Warlock Fear in WoD: An inspection.

[lockyo]

Hey everyone,


I just started playing a Warlock this expansion, so maybe some of you with more experience will disagree, but, do the Fear changes seem like overkill to anyone else?

There is no doubt that Fear had to be changed, but the problem with Crowd Control in PvP is one that is not exclusive to Fear alone but rather part and parcel with a much larger problem that was the CC arms race responsible for proliferation of instant CC across the game.

Now, with that said, I do believe that instant CC certainly has a place, but, the problem as I see it now is that Blizzard (at least with Warlocks) has created an unnecessary 'risk for reward' dilemma in which Fear is both high risk and low reward. This is in contrast to Polymorph which involves moderate risk, high reward due to the fact that having your arcane tree interrupted still allows you to deal damage or use defensive abilities (or CC with Ring of Frost). And again, in contrast, to something like Storm Bolt which is low risk, high reward due to the fact that the only penalty for using the ability is the loss of a global.

It may be tempting to argue that instant CC is also 'high risk' due to the cool down component but that is flawed as there is no inherent risk to using such abilities. Poor judgement can, indeed, cause a loss of momentum, but PvP is about timing and coordination and thus a well-timed Storm Bolt can be just as deadly with 'low risk' as a well-timed Fear. Instant CC also can't (reliably) be stopped and so a cool down is the only way to balance such an ability.

And so, the question becomes one of fundamental design: Shouldn't CC with high risk produce high(er) reward? Because as it stands right now a 6-second 'high risk', casted Fear from an Affliction Warlock has the same duration as a 'low risk', instant Psychic Scream from a Priest.

One way to balance instant CC with 'low risk' is to create a an artificial barrier for usage such as a range requirement, I.E.: Psychic Scream (obviously negated by Spectral Guise and Feathers, but that's a different problem). In a perfect world Psychic Scream would be both 'high risk' and 'high reward' as it (without Guise/Feathers) would require the priest to (presumably) compromise a position of relative safety in order to apply.

What I'd like to see done with Fear in WoD:


- Make fear, and all casted CC have a higher duration than instant CC. IE: Bring back 8-second fear but keep it so it breaks just as easily from damage. Yes, you can argue that cyclone is casted and only has a 6-second duration, but, it also doesn't break from damage so that point would be moot.

OR

- Give Warlocks a Major Glyph like that of a Mage or Rogue that allows the application of Fear to remove all DoT effects on the target.

OR

- Give Warlocks a Major Glyph that makes the Feared target stand in place and gives it an 8-second duration again. Blizzard claiming that a 6-second Fear is balanced due to the travel component of the player suffering from the Fear is flawed. If someone is feared that far out of position, it is more than likely that their initial positioning was less than optimal to begin with.

[munkeyinorbit]

Go home lockyo, youre drunk

[Terahertz]

Go home lockyo, youre drunk

QFT

The reason why they nerfed Fear so hard was because of the fact it could be constantly rotated on people which led to the warlock constantly CCing the whole time and because of it not breaking from damage as easily it was even used as a sort of "stun" as well at times.

An 8 second CC which has no drawbacks whatsoever (your "it can be interrupted" argument is invalid because affliction locks would have all of their dots rolling anyways, so locking the lock on shadow would do nothing anyways. And even so, you can't keep using your interrupt on a lock because he's spamming fears 24/7 on the whole team) is stupid design.

Besides all of that tremor totem has been nerfed, making fear more powerful as well. Even a 6 second fear is really strong considering locks will still be spam fearing the whole team without any real drawbacks.

CC also isn't all about high risk or low lisk and high reward or low reward. I'd have to agree that psychic scream used to be high risk high reward, but that was before feathers and spectral guise. It still is high/medium risk and high/medium reward.

Idk what else to say. Fear was stupid and OP and it will be just as strong I feel like in WoD with tremor totem nerfed.

[PrairieChicken]

Fear was most OP CC in game (no CD, does not break on damage, moves target) and it deserved nerf (and it still is).

[Nicola]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-An-inspection