10-03-2005, 09:30 PM
Personally, I'm *very* satisfied with my Warlock. Yes, the class need to prepare and plan more than other classes, but with that bit of extra work it is a very strong class indeed. I mostly play PvE, very much the warlock's strong suit - mobs don't remove curses and DoTs, don't intelligently interrupt, act predictably and are easily fooled into attacking inappropriate targets. Some can even be banished or enslaved. I feel that most Warlock complaints come from PvP play and agree that improvements are needed for this style, though improving our abilities in PvP without putting us over the top in PvE will be difficult.
Shards - PvE, these are not an issue (apart from inventory space) as shards are easily obtained in ordinary play. During most instance runs I accumulate them on trash (still doing very high damage through AOE or having DOTs ticking on multiple targets) in order to allow repeated Shadowburn against bosses. So I think Shadowburn is fine as is, with the shard cost, in PvE play. Removing the shard cost in PvE without rebalancing other spells would put my damage after an instance run even further ahead of the #2 player as I could use it constantly. While it is inferior to Fireblast, Mage's don't have DoTs or a Pet contributing damage.
In PvP, obtaining shards is much harder and the need for them greater. I've suggested adding 'get a shard' to the new deathcoil on the blizzard boards, which would help without trivialising them in PvE.
PvP Escape/Defence - I don't have much PvP experience but our 1v1 defences (eg. Sacrifice, Seduce) don't seem too bad against most classes. Group play hurts as that shield goes away with one click. At least they're not killing our priest :D I do think Mages need to keep a decent edge over us in this area to compensate for our significantly larger number of hit points.
Endgame pets - I use the Infernal semi-regularly already. It's not hugely stronger than our other pets but it has several convenient features (no shard cost, 2 sec summon, can use it and a DS buff at the same time). Buffs are supposedly coming for both the Infernal and Doomguard.
Loss of pet after travel - completely concur, this is an irritant not a balancing factor.
Shards - PvE, these are not an issue (apart from inventory space) as shards are easily obtained in ordinary play. During most instance runs I accumulate them on trash (still doing very high damage through AOE or having DOTs ticking on multiple targets) in order to allow repeated Shadowburn against bosses. So I think Shadowburn is fine as is, with the shard cost, in PvE play. Removing the shard cost in PvE without rebalancing other spells would put my damage after an instance run even further ahead of the #2 player as I could use it constantly. While it is inferior to Fireblast, Mage's don't have DoTs or a Pet contributing damage.
In PvP, obtaining shards is much harder and the need for them greater. I've suggested adding 'get a shard' to the new deathcoil on the blizzard boards, which would help without trivialising them in PvE.
PvP Escape/Defence - I don't have much PvP experience but our 1v1 defences (eg. Sacrifice, Seduce) don't seem too bad against most classes. Group play hurts as that shield goes away with one click. At least they're not killing our priest :D I do think Mages need to keep a decent edge over us in this area to compensate for our significantly larger number of hit points.
Endgame pets - I use the Infernal semi-regularly already. It's not hugely stronger than our other pets but it has several convenient features (no shard cost, 2 sec summon, can use it and a DS buff at the same time). Buffs are supposedly coming for both the Infernal and Doomguard.
Loss of pet after travel - completely concur, this is an irritant not a balancing factor.