How, pray tell, has fear been nerfed?

I cannot count the number of times my attempts to kill a warlock have gone as follows: Death Coil, Fear, dot, dot, dot, Shadow Bolt, Shadow Bolt, Fear, Shadow Bolt, etc... dead.

The whole time I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off, the Warlock's pet is also wailing on me. Usually it's a Fel Hunter, so even should I (by some act of Gawd) survive the encounter, all my buffs are gone.

Rarely, if ever, does the Fear break prematurely. I've even had other players wailing on me while I'm Feared. Even if it does break, by the time I get back to him, he's already got his next Fear ready to go, or Howl of Terror, or Death Coil's ready to fire again.

But please, for the love of all that's holy, don't even look at my polymorphed target the wrong way. Even dirty looks and harsh language can break that bugger.

It's more a case where other classes have been given methods to nullify the effects of fear, rather than fear itself being nerfed. Everyone has a PvP trinket, and most classes can either break fear or avoid it completely with an ability (bestial wrath, beserker rage, etc.).

Fear only works when the opponents ability/trinket is on cooldown, or you're lucky enough to get the drop on someone. If Warlock's don't get your feared right off the bat, the fight is usually over very quickly. Lock's don't have any other viable escape mechanism, such as ice block or a pally bubble.

Fear was nerfed in patches 1.2 (chance to break on damage), 1.3 (higher mana cost), 1.4 (seduction put on same diminishing returns), 1.10 (keep target when feared), 1.11 (fear breaks more easily on direct damage, less easily on DoTs), and 2.2 (fear duration reduced).

This is only direct changes to the skill, not counting the incidental nerfs from changes to trinkets or other class skills that affect fear.

Seduction put on same diminishing returns - Not a fear nerf

Keep targets when feared - Only applies to mobs that FEAR YOU, not when you fear them, never applied to PvP - Not a fear nerf

Fear Breaks more easily on DD, less easily on DoT's - Fear BUFF so warlocks are less likely to break their own fear with DoT's, only other classes jumping on the feared target

Fear duration decreased - Along with every other CC, and only in PvP - not ONLY a fear nerf

QQ more warlocks, you still have the only cc in the game that isn't guaranteed to break on any sort of damage and the mob isn't completely immune.

I find your arguments disingenuous Heilig.

We can word your first point equally as "Fear put on same diminishing returns - Not a seduction nerf". You're using semantics to ignore the fact that *both* were nerfed.

Also, *now* most PvP Warlocks use DoTs primarily, but when Blizzard made fear more susceptible to break on DDs rather than DoTs Destruction was the popular PvP spec. (See also the Seduction/Fear nerf)

Now that CCs are limited to 8 seconds initially, one might also call those nice six second stuns Rogues and Paladins drop CCs that don't break on damage.

Let's also not forget that fear is the least stable of any CC. When used in both PvP and PvE, the randomness of where the target runs can be extremely frustrating.

There are points you can make against the fear nerf QQ, but you don't have to ignore context to make them.

Oh c'mon. I thought we were done with the whole warlocks are gods thing. Locks have been nerfed every patch almost for the last year. Fear is broken all the time, either through trinkets or class skills. On top of that, it's returns are hugely diminishing. On top of that, more and more classes are gettings skills that wipe dots. And on top of that, death coil has a 2 minute cd.

Its kinda off funny. Whenever i fight a lock it feels like im feared the whole time. But, when im on my lock it seems like fear is ALWAYS breaking early. It's obviously about perception. Being feared for just a few seconds seems like and eternity in PvP if you're on the receiving end.

hey Heilig,

Obviously you've never been stunlocked by a rogue if you think locks are the only ones with godlike CC.

I play a warlock in pvp - on the supply side of fear I see it break all the time early, or its trinketed out of - or one of a million other ways to get out of fear early.

On the flip side when I'm feared (yes it happens) it seems to last the full ten seconds.