How much do Talents matter for casual play?

So. I have played an Affliction Warlock before. Up to Level 87.
Which was before I decided, that I wanted to play a Nightborne Warlock, but didnt want to duplicate classes when I only have played 2 Characters at all. So I started anew, and am now planning ahead to after I unlock the Nightborne.
But looking back at my previous WL, I realize, that I was pretty undecided about my Talents all the way.
I seemed to consistently shift between a Corruption-Based build (Nightfall, Absolute Corruption, Sow the Seeds) and something I’d call a Frankensteins Monster of Talent-Setups where I simply picked Talents that seemed fun to me.
I think I ended up using Deathbolt, but finding it inconsistent, because I didnt know what changed when one time it would deal 500 and up to 1k the next time, when i felt the setup was the same.
I also tried my Hand at Destruction which seemed way more clear cut to me (like Cataclysm feeling pretty good to use, as well as F&B) or being able to see how Cataclysm and Channeled Demonfire may sync up well later on.

But looking at posts in the Forum, and elsewhere, it feels like everyones opinion seems to be “Locks suck a$$ lol” and more precisely “Lock Talents are obvious picks but still bad lol” and it conflicts with how I felt playing my first one, but makes me afraid of how my way to play will hold up when I start leveling my new one.

So how much does it really matter for just playing PvE? Will I ruin every piece of content, just because I pick things I have fun over the things people say are optimal? Or is that just min-max nitpicking?

Because that Character is practically the only thing I look forward too, as I try to understand how Arcane Mages work.

Every talent is useful in some kind of way, i think you should choose talents which are fitting your playstyle or are giving you most dps so you can go throught content easier. You won’t break your experience by choosing different talents that are not min-maxed, for example, absolute corruption is cool QoL improvement if you AoE alot, even if Siphon Life sims better on single target. Often people can do better dps with simplier build but done correctly, than adding more buttons to press and doing rotation wrong.

Current Plan

Destro

Afflock

During leveling, I would not worry about talent picks at all and just play with all of them. Just pick whatever you think is cool/fun.

Depending on what you want to do at max level, you can stick with whatever feels the most comfortable/fun, or you can look up some guides on what talents/azerite are the best for the specc you play. The latter is only recommended if you feel like you just aren’t pushing the numbers that you feel you should, or if you are planning on raiding anything above lfg/lfr/normal.

So have fun, and see you in Azeroth!

The only must have talent is demon skin during leveling, rest is irrelevant

As a general response, I think switching around talents is pretty normal while leveling… it’s part of the point of leveling, to find the specs, talents and playstyle you most enjoy.

I’m leveling several characters of various classes right now, and I switch around my talents all the time, or even shift to different specs. It allows me to try everything out, see what I like; it also teaches me how everything works, so I can have more knowledge of the classes in general.

play what you want, that’s the best way to learn them. Especially whilst levelling up. That’s the best time to experiment and decide which ones that you like.

excuse me but this talent tree would like a word with you:

I thought we were talking about warlocks

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