yes for sure there are some spec/covenants “far better”, but i mean… shadow priest is in a good spot and his recent rework it was done well, is “fresh”, modern, clean, the spec is pretty solid for me.
Your best covenants fit very well tematically, door of shadow fit also very well, mind games is a scary spell and thematically it is perfect for you.
I can’t say the same about our class, feel very weak, outdated, and I feel disgusted for the covenants that were literally imposed on us that has nothing to do with us.
the only class that silence is tied to a pet , said pet is a gambit and it does not always cast the skill the moment you press the silence (due to range or general pet behavior being wonky)
the only class that is actually affected by counter silence, you are locked out and can not do anything but act as a training dummy , not a single other class has so many hard casts AND they have multiple school spells
Mentioned above : hard casts, what other class has everything on easily interruptible hard casts but locks ? none.
the damage is a joke, warriors deal instant , uninterruptible skills that hit as hard or even harder than 3 second chaos bolts.
5)Mobility , it has gone out of control , leap, charges, tumbles, hooks, pulls , roots for every single class except one , I will let you guess : hint starts with war ends with lock
Escapes : similar to 5 , while every melee has 4 ways to close the distance (leap is 40 yards… for reasons) and 3 to 5 ways to stop you from casting , you have 2 ways of escaping , teleport and gate, both require preparation and gate has ludicrous casting time , good luck setting it up every 3 steps in random BGS.
Healing, warlocks used to outlast opponents while your dots ticked away their HP, now everyone has more healing / mitigation than you INCLUDING warriors that were known for requiring a pocket healer, you have a drain life that tickles and is laughably easy to silence and a outdated health stone mechanic that you can only use once per fight (while everyone else can spam some heal ability) , that is it.
So basically : the only class that : has no mobility , no escapes, no heals , being the only class that counter silence actually makes you worthless , can not break stuns while having to hard cast everything.
Fun fact my classic warlock’s curse of agony hits harder than my shadow lands warlock.
So basically : warlock is the one class that is outdated by a decade or more.
You need someone to babysit you and cover all your weaknesses , while playing at least 50% better than your opponents to do anything.
Try to find another class that in 1vs1 gets demolished by … well every other class (possible exception hunters)
Edit : there is a reason why I am usually the only lock in 40 VS 40 ( most I seen were 4 locks… in 80 players)
i agree entirely, but I focus on this point, crucial
more and more players who have never played the warlock are perplexed that we ourselves complain about the class.
The class apart the “damage” component and some fear if not chased (and not so much damage, since it takes a long time to produce damage due to the dynamics of our burst and considering that with a kick/dispel/some moviment you are pretty a target dummy/you do nothing damage) incredibly it has almost nothing else, and our shortcomings and weaknesses they are masked by the fact that whoever accompanies you to the arena does literally everything. But absolutely everything.
you have to have someone who dispels you because you can’t do it, you have to have someone who roots because you don’t have roots, you have to have someone who heal because your healing is silly, you have to have someone who does instant CC because yours have long cast times, you have to to have a shield because you don’t have a shield, you have to have one that has the “baboom effect” instant to create the “kill window” because you don’t have.
Meanwhile, you just have to run like a crazy chicken and hold out as much as possible while your mate does the rest. In summary, the warlock produces 3/10 and the arena mate who escorts him has offensive and defensive skills that are worth two. It is as if one is completely poor and is invited to dinner by a rich friend who offers him everything.
The day the friend is not there, you die hungry.
And this thing nobody wants to understand.
Then go to do quest to maldraxxus and you die badly even if any melee with opposable thumb bursts in seconds without you having made a scratch and with an IL much low than yours. Then I have to read about people who believe that the warlock is “fine” if not “OP”.
Or the mantra “game is not balanced 1v1” but every expa i sucks 1v1 vs melee (and now also vs caster) and never, never, and I say never the opposite.
Class which summons incarnations of destruction is far less evil than before despite things nevet changing? Is whole soul rot and decimating bolt lost on you?
Let me reiterate it to you without the needs to read the wall of text or even seeing the word istant.
The class fantasy with fae and etc is ruined. Covenants which fit the theme of warlock are lacking in an output in a game mode which is all about output. Meta is filled with classes who sort of counter you hard and easily chase the hell out of you. Interrupts are a big issue as we cannot rely on instants to be the main damage sources. Also big setup time for either affli or destro. I will specifically leave demo out of this because with current balance team we will never ever ever have it somehow viable for the pvp.
To summarize, the other classes got easier time self-sustaining or dealing damage without being interrupted. Add the lack of variety in cov choices and how they dont match the edgelord class theme.
Also malefic rapture is just obnoxious as is affli gameplay in general. Why? Chance-based shard generation, no way to spread agone except manually, shadow bolt is a joke spell with cast time between eternity and timelessness. Which is especially ironic since it is the only way for us to apply a 9% additional damage debuff. Yes, affli gameplay is atrocious.
Saying that from a sp perspective. Also laughably easy to heal on bgs. Saying that from disci perspective.
Alas bgs are crawling with the meta classes. Little room for maneuver and intricate planning which warlock is about these days. Leveled my lock in bgs and then geared up the same way. Very unlikely you will meet up a demo lock or fury warrior, and hashishin rogue are nearly nonexistant. Everyone plays meta and i myself am guilty of it. To add to the insult the cov abilities of certain classes are just defining them instead of being small gimmicks.
Gameplay-wise there are alot of decisions that could be implemented. Dont think activision know what they are doing at all.
I ran out of tears for how much pain I felt to see that our BIS covenants were the fairies, I’m serious. It was the hardest blow received in my very long life on WOW with my beloved warlock.
it’s a nightmare, I can’t believe it… to be viable, need to ally with the fairies and become a blueish vulpin to escape away from the absurd violence of 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 will be the reintroduction of metamorphosis, but in Hello Kitty.
I will never forgive those who thought this obscenity.
Made this dutiful and painful preamble: i feel very very bad affliction gameplay. Blizzard always said that they want the warlock to be a “tanky caster”. I liket this, for sure. But now they force us to run away like chickens frightened without self healing, without damage, without tankyness. Moonkins, Spriests, also mage are far more tanky than us.
Is an agonizing gameplay, and the word “affliction” it certainly refers to us. Is atrocious.
When they annouced covenant abilites i was 100% sure its gonna be fail when they add mobility stuff to it. Like classes are balanced around mobility/utility for years and now you bring this crap?
Or when they triple uptime on some spell(condemn) and do not tune synergy stuff like mini charge you know they have 0 idea and im almost sure that these 2 people who desing classes dont have clue what pvp is.
Believe me, I died inside when I sensed that we had to become fairies… Despite the problems he has, I forced myself to play PvP demonology to become a necrolord. I find demo pretty funny, I have to say. It’s not as bad as everyone says and thinks.
They “balanced” our gameplay around the gateway, the fox and the slow of the most hated legendary in the world (and that, paradoxically, it mainly affects healers and casters and not the melees because that melees have different gap closers, immunity to slow and the possibility of removing the slow).
First of all: i’d like to have back more and more and self healing and tankyness. And for “tankyness” I don’t mean a demon armor on steroids with 350% armor value etc. In MOP destro and affliction warlock had an incredible and impressive almost-zero armor and the survability was very very high without slow, gateway, vulpin.
This game is not worth shedding a single tear about, but i understand your passion.
Could have made fae into some of the alien and enigmatic creatures, instead got silly disney tinkerbell things with pranks and obvious f&rries. The gameplay-defining part is just another grain of salt on to the wound.
loving the warlock and playing it since vanilla, I suffer to see its current state, but for sure mine was a hyperbole: there are other things in life to cry about, i know.
In my opinion they should have simply made sure that the thematically best covenants for a class also had to be “the best” in terms of gameplay and spell, but not creating too many differences with other covenants in order to leave the decision to the player anyway.
Rght now if you go affliction in pvp and pve, you’re damn forced to go fairies. And that, at least to me, is quite embarrassing and humiliating from a warlock POV.
Said this, my hope is they scrap the crap slow from affliction and give back more tankyness instead and some burst-on demand or some istant proc ability to deal massive damage istant to be “like” other classes.
For me sacrolash need a rework: +corruption damage and an high chance to apply a stack of shadow embrace. This will help a little in pvp and in pve maybe all will flow more fluids
Nightfall it could be an interesting talent, a proc from corruption damage that deal massive damage istant with an istant drain soul. Nore istant, more damage, more moviment, more fun. Simply that.
There would be thousands of possibilities to make the class more fun and reasonably playable and not outdated, the question is: do they want to improve it?
They are not short on community ideas, trust me. Problem is they wont implement any because they dont read forums. They have lost what this game owes its success to and instead of thinking things through just latch on to a whatever idea they are presented by the departments and if it is time-draining enough it gets the pass. Look at the “covenant activities” and think if someone will actually do them - abom stitching, ember court, all that, its plain boring. Why did they not redirect effort into something better? Corp greed. Hurr durr we have to add supposedly intersting stuff to fill the blanks meant for something new. No, we are absolutely refusing to ask community what they could possibly want. Its literally inability to accept own fallacy.
Seriously though, I 100% agree with you OP. Here is what I do.
Never go 1v1.
(ONLY engage in a battle where the enemy is outnumbered.)
Never be in the front of the pack when mounted.
(Make sure you are in the middle group facing away from the enemy. For instance like WG I like to be in the middle mounted and being on the opposite side of any possible enounter)
FEAR. Fear for days and only attack when they are feared.
If you see a fight coming that you don’t think you will escape then prepare. Drop a HS, SS, demon port. Then die with grace.
All inn all, I only go into a fight that is atleast 3v1 or a jumbo of melees duking it out I’ll stay on the edge of my range spamming chaos bolts.
Make it so that the target they enemy is already attacking is more enticing for them. Want to fight me? Well, I’m going to run and while you are fighting that melee he is going to smack you in your back all along the way.
Keeping your distance is key. Make it more of a hastle for them to come and chase you down. So always engage a target that is already busy with another.
Best of luck. I lost all bgs yesterday too. Seriously, all of them.
Depends on rank lol. People still didnt realize how counterable balance druids are so they try to max out on them. Like srsly, just grab mages or smth.
