Patch 3.2: Resilience No Longer Only Applies to DoT Damage

Fellow Warlocks, wannabes (Mages), Shadow Priests, and anyone else with a close relationship to the DoT'ing kind. Go grab yourself some food and a drink, a towel, and then return to your seat, where you will more than likely spend the next few hours frozen in awe and excitement at the glorious news I am about to relay to you. Seriously. It made my wife pee a little.

Hidden deep within the PTR 3.2 Patch notes is a little bit of Warlock love in the form of a major change to Resilience -- the stat that has been the bane of DoT damage for almost 2 years running.

Here's the little nugget in all of it's DoT-loving glory:

Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.

What does this mean, exactly? It means that DoT damage is getting an indirect BUFF via the direct application that Resilience will equally have against ALL forms of damage. In other words, DoTS will do relatively more damage than they do now, compared to other forms of offensive attacks.

Within the current state of World of Burst-craft, this is a VERY big deal! It not only means that Resilience-heavy Affliction Warlocks will see more survivability, but it also means they will be dishing out a higher percentage of overall damage done!

Shwing?!

Together with all of the other pro-Affliction changes that 3.2 is slated to bring (the Pandemic Buff to Haunt that we will discuss in an upcoming post, for example), this should be a big help to a long-ailing tree in PvP. Only time will tell if it will be a large-enough step in the right direction to make a difference.

Now, go clean up a bit, and be sure to check back for an update on Affliction's performance on the PTR very soon.

See you then. ;)

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Warlock 101: "Drain Some Dummies"

Warlock 101 looks to shed some light on the basic truths of Warlocking, for those that are new to the class, or just may have missed them while QQ'ing about the constant nerfs to Fear.


Ask a Warlock, any Warlock, what changes they would like to see implemented in a future patch, and amongst the calls for "green fire" and a new Megan Fox succubus skin, you are more than likely to find a few that will wish for stack-able Soul Shards.

We 'locks have often complained that our shard reagents are an inconvenience, taking up too much space and taking far too long to farm before a night of raiding or PvP. Even after the recent lifestyle tweak to Drain Soul, we still complained that the shard mechanism was too costly, taking up too much of the the time we could be spending doing something else equally as unimportant as shard-farming.

Well, my friends, the reality is that the Soul Shard mechanism isn't that big a deal, and it is far less time consuming than you think. Check out the video below for a hot tip on how to make Soul Shard farming super efficient, no matter your level or experience.

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The Best Questions a Warlock Can Ask

Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year again. The great (and sometimes sexy) Dr. Eyonix has made his Summer rounds on the official forums, summoning the "questions you may have concerning your class." Playing a Warlock, I know we got a whole bunch of them. But before you go off running to ask why we haven't seen green fire applied to all of our spells just yet, hear me out. There are far more important matters at hand.

Here are 10 of the best questions we Warlocks can ask in the current state of the game. And please feel free to bombard Eyonix's thread with them. Maybe we'll get some much-needed attention!

Will incoming pet/spell-pathing and redirection after a Demonic Teleport ever be tweaked to result in a miss?

While defending the Farm in AB the other day, I was approached by three mouth-breathing Death Knights. After being LOL-Gripped by two of them back-to-back (that's where the "lol" comes in), I Teleported into the shed to escape the ridiculously high damage they were doing... and that's when it happened! A Deathcoil that one of the DK's had fired off came through the wall and hit me square in the face!

If a Rogue Vanishes, a spell headed towards them will miss (unless it's still bugged), and a pet will run back towards it's master. If a Warlock Teleports, a spell will redirect and shoot straight for them, and a pet will hunt them down and continue to attack. Sure, Vanish and Teleport are different spells, but shouldn't their effect on spell/pet-pathing be treated the same? If not, why not? At best, it's an awkward mechanic difference as is, and is in desperate need of a change.

Will our pets ever be allowed to Teleport with us if they are set to Passive?

Our pets. Sometimes I love them. Sometimes I hate them. And I ESPECIALLY hate them when they lead opponents straight to me after I break off a Teleport. They're like the worst little back-stabbing snitches ever, and I often find myself having them attack an opponent and get killed just to keep myself alive. Broken, imho.

Will melee always be able to cut-off spells when "running through" the caster?

At range, Destruction Warlocks are where it's at. They have some of the best combos and burst in WoW (which we'll talk about in an upcoming post), and are game-makers as a result.

In close-quarters, however, they are about as useful as a pair of scissors with no handles. This is mostly because of melee's ability to "run through" a caster and interrupt his class if timed right, and which isn't that hard to do. Melee have a huge advantage over casters as a result, and it is a shame this long-broken mechanic hasn't received the attention it deserves.

Will the Soul Shard cap ever be raised?

Let's face it: Soul Shards will never stack. So the question is, will we ever need anything beyond an Abyssal Bag? Inquiring Warlocks, especially ones that Arena regularly, want to know... because if the Soul Shard cap isn't going to see a change, it's time to get a maxed out shard bag, pronto.

Are there any plans to lower the Soul-shatter cooldown?

Of all the spells a Warlock has in his arsenal, Soul-Shatter is by far one of the most poorly maintained. As a spell, it's fine, just as any aggro-reducing ability is. As a spell that has a 5-minute cooldown and costs a Soul Shard, however, it is not. Almost every other class has an aggro drop on a much shorter cooldown... why not Warlocks?

Are there plans to introduce more consistent burst damage to the Affliction Tree?

Affliction burst is based upon RNG DoT crits that are great during long PvE boss encounters, but not so hot for PvP. In order to make Affliction a viable Arena spec again, it needs to have a controllable amount of burst that is not dependant on an automatic, uncontrollable, and untimable DoT tick. Perhaps make Shadowburn trainable? Or even better yet, give the Afflicton 'lock an ability to consume a DoT for 50% of it's overall damage on-command. That'd be a start!

Are all pets going to scale equally from their master's stats?

When I heard that Ghostcrawler and his development crew had finally decided that it was time to work on pet scaling, I called Hell to see if it had frozen over. It hasn't, so I remain cautously optomistic. We are Warlocks, afterall, and whenever we see something good come our way, there is often a catch.

So I have to ask, when the pets get these incoming buffs, are they going to receive them equally across the board, or are each of their specific weaknesses going to be addressed?

And semi-related to this question comes the next:

Will switching between pets quickly ever become an untalented option?

Warlocks are dependent on their pets, now more than ever at least since the "mushroom" era of PvP. Each has a very specific use and strength meant for a very specific environment. So when we find ourselves stuck in the mud with the wrong pet out... we're pretty boned.

Currently, the only way to summon a pet quickly is to spec at least 10 points into the Demonology Tree, where you'll find Fel Domination. Fifteen points in, you'll find Master Summoner, which will reduce the cast time of your next summon by 9.5 seconds to a mere half-second. Unfortunately, each of these talents is on a 15 minute cooldown, which doesn't do much for the Warlock enjoying World PvP or a day in the Battlegrounds.

We need more... and faster too!

Is Fear going to be tweaked to better compliment the Affliction tree?

After the recent Fear "nerf," the spell seems fairly balanced to a Destruction Warlock. Destro 'locks don't DoT, so the spell can easily be used as an off-target CC or to setup a powerful destruction spell combo.

As an Affliction 'lock, however, whose quasi-purpose and strength is to afflict damage to as many targets on the field as possible, it is quite useless. It cannot be used as an off-target CC, because Affliction Warlocks SHOULD be doing consistant, constant, dependable damage to as many enemy players as possible. And almost any damage to Fear currently breaks the CC, making it one of the worst offensive spells in the game.

And yes, you read that right. I wrote "offensive," because that is how it was originally designed. Afflicton Warlocks are SUPPOSED to DoT their targets and Fear them to death. Now, sadly, that's not the case, and they need Affliction-tree-specific buffs to Fear that will allow them to do so competitively. Add a talent, add a glyph, whatever. Just do it already.

Is Immolate going to get some much-needed dispel protection?

As is stands, Immolate is one of the most important spells in a Destro 'locks arsenal. It increases the damage of Incinerate and Chaos bolt via Fire and Brimstone, and is the opener of choice for an instant-Conflag. However, it's as easily removed as Paris Hilton's panties, yet unlike those panties, it comes with no STD penalty whatsoever.

An Afflicton Warlock's DoTS are the bread and butter of his offense, and protected by Unstable Affliction. Immolate is the core ability of a Destruction's Warlocks offense, and has no protection whatsoever. Without Immolate, we lose the burst damage of Conflagrate, and the CC of Aftermath -- both of which are very necessary to keep the spec a successful one.

So those are my questions -- ten issues that need addressing. Hopefully they won't fall upon blind eyes or deaf ears, and hopefully yours won't either.

Speaking of yours, what Warlock questions do you have for the devs? Is there anything that you see as vitally important to the class and wonder why it hasn't been addressed? Let me know in the comments section -- link to it in the official thread if you wish.

Now, lets get this done, people. Good luck to us all.

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What's Up With Ferarro & Paladin Schmaladin?

I have to take a quick time-out from the norm to outline a concern that I have about the honesty of blogging and bloggers. For those of you who normally read blogs, it may impact you on some level, so it won't be a complete waste of your time.

If you found yourself over at fellow WoW-blogger Ferarro's website today, Paladin Schmaladin, you were greeted with a new message that the "blog is open to invited readers only." According to her Twitter updates, she believes that she has a stalker, and things are getting a bit too uncomfortable with all of the private information she has been posting.

Now let me be serious for a second (it's all I can muster): if she does have a legit stalker, she made the right decision in closing shop. Playing it safe is the only way to go in that scenario. There is nothing worse than feeling exposed, after all (we Warlocks know that all too well). However, I am getting reports that the stalker story is about as straight as Tom Cruise, and that I should have listened to my mother when she told me to never believe everything I read on the internet... that I don't write myself.

According to multiple sources in-WoW and out, Ferarro was outed as a fraud when an astute Warlock posted a convincing link on the WoW Forums, pointing to a website called TechDarling. All over the site are pictures of a girl that we know as Ferarro. In fact, many of the pictures there are identical copies of those we've seen on Paladin Schmaladin. But instead of the WoW game-tester we all know, we see a real-life social-blogger who is into the tech scene and has posted pictures from various blogging expos and web design events -- pictures stolen by and featured on Paladin Schmaladin and that Ferarro presented as of herself, and her job as a game-tester for WoW.

Doing a little bit of digging, it seems that all of the self-portraits posted of Ferarro on Paladin Schmaladin originate from TechDarling and its author's own web pages, including Facebook and Flickr. In fact, there are many images there that authenticate TechDarling as the legitimate source and owner of the pictures and events. Oh, and btw, WoW is never mentioned on these other sites. Not once.


So what does all of this craziness mean, exactly?

Well, for starters, a bunch of love-struck boys are going to experience some heavy frustration when this comes to light, and we are bound to see some nerd rage soon. For bloggers like me, it is a little disheartening. Ferarro has basically been lying about her identity for years, and stealing someone else's content and posting them as her own. She has taken advantage of another blogger and her reader's trust, and that makes my job as a fellow blogger just that much harder.

On a WoW-related front, this mess also means that Ferarro isn't a game tester for Blizzard. The "game-testing" images that were posted on Paladin Schmaladin were relabeled TechDarling images that were taken at a blogging expo.

I gotta admit, just thinking about this gets me a little angry, and my mind is going crazy with a series of difficult questions: what drives a person to do this kind of thing? Why would anyone lead people on like that? And for what means? And do you know what the worst part about this whole thing is? Paladin Schmaladin was a great resource and excellent WoW blog. Why it needed to be masked by someone else's pretty face is straight attention-whoring.

And here's a piece of advice from your friendly neighborhood Warlock Therapist: if you post someone else's picture and get caught, don't take down your blog and try to explain it away as a problem with a stalker. Don't go into hiding and conjure up 7 different identities when that doesn't work either. Fess up, make things right, and move on. It may hurt at first, but it is the only way to help guarantee yourself respect and friendship in the long-run. And lets face it, you owe at least that much to your readers, right?

It will be quite interesting to see where Ferarro goes from here. While watching the changing status of Paladin Schmaladin's accessibility, I wish her, or him, some much-needed sanity.

I am Jagoex. I'm a husband, a father, a professor, and a warlock. That's all you need to know. ;)

UPDATE: Apparently, Ferarro has closed her Twitter account and many of her articles at Retpaladin.com are MIA. Threads started on the WoW Forums linking to TechDarling or this post are being reported as harassment and immediately removed. Also, many young boys are in complete denial.

UPDATE 2: TechDarling is aware of what is going on and according to her Twitter page, she was unaware anyone was stealing her images and content and using them as her own.

UPDATE 3: Retpaladin.com admins played no hand in the posts that were being deleted on their website, and were clueless on what was going on until after the fact. Also, Ferarro's character on Alexstrasza is no longer showing up on the Armory.

UPDATE 4: Paladin Schmaladin is available for viewing once again, with a long explanation of what has happened -- including a creative story detailing 7 different owners of "Ferarro" the Paladin.

UPDATE 5: WoW.com just posted a very detailed look into Ferarro's explanatory post, basically debunking her statement that Ferarro was operated by 7 different people over the years.

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Post Preview: Battlemaster as a Solo Warlock

In my mind, one of the greatest achievements currently implemented in WoW is the Battlemaster achievement. Aside from getting what many consider to be the "best" title in the game, it is also widely considered to be the ultimate BG achievement, akin to the Rank 14 grind. That, my friends, is up for debate.

I am currently in the midst of a semi-hard push towards fulfilling Battlemaster, and in many ways, it actually does remind me of the High Warlord grind. It is probably due to the fact that it requires a lot of time invested in the Battlegrounds, but thankfully, you can take a break if you want to, which wasn't the case back in the old honor system. As a result of regular break-taking, I have a long way to go to finish the achievement, but I have already completed a good chunk of the chain and am pretty excited about fulfilling the remaining requirements.

I'm hoping I'm not the only one. ;)

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Soulstone Resurrection

This is just a quick post to check the look of the blog. More to come. ;)

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A License to Warlock

Like driving heavy machinery or working in a specialized profession, sometimes I think that playing WoW should require a license to operate. Not that I think the game is difficult to play or anything like that, but so few people actually take the time to learn the intricacies of their class, that it'd be nice to have a simple and clean way to separate those that do from those that don't.

Achievements are a step in the right direction, but won't help in picking out the Warlock in Kara gear that can out-perform T6-level 'locks in Black Temple content (*cough* more on that later this week)... even though the system totally should.

But because we will never see licensing of that kind implemented in-game, I guess we'll just have to turn to our good friend novelty to get our licensing fix. =)

Inspired by Mike Schramm's post over at WoW Insider, I threw together these Warlock "licenses" for the sheer heck of it. They're pretty fun, if I do say so myself, and best of all, they are totally unspoken for in the State of California! I'm actually thinking about picking one of them up myself. =D

So here ya go, friends in curses, and be sure to let us know if you got some of your own novelty statements to share, or if you are sporting an auto-based tribute yourself!










See you guys soon... even on the road, maybe. ;)

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20 Silver, 91 Copper

That's how much money I have across all of my characters this morning, down from about 8000 gold or so. I'm also out 8 Primal Mights, 32 Primal Fires, and just about any other Primal or item of worth that I had in my bags when I logged out late last night. In all, it amounts to well over 10k gold worth of materials lost.

So this is what it feels like... for the second time.

This is really getting old.

I logged into my Warlock expecting to be in Dire Maul, where I usually plant him upon logging out for hopes of finding a rare spawn upon my return. But when I logged in this morning, I noticed immediately on the Character Select screen that he was in Shattrath and felt incredibly uneasy about it. I loaded him up, and indeed found his bags empty. I checked my other toons--theirs were empty too.

The uneasy, eerie feeling I experienced during those first moments were not unlike those that I felt when I logged into my blog and found a vacant, empty space those many weeks ago. It's not so much an "OMG MY STUFF IS GONE!" kind of emotion as it is a "How on earth did this happen?" kind of thing.

Now before you go on thinking about all of the irresponsible actions and behaviors that could result in having an account compromised, hear me out.

I don't visit weird sites. I don't download weird programs.

I scan my HD regularly, and am very cautious and concerned about my internet security. I have set up Firewalls, both software and hardware, and felt pretty secure about all of the extra precautions I have taken.

Obviously, none of this was enough, and even after scanning my drive with two different programs, nothing turned up. I am totally baffled, but will be taking more time to figure out how things went wrong. Hopefully it'll be something to learn from.

In the meantime, I really have to ask myself if this game is really worth all of the trouble it has been lately. And sadly, I don't have an answer for that just yet. Ironically enough, the thief left all of my TOONS intact, allowing me to play just as I have been over the past many weeks. No gear was vendored. All gear is accounted for.

And if this is some sort of twisted joke, it's totally not funny. Not at all.

If any of you could offer up some advice on what to check, where to check, etc, after an account has been compromised, please let me know. And thanks if you do.

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The Warlock vs. Melee Conundrum

Some of you may be wondering why I have a picture of a little Farm boy on my blog this morning, waiting by the fireside by the buff. Indeed a valid question, especially when considering my one-month hiatus from blogging. But whatever you pervs are thinking, stop. It is simply to illustrate a Warlock/WoW-related point, which we'll come back to it in just a second.

But first, one of the issues, if not THE issue PvP Warlocks are facing these days is the lack of balanced survivability against melee classes. Rogues and Warriors are currently the bane of our existence, with an array of tools and abilities that can keep them close in proximity and preventing us from doing anything substantial. I'm sure you've all had the pleasure of experiencing what seems like hours worth of spell push-back due to fast melee attacks, all while getting intercepted, gouged, cheap-shotted, and kidney-shotted all the way to death, and with no real means of escape.

Fear? Please. If it hadn't been nerfed to death with immunities, trinkets, and diminishing returns, maybe. But in it's current form, it is a VERY weak defensive spell, and sadly, it is our class-defining ability. What does that say about Warlocks as a whole?

Deathcoil, while a great stand-alone defensive spell, only delays the inevitable. Warriors can intercept right back to the Warlock and continue smashing their faces in, and Rogues can, well, do about 10 different things that will keep them in control of the encounter--thinking about all of them makes my head spin, actually.

NO class should have absolutely NO chance to win when engaged with another, but in the case of Warlocks and melee, we are pretty close to that point. Even Soul Link, with the lack of Pet Scaling and the 5% nerf it will be receiving soon, isn't enough to handle the obscene amounts of white damage melee can produce. Such unbalanced encounters can make for very frustrating, one-sided experiences akin to the "Warlocks are Mushrooms" days of early WoW PvP. Add to that the multi-crippling effect that Resilience has on our abilities and the availability of Ignore Armor stats to melee and you can understand the up-hill-balance-battle that we Warlocks are now facing.

Things have got to change, and as we approach the beta phase of WotLK production, our question becomes this: what changes would help create balanced survivability for Warlocks against heavy, fast-hitting melee?

We've all heard of the new self-teleporting Demonic Circle ability Warlocks will be receiving in Wrath of the Lich King, and indeed it's sole purpose is to help the Warlock escape from within melee range. But in thinking critically about the spell, you should also be asking yourself a multitude of questions about it. For example, in it's final form, what will it's range limit be? Will it be affected by line of sight? What will be it's cooldown? Will it be enough?

Since the ability, as with all new WotLK abilities, is still under development, it's tough to say. But the short answer is "no," and here's why:

Each combat stat is designed to have a single counter-stat in the World of Warcraft. Or, at least, this is the ideal blueprint that Blizzard used to apply. Spell Resistance was countered by Spell Penetration. Percent chance to Dodge was countered by Hit Rating, etc. It was simple, and for the most part, successful... until the Arena came along and the concept of Resilience was introduced.

Resilience, from the start, was a terrible idea--to minimize Critical strikes in the PvP equation completely gimped Mages, Destruction Warlocks, and a multitude of other classes and specs that are only successful when they are allowed to crit with no penalty. But, it was what it was, and at least it ONLY severly gimped one Warlock talent tree. That is, until Blizzard strayed from their original blueprints and allowed Resilience to counter a SECOND variable, Damage over Time spells, and therefore indirectly affecting Spell Damage at the same time.

At this point, two Warlock staples, Spell Damage via DoTS and Spell Crit Chance, are countered by a single PvP stat. And it didn't stop there.

Soon, Channeled spells were thrown into the mix, becoming the THIRD variable affected by Resilience. This was only done to minimize the effect of drain teams, but a change to the approach Warlock PvP should be played nonetheless.

Lets put everything together now to put this problem into perspective.

The Warlock class has had its defensive spells nullified by buffs to melee. What offense we did have left is nullified by the effects of Resilience on our spells and abilities. What on earth do we have left? An SL/SL build that requires us to ride the coattails of our Rogue or Priest or Druid or whatever other cookie-cutter combo we can team up with?

Things have got to change, and it is up to the Warlock and general player communities to place pressure onto Blizzard and it's backward-stepping e-Sport fetish to refocus the game and help make things right again.

Now, consider the picture of the child at the top of this post again. Notice what he's wearing? Chain mail armor. In a system where Resilience exists in it's current form, THAT KID HAS MORE LASTING POWER AGAINST MELEE THAN A WARLOCK DOES.

GG.

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Tay Zonday Does "Pork and Beans"

Hey all!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic weekend. Mine was AMAZING.

I experienced my first Father's Day ever, which was truly an awesome time! I'll write more about it later, when I'm not totally exhausted and drained of energy, cause the day really deserves my utmost attention to convey just how adorable it was.

I've also been working on a few Warlock-centric pieces that I promise I'll put up soon.

But in the meantime, enjoy this clip of YouTube's own Tay Zonday of "Chocolate Rain" fame doing Weezer's "Pork and Beans." It's epic, and for now, it's all you get, so enjoy it! =P

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For Temerity Jane, the Marshmallow Queen

After yesterday's marshmallow-stuffing goodness, a little video just for you!



Next time you invite us all into your web cam space, I hope you use this as motivation. =)

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This Week's LOL: New Destruction Spell

This video is W.I.N. for so many reasons, that I shouldn't even have to explain any more about it. Just watch and if you're an old-school gamer, you'll see what I mean. =)

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GH3: Through the Fire and Flames, 100% on Expert

Seriously. I never thought I'd see the day.

The hardest song of any Guitar Hero or GH-like game ever released met it's master yesterday, when some dude named Chris hit every one of the song's 3,722 notes in stride. His reaction at the end of the video says it all... he definitely didn't expect it could be done either.



Grats on an epic gaming moment, Chris. You better not have been cheating! ;)

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A Very Good Warlock Gear Guide

Canadianpimp, aka Kobekid of Kilrogg, is a seasoned poster over at the very constructively destructive Warlocks Den forums. Taking his helpfulness to another, almost deifying level, he has put together an incredibly valuable gearing guide for the Warlock class. In it, he uses an objective rating system he came up with called DP (short for "DPS Points"), which rates gear based upon all of their DPS-friendly stats.

The guide will lead you from your early cloth-wearing days to end-game Sunwell gear, and with a concise clarity that you will appreciate. New and seasoned warlocks alike should definitely take a look, and often, because he updates the guide fairly regularly.

Follow the link below, and if you can, be sure to thank him (on his blog) for a job well done!

Canadianpimp's Warlock Gear Guide

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