For the love of Azeroth - NERF WARLOCKSFollow

A very great tip in PvP I learned: if you are in a large scale fight and you use a warlock pet - nuke it or smash it.

You lose 20 seconds maybe. But it helps.


I understood the pain that is a warlock when I saw my friend play his mage. You clothie's get ripped to shreds.

Warlocks have strengths but they have flaws as well, its much harder fighting 2 on 1 as warlock, keeping one feared while the other beats on you, and you don't have enough mana to keep both fully cursed.

I do not belive they need a real nerf, just some minor adjustments, like dot go away on death. Or make the dots last longer with the same effect.

But if its a 41 point talent, it better be ******* effective.

One may argue that Resto Druids are the most over-powered class in... well... anything.

Seriously. They just NEVER die. EVER.

I even see Resto Druids take down Protection Paladins. Okay, so I only watched the end of most fights, but it still counts. (Wasting three hours watching someone else go at it is a bit much) :P

As a PVP Rogue in the 50-59 bracket, I'm taking down Warlocks much easier since the last patch. Part of that is the Soul Link nerf, and part of it the overreliance on the Felguard. But mostly, it's Cloak of Shadows.

Come the expansion, Cloak of Shadows will be a trainable skill, not a 41-point talent. At that point there will be at least one rock

Entirely too true, and really the game is balanced around group PvP; so if you're tired as any class of losing to another class, quit fighting them alone.

Once engaged in close combat, Warlocks are really only sufficient at holding off a single opponent. Our DoTs may deal high damage to several foes, but if outnumbered the warlock will lose in most if not all cases. Focus fire destroys us quickly, we wear cloth. Remember that.

first off, i stopped reading at the bottom of page 2, just because i wanted to get my thoughts down before i forgot them, so forgive me if i repeat anything.

secondly, as a warrior, im about 50/50 vs locks in solo combat. destro + succy means im dead before i can do anything, and full affliction locks can be tough, but demo isnt horrible for me, and i <3 locks who use the felguard over the voidwalker; i fear the blueberry more than the war wanna-be. a lot of times its them making a mistake, sometimes its a proc/crit (or both) and sometimes i manage to abuse LoS issues as best as possible and pull off a fairly good win.

thirdly, there are a lot of people posting in this thread who, by their own personal testimony, arent that skilled. this goes for both sides of the argument. i dont say this to insult anyone, and many people have stated that they arent *that* good, so i say what i do just in the form of a personal observation. to pluck one example from memory, it involves feral druids vs warlocks. feral druids, imo, have one of the best chances vs a lock of any spec, assuming A.) their trinket is on cooldown, and B.) they interrupt the second fear with feral charge then move into a bash. hunters, BM and MM especially, have a much better chance vs warlocks with the advent of TBW and silencing shot. most hunters i know have a better than 60% win rate vs locks in solo combat, and in group pvp (both BG's and world) destroy locks more than any other class (including feral druids).

to sum this last point, im basically saying that a lot of people in this thread would probably do a bit better vs locks with a bit of research and some practice. likewise, several locks in this thread would be well served by practicing to inrease their manual dexterity and learning the skills and abilities of other classes more in-depth.



on sac: its still an extra 2kish HP (talents can make it more effective too). yes, it takes a soul shard, but its still an ability thats on a cooldown much much lower than divine shield. ive seen a friend of mine go thru 2-3 VW's in some battles, winning vs crazy odds just by outlasting people. its also of note that bear druids and warriors do not generate rage when hitting the VW shield.]

seduce - any problems youre having with the control of seduce are just that; YOUR problems. between fear and seduce, a warlock can lock down two people for an extended period of time (20+ seconds in pvp is quite extended). it is also NOT easy to break out of seduce if youre not undead. it requires someone interrupting the succubus (kick, pummel, any stun) or dispelling the seduce.



no real disagreement on fear. the problem is preventing it. 1.5s casts arent as easy to interrupt as people think they are. taking an extra second to "fear fake" also makes it a lot easier to get off, and often results in the attacker wasting their interrupt.

death coil is a very strong ability, and its not JUST a horror effect. its a direct 1:1 health exchange between the warlock and his opponent. one button press gets the warlock a heal for 700ish (based on the avg DC power ive been hit with in the course of tens of thousands of pvp encounters) and also damages the opponent for an amount equal to the heal. a 2 minute cooldown is the only thing that makes the current death coil somewhat balanced. its also fair to note that many warlocks do not use DC as a defense mechanism (its original intent) but instead as a 30 yard "stun" that allows them to more easily open on a target. still, a lock w/o DC at the ready is still dangerous against more classes than s/he fears (pun intended).



try putting the felpuppy on aggressive. the response time of the AI is much faster than the response time of even the most responsive players. your felpuppy will pluck stealthers out of the shadows before you even know what happened. also....KEEP MOVING. its harder tagging a moving target from stealth.



yeah, but it lets you see incoming succubus's! ok, i got nothing.



it also has a range between 30 and 36 yards. and i should note that my "attack" as a warrior has a 3.8 second "cast time" and requires melee range.



.....im not even touching that one (but i DID bold the fun parts!)



i fail to see how a 1.5s cast DoT that essentially forces dispellers to play russian roulette with a 3-shot revolver can be anything but useful. no, UA is very, very, VERY strong. in solo pvp, its just another DoT, and not of much use vs classes that cant dispel, but in group pvp it neuters pro-active support by adding a very high risk factor to dispels.



again, ill agree with you here. soul shards can be a burden, but a lock that chooses not to use shard-based abilities is lowering their own potential power for a very stupid (imo) reason.

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overall, i agree with jord. warlocks are strong now. stronger than they should be. not all locks are strong, and its a given that certain lock specs should have advantages over certain other classes, but i have not yet seen a skilled warlock lose vs any opponent unless said warlock was horribly outgeared, outleveled, or having insane latency problems. quote the rock/paper/scissors line as much as you want, skilled warlocks have at least an even chance vs all classes, and in more cases than not, dominate them outright. most "problems" with the warlock class (from a pvp perspective at least) are not an issue with the class, but more an issue with the player behind the warlock.

It is. I can't hit you when I'm dead, can I? So how come you can continue to damage me?

Recipe for easy lock killing:
Ingredients:
- MM hunter (is every one of them MM these days or is it just me ?)
- Well played melee class.
Process:
- Hunter opens with Conc. shot and sends pet in for the kill
- Melee player closes in as warlock is dazed/stunned
- Hunter uses silencing shot and whatever else he wants.
- Melee stuns warlock when silence ends.
- Your chocie of ways to whack the warlock to death in 5-8 seconds.

Warlock has very little options against this, mainly he has to be affliction to insta-fear the melee (or use a succubus to seduce him) and has to manage to get into range to use DC against the hunter. If the hunter and melee are good players the warlock still barely stands any chance at all.

People die a lot easier under focused fire, warlock is specially prone to this.
Obviously the answer to how to fight a class who can defeat any other 1on1 would be: don't fight them 1on1 !

Ways locks can avoid focus fire: stay in the back and dot everyone up for massive damage.

Ways others can avoid focus fire: hunter, stay back and shoot. mage, blink if not instakilled. That's it.

i play a very well geared warrior. i have hand of rag, 3 piece FM and AQ40 gear. i generally pvp with a warlock that is in blues and greens. i have execute, recklessness, and whirlwind and gobs of HP. in bg's i am a god. lately my friend has been out damaging me by about 20% and out kill shotting me every single game. Oh but the best part is his survivability is way higher than mine. in the average wsg i die about 10 times and get bout 15 KS's. he generally dies 5 times with 20.

hey he stopped playing his Naxx geared rogue for his lock in blues and greens..........nah they are fine they don't need a nurf.

the only class that is stronger is the situational use of a beastmastery hunter as flag runner in wsg, and that is on a 30 min cooldown.

I had a long reply made up, but in the end it wasn't worth the time.

My only thing is: In todays BGs if one person fights another 1 vs 1 then they get anything they got coming to them. Some classes are better at one on one fights then others, while others are good are AoE but not so much 1v1.

If warlocks are causing you issues then stop running alone. They may well be able to take down one member of a pack, but the other 2-3 will crush them. Unlike a mage, warlocks EXCEL 1v1. That's their bread and butter. Just in the same as warriors are better at holding fights with 2-3 enemies at a time where the rogue is better at 1v1.

Stop letting your enemy use his strength or you really have no space to complain.

Please, no "testimonies" like:



All people of Azeroth regularly stop playing their "pimped" main for a lvl 1 in grays (alts) all the time. There is often a lot of new enjoyment found in playing a new class. Variation is fun.

It would take a preparation Rogue without gear and a lvl 1 dagger not much effort to massively "out kill shot" you if all he does is stay stealthed and ambush low health players. He would probably die zero times making "his survivability way higher than yours".

Warriors are constantly raving nowadays about how they got "screwed" with new talents and rage normalization. But all it takes is a nerf Warlocks thread for one to come out and proclaim he is a pvp god, if it can contribute to a nerf of the former.

I don't think you understood the point I was trying to make. I'm not involved in this QQing/ranting/whining. I do not want free HKs either. I am ultimately choosing to remain neutral on whether or not 'locks are truly over powered.

I was simply making a comment that if one person (in particular, Azatodeth) says the solution to beating their class is to outnumber them, well that doesn't speak very well for class balance does it?

And I was also making a comment that 'this game is designed around group pvp' cannot be used as an excuse for everything (I.E: If one class beats ever other class 1v1, the above excuse doesn't hold water).

In competitive games, there needs to be balance. That means having measures with counter-measures.



QFT. Allegory and I may disagree some what on the twinking issue, but I think we both have a clear idea on what balance is.


Edited, Dec 30th 2006 2:51pm by Webjunky

The main reason I can see as to why Blizzard seems to have made Warlocks much less gear dependent is this:

The majority of end-game gear comes from high-end raids. People in guilds who run these usually end up with much more powerful gear than others.

But, Warlocks never really had a place in these. Without their DoTs, a Mage easily out-damages a Warlock and a pet is risky in a Raid because of Aggro.

So, very few Warlocks are ever brought along in raiding guilds. This means that a majority of Warlocks are left with sub-par gear.

I think the gear issue was an attempt to balance out this fact.

Also, please remember, the number of people playing a class is an issue in balancing.

An over-powered class, when only played by a few players, can be considered equal to an under-powered class played by tons.

The only problem is that, in a BG, the small population can skew these effects.

In group play, as this game is designed around, a Warlock only has two real tools: Hellfire and Howl of Terror.

One damages the Warlock for nearly equal the damage and the other is a diminishing eight second stun, that isn't helpful in anything but 1v1, maybe 1v2, combat.

I think Warlocks need tweeking, not nerfing. For anyone who played FFXI, they truely understand the need for a nerf. Rangers in that game were rediculous. They so severely outdamaged all other classes for almost a year, that many groups refused to even do anything without one or more.

What they did to Dragoons, however, was just plain unacceptable :( Poor Cerulean (My Wyvern).

[EDIT]

Oh yeah, and the secret to beating ANY class is to outnumber them. Like I pointed out, Warlocks have almost no tools in group combat or towards multiple enemies. So, Blizzard gave them the abilities they needed to contribute in some way to PvP.

I see mages fry 2 to 3 people at once. I see a Warlock die in under twenty seconds against 2 to 3 people.

War is about strategy and numbers. How often do you think, realistically, that soldiers go one on one with an opponent. You strike where you can and where it will count.

Edited, Dec 30th 2006 4:48pm by idiggory