My Warlock is only level 27 (and climbing) but my experience with level 70 non-heroic instances is significant, having risen to Revered/Exalted with all Outland factions prior to 2.3. From that, I have an idea of what groups are looking for in terms of crowd control in level 70 non-heroics (and even Heroics).
For starters, regardless of their spec, I've noticed essentially two kinds of Warlocks...those who have practiced using their succubus for crowd control and are good at it and those who don't want to use their succubus for crowd control.
I didn't get my Warlock's succubus until I was level 25...something about crossing through Arathi to Wetlands any sooner than that was a deterrent for me :P
If you're off tanking trash, your minion is controlling that mob by building threat and surviving. Your minion is not only building threat, it has to be building threat fast enough to stay ahead of the party's healer, because the healer is building threat on all of the mobs in a specific radius. That raises two concerns for any given party:
1) Is your minion going to survive long enough?
2) Is your minion going to build enough threat so the healer doesn't get ganked?
I'm not accusing you of being dishonest, but there are parts of your accounting that aren't adding up. You say that on your second run in with a group of 5 (2 mages, 2 pallies, you) that you hovered near the top of the damage meter until you had to Seduce/Banish, at which time you dropped towards the bottom. The only way I can see that happening is if the damage meter being used was being reset every fight (or at least every few fights). I could see you falling below the tank on the damage meter if they had it set to reset after every fight, but most people don't do that. They clear their damage meter at the start of a dungeon and they leave it running right up to the end gathering cumulative data. If they're not reseting it, by the time you've cleared the first room you've likely got such an enormous margin over the tank that falling below him at any point thereafter means you spent a lot of time either dead or afk.
Before the "bug fix" with 2.3 that made double trapping impossible, those times when I was called on to double trap meant the other 2 dps got a chance to jump way ahead of me on the damage meter because my attention was focused elsewhere. My #1 priority is CC, then dps. If CC keeps me busy such that I can't dps, so what? The damage meter isn't an indication of success. Finishing a fight with everyone in the group still alive is. They're dead, we're alive, we win...damage meter be damned. You might want to adopt that attitude as well.
If someone shows up to a party and they want to try something that seems a bit "unorthodox" relative to "common" practices, I'm not necessarily going to flatten their idea right off the start, but it depends a lot on how they approach it. Using this case as an example, if a Warlock shows up and says, "Hey, I know that seduce is the common CC but I would like to try OT with my Voidwalker/Felguard. Can we give it a shot on the first few pulls to see how it works?" chances are I'm going to accomodate them. If their idea isn't working after a few pulls, however, my expectation is that they will revert to the common method of doing things without argument.
On the other hand, if mobs are marked for the pull, the marker goes over what the marks mean (ie, "Skull = tank/dps, square = freeze trap, moon = sheep, star = seduce") and the Warlock either says nothing or says, "I'm not seducing", we've got a problem.
Sadly, in all of the level 70 content I've run, whenever there is a Warlock in the group Seduce is the standard for crowd control. We know that it's tricky sometimes. We know that a succubus is squishy in the extreme. For that reason, we only mark mobs to Seduce when we need more CC than what the other CC jobs can manage. We do try to minimize the difficulty/frustration associated with Seduce CC, especially for Warlocks who express that they haven't really had a chance to practice much Seduce CC in the past.
From what I've seen, most Warlocks get their succubus and soon discover that she's nearly useless (I know I certainly did). Fair enough. Please remember, however, that in level 70 non-heroic dungeons, crowd control is just that: control. A pet/minion OT is not control. It might seem like it, but the instant that pet/minion takes an unfortunate series of crits, the situation goes sideways almost immediately thereafter. Also remember that pets/minions do not receive the benefit of defense rating, meaning that their crit resistance is nil. If Warlock minions scale the way Hunter pets do, they also do not get nearly enough hitpoints to last very long. The best forms of crowd control are the kind that shut a mob down entirely (polymorph, freeze traps, banish, seduce). If the mob can't attack, who has what for HP/defense doesn't matter and as far as I can tell, healers don't generate threat on CC'd mobs.
I know that on my Hunter, I have an addon that gives me timer bars for all of my abilities (ie. Freeze Trap primed, Freeze Trap active) so that I can see at a glance if a trap is about to fade before it was activated or if a mob is about to break out of a trap. If you could get something like that that allows you to monitor Seduce duration, it might make things a lot easier for you.
As far as Death Coil goes, whether the scatter radius on Death Coil is of concern to you or not, no party that I know of likes to see mobs Feared when their is a risk of aggro. The stealthed patrols in the Inciter's room can wander very close to the hallway leading there from the first boss' room. (At least, they could pre-2.3...not sure what it's like now). It makes people nervous, because any form of Fear effect is the antithesis of crowd control in areas where adds are a risk.
I'm not attacking you, but it sounds to me like you might want to give more thought to what it means to be a team player. It very much seems as though you went into those SL runs of the mind that you were going to do your thing your way and argue with your groupmates when they wanted something else.
Seduce is the standard for crowd control for Warlocks where Banish is not an option. Death Coil would make most groups nervous. In a group I was leading, expressing a desire to try something else would not get you booted. Arguing and refusing to follow common guidelines might. Refusing to follow common guidelines and creating a wipe situation would almost definately get you booted.
If it's your first time in a dungeon, the novelty makes up for the hardship. If it's your 10th time (or more) in that dungeon, you want to go in, kill, loot, get out. Have fun, play hard, play to win, but pointless wipes become less acceptable the more times you've run a dungeon. sh*t happens, but what most groups you'd want to be in will want to see is that you're going to work with them to get it done, not insist on doing it your way.
Practice with your Succubus. You're going to be using it a lot in level 70 dungeons.
Edited, Dec 2nd 2007 9:23am by AureliusSir
