EJ note: I've written and posted this on the EU Warlock forums, so some things are written to make sure I don't lose the attention of people on those boards.

I've been brainstorming for a while on how to give Warlocks a defensive side in PvP less one-dimensional than Soul Link.

Currently, we've got two genres of defensive tools available to us:
1. HP increases. Mainly Demonic Embrace and Soul Link.
These are boring and scale poorly with 5v5 arena combat. When 3 people in Season 3 arena gear are on your case, DE means nothing, and even SL starts feeling like not enough.
2. Offensive CCs. Fear, Howl of Terror and Death Coil, possibly CoEx too. The problem with all of these is that they're easily resistable and removable.

In 5v5 arenas, and to a lesser extent this applies to 3v3 and 2v2 as well, you're forced as a Warlock to spec Soul Link to be of use to your team. The only obvious exception to this is UA Warlocks in 4-DPS 5v5 teams, who only get by because other teammates are just as squishy.

Destruction is almost entirely useless in high-end PvP and Affliction is unfortunately not far behind it.

I think the best way to give the Warlock class a fresh start in PvP and make the class less one-dimensional, which is something even Warlock haters should support, a couple changes need to be made:

-Our main defensive spell should be one requiring heavy investment in a specific tree: Fel Armor.
-Each tree should have a couple PvP-focused defensive talents that synergize with Fel Armor.
-The trees should retain their current strengths and weaknesses, just balanced better.

All specific numbers used are examples, if anything turns out to be over- or underpowered it should obviously be tweaked. What I'm looking for feedback on is the concept, not the specifics

For some details on how I'd do this:
-Demonic Aegis should reduce the chance Fel Armor and Demon Armor are dispelled by 25% per point, for a total of 75%.
-Fel Armor should increase healing done by your own spells and effects by 15% and friendly spells and effects by 30% before talents. Warlocks are way strong by themselves as it is, our problem is poor results from having healers with us.
Alone, this would make the SL/SL build a bit less powerful on it's own against most classes, but would make Warlocks a bit more durable with healer support.

Now, to make these changes harder to work around completely:
-Give Warlocks a base spell learned sometime after 60 that removes healing reduction effects (MS, Wound Poison, Aimed Shot) and makes the Warlock immune to said effects for 30 seconds. 5 minute cooldown.
This would be our Ice Block. Instead of taking less/no damage, we'd be receiving significantly more healing from our teammates. This way, Warlocks would be a better fit for 2-2.5 healer setups.

Now, each tree should be revamped slightly to fit with this.

Affliction:
-Siphon Life should be nerfed, mainly by gaining less from +damage gear. It just scales TOO well at the moment.
-A late (40 pt +) Affliction talent should be added that does much the same as the Frozen Shadoweave set bonus atm, making all spells heal a little. The end result between this and the Siphon nerf should be a slight increase in self-healing done for Affliction Warlocks, but a reduction for SL/SL Warlocks.

Demonology:
I wouldn't make too many changes here. SL/SL would be a bit worse off in the smaller brackets, but eg. a Felguard spec would probably scale a bit better with good healer support.

Destruction:
-Soul Leech could be turned into Destructions version of Siphon/FSW bonus talent. Make it work on Shadowfury too and turn it into a fixed % of damage to health instead of a chance effect, ending up a bit higher in total yield than before.
-Shadowfury should be instant so it can actually be cast while trained and CoT'd without interruptions. Between this and the Soul Leech change, Shadowfury would be a solid instant self-heal Warlocks could use when being pressured. Possibly change the casting style to Nova-esque to make it more geared towards defense.
-Make Backlash work with Immolate too, and reduce the cooldown to 6 or 7 seconds, opening up a bit more options for Destruction Warlocks being focus-fired.

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End results/Conclusion:
-Buff Fel Armor, make it harder to dispel.
-Nerf Siphon Life. Move some of its power to a later Affliction tree.
-Buff Soul Leech and Shadowfury and make them synergize.
-Give Warlocks a spell that protects against Mortal Strike/Wound Poison for a short time with a reasonable cooldown. Design this to be our Iceblock and combined with Fel Armor our main defense.

Instead of being the comedy class with high HP but no real protection that is too powerful in some areas but too weak in others, we'd have a unique defense not like any other classes', that would make all three Warlock trees viable to some extent in all arena brackets as well as other PvP.

My main concern when being focused is not how can I tank better but rather how can I escape better. If a rogue or warrior is beating on me it's tough to get any non-instant damage out. Add a priest in there dispelling your dots and you pretty much just have a pet. I would suggest adding an effect such as "chance when hit to fear the attacker for 2 secs" My main concern is how much I get shut down when being focused without any escape mechanisms (except death coil).

The idea would be that focusing Warlocks wouldn't be as attractive as it is now. If people DO focus you, you'll be easier to keep alive, while your teammates are free to DPS or whatever else they're doing.

The only problem with soul link is that it relies on your pet, and pets die quite easily.

Other than that, it seems your asking for PvP viability across all talent trees. Blizzard does seem to be making an effort for all specs to be somewhat viable (mage iceblock changes, rogue subtlety changes) but I don't think that it's really a priority for them. I'd count yourself quite lucky that there are two/three viable specs for warlocks (SL/SL, felguard, and UA).

While you may hate relying on soul link in arenas, keep in mind that soul link warlocks are really quite hard to kill. It's true that with 3 DPS attacking you, it doesn't seem to be very significant, but there's not a class in the game that can survive long against that, not even the "defensive hybrid" paladin. I certainly don't believe that warlocks need more passive defenses. An escape tool may be reasonable, but you have quite a large repertoire of spells that can be cast while you're being attacked. Other classes don't even have those options.

Problem is, if we're talking current defenses, is that UA more or less only works in 4-DPS 5v5 teams if you're playing for gladiator etc. For everything else, you have to get SL. Being forced into a spec that for a lot of people just isn't very enjoyable seems like it goes against everything Blizzard wanted when they made Shadow Priests etc viable.

I could see considering some of these changes if warlocks were underpowered, one dimensional, or under represented in arenas but as it stands I'd put them near the bottom of the priority list when it comes to class balance.

I think spell pushback is also a big part of survivability. I wish they would make fel concentration affect all affliction spells and maybe move intensity down a tier (replace improved lash or pain or firebolt).

In terms of balance. I think each tree should have a impact survivability talent deep within so each tree felt different in it's survivability. I think Imp howl of terror is somewhat there for affliction but at a 40 sec cooldown is too situational. I would also target shadowfury for the destruction tree to provide a bit more survivability. I don't think the goal of this thread is to neccessarily buff warlocks but rather to provide them with a few more options in terms of speccing to get survivability tools.

Also, I think it's desired by the warlock community to have somewhat more active survivability abilities. Right now Soul link is always on (passive) and doesn't really require any skill, whereas Ice block requires a decision to be made by the player which leads to good players ice blocking at better times than bad players. A good mage can manage nova's, blinks, ice blocks, hypothermia, cold snap, etc to increase his survivability well past that of a poor mage. A good mage can last minutes longer than a poor mage and will usually die only when they run out of mana. The main difference between a good warlock and bad warlock in survivability is positioning and to some extent death coil (although on a long cooldown) since both have Soul link active.

Are you kidding? Mages in top pvp gear are not even in the same ballpark in regards to HP with warlocks in the same level of gear.

As far as the OP is concerned, I do not really see the problem. Warlocks are not stuggling in any of the three brackets, for the reasons you have already mentioned. SL/SL is a huge deterrent for the dps train in 5s, and I am struggling to conceive of any 5v5 lineup where this would not be the case. It may be one dimensional, or even "boring", however it is effective and it allows for a consistently guaranteed level of freedom in most situations.

Shadowpriests are a bad example, as they're only viable in 4 DPS 5v5 as well.

Most classes are forced into a spec. Paladins are forced into Holy, Shamans are forced into Elemental, Warriors are forced into MS, druids are forced into Resto, Mages are forced into frost, and every single spec for those classes is pretty much the same with little to no variation in playstyle.

Count yourself lucky that you can go SL/SL or felguard and succeed at high levels. They play quite differently, from what I understand.

Lock pvp defense when it comes to health does not need a buff at all. With 3 pieces of season 3, full vindicator with 5v5 buffs I sit at 17,000 health and 444 res, not easy to beat through. I wouldnt mind having a new escape something like blink but a battlemasters trinket with fel armor we are just fine.

That is a totally different topic that is common among pretty much every class. Off the top of my head I can't think of any class that has an optimal PVE/PVP spec all in one. They seem to do it intentionally, what would be the purpose of multiple talent choices if 1 template was the best for everything?