04-10-2005, 02:26 AM
I'm going to start another thread here to deal more with the PvE issues as I don't have much experience in the PvP arena of Warlocks.
Simply put, we have a large number of bugs that need to be addressed, we have a negative balance aspect to our class (will discuss this more), and we are turned into one or two trick ponies by one of the most blaring issues in the game.
As has been posted by another, Creshinnibon's post on the Warlock forums at Blizzard shows the numerous bugs that affect the class. There are plenty of issues with various talents and various effects. I can only really point you to Creshinnibon's post, The post of Warlock issues and bugs to see those problems. I have seen a number of the things listed here cause a great deal of problems and I have used this post to avoid certain talents outright because of how broken they are.
Now, let me get to how Warlocks are negatively balanced. While other classes have various spells and effects that require a certain amount of time or mana to take effect, the Warlock is hit by a negative balance where various powers and effects require us to go out and kill mobs to gain reagents to use those powers and effect, that reagent is the soul shard. Why is this a negative balance you may say, I can only show you by pointing to spells and effects we have and show you similar applications on other classes.
The Warlock, like the Hunter, is a pet class. The only pet that the Warlock has that does not require a reagent is the Imp. Now, if we look at the two classes we can see how the two operate. The Warlock must expent mana, time, and, unless summoning an imp, soul shards to bring their pet to them. A Hunter, simply after training a pet, uses a power to call the pet instantly without the use of mana. While the Hunter has to feed the pet to maintain it's happiness, the upkeep is not too bad (yes, it costs silver here and there and in some places happiness can go down rapidly for the pet requiring a large expenditure of money to keep the pet happy). Now, when a Hunter or a Warlock board a flier at friendly city, both lose the pet. The problem that arises though is that when the Hunter arrives at their new location, they simply use their call pet skill and their pet is instantly there as if nothing happened with no more than the frustration of a click of a key or the mouse. A Warlock, on the other hand, loses the mana they invested previously, the time invested previously, and, if not an Imp, a soul shard as well. To typically bring a pet in for the Warlock, the Warlock must expend between 20% and 33% of their mana, depending on how much Int gear they are wearing and what buffs they have up, along with 10 seconds (unless they have taken talents in the demonology tree that are midway through the tree), and a soul shard if not an Imp. Now, lets have the Warlock and Hunter both mount and take off. Eventually, the pet will fall behind and disappear, to the Hunter, this is no big deal as they simply call pet again and within a moment their pet is there none the worse at the expenditure of no real time lost or mana/health. The Warlock on the other hand, has to resummon the pet costing again, time, mana, and possibly a soul shard. The only area where the Warlock wins out over the Hunter is when the pets die. The Warlock again expends the same amount of time, mana, and possible soul shard to get the pet back, the Hunter spends roughly 50% maximum mana to return their pet to life and needs to immediately feed the pet due to lose of happiness. Now, Blizzard is s'posedly trying to fix this and while people have noticed some fixing in the pathing of pets, there are still major problems. As I see it, the need of the soul shard is balanced out by the fact that the Warlock must spend 10 seconds (barring talents) and between 20% and 33% of their mana to get their pet back, this alone is balance enough.
Next part of negative balance is a pair of spells that Warlocks can get, one through a talent and one by normal leveling that require soul shards to use for Direct Damage, those spells being Shadowburn (talent) and Soul Fire (normal spell). These two spells most closely mimic the Mage spells Fire Blast (normal spell) and Pyroblast (talent). Fire Blast and Shadowburn on equal spells as Soul Fire and Pyroblast are equal spells (both Fire Blast and Shadowburn are instants and Soul Fire and Pyroblast require 6 seconds to cast). Now, here is where the problems are introduced, Fire Blast requires 340 mana and does on average 470 damage with an 8 second cooldown and Shadowburn does 476 on average (slightly better), requires 15 seconds to cooldown and uses 365 mana AND requires a soulshard. Simply, the need of the soulshard overbalances the spell and negatively effects it's use (even though on a killing strike you get the shard back, but even that appears to be bugged with the final spell). Now, comparing Soul Fire to Pyroblast, we see Soul Fire and Pyroblast are both 6 second cast spells with both having a cooldown of 1 minute. Now if we look further at these two spells, Soul Fire does 792 damage on average for 335 (2.36 Damage per mana) while Pyroblast does 803 damage on average with a continued 268 damage over 12 seconds for 440 mana (2.43 Damage per mana) and Pyroblast has a range over 35 yards while Soul Fire has a range of 30 yards. As can be seen, the requirement of the soul shard is not needed as Pyroblast already is a better direct damage spell than Soul Burn (and mages are suppose to be the kings and queens of direct damage according to Blizzard). So, again, Blizzard has negatively balance the Warlock when it comes to these spells.
Some other Warlocks would say that our stones also constitute a negative imbalance, but I'm not sure I would agree. Our Healthstones cost less mana to create and give a straight amount of health back vs the Mana gems the Mages create which give a variable amount of mana back and cost more mana to create. The Soulstone acts just like the Shaman and Paladin spells in preventing a wipe and those also require reagents to use. In truth as well, no sane Warlock uses the Firestone or Spellstone as they're mostly useless even with the buffs Blizzard gave to them and even other classes looked at those buffs and agreed that they would never use those stones as well.
So, as you can see, the Warlock is negatively balanced due to Soul Shards when it comes to our pets and our direct damage spells.
The last, and most problematic area for the Warlock due to the classes structure, is the 8 debuff limit. The Warlock is the debuffing class and it uses things like Damage over Time (DoT) and Curses (for varying weakening effects). Now, while this limit doesn't hamper us in solo play, it very easily hampers us in party play. In a 5 man party in endgame play, it is very easy to hit up against the 8 debuff limit and when in a Raid party, you're guaranteed to run into this limit. This means that Warlocks basically turn into one and two trick ponies in the end game party play. We either cast Curse of Elements and follow up with Immolation and Conflagration or we cast Curse of Shadow and spam Shadowbolts. Our other spells are mostly useless due to the 8 debuff limit. Blizzard says they are working to address the 8 debuff limit, but have stated nothing beyond that they are looking at it.
So, there are a lot of problems with the class that needs to be addressed to make it more balanced overall yet Blizzard continues to avoid these issues for the most part. This is what agrevates the Warlock community the most. We have continued to put up constructive post after constructive post on what the problem is, but nothing ever seems to get done.
Simply put, we have a large number of bugs that need to be addressed, we have a negative balance aspect to our class (will discuss this more), and we are turned into one or two trick ponies by one of the most blaring issues in the game.
As has been posted by another, Creshinnibon's post on the Warlock forums at Blizzard shows the numerous bugs that affect the class. There are plenty of issues with various talents and various effects. I can only really point you to Creshinnibon's post, The post of Warlock issues and bugs to see those problems. I have seen a number of the things listed here cause a great deal of problems and I have used this post to avoid certain talents outright because of how broken they are.
Now, let me get to how Warlocks are negatively balanced. While other classes have various spells and effects that require a certain amount of time or mana to take effect, the Warlock is hit by a negative balance where various powers and effects require us to go out and kill mobs to gain reagents to use those powers and effect, that reagent is the soul shard. Why is this a negative balance you may say, I can only show you by pointing to spells and effects we have and show you similar applications on other classes.
The Warlock, like the Hunter, is a pet class. The only pet that the Warlock has that does not require a reagent is the Imp. Now, if we look at the two classes we can see how the two operate. The Warlock must expent mana, time, and, unless summoning an imp, soul shards to bring their pet to them. A Hunter, simply after training a pet, uses a power to call the pet instantly without the use of mana. While the Hunter has to feed the pet to maintain it's happiness, the upkeep is not too bad (yes, it costs silver here and there and in some places happiness can go down rapidly for the pet requiring a large expenditure of money to keep the pet happy). Now, when a Hunter or a Warlock board a flier at friendly city, both lose the pet. The problem that arises though is that when the Hunter arrives at their new location, they simply use their call pet skill and their pet is instantly there as if nothing happened with no more than the frustration of a click of a key or the mouse. A Warlock, on the other hand, loses the mana they invested previously, the time invested previously, and, if not an Imp, a soul shard as well. To typically bring a pet in for the Warlock, the Warlock must expend between 20% and 33% of their mana, depending on how much Int gear they are wearing and what buffs they have up, along with 10 seconds (unless they have taken talents in the demonology tree that are midway through the tree), and a soul shard if not an Imp. Now, lets have the Warlock and Hunter both mount and take off. Eventually, the pet will fall behind and disappear, to the Hunter, this is no big deal as they simply call pet again and within a moment their pet is there none the worse at the expenditure of no real time lost or mana/health. The Warlock on the other hand, has to resummon the pet costing again, time, mana, and possibly a soul shard. The only area where the Warlock wins out over the Hunter is when the pets die. The Warlock again expends the same amount of time, mana, and possible soul shard to get the pet back, the Hunter spends roughly 50% maximum mana to return their pet to life and needs to immediately feed the pet due to lose of happiness. Now, Blizzard is s'posedly trying to fix this and while people have noticed some fixing in the pathing of pets, there are still major problems. As I see it, the need of the soul shard is balanced out by the fact that the Warlock must spend 10 seconds (barring talents) and between 20% and 33% of their mana to get their pet back, this alone is balance enough.
Next part of negative balance is a pair of spells that Warlocks can get, one through a talent and one by normal leveling that require soul shards to use for Direct Damage, those spells being Shadowburn (talent) and Soul Fire (normal spell). These two spells most closely mimic the Mage spells Fire Blast (normal spell) and Pyroblast (talent). Fire Blast and Shadowburn on equal spells as Soul Fire and Pyroblast are equal spells (both Fire Blast and Shadowburn are instants and Soul Fire and Pyroblast require 6 seconds to cast). Now, here is where the problems are introduced, Fire Blast requires 340 mana and does on average 470 damage with an 8 second cooldown and Shadowburn does 476 on average (slightly better), requires 15 seconds to cooldown and uses 365 mana AND requires a soulshard. Simply, the need of the soulshard overbalances the spell and negatively effects it's use (even though on a killing strike you get the shard back, but even that appears to be bugged with the final spell). Now, comparing Soul Fire to Pyroblast, we see Soul Fire and Pyroblast are both 6 second cast spells with both having a cooldown of 1 minute. Now if we look further at these two spells, Soul Fire does 792 damage on average for 335 (2.36 Damage per mana) while Pyroblast does 803 damage on average with a continued 268 damage over 12 seconds for 440 mana (2.43 Damage per mana) and Pyroblast has a range over 35 yards while Soul Fire has a range of 30 yards. As can be seen, the requirement of the soul shard is not needed as Pyroblast already is a better direct damage spell than Soul Burn (and mages are suppose to be the kings and queens of direct damage according to Blizzard). So, again, Blizzard has negatively balance the Warlock when it comes to these spells.
Some other Warlocks would say that our stones also constitute a negative imbalance, but I'm not sure I would agree. Our Healthstones cost less mana to create and give a straight amount of health back vs the Mana gems the Mages create which give a variable amount of mana back and cost more mana to create. The Soulstone acts just like the Shaman and Paladin spells in preventing a wipe and those also require reagents to use. In truth as well, no sane Warlock uses the Firestone or Spellstone as they're mostly useless even with the buffs Blizzard gave to them and even other classes looked at those buffs and agreed that they would never use those stones as well.
So, as you can see, the Warlock is negatively balanced due to Soul Shards when it comes to our pets and our direct damage spells.
The last, and most problematic area for the Warlock due to the classes structure, is the 8 debuff limit. The Warlock is the debuffing class and it uses things like Damage over Time (DoT) and Curses (for varying weakening effects). Now, while this limit doesn't hamper us in solo play, it very easily hampers us in party play. In a 5 man party in endgame play, it is very easy to hit up against the 8 debuff limit and when in a Raid party, you're guaranteed to run into this limit. This means that Warlocks basically turn into one and two trick ponies in the end game party play. We either cast Curse of Elements and follow up with Immolation and Conflagration or we cast Curse of Shadow and spam Shadowbolts. Our other spells are mostly useless due to the 8 debuff limit. Blizzard says they are working to address the 8 debuff limit, but have stated nothing beyond that they are looking at it.
So, there are a lot of problems with the class that needs to be addressed to make it more balanced overall yet Blizzard continues to avoid these issues for the most part. This is what agrevates the Warlock community the most. We have continued to put up constructive post after constructive post on what the problem is, but nothing ever seems to get done.
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.
Einstein said Everything is Relative.
Heisenberg said Everything is Uncertain.
Therefore, everything is relatively uncertain.