A request for a Warlock

[Drasca]

You forget to mention where you outdamage me in AoE against things that aren't fire-resistant, too.
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AoE's more about timing unless there's a whole heck lot of it, then its about who's dying/healing to aggro. Typically, when mages get aggro, they can still output damage, but locks will get interrupted damage (Paladin Conc + WL intensity talent is a special case). Death also interrupts damage for both. When not dying, even a level 56 mage can out-aoe me.

Hellfire is the most damage/mana efficient AoE in the game

Only if you don't consider health part of your mana. Without healer support it isn't, but with healer support you essentially have infinite mana. That mana efficiency figure is skewed.

Quite simply, anyone who doesn't understand that Warlocks need nerfs commensurate with the bug and talent tree fixes doesn't play the game.

Heh, you don't see the conditions required to allow locks to do great damage.

0) the knowledge and skill to use the lock for damage
1) A lot of +dmg gear
2) A lot of talent investment
3) A lot of raid support, tanks, stunners, aggro from other players, healers
4) A lot of debuffs, CoShadows, shadow vulnerability etc etc
5) Our damage is backloaded. Curse of Doom takes a full minute to proc, 50% of Curse of Agony's damage is in the last 10 seconds of 30, and all the high shadowbolt damage requires application of CoS, and crits debuffs enhancing further damage.

So basically, locks can do serious damage but only in a niche situation--long battles when debuffs aren't rotated and we have full raid support. We have serious limiters to our damage outside those conditions as you do. I'm sure you can't backstab more than once in a 1v1 pve situation. Locks can and will get interrupted when melee'ed, drastically lowering their dps. Try to compare growing up with a warlock alt vs rogue grind growth, if you will. My rogue alt has leaps and bounds in damage over my baby mage and growing up with my lock -- so long as the rogue alt was equipped appropriate to his level. Maybe its time for a 60+ equipment upgrade.

Maybe not Epic-equipped Rogues, but Sommli's the only one that I've played with. So where does that leave Rogues?

Your problem is that you don't have access to easy methods to increase damage. So much of your damage is tied to your weapons, and upgrades aren't easily obtained while casters get small and easier to individually obtain cumultive +dmg item bonuses.

Honestly, my guildmates do much better damage than I do in the same raid. Those rogues are both skilled and well equipped. You might just need an item upgrade. Quite simply, my car's easier to upgrade than yours.

There's another niche to lock damage. Lock damage is best when enemy health is > 10k when shadow vulnerability can take place. When enemies have health below that, we simply won't get the nuke casting times in.

Personally, I've got over +300 damage in equip, and am getting over 2.5k crits non-ruin. If I had a bit more +shadow damage, and just the right debuffs and crit, I'd imagine it'd go over 4k with ruin. Some locks have done 4.5k SB crit. My regular SB's are 700-900 w/o CoS, and varies with CoS / Shadow vulnerability. Can be 1200 non-crit with those two.

I want to up this to 400-500. Yes, double base top rank shadowbolt damage. I can pull aggro with unlucky crits in MC already, but some day I might just go insane.

Warlocks shouldn't be outdamaging rogues. They shouldn't even be outdamaging mages.

You're just jealous. In my guild damage meter comparisons, the mages/locks/rogues/hunters all shined vs different bosses, trash mobs, and groups of single target enemies. All the players being pretty darn well equipped, the relative class damage difference was actually pretty slim.

The rogues did insane damage. The mages did insane damage. Our mages benefit from CoEl just as locks benefit from CoS, and sometimes more since I make sure CoEl is constantly refreshed while the other locks can be lax on CoS. The locks and hunters did insane damage. Our MT & offtank warriors did and received insane damage.

My own comparisons against a pickup raid were skewed because my equipment was simply superior to most of the raid's. When paired with dps classes with equivalent equipment, the damage gaps closed.

However, I want to leave with the note that none of the damage you do matters if the mob is NOT DEAD. No individual contribution of damage matters if you're all too dead to collect and the enemy's still alive. Eschew damage completely if it means you'll survive the encounter. I did 50k damage to onyxia in one encounter... did it matter? Not at all. She wasn't dead. Did any of the other damage matter? Nope. She wasn't dead, and we were. Never ever let dps-monkeying take predence over defeating the encounter as a whole.

That is why I personally will not be taking ruin as a talent. With my equipment this talent pulls too much burst aggro and jeopardizes raid encounters. DPS-monkeying is not worth risking everyone's extended time and effort.