Regression

[Kawakazi]

First and foremost: This is not a whine thread, an e-peen stroke thread, or anything negative. This is a discussion thread and should therefore be used for discussion. Take anything you have that is not constructive and please wipe it on the doormat. Criticism of ideals are more than welcome. Thank you.

Warlocks are a class with a fantastic design. The very mechanics of the class make it almost impossible for it to be underpowered unless severely gimped (fear having a CD, dots with a CD/shit damage, etc...). The way Cata is meant to be, everyone should have high health, high mana, damage scaling worse than health then it did in Wrath (let the pools empty post by GC) which makes burst much less practical. By this reason, DoT's, as a mechanic, are almost auto OP, or in the very least advantageous.

For those that understand why, skip to the next paragraph. In order for a class that relies on Dots to actually kill anyone before they oom, they have to do near unhealable damage when combined with CDs and shadowbolts/drain lifes/mind blasts/mind flays and ever other DD or channeled spell you have in your arsenal. The DD spells take off a large chunk of health. They won't take nearly as much of a % off in Cataclysm. Near unhealable Dots are required to kill a healer or his partner at this point. Think of BC.

So, Affliction Warlocks seemed to have regressed a bit on playstyle, going from Wrath playstyle of more burst in your damage for the tradeoff of less healing done to yourself, back to the SL/SL days of BC. We may just DoT them up, Drain Life, watch them blow CDs in order to survive for a little longer, and eventually get worn out and die. It does not matter currently if theres a dps on you, you heal for mad amounts. Watch any cataclysm stream, Affliction Warlocks can DoT their target up, Drain Life, and tank a Bladestorm, losing some 10% of his health, quickly gained back in the moment of less pressure directly after a Bladestorm (especially with the normalized rage). Yes, I know numbers aren't finalized, but if Drain Life stays the way it is, there is no reason to use Shadow Bolt over it except to try and score a kill. With as much healing as it does, and especially with a spec like (http://www.wowtal.com/#k=YVubL9TjD.9x5.warlock) with Demon Armor up, your healer hardly has to worry about his mana pool if he is not focused. And even if SB does manage to do enough damage to be worth it over drain life, once your healer is close to oom and can get away, he can drink for as long as he wants knowing his partner can just Draintank for a while.

Even with the Life Tap change we are back to the good ol' days of SL/SL Draintanking.

So, after reading all that, lets see some discussion on this!

Inb4 : TL;DR

[Stanton Biston]

Without anywhere close to final numbers, or close to final tuning on pvp, it's hard to say just what it will be like. If CC is harder to break, the lock might just get CC'd until it can get burst down. GC has said that he wants CC to be a bigger deal.

The other factor is that arena balance != WSG balance. The warlock's lack of mobility may overwhelm the deadliness factor in a world where kills are only a part of the victory and not the whole.

Besides all that, 7v1 is pretty much a guaranteed global of someone. Running MAs, it's pretty easy to destroy a non-assisting enemy.

[Kawakazi]

Point taken, but something as unkillable as the current build of Warlock makes a great flag carrier, if assisted of course. How a classes survivability is affects pvp of all types greatly. Also warlocks get a little kick in mobility if you SS port, gives you a 50% sprint for 6 seconds, and being that CoEx is now 50% slow with a 30 sec duration, Warlocks can hamstring everyone on the opposing team, giving your flag carrier a much better chance of getting away, or at least living a little longer.

[icecreamtruck]

Will people ever stop whining about warlocks as soon as they get something new? DL heals for 5% now and it will in cata too

[Repo123]

Will people ever stop whining about warlocks as soon as they get something new? DL heals for 5% now and it will in cata too

Soulburn instant fear was supposed to be in cata.
Imp being able to remove CC that breaks on damage was supposed to be in cata.
Using a soul shard in cata was "suppose to feel cool" in cata.
Demon Soul Succubus affect is suppose to make sense in cata.

You can believe in blizz' ability to make things right for locks in cata. They can't even properly balance lifetap for a lock.

I choose to base my lack of trust on past performance.

[ComputerNerd]

Actually I can see fear at least as a CC in its current form being less effective than it is now.
Fear has a specific threshold as a percentage of base health before it breaks, and being base health that is based on level, not gear.
The stamina inflation on gear will if anything substantially reduce the proportion of health that the threshold represents, so fear will be breaking on much smaller percentages as gear improves, and with the damage from the dots increasing accordingly, then fear will become less useful the better the gear gets.

The soulburn port, like any applications of the port require prior preparation, so it will only serve a flag carrier as either a fast escape from their flag room, or an escape mechanism from an enemy coming after you in your base or room. It will not be as convenient as a run speed increase or a gap opener in general.

[adynn]

I'm not entirely sure I know what the central premise to your post was kawakazi, however I'll try to reply anyway. The advantages of dots in pvp are great, as you said, which is mostly due to their high dpct. However it's harder to get to max damage with a dot spec than it is with a DD spec, simply because of ramp up. Now, if everyone's on 100% health, it's probably better for dots, however if there's a person that was dropped to 50%, then you want the DD spec, because they can actually push for the kill. Affliction's and spriests' playing style in a proper bg is more about general pressure on the healer, and basically ooming them before you can push for a kill (remember, if affliction has next to no burst pressure now, it'll be worse in cata). No one said dots were unhealable either, any half competent healer can easily heal through a full set of affliction's dots. I remember one case where I was in my pve gear, around the time toravon was released, I had full dots on priest, and he easily smashed through my dots (he was in pvp gear, me in pve).

Sure drain tanking is powerful, however it has to be powerful simply due to the lack of warlock escapes and affliction's lack of burst. Also, I have a distinct lack of sympathy whenever bladestorm is mentioned, mostly because any warrior can catch a warlock in a bladestorm without even trying.

[MushroomBomb]

While I don't have anything particularly new to add to the disussion, as I'm no expert on Warlocks, I would just like to remind you all of a specific Ghostcrawler quote (not yet on the front page).

Like everything else in beta, these are subject to change. We're close to being able to get more max-level PvP feedback and will buff or nerf abilities accordingly. Source.

[Kawakazi]

I'm not entirely sure I know what the central premise to your post was kawakazi, however I'll try to reply anyway. Also, I have a distinct lack of sympathy whenever bladestorm is mentioned, mostly because any warrior can catch a warlock in a bladestorm without even trying.

Ye, I wrote that at 6 am and was tired, pretty much I was explaining how we are going back to a TBC style of arenaing / BGs.
Onto the Bladestorm part, the point of that was taking an ability that rips us a new asshole (port down? if your healers spams gets interruted you die) can be easily tanked since MS is only 25% and Drain life (at the moment, I assume it is a bug) is not affected. You can literaly just sit there and drain shit with DoTs on it and theres nothing a single class can do about it.

Will people ever stop whining about warlocks as soon as they get something new? DL heals for 5% now and it will in cata too

Never did I whine, I said we are regressing back to an SL/SL style as affliction, which is neither negative or positive, I was basicly just reporting on it.

[Ofmanv]

Are you saying affliction going back to its original identity of dots and drains is a bad thing? I think its great. There's 2 other specs for doing burst. Affliction's damage and healing levels is just a matter of crunching the numbers, which Blizz hasn't made any attempt at doing yet in Beta because they're still making a lot changes.

[adynn]

Ye, I wrote that at 6 am and was tired, pretty much I was explaining how we are going back to a TBC style of arenaing / BGs.
Onto the Bladestorm part, the point of that was taking an ability that rips us a new asshole (port down? if your healers spams gets interruted you die) can be easily tanked since MS is only 25% and Drain life (at the moment, I assume it is a bug) is not affected. You can literaly just sit there and drain shit with DoTs on it and theres nothing a single class can do about it.



Never did I whine, I said we are regressing back to an SL/SL style as affliction, which is neither negative or positive, I was basicly just reporting on it.

Because bladestorm is such a powerful ability, I tend to think it should involve effort on the part of the warrior to set up. Yet when it comes to warlocks, they just need to force the port then charge, hamstring/MS and pop bladestorm, it's not that involved to catch a lock in one. Now a frost mage or a hunter is a different matter. Also why do they get the ability that is basically an aoe of death to anyone in it? That's what I've never understood.

[ComputerNerd]

We are often reminded that we have an escape mechanism for the likes of bladestorm, chains of ice etc in the form of the teleport, but not only is there the prior preparation involved in setting it up, which means it cannot be used offensively, it has to be saved for that purpose, and has to be kited away from.
We have very little if anything which can reliable force a warrior or many others for that matter into such a defensive cooldown of their own.

Dots and drains, going back to the drain tank methodology is really putting us back into the realms of shadow priest clones, and that while it proved almost too effective in its heyday is not a direction I want to see warlocks going.
I like some of the uniqueness we have, and other parts of it I curse on a regular basis regardless.

[Kawakazi]

We are often reminded that we have an escape mechanism for the likes of bladestorm, chains of ice etc in the form of the teleport, but not only is there the prior preparation involved in setting it up, which means it cannot be used offensively, it has to be saved for that purpose, and has to be kited away from.
We have very little if anything which can reliable force a warrior or many others for that matter into such a defensive cooldown of their own.

Dots and drains, going back to the drain tank methodology is really putting us back into the realms of shadow priest clones, and that while it proved almost too effective in its heyday is not a direction I want to see warlocks going.
I like some of the uniqueness we have, and other parts of it I curse on a regular basis regardless.

You mean Shadow Priests are a clone of us!

On a more serious note, Warlocks are a very defined class in beta. Affliction is the drain spec, can be compared to a spriest but cannot at the same time, a little closer in comparison then they are right now, but in the expansion they are two different worlds because of the changes Shadow Priests are getting, they are more able to kite then us, less surviability and less damage. Demo is really weird, pet does shit damage (should be buffed to blizzards standards of doing 20% of the masters damage), but you cant die and you explode on kids. Destro is in a bit of a shithole right now.

Again, like always, this is all subject to change like it always has been for the past 6 years blah blah blah.

[durza]

Soulburn instant fear was supposed to be in cata.
Imp being able to remove CC that breaks on damage was supposed to be in cata.
Using a soul shard in cata was "suppose to feel cool" in cata.
Demon Soul Succubus affect is suppose to make sense in cata.

You can believe in blizz' ability to make things right for locks in cata. They can't even properly balance lifetap for a lock.

I choose to base my lack of trust on past performance.

dont forget soul shards were suppose to regen automatically in cata

[5648945621]

With all the new Interrupts and CC the other classes are getting in cata, we're screwed.

Affli locks rely on draintanking because we dont have any escapes like mages. To successfully draintank ppl we need the survivability to do so, but our Survivability in wotlk has been bad and its not getting better in cata. Not to mention everyone will have interrupts so expect to get interrupted every 10 seconds, and for half of that time you cant do shit.

[krs23]

Soulburn instant fear was supposed to be in cata.
Imp being able to remove CC that breaks on damage was supposed to be in cata.
Using a soul shard in cata was "suppose to feel cool" in cata.
Demon Soul Succubus affect is suppose to make sense in cata.

You can believe in blizz' ability to make things right for locks in cata. They can't even properly balance lifetap for a lock.

I choose to base my lack of trust on past performance.

No, no, no and no. They where not supposed to be in Cata, they where tried for cata and deemed unworthy.
Dont get worked up over beta spells, it will happen every beta phase in every game, just dont read the beta-patchnotes if you
are getting worked up over it.

[Repo123]

I'm not worked up about it. Just stating fact.

Explain the logic behind Demon Soul Succubus.

Explain how long they tried the Imps CC breakage.

Explain how soul shards are cool.

Explain why an instant fear is deemed unworthy.

Explain the logic of immolate/conflag. Remove a portion of a dot to add another dot.

Explain how dark intent is just as good for destro as it is for affliction.

Explain how fear/shadowflame goes from 6 seconds to no fear at all, which again makes shadowflame useless. You would have thought they would have tried 4 seconds or 3 seconds.

I'm just voicing my concerns. It took blizz how long to determine shadowflame's cone was considerably smaller than the mage's cone? A year?

You have faith in blizz - I don't.

[ComputerNerd]

Can't argue with much of that.
So much that has been promised to warlocks is very quickly taken away.
Something which actually works well is obviously too dangerous in the hands of a warlock, so they have to nerf it to hell as demonstrated by shadowflame, the felhunter, and then imp.
They turned shards from an exciting implementation into a chore, which went from a regeneration out of combat, to a chanelled spell to earn them back.
With reluctance they removed the shard cost from demon soul, which common sense made pretty clear should never have been there in the first place.

The fear soulburn was announced at blizzcon, so yes it was planned as a possibility, just like most things it gets taken away or never materialises in the first place.

[Rédempteur]

just like most things it gets taken away or never materialises in the first place.

Like the dance studio???

[sugarfree]

Dots and drains, going back to the drain tank methodology is really putting us back into the realms of shadow priest clones, and that while it proved almost too effective in its heyday is not a direction I want to see warlocks going.
I like some of the uniqueness we have, and other parts of it I curse on a regular basis regardless.

The problem is, we can't take that damage anymore. Hopefully in Cata we can. Let's face it, Warlocks are still going to tank their damage. Affliction for the most part is really like a paper towel without a healer and when focused by a decent warrior or rogue, you just eat dirt.