Post by Infleto
My Warlocks resignation,
I have played my lock for about ½ of a year. I still do not do not enjoy pvp. Hunter, Mages, and shamans are just better Atm.
Even on the PTR with 900 resilience ( 9.5 % damage reduction on no crits and 20 % on crits) I do not live long enough
Warlocks have many disadvantages in PvP. Poor cc, ineffective HP and, low kiting ability are the main causes for meager performance in the arena and 1 vs. 1 situations.
Warlocks play PvP in many of the same ways other casters do. In that, casters try to stay away form incoming damage wile putting out higher damage form a far. When fighting melee, caster must either kite or cc wile doing damage. When fighting other casters, a caster must prevent the other caster from being able to do more damage than they can through the use of silences, cc and, Los.
Warlocks have a few spec for pvping each with its own playing stile,
Destro – Burst with cc
Aff. – Dots with self heals
Deep Demo – Survivability with an I win button
SL / Felgaurd – Survivability with weak self heals
Let us look first at the most popular spec, Destro.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#IZbG0IkhbZVf0qrcuAoVcot:qjz0VzDestro is favored do to its high burst and added cc.
Many times, the Succubus is used as the pet of choice in order to counter many other class’s ability to incapacitate and burst a warlock. The trouble with this is Seduce shares DR with fear. So if a melee class attacks a Destro warlock, and the lock uses seduce to counter their burst; the lock weakens the cc he needs to set up his burst later.
In order to put out burst, Destro locks must stand still and cast Immo or be close enough wile facing there attacker to cast ShadowFlame. This conflicts with a caster objective to kite melee classes and makes for bad kiting.
Do to Destro’s poor initial kiting ability; Destro must cc its target first with DC / Shadowfury then cast fear. After cc’ing, the lock can set up his burst with Immo > Conflag > CB. This cc > fear + burst can only be done one more time if seduce was used to counter a attack earlier. Destro can put out high burst if left alone to cast, but if not, Fear is how you get your cast time.
Trinketing the first fear will stop most of a locks burst this means every class with a trinket is a counter class to Destro warlocks. Also, the use of any fear / charm immunity abilities will counter all of a Destro locks burst as well as any protection seduce gives them.
After the first attempt at burst, a lock can kite the melee with the glyph of ShadowFlame + Demonic circle. Shadow flame will slow the melee and allow for more burst. This means blowing 2 CDs for ~ 4sec to 6sec of kiting or casting. Still Many classes can counter this move (i.e. range cc, DG, removing slow) stopping a lock's ability to cast or kite.
Now the lock has one last cc CD either Shadowfury or DC. The lock may be able burst down the target if a fear can be cast after DC or Shadowfury. Fear will only last 3sec at this point in the fight, do to DR, giving little cast time. This will not work at all if fear / charm immunity has been gained.
Destro Vs caster works much better. Shadowfury, DC, and Seduce are used to stop casting / healing. If a warlock can cc + fear > burst, the fight will swing in the locks favor. Yet, Destro needs to cc in order to cast when it is 1v1. It leaves his long castings open to silences if the target is not cc’ed. The fight is lost if a lock dose not get the time to cast before he runs out of CDs. Also, Immo can be dispelled which will stop Destro’s burst. CoT works to slow it the target’s casting but the loss of CoE.
Aff, locks do not have it any better.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Idx0rurhkVAMIkt0GMhkhb:pjVc0VThe only anti melee / kiting abilities that Aff has is CoEx, glyph of ShadowFlame, DC, improve fear, HoT (fear), and Demonic circle.
Yes that is a lot of anti melee / kiting abilities, But 2 or 3 must be chained together to get the same effectiveness as other classes’ cc. Locks have to use 3 GCD to do what others can in one GCD.
When using kiting abilities Corr is the only offensive spell that can be use on the run. Haunt and UA’s cast time is not that long but in order to kill any thing both need to be cast 2 or 3 times, this adds up to ~ 6.5sec of casting time. (More than enough to get locked out)
Aff's self heals can be strong but can not be used on damand. When someone is beating on you, casting haunt and then runing for 8 sec is not he best way to heal your self. Mostly the heals happen when you are not getting attacked.
Aff has it worst when it comes to pets. The Felhunter helps with casters and the VW helps with melee. The catch is Melee is more of a counter class when you have your Felhunter out. Caster and healer are much harder when you have your VW out almost making them in to a counter class.
In AV Aff can get out a Doomgaurd with COD this makes them fun for me. I will hide and let him rip on targets as they try to find me. I can use Demo circle to relocate and restart the hide and go seek game. Yet that is all it is a hid and go seek game.
I have only speced the other just to try them out of frustration.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Ibx0bZbGbhkAdicsguhoVc:pjoz0V Deep Demo can rip noobies apart. But an good player will just wait out Met then kill the much weaker lock.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#Idx0rurhkVZ0GbhkAdicsRz:opjcV0SL / Felgaurd works well to stay a live longer than the normal 4 to 5 hits form melee but it is not a game changer. You will still die in the end.
So that is it,
I am resigning my warlock.