I’ve looked at the talents trees of each classes, at least as they are now pre release, and so far I’d say that most talent trees have clear focuses. Excluding hybrid classes, where each tree focuses on either tanking or healing or dps, even pure dps classes appear so far to have distinct playstyles in mind. One example is rogue, who can focus either on poisons (assassintation), raw damage (combat), bleed (subtlety); another is hunter, who can focus on either pets, ranged combat or melee.
That said, I think two of warlock’s trees aren’t so defined. Affliction seems to be the more thought out, with a clear focus on dots and channeled spells. But with the other two I’m kinda confused.
In the spotlight, it was said that destruction warlocks would mix fire and shadow spells, but the tree focuses only on fire damage (save a couple spells, but it’s not very compelling). I can see the appeal of going full on fire warlock, as long as it tries to be different from fire mage, but so far I just don’t see any incentive to mix the two schools of magic.
Demonology seems even weirder to me. It’s like it wants you to focus on either shadow or magic spells, depending on the demon you sacrifice. In pvp there might be more nuance, but looking from a dps point of view, my thought is that either I want to go full on fire with the imp, or full on shadow with the succubus. Sacrificing a demon and summoning another is interesting, but I guess it’s something you do once outside of combat, not something you keep doing during a long fight. Personally it would be fun to be encouraged to constantly sacrifice and summon a different demons during a prolonged fight.
How do you feel about warlock from what you’ve seen so far?
Lots of build variety, you can focus on fire or shadow, both with or without pet.
You can get your dots to do crazy crit dmg while having soul link, etc
Its great!
1 Like
NGL. I tried out a lot of talent combinations and the conclusion is to just not play WL this time around. Its clear that the focus will be paladins and possible hero classes in the future. Historically every hero class has countered warlock to a large degree, so that’s an additional negative. I just can not imagine any setting where playing warlock with the currently planned abilities would be fun.
My thoughts are that all the duelist warlocks are jumping in their seats with sl sl spec and 40 % dmg reduction
1 Like
class seems boring, races are disgusting.
not gonna play warlock as a warlock main since I can remember.
just not gonna happen, I see littleraly 0 reason to roll one, I actually see plenty of reasons against making one…
and its my favourite class by a large margin.
good job blizzard on that.
2 Likes
Been a warlock main since 2006 and i like the new affliction / fire imp demo destro build.
I wish we had Meta for Demo capstone and Haunt instead of wrack in affliction though (using DL as filler instead). Destro as of now, i really do not like though.
This time around i won’t main it. But it has do do with the SP scaling and nerf of spells base damage. I feel gimped compared to Classic. And the +5sp here and there aren’t cutting it to compensate for the power loss.
1 Like
I’m exited about Demonology Warlock, especially that Deamonic Pack. It is gonna be my Solo Main but I am still unsure about The Race. Originally I was gonna roll Undead Warlock but currently I am considering Gnome or Orc based on which side Wife makes her Warlock 
all other Races appeal to me beside Humans. Also I am gonna do Demonic Pack Demonology Warlock regardless if it is Meta or Trash because Fun > never getting invites to Raids. I like The idea of choosing Fire ole Shadow and taking Afflication or Destructio to add more bonus to one or another after Demonic Pack 
If you fail to see how the tree promotes mixing shadow and fire I think you should stick to the path of Kralnor
Warlock is the LEAST played class in Beta btw. soul shards stacking by 1, does not help either 
So if people want summons, health stones etc… tough luck, warlock is out of bag space Blizzard please Add soul shard stacking by 5-10, its much needed Quality of Life change for Warlock.
3 Likes
I played lock in classic last time and I think the talent tree looks quite nice for PvP. I like that there is now a demo leveling spec. I think my alt will be a lock. Still praying that shoulshards stack up to 5.
And no the game doesnt turn into retail because soulshards stack.
3 Likes
I enjoy the fact that they are some of the least played, people can’t handle inconvenient soul shards I guess.
2 Likes
Played orc warlock in vanilla, even with non stacking shards and entirely too small shard bags they were the best class in the game and pure god mode for world pvp.
Nothing I’ve seen in their talents tells me this wont be the case again - perhaps people are just looking to play a more challenging class? or you know not spoiling launch by playing their main class 
2 Likes
I always play Affliction because it’s always felt very familiar throughout WoWs history. That being said, Demo is amzing in retail but its maybe a bit outside of what people expect from a classic game design because of the number of buttons, though it isn’t that complicated.
Edit: I wouldn’t be against them using retail Demo for Forever though, as I think its the best Demo has ever been and has a great design philosophy behind it! 
0/31/20 is looking.. “balanced” in forever 
I think they may be hit with the big ol bat soon, so enjoy it while it lasts
1 Like
as a noob looking Warlocks’s sims only Shadow Demonlogy from the four builds seems to bench much higher than others…?
- Shadow Demonology 2/31/18 average dps 993
- Affliction 30/2/19 average dps 888
- Fire Demonology 2/31/18 average dps 880 (I asked about this and it was simulated 880)
- Destruction 20/0/31 average dps 873
if Blizzard wants to only nerf Shadow Demonologist they should reduce Succubus dps roughly by 30 and the 25% shadow bonus damage from Demonic Sacrifice and Master Demonologist to 10% which would in sim roughly be equal to other Warlock builds 
I removed Demonic Sacrifice leaving only 10% shadow dmg bonus and it simmed 908 dps so if you know 30 dps from succubus you would end up with 878 dps within similar range of other warlock builds.
I’m personally most interseted in Fire Demonology as it does not use Shadow Bolt at all You instead use Searing Pain as your main dps filler. Other dps skills are Immolate, Corruption, Doom, Agony and Soul Fire after 35% as execution 
Edit: Looking at actions per minute in Sims the Fire Demonology is pulling 40,6 which would land itself 10th from the 35 builds 
Searing Pain cast time is 1,5s while Shadow Bolt is 2,5s you’ll be pressing the button more often for better or worse… All builds with higher apm are all pretty much melee which is neat.
1 Like
Warlock need less setup time after respawn. Simplify buffs and make soulshard stack.
1 Like