[MoP] Warlock CC and survivability

[evertonbelmontt]

I'd like to correct him about Healthstone. We can't have for sure that it's a bug and it's gonna be corrected soon, unless "someone" xD can confirm.
Other than that, great post.

Overall, i need the major solution for melees as afflic would make the glyph of exaustion spamable.
But "HOLY SH*T, 70% snare all times? THAT'S MADNESS" , yeah, maybe, but either do this or change the slow to 50% and increase duration (duration of glyph'd is...........................) or we need better cds.

How so?
Well... the thing is, if blizz wants us to relly so much on CD's to be tanky, make it so, but do it right. Most of the time i'm been pressured I MUST use at least 2 of them at the same time, sometimes 3, if the enemy is melee.

Ex.: Dark regen + healthstone (if melee, i must use mortal coil or other from that same tier to get a gap. 3 skills in a row), and if i keep being pressured, dark bargain and after that, i'm screw'd.

Sugestion: Lower CD from healthstone to 1min (if it keeps the same 14% amount heal, i think this is a MUST to balance us for the same heal over time we had before, i'm really missing it)
Lower CD from mortal coil to 30 seg (single ability, not much impact on pvp outside duels and x2, i'm actually using it to recover hp and finish ppl on a chain)
Lower Unending to 2min CD, that way we can macro it with dark regen to be effective everytime it goes off of CD.

And... PLEASE, Unbound Will 20% hp? ...
i haven't tried this with a dedicated healer yet, but ... seriously, i think using this is a big, HUGE mistake. 20% HP for full cleanse can be good, on paper. Since dots can screw 20% of your HP easily i guess, but the majority of times i have used it, i got stuned/silenced/dot'd the same time and lost 20% hp for nothing.

Sugestion: UW could be 10% hp with a 2min CD. (i'm putting this "10% hp thing" just because of the "needed" trade of, not that i like/aprove it.
EDIT: another good sugestion would make Unbound Will give you magic imunity for a few sec's (3~5) plus the cleanse at the cost of 20% hp, this would solve ( i think) our uneasiness and doubt about using it.

PS: Thanks for your attention Xelnath, i thought my friend was being ridiculous about the CB nerf thing!

[gez]

Slyve for dev lol, but now being serius we aint gonna have any chance till season starts and warlock representation drop to 5%-4% then and only then they will care and fix aff, only aff its always the same when blizzard note that warlock are really UP at pvp, they just fix aff to a decent level and then leave it there for the rest of the expa

UB, is the most decent choise in that talent teir you just need to know how to use it.

[wholol]

hmm, ok so i've been thinking of ways to make destro viable, I'll think of affliction while I write this, here's what I propose( might sound absurd lol), a mechanics change again sadly, the ember system is great, but needs a tad more flavor to make it effective, let's start with:

- Incinerate is castable while moving ( glyph ) but doing so makes it deal 20% less damage , it's a trade of damage for mobility, what does this mean ? pve should stay the same since locks want to maximize dps they would not be moving at all, unless they have to move in that case even the glyph is nice for pve.

- incinerate generates 2 embers normal, 4 embers crits , same goes for felflame ( you will know why later ).

-mechanics change for embers : embers benefit from stacking instead of having each ember individually affect spells, meaning that currently, stacking 3-4 embers is close to meaningless as you would lose time and dps for pve, and pvp we would rarely have the time to actually get to that anyways.

I propose this : chaos bolt and ember tap consume ALL embers the lock currently has, their dmg / heal is proportionately increased by the Number of embers consumed, for example, each ember increases the damage of chaos bolt by 10% and healing of ember tap by 10%, but this calls for a chaos bolt dmg nerf, but not too much, we want 1 ember to deal less than what CB does atm, but 4 embers to deal more , so that stacking it means actual burst, while consuming embers fast is more consistent damage, ember tap would heal more proportionately to embers as well, 1 ember 20% of max hp , 2 embers 20% +10%= 30% ... 4 embers 20%+30% =50% heal .

furthermore stacking embers passively increases ALL our damage spells EXCEPT for chaosbolt, each ember provides 5% damage increase across the board, stacking up to 4x5% = 20% , so that holding embers is also a benefit.

but this is absurd ? we are getting too many embers now, np we are adding a new spell that consumes embers !

Chaotic displacement: the warlock is momentarily consumed by chaotic flames and explodes in a wave of chaos snaring all enemies within 10 yards by 70% for 5 secs and teleporting him 20 yards back , 10 sec cd, consumes 1 ember.
10 sec cd so that it is not spammed if you have several embers, the cd itself provides a snare in substitution to shadowflame and a short escape mechanism, it does not break any stuns or snares itself so it is not mimicking blink.

besides this, mortal coil baseline, RoF 2 sec stun every 2 ticks of RoF, the new talent to replace mortal coil is ... banish ! your banish now works on all enemies, but shares a 15 secs cd, it still has a cast time, and works similar to cyclone, think about it.

Affliction :

- 4th shard does not require a glyph and is permanently integrated into the spec itself.
-siphon life is also part of the spec itself.
-soulburning a pet does not place it on a 1 min cd for manual summons.
-Coex is 50% snare passive, remove the glyph entirely .
-nightfall procs actually make your haunt instant cast for 5 secs,besides giving a shard( we all miss insta bolts).
- new ability, Twilight's refuge : 30 sec cd, instantly remove all snares and roots and provides immunity to them for 10 secs.
- soulburning Coex will affect all enemies within 10 yards of the target, if at least 1 enemy besides the main target is successfully afflicted by Coex using SB , the shard is refunded.


General fixes :

-unbound will: no health cost, it's a 1 min cd, and we're picking it instead of the other talents anyways.
-bloodfear: no health cost,cd increased to 15 secs, the entire debate of consuming health is great and all, only if we actually had decent self regen to back up the loss of that, overall meaningless.
-burning rush : 30 secs cd, no health cost, lasts for 10 secs.
- Soul Link : no HP penalty on pet again, and if it's too OP for that, -20% HP on pet, 50% is too much imo, does not replace healthfunnel ! blizzard is afraid we might heal ourselves with healthfunnel through SL ? so what? if we can channel that long , we might as well channel drain life which is about the same imo.
-Archimonde's vengeance: 50% dmg return active like it was,10% passive, only works on single target damage, no more being abused in pve.
-KjC: active the same, passive remove one of the negatives, 2 negatives is too much.
-MF:add an active to this , something like : your aoe spells have a chance to duplicate the damage on the target.

[Xelnath]

Slyver, couple points to flesh out your post.

* Missing Unbound Will from your potential survivability tool list, same with Archimonde's Vengeance
* Mages don't have passive damage reduction, where are you seeing this?
* Which spells can be cast while stunned?
** I'm only seeing Alter Time and Blink on that list. (Pet Root can't be used while stunned)
* Poly/Root/Snare immunity is a package on Moonkin.
* Other shapeshifts make Moonkin vulnerable to Beasts

I appreciate the time you've taken to compile this list. That is very useful.

However, I hope you're as aware as I am of how you spun it.

[Quae]

On the trail to Jerusalem once again…

Life isn’t fair, and apparently,
Neither is WoW.

Someone should make this entire post =>> sticky !! Please !!

[Kirroth]

The trouble with Unbound Will is that a 20% health cost is very, very high unless you have a healer dropping spells on you. And if you have a healer supporting you they can just cast Cleanse and get the same effect for no health cost. So really the niche it tries to fill is when you don't have someone on hand to remove CC and debuffs, but you're trading 1/5 of your health for it. A self-inflicted 33,000 hit is not a minor sacrifice, and it's one that's hard to swallow when so many other classes have similar abilities without that cost. It's also at odds with the short cooldown, because there's no way you can afford to cast it that often.

I'm not the most familiar with other casters, but defensive abilities that can be used while stunned I can name are: Druid Barkskin, Priest Dispersion*, Mage Ice Block, Mage Cold Snap, technically Mage Cauterize.

*(Now there's a powerful defensive ability. Yes, it's of the Deterrence school of preventing you from attacking, but DoT classes don't care so much about that. In return you get 90% damage resistance, removal and immunity of movement impairing effects, can be used while under many forms of CC, and only has a 2 minute cooldown.)

[gez]

Slyver, couple points to flesh out your post.

* Missing Unbound Will from your potential survivability tool list, same with Archimonde's Vengeance
* Mages don't have passive damage reduction, where are you seeing this?
* Which spells can be cast while stunned?
** I'm only seeing Alter Time and Blink on that list. (Pet Root can't be used while stunned)
* Poly/Root/Snare immunity is a package on Moonkin.
* Other shapeshifts make Moonkin vulnerable to Beasts

I appreciate the time you've taken to compile this list. That is very useful.

However, I hope you're as aware as I am of how you spun it.

let me correct you in a couple of things:

1. unboundwill isnt a suvivability tool, you use this to remove any CC when you are not the focus, if you use this to cleanse a stun, lets say kidney shot well your situation will get worse
2. AV dmgs is just not worth for anything a simple shield + hot nagete the dmgs pretty easily

[Sylar Hao]

Slyver, couple points to flesh out your post.

* Missing Unbound Will from your potential survivability tool list, same with Archimonde's Vengeance
* Mages don't have passive damage reduction, where are you seeing this?
* Which spells can be cast while stunned?
** I'm only seeing Alter Time and Blink on that list. (Pet Root can't be used while stunned)
* Poly/Root/Snare immunity is a package on Moonkin.
* Other shapeshifts make Moonkin vulnerable to Beasts

I appreciate the time you've taken to compile this list. That is very useful.

However, I hope you're as aware as I am of how you spun it.

Blink, Cold Snap, Ice Block and Alter Time can all be used while stunned. The survival and CC tools of the mage is just out of control because of the amount of both they got, not because they're op per se.
Moonkin being a beast only matters against a Hunter's Scare Beast or a Druid's Hibernate, and they don't use the other forms very often.

[Xelnath]

Gez - you may not like the trade-off, but the ability to cancel two CCs back to back is a survivability tool.

[Slyver]

Slyver, couple points to flesh out your post.

* Missing Unbound Will from your potential survivability tool list, same with Archimonde's Vengeance

I didn't, in all cases, list every ability. I excluded them under two conditions:

1. There was something else in the same tier that I listed and counted
2. I would never take it over something else in its current incarnation for pvp

Also, I did mention UW with BR on the same line. I only counted them once, since you can't have both.

* Mages don't have passive damage reduction, where are you seeing this?

I can't find where I said that.

* Which spells can be cast while stunned?
** I'm only seeing Alter Time and Blink on that list. (Pet Root can't be used while stunned)

Blink, Temporal Shield, Ice Block, Cold Snap, Alter Time = 5

All amazingly potent, even if they couldn't be cast when CC'd; however, they can be.

Also, but not counted in my post: passive snare from armor. I am not sure about Pet Root. I simply don't remember; nevertheless, it was not added. I will test it later when I have the time.

* Poly/Root/Snare immunity is a package on Moonkin.
* Other shapeshifts make Moonkin vulnerable to Beasts

I am not sure how it matters that all that immunity is built into the 'Moonkin package'. It's really built into the 'Druid package'. They have it and its potency is poignant, especially to make a turret type caster effective at being turrety. It doesn't matter that all other druids have it as well.

As for the beast vulnerability, it matters less for moonkins than any of the other specs. The only time they will use cat is for stealth purposes, which means openers or getaways. It's difficult to scare a stealthed target.

They will go bear or travel to survive a beating or get away, both times when they want to be left alone. During neither of those times will it be overly bothersome that they are vulnerable to a couple cc's that will provide what they desire, and that most people don't even remember they have (most hunters have earned the name 'huntard').

It's a minor deficit, at best (for Moonkins, much more of one for Feral).

I appreciate the time you've taken to compile this list. That is very useful.

However, I hope you're as aware as I am of how you spun it.

I did attempt to at least provide the facts with a moderate level of objectively before jumping into my assessment. I lauded Warlock abilities when they deserved it. I did not 'spin it' perhaps as much as you think, though I will admit to an apparent bias. That bias may not come from where you might think though.

You see, I love the mage model. I think fire is a bit too bursty, but that can be fixed with one of a few, very mild fixes (e.g. don't allow Pyro! to proc Pyro! and/or Heating Up during a Deep Freeze == fixed; change Deep Freeze to be a 4s stun on a 25s CD == fixed). Their 'slippery caster' model is well done; challenging to use to best effect, and overall, just brilliant.

I also really like Moonkins overall. I hate the way they look, and I don't like their casting model (sun to moon, back and forth, it bothers me, I can't tell you why), but I presented it because it is such an awesome model of what is required to be a turret in the current game, and what are useful 'tanky type' abilities. Again, I think Moonkins are awesome overall, and really feel fleshed out, even if I don't like the flesh.

I am seriously considering playing a Mage; I also am considering playing Feral (I have both at 85 as well). This is not intended to induce a 'nerf them!' response, quite the opposite in fact; I am trying to say. "Look, this works really well! Lets analyze what works to try to determine why this other similar thing doesn't".

I could do the same thing with hunters, but my god it took me way too much time away from my work to do that post yesterday. I could also do the same thing with spriest, though I am not quite as well versed in them. It would also be interesting to do a direct comparison with Shaman, though I know even less about them.

The point really was to do a comparison, it only looked so biased because my 'feeling response' about the extreme discrepancies, both having played these classes extensively, and just looking at and comparing the abilities, instilled in me an indignation for my beautiful female blood elf warlock with wings (DA form, just lovely).

Other classes gained so much for MoP. For the most part, as outlined in my post, they gained things that helped them do what they already did. I love the fact that all classes have some form of healing now. I have always thought it should be that way. However, while other classes gained healing, Warlocks lost some, yet they are the only class that uses health as a resource for spells, and even gained more abilities in MoP that follow this model. I have to ask, why? I am flabbergasted.

I love that classes in general got better at what they could already do, as well as in many cases, gaining additional tools to shore up weaknesses. Warlocks got a few of those things as well, but they also lost a lot. When weighed in the balance, I believe they have lost.

I may look at comparing Warlocks before, and Warlocks after, in the same vein as my previous post to make my money and my mouth coincident. Maybe I will get on that today (or maybe not, I really need to get some work done).

Thank you for taking the time to read my wall o' text(s).

[Deleted]

Personally im feeling the hit from the missing SL. The new one i personally am not that fund off purely based on how squishy our pets are. Dmg is a bit out on control atm so its hard to discpher how warlocks will handle in the survivabilty side of things. I also think blood fear is herp derp. It just is not worth it with a 10s CD. It really isnt. In 2v2 you need to spam fear essentially. let alone 3v3 amd 5v5.

I'm actually enjoying playing my warlock allot atm but i have to be honest i am concerned with the lack off CC and possible survivabilty. The only reason besides fear warlocks have been viable in PvP, is because of the flat 25% dmg reduction from soul link. With out tht we would have gone down like a sack of s**t. Now that has been sort of swapped for more spammable defensive CD's which are nice but quite situational. Sure Sl is still avaliable but god damn our pets go down quick.

Offensively im having no troubles, Defesively is proving a bit more of a tricky situation. Great post btw Slyver. Very well put that basically locks have been shafted CC wise. Or other closses have too much. Imo warlocks have been held back in that region purely because of the QQ fear gets. ZOMG your op because you have spammable fear...............

[alexw]

Gez - you may not like the trade-off, but the ability to cancel two CCs back to back is a survivability tool.

Err no its not. The ability to cancel two cc's back to back enabling enhanced personal survival would make it a survivability tool. It does not with the health cost it has enhance survivability in any meaningful manner.

Neither AV or unbound will are personal survivability cooldowns.

The moment in time you most want to remove effects from yourself for survivability reasons is the point at which you can least afford a 20% hit to health. My healer partner is cc'd and i'm at 60% health being focused. Do I use UW and take myself to 40%? The answer 90% of the time will be no.

For Arena's (the whole point of this thread), when you are under heavy pressure and crumpling will be the moment at which your team's outgoing damage will be at its lowest. Thus using AV at that point will just mean you put out a 'bit' of what you would otherwise do if not focused. That will in no way be enough to make them switch off of you. Indeed, if they did AV damage would go down but your overall outgoing pressure would only go up. I can see AV being a rated BG survivability tool but certainly not an arena one.

[Xelnath]

I did attempt to at least provide the facts with a moderate level of objectively before jumping into my assessment. I lauded Warlock abilities when they deserved it. I did not 'spin it' perhaps as much as you think, though I will admit to an apparent bias. That bias may not come from where you might think though.

You see, I love the mage model. [...] Their 'slippery caster' model is well done; challenging to use to best effect, and overall, just brilliant.

I also really like Moonkins overall. I hate the way they look, and I don't like their casting model (sun to moon, back and forth, it bothers me, I can't tell you why), but I presented it because it is such an awesome model of what is required to be a turret in the current game, and what are useful 'tanky type' abilities. Again, I think Moonkins are awesome overall, and really feel fleshed out, even if I don't like the flesh.

[...]

The point really was to do a comparison, it only looked so biased because my 'feeling response' about the extreme discrepancies.

Cool, that's exactly what I meant. It was a very helpful wall, unlike most walls of text.

I have to ask, why? I am flabbergasted.

I love that classes in general got better at what they could already do, as well as in many cases, gaining additional tools to shore up weaknesses. Warlocks got a few of those things as well, but they also lost a lot. When weighed in the balance, I believe they have lost.

Warlocks occupied the exact same spot as Mages in many ways for Cataclysm PvP. The drift to push them closer towards the tanky model (More like druid, less like mage) is a difficult one.

Let's assume for the moment that Warlocks are indeed underpowered. Warlocks have lost X, Y and Z and A, B and C are not enough to make up for it.

Every time a change is proposed, someone says, "But Warlocks are already so incredibly powerful! They can do all of these powerful CC type of things!" Remembering the Cataclysm model. When that's the response, resistances to grant yet-another-survivability tool increases dramatically.

Balance, especially PvP balance, is a process, not a state. If we've undershot Warlocks, there's ways to make them better. (Increase self healing, add passive damage reduction, etc) However, it's not entirely clear that's true. However, the current mentality of most people is that Warlocks (thinking of Affliction) is top-tier.

However, if Warlocks are already too powerful, adding more things now would only make the balancing process even more painful in later patches.

tl;dr - you don't realize it, but you want to be underpowered at launch.

I may look at comparing Warlocks before, and Warlocks after, in the same vein as my previous post. Maybe I will get on that today (or maybe not, I really need to get some work done).

Thank you for taking the time to read my wall o' text(s).

I'm not convinced Warlocks are as horrible in practice as you guys are making it out to be. We'll see and adjust as needed.

[Deleted]

Personally im feeling the hit from the missing SL. The new one i personally am not that fond off

I'm feeling the same way, though I don't think that the "new" SL is bad, I just think it should have been a different ability in it's own right and the old SL should have remained, arguably as standard - similar to how blood fear is to normal fear.

Mobility is punished by it making MG hard / impossible to maintain, it's also made difficult by COE being either so weak it's not really noticable unglyphed, to incredibly potent, but for such a short period that it's hard to get much distance, and if the enemy uses any kind of gap closer like charge / clears the debuff / a different melee starts focusing you, the CD bites you in the arse. COE glyphed is incredibly potent if you're not being focused though, it's great for assisting other casters - I spent a good 4+ hours in AB last night and COEing an enemy that was on a different player and watching them grind to a halt was quite effective - we don't really seem to have much (like a decent heal bar blowing dark regen + HS and potentially deathcoil) to make use of the tiny amount of time we gain, especially if we don't have a mobility granting ability to clear the inevitable snares all melee seem to have.

So are we supposed to turret it up? We simply lack the survivability that SL and deathcoil as baseline + drain life being effective (both as a filler before our dot damage was rolled into MG being on the target and in terms of it's self healing) that we once had. We're quite strong with all of our CDs blown, but without them I drop like a brick if I attempt to turret, especially if there's more than 1 opponent, which there generally is.

Again, not claiming I've got all the answers as I'm by no means a pvp pro - but I've said this in prettymuch every post I've made across forums and threads, I seem to mostly get "other people are having the same problem" as a response, so while I'm sure part of my failings are due to ineptitude, I'm finding it hard to believe there aren't some real problems with warlocks at the moment, though I realise forums will always bring out bias and over exaggerations - thanks for putting up with it Xelnath, I don't envy your job.

[alexw]

Cool, that's exactly what I meant. It was a very helpful wall, unlike most walls of text.



Warlocks occupied the exact same spot as Mages in many ways for Cataclysm PvP. The drift to push them closer towards the tanky model (More like druid, less like mage) is a difficult one.

Let's assume for the moment that Warlocks are indeed underpowered. Warlocks have lost X, Y and Z and A, B and C are not enough to make up for it.

Every time a change is proposed, someone says, "But Warlocks are already so incredibly powerful! They can do all of these powerful CC type of things!" Remembering the Cataclysm model. When that's the response, resistances to grant yet-another-survivability tool increases dramatically.

Balance, especially PvP balance, is a process, not a state. If we've undershot Warlocks, there's ways to make them better. (Increase self healing, add passive damage reduction, etc) However, it's not entirely clear that's true. However, the current mentality of most people is that Warlocks (thinking of Affliction) is top-tier.

However, if Warlocks are already too powerful, adding more things now would only make the balancing process even more painful in later patches.

tl;dr - you don't realize it, but you want to be underpowered at launch.



I'm not convinced Warlocks are as horrible in practice as you guys are making it out to be. We'll see and adjust as needed.

The thing is when i see people saying this they almost always say things like you have 'instant cast fear, mortal coil, howl of terror, and now shadowfury. You also get these loads and loads of cooldowns'

What they never ever mention is that the CC we do have is substantially less than before. That most of it is now we can have either this or that but not both, where before in cata we had both. They also never ever say that those survivability cooldowns came at the cost of taking away most of our self healing, all of the 20% passive mitigation we had, and reducing the increased heal we got from demon armor from 30% to 10%.

Basically they are living in the past and comparing apples with oranges. I agree if we had the new mop stuff added to what we had before we'd be stupidly OP, more OP than mages currently are (only probably - they are that way out of line). But thats not what has happened even though thats how most view warlocks now.

Thus I find it telling that in the arena junkies poll

http://www.arenajunkies.com/topic/22...caster-in-mop/

where many (if not most) will also hold that 'warlocks OP!!!' bias warlocks rank third.

On that basis I also think if you framed it as an anti-melee type tool, for example a knockback there would be very little resistance. Most know from the cata model that warlocks were melee punching bags. Thus if a warlock ability was added that said "knocks back all players within melee distance by 20 yards, 24s cooldown' most would go ah ok, yeah, warlocks have always had problems dealing with melees.

[Xelnath]

So then you agree that public perception has to change.

[Lucidious]

I look at it like this, I play a spriest and bind most of my destro keys to the same place. Psychic scream=howl,BF>psychic horror, void tendrils>rain of fire"by a LONG shot" spectral guise/fade=port. As you can see its really close on cc but rain of fire is just WAY underpowered against mellee and thats why I keep saying that it either needs fixed or we need 1 more baseline cc. When I look at survivability its like disperse>UR,PW:S>twilight ward, and my heals as a spriest are far better than my locks cd heals AND I can use them on my team. I also have 15% DR and better dispells as well as the fact that my resource based nuke "devouring plague" is an instant cast and not a 3 sec cast. Both specs have a good finisher so thats a wash but my point stands firm to xelnath or anyone else. ROF needs buffed back to its original state and the same thing with soul link. Now ive heard the "its not gonna happen" response but what id really like to know is why. Because when compared to other caster specs we seem just a bit behind in terms of proper balance. I dont want my lock to be OP, I just want the same fighting chance that I get with my other toons"dont get me started on my fire mage who needs nerfed lol". If we are supposed to be a"tanky" caster then we should have passive DR. And our demo based tank spec should get adjusted so its not OP from a change like that as well.

[Kirroth]

I'm not convinced Warlocks are as horrible in practice as you guys are making it out to be. We'll see and adjust as needed.

Fair enough. I can't dispute that the PvP scaling is all crazy at 85 right now, as is the sort of competition you might find trying to test the revised Warlock class out. But I know I went into the last week with an optimistic outlook and found myself having a very difficult time, one with complaints I'm hearing echoed by several of the calmer voices in this thread.

Warlocks are short on escapes, both ways to counter CC and to keep distance from melee. Our self-healing is possibly the lowest since I started playing in BC, which among other effects makes the lvl60 talents very unattractive to actually use. While the defensive cooldowns are nice, it's less nice to feel compelled to spend two talent choices on them and our passive durability when they're unavailable seems lacking.

You'll note that I don't actually feel like we need more CC to solve any of those problems. What CC we have is more than enough to satisfy that purpose. We shouldn't expect to be able to CC juggle people to death like in days of yore. What's lacking is the rest of the picture, precisely because we can't CC someone to death. As soon as the CC runs out I find myself folding like wet cardboard.

Mages live by being slippery and hard to pin down. Moonkin are durable and have impressive self-healing, especially now that they don't even have to drop form to cast heals. What role does that leave Warlocks? What's the strategy for victory that fits both our theme and our abilities? Right now a lot of us are very confused, and either there's an overall synergy we're not seeing or there are serious gaps in the Warlock PvP arsenal.

[Lucidious]

And xelnath I agree 100% that its better to be underpowered then overpowered at the start of an x pac. Well put bro. But do us a favor and really look at ROF. I think its great to flush out stealthies, but if we could drop it on mellee that are training us and could actually create some space or get a cast off we would be set. Well besides the fact that we are a "tanky" caster with no passive DR but im sure thats a given at this point.

[alexw]

So then you agree that public perception has to change.

Not really though it would be helpful. If dev's went by public perception there would be balance changes every 30s or so and the game would be almost unplayable. A big part of what you do is not to listen to public perception. It's why i think mages have not yet got hit by the big-nurf-bat-in-the-sky.

Also as i said if it were introduced as an anti-melee tool then I don't think there would be much 'OMG OP' perception. From the cata model players are already used to the perception that warlocks are melee punching bags.

But I would hope that if you are holding back on changes because of public perception, that you'd be ready to act fast, and have possible changes ready to go fast, if that perception changes. It does seem that in the past at least on player viewed timescales, things that needed buffing (as opposed to nerfing) were buffed at glacial rates or not at all.