Monday, September 29, 2008

Latest Lock Beta Thoughts

I can't say a whole bunch has changed lately. Seems kinda like all three of the cloth classes are getting a lack of blue attention...maybe they're saving us for last? /shrug Here's my most pressing 5 issues:


Dark Pact
This ability simply doesn't offer enough to warrant being a 31-point talent. We briefly had the opportunity to test it at 200% and while that may or may not have been too strong I can safely say that 100% is most certainly not enough. Maybe 150% is a more appropriate amount, but I can tell you from experience that in PvE, and *especially* in PvP that we either use Dark Pact and get some mana or our pet gets to use its abilities- not both.

150%. Do it.


Everlasting Afflictions
Good talent but one minor gripe...Corruption often falls off due to not being able to even get a Shadowbolt in simply due to rotational variances that makes a bunch of DoTs needing refreshed in sequence- it can get pretty bad even just when I'm wailing on a dummy, I won't even get into how terrible it can be in an actual encounter with movement requirements... Could we see an ever so slight buff to this talent by letting Haunt refresh Corruption as well?


Haunt

Overall pretty good, but could we get a slight increase in the spread between the cooldown and the duration of the effect? A lot of the time, again due to rotational variances, we can't even begin casting Haunt until after it has already expired. Give us a few more seconds in the spread by either lowering the cooldown or increasing the duration of the debuff- preferably increase the debuff duration from 12 to 15 seconds. Or Maybe give us a Glyph for Haunt to increase the duration by 3 seconds?


Demonic Circle
Good idea but it doesn't work quite so well in practice. It suffers from the "I'm not psychic" problem where we don't necessarily even know where we're going to be fighting. Often enough when doing Strand of the Ancients I'll get jumped not but a few yards away from the circle because I had no idea the enemy was even coming.

IMO...

-Increase the range from 40 to 50 yards so we can stray a little father and recast the circle less.
-Don't let our enemies see the circle.


Fairly minor tweaks but they would help quite a bit.


Shadowflame
Incredibly weak. I just don't know what to say here. We've been harping on it for quite some time. What's up with this ability? Weak damage. No interesting secondary effect. Nothing. Needs a stun/knockback/knockdown/disarm/something!

Alternately bring back Atrocity in place of Shadowflame but make work on curses instead. "Your next curse also effects enemies within 20 yards of your target" 3 minute cooldown.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dark Pact needs to be taken out of the game. Leveling my lock, I don't drink ever and chain pull 3+ mobs at a time, because Dark Pact gives me almost infinite mana from a phased Imp. Only occasionally will I ever need to life tap.

That plus fel armor and siphon life pretty much keeps me at full while hundreds of mobs beat on me. Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dark pact fear bomb drain life collect loot repeat.

Anonymous said...

On a related note, a LOT of warlock spells need to be taken out of the game. They've become the jack of all trade with a spell / pet for pretty much any occasion. They can nerf their dmg to balance out their power, but they are far past the point of no return in terms of being the most versatile, overdeveloped class.

Draele said...

It sounds more like you have a gripe with Mages than you do Warlocks. I certainly feel you on the mana, I personally can't stand playing a class with any significant downtime. That's why I love Protection Paladins and Warriors, Fury, Affliction, Feral Druids, Deathknights, etc). It's not fun at all to play a class that has to sit and drink after every few pulls. A major reason I quit playing my Hunter was the mana issues plus the really boring rotations (I don't know how you play a Mage as dull as they are.)

Mages need a lot of work in the fun department. Maybe it's what you get when with the glass cannon "blow stuff up fast" archetype. I personally can't stand Wizards/Mages/etc type classes in any MMO I've ever played. They always end up just so one dimensional and dull.

Anonymous said...

I think there's a difference between a spec that has a more interesting shot rotation and one that has just too many different abilities.

Exhaustion
Recklessness
Weakness
Tongues
Drain Life
Drain Mana
Drain Soul
Spell Stone
Soul Stone
Health Stone
Seed of Corruption
Siphon Life
Underwater Breathing
Fel Armor
Death Coil
Howl of Terror
Life Tap
Dark Pact
Unstable Affliction
Hellfire
Shadowburn
Enslave Demon
Imp
Felhound
Succ
Void
Felguard

You can argue that most are situational at best, but that is my entire point. No matter what happens, leave it up to the warlock to have an ability to handle it. I could understand having a druid or paladin with this many abilities, but that is because they are hybrids.

And my main reason for liking mages so much is because of frost spec. Fire and arcane are extremely lame. They are fragile, and offer nothing more than seeing big numbers. The amount of control that frost gives allows for some really fun soloing and dungeons. Come WotLK i'll probably only go back to raiding if they make frost a worthwhile spec.