Our dear dev think the warlock class will be fine with more haste added from gear in the future ! which IT IS ISN’T THE DAMN PROBLEM .
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i agree with all your points but those major changes wont happen only with a new xpac the only thing they can do now is number tunning and make it a bit more vaible atleast and less frustrating to play
Simple fix, Revert the changes to the nerfs to necrolord in SL Beta. Warlocks will move to Necro and pew pew.
Happy Warlocks.
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I’m already necrolord 
If they change it destruction will look awesome
Sorry for VERY long post, I hope it doesn’t cover up too much space but I have realised I haven’t given my holistic view on things, just scattered forum posts, and I think this thread is perfect place to “contribute” with my opinions. I know none is going to read the whole thing but I tried to highlight and in case Blizz ever decides to grace us with presence, here you go.
I love how Blizzard has a mentality of average melee person on PvP forums towards lock. “Warlock is so op I can only get them with the second of my 5 gap closers”
Warlock in general
Now lock has always been my favourite class. I remember whenI was like 10 during Cata, warlock was the first thing I went to make when I saw they summon demons and stuff and even after I returned years later and started playing properly, lock was my first pick and even when I tried to reroll to fmage I came back, lock is very important to me and I want changes.
So what are problems of lock in general
- Lack of abilities
In my subjective view classes are defined by unique toolkit that is different from other classes and let’s them play around. Really look at any other class though, people will complain (wrongly so) that we have too much CC but we don’t really have much of anything
The solution: Just give us more abilities, both baseline and what I’m going to get to. Demon armor could possibly be a start, it is the most overrated spell that doesn’t make as much difference as some people would make it to be.
2.Lack of passives and robbing of warlock
As many warlocks, who understand the class far better than I do and could explain it far better than me have already pointed on the forums, we lack passives.
Passives exist to make the class flow better, if you ever level a rogue, look at how you slowly, every few levels gain abilities to smoothen your energy regen, as balance druids you get many passives baked into just spells alone, lock has none of it.
The solution:
- Look into talents,
- Demon skin does nothing but take up space while it’s just agumentation to soul leech that is powerful but might as well be baseline. It wouldn’t be a problem since in PvE you don’t gain massive advantage by having it and in PvP everyone uses it, so we might as well give PvPers and PvErs alike ability they will have interest in into talents.
- Likewise Soul conduit, could be given to us to improve flow, especialy affliction which has more RNG generation of shards will appreciate it and really just would overall make the class feel better, we might also add crit component, where critical strikes have higher chance to regen it, just an idea tho.
- Create new passives or bring old back
- For example Backlash could be kinda cool to grand us some fun mobility bonuses if we need them
3.Failure to deliver on the fantasy
This ties to the previous points but warlock is curretnly in no way a tanky caster. It hasn’t been a bit tanky after like 7.0.3 (that’s long ago)
Do you really feel like tanky or dark caster? No? and this has a clear solution.
We need more tools to play around? We need more abilities? More talents? More honor talents?
Give them to us. Actually put down our fantasy with stuff to use. We need Dark bargain on the Dark pact talent tier, we need Blood horror in the PvP talent list. Even just this would allow us to flourish with our slower playstyles. It is a neccessity. On this note even dark regen could be considered but I’m not neccesarily asking for that yet.
I probably forgot a lot but well we can get to it all later.
Now for specs themselves
Afflock
Not a spec I’d play much honestly but the issues are clearly visible.
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Due to a lack of defensives, the slower DoT-based playstyle is not favored in PvP, while the spec is the strongest in PvP currently, the playstyle is not really as good to pull of.
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Afflock has been reworked to be more bursty and that, in a very asinine way in my opinion (Malefic rapture sucks, it’s clunky, you dump all shards into it at once, it isn’t DoT playstyle thing, it is spammy, everything bad about it). Afflock needs to be about DoT management !!!
-Afflock could use some abilities, what I am talking about for example is Soul swap, which imo could improve the playstyle quite a bit
Solution: Honestly I don’t know, I’m not really adept at affliction, though I believe they shouldn’t be forced too hard into bursting, rather emphacize their ability to deliver strong pressure, when it is needed, DoTs need to be stronger and be felt and you need to manage them and maybe empower them, much rather than artificaly making affliction into an overtly bursty spec.
Destro lock
Standardization, standardization, standardization. Destro feels like designed by mad scientist. Whoever got their hands on this spec in Legion was even worse at maths than I am and at that point very painful process started for lock.
- In order to standardize every class into simple, single resource system and simple builder-spender rotation. This was very violent process and overall bad idea since Blizzard took many specs and classes that developed in very different way. It is like trying to push a triangle into a square hole.
- Destro has been hit like no other spec with this. Originaly Blizzard messed up so bad that they in fact had to go back on giving them same shards the other specs had and still to this day the effects of forced standardization is felt.
- This is especialy apparent in the Chaos bolt turrent, people in BFA complained about destro locks being OP. But why were they op? Because they had powerful and easily aquired chaos bolts, this is not what chaos bolts were supposed to be and to make this possible they had to completely destroy any use incinerate and conflag had
Solution:
- Chaos bolts should once again be slower to generate (this won’t make the spec too much slower since lot of the damage-dealing will be direct to other abilities and destro is now only slow because being too dependent on infernal CD)
- However while they are now generated slower, the builders for the spec will be made more important and powerful. They should do much more damage than they currently do and be seen less as just fillers and builders and more as damage abilities in their own right.
- More abilities, maybe tad more mobility. Now I am not asking for shadowfury* to be instant (yes I am) but like felflame, im sure you can forgive destro being able to cast on move bit more, not asking for Kil’jaedens cunning (im genuenly not).
- Another ability that could make return is Ember tap, I know that you probably don’t want too much healing but I feel like some skillfull play is involved as ember tap was heal yeah, but heal that cost embers and if you could ballance it correctly a warlock might be forced to heal themselves on low health, however sacrifice the ability to deal damage at that moment, interesting imo.
*As for Shadofury baseline (for all specs ofc). Yes I genuenly think so. Warlock CC is considered strong but we only have spammable fear (arguably best CC but still just one baseline ability bar SF itself), maybe pet CC, we can talent some more but really that isn’t that much and I’m not asking for more (apart from blood horror). But it isn’t that OP, all our CC, including SF are on a single school, so you can lock it easily anway. And it can be predicted and dodged, I know that zug zug cleaves like no think, think is bad, cleave is good, me kill cloth user but tracking CDs and being able to play around them seems like healthy thing for pvp.
Demo lock
My my, this is a big one. I care about Demo a lot and I know many do too, while not neccesarily sharing my views even in the camp that opposes the current state of lock (which everyone should be in imo)
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Master summoner? Now I don’t neccesarily mind the fantasy, it’s fine and cool but what is really current master summoner demo made of? Half by the idea itself, other half by aesthetics rather than the gameplay imo.
- Furthermore I feel like the fantasy is poorly executed. We have to hard cast a lot and while I realise we are still basicaly “footsoldiers” and are no match for people like Gul’dan or even more powerful beings, imo summoning imps, two dogs and few occasional demons isn’t what master summoner does
- I do like the idea of imps as your paws, like in a chess game but otherwise even if we ignore all gameplay implications of how current demo works, well even so most of the stuff is pretty underwhelming and imps and two dogs isn’t what I imagine warlock in cinematic doing
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The gameplay implications
- Demo has to hardcast a lot, even these imp pawns that should be easy and automatic thing for powerful warlock to get take a cast time, let alone more powerful demons (even if we keep the current playstyle, isntant tyrant, dogs and even vilefiend are a must I’d say)
- Tyrant burst. Now while I didn’t appreciate Legion demo much, they handled the burst part much better, in way that even had quite some skill to it. Tyrant is just unreliable pet and deliver the burst like in too many waves
- The pet AI is attrocious and pet skills are unreliable. I know Blizzard is aware of this issue as they tried to give dogs sprint and tried to give us alterantive demonbolt build but well honestly I feel like it is maybe time to admit defeat in this regard.
- Crazy rampup. Just look at when you get jumped on, you barely have anything on you to do damage and besides just look at HoG, you cast it (with cast time)>it lands>it shoots green balls>the balls turn into impressive three imps>they take a break for a bit after their hard work of landing>only now they start shooting.
- The eternal question of Meta
- No I do not think Meta lock, or MoP lock were perfect but they provide solid foundation at least for theoretical developement of the spec, as lock has developed to WotLK meta and from there to Cata, later MoP and even WoD meta, through years of gradual developement by Blizzard. Blizz’s new approach to classes is not progressive, they have undone a lot of progress in fact, it is regressive
- No Meta can be maintained past DH, we can merely change name and the lore to warlock endulging themselves in corruption through study, HELL GUL’DAN ESSENTIALY USES SUCH VERSION IN META IN THE FIRST TIER OF THE XPAC THE SPELL WAS REMOVED
- Meta can be maitained past Voidform, which it seems priests asked for as much as we asked for our own form to be removed. Priest is very DoT based, Demo would be bursty
- Meta can also exist together with the master summoner fantasy. Until Legion we didn’t really have spec-specific talent trees, bar lvl 100 tier. We could fill these with Demon related stuff as well as synthesise the master summoner fantasy and amplify it through Meta. Again I only ask for solid foundaiton
- Now I am not claiming everyone is on board with meta either and I respect you if you are against meta but this rework came out of blue, after a wave of nerfs and as we can see that, while as with literaly any spec in game you can achieve succes, demo is still one of the least played classes in every content. And i do not think it is only damage
- Another thing to mention, the burst of Demo wouldn’t be fixed with Thal’kiel again not fully, as that still requires considerable ramup at least in the current state of the philosophy. WoW is mostly built for direct, even if DoT damage, more than for PeTs. It’s like if you added builder class, that creates buildings and plays like RTS, RTS playstyle just wouldn’t fit (Im not comparing demo to that, just making analogy of how certain stuff doesnt fit into certain games).
And look please just do something, I have already stated many problems and I cannot and should not list all in one post but still, everyone have a great day I spent way too muhc time on this
8 Likes
Great man, good job. That’s a good summary.
I know I won’t get my meta back, but if they do it a dream will come true for me. One again being able to bring doom and despair to the battlefield.
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We are defined “caster tanky” but other classes are really tanky. We have almost zero healing, our healing system is totally outdated, we have anti-panic button very weak compared to other classes. Take a look at moonkin in bear form or a shadow priest with his defensive CD. All defensive mechanics are tuned around gateway and a warlock use this spell only in arena. I dont’ want to go war mode OFF for a quest because i don’t have setup my gateway and circle and a rogue shot me in 2 sec.
Blizzard want really warlock become a pure tanky caster? Here my suggestions and advice:
- demon skin baseline
- instead of demon skin, the old “dark bargain” as talent
- soul link for all spec, reduce all damage 10% redirecting this damage to primary demon (if you use sacrifice, you gain 10/15% more health instead)
- demon armor for all spec, reduce all damage by 10%, 5% health and passive little regen health every sec
Why soul link 10% and demon armor 10%? Because in this way killing the pet is not more a priority, and if a demon die you lose “only” 10% flat reduction damage. Demon armor for all spec because is a demonology iconic spell and is a shame to see demonology without this spell.
If they make these changes, gateway can be unusable in rated match for me and warlock survivability will be very good even without gateway,
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Thank you and don’t worry, I believe we can manage. Blizzard is starting to see already that tyrant is not the best way to deal burst, the demonbolt build will not work after SL is over since we loose decimating bolt and what else can they do?
I am not saying they will bring it back but if you look at it, if they bring back Thal’kiel cool but it still takes ton of setup and does not solve the ramup issue.
They could somehow reintroduce decimating but still the legendary is gone and it would require lot of work (The demobolt build requires Decimating bolt, legenedary and people use conduits to make it work, they’d have to somehow make all that baseline plus also you’d have to talent into sacsouls).
So this would all be pretty clunky and require lot of gymnastics to make either of these work to adress our complaints. What is left for them to do then? They can experiment and find new stuff but they already failed on that front in the past, so maybe, just maybe they’ll finaly understand there is better option, to listen to what many people have asked for since they started reworking.
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trueeeeeeeeee come on blizzard see this
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Give us the better Version of warlock back!
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I will cancel my subscribe until they will fix the class, now is bad and not fun to play. See you guys, gl!
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when Chanimal plays Boomie = 
when Chanimal plays Afflock = 
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how to insert an image in the forum? I want to show a thing…
I think you can only do that with a link, I believe. You’ll prolly need some image uploader.
Put the space in the link too since tis forum doesn’t allow links normaly
h ttps://ibb.co/xLnLGQh
This happen in a random bg, i go for honor to upgrade last trinket, i go demonology with soul link and necro shield+soul leech, 33% versa and almost 45k health unbuffed
account deleted in 0.6 sec
remove space between “h” and “t”
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Works as intended
It’s horrible yeah worst thing is, I don’t even think Rets asked for that. They also wanted more tools, it’s just Blizzard’s philosophy of simplistic class design with op classes that at the same have zero tools.
This philosophy also, besides producing OP classes, affected Warlock more than any other class
Ret Pala’s asked for mobility and were ignored and then all of a sudden they buffed the bejesus out of wings and now they are a powerhouse.
Maybe if the lock community as a whole asked for more mobility we would get 20k Chaos bolts during our havok window? lol
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On two targets! I want to see the 9.1 changes to pvp talents.
lock community often ask for cosmetic glyph for old spells and new skin for demons.
When you try to say “the classe have issue” they respond often “the class is fine” or “l2P issue”.
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