For a long, LONG time have I longed for a dark caster that just focuses on shadow magic and curses (that is NOT a shadow priest).
I’m thinking old-school dark wizards and badass dark casters in general… something that is not tied to demons and legion.
Affliction itself has a lot of potential to be different to other two specs.
In TWW, every Warlock spec has something tied to demons which is just killing the joy for me.
I don’t like pets, I don’t like summoning pets, I don’t like having an army that is overcrowding my character and screen, I don’t want random ‘pets’ to pop out of nowhere when I’m casting etc etc etc…
But apparently in TWW we are stuck with this clutterfest no matter what spec we play.
I just want a proper dark caster that relies on his own skills and invokes fear into his opponents with various curses and dark magic.
I was so excited about Soul Harvester, but when I saw it was yet another demon-related thing I just gave up.
I’m happy how affli atm can just use grimoire to get rid of pets and drain their power to empower himself – but in TWW it seems the visuals and flavor are all about ‘pets’.
Have you considered that if you don’t like anything related to demons maybe you shouldn’t play the class whose identity revolves 100% around demons? lol… “listen I just want a shaman that has nothing to do with the elements!”
Also neither Hellcaller nor Soul Harvester have anything to do with pets, what are you even on about?
The entire point of Affliction warlock is that it is a DoT spec that relies on cursing and draining opponents, not relying on pets.
It’s what attracted me to Warlock in the first place. So no, Warlock is not 100% about demons, it is a dark caster that relies also on soul and shadow magic as well.
Out of 3 specs, one should at least NOT rely on pets and be that typical ‘greedy’ dark mage that cares only about his own power.
Soul Harvester gets the annoying animation where a giant fiend pops every time you cast MR… that gets annoying really, really fast.
I am uncertain if Hellcaller is going to have to rely on pets and random summons though, but I hope we get to keep our Grimoire as Affliction.
As for ‘shaman that has nothing to do with elements’ no… more like ‘that has nothing to do with totems’ and random pets.
My whole point here is just to keep one spec petless.
Pets clutter the screen, they sometimes randomly pull, they make skipping a pain and I’d rather not go through that.
Warlock is 100% about demons. Regardless of what spec you play warlock has always been about using demonic magic, drinking demon blood, enslaving demons etc. Affliction is no difference. Demonic Circle, Demonic Gateway, Demonic Embrace, Demonic Fortitude, Fel Armor, Demon Skin, Demon pets, your mount being a demon, Demonic Sacrifice itself, et cetera, et cetera…
If you want to play a shadow caster that has nothing to do with demons then play shadow priest.
If you’re uncertain maybe read the talents instead of making the assertion that every hero talent is about pets when literally only 1 of 3 is.
I am aware of that, I am using Grimoire now.
In my main post above I mention all of that.
The problem with -most- TWW for almost all classes is the amount of things these talents end up summoning.
Even Soul Harvester summons a huge thing when using MR which is -bad-.
I’m talking about overall screen clutter, AND pets.
Is Grimoire still viable in TWW or does it force us into pet-spec as Affli, that’s my main worry too.
Since its origins, the warlock has never been a class totally linked to the use of a demon. If we talk about demonology it is clear that it is a spec based on the use of demons obviously, but the talent of the Sacrifice has been well present (among other things precisely in the demonology branch) since Vanilla.
I don’t like the idea of being completely tied to a demon and in fact I really like the option to sacrifice it and gain its powers.
However, if the current Grimoire of Sacrifice for affliction is high-performance and thematic, it is not for destruction as it would be preferable to increase the direct damage of some spells and not a shadow DOT and not to mention that to take it you “lose” many talents important. In TWW today the Sacrifice is a little too weakened
I really wish pets were generally just optional. I love switching to destro, but having a pet constantly next to me annoys me.
On top of that, it’s nice actually being able to interrupt without relying on a pet.
Honestly kind of agree also I AM gonna shill my metamorphosis with this, but Kanrethad (the god of metamorphosis for warlocks because it set in stone that it’s lorewise canon) is actually… an Affliction Warlock!!! so if Meta was ever brought back they could somehow make it work through Affliction rather than Demonology HONESTLY affliction at least personally has always been just kind of boring and somewhat off compared to the other two specs, but that’s just me.
I’m testing Affliction Hellcaller a bit (I’m focused for now on Destruction Hellcaller, which is an absolute pleasure) and I can say that it’s very powerful, fast and fun. I made a spec without Darkglare (thus saving two points to insert elsewhere, otherwise in the current talent branch it would not be possible to take several interesting talents at the bottom and capstone), and I tried both with summoner embrace and with sacrifice.
Obviously I couldn’t test the damage since both details and recount give me constant lua errors that I can’t bypass, but I definitely prefer to go with grimoire of sacrifice also in this expansion (both affliction and destrucion).
It would be VERY interesting if the grimoire of sacrifice, instead of doing shadow damage proc, could give a percentage of stats based on the specialization, for example 3% haste from affliction and 3% critical from destruction so as to be able to better compensate for damage and utilities in general
p.s. Malevolence is fantastic graphically and as a skill in itself (we are very happy to forgive the fact that it is not off gcd considered 15 sec duration with CD 1 minute)
Malevolence is graphically similar to the old dark aphoteosis of MOP when the warlock could tank (the same icon of Meta), the wings and the fact of tanking are missing but we can’t complain too much XD
except we can!!! it’s just the fact that nobody gives a SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT that we can’t have good stuff like that which were removed for no reason back into the game
so if Meta was ever brought back they could somehow make it work through Affliction rather than Demonology HONESTLY affliction at least personally has always been just kind of boring and somewhat off compared to the other two specs, but that’s just me.