Draele just started a blog about being a Warlock called Rantings of the Afflicted, and today he's got a post up about that most heinous of Warlock abilites: yes, none other than fear. A touchy subject (to say the least), but he offers three different suggestions on how to make fear fun for everyone.At its base, fear is actually Blizzard's way of trying to come up with another game mechanic. If you're a veteran MMORPG player, you know there are three archetype classes-- healer, DPS, and tank. All three of them are centered around damage-- either getting rid of it, doing it, or tanking it. Fear, however, plays with none of those rules-- it's a complete damage negator. The reason Warlocks have fear is so they can wear cloth and yet stay alive for a long time against one target-- long enough for their DoTs to come in.
The problem with fear, however, as even the developers have admitted, is that it's not fun for the person being feared-- getting feared leaves you with almost no option but to sit there and do nothing. It removes control from your character, and that's never fun.
So how can we fix it?
Draele offers three suggestions, none of which are "remove fear from the game." The first involved turning fear into more or less a damage spell: have it break after a certain percentage of damage is done, which leaves it up to the Warlock to do that damage in the short time that fear is going down. Dimishing returns would keep the lock from just fearing over and over, every damage round, until the target was dead.
The other two suggestions are basically the same, and these seem more like what Blizzard is aiming to make fear: Turn it into purely a CC spell, and have it break on damage. A lot of tweaking would have to be done (probably to both Warlock and other class abilities) to make sure that Locks could still hold their own in 1v1 with someone bearing down on them, but that seems the best option.
And even if Blizzard doesn't change Fear (to break on damage), they're definitely heading towards less and less fear anyway-- Draele doesn't mention it, but Fear Ward is getting spread around in the next expansion, if not sooner, and so Fear is going to lose a lot of ground as a mechanic in PvP, if not in PvE. Don't be scared, Warlocks-- Blizzard obviously isn't going to leave you out there on your own (Pardo's daughter plays one, remember?). But fear's days are definitely numbered.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
8-23-2007 @ 4:01PM
Murdamook said...
Fear is fine to me.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:01PM
dreadlorde said...
Trinket out of it.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:02PM
Morrigän said...
Couldn't care less with PvP. I just hope the nerf bat don't hit us on PvE as well...
I wouldn't like the "break on damage" idea... Just give us polymorph instead -_-
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8-23-2007 @ 4:07PM
Elorah said...
Here's my suggestion: Fear varies in strength/duration based on how many enemies are within a certain radius of the target.
If it's a 1v1 situation, or a solo player vs. mob situation, Fear isn't that powerful.
If it's a 3v3 situation, or a 5-man instance situation, with several mobs in the pull, Fear is buffed somewhat.
In a 5v5, big battleground, or PvE raid situation, Fear is at its strongest.
A way to accomplish this while still making some sense in the game world is to have the spell seek out and amplify latent fears in surrounding creatures and players.
You could even have an effect that looks like chain heal, snaking out to different enemies and tapping into their fears to unleash on the spell's target.
How's that sound?
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8-23-2007 @ 4:08PM
Deadlock said...
Once again PvP whining threatens to nerf a vital PvE mechanic. The best way to fix this is simply make the diminishing returns on player characters in PvP high enough that it won't have any more effect than polymorph, traps or the other forms of CC. PvE should not be affected.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:09PM
Arras said...
i am so sick and tired of people blaming everything on warlocks.
Fear takes away control...no kidding! You're running away in fear, what do you expect?
If a warlock chain fearing and dotting you to death is unfair, then so is a rogue stunlocking you to death. Just like a mage pyrocast/frost nova/blink/poly/pyrocast...dead. Or a priest dotting you, fearing (huh...using a fear to keep a mob/player at arms length..neat idea) and dotting some more. How about a pally just plain outliving you while they slowly chip away at your health?
Use teamwork, use a different strategy. Do something other than sit there and complain about it
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8-23-2007 @ 4:10PM
Todd said...
Potions, Trinkets, Talents, and Food are all possible solutions for Blizzard to implement, allowing a person to buff themselves with a fear ward without having to screw with Fear as it is.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:11PM
Arras said...
or if they take away fear...let banish work on more than elementals and demons. Oh wait, you'll just whine about that too
How about enslave working on more than demons? Oh, crap...the whining again, I forgot
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8-23-2007 @ 4:13PM
Todd said...
Heh, people like to compare the nerfing of Fear to the nerfing of Poly, but at least in Fear you don't get to regen. Maybe Blizzard should just add that, then everyone would be fine.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:15PM
dekulink said...
A chance to break on damage is a simple solution. It gives the lock time to get their DoTs up, but it also let's the other guy hit the lock sometimes.
A cooldown instead of Diminishing returns is also a btter idea, in my opinion.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:15PM
Cakeordeath said...
Why not just add gems and enchants that work with the stun/fear mechanics that are already part of the talent trees of some classes anyway? That way a player who find fear to be annoying can update their gear to combat that through resistance, at the cost of some of their other stat possibilities (like a warrior could gem their gear with fear/stun resist gems, but then would lose the opportunity to put stam, defense, attack power, resilience, or other gem types in that slot.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:23PM
ringu0 said...
"Turn it into purely a CC spell, and have it break on damage"
Fine by me. Sorry it would give a warlock something to actually think about.... something like... I don't know... tactics?
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8-23-2007 @ 4:28PM
KateJaneway said...
If you're a paladin and you get feared, just use Divine Shield! This also works on Mind Control. Palies rule :]
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8-23-2007 @ 4:29PM
nubular said...
Why not just put it on a cooldown of 15 or 20 seconds? That prevents a lock from perma-fearing a poor sap into oblivion.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:30PM
Jody said...
The author of this post wrote: "It removes control from your character, and that's never fun." That's what CCing is MEANT to do.
Fear has been nerfed to death since forever. I suspect people will always complain about it until it's gone from the game, even though polymorph is essentially the same thing.
Warlock have no other CCing ability. Locks deliver most of their damage over time (i.e. DoTs). We have to live during that time, hence we pile on the stamina and cast fear, so a warrior or rogue won't kill us in 3 seconds.
So, is fear IS to be rendered useless, what its replacement for warlocks?
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8-23-2007 @ 4:31PM
Todd said...
I would love to see an enchantment, possibly for cloaks, that adds a % fear ward.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:32PM
Todd said...
@Jody
Poly at least offers regen.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:33PM
ringu0 said...
> even though polymorph is essentially the same thing.
Except it's not. Fear doesn't break on damage.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:34PM
baylow said...
What kills me about this is that no one ever bothers to mention priests in these article about fear. Hey guys, remember us, we're the ones that have one.. 30 second cooldown... escape mechanism that shares the same mechanics as warlock's fear. When fear gets nerfed from a class that has about 40 other ways to protect itself, we're the ones that take the most major nerf....not warlocks.
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8-23-2007 @ 4:35PM
Joe Szilagyi said...
Fear needs no adjustments, its fine how it is. If they feel like changing something make it so you don't run.
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