Not really... full fight fear locks aren't all that rare from the warlock perspective prepatch if the enemy doesn't break or immune to the fear. Though the rare event for me was always realising that my target actually could be feared because they were non-undead, non-warriors, and now with CLoS I imagine non-rogues. That's what is so crappy about having fear, sometimes you just win because your fear goes off and they can't stop it, other times they're just immune to it, or it breaks early all fight (rare), or they run really fast right out of range (my favourite). It's sketchy to rely on it for external reasons beyond just breaking early and that's very frustrating. That's why a lot of warlocks and priests get angry at fear nerfs, while the spell itself is perhaps overly reliable, there's just so many counters to fear out there.

No, it wasn't just undead rogues. Warlock have no defense outside of DC, none. If something gets into our faces, we're screwed without DC, we cannot escape unless have tailoring (for nets) or engineering. If you look at all other classes, only Priests are equally screwed, when it comes to having defensive measures, Mages can frost nova and blink away, Druids can shift to cat and dash, Hunters can trap, Pallies and Warriors have armor to mitigate, Shaman have ghostwolf, and Rogues can blind, sprint, gouge, vanish, and kidney shot. If something gets into the face of a Priest or a Warlock, they have not escape mechanism except PS and DC, and with the total nerfs to fear, they're sitting ducks being their armor mitigation is pretty pathetic.

I'm not advocating taking fear back to the way it was in 1.0 and initial beta, but switching PS over to a Horror effect would certainly help priests a lot.

And personally, I think they over did it on Fear from a PvE standpoint, it's fine in PvP now, but in PvE it's now very problematic (seeing mobs break your fear on a single tick of your first DoT before other DoTs get started is pretty bad, at max, maybe 33% of my fears last the entire length compared to 90%+ prior to 2.1 in PvE which is just sad).

There's no need to exaggerate so dramatically. While I agree that warlocks and priests have few effective means of defence, against non-casters, saying that they have "no defense outside DC" is silly.

More stamina than the average class, healthstones, fel armor and, depending on talent build, instant howl of terror or soul link and felguard stun or shadowfury - all of which will grant atelast one free fear off unless you're completely stunlocked. Additionally, it can be argued that since damage eliminates your opponent once you do enough of it to him, it is also a form of defense, and DoTs (and Backlash) remain a viable form of damage even while under fire (unlike, say, hunter shots, or mage spells).

While those aren't that awesome defenses on their own, when combined with fear and death coil (and spellstone! argh!), it's nothing to complain about. Anyway, as long as the fear lasts longer than 1.5 seconds, more has probably been gained form the cast than was lost.

Finally, I can add that nothing's more fun than being stun-locked by a rogue as a priest. The longer he takes to kill me the sooner he's getting feared again, and with his trinket on cooldown he's almos assuredly going to die. Unless he's undead, anyway. Which brings me to my final rant; as long as it isn't a warrior or an undead rogue, fear is still extremely powerful.

Quick question, have you ever played an Alliance Priest or Warlock against Horde in PvP?

If you're spec'd Demonic Embrace.

You'll get one, not likely to get more

Sure, an extra 500 or so armor that means my damage reduction goes up by 5% maybe to a total of 12% to 15% DR max.

ie, Psychic Scream

Probably the only possible defense you've listed, but if you're being assist trained, this might not even save you.

And if you have multiple people on you? You get off an HoT and they're back on you quicker that you know what's happened.

And none of this lets us get what we truly need, distance. Every class but Warlocks and Priests have a way to get away when they're being beat on, this is the problem you're not getting.

First off, ever tried to cast a 1.5 second spell when a fast attack class is on you like a Rogue? You'll never get it off before you are a: stunned, b: disoriented, c: interrupted, or d: trinketed/skilled out of.

The problem is getting distance. As I noted above, Warlocks and Priests have no way of assuring getting distance between them and the people they're fighting, all other classes do have a way of getting distance or taking the punishment handed out. This is why the horror effect of DC is the Warlock's best defense because it does something that nothing else does, it gives them time to get some distance, not much, but some. Priests don't even have this.

Which brings me back to the point, these two classes against a Warlock or a Priest will win 90% of the time because unlike all the other classes out there, Warlocks and Priests cannot take the punishment and cannot gain distance (which is the only way to fight these two classes). If you look at a Mage, they'll FN and Blink away, a Hunter with drop a trap and FD to make them lose target and then gain distance while the trap is in effect, the Shaman can frost shock, shift to ghostwolf and get away, the Druid can shift to cast and dash away and then root if needed, the Rogue has tons of disorients, stuns, and other things to fall back on, the Warrior can try to soak the damage, the Paladin has their bubble if they get low in health and can heal back up while immune. Yet the Priest and Warlock have to depend on fear/horror to gain distance as all the other defenses don't get you any distances from the person beating on you and with some many ways to break fear out there, the Priest is a sitting duck and if more that two people are beating on the Warlock, even a DC isn't going to do much.

I'm not talking about charging the other team, just getting into a one on one situation where you have a melee in your face (such as what can happen in 2v2 areans or 3v3 areans and sometimes, rarely though, happens in 5v5 areans). What are a Priest and Warlock going to do to escape that situation? All the other seven classes have an option for escape, Warlocks aren't as screwed as Priests are due to DC, but with the propencity of fear removing trinkets/powers, Priests are in desperate need of an escape ability and Warlocks could use a little help as well. If a Shaman is one on one, they have the ability to put a slowing effect on someone and escape them, a Warrior atleast has 40% DR when someone's in melee range with them and can hopefully survive the onslaught till someone shows up to help them out. If a Priest or a Warlock is in melee range with someone, they have to pray that the other person doesn't have their fear removal available to try to gain some distance. Some classes also have better escape mechanics for multiple people on them (Mage with FN/Blink, Paladins with Bubble and heal, Hunters potentially with Frost Trap and FDing to clear target). The problem is that Warlocks and Priests, especially, don't have an effective escape mechanic, so what's wrong with asking for an escape mechanic that works? What I'm asking for is an "oh crap" button that works, not something that is busted because of so many other mechanics.

Interesting that you didn't quote the part about the PVP trinket. Its reliable and has a 2 minute cooldown.

The changes to a couple of classes trinkets to remove stuns too is a big buff, makes it harder to due from being stunlocked + AP PoM Pyro'ed.

Not every class is going to have great survivablity or an "oh shit" button with all talents, some of it is in the form of more passive buffs.

Death coil is already annoying enough on a 2 minute cooldown, let alone giving a class an IAE Death coil on a 30 second cooldown that can't be countered except a dispel

No, but I've played a horde priest and horde warlock against hordes in PvP, not that I really see the point of the question.

No, regardless. Even in identical gear you'll still have more hitpoints than a priest or a mage, and that's not considering that the priest and the mage can't go for maxing out HP, since they need mana to do damage while life tap can turn HP into mana in a pinch.

That's a good 2 - 3000 HP right there, more than a fireball or evisc crit. You can't seriously be calling that nothing.

Sorry, I meant to say Demon Armor, not Fel Armor. Keep mixing those up. As in, I call them both Fel, for some reason.

Psychic Scream is an awesome ability, it's only weakness (except for the obvious being relatively easy to break) is that it's on a long cooldown and that the priest class has no other reliable cc (unlike warlocks).

Anything being assist trained will die if nothing is done about it, just like everything dies with multiple people on it.

Even if we pretend that fear doesn't make people run away from you, thus creatingthe much-needed distance, warlocks and priests can both take a punch a heck of alot better than, say, mages, hunters or rogues.

I know 1.5 sec casts are impossible against rogues. This is where things like instant Howl of Terror, Felguard Intercept or Shadowfury comes in. Even if they break that fear as well, you'll usually have gained enough distance from it to get off another fear before they come back into melee.

As you mention yourself, fear, and thus psychic scream, gets you distance, so you can't say that only DC does that. It works very well against those other 7 classes that don't regularily break it more than once per fight. Priests can get distance easily. My priest kites rogues without sprint up all the time, and both my warlocks and my priest can tank a warrior or a rogue for decent amounts of time even without healing, the priest with ~35% damage reduction, vamp embrace and shields, the warlock with healthstones, deathcoil heal and life drain (pummeled, but whatever, every little bit helps) combined with fe... I mean demon armor, though I've never PvPed without a demo specc. (For the same reason that only crazy mages PvP without ice block.)

Warlocks and priests take punishment just fine, better than alot of classes, and fear is very capable of gaining you distance as long as your opponent isn't immune.

A mage frost novaing and then blinking away is likely to be greeted with a intercept+hamstring or kidney shot+crippling poison. Without any more escape abilities, it now dies instantly.

Yes, much like all the other classes out there warlocks and priests will die if they have two fear-immune, snare-spamming stunlockers on them.

____________________


Anyway, your main argument seems to be that, since warlocks/priests have no abilities - other than fear - which grant the advantage of distance over the enemy, all other defences are void, which simply isn't true. Even when faced with undead rogues they'll only have two fear breaks, and while this is enough to kill pretty much any shadow priest out there, warlocks will break away from it. Lone warriors are a joke for both classes, and going 1v2 against any of your anti-classes is supposed to be suicide.

For arena, lately my guildmates tell me they've started bruning mages first over the other classes, since they can't be saved even by spamming healers after ice block is down. Priests and warlocks are alot harder to kill.

What do you mean by escaping? How easy is it for anyone to escape a melee class when they're Hamstrung or Crippling Poisoned?

You keep switching back and forth between multiple assailants and one. EVERY class is under extreme pressure under focus fire. A Paladin can't get a heal off, a Shaman sure as hell isn't going anywhere, a Mage can't do shit when FN/Blink are down and so on. If you keep wailing on somebody they will suffer. A lot of 5v5 arena fights are decided based on which guy each side focusses on and for how long.

Against 1 attacker, why do Priests and Warlocks absolutely need to get away that bad? Priests are hard as nails to kill when they're spamming their shields and heals and with the trinket change you should have a good chance against a Rogue or Warrior hand-to-hand. If you wait for a 5pt Kidney or an Intercept before you use the trinket you're as good as gold.

I must say that I have noticed a small difference in BG's (I'm not in a great arenateam, so the fights are usually too short to have much CC involved in 2v2.) I usually DoT up whatever my target is and Drain Life/Shadowbolt accordingly to the situation, and Fear still acts a lot like it did prepatch.