GC on Dark Intent/GoS in 5.2

[Deleted]

Surprised that GC defended the new "unreliable, 110k health to cast, single target howl" blood fear.

It'll be released. Nobody will take it. They'll change it in 6-9 months. The usual.

Yup, but it's pissing in the ocean really.

Blood Fear is overpowered - I don't think anyone will argue against that, but warlocks seem pretty weak as a whole in pvp - blood fear was one of the few bits of wreckage that was keeping them afloat. The fact that BF is rightfully being nerfed isn't the biggest issue, it's that no shine is being put elsewhere.

New blood fear either needs multiple charges and / or a reduced health cost, though frankly I'd rather have something that isn't a fear.

At the moment our control is 1 of our Lvl15 talents + fear, we could really use something that isn't another fear at this point, let alone one that only works against melee that are already on you - who are also the ones that seem to have the most ways of getting around fear - and costs enough health that in this bursty metagame that you've done enough damage to yourself that you're probably boned anyway. You can cast it earlier, but then with it's hefty cooldown you fear the first melee attack on you - which isn't much help, you don't start the fight off by deathcoiling / shadowfurying people as your opener.

Personally I'd like to see the health cost either gone or cut to around 5-10% and it be a buff that stays on you and generates 1 charge every xx seconds, some sort of more reliable version of the old dreadmist set bonus.

[Deleted]

Honestly GC doesn't understand pvp in the slightest. Look at the Monk's ring of peace, the fact he let that idea reach the ptr shows he knows nothing about pvp. He thought bestial wrath was a defensive skill, he presumably thought the old Blood Fear was balanced (its not). The warlock lvl 60 talents are not defensive like GC thinks, the free trinket is an offensive spell and burning rush is an out of combat speed boost (running faster indoors).

[Rayaleith]

Spells that cost life is the right direction in general since we are locks. We are supposed to sacrifice HP. Of course the more they nerf our healing draining/generating the worse this becomes. Although I enjoy playing GoSac destro atm, I still feel that GoSac should not have been existed. We are pet class. Not THE pet class that hunters are but still a class that have a controllable pet that can apply buff, have special spells, have special interaction with its master (demonology) etc. I agree that GoSac gives an option but I would prefer something else there.

P.S. Don't want to sound offensive or an elitist (since I am far from elite player of course) but please Jessicka, I took some seconds to see your character in armory and really man, with most bosses in LFR difficultly and nothing in PvP you sound too... sure about the viability of specs/spells/talents. If I am wrong and your character is not Jessicka@The-Shatar I am sorry but let's not clutter the forums with these. It makes finding valuable information harder for us who are not that good....

[SodiumChloride]

GC always annoyed me for some reason, back in the days I played a paladin and he showed almost the same disdain for that class.

People like you read way too much into his posts.

This is a job to him, there are no favourites.

[luckydevours]

Spells that cost life is the right direction in general since we are locks. We are supposed to sacrifice HP.

Who says that?! We always had Life Tap to recover our mana. But apart from LT this sacrificing our HP thingy is completly new in MoP.

[Jessicka]

Surprised that GC defended the new "unreliable, 110k health to cast, single target howl" blood fear.

It'll be released. Nobody will take it. They'll change it in 6-9 months. The usual.

Cataclysm got scrapped because it didn't function as they'd hoped while it was on PTR; if it's as bad as is suggested then it will be changed. I certainly don't think they want it to function as simply yet another gap opener alongside Teleport/Howl though.

[Deleted]

Is all this based on the HP you will have in 5.2 with the new ilevel / gear or are you basing the hp cost being to much off how much you have now?

[Phoenexis]

If people were already avoiding using Blood Fear to get melee off of them in 5.1 when the spell had a 10% HP cost and a determined target, how can anybody expect it to be used properly with a 20% HP cost and a more or less random target? It can't be used as a pro-active ability because if you activate it 20 seconds prior to burst, it will fear someone 20 seconds prior to burst, not when the opponent decides to burst you...
AND if you're using it as a reactive ability, 90% of the times you're going to be losing more health than saving any with such a ridiculous health cost and most melee having an anti fear CD, not to mention dispels.
It is a bad talent.

Cataclysm should've just been a 1.5 sec cast time that could be interrupted. Usable while stunned, with no Ember cost. Basically, Howl of Terror pre-MoP, which was a great ability that wasn't OP.

As for Dark Intent, not to play the devil's advocate, but we already offer health stones and soul stones. I don't think getting a stamina buff is high up in our list of priorities. Giving it solely to Imp does suck though, and the way it interacts with other stamina buffs is annoying, as others have said.

[Spektroman]

As for Dark Intent, not to play the devil's advocate, but we already offer health stones and soul stones. I don't think getting a stamina buff is high up in our list of priorities. Giving it solely to Imp does suck though, and the way it interacts with other stamina buffs is annoying, as others have said.

That's not the point; the point is we have to give up something very important and measurable (our personal DPS) simply to bring a buff that other classes merely push a button for (unless somehow casting Fort reduces the damage dealt by shadow priests). It's a simple matter of why must warlocks make those choices (DPS vs utility/buffs) when I can't think of any other class that must do so as well?

Every time I play my mage/shadow priest I feel like I have all the tools I need without giving up anything, really. On my warlock, I feel like I lose a ton of utility every time I summon a pet. Why should it be like that? It's bad enough that I can't have all my utility like everyone else, why can't I have the buffs either?

As for Blood Fear, a suggestion would be:

Blood Fear 15% of maximum health
Instant
20s cooldown

Afflicts an enemy with Blood Fear for 30s. The next time the enemy performs a melee attack, he/she gets horrified for 4s. 1 Charge.

[Deleted]

Can we please stop bitching about Stamina? It is the least important raid buff, you can get a slightly weaker version with a scroll and we provide one of the rarest and most important debuffs that still is around, CoE. Even if you completely ignore Stamina and act like we are unable to provide it everything is fine. I agree that the comment was not very intelligent, but we really have far more important issues than a stupid 2% Stamina buff.

[Jessicka]

Every time I play my mage/shadow priest I feel like I have all the tools I need without giving up anything, really. On my warlock, I feel like I lose a ton of utility every time I summon a pet. Why should it be like that? It's bad enough that I can't have all my utility like everyone else, why can't I have the buffs either?

With pets' utility, such as the disarms/silence etc you referred to earlier - it would be a case of choose it or loose it. Both classes you give examples of completely lack something we can choose between such as a disarm (Mages) or stun (Shadow Priest). So while the utility they do have is "always on", it's also more limited overall.

In regards to the buff, I totally agree - it's something completely seperate, and could be fixed by either rolling Stamina into Dark Intent or by giving different pets alternative auras as per the Hunter pet model.

[Spektroman]

With pets' utility, such as the disarms/silence etc you referred to earlier - it would be a case of choose it or loose it. Both classes you give examples of completely lack something we can choose between such as a disarm (Mages) or stun (Shadow Priest). So while the utility they do have is "always on", it's also more limited overall.

In regards to the buff, I totally agree - it's something completely seperate, and could be fixed by either rolling Stamina into Dark Intent or by giving different pets alternative auras as per the Hunter pet model.

Depends on what do you mean by "limited". If we consider say 3 "choices", and mage/priest always have 2 of the 3, while warlocks can have all 3, but only 1 at a time, I feel warlocks are more limited.

Because for me, it doesn't matter what you "could" choose, only what you actually chose and how it affects the outcome. You need the tools in battle when you need it. You could potentially give a class every single buff/debuff/utility in the game, and they would probably still suck if you made them choose 1 thing only, while allowing everyone else more "limited" choices but letting them take 2 or even 3 of those.

I don't mind making tough choices. I do mind being the only one having to do them, though.

Though to be 100% fair, I think more flexibility in summoning our demons in combat greatly reduces that effect (meaning I can have a felhunter out to spell lock/dispel, then soulshard summon a voidwalker to disarm). It would work great if we could summon new demons on the fly without the ridiculous costs, and if destro could actually do it. I'm happy to have a short cooldown (1 min or so) and be able to insta-summon demons for the utility I need when I need it, but paying extra resources (shards/fury/embers) for it makes it not worth it.

As for the buffs being like hunter pets, it would be great, but that's only going to work if all pets do equal damage.

[Deleted]

If they wanted blood fear to be used defensively, it should've been 10 yards range, X seconds CD(30?) and let us keep normal fear on separate CD, normal range, normal cost etc.

[Spektroman]

If they wanted blood fear to be used defensively, it should've been 10 yards range, X seconds CD(30?) and let us keep normal fear on separate CD, normal range, normal cost etc.

Well the new blood fear doesn't replace regular fear. Also, your suggestion can be used offensively. Just because it has a 10 yard range it doesn't mean you can't run up to someone and use it. I agree with how the new blood fear should be (purely defensive), I just don't see it as being very good at that job with the current design. I don't like the fact that melee can still just use their fear immunities (zerker rage, tremor totem, lichborne, ams, cloak, etc) to ignore your cooldown that just took away 20% of your health. I also dislike that a random pet can eat it, instead of the melee dps.

I really wish it was a horrify effect and that it would not be affected by stuff like AMS/cloak. What sucks about blood fear is that melee have so many ways to simply break fears. Frankly I'd be happier if I was paying 20% of my health for a root, than the current incarnation of blood fear.

[Deleted]

Who says that?! We always had Life Tap to recover our mana. But apart from LT this sacrificing our HP thingy is completly new in MoP.

I'm fine with health sacrificing abilities, but holy christ they shouldn't be tied into defensive abilities, they're polar opposites. Sacrificing a bit of health for utility / dmg boost, fine - but you shouldn't have to, in the heat of the moment, sacrifice 20%(!) of your health for 4 seconds breather, especially with our current savaged regen - it's not like we can drain / SL our way back up like we used to - most of our regen comes from blowing cds.

Is all this based on the HP you will have in 5.2 with the new ilevel / gear or are you basing the hp cost being to much off how much you have now?

20% is 20%, ilevel isn't the issue.

Can we please stop bitching about Stamina? It is the least important raid buff, you can get a slightly weaker version with a scroll and we provide one of the rarest and most important debuffs that still is around, CoE. Even if you completely ignore Stamina and act like we are unable to provide it everything is fine. I agree that the comment was not very intelligent, but we really have far more important issues than a stupid 2% Stamina buff.

While I agree it's certainly not anywhere near our biggest problem (especially in pvp), it is a problem. Working on heroic bosses, you do not want to be missing raid buffs - nor do you want to be performing less than your best - when you're the only class being forced into this 7 year old out of date choice, it's frustrating.

The fact that the devs don't seem to care that warlocks are the only class that seems to have to make these sacrifices is just another slap to the face, if others had it and we hadn't moved away from the days where we had to pick COE or COA, then fine - but it's not, sacrificing dps for utility is dead - because it's about as fun as the hybrid tax. How the devs look at it and go "yep, looks fine" is beyond me.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I'm fine with health sacrificing abilities, but holy christ they shouldn't be tied into defensive abilities, they're polar opposites. Sacrificing a bit of health for utility / dmg boost, fine - but you shouldn't have to, in the heat of the moment, sacrifice 20%(!) of your health for 4 seconds breather, especially with our current savaged regen - it's not like we can drain / SL our way back up like we used to - most of our regen comes from blowing cds.



20% is 20%, ilevel isn't the issue.



While I agree it's certainly not anywhere near our biggest problem (especially in pvp), it is a problem. Working on heroic bosses, you do not want to be missing raid buffs - nor do you want to be performing less than your best - when you're the only class being forced into this 7 year old out of date choice, it's frustrating.

The fact that the devs don't seem to care that warlocks are the only class that seems to have to make these sacrifices is just another slap to the face, if others had it and we hadn't moved away from the days where we had to pick COE or COA, then fine - but it's not, sacrificing dps for utility is dead - because it's about as fun as the hybrid tax. How the devs look at it and go "yep, looks fine" is beyond me.

I love the ideas of Warlocks being more like blood mages. But, this new ability is horrible. I would be okay with increasing the health sacrifice for the OLD blood fear, but the new one seems horrible and unreliable. Again, hunter pets can burn it?

I see what you mean about making choices, but Warlock do bring a lot of things to the table, period. CoE, healthstones, a Brez, 10% Spell power, raid mobility. Thats even before you look at what pets can and do bring to the table. Sure if you compare Arcane Brilliance directly to Dark Intent, it seems lesser, but Warlocks bring so many in combat raid "buffs" it really outshines that.

[Deleted]

If you are a progression focused guild you will have all buffs because you will have planned ahead. And again, even if you do not have all the buffs you still have a scroll which provides 8%. I would agree if the buff in question was Spellpower (or CoE), but as I already said: forget that we ever had Stamina and we are completely fine. Just pretend the Imp doesn't exist. Problem solved.

[Novx]

A nerf to GoSac for Destruction is justified with his reasoning (because it really is the only option for Destruction right now), but the spec needs some buffs in conjunction with that nerf. I somehow doubt there will be any buffs, but lets see...

That doesn't mean that GoSac needs to be nerfed for destro it means the others need to be buffed.

[Phoenexis]

Also, how many defensive abilities do we need? We've been asking for passive mitigation since MoP was mentioned. The last thing we need is another activated ability..

[Deleted]

If you are a progression focused guild you will have all buffs because you will have planned ahead. And again, even if you do not have all the buffs you still have a scroll which provides 8%. I would agree if the buff in question was Spellpower (or CoE), but as I already said: forget that we ever had Stamina and we are completely fine. Just pretend the Imp doesn't exist. Problem solved.

I've done that for a few expansions, but a few back we had to have a hunter bugger off and grab a silithid to apply stamina after both of our priests were unavailable. It's annoying having GC tell you that "you can apply stamina", when you essentially can't.

Seeing the entire class be given a packet of crayons, then being told "hey, you can draw too!" and handed a razorblade, sucks.