With a 20-second duration and no diminishing returns, you can kill nearly anything that you can Fear, and if you want to know how, just keep reading!
Blood Pact: Fear kiting 101
With a 20-second duration and no diminishing returns, you can kill nearly anything that you can Fear, and if you want to know how, just keep reading!
Blood Pact: Changing resilience to weaken DoTs
Perhaps you've heard about the planned change to modify the resilience stat to effect DoTs? When I first read about it, I can't say I understood it. Resilience is an anti-crit stat, which reduces the chance that you'll take a critical strike and reduces the damage done by a critical strike if you take it. Specifically, each point of resilience (and at level 70, it takes 39.4 resilience rating to equal one point of resilience) reduces your chance to be crit by 1% and reduces crit damage by 2%.But the main downside to using DoTs as a damage source is that they're incapable of critting. So what in the world do DoTs have to do with resilience? Eyonix explains it for us:
As it currently stands, each new tier of equipment adds to the amount of damage DoT abilities have, yet that damage is not mitigated through combat ratings found on typical equipment. This change will help ensure that DoT effects do not scale too well compared to other damage mechanics. The amount of damage reduced will be equal to the critical chance reduction effect that resilience grants.
If you're as confused as I was about why this was being done, not to mention how it was going to work, read on.
Continue reading Blood Pact: Changing resilience to weaken DoTs
Blood Pact: The future for pets
Every week Elizabeth Harper contributes Blood Pact, where she tries to share the joy of the Warlock class with her fellow players, Warlock or not.
But our pets are hardly perfect. In raids, they're fragile enough to often die (except for the Imp, which can Phase Shift and stay out of trouble -- but while it's Phase Shifted, it can't really do anything useful besides provide its Blood Pact buff). And our upper-level pets, the Infernal and Doomguard, are impossible to control for more than a few minutes at a time. In fact, after level 40, the pet aspect of the class significantly tapers off -- we have four (or, for a Demonology Warlock, five) pets that each fill different purposes, but there's nothing new to come, and no exciting skills or abilities to help you on the road to level 70.
So where should Warlock pets go in the future? Read on to hear about their problems and their possible solutions.
Blood Pact: What is a Warlock?, part 2
Warlocks are an unusual class -- difficult to define by any measure. When I first started playing, I sometimes had trouble getting into instance groups. The conversation would go something like this:
Me: Hey, I saw you were looking for more for Scarlet Monastery. Can I join?
Party leader: Well, we really wanted DPS...
Me: I'm a Warlock -- I can DPS!
Party leader: NM, we just found a Hunter.
Me: But...!
Now, I don't think I ran into this problem because the party leaders were always idiots. It's just that many players didn't have a clear idea of what a Warlock was or what they could do. Last week, I talked about the two of the most powerful tools in the Warlok's arsenal: DoTs and Fear. This week, I'm going to continue trying to define what a Warlock is by talking about the many things they bring to a group, starting with pets. Yes! You may not realize it, but Warlock pets aren't just for soloing -- they have stellar group utility.
Blood Pact: What is a Warlock?, part 1
Every week Elizabeth Harper contributes Blood Pact, where she tries to share the joy of the Warlock class with her fellow players, Warlock or not.
I didn't know what I was getting in to at the time, I only knew that Warlocks had pets like Hunters and cast spells like Mages. But I've got to tell you, despite the first-glance similarities between the classes, they're not at all alike -- which I learned while leveling mine to 60. (And before you ask -- I played this Warlock prior to the class changes that turned them into tiny gods. Yes, I was a Warlock back when Warlocks were the underdogs.) Perhaps you're not quite sure what to expect from Warlocks -- whether you play with them, are trying to kill them, or are thinking about rolling one yourself. If so, read on as I attempt to explain the essence of the Warlock class.
