This is why we can’t have nice things.
Seems you're new here! If you like this site and don't want to refresh it like a madman, consider subscribing to the RSS feed to get updates delivered to you. Learn more...
We Warlocks cannot have nice things for one reason only: everyone else is getting nice things. The recent train of Hunter and Mage changes has instilled jealousy in some members of the Warlock community, especially yours truly.
Allow me to clarify: when I say “nice things” I mean abilities that are both fun and practical (this means ignore all usefulness/damage efficiency/mana efficiency/etc.). Take for example, the following spells:
Ignoring all damage and mana components, these spells have one thing in common: a knockback effect. This angers me because Mages (our mortal enemies) and Shamans are getting something that I’ve wanted ever since the introduction of hardpacked snowballs some two years ago. I simply love knockback. No ability in the entire game is more entertaining to me than it (even on the receiving end).
Knockback is my favorite ability because of the sheer enjoyment I get from seeing players go flying—more specifically, the enjoyment I get from seeing players go flying off of ledges. As a result, knockback earns itself the title of “badass” in my book.
Take Alterac Valley for example: you’ve died too early into the battle and have been sent back to Dun Baldar. From here it will be very difficult for you to return to offense as the Horde is probably nearing your location. Therefore, you are forced to defend. The Horde offense usually bottlenecks at the bridge to Dun Baldar. Now, suppose you have one of the four spells above—do you see where I’m going with this?
World of Warcraft is not a job and is not a chore—it is a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Entertaining abilities such as knockback enrich the gaming experience for me; it allows me to look past the endless grinds and character development and have some good old-fashioned fun.
Why should Mages, Boomkins, and Elemental Shaman have all this fun? Surely, an ability so sinister should belong to the most sinister class of all, right? Here’s why:
Currently, we do not know a damned thing about Demonic Circle; that is, we only know the concept and have seen the tooltips. Along with this lack of knowledge, there is plenty of room for doubt. For example: Will it obey line of sight (if it does not, you can expect a nerf somewhere between patches 3.0 and 3.1)? Will the teleport function remove movement impairing effects? We do, however, know that Blizzard has resolved that Warlocks need some kind of melee defense. I do believe Horns explained his Demonic Circle gripes this better than I did.
Yet, there is a solution to both my need for fun and Warlocks’ need for escape: give us some knockback. I wouldn’t mind if they took Demonic Circle in exchange. I know this may be asking for much, but I do feel that Warlocks deserve some compensation for the past nerfs and current pet scaling issues. C’mon Blizzard, don’t you think we’ve earned it?
I know such a blessing will probably never happen. Yet, until this matter comes to some resolution, I’m just going to level a Death Knight so I can Death Grip Mages, Boomkins, and Shamans off edges with me. It’s nice to dream.
Related posts:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
I wish you the best of luck, and hope your “blink” doesn’t suffer from the same handicaps that a Mage’s does.
I love a little bit of QQ (and Warlock’s are our natural targets), but in reality I want us all to be happy…
May all your Hellfire Inspired dreams come true!
I haven’t seen any lock glyphs yet, maybe we’ll get some sort of knockback via that. And I agree, it’s the most fun spell mechanic ever; throwing people off of DB bridge in AV was one of the most fun moments I ever had in BGs. Maybe add a knockback effect to Death Coil instead horror?
I wouldn’t mind if rogues got knockback on Kick - maybe they’d think twice about using it then ;=)
Didn’t the Doomguard (or maybe it was an enslavable one) originally have knockback in an ‘Uppercut’ ability? Why not just add that to the Doomguard or the Infernal? Warlocks are less likely to get accessible knockback simply because they’ve already got three fear-like effects
I think these four abilities also have something else in common. All the knockback effects are going to get nerfed. Maybe they’ll get a knockdown effect instead, but I’d bet they don’t keep the knockback past beta.
Ivan, I do not think they’ll nerf the knockback effect of all of them. I do think, however, they will nerf the Thunderstorm knockback; it’s a tad ridiculous.
I think they’ll find that it turns out to be too overpowered for the “knockback off a ledge”, or “knockback into a group of mobs” type reasons. I also think it’s going to lead to numerous bugs that Blizzard will find to be too difficult to fix, and imbalance in battleground that weren’t designed with knocback effects in mind. (If you can knockback off the bridge in AV, horde may never win again, for example.)
I don’t have any inside info or anything though. I’m just guessing that, while cool, they’ll find this too problematic to keep in the game for long.
i guess us mages, deserve a lil fun to compensate for not having fears.
*cough*polymorph*cough*
*cough*isn’t instant*cough*
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=6215
i hate when locks split hairs over the diff between fear, howl of terror and such.
call it anything u like but locks have an instant fear.
im fully aware, but you do you have two fears, if you count deathcoil, not to mention the how of terror which i recall is instant? a lock can run around dotting, a mage truly is rooted in one spot, even a pom pyro mage is a one shot chump.
Howl of terror is only instant if you spec that way, and is vastly inferior to frost nova. Howl and Death Coil are on a long cooldown.
Don’t get me wrong, Mages need some PvP buffs… But “compensation for not having fears?” Come on…
i am merely responding to the “locks should get to have fun too” concept. frankly of all the classes, locks are hardly not designed to have fun
Warlocks are not designed to have fun? Damn, I think my main is bugged.
i was making a double negative.
Oh, I see it now, haha.
Howl of Terror is only instant-cast if talented. In addition, Deathcoil is on a 2 minute cooldown which proves itself marginally useful as it is easily trinketed.
Mages are far from rooted; you have blink. You can avoid melee far better than locks can. Also, you can slow/freeze melee very efficiently without talents. Let’s not even talk about iceblock…
well for one thing if you ignore the C on blink, it doesnt remove impairing effects just snares. secondly, slowing down doesnt really affect a lock when he can sit there dotting the hell out of me and then out last me through lots of HP. sure my ice block is nice, but unless i am specced for it, i am doing no damage while hiding in there. sorry, but of all the classes i feel needs a buff, locks are second to last only to rogues.
You’ve got a point from a mage’s perspective. However from a ‘lock’s perspective, mages are just about the only “free kill” ‘locks get in PvP these days. We’re not as crazy overpowered against other classes as we are against mages anymore.
Rogues are disgusting. if they really want to make good on that “does lots of damage, but is easy to kill” thing, they should all turn in 75% of their HP at the door… Put a 2k cap on it at level 70. Let ‘em kick my ass…. Buff all their other abilities… As long as we don’t see them coming they should be able to kill us… If we do see them, though, they should be dead before melee range.
i agree, i remember reading an article saying that mages and rogues used to be a toss up about who could beat who, and then COS was created…..
Well, Blink’s cooldown is 15 seconds. That is 12.5% of Deathcoil’s cooldown, which is 2 minutes. Blink can also be combined with Iceblock to maximize survivability and escape. Moreover, you don’t need to be doing damage through Iceblock, as it is a purely defensive ability. For God’s sake, it also REMOVES all debuffs on you; I hardly call that an offensive ability.
thats exactly MY point, while in IN there i am basically self-cc’d, you can bandage pot, eat whatever. unlike pallies bubble, i am essentially useless in there.
besides, sure it removes debuffs, and the second im out i get hit with them again, so whoopy.
IB and blink are very one time use items, frankly by the time my blink is cd’d im halfway dead.
You’re not self-cc’d; you can click off Iceblock and interrupt my bandaging/drinking/potting. You’re coming out of there without any debuffs.
Iceblock isn’t supposed to be like Pally bubbles; it’s meant to be a oh-shit button for defensive purposes.
While I will admit it is fairly easy to kill a Mage as a Warlock, I do acknowledge that there are plenty of Mages out there who can and have wiped the floor with me. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by many a Mage who knows that the hell he’s doing.
it IS self-cc’ing though. sure i removed your curses, but as i said, they come right back, since most locks have perfected the art of macro. yes i am cleaned, but if your felhunter hasnt ALSO removed all my buffs, i am at square one, but without any extra health or mana. removing my curses is just a minor inconvenience to a lock.
any day of the week if a lock challenges me to a duel, unless he is lower level or geared in total crap, i wont even consider it. especially since so many of them think beating a mage is a matter of skill and not class dynamics.
Check their spec first. If they’re not Affliction, you should be able to beat them… Or at least it should be a fair fight.
i disagree, with resilience and most locks stacking stamina, a mage of any specc is usually out gunned by any specc lock.
im not saying skill plays absolutely no part, but let’s be honest here.
Smatter, Right on! We need some new ability
I am a warlock at heart been playing exclusively on my warlock for over two years. I leveled destruction (I know, I know, I was a noob!) but then went Demo the moment I leveled to 50 for the felguard. That moment, I went pure felguard PVP speced and grinded hundreds of hours in BG and Arena. I, before season 4, I had every full set of season 3 gear (excluding the shoulders, which I was able to get but decided to wait for season 4. Biggest mistake I ever made. My ratings came from my 2v2, my partner being another Lock. speced and geared equal if not better then myself.
The night that patch came for the amplified Demishing returns nerf (that no one is owning up to! this is the same patch of the level 30’s get mounts) We lost every game we played (hello that was a first, we usually won 8 of 10 on average) We then first thought it was our abilities or some new trinket that was causing the word “IMMUNED” to pop up everywhere.
So needless to say, my guild let me use them as test dummies. This affected everyone the same. It does not matter WHAT warlock puts one of the follow on someone it is considered a count; deathcoil, fear, howl of terror. first one only last 50% (a fear is suppose to last 20 sec. so now it only 10 seconds. plus what pvp’er does not have the trinket to get out of it?). The next one is diminished another 50% now the fear is cut to 5 seconds (this is the best chance you have for any real fear, make it count), then the next is diminished by another 50% (wow a whooping 2.5 second fear. Hello, it took me 3 seconds to put it on them, the next one 50% again 1.25 second (hello what is the point) and finally lets add insult to injury. Now the target will be IMMUNED for 6 cast of the fear spells! Again remember it does not matter what warlock does the spells. for example if run across a rogue in the BG’s and use the last three seconds I have to cast a fear, if that rogue had already ran into another warlock he may already be immuned!
This is also why I have had to find myself another pvp partner because with us both handicapped against another there is no point!
This last NERF has now caused me to retire my beloved Felguard “Haaroon” and my pvp spec. I have respec’ed to destruction for full time raiding, before I get so aggravated and delete my warlock! Which I have had a blast doing also. But I am still disappointed since I am a pvp’er at heart! Now, I am a shadow bolt spammer! OH JOY!
So I sit here patiently waiting to see what turns out from the Expansion, before I decided to finally calling it quits on WOW/blizzard.
Holy shit I thought someone was spamming or something, haven’t received this many comments in awhile. Way to go Smatter!
Anyway… any decent (SL/SL) lock will own a mage and every other caster class. We can kill melee classes, but that’s only because DoTs keep ticking even after we’re dead (which will btw get removed simply cause it’s too much fun, but that’s for another topic). They simply have too many tools at their disposal to lock us down.
Mages need help vs. casters, and you’re getting plenty in Wrath. Locks need help vs. melee, and we’re getting screwed.
before this last nerf, melee please! BM hunters, rogue, and warriors had not chance (my speciality)! some reason my problem is the dang shadow priest and shammys!
Emm… Curse of Tongues? There’s no way a spriest or ele shaman can beat you unless they get eeeeeextremely lucky
good point! lol
it seems to me like a lot of people here want dominance over most classes. what you call nerfing, we call balance, it took blizz 3 years and a lot of baby steps, but i for one and glad to see that locks are not capable of soloing 3 players at once like they used to.
I don’t want dominance… Just a chance. Right now ‘locks don’t have a chance in hell against basically any melee class if the other player is any good at all. (And in the case of rogues, unless they fall asleep at the keyboard)
Yeah. ‘locks uset to be overpowered. Now, against most classes they’re not, and against Rogues, Warriors, and to some extent Paladins, it’s not even worth trying. Especially if they’re undead.
The hunter pets are out of control, the talents they have are just amazing.
There is no need to hold back having a permanently summonable doomguard it seems when compared to a frigging devilsaur with its ferocity tree: blood thirsty, rapid, heart of the phoenix and charge
im sorry, but felguard alone is better than anything hunters can tame, and more than likely will be the same in lichking
well sure it may seem like a permanent summon-able doomguard, but remember, unless a hunter is specced for marks ( in which case he doesnt have bestial wrath ) his dps is weak.
I play a hunter and marks is weaker in dps compared to Bm, Improved Stings, Scatter Shot and Silencing Shot are the only real reason to spec marks for arena. Overall Bm will produce a much higher dmg output
Can you imagine how awesome it would be to put the Living Bomb on someone and have them run to the Org/IF Bank when it’s _really_ crowded?
/me drools
But yeah. WHERES THE LOCK LOVE?