Blizzard man you gotta stop, you’re continually making PvP even worse for caster mains. All the mobility and infinite healing that every single melee spec has is just so far beyond out of control that it’s unreal. Warriors having multiple charges of charge on a 16 second cd? Heroic leap that gives +30% move speed for 3 seconds on a 30 second cooldown? Monks having multiple charges of roll on a 20 second cd and flying serpent kick on what 45 second cd? Not to mention the absolutely ENDLESS healing that they have. Warriors will stay 100% health all the time that they’re on you (which they’ll stay on you because of all those gap closers) and as a lone caster you just can’t outdmg the healing.
At this point it’s not even really a skill issue anymore of not letting melee touch you, I say that because in SL I was a master of not letting melee classes touch me (You can see in my Youtube videos if you need proof) and now in DF it feels next to impossible to get certain classes off me now, like warriors for example. Not to mention you ruined DK outplay as well, before Abom Limb came into the game, if I had to port away from a DK and I reflected his death grip, well then it was GG well played, I ended up killing him because he couldn’t grip me again. Then abom limb came along and if they get grip reflected it doesn’t matter because abom limb grips you through magic reflects and it continues to grip multiple times.
It was much better in Wrath because there were details to know and if you outplayed, it really mattered, like A LOT. If I forced a DK into death gripping me and THEN I port away from him, it was over because I could setup and cast on him and kill him, EZ. However if I couldn’t get grip and I had to port and he grips me off the port and I die, well then it’s on me for playing bad. Same deal with Warriors, if I pre-seduced a warrior charge in wrath, that was HUGE, like massive, because it forced out intercept and Shadowflame and port, at that point I can setup and kill him BECAUSE I outplayed him by knowing he was going to charge and seducing it so he got no use of it. On top of that, there’s no heroic leap or another charge of charge to reconnect to me and there’s also no self healing if by some miracle he does reconnect to me. He can’t take himself from 20% to full health in a matter of a couple globals. Now come to retail, same exact scenario, you know the warrior is going to charge you and you press seduce and catch him on charge and he doesn’t touch you. You get a soul fire or chaos bolt off or something and chunk hi health because you just outplayed him and you’re playing off that. Well guess what happens next, he’s gonna charge again and its fine in most cases because you just have port, but then he heroic leaps and you remember that 40% health you had him at? Yeah you can forget about that because he presses impending victory and he’s full health again even though he’s done nothing so far in the encounter except get outplayed and punished for it.
But think about other classes in the game, that was just warlock POV obviously but there’s other caster specs that don’t get to have a port or a gateway, like frost mage. Yeah sure they have blink but that’s only 1 escape and it’s on like an 8 or 9 second cooldown, so really you blink, he charges again and by the time blink is back up off cd, when you use it the warrior just has charge again because its back off cooldown.
“Well why don’t you just slow him ya noob, you ever heard of that?” Yes as a matter of fact we all have. Sure, warlocks and mages have a 50% slow, wooo big deal, guess what, all those other melee classes have a slow that’s literally just as powerful, WW monks, Warriors, DK (theirs is 70% btw) they all have a slow so with their endless gap closers they can and will slow you and you can’t get away, you’re both just going to be moving like snails while the melee is beating your brains out. It’s not a fun experience.
“Well charge has a range limit so why don’t you just max range him so he can’t charge you?” Yes, I’m fully aware it has a range limit, but one thing you might fail to realize is that specs like Destro/Demo lock, shadow priests, frost and arcane mage, we all have to stand still to cast, STAND STILL, you know, like a pole. So they’re going to get back in range and get to use charge. You of course have the option to keep running and max range the charge but then all you’re doing is prolonging the matchup and waiting for him to heroic leap back all while doing no dmg.
Now I have a hefty background in WoW, multiple KSMs, former mythic raider, AOTC every tier, and gladiator pvper. In all these years and doing every form of content, there has never been a case or scenario where it’s justified for melee to have SO MUCH mobility. Yes there’s raid/dungeon mechanics where you get a debuff and you have to take it out of the group, and you have A heroic leap to get out of the group, and you have charge to get back in, that’s fine, totally understandable. In like every raid I’ve ever been in, there’s never been a case where you get that same mechanic multiple times in under 30 seconds, it’s just never happened unless there’s a raid tier or boss fight I missed. So what is the point of having that extra charge of charge or roll (WW monk) when you’re just going to forever sit on the other one and have the first one back before the mechanic ever begins again to start with? In Dungeons you’re not going to charge to pack A and then instantly charge to pack B to pull them together. You charge to 1 pack and if you want to pull another you axe toss/jade lighting/death grip the other pack. If you’re the DPS in this scenario then yeah sure, charge to the pack, whatever. You’re not gonna kill this mob and then charge to the next mob thats 4-5 yards in front of you, besides, even if the next mob is further away, majority of the time you have that first charge back before your current target is even dead if not coming off cooldown within 2-3 seconds. So as I said, there’s literally no scenario in the entire game EXCEPT MAYBE spamming pulling open world trash mobs, where you would ever need that much mobility.
You see what you have done is create an increasingly miserable experience for casters in pvp and for the better health of the game it NEEDS to be addressed and I can’t put it any nicer than that. There’s only 1 single caster spec in the entire game currently that actually has the kit to deal with a melee and that’s Arcane mage. If they’re a really good mage and know how to manage their mobility then yeah sure, melee won’t touch them, but if they’re bad, well it shows, and they just get annihilated. I’ve covered just about every angle you could look at from for the forum trolls here that will read this and laugh. But I’m serious, go to twitch and ask ANY caster main what it’s like to try playing a caster in PvP. Ask Venruki what it’s like to play a frost mage in pvp these days, ask stahp what it’s like to play a spriest in pvp against all these melee. Go ask Dakkroth what it’s like playing a warlock in pvp these days. I’m willing to bet you that all 3 of them tell you the same thing, that it’s a miserable and/or unfun experience.
Somethings got to change, and it’s that simple. For multiple xpacs in a row it’s been becoming a worse and worse experience to play a caster. You know how awful and unfun it was to play a frost mage or destro lock in Shadowlands? It was truly miserable because of the uptime and self healing as well as casting interrupts that melee have. (By interrupts I’m not specifically talking about just a spell lock, but other tools in their kits that can be used as well such as a grounding totem, DK blind, DH stuns or rogue gouge). It’s a growing problem and to be completely truthful, I just can’t be bothered to play retail anymore with how out of control it is, it truly is an awful experience to fight any melee as a caster. So thanks for classic, because that’s where I’ll be