What would YOU do to "fix" warlocks?

[Adt]

I'm sure we all have opinions on how warlocks are currently, and i'm going to ask that people try to refrain from starting a flame war and/or insulting other players based on their views... no matter how "wrong" they may appear to you.
Remember, your opinion is just that, you don't speak for anyone else.

Anyhoo... on to the actual topic, personally it just feels to me at the moment that Walocks are one of, if not THE weakest class in the game at the moment.
Let me explain:
PvE
We are blessed here in the respect that all three of our talent specialisations are viable for putting out competitive dps, however we are pretty much pigeon-holed into demonology if we want to acquire a raid spot due to the ever wonderful demonic pact.
The problem is that we have to put in multitudes more effort than other dps classes just to do what people consider "Competitive". We have numerous self buffs to keep track of whilst micrmangaing our pets, cooldowns, and dot's, whereas a majority of other classes can just watch TV whilst dpsing. Sure you could argue it "makes to game fun" by it being so difficult, but when you end up getting benched for joe-mage who doesn't even know what a glyph is, but can still pull 40k+ dps due to the ease of the class.[slight exagguration]
It would be a safe bet to say that in any given fight we use at least 10 different key bindings, just to pull a reasonable amount of damage(20k in 378 gear), whilst our competitors can literally focus on their two button rotations with situational spells(ABx4>AM or MUTx2>Rupture>MUTx2>Envenom[not counting slice and dice as it is only applied once and auto-refreshed with CttC]

PvP - sidenote before you read this, I purely play Battlegrounds, if you're one of the "GAEM IS BALANCE AROUND 3S NUB LOL UR NOT 2.9K RATING SCRUB GET OWNED LOL" you should probably not read any further as the topic has nothing to do with arena.
Not sure where exactly to start here so I'll just list out what I personally believe is letting us down currently:
Damage: Our single target damage is abysmal in comparison to other classes, there have been too many times where I have fully dotted players up: Trinket+Puppy demon soul: UA, Corr, BoA, CoE, Shadowflame, Fear and started spamming fel fire, just to not even notice them drop below 80% HP, that is literally my full arsenal of damage, I can not physically do anything else to them. I know warlocks are a DoT class, and the niché is that it should be dealt over time, however with the ridiculous amounts of self-healing the majority of classes have nowadays it makes this literally impossible to do, and seems extremely unfair when said player can shadowstep over to you and crit you for nearly 50% of your health pool with one attack.
Proposed Solution: The main problem here is that blizzard have balanced our affliction damage on the premise that we will ALWAYS have 2-3 targets dotted up, so our single target damage is atrocious.
Make our dot's deal more damage, however if they are applied to other targets, the damage is shared out evenly between them, that way we keep the same overall damage, but still have the feeling that we are actually contributing to the kill in team combat, and can actually out-damage a recouperate or rejuvenation.
NOTE: WE WILL NOT ACTUALLY BE "GAINING" DAMAGE HERE, IT WILL JUST BE CONCENTRATED VS FEWER TARGETS
e.g. *(dpt=damage per tick)
currently:
UA on one target: 3333dpt(3333total)
UA on two targets: 3333dpt(6666total)
UA on three targets 3333dpt(10000total)
Proposed:
UA on one target: 10000dpt(10000total)
UA on two targets: 5000dpt(10000total)
UA on three targets: 3333dpt(10000total)
Please note: numbers are purely fictitious as well for the ease of the example.

Too much ramp up time: For our dots to do semi-reasonable damage we need shadow embrace up, to get shadow embrace up we need to land haunt and 2x SB. You will NOT get that off in pvp outside of lucky nightfall procs due to the abundance of interrupts/LoS, however for this to proc, you need to dot them up, thus making it pointless[catch 22], so we are instantly at a disadvantage from the get go.
Proposed Solution: Either make shadow embrace a player buff, or remove the mechanic completely, whilst implementing the extra damage some other way.

Dispelling: Dispelling is pretty much our MAJOR counter. There is absolutely no incentive to not dispel currently, the UA silence is there... but it doesn't matter when the healer has no pressure on him at all to begin with. Not to mention it hits like a wet noodle(12k currently, that's less than a 10th of a players health pool. It's a no brainer at the moment, even the dispellers themselves agree it should be buffed, as they shouldn't be able to negate a whole classes arsenal jsut by mindlessly spamming one button.
Proposed Solution: Make Dispelling a choice again rather than a braindead spam via making it hit harder(flat out 20% of a players health).

Mobility vs melee: The problem here is once a target is on us, they will usually stay on you. Let me explain by using a best case scenario, where the target will not have a fear-immunity ability(warning, will be tl;dr worthy and probably confusing).
We have four main "escape" mechanics. Death Coil, Fear, Howl of Terror and Shadowflame>Portal.
The main problem here, is once a melee is on you, the first course of action is to generally deathcoil him to bait the trinket, but start pre-casting a fear so that it lands the second he has trinketed. If you manage this, then you have some breathing room to prepare and dot up said target, however if the player is smart he will wait out the coil and trinket the fear, in which case he will be straight back on you causing you to use either your howl or SF>P[this isn't even taking into account the foresight portal requires which I will explain in a few moments].
At this point you will have used two of your four escapes(DC & HoT or SF>P), be in the process of dotting the enemy up, however he will be in your face again soon, and you will have no choice but to use a third and last escape(HoT or SF>P, whichever is off CD). Let me also point out that at this point in a fight[causing a player to trinket and use all of his counters to break your "escapes"], most classes would have killed the opponent.
Once he get's back on you following the last escape, you can pretty guarantee that you will die, as Howl,DC and Portal will still be on cooldown, you will have a brute hitting you with no means of stopping him as he is stunning/interrupting every cast you make, meaning you cannot fear him off you, unless you manage to fakecast him and land a fear whilst their other abilities are all miraculously on cooldown[Cloak, Gouge, Blind, Kidney, Vanish], in which case you will have 5 seconds(DR from earlier) to get as far away as you can, and continue the devastation of dots and fel flame tickling him into submission.
You will have probably got him down to around 30-40% at best during this, assuming you are both equally and adequately geared(4k+ resil). But you WILL die here as they will be on you and you will literally have nothing, and something like This Will be coming your way in seconds.
Proposed Solution: there really isn't one here, we just need to hope that the above fixes will impact upon this and ensure we can either get the kill before we're out of tools to use.

Portal: As mentioned above, Portal, whilst being one of THE most amazing escape abilities in this game, is also one of the most frustrating. It requires a ridiculous amount of preparation to set it up ideally(you will usually want it outside of the fight area, preferably out of line of sight and ideally on a different Z axis[up/down]) And in the midst of combat, or when a stealthed character get's the jump on you, it is just not possible to manage, at least not without losing a good 10+ seconds of battle time trying to sort it out and then once again get 30+yards from it to teleport back.
Proposed Solution: Once again, there really isn't one, it's a nice tool to use if you are able to prepare it, however this isn't the case in a majority of scenarios.

Surviving: It's pretty simple as a warlock, if you don't have a personal healer, you will not survive a fight vs equally geared players, no matter the skill difference and how much you "outplay" them. It's just not feasibly possible, when they are pumping out tons more damage faster than you, even though you have kept them CC'd and out of line of sight for the majority of the fight. The only way to survive is to have someone keeping you alive long enough for your dot's to eventually wear them down.

Skill Cap/Floor: Touchy subject here, but it has to be mentioned... some classes are just simply easier to play, why else do you think there is an abundance of Sub rogues, frost mages and Blood DK's in pvp currently? it's not because they're "fun" to play, it's because they are easy. Some would say "FoTM(Flavour of The Month)" however in some cases, it's been a tiny bit longer than that *Ahem*
*Skill floor being the other end of the spectrum from skill cap.
The higher a classes skill cap, the more potential a player has to absolutely destroy when used correctly.(Higher=Better)
where-as a skill floor implies the ability to actually be good with the character without knowing a thing about it.(Lower=Easier)
here is a graphical representation of where I believe each class currently is, based on my personal experience: http://i.imgur.com/kQZDv.png
If you need any proof of this, just take a gander at any recent census data, or even just join LFR/BG and take a look at the class diversity, you MIGHT see a single warlock if you're lucky, providing demonic pact in pve, or just a determined pvper who doesn't want to leave his main and the fun play style behind, despite all of its flaws, however you WILL encounter hundreds of said "FoTM" classes.

I'm not going to even touch upon "tanks" who can take beatings from 5+people and still put out more damage than dpsers due to vengeance, or healers who can also take beatings and pop an instant to get back to full HP, as that's more general pvp related, whislt this post is Warlock related and I could quite literally spend hours explaining why it is destroying the game.

If you actually read all of this, here; enjoy a cookie. ( : : )

[Oldmilwaukee]

Im sorry to tell you that but your damage is more than enough.Warlock are able to put some much pressure on a healer in a 3s match you dont need more burst. What warlock is all about is control and pushing the enemy healer to compromise himself for a good amount of time to heal up his 2 teammates.
Warlock also have a good amount of control. Death Coil, AoE Fear, Single Target fear, Pet Silence/Pet Charm. And i think one of the most annoying mechanic a warlock has is UA silence that if hes matched with a mage prevent me from giving the mobility i would like to give to my DPS ( i play a priest).
About the skill cap. I agree a frost DK is easier to play than a warlock will ever be but imo you should not be all butthurt about this complexity cause if you get known as a good warlock in your community your goin to get alot more recognition over some who play blood (pre-vengeance nerf).

And i think that playing a match with some ramp up is alot more interesting than to play against RMP and get globaled. People are complaining about rogue because theyre able to burst 80-90k in no time and you want to encourage this kind of gameplay by getting your class a more bursty approach. I think that in a match that last 5-7 minutes requires alot more skill than getting smoke bombed and raped in one global in the first 20 seconds of a match.

[Adt]

Im sorry to tell you that but your damage is more than enough.Warlock are able to put some much pressure on a healer in a 3s match you dont need more burst. What warlock is all about is control and pushing the enemy healer to compromise himself for a good amount of time to heal up his 2 teammates.
Warlock also have a good amount of control. Death Coil, AoE Fear, Single Target fear, Pet Silence/Pet Charm. And i think one of the most annoying mechanic a warlock has is UA silence that if hes matched with a mage prevent me from giving the mobility i would like to give to my DPS ( i play a priest).
About the skill cap. I agree a frost DK is easier to play than a warlock will ever be but imo you should not be all butthurt about this complexity cause if you get known as a good warlock in your community your goin to get alot more recognition over some who play blood (pre-vengeance nerf).

And here we go I somehow saw this coming, I even wrote a section on it, but people still ignore it, /cheer.

PvP - sidenote before you read this, I purely play Battlegrounds, if you're one of the "GAEM IS BALANCE AROUND 3S NUB LOL UR NOT 2.9K RATING SCRUB GET OWNED LOL" you should probably not read any further as the topic has nothing to do with arena.

Like it says, I play BG;'s exclusively, I couldnt give a damn how warlocks are in arenas(I know they are powerhouses in 3s, but it's not their damage that causes that, it's the synergy with their partners and how they can control the enemy team. As you know this just isn't possible in BG's, it might as well be a whole different game altogether, I would gladly see a nerf of our control to the ground if it made us more viable all around. There is no other class/spec out there in our situation(works amazing in small-scale team combat but useless alone).
Also, I just realised, I completely ignored Dispel's from the list. Not sure how I managed that...

[Jomu]

Funny how warlocks, according to you are so bad in PvP. We've just had a major arena tournament where locks were very much competative. Also just when looking on arenajunkies, I see 4/10 of the top10 teams includeing a warlock.

-Even though you only play BGs I still think your statement is wrong

I also do belive warlocks are competative in PvE. I can think of one encounter where they're not which is spine hc (and they are far from the only class that doesnt shine on this). Other than that they're just fine..

I think you got your facts wrong. But hey, thats just how i personally see the state of warlocks (despite of not playing one myself)

[Adt]

Funny how warlocks, according to you are so bad in PvP. We've just had a major arena tournament where locks were very much competative. Also just when looking on arenajunkies, I see 4/10 of the top10 teams includeing a warlock.

I also do belive warlocks are competative in PvE. I can think of one encounter where they're not which is spine hc (and they are far from the only class that doesnt shine on this). Other than that they're just fine..

I think you got your facts wrong. But hey, thats just how i personally see the state of warlocks (despite of not playing one myself)

And once again, people can't see that there is actually pvp ourside of arena *sigh* I knew it would be a waste of time writing this post... ah well.

-Even though you only play BGs I still think your statement is wrong

Ok, ill compromise, I can agree with you there, I probably was being over-dramatic, just there's only so many times one can get critted for 1/3 of his health pool whilst wearing 4k resilience before he gets pissed off.

It doesn't change the fact that my proposed changes would not actually give us any actual damage increases though, all it would mean is that we could hold our own once again when faced with a 1v1 scenario.
See:

Proposed Solution: The main problem here is that blizzard have balanced our affliction damage on the premise that we will ALWAYS have 2-3 targets dotted up, so our single target damage is atrocious.
Make our dot's deal more damage, however if they are applied to other targets, the damage is shared out evenly between them, that way we keep the same overall damage, but still have the feeling that we are actually contributing to the kill in team combat, and can actually out-damage a recouperate or rejuvenation.
NOTE: WE WILL NOT ACTUALLY BE "GAINING" DAMAGE HERE, IT WILL JUST BE CONCENTRATED VS FEWER TARGETS
e.g. *(dpt=damage per tick)
currently:
UA on one target: 3333dpt(3333total)
UA on two targets: 3333dpt(6666total)
UA on three targets 3333dpt(10000total)
Proposed:
UA on one target: 10000dpt(10000total)
UA on two targets: 5000dpt(10000total)
UA on three targets: 3333dpt(10000total)

[Jomu]

Ok so, took me 2mins to google RBG rankings and I see plenty of warlocks on the rankings.
So either way I still think your statement is false

[Cemila]

I'm just wondering, you must be playing as aff primarily. Demo has more control/mobiliy (pet stun, demon leap, HoG root/stun) and burst damage and I generally have no trouble in 1v1 fights whether it's in a BG or a duel. Also with your portal problem, while it can be annoying at times, just drop a portal after you use a longer CC (full fear/HoT) and run away from it with the enemy on the other side.

[Oldmilwaukee]

Like it says, I play BG;'s exclusively, I couldnt give a damn how warlocks are in arenas(I know they are powerhouses in 3s, but it's not their damage that causes that, it's the synergy with their partners and how they can control the enemy team. As you know this just isn't possible in BG's, it might as well be a whole different game altogether, I would gladly see a nerf of our control to the ground if it made us more viable all around. There is no other class/spec out there in our situation(works amazing in small-scale team combat but useless alone).
Also, I just realised, I completely ignored Dispel's from the list. Not sure how I managed that...

I mean this game is not meant to be balanced around battleground(15 men or higher) and even in a Rated BG your team are usually organized enough to give you the space you need to be efficient.
And the RBGs strategy is almost all about killing the healer so you wont get tunelled unless your healer is dead which means you would not be doing your job of peeling off of your healer.

[Ariselia]

Honestly, i love playing my lock in BG/RBG. UA is an amazing debuff. I don't see why damage is a problem. Since you primarily play BGs, its a whole team effort isn't it? Sure you might not be able to burst someone 1v1 but that shouldn't matter in BGs?

[Taros]

Bumping this for you. I don't have time right now to add to this but I will revisit later.

[stuck4cash]

And once again, people can't see that there is actually pvp ourside of arena *sigh* I knew it would be a waste of time writing this post... ah well.

Don't you find it a little ironic that you're saying that there's PvP outside of arena but then completely ignore Arena.

There are 4 major components on a competitive level nowadays that Blizzard has to balance. Arenas, RBGs, 10 man dungeons and 25 man dungeons.

Now, I hear you screaming "10s and 25s are identical" but they're not. Each individual you bring (and the spec that they choose) has to be more or less equal with everyone else. Similarly in arenas, picking a class combo is half the battle. In 25s and RBGs, the class composition matters less and you simply need to be on par with other classes.

Also, your opinion is worth no more than anyone elses. If you want to sway someone to your point of view than it is important to provide facts. You haven't done that so I see no reason why we need to "fix" warlocks (since those that do control class balance have a *lot* (ie, all of them) of figures at their disposal.

[Jomu]

UA on one target: 3333dpt(3333total)
UA on two targets: 3333dpt(6666total)
UA on three targets 3333dpt(10000total)
Proposed:
UA on one target: 10000dpt(10000total)
UA on two targets: 5000dpt(10000total)
UA on three targets: 3333dpt(10000total)[/COLOR]
Please note: numbers are purely fictitious as well for the ease of the example.

Being able to multi dot is the signature of an affliction lock. Master that and you are in a whole new world from people who does not. If you would change the DoTs to work like u proposed you would have to choose to multi DoT or single target (for the same amount of damage), only difference is in one example it is focused on one target rather than 3 (or more/less).
From a shadowpriest PoV I wouldn't want that myself. Multi dotting is a great (and unique, shared between priest and lock) way to put preasure on the healer. Just my personal oppinion.

[Adt]

Honestly, i love playing my lock in BG/RBG. UA is an amazing debuff. I don't see why damage is a problem. Since you primarily play BGs, its a whole team effort isn't it? Sure you might not be able to burst someone 1v1 but that shouldn't matter in BGs?

Quick hypothetical scenario, You're in WSG.
score is 2 - 2, both teams have the enemy flag in their flag room, their EFC is a Blood DK with a disc priest healer. Rest of the team is racing your flag carrier(for control purposes lets say your team has the same setup holding the flag).
You fully dot up the dk and you have a personal healer spam healing you, but you notice the dk's health isn't even dropping, despite the enemy disc priest being chainstunned/silenced and killed by your team mates.
DK is still at full HP and your DK dies and drops the flag, they cap and win.
Does it still matter that you do zero burst damage?

Being able to multi dot is the signature of an affliction lock. Master that and you are in a whole new world from people who does not. If you would change the DoTs to work like u proposed you would have to choose to multi DoT or single target (for the same amount of damage), only difference is in one example it is focused on one target rather than 3 (or more/less).
From a shadowpriest PoV I wouldn't want that myself. Multi dotting is a great (and unique, shared between priest and lock) way to put preasure on the healer. Just my personal oppinion.

You seem to be missing the point, the damage would be the exact same it is right now when multi-dotting. NO change like physically AT ALL. But it would help you survive scenarios where you get jumped alone, or you're trying to take out the EFC, or guy defending a flag/tower.

Don't you find it a little ironic that you're saying that there's PvP outside of arena but then completely ignore Arena.

There are 4 major components on a competitive level nowadays that Blizzard has to balance. Arenas, RBGs, 10 man dungeons and 25 man dungeons.

Now, I hear you screaming "10s and 25s are identical" but they're not. Each individual you bring (and the spec that they choose) has to be more or less equal with everyone else. Similarly in arenas, picking a class combo is half the battle. In 25s and RBGs, the class composition matters less and you simply need to be on par with other classes.

Also, your opinion is worth no more than anyone elses. If you want to sway someone to your point of view than it is important to provide facts. You haven't done that so I see no reason why we need to "fix" warlocks (since those that do control class balance have a *lot* (ie, all of them) of figures at their disposal.

I'm hardly ignoring arena, but the simple fact is that these changes wouldn't effect arena, hence there being no mention of it. Multi-dotting would remain exactly the same as it is now, Control would stay the same(but could do with a nerf to help balance things out)

I agree with the second point, classes do need to be on par with each other, which if you have touched a warlock, you would know we're no where near that in the current state of the game.(from a pvp point of view).

Bumping this for you. I don't have time right now to add to this but I will revisit later.

Righto.

[Jomu]

So to boil it down. What I'm reading is "X specs deal more burst than me. Therefore I need a buff".
Also if you play competative PvP (ratedBGs in this case) there is usually a healer (if not more people) following the flag carrier, which again brings you back to the situation you want to sit in as affliction. The 1v1 situation I shouldn't even bother commenting on tbh, as its been said so many times. The PvP aspect of this game is NOT balanced around 1v1.

[Worshaka]

If you honnestly think that locks are the only difficult class to play you are sorely mistaken. While I acknolwedge the skill curve for locks is perhaps one of the highest, if not the highest, the class/spec I play (spriest) is also somewhat difficult and I assure you I couldn't watch TV and do competitive DPS.

I don't like your title either, you are effectively stating Locks are broken which isn't the case, if you want to have a subjective discussion about the merits of effort vs performance thats another discussion entirely. However I think having differing degress of effort isn't a bad thing. It is another thing that differentiates classes, I enjoy my spriest because it provides me with the right mix of complexity, depth and reward for me. Someone else may like more complexity and depth and therefore be attracted to playing a Lock, or another person may want something nice and simple and play an arcane mage (not to say there is 0 depth there but I think we can agree it's one of the more simple class/specs to play).

I suggest if you want a proper open discussion about an issue, not to front load it with your conceptions because it may just be that your perception of things isn't the actual state of them. Locks, when played correctly, are very viable and downright powerful.

[Nyaldee]

Man oh man locks are fine in pvp, always rank 1 viable. Locks have plenty of viable setups: MLS, RLS, SpLS, LSD2, EleLP. Port is amazing ability, your teammates can help you keeping melee off your back, great preassure via dots, good dps cd, spamable cc/aoe cc/silence/coil. Locks may have high skill cap becouse of amount od abilities you've to use, but where high tier locks use macroses for target/fear/silence/cot (arena 1/2/3), mages have for sheep/silence/df/target (arena 1/2/3), retribution paladins have bop/bof/wog party 1/2, repentance arena 1/2/3. So no, locks aren't much harder to play then most other classes.

Locks have all needed tools to be succesfull, locks are welcomed in many 3v3 top tier setups, locks are welcomed in all 5v5 setups outside of melee cleaves, locks are welcomed to RBGs. You won't see big numbers from warlock, but overall preassure is there and it's really high. We can die really fast sometimes (pve abusing feral/hunt/healer is first thing that comes to mind), but so does everyone becouse burst dmg from many classes is through the roof.

If you're bothered by inability to proper 1v1 most other classes then lock isn't your class, simple as that. But for teamplay locks are golden. Probably most frustrating class to play with bad partners, and most rewarding and devastating when grouped with good partners.

[FunFarm]

Destruction specifically: Chaos Bolt will refresh the duration of Immolate on the target to it's full duration.

[Holian]

Where as i agree on the PvE part, we put in ALOT more effort than most other DPS, for equal or even lower dps, is a tad annoying, but if the skill IS there, our damage is perfectly fine.

On the PvP front, you are just... wrong, a full round of dots with cooldowns (haunt, UA, corruption, bane of agony) on a 4.4k resilience target, brings them down to 20-30% hp EASILY, and that's with NO other help from you or teammates, ofcourse this is assuming no heals, cooldowns yadda yadda.

But the whole premise of warlock damage lacking in pvp is VERY faulty, yes, you wont burst a healer down 1vs1, you just wont, but as you said, you mostly play RBGs, in 3vs3 arena you constantly have 3 targets to dot up, in a RBG you should always have ATLEAST that.

A warlocks role in pvp is NOT burst, it's pressure, something we do -extremely- well when played right.

-credentials top 15ish ranked in EU 3vs3 at my top and done plenty of RBGs in my day.

If you have a problem with warlock damage in pvp, you have misunderstood our role, or you are playing incorrectly.

[mmff4]

Make other classes more complicated.

[Itisamuh]

I agree with almost everything said in the OP, with one exception. I think calling sub rogues easy to play is a little silly. Sure you can hide out in BGs and only attack weak targets, but rogues are actually easily one of the highest skill requiring classes in the game, probably only behind hunters in PvP. Frankly so were mages until Cata where frost got too many passive slows and freezes. DKs are pretty mindless to play, I agree there, but there need to be classes like that. Sometimes it can be fun to just crank up the music and play a simple run and fight class.

Still, those are side notes as you said, and the thread is about warlocks. I agree, single target damage and survivability, particularly against melee, is atrocious. Being good in one arena bracket, with a pocket healer to keep you alive, a pocket DPS to kill things with the burst you lack, and a portal that is only really useful in arena does not make the class good. I really like your idea about the dots splitting damage based on how many targets have them up. Or if nothing else, make dots applied by soul swap do half damage, something like that.

Lately I have been playing shadow priest. They are pretty much what I wish warlock was, good dot damage and good burst damage wrapped in one spec, with decent survivability, but much worse multi target ability. Not relying a pet is quite refreshing too, but that is a minor note.