WoD PvP Warlock Discussion

[wholol]

A greeting to you people, it's been a while since I posted.

I've been busy testing out other games in the last 2 months or so, so I've been preoccupied and now that my initial craving for new games has been satisfied , I'm back to theory-crafting I guess :]

Honestly this forum has been neglecting any pvp related discussions for a while as I'm seeing, although it might be the minority on these forums I do not see anyone in the arena junkies warlock section discussing anything warlock relating to WoD at all.

So I'm hoping we can lump up all our pvp discussions regarding WoD in here, with any possible Beta tests occurring too.

Although I'm a veteran player I've yet to receive a beta invite sadly : /

So let us begin, I will simply state what is on my mind regarding warlock PvP and we can keep adding things up along the way.

First and foremost, the loss of fel flame is a mistake in my opinion.
No matter what the design team has in mind regarding pve , felflame is a crucial part of most specs since it is the only instant DD spell with no cd we have.

but do not get me wrong it is not in it's damage component that we miss that spell, we NEED a felflame like ability to do things like breaking totems or stopping reflects etc ( as stated elsewhere) .

I would not mind having fel flame as a spell that deals 5 dmg or something insignificant simply for the fact of being able to destroy totems ! which cannot be broken by any other spell if specced in affliction, unless we waste shard or waste time moving pets manually.

Second thing I must say is, with the fall of fear's duration ( which is not unjustified ) fear has lost most of it's initial purpose over the years, which was meant to be a peeling tool before becoming a CC.

Another issue I'm worried about is the excess shine that is being added to class as they reach the lvl 100 cap, what I mean is with the new passive perks we gain isn't it redundant to grant additional " power" to spells and abilities that were just tuned for being over"bursty" ? I find it strange and hope the cycle does not end up being a repetitive thing once more.

And finally , the thing that I am worried about the most is , now with the increase in DRs , some classes retaining several CC breakers would be shatteringly op imo, I do not know how this was not noticed earlier.

That said we did receive ample amounts of tankiness to compensate I hope that with all the DRs, nerf / removal of other warlock spells we can still have a way to stop getting hammered in crucial situations.

As for our lvl 100 talents I am still waiting for a beta test( or more ) to help out on that regard before stating anything related to them.

To conclude, I hope we can rally the voices of the pvp warlocks here and theory-craft specifically for pvp.

[Alarinth]

A very good initiative!

Sadly I am not as versed in the pvp department as the PvE one, so I can only contribute with my anecdotes from alpha/beta testing. With that said however, I did find time for some skirmishes, and my experience from those, is that it seems every class is still fumbling around, trying to cope with the changes. It felt like a big leap back in time, to around TBC or so in terms of how it all played out, as opposed to todays blitzkrieg-like arenas that are over in 8 seconds.

I totally sympathize with fel flame gone being a mistake too, btw. I didn't face as many shamanteams in the skirmishes, but I can see it being an issue for sure.

[wholol]

I thank you for your post Alarinth :-)

I am quite happy with the fact that they are at least keeping their word regarding reducing burst potential in WoD.

I do however, hope more people will join in and post their thoughts and ideas no matter what they are, it is in times such as these ( beta tests ) that devs probe popular forums the most, so I do believe that any grand issue we might have to discuss might be reconsidered.

Edit: it seems I might need to add some things to encourage a discussion, so here's to that.

I personally think the whole gateway nerf was taken the wrong way, in the first place granting us a utility group mobility tool as part of our arsenal in both pve and pvp dips into our potential power ( as in our package as a whole ), so nerfing our kit in group utility in pvp is somewhat hurtful for locks who are relying on it in their team comps as a form of reset mechanic, but after the nerf to both its cd of usage AND it's length of teleport it has taken quite a hit, I am simply wondering why blizzard has chosen to do this bizarre move that would cripple a useful spell into becoming meaningless, if they had wanted to affect our potency they could have simply removed it and buffed other required fields, or simply kept it's length of teleport to 70 yd and nerfed it's cd ( as is ).

[Phoenexis]

Biggest issues on the top of my head:

-Gimped CC compared to other classes, notably Fear and the Horror category which is now also shared with seduction. We also still have to choose between our 3 primary CC abilities which we all had prior to MoP, and we lost baseline Howl again

-Extremely hindered mobility. We are more or less forced to turret at all times without having any reliable on the move spells. We also lack the tools to kite enemies properly and do what we are asked to do the most out of all casters (turret)

-Lack of basic tools which are accessible to other classes. Affliction warlocks can't break totems or prevent caps, Destro locks can't put a target in combat instantly from range without wasting important resources/CDs or dot up something instantly to prevent restealths. We also cannot deny Spell Reflects or Dark Simulacrum without any penalty whatsoever (remember using Curse of Weakness in Cata on reflect, so that you'd lose nothing)

-Watered-down and streamlined gameplay which does not seem interesting at all. I can't really think of any well developed mechanic that would seem mildly entertaining to master and enjoy. Gameplay seems disappointingly straightforward and lacking depth

[wholol]

Yes, I can tell your main worries lie with destruction, I do feel it has fallen quite a bit tbh.

Most likely it will still be the spec that provides the most mobility and contribution that is going to be used competitively, affliction mainly that is .
Although I have no idea how it will become without dot snapshotting really, lack of depth is sad indeed.
I do however look forward to trying out demo with demon bolt, I've been hearing it's a pretty nice burst on demand during downtime ,which could be something that spec needs to become competitive on a front line as a warlock single target arena spec ( since affliction is mostly spread pressure).

[Grizelda]

I am concerned that due to our lack anything to do while moving, we will be tuned to be beasts when we can plant our feet and turret.

Which will lead to our being nerfed against other players because we are too bursty for PvP.

Again.

[Xanatas]

i agree, totally agree... need fel flame.

Lowered damage VS PVE targets is a solution.

Drain life for destruction is a UGLY design.

[oathy]

The new talent that allows movement quite frankly is a waste of time.
Its there as a half arsed measure to silence people worried about no movement. My gameplay has always meant the lack of movement isn't that much of an issue But I can see this being a major problem if it makes the final Game like this.
The sheer boredom of the destruct rotation Is another factor. when you look at what a SP gets to keep its making the lock class a mockery
not at all impressed after the massive changes locks when under in the last Expansion there is no way they deserved more being cut again

[Deleted]

Can we get to hear someone's impression who actually did some PvP on the beta?

[wholol]

yes, I've been waiting for someone who has access to beta's lvl100 realm for some concrete testing so we can get the discussions rolling.

Sadly no one with a beta invite has taken the initiative yet :/

[Nicola]

yes, I've been waiting for someone who has access to beta's lvl100 realm for some concrete testing so we can get the discussions rolling.

Sadly no one with a beta invite has taken the initiative yet :/

Now only if I had beta. The main reason I did not make a thread like this myself, nor really participating in any of the other beta threads, is simply due the fact that I'm getting depressed seeing how almost everyone there has beta access.

All classes are getting a bunch of changes and there is simply no way to tell how well a class can do without actually testing it. Aside from the removal of Fel Flame, which is just an obvious mistake, I can't really comment on anything else.

[kornoth]

Actually, all class has lost many cc. There is much much room to cast spells.
Demo in pvp is just so fun and powerfull. You have a good amount of cc ( 2 felguard stuns if specced servitude , 1 tier 2 talent, 1 fear, 1 blood fear, and the slow from HoG ). Chaos wave does good damage. On a 300k health player, Chaos wave crit for about 40k damage. soul fire for 20k. Your pet actually does good damage and your fury generation is quite good. With AD you can actually use one dark soul to build fury and pressure the player, and use another one to burst with demon bolt wich does like 150/180k damage with full fury.
We have so many escape too, portal, gate, leep. All of this make demo a very mobile spec and powerfull one. I forget doom that do more damage than soul fire per tick.

[Nivrax]

On a 300k health player, burst with demon bolt wich does like 150/180k damage with full fury.

It will get nerfed before it even hits live. Can you even imagine outburst of people crying how big bad lock took half of their health in one cast when they were doing their dailies? Calling at least -33% dmg against PvP opponents.

[GotJokesGaming]

From what I've been able to find out (no beta inv)... Defensives and self healing are too strong and health pools are too big in PvP right now making dk / lock / non-resto druid very hard to kill. I expect defensive nerfs will be coming our way (and others). Paired with our mobility woes I don't like the sound of this but if we can't be killed they have to do something.

Afflock doesn't need LOS if dots are already rolling during procs (obviously it helps but there is no force pop out for reapply). Get dots rolling, hide wait for procs and exposed target then execute with SB:Haunt and one long drain soul cast (more on this later).

I realize the hiding component isn’t a drastic change from our current playstyle but they have to nerf our shard regen if we don’t need SB:SS for snapshot. If they don’t we are just going to be pumping haunts into kill targets and every destro reroll is going to switch to affi so they don’t have to deal with CB cast (I anticipate this regardless).

From above: I don't understand how drain soul (and all channels) won't be OP w/ spell lock changes. Maybe someone can clarify, which is correct:
1-cast drain soul, get spell "interrupted", lose half a tick, continue channeling
2-cast drain soul, get spell locked (school locked out of shadow), have nothing to do with fel flame gone so run/hide/wait

(1) will be rough if target manages to LOS (which they should unless you are immediately interrupted and can recast)
(2) will be rough without FF regardless of when you are interrupted (if interrupted early perhaps wand down enemies? I think there’s a conquest wand out there now)

You need school lock outs to punish long casts (CB, channels, big heals, etc) so I don’t understand this change.

Thinking about affi in RBGs for a moment… Having to haunt totems/flag caps is a joke but could also indicate they plan on buffing shard regen to accommodate or we just won’t sit caps. We should still get invited because our group fight damage should be insane. On the first team fight, pick the most overextended melee: UA, Agony, Corruption, SB:SS (?1) push in and swap to all his teammates, pop swifty, shield wall, Bargain (?2) and try to SB:Haunt 3 targets. The ability to get everything rolling full AND THEN blow all our CDs should make us extremely powerful and a little less susceptible to CC.

Questions from above graph:
?1 = are they leaving pandemic in?
?2 = If we die do our dots “snapshot” at the moment of our death? They have to right? If so, we might be able to get some pretty good damage from well timed deaths

Other questions:
Can anyone confirm if interrupts will still lock us out from shadow?
Can anyone confirm if unbound will no longer eats 20% of our health?

IDK what blizz is going for with affi but hopefully the picture becomes more clear over the next few months. We just gotta enjoy affi while we still got it.

[Rayaleith]

I did several duels outside Orgrimar with my lvl 100. Unfortunately I only tested Destro which was a bit disappointing. At least in 1vs1. You are really hard to be killed though since when you get Charred Remains, you get many Embers to .... burn with Ember tap. In a team scenario you can really endure punishment but you are very easily pushed to defensive.

I watched an affli lock dueling and it was surely better than destro. Actually pretty strong. I really want to test Demo but I had no time. Sorry for the poor feedback but this is all I got for the moment since I spent most of my time in leveling/garisson/PvE things.

Oh, assassination rogues are broken atm. They are sick. And spriest :P

[wholol]

I expected dot classes to be relatively strong, but some things said earlier somewhat took me by surprise.

Things like , "300k hp pools" at lvl 100, thought the stat shrinks were going to be more severe ? whats up with that that's high end cata lvl hp pools, unless I missed something.

I'm also worried about the scaling they're using on some spells, demon bolt doing 150k ? thats half of a person's health, I'm guessing it's overtuned and that's why beta is there for but I hope they wont let things slide with over scaling things so early on.

Oh and please tell me more of those yummy duels , you can tell a lot about the state of each classes relative strength (individually) so far from just observing duels : >

Edit: also why is twilight ward gone as well ? how can things like unending breath , eye of kilrog , enslave demon still exist after all they've removed, I'm baffled.

[Deleted]

Edit: also why is twilight ward gone as well ? how can things like unending breath , eye of kilrog , enslave demon still exist after all they've removed, I'm baffled.

None of those occupy a spot on most players bars, twilight ward does.


That aside, I've not had time to meander over to the pvp realms yet, but movement feels absolute cack even while questing without FF, I imagine it'll be heaps worse in pvp where it's not just a harmless mob you can't do anything to, but an actual player.

I'll try to visit the pvp realm at some point this afternoon, but movement concerns seem pretty legit from what time I've spent on the beta.

I wouldn't get too worried about the numerical values of things, you'd think chaos bolt would be too strong on paper, but it didn't take them long to fix that in MOP.

[Rayaleith]

Since you want more info... I tried hunter as well. MM hunter is not what it is now. I play MM hunter exclusivly in PvP in live and I enjoy it a lot. Well, I made a lvl 100 one, went outside Orgrimar full of confidence and I got a bit roflstomped by rogues. Rogues that I almost never fear on live. With no snatch from birds of prey, no arcane shot the only dump is Aimed shot which can be cast as you move without the glyph but it is not the best thing to do. Mulitshot does shit damage so, you are a bit f****. I think Surv might be better for PvP.

Rogues are really strong since they are the only class that still has reliable CC. Actually nothing changed on their CC capacity but other have less than in live. That makes them really hard to cope with atm. Especially Assassination. Death from Above (a lvl 100 talent) is a bit scandalous. You manage to gain some distance and then you get wtfwasthat 50% more dmg eviscerate from... above literally.

Windwalkers have great self healing. They do not roflstomp you, but you can see him cheaping away your life while theirs being constantly high enough. I didn't like the fact that they can still Soothing Mist themselves (thought hybrids' heals were nerfed).

[Xanatas]

affliction in pvp without fel flame is a dead spec for me. Lock-down shadow... gg warlock.

Drain life for destruction is a very very bad design, OP vs caster and very bad vs melee.

Blizzard need to reintroduce fel flame, absoluly.

- - - Updated - - -

Can anyone confirm if unbound will no longer eats 20% of our health?

spell tooltip show 20% health

http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/108482-unbound-will

is a shame, need to give also an immunity for 2 sec

[Lucidious]

How is drain life for Demo? With shadow bolt having such a high cast time on top of having Fel flame removed I assume it is the most viable filler. How is the damage,healing, and fury generation?