This is my first season playing wow and I chose to go with a warlock just because it looked cool, but ultimately I do not think I enjoy the gameplay of all three specs of this class.
My reasons:
I do not like having a huge “ramp-up” window. I want to blast asap.
It’s tricky to switch between ST and AOE (Mostly a destruction thing).
Gameplay is heavily revolved around CDs (Mostly a demonology and affliction thing)
Is it simply a warlock thing or I will also end up not enjoying the other casters?
I love my warlock thematically however gameplay wise it’s depressing to play tbh. However I do like how my mage plays. Fire can be a bit spammy for my taste and current arcane is somewhat confusing however frost is still the good old bastion of “chill” gameplay. So no, just because you don’t like warlock doesn’t mean you wont like mage. Can’t really talk about shadow priest because my shadow priest is on lvl 47 or something.
Arcane mage is fun nuking. The ramp-up that affects nuking mode is charges that remain for a while before dissipating.
AoE can be done at melee range with arcane explosion quite powerfully and you can release built up charges with a powerful arcane barrage multitarget that also restores some much-needed mana. There’s also minor AoE like a frost cone and some weakly AoE you can anchor on any target, and some other special stuff if you want to talent into it.
If you want a pet, you’d have to go frost, which AFAIK is not nukey. Arcane does a lot of CC, and relatively reasily. Mage is fun and convenient with the portals stuff (and sheeping is always joyful, haha), and since you can conjure food that regs quite quickly, the intense mana use of arcane isn’t that big of a deal, and you have a 100% mana reg ability on a cooldown and a mana gem (conjured consumable) for restoring a portion.
Personally I find shadow priest weird how it forces you into a shadow magic style, visually and all, and how the whole class is a mix of full healing specs and one damage spec that is totally different in style, but it also means you have healer role as an option. I can’t say much about them, just that I never managed to warm up to them, and also not to frost mage, and that I find fire mages a bit interesting (and dunno, maybe they have good DPS, too), but arcane I just love.
Well in mmo’s don’t expect to find a “blast” class and believe it’s gonna be like that always.
Buffs, nerfs, change in talents will always be here so you need to answe the basic questions
Tank / heal / dps?
Melee or Ranged?
Then look the lore and the asthetics of each class and race to see what fits you better.
I have every class at lvl 70, and I pretty much tried all the specs in some sort of enviroment.
I personally can’t stand the playstyle of a warlock aswell, which makes me bad at it. Regarding shadow priests, it was pretty much the same, but with DF’s revamp, it actually got way better than everything it was before, so give it a go. It’s incredibly dynamic and fastpaced, and it doesn’t rely on CDs that much.
Mage is a different out of these 2, as it doesn’t rely on dots this much, so for me, it’s a #1 looking at these 3. What i’d like to mention aswell, since you mentioned ranged dps pretty much (yeah casters, but maybe you wanna reconsider), give MM hunter a go. My fav of all ranged now in DF. It was good in SL aswell, but it got so much better now.
I’d say trying a mage would not be smart based on your description. Is there a melee that looks really cool to you? If yes, try it. If no, Devoker plays very different.
PS: I usually love casters in every game, but in wow they feel clunky to me.
The latter. Casters tend to have rampups, in fact Shadow and Aff both have always had theirs.
This especially goes for Shadow AoE, as this xpac’s Mind Sear was a rarely usable powerful bummer, which I disliked. We didn’t have consistent aoe outside of dots and now it gets removed and the spec’s aoe reworked.
If you want bursty aoe, then warriors and paladins are more your fren. Or any melee really this is more of a MeleeFlight with how many swirlies you need to run from.
2 of 4 world bosses spam them to a frustrating level.
And compare this to Prot’s application of bleeds. They do a thunderclap and revenge, and wham, 2 dots are ticking on everyone. Whereas a destro needs to hardcast Cata to mass apply Immolate, and if you mess up, then you mess up Channel Demonfire too afterwards.
Neither fire nor frost has any meaningful ramp up. Also destro kind of just starts blasting when the infernal comes down. And same with elemental shaman tbh. Honestly only arcane, shadow, affliction and demo have ramp up per say.
Specs aren’t really supposed to be incredibly good at everything. They have strengths and weaknesses.
If you’re looking for a well rounded spec, you should maybe try Beast Mastery hunter. You’ll have to swap a few things around depending on what content you’re doing, but it’s pretty chill.
start with burst window by activating elemental and primordial wave for multi LB. No ramp up.
ST and AOE switch is easy. For maelstrom generators, just choose whether to use single target spells or chain lightning. For your spender, just choose earthquake over earth shock. You’re either generating and spending ST or doing it AOE, very fluid
You have CD mitigator talents for elemental and primordial wave which brings them both back into play quickly.
and now it gets removed and the spec’s aoe reworked.
this is more of a MeleeFlight with how many swirlies you need to run from.
