WoD PvP Warlock Discussion

[Phoenexis]

2% more healing? Is that a damn joke? I swear I'd like to read their minds when they do changes that utterly neuter mechanics. Why not just remove it completely if you don't want it used?
"Hey Wilson, this Ember Tap thing is getting a bit out of hand with its bugs... Think we should get rid of it? Been causing lots of problems lately."
"Just fix it, and while you're at it, nerf it by 50%. Go away PvP guy."

[Tyrean]

Just got through catching up on this thread and I wanted to pose an idea to you guys...

There is a general consensus that melee are a little strong and hard to manage right now, and casters have definitely had their mobility and control hammered... Everyone is thinking about this in the sense of going 1v1 or in arena 2v2 and 3v3 play though. Think about all the other changes to the game with ability pruning, tooltip removal, stat removal, reforge removal, etc. They are repurposing the game into something that a 13 year old can pick up and master pretty quickly. The PvP gearing process has largely been moved to Ashran, a group PvP zone.

I suspect that the design goal for PvP in general is to push Ashran, something that lots of people can get into and play with little barrier to entry and that the melee tuning is because of the large scale battles where a melee would be useless otherwise. Also, I suspect that they are happy with the Random BG element being the main PvP that a lot of players experience. I think they know that the top tier arena players will always overcome shortcomings of a spec with teamwork and awareness, but all of these changes when looked at together makes me think they are not designing the PvP game around small scale battles anymore because they want to attract new players to the game and the way to do that is with large scale battles.

[Deleted]

Trust me, it's no more fun in BGs unless you happen to just avoid being noticed and left to play the game like it's a pve encounter.

That and I find it highly implausible that blizzard would neglect arena balance so, it's usually what they've aimed to balance around and been much happier to let whatever goes in BGs / world pvp, it's what they showcase at blizzcon and in events as "the" pvp thing etc.

[Grizelda]

The glyph was awful anyway since it basically stopped Ember Tap from being spammable. Kinda curious why it deserved a nerf.

It was still spammable. It stacked and was awesome and now I will go cry in a corner.

[Werst]

Ember tap wouldn't save you for more than the GCD's it took to burn embers when a warrior or really any melee was on you. Nevermind how hard you had to work for those embers in pvp. My sub 500ilvl pally can ret heal for 17K crits while my ember taps barely budge my HP bar. Oh yeah that was a flash heal not even a WoG. Are we really saying locks can't have decent self healing with all the HP costing spells, immobility/inability to escape any spec of any class, and are using our secondary resource when hybrids can self heal infinitely more than we do? Hybrid tax went away, lock self healing tax should too.

[Tyrean]

For those that have played ashran on beta, can anyone comment on charred remains in a group PvP setting? I mean, in RBG it used to be you would Fireand Brimstone the whole group and build 4 charges, then line up two havoced chaos bolts on a healer and kill target. The majority of the damage came from conflag/immo/incen though. Is it viable to take charred remains and just cast a few incinerates and then chaos bolt the whole team over and over again?

I tried to find some videos of it in action, but it is all target dummy stuff and early stage stuff when it was 300%. Then you had max 4 bolts you could cast since each bolt ate a charge, but has that changed? If it has not when would you take this talent in PvP or PvE?

[Phoenexis]

So I just finished editing the dreadful 10 minute game that I had vs a Death Knight. I plan on using it as a reference to show the extreme imbalance between melee and casters (more specifically warlocks). Tell me what you think about it, the post will be made soon and I'd like someone with a well known US account to make the thread so that it actually gets seen if possible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9F0...ature=youtu.be

[DirtyDotter]

So I just finished editing the dreadful 10 minute game

Was this from when pvp was bugged on beta and everyone did 25% less damage? Also you still got honor and a box. It could be worse, you could get nothing when dealing with livelords.

[Phoenexis]

Was this from when pvp was bugged on beta and everyone did 25% less damage? Also you still got honor and a box. It could be worse, you could get nothing when dealing with livelords.

That's not the point. The biggest issue is the mechanics themselves. I don't care if I've lost or won. It doesn't matter if I can one shot someone or not. The fact that he is able to sustain so many counters to damage so reliably is unacceptable and constitutes bad design. I had to resort to using hellfire to generate Fury, I had to go through 9 minutes of CD rotating to finally get in two Demon Bolts and a Chaos Wave which removed 50% of his HP. He was on his OWN and we were 2 players having to use all of our abilities to try and score a kill. What happens in a 3v3 scenario where we actually have to CC the healer too as well as his DPS partner that could be peeling for him?

[Deleted]

Reminds me of what Blizzard said happened when DK's were originally released, where they were horribly overpowered. They listened too much to feedback from players and ended giving them too much utility.

That video makes it look like they're in a similar place (for different reasons), they have far too much ability to lock players down or bolster their own defenses, when other classes have had their CC and such ripped out of the sockets.


I'd like to say I'm optimistic that changes will be made, but WOD is far too close to release to expect mechanics to come and go - number checks are the best we can expect, and it looks like abilities are the problem.

[Tyrean]

Honestly that video would have been about 10 seconds long if instead of being a warlock, you were a warrior, rogue, WW, ret, etc. I think the problem with DKs mostly is that they are paper to a ton of classes and they can only live against ranged abusing LoS. The thing you are forgetting about that video is not that he lived forever, I would say a WW monk or a ret could have done exactly the same. The problem is that the DK would have never been able to go toe to toe with you. If your healer was dead and it was just you and the DK, he would have lost horribly.

Remember that when your only goal is to stay alive and be annoying almost anyone can do that. It is not a DK special skill, people just remember when a DK does it because they are so good at it after years of being squishy and having to learn how to kite and avoid pretty much every class.

[Phoenexis]

Honestly that video would have been about 10 seconds long if instead of being a warlock, you were a warrior, rogue, WW, ret, etc. I think the problem with DKs mostly is that they are paper to a ton of classes and they can only live against ranged abusing LoS. The thing you are forgetting about that video is not that he lived forever, I would say a WW monk or a ret could have done exactly the same. The problem is that the DK would have never been able to go toe to toe with you. If your healer was dead and it was just you and the DK, he would have lost horribly.

Remember that when your only goal is to stay alive and be annoying almost anyone can do that. It is not a DK special skill, people just remember when a DK does it because they are so good at it after years of being squishy and having to learn how to kite and avoid pretty much every class.

This problem is prevalent with all melee. Maybe vs others melee DKs aren't as unkillable since others actually have tools to counter them (although DKs still remian one of the strongest classes either way), but all other ranged classes get destroyed.
With a 25 sec CD AMS, trinket, 30 sec Asphyxiate, Icebound Fortitude, Desecrated Grounds, Mind Freeze, Death Grip and Lichborne, how do you ever expect a warlock to get any kind of build-up against him? It took me 9 minutes to finally go through enough CDs continuously WITH the help of my priest that had Silence and Penance slow. The DK could have easily killed me repeatedly on his own by just training me and countering every single ability I throw at him.

Melee are broken and casters are not ok. Death Knights are the most obvious case because they're broken in all departments.

[Grizelda]

If your healer was dead and it was just you and the DK, he would have lost horribly.

How would he have done better WITHOUT a healer?

[Tyrean]

DKs lose to hunters pretty badly, mages pretty badly, warriors, rogues, and WW. Druids can do it if played well, rets are decently easy assuming they don't get proc heaven, shamans are decently easy and shadow priests are fairly easy to shutdown. Warlocks I will admit used to be a fairly easy win against a DK but now the warlock has had enough tools taken away to where I agree that the DK would probably win in most scenarios. Things like silence, disarm, healthstone healing, casting on the move are what made warlock hard as a DK. To answer the question, how would he have done better... be affliction.

Now, the point is that yeah, it sucks that a DK "beat" you. The flipside to that from the DK perspective is that he would not have been able to do that against a ton of classes. If your priest was specced tendrils for example, he would have been able to trinket that every 2 minutes and that is it. None of his other stuff would work against an instant cast root. If you were affliction instead of demo he would have also lost pretty badly because he couldn't just pillar hump you all day.


Finally... 2v2. That bracket is absurdly broken because a lot of reasons but this is one of those. I am almost certain if you had to go 3v2 against a DK and just about anything else while the DK has no healer that the DK would be easy picking. In this instance the DK really only had to shut you down because the priest does not do enough to overcome the DK self healing. Remember that the DK is not trying to kill or do damage at all, so he can use all of his runes on death strike on the convenient pet right next to him and all of his runic power on healing. If he had to actually try and kill one of you he would not have enough resources to do damage and stay alive.

It is kind of like a shadow priest. Yeah, they can heal a lot and stay alive decently but when they do that the do like no damage. Or a destruction lock that is furiously spending embers on tap to stay alive and casting fear non stop to try and peel. They are doing almost no damage in order to stay alive.

[Phoenexis]

DKs lose to hunters pretty badly, mages pretty badly, warriors, rogues, and WW. Druids can do it if played well, rets are decently easy assuming they don't get proc heaven, shamans are decently easy and shadow priests are fairly easy to shutdown. Warlocks I will admit used to be a fairly easy win against a DK but now the warlock has had enough tools taken away to where I agree that the DK would probably win in most scenarios. Things like silence, disarm, healthstone healing, casting on the move are what made warlock hard as a DK. To answer the question, how would he have done better... be affliction.

Now, the point is that yeah, it sucks that a DK "beat" you. The flipside to that from the DK perspective is that he would not have been able to do that against a ton of classes. If your priest was specced tendrils for example, he would have been able to trinket that every 2 minutes and that is it. None of his other stuff would work against an instant cast root. If you were affliction instead of demo he would have also lost pretty badly because he couldn't just pillar hump you all day.


Finally... 2v2. That bracket is absurdly broken because a lot of reasons but this is one of those. I am almost certain if you had to go 3v2 against a DK and just about anything else while the DK has no healer that the DK would be easy picking. In this instance the DK really only had to shut you down because the priest does not do enough to overcome the DK self healing. Remember that the DK is not trying to kill or do damage at all, so he can use all of his runes on death strike on the convenient pet right next to him and all of his runic power on healing. If he had to actually try and kill one of you he would not have enough resources to do damage and stay alive.

It is kind of like a shadow priest. Yeah, they can heal a lot and stay alive decently but when they do that the do like no damage. Or a destruction lock that is furiously spending embers on tap to stay alive and casting fear non stop to try and peel. They are doing almost no damage in order to stay alive.

You don't get it. If you can survive a 2v1, then you will always SURVIVE a 3v3. Tendrils also doesn't count for shit when 90% of all DK defensives/CCs can be used from range. The ONLY ability not usable is Brain Freeze. You can't say "2v2 is not relevant" because nobody gives a shit about the fact that it's a 2v2 game. It isn't, it's a 2v1 with 90% DAMPENING. It doesn't matter if the DK isn't trying to do damage (even though he ended up outdamaging me), because NO spec under any circumstances should have so many easy cop outs in a 2v1 scenario. You think it's balanced for a spec to be able to go immortal mode whenever they want to?
If we had to use Mortal Coil, Axe Toss, Silence, Fear, Arcane Torrent and basically every ability available just to TRY to kill the DK on his own, then how can you ever expect to kill the DK when he has a healer and another partner with him?

Also, mages do face problems vs DKs. Any caster that has a need for spells is going to face problems vs a DK when they have AMS on a 25 sec CD, Asphyxiate on a 30 sec CD, Brain Freeze, Death Grip, Desecrated Grounds and Icebound Fortitude.
The rest of the classes you listed are not casters, which proves the initial claim that: Melee/hunters are too good and mobile, while casters are at an extreme disadvantage.

If you were to be able to kill a DK in their current state, then either:
-You can kill a target in 3 seconds
-You have no need for any hard-casted spells whatsoever

Otherwise you will spend 90% of your time getting interrupted from abilities at range or having your CC negated by the 4 trinkets that DKs can have available at the same time.
DKs aren't the only broken ones though, and I stress on that. All other melee need to get in line. It makes no sense for monks to have 2 rolls (that remove slows), a 25 sec CD teleport, a 70y range roll, a 70% movement speed increase and slow/root dispel, a kick, an AoE stun or incapacitate, a secondary trinket that reduces CC effects by 50%, a ranged incapacitate, another 4 sec AoE stun, a 1 min CD "bubble" (Touch of Karma) and a 2min CD magic immunity.

What does a warlock have in the meanwhile as Demo, the most "mobile" spec?
-30 sec CD 40y teleport
-2 min CD gateway that requires a 3 sec cast setup and 40y range restriction
-Fear that breaks on two Corruption ticks and an Imp's Firebolt. Also the most countered CC in the game
-3 sec stun with 30 sec CD or instant AoE fear on 40 sec CD or 3 sec horrify with 45 sec CD and 15% heal. Horrify effects also DR with all other incapacitate effects, making them much weaker than before
-10 sec CD "roll" that costs 50 Fury and requires Demon Form. Maybe the only "overpowered" aspect of Demo in my opinion. Unfortunately the spec is too shit overall to make it worthwhile
-1 min CD Horrify effect that requires a melee hit or 1 min CD trinket or 50% speed buff that prevents below normal speed. All cost ridiculous amounts of HP except Blood Horror
-30 sec CD stun or 24 sec CD lockout with Felhunter
-50% slow with 15 sec CD. Usually useless with 1 stack and must be stacked up to 2 to deal optimal damage and actually root a target. So basically a 30 sec CD root that's also one of our main sources of damage and Fury

And that's basically it. Notice that not only do warlocks have less tools available than melee/hunters, but they're also MUCH weaker than their melee counter parts. Almost every melee gap closer/CC breaker/interrupt is designed to counter that of casters in a way. How does it makes sense to give warlocks a 30 sec CD root if a monk or ret can remove it every time? Melee have so many tools that they have an answer to everything that gets thrown at them. And that's been obviously proved when I showed a 10 min long video of a DK just choosing which spell he'd like to use to counter whatever I had in store.

[Lucidious]

This is all true. Melee are overturned right now for sure. I just have a bad feeling that since the R1 players will still get rank 1 on their casters that blizz will argue that the rest of us will be fine as well. And the problem is that casual players will just get raped for the whole x pac unless people post videos like the former to prove their points. Not all of us have sick partners and epic teamwork for peels in randoms,Yolo's,skirmishes,world pvp,Ashran, and even in medium level arena.

[Werst]

Locks have always been weak versus melee. Now you overtune the snot out of melee in both damage and uptime/gap closers. Now you prune lock abilities to make us even less mobile, even weaker CC, and even less self healing while still spending HP to use many of our abilities. Its a recipe for disaster and certainly not a model that is "fun" to play.

Affliction hasn't been a spec that actually killed stuff all of MoP. We just spread weak dot around and were a CC bot for our partner who could land a kill in a CC window. Just our dots, no casting, can't even kill someone in the max BG rez timer who is afk. Let alone self healing, being healed, absorbs, etc. Especially considering affliction doesn't even have a snare to glyph or talent into.

I guarantee that we will be ganked 10x more than any other toon and daily's on any pvp server will be miserable anytime a melee spots a purple dot/bar. You shouldn't need a group to step out of town since every melee can train you and counter you into the dirt. Do you want to play that way? Think the devs did if they had to actually live with a warlock? We can't even run from a melee let alone fight back effectively with them in our face.

There also isn't ANY comp in 2's or 3's that a warlock isn't better replaced by a different class, especially melee or hybrids.

[Kirroth]

I've been looking over options for lvl 100 PvP specs, and I'm thinking GoSup/Dem Serv might be a solid choice. The terrorguard is bringing a root/snare on a 30s cooldown, a spell interrupt, ranged pet DPS, and the most pet DPS possible. That looks like as good a PvP selection as you could ask for. I mean, I don't think Afflic even has a snare anymore. Am I being crazy, or might that be worth giving a try?

[Werst]

I don't recall the HP of DG/infernal pets but I do know even demon training glyph'd wrathguards fall over pretty easily in any type of pvp. Kill the pet 2x, train the lock who now has lost a major chunk of his/her toolkit, and its easy points with little counter. With the loss of resilience pets need a damage reduction effect from other players in the 33-50% ballpark, at least lock pets who aren't really dangerous to anyone (compared to say BM) and are tied into the bulk of our toolkit. Melee on roids with locks weaker vs melee than ever is just a recipe for frustration. Plus the psychological effect that melee will know a lock is an easy kill so we get dogpiled making it even worse. No spec/class should be able to 1v2-3-4 etc but you would almost have to when every melee in the BG beelines for you and tunnels endlessly.

[Phoenexis]

Demonic Servitude pets have less HP than the Wrathguard with Glyph of Demon Training. I think Soulburn Haunt is still pretty powerful for Affliction though, and Demon Bolt is a must for Demonology from the looks of it.