You have done a great post, do not get me wrong, but I disagree with the premise.
I have seen warlocks put an insane amount of dps on all raids, but most importantly AQ & Naxx over the years.
I have also seen many, many warlocks being insane kiling machines in PvP - I do not know if warlocks are the hardest hitting class, but if they are not, they come close.
As for making each spec viable, are we not venturing into retail territory with this? Did SoD not try to adress this very same thing? How did that go? Wouldnât this changes being applied to warlock not mean, that other classes should also receive improvements?
Again, while I know you have put a lot of thought into this, you have to understand that a change in the warlock class influences all classes, PvP and raid mechanics around that very change. My guess is that applying everything you suggest here would turn the game into The War Within.
Even with a siginificant skill advantage a warlock will never outdps a mage, rogue or warrior. Even a hunter that is not pulling probably has an advantage until naxx. On single target fights warlocks can do good dps with RNG crits, most fights are just 10-20 shadowbolts worth of time so you rely on getting near 100% crit to parse. For speedruns they are garbage due to their poor output on trash, no cleave and still worse single target than fire mages, rogues and warriors.
Warlocks are indeed good and have one of the highest skill caps, they are incredibly good later on as physical dps falls off in pvp. However as I said my changes would barely affect pvp. Lock pvp is normally done in a primarily affli build (sometimes SL with bad gear) and with a felhunter. My proposed changes to affli were to make drain soul an aoe cleave along with buffed single target damage from drain soul, in pvp as a lock you barely even use hardcasted shadow spells, at least not when you risk being interrupted. I think nerfing curse of tongues would already be warranted, along with a nerf to all hard CC duration in classic aswell as getting rid of heartbeat.
I donât see why specs not being useless is retail territory. But fyi retail still has this degenerate class/spec stacking at the high end, but this meta slave mentality is more a classic phenomeon, which makes sense as the skill cap is so low in classic. Druids actually donât have a single good spec for raiding, itâs just that as resto they are the least useless as what you want from a druid is primarily faerie fire, secondarily mark of the wild. You will never see a good guild run more than 1 druid.
SoD did a lot of things to change the game, they did not really alter specs apart from minor things like moonkin form letting dots crit, shadowform reducing mana cost. Most of their changes came from the runes you put on your gear which then grant insane abilities. A lot of changes came (rightfully so) from making sets more useful, however they were insanely overpowered and could be like a 50% increase in DPS from just the set bonuses. That is obviously an issue in classic, for example paladins only have 1 useful set (Tier 3) and otherwise the only set bonus you would use is 2 set T1 to buff your judgement of wisdom to 60% proc rate, but the individual pieces are really bad.
My intention was to make a post of suggestions to âfixâ every single class in classic, the primary goal would be to make them more enjoyable to play and secondarily lessening the gap in pve and giving all specs viability of some form in both pvp and pve, not just having a pvp spec, like frost for mages, that is then garbage in raiding, inverse for arms warriors (Although that is still the second best spec in the game behind fury due to how op warriors are).
Yeah lets ignore the fact that there are 3 dps specs (some will argue 4 with geared locks) and 2 tanks at 60 cause frankly everything else is a meme or becomes one the more gear becomes available.
As opposed to much more specs being competitive one way or another in TBC including ret/enha/hunters and yes arms who are absolutely massive on cleave and the 4% phys dmg offsets the dps loss on single target as far as raid dmg goes.
Also i kinda love how people were begging for vanilla and everyone else kept telling them retail is better etc etc.
Now the same crowd is telling TBC ppl how its bad and vanilla is better haha.
No one will argue there are 4 good dps specs at 60. There is one good (Fury) and one ok (fire). The rest are outright bad (I suppose arms would still be good, but you wouldnât want a player that insists on playing arms instead of fury, even then the spec isnât even good, the class is just absurdly strong).
Ret and enhance are never competitive in TBC. Enhance is good due to the insane party utility they are given, their actual DPS is never competitive in any aspect. Retribution is straight up bad until Sunwell. Arms were significantly worse than fury on both cleave and single target. Arms debuff is good if you run at least 2 physical groups, warlock stacking was better until BT, when they were quite equal.
Iâve never begged for vanilla as I played it before 2019. But as I keep saying itâs not the fact that only warriors are good that makes vanilla what it is. TBC Being worse seems objectively true without how much worse the retention is.
Based on your feelcraft? Played ret myself in tbc consistently being in top 5 dps against locks and bm hunters you just need a proper group.
Offense-Pyrewood a speed running guild in top 10 world were using a ret same as enha and they were pulling numbers.
This is just based on some weird feels or people who cant seal twist or desync weapons as enha.
And as far as bigger picture goes not just sweaty top 10s far more specs as i mentioned before actually have a place and do something in a raid.
I can be the best feral/hunter/whatever with all consumes and eventually a mediocre war will just stomp me on the meter. That does not really happen to many specs in tbc that simply dont exist at 60.
And same could be said that vanilla is objectively worse than retail esp given how many QoL they already had to add.
At the end of the day its all a matter of opinion. You dont like tbc dont play it - âgo back to eraâ.
I played in one of the best speedrunning guilds in the world. Ret DPS was trash on trash. There is no way theyâd pull good numbers in a speedrun unless you only look at boss DPS, bosses end up being more time consuming in the end of TBC too, similar to wotlk/retail.
Fastest Karazhan had 0 rets. Fastest SSC run had zero rets. It was only in BT people started using rets, maybe ret single target is only good vs UD/Demon?.
In TBC Mages are good until T6 hits, after that only warlocks, hunters and warriors are in the top, and warriors are only competitive with warglaives.
I agree that classic is a lot worse than retail in many regards, however itâs a completely different game, not for me. TBC Is not classic either and this entire forum section is about classic, not TBC. If you donât like classic you have cataclysm which TBC is more similar to than classic.
Well at the end of the day thats your opinion which of course you are entitled to but that does not make it a fact so lets leave it at that.
As for speed running the supposed meme specs in top 50 range from 10%ish representation per role upto 34% in some cases (more than fury warriors) and mages being #2 for ranged in BT/hyjal where you claim they fall off.
Point is the claim that these are outright bad specs is a fallacy. Some of their usefulness goes beyond raw dmg numbers however that being said it is true that few specs only see use in pvp or not at all.
It is one of the strongest classes in the game and always has been, we need no changes.
SM + Ruin was always my preferred spec , in Raid most would go for the plus damage of succubus sacrifice, but never underestimate the benefits of the IMP Stamina buff for your group in Dungeon or Raid.
Instant DOT Corruption and Agony is giving you all the AoE you need for trash plus your chance to proc free shadow bolts and increased damage.
Single target boss encounters are easier, no debuff limit, so you can have all locks using corruption and then splitting responsibility for CoS, CoE, CoR etc.
âGlass Cannonâ was coined for locks stacking maximum + Shadow Damage gear and out aggroing tanks causing 1 hit deaths in MC by the Earth Elementals charging
Their usefulness coming from utility alone is one of the issues in the discussion. Warlock and druid are absolutely amazing that you only need 1 of each in a classic 40 man raid and they need only use 1 ability each. Sounds great? Improved expose is so good that you only need 1 rogue and the rest should reroll fury.
Itâs not a fallacy. They are artificially useful by having utility makeup for the fact that they are not competitive. Useful is not the same as good. They absolutely do not deal good damage, but they are basically a DEI hire due to their buffs/debuffs. Being a DEI hire instead of being there by merit and being able to compete through skill makes the game less fun.
Warlocks are the 5th best DPS class, just behind the only 4 other dps classes in classic.
SM/Ruin and corruption/agony would have been just actively griefing your raid before anniversary disabled debuff limits.
The concept of a glass cannon predates world of warcraft entirely