Hi everyone, some of you might know me from in-game, some of you might know me from discord, but for those who don’t, I’m Elaweawewa/Petkolock long time warlock player, currently standing as world 4th warlock in M+ and hold several rank1 mythic Uldir kills. I’m making this post to raise awareness of the current problems in regards warlock as a class, possible solutions and overall performance of the class in the current M+ and raiding environment.
Side note - This post will NOT include any PvP discussion, it will be rather focused on the PvE.
I will address the current issues with the warlock with all the 3 specs available in the game. First, I have read almost everyone warlock topic available post BFA launch, most of them do not point the main problem that warlocks have, hence the misunderstanding of the class itself, stat priority and sustainable damage input. I have been playing all the specs consistently, with affliction being the most favorable out of them.
I will begin with demonology since it has received the most attention in 8.1, well the main issue that everyone is talking about in M+ society is lack of interrupt that the demonology warlock holds, however, in the current state demonology warlock outperforms Affliction and Destruction by a mile in terms of pure DPS. The reason why you see less demonology warlocks in high keys is, apart from lack of interrupt which is the most important out of everything, another reason is that the mobs should be tanked in a way that they should not be separated by more than 5 yards of each other for the spec to be viable. You might ask why? Well it’s simple, spells such as Bilescourge Bombers, Implosion, Felstorm requires the targets to be close to each other, while most of the time they are, there are few situations, dungeons and affixes that are impossible to face-tank but rather kite, making the spec less viable than it is. Now don’t get me wrong, demonology warlock is, arguably, at its strongest since the beginning of the BFA and has received a lot of love recently, just simply reworking Axe Toss in a way that allows them to have an interrupt in their baseline will solve most of the problems.
Another issue is, they feel way over tuned in a comparison with Affliction and Destruction. Bilescourge Bombers feels slightly overpowered in M+
In raiding environment, Demonology warlocks is the king among the 3 specs. With the recent changes it is the GO spec right now in Uldir, however I do believe Affliction will be favorable in the upcoming raid due to fights being Affliction friendly
Destruction warlocks, ah, well let’s begin with M+ where they are a viable option for lower to mid key range, they do hold interrupt and their damage input is rather competitive, the overall agenda of the spec feels nice, apart from one major problem, MOBILITY? Yes you heard me, the compared to other casters, destruction has 0 to no mobility and that hurts the spec. Possibly solution, Removing Incinerate, implementing Scorch instead with the same ration of shard-generating as incinerate, or a bit less value perhaps, making it castable while you move, will definitely spread some love among Destruction warlocks. Damage-wise destruction is a viable option in both low to mid end M+ and Uldir (Especially in fights like Fetid,Vectis,Mythrax,Ghun)
At the last, the spec that has received the most attention out of every other one, Affliction. While it is true, we hold a lot of burst potential, and we do crazy damage spikes, the spec feels weak. Yes, it does. You took the single target powerhouse out of the competitive scene without giving anything back to the spec itself. What we suffer the most is low-cleave potential in M+, we do hold amazing ST damage input, but what about adds cleave? Terrible for 99% of warlock’s players, as many people have /w me, “How do I compete with the rest of the players, I always end up last, what traits, azurite traits do I use". Honestly, unless you have more than 93-95% dot uptime, there is no way to compete with the rest of the classes. You need to be at the top of your game to shine, spec feels less rewarding that it used to be. Since the SO nerf (Which had to be done if I must be honesty it was way over tuned), the spec feels weak in terms of add-cleave. I fully advocate for the new ID change stacking with Agony rather than Corruption, that allows a lot of flexibility, removing the old ID exploits, as well as the amazing burst power of 100 stacks, which, let’s be honest, was awesome wasn’t it?
The main problem which NONE of the rest emphasizes is on a large packs (Possibly more than 10 mobs) we struggle to spend our shards, as by the time you apply Agony of every single target, and cast your burst, you are already staying at shard cap, 50 stacks of ID and you are thinking what do I do next? Do I drain and let me stay capped for another 5 seconds or do I use my stacks and sit at 50 stacks of ID while I could use it and get another 50 quickly? What happens if we increase the pack size (Which almost never happens) to more than 10 mobs? Compare yourself to any other class at 10+ mobs and see how do you perform, Yes most of you struggle to get ahead, and that’s why a shard-consuming ability should be implemented, such as making Vile Taint, yes that’s actually a talent we have, if you have never heard of it, base-line spell without cast time, on 20 seconds cooldown with 3 shard consumption. That will allow to be more versatile.
Another issue I’d like to bring is how weak Pandemic Invocation feels in the current M+ meta, we have already established potential shard-cap issue, why do we want more shards? NO, it is completely useless, it is however different story in raid environment where it is among the strongest.
At last, I would like to bring few more general changes that can help the class, removing the cast time of Shadowfury should be done immediately, it is the post painful feeling I have ever felt as warlock in BFA. It is so bad that I don’t blame the warlock not using it when it must be used. For the spell to be useful, you need to predict when your group needs the help of the stun few seconds before anything can happened to them (Talking specifically in regards M+).
There are many, many more issue I could raise but this post will exceed the limited amount I could write so I will leave it for myself or for some other time. I would like also to say that this is my personal thoughts, you don’t have to agree to them but, this is the truth and the reality. Instead of us bashing the developers about the changes, we should offer constructive criticism that they could build upon it and make the class better. I do believe in solving this problem rationally I would love you leave a comment for whether you agree with me or not. Once again, thank you for reading this!
