Scoop! Leaked notes at least partially accurate!
#1
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/

Only mentions the Honor system and new mounts, but so far so good for the leaked notes.
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#2
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/...h-05-04-06.html

The page was identical to patch notes. Now it contains a smiley face.
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#3
oldmandennis,Apr 7 2005, 12:54 PM Wrote:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/

Only mentions the Honor system and new mounts, but so far so good for the leaked notes.
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Now it mentions the pirate in Stranglethorn and the elemental invasions. I think it's safe to call this confirmation.
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#4
oldmandennis,Apr 7 2005, 10:54 AM Wrote:http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/

Only mentions the Honor system and new mounts, but so far so good for the leaked notes.
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Looks more like totally accurate which makes me not pleased. I could careless about getting the Nightmare right now or the quest for the summons for Infernal and Doomguard. The Warlock community has pointed to a post time and again about the bugs with the class and Blizzard has yet to address any of those issues and instead continues to throw "shinies" at the Warlocks to try and get us to forget about the bugs, but it's not working (take a look at the Warlock board over at Blizzard).
Sith Warriors - They only class that gets a new room added to their ship after leaving Hoth, they get a Brooncloset

Einstein said Everything is Relative.
Heisenberg said Everything is Uncertain.
Therefore, everything is relatively uncertain.
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#5
Lissa,Apr 7 2005, 11:59 AM Wrote:Looks more like totally accurate which makes me not pleased.  I could careless about getting the Nightmare right now or the quest for the summons for Infernal and Doomguard.  The Warlock community has pointed to a post time and again about the bugs with the class and Blizzard has yet to address any of those issues and instead continues to throw "shinies" at the Warlocks to try and get us to forget about the bugs, but it's not working (take a look at the Warlock board over at Blizzard).
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I swore off the warlock official forums a couple months ago. While I agree there are issues with warlocks, that forum made me feel like I couldn't have fun in the game with a warlock, which isn't true. That's one big ball of negativity. There are a few good contructive criticism posts there with good evidence of an issue with suggested fixes, but there are thousands of 'Bliz h8t w4rl0ks' general moaning posts burying the useful stuff or hi-jacking the thread.

I have serious respect for anyone who filters through all of that for the good stuff. I lack the stamina for it, and lack a Power Word: Forum Fortitude (Rank 99) spell in my book to make up for that. Hopefully the Blizz staffer (Eyonix) tasked with that job has that spell, but it seems he doesn't as it's hard to get even an acknowledgment of the issues from him. That's horrid, depressing work pulling useful community insight from there. I'm bummed just thinking about it. They need a moderated thread with useless crap deleted. An 'intelligent poster only' thread that is enforced...
/putsdownpipe
------------Terenas------------
Dagorthan – Level 85 Blood Knight
Turothan – Level 83 Blood Knight
Sarothan – Level 62 Blood Knight
Durambar – Level 82 Warrior
Strifemourne – Level 80 Death Knight
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#6
Not to mention the seduction nerf.

The way they fixed it would be fine if you could do damage to something seduced, but now it's more like a wasted fear.
Less QQ more Pew Pew
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#7
Well the warlocks aren't complaining without a reason. Every patch the problems that they had were not acknowledged and they kept getting nerfs. Sure, you can have fun playing them, but you can have fun playing with a stick - that doesn't make the stick better then a Gameboy.
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#8
The warlock forums are pretty negative. Many posters are burned out by giving feedback over and over again with no visible progress in the issues. The last patch introduced some minor changes (the best of which was making Enslave Demon undispellable), and fairly significant nerf (Enslave Demon rarely re-enslaves for longer than 30 seconds).

Since it looks like the honour system will be introduced in the new patch, you would hope they could introduce PvP soul shards at the same time. For PvP warlocks thats a huge deal, and progress on one of the major issues would give us hope that more of the major issues would be solved in our lifetime.

Chris
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#9
Icebird,Apr 7 2005, 05:58 PM Wrote:The warlock forums are pretty negative. Many posters are burned out by giving feedback over and over again with no visible progress in the issues. The last patch introduced some minor changes (the best of which was making Enslave Demon undispellable), and fairly significant nerf (Enslave Demon rarely re-enslaves for longer than 30 seconds).

Since it looks like the honour system will be introduced in the new patch, you would hope they could introduce PvP soul shards at the same time. For PvP warlocks thats a huge deal, and progress on one of the major issues would give us hope that more of the major issues would be solved in our lifetime.

Chris
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Having a warlock as my main, I have to agree that it was somewhat sad to see what they put out as updates. After seeing the warriors get a full 4 page response to their issues point by point, we got 4 paragraphs, only 1 giving any sort of new info. Then another 4 with about the same amount of info.

I will agree that a lot of the poster went overboard on Eyonix, but I also think that things are in dire need of a change in terms of passing on info. The general consensus was that the forum-goers would rather have more updates with less info than less updates but each with significant info. As far as I've seen, there's been 2 posts on the enslave issue, neither of which were stickied even though there were huge complaints.

In terms of seduce, I have to agree that the change just about breaks the spell completely.
Stormrage
Raelynn - Gnome Warlock - Herbalism/Alchemy
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#10
Raelynn,Apr 7 2005, 11:10 PM Wrote:In terms of seduce, I have to agree that the change just about breaks the spell completely.
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Why? If it is, in fact, putting Fear and Seduce on the same diminishing return timer, why is Seduce completely broken? I saw Tahapenes use Seduce for 10.5 hours last weekend, not once was Fear used. So what's broken?

From what I've seen with warlocks (warning: not completely educated opinion coming), there's two different sides of the fence. The players, who talk about the different aspects of the class that make it aggravating. Then there is Blizzard's, who have made changes because they believe the class is very powerful. Does it make Blizzard stupid because they have changed the power level while not making it less aggravating? Yes. Still, I haven't seen many warlocks fess up to the power they have. I remember Drasca had a post talking about warlocks and their complaints, then mentions in the same post how he soloed his way out of some spectacular jam.

Blizzard claims the change to Fear last time was because Warlocks were soloing elites with very little downtime. It seems to me a change to make Fear and Seduce affect each other has a similar goal. If Warlocks were using Fear tactics to take down one guy, it's not much of a stretch to say they were using Seduce/Fear tactics to take down two.

Does this mean Blizzard should ignore the issues that Warlocks have? That they should be taking so long to make any changes that would help players? Certainly not. But it seems to me that complaining about the changes they don't make is more constructive, and more reasonable, then the changes they have made.
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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#11
I think you're missing the point on the Seduction change Quark. The key phrase is "diminishing returns". I believe that currently each seduce will last approximately the same length of time (subject to usual checks to breaking early). Now subsequent seduces after the first seduce are much more likely to break early.

Fear kiting isn't a tactic I've used much, but it did occasionally allow warlocks to solo much tougher opponents than they should have. I don't mind the fear changes so much.

I think the stealth nerf to Enslave Demon may have been an unintentional consequence of increasing mob resistances. That change really does irritate me, since its a unique and very cool warlock ability. Plus it makes our two highest-level pets (Infernal and Doomguard) practically useless.

The major issues by warlock forum consensus seem to be:

1) Bugs
2) Soul shards - getting them in PvP in particular, and collection and storage of them in general.
3) The Demonology tree - which has some very good talents, and others which basically amount to placeholders.
4) The 8 slot limit on debuffs, which just kills warlocks in raids.

I think all of these issues have been communicated to the developers, but we've had very little feedback on what changes will be made, or when those changes might occur.

Chris
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#12
Icebird,Apr 8 2005, 10:32 AM Wrote:I think you're missing the point on the Seduction change Quark. The key phrase is "diminishing returns". I believe that currently each seduce will last approximately the same length of time (subject to usual checks to breaking early). Now subsequent seduces after the first seduce are much more likely to break early.
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I've heard mixed reports of this. Can someone say definatively yes or no whether it already had diminishing returns? The only experience I've had with Seduce has been with Tahapenes, and it wasn't enough to say either way as I wasn't controlling the 'lock. I can say that whenever we needed it, it was there.
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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#13
The diminishing returns only applies to PvP. I'm pretty sure seduction has diminishing returns itself, though not 100%.

The problem is with the way diminishing returns are invoked in combination with fear + seduction combo. Diminishing returns are invoked if the same spell is cast again within 15 seconds after the effect ends. Fear and seduction last up to 15 seconds in PvP, so if they're on different diminishing returns timers, you can alternate safely and never invoke dimishing returns, if fear doesn't break early.

It needs to be fixed, I just don't like the way they're doing it. I wouldn't mind fear invoking seduction diminishing returns, and/or a longer diminishing returns timer. I do mind seduction invoking fear diminishing returns, since you cannot do damage to a seduced target.
Less QQ more Pew Pew
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#14
Quark,Apr 8 2005, 09:18 AM Wrote:Why?  If it is, in fact, putting Fear and Seduce on the same diminishing return timer, why is Seduce completely broken?  I saw Tahapenes use Seduce for 10.5 hours last weekend, not once was Fear used.  So what's broken?

From what I've seen with warlocks (warning: not completely educated opinion coming), there's two different sides of the fence.  The players, who talk about the different aspects of the class that make it aggravating.  Then there is Blizzard's, who have made changes because they believe the class is very powerful.  Does it make Blizzard stupid because they have changed the power level while not making it less aggravating?  Yes.  Still, I haven't seen many warlocks fess up to the power they have.  I remember Drasca had a post talking about warlocks and their complaints, then mentions in the same post how he soloed his way out of some spectacular jam.

Blizzard claims the change to Fear last time was because Warlocks were soloing elites with very little downtime.  It seems to me a change to make Fear and Seduce affect each other has a similar goal.  If Warlocks were using Fear tactics to take down one guy, it's not much of a stretch to say they were using Seduce/Fear tactics to take down two.

Does this mean Blizzard should ignore the issues that Warlocks have?  That they should be taking so long to make any changes that would help players?  Certainly not.  But it seems to me that complaining about the changes they don't make is more constructive, and more reasonable, then the changes they have made.
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Those are good points. I'll agree warlocks have a lot of power, but it also seems that the power is too situational and often goes against the style of play for warlocks. An example of this is fear having a significant increased chance to break on damage, but warlocks use fear to keep themselves from being hit while their small amount of damage stacks up over the long time.

These arguements also come without full knowledge of the situation. I had thought that seduce was already on a diminishing return. Making this note to me means that they are either changing the background mechanics of the spell to be more like fear, which makes not so much sense since it's a guaranteed break on damage compared to fear, or adding both to the same timer, which would be a big limit of what can be done with the two spells in conjunction.

These changes may have reason, as the fear change did before, but they seem to keep changing things in a negative direction as opposed to fixing the things that have problems. These problems aren't even as widespread or damaging as the bugs that show up in the forums, such as the shaman agility bug.

Whichever the case, I really wish Blizzard would give reasons for things. It's one thing for a warlock to see "Mana for fear increased". It's another to see "Certain warlocks were using fear kiting to take down elites with little to no downtime. Fear mana was increased to help prevent this from happening". Then again my first mmorpg was AC, where patch notes often looked more like the latter than the former.
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Markuun - Tauren Shaman - Skinning/Leatherworking
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#15
Malakar,Apr 8 2005, 01:18 PM Wrote:The diminishing returns only applies to PvP. I'm pretty sure seduction has diminishing returns itself, though not 100%.

The problem is with the way diminishing returns are invoked in combination with fear + seduction combo. Diminishing returns are invoked if the same spell is cast again within 15 seconds after the effect ends. Fear and seduction last up to 15 seconds in PvP, so if they're on different diminishing returns timers, you can alternate safely and never invoke dimishing returns, if fear doesn't break early.

It needs to be fixed, I just don't like the way they're doing it. I wouldn't mind fear invoking seduction diminishing returns, and/or a longer diminishing returns timer. I do mind seduction invoking fear diminishing returns, since you cannot do damage to a seduced target.
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That makes a lot more sense than a lot of comments I had seen. I thought the time out was long enough that alternating spells wouldn't reset the diminishing returns. If they add both to the same timer, I will be upset, for the same reason as you: seduce breaks on damage.

I feel they should just make it so that casting either doesn't trigger diminishing returns for the other, but that it resets the timeout for diminishing returns. In other words, if you case fear, then seduce, once seduce is cast, the 15 second timeout for fear would be reset to 15 seconds (or however long it is), so you can't effectively alternate because each spell would reset the countdown of the other one.

Sorry if that's overly complicated. :)
Stormrage
Raelynn - Gnome Warlock - Herbalism/Alchemy
Markuun - Tauren Shaman - Skinning/Leatherworking
Aredead - Undead Mage - Tailoring/Enchanting

Dethecus
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#16
Quark,Apr 8 2005, 09:26 AM Wrote:I've heard mixed reports of this.  Can someone say definatively yes or no whether it already had diminishing returns?  The only experience I've had with Seduce has been with Tahapenes, and it wasn't enough to say either way as I wasn't controlling the 'lock.  I can say that whenever we needed it, it was there.
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Right now it doesn't have diminishing returns in my experience. vor_lord might remember all the time spent oggling the succubus in our duels to confirm this. It is a skill that can be counted on. The idea of repeatedly nerfing fear and seduce is so warlocks can't solo elites as easily as they could earlier by fear kiting/seducing. I would rather have a cooldown of a few seconds rather than the diminishing returns/mana increase nerfs they have received. At least then you can count on the skills when you can cast them. The side effect of these nerfs are felt most in PvP.

My best summary of warlock's complaints:

We do far less damage than mages so we can't out DPS opponents as they can. We can't heal ourselves as priests can but take as much damage as non-shadow speced priests do, so we can't outlast them. A majority of our spells are channeled or have casting times, making them difficult to use in heavy combat, and the instant cast DoTs are useless in 1v1 and are easily dispelled. What IS good for a warlock is shadowburn (takes 11 talents, but most builds include this) and deathcoil. Shadowburn requires a soul shard (one of the reasons that this issue is such a hot topic) and has a 15 second cooldown. Best skill in PvP, but it requires your entire inventory to use in PvP. Deathcoil is a super awesome spell, but with a 10 min cooldown, very limited in PvP. A cooldown is needed for a spell this powerful, but perhaps a shorter cooldown so you can use it in every fight would help. More than once in a fight is way overpowered. The shard issue is the biggest for raids and PvP.

Pets offer some help, but in PvP the pet required is usually not out. A voidwalker to sacrifice for going up vs. rogues and warriors, a felhunter when going against other casters. If seduce is nerfed, then those are your two options. Righ now seduce helps quite a bit as all players are humanoid. However, undead's WotF will now break that as well even when not triggered prior to seducing The imp, a popular pet will increase your dps some, and allow you to take a hit or two more with the added stamina buff, but isn't too much help.

What we did have the helped us was fear and seduce. Those have been nerfed with each patch since retail if memory serves. Now we are looking at another nerf if these leaked notes are real (and the evidence seems to indicate that they are).

Summary: we take more damage and do less damage than most classes as a general rule, with ever decreasing ways to address that fact.

A warlock is a capable dueler in my limited experience, but dueling is NOT PvP. I did a little dueling in Tanaris (I'm on a PvE server) and did well in 3 duels, ran out of shards and stopped dueling I lost to a mage on our second duel, mistakenly thinking that seduce would be useful (lesson learned, blink breaks it). Sacrificing the voidwalker worked much better. I squeaked out victories on my other duels, using my healthstones and sacrificing my voidwalker in all victories. The rogue I fought never knocked me down, and AutoPotion drank a pot (I don't duel much so I didn't think to turn it off) and that was part of why I won. I also used deathcoil in that fight. I burned over a bag (14) of soul shards and then some in those 3 duels, and that is why I think comparisons of a hunter's ammo usage to a warlocks shard usage as laughable when fighting other players. There are some comparisions for PvE, but PvE is not why the warlocks are complaining. This is probably the biggest complaint of any. Just allowing shards in PvP for honorable kills in insufficient IMO, as drain soul in a PvP setting is suicide. A channeled, low damage DoT in PvP? Joke. Shards in PvP will only slightly slow the rapid burning of shards as killing with shadowburn won't COST you a shard, but you won't get any either.

In PvE, the warlock is a fine choice, a solid soloer, and a blast to play. I can pull out victories with unexpected adds that no non-healing class could win in. High end pets are useless toys. The very high risk comes with rewards marginally better than a regular pet, for a few minutes at most. This is another huge complaint. The high end pets with all the danger are used for entertainment, as they aren't good for much else. However, in PvE solo scenarios, the warlock is very strong, and that is part of why Blizzard keeps nerfing them. The nerfs to PvE haven't broken PvE, we can still do that well enough, but have really hurt PvP.

A final complaint, is that the warlock CM (Eyonix) doesn't play a warlock much, doesn't understand what's broken (or hasn't acknowledge it) and doesn't bring much info to the table. He's likely overworked with other duties and as a non-warlock, doesn't get it. As patches come and go, we don't see improvement with patches, only more nerfs. That is why the warlock forums are so negative. That is why I choose to avoid them so much (read a lot yesterday). As a PvE warlock, I can ignore most of these issues and go have a lot of fun with my warlock. But PvP warlocks can't ignore these issues. They are faced with them every day, and the fact that each patch has meant more nerfs for them, and proven they haven't been heard. The fact that the warrior CM, Kalgan, makes a HUGE post with lots of information and explanation puts salt in the warlock's wounds as it's clear he has heard and understands the warrior's complaints and the warrior class. The warlocks don't feel they have been heard or understood.

There is a lot of venom in there. A lot of it is pointless moaning, but there are good posts with evidence, comparisions, examples, and well though out possible solutions. The other 90% of it are "Why does Blizz hate us?" and "STFU, you must not know how to play" posts.

This turned into a much longer post than I originally wanted, but it has turned into my best summary of what I can glean that is wrong with warlocks. Hopefully its a useful summary for some. The shard issue in PvP is a LONG standing issue, it likely goes back to Closed Beta. High end pets are in the same class.

(Things that are broken aren't being fixed) + (What we have in PvP is being taken away) = VERY ANGRY WARLOCKS

Edit: Changed appropriate poster in my link, Tyren posted, but the content was from Kalgan.
------------Terenas------------
Dagorthan – Level 85 Blood Knight
Turothan – Level 83 Blood Knight
Sarothan – Level 62 Blood Knight
Durambar – Level 82 Warrior
Strifemourne – Level 80 Death Knight
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#17
Good post Bonemage. The issues I keep seeing brought again and again in the warlock forums:

1) Soul shards in PvP + Soul shard collection in general. There have been a lot of suggestions for alternative ways to farm shards that are less arduous than killing with Drain Soul: collecting shards from corpses, turning Drain Soul into a debuff rather than a channeled spell, replacing Souls Shards with Soul Power that would act like Mana, Rage or Energy, and could be charged up with each tick of Drain Soul, or through other methods.

2) The Demonology talent tree. It has some great talents (Soul Link, fast cast pets, Demonic Embrace) and a lot of skills that are essentially placeholders (pretty much anything to do with stones). Eyonix has solicited feedback. No idea when we'll see any changes.

3) Bugs.

4) The 8 slot debuff limit. Bonemage mostly talked about PvP but this is the one that absolutely kills warlocks in PvE raids. We can't use half our skills because they;ll bump someone's elses debuff, or be bumped within seconds of landing. It basically turns warlocks into stone-providing Shadowbolters. Eyonix has indicated there will be changes, but when that happens is anyone's guess.

The latest patch also broke Enslave Demon which almost everybody wants fixed.

Based on the leaked patch notes, neither the last patch nor the upcoming patch have addressed any of the major issues in a substantial way. I think a lot of the frustration stems from the fact then we don't know when or if the major issues will be addressed.

Chris
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#18
Before I start I want to say that I have little experience with dueling and no experience playing as a warlock, only playing with them in PvE (instance) situations. Take my comments with that in mind.

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:We do far less damage than mages so we can't out DPS opponents as they can. 
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At least in PvE I have seen the opposite. I have heard complaining from our mages that our warlock can out dps them when the main concentration of a mage is to load on damage as fast as possible. To do this requires some destruction talent points but I would think that if you were intending to do a lot of PvP this would be a likely path to take anyway. The warlock seems to have more "tricks" than a mage so this would seem to give them an upper hand. I realize that Shadowbolt is a long cast spell, but the big damage mage spells are as well.

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:We can't heal ourselves as priests can but take as much damage as non-shadow speced priests do, so we can't outlast them.  A majority of our spells are channeled or have casting times, making them difficult to use in heavy combat, and the instant cast DoTs are useless in 1v1 and are easily dispelled.
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If a priest is using mana to heal themselves then they are not using it to kill you. With nothing more than SW:P they aren't going to be killing you any time soon. You can heal once with a healthstone and as long as you can keep up the dps on a priest while he/she is healing I would think these battles are certainly winnable. If you are facing a caster the channeled or casting time issues are not as big since the other player is probably dealing with the exact same thing and not whacking you with a weapon to slow down or interrupt your spellcasting. If you are in group PvP you shouldn't be on the front line anyway. Also, only a few classes can dispel those DoTs. Priests face the same thing with SW:P. These can be good against rogues for sure. Also, even though dispel is instant cast nothing is truly instant. If a priest wants to dispel three of your debuffs it will take him at least 1.5 seconds to remove all of those debuffs and that is time that you can doing something else like casting one of those long casting time spells. Meanwhile your little pet is beating on that priest and adding some extra dps (every little bit helps)

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:Pets offer some help, but in PvP the pet required is usually not out.  A voidwalker to sacrifice for going up vs. rogues and warriors, a felhunter when going against other casters.  If seduce is nerfed, then those are your two options.  Righ now seduce helps quite a bit as all players are humanoid.  However, undead's WotF will now break that as well even when not triggered prior to seducing  The imp, a popular pet will increase your dps some, and allow you to take a hit or two more with the added stamina buff, but isn't too much help.
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Can I get one of these pets to follow me around? They might have limitations but I sure would love to have someone aiding my dps as a priest... Sorry, I don't mean to sound so negative but be appreciative of what you have. You have at least decent dps (at the very least in the middle of the pack) with an added pet to help in a variety of ways. Sure you can't heal like a priest or pally (or shaman; I play alliance) but you still have a healthstone in reserve (conveniently separate from the potion timer).

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:What we did have the helped us was fear and seduce.  Those have been nerfed with each patch since retail if memory serves.  Now we are looking at another nerf if these leaked notes are real (and the evidence seems to indicate that they are).
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Maybe I am missing something, but what they are doing here is introducing more diminishing returns to a given target. This means that the main effect of this is in 1v1 situations. Your first fear or seduce is still going to be at 100% effectiveness. The skills might not be able to be used repeatedly as much anymore (the entire point to stop fear kiting of high level mobs) but they are still another option in your bag of tricks. My limited experience doesn't help here but it seems to me that with a full effectiveness seduce and fear with no diminishing returns my priest could fall to three or four shadowbolts and I wouldn't be able to do much about it. But that's just a part of the game; the whole rock-paper-scissors thing where some skills beat others, but on the other hand if I can fear you or get a few lucky resists I would have the upper hand.

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:A warlock is a capable dueler in my limited experience, but dueling is NOT PvP.
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Whoa whoa, back up a second here. If we are not talking about dueling (and thus effectively most 1v1 battles although you might not always be able to "set up" the way you'd like) then I can only assume we are talking about group PvP. In this case you shouldn't be at the front line taking hits and you have much utility as a nuker/fear/buffs (from pets)/DoT/Curse machine. If one target is important enough to be repeatedly feared or seduced (invoking diminishing returns) then maybe your party should be concentrating more fire on eliminating that target completely.

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:  I did a little dueling in Tanaris (I'm on a PvE server) and did well in 3 duels, ran out of shards and stopped dueling  I lost to a mage on our second duel, mistakenly thinking that seduce would be useful (lesson learned, blink breaks it).  Sacrificing the voidwalker worked much better.  I squeaked out victories on my other duels, using my healthstones and sacrificing my voidwalker in all victories.  The rogue I fought never knocked me down, and AutoPotion drank a pot (I don't duel much so I didn't think to turn it off) and that was part of why I won.  I also used deathcoil in that fight.
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So you mean to tell me that you did some off the cuff dueling and with limited experience you went 2 for 3 and learned a valuable lesson in the other duel? I can't speak on the skill of those you dueled but this is a pretty good record (in a limited sample). If you expect to win duels handily or without burning some of your better (read: longer cooldown) skills then you are quite the optimist. I notice that you mention things like sacrificing your voidwalker and using healthstones. Those are exactly the tricks that you have that can be very useful. Learn to love them :)

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:I burned over a bag (14) of soul shards and then some in those 3 duels, and that is why I think comparisons of a hunter's ammo usage to a warlocks shard usage as laughable when fighting other players.  There are some comparisions for PvE, but PvE is not why the warlocks are complaining.  This is probably the biggest complaint of any.  Just allowing shards in PvP for honorable kills in insufficient IMO, as drain soul in a PvP setting is suicide.  A channeled, low damage DoT in PvP?  Joke.  Shards in PvP will only slightly slow the rapid burning of shards as killing with shadowburn won't COST you a shard, but you won't get any either.
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Ok, this is where the outsider becomes more sympathetic. The situation for warlocks handling shards in PvP situations needs to be addressed somehow. Maybe allowing some minimal shard stacking in "shard bags" or something and creating an effective way to regain shards in PvP would help immensly. I do like to think that any good player has one bag devoted to "equipment" though. Be this switch weapons/armor; bullets; or shards everyone feels at least a little bag crunch for equipment and this is by design.

bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 01:17 PM Wrote:In PvE, the warlock is a fine choice, a solid soloer, and a blast to play.  I can pull out victories with unexpected adds that no non-healing class could win in.  High end pets are useless toys.  The very high risk comes with rewards marginally better than a regular pet, for a few minutes at most.  This is another huge complaint.  The high end pets with all the danger are used for entertainment, as they aren't good for much else.  However, in PvE solo scenarios, the warlock is very strong, and that is part of why Blizzard keeps nerfing them.  The nerfs to PvE haven't broken PvE, we can still do that well enough, but have really hurt PvP.
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My experience playing with warlocks (and trying to find them for upper level raids) is that a well played warlock is extraordinarily useful in PvE. With the exception of the shard situation I don't see where they are particularly gimped in PvP either.

I can't comment about the official forums because I tend to avoid them.

I know this post came out a bit negative but as I see it there are two major issues, soul shard usage in PvP and the ridiculous risk/reward ratio for the high level pets. Sure there are probably other things that could use some work and some bugs I haven't run into because I haven't played the class, but to be honest these are all over the place for better or for worse. No class is perfect and they probably never will be. These tweaks seem far from game breaking to me; they might require a slight adjustment in strategy, but that just keeps things exciting :P I don't want to rag on you, I just want to point out what it looks like to an outsider.

One other point I didn't mention above is the 8 debuff limit. This is an issue for upper level 'locks in group situations but I'm not sure how easily it can be changed without introducing many other issues. I don't want to touch that at the moment.

Ok, that's enough rambling for me on this. I understand that there are issues that need to be fixed and I sympathize with that, but the warlock is still very powerful and a long way from being nerfed to uselessness.

- mjdoom
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Flyndar (60) - Dwarf Priest - Tailoring (300), Enchanting (300)
Minimagi (60) - Gnome Mage - Herbalism (300), Engineering (301)
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ArynWindborn (19) - Human Paladin - Mining/Engineering (121)
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#19
Icebird,Apr 8 2005, 01:44 PM Wrote:3) Bugs.
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This right here is partially what I'm talking about. When people ask what Rogues could possibly complain about, we don't say "bugs." We say "Vanish doesn't work; we don't get combo points on openers" and other non-bug issues. So, excuse my ignorance, but what are the Warlock bugs?

One more thing: can you try to hit "reply" to the post you're referring or actually replying to? It keeps threaded view cleaner.
Trade yourself in for the perfect one. No one needs to know that you feel you've been ruined!
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#20
bonemage,Apr 8 2005, 06:17 PM Wrote:The fact that the warrior CM, Tyren, makes a HUGE post with lots of information and explanation puts salt in the warlock's wounds as it's clear he has heard and understands the warrior's complaints and the warrior class. The warlocks don't feel they have been heard or understood.

The warrior post is actually much like the Warlock posts. Sure, its 4 pages long, but warlocks have 5 different blue stickies, and how much did that help them? The post contains little explanation and is mostly a very long statement that everything is working as intended. The warrior post is/was just as useless, and there haven't been any followup/replies/blue posts there in over 2 months.

A good example of a useful post would be the Druid's one - their complaints were understood, they actually got the much needed buffs that they requested (DD cat form finisher, Barkskin, etc), and it was direct and to a point.

P.S. I understood that warlocks will be getting shards if they kill someone in pvp who was green or higher to them - so perhaps that will solve at least some problems there. Hopefully it will apply to group kills too - since there the odds of getting a killing blow can go down quite a bit.
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