Isn't Fear Meant To Break?Follow

Of course not! That way the Warlock could lose. Can't have that.

On a more serious note, Fear doesn't break on any direct damage, but has a higher chance of breaking the more direct damage you deal. Or so I think.

Edited, Dec 11th 2006 12:08am by Mazra

Yeah, warlock + felguard + fear = dead paladin...

Ever heard of a bugged tooltip? Also, it should definately break on direct melee damage, at least...

Nope it doesn't break on ANY direct damage, and it's not 100% break on high damage. Got feared once, hit by a rogue for 1.5k, and i carried on being feared.. even with fort the dots eventually killed my warrior... should have kept that insignia for times like this.

Here is exactly how fear works.

When it is cast a resist check happens. lets say you have 10% chance to resist.
so the check fails then you are feared.

Now assuming you take no damage during fear what will happen is that every 3 secons another resist check will occur so every 3 seconds fear has a 10% chance to break.

Now what happens also is every time you take damage no matter how small or what from another resist check will occur. So the lock shadow bolts you, you get another 10% chance to break.

The reason why some people cant see this nerf to fear is because they have no Shadow resist. If you have 0 SR then fear will work the same as it has always. however now a little bit of SR will have a much larger chance to break fear.

e.g a lock fears and does nonthing
0 SR has a 5% chace to resist
5% chance initial
3sec 5% chance
6sec 5% chance
9sec 5% chance
12sec 5% chance

So you would have a 23% chance of fear breaking early

~20 SR will give a 10% chance to resist
10% chance initial
3sec 10% chance
6sec 10% chance
9sec 10% chance
12sec 10% chance

so in total 41% chance of fear breaking early

as u can see 20 SR almost doubles the chance of fear breaking

next lets add 1 dot ticking every 3 secs.
10% chance initial
10% chance when dot is cast
3sec 10% chance
10% chance on dot tick
6sec 10% chance
10% chance on dot tick
9sec 10% chance
10% chance on dot tick
12sec 10% chance
10% chance on dot tick

so a 65% chance fear will break early

2 Dots would be a 80% chance of breaking early with 10% resist

Edited, Dec 11th 2006 8:37am by LeChimp

It CAN break early. However, in all honesty, it really doesn't break early/often enough. If it did break, you would see it being used more often to control people and send them away from the fight, rather than making it so people can't even fight back. Mage sheep breaks on any damage and heals the person. Psychic scream breaks on any damage. Secude, Intimidating Shout, Gouge, Sap all break on ANY damage. Fear is the only one you can use while still killing someone.

I don't think there was ever a 1 on 1 situation where I had to use fear to it's full duration. In my experience, if the immolate doesn't break it (and it breaks quite often), the shadowbolts that we send out afterwards will (and I have never had a shadowbolt not breaking the fear). A lock doesn't usually use fear to keep their targets off of them for (the newly nerfed) 12 seconds, we use fear so that we can dot you up and send two shadowbolts at you. In a 1 on 1 situation, the most a lock really needs is 5 seconds to set all the necessary spells up to melt your face. By that time, if you're not dead already, you sure are close to it...and that's where the shadow burn comes in.

;) What he said

My fear doesn't break easily. I fear, I DoT, I use Immolate then Shadow Bolts with my Succubus crit'ing and only in a few situations the fear breaks. Of course, using Curse of Shadows helps alot. But, anyways, when the fear breaks, the player usually is far from me, and I can fear him again before he comes close to me.

Single reason I choose warlock: I hate FEAR. But I love when my enemies got feared.

Yes, more +dmg will make fear break more often.

Typically this break is made by the person being dead.

Fear is very reliable. Reliable to last the whole duration? No. Reliable to last long enough to basically ensure victory? Yes. After all, if you fully DoT someone up, fear 'em, hit 'em with immolate and then a shadowbolt, they're basically dead anyways, doesn't matter if fear breaks after all that.

Affliction locks (like my warlock) have it best of all, since we can rack up an insta-cast Shadowbolt while the other poor player is running around being eaten alive.

Curse of Agony + Corruption + Fear + Siphon Life + Unstable Affliction + Immolate = a player who WILL be dead. Some may actually get close to me, but hey, loldeathcoil fixes that.

Fear does break quite often,

One, many classes can trinket out of it. Warlocks can dispel it, warriors and now hunters can be immune to it, pallies can bubble out of it, rogues can quite nearly prevent it from ever happening, Healers can dispel it off your targets as well, and last but not least stupid teammates can break it for you and get you killed.

Two, getting the cast off is trouble enough. Hunters, priests,(shadow or ones close to you) mages, warriors, rogues, paladins, shaman, and warlocks can all stop the spell from happening instantly, druids can intercept if they are good enough to anticipate it. Some are range dependent, namely rogues and hunters, but both have the tools necessary to work around it.

Hunters in every tree now have an instant ability to avoid being feared, with a 41 yard range and the ability to kite and daze they are now the strongest contenders vs being feared.

Shadow priests have blackout silence and fear themselves as well as heals and shield and shadow resistance.

Warriors have pummel, shield bash, intim, immunity, execute, intercept, charge.

Mages have counterspell, iceblock, poly, shields, dampen magic and mage armor

Paladins have shadow resist, repentance, HoJ, bubble, heals

Rogues have stealth, gouge, stuns, blind

Shaman have tremor totem, grounding totem, earthshock, heals

and of course ud have wotf and dwarf priests can share fear ward.

So you see, there are proactive ways to avoid fear and reactive. If you aren't going to factor it into your fights then you are the one at fault.

Furthermore, fear isn't much different then any other attack when you aren't ready for it. That 2.5k frostbolt, the Aimed shot that crits your pants off, the warrior that intercepts/charges and hamstrings you, the rogue that pops out of nowhere and cheap shots or ambush crits you for 2k+ is pretty much the same thing as being feared when you aren't ready.

I've been crit by SMITE for 1500, stunlocked by a rogue who popped a 90% resistance shield, killed in seconds by warriors who intercepted hit with hoj back to back 1500 crits, then pummeled, hit again, and executed, I was MOONFIRED for 900 the other day, and all of the points in the previous paragraph.

Every class is strong with the advantage, every class is imbalanced around another one or even two, one type of spec vs another type of spec can completely change the turn out of the fight.

But know this, warlocks generally dump 2-5 talent points just to make sure fear is 'a bit' more reliable, it is rare that I use it when I don't need it, the same as any other class's ability for them, if you think you will win hands down, you don't pop your 'overpowered' abilities.

The only class that has a right to cry about fear is druids imo, but it is much more fun to banish them anyway.

Lemme see if I can sum up the posts...

Warlock Players: It's not perfect at all, don't mind the fact that I can type 15 words to describe how you're going to be dead with no chance of victory, it breaks all the time.

Non-Warlock Players: Fear never breaks until you're dead...

It would seem that people are saying the same thing, but putting their own spin on it. I hate that damn fear spell, so EVERY Warlock that I see now is my insta target. As a Paladin, my teammates don't seem to mind me charging after the 'locks in the back. When their fear doesn't work for them though, about 70% of them just run around in a circle for 5 hits till they die...

Maybe they like it, but Fear has another effect for me, it makes that warlock my personal goal for the rest of the match.