Warlock Threat Ideas

[gherkin]

@Tumdance - yes our threat per damage is much higher than other classes. Blizzard knows this as well. However, they aren't going to do anything about it until 3.2 at the earliest, and 3.3 at the latest.

Reasons:
1) Too many tanks are gearing avoidance. Thus the problem isn't you, its them.
2) They know what gear levels will be in 3.2, 3.3, and beyond. It should not be an issue now, but it will be in the future.
3) They have mentioned time and again about nerfing tank avoidance due to "You have high avoidance, thus the boss needs to hit harder" inflation. How do you tell someone "You should be gearing for threat" then nerf their avoidance? My guess is that they will buff threat, nerf avoidance, and let people continue gearing for avoidance, and maybe try harder for 4.0
4) The fights we have the most threat issues on are the fights with buffs or minimal participation from us (patchwerk-esque). Tanks don't always get these buffs.

[Tumdace]

@Tumdance - yes our threat per damage is much higher than other classes. Blizzard knows this as well. However, they aren't going to do anything about it until 3.2 at the earliest, and 3.3 at the latest.

Reasons:
1) Too many tanks are gearing avoidance. Thus the problem isn't you, its them.
2) They know what gear levels will be in 3.2, 3.3, and beyond. It should not be an issue now, but it will be in the future.
3) They have mentioned time and again about nerfing tank avoidance due to "You have high avoidance, thus the boss needs to hit harder" inflation. How do you tell someone "You should be gearing for threat" then nerf their avoidance? My guess is that they will buff threat, nerf avoidance, and let people continue gearing for avoidance, and maybe try harder for 4.0
4) The fights we have the most threat issues on are the fights with buffs or minimal participation from us (patchwerk-esque). Tanks don't always get these buffs.

Its not a tank issue, because I never see anyone in my 25 man raids as close to the tank (or higher) in threat than me. Like say the tank had 500k threat. I would be around 600k or 650k (at which time I would use a soulshatter and be perfectly fine) and everyone else would be 350k or lower.

I am not saying soul shatter should be reduced to 3 min cooldown, its a fine skill. But what GC was saying was that it is meant, basiclaly, as an "oh shit" button to threat. Well it seems like in the current state of warlocks, its not an "oh shit" button, its a neccessary skill to use at 200 even 300k. The problem with using it early is that say I pop at 200k. I only lose 100k. The shaman pops a heroism, I try to take full advantage of it (why not, we are trying to down the boss) and bam Im back up riding the threshold again.

A 5% buff to DR would simply fix this, or alleviate the problem. Maybe some of you warlocks have amazing tanks, but I dont play in a guild that has super amazing tanks, as we arent super uber hardcore. I mean we have gotten pretty far in ulduar10, and the tanks are slowly gearing themselves up, but as I gear up as well, and my capability of doing more dps rises, why should my dps be capped by my threat? You say to stop dps to let the tank get threat higher, but I dont see any other class that has to stop dps to control their threat.

[Rymezz]

Let's do a quick comparison to other ranged casters shall we?

Moonkin: 30% threat reduction from 2 talent points, no threat drop
Arcane Mage: 40% threat reduction from 2 talent points, Iceblock + Invis + Mirror Image
Fire Mage: 10% threat reduction from 2 talent points, Iceblock + Invis + Mirror Image
Frost Mage: 10% threat reduction from 3 talent points, Iceblock + Invis + Mirror Image
Shadow Priest: No threat reduction I can find outside of Fade and yet I never see them near the top of threat despite doing similar DPS to me, did I miss something?
Elemental Shaman: 30% threat reduction from 3 talent points and Lightning Overload causes no threat, no threat drop
Affliction Warlock: 10% threat reduction (on 75% of your DPS) from 2 talent points, Soulshatter
Destro Warlock: 10% threat reduction (on 94% of your DPS) from 2 talent points, Soulshatter

Mages have much more varied tools for dealing with excess threat even though some of their tools aren't proper threat drops they are still helpful. I don't know about other warlocks but I know that I've gone through Vezax fights where I needed 4 hand of salvs and a Soulshatter to avoid pulling aggro. And then I was behind other casters who hadn't had nearly as many threat issues.

The suggestion in the OP, while rough and in need of work, could solve two issues. Blizzard have acknowledged that warlocks are not where they want them to be in PvP and this would give us something resembling Iceblock as a defensive cooldown, everything that Demonic Circle promised to be but isn't. And it would also help our threat issues especially if we continue to be confronted by fights like Hodir and Vezax.

Yes, you missed something, Shadowform itself gives 30% threat reduction and you can get another 25% if you put talents into it.

[gherkin]

The way I see it - warlocks are supposed to have high threat so that blizzard can randomly make the warlock tank something. I think they should buff searing pain, decrease our threat like you said, 5-7% would be perfect, and then Soulshatter becomes an ohshit rather than a "waiting... waiting... now seems appropriate".

Also, would you rather have an oshit button or nothing and talented threat reduction? I like Soulshatter, even if it has a miss chance.

[Tumdace]

The way I see it - warlocks are supposed to have high threat so that blizzard can randomly make the warlock tank something. I think they should buff searing pain, decrease our threat like you said, 5-7% would be perfect, and then Soulshatter becomes an ohshit rather than a "waiting... waiting... now seems appropriate".

Also, would you rather have an oshit button or nothing and talented threat reduction? I like Soulshatter, even if it has a miss chance.

I would prefer talented threat reduction so I never have to use Soulshatter. I never see any other class in my raids pulling aggro to the extent that I do. I would prefer to keep soulshatter and have DR buffed to 7/15%.

[gherkin]

Just noticed something:

Pures get an aggro drop ability.
Hybrids don't.

Druids, Death Knights, Warriors, Shamans, Priests, Paladins (bubble = fade, salv is raid support, not self-only) all have passive, talented threat drops.

Rogues (vanish, feint), Hunters (FD, Misdirect (to an extent)), Warlocks (Shatter), Mages (Invis).

So the question is: why do mages get 40% in Arcane?

[Tumdace]

Just noticed something:

Pures get an aggro drop ability.
Hybrids don't.

Druids, Death Knights, Warriors, Shamans, Priests, Paladins (bubble = fade, salv is raid support, not self-only) all have passive, talented threat drops.

Rogues (vanish, feint), Hunters (FD, Misdirect (to an extent)), Warlocks (Shatter), Mages (Invis).

So the question is: why do mages get 40% in Arcane?

Indeed. They get 40% and we cant even get an extra 5%, which would alleviate alot of some of our problems.

I can guarantee you that by 3.2, it wont matter how geared your tank is, most warlocks will be pulling threat easily.

[Beelzebubs]

Two simple solutions:

1: Make it so the threat reducing talents in each tree are changed from

Improved Drain Soul Rank 2
Returns 15% of your maximum mana if the target is killed by you while you drain its soul. In addition, your Affliction spells generate 10% less threat.

Destructive Reach Rank 2
Increases the range of your Destruction spells by 20% and reduces threat caused by Destruction spells by 10%.

to say Shadow instead of Affliction and Fire instead of Destruction.

2: Merge the threat reduction talents into 1 baseline 2 point Demonology talent i.e

Demonic Subtlety Rank 1
Reduces threat caused by Affliction and Destruction spells by 5% Also reduces Soulshatter cooldown by 20% (1 minute)

Demonic Subtlety Rank 2
Reduces threat caused by Affliction and Destruction spells by 10% Also reduces Soulshatter cooldown by 40% (2 minutes)

Fully talented this would give the Soulshatter a 3 minute cooldown in line with the Mages talented Iceblock oh shit button. Obviously you'd have to give some extra functionality to Improved Drain Soul and Destructive Reach. Hell, while you are at it, combine the range talents too.

[Protokol]

After reading all this post I can say I mabe have a better answer to this probleme. Since our minor glyph suck as hell compared to other class, I would'nt mind to have a:
Glyph of Soulshatter: Increase the threat reductrion of your Soulshatter by 5%.
or
Glyph of Subtility: Reduce your threat by 10%.

*those number are for exemple only

[valesti]

It's easy to say give tanks a few more seconds etc, but in fights like Hodir hard mode and the likes where every last bit of dps counts its not always an option.


First one is a self-banish. It would be an instant-cast channeled ability that costs a decent amount of mana and maybe a soulshard (or either of the two). While the lock is in this self-banished state he/she can't attack and loses 10% threat per sec. Could maybe make the lock untargettable during the duration of the spell (I was thinking of a 5sec duration). However moving cancels the spell, and for example purposes it could have a 2min cooldown.

I could see a potential problem with the untargettable part of the spell in PVP, and it could be a little OP.

The 2nd idea I had was a spell similar to Health Funnel but instead of health we transfer threat to our current pet. I was thinking it could have the same numbers as the spell above (ie 10% per sec, maximum of 50% threat transferred) and be on a similar 2min cooldown.

By no means are my numbers definitive but they give you a rough idea on how they would work, and how useful they would be. Feedback from the Warlock community is appreciated.

That's great that you have these ideas, but you also said "fights like Hodir where every bit of DPS counts." How do you have time to spend 5seconds doing nothing when you could just wait 3-4 seconds for the tank to get some threat? And correct me if im wrong but I dont think there is any 5 second period that you could stand still on Hodir.

[gatgat]

@Tumdance - yes our threat per damage is much higher than other classes. Blizzard knows this as well. However, they aren't going to do anything about it until 3.2 at the earliest, and 3.3 at the latest.

Reasons:
1) Too many tanks are gearing avoidance. Thus the problem isn't you, its them.
2) They know what gear levels will be in 3.2, 3.3, and beyond. It should not be an issue now, but it will be in the future.
3) They have mentioned time and again about nerfing tank avoidance due to "You have high avoidance, thus the boss needs to hit harder" inflation. How do you tell someone "You should be gearing for threat" then nerf their avoidance? My guess is that they will buff threat, nerf avoidance, and let people continue gearing for avoidance, and maybe try harder for 4.0
4) The fights we have the most threat issues on are the fights with buffs or minimal participation from us (patchwerk-esque). Tanks don't always get these buffs.

I play a pally tank, and I kind of get what your saying. The problem is that now with lots of locks being destro the threat you put out in your first few seconds is retarded. However once I have the mob on me I have no issues whatsoever with threat.

The only time this would be iffy is hard modes with big dps buffs, think Hodir. What we do on Hodir to help the tank is whoever gets the crit buff instantly runs it to the tank. We make sure the tank always has the crit buff and we drain MD's into him, as well as tricks if we have a rogue. Doing this our tank sits around 10k threat

[Hntrx]

hadn't read all of this but, what about this for a simple solution. Soulshatter has he same effect but CD is reduced to 1 min or 2 mins. Can be minor glyphed to remove the cost of the soul shard.

[dpins]

When we raid, we pull Ignis to the far side of the room to start for whatever reason but we are just creatures of habit. Everytime we do this there is a druid in our guild that can't wait to get on the damage meter and pulls aggro and dies when the tank is trying to get him in postion for the flame pillars. As a result we are short a dps out of the shoot, lost a battle res, and now have the first fire pillar out of position and the tanking scrambling to get control. We call him out on it and he will do the same thing next week. We ask him to hold of dps until the Ignis is in position but he will not do it.

The point I'm making is that we should all be using our knowledge and learn from our mistakes and do what we can to make the raid go smoother. I remember when we used to say "Wait for 5 sunders then start dps" before threat meters. Then it was "wait for 10k threat before we start dps" when the threat meters where raid requirements. Now when I tank I here mages and locks casting their big nukes before I have even pulled the first mob. It used to be the tank goes first but now I'm trying to get to the mob before the rogue is ripping away or the hunter is nuking away because he can hit feign death when he pulls the mob to stay alive instead of using it before he pulls aggro to make things go smoother.

Everyone keeps asking for blizzard to come out with some new "gadget" to make their life easier while all the time they have the gadget between their ears to take care of all these issues.