A request for a Warlock

[Treesh]

Priests have it in their shadow tree (possibly something in holy too, but I don't remember there being anything like this),
[right][snapback]83630[/snapback][/right]

Nothing in the holy tree. The closest is being able to up your smite damage and only smite damage or else the increased chance to crit with all holy spells. Nothing that drops enemy resistances.

[Skandranon]

How many instant cast spells does a Mage have?

Two.

Three with talents, but two of those three are simply unusable in most situations, and one of them offers significantly less DPS than just about any other spell in the mage's arsenal.

of those 5 instant cast spells Warlocks have

How about that.

Shadow vulnerability is the same across any class that has this kind of power.  Priests have it in their shadow tree (possibly something in holy too, but I don't remember there being anything like this), and Mages have similar things as well, atleast something in Arcane and Cold.

Actually, there's only one vulnerability power for mages, and that's Improved Scorch, which requires five applications of a low-DPS spell and an application once every five seconds thereafter to keep up. Your vulnerability talent requires just a crit shadowbolt.

Likewise, if we were to sit down and have me, you, and Quark all attack the same kind of mob, go all out as best we could with everyone starting at the same point, I guarentee that Quark would win on who would kill the mob the quickest, you would very likely come in second because you have a very reliable way of gaining distance from the mob along with a number of useful instant cast spells, and I would likely come in third because I could not reliably get the mob out of my face and would be getting interrupted constantly and most of my instants are DoTs.
[right][snapback]83630[/snapback][/right]

Yes, and just how much soloing do we do at this stage of our level 60ness? Attacking a tanked mob, even assuming that I can use fire, my best damage is chaining fireballs with a fireblast every now and then. Cone of Cold if I don't have to worry about breaking CC. Chain shadowbolts are less than this, certainly, but the moment you crit once, you have +20% damage on your next four shadowbolts. I can crit once and get about 400 more damage on ignite, which is something like 50% of another fireball.

And let's not even talk about the sustainability issue. You can go on shooting those shadowbolts forever with bandages and lifetap: I shoot myself dry in about a minute and a half. I can evoc back about 5k mana, but even if it's available I'm reduced to wanding and hoping for Judgment of Wisdom procs after two and a half minutes, max.

[Lissa]

Two.

Three with talents, but two of those three are simply unusable in most situations, and one of them offers significantly less DPS than just about any other spell in the mage's arsenal.

Actually, you have 6 instants. You have Fire Blast (normal spell), Cone of Cold (normal spell), Arcane Missiles (talent for no interruption), Arcane Explosion (talent to make instant), Frost Nova (normal spell with very low damage, really a root), and one other spell that I saw that was on a ten minute cooldown like Death Coil.

Actually, there's only one vulnerability power for mages, and that's Improved Scorch, which requires five applications of a low-DPS spell and an application once every five seconds thereafter to keep up.  Your vulnerability talent requires just a crit shadowbolt.

The Warlock has Suppression, Improved Shadowbolt, Shadow Mastery, and Pyroclasm.

The Mage has Piercing Ice, Fire Power, Arcane Focus, Improved Scorch, and Arcane Power.

Yes, and just how much soloing do we do at this stage of our level 60ness?  Attacking a tanked mob, even assuming that I can use fire, my best damage is chaining fireballs with a fireblast every now and then.  Cone of Cold if I don't have to worry about breaking CC.  Chain shadowbolts are less than this, certainly, but the moment you crit once, you have +20% damage on your next four shadowbolts.  I can crit once and get about 400 more damage on ignite, which is something like 50% of another fireball.

So let me get this straight, your Ignite does half another fireball. Is this with +damage gear or without? If without, you're saying your fireball, without damage adders is doing average of 800 or my shadowbolt that does an average of 500, a 300 point difference (this is without me putting on damage adders). This means that my next 4 shadowbolts (barring something wacky from CoS) is going to give me roughly 400 more damage on that +20%. It's effectively the same damage Skan.

You also have a lot more available in the other trees if you want to go down those roads. There are several talents in Cold that will boost damage and crits without requiring the mob be frozen. There are also a number of talents in Arcane that will both lower the resistance of the mob to Arcane spells and boost damage. I bet if I sat down and looked at the Arcane and Frost trees I could make a build that is similar to the Warlock's SM/Ruin build between those two trees.

And let's not even talk about the sustainability issue.  You can go on shooting those shadowbolts forever with bandages and lifetap: I shoot myself dry in about a minute and a half.  I can evoc back about 5k mana, but even if it's available I'm reduced to wanding and hoping for Judgment of Wisdom procs after two and a half minutes, max.
[right][snapback]83637[/snapback][/right]

And if I lifetap and bandage, I can get killed (as happened a couple times now on Onyxia raids, I tapped down 2000 and immediately got hit by two fireballs before I could get bandaged up and died). Lifetap/Bandage is great if you know you're not going to take any damage, but anytime you're dealing with a large AoE attack or random attacks (like you see from MC bosses and Onyxia), you could end up dead. The last couple attempts we made at Onyxia, I made sure my DoTs were up and I then wanded when I got low on mana.

[Skandranon]

Actually, you have 6 instants.  You have Fire Blast (normal spell), Cone of Cold (normal spell), Arcane Missiles (talent for no interruption), Arcane Explosion (talent to make instant), Frost Nova (normal spell with very low damage, really a root), and one other spell that I saw that was on a ten minute cooldown like Death Coil.

The only instant spell we have on a ten minute cooldown is Cold Snap, which just refreshes the cooldown on all Frost spells. Arcane Missiles doesn't exactly count as instant either, since its sustained DPS is lower than either frostbolt or fireball.

My point stands: max rate mage DPS is fireballs with a fire blast and cone of cold thrown in whenever the cooldown comes up. Anything else isn't worth wasting the global cooldown on.

The Warlock has Suppression, Improved Shadowbolt, Shadow Mastery, and Pyroclasm.

The Mage has Piercing Ice, Fire Power, Arcane Focus, Improved Scorch, and Arcane Power.

+% damage isn't the same as -% resistance, nor is it the same as +% vulnerability. Warlocks and mages each have just one vulnerability talent: Improved SB/Improved Scorch. Arcane Focus does not improve arcane spell damage, only reduces the chance of a RESIST popping up. Arcane Power is usable once every 3 minutes for 15 seconds, not exactly useful for anything but PvP bursting.

That said, even lumping together passive +% damage and active +% vulnerability, it's pretty easy to see that warlocks get to use Imp Shadowbolt and Shadow Mastery to their full effect together, since all you need to do is cast shadowbolts. To use Improved Scorch, mages have to use Scorch, which reduces the effect of Fire Power since the 10% bonus is being applied to a low-damage spell.

So let me get this straight, your Ignite does half another fireball.  Is this with +damage gear or without?  If without, you're saying your fireball, without damage adders is doing average of 800 or my shadowbolt that does an average of 500, a 300 point difference (this is without me putting on damage adders).  This means that my next 4 shadowbolts (barring something wacky from CoS) is going to give me roughly 400 more damage on that +20%.  It's effectively the same damage Skan. 

With. And I wear something like +150 damage, +5% crit. Without damage gear, Fireball averages 638 damage per cast, and I get about 350 more on an ignite. With damage gear, though, 40% of a crit becomes relatively less compared to 80% of a base shadowbolt (which is what you get for your four 20% bonuses).

Even at this stage, sure, I do more damage, barring something wacky from CoS. And my damage is low, barring something from....from what? At least you can have nightfall and CoS go off. I can either hit or crit. In any small sample, yes, you can factor out nightfall and CoS, but in any large sample they'll combine for a decisive damage advantage.

And if I lifetap and bandage, I can get killed (as happened a couple times now on Onyxia raids, I tapped down 2000 and immediately got hit by two fireballs before I could get bandaged up and died).  Lifetap/Bandage is great if you know you're not going to take any damage, but anytime you're dealing with a large AoE attack or random attacks (like you see from MC bosses and Onyxia), you could end up dead.  The last couple attempts we made at Onyxia, I made sure my DoTs were up and I then wanded when I got low on mana.
[right][snapback]83654[/snapback][/right]

Yes, but at least you have that option. Especially with MC bosses, where their AoE attacks are curses (whee, no dps from me) or on a predictable timer, lifetap and bandage works fine. Mages have no option, even one that can get them killed.

[Drasca]

In any small sample, yes, you can factor out nightfall and CoS, but in any large sample they'll combine for a decisive damage advantage.[right][snapback]83718[/snapback][/right]

That small (under 10k health I'd say) samples make up 98% of the game. 1-60, where 40 man raids are 60+, is a good bit of everyone's character lifespan. We don't really get to take advantage of CoS/Shadow vulnerability until the enemy health can survive with the debuffs for more than 5 seconds.

In 5 man, it takes 20-30 seconds tops to knock off 8k damage and off a typical elite mob. That's a max, and its a lot faster if everyone knows their target and its within attack range. Sometimes I'm lucky to even get one complete shadowbolt cast in, let alone two or more.

Yes, but at least you have that option.  Especially with MC bosses, where their AoE attacks are curses (whee, no dps from me)

Priests are on dispel duty for certain battles, and its a total snooze for rogues when their only option is backstab, bow, or just stay away completely. Maybe goblin jumper cables if they're an engineer, but you're doing defined important survivability role with curse removal duty. I've got what? Devour magic every 8 seconds, and curse refreshal. If I'm one of two locks, I know I'll be busy refreshing CoEl/CoS/Doom instead of direct dps. If I'm with the MT... oh boy. Survival only and Imp totem time.

Spending time just trying to stay alive takes lock dps down too.

Mages have no option, even one that can get them killed.

Class based: Evocate, Mage armor, Mana citrine
Other: Mana pots/alchemy, demonic runes, +mana regen equip, +spirit equip

Don't tell me for PvE item farming isn't a factor, it is. By MC level, you have all the extra consumables and equipment. There's a myriad of item/equip based mana restoration options. Demonic runes are essentially a life tap. Alchemy gives straight up mana. With enough +mana regen gear, you'll practically never need to drink with your fireballs/frostbolts.