5.2, Rebalancing the Warlock talent trees.

[nightfalls]

Tier 1: Harvest Life should be baseline and replace Drain Life, with perhaps a destruction variant. I wouldn't mind having a cast and channel heal on a low cooldown (like pre-MOP Soul Harvest but with a cast time as well) to replace it.

Tier 2: Alright, but honestly I don't think Mortal Coil should have the heal (I know, a "nerf" but it could be balanced around by say, more siphon/drain healing). It feels too mandatory to take a personal versus CC.

Tier 3: This tier seems OK for now.

Tier 4: Could use a lot of work; I don't even know where to begin.

Tier 5: Seems alright to me. Personally I would love if you got Lesser Invisibility by sacrificing a succubus. The stealth would be incredible, plus a new curveball for RBG's (at the cost of an interrupt). Stealthed warlocks? Yes please.

[Xandy]

Why would you pick a talent that lets you drops the stacks 1 time each min for 20% of you hp when you can pick one that negates the slow on as many times as you want for usually a lot cheaper(not very often you have to move for 5 sec+). Using unbound will to drop them also means you can't really keep dpsing while you move because you will just build the stacks right up, that kinda defeats the purpose of having kjc in the first place. Burning Rush is in most cases a much better choice for dealing with the 30% slow.

This. Without Burning Rush I would never take KJC, the movement debuff is wayyy too dangerous and you can't rely on your portal especially on a fight like Heroic Kings where it's completely unpredictable where you'll need to move to.

[Khargol]

T1:
Soul leech really needs a buff as the amount of healing it provides is extremely low. DR is much better for dealing with spike damage or periods of heavy damage as a defensive CD. Harvest life is meh.

T2: Unless raiding in 10 with little to no other CC classes MC is the hands down choice for PvE. A 15% max life heal is amazing. I've tried howl and SF on various fights but neither seem to be able to stack up.

T3: Link is good, almost too good and even mandatory for Affliction right now. With GoSac and Link i'm sitting around 550k health raid buffed and that much hp on a dps is close to unkillable by most mechanics. Where with demo the choice comes down to DB and SP. The decision is made by the fights. Normally I'll go DB except for Garalon and Windlord where frequent smaller shields are better than one huge shield.

T4: UW is the go to talent for this tier in raiding. By removing stuns, snares and all magic effects, UW allows locks to pop out of all kinds of bad stuff. I play worgen so I get a sprint, even then I rarely use my sprint much less find a real need for Burning Rush.

T5: GoSac is very strong right now. Unfortunately I feel blizz would need to nerf it into the ground to get it off of our radar.

T6: Overall balanced, though I wish the passive of AV and the active was increased. AV being popped should force people off of us in PvP similar to deterrence or ice block with they key difference being we can still take damage. The passive should be 10% and the active should be 80% or even 100% with a cap of our max life per target. In any case I don't pvp very much so AV is just a dead talent to me, as I take it only when I don't want the other two. KJC is in a good place now as is MF for raiding.

[Sabsy]

Why would you pick a talent that lets you drops the stacks 1 time each min for 20% of you hp when you can pick one that negates the slow on as many times as you want for usually a lot cheaper(not very often you have to move for 5 sec+). Using unbound will to drop them also means you can't really keep dpsing while you move because you will just build the stacks right up, that kinda defeats the purpose of having kjc in the first place. Burning Rush is in most cases a much better choice for dealing with the 30% slow.

i wasn't suggesting that you take the talent just for that purpose.. i was merely saying that in "oh shit moments" it can be used to drop stacks and have ur movement speed normalized... unbound will is also very good for certain fights for other reasons...

[Scathbais]

GC has said 5.2 will be looking at the talents to rebalance those that are under used and over used to bring them in line. I think Blood Fear has already been talked about a lot, but what about the others?

Tier 1.
I think this tier is pretty balanced. I still think Harvest Life is a bit of a square peg, but I see plenty of people using it so I don't think it's something that needs looking at this expansion; as much as I'd prefer to see a passive mitigation option on that tier alongside the different healing choices.

Tier 2.
Again, pretty balanced, although Mortal Coil doesn't seem all that popular and could probably benefit from a shorter cooldown.

Tier 3.
Soul Link has issues, I like it, but I don't think double dipping from healing as an upside really off-sets the downside of double dipping from damage from cleaves or multidotting. Could use a buff, either increasing the proportion of health or some kind of safety cut-off so you're not killed when your pet is.

Tier 4.
Blood Fear is the "only" PvP option, and Burning Rush the "only" PvE option. Blood Fear is just too good compared to UW in PvP, when I actually feel UW would otherwise be a pretty good pick. Neither have a place in PvE though, leaving us with BR but that is generally outperformed by Gateway or Teleport leaving the whole tier a little redundant.

Tier 5.
I'll have to break down per spec.
Affliction: Sac is just too strong relative to the other two. Since the buff to KJC, I can't see much use of a pet for the spec under anything but the most extreme circumstances of multidotting where you wont get any MG uptime.

Destruction: For single target encounters, they seem pretty balanced but the synergy Sacrifice has with Havoc and FnB just makes it a no brainer against multiple targets.

Demo: Well balanced, Sac probably a bit weak but I'm not sure it's intended to work overly well with the "pet" spec anyway.

Tier 6.
Since the KJC buff, these are just about perfect. I want all of them at once, which is as it should be.

Tier 1. I disagree. Soul Leech is our passive passive healing ability. We already have passive mitigation via Fel Armor. Demo locks use Harvest Life to generate demonic fury while AOE'ing and healing.

Tier 2. Again disagree. Mortal Coil is the default choice unless you have adds to stun. Extra useful for destro who can havoc one target and then mortal coil 2 targets at once for 30% heal.

Tier 3: Soul Link's issue is that it is amazing with Grim of Sacrifice. 20% extra health is no joke. Hmm, maybe you are talking about pvp instead of pve?
Tier 4: Burning Rush is a great option for getting out of fire fast. Teleports and Demonic portals aren't always convenient to use. Say on Stone Dogs where your portal might put you into a trap/puddle. Also quite useful for Imperial Vizier.
Tier 5: Agree (finally)
Tier 6: Agree (again)

[Deleted]

I think unbound will has too big of a health loss, trinketing something under 50% just isnt worth it most of the times.

[Gohzerlock]

Sac is great, there should be one spec that is always stronger with it. If anything nerf sac for destro and buff non ember consuming mastery...

[sayne9]

PVE wise

T1- Started off with soul leech but the returns on it were so minimal it didn't seem worth it on any fight that didn't have constant damage. Moved on to dark regeneration and it has helped my healers immensely. Siphon life needs a larger % return on damage to become viable again to me and even then it would be situational which is probably the goal anyways. Harvest life needs to become baseline, it just doesn't fit in with the other two talents.

T2- Mortal Coil is too strong for pve. Unless your raid needs more cc for whatever reason the other two will never be viable. I hope they tie in a heal to the other two instead of removing the heal from coil.

T3- Ever since 5.1 I have gone to sacrificial pact and never looked back. It is just too strong, if I use it at full health I don't take damage for 20 seconds even if I use it before a spike. I get the appeal of soul link with GoSac but it isn't easing any burden on healers, you take the same amount of damage just can take more before you die, I would rather ease their burden as much as possible and this just doesn't cut it, needs a damage reduction tied into it. Dark Bargain could use a cd reduction to two minutes and it would probably be more appealing but still not sure I would take it outside of fights where I have to take a Madness impale style ability.

T4- Actually a pretty good tier for pve. All have their usefulness depending on the fight.

T5- I don't know what they can do with this tier. GoSac should always be the best single target dps because that is what it focuses on for aff. If you nerf its damage to be competitive single target with the others then you will have zero reason to ever take it. Would actually like to see GoSer have an increased cd with an increase to damage so it is incredibly powerful burst. With consistent damage covered by the other two burst is GoSer niche in the tier so why not make it good at it?

T6- With the changes to KJC this tier got really imbalanced for me. AV is horrible and hardly worth it, would require some pretty hefty increases to reflecting damage to make it viable to me and that would probably imbalance it in pvp, maybe remove the 'disabled on cd' portion of the ability. Mannorath's fury has its niche but that niche is way too tiny to me, rare is the fight that you need to aoe and things aren't stacked in pve. I don't know what I would do but if you want people to consistently take it something has to change.

[Iry]

Are you doing heroic kings? because i find burning rush to be mandatory to get out of double flanks when stuck with the 30% movement debuff. I mean I could just felflame more but still. Portals, for me, aren't enough on that fight.

The 30% movement debuff is why I think it is great vs Attenuation, but we have never had a problem with double flanks on heroic kings. We just avoid tanking in him a place where double flanking is an issue, and don't make mistakes during Meng. Dying to double flanks gets you teased in my raid group.

[Last Starfighter]

My personal somewhat biased opinion

Tier1: I would like to see Soul Leech giving back healing from all sources also pet damage at reduced numbers to be overall the same as it is but more flexible and would resemble the old Fel armor

Tier2: Mortal Coil could benefict from the Cooldown reducing mechanic like Howl of Fear, perhaps Shadowfury aswell

Tier3: Soul Link is garbage just as I predicted in beta, and there is ways to even get you killed in PVE, this talent needs heavy reworking and the toggling feature just doesn't cut it, since 5.1 Sac Pact its perfect out of GBC and 20sec duration loved it expecialy as a demo yummy 300k shields

Tier4: Your wrong Jessicka UW has its place in PVE I dont know what you doing but perhaps you never done Windlord, Empress or Stone Kings? Nevertheless the backfire its abit to much, BF needs rebalance but I would only accept this if they also nerf instant CC across the board

Tier5: They have to make pets more atractive for aff and destro, Supremacy pets could benefict from a 20% passive speed buff and Service made more flexible, shorter CD, shorter Duration outside of GBC perhaps

Tier6: Archimond could be 10% passive like it was on beta keep on use as 25% thou, rest is fine

UW has very few uses in PVE. It does have some, but not much to keep you from using Burning Rush. BR is just too good. The health you lose is barely noticable when you're using it responsibly.

[Jessicka]

Tier 1. I disagree. Soul Leech is our passive passive healing ability. We already have passive mitigation via Fel Armor. Demo locks use Harvest Life to generate demonic fury while AOE'ing and healing.

Had to pick this up. Hellfire does more damage and generates the same Fury as HL. Unless adds are too dispersed for Hellfire and Void Ray, you shouldn't be using it.

Tier 2. Again disagree. Mortal Coil is the default choice unless you have adds to stun. Extra useful for destro who can havoc one target and then mortal coil 2 targets at once for 30% heal.

I actively use Shadowfury much more than I use Mortal Coil 'just in case'. That's not to say I don't put it on my action bar if there's going to be no benefit from Shadowfury.

Tier 3: Soul Link's issue is that it is amazing with Grim of Sacrifice. 20% extra health is no joke. Hmm, maybe you are talking about pvp instead of pve?

SL with a pet offers a little more than 20% health overall, although it does depend on pet and you might end up taking more damage but that should be more than offset by the extra incidental aoe and smart heals you receive.

Tier 4: Burning Rush is a great option for getting out of fire fast. Teleports and Demonic portals aren't always convenient to use. Say on Stone Dogs where your portal might put you into a trap/puddle. Also quite useful for Imperial Vizier.

If I'm in fire, I don't want to be taking more damage; it does have it's uses, but with Gateway, Teleport and Leap I'm not getting much out of it. Then on Blade Lord where it should be amazing, I feel like I can't use it.

[Nicola]

UW has very few uses in PVE. It does have some, but not much to keep you from using Burning Rush. BR is just too good. The health you lose is barely noticable when you're using it responsibly.

So you prefer running a little bit faster at the price of health, when you can just teleport over a pvp trinket on a 1min cooldown that dispels all magical effects on you as well?

Sorry bro, but burning rush is just a waste of a talent. Unbound will is simply to good to pass up if you know the true potential of the spell.

[Deleted]

Hmm ok! gotta change it up then!