5.2 UA Locks

[Natixsphere]

So I understand that the dispel dmg from UA has been increased but not out DoT dmg which is fine by me. Just curious how many other warlocks ar eplanning on going back to affliction after the new patch?

[Spektroman]

So I understand that the dispel dmg from UA has been increased but not out DoT dmg which is fine by me. Just curious how many other warlocks ar eplanning on going back to affliction after the new patch?

I'm already trying it out. Affliction's damage isn't bad, it's just that dispelling your dots is of no consequence, so healers just do it on CD. Since arenas are also a lot about burst now, there isn't much room for affliction to shine.

I'm having fun playing MLS at low MMRs where healers just try to spam dispels on UA at every cooldown and let their partners die to a shatter combo .

So I figure after the patch with the 10% damage reduction, and the higher kickback on UA, things will be better than they are now.

[lockedout]

I'm already trying it out. Affliction's damage isn't bad, it's just that dispelling your dots is of no consequence, so healers just do it on CD. Since arenas are also a lot about burst now, there isn't much room for affliction to shine.

I'm having fun playing MLS at low MMRs where healers just try to spam dispels on UA at every cooldown and let their partners die to a shatter combo .

So I figure after the patch with the 10% damage reduction, and the higher kickback on UA, things will be better than they are now.

Nothing will change.
Prep room convo as follows
"Focus warlock"
"Roger that"
"Got it focus lock"

[pokeadott]

Aff survivability is still trash sadly. The 10% will help, but not close to enough. Destro has Ember Tap + no Lifetap penalty, Demo has double port + knockback + stun + high pet HP - and both of those specs are still pretty squish vs any cleave team (read - 80% of teams). Aff has... CoEx? The spec really, really needs something to help survivbility (some combo of better self healing, 20% DR, a legit snare alla glyphed SFlame, spec specific Coil, etc.).

Demo is still the way to go, although the only thing it's really capable of is helping throwout some CC/small burst while your partner tries to solo something.

[Spektroman]

Nothing will change.
Prep room convo as follows
"Focus warlock"
"Roger that"
"Got it focus lock"

Can you honestly remember a season where it wasn't like this though? Except before it was a milisecond after the gates opened, as opposed to the prep room. "Omg lock zerg him". "roger that" "got it focus lock" has been going on since forever. We are high priority targets because if we're left unchecked people just die.

If anything I think it should be better this time around, because we got some passive defense back, and kept our cooldowns. Locks never did have cooldowns before.

[Nicola]

I'm already trying it out. Affliction's damage isn't bad, it's just that dispelling your dots is of no consequence, so healers just do it on CD. Since arenas are also a lot about burst now, there isn't much room for affliction to shine.

I'm having fun playing MLS at low MMRs where healers just try to spam dispels on UA at every cooldown and let their partners die to a shatter combo .

So I figure after the patch with the 10% damage reduction, and the higher kickback on UA, things will be better than they are now.

Affliction is pretty terrible, the damage is terrible as well unless you are just free casting all game long. It's just because you play on low MMR against lower skilled players without full gear that affliction doesn't look that terrible.

The 10% damage reduction won't change anything at all against melee. We lose our armor buff and in the same time, most melee classes are getting their damage buffed.
As for the UA damage, after PvP powed and resilience it's a ~10% extra damage compared to current UA crits. A healer will still dispel it whenever he wants to.

And with death knights, monks and rogues becoming a lot better, in addition to no real nerfs to shadowpriests, there is no reason to go affliction in 5.2

If anything I think it should be better this time around, because we got some passive defense back, and kept our cooldowns. Locks never did have cooldowns before.

Because we never really needed them. In cataclysm we were chemical battletanks, with soul link and demon armor we could survive melee on us and when they popped cooldowns, we just teleported away.

Right now you need to teleport if a melee looks at you and pop all your cooldowns if they can get to you.

[Spektroman]

A healer will still dispel it whenever he wants to.

Except this time they'll eat the 70k crit along with a 4 second silence always (instead of one or the other). How long can you eat 70k crits every dispel cooldown? With the nerfs to healing, can you really expect to outheal 70k hits to the face every 8seconds + a 4 second silence while keeping your partners alive with full dots rolling on them? How long until you're oom?

I'm curious about why people think affliction is still going to be bad. It seems like it will be able to put big pressure if people don't dispel and severely punish healers if they do dispel. How is that not enough? And I don't mean this in a "you're wrong and I'm right" kind of way, I'm genuinely curious.

[pokeadott]

I'm curious about why people think affliction is still going to be bad. It seems like it will be able to put big pressure if people don't dispel and severely punish healers if they do dispel. How is that not enough? And I don't mean this in a "you're wrong and I'm right" kind of way, I'm genuinely curious.

1) Survivability - HUGE issue (see previous post).

2) Spread Pressure even without dispels is pretty bad. The only time Aff is a threat is during DS or channeling MG with a Haunt up. This change makes thing a little better, but baseline DoT damage is pathetic enogh that you can choose to dispel or heal through it without many consequences. As long as you CC or counter CD us during DS, our damage isn't all that amazing.

3) After BF nerf, we are Shadow Priests with worse burst, worse survivbility, slightly worse CC, worse defensive utility and better (although still not meaningful) spread damage. Doesnt take a magician to pick between the 2 specs.

4) 5.2 = Rogue/Monk massive buffs, minimal War nerfs, large mage/lock nerfs. Meta game will go even more Cleavetastic which Aff is terrible against.

[Nerraw]

The problem remains that warlocks are prime targets. Will the enemy team allow you to keep putting up all those dots?

[Nicola]

Except this time they'll eat the 70k crit along with a 4 second silence always (instead of one or the other). How long can you eat 70k crits every dispel cooldown? With the nerfs to healing, can you really expect to outheal 70k hits to the face every 8seconds + a 4 second silence while keeping your partners alive with full dots rolling on them? How long until you're oom?

I'm curious about why people think affliction is still going to be bad. It seems like it will be able to put big pressure if people don't dispel and severely punish healers if they do dispel. How is that not enough? And I don't mean this in a "you're wrong and I'm right" kind of way, I'm genuinely curious.

Did you watch the yaspresent tournament?
The games where they didn't tunnel the affly lock, they completely ignored him and had no real trouble at all with the pressure. I've said it countless of times, way to much damage comes from haunt and MG, resulting in a lot less multi target pressure.

Also affliction dies extremely easy against melee, do you really think having your dispel protection always crit will improve your class when everything you'll meet at higher rating is either a) a counterclass or b) superior to you.

By the way, did I mention warlocks lose instant fear and blanket silence? If fear gets interrupted, say bye bye to pressure.

I was sitting on 2.6k this season in 3s and I got replaced by a shadowpriest, simply because warlocks are in a pretty terrible state right now.
The changes in 5.2 are not going to make it anything better PvP wise

[Tya]

I've played a warlock for 6 years and it's gotten to the point where I feel more worried when I'm not being trained.

Seriously it's like I need a melee up my backside in order to function like some kind of bizarre belf warlock puppet.

[Spektroman]

1) Survivability - HUGE issue (see previous post).

2) Spread Pressure even without dispels is pretty bad. The only time Aff is a threat is during DS or channeling MG with a Haunt up. This change makes thing a little better, but baseline DoT damage is pathetic enogh that you can choose to dispel or heal through it without many consequences. As long as you CC or counter CD us during DS, our damage isn't all that amazing.

3) After BF nerf, we are Shadow Priests with worse burst, worse survivbility, slightly worse CC, worse defensive utility and better (although still not meaningful) spread damage. Doesnt take a magician to pick between the 2 specs.

4) 5.2 = Rogue/Monk massive buffs, minimal War nerfs, large mage/lock nerfs. Meta game will go even more Cleavetastic which Aff is terrible against.

Let's go one by one (and again, I'm not posting on a "you're wrong, I'm right" kind of way. Just trying to understand it by giving my inexperienced impressions):

1) Survivability as affliction is going up. Do you mean we need more than the drain life glyph and demon armor buffs? I feel like people won't be happy until they get the 25% DR from old glyphed soul link. While I agree I would be happy to have it back, I feel the entire passive mitigation from before + our cds would make warlocks far too unkillable.

2) So basically increase dot dmg and/or damage dealt outside of dark soul? Can we all agree that's an issue for all warlock specs, not just affliction? You're being CC'd during dark soul as any spec.

3) I think our CDs are on par, and utility wise other than the stamina buff (which they are considering baking into dark intent) it's quite even. I do agree that warlocks have a lot less CC than priests (at least that's my impression). Their burst is a lot better than ours, so no argument here. The bigger/better spread damage, assuming burst does get toned down a bit, is pretty important even if you decide to downplay it. It's the way to make a healer oom, and score a kill. We just need arena matches that don't reward only mindless melee-zerg-cleave kinds of composition.

4) The only large nerf I see to locks is the blanket silence removal and Blood Fear being changed. Blood Fear is supposed to be good against melee, and the patch isn't out, so there's no telling how it will end up. I agree that right now, it doesn't look good. How does not having a silence affect an increasingly large amount of melee showing up due to monk/rogue buffs? Everything else I see is a buff for affliction (passive DR, UA glyph baseline, shorter UA cast time, etc.)

The problem remains that warlocks are prime targets. Will the enemy team allow you to keep putting up all those dots?

The dots themselves either have very fast cast time (glyphed UA) or are instant cast. So unless they CC you from 100-0 (which currently CAN happen) you should be able to dot people with no problem.

[Schirmy]

Niberion really has it spot on, couldn't agree more.

We've gone from the most tanky caster to the most fragile save Ele.

[Nicola]

1) Survivability as affliction is going up. Do you mean we need more than the drain life glyph and demon armor buffs? I feel like people won't be happy until they get the 25% DR from old glyphed soul link. While I agree I would be happy to have it back, I feel the entire passive mitigation from before + our cds would make warlocks far too unkillable.

How is it going up? The fel armor buff doesn't help at all against melee because they are getting their damage buffed and we lose the armor bonus from fel armor.
Drain life is very rarely used, and the glyph is just to make up for the fact we lost so much of our self healing from battle fatigue, which has hurts our survivability by a lot.

2) So basically increase dot dmg and/or damage dealt outside of dark soul? Can we all agree that's an issue for all warlock specs, not just affliction? You're being CC'd during dark soul as any spec.

No, get rid of MG for PvP, the whole mechanic is retarded for PvP.

3) I think our CDs are on par, and utility wise other than the stamina buff (which they are considering baking into dark intent) it's quite even. I do agree that warlocks have a lot less CC than priests (at least that's my impression). Their burst is a lot better than ours, so no argument here. The bigger/better spread damage, assuming burst does get toned down a bit, is pretty important even if you decide to downplay it. It's the way to make a healer oom, and score a kill. We just need arena matches that don't reward only mindless melee-zerg-cleave kinds of composition

Haha... Sorry bro, but here you are so wrong.
The only thing we bring over shadowpriests are healthstones and gateway. They bring disarms, silences, horrors ( we don't spec mortal coil so), speed buffs, aoe roots, hybrid healing and shields, life grip, health swap, shall I go on?

Priests have better burst, their spread damage is as good as warlocks, just a different dispelprotection.

4) The only large nerf I see to locks is the blanket silence removal and Blood Fear being changed. Blood Fear is supposed to be good against melee, and the patch isn't out, so there's no telling how it will end up. I agree that right now, it doesn't look good. How does not having a silence affect an increasingly large amount of melee showing up due to monk/rogue buffs? Everything else I see is a buff for affliction (passive DR, UA glyph baseline, shorter UA cast time, etc.)

The blood fear nerf is a really really big nerf for affliction. Not only will it be harder to get CC going, an interrupt on fear also means you can say bye bye to your damage.
The passive DR does nothing against melee as I've said already, UA dispel won't change a thing if people can live through your dots without to many problems, UA glyph is not really important.

During the revamp we lost almost everything that made warlocks so good in cataclysm.
The loss of demon armor and soul link made us extremely squishy, right now we are even squishier then mages.
Because of MG, we lost a lot of our multi target pressure.
Our cc got reduced but we got blood fear which made up for that, now it's being removed and our blanket as well. Of our amazing cc, hardly anything will remain in 5.2.
We had decent sustained selfhealing which is turned into bursty selfhealing, which got hit by all the healing nerfs and is easier to counter then the sustained self healing.

I can really go on here, but I think I've made my point.

[Nerraw]

I've played a warlock for 6 years and it's gotten to the point where I feel more worried when I'm not being trained.

Seriously it's like I need a melee up my backside in order to function like some kind of bizarre belf warlock puppet.

I know the feeling. We're the true tanks of PVP. We have seem to have the Aura of Unlimited Taunting.

[Nicola]

I know the feeling. We're the true teemo's of PVP. We have seem to have the Aura of Unlimited Taunting.

Fixed that for you.
A tank is extremely hard to kill, teemo is a joke with a global taunt

[Nerraw]

Fixed that for you.
A tank is extremely hard to kill, teemo is a joke with a global taunt

Pfft. I can be hard to kill.

For 8 seconds.

[Deleted]

afaik UA's dispell dmg is increased by 14% AND it will always crit, this is a pretty nice buff, pointless in pve and good in pvp. the question is tho, how long it will take them to nerf it again, when ppl start whining about it. And it will give locks some much needed dot protection, and we need that.

[Mefisto]

Niberion really has it spot on, couldn't agree more.

We've gone from the most tanky caster to the most fragile save Ele.

Amen! You said it

[meekus]

Even if our survivability and/or damage would go up, I still hate the whole soulburn+soul swap thing. And haunt should not cost shards. Soul shards should be used for situational stuff like the demonic portal sprint, improved healthstone or for improving curses. That sort of thing.

-Remove the soulburn+soul swap combo. I really would like to see more of my casting bar.
-Remove the shard cost of haunt.
-Give us shadowflame back.
-Give us some tankyness back.
-Let PvP power increase our dot damage a bit to make up for us having to cast again.
-Free us from having to deal with demonic gateway in arenas. I don't know if it has actually ever worked for either of my teammates. (Not that I have played much this season).

There's just so much I don't like about warlocks right now. I'll most definately be playing a lot more shadowpriest next season if there aren't some big changes to come.

Edit: Warlocks being able to cast while running is another thing I don't like!