#0 - April 17, 2009, 1:31 a.m.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473757927&sid=1
I'm Full S6 Deadly, all crit off pieces, with arguably (besides turning tide) the best PvP gear in the game.
I will give you the reality of conflag Pre-patch, how much damage it could do, and it's short commings and benefits.
The reality is Conflag was way too powerful against non-resilienced targets.... but the flipside, it did relatively average damage against reslienced, Full PvP-geared targets.
My Conflag, with the full +damage spec, WITH fel armor up (usually ALWAYS run with Demon), did about 11k Crit against a non resilienced target. So about 65% of your average targets health.
It also has a 8 second cooldown, requires you to cast Immolate before you Conflag, and requires one global cooldown to conflag.
The problem I noticed right away, is that smart players were spam dispelling themselves when they saw me cast immolate, instantly clearing the immolate before I could conflag. (Paladins, Priests)
The second problem I saw, is that when a target does have resilience and "PvP" healthpool, my conflag crit was little more then 25-35% of their health. (900 Resilience, 22k healthpool).
Still sounds like a lot of damage? Right?
Well, take note of a few things before your quick to assume this.
Warlocks crit rate resides around 27% to destruction in FULL pvp-crit gear + crit trinket (this INCLUDES the 8% we get from talents).
This means a full resilience target will drop our crit rate to 17% and that damage (11k) to about 8k.
Take note, that's only 5k damage Non crit on a 8 second cooldown with a 1.5 second cast.
8k Of 24k health (what Full S6 will put players at) is a VERY small ammount considering the low crit rate, the 8 second cooldown, the prospect of just having your immolate dispelled and the 1.5 second cast time (which can be silenced) of immolate.
So I can only speculate this entire nerf was indeed a kneejerk reaction without considering the MANY other factors (some of which I have already noted)
Finally, I get to the good part... Conflag was a complete gimmick that allowed us to laugh at non-resilienced targets... but verse professional teams, with healers behind them, it simply was NOT enough.
Sure, we can put out a 8k Conflag... Then what? a 2k damage Shadowburn (8 second cooldown, soulshard), A Shadowfury (20 second cooldown, 2k damage, stun 3 seconds). Searing Pain? (1.7k damage, 1.5 second cast) or I guess it would be Chaos Bolt? a (1.5 Second cast, 4k damage).
We're simply cought between doing virtually no damage with our instants other then conflag, or stuck with cast times that can be pummeled, stunned, kicked, silenced and LoS'ed with ease because we have no Roots or true distance gainers like Blink and frost nova. (dont say Demonic Portal, most times with will LoS you from the target you want to DPS... it's most likely a purely defensive ability.
All the while, that melee that ate te 8k conflag can instantly (using INSTANTS), can drop 2-3k damage non crits, 5-6k crits vs our cloth class, EASILY outdoing any "conflag" damage with ease.
You don't understand the sort of damage the warlock TAKES. Everyone's upset they can blow 8k conflags into plate, but it IS NOT uncommon for a Ret Paladin to pump in a 5k Judgement into a 900 Resilienced, Soul Linked Warlock with Demon Armor Up - and this is TRULY an instant.
Warlocks are USED to taking 5-8k crits ALL THE TIME (IN FULL PVP GEAR) from Melee Classes and I don'tsee why the reverse got hot fixed right away.
The difference is, it's so much easier for Melee classes to distrubute this damage then it is a caster. To get comprable damage, we have to wind up spells in the targets face (this is typically due to the Warlocks lack of range gainers)... so we experience interupts and pushbacks that almost every other DPS does not have to deal with (mages for the most part included).
Sad day, truly a sad day.
The worst part is, the level of playing ability to be successful in Destro (once we get past the Battleground cast immolate and KABOOM), is IMMENSE compared to what Haunt/SL was in PvP. The even sadder part of this, is that only the VERY top tier Warlocks were truly successful in Haunt/SL (it had probably the highest cieling "skill wise" of any class - it went a lot father then DoT and Fear).
So it just leaves me wondering what the Arena Participation for Warlocks is going to fall to in S6.
Cast times with a cloth class + no Root = DEATH. I cannot stress this enough - It was the reason why EVERYONE went Haunt/SL for PvP as a Warlock... It had the LEAST cast times, most mobility.
My only advice?
Sure, keep the conflag nerf, but make us TRULY a not attractive target to melees.
Get rid of Netherprotection to spells (this was a HORRABLE idea, we've become gods against shadow priests and mages), and make it apply to melee attacks instead.
Therefor
