I'm concerned

[Machina]

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=107651982&sid=1

Could some of the pro's comment on this? That post has me doubting my future as a warlock.

[Derekian]

and I'm concerned that Blizzard will actually listen to the suggestion of that guy.....

[Machina]

Me too but something has to be done. I mean an aff lock shouldnt be outperformed by a shadow priest becuase what the hell is a lock supposed to be around for then? Good old 1 lock per raid for CoE again.

[Rebel]

yeh funny how he forgets to mention that the pet will be slowing spell casting down a shit load, along with all the locks fear casting...

[Ludicrouse]

Did he forget the regular Soulfire crits for 6k????

Hell, ive had one hit me for 8k and i got instagibbed back into last week...

[Sligrun]

yep but don't hope a lock up anyway. prepare a shadow priest nerf I guess. Locks are already way too much overpowered regarding PVP as all says. I loved the "remove curse of agony". saying it s useless is wrong, put those 4 dots on any melee and run and they will die, curse of agony is not the most powerfull. Now as he said in the post, 1 dot is crap it's the 4 dots combined who makes lock overpowered. I feel that it's more a "make lock imba powered with 1 button spamming" wish than anything else. All is a matter of skills and that's the wish of blizzard, make skilled player be better than the unskilled one and reduce the "I have the best weapon/armor so I pwn you whatever skill you have"

And the lock compares it to only half 1 class. the shadow priest. they will still be better dot makers than every other dot capable classes including disc/holy priests whatever their talent tree is.

I'm not lock specialist but I feel this post doesn't make the point. I m quite sure blizzard won't take care of it either, all rogues ask blizzard why they are the only class with the ultimate new skill at 66 (cloak of shadow) when all other have it at 62 or 64 and they don't listen.

[Machina]

What about pve? Disregard his suggestions and look at his calculations for a second. Honestly, I dont wanna be outdotted as an aff lock by anyone in a raid situation. More dots = more dmg yes but also more renewing and casting of the same dots and more mana usage and in all fairness locks just dont look very attractive for raiding compared to other classes now. Rogues also suffer I believe.

The point was never about pvp so please leave that out of this discussion.

So far I've only seen pvp answers and they're all somewhat diluted tbh.

If you really do wanna discuss pvp, keep in mind that all dots for a full aff lock is as follows:

ua + immo + siphon + coa + corr <--> 1.5 + 2 + 1.5 (gc) + 1.5 (gc) + 1.5 (gc) = 8 secs if noone tried to stop you in any way. I'll take my own spelldmg into consideration here (400 shadow dmg) which would be about 700 dmg when you apply the last dot.. This is ofc with no lag between casts whatsoever. furthermore this build does not have any burst dmg and cannot crit for big numbers either.

[Ludicrouse]

The point was never about pvp so please leave that out of this discussion.

So far I've only seen pvp answers and they're all somewhat diluted tbh.


PvP is at least 50% of World Of Warcraft, your on a PvP server, your in a game which is so balanced between PvE and PvP you cannot buff or nerf a class in one part that it doesnt make the other overpowered or underpowered.

Buff Lock damage in PvE and you buff it in PvP too and they become (more) overpowered.

Nerf it and the opposite happens.


You wanna discuss Lock damage? Then you do it with both PvP and PvE in mind cuz you cant have it just one way.

[Machina]

PvP is at least 50% of World Of Warcraft, your on a PvP server, your in a game which is so balanced between PvE and PvP you cannot buff or nerf a class in one part that it doesnt make the other overpowered or underpowered.

Buff Lock damage in PvE and you buff it in PvP too and they become (more) overpowered.

Nerf it and the opposite happens.


You wanna discuss Lock damage? Then you do it with both PvP and PvE in mind cuz you cant have it just one way.

Locks arent overpowered anymore than shadow priests are.. Or hunters. Or rogues/warriors against a lock is. Its all about context.. It's also unfair to speak of sick pets, massive dots and huge crits in the same sentence as you should know that all this is spec dependant.

And no, Soulfire does not regularly crit for 6k. with 340 spelldmg, a full destro build and a beserker buff it crits for 3.5k. To do a 6 k soulfire crit even with a beserker buff in the current soulfire form (which gets nerfed) you still need about 1200 spelldmg not to mention that locks usually have 20% critchance at the very best (mostly lower). Regular crits is a mage thing.

And all lock pets have an attackspeed of 2.0

And all dots have global cooldown or casttime so you cant just load up 9 dots in a second.

Honestly guys, this is troll behaviour.

[Ludicrouse]

Sorry m8, but i have seen faaarr too many Soulfire crits for about 6k and quite a few for 8k in the past few weeks.

Right now Warlocks have got it sweet, new pet which is as handy as a Hunter's(Gotta love the Felguard charge!). Soulfire is even nastier now. Stacked DoT's are so lethal so quickly its insane(If i dont Silence shot in the first second im loaded with CoA and dead a few secs later).

Having played Skull's Warlock and as im currently levelling my brothers Shadow Priest to level 60 i know for a fact that Warlocks have it alot better than the Priests.

Tbh, this all stinks of a case of Oliver, "Please Sir, May i have some more?"

[Ludicrouse]

And all lock pets have an attackspeed of 2.0


Hunters are soon having their Pet Attack speeds brought into line with Warlocks.

[Machina]

I'm not saying we have it hard but I posted a concern about pve viability and instantly I get "your overpowered in pvp". Seriously, thats just too much hate. I have a 60 priest of my own and at least before the patch, they were way easier than warlocks to play (Shadow). (Havent played it for a while since its a nelf).

And I think I have yet to actually be shot by a soulfire.

[Machina]

Hunters are soon having their Pet Attack speeds brought into line with Warlocks.

Yes, but it was just a reply to the "pets interrupt loads" comment. Yes, they do.. Every 2 seconds to be exact.

[Derekian]

Or warriors against a lock is
riiight....

[Machina]

Warrior gets a charge in bg's and your very quickly screwed. I'm not talking duels here but real pvp. Again, I'm not claiming that being a lock is hard in any way but that's not the same as that we're just fine.

An no, I don't lose to all warriors but i do die every once in a while you know.

And you dont have to get all agressive just because a warlock has a concern.

Corruption (Rank 7)
340 Mana 30 yd range
2 sec cast
Corrupts the target, causing 822 Shadow damage over 18 sec.
Source: Book, Drop

Is it really fair that this spell doesnt even scale 100% with gear as opposed to fx swp?

Also it seems that the more spelldmg you have, the worse scaling the spells get.

[Derekian]

yes.......

a locks dots already do shitloads of dmg...and even if you dont wanna look it from the PvP side you HAVE to because they can't change a spell only for PvE and leave it for PvP....it's a tad hard. So lets say they do give corruption 100% effect, what do we have then: a warlock that does even more dmg....even though atm a lock's dots can pretty much kill you unless you get dispelled...which you don't since most priests are specced shadow and they fail to notice that they can use Dispell in shadow form.....

I do get aggressive because warlocks are one of the most overpowered classes for a fair amount of time now so no I don't think you should be asking for anything

[Sligrun]

I completely agree with you machina about PVE damage who are today crap. Yes they should get a up for them to be more useful in raids. Unfortunately as you certainly know and as other said, Blizzard is focusing on PVP aspects of the game (my pvp build makes more damage than a PVE combat build in instances nowadays) so they won't up the lock dots for PVE actually, maybe later. I think we should wait for another new aspect to really have the best idea : the resilience. If they make good calculations about it than they can take this suggestion in care cause upping dots tick for PVE damage will be countered by the resilience factor in PVP. Nowaday locks can't receive up for PVE as they use the same gear to make a 4 k crit on a mob than on a player and no resistances are set against that (no PVP resistance and a full shadow res gear mean you re making a lvl 35 char damage). I know locks build make not all getting 4 or 6 k crit on soulfire but if they can't do that they make 450 corruption tick and same for dots other giving a life time less than 10s to every ranged opponent, or they have a pet powerfull enough to kill you on their own.

I think what you can remember of that is today PVE specification is in background in blizzard plan, take skills for TBC and you ll see. rogue with cloak of shadow (limited use in PVE) and evasion 2 (useless in PVE), warrior with spell reflection (tried it the boss is immune to his self magical damage and has a cast time so short it s nearly impossible to activate it in time) tanking capabilities not improved, locks doing crappy damage in PVE with higher rank upping damage symbolicly, same for mages btw, crowd control nerfed in new instances like naxx (hunter trap, mage sheep useless for most of mobs, breaks more often than ever when they work). And even shadow priest in TBC are not so useful in raid, you can't heal your group enough with your shadow damage with a shadow priest (since coilfang it's not enough, hellfire works with) and they tend to take way much more aggro as the warrior aggro has not been upped. a group of 5 with a shadow priest and a shaman healing specced will not be able to let group alive at most of lvl 66+ bosses.

Now I agree on 1 of the original post suggestion, they should reduce the mana cost of your spell I agree. But to that Blizzard has just to answer "what for ? you have life tap you have unlimited mana with". For the other points nothing will change in the near future I guess.

[Machina]

I currently have 396 shadow dmg.

Corruption: 1556 over 18 secs
Coa: 1743 over 24 sec
Siphon Life: 916 over 30 secs
Immolate: 342 initial dmg, 718 over 15 seconds.

it would take a minimum of 6 seconds to get these off provided im free to stand still and do this uninterrupted (gotta stand still during immolate) and when the final dot is applied, I've done in the vicinity of 700 dmg. 700/6 = 116 dps for the first 6 seconds if my opponent is allowing me to do this without fighting back.

Here is my current build:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/warlock/talents.html?2502220512231115012000030000000000000 000000505000010000000000000

I could improve the dot dmg 5% at the cost of burst (bane/shadowburn)

Also keep in mind that these are the unnerfed dots. 120% corr and 160% coa.

I dont care much for the suggestions in that thread btw. I just feel its unfair that they not only nerf the dots after buffing them, they nerf them below what they were originally I.E. below 100%

Edit: a general concensus among warlocks is that this will not affect pvp much while it will screw us in pve. Just so you know.

[Sligrun]

if it s true it s unfair cause it s the exact opsosite way all want locks to go

[Tapja]

The picture painted is a lot blacker than the reality.

[Saltydog]

I've seen lev 5 boars outside orgrimmar eat locks nowadays

[Machina]

The picture painted is a lot blacker than the reality.

Sounds good. Also, I'd aprecciate less trolling and more info since my question seemed to disappear somewhere along the way. It's just a bit disappointing to have a pve concern polluted by your own guildies with the same shit that floods the lock forums. I think most warlocks know what everyone else thinks.

[Saltydog]

Blizzard nerfs and buffs contineously in classes after each big patch with a revamped talent tree for nearly all in between.

If locks get nerfed hard COMPARED to other classes it will change again by either nerfing the others or buffing the locks again. It has always been that way. Blizzard is abit slow with the changes yes, but they will get there (single person mage buffs anyone?)

The only class that suffered from being left out in the past were rogues. Upto the point where a warrior would out dps them in PVE. Even druids got retalented (still whining before 41 talent trees).

So lets sit tight and wait for what will happen.

Blizz won't allow a hybrid to perform better then a pure class in the pure class's job I'm sure.

[Machina]

Probably not.. Guess it wont hurt me that much since im going sm/ruin 2.0 for lvl 70. Or incinerate destru build :)

[Tapja]

Sounds good. Also, I'd aprecciate less trolling and more info since my question seemed to disappear somewhere along the way. It's just a bit disappointing to have a pve concern polluted by your own guildies with the same shit that floods the lock forums. I think most warlocks know what everyone else thinks.

Well, let's put it this way: I would be worried if the 2 spells mainly mention in the thread were the full makeup of lock dps. However, they are not, not even remotely. Since the shortest DoT's have a 18 second cycle and you spend 6 seconds on appling them that leaves you 12 seconds to case other stuff (like, 4 shadowbolts if untalented, almost 5 with Bane).
Not going to mention that you will have the Perpetum Mobile effect with Drain Life (its life restoring powers are said to be quite amazing in BC), Life Tap and Dark Pact and pretty much never run out of mana (think Ramm will agree with me on this) :).

[Sligrun]

Sounds good. Also, I'd aprecciate less trolling and more info since my question seemed to disappear somewhere along the way. It's just a bit disappointing to have a pve concern polluted by your own guildies with the same shit that floods the lock forums. I think most warlocks know what everyone else thinks.

you want to have a comment on PVE about that ? ok here is my comment. Where is it written that lock should always be first on dps ? you consider priests should only do healing and mage water while rogue wait for a rez then ? well I m happy blizz took care of the boring aspect a priest can have. Play a healing class and you may change your mind about damage. I ve played for 1 year and made almost as much damage as you in 1 instance with my priest in 1 year. Now you won't see any serious raid with 5 shadow priest no ? Bah even if you loose the first place you still do way enough damage and your class is still usefull as the other. ask yourself the question what is the most entertaining ? making a lot of small dps and having a lot of things to do or just spamm 2 keys every 35 seconds and look at the huge number going out of the head of the mob. you have the mana aspect to manage too, where is the fun of spamming bolts and dots and gaining back more mana you spend without any risk of getting oom. You can ask yourself why blizz made that too. I can give you a clue. why can certains class solo a same level elite mob when other have no chance against a -4-5 lvl elite one. I'm quite sure Blizz asked himself this question. And unfortunately instead of upping every one they decided to nerf the lock to make the elite really an elite.

Now if you consider this post as trolling there is nothing to do for you. Being insulted by people when trying to help them piss me so much. I haven't seen here comments like L2P noob or locks are cheated. but more some axplanation of the phenomen. If you want another type of answer, give more detail of what you need, posting a link on a post with already 20 answer and a page of calculation and just a linbe syaing any comment ? is not what I call a precise answer

[Machina]

Now this wasnt about you being a troll Slig. More the fact that I had a question and got several "warlocks are overpowered" responses about 6-8 k soulfires and interrupting pets which had nothing to do with the question. I wanted theorycrafters or perhaps beta players to give some info on the lvl 70 situation.
This was due to certain ppl on our lock forums raising doubt as to wether or not there was any point in bringing locks to a raid at 70 or just the 1 CoE lock that it was before the recent patch.
I think its quite fine that priests can do something besides healing, especially since I have a priest of my own.
Sry if you regarded this as a personal insult which it was not intended to be.

[Saltydog]

I completely agree with you machina about PVE damage who are today crap. Yes they should get a up for them to be more useful in raids. Unfortunately as you certainly know and as other said, Blizzard is focusing on PVP aspects of the game (my pvp build makes more damage than a PVE combat build in instances nowadays) so they won't up the lock dots for PVE actually, maybe later. I think we should wait for another new aspect to really have the best idea : the resilience. If they make good calculations about it than they can take this suggestion in care cause upping dots tick for PVE damage will be countered by the resilience factor in PVP. Nowaday locks can't receive up for PVE as they use the same gear to make a 4 k crit on a mob than on a player and no resistances are set against that (no PVP resistance and a full shadow res gear mean you re making a lvl 35 char damage). I know locks build make not all getting 4 or 6 k crit on soulfire but if they can't do that they make 450 corruption tick and same for dots other giving a life time less than 10s to every ranged opponent, or they have a pet powerfull enough to kill you on their own.

This is what you were looking for then. Seems to sayt it all.

Machina with the numbers you gave for a 8 second cast cycle. Thats 4.5Kish DoT damage. In PVE if your not the target thats sick damage on its own since shadow bolts aren't even added. If you are the target and your soloing, add a fear to get just around 10 seconds for DoT damage only (no pets, no shadow bolts nothing). I think locks are going to stay a high damage class.

[Machina]

The current dmg is absolutely top notch no doubt and pve isnt a problem in any way (yes, pvp is also good).
its just that if the nerfs are as ptr ppl claim, CoA and Corr will actually do less dmg than they did before the talent patch and thats a bit too harsh in my opinion. They could at least just have put the scaling back to what it was before in that case. I mean they buffed it for a reason to begin with.

[Dojun]

Locks will always be needed for the curse of shadows/elemental as mentioned, and for stones. You might not always be needed for what you want the most but needed you will be.

[Sligrun]

the best advice we could have is giutz's one, he raised his lock up to 70 and as he said to me about it, he was thinking it the lock was still a very nice and entertaining class to play. In TBC you will have a good + dmg gear easy to get. Even green items have + damage (upfen was having +600 dmg and +1000 healing gear at 70) so nerfed the pure damage factor from those 2 dots will be very fast compensated by the gear you ll get. Another aspect to take care of is the + damage calculation. at lvl 70 your actual rank will have someting like + 60% item damage bonus (ie +350 from a +600 dmg set). with the new skill even if it's not a high up for the new rank you will get back the +600 dmg from your gear and you ll see immediately a big improvement. I think for now yes you can be disappointed by the nerfed because you are 60. Don't forget nowadays you re playing a lvl 60 with lvl 70 rules. it s a nerfed for now, not sure it will be the same at 70

[Machina]

True true! no reason to take the sorrow in advance in any case. And if all else fails, Destruction looks very good with incinerate. Especially if a shadow priest can deliver non stop VE :)

[Omniel]

machina locks will also be needed in PVE because blizzard is making raid-content based upon classes (like u need hunters for tranqing) so that every class will be needed. They did that because there was alot of bitching that high-end-naxx guilds (im talking about Death and Taxes for example) only used 1-2 locks and a few hunters in their raids because mages and rogues did more dps.

Combine this with the fact that RL had a history of being the Champion of Fairness, every class will be getting about the same number of raidspots (and only the most elitest-hardcore guilds will do otherwise). And add the fact that in our current situation, wich is deemed by many that warlocks suck in pve, jega and ramm are often in the top3-spots of our damage-meters.

BTW; for theorycrafting purposes did u include the synergies locks can profit off from shadowpriests? u might wanna do that, since its a decent increase to a lock's DPS in PVE.

[Machina]

So far, there doesnt seem to be anything to be concerned about. My warlock toon performs lovely (depending on encounter ofc^^ Gief mobs with vast amounts of health plx)

[Mero]

This guy's theorycraft bout the warlock does not include misery and shadow weaving, yet the priest one has it.
Anyhow, my point is that i don't really care )) We're talking bout SW:P and Corr+Siphon, yet there are other dots, not to mention yer allways free to respecc.
Guess high damage output of SWP compensates shitty scaling of priest's main nuke, mind flay.
Plus, spriest "have" (means uses) only 1 school of magic, shadow that is. Correct me if im wrong, but smite and holy fire are pretty useless without being specced for it or dmg multipliers.
And yes, as slig pointed before: I rather do less dmg but have amazing utility, then spam 2-3 buttons and see BIG KREETZ N DMG. That's why i pick lock, not mage nor rogue. And spriest is way too boring imho, pvp wise that is

But I just loved idea of selectible curses, that would be SO fucking great