Yet Another Warlock Nerf

First, they added PvP cloaks which you can buy for 60 Badges of Justice (BoJ). Then there's items like Hex Shrunken Head, Warglaives of Azzinoth, Berserkers Call and many more which are far better for PvP then some Shankers or Slicers. Tidewalker in SSC drops this ring which is pretty good actually; here's one from Hydross. I wish I could get Seal of Danzalar for my warlock, the armor bonus would be awesome.

Battlemaster's Cruelty (and other versions) can be bought for BoJ as well as honor. Karazhan and Zul'Aman bosses are now dropping Badges of Justice, and after patch 2.4 you'll get them in 25-mans as well. In fact, all the new PvP stuff in 2.4 can be obtained via PvE, even the welfare epics.

I got Jewelcrafting on my lock, and there's no way to get the best gems without going to Hyjal, except buying them for hundreds of gold a piece from the auction house.
I unlearned herbalism on my druid recently and leveled up enchanting. Having extra 40 healing on rings feels good, and in PvP every bit helps. I can't earn much money with it since I don't have access to most of the formulas people need, like Mongoose, Sunfire, Executioner and many others.

You don't need any attunement to enter battlegrounds, thus every scrub can go PvP anytime they want. Sooner or later, you will get some good items even if you only play an hour or two daily. All those hunters with season 1 gear in battlegrounds are pissing me off; most of them aren't capable of doing anything except autoshot, yet still they manage to do insane amounts of damage and kills. I don't remember the last time alliance had less than 4 hunters in EoTS.

I always thought of battlegrounds as some sort of training grounds, where you learn stuff, where dying doesn't matter much like in raids, a place not just for farming honor to get better items but also to better yourself and gain some skill. If you farmed your Season 1 items mostly AFK, and you wonder why you can't pass 1500 rating in arenas, that's why. You suck, stick to your PvE.

You can AFK in battlegrounds and get honor. You can't AFK in raids and get items. Until Blizzard decides to kick players out, it won't be any different. I didn't hear about anyone getting banned for AFK-ing yet, and even if it's happening, I don't care. I'm in the battleground NOW, and I want those three or ten who are AFK kicked out because we're outnumbered and I want to win.

Now, MMO-Champion reports you will be able to buy Season 1 gladiator items for Tier 4 tokens, Season 2 for Tier 5 and 6 tokens. With T6 tokens from Sunwell you will be able to buy Season 3 gear. How cool is that! No, it's not fucking cool, it's sad.

I like doing battlegrounds and arenas. Sure, it can be frustrating sometimes, but raiding can be as well. Where's my PvE gear for honor? Why can't I buy those damn enchanting recipes with honor?
I don't know about you, but in Wrath of the PvE King I'll be raiding.

> Sorry mate, you have to PvE

Additional Aimed Shot changes

In patch 2.3, aimed shot will not only reduces healing done to the target by 50% for a ten seconds, but we're also reducing the shot time by 0.5 seconds.

I predicted changes to Aimed Shot in one of my previous posts - it's not yet instant but 0.5 sec cast time reduction is a good start. And it will most likely be further reduced, judging by what Eyonix said.

Hypothermia back to 30 seconds, Ice Block trainable

It's a deliberate change. We initially felt like it was too quick at 30s and decided to test it out at 45s, but after playing with it for a while we felt like it opened mages to focus fire a little too much so we decided to keep it at 30s. It's worth pointing out that making changes like this and later un-doing them is not at all uncommon, it's just most of you generally don't see that process in action since it often happens before the patch even gets to the PTR.

Since I'm here, I'll also make a small pre-emptive strike against the incoming "what about other mage concerns!" replies I'm about to get and say the following.

Two things we'll be making improvements to in the near future (although these aren't likely to make it in on time for 2.3) are having iceblock be trainable (to make sure all mages have it as a tool for pve encounters and to open up other trees as being more viable options for pvp), and to-be-finalized improvements to mana issues in longer fights.

All the mage whiners out there can finally stop now! But seriously, Ice Block is one of the most important abilities that makes a mage what it is in PvP, so I guess the fire talent tree will be a bit more popular now. I rather not speculate what talent will replace Ice Block, but it will probably be nuke-the-hell-out-of-this-warlock type spell.
Can I now get Soul Siphon or Soul Link trainable? Or at least instant Corruption - I have yet to see a warlock without spending 5 talent points there.

> PTR changes: mage & hunter

Okoloth always fascinated me with his dedication of pulling interesting info from the WoW Armory.
This time, he analyzed 4.5 million characters, which is half of WoW's population a lot. You can check his site for more detailed statistics, but I was really surprised to see the class breakdown.

It seems the myth about druids being the least played class is finally over - only 7% of players choose shaman as their preferred class. If I had to guess, I'd say hunters are the most played class, but I would be wrong - warriors lead by 14% of total player base. Nerf mortal strike! Nah, just kidding. There's a lot of mages also, 2% more than there are rogues, warlocks and priests. Surprisingly, there aren't many paladins either.

Of course, this data does in no way tell us if a particular class is well balanced or not - the overpowerness (wut?) changes from patch to patch - I rather check www.geekboys.org/arena to see who dominates the endgame, which I plan to write about soon also.

> WoW population demographics

Mad Alchemist's Potion
It seems this new potion has a 95% chance to proc an additional elixir effect, and it's class dependant - meaning you will get buffs depending on your class, so casters should get Elixir of Draenic Wisdom or similar, and melee classes should get Elixir of Mastery or Major Agility. Good news. But I wonder how will it work with different specs or roles - what exactly will my feral druid get?


Druid

• Growl: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.
• Challenging Roar: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.

I believe spell hit rating was previously increasing the chance for these spells not to be resisted so this is good news. Tanking druids still lack serious hit rating though.


Warlock

• Unstable Affliction: The silence from this ability is now subject to diminishing returns.

What can I say... nerf to dual lock teams.

Warrior

• Challenging Shout: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its targets is now increased by hit rating.
• Taunt: The chance for this ability to land successfully on its target is now increased by hit rating.

Same as for druids, a welcome and needed change. Intimidating Shout, Demoralizing Shout and Piercing Howl are not getting changed though.


Raids & Dungeons

• The Mechanar: The Cache of the Legion can now only be looted by players who are present during some portion of a successful attempt of the Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand encounters. In addition, on Heroic difficulty Gatewatcher Gyro-Kill and Gatewatcher Iron-Hand no longer drop Badges of Justice. Instead, the Cache of the Legion contains a Badge of Justice for each player present.

My favorite Badge of Justice farming instance is getting nerfed :((

You can read the full patch notes on worldofraids.com.

Also, I'd like to point out that Ming, considered a very good rogue (and a very nice blogger) thinks Rogues are finally the strongest class in TBC.

I got no idea how I missed this, but Wowinsider is here to point it out. Druids will be able to shift forms without exposing themselves to vulnerable human form, which is in my opinion overpowered (I got a druid, remember). While the change looks very cool and somewhat logical, I believe it is hard enough for any class to catch a druid as it is.
Also from latest patch notes:

• PvP Trinkets: Insignia of the Alliance, Insignia of the Horde, Medallion of the Alliance, and Medallion of the Horde now clear the debuff from Judgement of Justice.

So long paladin, you shall not catch my druid anymore! Can this please be nerfed?

> New PTR build: Ain't getting better

PvE gear, PvP gear, trinkets, food, quest items, resistance gear, mounts, battleground marks, reagents, soul shards, potions, gems, pets, fishing & cooking stuff, bandages, items from seasonal events, primals, shards, dusts and essences...
Bag space has always bugged me since the day one. I was buying my first bank slot on level 12 or so, and by the time I was 35 I had 6 bag slots in bank. Sure, I manage my items with the help of banker alts but still, I often find myself destroying items I might need in future, or items I simply want to have as a reminder or for some sentimental reasons.

But what about the things I can't vendor or store on alts, things I have to carry around with me because you never know, like quest items or potions.
Warlocks, druids and hunters (and paladins, thanks Nibuca) in my opinion have the biggest problems. Hunters with their ammo pouches, druids with 3 sets of gear (tank, heal, dps), and warlocks like me who can't imagine having less than 30 shards with me at all times. Besides gear, I always have consumables like food and potions, and more than often several types of elixirs. And Archmage Vargoth's staff of course.

I believe it was with the release of The Burning Crusade we got keyrings. Can you honestly say you could live without it? Imagine going back to the bank to get your heroic key and making your party wait for you. Sure, we got a lot of additional keys in TBC with the introduction of heroic instances so the keyring is much more needed than before, but still, Scholomance key, Scarlet key, BRD key - I'm sure there's a few more from the pre-TBC era.

I don't need 5 keyrings, one for consumables, one for gear, or whatever else. But why not add a Consumables bag, or Quest Item bag. Quest items are a bigger issue while leveling, but we carry our consumables all the time, even if we don't use them that often.
I suggest one of the following:

Consumables bag - keeps all your food, potions, elixirs, flasks

Quest bag - I don't mean quest rewards bag; this would be used to keep your boar's intestines, cat's fangs, bird's feathers and similar items required to complete your quests.

Reagent bag - used to keep the reagents required for spells, like Holy Candle or Wild Thornroot. Since reagents usually take 3-4 slots, it's not really necesarry, but I'd take just about anything.

Trinket bag - I'll give my druid as an example: 2 different trinkets for tanking, two for dps, two for healing and 1 for pvp (one dps and Insignia). That's 7 trinkets I have to carry all the time! God forbid I take engineering - all those cool little gadgets and no place to put them. And I got tons of trinkets just sitting in bank which could be excellent in certain situations, or simply fun (Six Demon Bag :> ).

Sure, we got soul shard bags, engineering toolboxes, herb bags and similar which can ease up the space with certain profession items, but still, I sure don't carry a herb bag with me all the time simply because I don't do herbalism 24 hours a day.
From all aforementioned, I'd love to have consumables bag and trinket bags. I believe no player would ever complain about it. I hope we will see some new rings in the expansion, because by then not even guild banks will be enough for me.

> Bags, keyrings and more bags

I've been browsing the forums a few days ago and noticed this topic, listing all the changes affecting Warlocks. I've checked old patch notes myself and ever found a few missing, so I decided to update this list.

Patch 1.1

• Howl of Terror: Increased the chance of breaking early.
• Fear: Increased the chance of breaking early.

Patch 1.02

• Warlocks can no longer kill players in duels. (not really a nerf, just a bugfix - but sounds funny)
  
• Fear: Players now have an increasing chance to break free of the effect, such that it is unlikely the effect will last more than 15 seconds.

Patch 1.03

• Fear - Mana cost changed to a percentage of base, which results in an increase in cost.

Patch 1.04

• Seduction (Succubus) - Is now considered a Fear effect for purposes of diminishing returns.

Patch 1.5.0

• War Stomp (Doomguard) - Now has a maximum of five targets.
• Warriors: Deathwish - Is now usable while under a Fear effect, and will also remove an existing Fear effect.

Patch 1.7.0

• Inferno - The stun effect can now be resisted.
• Druids: Druids should now be able to shapeshift back into caster form while Feared.

Patch 1.0.8

• Soul Link - Percentage of damage split with pet has been reduced (50% to 20%)
• Improved Drain Mana - Damage caused by this talent will now cause 150% damage instead of 200% damage, which is now consistent with other damage spells.
• Pets no longer break off attacks when their target is affected by Warlock Fear.

Patch 1.0.9

• Hellfire - Victims of Hellfire are now able to resist properly. Warlocks continue (as designed) to be unable to resist their own damage.
• Curse of Shadow and Curse of the Elements - These curses can no longer cause resistance to become negative.

Patch 1.10

• Death Coil - The horrify component no longer affects undead creatures (they've seen it all before.)

Patch 1.11

• Soul Link: If your pet is banished, Soul Link will stop functioning until Banish wears off. In addition, Soul Link's tooltip has been clarified to indicate it only works with your imp, voidwalker, succubus, or felhunter.
• Fear: The calculations to determine if Fear effects should break due to receiving damage have been changed. The old calculation used the base damage of the ability. The new calculation uses the final amount of damage dealt, after all modifiers. In addition, the chance for a damage over time spell to break Fear is now significantly lower. Note that Fear continues to be roughly three times as likely to break on player targets as on non-player targets.

Patch 1.12

• Howl of Terror: This spell now uses the same resistance checks as the Warlock spell Fear.

Patch 2.0.10

• Demonic Tactics now grants increased critical strike chance to you and your demon pet, instead of increased damage. (affliction nerf)

Patch 2.0.12

• Melee damage of "Felguard" has been reduced (about 40%)
• The bonus that the spells "Corruption" and "Curse of Agony" receive from bonus spell damage effects has been decreased by approximately 10%.
• Soul Fire: Bomus damage reduction from 171.4% -> 115%
• Soul Link: The damage mitigation component has been reduced. (30% -> 20% mitigation)
• Imp Firebolt bonus damage reduced by 50%
• The talent Improved Firebolt changed from 1 second max reduction to 0.5 sec.

Patch 2.1.0 22

• Chance to break crowd control from damage: The increased chance for a spell to break from taking a critical strike has been removed. Instead, all targets over level 60 have a slightly larger chance to break out of crowd-controlling effects when they take damage. (Affliction (and Demo) nerf) - In addition, fear and seduce both have "heartbeat" resists and can break at any time, whether damage has been applied or not.
• In PvP, all CC's have a maximum time of 12 seconds.

Patch 2.1.3

• Curse of the Elements and Curse of Shadow now have a duration of 2 minutes when used on PvP targets.
• Curse of Tongues now has a 12 second duration when used on PvP targets.
• Death Coil is now is now subject to diminishing returns in the Horror category. Currently, only Death Coil is in this category.
• Soulstones: Soulstones can no longer be used on targets not in your party or raid. In addition, the soulstone buff will now be removed if the target or caster leaves the party or raid.
• Spell Lock (Felhunter) duration reduced to 5 seconds (rank 1) and 6 seconds (rank 2), and cooldown reduced to 24 seconds.

Patch 2.2.0

• Banish, Seduction, Enslave Demon and Fear duration against PvP targets has been reduced to 10 seconds.
• Resilience Rating: The reduction to the percent chance to get a critical strike now also reduces the damage dealt by damage over time effects by the same percentage.

Upcoming changes:

Patch 2.3.0

• Mortal Strike and other healing reduction effects (like Wound Poison) will affect Drain Life (and probably Siphon Life).
• Fear Ward will now be available to all Priests at level 20.
• Hunters are getting a debuff similar to Mortal Strike

Other classes:
Rogue:

• poisons will last for one hour now, increased from 30 minutes.
• the speed at which Deadly Throw travels is being increased significantly, so it will reach the target much faster, and the snare duration is being increased by 1 second.
  
• Shadowstep can now be used at any time, not only while stealthed. In addition, after use of Shadowstep threat caused by the next Ambush, Garrote or Backstab will be reduced by 50%. The cooldown will however be increased to 40 seconds.
• Also on the Subtlety front is a change to Dirty Deeds so that it will also be increasing damage of special attacks by 10/20% against targets that are below 35% health.
• We're also taking a look at bumping up Hemorrhage a bit, but no details yet on what that may be.
• Fleet Footed will now be a 15% speed increase instead of 8%
• In 2.3 Blind will no longer require a reagent. It will also be changed to a physical attack, will share the same diminish category as Cyclone, and diminish in PvE as well as PvP. (basically, Blind can no longer be dispelled)

Hunter:

• Arcane Shot (ranks 6+) will dispel 1 magic effect in addition to the normal damage.

Warlock buffs in 2.3:

• There is a change for Ritual of Souls which will significantly reduce the time to cast and complete it.
• Banish may no longer be cast on targets tapped by other players
  
• That's it!
  

Now, I'm not saying other classes weren't nerfed over time - they were, some even more than warlocks. But don't you dare saying how locks never get nerfed! I'm pretty sure I even missed some nerfs while looking at the patch notes, for example Insignia of the Alliance/Horde was changed a few patches back, which gave warriors and rogues another way to remove fear effects, even Death Coil. There's also dozens of undocumented changes.

I admit it, Warlocks are very strong in PvP, even overpowered vs. some classes/setups. But Rogues and Warriors don't have much problems killing Warlocks now, so they are the last ones who need buffs. Every single class is getting buffs except Warlocks, and it's been going on for the last few patches.
Shadowpriest/Lock combo was too strong in 2v2 arenas, so they got nerfed by resilience in patch 2.2. Now, locks are considered generally overpowered, especially SL/SL specs (siphon life/soul link), but is that really the case? What option do I have when fighting melee classes other than DoT + Drain Life spam? Casting Shadow Bolt with 0% pushback resist? It literally takes ages, and in the end it will get Kicked or Pummeled.
You're saying Death Coil is imbalanced - what about Cloak of Shadows; you're complaining about paladin's bubble which can now even be dispelled.

Let's see, I play arenas with a Holy paladin, +1700 bonus healing. We enter the arena, and for the sake of argument, our opponents are Holy paladin and MS (of course) warrior. My usuall routine is Curse of Tongues on pala, and damaging DoTs on warrior. I need 6-7 seconds for that, maybe more. Casting Fear on pala, get Pummeled. Cast fear again, pala dispells with trinket. All my DoTs are getting cleansed in the process. Only damage I did was with Curse of Agony on warrior. Meanwhile, my teammate is struggling to heal me with Mortal Strike debuff on me, wasting precious mana while the opposing team's paladin can pretty much go AFK. What options do I have besides Drain Life on warrior or Drain Mana on paladin? Warrior just keeps smashing me with his sword without breaking a sweat, while me and my pala try to keep me alive, and while I try doing some damage.
It's even worse vs. rogues: cheap shot, kidney shot, gouge, blind... I can't even Drain Life properly while getting all the interrupts, my teammate can't heal while being CC'ed for half of the fight. Rogue has much more interrupts, while a paladin has one bubble and one Insignia. After I place some DoTs on the rogue, he simply uses Cloak of Shadows and removes them all. If he's close do dying, he can even Vanish and go bandage somewhere.

Let's snap back to dueling a rogue for a moment. You think Fear is annoying - how about rogue's stuns/CC? Duel starts, Cheap Shot, Backstab, Backstab, Kidney Shot... I use my Insignia, run away a bit, get Crippling Poison, try casting Fear - Kick, cast Fear again, he uses Insignia. If there's some distance between us and I start casting some spell, I won't do much against his Deadly Throw and PvP/Arena gloves equip bonus (spell interrupt and 3 sec silence) unless I fakecast - even if I do, my movement speed is still reduced and I won't get far. Oh wait I have Death Coil, lets cast it. Oh snap, he used CLoS. So much about my imba Coil. Since I used all my cooldowns so far, Drain Life is the only thing keeping me alive while he's feared and my DoTs tick. That is, if I'm not already dead. If I run out of mana and have to Life Tap, I'm almost doing him a favor. Don't forget, he still didn't use Blind or Gouge.
Fighting a warrior is easy - cast Siphon Life, Corruption, Curse of Agony, Immolate, and hope your Drain Life can keep you alive while DoT's do some damage. Don't bother using Fear, warriors are almost Fear immune with all the abilities available to them. Even if you do Fear, it won't last long. Coil is pretty much the only thing that can save you; unless it gets reflected - watch out!

There was once this arena match, where I died, along with shaman from the opposing team. My pala had about 3k mana, while the other team's mage was out. He kept polymorphing my teammate and ran away from him for 4 minutes, till his mana regenerated and his cooldowns were gone (evocation, water elemental). He even bandaged from 2k hp to full. Of course, the mage won. Balance?

I'm not angry because warlocks are getting nerfed (ok I am a bit but that is not the point) - I'm frustrated because I will be running away from every noob or halfskilled rogue or warrior I bump into in battlegrounds because soon I will have no chance of defeating them, even if they have worse items than me or no skill. I'm mad because I feel like I wasted all these months getting arena points and honor to buy some good items, and now when I have 11.7k hp and 360 resilience - decent PvP gear - I can finally beat the crap out of someone. Until 2.3 comes. You will see me picking up armor scraps in Alterac Valley, killing rams and do other PvE stuff, because I'll be too afraid to run into a warrior or a rogue (or even a hunter, if they get Mortal Strike).
Time to get honor on my druid I guess.

> Warlock Nerfs

I was thinking about making this blog for some time now, but I've been lazy lately and don't even know where to start.

I was reading WoW forums yesterday and saw all these changes coming in 2.3 patch, some good, but most bad - unless you play a rogue. Basically, I'm pissed. Rogues get buffs, warlocks get nerfs - nothing new, however it can't stop to amaze me how I hate these patches. One day you're a strong class, and then you get some incomprehensive nerf. Ok, you learn to live with it (or play with it) and move on. Until next patch, when something else is nerfed. Where does it end?

I want Wrath of The Lich King. Today! Burning Crusade ain't that bad, but its already boring. I've seen all the 5 mans a gazillion times already, did some PvP, arenas, saw Karazhan, farmed my epic flying mount, did pretty much all the quests. All that on two characters. I'd go level my shaman but to what end - by the time I finish leveling and get decent gear, they will probably be nerfed also.
I want another expansion so I can start over. Maybe even give up on PvP and start raiding. You know what to expect from PvE, you're the reason why you fail, or if you win. That used to be the case in PvP, but since classes are now being balanced for 2v2/3v3 arenas, it will get only worse.

There's one thing to remember about PvP: whenever you feel like you can finally beat someone, your class will be nerfed next patch. Don't bother posting on forums - all you'll get is l2p noob.

> So here I am...