Warlock S12 pvp observation's

[Phoenexis]

Yeah, I'm known for hating affliction deeply, but for once I pity the spec. It's so lacking in PvP in terms of everything. Too much damage tied into MG, not enough pressure, etc...

---------- Post added 2012-10-10 at 10:23 AM ----------

Yes the previous warlock model probably isn't coming back, but nobody can deny the fact that it worked out better, except for Demonology. That I have to admit. Although its mechanics are better than in Cata, they're still lagging behind most of the other specs.

[Jessicka]

I'm hearing good things about Destruction in RBGs at the moment, is this just low level people one shotting eachother in quest greens? Or is the spec actually offering something useful?

[helheim]

none of this shit should come as a surprise to anyone. it isn't like we didn't call this some months ago.

ever see that movie falling down? warlocks are that black guy on the corner screaming he's not economically viable. it will remain that way because our lead dev sucks.

hate to say i told you so, but i told you so.

[pokeadott]

I'm hearing good things about Destruction in RBGs at the moment, is this just low level people one shotting eachother in quest greens? Or is the spec actually offering something useful?

Destro is fine in RBGs, but so are most specs. There's really a niche for everything there, but Destro can help actually get kills on carriers with stacks or the opening melee of Eye or w/e. It's really deadly with DS/Trinket/UE from range. That role is fine in RBGs, but as always, that window is really hard to come by in arena. Could easily go demo for knockbacks or Aff for UA/SB CoEx too I guess.

In arenas, I'm finding it really hard to kill anything as Destro in WLS. When everything goes right and I can have my warr charge/lock someone in los with no trinket when I have my CDs ready while we have at least 1 of the other 2 CCed, I'm deadly. The problem is I spend so much time generating resources and struggling to peel, that those windows come much less frequently than opposing teams shatters/BMs/spriest normal burst/pillar/etc. I can't see running without another caster, preferably a mage, being very effective.

Biggest issues still (in order of priority): 1) Bad CC (for both peels and creating kill windows), 2) Slow Dmg delivery time (rampup, cast time), 3) Survivability while trained (usually less of an issue as my War/Shamie die faster than me and I can't peel well for them even when left alone).

Sidenote - in a world where every class and their moms have buckets of CC, you really start to wonder why Will/Zerker/Tremor are still in the game effectively countering the one CC we have left.

[Deleted]

In my opoion i think warlocks would be ok if other classes wern't retarded. I mean warrior's second wind is just a joke tbh. I've seen warriors tank like 3-4 people with it. As others have said also, hybrids are healing way too much. I think if a few other classes where brought down a peg then it wouldn't be so bad. The problem we have is that we either simply lack the tools or have to work allot harder to get anywhere. Our CC is a joke tbh. DC back on a 2min CD pls as standard, and add another talent.

What really annoys me aswell is when they add abiltys such as sacrifical pact and then every fucker complains it's op (as it seems every other class thinks we r op). What about the mage oever there that has a shield that absorbs just as much on a 25 second CD and dosent dain half your health........ Oh, and ofc, they don't get spell knockback whilst its up. I mean CUMON!!!!!!

I'm dreading doing arena this season

[Deleted]

Unstable affliction glyph is currently bugged and is hitting only the dispeller, not the dispelled target.

Affliction is good but it could be so much better, and destro is godlike in bgs and shit in arenas

[gez]

so, recounting destro sucks, aff sucks, demo is decent


WAIT demo? the spec to go ? wut? no way there must be a problem here lol

[Phoenexis]

Destro is fine in RBGs, but so are most specs. There's really a niche for everything there, but Destro can help actually get kills on carriers with stacks or the opening melee of Eye or w/e. It's really deadly with DS/Trinket/UE from range. That role is fine in RBGs, but as always, that window is really hard to come by in arena. Could easily go demo for knockbacks or Aff for UA/SB CoEx too I guess.

In arenas, I'm finding it really hard to kill anything as Destro in WLS. When everything goes right and I can have my warr charge/lock someone in los with no trinket when I have my CDs ready while we have at least 1 of the other 2 CCed, I'm deadly. The problem is I spend so much time generating resources and struggling to peel, that those windows come much less frequently than opposing teams shatters/BMs/spriest normal burst/pillar/etc. I can't see running without another caster, preferably a mage, being very effective.

Biggest issues still (in order of priority): 1) Bad CC (for both peels and creating kill windows), 2) Slow Dmg delivery time (rampup, cast time), 3) Survivability while trained (usually less of an issue as my War/Shamie die faster than me and I can't peel well for them even when left alone).

Sidenote - in a world where every class and their moms have buckets of CC, you really start to wonder why Will/Zerker/Tremor are still in the game effectively countering the one CC we have left.

Well, if you reduced every other class' tools by 40%, we'd actually be fine, because our developer did what he was asked for in MoP (reduce CC, kiting and blabla), while everybody else went "Let's add stuff!".
The result? Twice as much disparity. When you compare a warlock to any other class, you can clearly see the differences. I'm really sad that Destruction is in its current state. All it ever needed was less DoTs and more damage, not this whole devastating revamp... Same for Affliction. A tad of DoT damage reduction and that would've been it. The thing is that the changes were too extreme, in terms of spec mechanics and class tools.

However I must say that Demonology is shaping into a good, maybe viable spec. The concepts and all are great, and if some other spec were brought down, it would be in a perfect state. I'm telling you this Xelnath, Demonology is great in both PvE and PvP (in my opinion), except for the slow ramp-up. (gotta give dem constructive criticisms )

[Lucidious]

I have noticed the ramp up time problem in arena's myself. To much time "chipping away" at that damn ember bar while getting beat on and trying to kite/fear to either stay alive or cause some form of pressure. On the plus side i'm not quite as squishy as I thought I would be. Only physical damage classes "warriors/hunters" can chew me up in seconds "curse you fail ward"

[Deleted]

It's back to train the warlock, like usual.

[wholol]

Destro is fine in RBGs, but so are most specs. There's really a niche for everything there, but Destro can help actually get kills on carriers with stacks or the opening melee of Eye or w/e. It's really deadly with DS/Trinket/UE from range. That role is fine in RBGs, but as always, that window is really hard to come by in arena. Could easily go demo for knockbacks or Aff for UA/SB CoEx too I guess.

In arenas, I'm finding it really hard to kill anything as Destro in WLS. When everything goes right and I can have my warr charge/lock someone in los with no trinket when I have my CDs ready while we have at least 1 of the other 2 CCed, I'm deadly. The problem is I spend so much time generating resources and struggling to peel, that those windows come much less frequently than opposing teams shatters/BMs/spriest normal burst/pillar/etc. I can't see running without another caster, preferably a mage, being very effective.

Biggest issues still (in order of priority): 1) Bad CC (for both peels and creating kill windows), 2) Slow Dmg delivery time (rampup, cast time), 3) Survivability while trained (usually less of an issue as my War/Shamie die faster than me and I can't peel well for them even when left alone).

Sidenote - in a world where every class and their moms have buckets of CC, you really start to wonder why Will/Zerker/Tremor are still in the game effectively countering the one CC we have left.

I totally agree with this, the number of CC just went absurdly high from cata to MOP , I'm starting to wonder why locks actually lost CC since most classes can CC as much , if not more than us.

as for arena ,the real question is: does the problem lie with locks dying too fast and not having enough pressure in pvp? or does it lie with some classes being able to do ridiculous damage while still being able to lock down a target AND survive fairly well?

Now that's what we should be talking about imo, because if they fix a few things on some fotm classes, I'd say all warlock specs would be viable ( with a few tweaks, and I do mean a few ).

on a side note, I've used demonic gates several times in arena, most of the time it's just there for the looks lol, no srsly no one in my team uses it and when they do it's not because they wanted to, it's because they accidentally walked into it while chasing someone or something, truly it's very viable for an enemy to use the gates against us by forcing a melee from our team to follow them through the gate, or just sitting in the gates themselves , if you're playing with a melee he cant touch them without getting ported, so now my shiny gates are on my secondary bar ( the bar i use to place spells like enslave demon and unending breath ), true story.

[Lucidious]

Destro is fine in RBGs, but so are most specs. There's really a niche for everything there, but Destro can help actually get kills on carriers with stacks or the opening melee of Eye or w/e. It's really deadly with DS/Trinket/UE from range. That role is fine in RBGs, but as always, that window is really hard to come by in arena. Could easily go demo for knockbacks or Aff for UA/SB CoEx too I guess.

In arenas, I'm finding it really hard to kill anything as Destro in WLS. When everything goes right and I can have my warr charge/lock someone in los with no trinket when I have my CDs ready while we have at least 1 of the other 2 CCed, I'm deadly. The problem is I spend so much time generating resources and struggling to peel, that those windows come much less frequently than opposing teams shatters/BMs/spriest normal burst/pillar/etc. I can't see running without another caster, preferably a mage, being very effective.

Biggest issues still (in order of priority): 1) Bad CC (for both peels and creating kill windows), 2) Slow Dmg delivery time (rampup, cast time), 3) Survivability while trained (usually less of an issue as my War/Shamie die faster than me and I can't peel well for them even when left alone).

Sidenote - in a world where every class and their moms have buckets of CC, you really start to wonder why Will/Zerker/Tremor are still in the game effectively countering the one CC we have left.

I am in 100% agreement with this post. We are a support class that actually NEEDS support from another class. Our CC is so bad atm that if we are not getting babysat by our partners we are losing matches and it shouldnt be that way. Losing baseline coil really hurt more then I thought it would. I used to play as affliction with normal fear, instant howl, and baseline coil and have plenty of CC for most matches. But now having baseline fear and a "choice" of only 1 other CC when just about EVERY OTHER CLASS got more CC then before is starting to wear me down in my MOP arena experience thusfar. Fear and instant howl "even with the reduction per hit" or shadowfury"which shares to many dr's" cannot help me peel for myself to stay alive let alone set up burst. Add that to the fact that we have no passive damage reduction and our self healing is pityful compared to other classes "spirit bond, second wind anyone?" and we are severly gimped at this stage of the season and need some MASSIVE work. Affliction is lacking CC and self heals, Destro is lacking CC so much it's almost retarded.


I think the warlock class NEEDS baseline coil back!!! Then each spec should keep it's own added abilities on top of that "soulburn port, carrion swarm, etc" even though destro's spec specific CC "aftermath" is WAY to "frequent" and "weak" and really needs to be changed the way Xelnath said it should "making it an active stun on a longish cd". Of course we would need a new CC to take mortal coils spot on the talent tree and an AOE nova/root to go with the other 2 aoe forms of CC "howl,shadowfury" gets my vote. The other thing that locks "need" is our passive self healing back. Glyph of siphon life is a flat out joke and NEEDS a HUGE buff. It should honestly grant like 2% health per tick just to bring us more in line with most of the other classes as well as give us some regeneration for those of us who have to life tap, blood fear, burning rush, unbound will on a regular basis without us always trying to decide whether or not we should kill ourselves "I do love that locks sacrifice health for power but in all honesty we should be able to regenerate health to compensate for that which is something I thought we would get especially since we didnt get passive damage reduction".


And yes in closing the biggest buff warlocks could EVER get would be the nerfing of zerker rage. That ability is so absurdly overpowered that we will never have balance until it gets a sweet taste of ghostcrawler's nerfbat.

[Deleted]

And yes in closing the biggest buff warlocks could EVER get would be the nerfing of zerker rage. That ability is so absurdly overpowered that we will never have balance until it gets a sweet taste of ghostcrawler's nerfbat.

No, warriors would require 2 nerfs:

Removal of gag-order from Arms & Fury, removing the anti-fear component of berserk rage.

[Phoenexis]

Another issue is Blood Fear. Everybody's forced to take it in order to be able to get some casts off, but the problem is that it prevents you from doing effective peels.
Also, the fact that we have long ramp-up and no passive defense cripples us twice as much, because a spec that wouldn't have much passive defense would be a glass canon that's able to act quickly and do its job. Our problem is that we're forced to tank all of our opponents while building up resources to arrive to the canon stage.

[Wannabetank]

Glyph of siphon life should give like a 1% heal every time you do damage with them abilitys, personal opinion hell even 0.5% i'd take.

Another issue is Blood Fear. Everybody's forced to take it in order to be able to get some casts off, but the problem is that it prevents you from doing effective peels.
Also, the fact that we have long ramp-up and no passive defense cripples us twice as much, because a spec that wouldn't have much passive defense would be a glass canon that's able to act quickly and do its job. Our problem is that we're forced to tank all of our opponents while building up resources to arrive to the canon stage.

Never used unending resolve except for defensive purposes? won't believe how many have tried to gag order chaos bolt but i'm immune to it with resolve!

[Nicola]

I miss shadowfury, hardcasting howl in their face and coiling the guy that decided not to stand with the others.
But yes, pretty much any class has more cc then us.

[Deleted]

this was posted by filo on AJ, i think it perfectly sums up the current state of MOP pvp and warlocks in specific. hope he does not mind me posting this here:

I ended up playing 50-60~ games of HLS and RLS on the level 90 Arena Pass last night, and I had a few thoughts.

1) BM Hunters - How did this get past... ALPHA? The first comp I tried was HLS, and I could not BELIEVE what I was seeing. I could be across the map in a CC and if my hunter popped his ZOO he would 100-0 something in 1-2 seconds, 2 seconds being a slower kill. No dots or damage from me whatsoever, while I sit in a full cyclone. There is no excuse for imbalances like that, other than Blizzard... being Blizzard I guess.

2) Mage control - With the dispel change, I think mages are grossly overpowered. A mage can sheep me, and start casting a sheep on my partner, so that as I get dispelled my partner gets to sit a full sheep. Alternatively, the mage can just sheep someone, have the healer dispel it, and then pop every one of his cds and deep + frost bomb something. I think something NEEDS to be changed about how mages work after the dispel change.

I actually didn't have a problem with their burst; it isn't anything different from what you could see from a mage in Cata. The damage could be stopped, and it seems like they have to cast to kill something. If I stop the casts, I can keep my team alive. The burst can be very high, but at least they have to CAST.

3) Warrior mobility/damage seems a bit overkill. I do not like how warrior mobility seems to be based on how well they will stick to mages or hunters. This means classes like warlocks and priests are -never- getting distance from a half decent warrior. I'm not sure where the problem lies with warrior mobility design, but I think this has always been an issue. While I do agree that warriors need a lot of their current tools to put up any sort of fight against mage teams, I also think this mobility is too much against classes without mage-level control.

4) Defensive cooldowns seem grossly overpowered for certain classes or comps. I played several games against Druid/Mage/Spriest, and it was actually the most impossible thing to kill anything. I am by no means claiming we played perfectly, but one of the games I remember our team played extremely well, and it was still -IMPOSSIBLE- to get a kill. We had a swap to the Druid (no ironbark or trinket or ice block) with a full fear on the priest, full hex on the mage, dance/demon soul swap to druid with a Haunt, but he LIVED!

If you are going for a kill on the Druid, you have to go through: Resto Leap (no idea what this is called lol), Life Grip, Barkskin, Ironbark, ICE BLOCK (words cannot describe...), Tree Form, mage peels (over-the-top with dispel change), priest off-heals, and LIFE SWAP????????????????

Random Thought: I do not like the fact that Unbound Will VT Fears you when used against Shadowpriests. Ex: I am feared and I have Vamp Touch on me, so I pop Unbound Will. I now get VT feared for a few seconds and then eat another CC afterwards. I'm not sure if this is intended, because Unbound Will does remove all debuffs, but I don't think it should VT fear or UA silence you for using it.

This is just one example, but it seems like classes have way too many defensive cooldowns and instant CC effects right now. Instant CC has got to go if this dispel change is going to be permanent.


5) Healer Mana - Doesn't matter, except maybe against Warrior/BM Hunter type comps, simply due to the imbalanced damage they do. This is the first season of the expansion, being played in -full- gear since this is the Tournament Realm, and mana does not matter. -IF- a healer somehow manages to go oom, and isn't a priest (since they don't seem like a real class atm), all he has to do is run behind a pillar and drink while his partner(s) use one of the million available defensive cds or instant ccs and he will be fine.

I think healer mana needs to be re-evaluated or the only comps that exist will be comps that can 100-0 something in a few seconds, or comps that can CC a healer for a year.

6) Getting Kills - Feels a lot harder than it should be. It seems like the only things that end games right now, are broken cooldowns. Ex: Warrior damage with CDs up, BM Hunters unleashing a zoo (I don't even), etc. While I do think damage cooldowns + CC on a healer should be necessary to score a kill, I think it requires too much to get a kill right now. Survivability is simply too high.

7) The State of Affliction

Granted I have only played one night of MoP, the class feels more or less the same as it did in Cataclysm. I felt like I played the majority of the games well, and while not my best play, certainly well enough to get a feel for the class and arena in general.

Affliction damage, when taking current defensive cooldowns, healer cooldowns, and healer mana into account, is completely miserable. My dots were not critting for more than about 15-16k on 375-400k health pools. This is with FULL gear, gemmed and itemized pretty well (could be a tiny bit better I'm sure), and with Mastery reforged on every possible piece of gear. At level 85, my dots were critting for 8-10k on 140-150k health pools (this is also with haste reforge, not mastery). So essentially, our dots are doing about 70%~ more damage than they did at 85, and health pools are 150%~ larger than they were at 85. Additionally, every class has a lot more survivability and defensive cooldowns, including healers, and healers don't actually use mana.

As for the Affliction playstyle, Blizzard seems to be following the awesome trend of dumbing things down until warlocks don't actually have to do anything at all to put up full dots. Being able to Soulburn: Soul Swap full dots onto any target, 4 times (with glyph) in a row is... umm... what? In Cata, I thought warlocks were in a relatively good spot for getting dots up; Soul Swap had a 30 second cooldown, and you could use Fel Flame to refresh your UA. You still had to cast a significant amount to generate a high amount of pressure. Now, you don't actually ever have to cast to get your UAs up. In fact, I had a few games where I would pop Demon Soul and my on-use trinket, and Soulburn: Soul Swap dots on their -entire- team with 3 globals. I think this is a terrible direction for the class. Warlocks need to be required to cast a lot more, and their dots NEED to do significant damage. Malefic grasp spam with full dots during Demon Soul + on-use is good damage, but outside of that, Affliction is completely underwhelming.

TLDR: Unless something gets changed with healer mana, Affliction is going to need a significant amount of damage buffs to make the spec competitive. Should Affliction get the damage buffs that it needs, I also think Soulburn: Soul Swap needs to be either a) removed from the game or b ) redesigned.

I haven't had a chance to play around with Destruction or Demonology yet, so I am not going to make any comments on either of those specs. I have heard that they both do well, but I have a hard time believing Destro would do decently vs. any moderately coordinated 3s team. Getting a Chaos Bolt off at a crucial moment seems like it would be extremely difficult.

Thanks for reading, feel free to correct anything in my post. I just got MoP a few days ago, so I am not an expert by any means.

[Jessicka]

on a side note, I've used demonic gates several times in arena, most of the time it's just there for the looks lol, no srsly no one in my team uses it and when they do it's not because they wanted to, it's because they accidentally walked into it while chasing someone or something, truly it's very viable for an enemy to use the gates against us by forcing a melee from our team to follow them through the gate, or just sitting in the gates themselves , if you're playing with a melee he cant touch them without getting ported, so now my shiny gates are on my secondary bar ( the bar i use to place spells like enslave demon and unending breath ), true story.

I loled. If I didn't, I'd probably cry :P

[Phoenexis]

so now my shiny gates are on my secondary bar ( the bar i use to place spells like enslave demon and unending breath ), true story.

CTRL-Shift-ALT-X bind it like a baws.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 07:29 PM ----------

Glyph of siphon life should give like a 1% heal every time you do damage with them abilitys, personal opinion hell even 0.5% i'd take.



Never used unending resolve except for defensive purposes? won't believe how many have tried to gag order chaos bolt but i'm immune to it with resolve!

Your point being? From what we've discussed UR is used for offensive purposes often, which is fun when they don't pay attention. However, it's on a long cooldown, has a short duration, and doesn't prevent your enemy team from stunning/disorienting/[insert random CC from other classes' myriad of spells] or simply LoSing you.

[wholol]

this was posted by filo on AJ, i think it perfectly sums up the current state of MOP pvp and warlocks in specific. hope he does not mind me posting this here:

filo pretty much hit the nail perfectly on what is going on in pvp atm, I just don't comprehend why or how situations can escalate to such a degree every single expansion ( also notice every expansion exponentially increases this) , how can alpha and beta testing not indicate all of these , I mean there has been several players on these forums warning everyone about this long before mop was released.

CTRL-Shift-ALT-X bind it like a baws.

well, what I mean by secondary bar is the extra bar that no one uses unless you use a different ui ( which most people do ), so I've gotten used to swapping bars via shift 1-2 so I rotate through bar 1 and 2 , so bar 2 has the same keybinds as bar one since it replaces it,ofc i only do this for the first 2 bars, rest are keybound and used separately, it's just something I've been using since vanilla and old habits die hard : <

No need to add ctrl alt shift x Z delta 9 keybind :P