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  1. #1
    Deleted

    Warlock PvP input

    Hello,

    I have been playing Warlock PvP every single expansion pack that has been released since the launch of WoW. I understand that the consensus is that Warlocks are in a bad place right now and I thought I'd use this thread for us to give each other pointers on what works and what does not work currently for Warlocks in PvP. My input will mostly be from the side of Affliction as I believe that spec is the one who is in the best shape right now.

    What's good
    Affliction has an incredible damage potential through Darkglare and Dark soul: Misery. If I get only a few seconds to breathe when the match begins, I find myself doing an immense amount of sustained damage. As that damage is up I can turn towards fearing and locking down other targets while my DoT's and my teammates finish off the team.

    What's bad
    I will never get time to breathe. Warlocks have the worst long-term survivability in the game and as such we require an immense amount of babysitting by our teammates which effectively locks them down. I have had a very hard time finding teams for PvP this expansion. All of our defensives fall under the shadow school and since every single melee, healer and caster now has interrupts and stuns, we are incredibly easy to lock down. I have been in 3v3's where I have literally been chain silenced and stunned for over a minute. Feinting a cast is a really cool meta-tactic that I love, but it's just not worth it now since everyone has an interrupt or a back-up stun.

    What's the reason for this?
    The reason for this is that Blizzard made interrupts more important to make PvE more dynamic and fun. Blizzard has stated that they want to move casters towards hard-casting their spells again and to introduce GCD to more abilities. This was something made to set casters apart from melees and/or other classes such as hunters who basically just spam instant casts abilities. The idea is to make spells feel like powerful things you need to focus on casting, and when you do they hurt. The problem is that every single melee now has distance closing abilities, stuns, interrupts and in many cases a silence. The only way to efficiently handle a melee in the game now is by having instant cast roots. Warlocks have no roots and no instanc cast CC's. Even having one melee on me reduces my incredibly predictable (DoT) damage by a metric shitton, and practically completely negates my ability to CC. Portals help extremely little since we have no slowing abilities and every melee has distance closing abilities.

    So what works?
    Like I said earlier, I have had a very hard time to find people who want to play with me. The wide availability of spell lockdown abilities and distance closing abilities make Warlock defences very weak. Luckily, one of my friends play a Frost mage.
    Frost mages are probably the only caster class that is represented in the high ranked arena. The reason for this is what I previously said, roots are the only CC that can stop melees from completely destroying any target they choose to attack. By having my friend completely focus on using polymorph and peeling melees away from me by rooting them with every root CD that he had, I was able to unload a buttload of damage. By simply allowing me to breathe I was able to singlehandedly take almost any target down in the games that we played.

    So....?
    There you have it. The only thing I've found working in the arena is to have a class completely cover up for my total lack of defensive abilities. To be honest this kind of gameplay feels horribly uninspiring. The free-casting damage and CC of Warlocks is incredibly powerful so nobody should ever ignore a Warlock. Due to our bad defences, we cannot do anything when melee's targets us. It feels like the only way to make Warlocks work in PvP is to completely center the gameplay around our damage potential. A mage has to be completely dedicated to peeling whilst a healer will never change target away from us while we take the beating of a lifetime. Personally I would much prefer to sacrifice a bit of damage for a bit more defense.

    Suggestions
    Well, I've complained a lot so here are some suggestions.

    Make interrupts part of the GCD - It's crazy that it isn't already
    Make the silence portion of interrupts have a diminishing effect - would help from the endless lockdown
    Make interrupts cost resources - shouldn't an interrupt be something to plan? cost some energy? why not?
    Give us a root/slow - stop the melee train!

    Please post some more examples of how you have made it in PvP as a Warlock. Also feel free to post suggestions.

  2. #2
    Playing at a low rating with friends just for the weekly caps but I feel the same way as you do. I think I'm a fairly good pvp player even though I do focus mostly on pve. As affliction I can totally pump out a lot of damage if I am able to free cast. The problem is that I never really get to do that against melee cleaves.

    I do not think interrupts should be on the gcd but having some kind of diminishing effect on it would be great and would help a lot against those melee cleaves which can indeed lock you out for a long time.

    It sucks that we have to give up interrupt for having the succubus slow which we don't even get if we use sacrifice. I'd like to have the old shadowflame back with 70% slow. I'm also kinda wondering why the voidwalker's disarm was removed back in the day.

  3. #3
    Deleted
    A diminishing effect on interrupts like the Resto Shaman talent and another School of magic would be a great start.

    Sadly, they pigeonholed our burst damage into a single build that revolves around damage multipliers (haunt + UA debuff + dark glare + mastery ) with deathbolt, as long as our PvE dps revolves around this combo, our PvP version will suck.
    We need true Nightfall procs that are scary like they were in TBC (a shadowbolt dealt 2k damage non crit on 10-12k hp targets, when now it deals like 10k damage on 150k hp targets; Or we could use a true execute on drain soul like it was back in WotLK (current drain soul ticks for 2K on -20% hp targets !!!, we deal 2k per GCD to "execute" when warriors deal 20 k per GCD, like WTF?!, and its not even buffed by mastery which is the center of the rest of our kit)

    Phantom Singularity gives you the right to not be able to play with teammates that have CC that break on damage when you don't want it, and the other talents in this tier are underwhelming at best

    Again GoSac is our best bet since blizzard had the great idea of giving us low hp pet that require us to channel a spell (which hunters don't have to do since WotLK) to heal them, that requires a freaking SHARD to resummon with a long ass cast time. What about they give us back the healing on haunt? Or give it more damage? Now that they embraced their way of patching, why don't they just buff the PvP version of those spells? I wonder.

    I'll leave this as a conclusion https://clips.twitch.tv/PeacefulBigPuppyRaccAttack . Healer not even cc'd diying through walls + full hots and no incarn on feral
    Last edited by mmoc48da16d7d1; 2018-09-25 at 04:15 PM.

  4. #4
    Deleted
    Not sure I even agree that the Darkglare burst is strong - unstable affliction feels weak as shit, I usually have some arena on in the background (If I can find a warlock streamer these days), and it's incredibly rare to see a Darkglare - Deathbolt kill, it's nearly always the DL Azerite pieces that get the kill. It's a horrible state for balance to be in that kills revolve around an azerite piece and a predictable and easy to lock our but insanely burst ability.
    Destruction falls into the same bucket - it can put out some great damage, but only in a 3 minute window with incredibly long casts that are highly telegraphed by the presence of the infernal and long CB cast times where even if the team doesn't want to interrupt the warlock, the enemy team can literally just walk away from the warlock and their window is gone for another 3 mintes. Outside of that window Chaosbolt hits like a wet noodle.

    Damage being limited to two incredibly easy to interrupt spells with high CDs is crap, it was one of the reasons pvp was so poor in Legion - there were burst windows when classes had CDs where there was insane pressure followed by people just avoiding each other while CDs came back.


    Other than that, I feel melee toolkits are pretty expansive and I've been pretty underwhelmed by the warlock pve and pvp talents. I don't understand why Nightfall is a talent and not baseline, especially when it's so weak. I don't understand why Deathcoil, Circle and Demonskin are all talents and Howl has vanished as either a pve or pvp talent when the class is so squishy right now.
    I also miss the death of curses - I was glad to see some of them return as pvp talents but I was astonished to see that CoEx didn't make the cut, slows have always been a godsend in pvp and both CoEx and Shadowflame used to be staples - doing a jumping 180 to land a shadowflame on a pursuing melee always felt good. I'm glad to see Weakness / Tongues back, but it's a shame they're religated to arguably lackluster pvp talents - even something like CoW in a meta where warlocks are squishy as all hell seems to be an uncommon pick.

  5. #5
    give back howl of terror baseline and "darkfury" to make shadowfury istant can solve most problems for me

  6. #6
    Your suggestions are almost all centered around interrupts, which I totally disagree with.
    +1 on the root/slow though. Getting something similar to what glyphed Shadowflame once was (70% slow like mage's cone of cold) would help a long way imo, for both defensive and offensive situations.
    Aside from those 2, some other form of defensive or damage reduction would really be appreciated and it feels necessary at the moment. Hell, even a flat % armor increase could work.
    When we don't have UAs rolling everywhere, we're not a threat to anyone either. Warlocks are very easy to control, can't remove slows, no mobility and no slows/lockdowns of our own. There is nothing in our toolkit that allows us to put our opponents in a dangerous situation.
    We aren't tanky, we aren't mobile, our toolkit has no control (lol at fear, half the classes can remove it, it can be kicked and LoS'd, not even gonna mention shadowfury as it's a joke for PvP) and our damage is mediocre and VERY easy to avoid/counterplay with the exception of the Inevitable Demise cheese which will undoubtedly get nerfed - where as I feel like some other specs in the game have an extremely complete and versatile toolkit, with ALL of what I just mentioned to some extent (e.g boomkins, dhs)
    Last edited by venomancer; 2018-09-25 at 05:38 PM.

  7. #7
    i'm just talking about affli since destro is for mentally challenged people and demo is just not made with pvp in mind

    whats good

    - not much

    whats bad


    - supposed to be the "tanky caster" but is basically paper. a passive 50% dmg reduce would make locks tanky but ofc it would be op

    - pvp talents are mostly useless and/or boring

    - too reliant on darkglare and/or ID to burst something down

    - dot duration is way too short and their dmg just feels lackluster without dark soul

    - getting away from melees is just frustrating. every class has more gap closers than locks abilities to get away from melees

    - shadow bolt feels like the worst ability in pvp ever


    conclusion


    - rework first talent row
    - dump all pvp talents and give us new ones (gate, reflect and curses are okay but boring)
    - bring soul link back and make pets not die in 2 globals
    - shift the dmg away from offensive CDs and move it to the dots for more constant dmg
    - please bring back the legion nightfall proc

  8. #8
    Bring back blood fear. Warlocks are now fixed. Thank you very much

  9. #9
    I kind of like the changes that they made with Shadow priests. While above 80 insanity they take 20% reduced damage. Which makes you less potent overall, but gives you survivability and burst windows.

    The way for Affliction Warlocks in PvP is, give us a similar mechanic, 4% dmg reduction per Soul Shard we have, capping at 20% like what Shadow priests have at the moment. Second is returning of Soul Link for Affliction, 20% of the dmg done to the Lock gets transferred to the pet, or make Curse of Weakness overall 25% dmg nerf instead of physical dmg reduced.

    I never have issues with dmg output in arenas, my main issue is, I have to have my teammates babysit me so I don't get chopped off in 3 globals.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaderson View Post
    I kind of like the changes that they made with Shadow priests. While above 80 insanity they take 20% reduced damage. Which makes you less potent overall, but gives you survivability and burst windows.

    The way for Affliction Warlocks in PvP is, give us a similar mechanic, 4% dmg reduction per Soul Shard we have, capping at 20% like what Shadow priests have at the moment. Second is returning of Soul Link for Affliction, 20% of the dmg done to the Lock gets transferred to the pet, or make Curse of Weakness overall 25% dmg nerf instead of physical dmg reduced.

    I never have issues with dmg output in arenas, my main issue is, I have to have my teammates babysit me so I don't get chopped off in 3 globals.
    No thanks, the shadowpriest mechanic imo promotes shitty gameplay. I don't know why you think its a good idea to have a class not utilize its' secondary resource pretty much all game in order to be viable. Give locks proper tools to kite melee like shadowflame/insta shadowfury/baseline port and don't turn more classes into passive dampening fortresses at the cost of their own damage. Talents like that lead to slow boring gameplay where people don't use a significant part of their dps rotation all game in order to be unkillable. Shadowpriests should get some better shields/selfheals and maybe another 5% passive DR instead. Fully passive tankyness shouldn't exist because there is no counterplay possible.
    Last edited by Warning; 2018-09-26 at 10:04 AM.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaderson View Post
    I kind of like the changes that they made with Shadow priests. While above 80 insanity they take 20% reduced damage. Which makes you less potent overall, but gives you survivability and burst windows.

    The way for Affliction Warlocks in PvP is, give us a similar mechanic, 4% dmg reduction per Soul Shard we have, capping at 20% like what Shadow priests have at the moment. Second is returning of Soul Link for Affliction, 20% of the dmg done to the Lock gets transferred to the pet, or make Curse of Weakness overall 25% dmg nerf instead of physical dmg reduced.

    I never have issues with dmg output in arenas, my main issue is, I have to have my teammates babysit me so I don't get chopped off in 3 globals.
    The only way this works for spriests is due to their above average utility in helping with setups, fear doesn't count as utility and casted shadowfury is meh.

    I'm assuming you were talking about affliction only since not using shards as destro or demo is just lol.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Warning View Post
    No thanks, the shadowpriest mechanic imo promotes shitty gameplay. I don't know why you think its a good idea to have a class not utilize its' secondary resource pretty much all game in order to be viable. Give locks proper tools to kite melee like shadowflame/insta shadowfury/baseline port and don't turn more classes into passive dampening fortresses at the cost of their own damage. Talents like that lead to slow boring gameplay where people don't use a significant part of their dps rotation all game in order to be unkillable. Shadowpriests should get some better shields/selfheals and maybe another 5% passive DR instead. Fully passive tankyness shouldn't exist because there is no counterplay possible.
    Shitty gameplay is managing when to go into void form to do dmg? How about not going into Void when your team is in cc or when the opponent has their offensive cd's up.

    As affliction I usually die before I can dish out dmg vs certain double melee comps, so yeah I would prefer using my soul shards with a brain instead of just getting trained the whole game and getting deleted by raw dmg. Instant SF will do shit if you play with a rogue, since you will screw up the stun DR's for the rogue. We need a baseline dmg reduce either trough SL or similar to SP mechanic. I would rather manage my Soul Shards with a brain then get tunneled the whole game.

    And yes, I talk about Affliction, hence using the word Affliction in my sentences.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Shaderson View Post
    Shitty gameplay is managing when to go into void form to do dmg? How about not going into Void when your team is in cc or when the opponent has their offensive cd's up.

    As affliction I usually die before I can dish out dmg vs certain double melee comps, so yeah I would prefer using my soul shards with a brain instead of just getting trained the whole game and getting deleted by raw dmg. Instant SF will do shit if you play with a rogue, since you will screw up the stun DR's for the rogue. We need a baseline dmg reduce either trough SL or similar to SP mechanic. I would rather manage my Soul Shards with a brain then get tunneled the whole game.

    And yes, I talk about Affliction, hence using the word Affliction in my sentences.
    Shitty gameplay is being able to turtle for an unlimited amount of time and never needing to come out of turtle mode because being invulnerable beats ever going into voidform, thereby slowing the gamepace down to a crawl. Not wanting to flop instantly is okay, but just like defensive stance, spammable feint with 30% dr and ember tap with Charred Remains this spriest talent is horrible. No class should ever be able to be that tanky for that long because when you give someone the choice to either lose the game now or delay it for 10 minutes and possibly even win it while playing full defensive the whole time they are going to make the obvious choice and delay.

    Give spriests and locks 10% DR, improve their tools and delete this crap talent.

  14. #14
    Howl of Terror could be back.

    Curse of Weakness could be like curse of Exaustion back then.

    Why not add a slow to curse of weakness? A slow that start's at 50% and then get's lower (Would fit in the fantasy of the spell as well)

    I can't believe anyone is talking about how level 90 talent feel very bland. Haunt should be instant cast honestly, with how many instant casts other caster have.

    Siphon life could be base line of affliction. Even if they nerf the damage or the healing, that would be good.

    I mean.. Hell, every talent's row for affliction seems like it wasn't taught out, at all.. It seems so boring all the time.

    Grimoire of sacrifice does WAY too much damage. And the two other options are boring and bad in pvp....

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by NoXaL99 View Post
    Siphon life could be base line of affliction. Even if they nerf the damage or the healing,
    Im unsure how you could nerf the healing anymore. Its awful. like.. 300/tick.

  16. #16
    I stopped reading after you decided fake casting for interrupts is a waste of time

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by NoXaL99 View Post
    Howl of Terror could be back.

    Curse of Weakness could be like curse of Exaustion back then.

    Why not add a slow to curse of weakness? A slow that start's at 50% and then get's lower (Would fit in the fantasy of the spell as well)

    I can't believe anyone is talking about how level 90 talent feel very bland. Haunt should be instant cast honestly, with how many instant casts other caster have.

    Siphon life could be base line of affliction. Even if they nerf the damage or the healing, that would be good.

    I mean.. Hell, every talent's row for affliction seems like it wasn't taught out, at all.. It seems so boring all the time.

    Grimoire of sacrifice does WAY too much damage. And the two other options are boring and bad in pvp....
    Warlocks got shitty when they fired that one warlock dev that used to post here.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by lockedout View Post
    Warlocks got shitty when they fired that one warlock dev that used to post here.
    Nah the demolition of locks actually started under him. Lotta people forget they pruned baseline howl of terror at the start of MoP only to return it later after loads of feedback about how horrible that was. They also pruned/destroyed shadowflame and some other useful tools that were loads of fun in PVP. Poor ideas like blood fear and Soul Link working both ways were introduced instead. It took a lot of refining from the initial designs to get MoP lock into a decent spot and it still lacked loads of fun options it had before. Of course since then there's only been more pruning of CC so it's gotten worse

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by lockedout View Post
    Warlocks got shitty when they fired that one warlock dev that used to post here.
    You mean the one that designed the original joke of a talent Cataclysm as a pvp space maker? Yeah, I don't think he'd have helped the situation any.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Xanatas View Post
    give back howl of terror baseline and "darkfury" to make shadowfury istant can solve most problems for me
    They are going to cramp 5 abilities in one talent row, I promise you that.

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