[MoP] Warlock CC and survivability

[Phoenexis]

This thread is for the sole discussion of CC and survivability in Mists of Pandaria. This does not mean that you can't use other fields that are off-topic to contribute, but don't make them the main goal of this thread. There will be "OmAGADZ WE NEED/DONT NEED X,Y AND Z". Use arguments and back up your opinions.

COMPARISON OF CC AND SURVIVABILITY BETWEEN ALL CASTER CLASSES

DISCLAIMER: This is a series of grids meant to compare all caster classes in the following categories: CC, gap-openers, passive/short CD defense and active defensive CDs. A description of each ability is present, along with a count of each classes' number of spells that fall into the mentioned categories, while taking into consideration glyphs, specs and talents.
NOT ALL ABILITIES ARE LISTED. The purpose of these grids are to compare the classes in a 3v3 competitive scenario. Therefore, only abilities that are considered viable in a 3v3 situation are present. Not only are these abilities not listed, but they are also removed from any variable and CD counting average since they will not be chosen in the first place.
For example: Tier 1 of the warlock talents contain Dark Regeneration, Soul Leech, and Harvest Life. The last two are not considered viable for 3v3, therefor, the warlock doesn't really make a choice between the 3 talents, because Dark Regeneration will always be the winner. As a result, in my sum of "at the cost of x possible utility spells", I will not count Soul Leech nor Harvest Life.

The data presented is not accurate seeing as I neither play all of these classes competitively nor do I have a very objective view of the game (as you've noticed if you've seen my posts). However, the information present within this post should be sufficient for fair comparison.

Comparison is shown in number, and NOT in value of abilities. Posters may therefor judge each ability's value so that I can proceed with a grid containing each spell's worth.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd focus on comparison instead of nit-picking typos and small menial errors that wouldn't make much of a difference. Thanks for taking the time to read!


Glossary:

*=Talent tier related
*2= different Talent tier related
*3=another different Talent tier related
^=Spec related
#=Pet related

■=Categories
■=Important averages/summaries

■=Warlock
■=Mage
■=Druid
■=Priest
■=Shaman

Not everything is said explicitly, you will have to read through the lines for some sums and counts.
For example, when listing the number of passive defensive abilities a warlock has and the cost of them, a maximum of 6 can be obtained at the cost of 3 possible utility spells. This means that through talent, glyph, spec and/or pet choice, the warlock may have 6 different passive or short CD defensive abilities. In this case, a Destro or Demo warlock with Ember Tap/DA, using an imp for Cauterize Master and Singe Magic, along with Soul Link, Curse of Enfeeblement, Twilight Ward and Fel Armor is the maximum achievable. In order to have all of these, the warlock must give up on 1 CC (Spell-lock, whiplash, disarm or axe toss), 1 active defensive ability (Soul Link instead of Sac. Pact/Dark Bargain) and Burning Embers/Demonic Fury [due to switching mid combat and losing it all]). As a result, I would list the following:Maximum amount of passive defense: 6 (at the cost of 3 possible utility spells) - 7 for Demo and Destro in exchange of major resource (Ember Tap, DA)

You can view the grids directly through this post, or view the following link (which has an easier navigation): https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwMe...I3Q3p4d2M/edit




---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 01:26 PM ----------

Comparison of CC abilities:




---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 01:27 PM ----------

Comparison of Gap-openers:




---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 01:28 PM ----------

Comparison of Passive survivability/Short defensive CDs:




---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 01:28 PM ----------

Comparison of Active Defensive CDs:




---------- Post added 2012-09-15 at 01:29 PM ----------

All in all Comparison:


Now, we start comparing. It is clear that the new model has much less CC. This is specifically problematic for Destruction which now relies even more on hardcasting right now. Although Death Coil is now on a shorter cooldown and Howl can be instant. The lack of all three makes certain CC scenarios impossible. Furthermore, Shadowfury is on a 30 second CD which causes it to be clunky since it cannot be in line with other DRs.

Having two pet CCs available, a terrific niche which promotes smart play, is now impossible for Destruction seeing as FoX can only resurect a pet at a very high ember cost.
We cannot forget that curse of Ex and Conflag's snares have been buffed. However, conflagrate serves so many purposes right now that it becomes very clunky to use it simply for a slow. Having a 50% snare and a 70% available on different cooldowns leave room for much more flexibility.

We also know that people prefer taking Shadowfury most of the time. Why is that? Because it's on a different DR and is a great gap opener and chance for freecast. Nerfing it will thus not result in people choosing the other two talents, unless shadowfury becomes utterly useless.

Therefor, I propose the following: Give each spec sort of an improved CC, sort of like in Cataclysm.
Destruction gets Shadowfury (on a 20 second cooldown), Affliction gets instant Howl, and Demonology can get an improved Death Coil (like Mortal Coil).
The current CC tier would then have talents such as: Shadowflame (70% slow), a ranged Howl with reticule at the cost of 0.5-1 second cast time increase, and maybe a passive that renders the target immune to silence and interrupt effects for 15 seconds after being struck by an interrupt effect that doesn't lock out your schools. This would be amazing and once again promote smart play, on both your and your enemy's part. It would also reduce the amount of blank casts used that Blizzard has pointed out to be a bit degrading in PVP.

As for Blood Fear, it is a very annoying talent for both the warlock and opponent. It reduces the skill cap and limits CC. Since there's been an increasing amount of immunities against Fear, which many warlocks complain about, I propose the following change: The first 4 seconds of your fear ignore any immunities, a part from diminishing returns. (Maybe even Dispels? ) I think it would be an attractive change. I would personally take it.


Survivability discussion coming soon.

[Zharradan]

I do agree with the CC tier changes, however, shadowflame can't do any damage because this would make it too good for pve, and force us to stay in melee range yet another xpac.

man, gotta say that ranged howl of terror is one of the best ideas i ever heard.
about the blood fear: no one will pick this talent. it will be reworked later on mists i believe.

btw you forgot carrion swarm, knockback with interrupt

[Bogdan]

I do agree with the CC tier changes, however, shadowflame can't do any damage because this would make it too good for pve, and force us to stay in melee range yet another xpac.

man, gotta say that ranged howl of terror is one of the best ideas i ever heard.
about the blood fear: no one will pick this talent. it will be reworked later on mists i believe.

btw you forgot carrion swarm, knockback with interrupt

No one will pick Blood Fear...? Even on 10 seconds CD is OP, it will get nerfed, again, once the new arena season starts and feedback will come, there's no way Blood Fear will remain the way it is. I'm not talking about soloing, duels, bgs, or etc, I'm strictly talking about arena, where you will play with a healer, Blood Fear will be OP, and even in soloing and duels and bgs, Blood Fear is OP since you can easily recuperate the dmg you take by using twice or 3 times Blood Fear in a fight with the gross healz from Dark Regen + Glyphed HS, and with SL + GoSac + Shadow Bulwark.... 600k HP, np...

[Zharradan]

No one will pick Blood Fear...? Even on 10 seconds CD is OP, it will get nerfed, again, once the new arena season starts and feedback will come, there's no way Blood Fear will remain the way it is. I'm not talking about soloing, duels, bgs, or etc, I'm strictly talking about arena, where you will play with a healer, Blood Fear will be OP, and even in soloing and duels and bgs, Blood Fear is OP since you can easily recuperate the dmg you take by using twice or 3 times Blood Fear in a fight with the gross healz from Dark Regen + Glyphed HS, and with SL + GoSac + Shadow Bulwark.... 600k HP, np...

you clearly don't play a warlock,

3v3 situation: 30sec and 30% life just to make them use their trinkets, you can make this in less than 12sec on live without any health cost... you can chain fear the whole team on live, you can't if spec'd on blood fear...

[Bogdan]

you clearly don't play a warlock,

3v3 situation: 30sec and 30% life just to make them use their trinkets, you can make this in less than 12sec on live without any health cost... you can chain fear the whole team on live, you can't if spec'd on blood fear...

You clearly haven't played an arena in your life... you're telling me that warlocks are going to play 3 dps? I'm quite sure that in 30 seconds, no matter how bad is your healer, he will heal you to compensate that 30% hp lost from Blood Fear and from the other dmg you take... Also, is that so? You "can chain fear the whole team on live"? What mmr? 500? Who will ever let you rotate fears on all 3 people untill they go on DR...? And that's what you do in arena, you spam fear for like half minute? You clearly overestimate CC... CC is important, but dmg is even more important, wow 3s arena is all about DAMAGE...

The only real downsides of Blood Fear are that you can't fear people's trinkets and you cannot peel properly by spamming it when needed, these are huge factors but the fact that is INSTANT and by all means IT CANNOT BE STOPED or LINED, will overcome this...

PS: no need to talk shit like "you clearly don't play a warlock", 'cuz I obviously can too

[Lucidious]

I agree with the points about cc, destro especially is really hurting atm because of being forced to hard cast. I feel affliction and demo both are fine though which is why I said in another thread that destro's rain of fire stun should be reverted to the way it was at the start of beta. Destro needs the extra cc and maybe a bit of cast on the go mobility upgrade"instant chaos proc anyone " and the spec would become viable and competitive without being overpowered. The only other issue I see locks having is that our passive mitigation"old school soul link" is now gone and dealing with the mellee cleaves in 3's is gonna be a nightmare with such a dependence on weak active mitigation like DB and Sac pact but ill save that for the second part of this thread. Im not asking to be OP, but I would like to at least be competitive with my favorite spec and I honestly dont feel that its to much to ask...cheers.

[Lowdiskspace]

destro needs free chaos bolt procs making them instant and no ember cost but even if they did it at like 25% less damage i wouldnt mind. Why not make it every time you conflag and consume an ember using ability you have a 20% chance to proc an instant ember free chaos bolt that gains damage from the ember normally but at around 25% less damage to keep it from being to op. I think this may be a easy thing to put in and give us a little bit more reliability in the burst department without being completely over powered.

[Phoenexis]

I agree with the points about cc, destro especially is really hurting atm because of being forced to hard cast. I feel affliction and demo both are fine though which is why I said in another thread that destro's rain of fire stun should be reverted to the way it was at the start of beta. Destro needs the extra cc and maybe a bit of cast on the go mobility upgrade"instant chaos proc anyone " and the spec would become viable and competitive without being overpowered. The only other issue I see locks having is that our passive mitigation"old school soul link" is now gone and dealing with the mellee cleaves in 3's is gonna be a nightmare with such a dependence on weak active mitigation like DB and Sac pact but ill save that for the second part of this thread. Im not asking to be OP, but I would like to at least be competitive with my favorite spec and I honestly dont feel that its to much to ask...cheers.

When taking into consideration Health Cost, immunities, DR and the cooldown which exceeds the spell's duration, I'm pretty sure many warlocks would prefer having normal fear seeing as Blood Fear imposes too many limitations.

To Xelnath, if you're there: I did as you asked, so I'm hoping that you'll put your word in here. Thanks for everything.

[Inactivity]

Honestly I think Blood Fear should simply be removed and replaced with another health-cost mobility talent (like burning rush/unbound will). That said this is another possible improvement:

Blood Fear no longer replaces fear, but is now on a 1 minute cooldown.

[darkminaz]

blood fear suxxt
i stick with burning rush, i mean free cc break? it does dmg so i schould get out of sheep/iceblock/seduce + runspeed :P what can't hit you can't hurt you :P

as affli you then have
fear + curse + (fury,deathcoil,howl)

there will be 2 things that i miss, deatchoil aka "that sukker that was on 10% hp just fucking die allready" and fucking shadowflame (flame + gnome = finaly away from the fucking roq until he shadowsteps back so 4-6sec free "nohitmeplxtime"

but we get a 2nd port, sure takes 5sec but if you put them in nagrand like
0x---x0
-!----!-
-!----!-
Px---x-

(-! = nothing, x = pillars, o = gateway, p = portal)
you can go around the whole crappy arena.

and i couldn't live with a cooldown on my fear button
fear player a, fear player a again (he trinkets probably) , b,b,c,c
when you would stand there oh dr is off, oh i have 7sec on fear .. healer casts "ultraslow4secpewpewmaxhpheal" and you stand there .. must fear but on cd waaa fuufufufufu ^^ i think in that situation i would trow my keyboard out of the window :P

[summons inc]

you clearly don't play a warlock,

3v3 situation: 30sec and 30% life just to make them use their trinkets, you can make this in less than 12sec on live without any health cost... you can chain fear the whole team on live, you can't if spec'd on blood fear...

Good healers out range you and make it difficult for you to get them into a fear, causing you to use death coil to attempt to get them into the fear. My short analysis is below:

Blood Fear = 10 sec CD. 10% of your hp which can easily be healed with 1 to 2 ticks of riptide, renew, and equivalents.
Fear lasts 8 secs which means you can get a guaranteed 4sec fear on the healer only 2 seconds later.

Instant fear is just way too powerful to not get, especially since you ave other forms of peeling with shadowfury if you or your teammates are in trouble

[Deleted]

Good healers out range you and make it difficult for you to get them into a fear, causing you to use death coil to attempt to get them into the fear. My short analysis is below:

Blood Fear = 10 sec CD. 10% of your hp which can easily be healed with 1 to 2 ticks of riptide, renew, and equivalents.
Fear lasts 8 secs which means you can get a guaranteed 4sec fear on the healer only 2 seconds later.

Instant fear is just way too powerful to not get, especially since you ave other forms of peeling with shadowfury if you or your teammates are in trouble

Yes instant fear is OP. Outplays burning rush and that talent trinket by far. Not to mention the free heal from druids you get as ability.

[wholol]

blood fear suxxt
i stick with burning rush, i mean free cc break? it does dmg so i schould get out of sheep/iceblock/seduce + runspeed :P what can't hit you can't hurt you :P

as affli you then have
fear + curse + (fury,deathcoil,howl)

there will be 2 things that i miss, deatchoil aka "that sukker that was on 10% hp just fucking die allready" and fucking shadowflame (flame + gnome = finaly away from the fucking roq until he shadowsteps back so 4-6sec free "nohitmeplxtime"

but we get a 2nd port, sure takes 5sec but if you put them in nagrand like
0x---x0
-!----!-
-!----!-
Px---x-

(-! = nothing, x = pillars, o = gateway, p = portal)
you can go around the whole crappy arena.

and i couldn't live with a cooldown on my fear button
fear player a, fear player a again (he trinkets probably) , b,b,c,c
when you would stand there oh dr is off, oh i have 7sec on fear .. healer casts "ultraslow4secpewpewmaxhpheal" and you stand there .. must fear but on cd waaa fuufufufufu ^^ i think in that situation i would trow my keyboard out of the window :P

% health cost do not break CCs, they fixed that when DK's hysteria were used that way to prevent being CCed.

more on topic, affliction soulburn:fear makes fear instant btw, not sure if it's horror or normal, but still an instant fear on a 1 min cd.

[Deleted]

Blood fear:
Healer sticks his nose out --> fear
What's not to like?

[Phoenexis]

What you do not understand is that it limits your options too much. Getting Blood Fear means no CCing for another 4 seconds if the healer uses trinket, or immunities. It means losing fear as a defensive cooldown used to chain fear your opponents, or peal for your healer. Yeah instant Fear is cool and seems overpowered on paper. But when you put yourself in a 3v3 environment against 3 players that all have to be CC'ed, not so great...

[Xelnath]

Warlocks also got Unending Resolve, improved Drain Life, with Dark Regeneration or Harvest Life, Dark Bargain or Sacrificial Pact, and Glyph of Siphon Life.

If you sac a voidwalker, you can have +20% max health *and* Shadow Bulwark. (+20% health for 20 sec, 120 sec cooldown)

[Phoenexis]

Warlocks also got Unending Resolve, improved Drain Life, with Dark Regeneration or Harvest Life, Dark Bargain or Sacrificial Pact, and Glyph of Siphon Life.

If you sac a voidwalker, you can have +20% max health *and* Shadow Bulwark. (+20% health for 20 sec, 120 sec cooldown)

Yes but we're specifically talking about CC now. We will move on to survivability later Xelnath.

[Zharradan]

destro was the spec with more cc options and now destro is the spec with less, big change don't you think?

[alexw]

destro was the spec with more cc options and now destro is the spec with less, big change don't you think?

What destro really needs is better gap breakers. Since its so dependent on standing still to cast it needs something to be able to create space to cast without being sat on and mashed into the ground. Its now even more important to have such an ability (than in cata), since our mitigation and 20% +healing is lost. That means long term a destro locks ability to tank melee damage is much worse. The cooldowns help a bit but they are only available some of the time. So melees will sit on the destro lock, let him burn through his cooldowns while interrupting/blocking as many casts as possible, then when his cooldowns are used up nuke him down. If the warlock attempts to kite his dps is shut down, if he doesnt he takes a heck of a lot of unmitigated damage and is vulnerable to stuns/casting slows/interrupts.

Given that an ignored free casting destro lock can put out very high damage, I just can't see destro warlocks not being the kill target because of the extreme ease of doing all of the above. Having said that a destro lock teamed with a mage might be somewhat viable due to them being able to give you casting space. But outside of that destro will not be arena viable.

[Kirroth]

Yes but we're specifically talking about CC now. We will move on to survivability later Xelnath.

But if you're including snares in your CC list, then isn't it all just survival abilities? What I mean is that in Cata you often have to CC an enemy to get off a cast time ability, but since Unending Resolve prevents interrupts it serves the same purpose. Also snares tend to be all or nothing; either you out-kite and kill your opponent or you don't and die. Having more defensive abilities like Dark Regen and Dark Bargain makes it more possible to take damage and not lose.

Also you have to compare the quality as well as the quantity. As Destro PvP I've had Howl, Death Coil, and Shadowfury all at once. In Mists I'll only have a choice of one of them. But if I took Howl it would be instant cast with a built in cooldown reduction, and if I took Mortal Coil it'd have half the cooldown and a heal that actually matters. It's the same with the snares. HoG has a much longer range than Shadowflame. You can glyph Conflag to snare without having to pre-cast Immolate. You can Soulburn and apply CoEx to a whole group.

Finally, I don't agree that we should go back towards making more of the CCs spec-specific. It goes against the whole movement towards greater customization ability in Mists.