Rebalance the Warlock

[kandrathe]

Things I think would go a long way to fixing the Warlock.

1)  Remove shard requirements from damage spells.  Reason being, the two damage spells that Warlocks have that require shard usage are already inferior to equivalent Mage spells (Shadowburn has twice the cooldown of Fireblast and Soulfire does less damage that Pyroblast).  Since they're inferior having a shard cost is needless and thus annoying.

2)  An escape/damage mitigation skill that gives us a chance in PvP.  Right now the Warlock has to be utterly prepared for what is coming or they are just a speed bump for other classes.  Either they need a true escape skill (the new Deathcoil will not be enough) or they need to go up to Leather Armor at 40 like was planned in early beta.  This is still our top issue in PvP, the lack of escape.

3)  End game pets that are useful and don't require us to constantly re-enslave or no dimishing returns on Enslave for said pets.  Due to the preset diminishing returns on Enslave, the Infernal (only really useful in PvP as a shock) and Doomguard are novelties and nothing more.  These pets need to be made constantly viable or they need to be totally redone from the ground up so that they are viable.  As it stands right now, if they got rid of the need to Enslave these pets, they would be balanced enough (they die easily as is to a conserted effort).

4)  The ability to recall pets without mana useage or shard useage if recalling the same pet and the pet is not dead.  Right now, during travel, Warlocks still lose their pets on occasion, this is no where more noticiable when you use a griffin/hipogriff/bat/wyvern and the pet goes away.  Upon reaching your final destination, you need to resummon the pet using mana and usually a soul shard.  Hunters on the other hand, simply use a spell and instantly summon their pet back at no mana cost.  Some would say that because the Hunter can't change their pet on the fly, they should get this perk, but why should a Warlock have to resummon the exact same pet if the pet didn't die?  This is something else needs to be looked at.

These are the top 4 items I see that would go a long way to making playing a Warlock more fun and less tedious.
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I concur that these are needed changes.

Your #2 is a PvP balance issue, which could be solved with a stun effect/talent buyable to 100% resistable chance for a 15-30 duration. Other than Fear, Warlocks (and Priests baring shackle, or MC) have no escape mechanism. Maybe give Warlocks a "possession" skill like MC. :-)

Your #3 is a big problem, and I'm not at all excited to even get Infernal or Doomguard at this point. That is just wrong.

Your points #1 and #4 are game mechanic annoyances that don't affect balance.