How does anyone play warlock?

PVP Battlegrounds
1

I don’t get it. Either Ia m missing something, maybe I am stupid, but I just don’t get it. I try my best, and the end results is, I can barely cast ANYTHING in BGs. We get constantly stomped, one BG we had 40 deaths, horde had 1. ONE!

How does anyone play warlock? When DK pulls, slows, stuns and hacks me to pieces, there’s nothing warlock can do.

When warrior is at your buttocks, you can’t escape. I stunned one warrior 3 times, and it kept coming and killed me, like the CC had no effect on it or it released immediately.

Hunter stalks me with arrows and pets and slows me and 50% HP is gone before I even realize it’s there, the rest just goes down very quickly.

Priest gets hold of me and I can no longer move, I can just die right there, on the spot.

My casting is slow, CC is slow, and the few ‘instastuns’ I have are always on cooldown for obvious reasons (not that they EVER save my life, as what am I supposed to do after using them but just die, as I can’t run fast even after I’ve stunned someone).

I don’t understand the concept of warlock, I know in theory ‘how to play’, so don’t give me the “l2p” crap, I just don’t understand how I am supposed to survive a situation where a DK, warrior, huntar, or some combination is at my buttocks. I have never survived that situation so far, not even once. I try everything at my disposal, but I just can’t gain so much distance DK couldn’t pull or warrior couldn’t jump. (BTW, I just got killed by warrior and huntar, couldn’t escape even with glider and water mount)

Fear needs to be instant to just give me a chance to mount the watermount so I could try to swim away, but since it isn’t, I can’t do anything. huntar can keep shooting from out of my range, while warrior pummels me to death, or even if I manage to stun it, or the warrior usually uses BLADESTORM anyway, so I can’t stun it.

So what I want to know, is … what is the concept of warlock?

Some theories:

“Let’s take crappiest leftover spells we can think of and make it into a character”

“Melee needs fodder to feed on - some classes can actually escape a warrior/huntar/DK, so let’s make on that ABSOLUTELY can’t.”

“Something that -sounds- powerful and SEEMS to have lots of ‘useful’ spells, but in practice, has to just sit in stun while melee bladestorms it to death. I will make everyone I hate play it and then laugh secretly at them.”

What the heck is the concept of warlock, really? How does anyone play these things, when warlock can’t:

  • stealth
  • heal
  • bubble
  • interrupt
  • move (seriously, try to MOVE as warlock, you’ll be caught every time, you can’t escape anything, you can’t chase anything)
  • teleport (well, with ‘gateways’, maybe, but I don’t have those - and don’t even mention the 1cm ‘teleport’ which requires PREPARATION - I TRIED that after the glider, and it got me tiny distance that was useless)
  • speed / jump / blink / something

I mean, mage can iceblock+invisibilize = escape from rogue, warrior, anything. (Except warriors can now destroy iceblock, mage’s only defence, which is MADNESS! NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO DISPEL ANYTHING!!)

Mage can also blink, alter time, ‘arcane barrage’ (which slows the warrior/DK/huntar while making mage move faster - doesn’t always work, but at least it’s something)…

Druid can stealth, ‘jump’, push someone away, run really fast, it has thorns and all kinds of shields, bear forms, gets out of snares, etc. Warlock has none of that.

Monk can roll, and that very fast lightning thing, AND it can still speed itself (or someone else!) up, and thus can be very hard to catch, and can actually escape situations (at least sometimes). It has propar instant stun (paralysis), and ring of peace for protection.

And it can HEAL, just like druid.

Warrior is ridiculously OP, and shouild probably be nerfed, although I also have a warrior. I feel so OP playing it, and usually have anything from 7 to 20 KBs in any given BG. With warlock, I am super advanced if I get 2 or 3. And usually I get WAY more deaths than KBs, if I ever get any KBs.

Warrior can jump very far (very!) and fast, it can stun in so many ways, it can slow, it can charge, it can execute (charges also) from far away and keep doing it forever, its punches do so much damage (my warrior is not geared and it’s often top KBs). Sometimes I almost feel guilty playing it, as it’s -nothing- like any other class I play. What is this monster, when even I can be competent with it?!

I could list some other classes, but I think I made my point. Why is warlock a weak, slow, slow-casting punching bag that can’t cast even 1 spell in a BG usually, and when it can, it has no effect?

Succubus doesn’t help because most of the time it doesn’t work (probably because of range), it often stays behind so I am always in combat so I can’t mount so I can’t move again… (have to remember to always click ‘follow’, who can do that?)

The only ‘slight teleport’ that doesn’t help since warrior can cover MUCH larger distance with a single jump, or charge, or or or … is useless, because it requires preparation - how do I know I am going to be pummeled by some warrior and need to teleport? Also, I am always out of range, can’t get in range, even if I DO remember to prepare.

Teleport should not require preparation or specific location, or it’s useless unless I ONLY hang around in its range. What were they thinking? Obviously not BGs and warriors.

I haven’t even mentioned rogues, by the way… I could tell stories that would make your whole family cry, but I won’t bother.

I have more to tell, but this is exhausting. And now BGs are over, because it’s ‘that time of the day’, although we didn’t even get 1 BG where I could feel even slightly useful, or where we would have had ANY kind of fighting change against the stompage.

Thanks. So great to pay for game that does nothing but torture me and bring me pain. I am going to get ulcers from playing this crap warlock, why did I EVER think this could be fun… why did I EVER even make this crap, I should probably just delete it, but then I would forget and start a new one and then go through this hell again.

Sigh.

You not only can’t win BGs if you play ally, you can’t cast even 1 spell if you play warlock, and you just can’t win with this game, I seriously question every single dev that has worked on creating warlocks or ‘balancing BGs’ (if that’s even a thing).

Shame on you, blizz, for not only allowing ALL this, but charging people money for a game this bad.

P.S. Before someone starts ‘lecturing’ me on how to play warlock, someone TAUGHT me how to play it, and all melee and other casters still stomp warlock, so save your breath. I know about the coil, I know about the infernal, it doesn’t help. AT ALL.

P.P.S. Drain life has NEVER saved my life. When warrior hits me, 1 hit does WAY more damage than Drain Life can heal in 1 hour, so what’s the point of even having the spell? It should heal FAST and EFFECTIVELY, instead, it heals SLOWLY and INEFFECTIVELY, it’s just another 100% useless spell in a warlock’s repertoire, so why even have it?

6 Likes
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My friend, i can feel your pain.

Main warlock since vanilla here! Sorry for the huge wall text but i love the class and I put passion in the hope someone can “help us”

Unfortunately the whole warlock design is very very outdated compared to all classes. I have other classes, i know what i say. It seems to play another game.

We are supposed to be a “tanky caster”, but shadow priest, moonkin or mage are more and more tanky than us. Every patch they added more % value to demon armor thinking “is good”, and also so many warlock in the community think that this help the warlock pvp. Who believes this he definitely has no idea of ​​the warlock’s real problems and the fact that most of the melee use magic damage (also warrior venthyr with condemn, shadow damage) or their strikes ignore armor (rogue).

We are supposed to be a tanky caster but designed to continuously run to avoid melee damage with portal, gateway, and slow as affliction with the most cancerous leggo in the whole game. I started out as an affliction to go in rated bg with my guild but not only the playstile is very boring in my opinion, also it is often frustrating because the enemy team know 3 important things:

1- warlock in freecast is a pain for all (like all casters in general)
2- warlock’s slow is the “key to win” especially in the bg where a lot of movement is needed
3- warlock is very easily countered and under pressure do nothing and sooner or later, it dies

For this 3 reasons, you are essentially the first target in almost every situation.

Affliction has been transformed into a crazy forrest gump to try to avoid melee zug zug and slow with almost the most cancerous leggo in the game (and all complaints obviously) and need to ally with the fairies to become a blueish vulpin to escape from the absurd violence of many melee to try to survive… soulbind own soul with a moth and throwing bushes and brambles to your enemy.

Not bad for a cruel Netherlord that manipulate souls and drain the life from her victims, summon dangerous demons and unleash devastating chaotic damage to destroy his enemies. Next step is the reintroduction of metamorphosis in Hello Kitty, maybe. I will never forgive those who thought this obscenity.

Destruction is a budget version of moonkin, very very poor design. I hate its current form. But many warlocks say it’s “gucci spec”, they apparently never played the destruction warlcok in MOP or they don’t notice what mages fire or moonkin produce. Off the CD you are nothing, and often you are naked since dark soul (a talent, not a spell) is purgable and stolen by mage (which actually need a further spell in their repertoire, evidently).

Our demons are almost all outdated and have the same functions they had in vanilla, see the succy, but the game has evolved over the years… maybe blizzard believes that in PvP situation you can use a voidwalker to tank a warrior and drain tank them.

We lack CC istant to get away from a melee when sit on you. Of course, you have fear, but vs an enemy that crush you is almost impossible to land a fear due the kick or immunity. You can fake cast, but its success depends on many factors including luck.

Damage and spell: we need often to hardcast all and in this ultra fast game where almost everyone has instant and very interesting proc or burst istant we seem outdated and, imho, useless. The only proc istant to do damage and to have resource is demonic core. NIghtfall is totally useless. We need some istant or proc to do some damage under pressure.

Chapter healing: the system is also totally outdated. You have a green-long channelig ability to try to heal yourself but is easily countered and also without kick the damage output from any classes is so high that drain life become totally useless also with conduits. Meanwhile certain classes can almost 0-100 with istant healing spammable.

We want to talk about the covenants: some classes included the warlock have very weak covenant’s spell with cast time and very low damage or secondary utility. Some classes have literally the “death button”. Condemn spam, chain harvest, the hunt, mind games, convoke (the dumpest spell in wow history).

The whole class is totally not self sufficient, and its flaws are masked by the fact that we go to the arena with characters who really can do everything and make up for our shortcomings.

Having said that, I can advise you to try the most underrated spec in the whole game to do PvP: demonology. This spec is tanky and I go necrolord…
I have some fun with my friends in arena or bg with the demon bolt spec and balespider’s legendary. The combo decimating bolt+empowered demon bolt spam is very very satisfactory although difficult to obtain, but you can really melt a player with 70% healt to death in few global. Need to have a bit of crit to maximize the damage. No one expects this burst damage from a demo lock.

p.s. everyone will tell you that the game is “balanced” for 3v3 arena, but as I have already written the shortcomings of the warlock are compensated by the fact that the other classes with which the team is formed … do everything and have all. And this has repercussions in world pvp and normal bg etc. When I complain that as a warlock you have to turn off war mode to do a quest because you also die against characters with 30 IL less than yours, the same warlocks tell me that the game is designed for 3v3. if I say it’s a massacre when you meet a rogue and die in 1 second, they tell you it’s normal because the game is balanced for 3v3 arenas. But why for decades I have always had to die in a 1v1 situation against almost every rogue and not them? This is a mystery

p.p.s. “I haven’t even mentioned rogues, by the way… I could tell stories that would make your whole family cry, but I won’t bother” I laughed so hard, man :rofl:

4 Likes
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I’m having fun times in bg’s as affliction. Trying to keep max range and dots up as much as possible and doing tons of damage.
Important to place the teleport at a good spot and always keeping distance so it’s possible to use when in a bad situation.

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Macro follow to an ability. Or should I say macro it’s attack focus to an ability.

Never click anything. This is insightful into how you play.

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The new approach to class design by the devs has been attrocious and warlocks are one of the most touched classes by it, especialy talking about the last three expansions (including SL)

Now there are still people today who think we’re living in BFA but nah warlock sucks and it would suck even if we “pulled numbers”, the class is outdated and has far fewer passives and actives than most and plays like sht

They ruined the playstyle, they took away all our mobility to make us “tanky caster” but we can’t tank for poop. Even Demon armor so many people cursed over BFA is such a horrible and overrated ability as most melees deal magic damage anyway.

We also have to hardcast as you said yourself, our healing with dark regen, ember tap and anything similar has been thrown out.

If the class was at least fun but it isn’t even that.

And yet every now and then someone will come and cry how warlock is broken and op just because we can dodge one of their 4 gap closers in some way

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Warlocks are a far cry from the evil things they were back in TBC/Wrath? so long ago now. Notable by the very lack of them in BG’s any more, hardly see any in comparison to other classes. Sad that they have to neglect some classes so badly while handing easy meta to others, BG’s used to be so much more fun when there was more than 4 or so viable classes.

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Yeah, we’re walking around with a huge bull’s eye on our char. Squishy as a wet paper towel and standing still while casting is painfull, followed by imminent death.

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Only seven specs are viable in PvP at the moment: ret, arms, subtlety, balance, fire, elemental and MM.

Everything else is unplayable.

So just roll one of those seven specs.

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look, i play warlock as main from vanilla and i love the class despite all.

It has always been like this, that is, there have always been more or less strong classes and others less strong.
But the difference between some classes and others (not to mention the covenant spells) is incredibly absurd. I also play other classes and I can confidently tell you that at this moment the warlock as far in pvp is definitely among the worst if not the worst ever. The whole concept core is a complete failure in my opinion.

a warlock, considered the “tanky caster”, with demonic bonds that give him greater health and who manipulates souls, summons demons and destroys opponents unleashing chaos need to escape like a crazy all the time becoming a blueish vulpin and soulbind his soul to a moth, throwing bushes and brambles to his enemy.

If it’s a nightmare, please wake me up. Quickly.

The game has become too, too fast for a class that is slow, too slow and has to cast, cast, cast, cast all. On the other hand there are classes that do extreme damage outside the global cd. Meanwhile you cast shadowbolt to setup your burst to do nothing damage with 2 seconds cast if you are not silenced.

I see that the other classes, against me, always have “the first and last word”. I have the feeling of total impossibility to do anything. And it’s a really frustrating.

I said i have other classes too, and it feels like playing another game totally. Everything is fast, fluid, powerful.

Many classes are far more tanky than we are, our healing system is simply “outdated” respect to some classes with huge instant heal spam.

I can understand that for marketing some classes are better than others for attracting new players and making more money, probably. But such a marked difference is insane and toxic.

The class if supported by healer and other heavy dps doing everything you can’t do, then “is a good” class. But it’s not that it’s good in itself, it’s only good because his shortcomings are not noticed if the others do all the rest of the work.

Example: destruction works with a frost mage in 2v2. But it works because the mage frost slows everything down, snare, blink, then snare again and make the “death windows” for the warlock destruction to land 2 chaos bolt and make a kill. Without the snare is very difficult to land chaos bolt if chased by a melee sitting on your head almot 100% uptime. Try to play against a rogue, amonk, or a war, and you know what I mean.

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Warlocks are super outdated and belongs to the old warcraft , not this korean half baked mmo :clown_face:
It felt strong in bfa cuz of the extreme power creep , class scales exceptionally well so…

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I had a bad experience playing Warlock in random BGs. The other team could easily gang up on me with groups of 3 or more and there was very little I could do to survive or escape. On the occasion that I did start to win a fight against someone they always run away and I could do very little to chase them.

I switched to playing Shadow Priest, which I’m finding much more fun. Instant fear, instant stun, instant silence, mind control. Dispersion when I need to escape.

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destruction at the end of BFA was really really tanky and deadly because the huge bonus haste from azerite traits and for the corruption that pumped massive mastery and haste. Not only that, it had the conflagrate root.

The mastery for destruction increases the damage done and decreases the damage taken, so considering it was problematic and difficult to have PVP pieces, everyone went mastery from raid or mytic plus then go to do some pvp to do a blast.

The others didn’t have enough versatility and destruction he had a billion of mastery.

Now that pvp pieces with the right stats are easier to obtain, and have little mastery … warlock destruction has lost that huge advantage over other classes in damage and resistance.

Not only that: there is no longer the root of the conflagrate, and this is a huge problem against melee and in the arena because of the pillars.

if they do destruction on the model of the warlock in MOP I run naked for my city screaming “Ion i love you so much”.

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Doubt they will ever make warlock good again except “Buffing x nerfing y” clueless design choices.

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Shadow Priest is an example of an excellent rework. It’s pretty badass, very tanky, and do huge damage even if it is under attack, thematically it has excellent covenants fitting the lore, and mind games are really scary.

I can’t say the same for affliction, for example. Pretty weak, very low healing, very low dot damage, need to run away like a chiken all the time, easily counterable, burst purgeable or stolen by mages, covenants… better not to talk about it.

And while it’s a genuinely ridiculous spec as it was thought of, it also has the most hateful legendary they could make, so people hate us despite warlock being easy to kill. Many in pvp forums complain about the slow not because they die, but because they would to kill warlock more faster and without the hassle of slow.

Here is the warlock.

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I believe so too, and is so sad…

I understand that they really have no idea what the warlock is when they changes often the armor value of the demon armor. And I suspect we don’t know that many warlocks either, seeing the happiness in having some extra armor.

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After playing classic , bc , wrath versions of lock and SL one , sigh…

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I noticed the exact same as priest.

Casting anything against a melee class is impossible. Fakecasting doesn’t work, because you are at 10% health already before you can try to cast again.

Hehe, no. It used to be, but today it is not. You get locked out and destroyed by every passing melee class.

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Melee are unstoppable, for sure. Shadow difensive are far more powerful than ours. Fade, dispersion, shield very good. The healing system also. Your dots do damage. I go in arena with my friends shadow priest and i’m pretty sure that is more and more tanky than me under melee.

It’s not the best class of the universe the shadow, i know, but imho is pretty solid compared to warlock. The priest concept is imho pretty good.

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I don’t disagree, but it is a long shot from the seven godmode specs that I listed.

The shield only blocks 3k damage by the way.

That is a single white hit.

I may play the BC servers for PvP. It had its flaws, but it is infinitely better than the trash that is SL “PvP”.

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Locks moaning LOL! #priceless