Warlocks nerfed; every other class throws a party
Rumors have been flying all day, and now it's official: warlocks on the beta realms have been nerfed. From Nethaera:- I just wanted to take some time to drop in and reassure people that the change to the dots is intentional as a part of ongoing balancing that we have been doing. It is not a bug.
Just so that everyone knows a bit more the approximate damage reduction is 10% for "Curse of Agony" and "Corruption" for the average Warlock.
Well, everyone asked for it, and now they've got it. Warlocks got a whack with the nerf bat. Did they deserve it?
Filed under: Warlock, News items


















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Matt Park Jan 8th 2007 5:46PM
Yeah, yeah they did.
Hell, my highest alt is a warlock meant for pvp, and even with crappy gear, a demonology spec, and an imp out I was still tops in damage done by simply going DoT DoT *tab* DoT DoT *tab*.
Unkle Jan 8th 2007 5:53PM
Yeah, it was deserved.
Being a class that can't heal myself, I hate having to kill one, and then immediately try to get out of combat so that I can eat just so I stay alive.
At least I'm a hunter, and can feign my way out of combat. I Feel sorry for warriors who get eaten.
Wartoad Jan 8th 2007 5:56PM
Lvl 60 Lock here, I knew it was too good. Saw this coming a mile away.
Dracco Jan 8th 2007 6:03PM
thank the titans!!!!! Its about time that Blizzard fixed warlocks.Now i won't have to go through the embarrassment of a cloth wearer cutting through my thousands of armor and tearing down my thousands of health before my warrior has a chance to touch them. Granted that playing a lock takes skill, but they still were easily made overly powerful by a skilled player.
Joshua Ochs Jan 8th 2007 6:21PM
Christ. Get some gear with fear immunity, ignore the pet, and kill the Warlock. Seriously. We have nothing but cloth armor, and the pet is only an asset if it can distract the enemy from killing us first.
Overpowered my ass. Warlocks have their ways of surviving (Fear, DoT), other clases have their own (healing, shields, armor, magic resistance, etc).
Whiners.
AcceptableRisk Jan 8th 2007 6:40PM
This is kind of undeserved in the 2.0 environment. Prepatch, warlocks were a bit overstrong. But now with all the extra burst damage and stuns going around, damage over time effects were already less effective. I never really subscribed to the notion that warlocks were gods of PvP, but since 2.0, they lost a lot of potency relative to other classes. This is just a slap in the face.
CiM Jan 8th 2007 6:49PM
This was totally uncalled for, really. And of all the things to nerf, the +damage coefficient on DoTs seems a bit silly. Destro warlocks with insane shadowbolt/burn crits are the only warlocks I ever felt needed toning down a bit - but then, there's little difference between a destro warlock deathcoiling you and nuking you down in 5 seconds than a 3-minute mage doing it from polymorph or frostnova.
LOLED Jan 8th 2007 7:18PM
everyone(exept locks) will be a lot more happier now! yay cheers wohoo
now lets focus nerfbats on the real OP of the game HUNTER
cloud Jan 8th 2007 7:30PM
Thank god, its about time they got nerfed
"Get some gear with fear immunity"
What gear has fear immunity on it? Your tears are delicious, tough when your class isnt god mode anymore isnt it? Sorry you cant cast your dots and then wonder off knowing your opponent is dead.
gonzo Jan 8th 2007 7:38PM
Figured this was coming. Blizzard caters for the kids who can't pvp once again!
Unkle Jan 8th 2007 7:56PM
compromise, and just nerf gnomes. 10% damage nerf to all gnome clsses.
SuperPallie Jan 8th 2007 8:16PM
Now that they bat has landed on Locks...it is time to hit a home run and do something about the super bubble pallies get. That and the heals that take almost no mana for them to cast. You want to talk about over powered...look to pallies. Wait till the horde get pallies and you will see all the alliance whining over and over again about nerfing pallies.
Mats Jan 8th 2007 8:24PM
This is the wrong way to Nerf warlocks.
The overpowered problem was with Demonolgy warlocks having far better damage on there dots then affliction locks. You still have this problem now, only Affliction locks now are totally lacking, while Demonolgy locks work like they should.
They should have reduced the overall damage of each dot, and put more power into the high end talents in affliction tree buffing damage on dots alone, so that Affliction locks have around the same damage, but less survivability, and demonology locks got less damage out from there dots, but the same survivability. This grand slam nerf only puts a bandage on the Overpowered problem of Demonology and once more makes affliction unusable.
Pritchard Jan 8th 2007 8:26PM
Maybe Blizz could have avoided this nerf for warlocks, or perhaps, at the very least, helped out warriors more, if they allowed bandaging with the dots.
Often times in PvP if you are dotted and you kill the warlock, you can't get out of comabt quick enough to eat before the DoTs overwhelm you. If you try and bandage, it eats that up too. If they allowed the bandage its full duration, it would help tons.
Oddly enough, if my voidwalker is stricken with a posion DoT, I can bandage him and the bandage goes to its full use, healing him while the walker takes X damage every X seconds.
Octagon Jan 8th 2007 8:37PM
Speaking as a warlock, I am shocked that you people get killed by dots alone. That's ridiculous. Even with Affliction specced warlocks dotting you up. There are many ways to get dots off of you, or live through them. Yeah corruption ticking away at 234 a second isn't nice, but it won't kill me by itself if I'm smart.
Also, if dots killed you before they were reduced by 10%, they're still going to kill you, it'll just take longer. If you weren't smart enough to live through the duration of the dot, or to get it off of you, then the chances of you living through it now aren't exactly high if you're fighting a skilled warlock. This nerf won't make you people any smarter.
It's just a silly nerf brought about by people complaining because they don't understand the mechanics of another class. We're some kind of mythical death dealer that kills you with two dots and a fear...
I'm demonology specced with 10 points in destruction, this really doesn't impact me a whole lot, I'm just speaking in defense of the affliction locks, even the ones I fight in PvP. Do you know what this does to their PvE game? This puts their damage at pre-patch levels, meanwhile, all the other classes have damage and health boosts that will no longer be proportionate. Do you want to drop all the classes back to pre-patch damage dealing? No, you don't really care, because that has nothing to do with your rogue ganking them in PvE. That's what you care about. You just want to kill someone and walk away alive everytime, because you "should". That's lazy.
You people should all roll affliction specced warlocks, because you have some serious misconceptions. Then when you complain about it taking a really long time to kill mobs, and ask for damage increases I will laugh.
This game seems to be about nerfing every other class but your own, and since we all play different classes with different specs, you're really going to end up nerfing yourselves. It's just a big, irritating cycle. Stand up for other classes and figure out in-game solutions to solving problems.
Ahko Jan 8th 2007 8:54PM
R O F L
about freaking time, maybe this will FREAKING TEACH PEOPLE to stop whining
ROFL.....
instead of asking for nerfs they should have been asking for buffs on all the other classes, IDIOTS!! which is what most of the community is, Im sorry I'm just tired of people taking something good and then bitching/whining and then the developers change it and then people who don't know anything about a particular class whine some more about it all and then more nerfs happen all around.
Im done :)
jakk on the blackrock server Jan 8th 2007 9:07PM
omg yes! but i would rather see a fear cooldown of say 30 sec
Tazebrax Jan 8th 2007 9:12PM
Eh, warlocks were easy work on my rogue unless they had their damned succubus out. Really, stun, dot, move 5 feet, stun, dot. Can't even vanish because the damn dot brings you back out.
James Jan 8th 2007 9:13PM
Hell yes, they deserved it. And I have a lock. However, I agree with #19--Fear needs a longer cooldown. The dot's aren't the problem, its the fear. I'm glad the dot's have been toned down though--one or the other, all that matters is they're somewhat mortal again.
Ramon Jan 8th 2007 9:42PM
Finally.