Scoop! Leaked notes at least partially accurate!

[Icebird]

- The Warlock Infernal quest is now available and can be found in Felwood.
- The Warlock Ritual of Doom quest is now available and can be found in the Tainted Scar.

Now if only they could be used for more than 5 minutes at a time. (Initial reports from the test server: Enslave Demon still broken).

Chris

[mjdoom]

In group situations, you are #1 target. Protected? Ha! You're gang-&^$%'ed. Warlocks are considered an easy target. No instant cast defense, Weak snares (talent costly), backloaded damage, many of our dots and abilities are dispellable. Our main 'defense' fear, is highly resistable, or is downright immune by an ever increasing number methods, including battle stances, trinkets, WotF, blacksmithing, shadow resistence, etc. Its also dispellable, as opposed to psychic scream which has no diminishing returns, is not dispellable 'magic', and is instant. Many of our awesome abilities have long and mana costly preperation times.

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To be perfectly honest I have been in this situation. Granted my main experience with PvP is in group raid situations in open fields between SS and TM but I still consider this to be group PvP. Last I checked Priests are also high on the target list of the opposing faction. I have been lucky enough to die to a rogue once who kept me in stunlock for the entire time until I died. I didn't even have enough time to let off a psychic scream, so yes I have been there.

You say "Protected? Ha! You're gang-&^$%'ed.", to that I say it's exactly the same for all casters. If any caster gets ganged up on they WILL die. Maybe a priest can put off the inevitable a bit longer by using Psychic Scream but if you don't have any protection you will die anyway.

You can't have it both ways; you either have to talk about small scale group PvP where you don't have any real entourage to protect you or you have to talk about large scale PvP where all caster groups should at least have a rogue escorting them if you care about their lives.

In small scale PvP any one of the casters is going to die if they have 2 or more enemies on them most likely (and definitely if one is a rogue). Thanks to the cooldown on Psychic Scream a priest would have to be very skilled to survive against 2 enemies. You have the disadvantage of casting times on your fear spells but you still have both fear and Howl of Terror to use and you can still CC one of them in some capacity. Mages are stuck sheeping one and then trying to nuke the other one (or more) fast enough, then finish off the sheeped one; a dicey proposition.
If you want to talk about our (me priest, you warlock) relative merits if we are getting "gang-&^$%'ed" I say you have every advantage except that Psychic Scream is instant and HoT/Fear are on casting timers. Most likely the only effect this will have is how quickly we die though. No caster will win a 1v3 and it takes a lot of skill/luck to win a 1v2. Oh, and if you want to talk about ways to resist/be immune to fear then you are making priests even weaker vs. warlocks because that is our only trick.

If you are talking about large scale PvP you should have someone protecting your casters. If you don't that is simply foolhardy. At the very least you should have a rogue to counter-stun any rogue that comes along looking to kill one of your casters. In these situations casters should all have a chance to use their skills as you will be traveling in a group that is a smaller part of a whole and someone should always have your back. If the rogue gets a stun off that gives you plenty of time to cast a fear and get into your routine. Once again, if a single target (remember, diminishing returns only works if you are recasting on a single target) and you need to keep it perma-feared then you are probably overmatched in numbers or not concentrating your damage well enough. Kill one while fearing another. Once you kill the first one you can start fearing a third as necessary while you kill the second. This means you are still keeping one target at bay constantly and the "damage can break fear" effect shouldn't be an issue as you are just keeping that person feared away and not attacking them. Or alternate fears on targets. I'm sorry you can't fear someone all day; boo hoo.

Yes, my PvP experience is limited, but you haven't done anything to convince me that warlocks are at some disadvantage compared to priests/mages (your compatriots in cloth) when caught off guard in PvP. And even though shadow priests are pretty good in PvP those players are probably not 5-manning any instances or they are spending masses of gold on respecs. If I really wanted to build a char specifically for PvP that was gimped for handling high end content challenges I would have, but I don't.

- mjdoom

[mjdoom]

Yes, I can solo 3 demons at a time in Dire Maul - east with my 60 Warlock, but at great risk and difficulty to myself, as success is not guaranteed. The phase lasher still kicks my ass.

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Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? I probably don't even have a prayer to solo one mob in there. I haven't been crazy enough to try it so I'm not sure. I would still bet that no other class could expect to kill more than one mob before they died themselves. Oh noes, it takes you five minutes. If I'm lucky with a corpse run I could die twice in five minutes...

This is a perfect example of a reason why they are adding some checks in. Your fear still works! It just doesn't work over and over and over and over again. <Sarcasm> I feel your pain, really I do. </Sarcasm>

- mjdoom

[Mirajj]

Hijacking a little, I guess. I like the graphical updates. The new mounts all look pretty good (with the exception of the Ogre elite, imho) and I like the new look of the Succubus, too. It even wins approval from my gf.

No other changes really seem to stand out in my mind.

[Drasca]

Your fear still works!&nbsp; It just doesn't work over .. again.&nbsp;
- mjdoom
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No, it doesn't. IIRC, Dwarf priests get a 10 minute long fear immunity buff. How's that for not working? That's only the tip of the iceberg. Is your Psychic scream dispellable? Nope. Can you cast it over and over without diminsing returns? Yep. Does yours break after 2 seconds? Nope. You have no clue how badly gimped fear is in PvP.

Warlocks own demons. With luck, skill and good timing, three are reduced to 1v1. Banish one, survive long enough to enslave one (doesn't always happen, a lucky crit = dead), and make sure any patrols are eliminated.

Pray to prng gods that Enslave doesn't turn on you, the first demon doesn't come unbanished prematurely, which frequently happens at the worst possible situation, hope you took care of stealthed patrols, and waste the third. All steps are risky, and take long. You're just jealous we actually have ONE strength. That's PvE vs demons and elementals. Break shackle early? That's nothing. We get demons breaking enslave early, breaking banish early, resisting everything, and fear/charm breaking early and having diminished returns in pvp.

You have nothing to complain about.

[Malakar]

Then all you're saying is that Shadowbolt base damage is inferior to Fireball/Blast base damage, which I can tell by reading the spell statistics.

Not exactly, I took respective talent allocations into consideration.

You can't just factor out resistance-lowering curses - they are part of the class abilities.

My problem is that my warlock is not high enough level to test out the higher level curse yet, and I've not seen any combat stats on this, so while I wanted to factor that in, I couldn't.

My observations suggest that negative resistances work in a mirror image of the way positive resistances work, which is unsurprising.&nbsp; In other words, there's a percent chance to take normal damage, a percent chance to take 25% extra damage, a percent chance to take 50% extra damage, and so on.&nbsp; It's not an easy calculation, but the effect is very significant.

Yes, that's how it seems to work to me. I only have experience with the -45 Shadow curse, and from my inaccurate observations, it seems that normal and 25% extra damage are both very common. That is indeed very significant, but nothing absolutely huge. Just for the sake of fairly ignorant speculation, let's say the higher level curse on average gives +25% more Shadow damage. That'd take Shadow Bolt to 325dps, very close but not quite up to the mage. Of course, with estimations this close, we need some real numbers to determine the reality of the situation.

Say you run into demons and elementals.&nbsp; Mages throw their hands up in frustration; warlocks have Banish.&nbsp; If there's more than one demon the warlock can Banish one and Enslave another; you only need it to last five minutes, and even the current form does that.

Oh yes, that is true, I forgot about that. :blush: That does tip the scales in the warlock's favor.

The mage's AoE is better, no doubt.&nbsp; But, given the comparable damage, if you can address the drawbacks, warlocks can handle the role of primary AoE just fine.&nbsp; There a lot of ways to do this: have a paladin spam low-aggro heals, or drink a fire protection potion, or pick up a secondary healer.

The damage Hellfire does to the warlock is virtually negligible in a raid situation, where you might have multiple primary and secondary healers.&nbsp; Hellfire's DPS is more than enough to make sure aggro stays on the warlock.

Good points, I especially like the fire protection potion idea.

I guess my main problem with warlock AOE is the interruption factor. Yes it can be dealt with to some extent by PW:S, and also by sacrifice. In fact, I am now very curious as to how these stack. If PW:S takes precedence, you could probably get off two PW:S by the time the sacrifice is done. However, sacrifice is only going to be available once per drink break usually, perhaps even twice with Fel Domination, but even then that's only once every 15 minutes. And if you have Fel Domination, you're not going to be able to get all of the destruction/affliction talents to maximize Shadowbolt. Whereas a mage can have 36 points in fire, and still have enough points for IAE.

This isn't a call to buff or nerf anything, but even those warlocks who recognize that their class isn't gimped seem to have trouble on this point.&nbsp; "We aren't as good as a mage" is an awfully baseless complaint.

Again, I agree. But from my perspective it's because the classes are pretty well balanced, not because the warlock is in general better. The only big difference I feel between the classes is the soulstone rez, which is awfully nice, but not absolutely necessary. Yes, Things Go Wrong, and the soulstone can be invaluable. But in the case that I'm going into an instance with a group of friends that've done it many times, and we're going to need some AOE, I'd take the mage's AOE over the warlock's soulstone. Yes, the soulstone is still a big deal, and it's something I wish could be made up for more on the mage side considering warlocks have comparable dps to the mage in a group setting.

Anyway, my general feeling is that one warlock and one mage is better than two warlocks or two mages, and that a skilled player of one class is invariably better than a skilled player of the other. I'd call that pretty damn well balanced. Some might say "Of course, a skilled player is always going to be better"... such was commonly not the case in Diablo 2.

[Drasca]

You have the disadvantage of casting times on your fear spells but you still have both fear and Howl of Terror to use

Defensive Cast time = interrupted and dead.

Mages are stuck sheeping one and then trying to nuke the other one (or more)

Stuck? Hardly. You chose the wrong class to pick as 'defenseless'. Frost nova, Blink, Cone of Cold, Ice barrier, need I go on? They have about a dozen escape options.

No caster will win a 1v3 and it takes a lot of skill/luck to win a 1v2

I see mages/priests win 1v3 all the time. Heck, even I've won 1v3 when I'm not ambushed. Maybe its because you're on a PvE server?

because that is our only trick.

Let's see... 10% stun on shadow spells, PW:Shield, scream, mind flay, mana burn.. Heck. shield/scream, self-heal is enough!

If you are talking about large scale PvP you should have someone protecting your casters.

All "shoulds" are wasted in first contact with the enemy.

If the rogue gets a stun off that gives you plenty of time to cast a fear and get into your routine.

Not going to happen. We're stunned at range for large scale PvP. Need I list all the ranged stun skills? Hunter concussion, Shadowpriest spells, Paladin hammer, etc. Then there are all those snares...

Once again, if a single target (remember, diminishing returns only works if you are recasting on a single target)

Only one target matters at a time. They'll chase you down, and the fear will break from them being attacked, or dotted, or dispelled, etc.

and you need to keep it perma-feared

Impossible. Immune after 3rd fear.

you are probably overmatched in numbers

Oh sure, blame others for my nerfs.

Kill one while fearing another.

Doesn't work that way. Have to concentrate on the feared target that he doesn't resist early or dispelled.

Yes, my PvP experience is limited,

No arguement there. I don't need to convince you. Get out there, get your ass whooped, and then I'll listen one whit further.

Edit: Tags.

[mjdoom]

No, it doesn't. IIRC, Dwarf priests get a 10 minute long fear immunity buff. How's that for not working? That's only the tip of the iceberg. Is your Psychic scream dispellable? Nope. Can you cast it over and over without diminsing returns? Yep. Does yours break after 2 seconds? Nope. You have no clue how badly gimped fear is in PvP.

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If someone is immune to fear they are immune to fear; Scream and Fear alike. If either of us runs into another PC that is immune to fear I am SoL and you at least have a succubus that can help you. If my fear gets resisted you can toll the death knell, I'm done. I've had it happen before. You mentioned in your previous post many ways that PCs can become immune to fear and that affects either class (priest or 'lock) just as much as the other. If mine is resisted then I have no other tricks in my book. If you want to argue about the fairness of Fear Ward that is a whole other topic.

I also submit the fact that Scream has a cooldown to it (30 seconds iirc) which means I get one shot at it. It's simply a way to delay the inevitable if I am facing more than one opponent. Chain fearing is NOT an option. With cooldown it's simply not effective to assume you can chain fear a quality opponent. That's what slows us down; they are using diminishing returns for a similar speed limiter to your fear with no cooldown. Here's the question, if you had only Howl of Terror and no Fear, would you be able to pull off the same tricks that you currently do? Howl of Terror is similar to Psychic Scream (yes I know scream is better, but they are still very similar).

You also continue to combine different types of PvP to confuse points. You mention that fear is dispelable. Ok, what's your point? In order to dispel fear you must be facing at least 2 PCs (I can't cast dispel while feared) in which case you are once again outnumbered or you have help. If you have help then I sure hope your partner(s) are doing something too. If you are solo vs. 2 or more opponents I refer back to my original comments in my previous post. Do you really think that you should be able to consistently beat 2 opponents in a 1v2 situation. I'm begining to think you do just because you currently CAN do that to two mobs. Let me spell this out:

1v1: Battle will probably be over before diminishing returns become a huge factor. If you are entirely relying on chain fearing someone to win then there is probably another tactic that could work too.

1v2: Thanks to the ability to fear/seduce you have potential to win here but it's a tough proposition. Thanks to diminishing returns it will be harder to keep one opponent at bay while you kill the other. I don't see a problem with this... who is supposed to consistently win 1v2?

1v3 or more: You're screwed. Anyone is going to die in this situation. Sometimes life sucks.

Small party skirmishes: Depends highly on tactics. If the other party is bum-rushing the warlock to kill them then your entire party should be rushing after them to try to save you. If you can get even one Howl of Terror off that can buy time for your group to pick targets and fire to try to kill the enemies (and thus minimize the threat to you). If your group has a priest they will probably be the first target of the enemies so you will have a little time to use your skills.

Large Scale PvP: You will not be on the front lines. All casters should have some sort of escort to protect them as they are obvious targets. With an escort to take some of the heat off of you there should be some time to use your abilities. Enemies should be dying and thus you should not need to chain fear a specific target (if that target is so dangerous kill it first).

In PvP fear should simply be a way to buy yourself a few seconds. If you are relying on chain fear to win then find another way, I'm sure it's possible. And that is all this is stopping, chain fear on a single target.

- mjdoom

[MongoJerry]

In group situations, you are #1 target. Protected? Ha! You're gang-&^$%'ed. Warlocks are considered an easy target. No instant cast defense, Weak snares (talent costly), backloaded damage, many of our dots and abilities are dispellable.

Actually, priests are the #1 target in group situations to get rid of the nasty healer and debuff remover. The #2 target might be a druid and/or paladins/shamans, depending on the fight. After healers, the next target is mages, because they're so squishy (sometimes they get taken out sooner just because they can be). Then, it's perhaps warlocks or rogues. Warlocks are much farther down the list, because they don't heal but often have a boatload of health, which makes them annoying to kill.

Our main 'defense' fear, is highly resistable, or is downright immune by an ever increasing number methods, including battle stances, trinkets, WotF, blacksmithing, shadow resistence, etc. Its also dispellable, as opposed to psychic scream which has no diminishing returns, is not dispellable 'magic', and is instant. Many of our awesome abilities have long and mana costly preperation times. That combined with backloaded damage, and lack of usable instant-escape/snare skills, make warlocks considered "easy targets" in PvP servers. There are warlocks are who are extremely skilled, and do more than their fair share of dishing it out, but this is irrelevant glaring class imbalances in PvP.

Priest fear is dispellable. It also has a short range and a long cooldown time, unlike warlock fear that can be chain cast from a distance.

[Skandranon]

Poly is not equivalent to seduce. Not by a long shot. Poly has a lasts longer, doesn't&nbsp; reduce the player's dps, can be prebuffed (recast on top of itself). Seduce has none of that. You remove the succubus from your damage pool (accetable), and she can be interrupted, and is a lot less reliable because you have that interrupt delay. As it stands now, you could keep an enemy polymorphed nigh-on forever. If you're skilled and lucky enough to have enough time, proper range, and pet not disabled, you *might* be able to charm/fear chain a humanoid enemy.

Less reliable, sure. A lot less reliable? I don't think so. I've seen a seduce resist as often as a poly resist, which is to say nearly never. When it breaks, the mob usually pops out and gets one hit on the succubus before it's reseduced. I've never seen a mob that a warlock didn't want to keep seduced fail to get reseduced or break out and cause havoc.

Seduce is one of those things that's less reliable on paper, but works out more or less the same in practice. As long as you don't try pulling with it, the difference between it and poly is really negligible, in my experience. I've done virtually every instance in the game multiple times with a warlock, and seduce has never been of less value than poly.

[Zippyy]

They will be getting shards in PvP vs players (not PvP enabled NPCs), however, as in my original lenghty posting, will only marginally help, due to issues with Drain Soul being a channeled, low damage, 3 second tic DoT, which isn't a very good idea in PvP.&nbsp; It will help, sure, but is severely lacking, IMO.
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I haven't had the chance to try out the test server yet, but reports on the warlock forums have said that shards still cannot be gained in PvP.

So, the only significant thing Eyonix has ever said has proven to be either a lie or misinformed. I don't want to join the throngs of warlocks on the official forums who whine constantly, but the simple fact that Eyonix has done next to nothing (or, in fact, nothing) for the community he was chosen to represent.

Also, he said that the new dreadmist hat graphic was the best-looking cloth helm in the game. I have seen it, and it is the most ridiculous-looking headpiece I have ever seen in any game. The cowl looks awesome, and I love the glowing eyes, but the giant cardboard ... what the heck is it? ... looks plain dumb. The day I get that helm I will praise the Show Headpiece [OFF] option.

The new succubus looks nice, though. No more 320x200 textured wings, no more horribly disfigured face, and a more demonic appearance overall. She actually has MORE skin coverage!

They nerfed warlocks a little (though I don't see why) and buffed the succubus' chest.

[Zippyy]

Hijacking a little, I guess. I like the graphical updates. The new mounts all look pretty good (with the exception of the Ogre elite, imho) and I like the new look of the Succubus, too. It even wins approval from my gf.

No other changes really seem to stand out in my mind.
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I already mentioned this in my last post, but...

... please don't look at the new graphic for the Dreadmist headpiece. It will break your spirit. I cried.

[Treesh]

IIRC, Dwarf priests get a 10 minute long fear immunity buff.
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It's not an immunity to fear; just an increased resistance to it, it's got a rather long cooldown timer, and it costs a fair bit of mana (iirc. Aleri hasn't needed to cast it in a long time. I'll check it again when I fire her up tonight). Even just casting it on two people is very bothersome. It's definitely a pre-fight buff rather than during a fight and even then, it can be dispelled or purged right from the beginning.

Edit: Whew. It has been a long time since I've used it. It's only 100 mana (which isn't much at all when you are higher level, but at level 20 when I got it, it was expensive), 30 second cooldown after casting. Yes, it lasts 10 minutes, but it breaks after it absorbs one fear effect.

[Rinnhart]

I already mentioned this in my last post, but...

... please don't look at the new graphic for the Dreadmist headpiece.&nbsp; It will break your spirit.&nbsp; I cried.
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I like it. But then I like the Lightforge graphic.

[Lissa]

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.

[Zippyy]

I like it. But then I like the Lightforge graphic.
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Cool, I'm glad someone likes it. :)

*tear*

It doesn't even match the set it's from.

Edit: here is a picture of a warlock on the test server with full dreadmist and a new epic warlock weapon.

Edit2: I hadn't seen the lightforge helm yet, but I must admit that I do like it!

[Raelynn]

Then all you're saying is that Shadowbolt base damage is inferior to Fireball/Blast base damage, which I can tell by reading the spell statistics.&nbsp; You can't just factor out resistance-lowering curses - they are part of the class abilities.

My observations suggest that negative resistances work in a mirror image of the way positive resistances work, which is unsurprising.&nbsp; In other words, there's a percent chance to take normal damage, a percent chance to take 25% extra damage, a percent chance to take 50% extra damage, and so on.&nbsp; It's not an easy calculation, but the effect is very significant.
Just start by talking Seduction.&nbsp; It stops one humanoid, much like Polymorph (though you can poly beasts too).&nbsp; Yeah, it needs a faster refresh, but that's not a deal-breaker.&nbsp; When deciding how to apply CC, I've always considered Poly and Seduction to be identical.

Now, after that: say you need to CC another humanoid, or beast, or whatever, really.&nbsp; Fear is there; no cooldown, so you can CC something else as long as the area's mostly clear.&nbsp; Sure, there are lots of situations where you can't fear, but mages get nothing other than Polymorph - even a half-crippled CC like fear is one more than mages get.

Say you run into demons and elementals.&nbsp; Mages throw their hands up in frustration; warlocks have Banish.&nbsp; If there's more than one demon the warlock can Banish one and Enslave another; you only need it to last five minutes, and even the current form does that.

Of course whether CC is good or not depends on the situation.&nbsp; Everything, at its heart, depends on the situation.&nbsp; But we don't say that nothing is better or worse than another because of that.&nbsp; In a general sense, Warlocks can handle a greater variety of enemies and also stop more of them.&nbsp; In the worst case scenario, the only thing a Warlock can do is send the succubus to seduce - generating the same result as a mage doing all he or she can.
The mage's AoE is better, no doubt.&nbsp; But, given the comparable damage, if you can address the drawbacks, warlocks can handle the role of primary AoE just fine.&nbsp; There a lot of ways to do this: have a paladin spam low-aggro heals, or drink a fire protection potion, or pick up a secondary healer.&nbsp;

The damage Hellfire does to the warlock is virtually negligible in a raid situation, where you might have multiple primary and secondary healers.&nbsp; Hellfire's DPS is more than enough to make sure aggro stays on the warlock.&nbsp;

Mage AoE is better.&nbsp; But it's not better enough to compensate for the warlock's superiority in every other area.&nbsp; Warlocks are just better than mages; they can solo more things and they bring more to the table in a group situation.&nbsp; This isn't a call to buff or nerf anything, but even those warlocks who recognize that their class isn't gimped seem to have trouble on this point.&nbsp; "We aren't as good as a mage" is an awfully baseless complaint.
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Only comments I have are that I've heard fire protection potions do nothing to stop Hellfire damage, but I could be wrong about it. It's only hearsay.

The other comment is that Mages have a one up on warlocks when it comes to beasts. You can polymorph beasts but warlocks can do nothing to them. I just wanted to point that out, since it seemed to be missed. :)

Warlocks to me seem to be as good as mages, but in different ways. Each has their own uses and they tend to be slightly better than the other in those uses. Sure you can use a warlock for AoE, but they aren't as good. Likewise, it seems that warlocks might have an upper hand in cc as you put it, but that doesn't mean mages can't do it. It's all a tradeoff.

I personally don't think the class is all that gimped. There are a few major points that need to be addressed, as in soul shards (comparable spells that don't require reagents suddenly need reagents for warlocks, time to farm them, space they take), the 8-debuff limit, and the myriad of bugs that are around concerning things such as talents not working, spells not working correctly, and pet pathing.

[Drasca]

Edit: Whew.&nbsp; It has been a long time since I've used it.&nbsp; It's only 100 mana (which isn't much at all when you are higher level, but at level 20 when I got it, it was expensive), 30 second cooldown after casting.&nbsp; Yes, it lasts 10 minutes, but it breaks after it absorbs one fear effect.
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Whew. At least its absorbed... but on top of everything else, its a slap in the face. It might as well be immunity to fear. Any fear after the 2nd is going to be resist or immune.

Add that to the fact all priests get shadow resistence spell... say goodbye to fear having any tangible use.

Fighting priests absoltuely depends on having the felhunter out to eat their buffs, fear + drain mana spam, and only if we're not already Psychic screamed / Mind flayed / mana burned / dotted / and mind blasted to hell.

Warlock signature features: Fear, DoTs and Debuffs, are outclassed by everyone else =/ Watered down this and that... boo. Doublemint nerf.

[Rinnhart]

Cool, I'm glad someone likes it. :)

*tear*

It doesn't even match the set it's from.

Edit: here is a picture of a warlock on the test server with full dreadmist and a new epic warlock weapon.

Edit2: I hadn't seen the lightforge helm yet, but I must admit that I do like it!
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Just picked up Doom 3 (yeah, old news, bite me). Been playing it in the dark.

Thanks for the laugh, I might be able to sleep now.

[Rinnhart]

I do not mean to outright flame, but I'm going to attack that post as best I can at half past midnight.

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.&nbsp; There are plenty of issues with various talents and various effects.&nbsp; I can only really point you to Creshinnibon's post, The post of Warlock issues and bugs to see those problems.&nbsp; 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.

Will read.

Now, let me get to how Warlocks are negatively balanced.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;

The Warlock, like the Hunter, is a pet class.&nbsp; The only pet that the Warlock has that does not require a reagent is the Imp.&nbsp; Now, if we look at the two classes we can see how the two operate.&nbsp; The Warlock must expent mana, time, and, unless summoning an imp, soul shards to bring their pet to them.&nbsp; A Hunter, simply after training a pet, uses a power to call the pet instantly without the use of mana.&nbsp; 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).&nbsp; Now, when a Hunter or a Warlock board a flier at friendly city, both lose the pet.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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,&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Now, lets have the Warlock and Hunter both mount and take off.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The Warlock on the other hand, has to resummon the pet costing again, time, mana, and possibly a soul shard.&nbsp; The only area where the Warlock wins out over the Hunter is when the pets die.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.

So, essentially, warlocks don't like that Hunters can simply call their pets whenever they "poof" without dying, and they cannot.

Wow.

Well, hunters can't change pets without returning to town, and their pets do jack in a group besides maybe die on the boss and contribute a little dps.

Imp, please, I've developed a sudden allergy to cats.

Soul shards- I'll get to those later.

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).&nbsp; These two spells most closely mimic the Mage spells Fire Blast (normal spell) and Pyroblast (talent).&nbsp; 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).&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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).&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Now if we look further at these two spells, Soul Fire does 792 damage on average for 335 (2.36 Damage per mana)&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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).&nbsp; So, again, Blizzard has negatively balance the Warlock when it comes to these spells.

Can you clarify this entire arguement? I don't see what the issue is. You seem to be trying to argue that the soulshard component is excessive given that the spell is still "worse" than similar mage skills. The entire Pyroblast bit just seems to be rationalization for a talent/non talent skill comparison.

Some other Warlocks would say that our stones also constitute a negative imbalance, but I'm not sure I would agree.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The Soulstone acts just like the Shaman and Paladin spells in preventing a wipe and those also require reagents to use.&nbsp; 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.

A request; stop looking at a soulshard as a punishment and view it as an additional "resource" that needs to be attended to. While I admit shards can be a pain in the ass, at times, they aren't exactly difficult to acquire, and that's all this bitching about shards is, whining that they make the class more difficult on some level than other classes.

They are an incredibly minor impediment and give the class an additional dimension. What's the problem?

No, really, I'd love to be told what the issue is.

Rogues are limited by energy, warriors have to generate rage. Maybe we should get rid of those, too, afterall, none of the other classes have to deal with those limitations. They're obviously being used to "negatively balance" rogues and warriors and prevent them from being all that they could be.

Screw it, let's just pile some plate armor on a priest, hand him an axe and a gun, load up a few sapper charges and elixirs, and forget about the concept of class variation.

My Priest could so beat up your Priest.

The last, and most problematic area for the Warlock due to the classes structure, is the 8 debuff limit.&nbsp; The Warlock is the debuffing class and it uses things like Damage over Time (DoT) and Curses (for varying weakening effects).&nbsp; Now, while this limit doesn't hamper us in solo play, it very easily hampers us in party play.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; This means that Warlocks basically turn into one and two trick ponies in the end game party play.&nbsp; We either cast Curse of Elements and follow up with Immolation and Conflagration or we cast Curse of Shadow and spam Shadowbolts.&nbsp; Our other spells are mostly useless due to the 8 debuff limit.&nbsp; Blizzard says they are working to address the 8 debuff limit, but have stated nothing beyond that they are looking at it.

While the debuff limit is an honest issue that deserves attention... you're kidding me with the "we become one or two trick ponies in parties" bit, right? Warlocks don't actually whine about that, right?

:blink:

Yeah, that's everyone. Many individuals to form a greater whole by contributing fractions of their potential. Welcome to the club. There's punch and snacks on the table to your right, your hazing begins at a quarter past the hour. We'll be in the back cleaning hockeysticks until then. Just shout if you need anything.

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.&nbsp; This is what agrevates the Warlock community the most.&nbsp; We have continued to put up constructive post after constructive post on what the problem is, but nothing ever seems to get done.

Weren't you guys chastised for abusing your class board admin?