Flamestrike, Blastwave and Cone of Cold are not channeled.

I think what you are missing is that damage is the only function warlocks have that scales with gear. Imp does not scale, stones and summons do not scale. Those things are like mage water or decurse or detect magic -- utility, not a primary reason to bring 5 warlocks to a 40 man.

Warlock curses do scale, but you need 2-3 warlocks for that, and mages have their own versions now in fire and frost trees.

The way damage classes break down right now is this:

Rogues and mages are on top -- on some fights rogues win, on others mages win. Hunters provide low fuss dps that does not worry about healing, or threat. Warlocks? If you take away lifetap warlocks are less efficient nukers than _shamans_, a mail wearing hybrid class. Just look at the dpm numbers.

Warlocks need a role that scales.

Why are you taking away lifetap? Are they removing it?

The fact is, your damage is scaling fine. Your just behind rogues and mages on the damage charts, which by all *reasonable* peoples expectations you should be happy with. Expecting to be up their equal with mages and rogues is just ridiculous, and get's your class nowhere.

focus on being *warlocks*, not purple mages, and people might be more sympathetic. but right now, given how obscenely warlocks dominate most pvp, asking to be equal with the very top tier damage dealers in raids *at the same time* as everything else is just not getting warlocks anywhere.

(P.S. Neither cone of Cold nor Flamestirke can be used to AE. They are handy spells you use when thier timers are up, or the situation is right, but pretending that they are main AE spells is like me saying hunters can AE with Volley).

Why? Our non-scaling utility is about on par with mages. We can't use our pets to dps, most of the time we can't use our dots to dps due to the debuff limit. Mages get superior mana efficiency, superior threat efficiency, three elements to choose from, and superior AoE. Warlocks get . . . what? Shouldn't warlocks have situations where they shine?

Bringing pvp into a pve discussion is retardedness on the level of wowforums. Nobody is tuning PvE to 'balance' PvP.

Blizzard class description stooges said warlocks are 'debuffers,' but warlock itemization and spells have basically put them in the 'ranged dps' role. As ranged dps, warlocks are entitled to a domain of superiority, like hunters, rogues and mages. Right now warlocks are never superior to those three in terms of damage.

I actually have a question to people in EJ, who are certainly more experienced raiders than I am -- if you had leeway to choose your raid composition would you ever take more than 2 warlocks? If so, why?

Silya, aren't Twin Emps and Moam two situations where you shine? As a former mage I know no encounters mages have in the game which give them such a big role. I'd have loved to be able to tank something I do agree with Maledict that if Warlocks have better survivibility and utility as well as more strength in pvp this should be balanced somewhat. And I don't think mages having aoe is that balance. Hence mages should be better dps, since that is all they bring to a raid.

You can't neglect the PvP thing. As much as we'd like too, Blizzard is intent on creating a game where the different aspects merge together - the tier 2.5 sets are a clear example of that.

It is true that Garr, Moam, and possibly Twin Emps are situations specifically meant to showcase warlock abilities (just as you need mages for Majordomo). But one would hope that warlocks would have more reason to come than 'showcase encounters.'

That warlocks have better survivability than mages is not as clear to me. It's certainly not true in raids -- a mage with ice block is far more likely to live pulling aggro than a warlock whose extra hp mean diddly squat in a raid environment. In pvp, warlock can deal with spellcaster focus fire better, but mages have far better anti-melee-train and anti-rogue-gank-squad tools with nova and blink.

Again, this is a raid discussion, not a pvp discussion. Nobody is balancing raid roles with pvp in mind.

C'thun and Noth warlocks can top our damage meters.

I wouldn't say that either Domo or Garr shows either of our classes shining. We're doing CC. It's no different than hunters with tranqs. I would say that Twin Emps is a shining moment. A place where a warlock can tank a raid boss. Jindo similarily I would say is such a moment for feral druids. Moam would add in shadow priests too, but since well many guilds don't like having them, it's back to locks there.

First on survivibility you assume that the mage has ice block. Not all mages go 21 points in ice. Its more likely more warlocks have demonic embrace than mages who have ice block, given that its a T1 ability. Still, warlocks at 60 have ~20 more stamina than mages. Their set gear also has roughly ~20% more stamina. Add in the fact that a warlock will always have demon armor and mage armor is used more often than ice armor and it swings survivibility more in the lock's favor. Then again neither of our classes wants to get hit. I just see locks as being a bit more ready for it, as long as of course the mage isn't ice.

There is no way mathematically an equally geared warlock should outdamage a mage. Which is precisely the problem.

As for ice block being a talent -- of course it's a talent. But frost is a very good raid tree. I think almost every EJ mage, for example, is far enough into frost to have ice block.

That's not a problem. No-one else bar a few warlocks intent on being purple mages thinks thats a problem.

I assume by 'purple mages' you mean that warlocks are ranged dps. If they are not ranged dps, then what are they? They can't heal. They can tank _one_ encounter, maybe two if you count phase 1 Nefarian. All their gear has spelldamage, spellhit and spellcrit, like mages gear. They don't have any scaling utility like EQ necromancers, for example. None of their gear affects their 'debuffs,' as were the case with FFXI red mages, a real debuffing class. So what ARE warlocks exactly, if not purple mages?

Edit: as far as pvp, the shortcomings of warlocks involve mana and threat efficiency. These issues don't even affect pvp. Warlocks don't need more damage because their potential for damage is about equal with mages. They are just inefficient, so in long raid fights they fall significantly behind.

Make Life Tap scale with +damage gear, getting something like 50% of the effect, so a warlock with +600 damage would lose 300 extra health, and gain 360 extra mana from it (talented).

Presto, you now have warlocks with higher raid DPS that aren't significantly more powerful in pvp

That's not true. In the two fights that were listed (Noth and C'Thun), warlocks can win the DMs simply because they are able to DoT several targets at once. On Noth you have 3 skeletons a wave, on C'Thun you have all the tertiary targets beyond the boss.

Warlocks asking for threat reduction or increased damage are barking up the wrong tree in my opinion. What we should be asking for, to make us more wanted in raids, are more powerful and more varied curses. We would still be able to contribute significantly in terms of damage output, even topping the damage meters in fights that are designed to our strengths e.g. Noth, but the strength of the warlock class should lie in it's debuffs not it's direct damage.

As it stands right now, if your mages and warlocks are geared up equivalently, it's pretty much optimal just to bring two warlocks to a raid for CoE and CoR because the rest of the warlock's debuffs are useless and other ranged dps classes put out more damage with less aggro.

Mages have a good amount of utility in raids, same as we locks do. Why should our damage be THAT different?

Another thing that would be a big boost is to either A) Make warlock DoTs have a very very high priority on the debuff lists or make them stack to only take up 1 debuff slot on PvE target. As a destro lock i can't remember the last time i've had Corruption or Immo run its full lenght before getting pushed off on a boss fight.

I do agree we shouldnt get a dps equal to mages on just shadowbolt spam but instead only with our DoTs and shadowbolt spam in between should we get close to such DPS.

God, just shit heap this thread, it's turned into the same mess that always shows up on the WoW forums.

We have:

1. Mages crying about Warlocks in PvP
2. Rogues/Mages crying about how they're supposed to be undisputed top DPS as per the manual
3. Rogues/Mages trying to downplay their own set of support abilities, which are JUST as prevalent in raid encounters as warlock abilities are
4. Dumb warlocks who don't think they are primary ranged DPS(and dragging down their guild's overall DPS as a result!) trying to tell us we're fools for expecting to DPS seriously

Honestly, the only thing it's missing is "OMG NERF DEATHCOILZ!!!". Other than that, it's the same thing that always seems to form on the WoW forums whenever anyone suggests any kind of change to the class(this is not to say I agree with the OP's suggestions, I never said I did). What, an actual discussion about realistic changes to the class(you know, because we ARE primary ranged DPS)? Hell no, we're going to fill it up with other classes bitching about how warlocks don't deserve to be anywhere near them in raid effectiveness since they get owned by them in PvP(which is almost entirely due to a failure to handle them properly, btw).

1. I play the game to raid. Why should my raiding effectiveness suffer because some Felpuppy toting Dotn00b owned an equally stupid mage who probably isn't even aware of the fact that they can remove Curse of Agony? When a warlock uses a felhunter, they're wearing a giant "Hey warriors/rogues, I'm completely defenseless, come rape me!". When they use a succubus, they have the same sign, but with "felhound warlocks/shadow priests/Mages" written on it.

2. It was clearly stated in the manual that a Warlock IS capable of the same damage as a Mage, and aside from that, BLIZZARD has clearly stated that the manual definitions no longer apply, as the theory behind the design and balance of the game has evolved.

3. Rogues and Mages BOTH have just as much in the way of utility abilities that warlocks bring to the table. Mages have THREE useful buffs, and two can be active at any given time, on anyone in the raid. Warlocks have ONE useful buff, and it can only affect their party.

-Mages can sheep, decurse, counterspell, slow movement speed of at least one target(multiple, with use of CoC or Frost Nova), and debuff a target to increase fire or frost damage they take.

-Warlocks can banish, spell lock(felhunter only, no imp buff in that case), dispel one magic effect every 8 seconds(felhunter only, no imp buff), fear, debuff to increase fire/frost or shadow/arcane or physical damage taken, or slow casting speed, and provide healthstones/soulstones(I still believe that this is comparable to conjured items, but mages have made a fair argument for why it's not "quite" the same).

-Rogues have multiple poisons which can provide very useful effects(Slowed movement speed, slowed casting speed, reduced healing effectiveness, and of course their poisons do BONUS damage to nature vulnerable targets). Rogues can also kick(same utility as counterspell), Detect and disarm traps(sure, only useful in the suppresion room, but how often are some of the listed mage/warlock abilities useful?), and of course, employ an array of powerful stuns. Fights where stuns are useful: Razorgore, BWL tech packs, Sartura, Fankriss, C'thun, Anub'Rhekan. I believe there are more, but those are the ones that I am aware of(are stuns useful on Noth/Gothik/Gluth/Heigan?). Either way, that's a LOT more fights than Warlocks can banish on or Mages can sheep on.

4. Some locks still cling to their inner desire to be just a "support" class, either due to some fanboi psychological issue, or because they are just frigging LAZY. It's really, REALLY easy to be a banish/SS/HS/Summon bot and get free epics for it. Way to drag down your raid group. The sooner you embrace the fact that you ARE a ranged DPS class, and push to compete with other ranged DPS classes in that capacity, the better off your raid will be. You're a shadow mage, deal with it. I rolled a Warlock to be a debuffing class too, but our debuffs just aren't that useful, and(unlike in WC3) their application doesn't consume enough of our time or mana to make the class even feel remotely LIKE a debuff class. Blizzard fails at warlock design, but those of us who care about raid progress and have accepted our role as "purple mages" don't deserve to be held back by locks who have NFI what they're talking about, or don't want to be expected to DPS. insisting that, for some intangeable reason, we're not meant to be a "true" DPS class.

In short: If you're just bitching about how overpowered we are, take it to another thread on the WoW forums. The purpose of THIS thread is to discuss some changes that the class could REALLY use, because while we are powerful enough in PvP, we have a LOT of useless talents that need a rework, and our overall efficiency as a ranged DPS class could use a bit of looking at.

/end rant

/useful contribution

To be honest, I'd love to trade damage output for debuffing utility(how about some powerful channeled debuffs?), but I don't see it happening. I would, however, love to see the threat reduction dropped from MD and instead put in somewhere in tier 3 or 4 affliction/destruction respectively, and tuned up a bit(it can be a 5 point talent that specifically helps threat reduction, for all I care. I'm sure mages would be ok with that since they get -30% frost threat and -15% mana cost for 3 points, or -30% fire threat and -70% interrupt chance for 2 points). Would it be nice if Lifetap scaled? Sure. I don't know if that's likely to happen though. I mean to be fair, what abilities, other than evocate, do mages have that scale? What mage maintains such a high mana pool(at the expense of valuable +dmg) for that scaling to make that much of a difference?

Ask yourself:
"Ask yourself "Should a Warlock do as much damage as a mage?"

Now watch this:
"Should a feral druid do as much damage as a rogue?"

See how that works? It's a dead horse, with the exception that we've changed class names.


edit: strike command didn't work. Oh well.

Does a feral druid's NS+HT macro magically stop working if there are more than two in a raid?

NS is a 21 point resto talent. Feral "dps" builds don't go that far down, they get the 10% damage from balance.


edit: Now I beleive is the time to shit heap this.

You're blindsighting the argument. My point, which was obvious, was that warlocks have greater diminishing returns of utility at the margin than any other class save perhaps prot warriors. Substitute "healing touch" for the macro above if you like.

And as an aside, there's no such thing as a raiding feral druid without NS.

There is a point though to the people who are playing the pure dps classes when classes with much more variety in play style, more utility and more versatility can match them in damage. They've homogenized damage to a great extent, but thats not going to give the pure dps classes whose roles have been equalled by other classes. Like Gurgthock said in the sustained thread, if hunters could do equal dmg to rogues on a fight like Patchwerk there would be no need to ever bring rogues except out of pity. I feel the same thing would be true for warlocks and mages in that encounter. Mages do great in single target sustained dps. Warlocks shine where there are more multiple adds to dot. If you buffed warlocks to the point that on a patchwerk fight all mages/locks are in the same boat than it completely breaks locks dps on those other fights, and imo in general

I also think that some locks out of frustation with the support abilities of their class really downplay them and upplay others. To me in no way is mage utility to a raid anywhere close to a warlocks. Mages do provide debuffs, but they only help other mages. Warlock debuffs help many more classes, including of course all physical dps and pretty much all caster dps. That doesn't even go into that soulstones/imp/healthstones are far more important than AI and water. Chiqu's post had a lot of good points, but he seemed to leave out things. Like that druids can decurse as well, or that horde rogues can't use poisons because of WF issues.

I guess the question comes down to. Should all classes have equal dps or not? I feel that the classes that give the biggest tradeoffs defensively (mages, rogues) should get higher dps because they lack things like healing, fear, plate armor, bubbles, etc. Now I'm sure as a former mage (and other rogues and mages might agree) that we would trade dps for more survivibility and utility. But we've not gotten that much lately.

Thanks Chiquihuite, I got up this morning, and got to reading, and had many of the same thoughts you did. Thanks for busting heads for me :P

Im not quite sure I said buff our damage. In fact, I think I said I was doing rather fine on DPS. That isnt my issue so much as all the things in the post were something of my goals. A completly ravamped Demonology tree, a streamlined Affliction tree, and some points somewhere to help us with some of our aggro problems.

Now, I see that there is some issue with mana efficency. I have noticed a few problem with being oom, but can honeslty say only been in one or two encounters in which I cant lifetap/NDB/GDS(Mana pot depending) to solve this problem.

So, scalable lifetap? How would you go about doing this? 10% health to 10/12/14% mana?