Warlocks Getting Buffed

[Raelynn]

You are juxtaposing two situations here and I'm not sure how much you are agreeing with me and how much not...

I will agree very easily that MF is a wholly better snare when fighting an opponent.  The damage and slowing effects are certainly better and there is no argument there.  But you go on to make points about running away (and a lot of the discussion here is centering on escape mechanisms).  As I see it MF is completely worthless in an escape situation because you can't be running and flaying at the same time.  This is entirely synonymous with the warlock arguments that HoT is worthless because it can't be cast on the run.  In this case CoEx is better because at least you can cast it and start running.  Our only snare cannot be used while running.

So there are two discussions here.  The relative merits of MF and CoEx show that MF is wholly superior when fighting.  CoEx is superior to MF in any case where you are trying to escape.  Even if it's not a great snare (which I can agree that it is not) at least you still have something.

Take an equivalent case where a priest and warlock get surprised.  I get one shot to hit Psychic Scream.  If it is resisted or otherwise stopped outright I am done for.  There is no way for me to put space between myself and my opponent to make good use of MF.  The warlock has the disadvantage of a cast time on their fear, but if it gets stopped outright they can at least attempt another fear or throw CoEx on to try to get some space to fight in.

In the end I think we're both in the same boat of losing our best escape mechanism with more ways to stop fear.  You have more options to try after that (although not all may be useful) whereas I can try to keep myself alive long enough to run away.  If I am healing and running the only way I "win" is to get to a safe place as SW:P will not kill any other player on its own.  You can throw on a few more DoTs but due to lack of healing probably have less survivability in many situations (avoiding mortal strike for the moment).  Either way we've both had our best escape mechanism take another hit.

- mjdoom
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Due to the number of stuns and interrupts and just general slow down of casting, anything that is not instant is not an effective escape spell. We may be able to cast several times in a row, but it requires us to be standing and casting, as opposed to the priests trying PS, while on the move away from combat. We're sitting ducks while trying to fear the opponent who has gotten the jump on us. That's why fear is not to be truely considered an escape spell.

HoT is in the same boat as well.

CoEx is an iffy one because it requires not only a talent point to get, but several more talent points to make it worth anything. The sacrifice we make by putting on CoEx is two-fold. Your snare is better and deals damage. Our snare is worse and actually takes the slot of a different curse which would be doing damage. We're down double because of that, which no one really seemed to take into account when comparing the two. As an escape, I'll give you that CoEx is better only because MF is channeled, but it's not much, and the utility overall is just lower fr CoEx.