell because we use our t2 talents offensive, like we've always done? Right....

That's not an argument. Refusal to use doesn't stop them existing. Last I checked FH's blanket silence was effective against DKs and Enhancement Shaman anyway... but you'd use that on the healer - I'll get back to that though.

Refusal?
Destruction uses GoSac, demonology uses felhunter and those few affliction warlocks that actually use a pet, use the felhunter for a reason, because it's better then the rest.
Not only is a blanket silence a lot stronger then a disarm or shitty knockbacks, the felhunter also brings that nice offensive dispel.

70% Snare from Shadowflame is -very- effective against melee, Aftermath could use a buff. It's there though.

Perhaps, but you have to be an idiot to use that glyph in PvP because your completely destroy your own burst with that... A reason why absolutely noone is using it >.>

I didn't claim it was always the solution... It's usually best used with the above snare.

It clearly seemed like you did, and again, you don't snare before you teleport, you just GTFO as fast as possible instead of wasting another GCD taking damage.

Ranked games are all that matter, and this is where I get back to the point on Felhunters. Sure, that's the pet you are most likely to pick to use the Spell Lock on the healer, leaving you short of the knockback/seduction/disarm, but this is where you'll also have support from your team and the chances of dying while you have that support to anyone not using cooldowns is pretty low. And in unranked play, there are fewer healers, and less coordination to actually gain anything from concentrating on silencing them; at that point the Succubus/Shivarra start to shine because you are more self reliant and the biggest threat is melee.

And at this point I begin to cry...
Surviving means nothing if you can't kill.

While you can prevent some damage with a disarm, it's generally a lot less then what you can avoid with silences. Not only is it used to prevent healing when going for a kill, you can also safe your own ass with it by silencing casters, or to reduce the damage from several melee classes.
Melee in general can handle disarms a lot better then casters and healers can handle silences anyway.

Seduce is a weak cc spell, that instantly breaks on damage... not very effective when playing as a dotclass, playing with another class that likely has some dots as well. And the knockback, it's only decent on 2 maps, on every other map it's rather useless because the knockback effect is rather small.

As for non ranked play, if you play affliction, there are no healers and a melee comes after you, you'll die, even if your succubus is constantly seducing them... But then again, you have to get the glyph for seduce, giving up something superior.... Which is not really an option either.

And has been said many times in response, most melee classes do some spell damage that is at present unmitigated, and nor is their caster support.

It may not be easy to get away from melee, but we do have tools to deal with it. You talk like BF is the only option, which it isn't and shows how utterly retarded it is by how easy it makes killing anyone, and not just melee, because it's unavoidable and uncounterable. Is it really fun, and the only way you can kill someone if you're able to give them literally no means of reply inside a very few globals?

And did you read the part where melee is having damage buffs? Feel free to keep going in denial, but the "buff" to fel armor is not going to help at all against melee.
I'm not saying BF is the only option, it needs to be changed, I agree on that, and many other things have to be changes as well, but not like it's being done now.
And it can be countered, warriors, priests, shamans, monks, they can all give you the middle finger when you try to fear them.

Since it seems you talk about 1v1 now anyway, warriors, rogues, monks, ferals, death knights, mages, they can all kill you in a silence or a stun with their burst, I don't see how that is any different from killing someone in a blood fear, what we actually can't do because our burst is to slow.

Yes its an instant cc on healers that allows locks to play very aggressive. No Locks are not the best in game right now but instant ccs are OP no matter what.

So, following those words, 90% of all cc going on is OP....

I know damn well it's hard to get a Warrior off, but that's a Warrior problem, not a Warlock problem because no other melee class presents anything like as much of an issue as Warriors do. The fact that Warriors present a problem does not justify Blood Fear as a crutch which when used offensively is not just OP against melee, but ranged and healers alike - while actually still not being all that effective against Warriors anyway.

And here I start laughing.
A warrior problem...lol... warlocks have trouble with all melee, you can't blame it on warriors because they are one of our 8 counterclasses....
Sorry to break even more of your dreams, but it's not just warriors, its death knights, ferals, shamans, monks and rogues as well. The only melee that you can keep away from you are retribution paladins. Not to mention, that fears are the least effective form of cc you can use against a warrior due zerker rage...

[Deleted]

Well I agree that the spell isn't being used the way Blizzard intended but at the same time I don't think it's as powerful as people are making it out to be. Blizzard is hell bent on making this a defensive ability the health cost makes it completely contradicting.

The new version of the spell is still going to be used offensively aswell. Mainly because if you're being trained the last thing you want to do is help your enemy lower your health bar. Especially with all the warriors about wanting you as close to their execute range as possible. People are still going to use this ability on a high health % mostly.

The new version of the spell still doesn't address the reason why it was changed in the first place.

Edit: Also Mages have loads of instant CC, Deep freeze, POM combinations, dragons breath, combustion to name a few. All of these are far superior to the 5.1 blood fear. I still really don't see whats so OP about it.

[Jessicka]

No, it's not. You say we can't have a strong cc spell because we use our t2 talents offensive, like we've always done? Right....

And you can't use regular Fear offensively?

Refusal?

I did start to write a longer blow by blow reply, but realised that this is all it is. Your post is a litany of excuses as to why not to use every other tool given to you. Doesn't the fact that Blood Fear, in one single talent, on one button makes up for all those things at once not tell you something is horribly wrong with it?

[savvasp]

Why not just make the talent reduce fear cast time by 0.3 secs ?

[Nicola]

And you can't use regular Fear offensively?

Did I say we didn't? I can't think of a single cc spell that is mainly used defensive...

I did start to write a longer blow by blow reply, but realised that this is all it is. Your post is a litany of excuses as to why not to use every other tool given to you. Doesn't the fact that Blood Fear, in one single talent, on one button makes up for all those things at once not tell you something is horribly wrong with it?

I suggest you get some PvP experience first before making yourself look like an idiot by saying such things. It's nice you lurk forums all day long, but you seem to have no PvP experience, nor raid experience, so honestly, are you just pulling everything out of your ass? No offense.

You really think we don't use the tools available to use, that are actually worth using? You don't seem to understand that most tools we actually have are not worth using, or simply don't help at all with what we have problems with.

Why would one use an inferior pet, using certain talents or glyphs when the gain is less then what you lose?

70% Snare from Shadowflame is -very- effective against melee

This one line, I spent roughly 10min laughing at that. "Hey, you can use this glyph so it's a little bit easier to keep melee off you, but your burst gets more or less halved".... See what I mean?

And really, blood fear doesn't make up for all those problems we have, else warlocks would have been a good class for PvP, unlike now, where we happen to be one of the worst classes. Blood fear is very strong yes, might even say overpowered, and it only makes up for 1 thing really, that it's very hard to get casts off against melee.
It's just that 10sec cooldown, that allows us to constantly use it offensively that makes it that strong, otherwise it would have been a perfectly fine spell.