[MoP] Warlock CC and survivability

[Phoenexis]

Actually, it can get up to 51 seconds if you use frostjaw.
Will try comparing abilities this weekend since I get a head start.

[Deleted]

Keep in mind that you can keep this chain up even if someone pops a trinket as the CC's are so numerous.

[Slyver]

It is misleading to use mages as the base line comparison due to current perception of them. You should use druids. They are better at it than mages. Spriests are very powerful as well with Psyfiend. For Spriests, it may not be as long, but it is easy for them to do, taking only a couple GCDs. They can also kill someone even easier during that chain than mages can (the mage kill window of controlled CC is less than Spriests).

[Deleted]

Fear (8 sec) -> Mortal Coil (3 sec) -> Axe Toss -> (4 sec) -> Axe Toss (2 sec) - Fear (4 sec). 21 seconds in total, that's it I think? Anyway, it's pointless to look at this in a vacuum. You need to look at the whole picture and when you add everything together (CC, survivability, damage), Mages come out ahead of everyone else.

[wholol]

Fear (8 sec) -> Mortal Coil (3 sec) -> Axe Toss -> (4 sec) -> Axe Toss (2 sec) - Fear (4 sec). 21 seconds in total, that's it I think? Anyway, it's pointless to look at this in a vacuum. You need to look at the whole picture and when you add everything together (CC, survivability, damage), Mages come out ahead of everyone else.

axe toss , axe toss? please show me that amazing axe toss with no cooldown...

axe toss is a felguard only ability, meaning its demo only and only if you even use that pet... which will never replace felhunter for competitive pvp, and it has a cooldown.

[Deleted]

axe toss , axe toss? please show me that amazing axe toss with no cooldown...

axe toss is a felguard only ability, meaning its demo only and only if you even use that pet... which will never replace felhunter for competitive pvp, and it has a cooldown.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=111898/grimoire-felguard

[Slyver]

You need to look at the whole picture and when you add everything together (CC, survivability, damage), Mages come out ahead of everyone else.

According to my analysis, and having played both, Moonkins come out on top, when weighed in the balance.

Taking all things into account, it looks like it goes pretty much like this:

Moonkin > Mage > Spriest > Shaman > Warlock

Though of course, it is also dependent on what comp you are running. If off-heals or utility are more useful to you than CC or controlled burst, Spriest and Shaman will be much more useful to your comp than a Mage.

[pokeadott]

Pretty much. I don't think Moonkin are better off than Mages for a number of reasons in terms of CC/Surviv, but otherwise I think the list makes sense. Also, a '>' doesn't exactly do it justice, because the gap between the spriest and the shaman there is actually pretty damn large. Whereas, I think Locks are much closer to Shaman on the back-end.

Whatever.

At the moment, there is no great reason to bring a Lock over a Mage, Boomkin or ShadowPriest all things being equal. I'm torn between my Mage and Hunter atm, but not sure I want to deal with pets again if I'm ditching the lock for pvp. Probably will just main Fire.

[Lucidious]

I was sitting around at work thinking about how to make destro lock a desirable class to play "strictly speaking from a defensive point of view with a couple aesthetics for good measure " and here was the strictly bias vision that I came up with"lol".

1) To fix locks durability I think changing twilight ward would be the best move. Mages with barrier and spriests with pw: shield are the reason. Both classes having 1 "oh shit" button and a "real" shield compared to locks 2 "oh shit" buttons and a *MAGIC ONLY* shield would be a fair place to start. Because all 3 are clothie casters, but locks are the only one with a shield that doesnt help against mellee. Just try out a mage or spriest and jump back on your lock afterwards and you will see what i'm talking about. You will see who is "tankier". If we are gonna be the "Tanky" casters with less cc then that would be a great place to start because then we "truly" have an active defense system.


2) If we were still to squishy after that "And I HIGHLY doubt it" then maybe changing fel armor to give damage reduction instead of plus health and healing would be warranted but we could'nt have an extra CC at that point because that would be overpowered and there is no denying that"Hell even old school soul link would be over the top at that point which is where im seeing the tradeoff of abilities". I feel the problem is balancing these new defensive abilities with our ability to cc "captain odvious over here " and thats why i'm thinking a buff to twilight ward is the way to go. Then it's kind of a "choice" at that point between adding another cc, passive DR, or nothing at all and call it balance "I would actually be fine with a better shield tbh"


3) Off topic, I posted this in another thread but I think it would be cool to make immolate more like the old burning embers system to where your nukes create a dot "very warlock" that gives you the feeling of "wearing down" your opponent which is something i've always loved about the class"even if it's a nuke spec" and I think that change would make it pretty easy to "balance" pvp burst if necassary as well. Chaos bolt itself i've always wanted that "ultimate fireball from hell" look to it's animation so if another player were to see a lock in a world pvp situation for the first time he would be like "damn I wanna play one of those" lol. Especially if he is slowly burning into ash while hopelessly facing his opponent ". I thought the same thing about combining MG and drain life into drain soul "to slowly steal thier power and SOUL as affliction". Gives it that same kind of "warlock" flavor.


4)Back on topic, I feel if we had baseline coil back"And maybe old school soul link" the playstyle would just be an "upgraded" version of our old one much like other classes "coff coff mages" That can be seen as a good thing or bad depending on an individuals preference. Those were our staple abilities and a good design for a "tanky" cloth caster but I for one don't mind the change"and would actually prefer it with an upraded shield " But if we are struggling to much at 90 maybe adding a baseline cc would make sense. But as of right now I still think that adding an all damage shield would be the safest bet for "completing" the tanky suck the life out of you style. We could call it "Demon Armor"

[wholol]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=111898/grimoire-felguard

Ah yeah, service, well you want to count that as an actual CC? first the cd, second it's on DR, AND the fact still remains that you need to be demo specced and using a felguard, which goes back to the point that it's not really a reliable source of CC, the comparison was mages did their CC without having to use specific talents and go to extreme measures in order to pull that amount of control, they can just do it with their available spells.

[lockedout]

Xelnath was it your idea to remove drain mana?

[Slyver]

Pretty much. I don't think Moonkin are better off than Mages for a number of reasons in terms of CC/Surviv, but otherwise I think the list makes sense.

The only CC Moonkins are more susceptible to than mages is stun, but then again, so is everyone. However, they can cast glyphed Barkskin while stunned AND silenced (under any form of CC actually), which lasts 12s, is on a 60s CD and provides almost as much effective DR (in pvp) as shield wall, so it's not nothing. As for passive and active survivability, they are very difficult to kill with their DR, great heals, amazing mobility, and awesome CC, etc. They aren't necessarily more survivable with a pocket healer vs. a mage with the same healer, but they aren't that far off either.

As for their CC...

A Moonkin can lock down a healer better than any other class.

They can root and cast an instant 15s Solar Beam on a healer; with two subsequent roots and mushroom snare, they can keep them in that solar beam the entire time with ease. When it's about to break, they can cast an instant 8s cyclone on them. During this time, due to short or instant casts, they can spend most of their time casting spells on the focus target.

That's 23s of easy lockdown on a healer (and most other classes as well, with the exception of a few melee).

Even if the target trinkets, they can still lock them down easy for 16s.

Root/Solar Beam ->
Trinket ->
Ursol's Vortex right back in ->
Root ->
Root ->
instant 8s Cyclone

Thats ~16s with a trinket lockdown on a healer.

I've done it, I've had it done to me. It's a sickness.

Even after these (relatively short) CDs, they still have two spammable CCs and plenty of other stuff left. If they take Mighty Bash (which I wouldn't, but still) or start with a pounce (a common tactic), this chain can be even longer.

This isn't just theoretical CC, as in, what's possible in a box, this is easy CC, that will happen all the time.

Personally, I think the glyph for solar beam is broken and will be nerfed eventually, but we shall see.

Moonkins are definitely not hurting in the CC department, and I believe they are the strongest at it, with rogues and mages a close second.

Xelnath was it your idea to remove drain mana?

All mana drains were removed. This was a blizzard decision, and I feel the game is much better for it.

[gez]

HEY, i got an idea to make our ife easier:

make carrion swarm baseline, and bake glyph of shadowflame to also affect carrion swarm, put it on a 15-20 sec CD and were fixed for pvp

[Roujeaux]

Okay. That's pretty convincing. I checked with the rest of my team, and half of them didn't realize Thunderstorm and Dispersion were castable while stunned.

I'll make Dark Bargain, Soul Link and Shadow Bulwark castable while stunned. This won't happen before 5.1.

No offense at all, but this actually explains alot of the frustrating moments in warlock history (and even now) where players (though admittedly harshly) have asked the question "Do the warlock devs even play a warlock at all?" How can the people who are in charge of making sure our class has effective, efficient offensive AND defensive capabilities that are competitive with all other classes, even accomplish this when they're not even fully aware of what all the other classes have in terms of capability?

[Jessicka]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=111898/grimoire-felguard

Is only available to Demonology.

[Xelnath]

No offense at all, but this actually explains alot of the frustrating moments in warlock history (and even now) where players (though admittedly harshly) have asked the question "Do the warlock devs even play a warlock at all?" How can the people who are in charge of making sure our class has effective, efficient offensive AND defensive capabilities that are competitive with all other classes, even accomplish this when they're not even fully aware of what all the other classes have in terms of capability?

You choose to interpret what you see through the lens of whatever preset notion you already have.

Some people PvP more than others. The people in the room at the time didn't know that someone else had added these rules as it happened without discussion. These things happen. Doesn't mean they're ok or innately bad, just that it goes under the radar.

[Lucidious]

Is only available to Demonology.

I actually wish felguard was available to the other specs. I thought pets were for utility now and demonology has already got it's own "unique" feel regardless which pet you use. But adding the felguard to affliction or destro and then they could have some cc as well.

[pokeadott]

You choose to interpret what you see through the lens of whatever preset notion you already have.

Some people PvP more than others. The people in the room at the time didn't know that someone else had added these rules as it happened without discussion. These things happen. Doesn't mean they're ok or innately bad, just that it goes under the radar.

If the people in the room didn't know that (btw, has been this way for an entire xpak I believe - This was *not* a MoP change), then those people should not be designing the Warlock class with PvP balance in mind. Also, people that don't pvp a lot should not be designing the Warlock class with PvP balance in mind.

Seriously, that is just reedic. How can you say it's OK that devs who are designing our spells are unaware of basic arena mechanics of other classes? How can they be expected to have a clue about pvp balance if they don't pvp a lot?

/Mindfuckingboggling

[Jessicka]

I actually wish felguard was available to the other specs. I thought pets were for utility now and demonology has already got it's own "unique" feel regardless which pet you use. But adding the felguard to affliction or destro and then they could have some cc as well.

I'm inclined to agree. At this point where minion choice is supposed to be just that, the Felguard has become the Go To pet for Demonology for all circumstances leaving the Demon spec with the least 'choice' of all.

[Zharradan]

I'm inclined to agree. At this point where minion choice is supposed to be just that, the Felguard has become the Go To pet for Demonology for all circumstances leaving the Demon spec with the least 'choice' of all.

but that would make the felguard the "go to" pet for affliction and destro too, cause he is the best dps.