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Q u o t e:
We don't like how much damage rogues can do while a target is stunned. It prevents us from being able to balance stuns as needed as an offensive ability and it keeps us from being able to adjust rogues in other ways. We're trying to move PvP more into a place where you do X and someone counters with Y, and the "stunlock" strategy just seemed too simple yet effective. Honestly, if the classes with stuns didn't also have massive crits, it probably would not have been as much of a problem.

We don't think fear needs a major change at this time. We dropped Warlock and Shadow Priest PvP effectiveness in other ways, as I am sure they will be more than happy to explain to you. If we decide to make Fear break on damage right away then we would need to coordinate that with changes to Warlock and Shadow Priest survivability. They are a ranged class balanced around not taking much melee damage (because the target can't fight back). Locks and priests are by and large ranged classes.

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This version makes just as much sense, if not more, than the original. I lol'd. :)

not gonna lie, i'd rather read most of the shaman posts than these ones.... jesus christ

fear needed a nerf and that fact has nothing to do with stuns, so any post about stuns in this thread is pretty much terrible.

this was a poor way to change it though, it should break on 20% or any direct damage, or maybe even any non warlock damage if they want to nerf dk lock pally really hard. warlocks are not the ones doing too much damage to people in fears, fear barely makes up for our weak offensive capabilities.

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Q u o t e:


Seriously? So being stunlocked to death is fine, but other ways of being CCed to death are overpowered? Regardless of the nerfs to fear/seduce since inception, which make it very very hard to do to begin with.

I find your comments surprising. It's been a long, long time since I was able to chain-fear/seduce anyone to death, but every time I step into BGs or Wintergrasp, the instant a rogue or warrior looks at me, I'm dead. I'm now too embarrassed to even try BGs anymore with the intent of winning, I spend most of my time in the graveyard. How is stunlock NOT overpowered, if fear-chaining is?

3.x nerfed warlock survivability, as intended, every patch before that has nerfed some aspect of warlock CC, and now 3.1 will nerf our damage. I'm feeling a little bitter, which may come through in this, but the answers always seem to be the same: "yes it's a nerf now, but good stuff is coming in <next patch>." then next patch comes, and we get nerfed again.

Getting long, sorry, just trying to figure out what you want warlocks to be like.

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Well, you see, stunlocking takes a lot of skill and isn't just pushing a single button.

Rogues have to work very hard to fake cast their stuns so they don't get kicked and have their physical school locked out. They aren't some all instant, no skill, 100-0 class.

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Q u o t e:
We don't like how much damage dots can do while a target is feared. It prevents us from being able to balance fear as needed as a defensive ability and it keeps us from being able to adjust locks or priests in other ways. We're trying to move PvP more into a place where you do X and someone counters with Y, and the "dot and fear" strategy just seemed too simple yet effective. Honestly, if the classes with fears didn't also have strong dots, it probably would not have been as much of a problem.

We don't think stuns needs a major change at this time. We dropped rogue PvP effectiveness in other ways, as I am sure they will be more than happy to explain to you. If we decide to make stuns break on damage right away then we would need to coordinate that with changes to rogue survivability. They are a melee class balanced around not taking much melee damage (because the target can't fight back). Locks and priests are by and large ranged classes.

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I'm sure this has been covered before, and maybe you're planning to give Warlocks some method of doing damage and surviving other than being forced to use Fear offensively, but just incase, here goes:

The way the game is set up, DPS in arenas have to both deal damage and avoid it or mitigate it at the same time. Each class accomplishes this in a different way.. a Mage keeps the people out of range while dealing mainly with instant casts, or frost nova / stunning them to get a cast time spell off (blink and iceblock serve as a method of surviving should someone get too close). A Rogue uses a combination of avoiding damage by dodging it and keeping the target controlled with stuns. A Warrior or Death Knight survives by simply mitigating the damage while attempting to deal as much as they can themselves.

A Warlock's survival comes from a variety of methods. We are supposed to have a combination of kiting, fearing, and tanking damage. We tank damage decently well for a clothy which almost makes up for the lack of a "can't touch me" ability. Demonic Portal is our ability to get distance on someone, but Fear is our only hope of staying at a distance.

A Mage uses Frost Nova or stuns the target to allow a window to cast a spell, while using snares and instant casts to keep distance once the frost nova / stun breaks; a Warlock uses Fear. But with fear breaking on almost any damage now, we'll be lucky to even get a Haunt up before it's broken. Basically we will have no way of dealing damage AND surviving at the same time.. we'll have to choose one or the other, and a DPS class must be capable of both. We need a damage delivery system to allow us to continue to be mobile to avoid damage, while still being capable of dishing it out.

Another thing that needs to be looked at: If fear is being turned into a defensive CC, then by far it is going to be the worst defensive CC in the game as it has more counters than any other CC type spell in the game. With no method of being able to gain distance then create a window to cast a spell (I.E. frost nova + blink + cast time spell), fear is one of the most difficult CCs to land as well.

TL;DR Warlocks are difficult to balance with a Bread and Butter spell like fear.. turning it into just a "Bread" spell is great, but I think I speak for the entire Warlock community when I say that we're worried about not getting any "Butter" in this patch to compensate.. and we don't want to be worthless for 6-8 months while praying for some kind of help.

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Q u o t e:


Well, you see, stunlocking takes a lot of skill and isn't just pushing a single button.

Rogues have to work very hard to fake cast their stuns so they don't get kicked and have their physical school locked out. They aren't some all instant, no skill, 100-0 class.

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This is true, with the exception of the first month or so of wrath where the burst was just way out of line lol, stunlocking is not as easy as everyone thinks.

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Q u o t e:
not gonna lie, i'd rather read most of the shaman posts than these ones.... jesus christ

fear needed a nerf and that fact has nothing to do with stuns, so any post about stuns in this thread is pretty much terrible.

this was a poor way to change it though, it should break on 20% or any direct damage, or maybe even any non warlock damage if they want to nerf dk lock pally really hard. warlocks are not the ones doing too much damage to people in fears, fear barely makes up for our weak offensive capabilities.

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Fear has a 20% PvP dam cap at present.
Reduced to 10% on the Ptr if I'm not mistaken.

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Q u o t e:
We don't like how much damage dots can do while a target is feared.

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So what your saying is bursted to death during a single stun is more acceptable then slow damage over time?

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Q u o t e:
We don't think stuns needs a major change at this time.

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Seriously does anyone on your dev team even play a warlock competitively in arenas?

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Q u o t e:
If we decide to make stuns break on damage right away then we would need to coordinate that with changes to rogue survivability. They are a melee class balanced around not taking much melee damage (because the target can't fight back). Locks and priests are by and large ranged classes.

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So wheres the warlock compensation? Do you even realize how much you just contradicted yourself? A warlock has far less survivability then a rogue and fear is the only melee defense the class even has. It's also the only way a warlock CAN DO damage before being bursted to death. You gave absolutely no compensation whatsover after ripping away the only defense mechanic warlocks had. The class cant even dps effectively with melee on them. GC your dev team needs to actually try playing a warlock in arenas so you can see for yourself, b/c most of the changes you've made to the class have been poorly thought out without any thought to the consequences of your actions.

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Q u o t e:


Well, you see, stunlocking takes a lot of skill and isn't just pushing a single button.

Rogues have to work very hard to fake cast their stuns so they don't get kicked and have their physical school locked out. They aren't some all instant, no skill, 100-0 class.

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stunlock takes a very minimal amount of skill, if it requires anything thats of significance its timing, thats all, my combat sword rogue never had a problem pulling it off, and with improved kick i could 'stunlock' a caster even further then i could some melee (melee usually survived it, clothies never had much of a chance)

I think they assume that all ranged classes can kite. When it just isnt the case. Warlocks can spec for a 30% snare, that can be dispelled by three classes and can teleport within 40 yards to remove a snare every thirty seconds..

As most snares are 70% AND spammable, and most melee have 'gap closing abilities' such as Intercept or Death Grip - this isnt enough to kite at all. Fear was the main spell we used to create distance and now we have to choose between kiting or doing any damage whatsoever

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Q u o t e:


stunlock takes a very minimal amount of skill, if it requires anything thats of significance its timing, thats all, my combat sword rogue never had a problem pulling it off, and with improved kick i could 'stunlock' a caster even further then i could some melee (melee usually survived it, clothies never had much of a chance)

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/facepalm

missing sarcasm of this level must be difficult.

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Q u o t e:


Fear has a 20% PvP dam cap at present.
Reduced to 10% on the Ptr if I'm not mistaken.

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er... i know

i'm saying the change should have been to 20% or any direct damage, or 20% or any non warlock damage, rather than 10% damage

Is this thread even worth it? Someone said playing a bg lock even with resilence is like hammering a square peg in a round hole. Well that about sums it up. The devs have already spoken... you know where this is going to lead.

1) Its their game and we have no say in it.

2) They do listen but they know better

3) They make changes even when they think its good for the game.... even when 95 percent of the community is up in arms about it. On top you get glib and sarcy answers regarding the beloved rogue class and other melee classes getting "aura mastery.


Quit while ya ahead locks. Try out destro or .. well - Fill in the blanks

Changes like these remind me how much I hate pvp.

So right now you will have
1) a squishy class with the hp near a mage
2) no defense abilities
3) no cc even worth putting on a cast bar
4) no OMGWTF AHH SAVE MEEEEEEEE buttons

and nerf them

yay

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Q u o t e:

What we would find more convincing are numbers showing that dots are not a major contribution of warlock or priest damage in an Arena.

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speechless, A dot spec not doing more damage with dots? This isn't about you nerfing fear anymore we want to know if we will get rebalancing for this change before 3.1 hit.

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Q u o t e:
Second, there are a jillion threads on the fear nerf right now, and many of them have replies from other players essentially saying "Good, I'm glad it's nerfed because suffering dots while feared was really debilitating." So I would disagree a little bit that it wasn't a community concern.

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i know you were just using this as an example and you know this, but lots of things are debilitating... the question is whether they are too debilitating.

is warlock only damage done inside fears too strong, or is it only when couple with a teammates damage that it becomes ridiculous? i agree a fear nerf was needed because of the latter, but this nerf ruins warlocks when it's only the warlock doing damage as well.... if it were made to break on direct damage or any teammates damage, with an at least reasonable damage cap (15-20%), it would fix where there is a problem and ignore where there is not.

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Q u o t e:
A dot spec not doing more damage with dots?

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A DOT spec with no nukes save a three second cast time shadowbolt that crits for 150% damage - 4 or 5% of the time... along with no reliable way to get off three second cast times

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Q u o t e:

What we would find more convincing are numbers showing that dots are not a major contribution of warlock or priest damage in an Arena.

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I just dont know how to react to that statement, Maybe im misreading it.